A Reasonable Comparison

The label may be there but the level of interaction is roughly the same.

Whoa-oh Take The Money And Run

I don't know why, but this just galls me today. Way back in Summer 2012 I was just starting to jump on the crowd-funding bandwagon, and a fellow named Bruno Galice had a campaign on Indiegogo running to produce a small band of pirate goblins sculpted by renowned gobbo sculptor Kev Adams. I pledged, the project funded, and I looked forward to my new gobbos.

Cool concept art! 

The problem is that nothing arrived. In fact, many of the backers reported receiving nothing. I held out hope. Things happen. It's not like nothing had been done on the project, since we had been shown supposed evidence of the sculpting WIP and manufacturing.

First there were sculpts

Then there were more sculpts.

Teasers of what we would be receiving.

Then there were bins of pewter!

Months passed, and still nothing arrived. Multiple emails went unanswered. The Indiegogo message area for the project was filled with people wanting answers for their non-delivery. There were claims that things had been sent but somehow not received. There were claims of illness and accusations of lying and all sorts of drama. All the while I held out hope. It wasn't a huge monetary investment on my part, so I was more than willing to wait however long it took.

The last update from Bruno Galice to backers came in February 2013, in which he claimed that he was sending out another 25 parcels that day. Speculation on the Indiegogo campaign messages ran rampant until the campaign was suddenly missing. I contacted Indiegogo about the sudden disappearance and received this response:

Unfortunately, at this time, the Indiegogo campaign, “Pirate Goblins Box Set”, has been discontinued.
Campaigns may be removed from Indiegogo if the campaign is found in violation of our ToU or at the campaign owner’s request during the review process. You can see our full Terms of Use here: http://www.indiegogo.com/about/terms.
We have asked the campaign owner, to contact his contributors. Unfortunately, at this point we have not heard back from him and have frozen his account and campaign(s) so that he can no longer use Indiegogo again.
Additionally, you can try reaching out them through their other social media sites.
Facebook-https://www.facebook.com/pages/TrepsGames/122059754603237Twitter- https://twitter.com/treps

Okay, then. I continued to attempt to contact Bruno through email. I remained positive, if less so than before. I even offered to pay for shipping if that was a problem (he responded that money was not a problem.) Email after email went unanswered after that. Every day I would get home from work and ritually ask my family, "Box from France?" Every day the answer was no.

Eventually I sent him this email.

Hi Bruno, 

   I just saw a few pictures someone posted on their blog about getting the Pirate Gobbos. I don't really know what's going on with you personally, but I saw that the indiegogo project had been pulled. I would still like to get a set of the goblins when you are able to send them. No hard feelings, no questions asked. Just please don't forget the people waiting on those wonderful little gobbos. 

Mike

Soon after, I received this unexpected photo.

For me?!!? Really!!?

What better evidence could I hope for than a photo of my gobbos and an envelope with my name and address? So I waited. And waited. And nothing arrived. 

My final email to Bruno, in my typical non-confrontational manner:

More than three months have gone by since you sent me a photo of the package with my name on it. I never received the goblins. I think I finally believe that I'm never going to get these. Whatever is stopping packages traveling from France to U.S. is impossible to overcome. Thanks for trying.

There was still a part of me that thought staying congenial would lead to me eventually getting the gobbos. It didn't. I will never get them. I have, as they say, been had. 

Maybe a great guy, but don't entrust
him with your money.

The Weathering Magazine

There are pros and cons to having your local hobby store being a scale-model store that sells gaming stuff rather than a game store. They don't have any tables to play on but I get exposure to things wouldn't otherwise find. "The Weathering Magazine" is one of those great finds. It was created by Mig Jimenez, who previously make a fantastic 2010 video on painting weathered tanks for Vallejo using water based acrylics.

The production values on this magazine are fantastic. The pages are thick and color glossy. The tutorials are excruciatingly well detailed and the end results are absolutely amazing. Check out this asphalt paver by Rick Lawler.

I've seen plenty of scale models that were beautiful and pristine, but as a game-painteer that didn't really inspire me much. Things like this paver make me want to paint dreadnoughts and stompas to look like this.

The magazine is published quarterly, and all of the six issues are available at the website. I only have issues 3 and 4, with the others on order.

Macross: Do You Remember Scale?

A few days ago on my Hako Software video blog I ranted a bit about scale of Macross models, and the fact that nothing seemed to come in a common scale. I specifically have been trying to create a diorama of a Queadluun Rau and a Valkyrie, but finding those two models in scale has proven difficult. Bandai (or anyone else) only ever made a 1/144 scale Queadluun Rau kit. For reasons I did not understand at the time, there are no Valkyrie 1/144 kits available. I did find some Gashapon toys online that seemed about the right size.

