Vincent Villafranca

I have seen the next level, and it is this guy. 


Okay, the design of his page is horrifying, but his robot chess pieces? 

Fucking amazing. Click the link and check him out. You won't be disappointed. 


Well, except by the layout/graphics/etc of his website, which is awful. His work is excellent, but man, you'd think the guy could design a better looking website. Of course, maybe he's too busy turning out masterpieces like this to give a flying shit about web design:

In which case, more power to him. 


Happy Friday, people. 

What the crap is going on with Dreadnoughts these days?

By now, everybody's seen this ungainly monster. I'm still on the fence about whether I like it or not, since it's not exactly a new design:

Yeah, that's right. Instead of grabbing a movie design to repurpose (go see Terminator 5 to see where the Dreadknight came from), FW went back several generations to the old Epic scale game and up-sized that thing. Someone loved that ugly little thing so much, they went back and made it the de-facto "old dreadnought, instead of the one we all knew and loved from the early days. You all remember Chuck, don't you? from the 40k Compendium? 

There he is, the poor lil' roly-poly guy. Look at him. Gonna go stomp some Chaos Squats with those two twin-linked bolters of his. Who's the big man? Not you. Sorry, Chuck. 


We're supposed to believe that during the 40k timeline,  Lee Iacocca took over Mars and started cranking out the K-Car of mecha:

Go research K-car, kids. It's a real term. 


There's more than one entendre at work, here. 


Get it? 


Good. 


Personally, I'm glad GW didn't slink away to the movies again. It wrecks the consistency of their design quality--- ooooh right:

C'mon guys. A Glaug from Macross? What were you thinking back then? Even FASA learned that lesson the hard way with the Marauder. You're all over the place with rules, all over the place with design.

Sigh. 

That brings us back to Monstroso, there:

There are some things I like about this model. I feel that it's generally a step in the right direction, I really do. In fact, you can shut down all the current model production lines now, from Rhinos to Stormravens, and art direct everything around the curved, riveted lines of this model. For consistency. 

However, there is a another shade of consistency at work here.  

This design is consistent not with rest of the angular, slab-sided, reasonably well art-directed army. It is consistent with the brand new, hero-focused, special-characters-grant-special-rules bent of the current codexes. There is one message you can take away from this, and it is:

"We envy Warmachine."

Think about that. 

DALEKS ARE SUPERIOR!

Played Necrons vs Vulkan Marines today, and this was the highlight of the match. They took a round to devour his Thunderhammer Termie bodyguard, and ate Vulkan the round after this pic. 


Game ongoing. 2 combat squads, one Assault Squad, and one Dread left to go (that LR is immobilized and weaponless). Updates to follow. 


UPDATE


After swallowing Vulkan, the Daleks engaged a combat squad and proceeded to pummel them to death with their doom plungers. A full assault squad nearly deep struck in, but hit a building. The subsequent mishap roll resulted in them dropping in dangerous terrain across the board instead. Destroyers disposed of that Rhino in the foreground, and the Warrior squad behind them held firm against that Tac squad you can see on the left. 


To make a long story short, a round or so later my opponent conceded. As he was short on units, he was unable to effectively contest control enough objectives. Had we continued, he could've squeaked out a draw, but I think the death of his rock unit (and the delay of his assaulters) dismayed him a bit. I put on my teacher hat and pointed out some  things he did well (covering his Rhinos long enough to make it across the board, targeting/downing my Destroyers with his Rifleman dreads) and some things he did poorly (choosing to assault Warriors in a ruin with his Termies instead of sending them at some Destroyers in the open who were 7" from the LRR). 

WIP: Tyracron Hive/Tyrant Guard and future project thoughts....

Just a quick post today, since Saturdays are for Dark Heresy. These two little monsters flew together last night in a burst of creativity. Since they'll pull double-duty as both Hive and Tyrant guard models, I've magnetized the right shoulder, and am currently figuring out some kind of fiddler-crab style shield arm. Maybe I'll use the arm/shoulder bits from this ungainly monster. Being Hive Guard though, that right arm gun had better be more substantial than a mere Necron Gauss Cannon, so stay tuned. Over all, these guys will make better companions for my forthcoming artillery Hive Tyrant than for Grievous, though.


