Adepticon TT Display Progress Part 2

Here we go with more progress, I'll have the captions tell what's happening in each of the pictures.  We met again last night and proceeded to get the rocks glued on and finished as well as the first layer of sand on the base.  Our craft store shopping experience proved successful as well with the tons of plants we got, especially the "root" like looking ones.

We disguised the cables with brown electrical tape to cover them up and will eventually wrap those in leaves. While wrapping one, unfortunately one of the light strips came unsoldered.  Jeff and Greg are going to attempt to repair/salvage what we have - keeping my fingers crossed!

I also realized after getting home that now by adding the rocks to the top of the top platform, it is now taller then the opening to the rear of my jeep.  So we'll need to do a test run to make sure we can angle it in, otherwise we'll need to chop some of the top off.  Good times!  The fun of projects, always something coming up.

Sand is added

rocks waiting to be glued on top of the islands

assembled project, the core is done! now if only it will fit in my jeep

first layer of brown applied to sand, electrical tape covering wires

adding roots to the islands

Danny hiding in the massive amount of foliage... Shrouded!

Where we wrapped up for the night, we're slowly getting there!

In the painting front, I probably have about 3 more hours left to finish my last riptide.  About 3 hours left on the skyrays and about 5 hours on the 20 drones.  Going to be coming down to the wire.  I'm debating on whether I go to a practice tournament tomorrow to knock some rust off my gaming skills.

I'll have some progress shots tonight when we finish up, the goal is to get basically most of the board finished.

Adepticon TT Display Board Progress

It's that time of year where we are scrambling to get everything ready for Adepticon!  I've been a little quiet on the hobby front lately but this project has really sparked our creative energies.

We're running Tau and our team (Adeptus Film Company) is doing a play on Pandora from the Avatar movie... I won't give away all the cool back story but the thought was to do floating islands like the movie and integrate glowing discs with the Tau icons.  One of our team members, Greg, is a graphic artist and is a genius when it comes to coming up with these ideas.  No way we could have pulled it off without him.

We built up a new cart to mount this to, with some sturdy casters... no wrecking all the hard work with broken wheels!

We spent a couple weeks ago flushing out the core of it and both Saturday and Sunday last weekend working on the display.  I'll throw captions in the titles of the photos so you can see what we're working on!

The foam rings that will serve as the undersides of the floating islands

Danny and Greg sanding out the rocks

Jeff creating the final foam ring 

Greg is assembling the core of the islands

Danny dry brushing up the sections

The finish core of the islands taped up

Here is what it looks like before we start adding everything on top of the platforms!

where we left off before finishing for the weekend.  You can see added overhang rocks and  putty to go over the edge.

This week will be super busy finishing this up.  We need to add additional rocks over the top of the "discs", sculpt them and putty them up.  Then we'll be adding a swamp to the base.  I picked up a bunch of fake plants and roots that we'll be integrating, as well as sanding and putting fake grass/foliage on the base themselves.

Only a week and a half left!  Outside of this I still need to finish a riptide, 2 skyrays and 20 drones!  Argh!

Infinity Display Board / Dice Tray / Order Counter

I came up with an idea after playing Infinity a couple of months ago.  My dice kept bouncing around and I was half tempted to buy a little dice tray.  Then after thinking I needed a more effective/quicker way to count my orders and move my army around, I sketched out a design to do all three!

Here's my first concept work of a multi-tray.

The dice rolling area is plenty of room and the right height to roll a handful of d20's.  I felt lined it to dampen the roll and keep the noise down.

The order counters are pretty basic.  I just did a floating circle and painted on the arrows and numbers.  It probably needs one more coat of white paint.

Everything else was a few coats of a high gloss black lacquer.  This should keep it shiny and new!

The tray on the end to display my army and move it around has a floating insert.  I'll decorate that with the similar effects I base my armies in.  I'll also do a bit of a backdrop that "tells the story".  It will be removable so I can rotate out armies and display them on a shelf when I'm not using my multi-tray.

Hope you enjoy, and inspire your own DIY tournament trays.

First Infinity Models Painted: Ariadna Loup-Garous

I've been in a bit of a painting slump but am finally getting back.  I've been assembling terrain like a madman over the last couple of months.  My goal is to get 4 4x4 tables at my house for infinity so I can start hosting.  If you've ever played the game you know how terrain intensive that is!

Here's my first batch of miniatures I painted for my Ariadna Merrovingian Strike Force.  I started with the Loup-Garous.  I love how this link team performs in the game, they're brutal.  It looks like they may be one of the more intensive paint schemes with all of their capes.

What I found is the real challenging part for me is switching scales.  All of the tiny straps and details that are way easier to paint on heroic 28mm.  Now that I'm looking at the pictures zoomed in, I want to go back and touch up some things.

I basically went with most of the color schemes straight from the book.  It was fun doing such a small batch of models.  I could mix paints on the fly and it allowed me to try things I wouldn't normally undertake if I had to batch paint hundreds of models (or tanks).

