Mo'Vember Painting Challenge

Nikola Tesla. a man with a fine moustache.

I stumbled on this fine idea over on the world of the good Mr. Blease...

For anyone who's been living under a rock; Mo'Vember is a annual charity campaign raising funds and awareness for male health conditions like Prostate Cancer, Testicular Cancer and Mental Health troubles.

Its pretty simple; everyone who signs up spends the month cultivating their upper lip, their friends and family and anyone else they can rope in sponsors them a few quid, and everyone who looks at their face is reminded of the awful conditions the charity represents.

If you fancy joining in, here is the link: http://uk.movember.com/

Anyway, this is the miniature version. I'm not exactly sure how it raises money, but I'll work that out a little later on.

Here are the rules;

"for a bit of fun that next month will be “Mo’vember” rather than November and that each week we have to paint up at least one figure with a moustache".

I'm going to go have a dig in the lead mountain for some suitable figures. Should have my first figure done over the weekend.

MM.

David Bowie, playing Nikola Tesla. 

Pax Britannica - Re-basing [3]

Hey Internet,

Bit of a boring one this time. After feeling no small amount of discontentment with the final product of my recent labours, I decided to do a U-turn and re-base the whole lot.

This proved to be no fun at all. But its done now. And no figures were destroyed in the process.

As it turns out, 100x20mm bases are rather unique to 'All Quiet on the Martian Front', making it quite awkward to use figures based this way for other war games.

click to enlarge

After a rather obsessive and agonising period of soul searching and deep existential meditation, I decided to re-base them, four to a stand, on 40x40x2mm MDF (from Warbases). This makes them quite compatible with Alien Squad Leader, Future War Commander and Space 1889: The Soldiers Companion, as well as All Quiet On The Martian Front.

With a good number of guys at the gaming club interested in 15mm sci-fi, but totally uninterested in goofy Tripods, I hope that they might actually get to see a fair bit of use.

Plus, they make a much better firing line. Wouldn't be British if they couldn't do a good firing line.

***

The Lead Tally - 2014

Acquired: +91       Painted: +106          Total: +15

Soviet Reinforcements!

Hey Internet,

Painted these up a little while ago - Five 'T-62 Main Battle Tanks' (by GHQ) and Two 'Heavy Assault Tanks'  (by Plasmablast Games).

They are painted in a 60's Soviet Green colour to match their commander, Nova Streltzý.

Together, these machines will form the balance of the Eastern Bloc factions 'normal army stuff' in my upcoming Japanese Monster Movie Games.

Fun Fact: The T-62 was used by the entire Eastern Bloc: the Soviet Union, Red China and North Korea. This means that I can keep the number of 'normal army tanks' that need buying and painting up to a minimum. What with all the radioactive dinosaurs stomping around, the chance of someone taking issue with the historical accuracy of the Commie Battle Robots supporting tanks is probably pretty low, but, well, you never know. T-62s also look really cool. Really, really cool.

As ever, the GHQ tanks were fantastic. In particular- they managed to cast the things with the mold lines, faint as they were, only crossing flat surfaces. Fantastic!

The Plasmablast tanks will play the part of the mighty Mammoth Tanks from the Command & Conquer series of video games.

I did a review a little while back on these beasts - but to reiterate; they are superb little things, attractively designed and well made, and were a real joy to paint. There's another one waiting in the wings for emolsification, but I've got something special planned for him.

So, what do you think?

MM.

***

The Lead Tally - 2014

Acquired: +59       Painted: +74          Total: +14

Fancy Wargames Paraphernalia

Hey Internet,

A few years ago, I got to thinking; I spend all this money and time and effort, buying and painting figures, but the other apparatus of my wargaming is a load of rubbish.

My dice were a missmatched heap of other people's spares, my tape-measure came free with a book of carpet samples, and I carried it all around in an duff old pencil case.

It has taken four years, but I am shabby wargamer no more!

Bow down before the majesty of my Fancy Wargaming Paraphernalia!

A snazzy metal tin to keep it all in. The tin is complete with embossed Grecian figures, and originally contained Christmas fudge.  

A full set of surplus Casino Dice, with matching white polyhedrals, frugally purchased from a RPG/Comic/General Geek Emporium that was going out of business.

A 1950's Steel-Flex Rule made by John Rabone & Sons of London, purchased this very week off Ebay for a pittance. It is only marked in Inches, because centimetres are wrong and bad.

T-96 'Anti-Kaiju' Guns - Image Stacking with new Camera

A little while ago I painted up this pair of T95 'Anti-Kaiju' Guns, but any photos of them that I took looked rather flat and strange.

With the delivery of my Shiny New Camera it felt like time to really get to grips with image stacking.

Image stacking is a process where you take multiple photos of a difficult subject focusing in on different points on it, then merge the images together so that the entire subject is in focus.

CombineZP is a great (and free!) peice of software to give it a go with.

Looking good, eh?

MM.

Why no posts?

Hey Internet,

I've not posted anything in a little while, but for a change its not because 'real life' has been getting in the way of my nerdy fun time. No - I've been painting quite steadily for the past few weeks, and I've even written up the blog posts for everything I've got finished.

What it is, is that I've only gone and bought myself a shiny new camera.

Ever since a friend of mine started getting me into photography a few months back, it has been my arduous task to pick out a camera from the many hundreds that there are out there.

In the end I picked for a Cannon EOS M. I don't really know what that means. My friend who knows about cameras and things picked it out for me, saying it's the best balence's of capability and cost. I liked it because it's blue.

So, excited beyond my hearts constraints, I have chosen to hold off on any photography until the new apparatus arrives.

Give it a week. It's gonna look good.

MM.