Tau'chikomatic Days: Along Came A Major....

For Valentine's Day, we have a love-letter to Shirow Masamune from Statuesque Miniatures. Though she's officially called Mei-lin Mayfair, that's Motoko Kusanagi, right down to the Seburo C-25A. I originally discovered her by way of a posting on Massive Voodoo; they did a different (and by far more intricately detailed) paint job of her, but I recognized the gun and stance right away. She and her sisters on the Statuesque site are quite well sculpted and reasonably priced, and moreover, really really small. That right arm was just big enough to accept a pin, which is good, because I wasn't sure whether it'd stay on, otherwise. 


Here she is lecturing the Fuchis on something or other; probably why they can't have that long sought-after organic oil... 

(FYI, in the comic, the oil breaks down too quickly and their joints lock up. Sorry, Fuchis) 


Her trademark shrug isn't really sculpted on, but a trick of the painting around some of the sculpted lines on the torso. It actually hangs just below her shoulder blades, but I wasn't about to sculpt a tiny hair of green stuff for accuracy's sake. I liked the look of the model, and wanted to present it as stock as possible. It's really an excellent little figure, as are all the others. If you haven't yet, I highly recommend you click on over to Statuesque's site and check them out. 

She's also in scale with GW Astartes armor (this is one of 8 Devs that I just finished for a client) , which was a pleasant little surprise. Here's another pic from a (slightly) different angle: 

She only looks as tall as the SM because of her pose; she's up on the balls of her feet, which is kind of an awkward pose if you try it yourself (of course, we're not all cyborgs with enhanced equilibriums)  I have a Corvus Belli Guija (which looks just like an Appleseed landmate) that she's in perfect scale with as well, although it hasn't been converted yet, so no pics, so sorry. As a consolation, here's another family photo:

Next time, more commission stuff. Hopefully I can get to that Knight Warden before the contest deadline, otherwise he'll have to stay on the back burner awhile....

On the bench this week...

A prototype Mycetic Crypt, made out of some bargain-basement Monolith bits and plasticard, waiting for detailing. Is this large enough to carry 20 infantry or 1 monstrous creature? Hmmmm.

In other news, we have these:

Looking through the backlogs and bits boxes this week, I fished out these little gems. You may have heard about DP9's Gundam tribute game, Jovian Chronicles. Before taking it to their own game system, they published it under the auspices of R. Talsorian's Mekton line, a clunkier, far less popular mecha game than Battletech. The JC mecha had a rounded, baroque look, and some were a little derivative of Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, among other series, but were otherwise nice designs. 

Okay, more than a little derivative, but Bandai has yet to sue the crap out of them, so it's safe to assume they dodged the bullet, I think. 

Hmm... there is such a thing as living too dangerously.


DP9 cranked out larger miniatures for this and their VOTOMs game, Heavy Gear, by way of a company called RAFM.  (I should mention that I wrote fluff material for four or five of their books back in the late '90s, so there you go) DP9 has since had some kind of stroke, redesigned their JC mecha (among others) to look crappy, and halved the scale of their minis. (Don't ask me why, although I do have some theories.) RAFM  had major quality control issues, but their sculpts were pretty damn good, so I picked up one of each and then.... never got back to them. These models have been sitting around for a DECADE.


Anyhoo,  I dug them out, and after they're finished, I'll be featuring them here. After all, who doesn't love giant robots?

Tau'chikomatic Days: Attack of the Lethal Little Spiders!

I had nearly forgotten about these little guys. They've been in a box for like 3-4 years.


Back when I was trying to decide on a new army after playing SoB for some time (and lamenting their utter lack of ranged anti-tank), I flirted briefly with the idea of fielding the Tau.    Of course, 5th ed has since pushed their codex into the crapper, but the idea I had (before jumping full-bore into the Guard) was to make a Shirow Masamune tribute army, and these little fellas were my battlesuits. 

