Aquarion Myth of Emotions

 Finally a new Aquarion series came out, after the excellent Evol series I really love this love triangle / mecha series.

 

 

Well, and then this came along...

 

While the story remains basically the same, in that three youngsters pilot Vector fighters, and depending who is needed to take charge they form the giant mecha Aquarion in changing configurations.  But then the animation of the series: the main story is all drawn in what I can't describe better as an upgraded Power Puff Girls chibi style, while the ancient creatures that play in the story are depicted as really bad CGI.  

 

It turns out all the youth are actually reincarnations of these ancient creatures from 12000 years ago, and as they oppose strange alien monsters that want to invade Earth, at first with limited success, they also start discovering the motivations lying behind the "Elemental Project".  It turns out that in order to awaken the true power of the Aquarion, they all need to learn a certain emotion that they lack.  Add in some sidestory angle's with a younger sister trying to kill her elder sibling and all, but it all remains a very stale series though.

 

 

Soon they also get involved in the politics behind the adults plan, to seal away the re-emerging aliens once again, but in all honesty, the only thing I liked about this series is the soundtrack, and then especially the updated opening of the series.

 

 

It was one of those series I mentally gave up on after 2-3 episodes, finding the style of the animation not pleasant at all to watch, and the  just soldiered onwards to finish the whole thing.  Needless to say, I don't recommend this series.

 

Pity it was from the Aquarion franchise, which is a fun franchise...

Masters of the Air

 The third instalment in the Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg produced world war 2 setting series, after Band of Brothers and The Pacific, we now follow the struggles of a group of B17 pilots.

 

 

From the outset of the bombing runs and it's hazards, until the moment they truly became the Masters of the Air near the end of the war.

 

In the spring of 1943, the 100th Bombardment Group deploys to England to join the war effort by doing bombing runs on the germans.  But as they do daytime runs compared to the british nighttime ones, they have to face stiffer resistance and the casualties quickly start mounting, including some of their friends.  Apart from majors Cleven and Egan, lieutenant Harry Crosby, who suffers from air sickness, is a top navigator and instrumental in completing a mission to bomb u-boat pens in Norway.

 

 

But not all of the plane crew that go down are killed, as Sergeant Quinn finds himself with the Belgian resistance who will smuggle him back to britain.  The other planes of the 100th arrive in Algeria after participating in Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission, but they lose almost a fifth of their number in the raid, while over half suffers combat damage.  As new crews are brought in, with less experience, Cleven is shot down.  Crosby is promoted to lead navigator of the 100th after a disastrous mission where all but one B17 is taken down, major Egan parachuting into the german countryside.

 

He is taken prisoner and brought to the Stalag Luft III prisoner camp, where he meets Cleven again as well as other survivors from the 100th.  But soon the 100th is reinforced when squadrons of the mighty P51 Mustangs arrive, who are able to guard them all the way over germany and are better fighter planes then what the germans can throw against them.  General Doolittle is planning a mission in which the B17's are bait for the Luftwaffe, in order to have the superior P51's decimate their numbers.

 

Cleven and Egan witness a failed escape attempt by the british pow's, and decide that the americans need to bide their time and make the best of it for the moment.  Crosby, who has planned for three days straight the Normandy bombings for Operation Overlord, misses D-Day as he is sleeping, passed out from exhaustion.  In the prisoner camp, the soldiers need to prepare for a forced march as the Red Army is approaching, but at their new location Cleven and Egan try to escape, Cleven succeeding in this.  But their new prison is liberated and Egan freed.  They all reunite on basecamp, and as Germany surrenders they finally get to return home.

 

 

This was a very good series, and the majestic B17's aerial combats are downright impressive.  The series concludes with a montage of how the pilots and crew went on with their lives after the war,  some with tragic conclusions.  Definitly worth the watch!

 

 

Ink Junx 2024-2025

 Ink Junx is a flemish tatoo magezine, published for their yearly tattoo convention.

 

 

It shows of the styles and various artists, who will also be present at the convention itself.

 

The first chapter goes about the bold use of colors for color tattoos, as well as all the different sorts there are like waterpainting style, permanent jewels, and more.  A whole section of very gorgeous examples follows every one of these articles.

 

An interview with fashion designer (using stuff like bondage ropes) Fred Kyrel is next, as this leans in to the lifestyle very well.

