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Ooh, a Whirligig would be manageable. To the Wargames Factory pile!

I have this image in front of me right now...



So far I've made a Meat Chunk looking thing (it was meant to be a gravi, but I don't think the shape's right). I'll probably have a go at a handful of those. All I did was stick a lump of greenstuff on a bit of wire floating above a round base.

I иo sigи up for you. I иot KGB spy or aиything of sort komrade, you иo worry yes? Silly maи. иo spy here, only frieиds.

I saw your post and it looked cool, was near the top of the blogs section when I was taking a wander.

I didn't know Roadside picnic had a sequel, is it out in English? Might be able to find a digital copy of it at least, lots of books have fan translations these days. They also made some Stalker books but the writing style bothered me too much to read them.

Get some frosted/etched plastic like they put in windows for the anomalies. If you heat it up carefully you should be able to mold it into spheres and cut it into discs.

I read that they wrote a sequel which explored the concepts more, but it was vague on anything else. Search the writer's publication list and it'll turn up, but I suspect it would be part of a collected works (like A Roadside Picnic typically is, though my own copy's a book all on its own). Oh, and talking about that novel, there also happens to be a game based on it as well. Not the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, rather the reason S.T.A.L.K.E.R. had to call itself that rather than just Stalker. ...Ok it doesn't have much to do with the book, but yeah, just something I'd note. I found a youtube video of it once, but I'm having trouble turning it up again. =/

Ah, and in regards to the books based on the game, yeah I can agree they're hit or miss. The Metro series is similar, shilling itself out to anyone who wants to use the setting. Its nice that the video game and main novels referenced the spin off books at least with Metro, and perhaps S.T.A.L.K.E.R. could have done that by asking people about rumors.

I'm just using bits of clay for my artifacts. I'd considered beads, but these are good enough. At the moment I've managed a Meat Chunk (I think, still deciding how to paint it), Compass and Mama's beads. I have a load more stands so I'll have a go at some more. ...Even if it is just sticking a ball of clay on the end of some wire and calling it a Flash.

As long as it's not the movie, that thing did my head in. 3 hours of nothing happening then they all just go home and in the "post credits" scene something interesting happens and then it's over.. Couldn't we have followed the interesting person and not 3 men walking through a field for hours with no editing?

I don't like the Metro games, I read the first book and then played the game, it felt like a Will Smith book to movie adaptation, it had none of the feel of the book. I didn't want GRAB THE SHOTGUN BLAST THE MUTANTS! I wanted a slow burn horror game, more Silent Hill than Call of Duty. I understand why people might like the Metro game, but it's not for me.

Aren't the most iconic anomalies all ethereal looking? You need something more than a blown out crater to represent them unless you're going CoP style in which case just build a massive diorama and ruin the entire anomaly concept

Are you going to make poltergeists?

Tsk, its for the art! Damn that one scene in Solaris where the astronaut's talking about what he saw on the planet. Phew, no way in hell the remake captured how great that was.

Oh go on, what about the bit with the telephone?



As a side note I have a Land Rover coming in the post which I'm going to do up just like the one from that film.

Metro read like it was written. Well by that I mean the guy published it chapter by chapter then collected them. Its rather episodic and at times there's certain chapters which have absolutely no relation to the plot. OK interesting bits of world building, but yeah, that one bit where he meets the Christians after escaping the Communists is just filler. The first book was all right, the sequel felt rather rushed. Again good world building, but the writing was fairly amateurish in parts. At the time I was reading it alongside the latest Night Watch novel, and I felt that was similarly rushed writing (and sliding further towards the random extreme nationalism thing I've noticed in Russian books), so maybe I was just feeling a bit of a downer.

Though the game itself played all right. Yes its similar to S.T.A.L.K.E.R., the novel its based on doesn't have the main character blasting away half the population, he's just some guy. I mean he does some Mary Sue crap at times, but still. I would have like to have seen the worm cult and the Spartans doing their rescue with riot shields, but that whole section of the book was a bit strange (followed up by the Kremlin slime). I'd note that both series were made by the same developers, so I guess they had their style down.

