Leaking Barrel

I'm inordinately pleased with this piece of terrain for one reason: the radiation sticker on the barrel is perfectly legible, and only took me one try to accomplish. I'm getting better at dry brushing. 
 

In the Dread Tomb of Arkadth

A pair of pillars painted to look slimy and ancient, reeking of filth and corruption. I think I captured the effect I was going for. 
 

Rusty Lockers

Not the most exciting or difficult painting exercise, but hopefully these bits will make some Vault I build in the future more immersive. 
 

The Swab

On Wednesday, I was so exhausted that I called in sick. On Thursday, I worked half the day and felt myself passing out again, so I called in sick for the rest of the day. On Friday I was even more exhausted, so I called in sick again, much to my aggravation and embarrassment. 

I bowed to pressure and went for a COVID-19 test today. I waited in line for one excruciating hour--normally not a big deal, but I was so tired that the short wait became a true test of my drastically reduced endurance. 

Eventually, I was escorted to a nurse. She asked about my symptoms, told me to tilt my head back, and gently rammed a Q-Tip to the hilt of my right nostril, tickling my brain. "EAUUUGGAHHHH!" I wailed, breaking my own promise not to scream. I apologized profusely as blood oozed from my nose (or at least I was certain blood must be oozing from my nose), but the nurse was unperturbed. "You'll get your results in two or three days," she called as I staggered toward the exit. 

So that was today. 

Unpainting

These two fellows are coursers, antagonists from the Fallout universe. These guys were cast in translucent resin to suggest they're using Stealth Boys--Fallout's cloaking technology--to be invisible. 

I painted the bases, of course, but I asked some friends if I should do anything more to the figures themselves. There were some excellent suggestions, and I actually tried a light ink wash to bring out some details--but I quickly rinsed it off, preferring the original look. The ink wash just muddied the waters, as it were, and I was too lazy to try the other suggestion I really liked--adding little footprints to the bases. 
 

Forgotten Gods

I painted this nifty ruined temple set a few days ago. It was Sean's idea to make the pillars look like marble by drawing dark streaks on them. I was intimidated by the idea but forged ahead anyway, and while the results are far from perfect, I appreciated the practice and I think even this crude effort looks a bit better than pure white statuary. 
 

They Still Live

For a while I thought I'd lost my "CONSUME" candy wrapper, but I unearthed it a few days ago and made a companion sign for OBEY. 
 

Nuka Ray

Here's another in my series of "cheap Fallout kids' toys repainted and re-purposed as 28mm-scale 3D road signs or oversized novelty tourist attractions." This one is a Nuka-Cola bottle ray gun. 
 

Welcome to Grognax

Here's another sign I made from a cheap plastic Fallout toy. First, I painted the axe in traditional axe colours; I painted its supports silver to make them look like steel pillars. I applied earth-like technical paint to the base to look like ground and added some plants. Finally, I painted "GROGNAX" onto a leftover rectangular piece of plastic from another terrain kit. Thus I created a welcome sign for Grognax, a small community of wastelanders or raiders who are fans of Grognak the Barbarian. 
 

Nuka-Cola 3D Sign

I found a small assortment of cheap Fallout toys done in "army men" style--that is, a set of monochromatic figurines. This Nuka-Cola bottle was molded in obnoxious pink. Most of my games are played at scales of 28 to 32 mm, so this bottle is far too large to serve as an actual bottled beverage. So instead it will serve as a large, three-dimensional sign. You might find it at a bottling plant or grocery store. 

Painting was pretty simple this time; a coat of black for the bottle, a coat of red for the base, logo background, and bottlecap, some drybrushed silver for weathering, and drybrushed white for the Nuka-Cola logo. 
 

Treasure Pile

I painted a treasure pile, which was mostly a matter of selecting a trio of gold, bronze, and silver metallic paints, painting most of the coins and bars gold and adding the silver and bronze for variation, painting the chest brown, weapons silver, and then adding an ink wash to better define the loot. 
 

A Chilling Inversion

I've painted another ice machine! This time, I reversed the colour scheme and swapped out white for silver. 
 

Sirona the Blessed

Here's another miniature designed by me on HeroForge, 3D-printed by Jeff, and then painted by me. This is Sirona, my current character in the other biweekly Dungeons and Dragons game I participate in. I originally started out as a huge, muscular barbarian, but he was killed in an ambush very early on in the game, helping to save the town of Greenest from dragon cultists. So I chose Sirona, a Greenest native and cleric of the goddess Chauntea.

