Gunbot

 Hi!

Every so often, i will take a commission for making one of my Rusty Robots and this little chap is now winging his way off to his new owner in the States:

I really pushed the boat out with this little guy, trying nee materials and techniques on him. I'm quite pleased with how he turned out and its got me kind of hankering to make some more. 

It took quite a bit of time to get him right but I'm pleaded with the end result as the effort was worth it.

Standing roughly five inches tall and made from a mixture of sculpey, greenstuff, foamclay, wire and beads and painted with acrylics, Its the first robot I've made in some time now but its good to see him come together over the course of the weeks i spent making him between work and real life shenanigans.

I'm now thinking of making some more tiny figures so i can get my Five Leagues campaign going, I've been doodling out ideas for the region of Longmyre along with the assorted denziens who make it their home so expect some updates in the not too distant future. 

Until then, All the best!

Tiny Troops: Rusty Robot Blue Tribe Pirates

 Hi!

I've been hoping to be able to get back to posting on here more regularly but as per usual work and whatnot has got in the way but over the last few weeks I've been working on making some tiny Rusty Robots and have finally got the first six finished!

The Crew of the Mean Jellybean

Thus far I've got the captain, bosun and four crew and am quite pleased with how they've turned out!

I've sculpted various rusty robots over the years ranging from massive pieces such as King Raam and the Salty Seadog next to him through to smaller ones like the first Blue Tribe bot I made about a decade ago:

More recently I've also sculpted some Red and Black Tribe bots which are closer to 28mm:

Now ideally I'd continue with this approach and end up with a full collection of rusty robots in a scale that allows for a decent amount of detail and real personality but I have come to realise I just don't have the space or time for such an undertaking at the moment so I've decided to scale down a bit to approximately 15mm scale so I have enough space to actually put together a game!

I was inspired by my tiny troops project that I've been working on sporadically which saw me create a Junkers army of surprising size for Void 1.1 as well as an assortment of vehicles and even two lances of Battletech Mechs: 

I've refined it a bit but essentially each figure is a core of sculpey with wire legs and details made from a mixture of EVA foam and paper and I was pleasantly surprised by how much detail I got into them.

I've also got a similar number of Reds under construction and plan on creating mini collections of each of the six basic tribes with one leader, a specialist and handful of basic scrapbots before moving onto expand each force with reinforcements,

Once I've got a decent selection put together I'll be trying to play out a game or two, possibly using Planet 28, Stargrave or Star Mogul as each is a small skirmish at heart! 

My plan is to create enough scenery to fill a pinboard size gaming table. I'd far prefer my old 3'x3' table but I don't have access to it at the moment and creating enough scenery for such a board would be challenging to say the least, especially as storage is an issue here at Spacecow Towers. 

I'll need to see what I can get sorted over the course of the month and will post progress when I can and this simple process of creating super cheap and easy figures has got me to thinking that I may return to my Battletech and other Tiny Troops themed projects I'd been mulling over...

In the meantime, All the best!

Rusty Robot Reinforcements Arrive!

 Hi!

I've been plugging away on getting lots of my older sculpts and assorted goodies from my lead and plastic pile painted up and have finished a pair of Black Tribe Rusty Robotic minions:

First up there's an Electro Grub:

Electro Grubs are simple robots that the Black Tribe make use of a scouts and sneaks at the edges of their territory. These robots are roughly snake like with a bulky and crude head mounted atop a thick, flexible column of a body that can propel the Grub through The Scrapyard at surprising speed. While not the most impressive of robots, the Grub tends to hide itself in some shadowy terrain before launching itself at any unsuspecting foe and delivering an electric shock powerful enough to short out even the largest of robots CPU.

Second we've got a heavily armed Minion:

Minions are the most commonly encountered Black Tribe robot and come in a bewildering array of weapons and gear but are universally rubbish individually and tend to use weight of numbers to make up for its lack of individual quality. This particular specimen is equipped with a pair of Rattleguns, multiple barrel and unreliable weapons that blast out a lot of short range fire when they aren't exploding spectacularly.

Here's the gang so far:

I'm really pleased with how the project is slowly shaping up and I've got a Bully and a Brute still to paint to finish them off before moving onto some more Reds!