That's no crater, its a regular flat set of floor boards which are all twisted up to hell from a gravity anomaly. Yeah it'll look better once its painted and I have a more artsy shot with an artifact in the middle. To date the artifacts that I've put together tonight are: Firefly, Battery, Meat Chunk, Mama's Beads, Eye, Compass and a Soul, which will turn up when that anomaly's painted. I'm trying to come up with workable ideas for anomalies. A heat haze is a common way of representing them in game, so is smoke, but ah you try and represent that on a model. Heh, I could go into photoshop and add that to my images for the full effect, but what are the anomalies without all the visual effects? Cracked soil, pools of liquid, twisted limbs of trees, and well other crap along those lines usually (bar the ones which are a bit more out there, ie floating pools of water). The one I have right now is actually based on something I saw in one of the games, or actually it might be the online version, where a set of train tracks have been burst up from an artifact. Ah, so I have a few ideas of things to make, its just working out how the hell I'll manage it (a tree that's been split halfway up its trunk around an artifact, but kept own ground at a ninety degree angle comes to mind. Milliput for that probably).

I think I posted a WIP of a Poltergeist a while back in this thread. Its still an early sculpt, but yeah I'll be having one. For the practical purposes it isn't invisible, though I'll represent that instead by using similar rules to the ghillie suited Freedomer, ie Stalkers need to be within a certain distance of it and roll an intelligence test. Its not an immediate priority for me to finish it as, much like in the games, I think I'll introduce mutants slowly into my games as an unknown element to players. Each game another new one will appear, rather than having them all turn up at once (which would be hellish for me as they'd all have their own special rules). So I've ran a game with the Blind Dogs, but I still have the Bloodsucker, Controller, Snork and Pseudo Dogs turn up before the Poltergeist and Tark do.

Time for more terrain. I finished up the balsa monstrosities in a lovingly grey fashion. Fallout was orange, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s grey evidently. =P

First then is the gravity anomaly, where the floor boards and piping of a built (the rest of which is absent) have been peeled back around a central point. I can just see the boards breaking off during a game...



I'm not sure if they're very obvious, but there's little bolts about the base.

Should a Stalker approaching this happen to have an artefact detector then they might find some treasure (it still won't help them with the anomaly's hazards however).



...Ok I kind of sort of plunked the wrong artefact in that anomaly. Meat Chunks come from chemical ones, whereas Souls suit gravity anomalies (specifically Whirligigs, which yes I'll have a go at making). Ack, till I have more of these things though they'll be spawning in the same place.

And yes speaking of artefacts I made a few. These aren't comprehensive obviously, but they represent a general spectrum of anomaly types. From front left to back right: Eye, COmpass, Firefly, Meat Chunk, Battery, Soul and Mama's Beads.



Those are just greenstuff stuck on some wire. Again more bolts dotting the odd base.

Besides the supernatural crap I also managed the deer stand. I must have used up most of my static grass on these two pieces, but hopefully they look like they suit the climate well enough. Yes I do have Mosin Nagants, but I also have plenty of K-98ks which I never use. =P




That'll be it for the day then. What comes to mind next for me to work on is a set of swamp tiles and more Stalkers (sitting on my table's two Monolithians, two Bandits and a Military type). Besides that I have more ideas for terrain, though I may have to put those aside till I've thrown together more generic looking stuff (I'm talking about a set of Soviet Monuments, which wouldn't really suit sitting alone on a table without a town to surround them. ...Though the decapitated bust of Lenin I'm considering could crop in the arse end of nowhere in a forest).

What's cropped up on my table this week? Ah, well I'm working through things...

I've managed some more Stalkers. Just a hit here and there. This first pair are based on more of those Cold War Soviets, just with head swaps and a bit of green stuff. I'm short on bandits, so following these I have some Empress Insurgents being painted to bulk out their numbers.



Two Monolithians. One's an Empress Seal with a Secrets of the Third Reich headswap, the other's another Copplestone SWAT (which I'm not entirely keen on, but I need to use these somewhere). Again I have Empress models sitting on the sidelines to add to this faction, though I doubt I'll be painting them soon.



And last is a Military Stalker. ...Or maybe just a guy with some of their gear. He's a bit sub par anyway, but put it down to taking what he was given from under funded supply depots. Another Cold War Soviet.



