Iguana post more often, really I do!

Well, it's been a while! I swear I've been painting and all, I just keep forgetting to post or to photograph!

This is a bit an older post, but I finally re-found the photos for this and have decided to put them online at long last:

This is my entry from Q2 into the Mayacast Contest, the ever-awesome Infinity Nomad Iguana TAG.

Starting out, I decided to go with a more Central-American theme with this TAG, having done Africa with the two Geckos. The TAG's pilot is named Yupanki, which is a famous warrior/military leader, and translates roughly to "With Honour". It's been painted to stay consistent with the Geckos in colour scheme, except for that ominous and I'm sure in no way relevant right hand paint!

You may also notice the TAG is converted! I wasn't a fan of the angry point, so I decided to shift the pose to be a broad-shape shooting stance. With the belt feed HMG, it looked more dramatic that way.

Here you can see a more top-to-bottom pose for the TAG. I have the same safety warnings across the guy as with the Geckos, and while I considered a bunch of integrated black and white striping, I felt the full red just felt more in keeping with how I've been painting my TAGs so far.

The tail, from behind: this tail was annoying to paint. It's a lot of segments, and I primarily airbrushed it. You can also see the warning labels on the ammo hopper, and in general my non-metallic-metal styled metallic painting. It keeps it shiny IRL, and still has a nice light-to-dark.

The markings on the side of the leg and the shoulder pads are, in Mayan and Aztec writings, essentially translated are "Death Lizard" (on the shoulderpad in this case) and "Storm Lord/Chief" - I figure this pilot, with the honour of fighting in a full Iguana, has quite a bit of ego to him!

The colours are personal artistic license, but as with the Geckos, I want to make my TAGs look as much as possible like they've been decorated by crews with a great love for machines, and a bit less a love of military regulation. No idea what I'll do for the Salamander once it gets resculpted!

Upcoming should be the Van Zant from the most recent contest, as well as (hopefully) some of the other wild things I've been working on. I'll also try to limit the amount of downtime between posts, and actually get my butt back in gear painting and not just assembling and buying!

As always, happy painting!

Variety, Hacking, and Trends

CB, we need to talk. You make an amazing game, your models are often the best on the market. You are very good at making varied poses for HMGs, missile launchers, TAGs, heavy infantry. Your female models are a bit too 'sexypose' too often, but I understand why...

...But there's a problem. You don't seem to know what to do with your hackers! With most other categories of soldier in the game, you have a firm grasp of varied poses, and the idea that just because they're for a combat game doesn't mean they need to be in-that-moment shooting. Why, then, do you entirely forget that when it comes to making interesting and varied poses for perhaps the most important models in the game?

Not certain what I mean? Let's look:

 Look at this: These are all hacker-specific models, produced recently in the timeline of Infinity, that are every one of them AT THIS MOMENT hacking by waving the magic hand. In the most egregious cases, their poses are identical! The fusilier, Morat, Hac Tao, Govad, Ragik, both Interventors, Ghulam... all legs slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, all actively hacking off to the side. For some, like the Nisses, Naga, Dasyus, or Hellcat, they're at least in motion as they hack, but hey, let's compare that to the non-hacking right? Could be a coincidence:

Hm, whereas we had 18 'hacking' models, of which arguably 11 are in a nearly identical pose, there are 9 photographed (another two unphotographed: Valerya Gromoz and Isobel MacGregor). I include the Ninja in this group because arguably she could be slicing someone, adding some variety. In this group is also the Alguacile, because though he's depicted in pics as hacking at this moment, I would argue the pose doesn't require him to be.

Otherwise, one firing the gun she was equipped with, one tossing off a sassy salute, three with hand-on-hip basic pose, and two 'other'. The unphotographed pair are kneeling and lifting goggles, and turning to fire at someone for interrupting a hack in progress.

That's really boring. There are other ways I must assume to depict that a soldier is a hacker besides "See? They hack!" that can fill some more models. The thing that finally made me decide to post about this is this month's releases, which saw a Nisses Hacker in "I WILL GRAB YOUR FACE" hack pose, the Hac Tao in spread stance, AND the Govad in spread stance all in one go. The Hac Tao is HOLDING the big scary sword! Why not have him in an active sword-brandishing pose that also has an 'empty hand' that could be hacking? Make it look like he's reinforcing an attack on an enemy HI (say, a Father Knight) by messing with his armour systems in combat? He's a CC 19, WIP 14, BTS 6 dude, he can probably pull off the split attention!

