Sticking it to the man... or the woman, or the machine, or...

Today I'd like to share some success I've had with a project that's been on the back burners for about 9 years.

When Warhammer 40,000 Dark Imperium came out, I decided it was time to start a new Space Marine army in the larger scale of the Primaris marines that the new box had introduced.

Space Marines are the poster boys of Warhammer 40,000, so Games Workshop puts a lot of thought into their design. I wanted my own unique custom chapter, so I figured I'd do the same by considering the following details:

• Colour scheme

• Name

• Backstory, progenitor chapter and specialisation (if any)

• Chapter badge and markings

Once I'd had a few thoughts on the above, I drew a concept sketch of what I thought one of my marines might look like, then turned it into a mock cover of one of the codices of the time. (You can see the image and read about my chapter, the Vexillators, in my previous blog post.)

But this is when the trouble started. When I came to actually paint my first miniature, I realised that the last item on the list, the chapter badge, was going to cause some serious problems. I wanted to avoid having to paint a tiny, complicated marking on every single model in the army by hand, so it would be much better if I could somehow get hold of a transfer sheet with my design. I thought about various options, and their cost implications, and realised I didn't want to spend a small fortune on this, so my brand new army immediately found itself on pause. Instead I went off and started playing with other toy soldiers that weren't nearly as needy. Mainly Orks.

But eventually I found the above product. It's a pack of waterslide decal sheets that you can print your own design on, using an inkjet home printer. There are a few different brands now, but these are the ones I used. You get twenty A4 sheets in the pack, so plenty of space to create all the markings and badges that you might need. You simply stick a sheet in the manual feed of your printer, and you can print whatever design you have prepared. I lined up a starter sheet, using Adobe Illustrator, that had a bunch of designs that I thought might come in handy.

A home printer can't print white (as that is provided by the substrate, the white paper that you are usually printing to), so this method only really works for darker designs. In fact I've found that anything that is roughly darker than a mid grey tone seems to be okay as long as you are positioning it on a patch on your model that is roughly lighter than said mid grey tone. So red decals on yellow background will work fine, but a cream coloured icon on a dark blue background will be a non-starter. More on this below.

Once you have your printed sheet you will then need this vital can of spray varnish. You might be able to use other brands, but this is the one that eventually saw success for me. After letting your freshly printed sheet dry for a few hours, you are meant to give it a single all-over coat of this. But that didn't work for me, as the decals curled up and folded in on themselves when I tried to use them, so I ended up giving the sheet an extra two coats of the stuff – leaving about 24 hours drying time between each spray. All those coats of varnish gave the decals more rigidity, but now they look a little too thick on the models. I think it might be best to try just two coats next time.

The other issue I encountered at this stage was to do with the clarity of my printed designs at such a tiny scale. I found that the spread of ink filled in the smaller negative spaces, meaning that the symbols and markings became blurry and indistinct. I fixed this by going in to every design, and increasing the size of the white areas. So things like the gaps between feathers, and the corners of the Crux Terminatus crosses all got a bit bigger, wider or thicker.

Once everything was dry it was time to improve my application method. I've always soaked Games Workshop decals in a beaker of water to remove the back paper, then applied them to the model with a paintbrush. But as I mentioned earlier, these homemade decals were initially curling up and becoming unusable when I tried that. So instead, after increasing the amount of varnish on the sheet, I used a thin tray (actually a cavalry base turned upside down) with just a millimetre of water in it. I only let each decal soak for between 30 and 60 seconds, then used the large tweezers to remove it, brush it lightly against something absorbent like a tissue (to wick away the bulk of the water) then place it roughly on the model, in an area that I had just given a light coat of gloss varnish. I then used a blunt wooden tooth pick to push and pull it into a much more accurate position, using the varnish as lubricant. The varnish soon dries and becomes a decent adhesive, so at that stage another coat of the stuff on top gives the whole thing some staying power.

