Copper the second season

I am happy to report the the season opener of the BBC America show Copper doesn't disappoint.Its just a unflinchingly historically realistic as the first season was. The year 1865 in New York looks to be even bloodier than 1864.

 

For you English lads who thinks Fagin is the poster child for Victorian crime is in for a big surprise when the see this accurate depiction of crime and corruption in the five points of New York. It airs Sunday nights at 10pm Eastern time. 

The Trouble With Scale

Consider this a cautionary tale. One of the main problems with making buildings from scratch is making them in the proper scale. Scale is the Bugbear every hobbyist has to contended with at one time or another. This is the tragedy of a building constructed out of scale. Lunatic R. found a photograph of the iconic Victorian terrace and used it to create this building. The building is beautiful. As you can see he used the foamcore foam without the paper, you can buy it like that, he painstakingly carved the brickwork into the foam. but... Its just too big, out of scale for 28mm. Its enormous and won't fit on our pre-measured "block bases". Notice the Malifaux figure next to the building, this figure has a huge "mad hatter' style top hat and yet its still smaller than the windows or doorway. Notice how it dwarfs the O scale church, its a tragedy of gigantic proportions.

As you can see with the West Wind figure in the last picture no real scale reference was used to build this. We used to use the old GW scale references to construct building but those are off.I'm going to need to find a good method of scaling buildings.

London Board- Some Progress.

I've managed to over common some minor camera issues and can now post photos of the other two blocks in progress alluded to here.

First up is the church purchased at the railroad shop. Its been primed grey and it looks better all ready. It will get a full on paint job soon. The church is getting a field stone pavement and wooden flooring for the interior. The interior will have pews and an alter glued to the floor. The church is one piece with a hollow interior so the church will simply be placed on top of the interior affixed to the base. The 1" areas at the edge of the block bases are for the side walks. More information on that in the future. Yes we have a plan for that hopefully it will work as planed.

Next up is the rustic Inn block. The Inn was actually constructed years ago using the GW terrain book they used to put out in the 1990s. It was part of a now defunct Mordheim project. Its not Victorian, but I like it and felt it deserved a second chance at life. We need to fix the roof & chimney and add gutters and a rain barrel in the front. I'm going to landscape the block base on which it sits with dirt and grass. It will most likely be moved to the country board in the future. This building was constructed from cardboard so I textured the cardboard walls with liquid green stuff that's what gives the walls the green color. I got the idea from this video.

The Fiends in Waistcoats (both of them) nod their heads to Scott’s War-gaming.

I've gawked at his blog of and on for years now especially his LOTR figures. I envy his ability to consistently work on this hobby we love so well on daily basis. We are both members of several of the same forums, The One Ring, The Lead Adventurers Forum and BOLS, thought truth be told I'm rarely on BLOS, my handle is kidterminal. But I digress, the reason for this nod is his outstanding new project the Victorian terrace with working candle light no less!Use this link to his blog to see his video test of the candle light for his building

This project is so amazing nothing else can be said. You will now find Scott's blog on my "what I read" roll.

 (This has nothing to do with Scott's blog but hey everything is better with pictures)

The Cuteness of Kittens

This is Tiger she is now about 31/2 months old. She was born in the basement of a building in Brooklyn and presented to me by Lunatic R's wife while we where playing Mansions of Madness with his son and his son's friend. Her brother Ozzy lives with Lunatic R. She was very tiny when she first came here.

Here Tiger is sleeping with Una my 11yrd cat. They don't sleep like this anymore now that Tiger has grown fond of attacking Una's tail.

Now they sleep like this so Una can keep an eye on her.

 

Tiger has discovered that everything is better with plastic bags so now she pulls them out of the recycling and drags them around the apartment.

I hope this fills everyone's cuteness quota for the month.
Cheers
Rob

Empire of the Dead Now Sold at WWW.BrigadeGames.com

West Winds Productions' Gothic Steampunk game Empire of the Dead is now carried in the US by WWW.BrigadeGames.com. They are selling all the faction box sets, the 12 special charters and the hard bound rule book. So now I can pick up some of the special characters I've missed like the Circ du Noir Man Ape for $12 no less!

Brigade Games also sells Parroom miniatures from all their lines, Secret Science, Of Mars and Martians, Victorian Science Fiction.

Some "Secret Science" figures.

Some "Of Mars and Martians" figures.

The Trouble With Kittens

I'm experiencing minor painting difficulties due to a certain kitten playing havoc with my painting stand. See her slap the bat swarms around.

London Board Update Graveyard

We've been working on the London Board in earnest. We're constructing 3 of  the 12 boards need to produce our little corner of London. Today I'm showing some work in progress photos of the graveyard. The graveyard will connect directly behind the church block to form one long block at the south edge of our table.

 

 front

back

side

An Angel will be mounted on top of the pillar.

As you can see this is still very much a work in progress. More pictures will be posted over the weekend.