20080318

El Pollo Diablo!



I´m doing good progress on my Pirate Ship, "El Pollo Diablo".
Here are some WIP pictures (looks like I´ll have it ready for battle next Thursday afterall :))

Overview of the work so far. I had to remove the mast for priming and lower the aft castle a wee bit.



The aft of the "El Pollo Diablo" - with nametag :)


Side view of the Ship. There are some (barely perceptible in the photo) skulls mounted on poles along the sides of the deck. Very piratey :)


Hopefully all major work will be done tomorrow - my aim is mainly to get him "presentable" to put on the gaming table next Thursday. I´ll handle details after that - nothing says Easter like painting skulls on a Pirate Ship :)

I´ve also started work on a smaller boat (a dingy). More on that on the next update.

20080317

A Pirate I was meant to be!



Been slow hobby-wise for the past couple of weeks, as I was preparing everything for the organization of a FoW tournament (GTS 2008), with Meninobesta. It all went well and I managed to get my hands on Legends of the High Seas.



The result was that I went down bad (worse than before) with Pirate fever and decided to tackle a major (at least for me) modeling project - A Pirate Ship!

As I´m much more a Monkey Island man than a Master & Commander one, I went for a cartoony look for my ship and christened him "El Pollo Diablo" - a fitting name :)



Images of Guybrush still stir up some funny bone inside me, fruit of lots of time spent on Scabb Island searching for Big Whoop.

The Man himself, Guybrush Threepwood:


Work is underway and I expect the launching ceremony to happen very soon, meanwhile I leave you with some Work in Progress pictures.




El Pollo Diablo complete with masts and Pirate props:



The arms race is on as Meninobesta is also busy with a rival (still nameless) vessel:




Next Thursday I expect to have El Pollo Diablo minimally presentable to make an appearance at my very first LotHS game, versus Meninobesta.

I´ve read the rules and I´m sure it will be a blast :)

20080222

Some general updates

A very generic hobby update:

I´ve been working on this an that - without much to show because I´ve been mainly gluing lead to MDF for 3 or 4 days.

Thats all done now and I´m the proud owner of a Roman Metal Army, mustering on the Field of Mars and waiting to be primed. Here it is parading, joined by the minis that had early access to paint:




In between gluing my fingers I did some 28mm Pirates (The dandy in the middle will be my "Major Pirate": Antoine "La Verrue" (The Wart):



Having glued all my Corvus minis, I did a test base of Legionaries, just to imagine what it will all look like once done. A very easy paint the Corvus minis:



I can expect to have further updates on both the Pirates and the Romans very soon. In paralel I´m advancing (not worthy of photos just yet) the rest of my zombie Germans and some Flames of War Tanks.

20080214

S. Valentines Day Massacre!

Treat your loved one to a special Valentines Day Card... of DEATH!!!! :D


20080208

ROMA VICTOR redux

A very quick post

As promised in the previous entry, the finished command stand, Lucius Vorenus:



Quite different from his "Rome" counterpart (below) , but I don´t really care :)



Now I´m out of Ancients minis untill I get my Corvus Belli order, so I will have to focus on other projects. Mainly I´ll go for my 15mm Napoleonics now.

20080207

ROMA VICTOR



Senātus Populusque Rōmānus: The Senate and the Roman People.

In preparation of the release of Field of Glory (an Ancients themed tabletop wargame, from Biblical times up to 1500AD) I´m prepping a Late Republican Roman Army in 15mm. It will be loosely based in Caeser´s Legions circa 50 BC.

My commanders will be very unhistorical as I´m quite partial to HBO´s mini-series "Rome". So I´ll have Julius Caeser as the overall commander of my army and Vorenus and Pullo as his lieutenants.


Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus are historical characters (not as depicted in the show though) and are mentioned by Caeser in Commentaries of the Gallic War. They were actually Centurions, but for the purposes of my Roman Army they´ll be promoted to Generals.

All my orders are placed and some have managed to trickle through to Portugal.
I received last Sunday the Magister Militum portion of the order, in the form of 2 blisters of Cretan Archers and a Mounted Roman command pack (4 minis, good for 1 or 2 command stands). Very nice miniatures all of them, if a little limited regarding different poses (the Cretans are all exactly the same cast...)

I had been waiting for these for a long time, so as soon as I got my hands on them I rushed home, cleaned and primed them and painted them up and based them in one session. And here they are, my Cretan Archers:


In the background is a Work in Progress command stand (It´s Lucius Vorenus) that I have since finished - will post a picture soon.

I hope to get the bulk of my order (excellent minis from Corvus Belli) in the next few days. Ancients is a new period for me and I´m quite excited at painting them all up.

I´ve played a FoG game with a cardboard cutout army and using the Beta rules and quite liked the mechanics.

Expect a torrent of Roman pictures to be put up here once I get my hands on some Corvus wee men :)

For more about Field of Glory, visit the Slitherine forums.