Lastly three Veteran Ecologists. These are Crooked Dice Astronauts with arm swap and a load of crap loaded up on them. Perhaps not the most practical outfits for combat, rather they'd suit for anomalous areas more I'd suppose. I'll paint them up in red and send them off to find some Empties.



And well there's that. Time to move the swamps off my table I suppose. Expect those and some bandits next time. I like the Ecologists and their faction isn't well represented at the moment (put that down to them using mercenaries mostly), so I'll probably wind up painting those too sooner rather than later.

Nice work on the terrain and the little people.

Not too sure about the "hoses" on the last chaps, they look like they'll get in the way, especially on the middle one. Could you make them hang down more than stick out?

I had this figure in mind when making them:



Yup, totally impractical, but more function over form in that they're made to suit anomalous areas over being combat suits I think. ...Ah, but yes they are a bit overdone, I've made them sag a bit more where I could (as I just found out they break in half really easily).

Ah yes, I've seen that before.

It's not a bad concept. It's just that the middle chap isn't going to be shooting anyone quickly with his hands inside the hoses. The one on the right with his hand resting on the hose is fine.

Hopefully they glue as well as they snap.

This BTR-80 began as a 1/50th scale toy. All I really did was add the grills (which admittedly look like shipping pallets) and some stowage. Something for the military to deploy from, or to tat up one of their locations I think. Its not in the best of nick, but put that down to budget cuts.




No the scheme's not directly based any particular real vehicle. I nabbed it from a few photos I've seen, but its hardly like the actual forces in Ukraine are using any sort of unified scheme any more (white/yellow is Ukrainian-yellow being the neo-nazis-, red for the Russians by my guess ...except when it isn't and then things are just a free for all. Throw on as many stripes as you like and don't care about what units they originally designated).

And the Veteran Ecologists, painted up in a colour scheme just as impractical for combat use as the rest of their outfits. I did my best with the hoses, but they're pernickity things. The guns originally had polymer parts, but having them all black wasn't very interesting looking so I changed them to be wooden instead (yup, rich scientists are using thirty year old guns... One of them even has a FN-FAL).



Hopefully they won't be mixed up with Duty with all that red... I don't know if I'll make many more armed Ecologists given they're usage of third parties for that kind of thing. However that said they don't have to be necessarily scientists, rather protective suits are all over the place in the Zone, ones which look like this just happen to be on the upper end of the anomaly protection scale.

As I'm being tardy paint up the rest of these, here's the first swamp tile. It got a little dinged up appeared in that game a few weeks ago on account of a toddle unfortunately, but meh nothing too major was broken that couldn't be fixed.



Yes I can't wait for the summer gaming shows to start as I've bankrupted myself on static grass. I may come back to this then and add more, but that's if I even remember.

That's where things are at then. What's on my table next? There's four bandits (which I started before the Ecologists, but they aren't as cool) that aught to be done to give that faction a bit more of a backbone (two have Aks, one's a leader with an SA80 and there's an AS VAL). Beyond that I haven't really decided, but its not as if I don't have a couple of dozen models that are set aside for this setting sitting waiting to be played with still. I've started on another Fallout terrain piece, so at least for the moment expect that to be being worked through as well. Ah well, toodles. =P

Looking good! Interesting anti-RPG shields on the BTR-80

The Ecologists seem more worried about survival in a tox environment than camo, and that they are not military minded.

Swamp with a rickety walkway, looks run down, great effect there!

Good work. Yes, the hoses look much more natural now.

Nice swamp too.

Fallout sort of took over there for a while, and as I didn't run any more games in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. setting there wasn't much of an incentive to make much more things as what I already had wasn't shown off. For some reason though I felt like getting back into this again however (even if Fallout 4's due for its announcement soon. ...Please).

So what I have done with this crap since I posted last? Ah, not much. Those load of Empress Russians that I picked up are still unpainted. The mutants are still half built. However in the past few days I have bothered to make some new things.

First though, with something that's been sitting about for months, an incomplete decapitated bust.



That I made for reasons...