Reds and Blacks Rumble in The Scrapyard

I've almost got enough of the little guys painted to allow me to play a decent sized game but do want to make a few more assorted robots so I can play a Gorkamorka style skirmish with the two tribes duking it out in the depths of The Scrapyard for valuable scrap!

I've also been rummaging out some of my ever increasing pike of rulebooks and am finding myself assailed with ideas and while it can be overwhelming, its also really giving me loads of ideas I'm keen to try out!

Hopefully I'll get my remaining Zombies finished for my Rangers of Shadowdeep project finished this week as well as making some more characters for my games and have loads of other bits and bobs that I'm working through so watch this space!

Until then, All the best!

Still Alive!

 Hi!

Its been a bit busy here at Spacecow HQ over the last month or so with a combination of work, visiting relatives and a total lack of hobby time. Coupled with the fact that my gaming room, our spare room come library has a double bed in it at present, I've managed to get absolutely nothing done!

I've got two weeks holidays coming up from next week but I'm off to Wales so I won't be getting much done there either! 

I do plan on taking my sketchbook with me to get my Somewhere on the Border and Rusty Robots projects a bit of fleshing out with a load of new designs, background and general gubbins planned!

For Somewhere on the Border, I have the Boar Company nearly complete with only a few odds and ends to sculpt and paint to give me the complete force but I do need to sculpt lots of other denizens of Aeroth including some random encounters for my adventurers to do battle with.

My Rusty Robots have kind of stalled with the Blue Tribe I'd been working on as the concept just didn't match the final sculpts so I'll be taking the opportunity to tweak the concept when I'm on holiday. Similarly I need to work on the other tribes, specialists, big guys and leaders for each!

I've also got some vague plans to work on my Planet 28 project as I've got a real hankering to do more for it so I may end up writing up a campaign while I'm away.

No doubt I'll get only a fraction of what I'm hoping to get done actually done but we shall see what I can actually do with two weeks of work free relaxation. I shall post an update when I get home in mid September but until then, All the best!

Lockdown 2.0 Project Log Day 15

 Hi!

Here's my next lockdown project addition, a Black Tribe Gunbot!

I actually made this guy during the last lockdown but didn't get around to painting him so it's really good to get him done and dusted.

I've got two more Black Tribe to paint up but once they're done, I'll need to get the Blue Tribe painted and try to get the remaining Green, Yellow and White Tribes done too. 

In other news, I'm currently working on painting up another Elven Voltigeur for Flintloque and have made a 6mm scale board for small scale fantasy gaming to give my tiny Goblin Wolfriders something to fight over!

I'll have to see what I can get finished for tomorrow but if all else fails, I have several other Rulebook Reviews in the works so can post up one of them instead.

In the meantime, All the best!

Lockdown 2.0 Project Log Day 1

 Hi!

Well it's the first day of the new lockdown here in sunny Scotland and I thought I'd best start it off by going through my lockdown challenge and generally doing a bit of tidying of the assortment of disparate blogs that I have found myself collecting over the years.

My initial challenge has been to paint my way through the contents of the original Flintloque boxed set, namely six Orcs of Sharke's Rifles and the nine members of a unit of Ferach Elf Voltigeurs (sadly I'm currently missing one of the original ten but if all goes well, I hope to get the last remaining sculpt from Alternative Armies!

I've got a couple of Voltigeurs just about ready and will post up the first of them tomorrow but my new enforced lockdown has got me expanding my plans for 2021. With this in mind, I've refreshed my old blogs with some vague muttering about my hopes for getting an assortment of bits and bobs done for each.

I know folks get irked by my tendency of having multiple blogs but I just can't bring myself to clutter up this blog more than it is already so will be using Tales from Farpoint for my lockdown project log and to showcase completed gubbins while each mini project has it's own dedicated space.

I hope to post here daily during the lockdown and each of my other blogs once a week with a bit of a progress report!

Tomorrow should see some Flintloque gubbins and some Leviathan ponderings so watch this space!

In the meantime, All the best!

Seasons Greetings from Farpoint!

 Hi!

