40K Foray

As I mentioned last week, I am dabbling in a Warhammer 40,000 Tau army. My buddy Joe and I had a few games this weekend, and he made a blog to record the exploits of his Nurgle Marines. Joe's a great artist, and he's also a fair general, defeating me on the field of battle. Here's the link to his blog:

http://sonsofblight.blogspot.com/

I'll get him next time! Well, maybe not...

Scott

"Nazis--I hate those guys..."

SuperFig fan Joseph Puzzo sent along this great pic of Kondor, one of our older SuperFigs, painted up like a classic Nazi super-villain:



Great job, Joseph!

Scott

Random Musings

This weekend I will be running a game of the Dark Heresy RPG from FFG. The first session will mainly be character generation and the beginning of the published adventure, Purge the Unclean, with a short prologue sequence written by me.

I am reading Dan Abnett's Traitor General now. Anybody who reads this blog on a regular basis knows Abnett is one of my favorite sci-fi writers. I had read the first two Gaunt's Ghosts novles years ago, and then bailed out on the series. I really prefer his Eisenhorn and Ravenor stuff. I dig the whole Inquisition angle, and when I read military sci-fi, I prefer small unit actions. While in Barnes & Noble the other day looking for something to read during the morning commutes, I picked up Traitor General and realized it was a Gaunt's Ghosts novel, but focused on small unit actions on a planet held by Chaos. Very cool! And I'm nearly done with it, which is a feat for me since I am a slow reader and normally read only the train or bus.

There is also some movement on a project I finished writing last year for Chaosium, the Call of Cthulhu folks. It's a monograph called Agents of the Crown written for the Basic Role-Playing book. It's essentially a setup for playing Victorian superheroes akin to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The layout is being fixed up right now, and I should be able to turn it into Chaosium in a couple of weeks.

All that and I have spent the last two weeks painting a Tau battleforce boxed set I got for doing some painting for an associate of mine. I went with a very drab, military scheme. It meshed well with my painting style, and I think it works well with the models. I will snap some pics this weekend if I get a chance.

Super-Art!

SuperFigs enthusiast Melvin de Voor sent me some fantastic art work of one of my favorite SuperFigs, Elasti-Ape:






Melvin's got a few other pieces up his sleeve, and I'll show those off in later posts, but suffice to say that we may see more of his fine work in our next publication!

Scott

Dr. Halflife--From Salzburg With Love!

Ace painter and artist (and good friend) Jan A. e-mailed me from Salzburg, Austria. Still living the life of an early 20th century writer (I'm thinking Gatsby or Hemingway here), Jan did find some time to send pics of his latest paint job, Dr. Halflife.

More wonderful work from Jan, and here it is:







Jan's use of blue and the fearless application of white highlights really make this paint job!

Thanks, Jan!

Scott

Lion-Men Update

No pics yet, but Bob Naismith is now working on the three new Lion Men based off of Leo-IX. Can't wait to see the results!

Scott

Particle Pics

My buddy Jan has done a lot of interior artwork for our books, and also his fair share of character designs for SuperFigs. One of the characters he designed was Particle. Jan's currently living the life of a bon vivant in Chicago, so he's had plenty of time to paint SuperFigs. Here's his latest version of the 28mm sized Particle:







Jan's certainly mastered the art of color blends, and his understated work on this mini evokes the 1960's Captain Mar-Vell. Very nice!

Scott

Krieghunde Gets His Due

SuperFigs fan John Price did a nice review of Krieghunde, one of our super-strong SuperFigs.

The full review is here:

http://thescreamingalpha.com/2009/05/01/review-krieghunde-by-four-color-figures/

Funny story about this mini. He was originally intended to be bald, and the concept art reflected that. However, when Battlin' Bob Naismith sent the figure back to us, he had that slick flat-top going. The hair made the character appear years younger, and I kind of liked it, so we went with it, and Kriegshunde became a much younger super-villain than we had originally intended. A happy accident, and when you make as many minis as we have, you'll get those.

Scott

The Beauty of an Unfocused Mind

I had a list of hobby-related things I wanted to accomplish this weekend. Kit-bashing Inquisitorial henchmen/Dark Heresy RPG characters was not on it. But then I read the awesome entry in the Creatures Anathema book on the Verminspeaker (pgs. 69-70). This elite advance allows a starting character to play a Wyrd Beastmaster! Was someone from FFG reading my mind? Ever since I first played Necromunda back in 1997 I have wanted to play a Beastmaster in an RPG setting.


Having been suitably inspired, I pulled out an unpainted Beastmaster from my Necromunda collection, and was just not into painting it. A nice mini, but one that definitely was showing that it had been sculpted in 1995. I decided to make my own Verminspeaker. So I kit-bashed a figure using the following GW kits: Brettonian Men-at-Arms, Chaos Marauders, Catachan Jungle Fighters, Empire Militia, Skaven Plague Monks, and Kroot Warriors.

Here's my finished product:











I just love kit-bashing 40K role-play figures. Once I get him painted I'll take some pics with some of my other conversions in this same vein. Now I have to convince my GM to run a Dark Heresy game with somewhat corrupt Inquisitor as our boss, so I can use my unsanctioned psyker!

Scott

Weekend Projects

I need to start gathering my sci-fi figures to run Dark Heresy in a few weeks. Should be fun! I really like the game, and I intend to run my players through Purge the Unclean (a series of published adventures) this spring and summer.

