Taking the helm. ;)

 Two months on now. I feel I'm settling into a rhythm of life at home. I've also seem to have reach the point where the accumulated stress and exhaustion of the past couple of years has started to dissipate. Which means I can start carefully working some of my previously abandoned projects again. As well as just follow my muse when it strikes me. 

I have been doing some hobby projects in the past two months, but nothing really wholeheartedly enough to warrant posting about it.

This week is different. Thanks to Galactic Armory's Patreon, I'm realising a long held dream of having a life sizes Space Marine helmet for display in my hobby room.

The past few days have been spent filling, sanding, filling an sanding again. 

Yesterday I could undercoat the helmet in black and then gunmetal. Today I could paint on some chipping in liquid latex and spray on the grey basecoat. I'm now cutting some stencils to sponge some decoration onto the helmet before weathering.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the process: 

Any guesses to what Chapter helmet I'm building? 

 Wow, it's been a while, hasn't it?

Lots of stuff happened, I lost the heart to hobby and blog for a bit after the events of last post. I did pick hobbying back, but not yet keeping up with this blog. Especially as I got Covid last September. Which turned out to be Long Covid... Added to that discovering I have diabetes (possibly triggered/exacerbated by the covid infection) and getting the flu on top of that all, resetting my recovery back to zero in december.

Anyhow, enough moping, let's see what I've been up to in the intervening months. Not gonna say much, just dump pictures.

April 2022

May 2022

June 2022

A commission for a friend.

July 2022

August  2022

September & October 2022

'Rona....

November 2022

December 2022

In December, I also pitched a Traveller RPG one-off to my friends, that may, if all like it, become a campaign.

And I (re)discovered Battletech!

January 2023

And that's us all caught up.

The 28mm scale Warhammer mech still needs basing, once that is done, I'll take some glamour shots of the beast. He'll be accompanied by a Locust and maybe some infantry, for large scale skirmish level games and/or mech on mech duels.  I still need to decide what the OpFor will be...

A Titanic undertaking, continued. (And a gift)

More progress on the Warhound to report!

Well, the test with the heraldic plates didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, so they won't be used.

I did however get on with the airbrushing stages:

As you can see in the pics, I've added gun-pennants and a small banner to the Titan. These were made from plastic and metal rod, some spare bits for the finials, and mainly tin sheet from old mayo tubes.

In the course of today, I've been painting the metal trim on the Warhound. Here's where he's at at the end of the day:

I've been using Vallejo Liquid Metal Old Gold for this, and aside from the smell (alcohol based) and the extra bother in cleaning the brush, I'm very impressed with these! Now I just have to paint all the other details and bits... I had hoped to finish it in my current week off, but now I'm having serious doubt if I can make it! Oh well, I'd rather do it well, than do it fast.

And finally the gift. A friend in Scotland, LongFang, does regular streams on Twitch and has significantly stepped up his schedule to keep people entertained during the present Viral Kerfuffle. As a sign of appreciation, and because he is a very keen player of Destiny 2, I decided to make him a custom Ghost (little personal A.I. assistants) prop:

 The core paintjob (airbrush), with a set of markings derived from the Flags of Scotland and a second set derived from his in-game heraldry.

Then it was time for weathering and final assembly:

And then it took a long, looong wait for the final component to arrive, a lighting unit:

Once everything came together, I could finally send it off to it's intended owner. He received it today, so I can now, at last, share this little labour of love with you.

See you all again next time!

Hello again, remember me?

Well, time to (try and) breathe some life back into this blog...
I've been doing some hobby stuff the past few weeks, but due to a concussion, wasn't able to sit at a PC long enough to post about it. I'm feeling better now, which makes it time to catch up a bit.
As this is going to be a longer, picture-filled post, you can see it all after the break.

The arrival of loot

This is a loot-themed post...

First, a real-life bit of "loot" arrived. A while ago, I impulse-bought a Geralt of Rivia (of the Witcher game and book series), I came across it at a price I couldn't resist, and pulled the trigger before thinking twice.
Here's the man himself:

 

If he seems a bit moist in this picture, that is correct. As a second-hand, he was missing his box and had been wrapped in bubblewrap for transit. This, as well as the mandhandling he received during his travel by post resulted in some warping of the figure: The sword on his back was bow-shaped and the one in his hands seemed distinctly noodle-like. Luckily some hot water allowed me to reset everything to its intended shape. This picture was taken right after his form-correcting bath...

It's a very good figure, with only a few flaws: the mould-lines that were left unremoved and the misplacement of the eye decals, making Gerald distinctly cross-eyed. I'm going to enjoy him in his unmodified state for a few days/weeks as I debate wether or not to go ahead on a full repaint.

The other loot is more gaming related. A while back, I ordered some sets of fantasy coins to use as in-game currency for, for example, tabletop RPGS or my own idea for Questing/Chivalry based fantasy skirmishing. These coins can accomodate a range of wealth from the daily loaf of bread costing a copper bit, up to major purchases using an impressively large golden coin. But as adventurers have a tendency to end up ludicrously wealthy (especially in things like D&D) and like their wealth portable, I needed a way to represent even greater riches. In come precious stones...
Another cheap online purchase:

In this picture you can see a few of them. (for reference, the largest coins in the pictures are about an inch across).