Now, there's one model I've not included here because I've complained about her before, but you can look at a previous post on this blog to see an example: The Mobile Brigada hacker is just painful. She's equipped with a combi rifle, a pistol, and a close combat weapon, and is depicted with the pistol? (And for some reason is minus her suit's power plant?)

Please vary up the poses more. It actually turned me off buying the Hac Tao Hacker this month.

Gecko Shoulders Completed!

After the difficulty of creating the Escher shoulder, the remaining three actually went fairly smoothly and quickly! I haven't had time to upload them, but they each took maybe a few hours of effort.

On the same TAG as the Escher shoulder, I did a roughly-transcribed starfield, as though someone was using a thick brush and not too concerned with borders. I gave it a slight highlight from black to grey, then added a nice simple starpattern.

Then, in the same way one usually paints flat panels (highlighting from dark) we have the TAG's name (Space Gecko) and an adorable gecko in 1950s style imagined spacesuit! (Including helmet sheen!)

Next up was the name shoulder pad for my other TAG, which I decided to call "Huntress" - This is a fairly straightforward idea, which I decided to do because I figure at least one TAG had to have the under-dressed female painted on. In this case, a warrior woman holding a shield spearing a tiger (perhaps the Yu Jing tiger?)

Highlighted as with the gecko; the tiger's a mix of orange and brown, the skin tone is leather brown mixed with gradually increasing layers of pale fleshtone from Vallejo. The shield as you can see will be the Nomad icon.
 

And here it is finished! I decided to go wild on hair, (they are Nomads after all) and painting tigers to not look like weird orange wolves is hard! I contemplated covering her up in a trailing sheet or toga-like wrap of some sort, but decided it was more honest to just go for it.

For the final shoulder I decided to go a slightly different direction. After trying for a while to look up African art styles, I realized a lot of them either don't lend themselves well to shoulder painting, or have become incredibly overdone. (Much like the 'random Japanese/Chinese characters tattoo'.)

To that end, I decided to switch to the other major Terrestrial influence on Nomad culture; Central America!

I did some image searches for Mexican and similar art styles, and decided to try to imitate a gecko done up in that kind of pattern.

I don't really have progress photos because the interior painting went kind of fast, but behold, a Mexican styled gecko! With this shoulder painted, and all four coated in varnish to make sure I don't mess up their painting down the line, I finally got to assemble the geckos, so they don't look really silly with stubby little arms and massive legs! Now it's time for clean-up painting, tweaking highlights, and then applying decals. They will probably be put on the back burner for a bit with my Morats as I attempt to custom-make transparent bases for my Infinity stuff.

Up next, in all likelihood, Trollbloods! (Because I am good at focusing on a single game...)

Gecko Escher Madness

Well, gradually things are calming down, and I'm actually getting painting time!

To that end, I finally motivated myself to get done something I'd been staring down for some time and trying to work up the nerve to start.

I speak, of course, of the Gecko shoulderpads.

First up is the Combi-Rifle off-shoulder: I decided to do a neat Gecko/Lizard themed pattern on one that may be familiar to some folks, namely:

(From Wikipedia)

Escher's an artist I love looking at, and I had to recreate it if I could. I don't know the size of the original, but I suspect it was larger than the Gecko!

Sorry for the blurriness; cell camera fun...

The process remains, I suspect, the same: Carefully dot thinned black paint in a hex formation, after which I connected the dots with thin traced lines. This allows me to rough out where the gecko limbs need to be, and how I need to line them up.

Next came a rough initial paint of the geckos. At this stage there are still a few flaws, and the paint isn't too thick, but it gives me an idea of what I need to sort out, where things will go, etc.

The return of real camera!

A second coat followed the first, cleaning up all the lines, thickening the paint, and getting rid of the remnants of the hex grid on the solid-red geckos.

And then it was time for a lot of washes, re-highlights, and cleanups! There's a painted gradation from the left side to right side, since the gun will be held directly into the air. (The eyes have been cleaned up since these photos were taken.)

As a final step, the whole shoulderpad was hit with a coat of gloss to seal it in. I'll probably go over it with a matte finish afterwards, but for now I want to make darn sure it's not going to get chipped or marred!

