Still alive.. and making RPG character models!

It's been a few weeks of silence so I figured it was about time to show signs of (hobby) life here on the blog for the world to see!  While I haven't been a busy bee like Ashley over at the Paint it Pink blog (link), I've done a small bit during the past month.

I finally got around to some easy painting with a redo of some heroclix figs I picked up a while back for RPG characters.  One was initially for the Starfinder campaign that I'm in but I decided to go with my Krogan character instead of this Suli-jann Solarian.  The original fig is the Caiera clix model from the Planet Hulk series that I rebased and repainted relatively quickly.  I'm not entirely happy with the results though (too much wash in the armpit for example) but I've already overcoated the models and don't want to strip them completely to redo it.  The second one was a troll personal assistant character (think half bodyguard/half butler!) for use in Shadowrun.  That one came from a Hulk clix double model that I converted with a troll-like horn and a more appropriately sized 3d printed pistol.  He actually came based alongside a Red She-Hulk model that I can also convert into a Shadowrun character model as well so you may see that sometime on the blog as well.  Hopefully I've improved my eye technique since my Lt. Googely Eyes Hussar model; I really did have to make the eyes tiny in ever shrinking steps despite my gut instinct to get the result above instead of what happened before.  This is just average work and not even my best by far but it's basically a single weekend's worth of effort from start to finish (including drying time!) and more importantly completed work unlike my ever growing 3d printed pile of unpainted shame.  :)

Additionally, I printed out both of the 40k Lieutenants previewed in my last post but the Space Wolf was marred by multiple misprints.  I was testing out a new slicing program that apparently requires more manual supporting of models than I initially expected based on youtube reviews.  The Blood Angel did turn out well but I plan on redoing his loincloth icon as it wasn't extruded enough in the print unfortunately to be much of a visible detail after priming/painting.  I printed him out at a smaller traditional marine scale (32mm) so I may still assemble him and leave the revised version for a possible later full scale 40mm primaris fig.

Quarantine Kitchen Sink Update

Hello to everyone and I hope all are doing as well as possible during this pandemic.  It's been a while since I last updated the blog and initially I hoped that the extra time would lead to increased hobby progress.  Unfortunately, that hasn't panned out and the only project I've accomplished is growing my first beard.  :)

I haven't been totally comatose though so I decided to post a kitchen sink update instead of boring folks with multiple smaller ones.  My most recent project, my digital Winged Hussar (link here) was unfortunately C&D'ed by GW as apparently they claim ownership of all future grimdark space Poles.  Shortly after uploading, it disappeared from my account and it took me over a month to get a response from Thingiverse letting me know that GW had claimed my model and forced its removal.  Strangely, many of the component parts are still there as are thousands of other 40k models so I have no idea why they targeted it (along with a couple dozen others for DMCA takedown) as they included no justification.  I have to say that it put a damper on me continuing that project.  I had initially wanted to convert one of the new official Master Lazarus models to a Winged Hussar but the idea of giving them $40 plus shipping/tax is much less likely now.  I completed another conversion parts set that will likely never be uploaded and Lt. Googely Eyes will have to do for now if I ever need an RPG figure.

CBS All Access offered everyone a free month so I was able to catch up on two seasons of nuTrek.   I'd previously written up a very lengthy review of Season One of Discovery (linked here) so I wasn't particularly optimistic given that the same folks were still involved in running the show(s) and that reviews written since weren't particularly flattering.  I will neither be verbose nor include any spoilers so no worries if you haven't watched either of the recent seasons.

Picard was, as expected, a major disappointment.  Admittedly, like with the movie JJverse, they did set the expectations early on with the star stating that it would NOT be like TNG and that it would, more recently, focus on real world hot button issues like President Trump's election and the Brexit vote.  Sadly, those descriptions of the direction of the show were spot on and it was a complete mess except for one (possibly overly nostalgic) episode.  If you're a long time fan who pines for an optimistic view of the future that Star Trek used to be known for, look elsewhere.  Heck, the TNG Mirror Universe comics are probably a more optimistic and hopeful depiction of Star Trek than this show.   As for Discovery Season 2, it was a definite improvement and approaches "OK" with some actual exploration and an ensemble cast doing trekky things before it devolves yet again into a CGI schlockfest of action you can't make out while Michael Burnham saves the universe.  While I don't have any hope for Season 3 of Discovery, the Pike/Spock/Number One dynamic was a definite improvement (albeit still flawed) and the recent announcement of another spinoff show focused on them might prove the adage correct about the third time being the charm.
 

