In a crypt near me a creature stirs from its slumber to emerge into the world of wargaming…that creature is none other than my good friend Eve Hallow. Now that is not his real name, and it is a he, for apart from his luscious locks he does not much look like a lady. Like some other gamers he likes a ‘handle’ when online. Eve lives near me in Ayrshire and as a result we can get together now and then for a game or two. His favourite systems include HOF Fire-Team, USE ME Eldritch Horror and something called Warhammer 40k as well. In addition to gaming he also is a fine figure painter and dabbles in sculpting too.
You can visit his wargaming blog to learn more about what he and I have been up to in the last month or so. I have also linked it in my blog roll to the right as well.
We can expect to hear more of Eve Hallow in the next wee while as he has entered his first ever miniature into the SHM range and he has also painted up four of Fjodin’s SHM 15mm Alien Creatures too for use on 15mm.co.uk later this season. You can also expect some AAR’s as well as we lock horns playing 15mm sci-fi, perhaps MOTH too and if he is brave enough some Flintloque.
Until then Stay Ghoul! (Terrible pun, but he said it first!)
Over the last month Eli Arndt, talented sculptor in the SHM Range, has been working on finishing his Fleet Scale Mecha. You can see these above in an image I linked to from his own blog. Normally I do not post about ‘greens’ or if you prefer miniatures which are not yet molded for white metal production but I am making an exception for these little fellows. Once Eli has completed the designs he will be mailing them to 15mm.co.uk for inclusion in its ‘6mm scale’ range. While these are not actually 6mm scale their naval scaling for comparison to starships puts them roughly into that category; certainly in terms of producing them for sale.
Eli and I are good friends who speak regularly and he has turned down offers from other companies to get ahold of these sculpts in favour of working with me on them. Of course this makes me happy and it also pays me back for the faith I had in him when he was just starting out with his first Uhul designs a couple of years ago. Thank you Eli.
I will be posting more on these tiny mecha when the time comes and looking at game systems they can be used with.
A few months ago a great guy by the name of Jeff Worley told me of a miniature he had sculpted. He offered it to 15mm.co.uk for inclusion in the SHM range which as regular readers will know is open to all novice and otherwise designers and is a place where all kinds of miniatures see the light of day. The miniature was a ‘human commander’ and I asked him to send it across the pond so that I could see if it would mold up ok. I was pleased to be able to tell him it would and now the time has come for the miniature to be released so that every wargamer will have a chance to get their casting of Jeff’s work.
The miniature has been coded SHM41 Human Commander and will be released this Friday on 15mm.co.uk (if you are reading this after then just go along to the website and click on SHM to see it). As a single man sized figure it will be just 0.40GBP. As you can see above it is a super and unique looking 15mm miniature with a lot of uses. What springs to mind for me is the obvious squad leader but also perhaps tank driver or crew or perhaps private security too.
Jeff did not tell me his final intended use for the miniature but I look forward to seeing what he does with it.
I saw an interesting posting on the Dropship Horizon Blog a few days ago. At the time I was too busy with other things to do anything on it so I just bookmarked the page and moved on. But now, here I am back again. What is it about you ask? Well it is about a theory. Can you get the wargaming public to finance your new miniature designs and through that your new company without those wargamers seeing miniatures upfront or the promise of any end result?
There are a huge number of miniature wargame companies across the world and this is a great thing as it brings diversity and great choice to thousands of customers each day. Many of these companies I do not know the names of and a large number exist only for a few months or a year and then fold for one reason or another. But in the last couple of years the way of beginning a company has changed. While I will not go into the other ways of making the process easier with free e-commerce software, low cost hosting, print on demand books, electronic publishing and so on I do want to look at Indeigogo and Kickstarter for funding miniature design work by using this as an example.
You can see the posting here and read about it but the gist is as follows. A brand new (so new they do not have a website or any presence I would find beyond this and a few other blog postings) and shiny new company called ‘Grinning Skull Miniatures’ wish to release a range called the ‘Oggum’, 15mm scale white metal miniatures of science fiction war pigs. You can see a screen grab below.
Taken on 5th August 2012
The aim of the Grinning Skull is to raise 2000USD for their range of 15mm miniatures. They have given themselves until 4th September 2012 to raise the funds.
Will they do it? I shall check back near the end of the time allotted to find out and will post a second time on this topic then. But my gut feeling is no, they will not. Will I be incorrect?
