New Painting - Heresy Cyclops

Heresy Narbrot - 'Classic' Cyclops

Here's the figure that was missing from the previous post about Heresy Cultists, the Cyclops, or rather a Demonspawn as he wants to be known in those circles. And yeah, he actually does have a pair of eyes, due to the head I chose for him.

I really like the way the skin tones came out with this figure, mainly perhaps because there was strong enough detail on the model. The pose is also simple but effective, and it would be quite easy to mod it to get quite a range of beasties out of it. The size hits also a sweet spot, being big enough to stand out of human-sized figures, but not too bulky or towering.

New Painting - Foundry Hydra

Okay, finally had time to finish the Foundry Hydra. Lots of dry brushing, even more ink washes (hence the glistening) and some awkward brush angles due to the placement of some of the heads. In the end, the result was somewhat more colourful than my usual palette, but it suits this model, if I say so myself.

New Painting - Cultists, from Heresy Miniatures

Here are some preliminary pics from Cultists faction for my Ruins & Ratmen game. All of the figures are from Heresy Miniatures. The Cultists themselves were a no-brainer, as they were the only line of fantasy cult members I could think of. The Mutants, however, are of Heresy's ghoul range, with some Reaper Miniatures Creature Components - tentacles, claws, etc. - added for good measure. I had had the ghouls for a long time, never having the inspiration to actually do anything with them, until I realised that with a bit of tweaking they are just what this warband would need. And actually, it was easier to add the Reaper bits than to pin the ghouls as intended.

As there were only three poses with the regular troop types, it was a  very easy decision to convert some of the models to get a bit more variety to the warband. I decided to to give them single handed weapons, essentially shortened versions of their pole arms, and since the standard (not yet painted) featured a shield design, adding that seemed a good fit for the unity go the band. I copied the design on Green Stuff, and made the shields I needed from that mould.

In addition to these figures, there's the standard bearer yet to be finished, and a demonspawn (a Heresy figure as well, their classic Cyclops), who missed this photo shoot. There is still some good Reaper bits left, so more mutants might be in order, or maybe another demonspawn if I find a suitable base model. Also, all of my war bands seem to have some sort of animal troops in them, so maybe some giant insects would fit the theme. Centipedes, perhaps?

Traveller Reskins: Scout. Type S PDF

The finalised version of the Scout, Type 1 can be found from the right sidebar, under Downloads (PDF). The PDF file contains 3 layers, one with the basic plan, one with 1,5 m grid, and one with some definitions. The file is restricted to print only. At least in my computer, the Dropbox preview redraws the file a bit funkily, but the downloaded file seems okay.

Traveller Reskins: Free Trader

Whew! Somehow, cranking this one out took inordinate amount of time. I had a clear idea of what I wanted, the basic shape, the cargo bay that was two decks high with multiple loading ramps, but getting everything mesh nicely took way too many trials and errors. Especially the 'wing' sections drove me nuts, it took maybe six or seven tries to get the shape just right, all the time counting the fractional fuel cell squares on the graph paper, over and over again... maybe I just should learn to cheat, but what would be the fun in that? (And I'm pretty sure if someone would take the time and count all the dTons, the results would be slightly 'off' from what they're supposed to be, anyway.)

But on the whole, this design much moreso than the previous ones made me refine the basic 'blocks' of the layout style. Most of the elements work well enough, and I was able to refine those that did not quite cut it. There are, however, still a couple of 'overflow' issues that have to be sorted before I can do the PDF's exactly as I want.

In my mind, the 'silhouette' of the ship, the side view, is always secondary to the top down design, and I do that one last, when I'm mostly satisfied with everything else. However, this time as I was designing the silhouette, the rear cargo hatch was originally perpendicular, and somehow that made the whole ship look clumsy as hell. With a small angle, it looked much better, but then it had to make adjustments in the original plans as well. I'm pretty sure I lost a couple of dTons there, as well ;-) Also, the 'outcrop' between the rear cargo hatches was originally just that, a design quirk, but only during the side view drafting I realised that it would be a great place for a turret; a place to oversee loading procedures and to keep the hostiles at bay.

It appears that I've hit a snag with the Far Trader plans, and there are a couple of minis that cry for attention, so I guess there will be a brief pause before the next design gets finalised. Then again, if I have trouble sleeping, going through these plans seems to be a good way to doze off, so who knows what my subconscious conjures up.