20080204

LeiriaCon 2008: Highlights

A while back, I was invited by my good friend Manuel Pombeiro to do a Flames of War demo for LeiriaCon 2008 (the largest Boardgames yearly convention here in Portugal). Me and Meninobesta, veterans of many a FoW demo, built a couple of 2000 point LW lists, packed up rulebooks and terrain and off we went to be-castled Leiria to spend a day gaming.



We planned of course to get involved in other games, not least of which a record-breaking Wings of War mayhem (we broke the record for simultaneous players and planes for WoW: 47 in a 6 meter long table!!!).



One of the Wings of War games designers, Andrea Angiolino, was present to show us the future wave 2 WoW miniatures and to participate in the record-breaking game.



The record itself is well described at Boardgamegeek, here.

Andrea also reported on it, here.

Some wave 2 WoW miniatures:


There was some interest generated by a lovely set up of Flames of War, and we still found the time to dally in some boardgaming action - a perfect day :)

Games I played:
- 2000 pts LW FoW demo
- Wings of War
- Crokinole (a game that dates back to 1876!!! It´s kind of a tabletop version of Curling with several twists)

- Last Night on Earth (Zombie B-Flick on a table with all the juicy clichés - Cooperate or die! excellent!)

- Ca$h ´n Gun$ (Divide up the loot while menacing people with foam pistols!)


We packed up around midnight and left for home, after a day (very) well spent. I will surely want to attend the 2009 Convention. Good games and good people all around.

Problem is I have succumbed to Wings of War madness and proceeded to dole out some cash in exchange for the base set plus a Sopwith Camel, a Spad XIII, an Albatros d.V and a Fokker Dr. I. I´ve got canvas and spandau fever :)

The Kempf Fokker (I am now the proud owner of a 1/144 version of this :)):


In the middle wing of his Fokker Dr. I he sports the cheeky question: "Do you remember me?"

All the Leiria Con Pictures I took at my Picasa Gallery

and much (much!) more at Manuel´s Gallery

20080124

Some unpublished drawings

I've been doing some cleanup of my hard drive yesterday and found a couple of drawings I hadn´t uploaded anywhere before.

The first one is practically a sketch in red but I liked the effect and deemed it finished. Now that I post it, it kind of reminds me of James Coburn...):




The other is a fantasy themed one, also monochromatic (this one is pre-aquisition-of-Wacom, so it's done with the mouse):

Hope you enjoy them,

Torradas


20080121

Oberst Hyeronimous von Toth and his minions

An ongoing project shared with Meninobesta has been the development of zombie rules for the new Triumph & Tragedy wargame rules.

We've played a couple of games and we still have to iron out some minor issues before we can settle on a final version.

Caught up in the excitement of wargaming zombie skirmishes I've been putting some priority into finishing my Pulp ww2 zombie group. I've even drawn up a small Allied Intelligence report meant to introduce my force (the "fluff" in GW terms).

Here it is:
"Situation Report:

This is what we learned thus far:

The Solamun Virus had been isolated by the Germans as early as 1940 but deemed too toxic to be used as an effective weapon.
Subjects died only to reanimate with no life signs, coupled with inhuman strength and a supernatural resistance to bodily harm.
Only complete removal of the brain was observed to be completely effective in permanently neutralizing those afflicted with the virus.
Subjects, upon reanimation, seemed to be driven solely by the instinct of feeding on the living and were completely uncontrollable. The virus was dismissed as a useful weapon.

When the tide of the war began to shift, after Stalingrad, interest in the Solamun´s uses in warfare re-surfaced. Several competing science teams were given funds to investigate a way to control the reanimated.

Oberst Hyeronimus von Toth and his team had a novel approach, and were scoffed at by their peers. They turned to Occult tomes and remote digging sites.

We have evidence that has lead us to believe that Toth as met with partial (or possibly complete) success. A recent commando raid on his lab (that we at the time believed to be a site for developing biological weapons) met heavy resistance from a small infantry force that although unarmed "simply would not die". We have strong reasons to believe that those were Solamun afflicted soldiers. We are to refrain from the use of the word "zombie" lest we impact morale too severely.

Toth was spotted never letting go of a briefcase and the Solamun afflicted troops seemed to be under his control. We suffered heavy casualties in the raid.

All we have learned comes from a member of Toth´s team captured in the aforementioned commando raid. He claims Toth is mad and operates completely outside of the control of the regime. He fashions himself a god. He is building an army out of the "afflicted" and the key to their control is an artifact in the briefcase, but the captured team member claims no one knows what it is - but it never leaves the briefcase Toth always carries.

It is imperative that Toth be stopped at all costs. This new threat could potentially turn the tide of the war, in unexpected ways, since Toth appears to have no loyalties to anyone besides himself."

And now some WIP photos of Toth & friends (on a Max Brooks background :)):

And a group shot, Toth in the middle with his briefcase:

More on this project as it progresses.

