Favour Signoff

Hey Internet,
Just a final word on that Favour, from the band's front-man;

"Didn't make the final 15, but thank you everybody who voted for us to get us in to the top 100 in the first place! Considering we're not a band with a huge online following I'm really proud to get there at all and I'm so thankful to everybody who voted for us!"

~Jason Bishop

Now back to the regularly scheduled programming...

MM.

That Favour - Thanks Everyone!

Hey Internet,

A few days ago I asked a Small Favour of you, my blog readers - to consider voting for my friend's Music Video.

And guess what - they got though in the top 100!

That means that they are now under consideration for a range of prices and rewards, including the possibility that they might get to play at the 'Download' music festival.

I don't know how many of you voted, but a big thanks to those that did!

MM.

Ideas: Pyongyang Unicorn

Hey Internet,

With Nova Streltzy sitting pretty, its time for me to plan my next Jager: The Pyongyang Unicorn !

I have a nice clean concept - I just need a model to hang it off.

It needs to look a bit crappy, but still look okay next to Infinity models. I think it should be big too. Real big. 

Whereas the other Jagers in my setting have one pilot, I feel the Payongyang Unicorn needs a crew of at least three: most benevolent and powerful leader and two guys to actually fly the thing. 

The 'Weird Science' rules in Savage Words also give interesting opportunities for things like the super-computer eating the tape...

Lead contender at the moment is the OOP Battletech 'Colossus';

Its big, fugly, and looks to have a superb sound-system for playing invigorating patriotic songs during the heat of battle.

I am far from settled on this model though - and I want to get this one right. Anyone else got a contender they think would fit the bill?

MM.

Nova Streltzý

Hey Internet,

I've not been feeling all too hot lately, so it’s been a little while since I last did a post. I've been too pre-occupied with hay fever and migraines to get much in the way of modelling and painting done.

Yet, I present Nova Streltzý.

This is the first Infinity model that I have painted in a long time, but should hopefully be the first of many that I post up as part of this ‘Kaiju Hunting’ project. I have about half a dozen waiting for their turn.

Right now, I am really rather of the opinion that the figures produced by Infinity are just the best science fiction figures currently available. The designs are intricate, but not cluttered. The concepts are, whilst universally ‘anime’ and cyberpunk inspired, rather fresh and original. The quality of the sculpting and casting is just superb. They have even been designed so that they fit together without a modicum of fuss or difficulty; something that I would say is my major peeve when it comes to high-end figures.

However, for me at least, this quality has been a bit of a downer. I consider myself an all-right painter. Not great by any means, but at least ‘okay’. These figures on the other hand far better than merely ‘okay’!

Whenever I am painting one I feel that I am doing it an injustice. I've seen what painters far better than I can achieve, and even as I put all of the effort, concentration and skill I can muster into a figure, I know that it is doomed to fall short.

This in mind, I spent the better part of a week’s ‘hobby time’ arseing around on-line looking for the perfect colour scheme for this figure, researching how to layer and highlight properly and so on and so forth.

All that said, I’m really quite happy with how Nova Streltzý has turned out. I went for a simple olive drab and red colour scheme. The green is a new concoction that I have not tried before, but I am most pleased with it. I think I will try it again on some Soviet armour before too long. The red was also different to my usual mix – far brighter and more ‘red’ than my usual red-orange. Those two colours aside, the rest was arduously painted dirty metal piping, with shiny brass bits.

Nova Streltzý took bloody forever to paint, probably about 9 hours in all split into three three hour painting sessions, but really that’s no bad thing. I’ve been in a painting rut for quite a while, churning out ‘passable’ models at the rate of a few a week, and I really feel like I gave this guy my all for once. I tried a bunch of new colour mixes and painting techniques and ended up with the first figure that I can say I'm proud to have completed in a very long time.

^ Russians on Parade

***

The Lead Tally - 2014

Acquired: +31       Painted: +5          Total: -28

Help Needed: 10-Second Favour

Hey Internet,

I really only use this blog for War-gaming stuff - but I'm going to make this one exception.

A group of my friends are in a 'pop-punk' band called Montrose, and have entered their music video into the 'Red Bull: Download' competition. The video was filmed and produced by my best friend - a man that I will forever be in debt to for his help getting though my illness over these last few years.

If they can stay within the 'top 100' in the competition, the lot of them have real shot of hitting the big time - so if you could spare 10 seconds to give them a vote I'd massively appreciate it.

