ADEPTICON - The Loot Part 3

I think this is the final "Loot" post from AdeptiCon. It seems I bought quite a bit of stuff (not too much, just more than usual for me).

Well, here it is, my lovely, new Tablewar case! After borrowing a friend's case last year to schlepp stuff to Northern Ireland for Beasts of War filming, I really wanted to get one for myself. Shipping, however, was the big sticking point for me. In the US, the product ships from California, so it's pretty hefty to get it to the East Coast. Thankfully, the Tablewar team have been traveling to shows and I was able to pick this up sans shipping : )

After gluing together the accessory trays, I started adding magnets to the bottom of my Dark Age collection. Thankfully, the Tablewar guys also sell magnets in packets of 50, as I've almost gone through two packets of them!

Getting ready for the Dark Age tournament on Saturday. My St Mark, Bounty Hunters, Salt Flat Nomads, Brutes, and Dragyri Fire Caste collections are all ready to go. The tray at the bottom holds all my cards, templates, tokens, dice, and tape measure, so I can just worry about bringing the case and my phone : )

ADEPTICON - The Loot Part 2

Of course I had to pick up some Dark Age minis at AdeptiCon this year. I bought my own copy of the two-player starter set - Path to Glory - and a few models to wrap up my collection of Bounty Hunters - John Carter, Dedlock, and some Junkers for a conversion or three : )

This is John "Clank" Carter, one of the range of Bounty Hunters, and this one is based on one of the Immortals winners, John Carter (surprisingly enough).

And here I've converted one of the Junkers into one of the Bounty Hunters that has a bit of history with my current warband leader St Mark - X'cess.

I also picked up some scatter terrain from Death Ray Designs, which will be great for my Dark Age terrain collection.

I also had the good fortune to catch up with my friend Victoria Lamb, and she was kind enough to give me the gift of the awesome Sledgehammer BFG (sculpted by another friend Jake Schneider) that she created as part of the latest Reaper Bones Kickstarter. The crew for the gun are in the soft PVC of the standard Bones lines, but the BFG itself is in a hard styrene, with the pieces already clipped from the sprues, and very few mold lines!

UPDATE: A special note for Reaper Bones III backers - The Sledgehammer BFG was NOT for sale at AdeptiCon. Reaper and Victoria Miniatures would not sell the model until after backers get their products. They took pre-orders, but did not sell any models. They'll send out those pre-orders once backer rewards have shipped.

The kit itself doesn't come with instructions, but I expect they'll be available on the Victoria Minis website soon. I was, however, able to build it pretty quickly just by looking at the photos on the packaging.

Within the basic set there are a number of options, like the long wooden planks-style decking above the wheels.

Or you can go with a smaller metal deck plate.

There are going to be accessory packs in resin too, including two track units (one on each side) that replace the wheels.

There is also a resin kit that will allow you to switch the long gun for a much shorter, larger bore howitzer.

That kit comes with some very cool shells too. The one on the left puts me in mind of a phosphex shell from 30K.

I'm a big fan of the wheels, so I'll be gluing them on. I'm now debating whether or not I'll magnetize the howitzer and the long gun so I have the opportunity to switch back and forth.

One more AdeptiCon loot post to go : )

ADEPTICON - The Loot - Part 1

I've mentioned it before, but AdeptiCon was incredibly crazy busy! I did, however, make a little bit of time to do some shopping. 

First up, I finally bought models for my first ever TNT warband (above). I've always been partial to the idea of the Caravaners, but when I heard about the Pyromanatics blister for the game Aetherium (from Anvil 8 Games) I knew I had to pick them up. These will be used as the basis for a Raider gang, because that seems to be the best fit for pyromaniacs slinging gas cans and propane tanks around the place. To support them with something more solid, I added this big robot from Bombshell Miniatures. I haven't worked out all the details yet, but the models are assembled and primed. Always the best place to start : )

Additionally I picked up a handful of models for the gladiatorial game Arena Rex. This group are from the Ludus Magnus faction.

As you can see, I've already painted up Septimus.

Next on deck might be Septimus on the massive bull, Nero!

More loot to come in the next post : )

DARK AGE - The new 2-player starter set!

I started this "Month of Dark Age"because we're releasing the 2-player starter set this Friday (or Thursday if you happen to be at AdeptiCon). If you'd like to get a good look at the contents of the box, you can do so HERE. 

In preparation for the NOCF Raffle being sponsored by CMON, I've painted up the Saint Isaac half of the Path To Glory set. Jason Craze of Slowfuse Gaming is painting the Ice Caste half. 

Here are the St Isaac model and his two Centipedes from the set. They are all plastic models with incredible detail and crispness, they go together very quickly, and are very sturdy.

Here's a comparison shot between the plastic model (left) and the original resin model (right).

And here are the plastic Controllers from the Path To Glory set. Again, great detail.

Last year I painted a set of Saint Isaac (above) and Ice Caste Dragyri minis (below) to take to Beasts of War. We raffled these off and you can check out the detailed post on these HERE.

AdeptiCon starts on Thursday, so I'm not sure if I'll have time to post another set of minis before then, but I'll try : )

Cheers

Dave

AdeptiCon Registration opens today!

So, I completely spaced on letting you all know about the classes I'm running at AdeptiCon 2016, but hopefully you'll see this before the cart goes live later today.