I decided I wanted to try a couple of test models, to see what sort of improvements I could make, so I revisited this yellow truck and these riot-police-style Arbites Enforcers.

I knew I didn't want to be limited to dark decals on light backgrounds though, so I thought about a work-around for the problem. The decals could be designed as negative spaces, sitting against the darker background colour. So instead of printing the symbol, you actually print a patch of the background colour, with a symbol shaped hole in it. The area on the model where you are intending to place it can then be painted the proposed colour of your symbol or badge, and it will show through the hole in the decal. You may need to tidy up around the edges a bit, but that's infinitely easier than painting the symbol by hand.

The yellow A15 badge on the door of the truck below was actually a dark green decal of the surrounding colour, stuck over a yellow patch on the door.

I don't feel that I've perfected the process yet, and I'm definitely going to experiment with the Micro Sol and Micro Set liquids shown in one of the above images, but I do think I've found a way to finally move forward with my Vexillator Space Marines. More on them soon.

The Giant Robo Alphabot, part twelve

Following on from my previous entry, last month, I'd like to share another poster. This time not about great movie pairings, but instead the culmination of the robot alphabet project that I've been banging on about since 2015.

We've finally reached the end now, so this will be my very last post on the subject. I promise. 

So much time has passed since I first explained it, way back here, that quite a few of the robots used in the project are now more commonly known from updated source material. What do I mean by this? Well, for example, since I compiled some of the original images, (before I even started writing this blog), we've had an updated Ultron in one of the Avengers movies, a new ED209 in the Robocop remake, and a new Warlord Titan from Forge World. In fact, with this last one, and the release of the Adeptus Titanicus game, we've technically had two updates, in different scales.

It's been a fun journey for me, not just compiling the robots and trying to come up with background styles that feel relevant to the subject, sufficiently different from one another, yet also somehow related, but also delving deep into the history of each of the subjects in order to write the blurb. And the best thing about it is I now have a Robot Alphabot poster ready to hang in the corner of my house where I pursue all things geek.

If you're interested you can see all the individual posters on Pinterest here, or read all the previous entries from this project here.

Why watch one, when two will do?

Words and pictures. That’s what I normally put up here. But today it’s slightly different. Today most of the words will be found in the pictures. Because today I’m sharing a poster I created for a prospective movie season a few years back.

I talk a lot about movies on here, not only because am I utterly fascinated by them – some may say obsessed – but also because they can offer substantive inspiration for the many modelling and gaming projects that form some of my other obsessions. For these reasons I usually try to focus on science fiction or fantasy films, but occasionally this may slide sideways into the sometimes equally relevant overlapping zones of the action or horror genres.

However, today, I’m going even further than that, doing something I don't normally do, by blasting the genres wide open and simply looking at pairs of movies, from any walk, that go together beautifully while delving deeply into their chosen subject.

So, with no further fanfare, let’s get on to the pictures. The ones with words in them.

And here are some close-ups (clicking on them should make them expand).

The Giant Robo Alphabot, part eleven

So here we are. We've come a long way together. It's been quite a journey. We've looked at animated and live-action science-fiction films. We've taken examples from board games and video games. And we've explored comics and model kits. Some of this stimuli has been quite new, and some has been considerably older. We've discussed the software needed to create each poster and the time it takes to do it. We've even delved a little into my psyche, looking for motivation and reasoning. It's been emotional.

But all good things have to come to an end. And so do all rubbish things.

And somewhere in the middle sits my robot alphabet. So with that, I give you the last two entires, both from a game system quite close to home.

A Quiz of Thrones (now with added legibility)

A quick post today. But not the one I was expecting to write. I've finished a couple of models I'd like to share but, what with Christmas and New Year, I just can't find the time to photograph them.

Instead, what I have managed to find is the file containing the live type for my Game of Thrones quiz. You may have previously seen it in this post, where it was a little tricky to read.

