Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Oh, I do agree with you; I was just in the favorite FLGS on Saturday evening - I happen to be in the locale as I give Second Daughter a ride to work - and mentioned that I was looking for some out-of-the-ordinary stuff to use as Fiendish Devices for the Barsoomian air skiffs. Lo and behold, they had three packs of robot arms intended for a steampunk game of some sort, and these are perfect for the job. So, a sale!

I do like to support them; it's just that my needs are so specialized that it's often hard to find something that I can use...

It is a very cool castle indeed. I like the LEDs for the interior lights.

This why I started scratch building a few years ago, and now I'm trying my hand at sculpting. I simply cannot find the minis I want, and not all proxies are good alternatives. Also, the only real game stores in the city are major treks down town which I prefer not to make unless I have to.

Shemek.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Quick shot from the bench - more tonight!

I'm having trouble loading the photo - I'll try something else, later on...

Attachment 184

Oooo! It worked!

Sorry about the mess on the workbench - I'm trying to sort out all of the figures that I'm never going to use (and thus will not get painted) as well as trying to get a few things done.

These troopers are plastic toy soldiers that an old friend gave me years ago, and which have been sitting in a work tray for far too long. Now, I have something for my Ssu with blasters to shoot at...

I like these guys. What scale are they?

Shemek.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Good points, here. I am leaning in the direction of simply letting the thing speak for itself - it's the way Phil described it, which is good enough for me. It has enough dings and dents to give it some surface detail, as well as a look of some antiquity.

I love the Bare Metal stuff! Very easy to apply, and the results when you use the 'grain' in different directions are spectacular. I keep a pile of it 'in stock', as it's just way too useful! My gut feeling is that to use this stuff to best effect I need to get a second sphere, fill it, undercoat it, and then make templates with which to cut the foil to shape. I think it'd be a really nice model, but I'm also thinking that it would spend all of it's lifetime on the shelf unless I made Dire Warnings to players about handling the thing.

The current car is done with my last remaining can of very vintage Testor's 'Metallic Silver' spray paint. I kind of wanted to do this car with only what we would have had available back in the day (in the late 1970s and early 1980s) so as to give that 'period' look; I dunno - I have been kind of getting into a mindset of 'What would we have done if we'd done this back in..." and doing more and more 'vintage'-looking projects in the same style that Phil liked to do. It's like the Underworld tiles I recently did; Phil used to regale us with stories of how when he was a mere child, he'd beg cigarette papers off of all the adults so that he could use them in his model temples and palaces that he made. Hence my using the paper, glued to the MDF flats.

I think I'll leave this first car the way it is; sort of 'used', but 'vintage'. Does any of that make sense?

This makes perfect sense to me. I think I might have a can of that in my stash as well. I know if you use a shinier base or prime coat, like black, before you spray the silver you can really give it a good buffing with an old T-Shirt and get a good shine. If you can get some of the old Testors Metallisers in a spray can (I really like Burnt Metal, and Jet Exhaust) the achievable results with a little elbow grease and a rag are out of this world.
Can't wait to see both of them, if you do a second one. You mentioned in an earlier post that you used wood filler as base to hold the paint. How do you apply it on to the sphere? Do you find that you have to do much sanding in order to smooth it out? I haven't had much luck with this stuff in the past so I'm curious how you use it.

Just a quick general question, or two, or three. Asen used the Term OSR in a recent post. What exactly does this mean? Also, what is meant by a sandbox adventure? I know these are stupid questions, but it would seem a lot of new terminology has crept into the RPG lexicon since "my day", and not all the terms' meanings are self explanatory.

Shemek

Originally Posted by Hermes Serpent

Old School Rules or Old School Renaissence are the two usual readings of OSR and relate to rulesets that are a clone of, or very similar in mechanics to, the OD&D three books set of the 1e AD&D books.

Sandbox is a term used to denote a setting where the action is driven by players who are free to roam around and pick whatever hooks take their fancy rather than a raiilroaded plot line with little or no player input..

Thank you for the clarification. My group and I never made it past 1st Ed.AD&D, and EPT. What would be categorised as I wonder?
I guess all of my games are Sandbox. I never understood forcing players to follow a specific, set path, plot line. This was my biggest beef with the old Dragonlance modules. Great story/background but the modules were ruined by their dogmatic approach to how they had to be played with the pregenerated characters. Boring, IMO.

Shemek

Originally Posted by Greentongue

As you invest time and money in props and the extensive details of each NPCs and items in a planned adventure, there is a urge to not let all that go to waste as characters SQUIRREL!!
and run off in a completely different direction. With some rule sets it is easier to generate the details on demand but reusing props can be a challenge.

While I like characters to drive the adventure (keeps it interesting), I can feel for the people with a lot invested in their pre-planned adventure|s.
=

I get it, and I'm not saying that you are "wrong", but for me, personally, as a DM I would sooner let the characters go where they will. This is not to say I haven't resorted to the occasional" nudge" now or then, it's just that I have always had a back story in my games that will continue to develop regardless of what the characters choose to do. It just didn't ever make sense for me to game in a world, or to use modules/scenarios that were bereft of independent choice. I think this was partially discussed a while back in an earlier post so no need to rehash all over again. Besides, NPC's and props can always be recycled and used by in an another encounter, as is or modified.

Shemek.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

These troopers are plastic toy soldiers that an old friend gave me years ago, and which have been sitting in a work tray for far too long. Now, I have something for my Ssu with blasters to shoot at...

Astonishing what's been mass produced in plastic, isn't it?

Also, THAT is the game I want to play in!

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

This why I started scratch building a few years ago, and now I'm trying my hand at sculpting. I simply cannot find the minis I want, and not all proxies are good alternatives. Also, the only real game stores in the city are major treks down town which I prefer not to make unless I have to.

Shemek.

Agreed about not being able to find just the right figure. I've been doing a lot of conversions over the years, mixing and matching parts to get the right look for the figure. I really miss the old Lamming line of medievals - they had different heads, so you could customize your helmets and crests with no problems. Open hands, too, and I used I don't know how many of their line of weapons over the years - Chirine's mace is a Lamming miniature, with a bit of drilling on the Old Guard casting. Used to use a lot of the Tekumel figures in various ways; we didn't have very many figures that could be used for PCs, so I have to make them out of either the Old Guard or Ral Partha figures. These days, I tend to use Crocodile Games' 'Wargods' figures, when I can get them, or some of the inexpensive Old Glory 'Ancients'. It all depends on what I can find, and how well it matched the artwork I have on file. Usually, I can get pretty close.

Understood about the trip into town; The Source is a good half-hour / forty-five minutes away from the house, and a bit of a haul given the traffic.