Trading Rogues

Recently I got the urge to dig out my stash of Rogue Trader miniatures again.
I only started 40K in second edition (the month the original Tyranid Codex was released to be precise), but Rogue Trader has always held a fascination for me. Something about its narrative, almost RPG approach and the way the setting was still only loosely defined, wild and still fresh, with a simultaneously bleak, anarchic and tongue-in-cheek tone to it, appealed to me. So over the years I've been snagging up the occasional bargain off ebay and fora.

Initially I just planned to do my usual bout of "Gollum"-ing and catalogueing what I had collected, but this time something more happened:

I actually went and prepped some figures for primer.

Now, my collection is far from the biggest, but I should have enough orks and marines to do (once all are painted) a reasonable series of skirmishes in the style of the Rynn's World incidents... I have about enough plastic and metal beakies to do a squad or two, a specialist (half-squad) kill-team and a small command group. I would like to have a few more specialists and support weapons, maybe a vehicle beyond the old Rhino I have.
For Orks I have the complete metal Space Ork Raiders box plus extras, and a few power armoured Orks for higher command. At some point I'm hoping to add a dreadnaught and battlewagon to them. I'm in no hurry, and content to snap up the occasional overlooked bargain.
I won't be painting my marines as Crimson Fists, though. But what they will be, I've still no defined idea. So I've been doing some testers. As I don't have a surplus of beakies to paint and strip over and over, I have to resort to paper planning:

These are just bare colours, naturally I'll want to retro them up with "Kil Kil Kil" markings, checkers and chevrons and old style rank markings. :) 
Now just to figure out what colour scheme I will use. Maybe spend a few more days with the colouring book and see if I hit on a scheme that I really like.
And then to paint it all and find someone crazy enough to delve into Rogue Trader with me...

See you next time!

A shortfall of Mojo, and a sidestep

Well, after finishing the landmate from my previous post, I continued on with the opposing force landmates, but during painting it sort of...petered out.
I couldn't really find the drive to finish them. Which sort of extended to painting something else, building minis or terrain as well.
I've had a few stressful weeks and somewhere along the line, my hobby mojo seems to have gone on a little holiday. I could think about doing stuff, and plan for it, but the spark to actually do it just wasn't there
So I decided to leave things rest for the time being and do other stuff (mainly faffing about on the 'net/'puter games, watch a few movies, the more passive downtime things. The things I usually don't have enough patience for to do for extended periods).

Not content to sit around waiting for my enthusiasm for wargame hobby stuff to return, this week I decided to take up another project and do a book. A coptic stitch this time. I like the look of it, and it can be done fairly quickly as it doesn't need as much glueing and other labour intensive steps as the few codex style bindings I've done so far.
I made it a bit hard for myself by using thread that was a bit to thick for the holes I had punched (I didn't have anything on hand to make bigger holes). This meant I had to use a bit more force, causing the parts to shift and end up a bit sloppy. Let's just say it adds to the "rustic" quality of the book. :)
It was also the first time doing Coptic stitch and I hadn't completely wrapped my head around the techniques yet, causing some mistakes and sloppiness. Oh, well, live and learn. All in all, it is actually quite a fun binding to do, and I can see myself doing a few more as quick one-day projects.
Here's the result:

I had originally planned to weave along the entire centre section of the spine, but had misjudged how taut the threads were (see above about using too much force...) and halfway I ran out of play to continue weaving. Nevertheless I like the look of it, and it's still a very nice notebook for personal use, even if not of "gift" quallity.  Maybe after a few more practices with this style of book, I'll make another like this in the quality it deserves. The covers are corduroy over furniture board by the way, and feel rather nice in the hand. Despite its flaws it's definitely a book that invites to touch and use.

 See you next time! (Whenever that is...)

A change of gears.

I've done a bit of painting on the Warhammer Quest display backdrop, but a combination of the size and extent of the paintjob on it, as well as some real life worries had me lose steam for a bit, hobbywise. As a result the backdrop project just became this massive beast, staring me in the face, making me lose heart.
So I decided to change gears for a bit, and just pick up a random project on a whim. Clear the palate as it were. I wanted to do something none-fantasy, but not grimdark (I felt like I had enough doom and gloom on my plate already...). Something small and easily finished.
I had a look over my stacks of mini's ready to paint and WIP (I have an archival drawer cabinet with minis from various projects that are either WIP, primered or ready for primer. I tend to switch gears a lot usually, and this is my way of accomodating my hobby-butterfly tendencies).
My eye fell on my partly painted Appleseed Landmate conversion from a couple of years ago...

At the time painting on it had stalled out, because, well, painting that much white neatly was an absolute bugbear. Luckily, this time I knew what I was in for (and had nearly half a decade more painting experience under my belt). The trick to painting white is accepting it will take a bazillion layers...