Traveller Reskins: Seeker Mining Ship

"Oh, that one's easy. Just a slight modification of the existing Scout design." Yeah, right. Making it look good, that was the hard part.

This time, I gave the crew bigger personal quarters, as there really would not be space for a lounge. The drones, well, I can see some sort of struts extending from their bay when the hatch are open, for easy deployment and recovery. And I just had to put airlocks for the ore bays, in case there was need for some manual supervision of the loading. One thing I could not fit into the design was some sort of drone repair facility, but I guess a drone could be brought in from the frontal airlock, and the relatively open space there used for such purposes.

One thing I did for just aesthetic reasons was to slant the walls of the ore bay. Originally, they were more rectangular, but that just did not look right.

Next up: The Free Trader, I think?

Traveller Reskins: Scout, type S

Kicking off my redesigns of the Mongoose Traveller spaceships, here's my version of the iconic scout ship. Now, I know that in it's original incarnation, the scout ship was wedge-shaped, much like the Imperial Star Destroyers, so I did not want to use that. Also, I'm not quite sure what the sublight propulsion of the Traveller ships is supposed to be, but whatever it is, in my book there should be some sort of reverse thrusters, unless you want to turn the whole ship around in order to slow down. Hence all of my designs will have engines in back and front. Sure, there should also be some smaller navigation thrusters, but I guess they are too small to be significant on the deck plans.

Other than the thrusters, I also deviated from the 'standard' plan by making the individual staterooms much smaller, so that I could get larger common area (washroom and a kitchenette) for the crew. I also introduced a second airlock at the bridge, 'cause that just seemed to make sense. The Scout is all about utility and redundancy, and having a second airlock in case the primary one malfunctions was a no-brainer.

One thing that also bugged me about the Mongoose plans that it was not always clear how the decks related to each other. Hence the cut-out section, to show the decks and the vertical shafts align.

Just one final note: These are just the previews, the final files will have grids and whatnot. But that will have to wait until I have all the designs I initially planned to do ready.

Mongoose Traveller: Spaceship reskins

The other day I was re-reading Mongoose's Traveller Core rulebook, and it occurred to me how - well, uninspiring, the designs for the iconic spaceships were. And not only that, but most of them are in a scale that is of little use for a gamer. Also, although I only have the physical book, I've come to understand that even in the PDF version, the plans are in low-resolution raster images, and therefore unscalable even there.

So, here then is my mission: to present good quality, scalable (meaning: vectorized) deck plans of the various Traveller ships. At the very least, my intention is to cover the Scout ships, the three Trader ships, the Yacht and some of the various Small Craft -class vessels: Fighters, Ship's Boats etc. The attractiveness of the designs will of course be in the eye of the beholder, but I at least try to make the designs feasible, interesting and functional. And of course, the designs will follow the numerical descriptions and tonnages of the ships in question. And if I'm able to grok it, I will try to publish each design as a layered PDF, so the grids and legends can be switched on and off when needed.

Foundry Hydra assembled

Woops. Time sure flies. Nevertheless, here's some pics of the assembled and based hydra. Despite the figure having seven heads, and the body in multiple parts as well, this was one of the easiest pinning jobs I had done, thanks to the relatively soft metal, and having big enough surfaces to drill in.

The figure settled nicely on a 40mm round base, and I made the cobblestone basing by making first a 2"x2" square from HirstArts blocks, then making a Green Stuff impression of that, and finally pressing that mold on the GS I had put on the top of the base. Worked out quite well, and now I have a ready mold for similar use at the ready.

The figure is now basecoated, and is waiting in the to-do shelf for an inspiration. Mainly, I have two conflicting colour schemes in my mind, and I can't seem to be able to pick my favourite. The first is 'eldricht', which would mean pale green underbelly and darker green back scales; the other one is 'poison', with bright orange (yellow highlights) bely, and black scales in the back, may haps with some reddish striping. Something resembling a coral snake. Then again, I already have some small spiders in similar colours. Oh well.

(Argh! Why does Blogger want to correct my English spelling and how do I get rid of that?)

((Okay, after searching in vain through Blogger preferences and whatnot, I realised that it was OS Mavericks that did the auto-corrections. I've switched it to UK English, although I suspect that it's only a matter of time until I have to switch it off altogether.))