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!

Not Dead!

 Hi!

Well it's been a bit longer than I'd like between updates but we've still got issues with ongoing, if now infrequent floods coming from our upstairs neighbour and an awful lot of stuff to do at work has resulted in possibly my biggest hobby slump in years.

I've tried the usual approach of stopping my current project and trying something completely different which resulted in a total stoppage of interest in hobby shenanigans which is a bit rubbish to say the least.

Fortunately I have a very amazing and understanding wife and she got me to go out for a bit of a drive and walking session on my last couple of days off to get some fresh air and indeed much needed relaxation which has given me a bit of perspective and time to refocus.

While I've found work incredibly rewarding, I seem to have completely given up on any hobby time, with what spare time I've had been focused on stressing about our kitchen being ruined or watching the odd Youtube video and even my usual fallback of reading hadn't been enough to get me out of my funk.

Now I must say, I do not think I've been depressed during all this, just a bit frazzled and somewhat burnt out from doing too much and the whole flooding nonsense, not to mention the rather daft worry about updating my blog on the regular basis with a project, Leviathan, that I just wasn't ready for.

With this in mind, I'm going to be stepping back from the Leviathan project just now. It's been my obsession for 20 odd years now and it will wait for another for the sake of my sanity.

An Oaf in the woods

I'm also going to take a wee break from blogging to catch up with my reading and have been blasting my way through the Stainless Steel Rat books by Harry Harrison and plan on revisiting a host of other titles and authors that I read many moons ago as I feel its really important to reconnect with the imagination that I seem to have somewhat lost sight of in the modern world.

This doesn't mean I'm giving up my blog, far from it! I've found my re-reading of the Stainless Steel Rat books has got me remembering what fun I had with my old 15mm project/campaign log featuring the exploits of a certain interstellar crook, one Slippery Jim di Griz! 

Slippery Jim and Galactic peacekeepers

With this in mind, I've already had a rummage through my unpainted lead-pile for a handful of suitable figures and have got them cleaned, based and primed for some paint on my next morning off. Sadly I'd deleted the old Special Corps blog which housed the project when I started Tales From Farpoint but as the pictures were decidedly poor quality, I figure its not too much of a loss and I'll see if I can re-do it and start afresh as I still have all the posts saved somewhere!

This is a decidedly small project that I figure I can potter away with to see if I can't rejuvenate my rather battered hobby spirit and if it succeeds, Huzzah!

I've also got another mini project that is slowly taking form of a more fantasy nature but this seems to be really scratching the itch I didn't realise I had.

Now I've been blathering on for long enough so I'll call it a night but I wanted to say thankyou to everyone who has followed my gaming adventures and I'll post again when I've got the chance along with a progress report and hopefully some finished figures too!

In the meantime, All the best!