Quick late night workbench photo of my Impact Miniatures Sarcos crocodile team for Blood Bowl. They’re 99% done, with only the hook-hands of two and a few other details to finish off.
Sarcos Crocs nearly finished. Click for larger.
I’m quite pleased with how these figures have come together, they’re really nice sculpts and well cast, and it’s been great to get back into painting — these are the first figures I’ve actually gotten paint on since May of this year!
I’m out of town for a while visiting family so it’ll be sometime around Christmas before I can get decent daylight photos of these guys, but I want to get photos of them as soon as I can.
Being a completist, when I decided to get into Blood Bowl there was no way I’d just leave it at a team or two and nothing else! Besides, although there’s a lot of other players around with BB pitches of various sorts, from the basic card field from the box set to very elaborate homemade ones, I wanted a setup of my own so I’m not dependent on other players to provide everything needed.
For this BB pitch, I had a couple of goals. I wanted a jungle ruins theme overall, to fit with the Lizardman & Amazon teams I’m starting with, and the whole thing had to be transportable, probably in a boot-sized shoebox. I do almost all of my gaming away from home, so portability is key. That meant the actual pitch was going to be fabric, not hard panels of some sort, and the various accessories and decorative elements had to be modular and not really oversized. Light weight would also be nice. I also wanted to incorporate a bunch of BB’s play aids and things like turn & re-roll tracking right into the scenery, to minimize the amount of clutter around and on the table.
Various Blood Bowl accessories in progress. See text for details, and click for larger.
The photo shows where I’m at after a couple of hours over a couple of evenings. The main construction material is half-inch pink insulation board for all the stonework. Turns out this is 14mm thick, so if you slice 14mm wide strips off then cut those roughly 1 inch long, you get a nicely sized “stone” block. It’s like Hirst Arts plaster blocks, without the weight, fragility or the mess of dozens of casting sessions! The square tiles are 20mm by 20mm cubes cut from the same styrofoam, then sliced into thirds, so each tile is somewhere between 3mm-5mm thick. A hot glue gun was used to glue everything together; the bases are just mattboard, the good quality card used in picture framing.
The two foreground pieces are a pair of Re-Roll & Turn Track markers, one for each team, made to look like some sort of temple plaza/stone-paved roadway setup. You can etch/carve insulation foam with a pencil, so the wide stones on the left have the name of each track (“R-R” for Reroll, “First” and “2nd” for first half/second half turn tracking) and then the numbers 1-8. I used Roman numerals for the 2nd half numbers, just because, although looking at it again, using those for Rerolls to make it different might have been cleverer. Not too late to slice off the name label tiles and put new ones on, I guess.
Top left and top right is a dugout for each team, with the 3 areas in each needed for Reserve/KO/Injured.
Top centre is the base for the scoreboard. I haven’t quite finalized the design for the actual scoreboard, but magnets to hold some sort of placard with the score number on it will be used. The 3×3 square of paving at the front of the scoreboard will be pencil-etched with the BB scatter template for reference, and I might actually extend the front of the paving by another row to put the 3×1 throw-in template there.
Everything will be painted in stone, then various vegetation, vines and such added to make it look jungle-like without hampering the functionality of the various Blood Bowl game elements being built into the scenery. I’m also wondering what other game elements could be carved into the stonework to add to the utility and bump the decorative level up a bit, too. Given I currently lack proper bash dice, I might put the d6 conversion table for them along the top of the back row of each dugout, one on each of six stones… any other ideas?
I’ve got a piece of brown cotton flannel big enough for a 40mm pitch, which I’ll turn into a muddy jungle field with the aid of fabric dye, ink and a black permanent marker. I might actually put a standard-size 29/30mm pitch on the back, just because, and the offcut should include a piece of fabric big enough to put a BB7 pitch on, possibly in 40mm even. The actual fabric pitch will probably be my Christmas holiday gaming project.
Up next, some last carving and details, then paint! Not sure if I’ll go with basic grey paint, or try for the tan sandstone look so many of the Mayan buildings down in Mexico are made from.
Work continues on the Impact Miniatures Sarcos crocodile team for Blood Bowl, and I finally got a photo in daylight before I went off to work this morning.
Impact Sacros crocodiles, getting painted up for Blood Bowl. Click for larger.
The big Leviathan croc on the extreme right of the photo is closest to done, just a few details like his eyes left. The remaining sixteen, eight Salt Water Crocs (Saurus, in BB terms) and eight Baby Crocs (Skinks in BB) are all in various stages less finished than the big guy, but they’re progressing, at least. I am going to be doing a fair bit of highlighting and such on the base colours, especially on the Salt Water crocs, which are mostly too dark and monochrome right now.