Unfortunately, the glass jewels came with that typical silvered backing, that I'm now trying to remove.
Apparently, a mix of salt and vinegar should work, but I'm not yet seeing much effect:

If this fails, it's on to sterner measures, and I'll see if the same oven cleaner I used on my Gaslands Hotwheels will have a similar effect on these gems silvery coating...

See you next time!

I'm gonna have me some fun...

As I said in my Photobucket gripe post, it was my birthday last week and my wife gave me a Proxxon Thermocut (she loves me, she really does!).
Almost immediately I ordered some supplemental tools from GeBoom at Shifting Lands through a friend. That friend showed up yesterday for a game of Gaslands with those cutting aids.
As they are laser-cut mdf they required some assembly.
Well, some assembly was done today:

(As you can see Geboom also threw in some of his lasercut windows, as a teaser. Thank you!)

Assembly was easy, but you have to pay some attention to orientation of parts (I only messed up on the first one, resulting in the large fence being a bit tilted, but nothing that will interfere with proper functioning.)
Once assembled, they are nice and solid. As with the wirecutter itself, using these guides will take some practice and development of skill. But I'm looking forward to finally getting to grips with that pack of XPS I've had in the garage for years...

So what are the plans? First off: Dungeons, naturally,  as I haven't painted that pile of dungeoneers and monsters over the past two years for nothing! I've stalled on dungeon terrain for a long time, as I couldn't get the accuracy of cuts I wanted by hand. Now, I have no excuse, but I need to figure out seriously how I want to go about building my dungeon terrain first. Do I go with floor plates and loose walls, do I build individual corridor sections and rooms, or do I go with modular tiles?
No longer are these thoughts idle daydreams...

Then there is the idea of building a fantasy medieval village for my Chivalry project (itself part of the larger dungeoneering/fantasy meta-project). Having the cutter will open up the option of making some stone buildings and maybe even a keep or castle for my young lord!

Ofcourse, anything I build for dungeoneering or the chivalry game, will also find use in Frostgrave.

Necromunda as well, as I was envisioning a number of concrete butresses/pillars where gangways and shanty towns were built against their surfaces.

Lots of ideas that can finally become reality!

Yet, oddly enough, it is most likely I will grab my old hand-held foamcutter the coming weekends instead, as I intend to build some Mad-Max style desert wasteland terrain for Gaslands... Ironic really, I've been lusting after this foam cutter for years, and now that I finally have it, I grab the tool that has been in my garage for years. Oh well..

See you next time!

P.S. Still working on downloading all my pics from Photobucket to restore this blog, but PB is fighting me every step of the way....

Geta job!

Job done, that is! 😁

With the help of my lovely wife (and her fabric collection and sewing machine), the geta got finished:

I just need to fidget around with the straps, get them neat, and find out the right length before I permanently attach them.

The wood is  "steigerhout" from a local DIY, which seems to be a low grade of pine. It's light, but not very sturdy, and hard to get really smooth and neat.  I finished it with boiled linseed oil, in the hopes of protecting them from wet and dirt at least a little bit.  The straps are terry cloth wound around sisal rope, held togehter inside a black cotton tube.
These are just a quick test of concept and construction, to see how they would be to walk on. If they work well, and I actually manage to wear these out, maybe I'll make a pair of decent wood. Maybe, someday.

They're a bloody hazard to walk around with on wooden flooring, but on carpet I can manage a (careful and nervous) run. Hopefully I'll get to try them outdoors sometime, the type of terrain they are intended for. We've got some inland dunes nearby so I might get to test them out on both woodland soil, some light mud and loose sand. Plus I get to confuse the locals...

See you next time!

Nerd Bounty

No new hobby news, the muse is still on vacation. :(

But, today the postman was kind to me...
Last year I had participated in a Kickstarter for gaming coins, these coins were large, sounded well and were generally wonderfull, their self-claimed "legendary" status was deserved. Their only flaw was that their size and small number made them not entirely practical for actual RPG use, as they couldn't cover small day-to-day transactions.
So I turned to kickstarter once more for a batch of smaller coins to supplement them. These arrived today:

(More pics and loot after the break:)

Bound...

My lovely wife's birthday has passed, so now I can, at last, unveil the special birthday project.
But a little background first: My wife took up making her own perfumes sometime last year. Until now, she has been noting down her recipes in a simple office notebook.  I decided she needed something more special to keep and treasure her favorite mixtures. So I made her a handbound book for her recipes.
Mind you, I've never done any bookbinding before, nor do I own any of the  (expensive) specialised tools. So I had to improvise and jury rig some things along the way...
Here is the result of my journey into "ghetto bookbinding":

I'm quite pleased with the results, but much, much more importantly, so is my wife!
Some more pictures of the "book in progress" after the break...

Hunting Ghosts

Time to show my son's finished carnival costume...
He's had his fun, looked good, but the festivities have come to an end for this year.

His choice for this year was to be Luigi, from Luigi's Mansion 2.
Here's the costume:

The clothing is courtesy of my lovely wife. The backpack is my doing...