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? 

Acclimating

 Still acclimating to being at home full time now. It still feels like time off at the moment. Apparently that feeling, plus the habitual tension from a work rythm are currently translating them in an urge to get stuff done in the hobby "before I have to get back to work". Which, for the foreseeable future, I don't have to, if ever...  Weird how the brain works like that.

So, I've been taking advantage of the nicer weather to get some terrain things done.

I've oil-washed and rusted the second of my Gallowdark floors: 

It ended up being more black and less ruddy/rusty than the previous one, but I'm okay with that. All that is left for this one is to airbrush in the glowing pools of toxic sludge with a nice neon green. 

Today, I spent the day putting my grout-plaster-sand mixture on the Necromunda upper platform and fixing it all in place with alcohol and watered down PVA:

These will get to sleep under the stars overnight, to dry and harden up. Tomorrow, I'll be glueing the mandatory mushrooms and some other small detritus onto them to make them fully ready for primer.

Can't wait to get this finished and shove all my Necromunda terrain onto a table, see what I have now and what I want/need to add.

Finally, I glued the Zone Mortalis tiles I had printed so far onto some 1'x'1 MDF, to start my 3'x3' Zone Mortalis board. I want the boards to look varied but still have at least one, preferably two tiles on each plate that have a surface that the columns and walls can grip onto. 

The printing of the remaining tiles and Zone Mortalis terrain will have to wait, as a friend commissioned me to print him a foam dart blaster. So that comes first.

While I'm still processing the loss of a job and new disability status, I'm thoroughly enjoying being able to build terrain again. The last two years all my energy had gone into work, trying to build up enough hours to keep my job, leaving me an exhausted husk outside of work hours. Working on terrain now is part of reclaiming my Modhail-ness. 

The weather will be expected dip back down over the next week, so I'll be getting back to painting for 15mm Badab War then.

See you all again soon!

Time "March"es on...

Well, this is it. The first week of no longer working due to disability (long covid)...  Still feels like vacation for now, but different at the same time.  I'm giving myself a few weeks to rest up, acclimate and process the new situation. While I miss my job and colleagues already, it also means no longer burning up all my available energy to make the minimum hours I needed for my contract. Hopefully I'll be able to hobby (and generally enjoy life) with more regularity again.

Speaking of hobby:
I'm currently finishing the Tyrant's Claw army, and just need to print the Minotaurs and I'll have 2 loyalist and 2 secessionist chapters once all is painted. I think I'll leave the project at that size for the time being. Partly because I don't really suspect I'll find more than 4 players, but also because I find myself getting a bit of "Marine Fatigue", mainly regarding having to support all the minis for printing. 
The weather is getting better, so terrain can get back on the menu soon.  I still need to oil weather the second of my Gallowdark floor board. And finish the texture, details etc. on my Necromunda elevated platform and the pillars to support it, so those can be painted. I also found an affordable source of 30x30cm/1x1' mdf squares, so I can experiment with some Zone Mortalis floor tiles, with modular walls to slot onto them. I've got enough to experiment with a 3'x3' table and maybe a pair of set piece/diorama tiles.

Been doing some comparisons as well, and I think the Zone Mortalis columns and walls can also serve for 15mm Badab War, I just need to make a second set of scale appropriate scatter items.  They can just represent larger, more imposing walls and corridors in spaceships or underground complexes.

Which only adds fuel to the fire of wanting to do a Zone Mortalis set...

Anyway, just some waffle. Hopefully I can post some progress pictures next time!

See you then!

A tiny civil war, with tiny models (Badab War, resurgent?)

Life stuff first: As expected/feared due to the full disability assesment my current employment will end either 1 or 2 month from now, depending on the speed administrative processes. So yeah, less income, but also less exhaustion and stress, hopefully.

Anyway, on to the meat and potatoes of this post:
For some odd reason, looking for painting tutorials for red, to paint a small House Draconis Battletech Lance, led to seeing lots of Space Marine tutorials. Which led to thinking about marines again, which led to try a grimdark/gritty Raptors Terminator squad (for Space Hulk). Raptors led to seeing the Imperial Armour art for them again, which led to Badab War, which led to my 15mm Howling Griffons:

So, I'm thinking about having another go at Badab War games/hopefully a campaign, but this time in 15mm.

 

I don't have a concrete plan yet, just musing. Maybe use this as a project to soften the sting of being at home full time. Like Battletech, I'm hoping to go for a "show up and play"format, where I build a couple of forces, probable for the most iconic and active factions of the Badab War. And once these are done, invite some friends for a day/weekend of gaming.

Since there are 18 chapters involved in the Badab War, I'll need to make some choices on which chapters to build forces for. While 15mm paints a LOT quicker than 28mm, making 18 full armies for 4-8 players is insanity.