The one on the far left was assumed to be 1:200. The toys have no scale, but they math out to be about 1:160, and a bit taller than the Zentraedi (ok, Meltraedi to be specific) pilot. Thinking... thinking... wait a minute. Aren't the Valkyrie battroids supposed to be about the same size as a Zentraedi? Need evidence....

Here's exhibit 1. The end of episode 2 has Roy and Hikaru encountering a Zentraedi soldier. It is not explicitly evident, but he sure looks about one battroid tall.

tonight, on DWTS

 Next we have the graceful dance of Commander Breetai and a VF-1J from episode 11. Breetai is supposed to be a bit taller than your average soldier, and I think that fits the picture.

wicked cosplay dude

 In episode 12, Max disguises his Valkyrie as a Zentraedi soldier. The uniform does not look ridiculously sized, and if anything is a little big on him.

Okay, so maybe the Gashapon battroids would be appropriately sized to the Queadluun Rau. All the same, this whole crazy plan came about because I found a 1:100 15th Anniversary Macross kit of a VF-1S Strike Valkyrie at Model Cave and had to buy it. Maybe if I build it and compare it to the QR it will make a better looking opponent, even if the scales aren't quite right.

Aren't you a little short to be an alien killing machine?

Nope. The VF-1S is crazy big next to the Zentraedi. Imagine the first scene above with the giant metallic battroid and the tiny Zentraedi pilot. No. As strange as it seems, the Gashapon toys are the closest to correct scale as I can find. For reference I also put a 15mm fig in the photo. He would be a little large for 1:144, but imagining him a little smaller I can really see him with the Gashapon toy and not the giant metallic guy. The choice of Bandai not to produce Valkyrie's in 1:144 makes sense now, since it would be a really insignificant little kit. Likewise, a 1:100 Queadluun Rau would be pretty huge kit. I understand there is a 1:100 Glaug kit to be had. That should be fun to build.

maybe something more dramatic...

The toys are actually detailed enough that I can cut/reposition/paint them and they will likely look pretty good. The only thing that worries me is that the Valkyrie will look comically small. Maybe the Strike VF-1S's added bulk will mitigate that.

The topic of Zentraedi height in canon/anime was covered on macross2.net in this article.

The upcoming Robotech RPG Tactics game will be 1:285 scale, so imagine the QR suit half that size. It will be interesting to see the comparative Valkyrie/QR size when that hits the street.

Stonecutters Are Victorious!

After an entire first season of losses and draws (in equal measure) the Stonecutters pulled off an actual bon-a-fide "W" in last night's season 2 opener. Slayers Skalf and Dumin both leveled after the match. In keeping with their appearance, Skalf now has "stand firm" and Dumin now has "mighty blow".

My opponent was new league member Rick. His team of humans, the "Marburg Septics", were each named after a disease. Aspiring Nurgle team? Who knows. With three catchers on the field I was expecting a lot more passing. The dice did not go Rick's way, including an interception at a key moment in the second half. On the plus side he hired a wandering apothecary as an inducement, and so managed to reduce a casualty result of "killed" (6-8... maximum killage) to merely MNG. Whew.

This game was also a test run of my recently injured player. Blocker Thorek had leveled and gotten the skill "guard" but had been injured in Dungeonbowl and lost a point of movement. Blockers only start at M4, so going down to 3 seemed pretty harsh. He actually performed quite well, and so I will keep him instead of firing him and hiring a new player. He is also the first miniature I painted for the team, so for reasons I can't quite understand I was reluctant to fire/re-hire, even if it just meant a new name and stat line for the same miniature.

Ok, off to get me a Big Moot Sandwich(tm)!

A Little Treat from Blackwater Gulch

These came in the mail earlier this week. It was a bit of a surprise since I had completely forgotten about pre-ordering them in April '13. These figures immediately appealed to me since they fill in the gaps of the Sedition Wars "Calamity Crew" figure set by including a not-Simon, a not-Kaylee and a not-Book. I put a wash on them so they would photograph better, which helped and hurt. They are not as bug-eyed as they appear in the photo.

The sculpts are nice enough. Not-Mal is the only figure in one piece. All the others required one added piece, except not-Simon who required both hands to be glued on. The proportions are a bit more "heroic" than McVey's figures, so they are an imperfect but reasonable fit together.

