Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.... ;P

Sorry for neglecting this blog a bit lately...

First, let's get the bugbear out of the way:

Yeah, racism and bigotry is bad, I support this message.

Anyway, where did we leave off?
The Warhound is finished, except for heat discoloration on the barrels and painting the banners. Plus I still need to work up the nerve to do all the weathering on it...
Here's where he  stands now:

 And close-ups of his markings:

 And finally: the Warhound's name:

I took inspiration for the type and placement of the markings from the old Adeptus Titanicus background and painting guides.

But this hasn't been the only large project lately I've also printed and painted the Dragon's Crest, a free file from Dragon's Rest. I intend to use it as either terrain, vehicle or scenario objective for several games, including Reality's Edge, Necromunda, etc. As a result, I've tried to keep its colours fairly generic, and have magnetized the weapons (which still need painting...).

In its freshly printed, pre-painted stage. 

Base colours done:

Painting the interior and further details:

Done and weathered, with the cockpit glass in place:

Couldn't help myself putting it against a background:

And with some minis for scale/effect:

This entire gang is made from Hasslefree Minis, except for the crew boss, she's Raging Annie, from Bad Squiddo Games.

And ofcourse, the ubiquitous Primaris Marines:

A long view of the interior:

With my Void Crows salvage crew rushing on board:

Some other things I've been doing, but have no pics of:  I'm printing a Rogue Trader fleet for BFG, as well as printing various markers and tokens for that game. This has been delayed due my printer acting up with excessive stringing, something I'm still working on remedying...  Which has been my second major project recently. :/

See you next time, hopefully sooner than last time. XD

Mean streets, mean people

Sooo, some time has passed. But I've been doing stuff, honest!
Though less as I had hoped to do, and with less focus, due to some long running problems and family issues taking a toll on my mental health. I haven't had much time to fully unwind and really deep-dive into hobby projects. But I'm forcing myself to keep scratching at the surface, as the hobby helps me deal with the stress of the recent parade of BS. As a result, I've also been putting off this post, and my prose may seem a bit more terse than usual.

I've painted two crews for Reality's Edge.

First up is the corporate-backed shadow ops crew (sorry for the fuzzyness of some pics... Wasn't paying 100% attention, due to the above reasons) :

And here they are with their Corporate Backer (A VR telepresence that aides and guides each crew in Reality's Edge, sort of the player avatar on the table).

The Shadowbacker is 3D printed, the crew is all from Hasslefree Miniatures.

Crew two, the classic Cyberpunk trope of the scappy street scum that fights to stick it to "the Man":

This crew is mostly Hasslefree Miniaturs, except for the leader, that miniature is "Raging Annie" from Bad Squiddo Games. This group is still without a Shadowbacker.~: My printer has been acting up, and seems to really dislike PETG, so I need to tune and tweak the machine all over again, and start looking for a transparent PLA.

The terrain backdrop is, as often lately, slightly modified terrain from Multiverse Gaming Terrain with extra bits added.

Currently on the painting desk is the medieval farm I showed ages ago, and on the airbrush station is are two cyberpunk buildings, but seeing how my focus is lately, I can't guarantee which, if either of those, will be the next to get finished...

See you next time!

Daily life in a capitalist dystopia.

This weekend I finished the cyberpunk food stalls. And I couldn't resist dusting off (literally! what mini's and terrain I already had that could be used for cyberpunk skirmishes.
And I couldn't resist setting up a little scene:

Another day in the Snafu Estates food market. Celene was among the crowds of sprawlers, seeing who was being sloppy with their gear or cred sticks, as her twin sister Lunae stood at the edge of the square, eyeing up a mark. Lothar was working his side gig as guard for "Sloppy" Joseph's Cajun Ramen stand, and Bruiser was at the local CAT terminal, shooing sprawlers off as it was downloading whatever VR-anime he was was into this week.  Boss Rogan was about to order a can of "Chemisty" powerjuice from Bunny's stand when "Cheshire" his shadowbacker's avatar popped up beside him: "Look lively, trouble's here" it said, a moment before the twin doors to the plaza slid open...