My current thoughts are as follows:

Secessionists:

-Astral Claws: can't have a Badab War without the Tyrant of Badab and his army! Plus the Marines and Imperial Guard hybrid force seems like an interesting project.

-Lamenters: Gotta rep the sad bois!

-Mantis Warriors: They're just cool, and I like their green with yellow shoulders.

-Executioners: Might as well complete the set.

Loyalists:

-Red Scorpions: Well, they're the Forgeworld poster boys, and in-lore leaders of the loyalists, so they're a given.

-Howling Griffons: A minor role in the conflict, but they're my lads! I have to include them.

-Minotaurs: The whole chapter was there, and they got special character models, so yeah, can hardly leave them out.

-Carcharodons: Not a big role in the most of the Badab War, but again, cool guys I want to include.

By the  "entire chapter was involved" criterium, the Fire Angels, Fire Hawks and Star Phantoms could also be included. But honestly, 4v4 feels nice and shouldn't be too unmanageable.

If, during the prep, any players express an interest in a particular chapter not in the list above, I can always add them, as I have the files already and most marines paint quite fast in 15mm scale.

Anyhow, that was my ramble/musings.

Until next time!

Time flies when you're (not) having fun.

 I think this has been the longest I haven't paid attention to this blog...
The past year has been...a thing. Sorry about that.

Between long covid, struggling to build up enough hours with that to be able to keep my job, two losses in the family within 6 months, and several other things, it's been a struggle to find the energy to hobby, let alone reporting on a blog about it. 

Things my change in the coming time though. 

Because I lost workable hours due to the disabilities/limitations from long covid, I've had to apply for disability, hoping to get enough disability pay to make up for the lost hours of income.  Just before Christmas, I was told my disability level was set at 85-100%, aka 'fully unfit for work'. Now I need to figure out with my current employer whether that means I can still work for them. Due to the holidays, illnesses and time off of various parties involved in that decision, as well as the unemployment office taking quite some time to send the official report confirming this, I won't know more until next Thursday. Luckily, this has given me time to mull over and get used to the idea, and, honestly, I'd be fine with either outcome.

So for the coming year(s) I'll either have more time and energy to devote to the hobby, but less money, or it'll be more of the past year. Which makes it a bit hard to plan ahead for the coming hobby-year...

Anyway, here's some things I hope I can work on the coming year:
-Battletech: Had the first game in decades the past week, and all involved enjoyed it. So I intend to paint more mechs, do some more terrain. Maybe try and make this a (semi-)regular thing. I'm finding it refreshing to have a "new" yet familiar universe to explore, play with giant stompy robots. In a setting that, while grim, and dark, isn't Grimdark and gothic all of the time.
-Roleplaying: After a year of mostly cancelled sessions and a player dropping out, I'm putting in extra effort to try and keep my Traveller RPG campaign running as regularly as the mutual schedules allow. I also want to do more with props and phys-reps.

Something similar has happened to the Iron Kingdoms RPG I play in, so for the time being that has become a monthly boardgame night.

If it does turn out I'll be on full-time disability pay, I would also like to have a go at reviving my long, looong-dormant Mythological Japan DnD Campaign.

-Space Hulk/Gallowdark/Necromunda:  While the spell of GW has been mostly broken in the past year, I do still like the setting and minis, even if the company, their current game and most especially their pricing, leaves me distinctly cold these days.  And I like tunnelcrawlers and skirmish games. If I do become a househusband, I'd like to work on my terrain and minis for these again, and maybe, finally, get some games in.

-Cyberpunk: Yeah, it still has it's magic for me. And, apart from terrain, it can be done in small bursts and manageable chunks.

-Dungeoneering/fantasy game: I still have fond memories of the year of near-exclusive focus on my fantasy mini collection. And it connects to my love of terrainmaking and tunnelcrawling. I have enough minis painted, I just need the dungeon for them to fight in.

-Terrain: I really miss building terrain.

-Gaming/meeting friends: This may be the most important/valuable one of all. Due to having to put all my energy in work/regaining job security the past year, I have become a bit of a hermit. In general, I want to game and meet up with friends more often, but energy has to allow it.

Anyhow, braindump done. Nice seeing you again, and until next time! Have picture of last weeks Battletech game as a reward for reaching the end of my ramble:

Sunday Musings: Space Hulk/Gallowdark and abandoning an ancient empire.

 I had the past week off. Which meant that what little energy Long Covid allows me has gone towards my hobby instead of my job. I've also been looking at/seeing things and musing.

What did that musing lead to?  I think I'm done being an active Games Workshop Customer.

Let's preface this with some background and then the causes that led to this conclusion.

