The skiff is ready!

All parts for the basic kit are now ready and will be on sale at Salute and afterwards from here and also OSHIRO modelterrain.

The kit comprises of bottom hull, upper hull, main mast, stern, two sails and a pack of our elite Sky Martians to make the trimsman from (although these are an option).

The kit is approximately 320mm long, 110mm wide and 185mm high including the main mast.

The basic kit costs £52 and £59 with the pack of Sky Martians plus postage and packaging (flight stand not included).

I'll start on the expansion kit after Salute which comprise of two yard arms, four sails (different to the basic kit), two harpoons, parasailing bar and coils of rope. The price on this is yet to be decided but it won't be much.

Thank you

The Skiff is almost here

Well, it took long enough but we're just about ready to release the skiff (after the weekend).

A few teaser shots here until the proper post goes up on Sunday :-)

Thank you

Separate weapon packs

We are now able to offer separate weapon packs, £3 for three sprues of three weapons and the code is SMA-01

Thank you

The City Martians and their ways.

The City Martians were left after their brethren took for the mountain ranges away from the canal networks. Staying around the canals that were once the lifeblood of the planet they have built new towns and cities, rebuilt a part of the canal network and have established many trading ports from the aftermath of the great storm. There are still plenty storms on Mars and Martian architecture reflects this as the buildings are steeply sloped and relatively low to minimise the damage from such storms.

The City Martians have also developed unique ways of farming in the thin soil. Angled screen protectors cover the plant beds and an underground irrigation system allows moisture to extend beyond the normal boundaries that exposed water would allow. The plants that grow in these farms are robust but do lack a certain amount of nutrition. The extra nutrition needed is gathered from algae that grow in the canals and is surprisingly quite tasty and has become a popular delicacy with the human visitors. Several types of beasts burden are reared to help with heavy hauling and also they can be slaughtered to provide a dietary change. There are also various types of fungi found in the caves of the canyons but this is in the claimed territory of the Sky Martians so as a resource it is generally left alone unless the need is great.

Each city is run by a council in similar ways to the Sky Martians, made from the elder members of the families that live in the cities. Differing to the Sky Martians in the fact that the males take the physical roles of the day to day happenings in the cities and the females look after the ever growing families in communal groups. Trade is important to the City Martians and some of the merchant families have become quite powerful in the running of the towns and cities with some families having complete control. This works up to a point until greed takes over common sense which is becoming more apparent now the humans have arrived: the City Martians taking as much advantage as possible with the new opportunities. There are two types of merchant family in City Martian society; the travellers and the dwellers. The travellers use the trade routes along the canals between cities and the dwellers stay in a local area, distributing trade goods etc.

As mentioned before the vast majority of the City Martian settlements are next to the canals, enabling quick and reliable trade: although on some of the longer routes waystations have been built with limited defences to protect from the Sky Martian raids. Long caravans of travellers sometimes spend weeks or even months on the routes travelling from town to town, city to city gathering news and new items to sell along the way. The caravans are usually composed of several different merchant families and their guards. Each family has at least two wagons if not more, one for the family and the rest for the merchandise. The guards sleep under the wagons or in a small wagon provided by the richer merchants. The journeys are normally a leisurely affair, weather permitting, and enjoyment is had from travelling rather from the crowded cities.

With the advent of increased Sky Martian hostilities the City Martians are starting to fortify their cities and develop a permanent military presence in almost every settlement. Rudimentary firearms have been constructed similar to human jezzails but using compressed gas as a propellant which is found deep in some of the canyon caves issuing from geysers. A small tank of the gas is kept on the back of the Martian trooper and a simple lever system is utilised for the firing of the projectile, usually in the form of a lead bullet. Obviously, compressed gas is not the best firearm propellant but it suffices if used in large numbers. The other typical weapon of the City Martians is the pike, very similar to the human weapon that was in use a couple of centuries ago. Used en masse against the descending Sky Martians seems to working but for how long. The most important merchant families are looking ever more to the human presence for weaponry to use against the Sky Martians but it comes at a high price with the humans demanding ten times what it is actually worth...