Remember that one scene in the James Bond movie GoldenEye where James encounters the rogue Sean Bean in that dumping ground for Soviet era relics? ...Oh come on, that wasn't that bad a movie! "James you can't go across the world screwing every woman you meet, the Cold War's over!". No? ...Ah, whatever. Having a fallen statue's head sitting on its side overgrown with moss and surrounded by hammers and picks is an emotive image for me, and seems like an interesting piece of terrain that'll tie into the region nicely.



What else? Well I started this a couple of days ago. Its another one of those cottages (again I'm not sure if I'm making these too large) that'll hopefully build into a small village. This one's based off something from ARMA II/DayZ that caught my eye.





Like with the last one though I quickly ran out of balsa wood to finish it however. So that's where it'll be until I can buy some more of that unfortunately. I'll be going for something similar to the above reference image, but the top floor won't be the same. Rather instead I'll have it mostly exposed, with the roofing having been blown away, similar to a lot of buildings in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games (so that'll be two pieces, a floor bit, and a separate frame for the roof, in case anyone does happen to go up there players can actually access their models. ...May work or not, we'll see).

Lastly, and something that I hope to paint tonight, is another Stalker. She's based on the Wargames Factory Female Survivors set that I picked up recently and have been doing my best to churn out some models with (the legs are horrible though. Seriously 9/10 are man spreading).



Yes a Mac-10 is totally practical for the Zone. ...Oi she could be clearing rooms or down in the tunnels and basements of the labs and industrial complexes where a compact gun like that would be useful. Ah, in other words she originally was in a different pose and had a AKMS, but I thought the machine pistol would look cooler. She'll probably be painted with jeans and a red hoodie.

I'm running a game of this tomorrow, which means the priorities on finishing the above Stalker so I can use her for that. I still haven't used any of those swamps, the anomaly, deer stand, or hell most of the Stalkers, so there's not much pressure to finish off much else though. Ack, so back to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. setting again, at least for the short term. This project originally came about to be a bit of a holiday from the Fallout stuff, so I guess that's what its going to stay as for now (having more Fallout stuff than Stalker's not that bad either anyway, as people seem to find the former a lot more recognisable anyway).

So, till I can be arsed to post again, toodles.

Two Stalkers, one that I posted as a WIP yesterday, the other's been sitting basecoated for months.

The first's based on a Wargames Factory Female Survivor that I hacked up (she uses the legs from one model and the torso off of another), the shoved a load of clay onto. Presumably she's a Bandit or a Loner given the lack of loads of black or green camouflage



. This is a Empress Modern Russian soldier with a Crooked Dice British gasm mask head. He's probably a loner too as I painted him wearing a Gorka (a waterproof suit worn by Easter European hillwalkers/hunters/etc ...that I'm kind of sort of considering buying myself) rather than a uniform. I have like twenty more of those guys though, so at least some of them will be painted up in more standard looking outfits.



There's a guy carrying a Contamination Meter as well (no clue how well it'd do given that its from the 70s IIRC). He;s a Eureka Cold War Soviet soldier in an NBC Suit, all I did was paint him up. I'm not sure if the colours are totally appropriate, but he looks good enough to my eye (and its not as if I'm posting this in an exact historical board).



I was up late last night writing up some rules for Artifacts in preparation for a game that I'm running. They a work in progress (the dice rolls needed to spawn them are a bit iffy), and don't cover Anomalies bar for effects like burning or electric shocks. I'll see how they work out in any case. What's covered right now are rules for Radiation, Artifact Containers, finding Artifacts, etc, plus twenty five Artifacts.

These are for the 7Tv Action Engine system right now. I'm actually looking for another system to use with the Stalker setting however, as I don't think it matches the FPS style enough, so I'll probably have to rewrite these rules later (beyond playtesting them).

Link to the file anyway just in case anyone might find them useful:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xg4a8amn2rcjq98/AACYBr3s522HGqvkUQrua2T3a?dl=0

Now off I go to write up the rest of the rules for the game I'll be running tonight. In light of bothering to be inventive it'll involve two groups of Stalkers (with the exact same profiles and weapons as each other) going out to search for Artifacts. The group that comes away with the most at the end of the game wins.