Grievous had a person bodyguard composed of these fellows, if you'll recall. Hmm.... I wonder how tall these things stand? Time for a trip to the hobby store. 


The Warmachine range tends to be larger and smaller than you'd think it would be, which is a pretty effective optical illusion on their part. From a design standpoint, it makes their mecha seem rather topheavy and slow, and you'd think with that much weight on their tiny little legs, they'd all sink in the mud. Maybe combat in their universe happens on solid rock. I dunno. 


Happy Saturday, people. 

Commissions: Their first Rhino....

Blogger is being a shit today, making it extra tricky to upload photos with their widget. Hopefully they'll fix it soon, because it makes things take twice as long. 


Patron X has seen the Mechanized Force light, and has gotten his first Rhino/Razorback for the Angels of Flame. Properly kitted out, the Rhino really is an excellent little model, if a little fragile in the game. 

And why not use the little hunter-killer mount, too? Give that APC a reason to feel good about itself before an enemy model sneezes and blows it up. (Of course, you get the same result if more than one Marine tries to cram his frame inside the thing) I fitted the Razorback turret plate underneath the double hatch, which itself is pretty snug without the need for magnets. So, all he needs to do is pop the top off and voila!

Burly little monster, isn't he? If only they'd designed the Storm Raven as well. Incidentally, have you seen the latest Chapterhouse mod kit? It turns that shitty aircraft into this:

Looks a little generic now, but it's a step in generally the right direction. Had I these parts, I'd also shift the wings farther back, eliminate that ugly rudder, put some proper forward sponsons on for the hurricane bolters and missiles, and--oh hell.  Alright, gang. I'll make you a deal. If I get the design job I just interviewed for, I'll celebrate by getting a SR kit and this spacer from Chapterhouse, or just make the whole shebang from scratch Klaus-style. God, that little nose gun bothers me, now, and that horn thing still needs to go. I wish they'd used those vector mounts on the Valkyrie kit, though.

Their wheeled Chimera kit is pretty nice too. Honestly, I don't know why they didn't go the extra yard and just flesh out a full wheeled tank kit. For $13.50 I could plasticard out the rest and have  cheap wheeled APC ready to go.  Chapterhouse does nice work, they just need to not be so fucking stupid with their naming conventions to the point of getting sued. GW has the cash to litigate you into the stone age,  and you go and do something like bandy their copyrighted material about? You're not fanboys anymore, you're business men. Show some smarts and do it right. 

I'd watch it.....

I've really got to hand it to the new writing team of Doctor Who this time. The idea of Silurian swordswoman solving crimes in Victorian London is terribly fascinating. I'd much rather see 8-10 episodes of that than another "Oh Fuck The World Is Ending" Torchwood series.  


Also, all the best lines in "A Good Man Goes to War" belong to the Sontaran. 

Happy Friday, people.  

Conversions: Lightning Farron

So Eric contacted me a while ago asking if I could convert up a character for him to use an  inquisitor for his armies. He's a fan of Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII, a game I've played and somewhat enjoyed (despite its failings, gameplay-wise). For those not familiar with her, she looks something like this:

(image and character are copyright Square-Enix, used without permission)

I decided to start with a miniature that was close enough and greenstuff the extra clothing as needed. The base model was this Lara Croft knockoff from Freebooter Miniatures. For those of you unfamiliar with Freebooter and the work of Werner Klocke, surf on over and take a gander. They do some nice work, and I was pleased with the quality of the mini when it came in. I'm sure there's some irony in converting one video game character into another....

The originals sword is waaaaaaay too complex for someone like me to model out of green stuff at that scale. (on the other hand, give me 3D Studio Max and a rapid prototyper and we'll see) There are better sculpters out there than I who could've done a far better job, so I decided to go for the hard-modelling solution and create something that suggested the form and interlocking nature of the original without mirroring it. A Necromunda tri-barrelled shotgun fit the bill, combined with the machete that came with the original. The hand is pinned to the arm, but the sword is all glue, contact area, and faith. Hopefully it'll survive the journey and following rigors of the battlefield. 