Sky Martian enclave

As we've mentioned before, the Sky Martians tend to live in the canyons of Mars, using the winds that funnel down to get their skiffs quickly to the target.

The enclaves are generally high up on the canyon sides buried deep in the fissures of the cliff faces. Platforms allow the skiffs to load and offload Martians and their spoils, normal cargo, emissaries etc. The entrances to the enclaves are small to prevent them being over run. Some even have small mounted harpoon guns and rudimentary ballistas for defence around the platforms in case of a rival attack.

For our enclave I needed to get some height and also give an impression of a different type of rock that we have used before (cork bark) so I went with insulation or blue foam. It's light and easily carved and I had a lot lying around to use for this project.

The first picture shows the blue foam in its unpainted form. The layers were hot glued together and then I went about hacking into it with my Japanese saw (probably the best tool for this). I tried to keep the hacking at a constant couple of angles so it didn't look too chaotic.

It was then plastered in a mix of wall filler, small gravel and textured paint just pasted all over but taking care not to let it collect and disguise the texture from the saw. I then coated it in a matt brown spray making sure that there was no exposed foam and left it to dry.

The painting was quite simple, some heavy drybrushing in ever lightning shades of yellow ochre and some washes of various greens and browns to help break up the monotony. Some wind shaded areas had small amounts of sand applied and this was painted red and drybrushed the same way and then a few small plants were placed here and there to also help break it up (it is quite a large peice).

The platforms needed to have a ramshackle but sturdy appearance and so I started with the frame work, using natural clefts in the cliff face to position the skewers at various level and supporting angles. The planking was given a texture on the top and cut out by hand but keeping steady so there is an element of regularity but not that it looks factory made. The upper supports we're placed randomly but bearing in mind that they would be load bearing. Cotton thread was used to attach the upper supports and the level ones giving the appearance of stability.

The platforms were painted with a light brown (the colour for most of out Martian wood so far) then washed and drybrushed the normal way, picking out the thread in white.

The two entrances were given protective tarpaulins above them which was cloth soaked in pva to give some rigidity.

Overall a pleasing result and it will soon appear in our games as we have a small campaign in mind but more on that later.

Onto the pictures :-)

A small conversion. Part two

Took a while for me to paint this as I've had a bad eye for a while but he's done now and I must say I'm rather pleased with the result.

The figure was undercoated with the new Halfords camo brown, a rather useful undercoat and the skin was painted with Foundry African flesh but only the two lighter shades as the primer matches the darker colour.

The armour was undercoated white first in several thin layers to get an even colour and then a mix of gloss varnish and a little silver paint with a touch or teal was painted over the white to give a pearlescent effect.

The cloak and loin cloth were painted using the two lighter shades of Foundry Linen and then a top highlight of normal white to complete the material.

The weapon was undercoated gunmetal for the blade and a normal brown for the haft. The haft being built up to a light tan and the blade was sketchily painted with silver to give the impression of rudimentary forge work.

The base was coated in normal builders sand and inked with Windsor and Newton sepia ink. When this was dry a drybrush using Foundry ochre and the final touch of a winter tuft to complete the model.

The bottom two pictures show the comparison between the conversion and the original figure. Subtlety different I think :-)

Thanks for reading

A small conversion

As we wait for some new character figures to be sculpted I thought I would have a go at converting the existing character that we have. Just a simple arm swap and the addition of a cloak was enough for me to distinguish between them.

The right arm was swapped with a normal arm with an open hand from the trooper pack and glued in place on the shoulder joint. This then had to be bulked out as the character was designed to be bigger and stronger than the normal warriors. It was bulked out with Super Sculpy which I'm really starting to enjoy sculpting with. I only had to bulk out the upper arm and the vambrace.

After this was cured in the oven I rolled some Sculpy out and cut out a rudimentary cloak and shaped it around the back of the figure. It's similar in style to a roman cloak but being on a Martian I think it looks the part.

This was also cured and then I made a spear for him to carry. It was made in the same way as the masters for the trooper weapons. A brass haft and a styrene blade.

He now has a coat of primer and I'll do a painting post in the very near future.

Thank you