On the home 3d modelling and printing front, I've mainly focused on random RPG characters for the Starfinder campaign that I'm playing in.  I've done up multiple versions of the Krogan that I'm playing as well as a flying space monkey in armor (based on Overwatch's Winston), a small round alien mechanic/gunner (based a Mass Effect Volus with 40k bits), and a skittercommando (a Starfinder iconic race).  I haven't actually painted up any models yet as my campaign has gone virtual (and intermittent) but I do hope to at least finish a Krogan this month.

And, finally, I did finish cutting up and printing out the various parts for my 3d Heavy Gear models with some mixed results.  I resized and reproportioned both the Hunter and the Grizzly but I can't help but disagree with my initial assessment that something closer to the official models would be an improvement.  Judging them on their individual merits, I think the "chunkier" versions are better.  Overall, I also think that the Hunter XMG is better suited to home 3d printing than the Grizzly and will likely at some point paint that one up to match my army colors.

Well, that's my bimonthly update for now!  Thanks for reading and I hope to have some more progress to post at the end of the month.

State of the Blog Address (2019 in Review)

I have to say that this year passed by quickly!  It's basically a blog tradition that I go over what I did and didn't accomplish over the past 12 months and this year is yet again a bit of a mixed bag.  I'm the traditional hobby front, 2019 wasn't unfortunately much different than the prior year.  I managed to finish what I thought would be my final Winged Hussar (link here) as well as four figs for basically the same rpg character idea.  Why so many?  Well, the character changed as well as my ideas of how to portray him.   The first fig (link here) was printed on shapeways for a previous defunct campaign attempt whereas the others were done at home on my only big hobby project purchase, the Elegoo Mars 3d printer.

I had previously thought I was done with my hussar project but the upcoming release of Master Lazarus for 40k as well as a free 3d model from Artel W might convince me to dip my toes back into that pool later this year.  In the meantime, I've taken a stab at samurai inspired space marines instead with some success (link here) that I have yet to paint as well as a Space Wolf that at least I finished (link here).

Too big...too small...just right!

On the Star Trek front, I made a few entries to my SHIELD UP! house rules section.  While I didn't end up revising my Fasa STSTCS ship manual, I revised the existing D-15 FASA ship (link here) as well as added the Atlas dreadnought to my STA house rules (link here).  I also decided to test out a theory regarding whether you could noticeably improve prepainted heroclix minis with a quick wash and/or drybrush (link here).    Finally, I  came up with some more nuanced rules for playing STA in the Enterprise/NX era of trek (link here).  In that same update, I previewed a 3d version of my old NXL ship design which later got a test print or two (link here) but I never did more with them.  It's not alot but I suppose an optimistic way to look at it would be that I put out at least quarterly trek updates if averaged out for the year.  I don't have any ambitious plans for the trek side of the hobby but I do hope to revisit printing my NXL design now that I'm more experienced with supporting prints as well as coming out with a short Klingon D-7 update for FASA.  I generally need a direct motivation for my hobby work and the lack of any real chance of playing anything trek related locally unfortunately hampers that.

 Cactus Trek!

Ending the recap on a positive note, I was finally able to find a relatively stable rpg group this past year.  While I'm not enamored particularly with the ruleset (review link), it works for me as a player and we've been managing a monthly game since the summer.  It's because of that campaign that I've been focused more on my Krogan miniatures than the others.  I'd love it if we were playing longer than the 3-4 hours per session we average as well as playing every two weeks as originally planned instead of monthly but it's a good group of easy going players and I'm glad to have them.  With that, my yearly TL;DR hobby therapy session post is over and I wish everyone a happy 2020!

 

Another upcoming Krogan RPG character mini!

Adventures in Cloning Krogans

After getting my first 3d printer last week and doing an initial pair of test prints last weekend, I've been trying to test out some additional models at a higher level of detail (20 micron layer height instead of 50) in the days since.  I decided to go with three models that I tweaked myself from existing models for my first build plate.  Included was the Star Trek NX refit that I previewed a few weeks earlier, a purpose built for 3d printing 40k model of a Sister of Battle that I converted a chainsword onto, and another custom posed Krogan that I built as a possible RPG character model for a Starfinder campaign I just joined.  I used the automated standard supports to build a scaffolding around the models and added some manual supports for small islands that were missed.  I did a fairly thorough job since I've been watching youtube channels for months detailing failed models and they did indeed print entirely and were well bonded to the build plate.  Mission accomplished!... or so I thought.

