Men In Boxes

I've been working on some terrain pieces, namely tree stands and decided to flock them this morning. The trees are a mix of 1:100 and 1: 72 architectural trees I get from my favorite art shop. These were afixed on plywood bases cut into curvy, irregular shapes and texyured with a modelling compound. I had time on my hands this morning and the weather was perfect for doing hobby stuff in our patio. So I got my glues ready and the flocking materials out. Aside from the sculpting material I used on the plywood bases, I tried to replicate forest vegetation using sawdust, a variety of grasses and foliage from Woodland Scenics and beach sand plus other found materials. I wnt to avoid a one-toned hue of grass green so I mixed three colors to come up with the effect. Here are some wip pictures. Nothing fancy and the results are ok. posted from Bloggeroid

A bit of nostalgia here. I'm gearing up for a weekend of working on my wargame table and was surfing for inspiration. Happily, I rediscovered Major General Tremorden Rederring's Colonial-era Wargames at the Wayback Machine. This wargaming group's been a source of inspiration ever since I discovered the wonderful world of miniature wargaming. Just look at that picture above and tell me you're not impressed. WOW! was all I could think off when I saw it. The page has since given its last huzzah and I don't know what's become of the group, but I'm sure I'll be rereading the material they still have archived. A veritable treasure chest of miniature gaming gems, the page embodied the FUN side of miniature gaming, neither taking itself too seriously nor scrimping on the joys of the hobby and its subsidiary hobbies/crafts. It's a pity if such a wonderful resource and such a huge contribution to the hobby is lost. I discovered the page waaaay back...

Here's another ultra cheap dimestore find I got during my last visit to Divisoria in Chinatown. This is a knock-off transformer toy that came packed twenty to a banig (mat) for about two US dollars. The robot transforms into an ATV with roof mounted cannons and sizes up pretty nice with my 25mm figures. I got 4 of these and stored the rest, still on their "banig". Depending if the models thematically fit my small sci-fi force, they'll be repurposed as fast-attack/scout elements for my Terran Federation Troopers . I superglued the parts to prevent the toy from being changed from robot to atv and hurriedly spray-painted it with dark yellow. The plastic's cheapness shows on the surface as well as in the stubs left behind from being pried from their original spure. I was too lazy to clean it up since I don't want to spend a lot of time "fixing" these -- until I think up of a worthwhile modelling project that is. Anyway, here's a squadron of ...

Screencap from Machinima's youtube video FRAK! FRAK! FRAK! Was that a frakkin' classic cylon raider I just saw! Battlestar Galatica: Blood & Chrome would not air on television. The first of ten segments of the web series will air on November 9th on the Machinima Prime YouTube channel. All of the episodes will air together, on the Syfy channel, in early 2013, and a DVD release will follow. Check out the trailer! http://youtu.be/Qj50xJhWdcM

Here's a WIP army for Hordes of the Things -- Dragonmen! The dragonmen are led by a dragon magician. This is the Silver Sorcerer from Dungeons and Dragons. Three stands of mixed lizardmen and troglodytes. The large klizardman is from Mageknight while the remaining ones are from Dungeons and Dragons. I like the lizardman. He resembles a T-Rex imho. And here are the dragonmen from Mageknight. I could only fit one figure per base but may play these as blades or maybe one as a hero. This lone stand will be a beast or lurker. Both are from Dungeons and Dragons. These large nasties are from Dinofroz. Behemoths probably. I'm not too keen on too many beasts. Most of the figures are repurposed Mageknight and Dungeons and Dragons figures with a smattering of toys from the Dinofroz line. I didn't bother to remove the original paint and just painted over the existing colors with base paint. I still need to do a lot of clean-up thou...

The transforming capabilities of the toy was disregarded and the pieces were superglued together. Cleaning of mold lines and sanding followed. I wanted this to be a fast project with very minimal effort. I began with three models and had them ready for spraying in an hour. The plastic was a bit brittle and care had to be taken in sanding.The models were primed matt black then a camo pattern was applied using a red brown color on stencils.  IMHO, not bad at all for ten cent pieces. So far, so good. Weathering and decals next!

I was in Chinatown on business the other week and dropped by the infamous Divisoria mall, a sprawling, stinky hive of a market in downtown Manila. With the Christmas season in full swing already here, the place was filled to the brim with people selling their wares, people haggling and buying, people picking someone else's pockets etc. The place is also filled with toy shops with wares coming in fromm China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Among these toys are lots and lots of knock-offs selling at 1/10th of the originals. I soon found myself in the dirtier, more cramped and more chaotic basement where stores peddled party wares filled to the brim with cheap plastic toys. Toys here are packed twenty to a banig ( mat) ranging from a dollar to round two dollars for twenty pieces. among these, I found some I maybe able to use for gaming. Here's a transformable robot taht turns into a tank. It seems suitable for 15mm but since I dont game in that scale, they'll be drafted in my 20mm sc...