Finally, One Project is Almost Complete - Dwarf Team for Blood Bowl

Yesterday was dull and dreary out, so here is a shot of the sunflower garden still in bloom with Tango in the middle of it all. This is the closeup shot, there is another that shows just how small he is against the sunflowers. Today its all about him though.

I started yet another project, but a small one so that I would be sure to finish it. Plus there is deadline date so that I can join the local Blood Bowl league that my friend runs. I don't actually play Blood Bowl at this point but I have a number of friends that do and quite frankly I have been in a serious rut with my western town of Calamity so I thought that a small project might get me back on track. I spent a lot of time looking for a team that would be fun to paint and I finally stumbled across a dwarf biker team by Neomics. I decided that this was the team for me.

I picked up two other dwarves from Gaspez-Arts (also carried by Neomics, I think maybe even the same sculptor); The Dwarf Medic and the Dwarf Cheerleader. These spositions weren't available in the Neomics line (I may, at some point, pick up the entire team from Gaspez-Arts. The Pirate theme just didn't thrill me then, but it has become more appealing now).

So an order to Neomics in Germany, got me everything I wanted, well mostly wanted. The initial order fulfillment got me an extra "blitzer" instead of "runner 2" but Neomics took care of that. However, the replacement that they sent was miscast and  basically missing his right hand. Rather than have to wait another 2-3 weeks for the replacement to arrive I used the hand from one of the dwarfs lying around my workbench. Another volunteer for the melt bucket at ReaperCon.

This little project is finally coming to an end. I thought I would show a few in progress shots now to get me over the hump and get them done. Sixteen of them are now at the touch up stage and the last one is about 75% complete. I'm going to push hard to get them finished this week. Then I just have to hook up with my buddies and see if I even like this game. Its quite possible this team will be up for sale very quickly!

So just a few teaser shots at this point. At this point most of these are only about 50% finished, some more some less. Its just a sample of what I have been doing. I'll post more shots when they are finished.

The whole team in my foam transport. Originally this foam was designed for paint bottles but I found it held my miniatures on their painting bottle caps pretty well too.

Two of the different styles of Linemen

Lineman

Lineman

Lineman

Blitzer

Berzerker

Hopefully finished shots of the whole team later this week. My first game is Saturday.

Another Wild West Town Reference - 1880 Town

I'm always looking for new sources on western buildings and some how I stumbled across this one yesterday; 1880 town.
Its in South Dakota so I should make a trip out and visit it next year. Its not a "real" town in the sense that is an existing frontier town but it has been put together from buildings the owners purchased and transported to the site. Buildings range from the 1880 - 1920s. There aren't nearly enough pictures on the site but there are enough to see some of the more unique buildings on the site. I can't find it now but somewhere YouTube is a video of the inside of the saloon. Now I would question if this was a saloon or a theater. Most saloons don't have a stage, but the interior shots are very interesting none the less.

If by chance any of my followers are from SD and near Murdo and have pictures I would love to see them!

1880 Town

Scott Carpenter Mercury 7 Astronaut

Scott Carpenter

And another astronaut passes into history. Scott Carpenter was one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts in the US space program. His passing leaves only a single member of that group still with us; John Glenn at 92. Carpenter was the 4th American into space and the 2nd to orbit the Earth. Especially poignant for me as he is from my adopted hometown of Boulder CO, where you will find the Aurora 7 elementary school named after his spacecraft as well as Scott Carpenter park with a space themed playground (I should check and see if the playground is still there, it has been a while). In addition to that little connection by uncle was part of the team at Cape Canaveral (later renamed to Cape Kennedy, put really known as just the Cape to most of us) that launched the Mercury missions into space.

Aurora 7 Launch

Government Shutdown - Hitting us where it really hurts...our Beer!

I followed a link from TMP this morning and was shocked and dismayed  by the article it led me to. The government shutdown has closed an obscure agency that approves new breweries, recipes and labels, which could create huge delays throughout the rapidly growing craft beer industry. 

Its time to write congress and demand they give us new beer!

New Beer Shut Down

Kickstarter - Bones II The Return of Mr Bones - Pledge and Shipping Calculator

If you haven't at least taken a look at this new Kickstarter from Reaper you must be hiding under a rock or your internet connection has been down. Now approaching 1.5 million dollars with 17 days to go, its moving along a very steady pace. One of the controversies has been around Reaper's decision to charge ROW (Rest of the World) backers actual shipping charges. Everything up to this point has been only an estimate but today Kit unleashed his newly updated "Pledge Calculator". With this handy little device you can choose your options and determine what the shipping charge is likely to be. It also ties in directly with Kickstarter so you can actually update your pledge directly from the calculator and when the Bones II ends it will become the Pledge Manager so you won't have to do much but confirm your choices when its all said and done. I imagine it also will be giving Reaper a big heads up right up front on what kind of production numbers they will need for each piece. Pretty clever folks over there. So go take a look and decide if this is the Kickstarter for you. Oh, the piece count is not as high as it was for Bones I but the miniatures in the core seat are significantly larger, so no big swarms of tiny little kobolds and goblins, this time you get the big stuff.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1513061270/reaper-miniatures-bones-ii-the-return-of-mr-bones