I've been a GW\40K fan for my entire adult life. I discovered them around 18 years of age, during second edition. Since then I've bought EVERY edition of 40K starter, and have collected a large portion of the 1st edition books too. Several editions, I didn't even get to play a game in, due to gaming groups drifting apart. But I still kept up, because Warhammer/40K was my main "thing". Even if it was never exclusively so, I do play other games and settings. I have many of the secondary/Fanatic games, and love them dearly, especially Battlefleet Gothic, Necromunda and Space Hulk (Kill team combining these two in Gallowdark was a stroke of genius which is mainly responsible for this only coming now, and not several months sooner, tbh). The shared love of the games and setting has given me the vast majority of people I now call friends, both online and in "meatspace".  The 41st Millennium runs deep with me.

So what prompted this disentanglement from the company that produces it? In no particular order:

-While never a cheap hobby, the game has become downright unaffordable over the past years. The Hobby™ has never been cheap, but the past and upcoming price hike have, for me, broken the limit of value for money.

-GW's relentless release pace means you don't have the time to enjoy new mini's or spend time with a release to get to know it's ins and outs. It's all so rushed and stressful. It's exhausting. 

-And many of the newer releases, despite being of high technical and sculpting skill, aren't very good, lore and design-wise. There's nothing joyous or inspired about them.

-Despite its grand  "Warhammer is for Everyone" statement a while back, I've not seen GW make any significant progress or effort to deal with the obvious bigot issue in their community. They're still here, and with the lack of significant push out since that statement, they're louder and more obnoxious than ever.

-GW's reliance on FOMO and flash in the pan sales and their accompanying consistent unwillingness and inability to get their product in the hands of fans instead of scalpers. It just shows such disrespect and disinterest to their customer/fanbase.

-GW's exploitative lack of respect for their artists and creators. It started years ago, with the removal of author credits on rules, artists watermarks and credits, and now after building loyalty and community through popular faces on their tutorials, they've reverted to literally faceless narration. The only ones allowed a name and face are the presenters, the one who are effectively doing a constant, barely masked sales pitch.

GW has always been a somewhat out of touch and regressive company, but they seemed to be doing better for a while. Not it just feels like their regressing to their worst habits. I just can't find any joy in THEIR version of The Hobby™ anymore.

Sum total: I don't NEED Games Workshop anymore for my hobbying in the 40K setting, and I don't like them near enough anymore to give them a default claim on my hobby budget.

Does that mean GW won't lure me back in at some point? No, if they manage to hit the perfect note with a release (Say, BFG 2nd ed or Warhammer Old World Man O'War?), I might pick that up. But I won't be a devotee anymore, just a passer by.

Keeping my games/collections up to date and assuming something is a must buy, because it's for a game or faction I collect? That's past. The only remaining guaranteed buy left is the fourth installment of Kill Team Gallowdark. Because I WANT to have it, not because I NEED it to stay current. Unless a miracle happens, 9th will be the last edition of 40K I own.

I won't sell my collections either, as I still like the setting and minis. But I'll be playing around in the universe at my pace, on my conditions, in a part of the timeline I choose, an the version of the rules I like without regard to GW's  plans or desires. MY hobby, not The Hobby™.

Anyway, after all that dour thought, let's end on something fun, shall we?

I finished painting the first/test portion of my Gallowdark terrain. These are 3d printed fanmade iterations and meant as a testcase for painting techniques, colour schemes and new materials/paints to try. (Dirty Down Rust prime among them).  They'll also mean I can fill a larger table for when we play a Badab War Kill Team campaign later this year.   You see, for this year, I want to try and focus on playing more, instead of just buying more. Let's hope I succeed!

My Void Crows scavenger team got a bit more than they bargained for inside a derelict ship!

 

Anxiety, heartbreak and some housekeeping.

Sigh.  Some things have happened. Let me explain:

Just over a year ago, I made a fan 3d sculpt of a mecha from Dream Pod 9's Gear Krieg. It was modeled from scratch, by me, in Fusion 360. I also made an optional arm set and a weapon set for it. All in 1/56 aka 28mm scale. Something which hasn't been available since Company B ceded the license for resin models in that scale. I put them up on Cults3D, free of charge, as I was happy with what I had created and to maybe help out some other people who were looking for this kind of vehicle in that particular scale. I was utterly clear that this was a fan interpretation of an existing design in a different scale and no profit or ownership was claimed or intended by me.

Yesterday, I suddenly got a very aggressive and insulting comment on Cults, from someone I had never interacted with before, basically accusing me of stealing Dream Pod 9s 3d models. Some internet tough guy having a bad day, I assumed.  However, within the hour two of the three files I mentioned above were removed. After contacting Cults3D about this, I found out that this was the result of the CEO of Dream Pod 9 sending a pair of very overreaching and aggressively worded DMCAs basically demanding, under threat of litigation, from Cults3D to not only absolutely destroy any ability for me to ever again share my creations there, regardless of if they were even related to Dream Pod 9 IP. But they also demanded from Cults3D, again under threat of litigation, to dox me and hand my personal data over to Dream Pod 9. 

