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Coronavirus/covid-19 is spreading all over the country, and schools were ordered to shut down two weeks early, meaning that my son is home a lot more, which in turn means that I'm spending more time looking after him and less time hobbying. I'm not complaining, mind you, as family time is precious, and I've still managed to find a few minutes here and there to finish these guys:




This brings me up to nine fully-painted Dreadball teams. I should start a league or something.

I also started working on some mechs, and even managed to finish this guy:


I bought a set of these clunky PVC mechs from some ebay seller in Russia, then put them in a box and forgot about them for at least five years. I got to thinking about them when I picked up the Starbreach rules and saw that every faction gets some sort of walker. I really need to up my game for vehicles and weathering, but fortunately I have several more walkers just waiting to be assembled and painted. In fact, I have another one that I hope will be ready to share within the week.

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Alas, I had to Liefeld their feet with tufts.

Josh, while I've always loved your work, now, I must say, I love your mind. Have you considered pouches? Might be hard to do shoulder pads on a model with no neck...

bbb wrote:

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Alas, I had to Liefeld their feet with tufts.

Have you considered pouches? Might be hard to do shoulder pads on a model with no neck...

I knew something was missing on these guys!

Josh, is your son old enough to get in some table-top gaming together while he's home?

 Syro_ wrote:
Josh, is your son old enough to get in some table-top gaming together while he's home?

During the week, he goes to his after-school center so we can work. When we're home together, I try to get in some gaming, but there's also a honey-do list that eats up a lot of my time. I think we need to hammer out a concrete schedule, but that feels a little weird on a day off.

I hope you find some gaming time, but I totally understand not having the time. When you're forced to work from home you can't really escape your work at the end of the day, and time constraints aren't really respected. I've never worked such long hours as I have since having to work from home because of Corona virus.

I'm not actually working from home. Classes and club activities were put on hold a week ago, but teaching staff still have to come in for end-of-the-year work-- meetings, sending out grade reports, make up classes and so on. My son is going to his after-school center (it feels weird to call it daycare, but that's what it is). So even though school is out, no one in my family is really out of school. I've been saving my time off, and will probably take the last ten days of the month off so I don't lose it before PTO resets in April.

While there are, as yet, no reported cases of COVID-19 in our area, that doesn't mean we can relax entirely. Despite all the schools being closed, and despite all the handwashing, my son managed to catch the 'flu. While staying home to watch him, I did manage to get some hobby work done:



These are the Brokkr team for Dreadball. Much like the Deadzone versions, I think of these guys as blure-collar, working class type who strap on the armor and hit the pitch in their off time. Accordingly, I painted them in jeans and T-shirts (except the strikers, who are barechested), with simple black armor. As usual, the extremely zoomed-in shots in the gallery show off every flaw, while they are pretty good IRL and at arm's length. Here's the whole team:


I also finished off this 'mech:


On the last 'mech I shared, I went a little overboard on the chipping and weathering. I think I went a little too light on this one. Time to watch more Youtube tutorials, I think.



This one is big enough for a hatch the opens and a detailed interior. The pilot is a Bad Squiddo model, with some legs I had left over from a failed conversion, and pants sculpted on. Again, the model looks much better in real life. Finally, a scale shot with one of the Brokkrs:


As you can see, it's a pretty large model.

Next in the painting queue, I have some RAFM models that I got in a Kickstarter some years back.

Lovely weathering on the mech, that would transfer well to the Brokkr "Captain" or either of the big Forge Father mechs if you've got them? Really like your Brokkr scheme, I picked up a couple of Deadzone Brokkr to add variety and also use as experienced guys with "illegal" weapons.

More good stuff, Josh. I like the weathering on the first mech, I think you're being too hard on yourself there.

2nd one looks great too, and the crewwoman fits in perfectly, good conversion job!

Hope the boy gets better soon

inmygravenimage wrote:Lovely weathering on the mech, that would transfer well to the Brokkr "Captain" or either of the big Forge Father mechs if you've got them? Really like your Brokkr scheme, I picked up a couple of Deadzone Brokkr to add variety and also use as experienced guys with
"illegal" weapons.

I have a couple of the FF walkers still unpainted (one finished), but Deadzone has been pretty low priority recently. I'm trying to get into Starbreach-- that's what these 'mechs are meant for-- so maybe I'll go back to the many, many unpainted DZ minis that continue to taunt me from the Closet of Shame.

