What's Rolled, Trundled, Walked, Flown, or Hovered Off The Workbench of Late...

As the post title says, here's a visual parade of what assorted madness and mayhem I've managed to fit in between shredding my brain almost daily on The Thesis From Hell and other fits of academic lunacy:

 The 28mm Gunship finished at last...

Generic scaled gun emplacements. The Weapon mounts rotate 360 degrees, and were originally plastic soup bowls with assorted bits and such to give them some character, but no visible doors or windows to keep them scale neutral...

The heavy artillery/anti-tank emplacement...

The mixed armament emplacement...

A pair of 15mm heavy grav tanks in desert camp spec...

Closeup of the energy cannon armed variant with the turret rotated back to the 5 o'clock position. Note the driver's station in the front of the hull...

The hypervelocity cannon armed variant, again with the turret rotated to the 5 o'clock position...

A c-cubed variant and an air defense variant works in progress to join the tank section...

A pair of heavy grav assault howitzers to support my Khurasan Miniatures Federal Army Exterminators demi-brigade (all a work of progress together!)...

The Exterminator infantry with their RAM mortar platoon...

So I walked into CVS for something and I spotted these in the toy aisle for $8 and some change...

And of course not being one to look a gift trio of mecha in their voice speaker grills...

I got down to business...

One by one...

I added bits... then a primer coat....

And on went the base coats...

One by one...

One after the other...

Adding a second shade of the base color and second and third pattern colors...

And yer just gonna have ta wait until next time to see how they turned out! Stay tuned... Bwahahahahahahahahaaaaa!!!!

Celesticon ROCKS!

Like the title says, Celesticon 2013 was outstanding! Seriously, folks, I had a great time, and yes, I *was* an invited Special Guest and all as a speaker at Celesticon's annual War College, but seriously, after schleppin' around game conventions since 1976, I've seen 'em run right, and I've seen 'em run VERY wrong (ie., Origins in San Jose, CA that was so poorly done that I have managed to blank the actual year of the con from my memory! GAH!!!).

Celesticon 2013 is the second I've attended. I missed last year but did catch them at the Hotel Sofitel in 2011 and again, a well run show with lots to do and see. The eye candy at this year's show speaks for itself, so I will satisfy myself and your curiosity, dear readers, with a direct link to Celesticon's Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/CelestiCon/115533551840950



The War College Lectures went very well. Saturday's talk was concerning some persisting myths about the French Army and the French Campaign of May-June 1940, while on Sunday I presented the Chinese Civil War during the Warlord Period. 

Since CelestiCon ended, they have been put online as podcasts along with the other lectures for your listening pleasure:


http://www.celesticon.com/seminars.php



I will make parts of these lectures available on this blog in a future installment, as the podcasts don't include the period photos and artwork shown during the actual lectures.

The host of the War College, historian Dana Lombardy, has invited me to speak at future War College events here in the Bay Area. My next such War College lecture will be at DunDraCon in February, 2014, where I'll be speaking on the subject of the evolution of the arms and armor of the samurai during the Sengoku Jidai, and the Imjin War 1592-98 that witnessed some of the most brutally contested battles in Asian military history. 

Mr. Lombardy's War College series is really a very enjoyable way to increase your knowledge of a variety of subjects from military history, so I highly recommend them accordingly.