Midnight Mini pr0n: Beautiful Warfare, Indeed

Howdy, folks! I've been recovering from GottaCon, and am finally going through pictures and such, fighting the dreaded Confluenza Convergiftung (in other words, con-crud). The first thing I wanted to do is a slightly past Midnight Mini pr0n featuring a young gentleman who is one of the most kick-ass miniature painters I've seen in quite a while.

Now, my pictures were taken with my Blackberry Playbook, which means they're not the greatest pics-- so I may be doing Kurt a disservice here. If so, I'm terribly sorry, man.

Anyhow, let's feast our eyes on what I'm sure is the first video I've posted on Diary of a Grognerd. And you know what? This is the only video I thought of to take at GottaCon. Funny that.

Hey, I'm a writer, not a videographer, okay?
(Update: I think that YouTube provides a better video thing than Blogspot... so I switched them oot.)

And here's a few pictures...

I sharpened it a little. Should be a bit less horrible a pic...

As you can see, these are Legion of the Damned space marines from Warhammer 40k. Probably my fave space marines. I mean, who can dislike evil looking rockabilly Adeptus Astartes who are like undead Angels of Death?

Those guys? Badasses painted by a badass.

I really wish I could catch the badassness better.

As you can no doubt tell, I took the pictures at the t-shirt booth I was working. Oh, the humanity.

In case you didn't pick it up from the video, Kurt and a buddy have started a mini-painting outfit called BEAUTIFUL WARFARE. If you live in or around the Vancouver, BC area, they would be happy to help you with your miniature painting needs. I believe Kurt told me they charge around $12 an hour. Trust me when I say it's worth every penny.

This brings me to: Should you get people to paint your dudes for you? Well, when I was waaay younger, I would let people pay me to paint their figs*. I was no where near the level of Kurt, but it did help me pay for more cultists, daemons and Imperial Guard. I personally encourage Wargamer Stategoi to paint their own troops, but sometimes you want to have an awesome looking squad or personality figure. And let's face it: Few of us are astounding painters like Archmagos deGraaf. There is absolutely no shame in paying someone skilled and talented to make your dudes look badass. It's your money and miniatures, after all.

(*Not a euphemism.)

If you are in need of the services of BEAUTIFUL WARFARE, I'm afraid you'll have to contact Kurt through Facebook for right now. It's a really good thing he has a distinct name, eh? I'll update this entry when he has a website to direct you to. Ah here we go. Information for contacting them is here.

I sincerely hope you've enjoyed this installment of the pr0n! I should be slowly posting GottaCon posts starting tomorrow. I may even have a goal to put something in this blog at least once a day. We'll see how that goes.

--

Feel free to comment below! Or email me.

Midnight Mini pr0n: Metzner's Magnificent Madness

Okay, I'm going to be short, to the point, and assailing you with many pictures. See, GottaCon is going on right now, and I need to get up to work a booth and be on a panel concerning GMing in the morning. But I just HAD to post about what HAS to be my fave drool-worthy booth at the con-- and it concerns terrain.

I mean, I was so impressed that I'm putting off going to bed right now. In fact, this will be going up a bit after midnight because I'm working on this actual-time for a change.

Usually I'll tell fellow dork-nerds to get paper terrain, or make their own, because pre-made terrain for minis is usually very expensive. Especially if you want it to look good.

Well, look at this real quick:

It even comes with little spiders!

Neat, eh? How much do you think they would cost? They're decent size, keep in mind. Like the size of a large fist. Maybe bigger.

Yup.

In case you can't make that out, it says they're $7.50 a piece. Seven dollars and fifty cents. Holy. Shit.

Let's continue with more pictures and the information you'll need to order some after the jump, shall we?

Total Party Kill 2/3/12: Now with More Butterment

Howdy! For those few of you out there who keep up with this blog, you may have noticed I barely did anything  here over the last week. Well, I've been more busy than usual, especially with GOTTACON coming up... in fact, GOTTACON starts today!

I look forward to GOTTACON every year, and not just because they invite me to come do things. If you are too damned lazy to look up GOTTACON, the nutshell version is that its a gaming convention that happens every year right here in Victoria, BC, Canada. All kinds of cool games and such can be found there. Panels with special guests, too. Seriously, check it out. Here's another link to their site.

At this GOTTACON, I will be excessively busy, it seems. The convention organizers have me on two panels: "So You Want To Write A..." with other writers more awesome at writing than I am, I'm sure, and "DM Roundtable" where I sit around with other consummate DMs and talking DMing and such.

