INFINITY

Hi, me again.
 

Finally did something I should have done ages ago.  Moved my paint station to the room I actually spend time in, as opposed to the one that's freezing cold.  The reason I didn't earlier is ... stupid and not worth mentioning actually.  And there were too much paper for Jobseeking on the desk, but they've done me no good so far, so pots of paint might as well go there instead.

So, I actually got something done.  For bleeding once.  Yay!

Behold and despair.

 I finished painting my Japanese Sectorial Army Starter Set.  Which I got early last Summer, and contains a grand total of six (6) models.  Took me about as many months to get round to it, and probably about as many hours per miniature.  Maybe less, I dunno.

Anyway, the hooded fellow up yonder is a Kempeitai - a member of a shadowy unit of Japanese Nationalists who have infiltrated the Yu-Jing Empire (once China but now rules most of the Far East) Army, and fight for Japan's independence from within using sabotage and assassination methods.

Next be the Domaru Butai.  This guy was a pain to assemble.  When I assemble my little plastic Astartes, the trickiest bit is always gluing the arms on.  Because I can't just glue an arm on by itself, it needs to be in the correct position to hold the bolter so the other hand can hold it.  So have I glue them all on at the same time, and make sure they don't slip out of place.  Now imagine something a bit like that with smaller bits and metal/superglue.  Yeah.

Fluffwise - he's a Samurai.  Nuff said.

And saving the best for last, the Oniwaban.  The Ninja Chief.  The Gardener.  Gardener?  Aye, that's what Oniwaban means, apparently.  But not because of his love of Petunias and Rhododendrons, but because of his knowledge of plants and manufacture of poisons.  Personally, I think that this is the most badass miniature I've ever painted, and it's another reason why I love Corvus Belli; for bringing me this 28-mm shard of awesomeness.

 Here's a few more mixed shots.

The entire starter box - finished.

The Three Musketeers

The Three Amigos

 And there we are.  If I had any decent terrain (which I don't), I'd have put them on it.  But, oh well.


Now, if I were to expand and go for the 300-point mark (currently around 150-ish), I'd go for another Domaru, probably drop the Kempeitai, take on some more Keisotsu for orders or possibly, possibly, go for a Ninja with a sniper.  We'll see.

Next on my project list will probably be to finish off my Blazing Sun Flyers/Cruisers, so that's most likely when you'll see me next.  Adios!

Dystopian Wars Land Carrier Previews...

Just a few quick links to the newly released digital renders of the Brittanian and Blazing Sun land carriers.  My initial reaction is not fit for publication, such was my nerd-gasm, suffice to say that I need that Blazing Sun Carrier in my life, soon.

Kagoshima Class Mobile Airfield

 

Brunel Mobile Airfield alongside a Land Ship for size reference.

EotBS Carrier again alongside Spider Walker for scale.

A second Brittanian pic to make it fair and to show off the stunning detail on the top there.

    That's all from me for now, many of us video-gamers are off the radar at the moment because of a little thing called 'Skyrim'.  Here's links to the original Brittanian and Blazing Sun carrier blog posts, which have moar pics.  Happy dice rolling!

Black Dragon with Dreadlady finally finito.

As some of you may recall, I began a painting a Dark Elf Black Dragon from GW's Summer 'Storm of Magic' Expansion push.  Frankly, I believe that the entire shablang is a push in the wrong direction from Gw's marketing side, instead of creating new games they're trying to push people to play their existing games on a larger scale, which I think makes it much harder for new gamers to get into the hobby.  Dreadfleet is a push in the right direction in this regard, it's a pity that it apparently sucks.  But as a Druchii player, the option of finally owning a Dreadlord on a Black Dragon was simply too tasty to pass, so here I am.  It could have been a Sorceress of course, but I compromised by making a female Dreadlord by using one of the Sorceress heads.  Technically they do exist in Druchii society, even though in times of peace, the female highborn Dark Elves are expected to plot against their husbands' enemies and poison rivals and so on.  Looks like this one didn't fancy it...  Enough talk, now pics!

I am sorry that this took so long, I am an extremely whimsical person who often follows his urges instead of his brains, and sometimes I don't feel like painting, sometimes I do.  With this finished and out of the way, we'll see what I'll do next.

That's all folks!