The quiz is based mainly on the television show (not the books), and was written at the end of season six, before season seven had aired. I've pasted it below for any GoT fans to peruse, but please bear in mind some of the answers may have been superseded by the more recent episodes. At a quick glance I can't see anything that's been contradicted, but if you do find something, please let me know in the comments section. The quiz is made up of 3 rounds, with 25 questions in total, giving you 50 possible points up for grabs.

QUESTIONS

Round One: Names

1. Which one of these three fierce lords should you least want officiating at your wedding?
• Jeor Mormont
• Walder Frey
• Baylon Greyjoy

2. What character is sometimes referred to as The Spider?

3. The sparrows and the faith militant were intent on upholding religion as a pillar of the Seven Kingdoms. Which god or gods did they follow?

• The God of Light

• The Seven

• The Old Gods?

4. Which one of these noble knights should you least want to babysit your teenage daughter?
• Ser Meryn Trant
• Ser Barristan Selmy
• Ser Alliser Thorne

5. Two major characters share the surname Clegane. What are they more commonly known as? A point for each nickname, and a bonus point for each of the first names.

6. What is (the Onion Knight) Ser Davos’s surname?

7. What is the name of the dragon that went rogue, forcing the other two to be locked up underground?

8. Which one of these forts or castles did I invent for this question?
• The Dreadfort
• Dragonstone Castle
• The Black Fort
• Casterly Rock

9. What’s the name of the eunuch army from Astapor in Slaver’s Bay?

10. Sam killed a white walker with a dragon glass dagger. Dragon glass is said to be glass forged naturaly in the heat of a volcano, like frozen fire. What is the other common name for it? 

11. Which of these actors has appeared in GoT? One point for each correct answer.
• Peter Davidson
• Rupert Everett
• Paul Kay
• Ian McShane
• Honor Blackman
• Richard E Grant
• Keith Allen
• Tim McInnerny
• Robson Green
• Max von Sydow

12. It is said that George R R Martin was convinced to let David Benioff and D. B. Weiss make this TV show when they correctly answered a single question: Who is Jon Snow’s mother? What is the answer? 

Round Two: Wolves 

13. There are (or were) six Stark Dire Wolves. Can you match their correct names to the Stark children to whom they were given? One point for a correct name, and another for a correct match. This question is easiest to complete if you use the cards shown below. The choices for the Dire Wolves are shown in blue, and the Stark children are red.

Round Three: Misc 

14. How many actors have played the Mountain?

15. Which Golden Globe nominated Netflix drama features Pedro Pascal (the actor who plays the Red Viper, Oberyn of the house Martell) as a US law enforcement agent?

16. What is (or was) the familial relationship of the Blackfish (Ser Brynden Tully) to Kaitlyn Stark?

17. In Star Wars The Force Awakens, Captain Phasma is played by an actor from GoT – what was that actor’s character called in GoT?

18. According to the publishing order, Game of Thrones is the title of which book in the literary series?

19. Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister) and Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Stormborn) have both played the same strong female lead in a major science fiction franchise. Who is that female character?

20. Which of these locations is yet to have suffered significant fire damage?
• The Sept of Baelor
• Harrenhal
• Riverrun
• Vaes Dothrak

21. Translate these commonly used Valarian phrases (one point each):
• Valar Morghulis
• Valar Dohaeris
• Dracarys

22. What fort or castle is home to the Moon Door?

23. As typified by the final episode of the last season, what would be the the usual order of appearance for these four locations in the opening credit sequence?
• Dorne
• King’s Landing
• Winterfell
• The Twins

24. Which one of these four roles has not been officially given to Tyrion Lannister?
• Hand of the King
• Master of War
• Hand of the Queen
• Master of Coin

25. Which of these is not a quote by Tyrion Lannister?
A) It may be good luck to rub the head of a dwarf, but it is even better luck to suck a dwarf’s cock.
B) Alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities, may produce all the effects of drunkeness.
C) It’s not easy being drunk all the time. If it were easy, everyone would do it.
D) I’m not questioning your honour, I am denying its existence.

