New Terrain - Infinity Colored

I'm a huge fan of these Infinity Colored terrain pieces.  They have a nice retro-future look to them and most could be at home in fantasy and near-future as well as far future.  Looking forward to getting some good use out of them this year.

Adventures in 3d Printing

I was lucky enough to receive from my lovely wife a Monoprice Mini Select v2 3d-printer for my birthday.  I remember very clearly sitting in the library in college around 1992 and seeing in a magazine an article about one of the first, if not the first, massive, multi-thousand dollar 3d printers and thinking, "In 20 years, I'll have one of these in my home."  Well, I was a little off on the timing but I couldn't be more pleased with this machine.  It just works and with a sale was under $200.

Now, it's not going to be producing any miniatures -- it has good resolution but the texture isn't there for miniature people.  But it works darned nicely for terrain!  Here's some wattle fencing I whipped up the other night.  Total design time -- 2 hours.  Time per print: 1 hour.

And yes, 3d printing still involves lots of experimentation and things do go wrong.  At the front is a perfect print and at the back is where the extruded plastic failed to adhere to the base and just made a plastic cobweb!

Christmas and January Gaming

Warlord Games Greek Hoplites painted as shades; bases for the warriors created with washer, green stuff and Basisus molds.

There's big moves afoot as I am preparing for a move to a new house which will have...gasp...a gaming room!  With a DOOR!   Which means that I can leave a game set up overnight and not have the pieces become cat toys during the middle of the night.  I'm really hoping this will get me the impetus to finish alpha development and playtesting on Invasion:UFO and get it out to more people to playtest.  My last change completely revamped experience gain and spending and the tactical AI for the aliens, so there's a lot of testing that needs to be done.

A report on the 2016 Christmas Game is coming -- it's written up but I need to get the pictures off the camera (I've realized that a big detriment to the blog is the current friction in getting pictures off the camera, processed, and ready to go up.  I'm looking to see if there are any more efficient processes I could put in place there and I've got a couple I'm experimenting with).

Finally, just before Christmas three events combined to produce the Greek shades at the top of the post:

1. Sekret Project M was set in motion (to borrow Mike Whittaker's naming convention) -- part of which was an ongoing desire to collect and paint the classical creatures of Greek mythology and a kickstarter which fed that desire (which I am going to surprise my wife with when it arrives - thus the sekret part)
2. Our Basius kickstarter arrived -- I love these!  I'll be writing some more about these, but I'm very happy we got in the kickstarter and I know we will be buying more of these soon.  The bases pictured came from the "Tundra" base which is great for anything rocky -- sandy beach, meadow with rocks, or...Tundra, I guess :)  It's a great generic base.
3. And Warlord Games had a 50% off sale for their plastic sprues of Greek Hoplites

The result?  1 set of Greek warriors to paint up for Crooked Dice's 7th Voyage game and 1 set to create the ghosts/shades to oppose those warriors.  Or maybe replace them in a game!  I was thinking it would be neat to have a battle which has a corresponding battle going on in the Underworld.  

I'd also be remiss if I didn't point out that the paint scheme for the shades was inspired by Matakashi whose site always serves to inspire me.  (Search on "shades by Foundry" on the page to see the inspiration - there was no way to direct link)

  

Update with photos!

Yes, I actually managed to create some terrain today for Too Fat Lardies' Sharp Practice Deployment Point Contest (whew)!

Here is my accompanying letter with the photos:

Most esteemed gentlemen (and Rich),

I realize that I may technically be too late as I am submitting from across the pond where there is 1 hour and 15 minutes until July 1.  But no matter -- it was worthwhile getting these done.  And I would have had it done sooner if not for those weedy coves at Shapeways.com.

You see, my plan for this vignette was to use only items which I had built myself -- including, if needed, building models in a 3d program and having them 3d printed.  The ammunition boxes and barrels were done by this method and they arrived at my home today -- in fact only 6 hours ago -- rather than on June 27 as the aforementioned weedy coves had promised.  Alas, the Martini-Henry rifles which I created seemed a bit anemic when placed in the vignette and I fell back to using some spare Wargames Factory bits.  (I will have another go at the rifles -- it's not uncommon to have to print a couple times to get the dimensions exactly right, especially for miniature items)

I plan on using these for my own Imagi-Nations colonial gaming and Victorian Science Fiction gaming.  Without further ado, let me present the deployment points of Victoria's Own Barsoomian Rifles, featuring ammunition boxes based on images from Ian Knight's website, the ubiquitous Martini-Henry rifle and a water barrel for those dry nights on Mars or wherever on Earth they are called to serve.