Anyway, here is the result:

And the anterior:

In the end, it turned out a little lighter/brighter than his buddy I painted years ago:

(Old one on the left, new paint in the centre, and Special Ops Landmate on the right.)

Here's a pic of the whole gang as it stands now:

The SWAT team in the background isn't formally part of the Appleseed project (they're painted in the colours and markings of the Arrestatieteam, the Dutch equivalent of SWAT), but as they're carrying futuristic gear anyway, they might as well be co-opted.

With him, all my law enforcement Landmates are painted. On the to-paint tray are still 3 opposing force Landmates and 9 Bubblegum Crisis "Boomer" miniatures that need converting into combat cyborgs. When I'll do those minis? I don't know.
I had intended this mini to be a single painting project, to reboot the mojo, but I've finally watched Appleseed Alpha ("for research") and am currently rereading the manga, and it's drawing me in again. So this project may just have a longer breath than I had planned.
I also discovered that the particular Infinity models I used for these conversions are being replaced with a newer sculpt that isn't compatible with the looks of these (It's a nice sculpt, but there's just not enough of the classic Guges in it). So I kinda, sorta, somewhat quickly ordered an extra one, to convert into a support Landmate with an Anti-Landmate Sniper rifle.

There's still plenty on the wish list for this project, with the top picks being; a Landmate for Briareos, suitable clean sci-fi terrain, and most importantly, a ruleset that does what I want from Appleseed style gaming.
After that it's just tasties: more (varied) opposing force, some vehicles, civillians...
But there's not much of a priority on that, because as far as I know I don't have anyone to actually game this with... It's mainly just a modelling project and homage to Appleseed. But who knows, if I get enough finished I may just draw someone in?

See you next time!

Blacked out...

Sunday I spent making the extra detailing for the display unit; Sconces for torches, some candles for the niches in the lower corridor, the doors and trapdoor and a set of iron rings to go into a wall somewhere.

Which means that I had everything ready for primer!
The little bits will be sprayed, I just have to wait until the rain lets up long enough.
Because the corridors are mainly made from various forms of foam, I couldn't spray them, so they got handpainted with a PVA/black paint mix, slightly diluted down. Here is the result, still drying as I type:

Now that it's finally all a single colour, it's great to see how all the different materials give a nice variety of textures and surfaces. I'm well pleased so far!

Now just to leave this to dry for a couple of days and then find the time to paint this behemoth...
As an extension of this, I'm also thinking about dungeon terrain again, I've got lots to think about on that subject. If I can, I'll write something up about it.

See you soon!

Flooring it!

I had the house to myself today, so I decided to make a mess... :D

After a gentle nudge from Harry over on Warseer, I had to agree it was high time to continue work on the display backdrop for my wifes Warhammer Quest set. If I am to finish painting it, I'll need both a boost to motivation and room to put the finished minis, as the allotted shelf is slowly filling up. Warhammer Quest is a big set!

I still needed to do part of the flooring on the dungeon corridors. (In fact, the entire centre level of the display needed its flooring done!) So, that's what I did today:

More photos and words after the break.

Happy New Year! (And a quick look back)

Well, it's begun, let's hope it's a good one! :)

It's only fitting that I start the new year with what I ended the old one with:
Toads!

They are, of course, the new toad sculpts coming out of Toad King Castings "Warts and Wings" Kickstarter. (I didn't get the stirges, nor did I get the largest of the toads, due to budgetary reasons. But looking at how much fun these are to paint, I'll certainly be getting the largest toad once he hits retail!) While I didn't get these as scarily realistic as the previous one (these are after all clearly fantasy creatures, and their extremely warty skins hids my attempt at mottled patterns somewhat), I'm still well chuffed with them.
Especially as they're another one-day paint, and painted while still recovering from New Years Eve, to boot!

Here's looking at you...

Looking back over the past year hobbywise, it's been a pretty good year for me. (real-life wise, 2015 wasn't one worth remembering...)
I've painted 73 miniatures, which, although isn't heyday productivity, it is one of the most productive years since acquiring child and mortgage and such.
It's also been a remarkably focussed year, with all minis painted, bar 13, being for the Fantasy/Dungeoneering project. I've built a few models for other projects in the past year, but none them have actually passed through the painting queue.
I didn't build the dungeon terrain I had planned to build this year, but oh, well, there's always 2016. ;D It'll get built eventually. I'd rather not rush such a big terrain project and there's no deadline for it to be finished.
I've also played several games this year, thanks to Johan/Gunbird and Frostgrave. Which also puts this year far above previous ones, where the average number of games was roughly 0.
All in all, I'm pretty pleased with 2015 as far as gaming goes.

See you next time, and have a nice year!

I almost croaked...

Look who I found, puttering about in the back yard: