Hot off the Desk: Wizard of Brimstone Gang (GenCon Project)

Welcome to Shadows of Oz, or Wizard of Brimstone. Take your pick.

Well, not exactly 'hot' off the desk, but that's the naming convention.

First and foremost, a special thanks to the Underdog crew and Dog Might Games for support.

At GenCon2018, I was honored to win the "Brimstone Bounty" category at the Flying Frog Games painting competition. (!!!!)

The category is probably intended for a "squad" of bad guys or heroes from one of the expansion packs, but in recent years people have become a little more creative with their composition and theme.  Back in the winter months, Mrs. Zoxe and I were talking about what she'd like to do for her Ninja Division diorama entry.  She said "Wizard of Oz."

The reference photo, sourced from the internets.

I said, "Huh, I could actually pull that off in Brimstone."  So I raided the Flying Frog Games web store for some duplicates of minis I already own.  Here's the rundown:

• Dorothy - Female Rancher, alternate sculpt resin
• Toto  - Ally Dog Set, resin
• Lion - Night Terror*
• Scarecrow - Wandering Samurai resin
• Tin Man - Targa Guardian Expansion
• Wicked Witch - Hellfire Witch, Limited Edition preview resin

*I truly loved using the Night Terror here, as it's so recognizable as a core set mini.  There are duplicate sprues available from the web store, but I giggled that someone would think that I'd sacrificed my core set for this project.

The next problem was bases.  I needed at least 3 different sizes, and I needed an old school cobblestone to pull off the yellow brick road look.  Tabletop Art (Germany) has some glorious bases, but I had just gotten some Scibor bases stuck in customs for months and months and didn't have the time for that nonsense.  Thankfully, I was able to find what I needed in stock at Noble Knight.

Finally, although I wanted a diorama feel, I really wanted to be able to play the minis in our games after I was done.  So I adapted an idea from another project I did awhile back and added them to a nice plank of bolivian rosewood with pockets for each round base.

I'll stop typing here and let the pictures speak for themselves.

An early mock up. Figures held to bases with plasti-tac. I'm starting to fill the Night Terror's horrible gaps.

The SoB resin sculpts are super detailed but I seriously hate their hard and slippery material choice.

The big boys.  The Targa Guardian is my single most favorite SoB mini.

I managed to find some HO-scale tufts in the color I needed to represent the Poppy Fields from the scene in the movie.

A late WIP shot of the Night Terror's (Lion) base.  I'm using Reaper metallics and ArmyPainter green ink for detail. The result was "ok" but I would do this differently if I were to do it again.

Scarecrow almost done and pinning the crow to his shoulder. I used a TINY safety pin as source material.  Oh, and take a deep breath before you take a pin drill to a 95% complete model.

Night Terror got a coat of primer after the Milliput had cured. The neck is a little rough.  I continued to use Vallejo Plastic Putty to fill low spots and create texture around his neck.

A mostly complete shot of the Lion. Here I'm adjusting highlights around his face.

Toto, complete but not based.  The gray shading was airbrushed, and several layers of various browns were used for his muzzle and feet.  Reaper Black Wash (several coats) in the shadows of his legs.  Really simple, but I consistently got positive comments on him.

Finished Gang - Part 1.  The Tin Man was intentionally really simple. I considered doing more weathering and shading but decided to stay true to the reference picture. Judge's feedback that just a little more shading would have been welcome, point taken. 

Finished Gang - Part 2.  I was really happy with the blends on the Witch's body.  I added the broom from a Reaper miniature that I sacrificed for the cause.

I was so happy that Dorothy didn't turn out cross-eyed.  I experimented with some blends on her gun, boots, and belt and was happy with how they came out.  The shading on her jacket and skirt was mostly zenithal highlighting from the airbrush and just a little work with the hand brush.

Scarecrow with his feathered friends.  The ruby color of his face armor is a color tie - all of the figures (except Toto) have the Ruby color from Dorothy's boots somewhere on them.

To counterbore the base, I bought a series of forstner bits.  When the one for the Tin Man came, I was truly impressed. It came in its own "crate."  When I spooled up the drill press, I swear ground shook and the lights dimmed in the garage.  Apologies for the lazy backlit image.

Finished display base.

And in the case at Gencon.

GenCon 2018

Welcome to GenCon 2018

Last year I broke the GenCon wrap up post into a multi-part series.  This year I'll try to do it in one shot.

First, some shout outs to: the Dog Might Games Viking Crew, the Miniature Monthly crew, Panda Cult Games, TTCombat, Ninja Division, Flying Frog, HipLein Industries, and the filthy casuals in the Council of Moo gang.

OVERVIEW: 
This was our 5th GenCon.  Which doesn't sound like a long time, but it means half a decade of travelling to downtown Indy.  It's been long enough that the years are starting to blur together a bit, and I actually had to go look up whether this was year 5 or 6.

Each GenCon is a little bit different for us.  Each year tends to compound a little bit more on the ones prior, like rings inside a tree.  There's a foundation of earlier years forming the layers of our experience, and each year we build another layer.

Early on, GenCon was about meeting up with old friends, mostly from our college days, and investigating new products, new ideas, and absorbing as much knowledge as we could about various product lines.  Since we were new to the scene, nearly EVERYTHING was new and GenCon was almost overwhelming in scope.  But with repetition, we're now looking for the deltas - the differences - from prior years and focusing more on the new growth.

Last year was a pivotal year; in 2016-2017 we continued to step away from PC games as our primary hobby and Games and Painting took on a more prominent role in our free time.  Through Kickstarter and online news venues, we started to understand the people and stories behind the companies we loved.  So, GC2017 was about meeting as many of our "heroes" as we could, and just being fanboys a bit. GenCon became a place where we were within a few feet of people we had read about, and that became a little surreal.

In the 12 months since last year's event - thanks to the classes we've taken and online groups we've joined - we've continued to build new relationships and have met more people "in the industry."  I don't mean to convey by any stretch that we're "important people" but a big change this year was that at several booths we had people recognize us on sight.  Or we would see them in the hall after hours and they'd flag us down to chat.  My point is that a big part of 2018 was about gabbing with new friends face to face, as well as spending time with our old friends, and overall that changed the tone of the event for us, in a good way.

THURSDAY:
Thursday was a shopping day.  Thanks to a huge traffic jam in Indy, we arrived later than expected, but still well ahead of the vendor hall opening.  We found our place nearest the Kingdom Death and Ninja Division booths and happily chatted with people around us.  It was apparent that everyone around us was heading to either KDM or Steamforged.

Obligatory "sea of nerds" photo. This was taken a few minutes before doors opened on Thursday.

My initial line position for the Kingdom Death booth.  A bit worse than last year. The end of the line is (I think) near the far wall.

The doors opened and we surged forward; I went straight to the KDM booth.  My line position was a little worse than last year, but I landed between two guys that I stood in line with last year.  We chatted our way to the front of the queue.  Unfortunately, the early line was full of people with shopping lists for themselves and their friends and the line moved slowly as people moved to the cash register with (quite literally) armloads of Kingdom Death.  And I mean armloads ... boxes balanced in a big heap and tumbling off the top of the stack while the person carrying them tried to use their chin to stabilize the pile. Insane amounts of money changed hands.

GenCon Kingdom Death menu.

Some beautifully painted (and based) KDM minis in the booth.

I finally got to the front of the line - about an hour and forty five later - and managed to snag a few hard to find resins (Ringtail Fox Survivor in particular).  I landed in the cash register line behind a young man and his girlfriend apparently buying everything in the store.  Nothing about their transaction was easy or fast.  They had a long conversation with the cashier about other items they may have missed.  Then they insisted every box be opened to ensure all figures were molded properly.  Then they paid in cash - in $100 bills - prompting every bit of currency to be checked, and there was a question about whether one of the $50 bills was counterfeit.  After 20+ minutes of waiting for this one transaction I was ready to give a mighty war cry and commit bodily harm upon them, but finally they were done and I was on my way.

