Terrain Modelling Article

There's a pretty cool article on how to model Sci-fi buildings on the Reaper website. Even though it's originally intended for their CAV line, I figure it would work just as well for Heavy Gear.

Check it out!

Second Place in Paint Your Squad '09

I'm in a very good mood this morning. My OPSEC Squad took second place in the Paint You Squad competition at DP9.com.

Hurray! And, of course, congratulations to the other winners. Those are some great looking Gears.

Missile Pods

Because I am naturally lazy and I'm always looking for shortcuts to systematize my painting, I wanted to get a bunch of missile pods done so I could just go and pin them on finished models. It also frees up some space around the head of Gears while I am painting, and makes reaching small spots easier.

First, I pin the pods on paperclips and mount them on a plastic cork (natural cork it to hard to pin something into). I then prime them.

Second, I basecoat them in black. In this case, I used two thin coats to get a really even color without losing any details.

I then brush on the metallics. In this case I used three shades, from darker to lighter: Shadowed Steel, Honed Steel and Polished Silver.

Then, I fix the black on the front and back of the missile pod.

Fifth, I apply decals. I just don't trust myself to get a good result through freehand. After the decals are completely dry, I brush on a generous amount of brush-on sealer, before spraying gloss varnish to really seal in the decals and prevent them from coming off later on.

Finally, I paint the individual pods with two coats of bright red. One of my gripes with Heavy Gear miniatures is that they are often not cast as well as they should, so you often get imperfections that are very hard to fix. Missile pods are the most common victims of this, with many individual missile pods often deformed and not looking like circles at all. So at this stage, I have to make sure I get perfect red circles to at least give the illusion that the pods are perfectly formed and aligned.

I will probably finish the pod by doing an extremely light whitelining highlight to add definition to the details, such as the panels and the pods themselves.

Voilà!

OPSEC Cadre

This is my third entry for the miniature painting contest at DP9.com. I'm rather happy with the results.


A Chameleon. The black shoulder plate unwisely indicates this is my army commander. But thanks to Stealth (5), no one will get to shoot at him.


A second Chameleon, with its DPG upgraded to a LBZK. A nice small survivable Gear with some extra bite.

Panther (New Shots)

I've added a new layer of varnish from a different can (both matte, strangely) to my Panthers and I've been able to get rid of that weird gloss. Yay!

Panthers

These guy are not going to make it into the Squad contest ( I can't put them in a legal Squad yet), but here they are anyway.

Towards a complete OPSEC Cadre, Part 1

I've been working on my OPSEC Cadre for the HG squad painting contest.

One of the Snake Eye Black Mamba is done already. I have two Chameleons (one of them with a stinging surprise) that are coming along nicely.

So here is the second SE Black Mamba. First, with base colors and blacklining done. I want this one to look really crisp:
Second here is the same mini with the edge highlights done. I'm much happier with this one than with the first one, where there was much more streaking.
But it's not always easy to paint when you have to keep fighting off intruders who like the smell of paint.
;)

J. G. Ballard, 1930-2009

I have to admit, I've never liked reading sci-fi. Movies, games, no problem. But I've never enjoyed reading sci-fi. There's just something about writers who work with the assumption that ideas and science are more important than the actual craft of writing that I find entirely uninteresting.

Two exceptions: William Gibson's Neuromancer (not so much his other novels) and my personnal favourite, James Graham Ballard.

I saw Empire of the Sun when I was 13 and I really liked it, as opposed to Steven Spielberg's other movies in those days. I only read the book much later, while I was finishing my M.A., and I much preferred it, since it lacked all the cuteness of the movie. Completely uncute, but great, was Crash, both the book (which informed my own writing for years) and the Cronenberg adaptation.

I then read an anthology of Ballard short stories, which blew me away, especially his more experimental, fragmented short stories such as those found in The Atrocity Exhibition.

And then while on a one-month trip to Thailand, I read a few more books, such as The Crystal World, Cocaine Nights, Super-Cannes, and The Concrete Island. Not all of them were equally great, but they were all enjoyable. Not all of them were even sci-fi, but they all had that melancholy, that sense of an end of the world, or an end of a world, examining either science, sociology, technology, with this sad eye only he had. Nothing quite compared.

J.G. Ballard died on April 19, after a long battle with prostate cancer. His voice will be missed.

Back to Work

After my demoralizing experience in January, it took me a while to get back to painting, but here are some things I am working on. It doesn't hurt that DP9 just announced a squad painting competition. The deadline being at the end of the month, I'll have to get on with it if I want to participate. I don't see myself winning this, as my painting style is purposefully not flashy and I don't do major conversions, but it'll be fun to see what I can come up with. And what others come up with...

I showed pictures of these guys a while ago, but here are some more.


I'm planning for this Black Mamba to represent the army commander in my WIP Free Basal ESE Army. The lines and shadows came out quite nicely, I think.

Two Basilisks for the same army.

A Panther, for no army in particular (the model is really cool, and it's the easiest paintjob ever.)

