Jessie's Prints - Episode 48 - Judge Dredd Shuggy Table

This week, I are mostly been printing... A Shuggy Table!!

Shuggy Table - Thingiverse Thing:6804108

Those of you who aren't Judge Dredd fans (there can't be many of you), Shuggy is the futuristic equivalent of billiards (aka pool) which is a popular pastime among the permanently unemployed citizens of Mega City One.

15mm Shuggy Tables (5p coin for size comparison)

Tracing its origins back to the original 21st century ball and stick games, Shuggy is played on a table with 22 holes which are distributed around the surface atop small mounds.  The object of the game is to "pot" balls into the holes to score points.

A complete run down of the rules is provided by Judge Macus L Rowland in the Wally Squad briefing 041204-2103 also found on pages 50-51 of the Judge Dredd Companion.

This particular 22 hole variant of the game was scaled for use in the print-and-play boardgame Shuggy Hall Brawl published in Issue 11 of Warlock Magazine, but it can be easily scaled to suit the larger Judge Dredd Miniatures Game or the many variants of the Judge Dredd RPG

OMG Another 5 Starblazer Comics

 

Yet more issues from my growing Starblazer collection

Starblazer #209 - The Ring of Gofannon - Through a nightmare of sorcery, Goll and his servant, Cutter follow the ancient maps of Gofannon in search of the legendary Ring.  Goll the warrior has to pit his fighting skills against all manner of unworldly creatures to merely survive and discover the truth.

Like every fantasy epic the ring of Gofannon is an archetypal quest to retrieve a magic ring and defeat a great evil descending upon the land.

Goll and Cutter must one by one overcome the trials and obstacles in their journey to find the legendary ring.  However, like every good Starblazer story there lies a twist in the tale, something unexpected which turns the story on its head.

The art for this story is great, simple when it needs to be and detailed when it needs to evoke a dense and rich background.  Very enjoyable and full of great one shot ideas for my own fantasy RPG stories. 

The cover art for this issue is a little bit uninspired.  However, this is what a fantasy story would look like if Sylvester Stallone was cast in the title role.

Starblazer #210 - Dragon Slayer - In a land overrun by evil, only one young boy had the courage and faith to seek out the warrior who could free the country from its sorcerous shadows - Dragon Slayer.., and he was 200 years old.

Another fantasy story, we must have hit the Conan the Barbarian vein in these recent issues.  The evil sorceror Drax has risen up and despite his magic waning he has enslaved the last of the Dragons Gorath to be his ultimate weapon and rule Pira IV unchallenged.

One brave villager and his son go against the wishes of the rest and vow to track down the legendary Dragonslayer who can free them from this cruel fate.  Sadly the villager is trapped by Drax and his son Bix must find the dragonslayer alone.

As ever we expect the Starblazer plot twist at the third act and this story doesn't dissapoint.  The final confrontation between Drax and the young lad Bix is a desperate but rewarding one.  The character of Bix is a shameless attempt at inserting the typical young reader into the story and it is very effective.  

I particularly liked the addition of the 6 legged scorpion tailed one eyed mini beholder creature which I will endeavour to write up a stat block for Savage Worlds and I will now forever call it a QERK!

Starblazer #211 - The Dream Machine - Kayn's the name, and finding people is my game.  Actually, I'm a private investigator, but I spent most of my trime trying to find enough creds to pay the rent.  Then one day I got a request for help... from a guy who'd been dead five years!

Kayn is back in another mystery chase murder story.  Futuristic Moscow is such an off choice for a setting.  I guess it's so that you can get away with simple brutalist architecture and a unbendening robotic state aparatus.  

Needles to say our hero Kayn is completely oblivious to the machinations of the secretive villain in this story.  He learns everything piece by piece at the same time as you read every frame.

Definitely a comic of its time with a run of the mill Starblazer storyline which is not all bad but very average. 

Starblazer #212 - Rogue Cop - Renko was a patrolman in a society diseased by corruption.  When this corruption touched him, he turned rogue to bring the offenders to justice.  But society doesn't like rogue cops and Renko was hounded to the edge of oblivion.

I was expecting a Robocop knock off but what I got was an interstellar crime wave and a man rescued from the brink of death by Space Brocolli!!

This is quite a fun little story, a classic tale of copy who goes rogue to bring down the big crime boss.  With no backup his luck runs out and he is stranded in the void with no hope so he decides to end it all by setting his ship to self destruct... as you do.

Saved by the benevolent space brocolli the Shreel, they turn him into a cyborg monster sending Renko into a depressive tailspin.  Howver, vengeance is a powerful emotion and Renko uses it to gain control of his new robotic body and take the fight to Hengis Furgaar to destroy his criminal emire once and for all.

Starblazer #213 - Skarr The Soldier - Stranded in Samek, many thousands of miles from his home, Skarr, the soldier of fortune, had to fight for a foreign ruler and an alien cause - or be executed!

This is a fairly stock story of a man caught between two factions waging a war at all costs.  There is not much exposition only action and it really does seem like an exercise in getting as many wild character illustrations on a page as possible.

