IKRPG Night...

This last Saturday we had a paint night and IKRPG event at Endzone. Well it really turned into just an RPG night. There was only one person who showed up to paint... me. Anyway I thought I would snap some pictures of the party that was going on. They looked like they were having a blast. I bailed early to go and watch the UFC fights. Grim and Scotty showed up for a moment then left.

Cheers,
John...

IKRPG... Sort of

Well I am making a fig for the IKRPG but I will not be playing. Not comment from either of you Grim or Scotty!! I mean it!!! I did want to jump in and give it a try anyway. This will give me a chance to practice my skills at sculpting that are less than par. I plan on throwing some blades on her but just not sure what kind and how big. I need to really be in the mood to create them. I did get some ideas for her that I hope I can pull off. They look good in my head but executing them is another thing. I would also like to give her a pistol but I would like one that has a look of Clint Eastwoods in the movie Outlaw Jose Wells. Have a holster with a barrel sticking out of it. I am not that good to pull off something like that though. Anyway... enough blabbing. Here is a picture of where I am at.

If you would like to see more....

If you have any question or comments feel free. 

Cheers,

John....

Tutorial: Armored Greatcoat

Here is a quick tutorial on how I made the armored greatcoat. 

Materials needed:

Milliput (yellow grey)

Super Sculpey (Firm)

No hole glass glitter beads

And sculpting tools

First I mixed equal parts of the milliput mix together with Sculpey. This creates a nice compound that is easy to work with and hardens well.
After that was all mixed I pressed the putty flat in between some parchment paper and cut into a nice long strip with my blade and ruler. Carefully I set the strip on the mini and tap it down into place with sculpting tools, being watchful not to cause and dings.
For each panel I simply make a small knife line and used the sculpting tools to fix the shape I wanted.
Now the hard part, placing the beads into place. Since these are so very small and have a static cling to them, the simplest way I found is to use a moistened toothpick to pick each on up and set them into place.

Once the putty is cured you can go back and glue any beads that have slipped off. 

Wildchevy

IKRPG: Vasily

This past weekend we had our first encounter with the Iron Kingdoms campaign. This was very much a learning experience as my total amount of Warmachines equates to two games. The mechanics are very easy to learn and the play was very smooth. Here is who I brought to the fight:

Vasily
Human, Khador, Arcane Mechanik/Man-at-Arms

Thoughts on this character is that he is more of a supportive class. His primary role is helping with repairs to Steamjacks or creating new Mechanika items for the party. Being a Will Weaver allows him to run magic spells a little more forcefully than a Focus Caster (as long as he doesn't fail a Fatigue roll) and his Arcantik Bolt spell is useful for shutting down enemy Steamjacks. With his Polarity Shield spell any charges against his front arc are canceled and his Defense Line ability adds +1 to his ARM while in base-to-base with a friendly character. This lets him act as a nice decoy when in city terrain. 

Background
"Former member of the Khadorian Special Recon group, a squad designed to learn the enemy forces' rune magics so to better protect the motherland. Trained in the arcane and close quarters combat these individuals  were sent behind enemy lines to gather intel. After a ambush in a old Orgoth ruin he was left for dead by his squad after falling into a crypt during their retreat. Surviving by his will Vasily sets out to continue his quest to learn new runes and avenge his fallen brothers."




The base sculpt of the miniature is a Widowmaker Marksman. After cleaning off any mold lines, I spent some time with a chisel and file removing the fur trim on the bottom of his great coat. After that I used a mix of miliput and super sculpey and created armor plates, the cobblestone base, and the shield. The head was swapped out for eIrusk and the trencher knife came from pStrakhov.

Thursday WIPs!

Man oh Man!  It has certainly been a hectic couple of weeks for this guy.  Trying to squeeze hobby time in has become increasingly more difficult.  Thank Goodness for Thursdays!!

I was finally able to slap a little dab or two of paint on my IKRPG figure.

Here is what I have got so far.  Hoping to finish him up tomorrow night so he will be all ready to take his first adventure in the Iron Kingdoms.

Here ya go  GRIM ULTHAS:

 More pics

There he is, still need to finish up a few details highlight a bit more and he will be ready for the table.

Thanks for watching!

-Grim

IKRPG: Grim Ulthas

As a group we have decided that we were going to jump into and start playing the new IKRPG.  Our lovely Happy Panda has issued a challenge to the members of the GG.

I gladly accept your challenge sir!  En Garde!!

I started with character creation.

In the new IKRPG the first step to character creation is to choose your race.  My choice: Dwarf! (anyone suprised by my choice?) Step Two is to choose an archetype: I picked MIGHTY... I mean he's a Dwarf for crying out loud, didn't think there was another choice. :)

Next you choose your careers:  Decided on a Military Officer/Bounty Hunter.

Then you name your character and start picking up equipment and the like:

Name- Grim Ulthas
Tailored Plate armor
Mace
Warhammer
Knuckledusters

So with the character creation out of the way I went about picturing in my head how I wanted my character to look on the table top.  I began by scribbling out some concept art:



The Ulthas brothers are ex-Rhulic military that have fled to North Eastern Khador to start up a Mechanik's shop.

As they are located in the cold north, I figured it only fitting to make my dwarf look a tid bit like a Rooskie.

So here is my concept.

Now on to figure selection: As a military officer I thought that the best base for a Dwarven military officer would have to be the new General Ossrum fig. I picked him up and began looking for options to match my characters load out.