ANSWERS

1. Walder Frey

2. Varys

3. The Seven

4. Ser Meryn Trant

5. The Mountain (Gregor) and the Hound (Sandor)
6. Seaworthy
7. Drogon
8. The Black Fort

9. The Unsullied.
10. Obsidian 
11. Paul Kay, Ian McShane, Richard E Grant, Tim McInnerny and Max von Sydow

12. Lyanna Stark
13. Grey Wind (Robb), Ghost (Jon Snow), Lady (Sansa), Nymeria (Arya), Summer (Bran), Shaggy Dog (Rickon) 
14. 3
15. Narcos
16. Blackfish is Kaitlyn's uncle 
17. Brienne of Tarth (played by Gwendoline Christie)
18. This is a contentious answer. I originally thought it was second (after A Knight of Seven Kingdoms and before A Clash of Kings), but most people seem to agree it was the first.
19. Sarah Connor (from the Terminator films and TV show)
20. Riverrun was taken peacefully. (Harrenhal was already fire damaged when introduced to the show) 
21. Valar Morghulis is all men must die. Valar Dohaeris is all men must serve. Dracarys is dragonfire (or the command to burn)
22. The Eyrie
23. King’s Landing, The Twins, Winterfell, Dorne
24. Master of War
25. B (actually said by Oscar Wilde) 

And then finally, just on the off-chance you were enjoying that, here are some extra tie-breaker questions.

SPARE QUESTIONS

1. What was the name of the Hand of the King who died just prior to the beginning of the show, setting in motion the main chain of events?

2. Only a few actors have portrayed multiple characters. One of those actors, Dean-Charles Chapman, played both a Lannister and a Baratheon. Can you give the first name of either of those two characters?

3. The Seven – the God of Seven – The Seven-Faced God – The New Gods. Can you name any of the seven aspects? One point for each.

4. What is the relationship between Jon Snow’s father and Daenerys Stormborn?

5. The armillary sphere, or astrolabe (the thing like a sun floating above the clockwork map) from the opening credit sequence (or at least something that looks a lot like it) actually appeared briefly as a candelabra in the final episode of season six. Where did we see it?

ANSWERS TO SPARE QUESTIONS

1. Jon Arryn 
2. King Tommen Baratheon and Martyn Lannister
3. The Father, the Mother, the Maiden, the Crone, the Warrior, the Smith, the Stranger 
4. He is most likely Rhaegar Targaryen, Daenerys’s elder brother. Meaning Jon is her nephew.
5. When Sam entered the library of the Citadel in Old Town

A Quiz of Thrones

This is another one of those posts where I have to start with an apology because I was meant to publish it a long time ago.

As usual, one thing led to another, and instead of getting this done, I ended up reinforcing the notion that I'm a lazy, slack-jawed slob, stuck miles behind the times, clinging on by the skin of my teeth, desperately playing catch-up, without a hope of ever meeting any real deadlines.

As it turns out, it's a statement that is so accurate it's like a window onto my very essence. So much for internet anonymity.

Anyway this should have been posted before the seventh season of Game of Thrones aired on HBO and Sky Atlantic during the summer, because it's kind of a refresher quiz I wrote for some friends who were hosting a small party to celebrate the first episode.

This means that some of the answers might have since gone out of date, become too obvious, or even changed altogether. And that's basically my way of saying that if any Game of Thrones experts find some horribly blatant errors in my answers, then it just wasn't my fault, guv'nor.

I've misplaced the digital file that has all the questions on it (in live type), but I still have the following photos. And with a little luck everything on them should be just about legible. (EDIT: I've found the file and the more legible questions can now be found here.)

The folded A3 sheet was designed for the quizmaster (me) to read from, so it had all the answers printed directly below the questions (because my memory is about as reliable as Little Finger's word). Therefore for the sake of anyone who might be interested in reading the questions first, I've crudely redacted all the answers on the first couple of photos.

