Summer Time Treats

SSSsssummer issssss here and so that means ice cream. And what says ice cream fun more than making sleestak faces in your soft serve.

SSSSsssssssssshhhhhhhsssssss...

-Eli

Recycling With Attitude!

Skimmer support from mint containers

That's what Leland calls it.

Who's Leland? He's only one of the most inspiring kitbashing modellers I've seen in a while. A self-proclaimed turbo-recycler, he loves to work with recycled materials and bits procurred from just about anywhere you can think of to create works of functional art in the form of models for his wargames tables. Whether it is spaceships, robots, tanks or VSF contraptions, there seems to be no limit to what this man can pull together out of a pile of "junk".

      40K proxy vehicle.                              Silent Death escort ship from deoderant container.

The cool thing, and part of the reason fo this post, is that he's decided to make his creations available to folks like you and I. He's opened a site called Grayhawk Studios where he will be offering various one of a kind and limited edition models of his own making. None of these are mass-produced models but individual models built, painted and detailed by his own talented hand, one by one. Most of his work has been for starfighter or 28mm scale games, but much to my joy he's decided to venture into 15mm.

             





                          Was a children's toy.                                            Microwave dinner plates?

He also keeps a blog of his own personal works, some of which have ended up on his retail site. Check them out and tell him what you think!

-Eli

Gads! I've Been Minionized!

Biscuit, resident artist over at the Minions of the Monster Master podcast, has been kind enough to render an image of me as a guest minion after airing my audio report on GameStorm. His style is incredible and not only is it me wearing one of my favorite t-shirts, signature camo shorts and sandals, but, he has also placed the Adventure Emu in the background.

This is just too much cool. If you haven't checked out their podcast before, you really must. From insights on the hobby, to gamer chatter, to real play sessions of games, it's all there. I only know of a few cool games because I heard about them on their podcast.

Thanks to Biscuit and all the minions!

-Eli

When Figure Orders Go Wrong - Part Two

Alrighty!

Enough teasing aside. Those Russians that didn't make the cut were tapped for a conversion project taking them completely out of their intended gnere and into the realm of post-apocalyptic fun. The long coats, bandoliers and old time rifles were perfect bait for making some ragged wastelanders with improvised or salvaged weapons.

I cut the cossack hats off and snipped off the baoynets from their rifles. The putty work took the form of sculpting various layers of capes, head wraps, longer coats, hats, hoods, and extra kit. I tried to make them look a bit haphazard and non-uniformed. I didn't worry too much about the consistency and smoothness of most of the work as everything would be frayed and worn out.

Here are some pics of the WIP that I have tweaked the contrast to try and highlight the details.

A Bit More Art

I came across a few more scans of artwork that I did a bit back. This stuff is more just conceptish sketchy stuff that I then inked over, but it's still got some cool ideas there. I had a bit of fun designing monsters that were either variants on existing D&D monsters or that worked off the theme of dungeon vermin and specifically dungeon-dwelling monsters.

Enjoy!

When Figure Orders Go Wrong - Part One

A while back, I ordered a bunch of Lancashire Games miniatures for my Hollow Eartth VSF games. Among them were various Colonials and Ancients figures destined to become some of the tribes of the Hollow Earth as I envision them. I have to say that my feelings about the miniatures I received are a bit mixed, but I'll go into that in detail another time. Oneo f the big disappointments of that order were some Dismounted Cossacks from the Boxer Rebellion line that just didn't sit right with me.

The picture along with post demonstrates one of the two poses that come in the pack - advancing & firing. The problem I had with the figures wasn't the details so much as the size and scaling. With their monstrous basing, chunky sculpting and overall "oomph" these figures looked just too big for the reast of my 15mm figs. So off to the bits drawer they went. I wasn't out more than a couple of bucks and figured I would find a use for them sometime.

Recently, during my move, I found myself really twitiching to do somethign gaming related. I had been contenting myself to draw maps for games, plotting and planning adventures for RPGs and sketching out terrain and conversion concepts, but I wanted to get my hands on something a bit more tactile. I had bought a bunch of new putty but hadn't even cracked it open and remembering the roll I had been on with the putty work, I figured I give it a try.

