Breaking Through that Painting Block

I've finally managed to get some paint on some figures. I've started a new side project that has actually inspired me to get painting again. Sometimes that's the way you have to do it, break out of the rut and actually get working. Anyways I'm not going to show those guys off yet (I'm going to save the posts on that project for June when I'm away) but I have gotten some other figures done. These are all going to be part of a possible scenario I'm concocting around the Rutger Farmstead and more than partially inspired by the legendary Canadian film The Final Sacrifice.

Lieutenant Dalrymple Arbuthnot

From the Space 1889 adventurer pack by Highlander Studios. The Lieutenant is going to be the leader for my British forces at least for the time being and I painted him first to work out my painting method for the rest of the boys.

On the hunt for a Sasquatch or at least a bear.

Dressed in his safari clothes Lt. "Dal" Arbuthnot is less than the most professional career officer and is more concerned with bagging a trophy on his current Canadian expedition then investigating the possible American incursion.

Next on the painting table are some stout British Infantry also from Highlander.

Scattershot Approach

Its been a busy few weeks for me and I don't expect that to change anytime soon but I have managed to work on a few things here and there. I've been flitting from project to project doing a little here and there. No painting though, just can't get myself motivated enough to paint right now. Anyways here's a little montage of what I've been doing.

Hard at work in the Smethwick foundries. This is the start of the boiler.

The legs are getting reworked to get more of an ironwork architectural feel. I glued a strip of plasticard to the front and then filled the sides with putty. Next up will be quite a lot of rivets.



Work has also started on the feet. I'm going to cast this up to make duplicates once complete. Not shown are some portholes that are also going to be cast.



Meanwhile out on the farm the beginnings of Farmer Rutger.



And some chickens.



I'm also trying to get those backpacks and rifles done for the Cabal Pawn conversions but I forgot to take any pictures of those.

In other news I've pitched in for the Robotech RPG Tactics Kickstarter. I'm going to avoid the whole Macross vs. Robotech (and don't get me started on Harmony Gold), but watching Robotech was one of those formative events in my childhood. I still remember getting up super early on Sunday morning to watch it. They aired it at like 5:30 am and I can't even imagine caring enough about a show now to do that, but there I was week after week at the crack of dawn glued to the adventures of Rick Hunter and the SDF-1. If I had to choose one thing that has inspired my love for mecha it's Robotech. So its just about impossible for me to miss the chance to own a whole bunch of Veritech fighters, Destroids, and Zentradi. Anyways expect a whole bunch of painted Robotech figures showing up here in December! I'm already trying to figure out how to make some huge city blocks to get destroyed.

Little Robot

I haven't had a lot of time for hobby things in the past few weeks but I have gotten a little bit of sculpting in recently. Not enough to show anything yet but hopefully by the weekend I'll be able to post something. In the meantime I drew a little steam robot. Once I figure out something to use for the legs I'd like to actually make him as well.

Victorian Gruntz

I've been pondering what system I would like to try to use with my Steamworks setting. I looked over a couple of options and I think I'm going to try the Gruntz system first. I had three criteria for choosing a system and it met all three.

First it had to let me build my own units. I'm using models from all over the place in creating my world and I need a system that would let me stat them up as I needed. Also it needed to cover two key types of units: mecha and giant monsters. After all this is what Steamworks is really all about. Gruntz hit all of these points.

Second, I wanted a system that is straight forward and also fairly cinematic. I haven't had a chance to play yet but from my skimming over the rules it looks like Gruntz will fit the bill here too.

Finally, I like games that have unit cards. Especially if they actually make the game better. Just a personal preference but I like being able to look down at a card and having all of the rules I need about it printed right there. Flipping through rulebooks has always been a pet peeve for me.

I also whipped up a card for the Ghug that I recently painted up. Nothing too fancy, and I'm not entirely sure I built it right with the rules but its a first try anyways. I think I'm going to get the Barracks unit builder to help simplify the process in the future and hopefully I'll be able to post up the cards for each one as I get them done.

The Beast Of the Black Forest

Prussian Infantry encounter the Beast at the edge of the Schwarzwald.

I finished painting up the Ghug (last seen way back here). I tried to make him look kinda like an elephant sticking mostly to grey mixed with fleshtones. Looking at the pictures below though I might need to go back in and give him another lighter highlight. He seems a little dark to me. I tried out the GW textured paints on the base and was more than a little disappointed. It was basically just thick paint with very little texture to it. Not sure if I just got a bad pot or didn't mix up well enough but I wasn't much impressed with my first experience. I'll probably rebase it at some point but for now he's done.

 

Probably not what you want peeking in your window at night!

  
I also came across some fine foliage in the basement that I had bought for another project years ago. Although somewhat fragile it looks great especially in this scale as trees and scrub. I based some on pieces of plastic card with washers glued to them. Some quick wood putty work and then finished it off much like the rest of my bases. I'm not sure how they will stand up overtime with gaming but for pictures they work great.


The trees were ready to go out of the box, just needed to do the basing.



Smethwick Mechanical Elephant and Castle

While cleaning out the basement I came across a copy of AT-43 that I purchased long ago. I always liked the two walkers that came with the game and I've been pondering what I can do with them. The Firetoad I think is going to be a Prussian Walking Destroyer to join the LandKriegsFlotte that I will hopefully be making in the future.
 

Destined to carry a big main gun in the service of the Kaiser.

I was less sure of what to do with the Therian walker. At first I thought it might work as something in one of my evil factions, but once I pulled the weapons and the face off the front it kinda reminded me of a walking submarine. Of course I had no use for that but it did give me the idea of using it as transport walker. Perhaps something along the lines of an elephant with howdah used by hunters and explorers in India. I'm thinking it will be a walker designed for the rich and famous to travel about on expedition but commonly pressed into military service.


Well it looks like the front of a submarine on legs to me anyways.

With a concept squared away I set to work. I broke the model down and proceeded to trim away bits that didn't fit in, like the pointy feet and other pointy crab like parts on the legs. At this point I know I need to make new feet, possibly rework the legs, reshape the body, add a deck to the top, and a new powerplant.


Torn down into components. Surprisingly there is a nicely modelled  pod-thingy for a pilot hidden away in the carapace (the orange thing up front). Makes me wonder if there is a pilot in the other walker too.

I cut the top half of the carapace off flat and started gluing things back together. I'm going to keep the legs separate to make working on them easier. They attach to the body by a nice thick hex pin mount built into them and it's pretty solid so temporarily putting them together again is no problem. A piece of plasticard became the new deck and I used some epoxy putty to rebuild the hull. This will get sanded out smooth and details like portholes and such added.


AirCaptain Goswell inspects the new Mark III Quad-Ambulator at the Smethwick plant.

Next step all of the fiddly detail work! 

AirCaptain Gosswell

Its been a while since my last post. It's been tough recently to get any quality hobby time in as other projects have been filling up my time.

The fun thing about making a little story out of these figures is trying to work them all into a coherent plot. I did the same thing when writing up an adventure for any roleplaying games that I ran. Grab some miniatures that I liked and try to stick them all in there without it being totally unbelievable. Of course with this is the added complication of trying to get the three basic shots of each figure in, front, side and back. I decided to try out a comicbook style for this one which was fun to put together if a bit more work.

I couldn't come up with a good way to add in AirCaptain Gosswell so I added a flashback and made him the alluded to tipster. He also got some new digs to take pictures in as seen in last post. On to the story...

U File: 239 Part II