Scaling Back

 Don't worry, I'm not selling off my collections...

Between heatwaves and busy weeks causing my long covid symptoms to flare up  again, hobbying had petered out over the course of july. These interruptions had caused my enthusiasm for the Division project to slowly peter out. So my hobbying scaled back quite a bit.

Then I discovered Bloodsong by Death of a Rubricist... Ork and Eldar Titans for Adeptus Titanicus was exactly what I needed to relight the hobby fire! So I scaled my hobby back from 28mm to 8mm... ;p 

I've long been of the opinion that Games Workshop shot themselves in the foot by chaining modern Adeptus Titanicus (and by extension Legions Imperialis) to the Horus Heresy. The joy of (previous iterations of) Epic scale games has always been the spectacle and challenge of diverse and eclectic armies and factions battling it out. Seeing mobs of Ork Battlefortresses charging a lance of Imperial knights as a squadron of Baneblades manoeuvring to get a shot on an Ork Gargant. Or Eldar Titans dancing around a Warlord as it struggles to get a bead on them. A line of doomed Guardsmen facing down a charge by Tyranid Bio-Titans...

On a modelling level, it was just great to see the massive warmachines and other bizarre contraptions of the various factions of the 41st millennium that are just too large for a 40K table.

Just look at this stuff! Look!

But I digress. With inspiration and a goal in hand, I scoured the internet for suitable printable Eldar and Ork warmachines to combine with the ones I already had. Some were a bit harder to find than others, but soon I had enough for a maniple (or their particular equivalent) of both Orks and Eldar, and I set my printers to work. In the meantime, when circumstance allowed, I dug out my old Warlord titan to paint while I complete the weapon loadouts I wanted to 3d model for the Ork Gargants (Using Red Nebular's Collossobots). 

A nice afternoon spent airbrushing the Warlord bits

One of my already painted Reavers supervises the proces and serves as a colour matching aide.

A quick test spray of my intended colour mixes of my Biel-Tan titans.

Meanwhile, printer goes brrrr....

And I'm cheerfully bashing away at Fusion.

Two down, half a dozen more to go to get the full loadout options.

While the Collossobots are deeply retro-Ork styled, I want my guns to hit a sort of halfway point between the classic retro Ork style and the more modern Max Max-ian style. 

I'm also feeling the desire to add to my Legio Astraman force, and incorporating some more retro styled bits as well.

A Reaver shoulder pad I modelled based on the older metal Reaver shoulder.

Anyhow, when weather and health allows, I'll be chugging away happily on this little big project!

See you next time!

Time is an illusion...

 Hello again, time does seem to slip away from us, doesn't it?

I have been hobbying, but at a leisurely pace, and part of it digitally. My inspiration/drive has been all ove rthe place though.  And they say an image says more than a thousand words. So, lets get to the pictures, after the break:

 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...

Sorry about neglecting this blog...

 Life has been coming hard at us the last few months, long story short: My estranged (we broke contact due to her manipulative ways and unrepentant alcoholism) mother turned out to have cancer, after which we quickly got news that it would be untreatable and terminal. So we spent the months trying to rekindle some sort of contact, so we could at least say our goodbyes. After that there was the funeral, deciding whether to accept or reject the inheritance, cleaning out her house and a lot of emotional unpacking and processing along the way, which is still ongoing.

I have still been hobbying though, as that has been my mental lifeline. Prepare for incoming photodump, after the break!

The beast is done!

 The last few weekends, I've been putting the final touches to the Warhound Titan. Doing the weathering, finally painting the banners. And I can now gladly report that "Steadfast" is 100% operational!

I tried my first hand at weathering with oil paints and found it gave pretty nice results, even with basic techniques.

Anyway, some glamour shots:

 Of course, his guns are magnetised, so I can experiment with his load outs:

And here he can be seen, stalking the outskirts of some industrial wasteland:

(I really should have put some mini's in this pic, to really drive home the scale of things, shouldn't I?)

See you all next time!

Catching up over the summer

 Hi folks, 

Here I am again. 😄 With travel abroad and camping scuppered due to Covid I had to entertain myself in a different way over the summer holiday. Luckily (?) I'm always virtually drowning in projects and things to do...

So, here are the fruits of this summer's labours:

 

First up: The big one, the Necromunda terrain project (still ongoing, btw). Here's what I built over the past few weeks:

This a collection of all the Necromunda terrain I have built so far.The new additions I built over the summer are (from left to right): The large Synthstill/destiller column, the bucket elevator, the old power reacter (partially hidden behind the nuclear waste silo), and the Necromunda dice tower.

Below you can see the reactor and the dice tower front and centre: These two items are fully 3d printed items, the two other ones are a mix of traditional terrain building techniques and materials and 3d printed parts. I really like the results I can get with this mixed approach.

I had a lot of fun building these and experimenting with new techniques (using a sand/tile grout mix for the basing and texuring of dirt and rust. Using AK interactive streaking grime and generally building in a more free-form and messy approach.)

But ofcourse, this table is nowhere near filled. I built more, but didn't get around to painting it, before work had to start again:

Sets of walkways, as well as a corpse-starch processing plant on a raised platform. (And as I type this, I realise I totally forgot to add my toxic pools to these photos! D'oh!)

 Hopefully I can get these painted over the next few weekends...

And now as to why I didn't get these painted during my vacation...

Ghost of Tsushima was released. And while I don't own a Playstation, seeing the enthusiastic responses from people, as well a playthrough by a friendly streamer got my love for (gaming in) medieval/mythological Japan again. Which prompted me to finally finish a 90mm samurai model I had lingering in paint in progress for months now:

She isn't still 100% finished, as the base still needs grass and tufts etc. added to it.

And I had to 3d print and paint this fun thing, couldn't help myself...

I maybe could have spent some time sanding out the print lines, but it was a spur of the moment thing, and they are a lot less noticeable in real life. I'm just waiting for the oil paint in the recesses to dry, and then I can varnish it and add the cords to wear it.

 

See you all next time!