Chauntia is a goddess of agriculture, so I painted her cleric in tones of gold and earth to represent soil and grain. 

Saqib the Melodious

Here's Saqib, designed by me on HeroForge, 3D-printed by Jeff, and painted by yours truly. Saqib is a bard in the Pitts-Woods-Fitz D&D campaign. 

Rolling Right Along

 

Four London housemates are roller skaters, and all of their friends are roller skaters. In fact, judging by what we see in this film, everyone in London roller skates, cycles, or uses scooters. There are vehicles in the streets, but we only see them moving during a couple of stop-motion night montages to show the passage of time. 

In this strange (but presumably healthier) alternate reality, a rogue roller skater is killing other roller skaters, all while killer and victim are roller skating. The four housemates know all of the victims personally, and indeed one, redheaded hacker Hugh, is a direct witness to the killing of a roller skater friend and captures part of the killing on out-of-focus video. But the police seem at first uninterested in the crime spree, and then, when presented with evidence that points to a revenge killing motive (the killer was prevented from robbing a convenience store by do-gooder roller skaters), they claim outright that the killer is "too fast" for them, even though the police, presumably, have vehicles. Maybe they can only use them during montages. 

At first the housemates' hunt for the killer is ad hoc and disorganized. A skater spots the killer and calls the housemates (because everyone seems to know everyone) and gives chase, only to give up when the killer flashes a knife--a realistic, if unintentionally hilarious, outcome. 

At one point, a young woman is roller skating through a graveyard. The killer, also on roller skates as always, stalks her. Tension builds as she tries to skate out of range of the creepy killer. She skates right into a friend of hers (also on roller skates) and yells "You scared me!" The killer skates away. What a missed opportunity for the potential victim to say "I feel like someone just roller skated over my
grave . . ." 

Eventually there's another montage as the housemates call in all of their many, many roller skating pals to form a (never formally named) Roller Squad. Hugh uses his hacking skills and London's surveillance cameras to create a tracking system designed to lead Roller Squad members to the killer. 

All of this is played completely straight, and the actors give it their all being entirely earnest about this ludicrous scenario. In fact, the film is at its worst when it actively tries to be funny, with lame jokes about misplaced recycling and "Can you say that in English?" complaints about technobabble. 

Interestingly, all of the murders are pantomimed and bloodless, a strange artistic choice. Surely blood bags aren't that expensive, are they? 

There's a romantic subplot involving Sophie, one of the housemates, and Leo, a skater who happens to be the only one potentially fast enough to catch the killer, but it's utterly superfluous, with dramatic developments that come out of nowhere and distract from the film's main story. 

The dramatic crosswalk finale is utter madness. Armed only with a mop, frying pan, and roller skates worn on the hands like boxing gloves, three of the housemates await the arrival of the killer, being herded toward them by Leo. But fate steps in at the last second, and one of the only moving vehicles in the film runs over the killer as he skates out of a blind alley. Is this some kind of attempt at dramatic irony? I guess it must be, but the point seems to have skated right over my head.  

All that said, the performances are decent if utilitarian, and the direction, editing, and cinematography competent if pedestrian. For a low-budget movie of the sort you'd find going direct-to-VHS in the 80s, production quality is actually pretty decent. 

I think the film could have been just a bit stranger, and a bit more worthwhile, had the creators taken the trouble to edit out or reshoot the few scenes where you can see people walking or using vehicles. That would have made the film feel like some kind of strange art-nouveau science fiction piece instead of, well, something thrown together by some friends with screenwriting software and an iPhone. 

In other words, it can't compare to seminal roller skating films such as Roller Blade Seven or its sequels and remakes, but it manages to barely skate by as a way to pass the time for 90 minutes or so.  

The Sagan

Jeff 3D-printed this 28mm-scale Type 6 shuttle, as seen on Star Trek: The Next Generation. The paint job looks a bit messy close up, partially because you can make out the print lines and also because the Screaming Skull paint I used for the shuttle body is rather lumpy, defeating my efforts to paint multiple very light coats. On this side of the shuttle, you can see that I used weathering pencils to write in the shuttle name and registration by hand.

On this side of the model, I painted "1701-D" using a very fine brush. I think the pencil was the better approach. 

The tinier the type, the greater the challenge in making it legible. 