Those Russians came back to mind...

I have been working on some conversions of these Russians, but I think I will leave the details of that for a future post and let you all spend a bit of time guessing what I ended up doing with them.

Take care,

-Eli

Storm Wardens Charity Contest

One of the things that sucks about moving is that things get past you. Before I packed up the computer, I had meant to plug this awesome contest being run for the benefit of the Doctor's Without Borders charity. There is a raffle going on for this benefit with the prize of a Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine army.

The details for this awesome contest can be found at Mik's Minis and the Minions of the Monster Master sites. Please, give it a look and even if you are not interested in the custom army being offered up, maybe you can donate a buck or two to help out the cause.

There ya go, short, sweet, and to the point.

Good going to Mik and his crew for backing this project.

-Eli

More Tales From The Wood

A couple of times in the last few years I have mentioned a little pet game of mine called Tales From The Wood. By pet game I mean a game that has a special place in my heart and that I find myself drawn to over and over, despite the unlikelihood of me getting to play it much.

TFTW is one of those games that seems to hide a secret potential that it will likely never access due to the fact that most people I tell about it seem to misunderstand or misjudge the game. At it's heart, the game is one of role-playing non-anthropomorphic woodland creatures through the adventures of their lives and this is often read as some form of kiddified gaming. Truth be told this is not the case.

This is a game that has as much depth and potential for adventure as any other RPG but it offers the unique perspective of playing from a non-humanoid point of view. Like any other RPG, TFTW offers the players puzzles to overcome and characters to flesh out. Though the creatures are not anthropomorphic they are allowed to have names and personalities as well as a level of understanding that does surpass that of natural creatures to the extent that the players do and must know more about the world they live in than a common critter.

As a DM, I have found writing adventures for TFTW to be exciting and often challenging in a good way. Writing adventures that do not take advantage of technologies or even the basic building blocks of civilization and still keeping them intriguing and entertaining is a real adventure writer's iron man race. I find that I must constantly filter my ideas through the eyes and other senses of animals, trying to make sure that I am not allowing them to become too human. That being said, TFTW is written to allow the plots to venture outside the realm of natural animals to some degree, most notably by the inclusion of gnome characters.

Rather than continue on with my attempt to explain and define TFTW's appeal to me,  I would like to share with you you a few of the adventure ideas that I have come up with for the game in hopes that they do a fair job of demonstrating what this game is about. The following little blurbs name characters and adventures from my actual games.

SPIKE'S RIVER JOURNEY

Twitchet the squirrel leads the players to a strange log that he has found along the river bank. The log (actually a beached toy sailboat) is intriguing but the PCs must outwit a group of skulking rats who have shown up to lay claim to to boat. In my game Spike, the hedgehog decided to bluff the rats with a bluster that placed him on the boat where he managed to dislodge it from the river bank by accident and set himself on a trip down the river.

THE THING IN THE TREES

In this halloweenish adventure the creatures of the forest are being terrified by a glowing, cyclopean phantom that has been seen scrabbling through the trees. Twitchet the squirrel recounts his horrifying close encounter with it. When a creature of the wood turns up dead, the terror grows and the PCs are sent out to try to find out what this might be and how to stop it.

The truth of this adventure is that the rustling phantom is a plastic shopping bag that is being blown about the wood by the autumn breeze. It's glowing appearance and haunting red eye are a result of the translucent bag and its red logo being back-lit by the moon. The creature that turned up dead was an unfortunate victim of the plastic bag, having suffocated.

In our game the PCs had to hunt for clues, finding some discarded takeout in styrofoam containers and venturing to the lair of an ancient owl who had been around long enough to remember the last time the wood was visited by such a creature. The PCs even had to battle a monstrous guardian to the owl's lair in the form of a large centipede that had grown big living in the rotted tree.

