We’re starting to really test my knowledge of roman numerals now! Before I discuss the subject of today’s title, I thought I’d share some more progress on the Arkham Horror Organizer. I still continue to get pieces done each week somehow. This time I got a bigger card organizer finished which looks quite nice with the cards in it. As an organizer, it really works nicely. You can put the two sets of location cards right across from each other so they’re super easy to locate. This is a real time saver which setting up the game.
I also managed to get another small token tray done. I forgot to take pictures of the sides which have tentacles on them similar to some of the other token trays I’ve showed previously. This one holds “Points of Interest” which are often things you need to interact with in a given Arkham scenario. It is meant to hold the dice that come with the base game. I “upgraded” to a Chessex set that are normal sized and as you can see, they don’t fit. So I probably won’t get a ton of usage out of that part of this tray. I may throw the official dice in there and just not use them as I like the red dice set much better both visually and I swear they roll slightly better too!
I have two small token trays and another larger card organizer to finish up. As I keep saying every week, that’s probably more than week’s worth of work so I’ll keep chipping away at this and hopefully I’ll be done with it soon. That will be a great accomplishment and a relief because I have all the pieces scattered across my computer desk currently and I don’t care for how messy it makes everything look.
And now we can discuss Lokaris. The forever running project of 2026! In all seriousness, I got an email from MMSI last week that there are seven weeks until the show. At this point, I think we’re down to six weeks so I’m definitely on a deadline at this point, though I’m not letting that affect my painting process. I took my sweet time on the axe blade this week and have had a lot of different feelings about it throughout the process. My main goal was trying to preserve some of the texture sculpted into the axe. it has a few cracks in it and I wanted to keep those as it fits the overall look I’ve been going for with the miniature. I also wanted to try some different colors for the blade that might fit the “earthy” overall look of the mini. Most axes have steel looking blades and so I kind of mixed feelings about this idea now.
The blade is such a key part of this miniature and so its really great to have it up on his shoulder. It really sets the mood of the overall piece. The front of the miniature really looks sharp now, though there is clearly a lot left to be done on the back yet. My only point of dissatisfaction is I feel like maybe the scratches are a bit too bright on the axe blade as they look a little cartoony compared to the rest of the mini. I’m going to think on this a bit more and maybe phone a friend to see what I can do to improve it. I’ll press on with the rest of the mini this week as I am running out of time and there’s a decent amount of real estate left to work on, unfortunately for me.
While I still don’t have time to work on anything Monsterpocalypse yet, I have joined the 21st century and bought my first STL. I want to get some of the supporting Empire of Apes troops (which are unsurprisingly, all apes) and the original releases are all metal. I’d rather not have to fiddle with metal miniatures in the diorama so I managed to score the STL file for all 9-10 of the different sculpts for about $10. Thanks to friend of the site, Azazel’s help, I’m in touch with a local 3D printer and we’ll see what kind of results I can get working with them. Hopefully, the quality is high enough that I can use them in the diorama. If not, I can always shop around for another printing service, I would imagine.
Last week I had a conversation with Dave Dredd, aka, Dave Skywalker, aka Dangerous Dave Stone (he has many aliases as it turns out) of Wargames Terrain Workshop and I decided to try reading a 2000 AD comic for the first time in my life. For those of you not English and possibly not European, 2000 AD is available in American comic book stores but my comic book stores does not stock them with other comic books so they are definitely not prominent or easy to find. The comic book store I regularly visit has a small magazine section right below the front counter that are pretty easy to miss (partially because there can be a line of people checking out in front of the magazines but also because they’re just off the ground and you have to stoop down to really see them) and that is where Judge Dredd and 2000 AD comics are. After probably two years of visiting said comic book shop nearly weekly, I finally figured that out and so I bought 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special #1 which is at least allegedly a good place for new readers to start with 2000 AD comics, including Judge Dredd.
Before I talk about the issue itself, I want to comment upon how overwhelming 2000 AD is to get into. There is SO MUCH content and its also not really cheap to buy in the US. This issue was $7, magazine format (so bigger pages than a typical comic book which is nice), and full-color for the most part. Its not a bad deal though still more expensive than $4 and $5 issues I usually am buying and the page count isn’t a lot higher for the price. What is confusing is that there is also Judge Dredd Megazine which is $10 and there is 2000 AD itself is also $7 an issue. There’s also 2000 plus issues of 2000 AD at this point which is insane. This is more daunting than your typical superhero comic from DC or Marvel where the numbering is confusing because it isn’t that uncommon for them to restart the issue numbering or change a series’ name overtime to up readership but even still, even something as venerable as Superman or Batman is not up to that many issues, I don’t believe. Regardless of all that, I remain a little confused by all of this which will become relevant in a few minutes.
In terms of Sci-Fi Special #1, I opened it and read that the theme was going to be body horror for this issue and sighed. I don’t like Horror movies at all. Lovecraft, Poe, and Gothic horror is really the only thing I enjoy in that genre, which I fully admit is very tame compared anything else in the genre. So I didn’t have high hopes but I was pleasantly surprised as I read the issue that generally, I liked each of the stories even if I didn’t fully grasp the characters. Judge Dredd I knew well enough from watch Dredd 3D a while back. Karl Urban really played that character well because the comic book version looks dead on like him (or perhaps its the other way around!). I was not at all familiar with Judge De’ath, Stickleback, or Strontium Dog but the stories were short and easy to understand. Each one was maybe 10 pages long, so shorter than even a single issue of an “American” comic book. While I can’t say this issue made me fall in love with the characters and want to seek any of them out individually, what I was struck by and liked was how cynical and pessimistic 2000 AD is. It depicts humanity and its faults in a realistic and believable manner. So that part of 2000 AD was very interesting and appealing to me. There’s also something about it that reminds me heavily of Necromunda, which I like as well. I’m sure Necromunda took its influence from 2000 AD and not the other way around, because that is what Games Workshop does, but I like the dystopian future feel, all the same. I should also mention that there are no Marvel or DC comics that resemble 2000 AD either. It really stands on its own as a unique flavor of Sci-Fi story. This issue definitely makes me want to read more, if I can figure out a good way to do so. I should also thank Dave for the recommendation because I would have likely never watched Dredd 3D or checked out 2000 AD without knowing he really enjoys it. I have some more research to do to see what else I might like to read from 2000 AD but I will try to remember to report back when I get around to reading more 2000 AD.
Kuribo's Painting 