Late again

Darn, Its started so well and went to pot so quickly. 2 weeks and no updates. not only that but I haven't done that much either.

Its all mainly being blamed on a weekend away and busy life..

I have managed to get a coupld of smaller projects completed and several more started so here goes:

Another set of test pieces, I was going for something a little like:

But of course since my new tables all going to be in 3x3 cm squares doing something hexagonal wouldn't work. Instead I aimed for somthing a little more like this board from Redskullz on the Lead Adventure forums

So what did I manage to come up with then? Well this:

5 Sections so far to fit in with the general multi-use theme of the rest of my terrain. Spread out this covers around 30cm x 60cm (2'x1') so about enough for half a .45 adventure board. I've another set marked up, I just got to find the time to cut out the hardboard bases.

So added to some of the previous sets what does it look like?

Well rather like this, the heroic Butch Sullivan is modelling in the picture for scale.

The extra bits are farily simple grassy areas:

Just hardboard, a bit of sand and static grass, grid is drawn on with a green sharpie pen afterwards. I've really just made these to give a bit more of an overgrown impression to the other terrain, part of the trouble with making generic squared terrain is that it can be difficult to make it feel right.

So I already mentioned working on a few little projects so I'll give you a couple of WIP shots of my somewhat busy desk:

The main 2 projects for this week are:

A set of 8 (only 4 carved so far) jungle totems, keeping them fairly simple for now, when painted I'll prolly add some warpaint effects to make them a little fiercer. This are to represent various encounters the heroes come across.

The other project is also a set of encounter markers:

This time its 10 spike traps, though I think I'll make some more later. All my encounter markers are going to be based on 2 pence coins to make it clear what are encounters and what are not during the game.

What else have I got lined up?

• 
  
  Props kit for sewer system (lengths of piping, pipe corners, girders etc)
• 
  
  Wooden Causeway (5-6 straight lenght plus coners, T-Junctions and cross roads)
• 
  
  Some more weeping trees (see the set up picture above for some test examples I made a while back)
• 
  
  Some rocky/uneaven hill sides to butt up against the formers, this time with slopes and steps to climb.

So I've enough to keep me busy for a while yet, I'm aiming to run some test games of my re-worked rules sometime at the end of march allowing me April to play around with them and finish up projects ready for my gaming weekend with my brother at the beginning of May.

Well thats it for this week, catch you all next week (update may be on Monday as I have family round over the weekend.)

Don't forget to follow this blog for updates.

Oops, A day late once again, Apologies to anyone who checked by yesterday. I finished up quite late at night and didn't have time to get any photos done.

However I have some now:

3 new risers, 2 are 3 levels high and the last just 1 level high. Each level comes out at 30mm tall to give you an idea of scale.

A test batch of ruined walls. These were build with off cuts of the Foamed PVC and embossed styrene that the blocks are made of plus some polystyrene to bulk then out and some bricks shopped from more spare Foamed PVC. The tesxture is a mix of PVA, Fine sand and filler with some extra rubble thrown in for good measure. I'm really happy at how these turned out so I'll be makeing some more when I have the chance.

Some Test Rock faces. Overall fairly dissapointed by the look of these, this wasn;t quite what I have in my head when I started them but then I've always struggled with makeing decent rock faces. I may trial a few more techniques over the coming weeks to try and get some better ones.

So the total scenery so far this year is shown here with some jungle I made last year. Considering I've got about 4-6 hours hobby time a week at the moment I'm fairly happy with my progress.

A final close up with Indy again to show scale.

So whats in store for this week?

Well I'm now out of Foamed PVC and some of the embossed styrene so although I may make some more ruined walls I'll most likely not finish them this week. I'm also out of a fair amount of paint and getting low on Glue I feel a sneaky trip to the store coming on.

What I have found is a load of Hardboard cut offs which I'm trimming down to make greenery bases so I can mark out the edges of area terrain (forest, jungle etc) These are going to be fairly basic and mainly just add grid marks to the floor. I've also got a 2'x2' board primed grey so I may have time to mark out the grid and add a few more grey/brown shared to it.