I successfully refuted the DMCA claim, proving that my files had been released 6 months before Dream Pod 9 even first announced any digital releases in 28mm scale, and notifying them of tone and demeanor of the initial contact by the DMCA claimant. Cults3D reinstated my files to their site. To prevent further escalation/harassment, I scrubbed the weapons pack, all original designs by me, of anything that could reference DP9 IP. The file with the manipulator arms, I left down permanently. As a safeguard and to conserve evidence/reference should I need it, I kept up the file with the mecha design itself (Oddly the one which they didn't DMCA??), but devoid of the print files, and with a short explanation of why it was still up.

After which, the sender of the original message chose to further harass and accuse me. 

If they had just contacted me openly and politely, if the sender of the first message had properly identified himself as an associate of the company, we could have entered into a dialogue and found an amiable agreement. Instead Dream Pod 9 decided to accost me from a position of anonymity and then immediately go for the nuclear option.

What makes it even more painful for me, is that this was the first more complex, multipart 3d model I was sufficiently satisfied with, and proud of,  to share online, for others to see and use. It was, to me, my debut as a "serious" 3d modeler. And they trampled all over that.

This all has utterly cured me of a 20+ year love of the Gear Krieg setting and designs as well as any respect I had for the company. 

So I'll be removing what references to Gear Krieg or Dream Pod 9 have/can find on this blog. 

I've done some other hobby things in the past weeks, which I may share in a future post. But for now, I'm out of hobby or online posting mojo for a bit. 

I hope you understand.

Till next time!

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!

Well, life happened at me, a lot...

Yeah, so I had a two-month stomach bug, followed by a corona scare. Luckily all is well, but I'm still rebuilding my strenght/stamina after barely holding on to nutrients during the stomach bug.

Which left little spare energy for hobby.

I did manage to squeeze these lot out: 

A Squig with a fancy hairdo: 

Naturally, I also participated in the Iron Kingdoms: Requiem Kickstarter, and this has once again urged me to do a bit more on some IKRPG character miniatures:

 

 

They're two minis for the same character, a Knight-Ironhead. As the new version of the IKRPG doesn't work off combining two archetypes, I'll have to figure out how to make him work, ruleswise.

 

Also, ofcourse I pre-ordered Cursed City. Warhammer Quest, but horror, and with a strong Eastern European vibe? Perfect.

So, not much to report. See you again next time, whenever that may be!

And yet, I live....

Well, we survived 2020...

And I seem to have been neglecting this blog, my apologies. Between corona, depression and a busy year at work, what rare time and motivation I had for the hobby, I elected to spend on the hobby itself, rather than posting about it.

Anyhow, time of a big catchup dump of pics, and then on to the next year.

Ofcourse, the Indomitus box got acquired:

(And ofcourse the image is rotated... Sorry.)

I also managed to snag a piece of classic Space Fleet art:

Which reminds me, I still need to get that framed... What do you think, a clean, sleek modern frame, or go baroque and gothic for it?

I printed the start of a Japanese village, for a long suffering medieval/mythological Japan project: 

As frustratingly many projects this year, I lost steam before I actually got them painted...

I printed and built some more Necromunda stuff (again abandoned before I got to painting, see a pattern?

Around this time, our PCs main storage HDD was starting to give out. (I've yet to recover all files on it, including notes for a decade+ spanning DnD campaign....)

I built another Destiny 2 Ghost, again a gift for a friend from across the Channel:

(The overspray on the icon on it had been fixed before sending it off.)

The unpainted Necromunda terrain I had set up in previous post did finally get painted, even though it took until Oktober:

Hmmm, tasty....

Ofcourse I had to join in the McFarlane Primaris craze:

Can you guess from this pic, which Chapter I will convert and repaint him into? ;)

Fine, work in progress pics to give some hints:

 Because my Howling Griffon would be a Lieutenant, he needed a Power Sword, just a small one:

Again, this project has yet to see paint...

Gears once again shift, now towards Orks:

Freebooters to be precise:

Ofcourse, Freebooters need to ride in style:

True to form for this year, paint is yet to come...

Final leg of the year, and final projects (still ongoing): Cyberpunk City. A third building was erected:

 While working on this, a long-awaited treasure arrived:

I'm waiting for work and life to ease up again a bit to properly get into this and read it from cover to cover. Hopefully next weekend!

That brings us back up to current affairs. This weekend I added lighting to my Brutalist Cyberpunk building: 

 And with that, that project is ready to receive paint as well. :D

Till next time, hopefully sooner than last. ;)