Friday, August 23, 2013

Kallistrate and the gorgons

Hi all,

I've made some progress towards our dungeon crawl game! Meet Kallistrate, a noble warrior sworn to protect the people of Greece from evil. Here she is seen in combat against Medusa and her gorgon bodyguards:





I helped put together the dungeon tile and Christian painted it. The backdrop is a warehouse scratch built and painted by Christian. And here she is against some vicious rats (painted by Christian):


'Til the next update!


Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Progress - dungeon board

Finally time for a progress update on the dungeon board! We have been able to put together some more tiles and bits and pieces during our spare moments in between work and other things. Unfortunately, I didn't think to get a photo of the plain, assembled-and-undercoated-but-otherwise-untouched tiles, but I assure you I have been contributing!

While I was putting together the grids and playing with clay, Christian's genius was at work making these:





(I got to play with the Hirst Arts bits and pieces, and put together the sphinxes!)


And I also fiddled around with some decorative blocks to create the foundations of a fountain:


Will hopefully have some time over the weekend to put together some more bits and get some painting done!

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Loot from Miniature Giant

My order from Miniature Giant has finally arrived! Had to wait for a couple of back-ordered Reaper figures, but I picked up my parcel from the post office this morning.

It's very exciting, because a couple of the minis I ordered are for our Supercity game:


One of these (the one bottom, middle) I plan to use for VSF with my LAM Bonnie and Clyde. And Terror on Planet X, complete with its own carry case!




Very happy they're here now, as it was taking very long and I was starting to think they'd been lost in the mail! Happily, it's my last week of uni for this year, so I will be having some more time for painting and making stuff. Stay tuned for something finished from this loot soon!

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Dungeon board

The latest of many commenced-but-not-completed projects that Christian and I are working on is a 3D dungeon board! We are going to use it for playing Warhammer Quest, but it can also be used as generic fantasy terrain, maybe with some of my cool figures from Shadowforge and Christian's Greek/Roman (?) skeletons (see pictured).

We got started yesterday on the first couple of tiles - just a couple of progress pics, but it's looking full of potential!



I had a day off work so I cut up some high-density foam into 50mm strips and Christian got started on engraving them into a grid. Hopefully we can post some more pics soon!

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Ogre Queen of Hearts

Just a quick update on my latest painting progress: this is the Queen of Hearts for a steam-punk or post-apoc game of Alice in Wonderland or something of the sort to be played at some point ;-)

I just think she's cool:


Will try and finish her during the week. Got some other minis lined up to start painting, including a little dragon! Stay tuned :-)

Friday, June 7, 2013

Shooting Stars - a new blog!

Hi all,

Part of the reason I haven't been painting lately is that I discovered a new hobby - astrophotography! I kept seeing all these amazing pictures of landscapes with stars in the background and found myself wondering if it was possible to take these sorts of pictures without spending thousands of dollars on camera equipment! Turns out you can ;-)

My husband had wanted a DSLR camera for a while anyway, so I did my research and found one that was considered a good quality, entry-level camera for both daytime photography and night photography. Still just small steps, starting off with blurry shots because I used the wrong lens etc., but I'm happy to report some better results!

Here's a couple of more recent shots:

 
  

If you're interested in checking out my astrophotography blog, you can find it here: Shooting Stars. The post containing these pics and the rest from that session is here:Third night out - EOS 1100D 26.5.13. I've also been posting resources I've found useful and shots from professional photographers I've been following, so there's plenty of interesting stuff on there!

Anyway, planning on getting back to painting this long weekend: Nebula needs a new stat card (I forgot she's meant to have alternate form so she can be Professor Sheratan too!) so we can try out SuperSystem, and I want to paint my ogre queen! I think she'd make an interesting Queen of Hearts for an expedition to Wonderland ;-)

Monday, May 20, 2013

Small Reaper hoard

Sadly, I have made no progress on any project in the past couple of weeks. Uni assignments and our book project have been getting the better of me (not to mention I discovered astrophotography and have begun my foray into that hobby as well). I was excited to receive a little parcel last week, though, with a couple of interesting Reaper items!


Nothing major, but the little guy in the middle is a Limited Edition mousling called "Monteray Jack" that I managed to score for just over $5 on eBay! If you're interested in getting Reaper figures (and a heap of other brands, too!) then Noble Knight Games on eBay is a good place to go.

The lady on the left is a Steampunk witch that I plan to use for Empire of the Dead, along with Bonnie and Clyde, and the Steampunk heroine I ordered from Miniature Giant (which hasn't been shipped yet, due to back-ordered items, boohoo!).

The one on the right is a dwarf wereshark dressed as a pirate. I found him so cute, I couldn't resist buying him!

Anyway, not a particularly meaty post, but an update will have to do for now! Hopefully this week will be kinder to the Bretonnians!

