The hobby... but better: LoreKeeper.com

A couple of months ago I was lucky enough to visit Warhammer World with my brother and his friend Dave.* The trip was ace, and I strongly urge anyone interested in tabletop wargames or collecting miniatures to make the pilgrimage to see it for themselves. But even surrounded by some of the greatest dioramas on Earth, in the very beating heart of the Games Workshop hobby, one of the biggest revelations for me came directly from Dave.

Dave is a major hobbyist, just like me, but his obsessions lie in slightly different areas. Where my primary focus is on collecting and amassing toy soldiers, Dave's is much more about the actual gameplay. And not just miniature-based games. I think it's fair to say he is fascinated by the way games work. By the mechanics behind the gameplay and the total immersion into the world they create. And being of not dissimilar age, Dave has had several decades to master his passion. He's an expert in almost every area of the hobby, and as such focusses a lot of his talent on being a Game Master (or Dungeon Master) so that others can enjoy the hobby too.

This focus on having others enjoy the hobby has formed the basis of an incredible project that was the aforementioned revelation for me. With the aid of AI tools, Dave has created a website that puts an immense amount of creative power into the hands of would be gamers.

LoreKeeper.com is a site designed to bring narrative gaming ideas to life. A site that can help you build worlds, create characters, invent plotlines and objectives, and visualise them in ways I thought were simply not possible. It puts an incredible level of ability in the hands of anyone who uses it.

In its own words: 'From zero to a fully-fleshed world in five steps. Upload your notes, chat with your AI Game Master, generate content, and export a professional worldbook.'

There are many levels to what LoreKeeper can do and the depths it can master, but on the surface, the one which immediately caught my attention was its ability to make short animated scenes based simply on notes or photographs. Dave fed it a still image of these three Deff Dreads, against a white background, and soon after we were looking at the below video.

I had a play around with it, and without any training whatsoever, was able to come up with the below (based on these guys and this board) in a few short minutes.

And just to drive home the point, while we were walking around Warhammer World, Dave snapped a picture of one of the Thunderbolt Fighters on display, fed it into the mobile app version of LoreKeeper, and showed us the below video, without even breaking step.

If you like collecting models, or are interested in narrative gaming in any of its iterations, then LoreKeeper will probably have something for you.

*Now my friend Dave.

Fast forward 12 months

It's been almost exactly a year since my last post. That's a huge gap, but the good news (at least for me) is that, although this blog has been dormant, my hobby activity has not, and I have plenty of bits and pieces to share over the next few posts.

But firstly, let's start with why. Why have I been quiet for so long? Well, the main reason is that this time last year, my wife and I began to undertake some fairly extensive work on our family home. Work that saw us completely pack away all my models, tools and paint, that saw us remove most of the top section of our house, that saw at least one ceiling fall in, and two people fall through them (neither were injured), that had rain water pouring down internal walls, a bedroom completely open to the elements for several days, and that ended up taking more than twice as long as originally estimated. But after everything was over, and finally complete, work that gave us a whole new floor on our house. I'm talking, of course, about a loft conversion, but after the painful, drawn-out process that we went through, it feels like so much more than just those simple words.

When we first started the work, I had no idea that I'd be putting this blog into such a long slumber, even though the building work had been planned many months in advance. I just never put two and two together and realised quite how disruptive it would be. I hadn't accounted for some of the intense mental anguish that would occur, while watching one's home being quite literally torn apart.

But it's done now and the upshot of the process, as far as this blog is concerned, is that instead of a dingy space, in among the rafters of a dusty roof, I now have a properly appointed office for all my work and hobby pursuits.

When fitting out the room we ensured there was plenty of shelf, desk and storage space. Me so that I could fit everything in and it would still be neat and functional, and my wife so that she could guarantee there wouldn't be any of my toys elsewhere in the house.

One of the biggest boons of this, and of being forced to organise everything from scratch, is that when placing finished models on shelves, I was able to set them up as little displays – almost like dioramas. 

Chaos troops man the ramparts of a town they have taken...

... in defence against the approaching Undead horde

Dredd style Arbites Enforcers bring riot suppression weaponry to bear

An Ork armoured brigade starts to amass in preparation for their next Waaagh.

The streets of Kruenta are alive with all manner of Imperial citizenry

There was a lot more to the last 12 months than just the moments I've touched on above, and there's a fair bit more to my office than just these images, but I think it's probably best to leave it here for now, to ward against the dreaded approach of boring and excruciating detail.