Well Christmas is almost upon us and following that a three week enforced holiday for me!

Before the festive shenanigans begin, I wanted to take a quick peek back at the year to see how I got on with all things hobby related.

First off, to date I've painted 139 assorted figures, scenic gubbins and whatnot in every scale from 2mm to 28mm and above so from that perspective it's been a productive year, primarily driven by my three months of lockdown in March to June. This is an improvement over 2019's total which is fab!

I'm really pleased to have made a bit of a bash at my Rusty Robots project that has been well and truly on the back burner for almost a decade now as work has kind of taken up much of my spare time so it was really great to finally see some figures and scenery make an appearance.

I also got some Mechs built to play some Battletech using my own SD sort of style which was fun but ultimately frustrated by a series of badly sculpted infantry that required chucking. Hopefully I'll get back to them in the future and flesh out a couple of lances...

Meanwhile, my fantasy Land Ironclads trundled slowly on and I pretty much finished my Dwarves for the time being and introduced the Vongola City State to the selection of forces I can field. I really need to take a week or two to finish everything up for this project but have as usual galavanted off on a tangent more than once!

Speaking of which, my War of Ashes saw me add a bunch of Kuld but I still need to make more of the voracious little eating machines to give me a proper force. Maybe I'll get around to it during this lockdown if I get my other challenges done first...

I also managed to paint up the entirety of the original Deadloque box for Flintloque, something I never thought I'd do as I'm fairly sure that in the 28 years I've been gaming I've never completed any boxed set before!

Next up, looking at my gaming progress, I managed to play 21 games using six different systems which is also an improvement on last year but it felt like I could have done more, especially if I could just knuckle down and finish off a force or two rather than gadding off on a tangent every five minutes.

This brings me to my mini plan for 2021!

First and foremost, I really, really want to get my Rusty Robots done so plan to concentrate on getting a starter gang for each of the tribes done and a bunch of random civilians, scenery and denizens of The Scrapyard made.

The plan is to get sculpting whenever I can to build as many of the little guys as I can and then paint whatever of them catch my fancy so that I don't bore myself with doing all the same stuff. This may mean a bit of an eclectic mix of odds and sods making an appearance but it can't be helped and if I can put together enough stuff, I can start playing some games which will see rumbles in The Scrapyard making their appearance here which should be fun!

I forsee needing to invest in a hot wire cutter soon to make lots of blocky terrain but it will come in handy for lots of other bits and bobs when I get around to my other plans for the year...

I've got so many things I'd like to do given the time and I figure a three week lockdown will give me a chance to make a bit of a start on them!

It's not all going to be Rusty Robots though this year! I also have set myself the challenge of painting my way through the original Flintloque box too so will need to get cracking to get the 15 figures done and if possible try out a game or two!

Back in the mid 90's after leaving the GW hobby, I stumbled upon Flintloque and have a hankering to paint some more of the chunky little chaps so will be making a bit of an attempt to start putting the collection back together. My buying approach back then was to pick up whatever blister pack appealed to me so I had a very mixed collection with Elves, Goblins, Orcs, Dwarves and all manner of odds and ends but it somehow fitted with the game and I am keen to revisit the joys of Valon and it's assorted races. 

The need to play Flintloque isn't as great as to just enjoy the experience of painting the figures and every so often plonk what I have on the table for a bit of a RPG lite sort of scenario driven wander around the edges of the wars of Mordred.

Lastly (for now at least!) there's Leviathan. It's a project I've repeatedly picked up and put down over the years but never really stopped obsessing about so I figure I'd best use 2021 to finally get it out of my system and work on a monthly challenge I've set myself. I want to paint at least one figure, be it resin or metal from the range every month and see what I end 2021 with. 

I'm not sure if I can bring myself to use the metal figures from the range as they are massive but after painting the resin Dragonbane rider and being pleasantly surprised by just how good it was, I may try using an entirely original figure approach (for the most part as the old Heartbreaker range has lots of goodies that complement the concept!). 

I've no idea how things will turn out with all these options but I look forward to having a go and who knows, the Boar Company may yet ride again with new allies, old foes and more sculpts to boot!