Frontline Gamer: the Imperium of Man as a metaphor for Games Workshop.

Blogging will be sparse these days as I am constantly distracted by Space Marine's fantastic multiplayer and unimportant things like job-hunting, but also because my paint station isn't the most convenient here at home:

It's a tad cramped, is what I'm saying, and no room to set up my laptop to watch the Thundercats reboot while I apply bloodstains to my Druchii.

So, I'm compromising a bit, by resorting to plagiarism.  Well, not really, but kinda.  I recently came along a fantastic article about the current state of Games Workshop, which can be read here.  It compares GW to the Imperium of man; massive, dogmatic and fanatical, beset on all sides by heretics and aliens (both old and new) and decaying away.  I thought it was a well thought out and provoking extended metaphor/theory/argument, and I'd urge you all to take a peek at the very least.  Just pop over to see what the fuss is, in a way.

That's all for now folks.

Cauldron of Blood WIP and Greenstuffed-Guardsman Test.

Yay for experimentation!  Today I tried a non-harmful substance - Green Stuff, and the poor recipient of my attention was a single Imperial Guardsman that my brother had gained as a freebie from one of GW's 'Paint a Mini in Store and take it home with you free!' things they do to hook in naive youngsters.

Now, to be in this hobby you need to have some level of a creative streak in you, and of course that comes in all shapes and sizes and varying levels of skill and so forth.  Mine is specifically 2D-oriented, what I call doodling, what others may call drawing or artistry (but I tend to do it when I'm bored or supposed to do something else, so doodling seems more accurate).

Having exalted myself as some kind of Leonardo da Vinci reborn (more like Picasso or whichever caveman first began spreading his own feces on the wall of his cave in the shape of a bison), I now must upload said blueprint, otherwise there was no point in mentioning it...

Soz for low quality.

Looks like Magneto with a cold, now that I think of it...
Anyways, I probably came up with this as a some kind of a divergence from the old Guard style, which is "Take a Real Life army and put it ... IN SPAAAAAAACE!!!!!!!"   Now, I'm not saying that the classic GW IG style doesn't work, au contraire, I do enjoy the Imperial Guard's style and background very much.  The Vostroyans and Kriegsmen especially.  However, I did think that in an Universe as large and varied as 40K, there would be space for a planet whose culture had diverged slightly more than usual away from what had existed before.  So, enter the Abraxians.  No real reason why they look different, and there's no evidence to contradict the theory that their planet was simply left with libraries full of Cyberpunk comics and that they decorated their armour accordingly, so we must assume that's how it was.

The scarves/ heavy clothing are from the fact that Abraxia is a Storm World, constantly covered in gales, storms and hurricanes that are home to some of the largest mammals in the galaxy.  The hunting these monsters provides the planet with its main export, foodstuffs.  The heavy armour is to protect the Abraxians from flying pebbles and such that can strike with the force of slingstones when the squalls come again.

Anyway, here's my Guardsman:

 I should mention that this Guardsman was already assembled when I wangled him from my brother, and so I had to knife him a bit to apply green stuff completely.  Bits affected are the head, the forearms and the legs.  And I'm really not used to Green Stuff.  I wouldn't mind doing an actual Guard army like this at some point, so tell me what you think before I commit my savings into large orders of modelling putty.


Finally, some more Dark Elf goodness, I've been building a Cauldron of Blood from scratch since Easter or so, and I wanted to show it here.

I want it to look like it's made of white and black marble; black because of the obvious sinister reasons, and the white will be good as contrast to the splatterings of blood that will eventually decorate it.  For the crew I'm using the Witch Elves Command models, because the only way to get the official models is to buy the entire cauldron set, which defeats the point of scratch-building, aye?

And yes, it floats.  Since it can actually move along the battlefields in the game (preferably right behind an unit so as to give it lovely bonuses), making it a static object seems daft.  Now, I have seen a Cauldron which was mounted on a chariot drawn by Cold Ones, but I though it looked far too bulky and un-sleek.  Not elfy.  So, according to the Malus Darkblade novels, the temple of Khaine has its own magicks and tricks.  So, floating Khainite Cauldron ho!  Thinking of mounting some Empire flagellant heads on top of those white pillars if I'm honest, and have the blood dribble down the sides...