Just for interest I am also including a picture  of the 3d printed ammo box fresh out of the box at 4pm this afternoon.

Enjoy and thank you so  much for running this contest and for producing Sharp Practice!

Small update - I found my original sketch.  So now this post has the full path from concept to design to print to finished product!

 

Fantasy Terrain: Floating Castle

As I said in my previous post, Alien Dungeon's Fantacide setting has inspired me to start up a couple of fantasy terrain projects.  Of course, being me, I've started several and haven't finished any.  But I'm getting there - I'm working on one while another drys.  So here's the second big project: the floating castle.  This one was inspired by a battle report -- whose link escapes me now -- which featured a floating island (apparently theirs is made of acrylic).

My own is wood, foam, plastic egg, cardboard tube, florist wire and a fruit cup.  But I'm liking how it is coming along.  So is Apollo:

 And a side view.  Since mine isn't a nice acrylic bracket, I decided to go with a tripod design.  The two waterfalls (hardboard covered in paintable acrylic latex gap filler) support the rear and the front is a giant vine (beanstalk, if you will) made of twisted floral wire.  The whole thing is quite sturdy and I'm pleased with how it is progressing.

 

A bit of Fantasy

I recently picked up a used copy of Fanticide and while the rules don't do much for me the setting got me going. Fanticide boasts the kind of elves who steal your baby in the middle of the night and leave one of their own in its place.  And there's a grim whimsy to it that is delightful - it's like Neil Gaiman on a bad day (Neil Gaiman can write some very dark stories when he has a mind to).  The flying monkeys are evil and fun and the carnivorous unicorn is really emblematic of how they have taken fantasy and given it a sharp twist to wring out a new take on old fantasy tropes.  

So does this belong in the world of Colony 13?  Well, I won't be pitting elves with arrows against marines in power armor anytime soon because that kind of crossover just doesn't interest me.  But who is to say that if you walk far enough along the path leading out of the colony and into the terraformed forests some dread power lurks in wait for the unwary?  After all, any sufficiently advanced technology....

My first terrain piece is called the Blood Tree.   There's a bit of the Green Man  (yes, children, the Green Man existed far before Game of Thrones) and a lot of the hanging tree from Excalibur where Perceval finally fulfills the Grail Quest.   The tree itself is twisted florist wire and the base of the tree is florist wire wrapped around a cardboard roll and then covered in face tissue soaked with white glue.

(Elmer's white glue, hot glue gun, and Guinness -- and a supportive wife in the background -- are all necessary components.

Terrain: Alien Trees via the "Dip Method" Part 2

Jump to Part One

The finished "dip" trees.  These turned out REALLY well.  And so far they have proved quite durable.

Terrain: Alien Trees via the "Dip Method"

I'd been experimenting with the dip method of painting miniatures -- I had a bunch of cheap plastic pirate figures to use for a (still unplayed) demo game.  The dip method as I understand it is to simply paint basic colors onto the mini and then  dip the whole mini into MinWax (a polyurethane stain).  As the stain drains off, you are left with instant shadowing and a bit of shading.   This worked pretty well for the pirates, but the warnings on the label of the stain were rather alarming -- alarming enough that I have now stopped using it, depending more on the "magic wash" method. 

In the meantime, though, while out on a walk with my daughter we discovered these wonderful little seed pods on some of the landscaping plants  -- dried out in the 100+ degree heat of South Carolina. Note the little seeds on the plate.  We started with a dozen pods of different sizes.

And thus was a project forged. Follow along as my assistant demonstrates the method.  

Simply dip the pods into the stain and place them on a paper plate (the type with a waxy coating) to dry.  Now theses pods soaked up a LOT of stain,  so "to dry" here means "turn occasionally," "move to a fresh paper plate occasionally," and "wait at least 2 days".

I was worried about the fragile stems of the pods, but after the dip they are hard as rock.  They've been cat-tested and survived.  Next is a drybrush and mounting them on a base.  Total active time: ~ 15 minutes