New Project Updates

Unfortunately, I have no pictures. My schedule for the last month has not been pretty. Nonetheless, I've managed to squeeze in some work on this and that:

1. Bamboo forests: I got this fantastic idea to make dense bamboo forests off somebody's blog. You'd think I would have bookmarked it, but N-o-o-o! Anyway, its a simple method using small nails for the trees, sticking close together into thick cardstock, and then gluing flock on top of them all once they are painted. I can to a bunch of these in about an hour.

2. 28mm: Trying to figure out what the heck am I going to do with the 28mm bikers and the robots. I ordered some various figures to round out the human resistance. I also found buried in my unpainted pile a pack of some Kryomek aliens from Scotia-Grendel. I have those guys primed and just trying to think of what to paint them. Maybe I will have some sort of free-for-all games. I have some ideas for rules, but I will likely use Chain Reaction from Two Hour Wargames.

3. Minis for my nephew: My sister's younger son has some emotional issues including a form of Tourette's syndrome. He is not autistic, but sort of lives in his own little world. Last year, for Christmas, I bought him some little plastic figures from Games Workshop. He had a blast painting them. I recently ordered a bunch of plastic futuristic soldiers from eM-4 and will send them to him to paint up.

4. 1/300 buildings: I have two on hold that I need to finish, plus I need to get the Zwieback Hotel done.

And now for some griping....

Lately....lately as in the last three years, I've become somewhat of a rules junkie. I think I am looking for the holy grail of rules for all games modern: land, sea, and air. Recently, I came across a set of rules that sounded intriguing.

"I must have them!" I cried.

Well, maybe not, and here is the gripe. They rules themselves are not unreasonable in price, but it was the cost of shipping. The shipping cost was more than the cost of the rules themselves! And it wasn't like they were overseas, either. I kept mentally factoring in postage of a larger-than-letter parcel, plus maybe gas to drive to the post office, etc. Despite all that, I couldn't see the cost being so high. So, as much as I wanted to, I will have to say no to them, until the author of the rules gets a better distributor and/or brings the shipping price goes down.

This is sort of unusual because compared to other businesses that ship their goods through the mail, gaming companies seem to have reasonable shipping costs. For example, I use a lot of technical drawing pens for my research. I have to draw illustrations of the specimens that I study. These pens are expensive, but they weigh about the same as ball-point pen, in fact probably less given they are hallow inside (you have to fill them yourself with ink). Nonetheless, on-line art companies charge same high amount for shipping for these little pens as they do for about a pound of art paper. Why this disparity? It because they base the shipping on the cost of the item, not the weight! To me, they are double-charging you for the item. Unfortunately, good art supply stores around where I live are about as rare as wargaming shops, i.e. non-existent. Its, just my opinion here, but if a company wants repeat business, they are not going to get it by doing things like that.

Karl and Bambi completed

So, here's Humankind's last hope against the machines....

Big Karl and Bambi

Karl and his little friend

Bambi showing off her assets

I decided on the desert theme for their bases. Bambi's cactus was make out of sculpy. The first version of it had tiny pin pricks in it to look like where the spines came out. It looked cool, but it got badly burned while baking. So, in my "f--k it!" mood, I just made the second one without them.

Karl's rattlesnake was twisted copper wire. The head was a tiny piece of wood that I glued on. Rattlesnake heads should not be that long, but it popped off a couple of times while I was trying to reduce the length, so, I didn't want to mess with it anymore.

Originally, I was going to glue sand directly onto the base. I tried it but the grains looked too big plus they easily chipped off regardless of what glue I used. So, I used the same technique that I have been using for my 1/300 buildings. A combination of paint and baking soda. I also mixed in a little bit of sand to give it more texture.

Karl and Bambi painted, but.....

.....I have not finished off their bases. Two possibilities:

a. Give them the same slag motif as the terminators.

b. I was thinking of a desert motif. Sand, rocks, shrubs. Maybe
a cactus and/or rattlesnake out of sculpy.

I am leaning toward (b), but have not completely made up my mind.

Rise of the (Tiny) Machines...the Fab Five

I finished them off. I added some skulls to give a pizazz. I was going to paint the skulls bone color, but I just painted them white. I then gave a good washing of my acrylic floor wax/black ink mixture, and let dry.

It was a nice sunny day (for once!), so I took the boys out for a photo shoot.

Quick Pics of Infantry

I thought I'd take some pictures of some Northern Chalupistan infantry:

Two batteries of 120mm mortars

Medium recoilless rifle team

Two D30 122mm howitzer batteries

The figures from the top two pictures are Scotia modern Russian infantry, with French mortars and their "neutral" line of medium recoilless rifles. The D30 122mm howitzers plus crew are from Heroics & Ros modern Russians. Navwar used to make them, but not any more.

I took a lot more pictures than these, but they are pretty bad and no amount of Photoshop magic could save them. My big problem is lighting. The only time I get to take pictures of my minis is at night, and I don't have good lighting for this. These are the three that were the most presentable.

Rise of the (Tiny) Machines...Part 2

Today, I managed to finish two of the robots that I got from eM-4 Miniatures.

Meet Boris and Terrance

I spray-painted them with Krylon brand chrome silver. I was hoping that that the spray paint would have given them a really high gloss, but that didn't really happen. I don't think it was all that much shinier than if I used a good hobby paint. I then mixed up a batch of Future floor finish with some india ink. Unlike some others who use this technique, I NEVER dilute with water!
I washed them with about three coats of the mixture, then let dry. The weapons were painted with gunmetal blue and gray.

Terrance looking pensive

Boris looking determined

Painting them was the easy part. What took me a long time was what to do with the bases. I am not a big fan of putting a lot of effort into the bases. To me, the focus of the miniature is the miniature. But, I figured that I might as well do something more than just paint and flock it. I have this big tube of caulk from a recent home improvement project. It seemed like it was just going to go to waste. So, I squished some out onto a piece of cardboard and then smeared it onto the bases. On boris, I stuck some junk on there: a piece of metal, a strip of cardboard, and a cut piece of a straw. Once dried, I painted it and then hit is with my Future-ink wash. In the flash forward scenes in the Terminator movies (I haven't seen the latest one), the ground cover is all a gray, like everything is covered with thick dust. I wanted it to look all slaggy, and everything in a gray. I didn't seem to turn out too bad.