KDM Loot:  TOP (L-R) - Dragon Armor Kit, Dark Elf Variant, Dark Elf, Sci-Fi Savior.  BOTTOM (L-R) Echoes of Death, Percival, White Knight, Ringtail Fox Survivor, Death High Whitespeaker

SoB and Broken Token Loot:  LEFT (top to bottom) Lost Army Hell Cannon, FoFo Deapth Track, Bone Eaters, RIGHT (top to bottom) Trederran Raiders, and two Broken Token Paint Racks

Dropfleet Loot:  LEFT:  Scourge and UCM Destroyers, UCM Battleship, UCM Battlecruiser.  PLASTIC BAGS:  UCM and Scourge Kickstarter Exclusives, Remnant Centurion, and Princess Liner.

I met up again with Mrs. Zoxe, and the rest of the day was random hopping to specific booths.  Of particular note, I went to the TTCombat booth to pick up just a couple of Dropfleet ships to round out my collection but walked away with a bag full.  They were selling off the Kickstarter and Web Store exclusives that I'd quite possibly not see again.  We paused briefly to line up for a book signing with James S.A. Corey of the Expanse series.  We were 2nd in line and got a little bit of 1:1 interaction.  Then we hit the food trucks for dinner and then collapsed.

Autographs from the pair of guys that write under the pen name James S.A. Corey.

FRIDAY:
Up early, and attended a podcast recording session with James S.A. Corey.  This was interesting to watch - sound checks and a live interview environment - but it was apparent that the authors were uneasy and there was zero interaction with the audience.  So while we learned some things, it still felt sort of false/artificial and wasn't much different than watching a youtube video.  I came away vaguely disappointed.

James S.A. Corey doing a podcast recording. The bandannas are holding their mics. The recording went well but at points this was brutally awkward for the guys and there was near zero audience interaction.

We hit the show floor and walked the entire venue from row 100 to 3000.  Did the KDM Black Knight demo.  The Black Knight is my single most favorite KDM figure, and I'm really excited by the gameplay his expansion will offer.  But the encounter was intentionally overtuned and completely gored us in 2 rounds.

KDM Black Knight demo. In production, the terrain will likely be cardboard. One of the mechanics is he picks you up and throws you through the pottery and columns and generally smashes the place to bits.  Super fun (and deadly).

Better shot of the KDM demo.

In late afternoon, we met up with friends and walked to the JW Marriott to find an unused ballroom.  A couple of us taught an another how to play X-Wing and I gave him a core box that I had abandoned.  Someone produced a copy of Unearth and taught us to play; really enjoyed this game.  Then assembled as a larger group of old friends at a local hipster taco bar (for lack of a better descriptor) and had too many margaritas and some really excellent tacos.  Returned to the same JW ballroom to play Fallout.  We stayed until well past midnight, but had a 20 minute walk to the car and a decent drive to our bed since we don't stay downtown. My head hit the pillow at 1:30 am and we had to be up early the next morning.

SATURDAY:
Up too early and still feeling the margaritas, I skipped breakfast and we ventured down for our Q&A Session with James S.A. Corey.  This was the interactive session I was looking for and really enjoyed them.

Q&A with James S.A. Corey. This was a lot more fun than the Podcast.

We putzed around most of the day and tried to find things we'd missed on Thurs and Fri.  In late afternoon, the winners for the Shadows of Brimstone painting contest were announced, and I'm happy to say that I won the Brimstone Bounty (squad) category (!!!!).  This was the super-secret GenCon Project #1, and I'll post some pictures later on.

My minis in the Flying Frog case (mine are on the right on the wooden stand).  I'll post separately on the theme and execution of the project.

We again met friends again at the JW for after hours gaming and Dead of Winter was brought out.  We played the intro scenario, had the win condition met, but lost in the final accounting of the round due to the order that certain things triggered.  I liked this game but I spent a lot of resources at the start that I might have held onto longer.

SUNDAY:
Back for the final day.  We had no events, and sat in the gamer hall and talked with friends until about 11.  We went over for the winners of the Ninja Division painting contest, and I'm proud to say that Mrs. Zoxe took 3rd in their diorama division (!!!!).  We then wandered around and  demo'd the Screaming God expansion for KDM and really loved this encounter as well.  This one was tuned to be winnable and while I died horribly my party was successful.  We finally called the convention done and departed around 2pm.

