Hello Kitty Headphones and a Blue Hawaiian Shirt; FCC Liaison reporting for duty

Two posts in one day, aren't I inefficient!

In today's painting progress - war gets casual!

Knocked out the FCC Liasion tonight, bit of a rush job, so he's a little sloppy, but I'm happy with him. Without getting all philosophical about the painting of mandollies, I've long ago come to accept the fact that I simply don't possess the talent of someone like Roman Lappat or Jeremie Bonamant Teboul. I enjoy painting, and like to think I'm not terrible at it, but there are limits to what I can achieve. I certainly hope to get better, I know I'm not painting as well as I was around 4 years ago, but quantity has a quality of its own, as they say. So far this year I have painted 128 miniatures. Admittedly, the majority of those are rank and file models painted in batches, but looking at my recently completed WOTR figures, I'm extremely pleased with how they look (I've got nearly 100 more waiting to get assembled and painted).
Compared to that 128 in the first six months, last year I painted... ~40-50 models, for the whole year, and most of those were a commission. The two years last year I probably painted even fewer. As a result of this lack of productivity, I have a massive backlog of projects to get through, and my miniature related ADD means I'm constantly adding to this. I LOVE gaming, despite how few games I ever get in (something else I mean to change!), so I'm always tempted to buy into whatever new range is released (Kickstarter will make me die broke and penniless I swear).
TL;DR version - not everything I paint will be super perfect when viewed under spotlights in a photo that magnifies it four times life size, and I've learned to accept that, because the payoff is getting to play with painted models, and getting to work on new projects without leaving old ones unfinished.

Feel free to comment on your own thoughts and feelings, let's get a group hug going :P

Anyway, back to tonights toy soldier: the FCC Liaison is in charge of coordinating contracts between his FCC house and the Megacons who hire them to do their dirty work. I decided to make this guy almost comically casual. In the movie version, he'd be the annoying comic relief guy who dies early. He's wearing my standard FCC desert camo, along with a blue Hawaiian shirt and some pink headphones, because he can.

C&C always welcome :)

-Alex/Magos

Pretty Woman; Warmachine in 1/8th scale?

So I've never in my life been a big fan of 'collectibles', statues, action figures, props or the like. Basically, if I can't stick it together and colour it in myself, I'm not interested (as an aside, I've also never understood the whole fetish with keeping such things in their original packaging).
Anyway, when Privateer Press announced they were releasing some special limited ed resin statues to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Warmachine, I knew I had no chance of resisting. I jumped in right away and kissed $150 goodbye in return for the very gorgeous statue of Captain Victoria Haley. Money well spent, and I hope they continue the range with some other icons of WM (aka - Sorscha!).
So here she is, my very own Haley, #212. I'm resisting the temptation to try my hand at constructing some in scale warjacks for her... (they'd be several feet tall!)

Apologies for the dodgy photos, but my dodgy-bodged photo setup just couldn't handle all the awesome.

-Alex/Magos

If a MERCS falls in a forest, does it make a sound?; first USCR fatsuit trooper

Mmm, productivity, I'm feeling it.
Managed to crank out two more shipping containers today, as well as adding some posters and graffiti to yesterdays. I'm slowly remastering the airbush, just need to use it more often I guess.
Also knocked out the first of my USCR MERCS team. I have a love hate relationship with the USCR... they're badass Russians in heavy armour, which is basically a recipe for awesome, and their art is sheer awesome, but the models... leave a bit to be desired. They certainly don't match up to the other MERCS. They're not bad, per se, they just feel super chunky and awkwardly posed, like old 90s minis.
That said, I still like them, just not as much as I would if they'd kept the more graceful feel of their art.
The default colour scheme for USCR is white armour, which I like, but I wanted to do something different, since I'm not sure I've ever seen a USCR team in anything other than white. I settled on an 'autumn forest' camo style, but halfway through was on the verge of canning that idea, the model just looked so drab in green and terracotta. I went back to the founding principle I set when starting MERCS, however, and went heavy on the contrast to try and give the model a more 'comic book' feel, and ended up being pretty happy with it. The armour ended up looking more metallic red, so now I'm thinking of painting the Behemoth as Ironman though...
Oh yes, the symbol on his loinplate - the USCR fluff mentions that the squad leader often refers to his squad as chess pieces, so I've assigned each member a piece. This guy, the Monkeywrench, is the knight.

-Alex/Magos

Why do you have a Shipping Container in your backyard?; inappropriately ubiquitous wargaming terrain

Still working on the WoTR rules post, it's going to be pretty long, so I think I'll break it into several posts...

