Monday, March 28, 2011

Mr. Roper, This Weekend, RECRUITS and All that

Here's a pic of Mr. Roper, infamous arms dealer and scoundrel, willing to sell any arms to anybody with the cash to buy it. A post apoc NPC. Fig is a Reaper Roper fig, guns are various.


Well Recruits was this weekend, and you have heard me extoll its virtues for years. It was a great time as usual. Luckily Mother Nature stepped in and ruined the football and soccer games we this weekend, so we could go. YEAH!

Me and the boy went in the morning. Met many old friends, saw some great games, and got some great stuff.

Most of the time was spent talking to folks, but I got some shopping in and I feel pretty good about it.

I got a bunch of stuff for Traveller RPG. Old stuff, original stuff I never owned. I never pplayed one game of traveller growing up. Star Frontiers was our game, but the hard sci-fi guy in me always wanted too. I rolled up a guy once, who died in character generation. It was then I knew something was very different about this game. I got some more of the originla digest sized books, rule, adventures , supplements, the Journal, the Striker rules, and 2 very nice collection from Far Future Enterprises, collecting various pieces of the Traveller Cannon. I now have the Full Rule collection, the supplements collection, the Games (all the boardgames) collection. Cool stuff. Don't know if I will ever play it, but it will be a fun read.

Also picked up the new aliens from Jason at Micropanzer. Great new sculpts. I have had his SAS from when he sold me a set of the masters 2 years ago. love the stuff so far. and he's local, so I want him to succeed.

I also picked up some of the Rebel Minis Commanches and some Titan Marines. Nice to see in person. And got a few characters and a couple of Orc trolls from Splintered Light Miniatures. Nice to see them both there this year.

Painted a free fig at the paint and take with the Boy, went to lunch at Five with Old Friends. Its was a great day.


Played C&C Ancients with the boys on Sunday using 15mm fantasy as standins. Works great, as ususal, but will continue the efforts to modify so it feels more fantasy like.

Looking down the Elves Line
Looking down the Orcs Line
Also on sunday, we based and primered the Boy's Druid 's Children minis that he bought from Splintered Light. Humanoid animal goodness. If I were inclined, these would be great conversion bases for Gamma World and mutant animals.

These are truly great figs. Each one is a character.
and randomly, he picked up his Lizardman Bloodbowl team, and wanted to paint it while the primer on his animals dried. So off we went. We team painted the base colors on the skinks in 45 minutes. He did a great job, and didn't realize he picked out the Miami Dolphins colors. Some highlights, a quick dip, and he is done with the first six.


Good weekend, if a little hectic. I'll probably be painting 15mm fantasy for a little bit, then back to post apoc.


Monday, March 14, 2011

Post Apoc Rad Insects Part II

Here's the next batch of figs.

First, the in progress shots of the raw figs. Mounted on roofing washers, based with basing gel, insects are all dollar store Halloween Bugs.

Giant Rad Roaches, Centipedes, Bomber Beetles, Fire Ants, Bloat Flies


Next, the giant Centipede Mounds. I really like that I can use these for Post Apoc and Fantasy.

Here are the Rad Roaches. Yuck.

Surrounding another trapped survivor

And the Bloat Flies. These, the Rad Scorpions, and the Rad Roaches are an homage to all of these that I have killed in Fallout 3.

And here's our hapless hero surrounded again. This time by the Bloat Flies. I like how well the bases are blending in. I haven't decided if I am going to add static grass or not to their bases. Probably willl for consistency sake.

That's it. Not much time to paint. Did these in about 2 hour of painting time, 1 hour of prep, 2 days of drying time for the basing material.

Next is some Fire Ants, and a Bomber Beetle. Then a new survivor gang. And finally after that, finish a couple of buildings, and a bunch of rubble.

Post Apoc Giant Rad Insects


Finally some pics. As promised here are my new Giant Wasps. Big and nasty.



Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Pip Pip!!!

GW Just released this big beauty for their Grey Knights 40k army:
so how many rivets do you need to add to make this a totally Victorian Sci Fi walker? Not many. I am totally ordering this and pressing it into service with my brits. Add a couple of my steam tanks, some highlanders and some jump troopers, and man what a force.


Beware Prof Nightshade.

Quick Post

Work has been a bear. And I have been obessed with my new ipad, so no painting for me. But, since I took my ipad back to wait for the ipad2, and I just submitted a big project, i found myself with some time.

I have been having a bit of a hard time getting into painting with all the distractions in my life. So in these times, I like to clear off the paint table reassess, and paint one or two smal things to get my juices going. So after the inevitable wandering and browsing in my very own hobby store (my workshop of doom), I found a couple of creatures that made me go hmmm.

For my Fallout/post apoc project, I have been buying plastic bugs in a tube and at the dollar store. Like these giant mutant scorpions and trap door spider I painted last year.

So I broke out a couple of giant wasps and mounted them on flying stands and whalah a couple more creatures of the wastelands for Mutant Future (RPG) or Mutants and Death Ray Guns or our own Fistful of Radiation.

pics tomorrow.

I also did 5 bases of rubble to put my 5 giant Rad Roaches on. MWHAAAAAA! And Giant ants and grass hoppers are next. Really enjoying this. Lets hope this continues for a bit.

Also on my way home from work I stipped at my favorite hole in the wall - Monty's comics and books. Monty's is a used book and comic dealer that opened up part of the shop for gaming. He does old stuff and trade ins so he always has a great selection.

Picked up a Cadian Radio operator (looked nice and post apocalyptic with some minor changes), and an old Reaper Roper. Think I will put weapons in the Ropers hands, put a tattered green stuff sweater on him, and call him Mr. Roper. Desperado, weapons dealer, apartment owner. An homage to Norman Fell(sp?) from Three's Company.

Also picked up a nicelittle find for the middle boy. 1970 editions of the Two Towers and Return of the King, and a 1973 edition of The Fellowship of the Rings. He really likes reading tolkein right now, so thought he might appreciate the find. The whole set for under $2.00.

Gonna paint on the bugs for a while. Paint another gang (old confrontation tech gang) for my Engineers Guild. (Cause in the apocalypse who will have more power than the engineers, if they survive).

Then I will finally finish painting my next post apoc building or two.

Later.





Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Dammit

I was all ready to paint the Man o War ships, but then my wife and sister dropped a nuclear bomb on me.

An Ipad. I have been wasting time on it ever since.

Now I have done good gaming things, like download all my pdf rules, and painting guides and inspiration pics, put dice rolers and initiative trackers on it, and such stuff. But I have also wsted too much time surfing the App store and playing Battleheart and Angry Birds.

This thing is a wonder and real time sink. Hopefully, by the weekend, I will be painting again!

Done

It is bitter sweet, but wrestling for our son is over. We had the wrestling banquet last night, and now his high school wrestling career is over. We are so very proud of all he accomplished. Especially since last night he walked away with 4 awards and a 3rd bar for his Varsity letter.

He won awards for :

Most Pins
Wrestlers of the Year


Also the coach doesn't award team captains til the end of the year. He lets the actions and leadership determine the captains and so decides at the end of the season. So the boy was named a Captain and given an award as well.

and last and most surprising, he was named the recipient of a special award that is not given every year that pays homage to a leader, a worker, someone with heart, and embodies the spirit of the team. He won that too. So his name will be put on a banner for going to state, and his name will be on a plaque in the trophy case for ever. and its at my high school. I couldn't be more proud.

He's going away to Mizzou next year, and having seen Big 12 wrestling, pretty sure we are not going to wrestle at that level. But he may tryout, and hope for a practice squad and eventually tryout for the team or be an alternate. We'll see.