It was a fun if mind-bending paint, trying to remember where various limbs should go, making sure the paints were thin enough, trying to follow the lines properly. It ends up looking good though! I did have a friend ask why I wasn't doing an entire tag in this pattern, and... I think I'd just snap if I had to fit this pattern around legs and hands!

Next up is the Huntress shoulderpad, which is about half done so far. I've finally settled on all four shoulder designs, so they should be along in good order!

And now, back to painting...

Converting Ice Storm Nomads

I return!

In the last month of not updating the blog, I have gotten married, gotten a new apartment, and attempted to move everything here without resulting in a broken pile of pewter and plastic!

As I settled in, I've done some work on the Morats, and decided to start prepping the Nomads for painting. A friend and I swapped models from two boxes of Operation: Icestorm, resulting in us each having two of everything. I have determined to not have utter duplicates in the force, meaning I need to convert seven models of the box. Luckily, the two male Alguaciles could get away with a simple arms swap, but the female Alguacile was a bit more of a challenge.

Corvus Belli loves giving its female models pinup poses, but luckily there was enough gap between the legs to pull them to a wider (if still a bit hippy) stance, and her arms were thin enough to carefully reposition into a firing stance.

...the one problem was the hair. I had to change it, and the only thing for it was a trip to the barber's shop!

I'm not exactly the gentlest barber...

 

(Sorry for the blurriness of the photos; I'm still using my cell for pics!)

I first carefully cut off all the hair and shaved her head down to just a scalp. This took some careful gouges/cuts with a boxcutter, and even closer trims with a craft blade.

Old Man Hair!

Then came careful puttying of the short hair around the sides and back of her head. I wanted to go with a more military-standard short cut, with a bit of a bizarre flare. I want to make the Alguaciles (and Nomads in general) look as though they struggle between professional military and individualist themes. You can also see in this one the modifications to the body pose.

(Whups, flipped the photo order)

Next up, after the first round had dried, I added a blob of putty to the top, gave it a part, and pulled it down on the far side, to give a bit of individual style.

As usual, I tend to work fast when I get closer to the final stages, so here's a 'finished' shot: I used a craft knife to turn the blob into individual hairs or clumps, gave her a single lock over the forehead, and then a hairstyle that's very short on the left, gradually getting longer around the back of the head until it hangs down to the jawline on the right side.

Next up I'll put on photos of the other two Alguaciles. I'm hoping when painted the hairstyle will work. I will likely give her a black wash to see if anything stands out.

See you hopefully sooner than another month from now!

Pre-Wedding Update: Geckos, Morats, Artwork!

With my wedding about a week away, I'm sure I'll have _loads_ of painting time shortly. That said, there's some stuff I've managed to get work done on in the interim.

Morat skin! It's a bit glossy at the moment, but it's been highlighted from a purplish colour up through red to dark fleshtone. It adds a vibrancy to the skin, and prevents it from suffering a pinkish fade.

The faces on these two is a bit more limited in visibility than...

...the Huntress! Here you can see a lot of skin painting, because she's got a lot exposed. I am amazed at the amount of detail sculpted into this dangerous woman. You can see all kinds of minor muscle clusters around her ribs, as well as more realistic folds where her body twists. With this much skin you can see how the red seems to glow!

And if not, here's a nice close-up of her to get the idea. Again, I'm not certain I like the level of gloss, but since I'll be layering over with varnish coats, it'll not really hold through. It was interesting trying to highlight skin so it looks natural, but in a colour no normal skin is!

But wait, there's more...

I have been sketching for a few days trying to figure out what I would do for Gecko shoulderpads. I have one or two I know I want to paint on, but I need to pick the "Named" shoulderpads.

I themed this off nose art from bombers, which will hopefully explain the mix of weird/random, and 'sexualized' sketches (if you can make out the tiny doodles)

This is typically how I decide my freehand before actually applying it. A lot of sketching to try to figure out how detailed I'll need to go, and to get an idea of what it'll look like in the end.

Soon, I hope, I'll have after-pics of awesome Gecko shoulderpads! After here meaning after painting, after moving, and after wedding...

