The Lurgy Strikes Back!

 Hi!

I've been feeling decidedly rough over the last few days and have just been sent home from work as I was feeling (and apparently looking!) awful. I'd thought I'd just got a cold but when I described how I felt, one of our customers suggested it might be covid. 

When I got home I rummaged out the test kit and lo and behold I do seem to have the dreaded lurgy!

Sadly, I'm not feeling up to doing much but I have managed to get some more drawing done for my Stump project over the last week or so with a selection of character sketches and vignettes of the world of Stump so I figured I'd post them up here:

Assorted denziens of Stump

I'm not sure I'm going to be getting much done today but we'll see how things go...

The world of Stump

In the meantime, All the best!

Inspiration Overload

 Hi!

We've got a guest coming to stay tomorrow so I've spent much of this last week clearing out our spare room/man cave/library and am desperately trying to avoid spotting yet more projects that I want to start up or re-explore as I see more fascinating books that I had forgotten that we owned.

I have managed to get some more doodling and inspiration materials from a recent visit to Hawkstone Park in Shropshire. Its a mad collection of 18th century follies, hills, caves and possibly ancient copper mines. Handily it also has more than its fair share of interesting stumps too!

Not only that, there's some really interesting cave faces that look like they may actually be inhabited by tiny people too:

I've also picked up a sprue of Perry British Napoleonic riflemen, Wargames Atlantic riflemen and some Warlord armoured Saxons and have begun the rather fun process of kitbashing some suitable figures that I'll try and get painted once our guest has left.

I'm rather excited to crack on with the project and see where it goes but I don't want to abandon some of the other bits and bobs I've got kicking around so I may end up switching between projects to stop myself from getting bored or the dreaded loss of hobby mojo!

I doubt I'll be posting again before next weekend but in the meantime, All the best!

Stump 28

 Hi!

We've returned from our hols down in Shropshire and I'm feeling rather inspired to crack on with a bit of a project related to my last post.

I've been trying to get some sketching done and have begun putting together some of the vague concepts I've got floating around in my head that I want to try and develop out a bit.

The world of Stump was once a planet spanning forest, each tree unimaginably vast but this verdant wonder is no more. At some point in the immeasurable past, the forest was felled and all that remains are stumps surrounded by scrubby vegetation, endless bramble thickets and rot.

This decaying landscape is not barren of life however. Humans and numerous other beings inhabit the wastes and somehow manage to thrive despite the bleakness of their surroundings. Nobody is quite sure how humans got there, some say they've always inhabited Stump, others believe the Fae had a hand in it as some obscure punishment to humanity for what they did to their original homeworld.

Whatever the reason, humans now call Stump home and do what humans do best, fight, squabble and try to kill each other. As such each stump settlement is a tiny fiefdom of its own with their own cultures and unique societies. 

 

While most of the populations of the stumps remain safely within its massive, decaying wooden interior, much like termites, digging down into the roots of their home to mine iron, copper and tin, each stump has more adventurous denizens who venture forth from the relative safety of their home to explore the dangerous gloom of the forest floor.

Down in the undergrowth, untold dangers stalk, scurry, creep and flit amongst the great roots and tangled ferns but for the bold, treasures can be found as the stumps need guards to patrol the narrow trackways between settlements from Wildling raids or Fae marauders and there's also the ruins of lost civilisations to be explored too.

Coupled with unnaturally large insects, rival Stump settlements, the ghosts of the past, the life of adventurers is often brutal and short but for those who survive, they gain the right to go forth and settle a new Stump.

The Stumps vary in size from tiny homesteads that are occupied by a single family or group of adventurers up to mightier towns and cities that may hold thousands of citizens. Each Stump has a unique culture but for their collective safety many will band together into loose confederations and alliances of those in the vicinity (when they're not fighting amongst themselves). 

Thus far, I've put a few initial thoughts together about the setting alongside the doodles and assorted photos to help set the scene and have sketched out a few potential forces to get me going using a variety of plastic historical and fantasy ranges.

I'd considered doing 15mm but I think I'm going to stick with the small skirmish style of Brutalquest but using cheap plastics as they're actually cheaper than the other options which is so strange but it will allow me to keep converting and kitbashing stuff and I'm planning on sculpting the odd figure here or there to add variety!

We shall see how I get on but I've really enjoyed pootling around with the setting and will be continuing fleshing it out over the coming months as its a rather interesting process and I want to keep the creativity going!

