Iron Corsairs SOG

I finally managed to paint my Iron Corsairs to playable...  About 5 weeks ago now (this post keeps getting pushed back as more pressing matters pop up).  I would've posted about it sooner, but I just couldn't get good enough pictures of them.  I'm still not quite happy with the pictures, but this last batch came out alright.  Everyone excepting the Leader (front and center in the picture above) has modular arms so it's relatively easy to change gear (important for my small collection of marines and with Killzone being a living manual with a campaign system in the works.  I couldn't get the crackle paint to work on a fine enough scale to do the weapon cowling, so I kinda tried to freehand the effect.  I need to get some gloss and go over the cowlings to make them shine.





The leader of the Team was a pain to remove the Dark Angels iconography.  He did pick up a large gear pendant as it was easier then completely trimming off the rope.  The sword is the Terminator Power Sword from the Dark Angels upgrade sprue and the arm had a mace originally, probably also from that sprue given it had a Dark Angels pendant.


The heat-stressed metal of the melta barrel looks much better in person.  I got the idea from someone's blog where they had done something similar to their dreadnought's assault cannon. (I can't remember or find it... if anyone knows what I'm talking about, please send me a link to the blog post so I can provide proper back link credit for the idea.)  I also noticed while I was taking this picture that I forgot to drill out the barrel. >.<


The rest of the team in no particular order.

edit: ok, so blogger is still acting up, this was supposed to be scheduled for tomorrow, not posted now with a date reading tomorrow >.<

A shift to Infinity

I've been drooling over infinity models off and on for years but nowhere nearby carried the miniatures and for various I reasons was unable to order any online.  Thanks to the recent surge of interest in Infinity (and other games) I learned the Infinity rules were freely available online just before my FLGS started carrying the Infinity starters.

I haven't yet purchased any as they don't have a Nomad set yet, and my fun budget is currently dedicated to a scifi cosplay I'm working on.  However, I've started the process of poking through the rather large number of pdfs available from Infinity (here if you're interested as well).  Interestingly, while looking for an official image for bloggers to use (didn't find one, I kinda stole the one i'm using off their website) I ran across a fan project that organizes the rules in a printer friendly form.  I haven't looked at it yet, but the other comments in the thread make it sound promising.  It can be downloaded from here.

I've considered posting progress shots of my cosplay work as it progresses, but as it's not miniature game related it feels inappropriate to post about it.

Noise Marine Progress

Also during this last month I managed to progress some on my Noise Marine.  The guitar, and the two arms aren't glued down, though the greenstuff might have forced her(its?) right arm to be still.  I still need to finish the guitar itself and adjust the left hand to be gripping the guitar neck.  I really wanted a different right arm, but after a week of hunting didn't find any suitable and I lack the skills to sculpt a pointing right hand.  Originally I wanted the guitar held in her left hand by its neck, right where the neck comes out of the body (maybe the body resting on the knee guard) and the right hand pointing out at the fans like rock stars sometimes do (at least what little of rock stars I've seen.) 

Nominated for being Stylish!

Quite the unexpected honor here, #2501 (who is apparently also known as Mark) from Musings of a Metal Mind nominated me in their Stylish list for the space hulk-esk terrain modules I've been working on.  Who I'd like to thank very much for that. ^.^  I would've posted sooner, but I was out of town and away from internet till about 3am today (Tuesday the 10th)

Backtracing the Stylish blog posts here to here to here to here, (it goes on but I felt I'd figured enough about what was going a couple or three back) I found that the Stylish blog has a number of chain letter-esk tasks to complete which are (thankfully) listed on all the blogs, so they weren't hard or confusing to figure out.

* Thank and Link back to the person giving you the award.
* Share seven things about yourself
* Select 10-15 blogs who you think deserve this award
* Contact these bloggers and let them know about the award.

1. Incidentally I inadvertently did that above, but Thanks again!


2. Seven Things eh...
2-1. I've played with minis sense I was a small child, including painting, assembling etc (D&D miniatures) but only picked up miniature war gaming around 2004-05 with mordheim, and 40k a year after that.  Sense then I've tried a number of the new ones that've come out and would like to try many more.


2-2. I've had about 30 computers running as a rendering cluster for a short animation of a gummy bear army marching down a street.  (8-10 of them were in my room...  and though not currently running/assembled, most of them still are.)


2-3. When I first started into 40k I fell in love with the Tyranids, but then shifted over to Tau due to issues generating personable individuals in the Hive Mind.  And am currently floundering all over the place. (As what posts I have posted or are working to post are showing.)


