My Bi-Plane Boast

As I mentioned in my intro to this blog. I started making my own minis with WWI airplanes. This isn't the full truth. There were a couple of things I had carved previous to the planes, but I'll talk about those elsewhere. But it was in carving the planes that I started to devote time to carving and miniatures. After a bit of background, I will introduce you to some of my planes.

As I was browsing BGG, I came across an interesting-looking game. It was a WW1 flight combat game with high ratings from users. It was also entirely a DIY project as one is only supplied the rules, the rest of the game is up to the one who wants to play. It was called Canvas Eagles.

My first play was with one of my brothers using paper plane cut-outs from Junior General and a star field hex map from my copy of Renegade Legion: Leviathan. It was a one-on-one game which we played to a draw - we ran out of gas. Still liking the concept after playing, I dove into carving models and getting ideas for a board.

To make a long story short (maybe I can tell the long story some other time), I ended up halting progress on Canvas Eagles to focus on Wings of War(/Glory) instead, since it has been a lot easier to get to the table and I can still use the planes I have carved.

On to images. I would have uploaded more, but I'd have to sift through folders trying to remember where they are. One might notice a lack of propellers. I just haven't got around to it and I'm not too worried if I don't.

I started with a pair of Albatross D.IIIs. Only the fuselage was carved from wood for each model, the rest was cereal-box cardboard. While they turned out okay, I have since begun upgrades to wooden wings and I am contemplating forming metal landing gear somehow. One I painted red because every WW1 set needs a Red Baron and he mainly flew the Albatrosses! Besides, I think they are pretty planes too. However, there seems to be a number of variation in the colour schemes M. von Richtofen used on his planes, so I decided not to follow any of them and do a simple red fuselage with tan wings. This way it could be Richtofen or not.

Albatross D.III: The Red Baron? Cardboard wings are ok, for a while.

I served part of my LDS mission in Brussels, Belgium, so I wanted to give a nod to the Belgians. After a bit of research, a pair of Hanriot HD1s came next. A blue one for Willy Coppens (pictured) and one green with tan wings for a generic pilot. This image is taken post-upgrade to wooden wings and landing gear, but I still glued cardboard wheels on, which have now come off.

Hanriot HD1: a little darker blue than Coppens' plane.

Two Phalz D.IIIs followed. Chosen merely because I liked the paint jobs on some images found on the Internet one day.

Two Phalz D.IIIs; the black insignia were an experiment with using Sharpie instead of paint.

 
Next came four Neiuport 17s. No real influence beyond having watched Flyboys a little bit before. I researched pilots who flew the 17s and decided on painting one up for Billy Bishop (pictured) and a second for Charles Nungesser. The other two I made generic French planes.

Neiuport 17s painted as Charles Nungesser (top) and Billy Bishop (bottom).

Continuing on the Flyboys influence, three Fokker Dr.Is. One black one (pictured), similar to the antagonist of the movie, and one painted up like Lothar von Richtofen's plane (would have been better for a picture). The third is unpainted save for an orange tail section, having been damaged and needing repair.

Fokker Dr.I

I don't remember where in the chronology of this list the DH-9 goes, I just know it was completed before the following two entries and a Gotha bomber. But the DH-9 is one of my favourites from my second generation of plane carvings.

Airco DH-9

Generations? Yes. The Albatrosses and Hanriots had cardboard wings to start. Cardboard didn't seem to like staying glued to the wood, especially after painting. I needed to make a change to how I was doing things. My second generation planes are those with which I avoided using cardboard. The Gotha bomber (of which I currently can't seem to find the pictures I took) will be the last of the second generation as I made another sweeping change, which may be somewhat visible in the next two images; I started rounding the wings so they look more like airplane wings than lengths of 2x10s. And what a difference that made!

Both of these planes I painted at the same time. So without further ado:

A SPAD XIII with markings inspired by one of the many pictures that came up in a Google image search.

SPAD XIII: Could be one of the Lafayette Escadrille!

Then a Halberstadt CLII. With the specs made up for it by a Wings of War/Glory fan, this is a virtually unbeatable plane so far in the games I've played with or against it. That aspect pretty much lines up with the information I've been able to find on it: a two-seater designed to perform like a fighter plane.

Halberstadt CL.II

In early 2014 things got busy and I wandered into other interests, like space ships, and I haven't carved any planes since. Though I do know that the next one I do will be a Sopwith Camel. Why? Because it's the only one I have need in order to cover all the maneuvre decks available in the Wings of War game I have.

Getting my feet wet: my first homemade minis

Although my brothers and I made up and built our own games in our youth, I don't remember ever making our own minis for them. If they involved minis at all, we used what we already had: Lego figures, plastic soldiers, Micro Machines. I believe my first set of scratch-built game miniatures were more recently produced than some time in my teens.