This a treat from the fine pen of  Enrique Alcatena with an epic cover from the legend Ian Kennedy.

The character art is wild from the weird almost Napoleonic uniforms of the Margolian army to the down right bizarre mix of kimono clad Tarcils and the mask wearing denizens of Hetamec.  

This is my first Skarr story and I am encouraged to find the others.  

Whilst the plot does not offer much for the Roleplayer or DM, the artwork is a smorgasbord of inspiration.

Essential Starblazer Links

The Starblazer Checklist is a fantastic resource if you are collecting or want to know who wrote and illustrated each issue.

Many thanks to the chaps who run the Starblazer Covers archive, this is immensely useful resource when looking at ebay joblot listings.

Retro Sanctuary has a great article covering his top 20 Starblazer Issues which is worth a look and I'm looking forward to reading and reviewing some of these classics in the very near future.

 

Mega City Block Upgrade - The Okey Dokey Chef

Once you start pimping out your Mega City One Block Storage Case it's hard to know when to stop...

The Okey Dokey Chef Animated Sign

I wanted my sign to be an advertising hoarding and one of the most famous signs in Mega City One is the Okey Dokey Chef as featured in the Supersurf 7 race story Midnight Surfer (progs 424-429).  I was also inspired by the famous Vegas Vic neon sign whose arm waving welcomed gamblers from all around the globe since 1951.

He wold make an excellent starting point to learn about how to control low voltage RC servos with Arduino.

The Chef

I found a nice piece of clipart online which had the vibe I was going for and imported this into GIMP for editing.  

I cut out the "Chef's Kiss" hand using the lasso tool and moved this over into  a seperate file.  This is going to be the sweeping hand which we will animate later using a servo.

I added a speech bubble with some appropriate text coming out of the side of the chef's head. 

Preparing for Tinkercad

I have learned that Tinkercad is a pretty simplistic modelling tool and it does not particular like creating complex curved or polygonal shapes.  The easiest way to solve this conundrum is to simply create a solid black mask version of your line drawn artwork.  This can be used as a background and because both shapes are exactly the same image size, they will register perfectly together when you import them into Tinkercad.

When I was happy with both files, I and exported them (and their solid black mask counterparts) as a PNG then converted into an SVG using convertio.com.  Each line drawn SVG is imported into Tinkercad for extrusion into a 3D object using the same technique I used to create my badges and Index Card RPG Card Back Stamps. I use an extrusion height of 30mm.

The black mask variant is then imported and the combined shapes exported as a single STL.  This gives me an STL file for the chef and a file for the arm which can be printed on the Anycubic Photon M5.

The Electronics

The core of this project is an Arduino nano.  These little boards are stupidly cheap and really easy to start your coding adventure.  Seriously, if an idiot like me can do it then anyone can.

The bit doing all of the moving is a 9g 5v 180 degree hobby servo which I bought in a twinpack from Ali Express for £1.79.

This was superglued across the gap between the Speech bubble and the chef's arm.

The Wiring and Code

I used the excellent How to Control Servo Motors tutorial on the makerguides website.  The servo has 3 wires Red (5v Power) goes to the 5v pin,  Brown (Ground) goes to the GND pin and the Yellow (Signal) goes to Pin 9.

The code example given is perfect for my purposes, but I did need to customise the start and end positions for the hand as it does not need to run the full 180 that the servo is capable of.  I also added a 500 millisecond delay at the end of each travel.

#include 

Servo myServo;  // Create a Servo object

void setup() {
  myServo.attach(9);  // Attach the servo to pin D9
}

void loop() {
  // Move from 30 to 135 degrees
  for (int pos = 30; pos <= 135; pos += 1) {
    myServo.write(pos);  // Tell servo to go to position in variable 'pos'
    delay(45);           // Wait 15 milliseconds for the servo to reach the position
  }
  delay (500);
  // Move from 135 to 30 degrees
  for (int pos = 135; pos >= 30; pos -= 1) {
    myServo.write(pos);  // Tell servo to go to position in variable 'pos'
    delay(45);           // Wait 15 milliseconds for the servo to reach the position
  }
   delay (500);
}

Troubleshooting

In my naievete I thought that the Arduino nano would be able to power this whole project.  However, the little servo apparently draws too much power to run continuously causing the nano to reset itself and creates some erattic animation.

I tried to mitigate this by adding increasing the dealy to 45 thereby slowing down the move, but sadly this was not enough.  It would have been nice to know all this from the start as an alternative board such as an ESP32.  

Anyway that is another story.  In the meantime check out the final result

Download the Files

I have also uploaded the Okey Dokey Sign STL files to Thingiverse if you should want to make your own version of this iconic comic book sign.

Let me know if you found this useful or if you have made your own animated signs for your own games

Jessie's Prints - Episode 39 - Index Card RPG Card Back Stamps

This week, I are mostly been printing... Stamps!!

ICRPG CARD BACK STAMPS - Thing 6545499

My recent foray into the Index Card RPG system (ICRPG) involved a lot of DIY card making, which I love.

However, during play this presented a problem in that all my card backs where blank and indistinguishable from each other.  What I needed was a simple stamp which I could apply to my card backs.  