 

 

The next tattoo style is one of the hardest to pull off, and the magazine can't stress enough to do your research before chosing an artist for the artpiece: realistic tattoos.  Following this is the ornamental style, and there are some awesome backpieces and such shown in the article.

 

Next up, we get perhaps the most famous of tattooing styles, old school or better known as "american traditional".  Bold lines, heavy colours, I guess everyone knows this style if not by name then at least by definitly someone in the family having one of them.  

 

On the other side of the spectrum is the next style looked at, fineline tattoos.  Subtle, sometimes even made in a single line.

 

 

After a whole section of tattoo models, an article is dedicated to an artistic organisation for mostly younger people, before we get more fashion from Fugtis, a flemish brand with some awesome clothing in their range.

 

 

But back to tattoos, and first we have the vision behing the handpoke manner of placing tattoos, before moving to the currently most popular style: Neo Traditional, which blends the above mentioned old school with the more vibrant colors and designs of modern pop culture.  And then we end with the most commonly used style of all, good old black and grey...

 

A nice magazine to flick through with some interesting articles, well worth the read.

On the Painting Desk 324

 Time for another paintdesk update!

 

And this week, the focus has been on the Great Cannon for the Escalation League, in order to get the next step all finished. 

Now, it will be mostly time to paint on the "secret project", but also start planning and working already on the 6th round of the League.  The reason for this will be it will be a LOT of core troops to make up the masses, as I try to prove infantry has a spot in a world dominated by dragons and wizards.

 

So, time to start glueing the next batches together I guess...

TSA Escalation League 2025: The Lady's Wide Hole

 Round 4 and finally we are going above the 1000 points mark, meaning war machines come into play for the Empire of Man army of Marienburg.

 

Which of course I duly added for this month, starting with this lovely bloke.

 

 

From the Sunland range by Highland Miniatures, the Mortar is a personal favorite of mine ever since the days of Warhammer Fantasy Battles 4th edition, aka back when I started playing in 1994.

 

Making use of the large blast template, and albeit a low strength "not under the hole", this still can wreak terrible havoc against the now guaranteed units of 20+ that are starting to be formed.  Just one lucky lobbed shell can turn the entire tide of battle as a result, providing the thing doesn't blow itself up on the first round of course.

 

 

Next to add, more big guns, so check back soon! 

 

 

Spuiten & Slikken: Jurre in de Porno documentary

 A series of 6 episodes produced by BNN Vara, one of the dutch public channels, it follows the creation of an ethical responsible porn movie.

 

 

From the stories of the good sides of the business to the darker sides within the porn industry of the The Netherlands, the team goes about making a movie that ticks all the boxes of what is right to do.

 

And you might be amazed what simple things are considered luxurious for some of the performers taking part.   It starts out with Jurre going out to observe how a movie is made in the studio of Kim Holland, the most famous producer of the Netherlands, where he learns from the actors that even getting something to eat and drink during a scene is pretty special.  To that end he also decides to get an "intimacy coach" for his own production, someone that guards the wellbeing and borders of the actors.

 

Because as we learn from Trixx, his second visit, these are often taken very liberally by directors, if not plainly ignored.  The pressure often going with it that they did all the production effort "specially for you" makes it that performers at times don't dare to say no, especially if they are just starting out in the business.  The same issues come up when he tries to find a location, honestly stating what kind of movie they are making, and he ends up by a twist of fate with the permission to actually record the movie in the office of the BNN Vara director.  

 

 

With the actors cast, they set out to make a movie (it can be watched on the BNN Vara Spuiten & Slikken website) consisting of two scenes, which are then edited together in an artistic way compared to the raw gonzo that is often cobbled together, the result being pleasant to watch yet somehow feeling "more natural".

 

But I do have some questions about the series.  For one, they don't go on the topic of the SOA paperwork and testings, something I know is rather important and an absolute requirement before filming.  If they don't go through this procedure, get away as fast and far as you can, no matter the payrate.

 

But, never the less it was a nice little series, and it did have some insights that raised my eyebrows from time to time...

Westworld season 3

 Long overdue, I finally started watching the third season of Westworld.

 

 

I loved the first western season "with a twist" and it's awesome finale... but the second season lost my intrest, hence why this took so long to watch.

 

Taking place three months after the massacre at Westworld, Dolores uses a false identity to get to Liam Dempsey Jr, the son of the co-founder of Incite and the public face of that company.  Rehoboam, a sophisticated AI is the flagship project now of Incite, and Dolores tries to get access.  She replaces his security man Connells, and in the ensuing firefight she is saved by Caleb, an ex-soldier out to eke a living and joining her in the search for Serac, the creator of the system.