Carving boats was something I did do in my teens, along with a number of other things that are usually categorized as crafts, so it isn't a big leap for me to produce my own game pieces. Maybe the only wonder is why I didn't start earlier. I guess I just needed a push from somewhere and it never came in my youth because what I had then for gaming was always good enough. That and I started spending a lot of time on video games.

So what was the push? It was the debut of the Ticket to Ride expansion, Alvin and Dexter. The expansion adds a Godzilla-like character (Dexter) and an alien character (Alvin) to the usual Ticket to Ride play. Basically, the game starts with each of the monsters on a randomly selected city. No routes may be claimed while a city is occupied by a monster, but players may pay matching cards to move a monster to a different city. I didn't know if I would like it and I didn't want to spend $25+ to find out (sorry DoW). Good thing too because we've only played the expansion once since I carved the pieces and I think that they have recently been commandeered by my children.

So here are my first homemade minis! Both are roughly 2" high, carved from a bit of waste lumber and painted using Testor's enamel paints that I picked up for free through a Kijiji add.

Alien spaceship. I carved this one first, I didn't feel like my skill
 set  extended to carving life forms at the time.

Because it had been a while, I thought the UFO would provide a good re-starting point. I think it turned out pretty good. There isn't much to do with a saucer to make it more dramatic, but I tried to shape the base it's on and paint it to look like the light of some kind of "abduction ray". The fact that the wood grain shows through the yellow gives it the look of having a kind of spiralled energy flow.

Mini-giant-dino-monster looking for something
 to destroy. So far the only creature I've carved.

Next, my beginner's try on a mini-giant-lizard. Appearing more like a dinosaur than a fearsome Godzilla, I still like the way it turned out. Again, not as dramatic as a professional might produce, but who needs that. I adapted a template I found for a simple bear carving. What she lacks in pizazz, she makes up for in stability on a game board.

It was while I was carving the lizard-beast that I got a set of Dremel bits for wood carving, which was good to use for the areas that were too hard to leave a smooth surface using my knives.

So far, my "Faux Dexter" is my only attempt at carving any kind of animal-type thing. I've been thinking about doing people, but I haven't taken that plunge yet.

My First Time with "Clobberin' Time"

**First published March 31, 2014**

In other news, I tried out a game with my daughter. It's called Clobberin' Time and is being developed by Kaptain Kobold of the blog Stronghold Rebuilt. It's a fairly simple game of super hero/villain combat. To paraphrase the introduction: Forget the back stories and personal internal struggles of the characters, this game is all about the battles they have with each other!

My daughter is four. More than anything, this was probably a test of attention span. I greatly simplified the game while playing, having chosen special abilities for the characters, but ignoring them most of the time.

We built a city. In this city was the Strawberry Shortcake Smoothie Blender of Happiness and Good-will (SSSmoBloHaGoo), which in her words "helped people to be happy and nice to everyone." Somehow, the villain, Spud (some kind of pointy-toothed tuber with a hat and tie) was able to get to the machine and change it around so that it made people mean. He had two helpers, whose names I now forget but who were realized in the forms of a bi-pedal dinosaur and the Pokemon, Ivysaur.

She chose two heroes, a ninja named Inja Turtle (even though he is not a turtle; for some reason she leaves that first 'N' off when she says 'ninja', +1 cuteness) and a green army dude with a Sten machine gun and a grenade named Army Guy. The heroes were tasked with getting to the SSSmoBloHaGoo and restoring it to its original purpose (switch the polarity?). The action was quick. I let her choose most of the moves and roll the dice.

Turn 1
Inja came up the right side of the city. Spud wanted to deal with Inja alone and headed out to meet him. The dinosaur spotted Army Guy and moved toward him. Army Guy advanced, firing his Sten, but missing. Ivysaur moved to guard the SSSmoBloHaGoo.

Turn 2
Inja and Spud meet and exchange blows neither one gaining the upper hand. Army advances to shoot from a closer position, gaining on hit on the dinosaur. Dinosaur tries to bite Army, but is blocked. Ivysaur reaches the SSSmoBloHaGoo.

Turn 3
Inja gets away from Spud and runs for the SSSmoBloHaGoo. Spud decides to help dinosaur and heads off to try and trap Army between them. Army runs from dinosaur and turns back to fire, but dinosaur must have picked up a man hole cover to block the shots with. Ivysaur gets ready to take Inja.

Turn 4
Inja sneaks around Ivysaur to get to the SSSmoBloHaGoo and attempts to switch the polarity (roll double 5s), but fails. He is attacked by Ivysaur, but blocks the blows. Spud decides that leaving Ivysaur to deal with Inja was a bad idea and runs toward the SSSmoBloHaGoo. Army runs at spud, firing and missing. Dinosaur tries again to eat Army, but his teeth glance off Army's helmet.

