Qu-Sh-Ug (and Feathers)

It's been one of those days when nothing gets done today but I did come across this wonderful Lovecraft inspired monster on Kickstarter today. The funding is only to get it into production moulding and it has already achieved its target so effectively it is now a pre-order.

Gromit of the Day:

Feathers

Bricks of War! (and Poochadelic)

This is all Saul's fault. He insisted I watch the trailer for next year's Lego the Movie on You Tube and I discovered a whole host of Lego 3D animation war films.

The Pacific and Bulge ones are better animation having been produced more recently. After watching these I so want a Lego Tiger tank!

Lego Guadacanal:

Lego D-Day Paratroops:



Lego D-Day Omaha Beach:



Lego Battle of the Bulge:



Gromit of the Day:

Poochadelic

(1918 Month) Jasta 12 Sopwith Pup (and Two Eds Are Better Than One)

Earlier in the year I painted up two Der Kampfflieger Sopwith Pups as machines from B Flight of 3 Naval Squadron RNAS commenting that I might buy a third model to paint up as a captured plane in German markings. Well I did...

However, unlike the Pup in the photo I posted in March this plane is the more famous Black Tulip of C Flight 3 Naval Squadron as flown by Flight Lieutenant Ralph Mack when it was forced down by Paul von Osterroht of Jasta 12 on April 12th 1917. Black Tulip was captured intact and its British markings overpainted by the Germans.

Apparently the Pups were popular machines with the Germans and captured machines often used for flights between aerodromes and occasionally over the lines.

Gromit of the Day:

Two Eds Are Better Than One

Contagious Ohhshinyitis Alert!!! (and The Green Gromit)

The Explorer

Halfling Cook

Unfortunately I have to report that a very bad case of Ohhshinyitis has been caught here in Blease Towers which may be contagious.

The cause of the affliction appears to be that I am falling hook, line and sinker for the exquisite miniatures being shown off in the ArcWorlde Kickstarter.

What is ArcWorlde you ask?

ArcWorlde is a new fantasy skirmish game from Warploque Miniatures, what sets it apart from the competition is the unusual background and the miniatures sculpted by the insanely talented Alex Huntley who is just 20!

The Old Man of the Sea

Miniatures are often described as full of character, well if that is so these are have character bursting out of them! They are just bloody amazing (are we sure this guy is only 20?!).

Not only are they incredibly well sculpted and full of exquisite detail, but the concepts are amazingly cool as well (Bayourks? Death Kiwi?!! Brilliant...)

I know I said I was not starting anything new and that I have plenty of white metal to keep me going in this life and the next but Lord knows this one is proving very, very hard to resist.

I've lifted a pile of photos from the ArcWorlde Kickstarter page for you to see what I am blathering on about. I think they show I am not exaggerating...

Boglins

Bull River Troll

Death Kiwi

Fire Dragon Ancient

Gromit of the Day:

The Green Gromit

(1918 Month) No. 1 Squadron Morane Saulnier Bullet (and Antique Rose)

After some prevarication I decided that I was not going to paint this Shapeways Morane Saulnier N as a French machine, but as one from 19 Korpusnoi Aviatsionniy Otryad (Corps Aviation Detachment) flown by Ivan Smirnov - that was until I found I did not have any Russian roundel decals!

Rather than order some and wait I opted to finish the plane off as an RFC machine of No. 1 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps. This machine was flown by 2nd Lieutenant Ralph Pool Turner who, age 23, was shot down and killed on March 9th 1916 by an LVG CII of Artillerie Flieger Abteilung 213, itself flown by Vizefelfwebel Arthur Groschler and Leutnant Patheiger near near Hollebeke in Belgium.

Groschler wrote to a friend describing the dogfight, "on March 9th, 1916, south of Ypres, a French Morane-Saulnier single-seat fighter shot down in aerial combat with English Lieutenant Thurner (Turner). He was killed by a shot(s) to the chest. (The combat) began at a height of 2,400 meters, to 100-75 meters before we ended the combat by killing Turner." 2nd Lieutenant Turner was buried at Larch Wood, Zillebeke, Belgium.

Gromit of the Day:

Antique Rose

(1918 Month) Kommando Sivry Fokker E IV (and The Wild West)

I hadn't intended to expand my WWI collection into early war aircraft, but I decided that the AirWar: 1918 rulebook could do with some examples so I picked up a couple of types from Shapeways to paint up for it.

This Fokker E IV has been painted up as one of Kampfeinsitzer-Kommando (KEK) Sivry flown by the father of air fighting tactics Oberleutnant Oswald Boelcke.