Mini Madness Update

Well, work is kicking my butt, and that plus being sick has meant I haven't gotten a lot of time painting. That said, I have an open call to all helpful readers of this blog: I am trying to collect ideas for 'bomber art' for my Geckos. I want their shoulderpads decorated in a very non-military fashion.

For examples, I am so far looking at WWII bomber art, Terran Marines armour art, and anything along those lines. I don't just want it to be 'seductive woman' type things, though I'm not against it.

That said, I can show you what I have managed to get done since the sickness passed. (Yay for strep throat)

My Geckos now have pilot names! I figure much in the same way that planes have the pilot's name painted on the side, it'd be neat to do something similar with these models.

Sankuru is the name of one of the longest rivers in the Congo region, and "Mwene" is a name meaning "Prince" (at least as far as Wikipedia tells me) - I wanted to have my characters named in an African style, for reasons of Nomad fluff and making an army in at least one game that isn't 90% "white" soldiers. I figured the orbital elevator mentioned in the Nomad fluff that is supposed to have been in Africa would have caused a lot of issues with people from that area, and didn't want to pick the name of a person actually alive. (I first thought about picking famous resistance fighters or soldiers, but didn't want to get into politics with models!)

It was fun picking the typeface online (a 'face called Planet Kosmos btw) and then painting it carefully in so it'd fit with the lines.

My paint consistency was so low even my airbrush would have complained, but I had to make sure it wouldn't dry on the brush! I had lots of water standing by to soak the brush out as well afterwards.

Next up for them is cleaning up glowy bits, deciding where, if anywhere else I put the painted lines, and then adding caution and warning indicators (like all good military craft have).

I am back! (Sort of)

Wow it's almost been a month...

Between a best friend's wedding and trying to plan my own, plus a work schedule that shifted to right in the middle of my usual painting hobby time, I've not had much chance to do anything!

Today though, a brief update of what's on my desk. Nothing especially finished yet, but I'm getting there:

(All photos from my cell phone for the time being)

My Intruder is essentially finished. I need to clean up belt buckles and belts, and spray-coat him (hopefully such that he doesn't go foggy like the last round did!)

It's kind of surprising how much of him ends up drab when your goal is to paint all the armour plates!

Likewise are the Alguacile hacker and Clockmaker close to finished. Clockmaker needs insignia and pouches, Alguacile needs final highlights on her straps and pouches. I had to convert the Clockmaker head; I just found the original to be too bizarre, and so gave him a helmet that looks a bit like a welder's mask.

(You can also see the troublesome Daktari in the background: I've been trying to figure out how I want to paint her hair for some time.)

Finally, the Tomcats are on the blocks! Using my current scheme 'rules', they are nearly entirely red! I should try to limit this, since I'm generally against glowing red soldiers, but I think I may keep it. They are, after all, primarily an emergency response team, and there's a reason firefighters aren't camouflaged!

The amount of detail on these figures is astounding. I've had to go almost instantly to fine detail brush to make sure I don't miss anything! I have to debate if I'm going to do the butterfly zondcat in the drab of the zondbots, or bright red, or a combination of the two.

More soon! (Hopefully not a month from now at least).

Wildcats, Hellcats, and Prowlers; Oh My!

I have finally gotten the first 'wave' of my Infinity painting done! Ten models ready to be matte coated and based as soon as I can get good weather and some spare time to do it. In the meanwhile, pictures for all!

Pay no attention to the background...

I struggled for a while on how to do their symbols. The entire reason for this paintscheme is that it makes more sense for a military unit to be drab than bright red. That is contrasted by the fact that the Nomads primary colour is red. (Also known as the least camouflaging colour you can pick next to "dayglo"!)

I did a photoshop mockup of where I'd put the symbols in each case, and toyed with them until I found a setup I didn't dislike. First I'll show the easier ones to solve, then on to the harder choices.

The Prowler was one of the first models I painted (and one of the first I bought: Such an awesome pose.) He's the test-case for drab, and other than his pistol's grip, is remarkably subtle compared to some of the other schemes I've seen of him. The symbols for him seemed pretty straightforward; Nomad on the left shoulder, Bakunin on the right, so any enemy that spots him will see the "national" pride, whereas his allies will know where he came from.

Next up were the Hellcats. Being troops that scream in from a dropship on jets of antigrav (?), I was less concerned about 'stealth', which is why their shoulderpads have a nice distinctive Corregidor and Nomad icon. The back of their burners have squad identifiers (3-1, 3-2, 3-3) in case I ever have to distinguish them quickly stats-wise.

