Banana! Sculpting a minion

Another year another hobby challenge to craft a gift for my wife's birthday.  This year the choice was a minion from Despicable Me.  You've probably seen the Banana song doing the rounds recently...

So the question was how to make the little fella.  The sage advice my brother gave me for sculpting was to find or make something to sculpt over, so I got myself a kinder egg...

The story continues after the jump...

Hasslefree Adventurers

A quick post this week, lots of projects on but nothing finished yet I can share.  Instead I've got some great Hasslefree figures I painted last year as part of my Inquisitor army that I didn't get around to taking shots of.

The other reason I thought of these this week is that local game designer Taran will be using them at his Infected Dead launch event in a few weeks time - check out the link and come face the zombies if you can make it!  My own legions of zombies from a little while ago are going to join in the carnage, as well as the lady troopers from way back.

https://www.facebook.com/BlackRoninRolePlayingGames

Taran is also responsible for the splendid new banner at the top of the blog, many thanks!

Taken from their wide range of adventurers and other ranges, these figures are destined to be members of my henchmen squads.  Where the troopers I have from Heresy and Hasslfree are somewhat regimented, this figures are a more rag tag bunch, deliberately so as they are going to be on more dangerous missions, whether embarked in a flyer or acting as melee troops.

This first lady is, I believe a reference to Seline in Underworld, played by Kate Beckinsale.  Regardless, she's a tough looking one in a trenchcoat, bodyglove and packing 2 pistols.

Arguably this character is the same reference, but I am wondering if its more Kate in Von Helsing.  On this figure there's a great sense of movement in the swinging sword arm.

The huge bloke (no size reference I know, but trust me he's marine scale) is I think a Ghost in the Shell reference to Batou.  Wearing a bomber jacket and a t-shirt he's clearly not scared of anything - tiny gun too!

This gun toting teen is I think Buffy - I chose to give her a pulse rifle as I like the pose but there's no doubt she can handle herself at close range I like to think!

Lastly here's Hasslefree's own character Libby (who is I think is inspired by Sally White) in the Leia/Jedi cross over style.  A great figure and frankly with a light sabre a terror on the tabletop.

Where these characters had shiny leather elements on them, I've used some clear gloss finish acrylic to make them look the part, I think it works well and I've made sure I have a pot handy now for anything I do - although I have to paint it after varnishing as I use anti-shine spray!

This is only the first 5 I've completed, I have a bunch more ready to go at some point and Hasslefree have released a whole load more characters since my last order who are great as well!

Twisted Allegiances : Malifaux Tournament

Last weekend I ran my second Mailfaux Tournament - another multiplayer extravaganza!

After the first event earlier this year the feedback was generally "more of the same" so I looked into what I could do.  Some lessons learnt from the first time round was to be more prepared and to remind people to turn up promptly!

With this in mind I worked with Rob, the shop manager to ensure we had all the schemes and strategies printed out and protected to give out to all the players as packs as they arrived.  I had registration sorted out using the store PC and I made sure I took photos of all the crews entering the painting this time around.

I arranged a few votes to determine some of the details of the event and one of the changes this time was to try out a few story encounters.  These took a fair bit of play testing and while the first encounter seemed reasonably well rounded, the second was problematic and on the day proved tough make much progress with in the short space of time we had available.  The details of the full event pack are here.

Anyway on to the eye candy.  Here's all the crews that entered the painted competition.  A huge thanks here to the sheer number of new players and crews that turned up as well as the longer in the tooth players (and their crews) who constantly support these events and games we arrange.

Molly's crew by Si - I love Molly and the crooligans here especially

Von Schill's crew by Big Simon, bought and painted in the last couple of months - the Orian mere hours since the paint dried!

Jacob's crew by Emily, painted in what I am calling a canvas style,
really interesting and striking effect, even more so in person

Jacob's crew by Steve, my old mate.  Recently returned to gaming and painting,
he's adding more detail to these as he gets chance

Zoraida's crew by Jason - its all frogs here with a really nice shared  palette
and great bases to bring the models together

Nicodeem by Matthew, an interesting mix of book 1 and 4 models
overshadowed by the huge and grim Killjoy

Perdita's crew by Andy - the selection grows as Andy leaves no
corner of the guild unexplored for recruits
(he married the proxy into the family in one game)

Finally we have our winner, Rob's Leviticus crew.
We have a rule at 7th Heaven - you can keep entering a crew  until you win -
Rob was narrowly pipped last event, but now he'll have to paint something new!

One thing I did forget to do was take shots of all the tables, I had spent a fair bit of time constructing a pile of terraclips buildings to help on the day.  Before the event started Rob, Steve and I built 5 tables in readiness, you can see hints of them in the crew shots above and there's a few shots I've stolen from Matt below of some games in progress.

Battle at the farm!  The noobies take on Rob - Rob suffers!

Its Jacob and Jacob vs Lucius and Mei Feng - my Oogie Boogie guest starring here.

A streets of Malifaux table - very pleased with this board.   The Tazos are markers!

So the day went really well, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, although once again time was the enemy. I'll have to consider how the sort this out for the next event, we'll certainly be doing more before Malifaux 2.0 hits officially.

The overall placings then were:

Best Painting: Rob
Best Sportsman: Jason
3rd Place: Jen (very narrowly pipping Ian on a technicality)
2nd Place: Matthew - for the second time just missing the top spot and...

1st Place: Big Simon - a stunning first place with a clear 2 point lead.  Newly into the game Simon is crushing his foes with the combination of Hulk Hogan moustache and giant leaping Iron Man suit.