Now all I need is someone to make a not-Wash and not-Inara figure and the set will be complete.

Pegasus Gothic Building Combo

Despite my attentions tending toward the digital lately, I took a little time to assemble and dry-brush a combination of two Pegasus Hobbies kits.

sometimes one front door isn't enough

I had originally bought the large set to assemble as ruins, but the regular line and attachment pegs across the top of each wall really killed the aesthetic. When Jimmy bought me the small set for Christmas, I decided to see what sort of building it can make combined. A little balsa for the roof and it makes a nice little scenery piece. The extra pieces made a neat little tomb, which I will need to roof in some way. It certainly looks like it would be at home in a fantasy or grimdark sci-fi setting.


This assembly uses the following:
#4923 Gothic City Buildings Large Set
#4924 Gothic City Buildings Small Set #1
http://pegasushobbies.net

So I Quit My Job Today...

Bitwise OR is funny

Yup, I pulled the trigger. I'm going to be self-employed as of January 10, 2014, developing apps for PC and mobile platforms, and by apps I mean games. That's the plan. My kids have asked me if we are going to be hobos. Probably not, kids. Well, maybe probably not.

So stay tuned here for more information. Any advice for the burgeoning entrepreneur?

The Blood Bowl Season So Far

I am relatively new to Blood Bowl, and can already say that I am a die-hard fan. This game hits the sweet spot for playability, community, modeling, you name it. This year I have been playing in a league with some local guys, and the experience has been fantastic.

Here are a few highlights from the season so far... I haven't gotten a lot of pictures, and the ones I have are pretty lousy.

The Fetterspike Gougers made an appearance to crush me 4-0 in my inaugural game. It was a lesson in what a speed team can do to a slow-ish team. Yikes.

All lined up and ready to lose.

I knocked over and even K.O.'d a ton of rats, but no injuries.

The Orc team  "Birch's Bloodmoor Brawlers" was a tough bunch, and I got to see both how great "guard" is and how annoying "Really Stupid" is (for the owner, not the opponent! That troll just standing there made my day.) I lost 0-1 but learned a lot. My mercenary Deathroller was waaay too big, and we ended up using stand-in models for the Deathroller and the Troll when they got near each other.

The Dark Elf team "Tehn'azi Spoilers" gave me a real run for my money. We had to reschedule the main match and even then couldn't finish the match once we met, so we called it a draw. One of the funny things about this match was the fact that neither of us had a board on us, so we ended up making one quickly. Cheap but effective.

"Grunk's Pounders" was the first team against which I scored, and much celebrating ensued. The game ended tied at 1-1 and was a ton of fun. The snotlings get stunned easily but the Ogres are tough as nails both dishing it out and taking it.

 My most recent game against "Elfin Whimsy" resulted in my very first inflicted casualty. An elf lineman went down and didn't get back up. Ha! EW is high up in the standings, and I feel just a little bad that I put his best player MNG for what will be the championship game for him. I lost the game 3-2 but 2 points was a record for me.

I have one more game this season, and with zero wins to my name I am hoping to score a single W. Next season should be better now that my team all have block and one blitzer has guard. I really like the idea of using better players instead of all the inducements I've gotten.

Despite my dislike for it initially, I really like the PC version of Blood Bowl now. I played my first online game with a friend and it was basically the board game. It's no match for moving minis and rolling dice, but it was a lot of fun. Just make sure to switch the camera from automatic to manual.

Next Game in Progress

My next game for Kongregate has been started. It's an "homage" (read: blatant rip-off) of a classic early 80's arcade game. You stay at the center and change gun direction to shoot enemies and incoming bullets. The original was in color, but I wanted to get a b&w vibe for my version.

Anyone want to venture a guess as to the original?

Arbitrary Center Bitmap Rotation in OpenFL

The problem: Bitmap objects (and display objects in general) are always rotated about the (0,0) relative coordinate when the .rotation member is set. This does not allow an object to pivot on the spot, but rather orbit its upper left point.

The solution: specify a coordinate pair to act as the center, perform a matrix rotate transformation on the point to determine where it would be after the rotation and then translate the Bitmap object to account for the difference.

The downside: the x and y location of the rotating bitmap class must be tracked separately from the x and y of the parent Bitmap, as they will be different. Also, an update method must be called to do the offset.