Ahh the Wildcats. After much debating, I decided to use that random circular patch on their right shoulder to be the Nomad symbol location, and put Corregidor's icon beside it. Their unit identifiers (4-1, 4-2, 4-3) were likewise done in low-vis beside it, with a kind of sci-fi font styling. Since I didn't want big obvious indicators on their leading shoulder, I decided to do an imitation QR code on each. I figure any Nomad helmet and HUD unit will know to read the codes to indicate "Nomad", and perhaps even name, rank, and branch of service. This way you don't lose your IFF even if you're hit with electric countermeasures (just hopefully your allies haven't been as well), and no enemies will be immediately able to identify.

I did struggle with this at first, because though they are line troopers, it's implied in the fluff they're often called upon to do shipboard combat. I figure in such situations, with cramped corridors, and a race against the clock and overwhelming odds, it's more important to whip around a corner and recognize an ally. Also, camouflage in an enemy ship would be difficult to guess ahead of time. Eventually I went more subtle because it kept the theme more consistent.

Also note the Wildcat's random disks at the front of the armour. Again, since Corregidor is often called upon to engage in zero-g or hostile spaceborn environments, having on-suit lamps that aren't attached to a gun or hand-held would be incredibly useful. I figure they're suit lamps (off when in daylight, of course) and perhaps that left-forearm device is as well.

Thus is my war against glowy armour on stealth units going strong! Since these photos I gave a dark, dark cyan wash to the helmet visors to make them richer, and to the gems to help settle the layers in.

Soon, pics of the Reverend Custodier, Zondbots, Intruder, Alguacile... I wonder if I'll have them all done by the time Icestorm shows up!

Infinite Joy

Time for an update on Infinity, as I finish up some other things.

First, the Geckos have finally been released! I bought some the instant they were in our FLGS (I got the last box of the first order!) and am drooling over the pieces, biding my time until I can get a colour scheme I am settled on.

I love the Geckos. They are truly the reason I got into Infinity, and the model quality is as good as their pics look. Legs slot comfortably into lower torsos, limbs are joined at logical points so if you want to do a conversion, it's not impossible, and the detail is incredible. Here are pics of the bitz, for those who, like me, find this kind of thing tantamount to porn:

(By the way; all the squares are centimeters.) Torso back and the backpacks. The alignment nubs socket well, and for the most part the backpack looks like it'll go on securely. I'll probably end up pinning it anyway, mostly because they'll be painted separately and then glued, so a pin will help secure the join.

Torso front and legs: The legs look blocky and powerful, which is what an exo-suit would need. You can see in places under the armour-plating the ferro-fibrous muscle bundles, and other than a few places where the flash is sizeable, the casting is fantastic. Everything sockets logically, and the shapes are slightly different, so you know which legs go with which torso.

The guns! I am a huge fan of the Mk. 12 pose, and I'm becoming more of a fan of the combi-rifle pose as well. These pieces are incredibly detailed and smoothly cast. There's again a few spots where the flashing is in bizarre locations, so be careful before you clip that you're not taking off detail!

"The Rest" - All the tiny bits and pieces that go into making the suit work. Stubby little person arms, back-toes, the heads, and the chain-colts (thank you Corvus Belli for making those separate pieces!) There's a lot of extra pewter in here. I have a bag sizeable enough I could start making my own models!

So, that's the Gecko. I also have been continuing to paint up my Nomad Prowler, trying to nail down his colour scheme:

I've nailed the overall armour colour, I think, and decided to go with deep red pants just for the sake of force unity. The white shoulderpads are also a nod to my final look. I still need to fine-tune their highlights (or more, the shade) and then add all the various military-like patches. The guns being olive drab I figure is a good way to convey that the guns themselves may get sold to mercenary groups, so a generic colour (and a neutral one) broadens the market. I may fool with that later, and especially with a gun the size of the Spitfire, give it more detail.

You can also (possibly) see on his stomach-plate, I tested the hex-armour idea. It does not work. The model overall is too small for the plates to come off looking right, and as a result they end up looking like some weird speckling. Once I've cleared the painting table a bit more, I'll get back around to finishing him up and determining if there's anything I want to adapt.