I will also be working my part-time job's booth, Style N Print, selling shirts-- including the official GOTTACON shirts. We'll also be able to show off our Direct To Garment thing, where we can create shirts for you in minutes.

And finally, I will be running a Warhammer 40,000: Dark Hersey RPG game tonight, from 7 to 11 PM. I call it "Logan's World Run", and the PCs are Adeptus Arbites personnel, sent to the wild place that is Hellsreach on Logan's World... a planet that only fans of the original Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader will know about.

Anyhowitzer, here's a link to the two posts (two??? wow) I've done this week:

Traveller OGL: Alienist [RPG Review]
This is covering a short and inexpensive PDF supplement for the new Traveller rules. Review material courtesy of Postmortem Studios.

Hardcore Book pr0n: First Edition Timez
Figuring I have to use "pr0n" in another feature name, this one is about books I find or rediscover. And I found a Spelljammer novel and a couple other nice treats.

And that's it for posts...

As far as other things going on, author Ryan Speck and I finally recorded the podcast thing we've been talking about for years. We called our evil worm-baby MouthFist. As with nearly all first ventures into podcasting, we had a few massive technical difficulties and we almost scrapped this episode. But Ryan, who's producing it, didn't want to re-record... so, out of sheer lethargy, I suppose, he edited the hell out of it... and aside from the weird static bursts, it turned out okay. Please, check it oot at yer leisure:

MouthFist Podcast, Episode 0: Fudginating with Hitler

Using our mouth-fists for the butterment of mankind. 

Master Nerd points will be handed out to anyone who can tell me where we shamelessly stole our logo from. Please be a good sport and try to answer BEFORE you look it up on ze Googles!

Now let's get to some links really quick-like...

A great take on the whole "Before Watchmen" Watchmen comics coming out...

...And Markosia's Ian Sharman offering a different viewpoint on the whole affair.

Looking for a great artist to drool over? How about one of my favourite Swedes, Peter Bergting? His art rocks, folks. A few years he gave me a copy of Gangkrig 145 (Gangwar 145), which I enjoyed (despite me not knowing Swedish). Recently he masterfully crafted the art for Joe Lansdale's The Dunwich Horror comics from IDW. Lovecraft fans, take serious note here. I'll cover the comics, soon, but you must pick these issues up. Now.

For the full preview from IDW, go here.

Here's an interesting site where I saw this blog listed. Its called 6D6 Fireball, and it's worth perusing. And it's not just a cool site with interesting things, but it also has the 6D6 rules system.

I'll have to check it out more in-depth sometime-- but it does look quite good.


I really wish I could keep going, but I need to get out the door for GOTTACON. It's going to be an action-packed weekend, folks. Hope to see a few of you there!

And I promise to do a Midnight Mini pr0n soon.

--

Questions? Comments? Hit me. Or email me. 

Hardcore Book pr0n: First Edition Timez

Bearing Midnight Mini pr0n in mind, I was thinking...


I enjoy buying used books. In fact, I love finding rare gems of nerdy goodness that I have--HAVEHAVEHAVE-- to buy. And the cheaper and thiftstore-ier the better. So, earlier today, I was looking through the local Beacon Community Services Thrift Shop with my lovely better half and lo and behold, I found some books.

Now, many of you don't know that shopping for used books in Victoria, BC can be rather irritating. It's not for lack of bookstores. Oh, no, we have a veritable anti-dearth of them. Bookstores are everywhere here. But used books are still kinda pricey.

Too pricey, usually.

Enter thrift stores. Especially thrift stores outside of the tourist areas. What you see pictured is what I picked up for 75 cents a pop.

My god, they're full of... words.

Starting form left to right...

With Friends Like These... by Alan Dean Foster
Stories from one of my all-time fave writers. Awesomesauce +5.

The Radiant Dragon by Elaine Cunningham
Part 4 in the Cloakmaster Cycle... Which I may have read long ago. Look, I love Spelljammer. Love it to pieces. This book was an excellent find.

Kaduna Memories by Jack McKinney
You know, I never knew that the writing team (Jack is two dudes) of the Robotech novels (I read all of them--ALL) was behind something non-Robotech. Fantastic! I look forward to reading this First Contact story. I should hunt down the Black Hole Travel Agency books, too.

At some point I will get around to reading them. When I do, you'll be the first to know my thoughts.

Just so you know, Hardcore Book pr0n will feature my amazing book finds, or me talking about a "re-find", where I rediscover a book I've had for a while.

Fun Fact: The books you see pictured have a cool drawing my girlfriend did for something were working on as a background. I know you can't see it... just thought I'd point that out.