Anyways, tell me what you think!

INFINITY and beyond

Ah, Toy Story...

Good times...  Incidentally, Paint Shop Pro = hours of fun.

Anyway, back to business.  Job hunting is currently a process akin to mining coal using a pick made of marshmallows and glitter, so I though "Sod it" for a day, and went back to painting my INFINITY models.  I briefly explained what Infinity is in a previous post, and repeating myself would technically be redundant.  However, as our minds eagerly accumulate new information every day and only some of it useful I'm sure, we do have a tendency to forget.

Suffice to say that Infinity is a skirmish game in an alternate future that is for once, not dystopian.  Which of course isn't unique in itself by a long shot, but considering how Warhammer "there is only war" 40,000 dominates the field at the moment, and how the second-runner, Warhammer "there is pretty much only war and witchcraft and burning witches" Fantasy Battle is also a bit morally... vague.  In contrast, Infinity is all bright and sparkly with anime-esque artwork and design, with stock futuristic weapons and anti-gothicness (well, the Teutonic Knights are quite gothic I suppose).  If lack of grimdark doesn't rock your boat, that's all good.

In Infinity, war isn't something humanity does because it's survival is under threat, war is something they do because... well that's what humanity does.  Eat, drink, poo, watch rubbish reality TV shows and wage war.  The lines are drawn along pretty neat and possibly unsurprising lines; Panoceania, the advanced, rich Western culture; Yu Jing, its far-eastern rival; Ariadne, separatist colonists; Haqqislam, the "New Islam" which is more of a desert army/ Islam *before* the fundamentalist mindset became prevalent.  Then there's the Nomads, a religious space-station-dwelling lot; the Combined army, who are the game's only aliens; and ALEPH, a supercomputer that essentially runs all of humanity's advanced technology.  Lastly, you have mercenaries, which can be hired by any faction, and (maybe? possibly) fielded as a separate army.

Now, I have meandered enough.  If you want to know moar about Infinity, here is a post by dicerolla which itself links to several other posts by Frontline Gamer who is an unashamed convert to the Hispanic venture.

And now... Keisotsu Butai!  Essentially an ethnic minority (well, the Japanese) that the Yu Jing empire uses as cannon fodder in high-risk operations.

Painting them was a complete and truly joyful experience.  Darren Latham, formerly of 'Eavy Metal, said of Seb Perbert's Deathmaster Snikch model that it was a beautiful model that seemed to be begging to be married to an equally beautiful paintjob.  Well, I don't know if I've done them justice.  But it was also good to paint models that have 'True Scale' proportions instead of GW/PP's 'Hero Scale' proportions.  Something refreshing about it somehow.

Group:

 
The Mustachio

The Female

 Baldy

 Please remember to comment, click on pics to see the full size and have a happy hobbying day.


That's all folks!

Back (technically) but sluggish.

Just a quickie here, I am back from France/Spain (which I enjoyed, thank you), and have been continuing painting on the Dragon, however other things have been grabbing my attention with little respite, and my current paint-station is regrettably cramped enough to decrease my enthusiasm to paint.

However, I have been enthusiastic about something *kinda* Hobby-wise lately, the new Warhammer 40k game THQ are giving us.  After a series of very good RTS games in the shape of the Dawn of War and Dawn of War 2 series + expansions, their 'Warhammer 40k: Space Marine' is a third-person shooter/fighter game following an Ultramarines Captain (apologies to those who hate the Smurfs) kicking arse on a Forge World.  Demos on all platforms should be out by now, Steam for PC users, Xbox Live for ... Xbox (duh) and the Playstation Network Demo should be out today, tomorrow in the UK as they update on a Thursday.

There also promises to be 8 vs 8 Multiplayer between Loyalist and Chaos Marines, with the classes, Tactical Marine/Chaos Space Marine, Devastaror/Havok and Assault (or might have been Vanguard)/Raptor.  In this part, you can customize your marine to high heaven with a reported/bragged billion different combinations of Power armour set-ups.

For now though, I shall be supremely lazy and simply leave you with a video of a Youtube Commentary-User playing through said demo.  It is quite funny, and I recommend simply watching it on Youtube, the screen here seems to be quite titchy.

I shall leave you with a question: are you thinking of getting it?