Oh and the number of mutants on the table will increase every time an Artifact's picked up. I tried something like that in the last game of Fallout that I ran and it seemed like an interesting enough mechanic, especially given the players somehow killed the mutants quicker than the other wastelanders (a 3 Wound Wanamingo went down quick enough, but IIRC someone ran a truck into it...).

Humvees are something that I've gone about before in this thread. Actually I bought some to use for this setting, but never got around to it. Well I've made one for the Fallout setting and found that that wasn't too difficult. So to that end I thought I'd try my hand at a Ukrainian one for the Military faction in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.





Obviously I haven't spent much time on this thing so far, but the distinctive bodywork's been blocked out. I'll probably leave this fairly unmodified from the real world model, bar adding on some stowage. I would say that the armament will be different though as I couldn't get a hold of the particular gun those Humvees are armed with. Instead I'm going for a DShK instead, which I guess could be a logical mount given that those are used on other vehicles.

Anyhow, the stuff that comes up because I can't be arsed to finish painting other crap.

Here's that Ukrainian Military Humvee looking a good bit more substantial than what I showed yesterday (blame it on my laziness then).



I will have to say that I've been wanting one of these for a while, so its neat having this now in the works.

Great work man!

I absolutely loved the fist STALKER PC game. What an awesome tabletop mordheim like game that would make for!

Was the video game inspired by something that preceeded it like a novel or film? (other than than the real life Chernobyl)

The games are based on both the film and the book.

The book sets up the premise of the world, the artifacts, etc. From the film they took the atmosphere and setting (changed from Canada to Eastern Europe). However, they used both as a starting point, but took it their own way. See the plot of the book is that aliens have visited the Earth and left a load of artifacts behind. Scavengers (and latter scientists once everything's regulated) go in and pick up these artifacts to sell on the black market. There's no mutants (well there is, but not monstrous ones) or fighting. The film has it being a weird place too, cordoned off by the military. Two men seek to enter the heart of the Zone to meet the Wish Granter (which was also in the book) and are taken there by a Stalker. Again it only really focuses on those characters and by and large the Zone is an empty place.

The game was originally a generic sci-fi shooter. A couple of years on someone must have came along and slapped the Roadside Picnic setting on it and over time it developed into that. The game opens up the Zone, with more scavengers being there and as a result a lot more fighting happening. They change the Zones creation to having been because of scientists, rather than aliens, and makes the whole place seem rather malevolent (it is in the source material, but it comes across more that humans just don't know how to interact with it properly. When people die its because they acted wrong, not because the Zone actively wanted to kill them). Why was Chernobyl specifically chosen? Well bar it being a great setting and already being an odd place in people's minds, it has to do with the film. See the film was set in an unspecified place. It was however filmed in Chernobyl soon after the leak there (the original film was destroyed during filming resulting in a lot of scenes needing to be redone. As a result of this the crew were there a lot longer than they should have been, leading notably to the director's death years later). The devs being Ukrainian took that as an excuse to move the setting there, though it should be said that the games would later adopt the book's plot of there being more than one Zone (the Canadian one is just where the Wish Granter is), with the unofficial sequel taking place in Afghanistan.

It should also be pointed out that the title came about because there was another Stalker game too. It was released in the 90s and was a side scroller based on the book. Though "based" is in the vaguest of terms.

You can pick read the book online for free IIRC (there was a short story sequel too, but I've never seen it crop up and doubt its in English), you could probably find the film pretty easily too there. If you like the games then I'd say give the film a gander, as even though it is rather more about the atmosphere and so slower than the games, its still a great watch.




* context for that scene is that the three characters are argueing over who should go to the Wish Granter first (which means one must go through the Meat Mincer which kills them, but opens up the room). A phone rings, and one answers it normally. ...Its the Zone. The phones haven't been connected there for decades.

Ack, and as I'm making a sort of information dump here, there was a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. miniature's game too. However I'm using my own rules.

I posted this building a while back in a less complete state. This isn't a marked improvement on what I posted last time as I ran out of balsa unfortunately, but its coming along.



With that here's two military types too. They're from Empress' new modern Russian miniatures line.



The one on the left, who'll probably be part of the Mercenaries or Military faction, is based on the clothing of these Blackwater Mercenaries (or whatever they're calling themselves).



