Sculpting a hut, my very first greenstuff experience ever...

I decided today to tackle a new aspect of the hobby, after more then 15 years of wargaming... to start dabbling in greenstuff and modelling clays in order to undertake a hand a sculpting.

Now, mind you, if I say `very first`, that is as good as very first ever. I did some (perhaps 10 or so) small patch ups on models (a collar, a tad of hair, ...) on 28mm models, and that was hell, I`m really not good at / with the stuff. With new into it, I actually mean totally new, I have no idea about curing times, tools best used, that kind of stuff. So armed with a ball of two part greenstuff and my stanley cutter knife I settled behind the desk, Gundam SEED playing on the background.

BUT I need a heap of scenery for both 6mm and 10mm, so I guessed, lets try it again then and this time with a bit more patience then usual... if it worked, I might give it some more tries, if it didn`t... well... no harm done.

So what to build and what scale? Nuhu, let`s not start with any hard questions thank you, I`m starting out with something very basic, which I labelled as a `fantasy hut`, a round hut with a doorframe, tatched roof and a chimney was ambitious for a green with green.

So first up was a `tube` rolled around a piece of oval plastic, which I think long ago was a part of an Osprey spyplane` engine kit or something, and a small piece of plasticard to support the roof from imploding. A small strip was added for the doorframe, and a second ball of greenstuff on top to make the roof.



Then problems arose... I couldn`t hold the thingie without trashing it, so in came a cap of creamtube and doublesided tape, and we we`re on the road again. The roof was `bulged out` and a small block of greenstuff added to become the chimney, and then the detailing could begin.
I did learn one thing from the few repairs over the years, namely to keep fingers and knife damp, not drown it like I used to do.
I envisioned the house a bit like the old 19th century `blockhuts` style, with a wooden underside and then limestone walls, before going over in the straw roofs. Hey, I said I called it `fantasy`, just in order to
1. not lie awake about historical accuracy and
2. just to have more artistic freedom

Lots of knife strokes later, the little hut got finished, and I`m not totally unhappy with the result. I`m definitly not a sculptor I guess, but the most important thing, I really, really enjoyed myself doing it and i`ll definitly be trying more things in the future. That much in fact, I even might think of looking for someone to cast the green up and as such be able to scatter some of them around on the battlefield... so no painting the little bugger for now.




And what about the final dimensions? The hut is based on a 2x2cm plastic base, and is just under 2cm in height. This makes it van be used as a sort of storage stable in 6mm, but also as a small hut in 10mm, and I think if I linger a few around in a normal dark age / fantasy village, it isn`t going to look out of place that much... so in a way, mission accomplished!

6mm scale Mobile Suit Gundams

Recently I `discovered` a series of japanese gashaphon (a fancy word for basically trading figures)of Mobile Suits in 1/300, mainly from the Gundam Wing: Eternal Waltz anime series, though it does include some models as well from G Gundam so far.

Various hong kong companies sell them seperatly, so thats already a benefit to avoid buying heaps and heaps of the `blind boxes` to get what you want, and so I bought a series of them for use in 6mm games. Including shipping and customs, the models clock in at around 10 USD all total on average.

I only hope they start doing more of those from other series, like the `standard` HeavyArms from Gundam Wing, Leo suits from that series, and the awesome suits from SEED and SEED Destiny like (especcially) Strike Freedom for example.

The first of the suits I painted up (though the factory paint job isn`t to bad at all, definitly better then most `clix` series out there) is Zechs Marquis Tallgeese, whom is together with the HeavyArms Custom by far my favourite looking suit of the series, for the wiki on the Tallgeese, you can see here

Now, Gundam mobile suits are big `fluff wise`, and Tallgeese was even bigger then the rest, making this model standing out over 7cms and dwrfing models like a Mad Cat from Battletech, let alone infantry of small tanks which fit nicely under one of his feet. The model below is based on a 40x40mm base to give an idea of the size of the mobile suit



Rulewise I first planned on using them as `titans` for a red Guard (aka, Imperial Guard) army in Future War Commander, yet after nosing some more through the various army lists, I`m going to opt for the Cav Open Market list to be able to field the big blokes.

Now to start work one of the days on HeavyArms Custom

Cheerios

Humanity`s Gravest Hour campaign weekly update

Tonight we started with the ground part of our planned 1 year campaign (see previous entries all over the Society and at our buddy of Creepy Corridor) with the first dabblings into the Future War Commander ruleset

Six battles have been played (though small in point scale to get the knacker of the rules), and the report is in the weekly newsletter post at the TSA forum here.

Updated through the week, so feel free to pass by on occassion (and if your ever in the neighbourhood, ANYONE can participate in the campaign btw)

What to do, what to do...

So, Crisis is now officially completely over with the clubhouse back in dang order... and the pondering begins.

So many projects halfway through, in the begin phase, near the end phase or still in the blister phase, that I have like totally no idea how I`m going to proceed.

On the one hand, I think it might not be a bad idea to start actually finishing projects (then again, is there something as a finished project), on the other hand there might be something in the charm of mix and matching everything on the painting table and suddenly find myself done with a lot...