I find it useful to categorise my cards into one of 4 types:

• People - NPCs, Villains, Bio-forms
  
• Places - Locations, buildings, Landscapes 
  
• Objects - Things, weapons, loot, traps and trinkets
  
• Monsters - Stuff that wants to kill you
  

This would help me to keep my ICRPG cards organized and reduce seek times to a minimum and thereby make me look like a great DM.

Tinker Cad to the Rescue

My experiments making a plaque for my Cowboy Bebop Swordfish II model taught me that this was going to be easily achieved.  

Step 1 - Make a black and white image in GIMP where black is what you want stamped and white is what you don't want to stamp.  This image is then reversed and saved as a JPG or PNG.

Step 2 - Use convertio.co to convert your JPG or PNG into an SVG which can then be imported into Tinkercad.

Step 3 - Import your SVG into Tinkercad and scale it to fit inside your stamp pad.  Make sure that the stamp is at least 4mm high and that you create a backing plate at least 1mm high to connect all the pieces of your stamp together.  Position the stamp so that it intersects with the backing plate and then group the objects together.  Export this as an STL for your 3D printer.  

Step 4 - Make a wooden backing plate and handle for each of your stamps.  If you get into ICRPG you are going to be making a lot of cards and doing a lot of stamping so this step is essential for long lasting stamps.  I made mine out of some scraps of hardboard I had laying around and I glued some pieces of old broom handle onto the backing plates before supergluing my stamps together.  

You could of course model the whole thing in Tinkercad.

 

Step 5 - Stamp Away!! - I bought some cheap stamp pads from AliExpress less than £1.50 each and they have lots of different colours to choose from so you can have a different colour for each card type.

 

Buy Me a Coffee

I have shared the stamp patterns on Thingiverse, so if you like them, download them and print your own card backs.  Support the channel and please leave a tip in the jar or use the paypal tip link.   

Chub Pearson and Denizen MIniatures

Today I learned that Chub Pearson of Denizen Miniatures passed away in January 2024.

I only ever met Chub when I was buying minis from him at various shows in the 80s and 90s like SALUTE and SELWG.  However, I was always a huge fan of his sculpts and his adherence to true 25mm scale when everyone else's minis were getting larger and larger.

Chub was also one of the first to sculpt some manga characters before we even knew what anime and manga even was.  With sculpts like these it was no wonder they made an indelible impression on me.

To show my appreciation here are a couple from my collection.

These two babes are one of the Cat Girl Twins (SF71) and Female Space Adventurer (SF29).

RIP Chub Pearson.

Am I Too Late to Join the Index Card RPG Party?

I have been loosely following the exploits of Runehammer for a couple of years on YouTube and I had been intrigued by the concept of the Index Card RPG (ICRPG) but was always too scared to dip my toes in the water until now

First Impressions of ICRPG

As a no-prep DM, I am always looking for something that I can get to the table in as little time as possible.  Character gen needs to be trivial and the system should be easy to pick up with a few basic concepts and a comfortable familiarity for those players of other systems. In addition the system needs to lean towards narrative play whilst having enough mechanical aspects that hte inevitable combat and magic flow smoothly and consistently.  

ICRPG seems to have all of this but we will need to see how it plays and how easy it is for me to DM. 

Do It Yourself RPG

At the core of the game (it's in the title) and one of the biggest attractions is the index card concept. Brandon Gillam, the man behind Runehammer is of course a consumate artist and has drawn many of these flash card images which are used in play and you are encouraged to draw your own to fit your own game concept or storyline.

 

I'm no artist so the first order of the day is to assemble a stack of index cards with images from ICRPG Volumes 1 & 2 pasted onto them.  This took a few hours which I am sure to get back when actually playing the game.  

 

I'm going to sort these into 3 specific decks; Props, Places & Monsters ahead of my first game.  

 

(DM From the Future: Keeping these decks secret from the players is quite the challenge when all the cardbacks are white.  Watch this space for an ICRPG Card Stamp set.

First Play

I played this for the first time at our recent Dragons Keep Games Day to a small bunch of players of varying skill levels.  The objective wass to run through a few scenarios and see how the players took to the system and how much time I spent looking through the rulebook.

I thought about pre-genning some characters to get us off to a flying start, but time was not on my side.  I underestimated how long it would take to glue 100 pictures to index cards in the few evenings I had before Game Day.  I must find a way of printing directly onto the card or perhaps use stickers.  

However, on the day character gen took about 15 minutes. I need to create a quick flowchart for those not familiar with the standard fantasy or sci-fi RPG character tropes and having multiple copies of the starter character loot table and weapons is also a must.

The players chose their minis and, after a brief explanation of how the target numbers for encounters worked, we were off to the races.  

Generating The Plot

As I mentioned, I want this game to run for no-prep pickup, so I used the cards to generate the plot.  Ths is where ICRPG really shines as a picture says a thousand words and sparks the players imagination far more than any long description can.  For those playing along at home, everything in BOLD is an index card.