I'm running my Liber Metallica class (a revised version of last year's offering) twice on Thursday - 9:30-11:30am and 2:30-4:30pm - as well as Liber Titanicus (about painting Titans, Knights and Lords of War, including the reveal of my Warlord Titan!) at 5:00-7:00pm.

There are plenty of other great hobby classes too, taught by some of the best in the business. Make sure you get in early.

I'm not sure exactly when it all goes live, but check things out HERE for all the details.

See you at the show!

Cheers
Dave

Mad Max Monster Trucks! Final batch painted.

The Client received his package of twelve Monster Trucks yesterday, and he was very pleased (which, of course, makes me very happy). This was a great commission to work on as I was given free rein, allowed to channel my inner George Miller, and create some crazy stuff. A few of the creations have also prompted The Client to adapt the rules for his games at AdeptiCon 2016, which is pretty cool in itself.

Just in case you missed the previous posts, here are some links you might like to check out:
• Building the first batch
• Painting the first batch
• Building the second batch

Included in this batch of trucks are a couple of homages to earlier Mad Max films, but I'll talk about that later.

This farm truck didn't need too much converting, I gave it the flatbed/fighting platform, hand rail, and armor plates on the sides. Once the cultivated rust paint job was added, the armor blended right in.

This truck joined the 'black paintjobs' group, with some scuffing and rusty patches showing through. I chose a desert yellow for the scuffed areas not yet attacked by rust. The rack of spotlights on the top (all originally speakers from the Imperial Guard voxcaster) were painted in a bone/white scheme, and thin cracks were painted across some of the glass fronts with a thinned dark brown.

The old hearse (or coroner's vehicle) just had to get the shiny silver coffin look to it. The doors and hood of this one need to be painted in with thin lines of a very dark grey.

Originally the "Donut Patrol" truck, I wanted to keep this one fairly straightforward, but quite different to the silver car from the first batch (the one with the big pipes). The paintjob turned out to be all important here. The back body (along with the scuffs and streaks all help to accentuate the bright pop of the red and blue lights on the roof of the car.

This car, while not a '59 Chevy BelAir, was the closest we'd come yet to the flashy car from the very first Mad Max film. That meant that adding the fake pipes on the hood, and giving it a red with yellow flames paintjob was pretty much a no brainer. Obviously it's not a copy, but more of an homage to part of Miller's original vision.

The last of the trucks is another homage, a not too subtle nod to the school bus in Mad Max 2 (aka The Road Warrior). All my life I thought that the bus in the film had a front-mounted engine (like this bus does), but when I started my more detailed research I discovered it didn't. The bus in the film has a flat front. So, again, this in an homage ; )

For those of you who have seen the film a ton of times, you might recognize the destination I painted in the front of this bus as the place the "good guys" are headed to, "2,000 miles from here. Fresh water, plenty of sunshine. Nothing to do but breathe!"

And as The Client had been very enthusiastic and generous, I decided to add in this little bonus. I decided to give his trucks a rabbit to chase. It was a simple wheel swap on a smaller muscle car I picked up a while ago, and then a simple but effective paintjob: black with some rusting along the lower panels.

I topped it off with a quick Immortal Joe logo, just so everyone was reminded of who is in charge.

It's about 150 days until AdeptiCon, but only three weeks until the tickets go live. Make sure you mark your calendars for November 23rd. Click HERE for the preliminary event listing : )

Cheers
Dave

Mad Max Monster Trucks - Part 3

In yesterday's post I presented the construction photos for the first batch of Monster Trucks that will be making an appearance at AdeptiCon next year. Now I'm ready to show off the finished goods : )

Note: I actually finished painting these last week, I'm not that fast.

When it came down to painting up the trucks in the Mad Max: Fury Road style, I had a fairly limited palette to work with. With the exception of a handful of vehicles, the cars and trucks of MM:FR are either silver (polished metal or chrome spray), black, or cultivated rust. This first body has the shape of a '70s muscle car, so I decided to go for the shiny (and chrome) look like the re-worked Interceptor (aka Razor Cola). This car is the one with perhaps the smallest fighting platform area, tucked away between the exhaust pipes.

When I was converting this armored truck, I decided to get some online inspiration and Googled "armored truck" images. One of the first to pop up was this armored police van which matches the truck VERY closely, so that supplied the color scheme (with additional scratches and rust streaks, of course).

When I first started on this project, someone asked if I could include a truck painted in a similar fashion to my Bullet Farm Truck. I couldn't resist, so the Grave Digger truck got the teal and rust treatment. The rust on the body is several layers of sponging, from a dark brown through to a bright orange.

The fighting platform in the back of this one is sloped and all kinds of rusted.

This truck got the "cultivated rust" look, much like the Elvis car from MM:FR. Rather than just sponge the top of the car, I took the sponges all over the body, and spent a little extra time afterwards shading some of the panels back with brown and black washes.

This truck initial reminded me a lot of the Bigfoot truck from the movies, for obvious reasons. So, I decided to paint it up in the shiny style, offsetting that with some rich, rusty orange patches.

And finally (for this batch at least) I went for one of the black vehicles. I added scratches and small rusted patches around the truck, as plain black would have been a bit boring. In the end, the highlighting and weathering really give the matte black some great depth.

I hope you like these paintjobs. Next up, the construction of the second six trucks : )

Cheers
Dave