It’s been great to get back into painting, too; this is the most painting I’ve done since early May of this year, which is way too long ago!
I’ve also got some accessories and such for Blood Bowl – team dugouts and other functional field scenery – in progress, and will get a post up about that in the next few days. Friday I’m off to Vancouver, though, to run a Russian Civil War game for friends there. This is a game I first started talking about running nearly two years ago, so it’ll be good to get it run finally!
This is something I never actually thought would happen in my wargaming life: I’m painting figures for one of GW’s rulesets!
Blood Bowl has been played off and on for years up at the Sunday gaming club I’m involved in, and by other friends, and I’ve finally decided to take the plunge and get into it, after years of saying I might.
Several of us put in a combined order to Impact Miniatures for teams or (for the folks who already play) a few extra figures to round out a team. I decided to get a team of Sarcos crocodiles (who play as Lizardmen in BB) and a team of Amazons, both from the resin-plastic range Impact sells. I have to say I’m really impressed with the Impact miniatures, they’re very nice, both the pewter and resin-plastic ones.
I haven’t started assembling or painting the Amazons yet, but the Sarcos crocs are underway. They’re really neat figures, loads of character and detail. Here’s a fairly bad late night shot of them on the painting bench for you.
What a Croc! 17 of them, in fact. Resin from Impact, and very nice. Click for full size.
One thing that amuses me about Blood Bowl is that you can, with a bit of ingenuity, play the game without giving Games Workshop a cent. They have the rules PDF available for free download, Impact and other folks make figures and dice, and other accessories are easily made at home. That said, GW is still apparently selling the boxed set and various figures, if you want to go that route!
I’m planning on making a field (pitch, in BB terms!) from fabric fairly soon, possibly over the Christmas break, as well as getting the Amazons ready for play once the crocs are done. I still need a team name for the crocs, too…
Just to prove that there really is progress being made around here, despite the relative quiet on the blogging front, here’s a fairly bad late night photo of the motor yacht, with it’s second coat of white paint applied!
Motor yacht, with paint on it! Click for full size.
Because of the board expanses of plain, untextured surfaces on this thing, and the tendency of those broad expanses to show brush strokes really well, I’m using very diluted paint, pretty much just using layers of washes to get colour onto the thing. It means a couple of coats to get a good colour, but also no visible brush strokes!
I’m going to do the bow and rear decks dark, glossy wood, and then pick out the railings and other details either in white or in brass — haven’t decided which yet.
Slow but steady progress on the 28mm pulp motor yacht. I hit it with a light coat of grey primer, to better show the seams and bits that needed additional putty and sanding work — that sort of thing shows up so much better under a thin coat of primer than it does in the blindingly-white bare plastic!
I’ve re-done the edge of the bow deck around the curve of the bow, and several areas on the cabin roof and around the flying bridge. Here’s a pair of low-res after dark images showing the boat in it’s current state.
Easier to take photos of now it’s not blinding white, too. Low quality image, but click for larger.
The cabin roof/flying bridge assembly is still removable, and I glued a 1.25″ washer to the roof then skinned over it with another layer of styrene plastic. With that ballast and reinforcement, the roof is a lot more solid and stays in place much more easily. It also visually makes the boat seem more solid, somehow.
Stern quarter view. Low quality image but click for slightly larger.
The rear view shows the cabin door and the ladder up to the flying bridge. The three round windows started out with a hand-spun drill bit, then got carefully and slowly reamed out with a sharp Xacto blade. I thought about doing window frames or something around them, but ultimately decided the boat would have to manage without in the interests of my own sanity!
Second, proper coat of primer tonight, then paint later this week. The paint scheme is going to be pretty simple — white hull and walls, glossy wooden decking — so it should be fairly quick to paint up.
I’ll be off to the main downtown Cenotaph for the ceremony and two minutes of silence today, but after you do your own two minutes, here’s a pair of relevant songs for today.
I first heard “Green Fields of France” at ten or fifteen years ago, after a backpacking trip through Europe that had included time at Ypres, including a walk out of town to see John McCrae’s grave. Here’s the Dropkick Murphy’s cover.
At our main cenotaph ceremony here, we always have both a Royal Canadian Navy band from nearby Esquimalt naval base and the pipes and drums of our local reserve infantry regiment, the 5th (Princess Mary’s) Canadian Scottish. If massed pipes and drums don’t make your hair stand on end, I’m afraid you have no soul. Here they are with our local symphony orchestra doing Amazing Grace.
Part One is here, for those of you just joining in. The project is a small 28mm motor yacht for pulp gaming, based loosely on real motor yachts from early in the 20th C and built entirely out of styrene plastic sheet, because I have a lot of it hanging around!