What's that? Too late?

End of the line, creep

Engage smug mode. The project that prompted me to create this blog has been completed. The final four Dredd style Arbites Enforcers are below. I was meant to be working on my fantasy Chaos dudes, but once I picked up one of these guys a few weeks ago I just couldn't stop. And it's always good to harness a bit of hobby energy. Never look a gift horse in the mouth, right?*

I added weathering powder to each of these characters in an attempt to emulate that dusty look the Judges have in the 2012 Dredd film (you can see the reference picture I was aiming for in this post), but when I then gave them a light spray of Munitorum Varnish, all the powders subsequently disappeared. In the end, after varying my process three times, I got worried that the powders were subtly dampening all the rest of the painting and gave up. In fairness it's still visible in the odd location, and these guys don't exactly look pristine, so I'm happy to draw this project to a close...

... for now.

Here's a quick shot of the gang altogether.

To celebrate the fact that I'm getting close to the end of my Addiction Challenge, in my next post I'm going to try something a little different. There will be words, and there will be photos, but quite unlike anything I've done on here before.

ADDICTION CHALLENGE

REMAINING: 4

*Unless you live in Troy

Riot suppression

A few more Dredd style Arbites Enforcers today. These next three models include the areas that needed the most freehand work – namely the lettering on the riot shields and the illuminated number 3 on the side of the Sentinel. Freehand isn't my strong-point, so needless to say the results are passable at best.

But any finished miniature is a win in my book, and I always knew I'd struggle with the lettering, so on balance I'm pretty pleased with how this project is turning out. Below are a couple more shots of the Sentinel.

And the good news is that this takes me below the remaining 10 mark on my painting challenge, so not long now before my house is totally overrun by an influx of new, tiny, plastic toys.

ADDICTION CHALLENGE

REMAINING: 8

Dread reckoning

These last few days I've been taking a short break from the Chaos Wastes to pop back to Kru*, my WH40K hive city, in order to visit my Judge Dredd inspired Arbites Enforcers.

The Arbites project was the reason I started this blog, way back in 2015, and was my attempt to create a small unit of Enforcers or Judges for Necromunda/WH40K, based on the design aesthetic from the 2012 Dredd film.

I was never a huge fan of the converted Suzukis ridden by the Judges in that movie, so I decided to look to the comics for inspiration. It's taken me a while to paint them, but here are the first two of my Judicial Enforcer Squad – the LexDominum urban patrol bikes that I built back here.

Once these guys were finished I took the level of weathering on the riders, let's call them Yosef Phargo and Dolman Rico, and finally went back and finished the Enforcer below. It's only really a bit of powder on his leathers, and some rust on the metal areas of his boots, but I think it adds the level of detail that was previously stopping me from calling him finished.

So these three models are now complete, and my Addiction Challenge score inches ever closer to the end.

ADDICTION CHALLENGE

REMAINING: 11

*Kruenta Karoliina Arx Rotunda

Black and white, and Daark all over

I'm going to keep my comments brief on this one. That's because I want to share, in full, one of the other reasons for my fascination with Chaos Warriors. As a result there are quite a few images to get through. 

Back in the mid eighties the first Games Workshop publication I ever picked up was The Third Citadel Compendium. Not only was this magazine full of pictures of the most inspiring toys I had ever seen, but the final ten pages had something my young self was particularly blown away by.

It was a specially commissioned story, by some of the top creative talent from the galaxy's greatest comic: 2000AD (home of Judge Dredd, ABC Warriors, Rogue Trooper and a tonne of other fantastic science-fiction stories, too numerous to mention).

Writers John Wagner and Alan Grant had taken Games Workshop's fantasy Warhammer setting and infused it with everything that made 2000AD so popular: action, comedy, anarchy, a spot of vulgarity and even a lone antihero (in the style of early Dredd strips). And the whole package was beautifully, masterfully, illustrated by Brett Ewins and Jim McCarthy, working as a team to create some of the very best pages of their already high-quality, signature art style. Even Steve Potter's lettering perfectly captured the tone of the piece.

Sadly, due to a dispute over ownership rights, the story was never finished and has therefore never been reprinted or collected. So, partly as a reference for my Chaos Warrior project, and partly as the act of an adoring fan, I've decided to put all the pages together in one place.

If you were involved with this, and have a claim on the ownership, please don't sue me, it's a wonderful body of work and deserves not to be lost.

For everyone else, read on to see The Quest Of Kaleb Daark.

Whether to weather?