 

It wouldn't have been a fantasy RPG if it didn't start in a tavern so I layed out one of the village building cards that looked tavern like and then surrounded these with four other cards North, South, East and West.  This represented the rumours of adventure that they learned from the locals whilst they were enjoying their drinks.  They didn't fancy the desert of desolation, the barrier keep or the necromancers tower so headed off East to the mountains to kill a dragon.  "Now that's what I call worldbuilding!!"

Encounter 1

Heading out along the windy road through the low hills they encountered an abandoned cart with a broken wheel.  As they pondered where the owner and horse were I slapped down a Target 10 card and asked them all to roll their WIS for a passive perception check to detect the two animated plants that were about to ambush them.

They quickly got into the action and I explained how the range system worked.  

 

DM mistake number one was not reading up on the very limited magic system in ICRPG.  Mages start with a magic missile but the mage in the party decided he wanted to dehydrate the first plant.  As he had a spell book from his starting equipment, I said role a D8 and you can have that many spells written in your book.  Even if I had read the spell list I would probably have opted for something similar in any case.

 

Meanwhile another club member walked in so I threw him the rule book and a blank character sheet and explained the basics of character gen.  Combat was swift and decisive and it was not long before our new member of the party was discovered entangled behind a nearby bush.  He went off in search of his horse dobby accompanied by the elf ranger whilst the others set about mending his wagon.

Following a trail of foot prints I slapped down the cave mouth with teeth.  They approached cautiously as I really played up the jagged teeth vibe and they found dobby the horse inside.  At the back of the cave they found a rusty portcullis and a lever on the otherside.  The ranger ran back to the others to get help. 

 

The mage decided that casting a shrink/grow spell on one of the characters was the way to go and so a tiny halfling walked easily through to the other side.  This was another spell for the mage's book and we determined on the roll of a D8 how many minutes the spell would last for.  He rolled a 6, but I made a DM Decision that one of his other spells was a dispell.  The rogue was instantled restored back to his original size and with a critical hit pull of the lever the ancient mechanism shuddered to life and the portcullis rose.

 

Beyond the portcullis they discovered some Corridors and Stairs and I made the elf wizard roll a DEX check as he triggered a trap.  Looking above he saw a Dangling Stone Weight about to crush him.  He used up one of his spells, to stone shape the weight and the pressure plate thereby disabling the trap.  At the next corridor I told them that the corridor was bathed in a greasy red light.  I thought that they would pick up on the fact that they had essentially triggered the dungeons alarm system but sadly no.

Encounter 2

In the next encounter they walked into a huge circular room with a golden skull on a pedastal at its center.  Down went the 16 Target Card and a WIS check revealed the sleeping  floating high in the ceiling. 

 

A haste spell was cast and most of the party ran towards the pedastal but they were not stealthy and the beholder awoke firing off a couple of blasts.  DM mistake number two was not having read the monster description for the beholder which would have made it slightly less taxing to dream up some eye beam effects, "but this is not my first rodeo..."  

There was some really inventive spell play from Jason the mage and a lot of channeling of Indiana Jones.  The final encounter was quite cool as several players got blasted by various eyebeams and the players experienced the death mechanic, which was useful to know.

Eventually they discovered that the gold skull was actually The Skull of Calderon and they used its power to dispatch the beholder and grabbed some well earned loot.

All in all a very fun experience for all and a very cheap and easy way to get into RPGs or as a primer to running your very first game as a DM.

What ICRPG isn't

If you are looking for a system which has layers of complexity where you can build your character from a low level up to some mythical epic hero then ICRPG is not for you.  Character progression is in there but it will be fairly short due to the condensed nature of the game and it's simplicity.

What I Bought

• Index Card RPG Core (2nd Edn) rules - a soft back copy (surprisingly expensive in the UK) from eBay for £23.69 delivered
  

• Index Card RPG Vol 1 - 100 Cards depicting Props, Places and Monsters for fantasy games such as the Runehammer Alfheim setting.  Many of the cards in the first two sets are found as illustrations in the core rulebook.
  
  
• Index Card RPG Vol 2 - 100 Cards depicting Props, Places and Monsters for dungeon games.
  
  
• Index Card RPG Vol 3 - 100 Cards depicting Props, Places and Monsters for Sci-Fi games such as the Runehammer Warp Shell setting.  Cool powerloader image!!
  
  
• Index Card RPG Vol 4 - 100 Cards depicting Props, Places and Monsters for the Wild West Horror inspired Weird West Setting.
  
  
• ICRPG Target Cards - a set of numbered Target cards showing the easy (-3) and difficult (+3) target numbers.
  
  
• ICRPG Character Sheet - a basic character sheet which I printed at half size to create a booklet format with plenty of space for players to scribble their notes.
  
  
• 1000 Blank Record Card Cards (6"x4") - I needed to restock in any case as I use record cards a lot in my games.

Other Useful Resources

ICRPG Character Generator - like DnD Beyond for your ICRPG character and it spits out a nice PDF.

Jessie's Prints - Episode 37 - Epic Space Knights or Holocaust Squad Judges?

This week, I are mostly been printing... Teeny Tiny Space Knights!!

