Popcorn?

Look what I picked up in North Bay last weekend! It's either popcorn or Ahoggyá rock candy, I don't know which! ;-)

There is one bag with 286 armoured  Ahoggyá and a second bag with 274 unarmoured beasties. So a few extras over the 25 sets of each but that is good. I may need to get some more arms, is all...

Got to talk about Jeff about stuff - galleys and war canoes, Tinalíya and Swamp Folk, all of which are "in the works". I also asked about painting the resin. Jeff gave me some pointers:

1) Wash all parts in warm soapy water. Dish washing soap...

2) No Acrylic Primer - or for "best results" don't use it. You can prime with acrylic over top of the enamel, but that's just priming twice...

3) Use enamel or automotive primer or similar such as Krylon “Fusion.”

4) This is a high density sculpture casting resin. It is not porous enough for acrylics to adhere properly. Enamel or auto primer actually goes into the resin so that it adhere

This applies to our Thúnru’u and Biridlú that were previously released.

I figured that the resin would need to be properly washed but I didn't know that Jeff recommended a particular sort of primer. I hope this oversight hasn't caused any of you to come to grief while painting the models!

On the Corks...

More Concept Art...

Ghatóni Horn and Standard sketches

The little nation of Ghatón is located in the North-West. They are what I consider one of Tékumel's "bad guys", being particularly nasty in their treatment of women. Their primary use militarily is that they are the only nation to have "tamed" the Sérudla beast and organized them for war. 

Ghatóni Troops in battle, accompanied by armoured Sérudla.

Illustration taken from the cover of "The Armies of Tekumel, Volume 2, Yán Kór and Allies."

Tumíssa Crossbow legion banners - preliminary sketches

Tumíssa is a medium-sized city in western Tsolyánu at the edge of the Pán Chákan forests. Many of the clans in this region are devoted to Vimúhla, the Lord of Fire, one of the Tsolyáni Lords of Change. As such, a flame motif seemed appropriate for the two crossbow legions fielded out of the city:

The Legion of the Citadel of Glory; 13th Imperial Crossbowmen
The Legion of Lord Kharihaya; 14th Imperial Crossbowmen

Tumíssa Crossbowmen in action

Illustration taken from  "The Legions of Petal Throne", an early set of wargames rules for Tékumel.


Both are uniformed in a similar manner but on further research using the excellent web-book "The Deeds of the Ever-Glorious" it was discovered that  Lord Kharihaya's legion likely favoured Lord Karakán, God of War, one of the Tsolyáni Lords of Stability, over Lord Vimúhla.

As a result, one of those banner sketches will be re-tasked and assigned to another legion of flame-worshipers, such as the Legion of the Searing Flame; 10th Imperial Heavy Infantry.  

The Deeds of the Ever-Glorius can be found as a PDF download from RPGNow - it is highly recommended and, currently on sale for only 3.87GBP, is well worth it! 

Some Proposed Standards...

For many of the Tsolyáni legions we are missing details such as what the standards and horns they use look like. Here are some sketches I made of proposed standards for (top to bottom):

The Legion of the Joyful Clan of the Noble Vrayáni, 3rd Imperial Slingers;
The Legion of the Twelve Paths of Avánthe, 9th Imperial Slingers; and
The Legion of the Sapphire Kirtle, 12th Imperial Light Infantry. 

The Twelve Paths of Avánthe and the Sapphire Kirtle are both Aridáni legions, being composed solely of aridáni women warriors. The Southern Islands are known for their slingers; the Joyful Clan are from the island of Vrá, and the Twelve Paths are from the island of Gánga. The Sapphire Kirtle are javelin girls based out of the little city of Tu'únmra, in central Tsolyánu.  

The Legion of the Joyful Clan of the Noble Vrayáni

The Legion of the Sapphire Kirtle

Both illustrations from the "The Armies of Tekumel, Volume 1, Tsolyánu."

Miniature Moulding...the Process

For those interested, Pete the Mouldmaker has been nice enough to post pictures on Facebook of how he moulded the latest Frothers Charity Figure.

I thought it a nice summary of the steps. There used to be some nice tutorials about Mould making online but with the way the internet changes I've lost all my old links.

Note that he has only done the mold with one figure cavity. A 9" diameter mould can hold about 15 or so  28mm figures (depending upon the poses) so normally a Master Mould is made once you get together that many "greens". You then make the master mould and from there you make "x" number of Production Moulds.

How many Production moulds? Well, that depends. You could spin the Master Mould 15 or 16 times and then make a Production Mould (with 15 or 16 figures on it) for each of the greens you had sculpted. This has advantages when running production as it is easy to get the quantities required. The downside is you spend more on moulds. Or you could put 4 or 5 copies of 3 or 4 greens on each mould. This takes less production moulds but also means that each time you spin the mould you get the other figures as well - which you might not want. Now you can throw the metal back in the pot and remelt it but each time you spin the mold wears it out. So you could spin the mold lots of times to get a few particular figures and end up wearing out the mould for other figures at the same time...

What I've found is that deciding on how to do the Production Moulds is no easy thing...