KDM Screaming God demo. The setup is that the horde of angry antelope are stampeding and chasing you (and the boss) as you hunt.  The terrain walls move to the left 6 spaces every turn, so part of the challenge is playing Frogger to avoid hitting a wall.

Victory!  I was impressed with this; the demo served some nice future content but also required the players to use some advanced gameplay (spending survival) that normally isn't demo'd.

OBSERVATIONS and CLOSING REMARKS:

The Blizzard Booth in the back of the Gamer's Hall was a new addition. Each year this area has a few more "content" booths, which is blurring the lines between the Vendor Hall and the Gamer Hall. It's not a bad thing, just a trend I've noticed. 

The booth was popular all weekend, though there weren't any events, it was just straight up Blizzard merch and a small area to play Hearthstone.

Observations and comments in no particular order.

1. The gamer hall felt a lot more packed.  GenCon is sneaking more content in here each year (most notably, Blizzard Entertainment this year).  In years past there would be acres of empty tables where groups could sit and play a pickup game of whatever, have lunch, or just veg out.  This year you had to hunt to find empty tables. (Not a complaint, just ... different).
2. I had a lot harder time getting into the KDM demos than last year. Could be just my dumb luck, but they were very busy all 4 days.
3. The vendor hall never really got gridlocked like it has in the past, at least that we saw. Yes it was busy, yes there were lines galore, but the full-on gridlock from row 100 to row 3000 that we've seen just never happened.
4. Friends that have stayed at the JW multiple years said that the downstairs ballrooms were more occupied this year than in years past.  The bleeding edge of GenCon continues to creep and expand each year.
5. I had just a hint of the GenCon crud on Saturday but took some Zicam and thwarted it.  It's now a week later and no crud. Hooray.
6. There were fewer Harley Quinn cosplays.  Thank you.

Hot off the Desk: Dropfleet Commander UCM Frigates and Corvettes

UCM Santiago Corvettes on patrol. 

Quick post, mostly pictures.  Although I'm not fighting for UCM at Gencon this year, I'm still pressing at "best possible speed" through the rest of the project.  This morning I managed to clear up some real estate on the bench by getting all the UCM Frigates and Corvettes mounted on their pegs.  The capital ships (Crusiers, Battlecruisers, and Battleships) are also now well on their way, but that's a post for another day.

I'm pretty happy with how they came out; will thank Aaron Lovejoy at Miniature Monthly for pressing me to push my own boundaries in terms of process and color selection.  When I set out, I didn't expect to do any masking/striping of the hulls, and the (limited) weathering and engine smut that I did was also unplanned.

Once I'd done the test cruiser, it was apparent that masking and striping these hulls was entirely do-able, and actually gave some flavor of the "dazzle" camouflage schemes tried by the major navies when my grandpa was a kid.  (Although it seemed like a great idea, it was perhaps the most time consuming part of the painting process....).

By the numbers, this is well over half my fleet (11 hulls total) but by total surface it's not even close to half.

I'm not quite happy with these pictures, but they're not bad for a Sunday afternoon after I've had a double rye....  :)

Santiago: Top view.  The Reaper Misty Gray tips were painted by hand, the Reaper Rusty Red stripe was masked and airbrushed.

Reverse view.  Engine smut was applied with the Sotar 2020 airbrush.

UCM Jakarta missile frigate.  These guys were real jerks to stripe because of the launchers, so I punted and striped the bridge structure.  I liked it so well I went back and painted the other bridge structures the same way.

Jakarta front, UCM New Orleans class dropships rear.

Jakarta and New Orleans rear view.

Four UCM Toulon class gunboats. 

UCM Toulon front view.

UCM Toulon - Side view.

UCM Toulon - Rear 3/4 view.

UCM Toulon - top view.

ZPS - July 2018

July was all about Dropfleet

I'm going to break tradition and go rogue for this month's formatting.  Instead of the 4 normal categories of things rising and falling in priority, let's just ramble a little bit.  I know you'll miss the bullet points; they shall return next month.  There are basically three topics I wanted to tackle.  Gencon, Dropfleet, and more Gencon.

