Possessed Civillian

This is one of the figures I didn't quite get done in time for the painting challenge now two months gone. I wanted to make a figure to show someone who got a bit too close to extra-dimensional powers and hasn't come out the better for it. He was sculpted up from a basic armature and then I just added a whole bunch of tentacles to him.

In progress shot, tentacles are just starting to grow. 

The nice thing about making your own figures is that you don't have to worry about casting limitations. In this case I was just able to add tentacles going all over with a lot of void space to give the impression of the figure being completely supported by the tentacular mass that he has for a head now.  

Side view

Sculpting is all done and he's prepped for painting.



Out and about menacing the neighbors. 

He painted up really fast as I went with a simple scheme. I tried to make the tentacles a similar color to the Shoggoths that I painted some time ago. Perhaps he's half transformed into one? The frock coat and pants are just a basic brown to contrast with the purply grey. For the skin tone for the hands I went with a pale sickly fleshtone.

  My plan is to fit him in with the Cabal, my evil faction. Maybe an experiment gone wrong or right?

 I might try to make a couple of my troopers as minders for him. I'd like to give them some sort of cattle prods or the like to direct him in the right direction.

"Who me,  Officer?" 

So it's been two months since my last post. The usual assortment of excuses I'm afraid mostly centered around several life changes. Hopefully I'll be able to get back in to regular posting schedule again as things have settled down somewhat. Finishing up my modular gaming boards are the next big project and I still have a couple of other figures that are leftover from the Painting Challenge as well.  

Armored British Infantry

I managed to finish up my squad of BEF infantry from All Quiet on the Martian Front. I had started three of them back in the fall but sidelined them to work on Painting Challenge entries. Now they and the other seven got their time on the painting table.

I had a debate with myself on how to paint them but finally went with basically the same as my regular infantry with the addition of grey/white for the helmets and breastplate. That way they will fit in in with the rest of my British ( all 6 of them HaHa) but still stand out on the battlefield from them.

My favorite out of this group is the Coil Gunner. I wish all of them had the same look. There is just something about the heavy armor, and the massive gun and backpack that just really speaks to me. I might try to make more of my own version of these troops based on his design.

For my purposes they are guys are going to be the specialist troops for the British Empire tasked to fight the various weird occurrences happening both at home and around the globe.

The squad getting down to work!

Bonus Round Entry 2: Mount and Riders

 

It took me quite some time to figure out what I wanted to do with this one. I trolled through my lead pile but came up with a disappointing selection of cavalry models. None of which sparked much interest in me. As much fun as the diversion of the first round was I wanted to get back to my main projects as well.

Union Land Ironclads are marked by both a production number and bear the Union shield.

Inspiration struck while going through my 15mm stuff as I had socked away a few models to form the core of my steampunk Union army. So I ended up working on a unit of dismounting Horseless Cavalry.

 

C Troop of the 9th Cavalry dismount on the edge of the poisoned zone.

The vehicle is actually a steam-tankette for 28mm from RAFM. When I first saw it I though it would scale much better as 15mm vehicle. I ended up extending the under chassis with some plasticard as it looked a little sliced off and awkward. I also added some extra bits to it including a new hatch on top and some towing attachments to the rear. Thus was born the Adams class stern-wheeler land ironclad.

As a frontier unit the 9th still hasn't received its full supply of new Prussian Green uniforms. Some still wear the older Calvary Blues.

I'm guessing that this is an older 3D printer model. It has some heavy layers from print layers on them. I kinda wished I filled them in a little better as the contrast between it and the flat plasticard on the bottom is rather stark. I did put some Mr. Surfacer on it in an attempt to blend it together but I guess I needed a couple more coats.

 

In progress shot to better see the extended chassis. I thought it gave it a bit more bulk for the scale. Would of liked to put all of those little rivets on it though ...

The Adams class Land Ironclad has become the workhorse of the plains fleet and central to the development of horseless cavalry units. This unarmed version is usually referred to the John Adams while the turreted one is the Sam Adams.

For the riders I'm using some of the US armored infantry from All Quiet on the Martian front. I figured these guys wouldn't want to walk around in all that heavy armor and might want to ride in on a vehicle like the Russian tankodesantniki from WW2.

The newly issued "Stevenson's Iron Lung" breathing equipment is vital for operation in the poisoned air of the Disputed Territories.

I converted a couple of the models so they could still be riding on top and one hanging on to the side as he is dismounting. Most were painted up in the Union's new Prussian Green uniform* but I also painted a few up in the older blues of the army.

* I just made that one up, but since my version of the Union is hostile to the British Empire I figured closer ties to Prussia might occur and the adoption of British styled khaki would be frowned upon. Plus I want my Confederates in khaki if I ever get to doing some.

Current Army doctrine is for Horseless Cavalry to dismount from towed carriages and advance into battle on foot, in practice most troopers have taken to riding directly on the ironclads.   

Don't forget to check out all of the great entries for the second round over at the Painting Challenge Blog.



Will the troopers discover the reason this homestead was abandoned?

Deepones

 

I was kind of sent scrambling this past week looking for things to paint. Nothing that I had ready to go was really grabbing me and I spent a bit of time working on my second theme round. I finally decided I needed to get going on something so grabbed some of my random 15mm stuff to paint up.

 

The only things I managed to get complete were the three fishmen I already had primed. These are from Khurasan miniatures and as usual were a pleasure to paint. I didn't really try anything fancy on them keeping to a simple green scheme with purple fins. I still have 7 or so more to do as well and hopefully will get them done later in the challenge.