2-4. My first job was at the high school I went to, 2 years before I graduated.  I was officially a Computer Technician, but did a lot more Programming and Software Engineering.


2-5. Cyberpunk and other 'gritty' type settings appeal to me the most.


2-6. I've developed a pretty strong dislike for straight fantasy (D&D, Warhammer Fantasy Battle(s?), etc), or based on WW2 (nothing wrong with the war itself, but it, like generic fantasy, just feels way overused)


2-7. I started blogging to drive myself forward and actually finish some of my projects.  Oh how well that hasn't worked... ^.^;

3. Nominations, Nominations...  Not really in any particular order, they should probably be alphabetical, but eh.  And I'm positive a number of these blogs/bloggers have already been nominated, but I don't care, I feel they deserve a nomination from me too ^.~
3-1. A Gentleman's Ones - Brian for his work on Killzone, especially the tables for Adepticon, wish I coulda gone and seen them in person.  Also for his most recent stuff with Warmachine, showing his trials and tribulations on a miniature game I was tempted to start even though none of the forces really called out to me.


3-2. Galaxy in Flames - Big Jim and his amazing work on Killzone.  And with spreading the joy of well done fan-made content.


3-3. Musings of a Metal Mind - I know he's the one that nominated me, but when I saw Mik's post back in April regarding his claim to Style, I didn't figure I'd ever receive a nomination, but I started thinking about who I would nominate, and #2501 was high up in the list, both as a supporter of me, offering advice and ideas, as well as for his conversions, especially the Tyracons and Adeptus Mechanicus stuff, gorgeous stuff

3-4. Inq28 - For the simple joy of being introduced to the concept of using 28mm miniatures for Inquisitor (though I've yet to actually play inquisitor, I have some very vague ideas on miniatures for Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch and I hear the two games are similar)

3-5. Warrant of Trade - For a lot of interesting and useful game mastering help/tips and stuff done for Rogue Trader.

3-6. Tau of War - For both his massive amount of Tau information/tactics/modeling conversions and his recent Infinity stint that somehow pushed me into actually looking into the game I've been thinking about for a while.  I've decided I like the look of the Nomads and it sounds like they'll be fun to play as well.

3-7. Dei Greci - The amazing scratch builds and dioramas just deserve another shout.  I'm just blown away by their quality.  Something to shoot for in my own endeavors.



grr, that's only seven but I'm tired, still haven't slept from my trip >.>

A Space Ship Module fully Assembled

Well, I've been quiet the last couple months.  This has been due to a number of things that I won't bore you with.  Anyway, I've done some work on the space ship modules as you can see in the image above.  It's the first module that has all it's parts together.  I've started the long process of filling cracks and gaps so I can make a mold of it.  Come to find out, Greenstuff and Hydrocal don't make the best of friends, though that probably has more to do with my Greenstuff working tools.  While Hydrocal is much harder then Plaster of Paris, it's still a rather soft plaster (Unlike Merlin's Magic or the like, but Hydrocal is the hardest stuff I can get locally... That I know the name of at least) and my tools are all metal.  So if I'm not extremely careful, I scratch the parts up while trying to fill gaps...  I'll probably end up shifting to my (non-hardening) modeling clay and a rubber tipped tool (assuming I can find/make one cheap).

Depending on how well this mold turns out I'll probably work hard and create molds for a number of other sections... Once I figure out which sections are worth casting.  I've had people offer very generic ideas for which modules they'd like to see, so I've dug up my tileset I was playing with using a program called Tiled which I've added with the other pictures of the T-intersection below.  I haven't worked out actual brick layouts for the modules in the bottom half of the tileset, but they're there mostly for completeness sake at the moment.  The image tiles are 36x36 pixels with a 1 pixel spacer between tiles (useful if you decide to try out Tiled).

Anyone with the time and/or inclination, I'd love if you would work out some table layouts and send me a list of how many of each module would be needed to create it, or the layouts themselves and I'll count the modules (Credit will be given for assistance with 'set' quantities, and for any layouts I post here).  The physical modules fit in a 6" by 6" gridwork, so a standard Special Operations: Killzone 4' x 4' table would be 8 modules to a side for a total of 64 modules.  A 40k sized table of 4'x6' would be 96 modules in an 8x12 layout.  I've worked out a number of 3' x 3' and 4' x 4' designs over the months (years now? O.o;; ) I've thought about this project, and have come to the conclusion that I need a lot of other player's ideas on what a maze of sci-fi twisty-winding paths should look like.  My local friends have been completely unhelpful with a 'whatever is fine' attitude.