20080116

15mmMen: The missing floppies

15mmMen is a more or less irregular comic I do for Battlefront and it revolves around the game Flames of War - some of the comics will only be understood by gamers "in the know" of the rules - others are (I expect) a bit more universal. It's more or less an even mix.

When Battlefront moved to a new site, they set me up with my very own gallery, but a couple of comics got lost in the process :(

The one I most get asked about is "The-Black-Knight-one".
Also known as "The-one-with-Meninobesta" (who is facing the Black Knight on this strip).
Also known to my PC as "strip 21".

Well - I of course have the originals, plus some sketches. So without further ado, I give you: "That one comic that had PG on it" (yet another alias) :)

Sketch with composition for the strip (If you click it, it will grow):


Strip in it's final online format (click it for full size):


And some more strips that went missing in the move:

"Big Game Night", featuring my friend, Firepigeon - btw, congrats on Geek of the Week #123 Manuel! (this one is a comic revolving about relative sizes of armies):


And "The Wargamers Creed" (a more general wargaming comic):


Some links of note:
15mmMen sketch book
15mmMen Gallery@Picasaweb
15mmMen Gallery@Battlefront

So all in all only 3 comics missing in some odd 40. Not bad :)

I'm currently on what (I hope) is a small break from 15mmMen. Because I'm bloody knackered :P

20080115

The only gamer in Sri Lanka

Today I stumbled on a blog from a fellow gamer that happens to be in a bit of a pickle. If we (Portuguese Wargamers) often complain that we are low in number, take a look at:

http://myblogisfight.blogspot.com/

(Excellent taste in wargaming by the way - and in books by Zach Parsons I would bet :)).

It's from a fellow that goes by the name Pnweerar (also a fellow Lead Adventurer).

Like the pioneers of old, he alone is "of the hobby" in his Country.
He is the only gamer in Sri Lanka.

I promise that if I ever find myself in a situation where I would for some reason go to Sri Lanka, I will take my 15mm Grey Aliens, hoping to face his 15mm Frog Men :)



En avant... TUER!!!

Another project started in 2007 were my 15mm French Peninsular force.



This Picture is quite old, as I've since added to this with some Cavalry, Artillery and more Infantry. Me and Meninobesta did de "Battle of the Douro" using Shako rules and currently our sights are set on the "Battle of Vimeiro".

Click here to access the scenario as written for Shako.

I still have some Infantry to go before I can tackle that one. In our homebrew basing system 3 bases are a battalion, so the picture above represents 5 line (or Ligne) Battalions and 1 Light (Legere) Battalion (with a base to spare).

Some additional photos:

A "General de Brigade" (He's based on 2c EUR coin - gives you an idea of scale):




An Artillery Piece. Pretty lethal in the Napoleonic times. You wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of a Grapeshot discharge:


French Dragoons. Real men wear pink facings with green turnbacks :)



My French Peninsular 15mm Gallery in an embeded slideshow (click play to start):


Full Gallery: 15mm French Peninsular @ Picasaweb

We come in peace



Still on the subject of catching up, this time in wargaming.

Last year I read some quick rules for using little grey men in Flames of War. On impulse (damn Paypal and Credit Cards and the Internets! And then again, maybe not :)) I bought myself some little grey aliens of my very own. They arrived in glorious all metal look about 1 week later. Some dabs of the paintbrush later I had a 2000 points FoW system 15mm Grey Alien Invasion force, complete with Flying Saucer and giant Golden robots.



I, for one, welcome our new 15mm high Masters

Top secret photos of the invasion force


How the horde progressed: From Metal to Glorious Grey :)




Illustrations for Children

Will try to quickly shoot out some posts that bring you up to date in some of the stuff I've been involved in last year.

This one was a fun one. It was fairly quick and I had just became a parent, so I had a critic at home to cry some opinions at the work in progress.

The general idea was that some squeaky clean dog would teach a dirty little boy about good hygiene habits. It was for a friend of mine (Pedro Rosa) to use in a school project envolving actual kids (I still have some left over copies of the booklet).

It was also a chance to get away from a much darker style I'm confortable in and try out a much softerpastellymylittleponycarebear style.

I did a Colored and a B&W all lines version (it was a coloring book)

An example of this is "Dirty Kid patting Squeaky Clean dog":



A complete listing of the colored plates in my Picasaweb Gallery

Well - lets get this going again :)

I got lazy about my blog.

Time to get it up on its feet again. Time... to REANIMATE IT!!! BWHAHAHA!!!




Ok. I just had to have my "Herbert West" moment. I'm all right now.

I'll be introducing some other subjects to the blog - so I'll probably almost always have something to post about.

I'll be adding my other hobby interests besides drawing, namely:
Wargaming
Military History

Maybe the odd computing post.

Practically no Star Trek or D&D though, so maybe I'm not an uber-geek :)

Live long and Prosp... I mean, er..., cya!
Torradas