I suspect it will be a very slow burn sort of a deal because I'm always busy but the opportunity to keep plugging away at this be it a RPG or with a rpg and who knows where it will go but in the meantime, All the best!

Tree Stump Settlements

 Hi!

We're about to depart on a well deserved holiday down south for a week where I suspect we shall be catching up with some relaxation, reading and perusing of National Trust properties as well as peeking into the odd bookshop but before I trundle off, I thought I'd post a bit of randomness to get the inspiration going.

Over the last couple of years I've become fascinated by the odd moss covered and decaying tree stumps that we often pass while out walking and have begun photographing them as they're oddly beautiful.

Beyond their odd beauty, I find myself pondering their similarity to the South American Tepui or tabletop mountains that Professor Challenger explored in the Lost World but in a much smaller scale. 

Some of the tiny but lush vegetation looks surprisingly like trees and it gets me to pondering creating some sort of setting where a once mighty forest of unimaginable scale has been reduced to a wasteland with the stumps of once mighty trees thrusting up from the surrounding desolation. 

Small settlements of beings could inhabit them, creating tiny fortifications to protect themselves from the creeping beasties that live on the ground level and gliders, airships or even insects could be used to travel between them. Possibly some of the closer ones could have great bridges build between them and tiny fields that are hidden in the secluded interiors could provide inhabitants with their daily needs.

What adventures could be had when the inhabitants of the stump islands descend to the ground level with its fungal forests moss and endless ferns while searching for safe passage or rare herbs or exposed mineral deposits. Could this endless morass of greenery conceal untold dangers to be fought in defence of their homes?

Now I need a new project like I need a hole in the head, especially as there is absolutely no way I can reasonably recreate the cliff like landscapes and outcrops, I doubt I'll do much more than keep taking snaps of these strange little outcroppings and musing on what tiny civilisations could live on such things.

With that said, I may end up doing a series of illustrations and fleshing out the idea a bit into a bit of an RPG type setting as it could be rather fun and a satisfying thought exercise in its own right, possibly giving me the excuse to crack out the pens and start doodling some outlandish bits and bobs!

We shall see what ideas I can come up with over the coming week and I'll post any progress when I get back. If nothing else, I may end up incorporating it into my ongoing Colostle solo RPG campaign and its a rather fun and fanciful change from my usual stuff and will hopefully act as a bit of a palette cleanser before I get back and continue with the assorted 6mm, 15mm and 28mm miniatures I've been working on.

It never ceases to amaze me how inspiration can be found in such unlikely sources but I suppose its one of the bonuses of wandering around some ancient woods on ones day off!

I doubt I'll get chance to post much over the course of the week but I've got a backlog of completed stuff that I'll try and get photos of when I get back that will hopefully be of interest to folks but in the meantime, All the best!

6mm Fantasy Shenanigans

 Hi!

As promised in my last post, I've been footling about with some 6mm scale fantasy bits and bobs.

I've become quite a fan of creating small gaming boards using cheap pinboards and I've been wanting to make a rich green one for a while and decided that it was high time to get it finished. 

The base is a WHSmith's pinboard that measures 39cm by 59cm which I got for 75% off when a local store was closing down and cost £2.50. A cheap tube of green acrylic set me back another £1.99 and bobs your uncle! I'd initially intended on using either a static grass sheet or flock but thought it may warp the cork board so settled on just painting it all.

A bit of splotching, drybrushing and dabbing of assorted greens and browns and it looks pretty decent.

With the addition of my polystyrene egg trees and a small dark age farm produced by Irregular Miniatures that I was gifted a good fifteen years ago, I've got the beginnings of a decent little layout.

Further rummagings have turned up some Irregular Miniatures Wood Elves that was part of the lot that I was gifted back in the day and I find myslelf with the beginnings of a nice little army. I've got enough to make a decent sized force for Dragon Rampant and still have a bunch of Orcs to use as an opposition.

Sadly the photo's don't do the figures justice as they're really nice little sculpts once they've got a coat of paint on them and I'm thinking of slowly adding to the collection with some other figures from Irregular at some point. The bases are 15mm by 30mm and made from cardboard.

I've rather enjoyed putting together this little project and will try to get the remaining figures painted up in the coming weeks and hope to add some more scenery too and am aiming towards making it in the style of classic Warhammer Fantasy Battle but tiny so we shall see how I get on.

My next post should have some completed 15mm scale gubbins as well as further musings on some wild west ideas that I've got floating about again.

In the meantime, All the best!

Progress of a Sort!

 Hi!

Longtime no update!