So starting with Ossrums body I grabbed the right arm off of my recently acquired Gorten Grundback fig... (going to be ordering another right arm from the PP bits order to replace it :) ) clipped the head off his axe and added a mace head, filed his warcaster back pack down to look like a normal back pack and clipped off his pipe... end result:

I really wasn't sure how I felt about the mace.  I bounced the idea off of my good buddy and blog contributor Scotty.  I felt the mace looked a bit too much like a stick grenade.  He thought if fit the IK pretty well, but also agreed it had some stick grenade feel to it as well.  So after a bit of deliberation I decided to switch it up and this was the result:

I also forgot to note that I have added a few bits and pieces to the Ossrum fig as well.  Three pouches on his back, and two rolled up scrolls.

As a Military officer you start with Battle Plan: Call to Action and have access to several more Battle Plan abilities.  I figured to represent these Battle Plans I would add maps and intel-type scrolls to my figure.

Step 1

So with the bits all attached and the figure nearing completion there was only one thing left to do...  Yup you guessed it... Give him a right Dwarf-worthy beard.  And so it began, my first stop in the beard building process:

Step 2

  
I then thought to my self that maybe this beard was a bit to rough... might be hard to paint... So I moved on to step number 2:

Step 3

I decided to run this by Scotty as well... his thoughts were that it may have looked a little bit better a scruffy and unkempt... then he threw in a bit of a challenge to test my Green Stuffing abilities... told me to throw a ring of some sort on his beard to break up all the scruffy beardliness.  So I moved to step 3:







I did a bit more tweaking here and there... until the green stuff was essentially no longer workable.  And ended up with this as a final product:

Well thats it for the conversion part!  Next step:  Basing and Painting!

Thanks for Watching!!

-Grim

Iron Kingdoms RPG Challenge!

The second Geek Garage Challenge is upon us! Several of us have expressed interest in the newly revamped Iron Kingdoms Role Playing Game. To go with that, as a personal challenge we are converting and painting up some custom figs for our in game characters!

This inaugural article will give a brief overview of our characters and what their background is.  After this each of us will post up our progress as we go along.



First contestant up is me!

I have a little obsession with Llael. I've picked up Ashlynn twice and never got around to finish the army but I'm slowly working on it. Here I'm going to make my homage to the Llaellese duelists.

Warcaster Jaque DuGaul

My basic background is he is a Warcaster of Llaellese decent who was part of a training exchange between the nations of Llael and Cygnar. Essentially he was sent to Cygnar for his initial training. This was obviously before the war broke out. He was stuck finishing up his initial training in Cygnar before the war was over. Now he has to build up his abilities and resources in order to bring a needed resources to Field Marshal D'Elyse.

Figure conceptualization: Base figure will be Lord Jester from the Reaper Mini line. Already looks like a duelist and I just need to add bits to create Warcaster armor and a pistol for initial weapon load out. Since he was sent to initial training in Cygnar I figured he potentially could have gotten some experimental fancy storm tech like eStryker so I'm going to steal his backpack and GS some tubes to power his light armor. Hopefully this works out.

Wild Chevy's Contribution:

Vasily
Human, Khador, Arcane Mechanik/Man-at-Arms

"Former member of the Khadorian Special Recon group, a squad designed to learn the enemy forces' rune magics so to better protect the motherland. Trained in the arcane and close quarters combat these individuals were sent behind enemy lines to gather intel. After a ambush in a old Orgoth ruin he was left for dead by his squad after falling into a crypt during their retreat. Surviving by his will Vasily sets out to continue his quest to learn new runes and avenge his fallen brothers."

 Grimwolf's Entry:

Grim Ulthas (real original with the name I know ;) )

Military Officer/Bounty Hunter
Initial load out: Warhammer, Mace, Knuckledusters, Tailored Plate

I hunt down the shmucks who don't pay off the debts at Ulthas Bros



Character's defining characteristics:
Loud Mouthed, Quick to Fight, Won't Back Down from a Challenge, Fiercely Loyal and Protective, with a Disdain for Ranged Combat.

I used General Ossrum's fig as the base for my conversion. Used Gorten's right arm with Forge Father to represent the Warhammer.  Then I clipped the head off of the axe on Ossrums left arm and slapped a Warrior of Chaor mace head on top.  (This mace I hope will have a story all its own...)  I clipped and filed off the smoke stacks and vents from the back pack and tried to make it look more like a regular old back pack.  I added a few bundles of scrolls... (these would be the maps etc... that would represent the Battle plans carried by all military officers).  Also added some pouches from an old GW sprue to his back.  I used Ossrums head but have clipped the pipe off and will be green stuffing a right and proper gnarly ol' Dwarf beard.  Pics forthcoming.

Scotty Khan:

Tagrin Ulthas
Dwarf: Arcane Mechanik/Ranger

Initial loadout:
Arcane Crossbow (Blast runeplate)... Hopefully he will be jumping on to give us a bit more info on his dude.






Journeyman:

I'm playing a Nyss Sorcerer/Ranger, and here's some background.

She's the daughter of refugees from the exodus. Her family settled in the Thornwood, and her father began work as a ranger, leading hunting expeditions in to the forest. Fatima (my character), often went with her father, and learned the trade. When her father died while on an expedition, she decided to take his place. When the war started, she moved south, into Central Cygnar.