Didn't get much painting done in the second half of the week, workdays tend to leave me uninspired. Now it's the weekend though, so I was determined to get something done. A few months ago I bought a bunch of the very awesome Blind Pig laser terrain as a birthday gift for my brother, who also happens to be my regular opponent. Of course, the advantage of buying him terrain is that I get to use it just as much as him. Anyway, as the artistically inspired one, I'm in charge of painting it all, so I finally got my act together and made a start with two shipping containers, the ubiquitous terrain of the future (seriously, these things are like sci fi mushrooms on gamers tables). All up there's 10 shipping crates, 5 small crates, 6 fan units and 2 dumpsters, not bad for just $100!
I used my airbrush for these... which of course led to a grumpy afternoon of juggling brush, paint, terrain. I like airbrushing, I just suck at it, mainly due to a lack of practice. Anyway, these came out better than I thought they would halfway through the process. My bro is a big Borderlands fan, so they'll all be in the colours of the various corporations from that. I plan on getting my own to paint up in Mass Effect colour schemes.

Till next time,

-Alex/Magos

This Is My Boomstick; FCC Boomer

One of my favourite MERCS minis, the FCC Boomer. Not 100% happy with him, but he'll do. About 3 hours work this arvo. Used a bit more colour on him than the Packrat, does it work?

Someone order a revolution?

-Alex/Magos

MERC for Hire; something different finally - FCC Packrat

Decided to take a break from the historicals by painting one of my new MERCS miniatures. MERCS is a totally awesome game that I first got into a few years ago, played a few games, then neglected. Now during my hobby renaissance I'm determined to go back and do it justice, and as part of that I've picked up two new teams, FCC and USCR.
Almost all my painting this year has been in large batches, and while it's allowed me to paint a lot (124 models and counting), it hasn't helped me really improve my skills to try and get back to where I was a few years ago before 3 years of neglect dulled my skillzors. So with my MERCS I'm going to try and take a bit more care - they're such nice, characterful, detailed models, they deserve nothing less.
I wanted to try and capture something of the stylised, graphic nature of the MERCS art, so I deliberately went for contrast and blacklining to try and make the model distinctive. Not sure how well it worked, let me know.
I see the FCC as definite socialist anarchists - victims of the global corporate society of MERCS, these guns for hire come from the 'Lost Margin', those areas of the world where Megacorps have failed, leading to chaos and war.

I'm pretty happy with how the Packrat has turned out, I just need to decide on a base scheme now.

Also, I playtested my rules for WOTR last night for the first time in two years. Only a small game with the forces I have painted, but it was one of the most fun, tense, unpredictable games I've played in years! I'll be doing some rules/playtesting related posts soon.

-Alex/Magos

Let The Games Begin; first box of WOTR finished

Well, little later than I wanted, but my first box of War of the Roses infantry is now fully painted. Three weeks for 40 models isn't too bad I think.
Now that they're done I should have enough for some very small scale playtesting of the rules I want to use. Hopefully later today/tomorrow I'll have some results to share of how that goes.

Here are the finished final three bases, one Yorkist levy bowmen, one retinue Lancastrian bowmen, and one Lancastrian command base with the Earl of Oxford. The Lancastrians were a bit rushed in the end, so I'll probably go back and touch them up a bit later.

Lancastrian force:

Yorkist forces:

As always, C&C welcome :)

- Alex/Magos

Three in a row, hat trick!; yet more War of the Roses goodness

More progress. Just look at this consistency! Still cranking out the WOTR, hoping to have the whole box done by the end of the week (three more boxes on their may, thanks to the incredibly awesome Daniel from Tabletop Empires I really can't recommend them enough if you're after gaming gear in Aus). My opponent wasn't available on the weekend, so playtesting will have to wait until the next weekend, which is good, since I didn't get everything painted anyway.
So anyway, two more bases done, this time some lowly levy billmen for Hasting's host, and some formidable men at arms. The levy billmen are distinguished from their retinue brothers by a lack of uniform, they wear ordinary clothing with Hasting's colours sewn onto the breast. The men at arms are nominally Lancastrian, however I'm deliberately avoiding giving the men at arms any specific heraldry, and with their heavy armour covering most of them, they should be versatile enough to fit into either side.
Also, in an effort to improve my awful photography, I finally replaced my faithful piece of random A4 paper with a proper printed backdrop. I can't claim any credit, check out this link if you're interested: http://www.mainlymedieval.com/ozpainters/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3880
Let me know if you think it's an improvement!

Group shot!

As always, C&C is welcome.

Thanks,
-Alex/Magos