I. Gencon and a Retrospective.

Gencon is in a few days.  That's a good thing; I could use the time away from the office, and am very much looking forward to seeing old friends and walking the convention floor.  I'll be glad to visit some of my favorite booths and chat with people that I've developed online conversations with.  And I'm excited to be in the same room as one of my favorite authors - James S.A. Corey.

Gencon also marks the first anniversary of this blog, at least in concept if not by posting date.  There were things I wanted to write about coming out of last year's event, and this venue became the repository for those things.

It's been a good year.  Sometimes it feels like I'm overwhelmingly behind the curve in terms of project progress.  I mean, I'm just now getting to DFC (figures I bought last August).  But in terms of personal/hobby growth, it's been a big year.  I've typed about this before, but model prep (filling, moldline removal, priming) and airbrushing shading are the two biggest things I've added to my toolkit and now take for granted.  I'm still learning blending and brush control, and am looking for ways to expand how I do detail work with the airbrush.  But there are some big game-changing things I hadn't attempted - and was afraid of - this time last year.

Good, but not quite good enough.  Watch for improvements.

II. Dropfleet Commander.

As the Kenny Rogers classic says, "you have to know when to hold them, know when to walk away, and know when to run."

The big Dropfleet push (GC Project #2) started strong, and as the month started I had a really good feeling about it.  The test piece (shown above) looked great, model assembly went well (except for the Battlecruiser) and I was about to pop my knuckles, roll my neck, and crank out a lot of little ships.

But weekend before last, I hit a point where I was mapping out the remaining work against remaining days and coming up short.  Shortly after, I realized I was starting to make trades in quality for the sake of schedule.  "Oh, I'll just skip this, it'll look okay."  Ack, not the situation I wanted to be in.

I have a ton of money wrapped up in the DFC fleet.  I really didn't want to drop back and punt (whoa! Zoxe used a sports metaphor!) but I really didn't want to be unhappy with the result.  The direction I was going was perhaps "above average" in terms of DFC ships I see on google search results, but I knew that I was capable of better.  And as I said, I was looking for shortcuts that were becoming too tempting.

The voice in my head said that I should drop out of my DFC event at Gencon but it took a few days for me to say it out loud.  But, once I admitted it, it gave me the creative freedom to go back through the ships I thought were "done" and do some additional work, fixing things and pulling out details that I'd otherwise have overlooked.  It's also allowing me to take some risks and develop some additional skills instead of just assembly-lining them through.  Are they pro-level?  Oh, heck no.  But I'm far happier with the results I'm seeing.

Get Ready.

III. Getting Ready for Gencon.

There are a lot of google results for "how to Gencon" so I won't replicate that level of detail here.  Sure, the event is an unwieldy beast, and we certainly have our own recipe, but there's really no "wrong" way to do the event.  Instead, I'll share a few personal steps:

1. Take your vitamins.  'Con Crud is an illness that's real.  Between all the unwashed masses you'll be rubbing against, late nights, crappy diet, and various forms of nerd stress it's easy to compromise your immune system.  I think I've been sick after at least the last 2 of 3 Gencons.  This year, even though we drive, I'm treating it like one of my work trips to the airport:  multivitamins and extra sleep in the days prior, and vitamin C throughout.  (I'm not a doctor and this is not medical advice, just do what makes sense for you).
2. Stay hydrated.  We bring water with us each day and buy more there.  This is a little crude, but if you haven't had to pee in awhile, ask yourself why.
3. Don't eat the food in the convention center.  We bring healthy snacks to grab throughout the day.  When it comes time to find an actual meal we go to the food trucks - there will be two areas where they congregate and they'll rotate each day.  I can't say that the food trucks are any cleaner than the convention center, but the food can be lighter (less "cafeteria-ey"), tastes better, and getting some fresh air won't hurt you (really).
4. Make dinner reservations.  Preferably somewhere outside the radius where the nerd hordes will pillage.  Sit down, have a real dinner and an adult beverage or two with friends.  You might be thinking you need to be rolling dice 23 hours a day, but just stop and pause and enjoy the weekend for what it is: time with people like you.  Indy is a great city that supports the 'con like few other places, step outside and enjoy it.