Alas real world has intruded upon with our problem neighbours having moved on from flooding our kitchen for the umpteenth occasion in six months to actually damaging the building.

Believe it or not, this is one of the two doors they've broken in a week...

Coupled with constant noise and other unsavoury shenanigans, the police and council are now involved and my hobby time has been decidedly lacking.

Despite all the stress, I have managed to snatch a bit of time to get some random bits and bobs painted as there is nothing like losing yourself in painting miniatures to do away with stress.

I've been working my way through a selection of 15mm scale gubbins from my purchase from Alternative Armies Laserburn sale and some old Peter Pig bits and bobs that I've had in my collection for a good 20 years now. 

At the same time, I've been painting some 6mm bits and bobs that I was donated a good dozen or so years back and have sat in a box ever since. I have vague ideas of using them for either Lion or Dragon Rampant and have also painted up a small board that will allow for some small scale gaming.

The recent unpleasant goings on has got me to looking through my rulebook collection in search of inspiration and having recently stumbled upon some youtube videos of folks playing the game Hunt Showdown, I found myself fancying some narrative based horror skirmishing based in the US in the late 19th century.

I've got Dracula's America which looks like a nice simple set of rules that allows for small warbands of desperadoes fighting otherworldly horrors in the wild west which is kind of what I'm hankering after.

At present with all the nonsense going on, I doubt I'll be getting the chance to put together anything with it but hopefully once the unpleasantness is done with I'll get chance to have a proper dig into something a bit different.

In the meantime, I'll keep pootling away with the odds and ends that I've been working on and my next update will hopefully have some actual painted stuff but until then, all the best!

Stainless Steel Planning

 Hi!

I've been having all sorts of fun re-reading the Stainless Steel Rat series by Harry Harrison and am slowly putting together a list of what I need to collect up to get my project re-started.

As such, I've been rummaging my 15mm stuff and have begun work on cleaning, tidying and sorting out suitable figures as well as painting up some odds and ends to add to the mix:

Governor General van Dorn, accompanied by Journo's observes militia manoeuvres.

While I've still got quite a bit of work to do, mostly on refurbing bases to make them a bit brighter, I'm quite pleased with how well some of these old paintjobs have held together and I'm looking forward to getting more done over the coming weeks.

Media Scrum!

While I'm using the Stainless Steel Rat novels as inspiration, I will be diverging somewhat to use characters in a somewhat different fashion, so for example, the villainous Count Cassitor Rdunrundt is only in one book and decidedly a side character but I plan on making him more of a nemesis, if somewhat hapless as we can't have our anti-hero being outshone by a thuggish toad!

The Governor's personal ride - prime target for theft!

While I do love the larger scale stuff and 28mm, this smaller scale does allow me to paint up quite a bit of stuff with minimal time and still looks pretty decent on the table and should allow me to get some games played fairly quickly to boot.

I've discovered I actually have quite a few civilians and non combatants painted up ranging from heavy exo-suited construction guys to lowly journalists and random passers by which is a handy and rather unexpected boon as I do need to represent quite a few miscellaneous denizens of assorted worlds to add random elements to my scenarios.

 

On top of that, I do have several little warbands that make for suitable combatants in the game too as there's nothing to stop me from having Jim turn up on Farpoint to loot the Governor Generals private wine cellar...

Journalistic Talent

I painted these little Peter Pig journalists a while back and still have a half pack to paint as rivals. In hindsight, I do think that the central pair should have been mounted on a 25mm rather than 30mm base but I will add another doodad onto it to bulk it out a bit. 

A have also found some of my newer Rdunrundt troops. I painted these when I'd been planning on using AK-47 Republic for a pulpy sci-fi ruleset but had been dissatisfied with how they turned out but looking at them now, they're not as bad as I had thought. Hopefully I'll get another few painted in the coming weeks to add up to a full squad of eight.

Finally, to get back into the swing of 15mm painting, I found my old WW2 US troops that have languished in my bits box for probably two decades now (once again Peter Pig figures) and decided to paint them up as random low tech sci-fi troops. Their should actually be six of them but I managed to drop one in the man cave and can't find him which is one of the downsides to smaller scales but I really like how they came out.

I may go back and paint some sort of emblem on their helmets but I figure they'll do as is for the time being.

With this fresh enthusiasm, I'm hoping to keep the mojo going and even if I don't manage to get many games played, I do seem to be really enjoying the process of reading favourite books and painting random gubbins so I'll take it as a win!

Hopefully I'll have something more to show in my next post but until then, All the best!