Author

SCG

Finnish resident, British born. Writing again for pleasure and sanity.

This kind of thing happens often in Blood Bowl.

Playing Blood Bowl & Kill Team

by SCG November 29, 2021

written by SCG

Over the months of October and November I have been lucky enough to play a few tabletop games!

First off, I joined a friend’s Blood Bowl league. The ‘Turboleague’ is run using the Community Rule Pack (CRP), which as I understand it is a set of rules distilled from an older edition of the game, agreed upon by the community and distributed with Games Workshop’s blessing.

The only time I had previously played Blood Bowl on the tabletop was a few turns in a Games Workshop store in the 1990s, plus a few mostly unfinished tournaments in various editions of Cyanide’s fun but often broken videogame adaptations. This also meant I did not have a team, but happily my friend was willing to loan out one of his teams. And so it was that the Griffon Gate Griffons were born, a High Elf team! I’ve not previously played much of a running and passing game so this was a fun new challenge, and apparently a welcome addition to a league dominated by teams that prefer to punch than pass.

November 29, 2021 0 comments 1.2K views

Close up of the Ork terrain with pigment powder added around the lowest corner.

Kill Team: Octarius terrain painting diary

by SCG November 28, 2021

written by SCG

Back in October I finished painting the terrain from the recent Kill Team: Octarius box set. And hey, it’s Orky terrain – so I officially did something for Orktober! Huwwaaagh!

One thing I knew going into this project was that I would be making as much use of my airbrush as possible. Octarius includes quite a lot of terrain – necessary for the terrain-dense small game area of Kill Team – and I wanted to take a ‘speed paint’ approach rather than getting bogged down in brush work. In practice there was nothing speedy about my approach at all – I finished building the models in September and only finished painting them in late October – but, well… it could have taken longer?

November 28, 2021 0 comments 2.2K views

A close-up of the barbarian's waist and feet, displaying the leather texture and snow effects.

Cheapo barbarian painting diary

by SCG November 27, 2021

written by SCG

Something that a lot of beginner painters like me dislike is painting flesh. As a friend of mine put it, “I fucking hate painting skin. It’s got so bad I avoid it entirely by having helmets on all my Marines and making my Necromunda dudes look kinda SWAT team-ish with minimal skin exposure.”

It’s no wonder that it can feel like a challenge. If there’s one thing that humans innately know the look of, it’s human skin and flesh. With most surfaces and materials we paint on miniatures there’s great generosity in interpretation and innovation, but it’s all too easy for skin to just look wrong.

But, continuing the quote from my friend, “I really should just practice on some of my random left overs.” That’s all we can do: practice, learn, get better.

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Samuel Beckett, famous miniature painter

So, this Barbarian miniature is a Wizkids model. You can’t find cheaper than Wizkids, at least in my experience, and that makes their models perfect for practicing on. The downside is that the plastic can be warped and sometimes parts of the cast are just completely fucked up, like this guy’s front torso, and you just have to work with them as best you can. I got two barbarians in a pack for Eur6 specifically for practicing skin, and this guy was my first attempt.

I started out painting just specific parts of the model. First I did his back, as it had a lot of uncovered musculature. I was using the ‘classic’ Games Workshop layer formula here: Bugman’s Glow for a base, then Cadian Fleshtone as a highlight, then Kislev Flesh for a final highlight. This didn’t look great, but I think that was mostly because of the glossy Reikland Flesh Shade I then used, which is really dark and really glossy. I didn’t have any of the non-gloss paint but I shouldn’t have used this instead. Also… I increasingly just don’t like washes.

Subsequently I ran through the same approach of painting flesh on the barbarian legs and knees, but this time without the wash/shade paint. This has resulted in a less deep colour in the recesses, but I think overall it does look better. After that I quickly blocked out the other parts of the model with fairly traditional colour choices, though I opted for a ‘copper’ sword as I felt it fit the other colours better than ‘iron’ would.

I also tried a few other new tricks: adding a few fine and delicate brush strokes on the leather to give the appearance of texture, and attempting a crude snow effect with a combination of overbrushing, drybrushing and stippling. I still feel both of these work quite well, considering that each trick took mere minutes.

The eyes are, as is traditional, kinda wonky. In my defence this miniature doesn’t have eyeballs, just sockets. Unsurprisingly, eyes are the other thing that beginner painters don’t like much!

Looking back, I know this model doesn’t look great, and these close-ups of a 2.5cm tall miniature aren’t terribly flattering – but I’m still pleased with the results.

In retrospect this would have benefited from more contrast, not just midtones and brighter with a little wash here and there. One tip I was given was to glaze in a little purple as a good flesh shadow and contrast colour; another was to try muting a glossy paint by adding a bit of matt medium into it. I also need to improve on paint consistency and brushstrokes to get the kind of smoother, more delicate results I’d like to – but that will be a longer journey, for which much more practice will be needed.

A front view of the completed barbarian miniature.

A rear view of the completed barbarian miniature.

November 27, 2021 0 comments 959 views

Part of the cover of Walthamstow Central.