After last episode's commissioned print I wondered just how small can my 3D Printer print?  In particular I'm after some power armoured troopers to fill in as Holocaust Squad Judges.

Ball Bearing Galactic Crusaders with Chain Axes - Cults 3D

You have got to laugh at the names of some of these files.  These are epic scaled minis which come in a variety of poses and helpfully in groups of 3 & 5 so printing a whole squad is easy.  straight onto the build plate they are about 10mm so I scaled them up 125% to 15mm but they were still too small for my Judge Dredd miniatures which are about 17mm tall so I upped it to 20mm.

These should work well in my games and I have some cool ideas for some encounters which require this type of armoured set up.  

Painting up a Holocaust Squad

Once I had superglued them to 1p pieces and primed them, I gave my squad a quick once over with Gravelord Grey Speed Paint from army painter.  Jet Packs were trimmed in yellow and I gave each one a different coloured helmet and shoulder pad to aid in discrimination on the field of battle.

Holocaust Judges are rarely seen in Mega City One, their deployment being reserved for those extreme moments when the ultimate sacrifice is required.  Their ranks are typically made up of those Judges close to retirement or have in some way disgraced themselves in the line of duty.  This final act of service is seen as a suitable punishment or alternative to the redemption of The Long Walk into the Cursed Earth. 

Epic Scale Imperial Heavy Tank - Cults 3D

I had a copy of the original Epic Space Marine game Adeptus Titanicus back in the days of Games Workshop Large Boxes.  So I wondered, just for funzies, how well these newfangled 3D prints would stack up against my vintage epic armour.

Pretty good me thinks.

Now I've got to find me a decent Epic sized Mek Quake model for those BIG JOBS! in Mega City One.   

Jessie's Prints - Episode 36 - Itsy Bitsy Drop Pods

This week, I are mostly been printing... Teeny Tiny Drop Pods!!

Isn't it just the way you wait ages for a commissioned print and two come along at once.  This time it's my work chum Gary who needed some drop pods for an upcoming game of Adeptus Epicus or something like that.  You know the one, the latest hotness from Games Workshop.

StarPorts - P.O.D. (Print on Demand) Droplets - Cults 3D

I don't really have much to say about these other than I managed to get 5 Dreadnought sized pods on one build plate and eight of the smaller unit sized pods on a second.  Print time was about an hour and a half each.

The models came well supported but the packaging of the files was a bit weird.  Extracting the zip file dumped 3 folders on my desktop; a Lychee scenes folder, a supported STLs and an Unsupported STLs.  I was not expecting this and so I thought that the zip file hadn't actually unzipped.  Weird.

I always opt for supported files and as I was leaving these on the support rafts for Gary to get the full experience of removing supports 😂 I didn't bother to check if these were hollow or not.  I assumed that they were solid.  To my surprise, and as you can see in the image above, these were actually hollow which explains why they came out of the wash & cure station a little sticky.  They had actually trapped a huge amount of resin in the hollowed out sections as it effectively formed a cup with nowhere for that resin to drain out of because they print upside down.

If I were printing again I would add my own supports and orientate them so that the unused resin can drain away whilst still being attached to the build plate.  A minor gripe I know but sometimes these things matter.

Anyway, as you can see these are considerably smaller than the full size drop pod for WH40K.  Aint they cute 😃

Can You buy Good Hobby Products from Wish.com in 2024?

Earlier this month I blogged about my experience buying hobby products from AliExpress in 2024, this time I turn my attention to Wish.com.

104pcs Simulation Static Grass Tufts Model Mini Grass Cluster - £4.06

My basing game has been pretty weak of late.  Trix Robot Rider needed some desert vegetation to add a little va va voom so I chose these mini grass tufts.  Herein lies the problem when you are buying stuff from Wish, you are entirely reliant on the chinglish descriptions that the vendors provide.  They often list multiple pack sizes or products in the same listing and sometimes it's hard to know what you are buying.  

The upside is of course at these stupidly low prices you can often order multiple different options all for less than the price if you were to go to a big box retailer like Hobby Craft.  If you want to try out a hobby product for not much outlay the online vendors on Wish.com are a fairly safe way to do it.

These tufts are quite small and measure 5mm in diameter.  This might be what the number 5 on the box refers to.  In their defence it does say mini... 

I added a few of them to Trix's base and I really think that they add a certain something.  

Perhaps on a smaller miniature base they would have much more impact.  I will try to buy some bigger ones in future. 

50pcs DIY Craft Party Alligator Clamp Wire Clip - £3.74 - 3/5

I had seen GroundAffected suspend his resin parts for priming on these alligator clips so I bought a bag of 50.  To be honest the clips are not really strong enough to safely hold larger parts but for small 32mm miniatures they are going to be a godsend. 

There are obviously 2 parts to any painting jig, the thing that attaches to the bit you are painting and the thing that that thing attaches to, lets call it a base.  Having a sturdy base is just as important  

Clearly I am going to have to design and print some sort of hobby clip base or print out something like this Alligator Clip Stand by retro-stingray.

If I were buying again I would opt for longer wires as I think the ones I bought were mainly designed as table card holders.

