Big trouble in Besar-Monyet!

Finally some pulpy project underway. The rules are already sketched out and the three parties envolved (Archeologists, German Mercenaries and Cultists) are currently being fleshed-out.

I´ll update this project later on, but it all involves a lost Pacific Island, a Golden Idol and a Giant Gorilla. What could possibly be wrong? Maybe some zombies and ninjas missing, but we can probably solve that :)

I took some atmospheric photos to set the mood for the game. Hopefully all stars will be aligned so that we can actually play this later on this month.

Pictures follow, depicting a previously failed expedition of the Imperial German Army to aforementioned Island:

Nice Monkey...


Gorilla wins! Fatality!

Various Digital drawings

Some slow days at work and I found the perfect way to battle death by boredom - I brought my tablet in to the office. A couple of days later (and hours upon hours of metal in my headphones) I had some work to show for it:

An Angel:


A Female daemon:


And the start of some Zodiac signs (currently only, and by this order: Gemini, Libra, Sagittarius and Virgo):






I finished up with a (Hellish) cityscape:


Comments are more than welcome :)

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.

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 :)

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.

S. Valentines Day Massacre!

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

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.

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.

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

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