This week I made a posting here about my Flintloque pin badge which I wore for years at demo games all over the world back in the 1990’s. There has been a lot of interest from members of the Notables Yahoo Group in my offer to let someone win it and I would post it to them. So after asking for suggestions how to go about choosing a winner the method suggested by Chris Pryme was chosen and that is for me to note down the email addresses of every Notable who makes a posting between Friday 3rd and Monday 6th August HERE. I will then randomly select the winner and contact them to ship them the pin.
But what Flintloque related subject should be discussed by Notables to get their postings on the group for a chance to win. While a message on ANY Flintloque or Slaugherloo subject will be entered I want to make it a little more interesting so I offer a second competition within the first! I want the Notables to suggest a character profile for an as yet unreleased Flintloque miniature!
Who is this fellow?
Above you can see artwork of the miniature and below an image of an assembled master casting in white metal. The miniature is a high ranking Trolkin Officer mounted on a Muskox.
Who is this fellow?
The prize in this second competition is the miniature in question worth about 8.00GBP and not to be released for several weeks yet. The terms are that you need to post a message on the Notables Yahoo Group between 3rd and 6th August telling me who this character is, his story, an idea of his Flintloque and or Slaughterloo profiles in play.
I will get you started with his name ‘Colonel Skand Stoyne‘. About two hundred words will be fine. It does not have to be super accurate or points based as I will choose a winner and assist in finalising the text and so on for release of the miniature. You can read the Notables Message on this competition HERE.
So you have the chance not only to win an unreleased miniature but also to name it and in the process the chance to also win my personal pin badge! Excellent! Get over to the Notables and post your idea!
I picked this DVD up on a whim some time ago and at the time the few pounds it cost me meant that I did not even look at the box too closely. I was taken in by the beautiful stills from the animation and the basis of the plot. What I did not notice was the fact that is not Japanese it is in fact from South Korea. Would this make a difference, would it make the film less appealing due to a different set of cultural values and norms compared to those of the more familiar Japanese? Well to find out I had to watch it so in the early hours of Monday morning I did just that!
First off watch this trailer on YouTube. This is one of the most visually awesome movies I have ever seen and I did stop the film several times to spool back to re-watch sequences just to see the superb backdrops. I learned that Sky Blue (called Wonderful Days upon its initial release) took seven years to make and it shows. A very high level of detail and what I can see was at times painstaking animation gives this film a hyper real look at times. So overall it is well worth watching from an aesthetic point of view alone. The Korean impact on animation across the world is massive (animating most programmes including The Simpsons) and it makes sense for them to want to move out of Japan’s shadow and establish a reputation for their own work. Technically they have done this with Sky Blue; but only for the animation. Why? Because the plot is turgid.
Set in the year 2140, the familiar tale follows life in the city of Ecoban, a technological haven on an ecologically ravaged Earth. Humanity has been divided into the rich elite, who live inside Ecoban, and the refugees, who are forced to scrape a living outside. It’s a balance that the elite are happy to continue, especially since Ecoban’s ability to convert pollution into energy gives them a vested interest in doing nothing about the state of the planet outside. Events finally reach a crisis point when a mysterious figure breaks in to Ecoban and tries to obtain information from the city-controlling Delos system. For city guardian Jay, the stranger is a face from her past that causes her to question her loyalty to Ecoban. The childhood friend she had thought banished forever, Shua is also the grandson of Dr Noah, the genius responsible for Ecoban’s creation. Now he is out to try and fulfil Ecoban’s true purpose, and maybe exchange the permanent clouds of pollution for blue skies.
That is the plot and it is a stock cyber dominated post-apoco world with clichéd Japanese ports such as the sexy doe eyed heroine and the stylised hero with the hidden past adding nothing to any of them. It is a shame actually as with a little more thought and perhaps a British or American writer they could have had a plot to match the visuals. It is not a bad plot but it belongs to the 1980’s it is so staid in comparison to current anime. I will also mention the dubbed English version which is poor and not well matched to the dialogue. Better to watch it with sub-titles.
So Sky Blue 2142AD is worth watching, worth a few pounds to own but not worth the four to five times that which anime stores want for a copy. In wargaming terms Ecoban provides a nice if not novel setting for 15mm or 28mm science fiction skirmish. Pick it up from the budget bucket.