The front/top of each model was quite nice and I was incredibly impressed with the level of detail.  Individual teeth on the chainsword printed perfectly and even portholes on the starship are visible.  The only misprint I found was the sagging barrel on the Krogan's gatling laser club and the deflector on the NXR bonded with the secondary hull. Unfortunately, the undersides of the models were much worse as I saw when I removed the supports.

Each model is a example of a different kind of error with supports.  The supports on the back of the Sister of Battle were on occasion too close to her and tiny bits of resin trapped between them bonded the two together leaving large, ugly messes resembling superglue blobs.  The amount of surface area needed to print the starship at a 45 degree angle (so as not to be taller than the other models and increase the 7 1/2 hour build time by another hour or two) meant a large amount of supports and the standard auto setting left many pips that have to be individually removed after the support itself is clipped.  The krogan was lacking any supports on the top of the gun barrel as it was printing vertically on the build plate and supposedly didn't need any but sagged for some reason around the hand.

Obviously it was time to go back to basics and rewatch any videos dealing with placement of supports.  In the next post, I'll detail what I learned, what I changed, and show some of the results.

State of the Blog Address (2018 in review)

Well, another year has gone by and so it's time for another year in review post.  I'll start with what amounted to the majority of progress on my blog... digital hobby publishing.  Starting with Star Trek tabletop gaming, I worked on over a dozen sheets under my SHIELDS UP! house rules (link here) divided up between the current Star Trek Adventures RPG by Modiphius and the classic FASA Starship Combat games.  This is where the bulk of my updates are for 2018 and, while I myself haven't tried any of them out in actual games, some other players have reported using my fan ship designs in their own campaigns.

Additionally, I tried my hand at some very basic programming and developed some custom ships (link here) for the fan made computer game version of the classic FASA game along with a tutorial for getting it all working (link here).  All in all, I'd say that I was significantly more productive in that virtual realm compared with typical tabletop hobby work albeit with almost no difference in the "games played" metric described above (excluding single player missions).

When it comes to actual hands on traditional hobby work, I frankly didn't accomplish much.  In 2018, the only miniatures that I worked on were the painted Winged Hussar pictured in the center below and another converted/built yet to be painted.  I had hoped to finish off a half painted Tau broadside suit conversion I worked on a few years ago but never got around to it. 

I hope to do better next year but realistically I said the same thing last year in my previous review so I won't hold my breath.  While I did visit the local games store a bit more in 2018 for RPG reasons, I only ended up playing a single miniatures game after an RPG session.  That definitely puts a damper on any larger hobby plans leaving me with the occasional conversion project (like my RAFM minis or Winged Hussars).  In the next month, I do plan on painting some of my 3D printed figures as part of the last phase of my review of them.

Next we have a mix of the two categories above in my Shapeways miniatures printing.  I relearned by brute force trial and error how to pose and modify existing models (although actual modelling is still far beyond my grasp) and mostly successfully printed out physical miniatures.  I did hear back from Shapeways about the misprint in my order and am awaiting my reorder of tweaked figures.  I do plan on covering the reprints as well as painting up several of the figures for use as well.  If time and budget allows, I also hope to place another later on in the year for my first ever custom starship miniatures including hopefully a ship or two featured in my SHIELDS UP! house rules.

Finally we have the miscellaneous updates.  In between the above, I've recounted my truthful experience in backing the failed Robotech Tactics miniatures kickstarter (link here), reviewed Artel W's series of boutique 40k themed miniatures (link here) as well as the Star Trek Discovery Season 1 (link here), reviewed the Starfinder RPG and my unsuccessful attempt at starting a local group (link here), and even covered the history of my blog's title (link here).

All in all that makes 26 updates for 2018 or roughly one every two weeks or so on average.  In reality, they came more in fits and spurts with May being a month without any update.  In addition to hopefully doing a bit more hands on painting in 2019, I do also hope to post a bit more regularly or, at a minimum, not completely miss any months on the blog.  As stated above, I do hope to finish off some existing miniatures on my painting table (like my 40k Tau broadside linked here as well as my recent 3D printed figs).  On the digital front, I don't see myself coming out with too many ships but I am considering publishing an updated 2019 edition of my TOS Recognition Manual (link here) if I can come up with a suitable Romulan ship to add to the roster.

I don't know if this type of review is informative to any potential readers but I do feel that it (at least temporarily) helps to focus my efforts for the upcoming months.  Regardless, see you all in a few weeks with my next 3D printing update and thanks again for reading!