I also prepped a few more 15mm guys to hopefully get to this week as well. I'll have to see how it goes as the day off for Christmas might give me more time to work or it might just suck up all of my free time. It's always hard to tell with family holidays.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas this year!

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. 

Blog Reconstruction

One of my year's resolutions was to rework the look of my blog. Now over halfway through the year I finally got around to doing something. I'll still keep playing with it till I get a look that I like, so there will probably be more interim stages till I get there.

Aside from cosmetics the big change is adding a second page where I'm going to start putting the stat cards and game mechanics for my SteamWorks stuff. The main page will stay with just modelling related posts. I had to fight with Blogger for over an hour to get it to work and just when I was about to give up, Presto! magically it was fine. As much as I like the free platform of Blogger (and I know you get what you pay for) I wish it was a little more user friendly. Anyways you can get to the other page through the tab just below the title picture.

Unit card done up for Gruntz. Find out more on the SteamWorks page!

Cause I feel bad not putting some kind of miniature picture: A shot of my painting queue, in no particular order.

Esoteric Order of Cthon

 Next up some more Khurasan Minis. These four friendly fellows are listed as Octopus God Cultists and they definitely make nice cultist figures. I've always liked tentacle face guys ever since running into mindflayers while playing D&D. I guess these guys are probably part of the inner circle and either came a little to close unspeakable powers or maybe are some kind of hybrid creature. Either way I imagine life with a tentacle face could be a little difficult. Not too many nights on the town.

Heading down to the pub.

 They come with separate heads to give you a little variety, but some of the heads don't fit as well as others. I needed to fill a couple of gaps with green stuff to avoid having weird giraffe necks on a couple. As usual with Khurasan miniatures they painted up easily. I wanted them to fit in either as with a standard Cthulhu sea cult or also to go with all of my worm creatures, the Cthonians. I opted for green robes and a variation of the worm flesh.

Looking at the above larger picture its also become evident that I need to replace my dark green paint as it appears to have some particulate in it. Not as noticeable in real life though but one of those hazards of photographing little figures. After all the actual miniature is less than half as large as the one in the picture.

Disagreement with the local Vigilance Committee.

Gutter Hounds

These little fellas are the Gopher Wolves from Khurasan Miniatures. When I first spotted them in the catalog I knew they would fit me perfectly. I really like the weird anatomy they have, and their strange almost aquatic heads. They are both disturbing but strangely likable.

 
I painted them up to fit in with the big wormy guy that I finished last year. I figure these gutter hounds are more of scavengers that live in the tunnels with the large worm creatures. Following along to pick up any scraps or swarm over anyone that has been run off on their own, like a pack of weird, otherworldly hyenas. 

The hounds head out into the night to search for prey!

Plans for the Year

This post ended up a little behind schedule and maybe it's a couple of weeks late for doing a "New Years Resolutions" post but here it is anyways. As mentioned in the last post I had a couple of loose plans for the last year, but this year I thought I might lay out some more concrete goals in order to motivate myself. I'm also quite aware of the fact that more than likely these plans won't survive contact with the enemy.

1. Update the look of the blog. I've had pretty much the same look since I first started it and thought I might make it a little fancier and change the color scheme. I'm going to try to work up the two pictures below to be big fancy header style pictures. 

2. Get two playable forces done for my Victorian SF Steamworks setting and actually play a game. I also want expand out the urban terrain for this. I'm hoping to actually dabble my feet into 3D printing as its been something that I've had an interest in but really haven't had an opportunity to explore.

3. 50 posts this year. This is really more about motivating me to get more stuff completed and ready to go on the blog than number of posts. I'm hoping the one leads to the other.

I also have three Kickstarter projects that I'm expecting to see arrive this year; Robotech, All Quiet on the Martian Front, and Troll Forged's Alien Assimilation. The last two are mostly going to be folded into my Steamworks stuff hopefully. Robotech will of course be it's own thing but I'm thinking I might be doing a lot of display dioramas with the figures more so than getting them ready for gaming.

The Wyrm of Golgatha

I've always planned for the Cabal to be the shadowy evil organization of the Steamworks universe. I also have always liked the semi organic look of the Cryx warjacks and I knew that was what I wanted to use for the Cabal. One thing I like about the Cryx stuff in general is that most of them have a non typical body plan. This one is the Cankerworm and has a nice snake/centipede body. However, I wasn't too fond of the skull head. It just didn't work for me and made it look out of scale. Luckily, I also have a Leviathan kit  that will see service in the future and it comes with three head options. So one came off and the other went on.

New head and tail surgery covered up with some dirt encrustations.

It also had a weird claw at the end of its tail which rather reminded me of an earwig (One of the few insects I truly find revolting. I think it has something to do with the ear bugs from Wrath of Khan, a movie that I saw at perhaps too impressionable an age.) So a simple head swap and some tail surgery later and the Wyrm was born.

I tried to paint the the main body like an old cast iron frying pan. Maybe not the most fearsome thing but I like that rusty black metal look. Details were picked out in tarnished brass and I used green to accent the otherworldly power source.

Before any powders went on. Also a little blown out with flash.

Post weathering powders. Along with all of the other pictures.

I also wanted to try out some weathering powders on it. I recently ordered some secret weapon pigments and this was my first time using them. I slapped them on pretty liberally and thought perhaps I might have over done it. But after a coat of matte varnish they were toned down and blended in rather nicely. I'm thinking I might order a few more colors as they give a really nice effect. 

Another quite day in Lower Fickleham