Those of you who followed Ghost in the Shell from its manga beginnings will recognize these designs being closer to the Fuchikomas than Stand Alone Complex's Tachikomas.  GW didn't really have a lot orb-shaped bits for me to use for the body, and I wanted to stick to Tau Battlesuit bits anyway. The Major's,  of course, is red.

A rear shot showing his little jump jets. GW has always had problems with scale, and even constructed to spec out of the box the Tau battlesuits appear to have little room for the pilot in addition to all the power and support systems the thing would need, even with their miracle technology. With that in mind, I suppose you could fit a pilot in the body, lying down over the main processor; the thorax is dominated by that flight system. 

An underside shot so you can get a better idea of how they're put together. The battlesuit chestplate is wedged into the back piece's cavity, and with some trimming those ball-jointed legs fit in nice and snug. Tau battlesuits aren't really built for hand to hand, so I saw no issue with the charactertistic stumpy arms. Plus, they make him look kinda cute. 

Mugging for the camera, the blue soldier units. I had fun with different weapons mounts, and the ball joints allowed for some nice reaction poses. In-game, of course, they'd all have standardized weapon loadouts, mostly for anti-armor. Fire Warriors are fine for anti-infantry, giving these spry little fellows the dubious honor of popping tanks at close range. Of course, they're nowhere near as spry in 40k as they are in the manga and anime, otherwise they'd be treated cavalry for movement purposes. 

For true anti-armor, of course, you want Broadsides with their heavy railguns, so I converted up a squad of sniper-type units and painted them in low-vis colors. With those big guns, they are, of course, much less spry than their brethren.

The one in the middle seems to be going for maximum elevation. He must see something hiding in the second floor of that building over there. The models might seem back-heavy due to the metal cannons and stabilizers, but their four-legged nature makes them quite stable, actually. 

I thought about using the regular Tau missile racks, but they were too underwhelming, so they became railgun ammo hoppers. Plus, since railguns are firing solid projectiles anyway, you can put them higher up without worrying about them being targeted. After all, with railguns it's the power capacitors in the back and those magnets in the barrels you want to worry about. This little guy also has a laser designator in his central mount to paint targets with. 

He's really blasting away with those plasma rifles. I never understood why the Tau didn't have BS4 instead of the more pedestrian (and base human) BS3. Then again, with all the accuracy-enhancing gadgets and twin-linking, I suppose they don't really need to be natural marksmen to hit things. 


I suppose I could implement them into my AdMech army, but that would mean refitting them with more gothic optics and Imperial-standard weapons, which would sort of detract from that high-tech look. As they are they just sort of don't fit with any of my other armies, which is a shame, because I really like the models. Hmmmm....


EDIT:


If you're wondering what sparked off the nostalgia to dig out these (relatively) old models, it's because I just finished assembling and painting this fellow:

I'll do a more in-depth photo posting of him if you really want. The little Fuchis next to him came with the Kusanagi figures they released to promote the PS1 game. Of course, the inspiration for him came from this fellow:

Fully articulated, this Fuchi came with the Ghost In the Shell One Box, a $300+ product that came with two hardbound manga volumes, a clear folder, and a mini-artbook. Got that sucker waaay back in the day from Tower Records, which is of course, now defunct. Thanks iTunes, where am I going to find an eclectic blend of music, books, and weird stuff now?

Sometimes, The Things Assemble Themselves.

No pictures this post. Today it's Theatre of the Mind. 

I see things, I put them together. That's this hobby of ours in a nutshell: putting seemingly disparate parts together to make something cool.

Whilst browsing blogs, as you do when you're unemployed like me, I came across this:

http://coilhouse.net/2010/04/inventorsculptor-kim-grahams-weta-legs/#more-13318

You can wear them for hours on end, and even an amateur can run and climb in them. 

Gimme some arm extensions with spinny wrists, lightsabers, a few more bits and bobs, and blammo, you have a Grievous costume. But, why stop there? Go the extra nine yards and add this:

http://www.cyberdyne.jp/english/index.html

Now it's a powered version, strong enough to lift lightweight weapons and armor. Not mobile enough for you? Go here:

http://www.martinjetpack.com/

Now it flies.