I also have my Wargames Factory Zulus sat on my desk. These are to be turned into jungle tribesmen so new weapons are needed plus wooden face maskes etc.

On the bargain side I was in Asda tonight and spotted Watchmen and District 9 for £7 each (they also had moon, public enemies and underworld 3) with the missus scowling I just grabbed the 2 for now but that should keep me entertained this week.

Any how I'll hopefully see you all next week.

Right then, only a day late and I've finished painting my first set of Terrain for my new pulp tables.

Below are the blocks shown last week in various layouts. The driving force behind this terrain is flexability rather than reality.

So whats next?

Time to turn these rather uninspiring blocks into all sorts of interesting terrain. This week it's going to be rocky outcrops, mainly to hide some of the bricked edges these are for purely aesthetic purposes.

So I'll see you next week with more

Week 3 - Sunday 7th Feb

Epic Fail today..

Nothing new to show you today.. ran out of paint.

However picked up some more today and will have the rest of the blocks finished tomorrow night.

I also lost a lot of hobby time this week to the Cinema, managed to sneak in Book of Eli which suprised us and was rather a good film, I reccomend it to anyone who likes interesting films or post apocalyptic stuff.. good for terrain inspiration too. Also saw daybreakers, that was less than fantastic, mediocre film with a fairly poor ending.

Anyhow main update will be tomorrow night.

Week 2 - Sunday 31st Jan 2010

Week 2 over and again I've not got a lot done.

Thats the problem with having too many hobbies, its easy to get distracted.

However with a slightly fruitful weekend I've managed to get a little done on my new generic pulp terrain.

Here are the test pieces finished earlier today:

Wow..coool!! I here you cry, but what the hell are they for?

Well for things like this really:

Indy investigates a ancient jungle temple, or even:

Indy cautiously decends an ancient stairway through the mountains.

Over all this terrain is there to give height to the table rather than be stand alone scenery. Once you mix some props in with it I'm expecting to be able to make anything from sewers to ancient temples all using just one main box of terrain and a selection of "setting" pieces.

So far I've managed to build this much:

Its about enough to cover about a square foot of board with multiple levels. I've got some more 3 level high blocks in the works plus some edging blocks to allow the terrain to be used as risers for some mountain sides.

I'll also be branching out into adding some of the setting terrain now I've unpacked a lot of my bits boxes.

Any how for this week thats it.

Tune in next Sunday and I hope to have all this lot completed.

Ok week one finish:

Progress; not a lot.

Still working on sorting out my new house so not a lot of progress this week.

I have managed to start some new Pulp terrain in the form of blocky levels to be used for rail stations, underground stations, indoor ruins and temple blocks.

These are built from a rather fancy material I've found via Antenociti's Workshop called Foamed PVC, its around 3mm thick but much easier to cut than standard plasticard sheet but much stronger than foam-core. I think I'm now a fan.

Click the following link for the product:

http://www.barrule.com/Workshop/scratch%20builders%20paradise/sheet%20materials%20-%20metal%20and%20special%20materials.html

The tops and sides are being covered in embossed styrene and engraved into 30mm squares for ease of gaming.


I've 4 sections built and pieces cut for around another 4 plus some steps.

However I'm running short on styrene and only have 1 sheet of foamed pvc left so looks like I need to stick an order in for more.

I plan to have the whole lot built by next sunday so watch this space.

2010... The beginning

New house, New Job... Old hobby...

On the flip side its about time I started to really get my head down and get some stuff sorted. Too many projects, too many mad ideas and not enough time.

2010 is the year of the plan.. Honest

Projects for 2010:

Pulp
Indiana Jones style tomb raiding pulp miniatures.

• New miniatures:
• Ze Germans
• Cairo Crowds
• Jungle natives
• Cairo constabulary
• Pirates

New pulp locations:

• Jungle Temple
• Rail Station
• Sewer
• Museum
• Docks
• Warehouse
• Library
• Boat Deck

Extras:

• Encounter Card Set
• Clue Card Set
• Encounter Markers
• Traps

Sci-Fi Battlesuit combat
8 foot combat suits, bristling with weapons to fight it out in detailed skirmish style urban combat.

