This post is an experiment to see if I can post pictures directly from my iPhone into the new WordPress page. No idea if this will work or not. 🙂
I paint minis to relax my brain. I usually put a cop show or audiobook streaming in the background, and do this for an hour or two at night. It really helps me refocus the next day.
These are some Infinity minis I’ve done over the last couple months. (Spanish company, fantastic sculpts) I’ve done a bunch more, but need to get some good lights set up and take some decent photos. These are just crappy iPhone pictures in bad light.
Once I get some good lighting set up, I’ll take better shots. I’m not the best painter, but I’m pretty darned fast. I’ve only played a few games of Infinity (Warmachine is still my game) but I’ve painted about sixty of their minis since the beginning of Winter. (I went ahead and bought about half their product line off of Black Friday sales from Miniatures Market and FRP Games, because there is nothing more dangerous than a nerd with disposable income)
The terrain is MDF pieces glued together by my me and my son, and then I gave them a quick, basic paint job with an air brush. That is about 1/3 of the stuff for the sci-fi themed wargaming table I’m working on right now. The next Writer Nerd Game Night campaign I’m running is going to be sci-fi Savage Worlds, and I like to bring a ridiculous amount of props.
Woohoo, Writer Game Night. Good to see you weren’t permanently burnt out from the L5R campaign.
That wood looks laser cut. What kind of wood and how thick? Did you use a CO2 laser to cut it? Any issues?
Pre-cut MDF (medium density fiberboard) is pretty common in the miniatures terrain industry these days. IIRC, pieces are typically about 1/8″ thick. And the buildings tend to be fairly easy to assemble, provided you exercise the necessary precautions (i.e. don’t force stuff – it *will* break if you’re careless).
And be sure to wear a mask of you decide to do any filing or cutting of the materials yourself: it’s a carcinogen.
Mind you, so are the cigars I smoke, but it’s all about minimizing risks.
Have fun. Clear your brain. Looking forward to the next MHI book and the second Grimnoir trilogy.
No pressure….
And THEN: the Crossover!
They make gorgeous minis.
Unfortunately, while the game was played for a short bit at my local game store, it quickly died off for unknown reasons.
One more item that I should note –
The rules for Infinity are available for free on the official website (which is probably blocked under my company’s new website restrictions, but you can do a web search for ‘Infinity game’), albeit without all of the neat little extras that are found in the rulebooks that are for sale.
Such a disappointing post. From the title I’d imagined that you and Scalzi had agreed to bury the hatchet via a UFC-for-charity event, which could have played out something like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6_k9rtDL8M
I hope that some hatchet burying does take place in the near future. And a charity event would be a cool way to do so, but we’ll see . . .
And remember; a buried hatchet can always be retrieved with the aid of a metal detector. -g-
I think if it were Scalzi and Correia it would last two hits. Correia hitting Scalzi and then Scalzi hitting the canvas. Correia is one big kaiju. Just sayin’.
Someone needs to get ahold of Dana White.
Another option is if Scalzi plays Warmachine. I picture him as a Cephalix or Cryx player. Match em up and roll the dice! Just make sure Scalzi reads page five in the rulebook first.
Cool paint job and very nice looking terrain. I hope that fun is had gaming with it all.
I played in a Savage Worlds Space:1889 game run by Shane Hensley at a Denver con a few years ago.
Most fun I’ve had in an RPG, ever.
I’m trying to pull together a Savage Worlds Deadlands game, but three of my players live on the East Coast, the other on the West, and I’m in the middle, so it’s done via Skype.
Still trying to figure out how to work the poker deck/poker chips thing long distance…
I was just thinking the other day that I miss seeing your mini posts.
As a fledgling mini painter, I envy your skills.
Ah, memories. Generic Legions (GL) is a series of wargame rulesets for SF miniatures, designed for use with whatever miniatures you happen to have handy. You can use the background universe that comes with it or you can throw in the background from anything else.
The game mechanics are designed so that you can take any miniature you have, regardless of who manufactured the figure or what game it might have been originally intended for, and quickly and easily figure out the unit’s characteristics in GL terms. You can mix and match miniatures from different manufacturers, different game systems, even different scales, as long as you think it looks good on the tabletop.
Due to its nature, GL is a “living” game system, a “work in progress”. (This may no longer be the cvase; it’s been a while…) Since it’s a freebie, you don’t have to worry about paying for a new edition or expansion pack every couple of months. Players are encouraged to create their own material for the GL universe and distribute it freely.
GL is a game system for people who are tired of the “regular” science fiction miniatures games. People who want an alternative to the more popular rules out there. Gamers who want something perhaps a little more realistic (koff!), yet still playable, fun, and easy to learn. People brave enough to try something new, something different, something that features huge combat robots wearing neckties.
The GL project started out in the mid-1980’s as our local game club’s set of “advanced rules” for the old MAATAC game from Superior Models. (See the Game Masters web site for miniatures and information on MAATAC). The system has grown and evolved so much since then that there’s not much of the old game left in it, but you can still see traces of the excellent system that inspired GL. The basic movement rates for some of the core units are the same as in the original MAATAC rules, as our tribute to Superior’s original game design.
You may also want to take a look at Napoleon at Chattanooga, a boardgame of Napoleon’s famous campaign in the Tennessee Valley, conquest of the Solar System, and an armoured regiment named Bob. Some assembly required.
http://www.irvania.com/games/sfgames.htm
Does the sky-blue beret mean the same thing 175 years from now as it does today? 😉
Nah. Those are Pan-Oceana troops. In Infinity, the Earth is dominated by three major political blocs – Asia (essentially China after devouring all of its neighbors), Islam (albeit a somewhat nicer variant), and Pan-Oceana (essentially everyone else).