You can vote once every day - so if anyone would be so kind as to pop back once a day for the next four days that would be amazing - but even a single vote would be ace.

Click Here to vote

Thank you

Mr.Marx.

105mm Gun Motor Cartridge T95

Hey Internet,

Just a little progress in my Savage Worlds: Kaiju Project this weekend - a pair of heavy tanks.



The models are American T95 tanks from GHQ's 'what if' WWII range. You only get two in the pack rather than the five that you regularly get in a pack, making them really rather expensive. They are really nice though, being superbly detailed and cast. They are quite a size too - about an inch wide, half and inch tall and two inches long.

They are going into service as mobile Anti-Kaiju guns, as part of the Japanese Self-Defence Force. As such, I've painted them up in the same scheme as my other UN/JSDF tanks. I'm quite happy with how they have come out, although they look a bit crummy in the photographs, but that's just because I'm really bad with a camera.



They are real tanks, by the way;

"The Super Heavy Tank T28 (at one point and sometimes called 105 mm Gun Motor Carriage T95) was a prototype heavily armored tank destroyer designed for the United States Army during World War II. It was originally designed to be used to break through German defenses at the Siegfried Line, and was later considered as a possible participant in an invasion of the Japanese mainland. Sometimes referred to as a super-heavy tank, the T28 was re-designated as the 105 mm Gun Motor Carriage T95 in 1945 and then renamed a super heavy tank in 1946 as the Super Heavy Tank T28."

- Extract from This Wikipedia entry.

The Lead Tally - 2014

Acquired: +31       Painted: +4          Total: -27

Exoskeletor

I had intended to get this model ready to post up over the weekend, but being the clever sorta' guy that I am I managed to explode a bottle of silver paint all over him when he was 90% complete.

Feeling like a proper twonk, I decided to painstakingly repaint this model as penance.

Exoskeletor is a rather strange model that I've had sitting around for years. I'm not totally sure where and when I got it, although I have the vague notion that the model is from Ral Partha UK. He's on a 50mm washer for working out how big he is - hes around ~60mm to the top of the head.

Its a nice sculpt with plenty of detail and was cast with only a few simple mold likes to worry about. However, the concept, for want of a better word, of the model is a little kooky. A giant lobster with a battle axe? If I was not looking out for outlandishly daft models for my Kaiju project I have no idea what I'd use it for. The pose it a little off too; really quite flat for a model with so many flailing appendages.

I've left off the wiggly lobster face antenna as they were made of very thin metal and were rather heavy. I couldn't see them lasting very long at all, and I really don't it when a model breaks. It's left two big holes in the face, but I've incorporated them into Exoskeletor's rules, so I'm okay with it.

I did a Google search for 'lobster monsters' and found these two fine examples. I decided that the colours were perfect for my own creature.

Frustrations over going though the exact same painting process twice within three days aside, it was a rather easy colour scheme to do. I used some very big brushes and plenty of ink washes and dry-brushing to build up the red colour.

That done, it was a fairly simple matter to pick out all the barnacles in a creamy karki colour and fill in the belly area in a yellowy cream colour. I'm not totally sure about the axe at the moment.

I might go back and add some rust effects or verdigris to the blade to make it look a little more like he's been carrying under the sea for a while.

So, like him?

MM.

The Lead Tally - 2014

Acquired: +4       Painted: +2          Total: -2

What the heck!?!

Hey Internet,

I got bored, and decided to overhaul the template for my blog.

I thought it'd look better as a green-screen computer for some reason.

MM.

Paintsplojun!

Hey Internet,

Wondering why I've not posted my week's painting today?

Probably not, but your here anyway, so indulge me.

I was just about done painting my weekly lot, and got out a dropper bottle of silver paint for one of the final highlights.

Squeezed on the thing.

It exploded.

Entire bottle of paint jetted across my painting table, up my shirt, down my trousers, across my face (inc eyes) and across the models I had been painting.

I've done my best to salvage what I could, but I fear that most of them will soon have a date with a jar of break fluid.

I've got most of the paint out of my eyes, which was fun.

8" Cherno Alpha Action Figure

Internet,

LINK

8" tall action figure. 

I've never bought an action figure in my life, but, I've seen it now.

And I want it.

I want it a lot.

MM.

Kaiju One: Sandalphon - Rebased

Hey Internet,

Just a quick post.

When I was basing up the Land-Sharks the other day I decided that the grass on the Big Shark just looked wrong for 6mm.

So, after much hacking, glue and paint, here he is with a new base, sans green shrubbery.

MM.