Battlesuit combat miniatures (conversions/scratch builds)

• 4 Heavy Suits
• 4 Medium Suits
• 4 Scout Suits

Battlesuit combat rules (only about 2 years in the writing but I will finish them one day)

So just 2 projects to start the year on.

I'm going to try very very hard not to stray, money is tight which may actually be a bonus so we'll see how it goes.

Oh only last promise I'm going to make this year:

• Regular Blog updates - Every Sunday

Couple more finished cars:

My 1st this week is big-red, no good for off road but it looks great..

The second this week is another beetle, Once again with the british flag motif, and plenty of baggage.

Pretty much done with the cars for the moment and will be waiting for the main rules to come out to get driving.

I'm heading back to my modern horror project for the moment, after a good trip to salute I've a bucket load of new figures to paint up

Now I know its been a while but....

I'd love to say I've been painting hundreds of miniatures in the last 18 onths since I was last here but that just isn't true.

I unfortunately rediscovered MMORPGs and my life was sucked away in a vortex of level grinding and all night raiding.

Thankfully I've now recovered...

Now I have free time again I pulled out all my old projects sorted through them, put them back in a box and started an all new project...

The guys at Aberrant Games have been working on an all new Post Apocalyptic Miniatures game in the vein of mad max etc.

And a picture of the initially released Black Box:

Unfortunately I missed out on the limited initial release of 250 and am having to wait on the proper release of the game due sometime soon. So whilst I haven't got the rules I thought I could get back into some modelling and painting..

A few visits to ASDA and Tesco to buy some Hotwheels cars and a quick raid of my bits box and I started with these:

Still need to paint the gunner for the Passenger seat.

All done for the moment.

Part finished in this picture, I've now completed it but still have to make a rocket launcher armed dude to sit on the back.

This babys all done too...

I've about 4 or 5 more vehicles currently in progress and I should have them done soon, I'm also desperately trying not to buy more cars as I've a box of them spare as well.

Once I've finished the next 4 I'm going to be dusting these up a little with some weathering powders to give them that desert wasteland look.

Well thanks for looking.

I will try and keep up with this blog this time

Ian

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...

Well for once I've had plenty of painting time and managed to finish off a fair old few miniatures. Here's what we have so far:

The Good...

Priest from Rezolution

Cleaned off the tech bits from around his head but otherwise unmodified.

Man in Black from EM4

Corporate Trooper from EM4

Corporate Security Guards from Heresy Miniatures

Repost from last time as I didn't take a close up.

Ray and Ashley from Hasslefree Miniatures

Another Repost mainly as I've gone to town with some Tamiya Clear Red. Not uite happy with the results but they do look more like zombie killers.

Van Zant from Infinity Miniatures

The pic is a little dark so the details doesn't really show well but this little swine took the best part of 5 hours on Sat to paint, his camo trousers taking up much of that time. Anyhow for those who like me liked Reign of Fire this miniature is the business.

The Bad and the Ugly...

Zombies from Wizkids

Repainted Horrorclix miniatures from Wizkids. They're a little out of scale but will do as you can buy them for less than 50p each. They still need basing and gore adding but I'll wait till I have a bunch of them to do.

Demonic Dogs from Heresy Miniatures

Had these miniatures sat in a box for several years now and I absolutely adore them. They're truely monsterous, the bases they're on are 50mm wide... Must go and find some Ghostbusters miniatures now.

Giant Worm from Wizards of the Coast

Repainted miniature from Wizards D&D range, the idea from this has been blatently ripped off someone else - I'd love to credit them for the idea but I have no idea where I found it. Anyway if this was your idea many thanks.

So what next?

We'll thats it for the moment, My painting desk is strangely, nothing else prepped for painting. Handily I had an order turn up from Andy Heresy the other day so plenty to be getting on with.

I'm going to tray and start organising miniautres into forces for a game I'm working on. The rules currently are in the draft stages and have most of the mechanics sorted out. I'm heading towards a proper skirmish game - up to 10 models a side and massive flexability when it comes to creating the characters for your force. Not much more I can say at the minute as they're mostly written on scraps of paper I find laying about when I have an idea; I really must get round to typing them up.

Anyhow that the lot for now.
Ian