Turn 5
Spud and Ivysaur both try to land a blow on Inja, but Inja is able to defend himself, then evade to run to the other side of the SSSmoBloHaGoo. While Army is still trying to put down dinosaur, Inja succeeds in restoring the SSSmoBloHaGoo to its original settings, immediately diffusing the anger and frustration levels of the villains to the point of their apologizing for the inconvenience they caused and agreeing to undergo anger management therapy.

Painting Mister Hyde

About a year ago, I came across a set of skirmish rules written for super-hero battles (Clobberin' Time). As the rules were written with HeroClix minis in mind, I decided at the time to purchase a bunch of HeroClix from ebay. I've only played these rules twice: the second time played solo and the first time very watered down for my daughter, 4 at the time, meaning it was pretty well a solo game too.

This year, I am interested in trying the Pulp Alley rule set. So I downloaded the starter rules and cards to try it out. Having printed out a bunch of pulp-style paper figures (there's a joke in there somewhere), I have most of what I would need to play sans sculpted minis. Assembling those paper stand-ups reminded me of a BGG user's collection of modified Clix. He modified sculpts make superheroes not in the HeroClix line-up or characters from other genres: pulp, sci-fi, and others.

"Start simple" is the advice I see over and over from the advanced Heroclix modders out there. However, most of the sculpts I had received in that initial ebay purchase are not easily converted to other things. So I bought some Heroclix I saw at the dollar store, taking packs with figures I felt would not require much modification to fit in with a pulpy theme.

Then I tried paint washes and dry brushing of a few of the sculpts I won't be changing. After the success of washes and dry-brushing, I took a Mister Hyde figure (I ended up with two) and started painting. Like all my painting so far, I'm using the el cheapo-brand craft acrylics.

I figure it'll be a relatively easy mod to go with a western theme for Hyde; make him a burly tough. The colours can be seen in the image below. I mixed some red into my brown for the coat and I think it turned out well, except that it is now the same colour as his hair, so I plan on adding yellow to it. I could even chop off the top of his head and glue a hat there. I'd like to put something in one of his hands, but I haven't decided yet. I thought about a couple of six-guns, but don't like that idea due to the lack of holsters on the sculpt and the hand positions (which I could change once I've done enough "simple" stuff). Might work to add a rifle held in one hand or a lasso held in both hands. Whips? Knives? That would work. We'll see how ambitious I get when I get time to work on this some more.

 Original Mister Hyde following black wash on the right. My painting (so far) on the left.

Looking at this image kinda makes me want to repaint that one lazy eye. It's all eye can see now.

Marrying Mr. Darcy

I am and will be exposed to Pride and Prejudice often in my lifetime, and that's okay. To date I have watched (always with Jenni) the BBC P&P five-and-a-half-hour miniseries, the Knightly P&P movie, and the P&P: Pink Bible Edition movie as well as film adaptations of P&P spin-offs like Lost in Austen (a favourite), Death Comes to Pemberly, and Austenland. I have not personally read the book, nor any of the fan spin-offs in book form, like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (is there a film adaptation of that one?), nor do I plan to. But I'm alright to watch the movies.

So what better homage to Valentine's Day than a game of Marrying Mr. Darcy.

Jenni and I introduced some of her family to the card game this past weekend . Having already played 1.5 games with members of my family, this brings my total play-count to 2.5 games.

My wife and I enjoy strategy-rich games. Marrying Mr. Darcy is not a strategy-rich game. It is a story driven by a mix of random events and occasional player choices. While I knew the theme would be a hit with my wife, I read numerous reviews to see how well others enjoyed it before deciding to get this game as a gift for Jenni. And now I add a small one of my own.

In Marrying Mr. Darcy players take the roles of the female characters from the Pride and Prejudice story. Players build up their characters RPG-style by playing cards to improve their stats in six categories: friendliness, wit, beauty, reputation, cunning, and wealth (or dowry). Values of the first four stats translate into victory points at the end of the game (most points wins).

The main interest in the game, of course, is to get your character married off. But not just any guy will do. There are six available suitors and each player's character card lists them from most to least desirable for that character; additional victory points are awarded for the suitor your character manages to wed (Example: Elizabeth gets mega points for marrying Darcy but almost nothing if wed to Collins). The suitors too are a picky bunch, each one requiring a different combination of traits to be interested in your character; this is the reason you are trying to build up your stats. Even if your stats satisfy a suitor's requirements, you only have a chance for a proposal, decided by a dice roll that can be modified by certain conditions. Thus one, or indeed all of the ladies could end up old maids, again with varying degrees of happiness (victory points) decided by dice roll.

