Thinking Outside the Box

September didn't feel like a terribly productive month, but doing these progress reports serves as a nice reminder to me that I haven't been entirely idle. Let's have a quick recap! Modeling / hobby: - Fixed Copperhead broken during a demo of Batman Miniature Game . She also got a little more putty work done to really make sure the joins were looked after. - I prepped and based the Hell Division trio and more police figures for Empire of the Dead . I've also decided to include the "Gentleman Bat" figure (created by some top-notch fellows over on LAF) in this batch. Total of 12 figures ready for paint. - I applied basing materials to my 25mm Jaffa minis in hopes of someday getting my  Stargate  project further along. Total of 22 soldiers and the like. - All of my MDF western buildings from August got a spray coat of black primer. - Finished a bit of customization work to an o-scale train water tower model I bought a while back. - Sculpted custom bases ...

With spring rapidly approaching I started cleaning up around the house, and happened upon a pile of stuff I ordered way back last fall. I ordered these with the plan to use them as a basis for some 3D models that I could animate. I haven't yet got a 3D scanner, so that's likely why they were piled up in a corner and forgotten. Looking to maximize space (and have some fun), I set about opening them all so that I could give them a nice spot on my shelf together somewhere. I've never purchased any Diamond Select toys before and I have to say that they're very nice! I'm sadly one piece short (I think?) of having a complete Atlantis stargate. :( The two characters I'd really like to add to my collection seem to be very difficult (or at least expensive) to find. Rodney is reported a short-packed figure, and I think he came with one of the gate pieces I'm missing. Ronon was a Previews  exclusive, so it's extremely unlikely I'll find one. I'm ...

I was really pleased with my first use of the Plate Mail Army Painter  primer spray when I used it on my Forge Fathers team, the Royal Eternian Rams , for DreadBall . I ordered it knowing that it would also be a great time saver for the first batch of stuff I had in mind for my  Stargate  project.  I am very happy at how well it covers and how smooth it looks after application. I don't have a lot of use for coloured primer due to playing mainly skirmish games, but it is very good primer and I'll likely be switching to it even for black, white and grey. Shortly after I received the official Stargate figures I cleaned up and based all the Jaffa figures and prepped one of the two gates I bought. There are three 8-man squads of Jaffa, two heavy cannons with operators, and a First-Prime to ensure their loyalty and obedience. I'm still uncertain of the best way to construct and base the cannons, as they're two part models. I would like them to be separate from...

Since I returned last weekend I haven't really done much hobby stuff, as my time has been occupied by holiday preparations, band rehearsals, work, and being sick. I haven't let that icky 'real world' stuff keep me completely away from the realm of geekdom however. On Thursday night I made the trek down to Trilogy to play some games with Uncle Mike and James. It was their regular monthly night for Strange Aeons . Rather than just play a straight up game of Strange Aeons though, James and I ended up doing a play test game of Kulten  instead. I was going to pit my lowly snake man cult up against his mighty Cobra army...but after looking at the massive point difference, we decided to try one of the Alert the Authorities  options instead. So I opted for having my cult sit  out, and an elite Threshold team worth a whopping 60 points took their place. Long story short James was able to achieve victory with minimal damages. We found a possible rule that needs some tweaking ...

For the last few weeks I've been trying to decrease the number of items on my painting table, without a lot of success. That's probably because I keep adding more stuff to the backlog than I actually clear off! I've got several pieces of scenery and markers, a 'hero' model for SuperSystem which will also serve in my Nazi Death Cult for Kulten , plus the Lycaon and Vampire starter boxes for Empire of the Dead sitting up there. There are also a ton of primed figures-in-waiting up on top of the fridge (to keep them out of reach from both the cat and curious little-people fingers). Sunday turned out to be a lazy sleep-in-then-stay-home day, which was pretty nice as they don't seem to happen terribly often. I did a few things around the house that required doing, watched some TV and then continued work on a few things from the miniature projects to-do list. As you may have seen in my previous post I also received a large batch of stuff for a  Stargate  ...

Another box full of unpainted metal goodness showed up at the post office for me yesterday. After getting it home and dumping it all on the table (then cleaning up the resultant mess of green packing peanuts) here's what I found. What you see there is an assortment of the officially-produced 28mm Stargate miniatures by Phoenix Icons in (or around) 2007 or 2008. I ordered them from Cold War Miniatures in the UK and they arrived two weeks to the day after. They had quick service, nicely packed and shipped, and there was also a friendly little handwritten note inside saying thanks. In case you can't tell by looking at the full-size image here's a run down of what I picked up: 2x Stargate & DHD 1x Jaffa First Prime 2x Skull-capped Jaffa 4-pack 2x Serpent Guard Jaffa 4-pack 2x Hawk Guard Jaffa 4-pack 2x Jaffa Heavy Cannon w/ gunner 1x SG-1 Team (O'Neill, Teal'c, Jackson, Carter and Mitchell) 1x SG-9 Team (5 generic SGC dudes armed w/ P90s) In...

I've always been the kind of person who has too many things on the go. Or at least that's what people often tell me, wondering how I can ever keep it all straight, or finish anything. The truth is that, for me, I need to have all those things happening so that I can keep myself entertained. I almost wrote focused  instead of entertained, but even I'm not so self-deluded to think that I possess much in the way of focus when it comes to my hobbies. Obsessive perhaps, but not focused. You see, I know I have too many hobbies and the reality is that I don't have time for all of them. Nowhere near really, but that's part of the appeal. For some reason, the way my brain is wired, I will zero in on some activity or concept for a length of time, produce some interesting or cool stuff (yep, aren't I modest), and then move on to something else. For the past 6~7 months I've been pretty firmly rooted in working on miniatures and terrain building. However, I regularl...