There are some off-world groups, as well. And two alien empires.
Blue – including the blue berets – is Pan-Oceana’s color. The guys wearing power armor with crosses are also part of Pan-Oceana. They’re in one of the militant religious orders.
There’s one other Earth-based group – ALEPH. That’s the organization that answers directly to the super AI that in theory directs and leads humankind. The ideal is that ALEPH’s forces work in a fashion similar to the modern day UN blue helmets. In practice, they’re much more pro-active. Whether or not that’s a good thing depends on whose propaganda you believe.
Ah. For a moment there I thought it was X-COM. Or at least the blueshirts you get for the base defense mission.
(Had to do the Base Defense mission from X-COM Enemy Within over the weekend. I learned I am still pretty bad at that game and was fortunate the difficulty was easy. Oh and I should make sure my highest-ranking soldier list includes a Heavy w/HEAT ammo for those bleeping cyberdiscs.)
Nice paint job, I really like the terrain. Who made those buildings?
I could use some for my table.
Those are from Warsenal.
That terrain is really good, where did you get it from?
nice looking paint. 🙂
Cygnar, mercs, gators, and trolls for me. I love Warmachine. My gaming buddies are still in the early stages of Infinity–first few scenarios of the basic set. Their minis are the best in the business I think.
Do any of y’all watch Ash Barker’s miniwargaming videos?
This is making me wish I had room in my flop house for a gaming table.
Big fan of the GZG rules myself: Full Thrust, Dirtside, Stargrunt etc. Mainly because they’re adaptable to any universe I like or devise but also their elegant simplicity. I’m very much into rules simplicity: if a single die roll gives the same chances and end results as a whole set of charts and tables then why bother with the charts and tables?
I’ll have to check out Infinity.
I’ve downloaded Infinity, but haven’t had time to play a game yet. I’ve been too busy getting my Heavy Gear stuff together. What can I say? I like giant stompy robots.
Have you played Dystopian Wars? They have big stompy robots too.
I haven’t, but I’ll take that as a recommendation to go away and find out more. Cheers.
PS: I should add I’m sorely tempted to write specific rules for what I want to do. I have had some ideas, and I can steal my construction engine from OHMU War Machine that I wrote back in the early nineties, and overlay some nice action point mechanisms I’ve thought of for movement etc.
PPS: What I shall be doing is carrying on working on my novels, because ultimately that’s what pays the bills.
Infinity is intricate. I recommend looking at Ash Barker’s series on Infinity. They play the first eight scenarios and detail the rules so that newbs like me can make sense of the rules. Turns are interrupted by counter moves and such which can be confusing.
Hey, make the rule set! Who doesn’t like big stompy robots? Cheers.
That scenery looks amazing, far better than the home made stuff I’ve whipped together from styrofoam sheets!
Did you design it yourself, or work from a premade template? Is the template you worked from available anywhere? I’d love to try and replicate what you’ve made there.
These are MDF sheets from Warsenal. Really cool stuff.
Why do all the chick figures have their guns pointed in the air?
(Then I realized, if they were aiming, the guns would cover their boobs….)
Nice job and cool that you and the kids work on this together.
It’s been almost 30 years since I’ve painted a miniature, but your posts have made me think it might be a fun hobby to get into again.
Off-topic: yay. John Ringo said on FB that Larry has returned first set of edits on MHI Memoirs I: Grunge. 191 of them. Apparently Larry’s literary life is now at extreme risk from the right side of the political divide: Joe Buckley-style…
Nice job. Cool pieces. Sadly, I don’t have the patience to do that kind of work myself.
Really love the settings — straight out of DOOM. 😀
For a simple solution to getting good individual shots of your painted minis, may I recommend Jen Yates’ milk jug photo “box”?
Here: http://www.epbot.com/2011/08/milk-jug-photo-studio.html
She’s one of my noms for best fan blogger this year, particularly for her art round ups and fannish DIY. The monthly roundups are particularly good for recc’ing illustrators who are known and loved in the wider con circuit, but who nearly always fall off the radar of the average world con voter.
About all you can tell from her recs (via pronoun use) is the possible sex of the artist, BTW. Their politics, melanin concentration and sexual habits are never explored. Shocking, I know!
The Authorized Bounty Hunter who came free with the rule books is an awesome figure.
Glad to see you spent your time on something else than puppies. Tell me, did you ever imagine the puppies would get this big though?
And one thing I always wondered. Would you have preferred these works to be listed without needing slates? I mean, the slating resulted in a number of voters selecting from a very narrow list. If the “regular” approach would have been used (rallying people, suggesting works, but not creating a slate), the final lists would probably still have contained lots of puppy works, but not as many as there are now. And it would have made some of the arguments a lot less heated. (And back to the topic, you would have more time to indulge in your “Geeky hobbies”)
“Glad to see you spent your time on something other than puppies, so now tell me about Sad Puppies things you’ve already spoken about repeatedly!”
No. Yes. Did that last year, still heated. No. No.
OK i deserved that answer 200%. Sorry to draw you back in.
And while I personally do not like the slating, thanks for taking the time to answer and thank you for directing me toward some works from other authors outside of what I am used to read. I am enjoying the read. Hope the heat will dissipate.
(Ok that may have sounded dishonest, but it is not. I honestly hope some good will come out of this. I don’t care whether you own a gunstore or for all I know a lesbian sexclub. I care about good writing).
When are we going to see a Grimnoire minis game, Larry?
Or maybe an MHI game?
I’m not sure I’d be too into a minis game set in Son of the Black Sword. Who’d want to play the casteless faction. So many minis to paint.