Things to do at the moment:

Nearing completion:

* a 1000 points Warmaster Irish army, only 2 more units of chariots to go, and in the future some left or right left over units from the Magister Militum army deal
* 2000 points Flames of War italians for the desert...
* 1/7000 scale Starfleet
* Full Thurst OUDF, only some battleships and fighters to go

Halfway through, but still a lot to do:

* My warhammer Wood Elves, still about 3000 points worth of models to do
* Battletech Clan Diamond Shark, the infantry and half the mechs are done, but still about 10 mechs and some airplanes to do.
* Kraytonians, still quite a lot to do even though we already did a lot
* 10mm ww2 Italians for the desert
* 20mm ww2 Italians... yup... indeed, there again
* More PULP italian soldiers. They wear desert gear btw...
* Star Wars Clone Troopers, repainting of prepaints

I started on them, and full of good intentions:

* 6mm Lizard Riders. Dinosaurs march to war!
* 6mm GHQ ww2 Italians. They are in... yeah, I`ll stop telling it now...
* 6mm Gundams. One can never have to many battlesuits
* 6mm ACW Union troops
* 40k Tau, slowly started, partly still collecting
* Epic Tau, the first 1000 points for FWC is done, but a lot still to go
* 28mm Irish for Shieldwall, and 28mm Irish for Age of Arthur (basically, mix in some celts with the other ones, the benefit of not evolving to fastly over the course of two hundred years

They are in the blisters, but I`ll start them yupyup:

* a 10mm Fantasy army of Wood Elves for one day fantasy warmaster or the likes
* 6mm ACW Confederates to fight my Union with JR3 rules
* 15mm Pinguin army

Quite a list as such still to go... these are going to be LOOOOOOOOOOONG weeks as I aim to at least get some things done before new year. I guess my ST:O game time will be limited ftm to the weekly episodes only for now, while I have to decide what to do first.

Since I`m going to stock up on Kaiser Rushford boxes and trays to solve storage problems, I might as well opt for `filling a box` at a time... urgh... rambling off for now, I need to go paint ;)

Mainly Military & Modern Battle Ground 6mm scenery

A series of 6mm (and other scales as well) scenery I discovered past saturday at Crisis and sold by Plastic Soldier, I must say I am impressed with the quality of the prepaints, much better then the chinese sweatshop level of Heroclix and the likes.

All their models come in both a painted and an unpainted version, and ranged between a pound to 5 pounds for the 6mm ranges, except some big bags of several items, which still only came at around 12 pounds.

I bought quite a few of the unpainted ones, and the araban village set, the two buildings that also feature on the `build up` village and a mosque however I opted to buy as prepaints, mainly because I liked the light sandy tone of them.

On the picture below the buildings can be seen, together with some recently painted GHQ italians (I FINALLY started working on those), and both the scale and the colour (that is, the one I am using already for ages on all my italians of all scales) are more then fine in my book. I`m a truly satisfied customer and whenever I`m bumping into those blokes at other conventions, I`m going to take some of them home to expand the scenery collection of TSA

Another CRISIS averted

So another year past by and another heap of euros flowed from casa Tomsche to all those poor traders that have to feet their kids, wives and stock in belgian beers...

The loot:

* 10 painted and unpainted 6mm scenery pieces from Mainly Military through Chiltern, at a nice pound = euro TSA discount rate. Love the little stufsies and the painted versions are worth it (not `chinese clix level painting)

* The new WAB rulebook with a nice discount from David of Caliver Books, he insisted to give me an extra one because I unloaded his `elastic van` on friday (which is just part of the club service and I told him, but he kept insisting, thanks mate)
* From the second hand the 2nd edition boxed set of the FASA star trek roleplay, for only 5 euros
* The old Star Trek roleplay Worlds of the Federation book

* About 40 Battletech Mechs (though I made a serious booboo in using a wrong list and got like 15 unusables), but as they only costed around 5 euros a blister, not to much a worry
* From the second hand a blister of Jovian Chronicles Sireen exo armour
* Forge World Tau orbital stations and spaceships, for only 40 euros on the bring and sell
* A Warlord box of 3 Celtic Chariots for 15 euros from a trader liquidating his stock at -50%

* Kaiser Rushfort 8 layer and 3 layer carrying cases, with foam trays for both 6 and 10mm transportation

* Coat D`Arms paints with the TSA discount and some free brushes, from Mark at MBM Models

* Bad back and stiff knees from two days of running and hauling along


Paint schedule 2011, here we come

Tau Commander O`Trowa: the CV10 HeavyArms Supreme Battlesuit

So the moment has arrived to finally have my future Force Commander painted, Commander O`Trowa.

So Forge World makes big beasties for other races, so what do the Tau need? A bigger battlesuit of course!




Now for his bodyguard cadre I`m prolly going to order two of the beautiful Forge World battlesuits, but thats something that`ll have to wait quite some time still (unless a free shipping xmas offer or such appears) as I got lots of 6mm projects to finish first