Walthamstow Central, Ellis Sharp

by SCG October 16, 2021

written by SCG

This review was originally published on Nostalgia For Infinity in January 2008. I still wish there were more books like this.

In ‘Walthamstow Central’, author Ellis Sharp pushes the boundaries of what readers have come to expect from literature. Part other-worldly police procedural, part science fiction thriller, part political diatribe, with these components alone the novel would be fascinating. But more interesting is the engagement with the artifice of the text. The lines between author and authored, between reality and fiction, between character and history and time are all blurred, and this technique pervades every element of the novel.

Sharp’s narrative technique is underpinned by a certain sense of weariness, both with life and with fiction, and this tiredness is shared by his characters. In a telling early scene, PC Daisy Spenser converses with PC Andy Scurr in his home. The narrator asserts that “the dialogue was as banal as the interior of the kitchen in Scurr’s flat”; minutes later, Daisy makes her excuses to leave:

“Your speech has a cold, narcotic quality. It’s dead.” […] “The sooner we stop this dialogue the better.” (All quotes p.39-40)

These lines are issued and acknowledged without comment, accepted as part of the world in which the characters operate – or, more precisely, the narrative. Indeed, immediately after her departure Daisy reflects momentarily on Scurr, before realising that her mind is open, that her interior monologue is exposed for all to see. She draws a mental curtain before her taxi driver reads her thoughts. It’s perhaps too late, as the reader has already parsed them.

Even a simple exchange such as this is telling. There’s a critical weariness with the mundane triviality of human social interaction, the cold and passionless sexual endeavours of men like Scurr. Observations about the banality of this dialogue, of the emptiness of the setting, not only characterise the voices and faces of ‘Walthamstow Central’, but also critique the lack of ambition and imagination in fiction that does not seek to step beyond this. There are other tidbits to support this thesis (it is quite evident when reading the novel, but for the purposes of this review I must cite), including something Time Penetration Team agent Strobey reads on the train:

October 16, 2021 0 comments 1K views

The Wild At Heart

by SCG October 15, 2021

written by SCG

The Wild at Heart opens with scenes that suggest trauma and broken homes. Its protagonist, Wake, has lost his mother and is running away from a spectral father figure slumped in front of the TV and surrounded by beer bottles. You’ll read from that what you will. His younger friend Kirby has a neglectful single parent, although we see nothing of her home life. The two friends have agreed to run away together and live in the nearby woods. Things immediately diverge from that plan as the guardians of the Deep Woods draw Wake into their world. Kirby, somehow, soon follows, and the two friends meet up not long into the game.

The game’s developers recognise that comparisons with Nintendo’s Pikmin series are inevitable and they acknowledge the relationship. It’s a comparison that it’s senseless to try and avoid because there is much here that can be traced back to Miyamoto’s cult classic series, and talking about The Wild at Heart is aided by using Pikmin as a reference point. I’m getting this out of the way now, because from here I am going to casually reference Pikmin staples – if you lack familiarity with that series you will be just fine reading this, and also you should play Pikmin – and this will help in highlighting where The Wild at Heart champions its own voice, style and mechanics.

October 15, 2021 0 comments 1.2K views

Synthwave Nighthaunt painting diary

by SCG October 14, 2021

written by SCG

I bought myself a new airbrush compressor a few months ago, and a box of Nighthaunt my girlfriend bought me last year were perfect subjects for moving beyond priming and basecoating with my airbrush.

The compressor isn’t a fancy model. It’s a Fengda. It’s possible your airbrush compressor is a Fengda too. As far as I can tell, outside the big brand names, most compressors on the market are regionally rebranded Fengda compressors. It’s cheaper if you can buy direct from a Fengda distributor, to the point my compressor was less than half the price – including delivery from Germany – compared to buying the same item with a Swedish company’s name stuck on it here in Finland. Go figure. Anyway, mine has a 2 litre tank and a nice holder for two airbrushes, which is perfect as it included a free airbrush. Now I have two airbrushes; I’ve got a 0.3mm needle in one, and a 0.5mm needle in the other.

The main advantage of the new compressor is I can work for longer with a nice, steady airflow. I’m confident it was due to my own lack of technique and experience as much as the bottom-end airbrush and compressor, but I found it hard to get a steady flow of paint with my previous setup, and now that I’ve changed the compressor I find I can work for a little longer without running into problems.

Dana Howl’s a miniature painting YouTuber I’ve been watching for the past year. She combines a dry sense of humour with striking techniques and a distinct style, which she teaches and breaks down in her videos. These synthwave ghosties are a fine example of the kind of things she does; undercoating in black and white before building up colour, in this case smooth transitions between distinct colours. Watch this video if you want to know more.

October 14, 2021 0 comments 2.3K views

The ParaPod: A Very British Ghost Hunt

by SCG October 13, 2021

written by SCG

The opening of The ParaPod: A Very British Ghost Hunt will be experienced differently depending on whether or not you are familiar with what it is based upon. It’s possible that you may be curious enough to head out and watch the first film based on a podcast – so the marketing puff claims, and I see no reason to disagree – without actually knowing what that podcast is.