Friday, May 10, 2013

Character profile: NEBULA



Back-story 

Professor Ariel Sheratan, a research astronomer, had been researching the practical applications of stellar energy as a power source aboard the privately-owned Next Element Space Station (N.E.S.S.). Her hypothesis was that the energy possessed by stars could rival the efficiency of nuclear power as an energy source, if it could somehow be harnessed.

In order to more closely study this stellar energy, Professor Sheratan built a one-of-a-kind telescope (the Nebulous Starscope 1.0) designed to analyse the spectra of light observed in outer space. While observing stars aboard the N.E.S.S., Professor Sheratan witnessed a supernova explosion through her telescope—an explosion so blinding that she was knocked unconscious. When she came around, she found herself in the clinic, under the watchful eyes of the only other two people aboard the N.E.S.S.:  Professor Fergus Hadron, her research partner, and Dr Celia Gray, the on-board surgeon. She could hear them whispering to each other at the other end of the room.

When Ariel opened her eyes, she could not see and instead felt an intense heat around her face; she heard screams of agony, the ripping of metal; she tumbled from the gurney and found herself face down on the floor. She was finally able to close her eyes, and was met with only silence. Confused, Ariel attempted to stand but did not yet have the strength. Why doesn't someone help me? She didn't know how long she sat there when she was finally able to summon the strength to stand. Keeping her eyes closed, for her silent contemplation had given rise to an impossible theory, she fumbled about the clinic; she found her way to the equipment cabinet, though not without obtaining several bruises. After rummaging around in the cabinet, Ariel found what she sought—Extra-Ultra Violet (E-UV) Protection Goggles (the solar equivalent of bulletproof glass)—and put them on. Tentatively, she opened her eyes ...

With a pang of sorrow, she saw the destruction around her. Angry smoke billowed, concealing part of the room. She stepped through it and cried out mournfully. Covered in debris and surrounded by smoke lay her colleagues, so impossibly still it could only be certain they were dead. Tears flooding from her eyes, she pushed her way through the wreckage and out from the clinic. On the observation deck, everything was as she had left it, except that her telescope’s lenses were cracked and burnt. She looked around wildly, unsure of what to do. It took her only a few moments to decide. She grabbed her telescope and her sheaf of notes, and made her way to the dock. Flinging herself into an escape craft, she punched the access code to open the external shaft into the keypad. Ariel steered the craft out of the station, leaving behind the destruction but not the overwhelming guilt.

Ariel looked in the rear view monitor and saw that a shimmering haze was emanating from the N.E.S.S.. As it was expelled, it folded back on itself and around the craft, almost as though trying to envelope the space station and conceal it from sight. She thought she saw something dark moving away from the ness, though she couldn't tell what it was at this distance; only a moment of puzzlement was allowed to her, however, for even as she pondered the mysterious haze and equally odd shadow, a blinding light suddenly engulfed the space station. When it cleared, in place of the N.E.S.S., there was only a void.

Now more terrified than despairing, Ariel rammed forward the lever that would bring the escape craft to warp speed and belted herself into the seat to await the thrusting sensation she'd come to know so well from previous return voyages to her own solar system. It wasn't until she was back in her home galaxy, unsure of what to do and where to go, that Ariel realised her eyes hadn't been the only part of her body affected by the supernova incident. With horror, she looked down at her arms and saw they had turned black as the space surrounding her; black, but speckled with light, as though the night sky had been drawn to her and clung to her in place of skin. Her eyes drifted down and she saw that her clothing had burned away and this starry phenomenon had spread across her entire body. She wanted to cry, but no tears came. She was left only with the sensation that plagues the tear ducts when one is devastated but has run out of tears.

Ariel suddenly felt faint and lost consciousness. When she awoke, she found herself amid the wreckage of her escape craft, frightened but otherwise unscathed. She climbed out of the wreckage and saw she had landed in a great, open, sandy space. The desert. Ariel slowly spun in a circle, both because she was still dizzy and in order to take in her surroundings. Wherever she looked, she saw the same golden expanse, no direction offering any more suggestion of safety than another. Shifting her gaze to the night sky, she saw a single cluster of stars to the east. Taking this as a sign, she rummaged in the wreckage for her telescope and notes, also discovering the survival kit. She threw the lightweight blanket—which she found alongside a water canteen, some bandages and matches, and a compass—over her shoulders and began walking wearily towards the stars in the distance.

As the night faded into the dawn, Ariel became increasingly troubled; she was fast running out of water—her weariness prompting more sustenance than might usually have been enough to sustain her—and there was no shelter in sight. More than anything, she was afraid she would come across someone, not being able to dismiss the thought as irrational ... Who could I possibly find out here? Then, just as the sun crested the eastern skyline, she saw something unusual out of the corner of her eye. She hurried over to a sand dune and realised something concrete was protruding from it. It looked like a wall! Ariel frantically dug at the sand, after only a short time revealing a low concrete wall inset with a heavy metal door. She tugged at the rusty bolt and found she was easily able to open it.