I still think I'm going to make the models that are more 'sneaky' the drab, and then more "aggressive" the red in increased amounts. No way a Hellcat is being stealthy, and a Gecko's not exactly going to hide behind a shrub! I will also, however, be limiting and essentially eliminating the 'glow' aspect of a lot of Infinity models. It's very sci-fi, I know, but it's also a bit silly to have a stealth suit that looks like a raver... Probably just wrist-comms and hacking gear that will end up getting a glow treatment.

Nomad Paint Options

As I have cleaned, assembled, and basecoated my Nomads, my mind turns of course to paintschemes. I like to have a good idea before I start putting paint to model of what I will end up with, otherwise I tend to get bogged down at the halfway point trying to decide what to do for a certain section. In this case, it's especially important with the model count being so few, and the look of the models being so clean.

Luckily, I managed to snag the last copy of the art book from my FLGS and have plumbed it for fun things (I am a sucker for art books). I scanned a few photos of models I know I have, and put 'em in Photoshop to colour. I have a tablet that doesn't see as much use as I wish it did, but for things like this it is ideal. I can test out schemes quickly, imitate paint effects, and not worry about having to soylent green any models after too many applications.

As a preamble: I love the Ghost in the Shell series. The look of the combat armour, suits, 'tanks', etc. I love that even with opticamo, they still have nice drab outfits, and am leaning towards a look like that.

With that, here's what I have been musing over:

First up is a variation on the default scheme of Corregidor. Most of my models are (and will be) from this ship, so having a good strong red scheme seemed like a good idea. While I understand the mentality of "it doesn't matter their armour colour: Adaptive camo will take effect", to me, there's no reason to strain your poor camo computer by making it red to start!

With that in mind, you can see the three-part scheme above. I've done default bright red for the really noisy big things that aren't hiding: Hellcats, TAGs, possibly remotes, etc. Next up are the "support models". Represented here by a Custodier, this class would include Daktari, engineers, and the like, and feature a nice distinct white scheme.

Finally the black on the far right, while technically a hellcat in miniature, is meant to represent the more stealthy soldiers: Intruders, Zeros, and the like. Black on grey sets them up nice and dark, with red influences to tie them together. The advantage of this scheme is it follows the classic colour design combo of red-black-white, the disadvantage is it is nowhere near camo-like or Ghost in the Shell.

Holding to the white theme; One of my first wonders was an all-white scheme with either orange or red as accent colours. On this one I've also added a digital camo pattern, which if I do, I may do as hexes instead of squares. Being consistently white gives this one the advantage of being arguably more in line with the Ghost in the Shell feel, while maintaining Nomad similarity and allowing me to distinguish Bakunin and Corregidor. I'm not entirely sold though on HOW white this one is. I tend to find pure white schemes tough to make look really slick. Any mar, any inconsistent thickness in the paint, and the effect is ruined.

I've also toyed with one borrowing from above, but replacing the default white with a more urban drab. I would still heavily theme the white in patches, especially on the support models, but any of the 'line troops' would have a nice pale colour, not specifically indicative of any one background, but neutral enough to make it hard to distinguish features. I keep the red belts and details, and above have the digicam and non digicam versions.

Finally, a more olive colour. This one appears a bit minty-green, but I'd play with that colour to make it nice and neutral, using Russian Uniform as the base. In this one, white is used sparingly (and again almost exclusively on support models), and the red is limited. The mild green influence would help them be complimentary.

Overall I'm leaning towards the last two, with digital camo only applied if, once the model is painted, it feels like it wouldn't be too busy.

Currently you'll notice all the helmets with a shiny black. This is because the 'eyeslit' arrangement is not good for binary vision. My first solution of course is to turn them into up-armoured plexi, but I may decide to do them in standard colour, and just claim that where you can't see an eye slit, it's really a complex polymer/fibre-optic cable grouping that gives a better range of view, still protecting the face and allowing for a HUD.

Now comes the part where I sit with the various schemes, seeing if one starts to intrigue me more. Then I do a test model, and if I like that, paint the rest of the force!

I can't recommend this method of scheming out colours enough though. You can set up one, then do the "adjustment layer> hue/saturation" to pull around and get wildly different colours you may not normally think to use, but once you see them on the model, look right.