// import the usual suspects
import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.display.Bitmap;
import flash.events.Event;
import openfl.Assets;
import flash.Lib;
import flash.geom.Matrix;

class Main extends Sprite {

    private var myTest:RotatingBitmap;

    public function new() {
        super();
        myTest = new RotatingBitmap(
                   Assets.getBitmapData("assets/circle.png")
        );
        myTest.xloc = 400;
        myTest.yloc = 400;
        myTest.xcenter=25;
        myTest.ycenter=25;

        removeEventListener (Event.ENTER_FRAME, this_onEnterFrame);

addEventListener (Event.ENTER_FRAME, this_onEnterFrame);

    }

    private function this_onEnterFrame(event.Event):Void {
        myTest.rotation+=15;
        myTest.update();
    }    

}

class RotatingBitmap extends Bitmap {
        // the intended location, since x and y will be changing
public var xloc:Float;
public var yloc:Float;
        // the center x,y of the rotation
public var xcenter:Float;
public var ycenter:Float;

public function new(asset:Dynamic) {
                // load the asset and add to the stage
super(asset);
flash.Lib.current.addChild(this);
}

public function update() {
                // here's where the magic happens

                // define the rotation parms
var mymatrix:Matrix = new Matrix();
mymatrix.rotate(Math.PI*(this.rotation)/180);

                // create a point to represent the center
var mypoint = new flash.geom.Point(xcenter,ycenter);

                // transform into a new point
var newpoint:flash.geom.Point = mymatrix.transformPoint(mypoint);
                // move the bitmap to the proper new location
                this.x = xloc-newpoint.x;
this.y = yloc-newpoint.y;

}

}

Here is a little example of the default rotation and a rotation set at the (nearly) center of the image.

Dungeons and Dragsters

Despite it being mid/late November, I present my October Challenge submission, D&D. You race through the dungeon and smash into the dragon at the end. Go fast enough and defeat him, or ... not. How did this particular mash-up come about? I started with a concept I had been noodling over for a while, but as the deadline crept closer and closer I jokingly said, "I should just abandon the whole thing and remake Activision Dragster for the 2600." Somewhere in between what I had already done and the game I played as a youngster, Dungeons and Dragsters was born.

It took my coworkers approximately 60 seconds to figure out how to break the driving to get max velocity. Time to rework some of that gearing code.

The First Rule of Book Club...

This box arrived for me in yesterday's mail. At first I was a bit puzzled because I didn't remember buying anything. Then I was a lot puzzled because there was a gift card that said it was from Mike Howell. I checked with the only other Mike Howell I know, and he didn't send it. The only logical conclusion I can make is that I've gone all Tyler Durden on myself.

What hidden message from myself could Ender's Game contain? Should I start making soap? I think I'll skip the blowing up buildings part, since that doesn't end well for anyone. You can tell Fight Club was definitely a pre-9/11 thing, because we don't joke around about that kind of stuff now.

October Challenge

A friend sent me a link to this Ludum Dare mini-challenge. The challenge is to get a video game to market and make at least $1 on it in the month of October. That's it. Any genre, any platform. He even said he had $1 that was designated to buy whatever I published as incentive (a "kick-in-the-ass-starter" as he put it.)

All I can say is......

A Productive Thursday Night

It's been a while since I posted a Thursday night hobby status. Last night was productive enough that I feel inclined to share. First off, my voluminous Sedition Wars assemble. This pic includes Dr. Hexen (not Cylon #6), Susan Ridley (not Ripley and Newt), Ramirez (not Vasquez), Tranquility Crew (not Serenity crew), 6 bone crabs and 6 mini turrets. Getting the mold lines off those things seemed easier than it did with the original vanguard I painted. Maybe they altered the plastic composition somewhat between the first batch and now. A little Ambroid Pro-Weld on some of the surfaces that had mold lines previously helped smooth things out a bit. It's the only solvent glue I've seen that works on this type of plastic. 

 Jimmy worked on his undead. I can't remember what army he's going to be playing them as.... Vampire Courts or Lizardmen or something. Here are Orcs and Beastmen. Any ideas on how to make the left one more Orc-y?

 Next up, the High Elves that he's converting to be undead....

 ...and finally some zombie pirates he converted. He has an elaborate backstory for this army but I can't remember the details right now. It involves ships being corrupted on their way to Lustria by a vampire and the resulting group setting up camp there. There are definitely some undead Lizardmen involved.

In Threes, You Say?

Michael Crichton

Born: October 23, 1942
Died: November 4, 2008

Age of death: 66

Well, he did as it turns out. We didn't. 

Tom Clancy

Born: April 12, 1947

Died: October 1, 2013

Age of death: 66

Fairly safe to assume.