Keen observers will see that I didn't even attempt to add the red pinstripes on the port and starboard sides that contain the shuttle number and parent ship name indica, nor the tiny Starfleet delta. If I can find proper decals at this scale, I'll add those pinstripes and replace my clumsy lettering on other parts of the ship. 

A Pink Panther

Jeff generously 3D printed this Panther mech for a tabletop game we might play at Gaming & Guinness--if indeed G&G moves forward this year, which is slightly up in the air thanks to the spread of the new Delta variant of COVID-19. 

I tried to make this mech look like it's seen some action over a long period of service. So I added some rust and metallic silver paint to take some of the shine off the original neon pink paint job. (Pink Panther...get it?) 

As for the base, I painted it to look like stretch of road to give some idea of the scale of these mechs. 

Yet Another Junk Barricade

I found yet another junk barricade yesterday and promptly painted it. This time around I didn't add any flock. 

Here's the rather spartan back end. 

 

Two More Junk Barricades

I have a lot of fun painting and accessorizing these junk barricades for Fallout: Wasteland Warfare. Here's one of the latest.

Here's the other side. I love how the Nuln Oil wash creates depth in the faux wood grain. 

Here's a smaller junk barricade. 

And its back side. Again, that wood grain, wow. And I like how the stack of cinder blocks turned out, too. 

A Nice Ice Machine

Here's a 28mm-scale ice machine from the Fallout: Wasteland Warfare line of resin terrain. Because ice machines can be found both today and presumably in the post-apocalyptic future, I decided to avoid too much overt weathering on this particular model. This way, I can use the piece in modern settings or in the more dilapidated world of Fallout. 
 

Nuka-Cola Vending Machine

Here's a Nuka-Cola vending machine I painted for Fallout: Wasteland Warfare. 

 

Fallout Fridges

Here we have a pair of ancient post-apocalyptic refrigerators. Inspired by my 1970s childhood, I have painted one Puke Yellow and the other Bile Green. The weathering on the yellow fridge is more obvious in this photo. 

I'm starting to get the hang of how to paint complex surfaces such as this. I now paint the deepest parts first, not worrying too much about spillover, then dry brush the raised surfaces. This seems to work fairly well. 

Fallout Dumpster

Presumably, a nuclear wasteland would be covered in even more garbage than today's civilization. Luckily, dumpsters like this are abundant in the Fallout games, and here's one I recently painted for Fallout: Wasteland Warfare. It's probably a little too pristine for Fallout, so I might weather it a little more. 
 

Deathclaw

 

Today I painted a deathclaw, one of the mutant monsters found in Fallout: Wasteland Warfare and the other Fallout games. This is the first piece I've painted from the Fallout: Wasteland Warfare core box, which came with plastic pieces rather than resin. But even though plastic is supposed to be less detailed than resin, I still think this is a pretty nice sculpt with decent detail.

I painted this deathclaw in fairly muted earth tones, with a sepia wash. I wanted it to look leathery and organic, and I think it mostly works. 

My impromptu lighting setup foiled my attempts to get a decent shot of the front of the deathclaw, so you can't really see the details on the underside. 

Steve and Jaime On the Run

Here's a 28mm-scale bionic couple out for a leisurely 60 mph (100 km/h) run. These two are messier than I was hoping for, and the skin tone looks quite zombie-like. Maybe one more thin coat of flesh tone? 
 

Mushrooms of Vilna

Angry Reflections

Bloodied Barricades

Here we have a trio of barricades that have seen their share of weathering and bloody violence. 

Sometimes I prefer the paint jobs of the back of my models. In this case, I think the blood spatters are more realistic. 

Red Corvega

Little red Corvega...baby you're much too mega...

Here's another Corvega miniature for Fallout: Wasteland Warfare. This time around I didn't add an ink wash and instead used weathering pencils to add various rust, smoke, and paint-fading effects. 

The radioactive centuries have taken their toll. 

Yellow Corvega

Here's an abandoned, centuries-old Corvega, a piece of terrain for Fallout: Wasteland Warfare. I think this time I went overboard with the grime and failed to add sufficient weathering. Luckily I have another Corvega to experiment with. 

 

Super Mutant Behemoth

I just painted this Super Mutant Behemoth for the Fallout: Wasteland Warfare miniatures skirmish game. He's a pretty intimidating fellow. I'm very happy because I think I successfully gave this brute some natural-looking variation in skin colour, and I think I managed the same effect on his diaper, his arm rags, and the shopping cart slung over his back.