The KEK's were semi-permanent groups of single seat fighters drawn from existing Feldflieger Abteilungs and were the precursors of the Jastas (Jadgstaffeln - Fighter Squadrons) created after Verdun when the Germans had lost air superiority.

Gromit of the Day:

The Wild West

(1918 Month) Le Centre d'Aviation Maritime de Corfou Sopwith Bébé (and Collarfull)

You may recall that I bought a Der Kampfflieger Shapeways Sopwith Baby for no other reason than I like the plane. Initially I intended to paint it up as either an RNAS or RAF plane, but a bit of research unearthed a whole host of alternative nationalities who flew the plane. In the end a bit of research led me to painting it up as a Sopwith 130ch Clerget (Sopwith Bébé) of l'Aviation Maritime Française based at Le Centre d'Aviation Maritime de Corfou (Corfu having been seized from Greece in 1916) flying against the Austro-Hungarians.

The French flew the Baby out of at least two of their Centre d'Aviantion Maritime (CAM) bases, Dunkirk and Corfu. I went with the latter as the paint scheme was a bit brighter than the Dunkirk based planes.

It was not 100% clear whether the Corfu Babies where painted, they appear to be clear doped linen but they may have been painted French Yellow. Given that the Dunkirk planes are clearly PC12, I can't see the French would have especially rushed out to paint the Corfu planes in their own colours, especially given the urgent need to get they into service in August 1917. I also had to guess whether the tail planes were painted up in the same fashion as the Dunkirk planes (below). In the end, as it added a splash of colour, I decided to copy the design...

Gromit of the Day:

Collarfull

Do-It-Yourself Blob! (and Gromitasaurus)

Like many wargamers I see things that other normal people don't! For example take this waste piece of DIY aerosol filler foam that we used to fill a hole where a pipe had been removed. Am I the only person that looked at the offcut and went "ooh, the Blob! Maybe a Shoggoth... What colour should I paint it?" SWMBO despairs...

Hobby wise (aside from looking at bits of waste foam and seeing strange monsters) I have made considerable progress on 1918 Month with painting on a Blackburn Kangaroo, Fokker E.IV, Sopwith Baby, Sopwith Pup and Vickers Vimy all underway.

Gromit of the Month:

Gromitasaurus

Z-Busters? (and Malago)

I finished Jonathan Maberry's Patient Zero over the weekend. Saul had enjoyed it and suggested I gave it ago and it wasn't bad at all. A mix of zombies, fundamentalist terrorists and Special Forces trying to contain an outbreak made a nice change from the usual post apocalypse background and more of a 24 than Walking Dead experience.

It struck me part way through that this was all perfectly gameable and my thoughts returned to my fledgling ideas of converting Scudbusters into a vehicle for zombies versus SOF. Scudbusters, if your are unfamiliar was originally published by Gauntlet Publications in the nineties and pitted the SAS against a table controlled random Iraqi enemy in a series of Gulf War scenarios. The campaign system using a deck of playing cards is elegant in its simplicity and I have used it in other games so clever is it.

I think the mechanisms are simple enough to develop into other genres (I have previously pondered using it as a framework for resistance fighters in Nazi occupied Europe) and the idea of setting SOF loose on missions during the early days of a zombie outbreak could be a lot of fun, their ability to undertake missions successfully being reduced as a campaign progresses and their friction level is worn down by the ongoing stresses and strains of battle.

I haven't got the time to spend on this now but it may be a project for 2014...

Gromit of the Day:

Malago

300: Rise of an Empire (and Grosmos)

It seems we've been waiting forever for the sequel to 300 but a trailer has at long last been released...

Gromit of the Day:

Grosmos

Mountain Orcs (and Gromit Lightyear)

I know, funny looking aeroplanes... Bored with the prep work on my Shapeways stuff my eyes alighted on these couple of old Alternative Armies Mountain Orcs I have had sitting around since the mid-nineties. Still having a painting vibe on I decided to paint them up during breaks from sticking pilots in planes.

They are nice big models that needed mounting on 40mm square bases and being sculpted by Kev Adams fit nicely in with my other miniatures.

Background wise I have come up with some fluff about them being the mongrel offspring of trolls and orcs in the Norscan Mountains (it gets cold up north...) and I just have to stat them up for the WHFB2 project.

Gromit of the Day:

Gromit Lightyear

Everything Came Up Smelling Of... Apples! (and Gromit Lightyear)

Ok, I'll confess, I bought the wrong Dettol!

In my defence there were so many different types to choose from and I forgot that Big Lee's post said I needed to get the old fashioned smelly brown one.