The guy on the right's based on a Russian uniform seen early on in the war over there. Its an odd looking one as the majority of Russian soldiers fighting there have the typical speckled green uniforms, so I guess these guys had been given that uniform for a reason (...possibly just because its what what available seeing as the Russians were calling up troops from all over, especially the crap hole bases out in the sticks).



The Humvee's not advanced much since I last posted it. Meh, I'm working on too much at once. I've started on a floating Stalker for an anomaly too, but well I've started on a lot of things so that isn't saying much.

Good inspirations for the post bizarre world of Stalker.

Back with the cabin, here's where its at now.



The base building is pretty much complete at this point. Now I need to work on sorting out the furniture. I won't add too much for ease of placing models, though I do dislike how in video games you'll find so many buildings with empty rooms (apparently when the world went to gak people stole everything that wasn't nailed down).

Oh, and fun fact, I'm out of balsa wood again. XD

I like. Subbed.

Next on the list, because I just love having too many projects on the go, a set of lockups from DayZ.



They're being made out of foam. Currently the planned measurements (as I've only just started the things as I type this) are to have it 11 by 7 inches, with a height of 3 inches sloping down to 2 at the back. Each garage will be about 3 across. They should be a lot simpler to make than the house, but aye, don't expect them to turn up finished for years ...decades, whatever.

And yeah, as I think I've said before, I'm making this for the Stalker setting, but the terrain and models will probably wind up being used for others such as modern games and certain Eastern European zombie games.

I was up till like four this morning paint this crap as I couldn't sleep. 17 degrees man, I can't deal with that sort of heat. =P

Here's some Bandits made from Empress Miniature's Insurgents. How can you tell that they're bandits? Well the Nike jeans, mis-matched camo and head scarves of course. Seriously you can buy a Vintorez sniper rifle yet can't afford a damn gas mask and matching camo?




For a bit of variety here's a Clear Sky member and a Military Stalker too. These are both Empress modern Russian soldiers with head swaps and some added armour.



As I want to bore the hell out of you; the Clear Sky guy's wearing Uruguayan navy camo. The other one's kitted out to look like a Russian spetnaz soldier (I can't remember the name of the particular unit), with the characteristic ballistic mask. He aught to be armed with an AS Val (a scopeless Vintorez), but meh its the Zone. He's probably going to be either Military or Duty, though he's probably better off with Duty seeing as I don't think that the Ukrainians use those masks (though in the Stalker world I'd imagine that the Ukrainians had closer ties with Russia than the real world). The bandits are wearing Soviet and British camo as in the current war in Ukraine those are the most common styles worn by the non-government forces (its surprising how often you see British stuff being worn there actually, though there is tons of it floating about in shops here too I guess).



Aye and I painted the AKs to have wood furnishing and bakelite magazines as originally they were polymer, but there wasn't enough contrast. I guess these guys are carrying some old Soviet guns that have gone on the free market, as its not as if there isn't thousands of AKs just floating about the world right now. =P

In other news I'm now painting those garages. As they're half painted I'll wait to finish them to post anything, but that shouldn't take forever due to them mostly being the same colour of concrete. I'll find some graffiti or something to mix up the colour a bit I guess.

Epic!

The amount of detail is abusurd

And for the subject of today's waffling, some garages.





The roof comes off obviously. The doors are stuck as they are as I wasn't sure how having them open and close would be for strength.



Plus the graffiti. I left off the slogan with the Putin one as no doubt someone's going to be pissed off about it. Aye that is supposed to be Putin.




A quick and easy build. ...Though I went through a whole pot of grey paint on this thing.

Ah you say lock-ups e say storage unit here across the pond
Those do look good, yet also dingy at the same time!

Next up in the wonderful world of S.T.A.L.K.E.R./ building random European crap.



...My dad knows the guy who owned that thing. IIRC he's a dick and that thing was torn down years ago.

Hmn, so bonus points if anyone actually knows what that thing is, or I'm I being too working class Glaswegian here?

I'm not sure about the tower, but the raised section looks like an old station, further emphasized by what appears to be a rail-trail. along side. I'n which case it might be a signal tower or something?