The eagle-eyed among you (or perhaps raven-eyed) may have noticed that round two, question 13 suggests you look at some cards. These are shown below. Simply narrow down the blue cards till you are left with the six correct dire wolf names, then match each wolf to its correct Stark master (as shown on the red cards). Twelve points if you get everything right.

A word of warning, no-one who has ever played this round has got all twelve points.

And then here are the questions again, but this time without me censoring the answers. Please tell me they are not too small to read.* It's probably not much fun if you've forgotten your glasses. You'll notice there are some additional questions and answers at the end. These were included on the off-chance that people were really enjoying the quiz and didn't want it to end. Kind of like a standing ovation for the quiz... And me... If only.

 *If you can't make out the answers, and want to know what it says, just leave a comment below and I'll get back to you.

The Giant Robo Alphabot, part ten

Who said I never finish anything? Well, for a start, probably anybody who has ever glanced at this blog. And that's because when it comes to my hobbies I have a tendency to get distracted. The equivalent of chatting happily with someone, then suddenly walking off mid-

But that's about to change now, because we are rapidly reaching the end of my Giant Robo Alphabot. We're speeding towards the end of this project like a Sentinel hunting the X-Men or a Terminator closing in on Sarah Connor, or Ultron pursuing The Avengers.

The Giant Robo Alphabot, part nine

So we've had the beginning of the alphabet and we've had the end, but we're still missing a few letters from the middle. Today's post is simply about plugging some of those remaining holes in my Giant Robo Alphabot, as I prepare to put everything together to see the final, collected poster.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, but are intrigued enough at the sound of giant robots not to click away elsewhere yet, then you can see the entire stream of posts on this subject here, or if you'd rather just read the first one (that will hopefully explain the basic premise) then go here.

Otherwise, there's not much more to add, other than the small selection of stray letters themselves. This time they're all from movies, with two being live action films, and the other two animations.

The Giant Robo Alphabot, part eight

Robots often seem to take the role of baddie henchmen in major science-fiction films. I guess their blank, expressionless exteriors, and similarly unemotive personalities, make them perfect to represent the soulless, unempathetic forces of evil.

This lack of humanity also makes them nicely expendable so the movie's hero can dispatch hundreds of them without becoming a brutal mass-murderer. Perfect when you absolutely have to fill your film with explosive spectacle and against-all-odds heroism.

These next two robots have both been mass-produced (admittedly in fairly limited numbers), to act as troops in the climactic final showdown of Hollywood action films.

Who doesn't love the original Robocop's ED-209? (Obviously the executive in that boardroom scene probably wasn't much of a fan.)

A slightly less well-known, but equally glitchy, bad guy robot, this time from Iron Man 2

The Giant Robo Alphabot, part seven

Due to my love of gritty, military design styles with a sci-fi twist, my robot alphabet has lots of thematic overlaps with 28mm model ranges. Many of the walkers and 'bots I've featured look like they'd be right at home in the middle of a miniatures-based wargame.

But only a few have actually come from that arena. These next two armour-plated entries are each lifted from bona fide tabletop battle games.

The first is a walking Nazi Panzer tank from Paulo Parente's alternate World War II game, Dust; and the second is one of the stunning Leviathan mechs from Mark Mondragon's Iron-Core game, released by his company Dreamforge Games.

These dangerous looking robots are therefore each available as model kits in a roughly 28mm-32mm scale*. And in fact both of these kits are currently sitting dejected among my other unfinished projects, waiting forlornly for their chance to appear on this blog as finished models or conversions.

Looking at these brutal vehicles makes me want to abandon all my other projects and immediately go to work on them. But surely in that way madness lies? Or if not madness, then at least a desk that's so cluttered my already meagre output would probably cease altogether.

So many projects, so little time.

*The Leviathan Crusader is also available in a 15mm scale, which still makes it nearly 5" tall.

