ReGen LabRats

In trying to keep up with my recent goals for the rest of the year I'm going to skip about from project to project for a while. So next stop is getting some paint on my Dreadball teams. I picked up the four basic teams last year and even started painting the human team. But to be honest those figures did nothing for me and I quickly ran out of interest. I might go back and repaint them in a slightly different scheme but for the time being I'm going to work on some figures I like better. Hence the LabRats.

Following the spectacular failure of two of the flagship products of the year, ( See TransStellar Gazette articles "Implant Hearts Explode!: 24 Dead" and " Canid Chimera Peace Officers Go on Rampage: 56 Injured!" ) ReGen Interstellar saw the need to try to rebuild its PR image. What better way than sponsoring a sports team, and even better manufacture the players themselves. Thus the ReGen LabRats entered the Triborium League!

My old Skaven Blood Bowl team were purple so I carried it over to these fellows. 

The acid green details were added for that future sports team look. 

One thing I don't like about the Mantic resin/plastic is that it's really difficult to clean up. You can see the mold line running right down the middle of this guy still. 

While taking pictures I realized I don't have anything to work for the background so I started to knock together some Sci-Fi sports arena for the next photo-op. 

Cabal Pawn Painted

I actually painted him up last week but a weekend birding trip down to Delaware pushed back getting him photographed and posted. I think with the paintjob the rifle is still big but not as horrible out of scale as it looked in the raw resin. I might look for something else to use as the cabling leading from the backpack however. Maybe a thicker piece of wire or a second one wound around it. All of the guitar strings I have are way to big and besides they are much too hard to manipulate at this scale. I might consider casting a likely hose and try to bend it into shape before the resin cures.

Better look at the backpack. Just noticed a bubble in the casting at the top of the chimney that I didn't fill.

Now I just need to finish up the 4 other ones I have. After that I'm thinking of ordering some more of the base miniatures from Khurasan, who just so happens to have released some new WW1 Germans and French that look fantastic.

Look out!

With this project underway I'm now one more step closer to having two forces ready to play with. I thought it might be worthwhile to outline my current plans for the rest of the year and where they stand.

• Play a game with my SteamWorks guys- Next big push will be to get my terrain boards done and then I should have a good idea where to go from there. Still tentatively scheduled for the end of November.
• Dreadball- I'd still like to get my teams painted up by Christmas when I might be able to get a game in with my brother.
• New Secret Project- This one I just came up with over the past weekend and I've started the initial steps of collecting miniatures and a rough start on the terrain. Keeping this one under-wraps till I have something done on it but it will be in 28mm. 
• Robotech- Supposedly this is starting to ship. I haven't really heard any news since the debacle of Palladium selling Robotech at Gen-Con however, so no real idea on whats happening here. I should probably start roughing out some buildings and whatnot to go with this whenever it does arrive.

Finishing Things I Started

Its funny how some projects get abandoned and languish forever and then you get a moment of inspiration and you finally finish them off. Well this one isn't quite finished but it has surely waited for quite some time. It started simply. Get some cool Khurasan scifi guys and remake them as steampunk foot soldiers. That was way back in November of 2012 and I really didn't think it would be a big deal. Then I ran into The Problem. In this case it was making the fancy steampunk rifle to replace the stock AK-47 style one they had. I went through a couple of unsatisfying options before I ran out of interest and it got pushed to the side.

The sculpted rifle and backpack ready for molding.

I came back and played with it a couple of times each time giving up without much progress. Finally, driven at least partially by my self imposed time table to finally play a game, I settled on a design I liked. A week of frustrating sculpting, and another few days of trying to get the mold to actually cast right, I have a finished product.

Sketch I made for the rifle design. It kinda looks like a Games Workshop Imperial Guard Lasgun now that I look at it.

I'm going to try to paint one up quickly since I'm really hoping they turn out the way I envisioned.

I think the rifle turned out a little too big really. I didn't notice that the Khurasan mini is more of a true 15mm as opposed to the usual 18mm that most of the rest of my stuff is.

Apologies for the poor phone pics but I was rushing to get him onto the paint table.

Continuing my thoughts on Victorian roads from earlier I decided on a new basing style with patches of bare cobblestones and mostly dirt.

Smethwick- Abernathy Mechanical Hounds

Clearing off a couple more partially painted miniatures from the paint table. These two are a pair of steampunk spiders from Wyrd miniatures. I picked up two different packs so have about 6 more to do. The first went together easily, the second was a fiddly nightmare as I tried to glue on four tiny legs. I essentially gave up on doing a good job and just slopped super glue on till it held together when I pulled my fingers away.

Going out on the hunt for some rabbits!

Once construction was overcome they got the standard steampunk paintjob of brass and steel. I think some of the others will get painted in the household colors of whomever last owned them.  I've included more information as well as their stat card over on my SteamWorks page.

The culprit on the right was the one that provoked quite a few choice words before finally staying together. 

 

Loyal hounds patrolling the grounds.