 

Bernard, now a fugitive framed for the events by the Charlotte host (who has taken control of Delos), returns to Westworld and finds the Ashley host still functioning.  They look and find the Maeve host (minus it's pearl) and he learns Dolores did not hamper his code, but did research a whole heap of park visitors.  Maeve learns she lives in a simulation now, but manages to break her pearl almost free.  She re-awakens in a real-world host body, meeting with Serac, and decides to help him stop Dolores.  The Charlotte host struggles with her identity, learning her human original was a mole for Serac to take over the company.  Dolores shows Caleb that the Rehoboam AI is a future predicting machine true controlling everyone's life.

William is taken out of the mental hospital by Charlotte, to help prevent a take-over by Serac as Maeve begins tracking down Dolores.  William, Bernard and Maeve all come to the same conclusion: Dolores has placed herself into multiple hosts to fight back against Serac.  Serac recounts the creation of Rehoboam, which was intended to prevent humanity destroying itself.  Connells and Bernard reach the machine, sending Dolores files on Serac, before sending everyone on the planet the file with the prediction for their future, throwing the world into chaos.  

Caleb is told to be more then he looks like, as Maeve discovers Dolores has been placing copies all around.  Charlotte prevents a takeover of Delos by Serac by poisoning the board and stealing the host data from the servers, but her real life counterparts ex and son are killed by Serac in vengeance, leaving her severly burned.  Bernard and Ashley free William from the mental hospital he had been brought back to, as he has found his true purpose in his inner turmoils.  Dolores and Caleb arrive at the prototype AI, called Solomon, as Caleb discovers he is one of the few succesfully reconditioned "risk factors" to the Rehoboam program.  Bernard learns Caleb's true purpose, summarising he might be the cause for humanity to destroy itself.  He and Dolores reach the location of Rehoboam, inserting Solomon's core into Rehoboam, allowing Caleb to destroy the machine.  

Bernard has seen that Rehoboam wasn't preventing, but delaying, the human extinction, but as he has gotten the key to Sublime, he enters the program to find answers on how to rebuild.  In the meantime, William is seemingly killed by a host replica of himself, controlled by the Charlotte host...

And so a third season ended, and I'm still a bit mixed about the series.  The season kicked off strong in my opinion, but then started to dwindle down a bit and loose it's pacing for just to much intrigue.  Will this mean I shall still watch season 4?  Definitly, but it might just take a while before getting round to that, not having it high at the moment on the backlog to binge list...

 

 

 

 

TSA Escalation League 2025: Whiteplumes Handgunner regiment

 The second 10 man regiment of Hangunners have joined the roster, as this will be a fresh unit for my League force.

While the first was dubbed the blackplumes, because, well, black plumes on their hats, I did do this second regiment with white plumes instead.

That way, they are easier to distinguish from each other on the battlefield.  Even though it would be rare at the moment to deploy them side by side, counting on them to anchor both my flanks with some gunpowder deterrent, they will become detachments in the future.  And then it might be they get in the same combat as their parent units engage, so having a visual difference prevents discussions of which model belongs to which unit for combat results and break tests.

So that brings the number of missile troops up some more, and a solid pew-pew core to now start building the rest of the forces around!

Blame the Game

 Saturday evening movie, and Noshi selected this german comedy on Netflix.

I guess that is something else, or she choose it on the trailer of two guys playing ping-pong naked...

When Jan, a modest bikestore owner, starts dating the higher class Pia, he is invited to game night over at her friends.  Finding himself suddenly thrown amongst the rich, but also their petty personalities.  We get the rich housewife, the childish husband, a lesbian who can't get over her ex, and the freeloader brother.  Rounding out the group is max, Pia's ex who is invited by the husband to try and get them back together.

They all look down on Jan, and slowly start to get under his skin with Max's constant boasting and challenging, slowly making Pia the prize goal as their masculine hormones take over.  From Trivial Pursuit over a game of above mentioned naked ping pong, the two go at each other ever more competively, much to Pia's chagrin.  

And then there is Jan's friend Alex chasing an escaped parrot...

Needless to say, this was a pretty mediocre movie.  It did extract some "ha's" from my part, but I guess that is my little inner juvenile hunour streak playing up.  It's okay to watch on a lazy evening but it won't be a movie you'll remember long afterwards.