This stuff, it's not a game, it's the world. It's coming. Get it?

Good morning, people. 

The Universe Wants Mechanical Tyranids...

..... and this picture proves it.  More cool-ass pics of this metal bug and the story on IO9 . In case you were curious, it's for sale at 4,500 pounds sterling. The people who make it are here and sell all manner of crazy-ass junk-sculpture robots. 


I think that proves that there are people out there as crazy as we are, and that you can make substantial amounts of money from our particular brand of crazy. 


Happy Tuesday, people. 

Painting O' Green

The snow this weekend allowed me to focus on some commission work; a quartet of Eldar Falcon tanks and a Viper jetbike. Three out of four of them came to me assembled (cockpits and all, damn it) which meant some dicey painting on my part, and all required magnetized turrets. While I was painting them, I couldn't help but think of a certain other twin-fanged monstrosity:

(Heavy Raider is (C) Syfy, used without permission)

You Eldar players had to be thinking it. You know you were.

Here's a view of the Eldar their adversaries are used to seeing: their fast retreating backsides. The ramps on these came to me fused, though the one that was off the sprue is still in openable condition. Honestly, all those tines and things on the turrets are just asking for gravity and mischance to snap them off, so I was extra careful. This thing was a pain in the ass to assemble:

The damn turret chair on this thing had to be assembled around the gunner, which meant painting everything in components and finally, painstakingly, fitting everything around each other and letting gravity and tension do the rest. Fortunately, the glue I use, Super Jet, comes in a little bottle with a tiny neck, so I was able to glue the contact surfaces without fusing the thing together. Models like this make me thing GW has it in for hobbyists.

Next post: more Imperium, I swear.

Back in the Saddle.

"I don't know why they called me," he was saying, "This guy is MEAT. I'm a 'borg doc. If he needed a circ re-section or a limb switched out, then you call me, got it?"

"Sorry." The intern stammered, "We--we needed a consult and-"

"Kid", he said. "Forget about it."

Priest exchanged looks with the attending, who was shaking his head. The serv-nurse whirred nearby, keeping pressure on the wounds while changing the empty IV bag out of its little carousel. Another bag snapped into place almost instantaneously, the flow of drugs virtually uninterrupted.

"They cost a bundle, you know. Full body prosthesis."

"Really? I didn't know--"

"If they don't have the money to buy a Ferrari, then they sure as hell can't afford a new body. They go into hock to the government for the rest of their life. They send 'em wherever, to do whatever. In the end, they take the parts out of 'em and give them to poor people. The poor buggers end up just chunks on a coroner's table. "

The intern blanched. O'Brian, the attending, looked amused. They had worked together on an off for nearly fifteen years.

"IF they can't pay, kid. If."

The intern looked forlorn.

"Look, it's not like I can do anything for him. Like I said, I'm a mechanic."

Priest pushed away from the table and got up to leave, snapping the gloves from his hands and tossing them into a hopper. He drew his slate from it socket on smart bed and ran a finger across it, bringing it to life.

"What I can do," he said, keying commands into the device, " is send him up to surgery. He needs a new kidney. "

The orderlies appeared almost immediately to wheel him away, the smart bed silently maintaining his vital functions. Katherine Hollister was stepping around them to check the man's vitals on the display. He nearly bumped into her.

"Priest?"

"Yeah Kathy?" he looked up from his slate, noticing her for the first time.

"What're you doing here?"

"The kid here called for a consult, I drew the short straw."

"Well, it's good to see you."

"You still flying evac?

"No, I'm back in the ER, now. Have been for a while now."

"It's good to see you too, Kathy. You look good."

"So do you." She said, turning to follow the smart bed. The thing was already halfway down the hall, making its way around the various obstacles toward the elevators. "I'll see you later, okay?'

"Sure thing." he smiled his lopsided half-smile. She alway made him feel like he was twenty years old again. "Take care of yourself, Kathy."

"You too, Priest."