60g Six Colour Flock Adhesive Nylon Static Grass Powder - £2.51

Wow this is great value considering a similarly sized bag of grass from a well known retailer is 3 times the price and only comes in one colour.  I now need to build a static grass applicator like Luke Towan  

UV Resin - 50g UV Resin Ultraviolet Curing Epoxy Resin Crystal Clear - £1.28 5/5

I have wanted to try out some of this clear UV resin for a while.  I have a large bottle of the stuff for my 3D printer but it doesn't set quickly enough when making things like pools of lava or green ooze.  This little bottle was cheap enough that I don't care if it works that well.

I am glad to report that it works really well, just 5-10 seconds under my pretty weakass UV torch and it sets rock hard.  I have a big lava base project in the works and this will be just the ticket for greating that glossy flowing lava.

A DIY Funny Wooden Sailing Boat Model Kit 1/50 Scale Ship £5.42 - 0/5

I would love to say that this is an amazing model and a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon, but I can't.  Sadly the vendor cancelled the order unilaterally.  This happens from time to time on Wish.com, often when the price is too good to be true.  

I've seen this kit on AliExpress so maybe I'll try another order... ooh a stirling steam engine!

Another 5 Starblazer Comics Reviewed

 

Yet more issues from my growing Starblazer collection

Starblazer #187 - Mind Warrior - In the battle to keep the warlike alien hordes at bay, the Terran Army used no end of ingenious devices in combat.  None were successful, non except the most ingenious device ever developed - The human brain...

This is a pretty average story where a crack group of Earth commandos need to neutralise the alien Zarg superweapon.  They discover that the Zarg are using a device known as the Time Gun to de-materialise asteroids and crash them into ships and space stations.

The eponymous "Time Warrior" doesn't turn up until page 40 and the book is only 66 pages long.  The plot leans heavily on deus ex machina which is incredibly lazy but does lend itself to the cliffhanger nature of all Starblazer storylines.  The hero usually saves the day by utilising some trait or technology that hasn't ever been discussed before.

Mind Warrior is particularly guilty of this in the final scene, I won't spoil it but even I had to do a doubletake.  Perhaps my nine year old self would not have been so critical... 

Starblazer #191 - Carter's Law - Frank Carter was a policeman in the huge Terran galaxy of the 32nd century.  His job was hard, lonely and extremely dangerous.  But he didn't mind - the harder, lonelier and more dangerous a job was, the more he liked it.  Carter was hated by some and disliked by most, but he was used to it.  He was half man, half android and completely mean.

This one's a gripping tale of corporate espionage as Carter and his newly appointed sidekick Dolan break every rule in the book to bring their quarry to justice.

Some top notch art for this episode which draws inspiration from news photo libraries of the day.  Repurposed images of riot gear wearing cops and a beautifully drawn ferret armoured car would have been very familiar to young readers watching news footage of the troubles in Northern Ireland.

Carter is much more dramatically posed and his dialogue much fruitier than his first outing.  Could he have been inspired by early Dredd's one liners or is he channeling Clint Eastwood as a robotic Dirty Harry?  A solid second outing for our favourite mandroid.   

Starblazer #198 - Time Warriors - They were fighting men from the past, transported thousands of years into the future, and put in a life or death situation with a technology beyond their understanding.   

A cool concept for this story.  Six warriors from across Earth history are "drafted" to fight for a peace loving alien race to save the planet Paxos from domination by the dog headed Korvans. 

The fight takes place in an Arena and like ancient gladiators each warrior is pitted in single handed combat to the death against a Korvan adversary.  Galactic rules govern how the deathmatch is conducted and the primitive warriors must get in close to use melee weapons to deal a deadly and decisive blow.

This story could have had a great twist at the end, but the execution feels like a missed opportunity and a waste of a great sci-fi title.  It's a shame because the art is pretty good especially in the early pages where the warriors are plucked moments from death.  This storyline gets recycled in the movie Predators (2010)

Starblazer #199 - Netherworld - Mikal R Kayn never went looking for trouble - it came looking for him.  Involved in a simple motorway shunt, he didn't anticipate much bother.  But he hadn't bargained on the body.

Ex cop turned Private Eye Mikal Kayn digs a little too deep when he finds a partially disintegrated corpse.  Someone doesn't want the case investigated and tries to set Kayn up. 

This is a really fun story and one that could easily work in Mega City One.  I really appreciate the clean lines of Jose Casanova's artwork.  His depictions of the weird and wonderful denizens of Netherworld and of the jungle planet Babalon make this story pop.  The character arcs of Cinnibar and Rulf are never really explained hopefully later Kayne stories will right that wrong.

Kayn is a great character, taken straight from the pages of a Mickey Spillane detective novel, a futuristic Mike Hammer who wears dark glasses to protect his infra-red eyes.  I'm going to look forward to reading more of his exploits in coming issues.

Starblazer #208 - Planet of the Dead - Thieves, Killers and Conmen... it didn't make any difference to Borg the Bounty Hunter.  He'd hunt them to the far reaches of the galaxy and bring them to justice.  He thought he'd seen it all till he came face to face with Baal.  This evil creation didn't just kill people... it sucked the very life force from them!