Boss Rogan receiving warning from Cheshire, his shadowbacker's AR avatar, as Lunae and Bruiser (their decker) can be seen in the background.

Lunae (just at the left edge of the image), Bruiser and Lothar. "Sloppy", with his sixth sense for trouble, has already ducked behind the counter of his food stall...

 Celene was just about to grab a fistful of creds from a sleepy salaryman's open tote when, just in time, Rogans warning came in her earpiece. A split second after, a CorpoSec squad walked in. "Citizens, please remain calm, this is a routine patrol. Please be ready to present your idents!"  "Routine patrol my ass!" Lothar thought, seeing them in full combat gear and on guard.


As I had them all out, I thought I might as well take a pic of the whole collection:

 The whole lot (Not all are suitable for Reality's Edge though... The back rows especially fall outside the scope of the rules.)

The sprawlers/operatives and a Gov.Mil heavy combat section in powered armour behind them. At the  top right you can just see "Cheshire" an avatar of one of the many Shadowbackers operating in the Sprawl.

At the rear a trio of Exo-Frames, two Police riot suits flanking a military grade special ops unit.
To the front:  a pair of special ops operatives, considered to be loose cannons by many, and a 10 man SWAT unit. I've also got a crew of mini's and a second crew of CorpoSec troopers, especially to build and paint for Reality's Edge.

I'm currently reading through Reality's Edge rules, and so far I'm liking what I'm seeing. The way the rules are written are rather inspiring, so I'm looking forward to seeing how they perform in an actual game!

Seen you next time!

This is London calling. And a shout out to a wonderful man with a wonderful project.

Thursday last week, Devil May Cry 5 released (no, I will not be wargaming DMC...) and a few of my favorite streamers started playing it. The game is about fighting Devils in a ruined, London-esque metropolis. Which triggered memories of an old favorite... Hellgate London!
Not the best of games, but an excellent setting to explore.

Friday a week ago, me and some friends had a hobby evening. Inspired by the DMC 5 footage I decided to build some extra Hellgate London demons to add to the few I had already converted a few years ago.

The rough and ready basics were done on that friday night:

Together with their older siblings:

During that weekend, the greenstuff phases followed:

This Saturday, the airbrush was employed for primer and basecoat (and as I was at it, a second project also got some paint sprayed on).

 Which, today, resulted in painted miniatures:

Here's how they match up with their elders:

And as I waited for paint to dry on the demons, I used the downtime to progress on the vendomats:

Dirty and grimy and worn, perfect for cyberpunk, post-apocalypse or any current era metropolis....

Ofcourse I couldn't help set up a little scene:
Templars fighting to reclaim a base lost to the demonic incursion:

Maybe next weekend, I can try to get some paint on the Hunter faction (soldiers and engineers) miniatures I have lying around. Then I just need mini's to represent Cabalists, and  I can start finding a suitable ruleset to modify and playtest. (Currently thinking about IHMN and its derivatives, but perhaps this summer Reality's Edge may prove to be a good match?)


As an added bonus, yesterday my sister came over (she builds 1/12th scale dollhouse style rooms, I guess it runs in the family!) to help me get over my nervousness about soldering LED circuits.
Baby steps, but so much options for terrain:

Now, I also mentioned a shout out to a deserving man with a wonderful project. The man in question is Mel Bose  a deeply likeable man with a very informative Youtube Channel about building wargaming terrain. What makes him especially interesting is that he regularly collaborates with artists from other disciplines to exchange techniques and knowledge.  Why mention him now?
Well, he has a Kickstarter to publish a book collecting all his accumulated know-how in physical format. While I have seen most of his videos (and I advise you to watch them too, if you have an interest in terrainbuilding!) I am somewhat fond of terrain-building books, and I know his is guaranteed to be a good one!
Check it out here:
Terrain Essentials Kickstarter


See you next time!