If you follow me on Twitter, or you caught my previous post, you may have noticed that I've started dabbling with my Warhammer 40,000 Enforcers again. My Adeptus Arbites sanctioned, Judge Dredd inspired Enforcers who police the mean streets of the hive city, Kruenta Karoliina Arx Rotunda.

I've started painting them, and have found myself tweaking the colour scheme in ways I didn't expect.

In the Judge Dredd comic, along with their red-rimmed helmets and gold shoulder pads, the Judges of Mega-City One sport several green items on their uniform – boots, gloves, knee pads, elbow pads and pouches. In the 2012 Carl Urban film they clearly felt this approach wasn't going to be gritty enough, so although they kept some of the green details, the colour was made so much darker that it was hardly noticeable in the final grade of the movie.

When I started on my troopers, I wanted them to look like the darker, almost entirely black-uniformed movie version, but decided to switch out the dark green altogether in favour of a dark tan leather colour that would probably make for a more easily identifiable texture in miniature form.

And with that I eventually got to the above stage where the test model is just about complete.

Or is he?

Originally, several years ago, when I first envisioned this project, my plan was to make my Enforcers look more worn. A little beaten up. Dusty, battered and generally in-use.

Like these guys

But now I've got this far, I'm not sure the model will really benefit from a lot of weathering. The dust might blur the already difficult to detect line between the harder body armour and the slightly softer black leather jacket and trousers. So I'm faced with a bit of a dilemma. Do I push ahead, sticking to the original plan, and run the risk of making an irreversible mistake, or just stick with what I've got, and let the weathering go the way of the green boots?

The answer is I'm just not sure yet.

ADDICTION CHALLENGE
REMAINING: 44 or 45?

Wheels of judgement

One hundred years ago, I pledged, on this blog, to build a couple of unique models. Ones that would combine a character from a film, with a vehicle from a comic, and infuse them both with a hint of WH40K flavour.

But only a mere few days into the project, I got to a stage that had me stumped. I put the fledgling models to one side, promising myself that I'd return to them soon, once I'd mulled over how to go about finishing them.

Fast forward those hundred years, and I was finally struck by the urge to complete them. In reality I was less driven by the desire to finish them that I was by the guilt of having abandoned them.

And today I think I'm finally at a place where I can share them.

Perps, jimps, futsies and stookie runners*, may I present to you the LexDominum urban patrol bike.

Although they don't look all that complicated, these bikes were a real headache to construct. I worked on them, on and off, for about two and half years, doing tiny, incremental stages every few weeks, then abandoning them for months on end. But I took a few photos along the way, so I can share some of the major leaps forward. 

Before I do that, I'll just share a quick reminder of my original brief. You can see it in full here, but quite simply it was as follows.

Start with this bike as the major ingredient...

... but add the lights from this design...

... to create something a little like this...

... then sprinkle in a hint of the armoured feel of these bikes...

... but base the whole thing on this model

This meant I was starting with two of the Space Marine Scout Bikes, which I cut at the join between the front forks and the main body of the bike.

I started by rearranging the angle and length of the front forks, using plasticard and putty...

... before smoothing off the putty and adding more plasticard to create the basic shape of the front fairing

I then added some simple detail to the reverse of the front section

The guns, rims, rivets, baggage and lights, came next, while I also brought the rider in line with the earlier troops

I bought the lights from Zinge Industries, who have an incredible range of tiny detailed parts for exactly this kind of conversion work (I think it was these ones). However, even though they seem to come in sets of five, and from looking at the photo below I clearly had at least six, I somehow didn't end up with enough to complete the job. So rather than risk interrupting my flow while I waited for a new order to arrive, I decided to cast the missing two with Instant Mold and green stuff. (I talked a bit more about that process when I created the Judges' shoulderpads here.)

Next up: repeat the previous stage on the other bike, but go for a different overall pose

Add the basic shape of a badge in plasticard

Then cut some details from Forge World brass etched eagles...

... to be glued to the front of the badge

Sculpt in the hint of some wings on the eagle badge

Then add final detail to the reverse of the bike

These two bikes finally complete the construction of my entire Judicial Enforcer Squad, a process I started back in the first post of this blog, nearly four years ago. That's slow, but its not my slowest project ever. Not by a long shot**. 

Besides, the real challenge is to see if I can get them painted a little bit quicker. So here's to hoping I can finish them before April 2023.

*For more information see over 40 years of Judge Dredd comics.
**Remind me to tell you about my converted Scout Titan at some point.