I actually think we'll be playing some Warhammer 40,000 Saturday night, so my Orks will get a workout against my buddy Bill's Necrons.

I hope to get the casts of a new SuperFig, Major Meteor, back soon, and maybe I can convince ace painter Sky Hernstrom to paint one for me for the blog. More on that soon!

Scott

Musings on The Pride

Thanks to SuperFig fan Charles Hiber, I've taken to calling the upcoming pack of pulp sci-fi Lion Men The Pride.

This pack of additional lion men will likely include three new poses, each armed differently. One will likely have a pulp-style blaster pistol, one will have curved sword, and one will have a spear or halberd. There may be a fourth, but if not, we'll likely double up one of the poses, include the unarmed Leo-IX, and sell them as a henchmen pack in SuperFigs packaging. I also intend to sell Leo-IX separately.

If anybody has any feedback on this, let me know.

--Scott

Leo-IX Comp Shots

Thought folks might want to see some size comparison shots of Leo-IX and some other figures.

Here's one of him and a Blue Moon Rocket Man--love these miniatures, BTW!




And here's one of him versus Krong!



Scott

Leo-IX

I've been waiting to get this fellow back from Mr. Naismith, and here he is at last! An honest-to-goodness, 28mm lion man! He'll work well in supers games, and in any pulp sci-fi games.

My goal is to use this figure as the basis for a handful of new lion men. They'll have bladed weapons, ray guns, etc. I hope we can get Bob to work on them soon!







Scott

Future Savage

Late last week I knocked out a Kallistra future savage sci-fi mini from my backlog. This guy was from DEEP in my backlog--I'd had him for at least 5 years. I used pretty much all GW Foundation paints, Devlan Mud, and then highlighted with Foundation Kemri Brown to on some of the high spots.







He'll make a cool mutant hunter or scavenger.

Scott

Heresy Inspectors Update

Got an early start on my weekend project yesterday (the Heresy sci-fi Inspectors), and in fact, managed to get all five sci-fi Inspectors finished! These models will likely feature in the next sci-fi RPG I run (maybe Dark Heresy from FFG). Anyway, here are the pics:












"I'm sorry sir, there appears to be a problem with your cargo manifest. Please step this way."

Scott

Weekend Project

I like to assign myself little projects when it comes to miniaturing; it helps me get things done if I have an attainable goal. This weekend I am going to try to finish some or all of my 5 figure Heresy Miniatures Sci-Fi Inspectors. These figures are pure gold when it comes to any sci-fi RPG or miniature skirmish scenario. They'd also make handy special agents (i.e., G.U.A.R.D. or S.H.I.E.L.D.) for a SuperSystem game.

I'm going to use GW's Foundation orange color for the uniforms, with black boots, belts, and accessories.

The wife and I also got a new digital camera, so perhaps these guys will be my first subjects with the new camera.

Scott

SuperFigs Customer Corner

We have an infrequent feature on the SuperFigs web site called Customer Corner. When a customer sends me pics of his or her painted SuperFigs, I would post them up for others to enjoy. Now I love getting pics of other people's painted SuperFigs, and I was pleasantly surprised to get some pics from customer and fan Dev Sodagar (AKA Ragados). I decided to post them here first, and I will eventually get round to adding them to the CC on the site. I really dig Dev's version of Polymer, one of my favorite SuperFigs. His Gibbon-Glider is no slouch either. Check 'em out!









Scott

Weekend Review

Had a nice holiday weekend with the wife and family, but also managed to sneak in some gaming and painting!

Saturday night I ran a one-shot Savage Worlds RPG session for 3 of my buddies. I used the Tombs of Terror fantasy one-sheet PEG provides free on their web site. I bulked it up with a few additional encounters prior to the PC's arriving in town. Of course, Savage Worlds is built for miniature use in play, and I employed a mix of pre-painted D&D miniatures, re-based Mage Knight stuff, and some metal minis for good measure.

I also managed to paint one of Kallistra's sci-fi future savages. This is a small, but nifty little range of 28mm figures. They are on the large side of 28mm, but still fit well with GW Necromunda, Heresy, and other lines. I painted the third guy on the top row--one of the spear-gun wielding future savages from this line. Very cool. I'll try to photograph him this week. GW's Devlan Mud wash and their Foundation Khemri Brown make a great combination.

Scott

Ape-Ace!

Way back in 2002 we did some vehicle kits in resin. Our best kit was easily Mecha Gor, a giant mechanical gorilla. Mecha Gor is piloted by the intrepid super-ape pilot, Ape-Ace. Folks have always wanted us to release Ape-Ace separately, and now we plan to do so along with the other 2009 SuperFig releases. Here's a shot of Ape-Ace, painted and photographed by one of my favorite miniature painters, Schuyler Hernstrom:



Sculpted by the talented Bob Naismith, Ape-Ace will soon be much more easily acquired--and who wouldn't want a WWI-style super-ape pilot?

Scott

M&M Action

Played a great session of M&M last night! Star-Krong was in good form, KO'ing his nemesis C'Thunan with a single, lucky blow! The GM used an awesome team of corporate heroes against us. He used some brilliantly painted SuperFigs--the team worked for PepsiCo, a sort of corporate PR super-squad.

They mistook us for villains and we battled it out in the hideout of the real villains we had come to stop!

It all ended well after some tense moments. I need to get some pics of the GM's awesome Pepsi-colored SuperFigs.

Scott