She crept inside and lit a match. It looked like an abandoned bunker; perhaps somewhere scientific experiments had been conducted. She could see cracked flasks strewn across the floor, the latter stained with the fluorescent colour of chemical spillage. On tables, dried up solutions within intact vessels and notebooks yellowed with age but still fresh enough to write on, gave testimony to the hurried escape of the bunker’s occupants. In the corner, she found an old cot. She shook out the blanket covering the thin mattress and sat, finding it not an uncomfortable place to rest. A small door was nestled in another corner and Ariel crept over to it, nudging it open to reveal a small wash room. The showerhead, toilet and basin were a welcome sight, but only wishfully until she tried the tap and found that the water ran reasonably clear after several moments. I think I’ve found my new home.

Months later, holed up in her bunker, Ariel was finally able to prove that impossible theory she had in the moments after regaining consciousness. A previously unobserved stellar light frequency, on an invisible spectrum, had filtered through her Starscope when she observed the supernova explosion. The unique lenses of the instrument, having been designed specifically to analyse the composition of stellar light, had enabled Ariel to see the invisible frequency. And it had somehow been harnessed inside her body, without causing her any physical harm. With nowhere to go once it had extended to all her extremities and transformed her fair skin to ebony, it travelled her eyes, almost as though attempting to escape. When she had regained consciousness in the clinic, her lack of control coupled with her lack of awareness of her condition, had caused the stellar energy to project from her eyes and destroy everything in sight; including her unfortunate colleagues.

Over her time in seclusion, Ariel learned to control the emission of stellar light from her eyes. But her eyes did not appear as normal anymore; they were, instead, glowing spheres as brilliant as stars. To keep them hidden, she must always wear the E-UV goggles.

Today, she continues her research; but rather than seeking discoveries about the practical applications of stellar energy, she searches desperately for some sort of cure for her condition.  Though it did not cure her, one of her experimental serums allowed her to change her skin back to normal. It was never a permanent change, always shifting back to her star-speckled skin after some time; by taking doses of the serum regularly, she was able to hide her condition and return to society, if she so desired. Still overcome with guilt at the deaths of her colleagues, however, she wished to remain hidden until a permanent cure to both aspects of her condition could be found. But her research brought her to the attention of a secret organisation dedicated to fighting evil forces that plague the world.

Ariel was recruited to fight alongside other members of this organisation and, in memory of her lost friends, she decided to take on their nickname for her as her alter-ego. And so, she became Nebula ...

Stats

[TO BE INSERTED HERE]

Friday, May 3, 2013

Terror on Planet X set

SO excited to have found this great set of Reaper figures on the Miniature Giant website:


The set is called "Terror on Planet X" and includes three awesome space mouslings (and one unfortunate victim) along with the tentacle-y alien! It is a discontinued, special edition set that was only sold during Reaper Artist Con 2011, I believe. Going to be checking my mailbox every day until it arrives!

Given the absurd postage costs coming out of the US (not to mention going to) these days, I decided to add a few more figures to the order to make the most of the fee for shipping this set. So, I'm also waiting for a few minis from my Reaper wish list: "Laura Pringle" (who is the alter-ego of Nebula, Professor Ariel Sheratan), "Malvernis" (who will also see some play as a character in Supercity, our SuperSystem game), "Nightslip" (who I currently have no use for, but just love the sculpt), and "Belle, Steampunk Heroine" (who I thought would look nifty alongside my Bonnie and Clyde figs from LAM).

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Hordes wish list

I recently discovered the Hordes miniatures. While I'm not particularly interested in getting into another rule system, I really do like the look of some of the miniatures.

This is my wish list ... still trying to decide whether to buy them right this second or wait until next month - dilemmas, dilemmas! For now, I'm contenting myself by making a wish list :-)






Reaper wish list

So, in order to put together an awesome team for Supercity, I've been doing a little trawling on the net. I've come up with a Reaper Miniatures wish list, which I'm posting here for my own convenience (too lazy to find a notebook! :-p)

Supercity

Stay tuned for how these figures will be involved in the game!

 

 

 


Anvall Thricedamned

And, of course, I always find something totally unrelated that I end up wanting too!

Steampunk


 



Clockwork dragon

Gladiators


Hoplite (to be used as Xena, with a different head)


Pirates






2012 ReaperCon Pirate Sophie

Mouslings



 
(Just found this guy on eBay for about $5 instead of $24.99 on Miniautre Giant site! Woohoo!)


Animals/Creatures


Fantasy

Sandru Vhishki (to be used as Autolycus)