Slinky wrote:More good stuff, Josh. I like the weathering on the first mech, I think you're being too hard on yourself there.

2nd one looks great too, and the crewwoman fits in perfectly, good conversion job!

Hope the boy gets better soon

My son spent the first day in bed, then the meds kicked in and he's mostly been bored. Today is his last day of 'flu isolation, then it's back to corona isolation instead.

I've been watching Youtube tutorials on weathering, and have been thoroughly impressed by the results some of those hardcore modellists get. I've been wanting to up my hobby game for a while now, and armor/mechs is my current focus. It looks like oil paints are the key, but I've yet to jump into those. Maybe over spring vacation...

 JoshInJapan wrote:

Syro_ wrote:I really like how your fantasy ladies turned out Josh. I also like your idea for the Orengina tree, I'm looking forward to seeing it progress.

Thanks. The tree is taking a little longer than I thought it would. It's a good thing the deadline is still a month away.

aku-chan wrote:Nice batch of ladies.

Yeah, I'm happy with them. I think they'll work in a few different games.

I have a few different things to share this week. First up, Blemmyes:





I have been vaguely aware of stories of these guys, but had never imagined that anyone would make models of them. Then, these guys popped up on a FB group (Ghost Archipelago, I think), and realized that I they not only existed, but also that I absolutely had to have them in my collection. The scultping on their extremities is a little sketchy, but their faces are really, really well done. I actually read a couple of tutorials on painting busts so I could do their eyes justice. Alas, I had to Liefeld their feet with tufts.

Next up, half of a Dreadball team:


The Tsudochan are itenerant religious fanatics with telepathic powers. Naturally, they play future sports. I was pretty happy with their paint jobs until I saw the oversized close-up photos in my Dakka gallery. I wonder if my photos are being pixellated when I upload them? Anyway, there are four more in the set (two each of four different poses). They paint up pretty quickly, so I should have these guys ready to play this weekend.

Finally, BattleJack!:


This dog came with the Nickstarter for the FG Soldiers 2 set, along with all the metal models. Although the face looks more like a Bull Terrier, I based his paint job on our Jack Russell Terrier, who wears a winter coat that looks a lot like this model's armor. I suspect that this guy will show up a lot when I play FG.

I also did a little work on the Triffid, but didn't take any photos. I'll try to rectify that soon.

I know I am quite late to the party on this, but just to say this is some of your best work I have seen. Long-time lurker on this thread, but the headless men and the rendering of your dog in armour are just top-notch. I would love to play an RPG with minis like this on the tabletop.

Thanks for sharing, really inspirational stuff

For weathering, I like acrylic ink washes and pastels/chalk.

--Brian

IGtR= wrote:


I know I am quite late to the party on this, but just to say this is some of your best work I have seen. Long-time lurker on this thread, but the headless men and the rendering of your dog in armour are just top-notch. I would love to play an RPG with minis like this on the tabletop.

Thanks for sharing, really inspirational stuff

Thanks for the kind words. I really had fun with these models-- I'm still not sure what game I'd use them for, but that's actually quite refreshing-- painting something for fun rather than as part of an army or whatever.

Briancj wrote:For weathering, I like acrylic ink washes and pastels/chalk.

I guess that I should say "chipping" rather than "weathering." I already use washes/glazes (artist acrylics thinned with glaze medium and water). I've tried chalk in the past, but it's been hard to get the effects I want since I don't use spray fixatives-- it's pretty much cold, wet, or cold and wet year round where I am, and brush on sealers smear the powder.

I'd suggest the 'salt weathering' technique, then?

--B.

Doesn't salt weathering only work with airbrush/rattlecans?

I've been able to work with brush on, using sea salt, after the application of hair spray. However, it sounds like sponge chipping/weathering might be a better way to go?

If you say it works, then I'll find a scrap model to try it on.

You still have to spray hairspray, so that may rule it out for you.

--B.

I can get hairspray in pump bottles, so that should be doable.