Folks may notice that smaller scale projects are absent from my 2021 plan at the moment. I have found myself somewhat indifferent to 15mm and 6mm for a while now but feel that if the right inspiration struck, I'd have a great time painting those scales again but we shall have to see what next year brings. 

I'll be taking Christmas day off and then starting up my Lockdown 2.0 daily project log for at least three weeks and will see how I get on.

In the meantime, All the best and hope you and yours have a fantastic Christmas and wonderful new year!

Richard

Inktober 2020

Hi!

I've spent October taking part in the yearly Inktober challenge which has been rather fun!

They've been a great way to get some drawing done which has in turn given me some visual inspiration for my Rusty Robots project and I've really enjoyed taking part.

If folks are interested, please feel free to take a peek at SPACE COW SMITH PRODUCTIONS.

Following the Government's announcement of another lockdown, I'm dejectedly awaiting Scotland following suit. At present I'm hoping I'm still going to be going into work as books are more important than ever these days but if the worst happens and I'm stuck in another lockdown, I'll start up another lockdown project log with a post a day of random hobby stuff.

In the meantime, All the best!

Lockdown Day 52

Hi!

As promised, here's the first of my Black Tribe robots!

Minions

These are basic Minions, the lowliest of the Black Tribe robots and these two are unarmed too which probably doesn't improve their chances in the wilds of The Scrapyard but does make them handy at picking up scrap and lugging it off to their base!

I had originally planned on painting them just black but liked the way the rusty off white looked in contrast to their black paint so went with it.

I've got four more to work on tomorrow and I've also base coated the first of my Kuld reinforcements and finished the first of my World of Twilight figures that I picked up recently as part of their special offer.

We shall see how I get on tomorrow with getting more of my assorted gubbins painted but I hope they turn out as well as these little guys have!

In the meantime, All the best!

Lockdown Day 51

Hi!

It's been another sculpting day here during the 51st day of the lockdown and my Blue Tribe is pretty much ready for some paint.

I've also discovered some old Green Tribe Sculpts which will be getting worked on over the next few days to finish them off but in the meantime, Here's a Green Tribe bot doodle:

Hopefully I'll get some more pics up tomorrow of some actual painted miniatures do watch this space and All the best!

Lockdown Day 50

Hi!

Here's the progress I've made on my Blue Tribe robots and a few more odds and ends that I have been working on:

Powder Monkey and Mate

The Blues have proved to be a wee bit of a challenge to sculpt as trying to figure out how to make decent hats and Greenstuff hasn't cut the mustard for the task so I've been experimenting with different methods. The Powder Monkey, A long ranged robot has a hat made from thin plasticard whilst my Mate has a sculpey hat. Both seem to work in their own way so I think they'll do for the time being. There's still a bit of work to be done on both but I'm liking the process of working on the little chaps.

Next up, here's some Buccaneers, the basic robots for the Blue tribe:

Buccaneers

 I've just got their cutlasses to do and they'll be done and dusted!

I've also rummaged out my original First Mate, Mister Gibbs:

Mister Gibbs

He originally had massive punchy fists but looking at him now, I think I'll remake them as they just looked wrong so I'll be reworking him when I get chance.

I also re-discovered my old Red Tribe sculpts and have been tweaking them and will be adding them to my Red Tribe expedition as a new class of robots as they're somewhat bigger than the current Scrapbots:

Red Tribe

I still need to finish their legs and then get them based up and I'll have even more stuff to paint!

Finally, here's the next of my Kuld for World of Ashes:

Kuld

I've got a Shuda, a short ranged fighter who can spew powerful acid considerable distances and then another four basic Kuld, including a little chap who may well be a juvenile!

I need to get the little chaps painted but I seem to be really enjoying sculpting at the moment so I think I shall just keep cracking on with it and painting when I get the chance. I'm now eying up the Yellow Tribe but will need to get some more Sculpey as I'm running low!

I've also been doodling my own version of the Battletech Mechs and will see if I can get a few built over the next few days.

With it looking like I'm not going to be back to work 'till early June, I'm keen to keep myself busy and if it means I have dozens of sculpts done, all the better!

Hopefully I'll have more gubbins painted and ready tomorrow so watch this space and All the best!