Starfinder RPG and Dead Suns Campaign First Impressions

We had our first game and it was... interesting.  We played the introductory Dead Suns Part 1 adventure path by Paizo with a party of 5 players and a decent mix of races/classes/abilities (two soldiers, one operative, one envoy, and one mystic).  About the only core role/class we were missing was a technomancer i.e. space wizard equivalent.  The setting and rules are so so and what you'd expect from Golarion in space overall but the balance in the adventure path was off (even factoring out mistakes made by the GM that artificially inflated the difficulty).

First off I'll comment about the general overarching game mechanics.  They're pretty much what you'd expect from a D&D3X style system and it's easy to catch on to the basics if you're familiar with the older variants.  That said... there are many significant changes like being able to multiattack with penalties as a full round action without having to first unlock the second attack at high levels.  There are also minor changes like diagonal movement costs and magic missile not scaling with level.  For vets of multiple prior related editions, remembering whether the second diagonal costs normal or double movment (which seems to flip flop between various editions).  All in all, it's familiar and comfortable but certainly not revolutionary or groundbreaking in any way.  It's D&D3X in space for better or worse. 

The art in the books though is full color and top notch assuming you like the style (which I do).  The races introduced feel different and are most certainly not just the old fantasy tropes with a "space" adjective added in front of them.  If you do want to play those legacy fantasy races, the core rulebook does include them later on in the rules but I'm glad that they're not the focus.  Each class is unique and varies enough from the old fantasy equivalents to feel like they're their own thing. 

Unfortunately, I find the setting to be a bit of a let down despite the above.  It's basically an advancement of the old Pathfind Golarian setting which admittedly I was never a fan of it but neither was I critical of it.  There are new races and planets like I mentioned but the core setting and default start is basically just a big space station right above Golarion (or more correctly where it should be as it disappeared) and there are other planets that are just fantasy tropes in space (like the planet of space undead ruled by space lich overlords).  Maybe it's just me but I kept finding myself thinking "oh, that's just the space *fill in the blank* equivalent".  That's due in large part because of the actual Golarian/Pathfinder parts ported directly over as well as those just heavily influenced by the fantasy setting.  I would personally have preferred a completely independent setting but I recognize the obvious potential business benefit of leveraging a previous industry sales leading game (Pathfinder) for easy conversion into your new project.  While that gives the game relatively easy access to a large playerbase right out of the gate, I can't but help feel that the setting and game will suffer for it in the long run.  YMMV.

Finally we come to the Dead Suns adventure path.  In short, as an old 3.X GM and player for years, I found the balance in the adventure path to be suprisingly off but a large part of that was because of two big mistakes by the GM that inflated the difficulty unncessarily.  The first encounter after the players introduce themselves to each over is CR4 (and that's assuming you think that rating is accurate..see below).  Your first interaction before any real roleplaying with NPCs is to get your feet wet with an "Epic" difficulty level encounter for 1st level characters and presumably new players to the game.  The GM was supposed to only attack us 1/6 of the time but he must have missed that part in the setup (and combined based on common sense two encounters into one the next time). 

Regardless of his mistakes, the CR 1/2 (as in one half) street level gang thugs we were facing had the equivalent stat wise of dex 18 weapon spec and focus shooting.  No big deal, right?  Just use some social skills to beat the encounter nonviolently, right?  Yeah, they also had the equivalent of Cha 20 and full class skill rank in intimidate to boot.  Their actual stats were nothing close to that but their end bonuses for both attacks, damage, and some skills were significantly higher what was possible for us as 1st level player characters.  They were markedly better than CR1 opponents should have been let alone the CR1/2 individually they were listed as.

The GM commented that his main group had a very hard time with the scenarios as well.  I asked another Starfinder GM and he said that Paizo does that with most of the official encounters and that he personally actively encourages his player to NOT fight but find away around combat.  That wasn't an option for us in the first encounter as it was literally scripted that the shooting started right as we arrived and we were caught in the crossfire.  That trend continued throughout the game and the Deus Ex NPChinima had to save us yet again later that night in the next big encounter.

I'm willing to give the game another try (and will actually be Gm'ing next time as we convinced the GM to join us for a single game only).  Although we didn't reach 2nd level yet, I forwarded the group a "loan" of 300 xp to reach 2nd level to see if the equity between characters and published encounters is more balanced later on.  I suspect I'll still have to adjust on the fly some of the crazy bonuses down a bit though but we'll see.  All in all, at best the experience overall was mediocre although I will admit that it was nice to sit down at a table with fellow gamers and do anything for the first time in years.  I'd give the game overall 2 1/2 stars so far but the Dead Suns campaign only 2 stars due to the perceived lack of balance for a supposedly introductory 1st level adventure.