This hypothetical ParaPod viewer might watch the opening credits, with its montage of spooky grainy night vision footage, titles in a bone-chilling font, and a voice-over of co-host Barry Dodds clearly experiencing genuine terror and distress, and draw certain conclusions. For example, they might conclude that this film will contain many people being terrified, a lot of spooky locations, and perhaps even involve some ghost-hunting.

Someone who is familiar with the source material may conclude differently. But let’s assume, dear reader, that you are not familiar with niche British comedy podcast The ParaPod, and put a pin in such speculation for now.

October 13, 2021 0 comments 1.1K views

Pontypool

by SCG October 10, 2021

written by SCG

Originally published on Nostalgia For Infinity in January 2011.

Well, here’s something I’ve been meaning to write for about five months. The film Pontypool is pretty old news now: I originally heard about it in early 2010 due to its appearance on a ‘Best Horror of 2009’ list, and its original theatrical release was almost two years ago. Question of timeliness aside, I think Pontypool is one of the most interesting horror films I’ve seen in some years and easily worthy of being written about.

The film is almost entirely set within a single building, the local radio station of Pontypool, Ontario (a real and otherwise not notable town), focusing on a handful of core characters. These are Grant Mazzy, the recently hired, hard-drinking, cynical yet idealistic host of an early morning show; Sydney Briars, Mazzy’s Producer and handler – constantly trying to keep Mazzy on-message – and Laurel Anne, a production assistant recently returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan. Other characters are briefly featured, some only appearing as calls in to the station.

To briefly recap the film’s plot: Mazzy is on his way into work in the midst of a snowstorm. Whilst waiting at lights he encounters an apparently distressed woman who repeats the words “who are you” at him before vanishing into the night. (Later, her voice can be heard again, near the station – a portent of things to come.) Ignoring this odd event Mazzy heads on to the run-down station and prepares for another night’s work: a bottle of whiskey, arguments with Sydney about what he should be talking about, inane reportage on local colour, and mild flirting with Laurel-Anne.

This is not what unfolds. Within about fifteen minutes the first suggestion that something is awry emerges. Several members of staff have yet to appear at the station. Soon after, transmissions over the police band mention a disturbance. A code 48, a van full of people, a hut being towed, guns and then no guns, suspects being taken into custody, others fleeing… there is a lot of confusion and although the situation appears to be resolved, tensions are heightened. There is still a sense that something is wrong, that something more is to come. ‘Roving reporter’ Ken Loney calls the station, reporting an impossible mass of people around a local doctor’s building – one Doctor John Mendez, who is under investigation for unnecessary prescriptions. Loney describes an “explosion” of people – an impossible mass erupting from the building – and army trucks and helicopters heading in.

October 10, 2021 0 comments 1.3K views

Psychonaut's protagonist Raz as depicted on the game's cover art.

Psychonauts (Xbox Originals)

by SCG September 4, 2021

written by SCG

This review was originally published on my old blog, Nostalgia for Infinity, in January 2008. I’m republishing it in celebration of DoubleFine’s recent release of Psychonauts 2, a long, long-awaited sequel.

On its original release in mid 2005 – that’s “February 2006” to we lucky few European gamers – Psychonauts rapidly accumulated substantial critical praise. From the lofty perspective of 2008 this is best illustrated by a brief look at some of the awards the game garnered: Eurogamer’s 2005 Game Of The Year, a BAFTA Best Screenplay, Best Writing at the 2006 Game Developers Choice Awards, and a host of awards from Gamespot including Best Voice Acting, Best Original Music and Best Platformer.

Further, Metacritic presently ranks the game with a healthy score of 88 – with only the Detroit Free Press and games(tm) ranking it under 80. It can safely be said that in the eyes of the arbiters of entertainment, Psychonaut was well-received.

September 4, 2021 0 comments 1.2K views

Unfocused photograph of the pages of a magazine.

Story notes, assortments #2

by SCG October 23, 2020

written by SCG

A variety of stories read over a long period of time from a variety of sources.

The Girls in their Summer Dresses, Irwin Shaw. Michael and Frances are a young married couple in New York City, and in many respects they’re a sweet duo. They make romantic plans, they joke and banter easily. But Michael cannot stop looking at other women and Frances cannot ignore it. Even when she brings it up he does not stop; when she tells him how it makes her feel he hushes and soothes her. Their plans deteriorate. They drink brandy at a bar. Michael is honest and lays out why he looks at women: he wants them, all of them. He even admits he might make a move on another woman. Forlorn, Frances asks if Michael will at least keep his opinions to himself, and he agrees. They attempt to move on with their plans for the day, but a coldness has settled over their relationship.

Nothing so much happens in this story, but over the course of a short walk and a conversation we see a sweet relationship irreparably fractured, essentially by a man who has a flaw and decides to combine honesty and inflexibility rather than, say, attempt to rein himself in, or at least respect his wife’s feelings. The way he also ogles his wife in the final paragraph, eyeing up her legs as she walks away from him, speaks volumes.

October 23, 2020 0 comments 1.2K views

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