This story is a weird mashup of survival horror and an oddball team up between Borg and his two captive conmen against the evil space vampire Baal.

The artwork is serviceable and the character design on point as all vampires of this era wore black cloaks with high pointy collars.  Of course space vampires don't drain your blood they drain your life force and feed upon it making them ever stronger.  

Whilst there's not much to the story, it's a long chase sequence, there are some cool looking locations, landscapes and pirate ships on wheels.  All good worldbuilding fun for the princely sum of 28p...  

Essential Starblazer Links

The Starblazer Checklist is a fantastic resource if you are collecting or want to know who wrote and illustrated each issue.

Many thanks to the chaps who run the Starblazer Covers archive, this is immensely useful resource when looking at ebay joblot listings.

Retro Sanctuary has a great article covering his top 20 Starblazer Issues which is worth a look and I'm looking forward to reading and reviewing some of these classics in the very near future.

Can you buy good modelling accessories from AliExpress in 2024?

I have been playing Wish and AliExpress bingo for a while now.  It can be a dangerous game, but if you've got a few quid that are burning a hole in your pocket, there are worse ways to spaff it up the wall. 

Now this isn't one of those exercises.  I genuinely needed some specific items and thought I would put each store to the test.

HobbyMio Sci-Fi Decals (maybe a bit of a Gundam theme here) - £1.83 - 4/5

You may have seen my recent print of Trix Robot Rider on these pages.  I'm really happy how she came out but the robot hand is crying out for some decals.  I had a look on AliExpress and was stunned by the sheer volume of waterslide decals that are available at some extremely good prices.  Most of these are replacements for specific Gundam kits but there are some which are just generic.  

I chose the HobbyMio Model Decal Vol 1 set and I'm really impressed with the diversity of symbols warning signs numbers which come in the set.  They are a mix of black, white, red and yellow with plenty of variety to sticker up your robot.  I'll update this post when I've used some to let you know how they come out and how easy they are to lay down.

12Pc Set 21x15cm Leopard Print Grafitti Stencils - £4.21 - 3/5

When I painted the wings of my Ulimate Radical Centrist B'lakor Demon, I used an old orange bag as stencil mask to get a diamond pattern.  It was okay, but very fiddly and I had seen some of the AFV modellers on YouTube using some splatter masks so thought I'd try one.  

I think I ordered the wrong thing as these are considerably larger than I expected.  With 12 different patterns to choose from these are still very useable for bigger models.  In the set are a:

• Leopard Spots - each spot ranges from 1 to 2cm 
• Waves - 11 different wave patterns should look good for water effects or Chris Foss inspired shampoo bottle spaceship patterns
• Bubbles - well I don't know how to describe this stacked bubble design.
• Large Tiger Stripes - again very useable if you are doing a tiger striped camo theme on a vehicle.
• Voronoi - small holes measuring 1 to 1.3cm across.  Very useable for dragon hide or interior wing patterns.
• Square Cells - an irregular collection of 4 sided holes with rounded corners.  This is going to be an absolute must for that cracked earth look.
• Large Zebra Stripes - same as the Tiger stripes
• Lizard Skin - a tighter mesh of diagonal holes.  Great for any large lizard (wink, wink)
• Squished Lizard Skin - a mesh of varying sized organic shaped diamonds large on the edge to tiny in the middle.  this is going to get a lot of use I can tell.
  
• Rust Splatter - that collection of irregular shapes which the AFV guys go wild for 
• Swoopy Curves - this is less useable in my opinion and will probably see action when I just want to define a swooping curve in much the same way you might use a french curve.
• Large Irregular Cells - again this is likely to see use in large base texture shading.

I will give them a whirl on my next 3D printed mega project which is currently staring at me with it's five fearsome heads.

Hobby MS Small Wet Pallette Set - £3.59 4/5

I've always wanted to try out a wet palette, but they are kind of intimidating and come in at around £20 or so.  I thought I'd try out one of these little travel palettes to see how I get on.

The box measures 21cm x 7cm and has two compartments, one for the palette and the other I am guessing is a water supply section.  Included are 10 sheets of "baking paper", two absorbent blotters, a thick white foam pad and a strange square metal grill.

I will have to learn how all of this goes together and how to use it as it did not come with instructions, but I did find this video on how to use it.

I'll report back with my findings...

Postage Not Included

The total I paid for all three items was only £15.83 so that was £6.20 for flat rate shipping and delivery took just shy of 8 calendar days.

Given that a pint in a london pub in 2024 is about £10 these days I think I'll try this again.  Tune in again soon for a review of some Wish.com model making goodies.

Even More Starblazer Comicbooks

Some say I should not be left alone with eBay, but I say let's read more Starblazer...

Starblazer #171 - Star Knight - Released from a million year imprisonment, the most evil being in the galaxy unleashed eons of hate and unimaginable fury on the race he blamed - the inhabitants of Earth.  But he had to pit his evil skills against Earth ace troubleshooter - STAR KNIGHT.