Instead I bought a nice apple smelling green one...

So yesterday afternoon I decided to pull the Orcs out of the Dettol Multi-Action Cleaner (designed to be used on floors apparently) and donate it to SWMBO's cupboard under the sink -  only to find that the paint was falling off!

I must confess to be being really impressed, some of these Orcs had been painted by a friend, over-painted by me (both of us using enamels) and then gloss varnished - some thirty years ago! A quick scrub with a tooth brush and most of the paint was gone.

A second-hand acrylic coated (I can't in all honest say he was painted) wizard with machine-gun I'd thrown in came up even better, almost looks brand new!

The only "failure" was half a dozen old Chronicle Orcs I picked up off eBay which also have been heavily plastered in acryilic. This seems caked on so I have thrown them back in the Dettol along with some old 40K Orks which I had tried stripping with brake fluid but hadn't achieved decent results. We'll see how they go...

I think the results do depend on the type of paint used (bear in mind GW are on their third provider), the undercoat and even the metal (oddly two Orcs of the old Citadel dark metal have proven more stubborn to strip despite being painted identically and at the same time as the rest).

Of course this now means I have another pile of unpainted miniatures to paint, but at least they came up smelling of apples not a hospital ward!

Gromit of the Day:

Gromit Lightyear

Executive 904 Air Car Limousine (and Lancelot)

On Thursday I popped into Modelzone to have a poke around and in addition to some of the Airfix Operation Herrick models I walked out with four cans of Humbrol Multi-Effect Spray. This is the paint that when you see it on a car appears to change colour depending on the way the light hits it and I waned to see how this would work on SF civilian vehicles.

Along with the planes I bought from Shapeways I bought Arctic Skunk's Executive 904 Air Car Limousine and decided yesterday to use it as the guinea pig for the Multi-Effect Spray.

The end result is very pleasing even if it does not quite change colour the way it does on a real life vehicle. This may be down to the size of the model, but under artificial or bright light the change in colour is quite noticeable (the photos don't do it justice). I decided to try the red can first (which is more of a bronze red brown) and maybe a more distinctive result would have been had with the violet or green. The model is still on a temporary base pending my deciding what kind of one to use.

Overall I am happy with the end result, a word of warning to anyone want to try this themselves, the spray works best over gloss black not matt! :-)

Gromit of the Day:

Lancelot

Stripping! (and Gnashional Gromit)

Calm down boys, I'm talking about paint stripping!

Having painted the old Fantasy Tribe Gnolls I decided that I want to keep the project ticking over and my beady eyes alighted on the remaining three units I painted back in the Eighties including some lovely Fantasy Tribe Orcs. Whilst half of the Goblin Wolf Riders I painted a while back were painted to a similar standard (including gloss varnish) and I just black undercoated and painted as normal, given these have a lot of chain mail detail I decided to try and strip the paint off.

Previously I had used brake fluid (I know, I'm a bad boy and killing the planet) but given its toxic properties I decided to try a different product. Having read Big Lee's Guide a while back I decide to try Dettol but having immersed the figures in the stuff I came across The Angry Lurker's post on Dettol and am now considering buying a hazmat suit!

If this doesn't work I think I'll try Fairy Power Spray, the video I found on You Tube below certainly makes it seem worth checking out (and apparently it doesn't smell!), assuming it is still available...

Gromit of the Day:

Gnashional Gromit

August is... 1918 Month! (and Doodles)

Well Catch-up Month was a bit of a bust. Whilst I did get some painting done I didn't do what I'd planned, consequently this month will see a dedicated push to finish the remaining aeroplanes for AirWar: 1918 (2nd edition) before David Manley kills me!

Duel Above the Piave by Ivan Berryman

I have drawn up a spreadsheet that shows I have 15 Great War planes left to paint. Not all of them are "needed" for the project, but I want to make sure I get the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman planes finished this time so they can be included in the photoshoot.

I have all the models I need to paint up, plus some new pilots and observers from Shapeways so no more excuses now, time to reach for the sky!

Gromit of the Day:

Doodles

Reading Material (and NewFoundLand)

As part of the preliminary work on the 1973 Arab Israeli project I have acquired a little reading material...

In addition to these Osprey Campaign books, I picked up a couple of the Duel series that seemed pertinent.

I also found an old issue of Born in Battle magazine in my collection, picked up another cheap on eBay and the PDF of a Yom Kippur special off the internet. Published in the late seventies and early eighties in Israel they are well worth trying to get hold of as they contain lots of interesting material and many rare photos.

Gromit of the Day:

NewFoundLand