New game on Kickstarter

Flashpoint; Fire Rescue will soon be shipping; that was my first venture with becoming a backer on Kickstarter. Such a fantastic way of discovering (and helping to fruition) cottage industry board games.

Anyway, the new game I've backed is called Mutant Meeples. It's much like Ricochet Robots except each meeple (which take the places of the robots) has a special power modifying his movement. Also, once you've reached the target location, you can no longer use the meeple with which you reached the target. This gives players who are behind an advantage to those who are ahead.

There are 8 (supersized) meeples, as well as an expansion adding two new meeples and some tiles to modify the board.

That's the incomplete gist of it; head over to Mutant Meeples' Kickstarter page and check it out for yourselves. (The video is cute, too) : http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tedalspach/mutant-meeples

Information at Boardgamegeek (Not a lot there yet): http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/109969/mutant-meeples

Note: Bezier Games (who created Mutant Meeples) didn't pay me for any advertising. In fact, no company I mention ever pays me to solicit for them. I just enjoy posting about things and games I like, or, in this case, new games I think are good to support.

For those who hate their jobs

Sometimes a folk hero emerges to give inspiration to the workers. Thought I'd share some good medicine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A4UGtM4hDQ

Street Corner: Spade

The last figures of the Sleuths pack are done -- Sam Spade and the dog, Milou. There was no conversion work for these two figures, nor was there much I could convert. I'm sure I'll think of something now that they're both painted.

That does it for the Sleuths pack. I actually enjoyed taking this long to paint one pack of figures. It's definitely a lot easier on the wallet. It's also nice to feel unhurried without a ton of packs sitting on the workbench looking at me, waiting for their turn.

I've been thinking of other things I could add to Street Corner -- Lovecraft, Weird Menace, 193X SciFi. I was even thinking to myself a couple nights ago, "What about Post-Apocalyptic, but if the apocalypse happened in 1929?"

These are all just brainstorms and whimsies; I'm sure I'll go back to add a couple small things to the tramp steamer, or maybe make another piece of scenery for the Street Corner itself, before I branch out too far.

Oh, and here's a quick comparison shot of my figures and the originals. When you shop for figures, don't just shop for what you see, shop for what could be possible.

Dressed up like a $2 trouper

I enjoyed this figure; every town, no matter the genre you're painting, needs a bum. This is the last conversion I did from Copplestone's Sleuths pack. Again, it was simply replacing his gun for some other item, which, in this case, is a bottle.

I knew all the colors on this figure would be muted and washed out, so I put him on a base with brick to bring a little color to the whole thing. To wash out (and blend somewhat) the colors even more, I did a light drybrushing of Foundry Rawhide.

That does it for the Sleuth's pack conversions. Sam Spade and the dog still need to be painted.
I actually have a couple other figures on deck ready to go -- (both by Foundry), a little boy and an old west civilian (which will work as an Italian immigrant, I think.)

Dress up like a million dollar trouper

This was an easy conversion: file away the gun, bend down the arm, and add a brass wire cane. Now I have a fellow who's ready to put on the ritz. He also could double as a mob boss dressed for his alibi.

By the way, this was another figure from the Sleuth's pack in Copplestone Casting's Gangsters line.

Street Corner: From the times of the single wing offense

The painting bug finally bit me, and I was ready to paint. So I finally painted my football player and in one sitting. These are the colors of my fictional college team, the Assyria Tech Charioteers (from my Arcadia rpg.)

This figure, as you may recall, was from the Sleuth's pack from Copplestone Casting's Gangsters line. To complete the conversion (summarizing previous posts), I detached the slotta and bent his left leg back into a running position. The gun hand was clipped off and the arm bent down in preparation to carry the ball. Next, I sawed the top of his head flat, and used the top of another figure's pith helmet to form the top of this figure's leather helmet. I used some greenstuff to form the ear covers on the helmet as well as to form up some shoulder pads. The last item was the ball. I used a metal ball that I got from Impact! Miniatures, and I used greenstuff to sculpt a hand onto the ball. Unfortunately, the hand came out too large, and is a bit misshapen. But I'm still happy with the figure as a whole. This small ball-hand assembly, I pinned to my figure. Paint and based, the figure is done! My first figure in a few weeks.

I don't know what the hell I'm going to do with this figure, now. I reckon' I need to make 21 other players. That'll take forever unless I make a few lucky finds, or my mind just clicks right for conversion ideas ... or I learn to sculpt a whole figure myself. In the meantime, I'm happy with another successful conversion.

Not that I haven't been doing anything

Holy smokes, it's been almost two weeks since my last post. Work has been hell.
Well, yesterday, I cleaned up my workbench to get ready to paint. I have a few Street Corner figures assembled, primed and ready to go; I just have to put brush to paint.

Besides work, I've taken  up chess (yep, I suck at it), reading (Maltese Falcon), a new roleplaying game (Fiasco), and doing small paintings of the new bar and grill in town (I've Picassoed my way to a bunch of free lunches there.) And the weather has been warmer than usual, so I've also been out taking long walks (to de-stress from work.)

But I won't leave you high and dry; here are a couple pieces of art from the new bar:

Street Corner: Quick football update

Got the ear flaps and shoulder pads sculpted. I also go the "ground" sculpted away from my football.
The sculpting is all a bit rough, but I'll hide it with my painting :)

I also, after the photo was taken, sculpted a very rudimentary hand onto the football. I think it will work all right (again, I think I can compensate my sculpting skills with my painting skills.)

No I need to figure out some uniform colors. Pants will be canvas, and shoes and helmet will be a basic leather brown, but I need to decide on a color/color combo for the jersey and the socks. I'm leaning toward blackish blue (or just black with blueish highlighting) with yellow trim, or maroon/brown/cardinal.

Street Corner: Conversions coming along

I indeed had a bottle-shaped piece of greenstuff for the bottle my hobo is carrying: Save your bits of greenstuff! A quick note: The figure I'm using as a hobo I believe is supposed to represent the Continental Op, the original hard-boiled detective. So having him hold a bottle instead of a gun doesn't change the character much.

The ritzy man's cane was about as easy conversion as you can make.

Then we come to the football player: I looked at about every piece of greenstuff I had for making his helmet, then I saw this German colonial officer's helmet, and my mind immediately knew what to do. Yeah, yeah, I know; I mutilated one figure for the sake of another, but this German had been in my bits box for a long time. He just didn't fit in with anything else I had.
I still need to make ear flaps and sculpt a hand onto a football (if I add a football at all. I have one ball with which to try, so I might as well have a go at it.)