Raiding the Dusty Wastes

Thanks to the crew’s banter over the work being done by Sarissa I found myself wandering on Ye Olde Internets for buildings that might be useful for my themed army. No, I was not disappointed in my search. Over on Turbosquid I came across a building that would work as a shell for a dice tower to get 3D printed.

It was on another site that I found some other buildings but it looks like they’d be more work to make viable

I dug into some designs for windows in order to open up the windows for some visual interest. Of course the middle would be open as other towers are and the face opposite the one featured would be where the dice came out. Some Arabesque flourishes and it would look awesome. I’m too creative for my own damn good sometimes.

The color palette we normally associate with eagles is pretty bog standard. I think that working with something to break out of the big brown bird mold is the way to go. As there’s nothing else to go on I looked at other raptors to get an idea of what was possible and grabbed these.

Dammit! I wanted to take a nice relaxing hobby holiday and break from the build and paint to recharge my batteries. I’ve had that plan scuttled as I got one of the staff to my FLGS interested in SAGA while I picked up some stuff after getting inspired by random happenstance. After talking for a while I think that I might actually be putting up a batrep at some point. I guess I need to do something more than just engineer and paint these things. Tim/Gerry… do I really have to? Lol

I’ve got another army build in mind as I thought about world mythologies. Ugh, my mind is ablaze with creativity once more and I think that I should bother some nice pleasant game companies to show off their model ranges if this kind of thing keeps up. The internet is great for inspiration and I’ve purchased a whole container of flocking light green grass… what the flock!?! I don’t want to have leftovers for a board build. Thankfully there are table mat makers for such things. Maybe I’ll just call it difficult terrain and throw it on the table. Who knows, this is a step further in doing that ‘gaming’ thing I keep hearing about around here.

The feeling of being overwhelmed by inactivity weighed heavy on me and the general ennui was something I needed to kick. I started working on the roc again and found it wasn’t as bad as I imagined it would be. It turned out more tedious as I worked a pattern for the plumage. I’ve gone back to the pushing of contrasts to see the 28mm detail level but for so light a color scheme I am limited on the palette. It only gets more challenging because the hues are all neutrals.

Taking a break from the big bird and his one tree hill I dove into painting a female efreet from Reaper’s Bones line (approximately 60mm tall) as a counterpoint to the female frost giant I painted for my friend’s SAGA army I did a while back. Its near the same size and will be a monster I can field readily sometime when we play an upcoming game and not overwhelm my friend’s force for model size. When will this game happen; I have no idea. A small 4 point match of the base game might be best to start before getting deep into the thick of it.

As far as the model painting, I’m almost done with her and I believe that the progress is coming along nicely in short order. Yet again, fabric design is once more the bane of my painting  efforts. I’ll be sure to paint naked things next year just to avoid the issue of patterns. The skin tones for this figure came out better than I anticipated.

I’d say I’m nearly done with the roc. It’s been mostly just my own taking breaks and setting it aside that has prevented me from finishing it already as the holiday season with all the socializing. In the meantime I did have the game of SAGA before Christmas and I have yet to edit the photos to make the dramatically underwhelming pictures of the game come to life. I will do that soon enough. Here is the promised efreet from last post

So I’ve upgraded to a new phone as my previous one died a good death after seven years of service. Now, as I’ve been told, I can find all the parts that I screwed up on and lament the shortcomings of my skills. I say nuts to that noise Pundancer. Here is the handiwork of the new device. I’ve switched up the settings. Here they are per the photo:

• F2.4
• 1/30s
• 7.0mm
• ISO 320
• white balance auto
• no flash

I can parse out some of the technical info but I don’t know enough to have it pact my mind too much. I just thought that the exposure of 320 was most important for the moment of me taking the pictures given the lighting and the general theme of color value.

Sitting around with my thumb up my bum has not been my recent state of being. Yes, I have been a quiet noseblower as of late for good reason. Lots and lots of work has been done in the quiet time since last time there was an update.

The cyclops has been a treat to work on as I moved on with my Harryhousen tribute. I have found that the skin tone of the model varied depending on the color saturation of the film you watch so I’ve gone with what I felt best worked. Basing was done along the lines of the film canon. Hassn’s stockpile of treasure couldn’t be more safe under his care. The problem for now is getting more base tufts and trying to paint match for the fallen rubble. I’ve used all the tufts for the rest of my force that Army Painter coproduced when they worked with Mininatur. I think the Autumn tufts match so I’ll order some of those soon. I’ve  also gone in for Vallejo’s color Buff to get the last color I remember. No Brainmatter Beige here.

There was design work for the djinn to receive a water transfer on his back. My only issue is getting white as a color for transfer color. As noted, Islam does have magical application, theoretically, so this mythological figure ties into culture and the story of Alladin without issue. It will read

أنا ملزم بإرادة سيدي.  هذا العبد يطيع إرادته ويخضع تحته.

I am bound by the will of my master.  This servant obeys his will and submits under it.

I’ve also gone and purchased some Little Big Men Studios Arab lance pennants to add some visual interest to my forces. I may have been influenced by the Napoleonic lancers that Warren had attack a certain orky Kruzer in showing off an ice mat in studio. From there I went back into the archives of Gerry Cans and pulled a note of interest that I thought to follow up on with calligraphy paper from Japan or China made from rice not mulberry.

Doing the research on this I’m getting that this kind of paper has a tendency to bleed ink. It might be due to brush calligraphy but it might not the best suited for a printer either. For now, I can pass.

I did find another cross hobby tip for making stiffened banners. Vantage Modelling Solutions offer a resin for use on paper for stowage canvas for scale armor models and the like. I bought some when I first saw the advertisement at the point I began design work on my own pennants and other bits I proudly present to go flapping in the breeze. Testing the material shows great promise for the future.

I have gotten my hands on the OOP Reaper model, Atifa (SKU 14249) and there is great work ahead planned.

I am inspired by the character Zenobia in the film ‘Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger’, as another Harryhousen masterwork, to use as a sorcerer. This will be another work that I will likely go overboard in trying to make look interesting.

The heavens will shake and the earth erupt from the cannon fired in the field by my tiny fighting men. I went back to the last remaining sprue stuff I have and decided to set up the figures in mock placement around the 100x50mm base for the war machine option. They will be touched up with sculpted details for covering their ears as well as carrying tools for operating the cannon.

I had the cannon resized from an .stl purchase printed to roughly correlate to the size of the cannonball. I know its cheaper and lighter to get the special effect of the muzzle blast but I picked up the piece from Armorcast cinematic effects oh so long ago and touched it up. I think the details ( powder barrels, tarp and cannon balls to come) will work very nicely in future for the final mini diorama.