I've been working on a large scale article project for the Aurora magazine, and while the writing is no problem, I want to have some artwork too, so I'm also painting Northern and Sourthern Gears to use for vignettes.


A Sabertooth

Two Dartjagers. I really love the bug head...

More to come when I'm ready to shoot said vignettes.

Return to Cat's Eye

I'm getting very excited at the release in April(?) of the new Blitz book, Return to Cat's Eye, which will introduce a number of new factions, such as Caprice, the Liberati, the CEF, and my personal favourite, the Black Talons. RtCE will also advance the timeline to TN1950, making it current with the old books. That means that everything that comes out after that will be fresh, never seen before stuff. I can't wait. In the meantime, I love the look of the Caprician models...

One caveat, though, I would very strongly recommend anyone to buy the PDF version of the new book, as they'll get a full color version, cheaper, and with eventual updates that will fix the typos and mistakes that inevitably plague Dream Pod 9's books, as well as the ability to print new copies whenever they want. For those who are buying printed versions, well... you have been warned.

A Tragedy

After arriving at my mother's house yesterday, I opened my mini case to realize there must have been too much wiggle room and things must have moved around quite a bit as my suitcase got thrown around.

Most of my Jagers and Black Mambas got smashed to bits and will have to be repainted eventually. Mostly, it happened to minis I painted a while ago and that had not had their limbs and weapons pinned. I almost cried as I saw all those little arms and rocket pods and guns at the bottom of the case.

So wrap your minis more safely than I did. Or mail them. Or leave them at home.

My heart is broken. I'll just go crawl in a corner and cry myself to sleep.

Travel Abroad

So that my very few readers do not despair in vain of new updates, let it be known I shall be leaving this god-forsaken island (Taiwan) tomorrow for an even more god-forsaken land (Canada).

I'll be back on February 20.

I'd like to wish everybody a happy Chinese New Year!

The Gear, the Bad, and the Ugly

I've been building more Badland terrain recently, and I've stolen a page from Sergio Leone's book with this piece, though I can't quite remember from which movie's intro this is ripped from.


I've moved away from smaller terrain pieces, which I have plenty of, to larger ones. There's still a bit of cutting to be done on this one, but I should be able to prime it later tonight and paint it tomorrow.

Quick and Painless Basing by Dummies

Because Unclean, of HeavyGear-France asked me about my basing texture, I'll give quick step by step. I'd like to state first that this is the way I do it. There are many better ways. You will probably prefer some more flashy way of basing, and CMON is full of gorgeous bases that look so much better than mine.

I came up with this basing process because I didn't like sticking minis in slotted bases, and then applying some flock or texture. I like pinning. I love pinning. If you play with HG miniatures for any length of time, because they are so poseable and therefore have a lot of fragile parts, you'll learn to love pinning too. But I also like simplicity. And speed. This method is meant to represent some very broken ground, with lots of slate or maybe something vaguely volcanic. I was also inspired by the way mud dries and cakes in dried-up lakes and such.

The first step is to take your standard hexagonal base and a sheet of cork (the kind that's used for pinning things on your wall, for example). I used to prefer GW's round bases, but after much reflexion, I find the though more expensive, DP9 Hex bases are just of superior quality.


The second step is to plug the slot in the base. I use toothpicks and standard PVA glue.


Then, tear a small piece of cork that will vaguely cover your hex, but leave some clear areas. You want an irregular shape that will look more natural. You also want to tear strategically so that your cork is of the proper shape for your mini's feet to stand on, and also so that you don't have to pin through the toothpick. Glue it in place with PVA glue and let it dry completely overnight.


Apply white primer to the base. I use spray, but you can use brush-on primer if you want. I'm lazy that way.


Next, give the base a couple coats of diluted paint. I use Citadel's Foundation line here (Kalthan Brown, I think) because it has rich pigments with very good coverage. But even so, because you are working with cork, two coats at least will be necessary since the cork will "drink" the first one.


Brush lighter colours on the elevated cork area of the base to give it depth. Apply PVA glue around it and sprinkle on the basing material of your choice. I am a very big fan of the Japanese company Kato, producers of railway models, when it comes to these things. Very high quality, very low cost. Remove any excess material before it dries in place.


Finally, pin your mostly painted model in place through both feet. Here is an unfinished Cheetah on such a base. Make sure to spray varnish on the base after the PVA is entirely dry, as the varnish will provide added solidity to you base.


Ta-daa! They don't look perfect, but these bases are guaranteed to be fast, tough, and provide a feeling of unity to your army. You can add extras such a lichen or rocks, but I like fairly bare bases that don't distract from models. Enjoy!

Two New Gears

I was up painting until late last night and, on top of working on a few other models I have going, I got two new Gears done.


Here is the Southern Snake Eye Balck Mamba, a stealth Gear that I have here painted in urban colors. I was a bit weirded out out that the so-called "matte" varnish turned out so glossy, so I might have to fix that later on.



The companion piece to my Peacemaker Razorback is the standard Razorback with MRP and Snub Cannon. Somehow, I think the Peacemaker turned out better, so I might do more touch-ups on this one, especially after seeing it in a picture just now.