Been a Download'n Fool Today

I planned to take some pics of my newest project, but a bunch of things took priority this weekend. One of which is downloading software. I've been trying to download a bunch of image-analysis software for a research project that I am doing with some udergraduate students. Sort of frustrating,both in terms of the software and the students, but I am getting there. I hope to get some pictures tonight.

Old Minis Come out of the Closet

About four years ago, my wife got a new job in a town almost 2 hours from where we now reside. We were so certain that we were going to move closer to where she worked, we packed up probably about 75% of all our stuff. This included all of my books and 15mm fantasy figures. Well, my wife as another new job that is closer to home, so we are still in our old house. I finally decided to haul out all of my packed away miniatures. To took me two days to do it. I counted about 14 plastic shoe boxes full and another 10 plastic pencil boxes full of painted minis. When it was all said and done, the metal wire shelf that I bought recently was almost completely filled. I also found about 20 baby food jars worth of unpainted 15s. This is in addition to the large box I have of them. I guess that because its been such a long time since I had them all out, that I was a little overwhelmed at their numbers

Celia

I was looking for some slightly unusual 25/28mm figures for my nebulous scifi/post-apocalyptic skirmish game that I am slowly building. A while back, the Miniatures Page had a hobby news posting for figure called "Celia." She is a figure in Fantasy Flight Games' Anima: Tactics. I have no clue what the game is about and I am not going to speculate on whether the game is worth spending the money for.

Anyway, Celia belongs to some faction and is an assassin wielding a katana. Here is her card:



From my view, she is seemed to be the most "normal" looking character of the bunch. Whomever painted her for the the ad on TMP, really did a great job. She seemed sort of expensive, but I figured, why not. Here she is primed but unpainted:


When it was all said and done, I was not that happy with the way she came out. The problem is two-fold. First, my eyes just ain't what they used to be. Even with reading glasses, things just are not that in depth. Also, I am not as steady with the brush any more. Add to it that Celia was somewhat expensive, and I was maybe too worried about screwing up. As a rule, I don't usually strip and repaint figures over again...too much of a pain.

The second problem is that her scuplted features are TOO fine! I am not a huge fan of Games Workshop universe, but I have to say this about their figures: you really can differentiate lines, folds, and various sculpted features when you are painting them. Not so with Celia. For example, she is supposed to be wearing some sort of thong underwear that sticks out over her pants and go across her hips. I could barely make out the straps. I really wasn't too happy with the face either. I never claim to be a master painter, but I have to have something more to work with, especially when you add in the eyesight and all that. About the only thing I was happy with is the base. I used broken egg shells as the tiles and glued some flock in between some of them. Well, here she is to fight along side Big Karl and Bambi:

New Ideas; New Minis

I just got back from a paleontology meeting in the city of Saltillo, Mexico. From a gaming standpoint, I got a lot of good ideas for more 6mm buildings.

Just before I left for Mexico, a whole mess of 15mm sci-fi miniatures from various companies came in. I managed to paint up base some robots using the same style as I did for my 28mm robots. Pictures to appear soon.

Kobolds!

I've been so swamped with work for over a month now, that I have not had time to post anything new on my blog. Despite my work load, I managed to paint up some kobolds from Splintered Light Miniatures. The only other company that made kobolds in 15mm was Ral Partha, which I never managed to get. These are well detailed and have no mold lines that I can see. They closely fit the description of them found in the AD&D Monster's Manual (1st edition). For some reason, I've always pictured them as a baby-poop yellow (come on, you know the color!) color. I still have to base them and then paint up the command group.

Exciting News!

It is hard to believe, but I found another gamer nearby. The husband of a colleague somewhat recently started gaming. He knows a few others within a reasonable travel radius, and I think there are some potential gamers among some of the faculty at my college. Maybe we are overly optimistic, but we are going to start a club and see where it goes.

On a different note, I sort of gave my friend Karl (the General of Northern Chalupistan) an ultimatum. I said that if he didn't come through with his OOB for his Operation: Ike & Tina, that I'd start the battles without him. He is probably angry at me because he has not emailed me back since I sent him the message over two weeks ago. From my standpoint, he hasn't done a whole lot lately and I really want to begin gaming the campaign, especially if I now have real live people to game with. He seems to enjoy the roll-playing aspect of it, but doesn't seem all that interested in much of the other aspects. Setting up your army dispositions may be dull, but it has to be done. I've already begun assigning combat brigades to the various starting points of the invasion, and I have been using what he sent me in terms of plans. Maybe he will send me something, if not, the war must go on.

The New Table is Now Operational

The New Table

I don't have everything on there, but its now ready to be used!

An open house was attended by a few guests:

The Unfinished Vampire Queen Welcomes the Guests

Guests Chatting and Examining the New Facilities

Big Karl and Bambi Admiring the New Glue Station