Stephen King
Born: September 21, 1947
Current Age: 66 (for the next 354 days anyway)

Ummmm......

Shut up, Wystan.
Nobody cares about you.

Installing openfl and haxe 3.0 on Ubuntu

Making the jump from using NME and haxe for cross platform development to using openfl led to a bit of a frustration. Trying to upgrade to haxe 3.0 and get openfl to install caused collisions between the old version and the new version. Especially frustrating was running  sudo haxelib run openfl setup and getting the the dreaded:

Called from ? line 1
Called from RunScript.hx line 798
Called from helpers/PathHelper.hx line 170
Called from C:\HaxeToolkit\haxe/std/neko/_std/sys/io/Process.hx line 88
Called from C:\HaxeToolkit\haxe/std/neko/_std/sys/io/Process.hx line 96
Uncaught exception - Process creation failure : haxelib

To correct all the issues, I did the following:

1. remove every instance of haxe/neko/openfl you can find from your computer. Most of it should be symlinks in /usr/bin and files in /usr/lib/(haxe|neko)
2. go to http://www.openfl.org/download/ and download the Linux installer from the "install haxe" step. 
3. Unpack the tar.gz file you just downloaded run the install-haxe.sh script in a console. It will fail on the last step because haxelib isn't anywhere in the path.
4. type ln -s /usr/lib/haxe/std/tools/haxelib/haxelib haxelib to create a symbolic link to the haxelib tool in a place where it can actually be found.
5. continue with the setup instructions and things should work from there.

After the installation, create a directory to test the samples, then use openfl create DisplayingABitmap in that directory to download the bitmap sample. Run the sample with openfl test flash and you should see a flash window (or browser) open with the openfl logo. If, like on my machine, x-shockwave-flash mime type was associated with totem (a video player) you can change that by editing /usr/share/applications/defaults.list and replace target for application/x-shockwave-flash to point to a desktop file for a flash player (I use flashplayerdebugger.desktop.) Once that is changed, openfl test flash will open the flash player correctly.

Some Final Blood Bowl Prep

Since the team I'm playing tomorrow is 410k greater value than mine, I get some inducements to even the field a bit. Of course I needed to model them. I'll be taking a Halfling Master Chef (WIP converted from a Halfling Hot Pot I had lying around) and another apothecary, represented by the infamous Nurse Gretchin there. I also decided to make some more tokens, so I made re-roll tokens to represent the Dwarf rune for fate. I wish I had looked at my source material again, because they are almost right. Whoops. I also painted some runes (Might) on the shoulders of my Blitzers, per Tristan's suggestion.

Blood Bowl: Skalf's Stonecutters

11 players, ready to roll block dice

Blood Bowl is less than 24 hours away, and I am ready to roll. My roster is set, my team is painted, my dugout is complete. Behold "Skalf's Stonecutters." The fellows with the large shoulder pads on the left are blitzers. The blue helmeted guys on the right are runners. The slayers are front and center and the other five are blockers. From this angle you can clearly see the four 20mm and one 40mm cut-out spots for team expansion. 

 The dugout morgue was supposed to have a marking of a Dwarf ancestor face that GW is so crazy about, but done with X eyes and tongue out. The eyes and tongue are pretty obvious, but the intention of it being the ancestor face takes a bit of a stretch. I was fairly pleased with the drag marks leading to the "dump pile."

The morgue looks like it has gotten some use.
Hopefully that doesn't happen this season.

 The apothecary didn't need a mini, but I had one of these guys and figured I'd use him. He's holding a bandage and ready to fix up some Stonecutters. The roll on the table was done by gluing dental tape to the side of a toothpick, then rolling it around with some superglue, then cutting the toothpick and sliding the roll off (breaking the glue to the wood in the process.) The rune on the floor is the Dwarf rune for healing. Since taking this pic I have glued the bandage on the table down so that it looks like it's draping over the side instead of sticking out like that.

He'd really rather be on the pitch.

 Our league uses OBBLM for management, and one of the options was to upload a team logo. Of course I did just that, and replicated the logo on the big slab in the back. It turned out pretty close to the computer file I created and it's all free-hand, so that worked out pretty well. The two axes are markers for.... I dunno, turn and re-rolls? Yeah, probably that.

The glorious Stonecutters logo!

Okay, get ready for some game reports in the next week!

For Laura

In these hundreds of faces
surely I saw yours once.
Your stolen smile
flickers through the crowd
darting between the outlines
of people walking with purpose.
The memorized face
of someone I never knew.