Nurgle Beast WIP

Just a quick update, a picture from  few days back of a Nurgle Team's Beastie, work in progress.

I love these Rackham miniatures.  I managed to get Sluggy here on a 30mm base, and sculpted a top for it to match the style of the resin bases the others have. 

Ogre Pancakes !?

Ogre Pancakes: Breakfast of Champions.

Actual Saturn Fly-By

Pieced together from a multitude of photos, no enhancements & no cgi.
Sometimes reality is the most inspiring.

Want to see what it looks like to fly your spaceship past Saturn?


5.6k Saturn Cassini Photographic Animation from stephen v2 on Vimeo.

Be patient: the third movie is in color: amazing.

It pains me that I won't ever have the chance to go to another planet.

Picture of the 'Darkside' of Saturn, backlit from the Sun... click here to see it even larger.

Amazing to think that's just a simple photo with no enhancements.

Makes me want to break out my spaceship minis... 

Twilight Traveller Issue #2, free E-Zine is up!

Second issue of the Twilight Traveller free E-Zine is up and can be found here:
Twilight Traveller Issue #2, hosted by Pyre Studios.

-Painted by Ben Brownlie.

What's not to like about a free scenario & new rules for newly released miniatures?
Including rules for one of my favorite miniatures in the range: the Hunter and Graku, pictured above.

This guy is just full of character and cute as toast.  By the look of it, very useful on the battlefield too!
With late-placed advanced deployment, he's sure to put a wrench in the opponent's plans. And if you start to miss running Devanu beasts like Grishaks when you play Fubarnii, now you can get the best of both worlds, since this hunter can activate up to 4 friendly beasts, and these hunting Graku are no slouches.

I'm looking forward to ordering this guy & some beasts!
I finally made my selection for my prize of 2nd place in the Twilight painting contest...was very tempted to choose this guy & 4 beasts, but Mike offered to send some pre-release minaitures and I just couldn't pass that up. But I won't be able to wait forever before getting this guy and some others. 

The Irresistible Call to have an Opposing Faction

If you're like me, then you probably have a whole host of problems, but you also might find yourself having an irresistible impulse to collect an opposing faction (or several) for the faction you have or plan to have.

Maybe you get introduced to a new game by friends or at a convention.  Maybe you hear about a new game soon to be released... such as SAGA by Gripping Beast that I've been anticipating.  I wonder how many of you experience a similar reaction to the one I have.  I am not talking about building an army for a game system, playing it for a good while, getting bored of it and wanting to start a different army for that game.

No, it's not as benign as that.

What I'm describing is when you start to play a new game system, or decide to pick up some miniatures for a game that you don't even know if you'll have a chance to play, inside you think "Which other faction will I get? Because I should have an opponent for the army I'm going to build...what if I want to play with someone who doesn't play already? What if the game company goes out of business?" and more until there is no doubt... I am going to get a 2nd faction.

When I could resist the call of Ancients no longer I bought many boxes of Celts to make an Ancient Britain army, but soon bought some Romans too.. after all, they need someone to fight right? Nevermind the fact that 2 out of 3 gamers have Roman armies.  Just recently when I ordered some spaceships from Hydra Miniatures I bought a fleet of both Zenithians & Imperials.  I have several factions for Hordes.  I also bought two Malifaux factions (that I haven't done anything with yet).  A couple years ago when Zombiesmith released the Royalist Quar I could no longer resist buying some Quar: I loved the look of the Royalists... but was that all I bought? Of course not. I had to get Crusaders to oppose them (O.K. yes: and Partisans).  Same with World of Twilight: I got an equal powered force of Fubarnii & Devanu.  When I bought some 15mm fantasy minis it was with knowing that I'll be getting some for another army once Khurusan reopen their complete store again.   And lets not bring up the multitude of 15mm sci-fi factions I have!   Our local gaming group has been gearing up for Weird World War II and I have been building the Belgian Liberation Army. I thought I had dodged the call of the Opposing Faction, after all, there are many who will be playing too.. but no: the call of an opposing force was too strong when I had an idea for one.. which I'll be revealing soon.

It doesn't make it any easier when I think I may move to Europe at some point.  The possibility of moving makes it even more compelling to have an opposing force for every game.

Maybe it is easier for those who primarily game with big armies for systems with a very big following, or maybe creating Opposing Factions just take too long & cost too much.  Or maybe it's no easier to resist for them either.

So tell me, am I alone in this compulsion? 

Twilight has a new logo, & new minis & e-zine!

World of Twilight has a new logo!

I like it.  Very spiffy indeed. Captures the feel of it's universe, lots of nice detail, but not overdone in a way that is hectic and confusing, like many intricate logos fall into.  It's also very colorful, which moves away from a lot of the sketch-style art I've grown accustomed to, but it's not a bad thing at all. 

What else is new?  Their first free E-Zine! Get it here:  The Twilight Traveller. 

Nice mag with stories, scenarios, previews of upcoming minis, stats for new minis in the game and the last painting competition. Cool stuff!

And some new minis: some out now, some heading out soon:

Fubarnii Noble. Looks fun to paint!

 

Lots of new miniatures!

Twilight continues to grow: 3 viable factions now, which continue to all have new miniatures being added to them, and a 4th faction coming around the corner: the nomadic dhogu. 

The newest miniatures seem to only be available at Pyre Studios store. And everything but the newest releases also available from Hasslefree.  I still have a good portion of a Hasslefree voucher I've been delaying using, hoping to apply it to some of the newer releases of Twilight, they might get them, so since I've already 'bought' them (sort of) I'm keeping my fingers crossed. 

Twilight is probably my most cherished neglected project.  I really do want to paint them, demo some games for some people, get others interested or at least willing to play, but I set my painting standards very high for myself with my Devanu, and now I feel I can't just 'knock out' the other factions.  So they are waiting for more time or when I don't have pressing needs for getting the minis finished for the hobby gaming I am already involved in.  But I'll get to them. 

World of Twilight is linked under the "Places to Go" on the left hand column. 

You don't want to play in his Reindeer Games. The Wendigo

Painted up the Wendigo from Darkson Designs awhile back.

This miniature really grew on me.  The sculpt is seriously creepy. I think it is because the face is just a little bit cute, and those extra long arms.. yikes. 

For those not familiar, a Wendigo is a Native American myth of an evil spirit which can take the shape of a deer or weredeer and is associated with ravenous cannibalism when it possesses a human.  There have been a few movies with Wendigo in them, but I think my favorite was 'The Last Winter'... a subtle monster movie rather than the classic slasher variety, and the deer spirits, if maybe not actual wendigos, are definitely creepy.  

This mini was not the easiest to assemble.  The arms you will want to pin, and the antlers should first be glued together thoroughly, and then attached to the head. It's a bit fiddly, so you'll want to fill & support with some green stuff, which isn't bad: the nature of antlers and how they're connected to the skull lend itself to this.

The Warhammer Forum has painting contests about once a month or so, and this time the theme was 'Monsters' likely inspired by the recent release of so many Warhammer Fantasy monsters.  I entered this fellow in the contest for fun, figuring he'd likely have trouble being a contender since he's a smaller monster with less detail than most of the mega-sized monsters in that genre (he's tall for a 40mm based monster, but he's no dragon) but it is fun to enter and I enjoy putting something in a contest that is unexpected or from an uncommon genre.  Though the mini is intended for weird world war II, I can see a lot of potential in fantasy, horror or other genres as well.  Check out the contest here, there are a lot of great entries this time, some really nice painting.