I finally got the hull sides done this weekend, using one long strip of .020″ styrene plastic per side. To accommodate the slight rake of the hull side and the curve of the bow, I cut the strips slightly too wide and wider toward the bow of the boat. After gluing one side at a time, I trimmed the thin plastic down with knife and sandpaper to match the actual lines of the boat.
Adding the hull sides. Right-hand side glued all the way to the bow but not trimmed; left side glued along the stern and cabin. Click for larger.
The stern and cabin area was simpler, except for being careful where the curve was placed that fits the higher bow deck into the hull side. Initial glue was quick-acting Plastruct Bondene solvent; after that set up I used superglue along the bottom seam to strengthen it.
Boat from the stern quarter, with cabin roof in place. Door frame and ladder in progress. Click for larger.
I’ve also gotten panelling into the cabin (see the first photo), door frames on either side of the door at the rear of the cabin, and started in on the ladder up to the flying bridge on the cabin roof.
Boat from bow quarter. Lots of putty work and detailing to do, but it’s structurally complete! Click for larger.
There’s a large amount of cleanup and detailing needed with Milliput and modelling putty to get everything cleaned up and smoothed out, a bunch more details to add, then the first spraycoat of primer to show up any glitches and things that still need to be fixed. The cabin roof needs some weight on it to get it to sit properly on the cabin walls; the seams all need cleaning up, especially around the bow deck and the bow itself; and I might yet put another layer of styrene down on the bow deck, as the single layer there currently is quite thin and I worry about it standing up to the wear and tear of gaming and transport.
Still, it’s great to have the major structural parts of the boat complete!
Just a few links to start the new month off. Hope everyone had a safe and excellent Halloween, for those of you who live where it’s a thing.
Black Army Productions are a company with a small but interesting selection of things, including a few WW1/Interwar armoured cars. The fantastically pulpy-looking Romfell is certainly eye-catching; my pulp-flavoured German FreiKorp might need one of those… They’re having a fall sale until November 15th, so there might be a Romfell and a few other bits enroute to me after next payday…
Just a week or so left in this, but the excellent J & M Miniatures is having a (Canadian) Thanksgiving Sale, 15% until 10th November (so it lasts until the Yanks have their late Thanksgiving too, how about that?). You put the code “Thanksgiving2013” in during checkout to get the discount on everything they stock. Which reminds me, it’s been a long while since I fired some money at J & M, perhaps it’s time to have a look at their catalog again…
Acheson Creations is another one of those interesting companies that’s got a wide range of interesting bits and pieces, mostly resin scenery and such for a wide range of eras & locations. Their Primeval Designs line includes a bunch of unique 28mm & 15mm dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts. They’re also running a Kickstarter to fund creation of some new, larger pieces, including a big ape who looks just right for transporting from some Lost World to the nearest skyscraper! The Kickstarter is about halfway to it’s modest funding goal and runs until November 20th, so hopefully this one funds!
Finally, via Paleofuture, this 1929 American air travel map over at the awesome David Rumsey Historical Map Collection — apparently flying across country in the late 20s actually meant spending most nights on a train…
Back in the long-lost days of mid-2009 (OK, four years back…) a contest called “Build Something” was held over on the excellent Lead Adventure Forum, with the contest theme of “Transportation”. I decided to build a small motor yacht/large powerboat sort of boat for pulp gaming, taking inspiration from and got as far as cutting the base of the hull, the cabin walls and the sides of the stern out of styrene plastic before inspiration fled and I moved on to other projects.
The now-lost original plan, from October 2009. Click for larger.
Lots of other projects, in the intervening years, but I never actually threw out the barely-started boat, it just gathered dust and got used as an impromptu container for scrap wood and other bits. Late last week I finally got around to cleaning up my long-neglected hobby bench, didn’t feel like painting, and decided to dust off the motor yacht instead of starting an entirely new project. I still have a large amount of styrene plastic (plastic card) hanging around, so it was still the material of choice for this project.
I’ve added frames to the bow and a deck, then added a removable roof to the cabin and a flying bridge on top of that.
The boat restarted, October 2013. Click for larger.
The hull sides will be the next big step. I’m planning on doing each side with a single long strip of styrene, and then use putty up at the bow to properly form the actual point of the bow.
After that there’s still a lot of detail work and cleanup to do. Door and window frames, a ladder up to the flying bridge, and a lot of putty to smooth things out and hide seams.
From the stern quarter. Scale provided by 28mm Pulp Figures reporters. Click for larger.
This last photo shows the curves in the aft end of the boat quite nicely. I’m going to use steel wire for railings on the sides and back of the flying bridge, and might put a removable canopy over the rear deck. Also need to come up with a name, to be painted across the stern in large gold letters!
