Dreadball: Lucky Joe joins the Rockets

Here's my Lucky Joe figure painted up to play for the Rockets. I painted him in my team's colors so that if I use him in league, he'd be in the right colors, and also so that I can use him (in one-off games) as a simple alternate pose for a jack or striker.

These figures are still a touch difficult for me to paint up due to their smaller size (true 25mm) and make look as good as my other stuff. But I'm getting used to it, and I still think these will look dandy when they actually make it onto the pitch.

Other minis news: I picked up a copy of Mice and Mystics today. I've wanted to paint some little mice for a while now; this'll be my first chance.

Iotacorp: A few more pics

I just wanted to throw up a few more pics to give a more complete view of my Dreadball team.
Also, here's my team's background copied over from the Mantic forums. Next up, I think I'll paint up my Lucky Joe figure using the Rockets' colors. Then maybe I'll start on the orcs.

The small company IotaCorp was named after the far-flung system on which it was founded, Iota Secunda. IotaCorp (secretly) specializes in designing and manufacturing weaponized nano-drones built using atomic-level sized parts, (unofficially) for use in assassination; It's rumored that IotaCorp's largest contract is with Corp Central (and possibly even the Council of Seven.) To deal with this rumor and preserve its true commercial purpose, IotaCorp (and its handlers) opted for the ploy of hiding in the open, so they founded a Dreadball team, the Rockets.

At all IotaCorp Rockets' games, fans are treated to ads lauding IotaCorp's " ... advances in surveillance, internal tech diagnostics and advanced subatomic medicine. Because when your life is on the line, the little things matter. IotaCorp: We deal in details."

The Rockets have yet to win a championship, or even to advance much in postseason league play. But they continue to play, disseminating the company's message while hiding its true machinations.

Iotacorp team

Here's my starting Iotacorp Rockets team. Still a couple figures to come next year (alternate poses as well as a keeper.)

It's been a while since I've done any kind of "army" painting, that is, painting any number of figures  with the same uniform scheme (even if there are a few variations here.)

Here's also a reverse view showing the yet-to-be-finished number plate (or i could just give them all happy faces.) You can also see the area of the torso I've painted as leather. I wanted a touch of old school with these futuristic players.

I'm going to move on to the orcs this weekend. As far as I know, the main pieces of armor will be rusted through and through. The plan is to then roughly paint a color scheme on top of the rust. This will match the tentative background for the team, who will be a bunch of scrap metal smugglers, who've had their armor fashioned using their favorite pieces of found metal which was then spraay- or brush-painted over by the orcs themselves. I think I'll call them Skrag's Scrappers.

I also have another human team. I have no idea what scheme to give them yet.

Started Dreadball

I got my shipment of Dread Ball stuff. Everything is cleaned and assembled (took a couple hours for the 40 or so figures I have.)

I drybrushed the whole figure with silver (that was easy and fun,) then I painted in the contrasting yellow along with the accents, followed with some inking to pull some details back out.

This is my first try at my IotaCorp Rockets uniform scheme. It came out a touch rough, but I think I can improve. It was difficult to get a straight line from the apex of the yellow "triangle" down to at least the knees. 

Part of the difficulty is that these are small figures (probably true 25mm if you don't include the base.) Coming down from 54mm isn't too bad of a transition, but I can still "feel" it. Oh well, this was the first; there are plenty more to go. The orcs will be easy enough- I plan on giving them all a healthy dose of rust.

Piglet's Rocket

Here's some more Winnie-the-Pooh fan art. It was a long day at work (newsroom) with the school shooting on the television the whole time.

I needed to do something light-hearted and a bit more whimsical than usual to lighten the load on the soul.

There's no profanity here; your young ones can read this very short episode along with you.

Click here to read on!

Pooh Bear

I was starting to get a little worried that I've only painted (finished) one mini in the past month, but then I looked and realized I had a similar painting slowdown around this time last year.

No worries, the Dreadball is on its way- there'll be plenty to paint then! And thanks for coming back to check my blog to see if there's anything new. I especially appreciate the patience of those who are not fans of profanity-laced children's illustrations.

In the mean time, here's another of my little illustrations. This one is of a bear more famous than my own Bear Brown. I love the style of artist E.H. Shepard (I'd call it a relaxed, whimsical doodling style,) and I wanted to do something at least inspired if not very similar to it. So I sketched this up quick. It still bears a bit of my humor ... oh, a pun, dammit.

A Bear Brown Christmas

I know, I know, it's been a while since I've painted any minis. I think it's because I'm waiting eagerly for my Dread Ball stuff to arrive, and I'm reluctant to start anything new.

Anyway, in the spirit of the holiday season, here is an inspirational tale about how Bear Brown learns the true meaning of Christmas:

Bear Brown goes to the Corner Shop finished

I've finished "Bear Brown Goes to the Corner Shop."
You can read it here.

I'm thinking of new ideas for the next Bear Brown story. Maybe Bear Brown goes Bowling, or Bear Brown learns the true meaning of Christmas.

A couple pages added to Bear Brown

For those who liked the Bear Brown story, I've added a couple pages.
The whole story can be read here.

Random dinosaurs

The creative block was strong today, so I painted up a random pair of parasaurolophuses.

(And in case you're wandering what that dark line down the center is; that's the center of the page spread in my sketchbook. I like to draw and paint across both pages.)

Varp Krigarr

Oy, it's been a while since I finished something. Today's something is a Varp Krigarr figure from Red Box Games. I kept the painting on this one simple; I just applied my 5-layer flesh recipe, rusted up his sword, vegetated the base and called it done. He's so naked, he's not even wearing tattoos.

Though the painting was simple, I spent a little time slightly reposing this figure. Originally, he was walking on level ground, dragging whatever huge weapon you chose to arm him with. My intent was to give him an axe, but to do so, I needed to raise the figure's front a bit to allow space between the ground and the axe blade. After I bent his forward leg a bit (in the wrong direction), I noticed he looked like he was taking a step up, so I went with it, placing the rock under this leading leg. It was a last-minute decision to give him a sword instead of an axe (sword being my preferred D&D weapon.)

And a last minor note: This is my first figure based on one of Proxie Models' bases. It works great. Even though the lip was slight, there was still enough to fill with green stuff, allowing for flagstones to be carved out. The lower base also feels MUCH more stable, especially with this slightly larger, top-heavy figure.

Some more art (but less humorous)

I just returned from vacation, so I've been away from the minis table. There have also been a lot of warmer-than-usual days that I wanted to take advantage of. But Dread Ball is being shipped this week, so I have some incentive to make room on my painting table.

In the mean time, here's some more random art I did from around town the past few weeks. What the hell -- I'll add a pinata full of scorpions at the end.