The Infinitely good, the bad, and the ugly...

I have formally given up GW. That's not the point of this post, but it does explain how things ended up happening the way they did. I love their models still, their art (and universe) is fantastic, and the rules are generally getting better, but I just can't take their business practices anymore.

That left me with no sci-fi (or sci-fa) tabletop game. Like many others, I'm sure, the next closest port of call was Infinity by Corvus Belli. If you haven't taken a look at it, I highly recommend you do. The first time I was introduced to it, the pitch was "squad-scale combat that's got great mechanics". Ever a sucker for more models, I wandered over to their website, and was frustrated to find it an utter chaos of javascript.

I am a graphic designer by training. I dislike javascript so much because while it can be a great tool for internet navigation, it can also be used to make clean website design and navigation an utter nightmare. Infinity's previous website was lousy with the latter. I also mostly get into games because of the look of the models. Your game could have the coolest mechanic ever, and if it has mediocre or uninteresting models, I'll look elsewhere. By contrast, I will endure awkward rules, so long as the models continue to be fantastic (see above...)

In a nutshell, Infinity's website was a mess, I couldn't find out what troops were 'standard' or which were characters, what a range looked like as a whole, and so I put them aside. More recently, with a lack of sci-fi games, I swung back around to take a second look. This time they'd updated the website so that looking at an entire range was a thing you can actually do now! As I flicked through, I found Nomad models really spoke to me. Sure they're bright red, but for the most part, their armour is practical, relatively logical, and even on women: properly covering.

Specifically, I loved this:

Those models are lean, mean, and I can even overlook the field of view issues. The poses are compelling, everything feels like it makes sense, etc.

Similarly, this model quite strongly attracted me, for the reasons above:

Dynamic pose, interesting weapon design, strong colour scheme, and a woman in actually pretty practical outfits! (No power-armoured corset or stiletto high heels.)

Something I started to notice with a lot of the line though; while some models are fantastic looking, and others are 'okay' (and all ranges have models people will think are 'okay'), Infinity suffers from some models I think are absolutely ridiculous or outright ugly, and I can't figure out how they got past prototyping.

First up is what I am going to call the "Jethro Tull Sniper" or, as some others have pointed out, "Elmer Fudd":

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a highly-experienced, efficient, sought-after sniper. That is also a pose no sniper in history has ever made. Try it yourself: Balance one heel on your knee, and suspend a (presumably) 12kg weapon off said knee, and picture firing at any significant distance with it.

I understand not every sniper has to be in full prone sniping position, but if you're going to have him shooting, at least make him look like he could!

Next up is one that needs some explaining first. The "Daktari" is the Nomad version of a combat medic. They're daring, unarmed, and equipped to help heal downed soldiers. They're known for swearing in Turkish and for being badasses when it comes to healing, just not killing.

Picture in your head a combat medic. Heck, picture a modern military, and the guy who officially runs around with the medical gear. Looks a lot like a standard soldier minus the rifle, maybe, and with perhaps a little cross somewhere to denote his or her status? Now take a look at this:

Look at that... I know Infinity has a pin-up line, but this isn't that. There is nothing "Combat" and barely anything "medic" in that image! Yes, I know there's an alternate version that looks much more so, but man...

Finally, in the game Infinity, some models can actively hack others. This can shut down their armour, or in some cases, even take over robots and have them working for you. In this world for all that they've been inspired by Ghost in the Shell I suspect, they still manipulate the digital interface like Minority Report; hand up and with a holographic screen. The thing is, that only looks great when you can see all the CGI screen stuff. When that's not there, say on a model without it, the result is this:

That's jazz hands, or a surprised cat. I know folks have gotten transparencies printed that have the screens on them, and kudos to Corvus Belli for making those available, but it's still not a great look.

Why the post ranting about all this? Well, as any weak-willed gamer knows, the lure of a new game (and new shiny models) is an almost impossible call to resist, and I now have a Corregidor starter set and reverend custodier. Soon you will see a couple posts as I play through possible colour schemes and get to work starting a new science fiction-y force, and I had to discuss this first. I love so many of the models produced for Infinity, but I don't think I've ever had a reaction like this where it's beyond "eh, not for me" and right into "why did they..."

As a final plug, do take a look at their site: The rules are free to try, and it has mechanics I am so happy to see in a game.