So, the way my current contract is written, my PTO resets on April 1, at the start of the new school year. I try no to take a lot of time off when school is in session, just in case someone in the family gets sick or has some toehr sort of emergency. Since any unused vacation days disappear at the end of March, I usually just take the last 7-10 days off. COVID-19 continues to spread, but it has yet to appear in my prefecture. Nonetheless, we are trying to avoid crowds, meaning I have had more hobby time than usual. Thus, I cranked out this lot over the last week or so:


All but one of these models is from RAFM's Airship Pirates line. I backed the Kickstarter many years ago, and when the models finally arrived, I didn't have any real use for them. The models were packed away in the Closet of Shame until quite recently, when I started playing around with Starbreach (there's a thread in the Misc. Games section). Specifically, I decided that these guys would work pretty well as a Continuum Syndicate warband.



These first two models are airship marines. I based their uniforms on 19th century royal marines, based on a couple of seconds of googling.



These guys are airship pilots. I decided that, unlike the marines, they should be a little more individual, thus the different colors for their jackets and scarves.



These are Titus Munteanu (L) and Dan Cederman (R). RAFM apparently licensed the images of/parntered with Abney Park, a steampunk-themed band. I'm listening to them on YouTube as I write this. Not really my preferred style of music, but not terrible, either.



Josh Goering (L) and "Mechanical Airship Engineer" (R). Josh there, armed with pistol and machete, reminded me of Charles Manson for some reason, but I ended up not trying for the crazy eyes or the swastika tattoo. The engineer looked a lot like Sigmund Freud, so I gave him a staid grey suit. After painting him, his fave looked more like Mark Hamill.



Automaton prostitute (L) and Constance Bashford (R). I'm going to treat the automaton as a psyker in Starbreach-- the main psyker for this warband has Plasmid abilities, which affect machines. Constance is a steampunk-themed model. I didn't find any photos of her in this particular outfit, so I ad-libbed it.



This steam-powered robot is a "peeler." I'm guessing that name makes more sense if you have the Airship Pirates RPG, which I do not.



This last one is actually a Reaper model: Ape-X from their Chronopia line. I've had it sitting in a box with all the other Bones models I got from the first KS. It seemed weird enough to fit the time-travelling pirates theme of the Continuum Syndicate, and I figured that was a good enough reason to finally get this guy painted up.

I don't know when I'll actually play Starbreach, but thinking about it has gotten me on a SF kick. My next project will be Ghosts of Gaia, from Bad Squiddo.

Nice group.

Wow, really love those airship pirates, really am a sucker for that steampunk aesthetic. Nice job!

Peeler is an archaic name for a policeman. The police force was found by Sir Robert Peel, which gives us both Bobbies and Peelers as a name for them, but the latter rapidly fell into disuse.

Also, nice Victoriana! It's not really my story of thing, but I love your take on the models!

Thanks, guys. I'm not really into steampunk myself, but this particular line of models sort of fills a gap in my collection, and they were pretty fun to paint.

@graven: Thanks for the explanation, The term makes a lot more sense now.

I'm a sucker for a pith helmet! Nice work

Great stuff as usual, Josh.

Ape-X is from Reaper's Chronoscope line. Chronopia was a Heartbreaker Hobbies/Target Games property.

Hey, since you're in Japan, just curious, but have you heard of a band called The Lethal Weapons?

Slinky wrote:I'm a sucker for a pith helmet! Nice work

Thanks. I'm pleased with how they turned out.

bbb wrote:Great stuff as usual, Josh.

Ape-X is from Reaper's Chronoscope line. Chronopia was a Heartbreaker Hobbies/Target Games property.

Hey, since you're in Japan, just curious, but have you heard of a band called The Lethal Weapons?

Oops, you're right. In my defense, I don't really collect either range, so they're easy for me to mix up.

I'm not familiar with that band. I'll check them out.

I'm digging those Airship pirates. They would look nice hanging out with some of the models from Twisted! by Demented Games.

The mech gives off a major SF3D vibe, especially with the exposed pilot. It's not one though, is it?

ザ・リーサルウェポンズ are pretty catchy stupid fun, especially as an English speaking expat who probably hears all sorts of weird English phrases inserted into random songs.

The Lethal Weapons are officially not being added to my playlist. They look like they are having fun, but their music just doesn't grab me.

I honestly don't know where the mech is from. I got a set of like eight or ten (two each of 4~5) off of an Ebay seller in Russia. They mangled the box when they packed the models for shipping, and Ebay apparently doesn't keep records going back far enough to me to check what they are supposed to be. I actually have another mech scraped and washed, and it looks like a cheap Space Marine Dread knockoff, so it wouldn't surprise me if the other ones were ripped off from other designs, but I suspect that I'll never knwo the truth.