STAR NIGHT

In this adventure the PCs had to find a missing baby mouse while the rest of the wood readied itself for a special night where they would all view a celestial event. This adventure culminated in my daughter's character, a mole, working with Longfoot the rabbit to rescue the mouseling from the clutches of the weasels who lived in the briars.

MR. BIDDLE

This is an adventure I have yet to run as well. It is a bit of a character piece that will create an ally among humanity for the animals. The story takes the form of the PCs trying to learn about a new human who has moved into a cottage inside the edge of the wood. He is a veterinarian but his collections of animal specimens and models will lead to many misunderstandings.

LONGFOOT'S LONG JOURNEY

This is one I have yet to run but it will be my first multiple adventure story arc. It involves the adventurous Longfoot and his quest to find the giant white rabbit he viewed one night. He is convinced that the rabbit he saw was some sort of spirit and he sets out across the local countryside to find it. In reality the white rabbit was simply a logo on the side of a delivery truck from a local pub.

As you can see there are plenty of ideas that can be worked into the game without having to resort to simple confrontations between man and beast or beast and beast. I habe even discussed the inclusion of classic trolls in the game as a sort of "evil" counter to the gnome and an additional supernatural element.

I hope you have enjoyed this glimpse into my work with Tales From The Wood.

Thanks,

-Eli

Poll Results

How all,

A while back, spurred on by a rather good discussion about background story and how it relates to miniatures product lines, I had posted a pair of polls to find out what peoples' thoughts on the subject were. Now, polls are never a perfect way to delve into a topic, but they do scratch the sruface and offer some insight.

The main concern of the polls revolved around whether or not a miniatures line's completeness was a factor in buying and then how often players used their miniatures for what the manufacturers intended. Both of these questions tie int othe background querie in that both are often issues that crop up or that are associated with a miniatures line's built-in background story.

It seems to me that, unless you are making a miniatures game with its own set of troops and background, a big done-up background can hinder your product. The polls I ran seem to show that at least half the people who responded (87) generally don't use their miniatures in the manner intended by the producers. These are the folks who are generally more motivated by cool figures and how they fit into their own plans and who are less concerned with the vision that the manufacturing company had in mind. They may like the fluff, but ultimately they are going to use the figures in the way they want to. This feeds into the other poll.

The subject of the completeness of miniatures lines is a bit more sore that the background issue. Where background can be ignored the completeness of a line of figures is a bit harder to and often the background chosen for a line limits the completeness of the line and narrows its appeal and usefulness. This is not to say that all lines of miniatures need to be created equal, but nearly 2/3 of the people respondng to the poll on the topic answered either "yes" or "sometimes" indicating that more often than not the completeness of a line of miniatures does make an impact on whether or not a person buys into a line.

In the case of wargamers, especially, a miniatures line become unappealing when it cannot be made to function as a playable military. If a force is given a limited number of tactical options, it becomes more of a novelty force that may be picked up by those looking for something different but may not attract as many buyers as those lines that have a number of options and viable force structure built in.

When it comes down to it I'd like to see companies, especially the small ones who seem to be aware of the limitations of their resources, stop wasting those resources producing incomplete or unusable miniatures lines that are made so by a heavy adherrance to background fluff. If they feel the need to build in heavy amounts of fluff, then perhaps they should come up with backgrounds that support more gamable forces and allows for the range in miniatures that will bring in more sales.

-Eli

I LIVE!

Whheeeeeeeeeew!

That was a long time away from the warming glow of the internet.

Cable installed today. Internet restored and now I'm ready to try to get things back in the grove. I still need to decide on the final resting place of all my home eletronics now but I am happy that I do not have to rely on sketchy workplace internet to keep in touch with you all. Hopefully I'll be able to get my brain back in gear for posting and get some projects going.

Anyhow,

Glad to be back!

-Eli

The Aethergraph Published at Last!

After a few delays, I have finally finished the first issue of an electronic fanzine for Victorian Science Fiction: The Aethergraph!


You can read and download the first issue in PDF form here: Aethergraph Vol. 1, Issue 1

Please let me know what you think! You can email comments, problems, submissions to me at aethergraph@gmail.com.

-J