A lot of sculptors from other lines neglect to give their character minis things like holsters and sheathes for the weapons they're swinging around, so I like to make sure they have somewhere to stow their gear. If you've played the game, you get used  to the sight of Lighting walking along with her holstered folding sword swinging against the back of her thighs as she walks. It must be terribly cumbersome to move around with it hanging like that, not to mention hard to keep your balance jumping around and such. Oh well, that's fantasy for you. 


Lastly, I've started experimenting with watermarks for my photos. I've seen my images pop up on forums and stuff, and while I don't mind you folks grabbing and posting them I would like people who see my work to know where it came from. So all you guys who've been reposting Tyracron and Titan pics, thanks for the extra publicity, but please, please tell people where to go to see more. Not that I'm a web-traffic whore (don't see any ads yet, do you?) but it's polite to source your stuff, you know? 

Conundrum: Metallic, or Flat?

As you may know, I'm a huge fan of the Zone of the Enders series, and the resin kits of their mecha have been Holy Grails that I've been chasing for a while. Recently, Kaiyodo released a toy of the hero mecha, Jehuty, as part of their ongoing Revoltech line. He looks like this:

Sexy, right? I have the resin kit for this fellow, and they apparently used the exact same molds, and just swapped in a set of ratchet joints. My issue here is the paint job. See, in the game, things were matte, and not shiny at all. You'll recall my Dolores model was all matte, with none of the shiny you see in the above figure. I've been working on the kit of his adversary, Anubis, who looks like this in the art:

 I found a reference for my exact kit in a hobby mag: 

Yeah, it's quite an undertaking. Again, it's in the same scale as Jehuty, amazingly, so I've been replacing screw-joints with ratcheting joints as I go (not to mention having to contend with the INSANELY FRAGILE resin it was cast in) but for now the issue is that color. I've been agonizing over whether to go metallic as above and thus make him compliment Jehuty, or go all flat, which would result in something like this:

That impressive model is 90% scratchbuilt, and is from Sparrow Scratchbuilt Aviation, an absolutely amazing site out of Japan. His stuff is mind-blowing, so check him out. 

Those matte colors, on the other hand, are totally meh. Surprising, considering he does some nice airbrush work on his aviation models, but the color work on this figure is downright underwhelming. If I went this route, I'd definitely pay more attention to the highlighting in certain areas. 

So, what do you all think? 

What the hell?

There were 5 or six comments on the Marbo post, and now there aren't.


What the fuck, Blogger? No wonder people are going to Wordpress. 

Mechanicus Secutor M-Alpha-Rho-8-Omega

With a battle against the Space Marines looming a few weeks ago (during Mecha Month, so yes, I was saving this) , I figured it was time to have a proper Marbo mini. He originally started out as a Tau Pathfinder, and steadily gained bits and green stuff augmentations until he was properly mechanized for field duty. Do the Mechanicus believe in poison? Properly, but I figured a chain sword-bayonette would look a lot more industrial than some knife with poison smeared on it. Aren't Astartes supposed to be able to just gland away poison anyway? Funny how the fluff never makes it into the tabletop game. Similarly, his nasty Exitus pistol had to be a more substantial weapon than your run-of-the-mill sidearm. Sharp eyes will also notice the Vulcan-90 grenades on his belt. 

How did he do on the table? He proved himself quite well, actually. After killing 3 Marines with his demo charge, M-Alpha-Rho-8-Omega charged the remaining two and massacred them, bouncing back into cover after a successful assault. Later on he harassed an HQ squad moving up to flank the main Skitarii advance, slowing them up enough for the troops to torrent them and their transport out of existence. Amazingly, this was one battle that Marbo managed to survive, probably because I had other things that were more threatening. Chimeras full of Skitarii and a Leman Russ Vanquisher with Pask on the main gun tend to attract more attention than one lone psycho. Overall, not a bad shakedown for a new model. 


On a more personal front, yours truly is now an employee of Apple, and will be hawking the their shining personal cogitators and other gifts of the Omnissiah as soon as he inloads their  doctrinal directives.  


Happy Wednesday, people.