This strip is a unabashed mashup of the origin story of superman and the plot of Alien.  The protaganist Rorta, is an alien cyborg warrior with dreams of intergalactic conquest imprisoned in a stasis egg by the benevolent Syran elders as punishment for his treachery.  

A million years later he is accidentally released by some space archeologists looking for alien artifacts.  Rorta goes on to capture an experimental space weapon and only the brave Star Knight, Li Opurney, can save the Earth from destruction.

This story suffers from a serious case of the deus ex machina, as both Rorta and Star Knight overcome adversity with ease deploying numerous unheard of technologies.  A hordroid; las shields, laser lances densitrax mining ships, nullgrav beams, it's all here waiting to implant itself in a young furtile imagination.  There are some weird looking spaceships that look like they jumped out of the pages of a Terran Trade Authority Handbook. (I must get around to writting a blog post about them someday). 

Starblazer #172 - Nightraider - They made the Mafia look like a charity organisation.  He was the only person who could stop them.  They had unlimited credits, men and mchines.  He had one craft and three helpers.  They were the Kratos... He was Nightraider.

Let's face it Nightraider is a cool pseudonym, but when your real name is Garry Clark you need all the help in the universe you can get in order to strike fear in your space mafia adversaries. Fighting at his side are Ursa, the blind Triton navigator who can "see" using his Neuroweb helmet.  Samuro the Cygnan samurai armoured weaponmaster and Typhon the sensor operator and all round fifth wheel.

This is a fun little galaxy hopping story chasing down mafioso whilst dealing with the thorny subject of xenophobia.  The plot takes a twist about a third of the way through when it is revealed that Nightraider's own built-in arm weapon, a deadly neutron beamer, exposes him to fatal Q radiation.  The helpers must get Nightraider back home or he will die, 

I love how the writer borrows the then new fangeled "microwave cooker" technology and turns it into a deadly weapon.  I won't spoil the ending for you but it caught me by surprise.

Starblazer #179 - Mandroid - He was a cop. A good cop! Too good for his fellow enforcement officers, some said.  Some others said he wasn't even human - and they were right.  He was Carter, and Carter was a Mandroid.  Half man, half android and whilly mean.

This is my first Carter story and it's a corker.  High stakes action on every page and it was a gripping read.  Carter definitely has shades of Judge Dredd and Robocop in his character and this story really lets that shine through.  The art by Enrique Alcatena is fantastic, very dynamic and full of inventive costume design.  I felt it was reminiscent of my favourite Dredd artist Ron Smith.

The story starts out as a murder investigation on a remote mining planet but quickly evolves into a tale of robot revolution.  Carter is the perfect protagonist for this story, being half robot himself means he straddles both sides of the conflict.  A classic Starblazer issue and one that comes highly rated.

I can't wait to see what happens in the next Carter storyline in issue #191 Carter's Law

Starblazer #181 - Death Trek - Sergeant Wilse T Force was surly, bad tempered and hated the war.  He owanted out, and the only way he could do that was to obey orders, no matter how difficult they were.  His job was complicated by two things... a bunch of recruits he had to wetnurse through the Badlands, and an enemy commander who wanted him dead - for personal reasons.

This story feels like it is ripped straight from the pages of Commando, another very popular "War Story" title from Starblazer Publisher DC Thompson.  Our hero is trapped behind enemy lines and orders come through to evaccuate the planet.  He just has to get his men to the safety of the rendezvous point in time or be left behind.

Sgt Force and his men have to survive encounters with the strange alien life on the planet whilst being chased by the Carthan enemy soldiers.  The powered armour troopers are equipped with a host of wepons and gadgets to help them survive, but being green recruits they need a veteran like Force to keep them alive.

Solid adventure story stuff and a great read.

Starblazer #183 - The Cyborg Chaser - It was 2086AD, and the Earth was in the grip of a drought.  Only androids and cyborgs could work in the intense heat while humans stayed in their controlled areas.  The companies that manufactured cyborgs grew more powerful, until they all but ruled the world.  Faced by secrecy, World intelligence decided to penetrate the largest firm, Cyborg Corporation, and they sent in Britt the Commando, a one man army, a CYBORG CHASER.

The cover illustration brings together two great cinematic images, Max Von Sydow's Ming the Merciless as Arrigon the Head of a Andro Corp and Sean Connery's James Bond as Britt the Commando.

This is an interesting story of global domination being foiled by a super spy and perfectly fits into the Starblazer mould like a hand in a glove.  Being an anthology comic, you never knew exactly what you were getting every other week.  Unlike 2000AD or Star Lord, there was no stable of regular characters who appeared every week.  What was guaranteed were solid adventure story lines with action on every page.  

In the 80s we used to judge our action movies by their kill count, perhaps we should do the same with our Starblazer issues?

Essential Starblazer Links

The Starblazer Checklist is a fantastic resource if you are collecting or want to know who wrote and illustrated each issue.

Many thanks to the chaps who run the Starblazer Covers archive, this is immensely useful resource when looking at ebay joblot listings.

Retro Sanctuary has a great article covering his top 20 Starblazer Issues which is worth a look and I'm looking forward to reading and reviewing some of these classics in the very near future.