Pow, biff, clunk, thwack, staple

It's that time of year again when one of the tiny people in our house has a birthday. We have two tiny people scuttling around the place, and their birthdays are evenly spaced apart (nearly six months to the day), so the long, decent break between them means the missus and me are always happy to make a bit of an effort.

Actually, scratch that. The missus is always happy to make an effort, it's me that's only happy to make a bit of one.

This year the tiny person in question is mostly fascinated by superheroes. Which is lucky because, as I'm sure you can guess, I'm not exactly anti that kind of thing.

He's also into dinosaurs and pirates, so putting that little lot together sounds like a pretty good theme. Some people might say it goes a little overboard, that it's lost all subtlety, and is a transparent attempt to cover all bases. And to them I would say, "yes, you are correct".

Actually, the tiny person also likes dumper trucks and similarly industrial-looking toy vehicles. But if I included a fourth element we would have lost that fundamental principle of good communication, the tricolon, or rule of three. Sir Winston Churchill didn't say "Never in the history of human endeavour has so much been owed by so many to so few, with so little change in return". Julius Caesar didn't say "I came, I saw, I conquered, I went home again". And Abraham Lincoln didn't say "Government of the people, by the people, for the people, and their pets".

So, you know what? Screw the damn dumper trucks.

In order to try to reinforce the theme throughout our home (the venue for the party) we decided to make bunting. I started with some liberal downloading of free vector images, which I then chopped up, edited, and put back together. The images were especially useful for the dinosaurs, which, frankly, I couldn't be bothered to draw. A few of the other bits and pieces were the result of redrawing images found with Google searches, and a tinier few were even my own work.

I printed them out at my office, turned the paper around, put it back in the machine, and printed them again. I then cut and scored each of the resultant double-sided sheets and took them home.

Meanwhile the missus started on the cakes. She found some images online and went off to Hobbycraft to buy a load of Renshaw coloured icing.

When we were done with all the baking, icing, piping, with all the printing, cutting and stapling, and the cakes were ready and the bunting was up all over the house and garden, then, only then, did I realise the party needed one more thing.

Your friendly, neighbourhood, giant, inflatable, helium-filled Spider-Man balloon.

He took up vigil above the door to the back garden, and the party began.

Finally, after all that hard work, the party was a complete success. Admittedly this may have had less to do with the decorations and more to do with the fact that all the parents were plied with alcohol and all the kids filled up on sugar, but that's a mere detail, right?

The Giant Robo Alphabot, part six

In one of the previous posts about my Robo Alphabot project I mentioned my surprise at how difficult it was to find satisfactory entries for some of the letters that you'd imagine would lend themselves quite easily to the names of sentient electronic devices. Letters such as X, Y and Z. I had naively imagined that every other fictional robot out there would probably begin with one of these letters. I figured names like XZ271 or Zardo the Destroyer would be a staple of the genre and there would be all kinds of cool-looking mechs to choose from.

As it turns out, not for the first time in my life, I was completely wrong.

In fact it became quite a struggle to get decent looking machines, that fit my personal aesthetic, and weren't all simply drawn from the Warhammer 40,000 universe (I'm mostly looking at you, Tau).

So below are the ones that I finally settled upon for the last three letters of the alphabet. If you're not sure who they are, or where they are from, then the individual descriptions on each design should help shed some light.

The Giant Robo Alphabot, part five

It's time for two more entries in the robot alphabet. Today's pair have a distinctly retro feel, both hailing from the same decade. Actually, not just the same decade, but the same year. Each of these machines first appeared in 1957. Or rather they didn't, they were invented much later, but their backstories saw them both spring into action in an imaginary, alternative 1957.

So 1957 is clearly a good vintage for giant robotic things. But what's the significance of that year? If you're not sure then the answer can be found somewhere in the text in one of the images.

Also, as I've said before, if you're partial to a bit of Pinterest then clicking right here will allow you to see all the existing posters in one place.