The bases I used are from Dragon Forge Design.  Great product from those guys.  I am not totally sold on the grass I put on the bases, but I wanted to break up the drab concrete a little bit and figured grass would be growing through the cracks.

Now onto the rest of my Ariadna models.  The next batch will be the troopers as well as the Chasseurs.

City Tiles for Infinity

I'm anxious awaiting for my Secret Weapon Miniatures Kickstarter to come in, but I couldn't wait too long.  Figured I'd whip up some easy tiles for 2 4'x4' tables.  My Dad is a genius at woodworking and I spent an evening with him last week doing tons of cuts.  The thought is on these tiles that I'd be able to customize and make cool little vignettes on the "blank" ones and have some standard roads to make as big of a city as need be.

Here's my example straight road tiles.  The roads are 5" wide which seems to be about right for two of the Antenocitis Workshop cars to drive side by side.  The "blank" tiles will be raised by one level so they're flush with the sides of the road.  I'll go and pick up some textured paint to lay down, it should go pretty easy.

Hopefully this will give me some quick and effective city tiles.  I'm really looking forward to doing some fountains, parks, etc.

Since I'm torn between doing a futuristic city and a more modern one, I'm going to do two themed tables... one of each!   The more futuristic buildings will come from MicroArt Studios, Sarissa Precision, CNC Workshop and Warmill and my more modern day buildings are coming from Demo's Laser Cut Design as well as Sarissa Precision.  Here's the links to the sites if you're interested in their stuff!

Demo's Laser Cut Designs Modern Day buildings, reasonably priced, very easy assembly
Antenocitis Workshop Awesome scatter terrain (cars, planters, ads)
Warmill Really cool future buildings.  Lots of clear acrylic parts, tons of character but a little pricey
Sarissa Precision haven't received them yet, but they have a ton of ranges (modern, historic, future).
CNC Workshop I love their stuff, very cool future buildings, crates.  If only shipping from Australia was cheaper.
Micro Art Studios the official Infinity terrain

I'll do some reviews on the buildings over the next couple of weeks.

Thoughts on Terrain

I'm still plodding away at adding to my Tau/Eldar 40k force (will probably be my Adepticon 2014 force), but I've really been lured in to doing terrain for other systems.  Since a group of us are getting into infinity, I'm looking at making a quick and dirty urban table.  I think I'll go with a similar concept to what CNC Workshop is doing with their City Tiles

I figure I could make 1 foot square tiles and do cool stuff to go on all of them.  That way I can have some good looking and fast streets as well.  I'd order from CNC Workshop but the freight and cost is just a little too pricey.

I'm also really loving the Spartan Games scale stuff.  We've had a blast playing uncharted seas, and I stumbled upon this demo table for Dystopian Wars.  HOLY CRAP!  

Detailed pictures can be seen at the blog: Hamburger Tactica

Now to figure out how to scratch build some apartment complexes and roads!

NOVA and a Hobby Change of Direction

Just got back from NOVA.  Almost had everything completely painted.  I made my biggest mistake that I said I wouldn't.  Just didn't get that many practice games beforehand.  Which meant I didn't really know what my army could and could not do.

With that said, I did fairly well.  I went 3-1 on the first half and was put in bracket 3.  I then choked in my bracket and went 2-2.  The first loss was due to a tiebrekaer and the second loss was a little suspect.  I won't bitch on that, but there was some less then fair things that went down on that.

I guess I've reached a point where I need a little change of pace.  I have a blast playing 40k and really enjoy competitive games.  I just need to stop painting armies like it's going out of style.  My wife will agree with that completely.  Some of the 40k big tournament scene has gotten a bit out of hand with the whole Torrent of Fire throwing around phrases like "expert advice" and making the scene some big ego driven top tier crap it's just sucking the fun out of things.

To completely contrast I went over to the Infinity room.  Here is where I felt 40k was 15 years ago.  A growing competitive scene, people generally enthusiastic about sharing the hobby and getting others engaged, very inclusive.  Part of what I miss is really sinking my teeth into a miniature and painting like every model is a hero.  When I was a kid on a very limited budget that's what I did.  I'd like to get back into that spirit.

In addition to that I really want some eye candy terrain.  Really immerse myself in the action, make it a true joy to play on.  With Infinity relying on tons of terrain, I want to create that display board effect that I try when I do my more time intensive display boards.  To capture that feeling of what the army/story/game is all about.

I've picked up some Ariadna models, I absolutely love the Frenchies.  I had to catch myself from thinking right away on my next force, how to expand, all that crap. I'm just going to sit down and really spend some time painting them to a high level, play a ton of games, and make some seriously kick-ass terrain.  Once that's done, I'll look at another force - preferably more anime/outrageous (like Nomads or Yu Jing or Pan Oceana).

With the GW Chicago Battle Bunker rumored to close soon, I'm losing my major 40k hang out.  This will give me a chance to try the whole infinity hobby out, and work on my gaming basement to get some 40k tables going so I can start hosting mini events / bbq gaming drink fests at my house.

There's my rant.  Looking forward to a bit of hobby changing direction!