This game is heavily luck-based, but any disappointment that might have caused me is negated by the fact that (a) I know the story enough to get into the theme of the game and enjoy the alternate story being played out, (b) there is some player choice involved, and (c) I enjoy seeing the reactions of my wife (and others) to the alternate story being played out. Most enjoyable are exclamations about how the play that just happened actually happens in the story or, even better, how the event that just happened could have never happened for such-and-such a character because (insert reasons). Of course, there's always "the busty Scandal" card, which is especially funny if a guy draws it.

There is an expansion featuring the undead. It sounds fun and many of the reviewers I read recommended using it. Maybe I will, but we're fine for now.

So, there you have it. Probably the least manly game I've ever played and I enjoy it well enough. Real men wear pink? Maybe. Real men can admit to liking non-manly games!

Right?...

DIY Valentine's Day

In our current mode of trying to save money where we can, my wife, Jenni, told me she didn't think I should buy her any flowers for Valentine's Day. This isn't a big stretch as we don't normally place a lot of stock on the day. Usually I just but her some flowers and that's the extent of our spending. So, since she doesn't want me buying flowers, I'll make some instead.

It's very last minute, so I haven't much for materials (without buying some) or time. I made three Origami flowers. To guide my building, I used the flowers section of Origami-Instructions.com. I folded the Bell Flower, the Lily, and the easy 8-petal. I had downloaded and printed a bunch of Valentine "cards" on offer by the authors of one of the two web-comics I like well enough to follow, Girl Genius. I only wanted one card, but the printout is four. So my idea was to use the one card for its intended purpose and cut the other three into squares to fold into flowers (then thy have a little colour to them).


The results (8-petal on top, bell on the left, lily on the right):

The lily and the bell were quite fun to do. I think a cheap pad of origami paper could make a really nice bouquet. So, with that, I'll pair the flowers with chocolate and I'll be on my way!

My First Spaceships

Believe it or not, I'm a sucker for spaceships. Thus, it was only a matter of time before I carved some. So here are some pictures. First I made up some of my own designs. There was no drawings, just shaping as I carved. Despite such a disorderly, even haphazard construction method, I think my first group turned out pretty good.

The middle one came first. I thought it looked shark-like, so I continued on, adding the 'tail' to complete the look. This would be a cruiser to heavy cruiser in the Full Thrust scale. The one on the left would be a cruiser, trying to get a similar shaping, but not the same. The one on the right started as a blob that I didn't like and carved down to make a destroyer, or maybe it's corvette-sized.
 

Then I decided I wanted to see if there were some simple designs already out there that I could try. Turned over to that trusty the-blueprints.com site to check out the Science Fiction section. I discovered some good designs for a beginner like myself to tackle in a series I had never heard of before: Space Battleship Yamato!

The title spaceship was a little much for me to start with, so I went with the Bolar cruisers and heavy cruiser (yellow ones below). Moved on to the EDF destroyers (small grey and red) and started on the Yamato (which is still not finished as I would like). The latest addition in this series is a lone Gamilon destroyer (that faded green one).

 Of course, my models are not exact replicas. I'm going for playable, not show-room, and I haven't watched anything past the 5th episode so detailing on my versions of these ships may differ greatly from the cartoons.

With a bunch of odd-sized bits of wood left over from carving these ships and some WWI fighter planes (which I'll try to get to later), I started gluing and carving to come up with a couple more ships of my own design. The larger of the two is maybe not quite battleship size, I'm thinking battle cruiser or small carrier (if I get into the game enough to warrant putting together fighter groups). The smaller I might rate a cruiser or light cruiser


When I got to painting the these ones, Jenni had bought me some minis brushes for Christmas, so I tried them out, starting with some swirling designs. After that I moved on to adding some detail touches to these and the other ships you've already seen - those touches being small black and white dots (windows? gun-ports?) and some striping, even numbers on one of the EDF destroyers (the other I had already attempted a number with the not very mini brushes).

Then I averted a couple hours of boredom one night when I went to the-blueprints and started going crazy! I downloaded drawings of more SBY designs and a bunch of Star Trek designs, re-sized them all to roughly match Full Thrust scaling. Now I've started a Miranda-Class ship from Trek, also carved all the pieces for an Enterprise (Motion Picture version), but I have lost some of them. That's OK though, the gluing wasn't going well for it, so I am trying a different tack.

The Bolar ships and the Sharky ships have both already seen battle, with each other, trying out some solo-friendly space-battle rules. But that's a post for another day: I think I recorded my thoughts on that in my private blog and they will likely find their way over to this one, eventually.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Here's a couple more.

 

As ugly as it is, I do like that brown one!