Savage Dredd - Gangs of Mega City One

Mega City One has its fair share petty criminals and none come more petty than the juve gangs who vie for supremacy in their respective blocks.  Here are just a few of the gangs I have created for my Judge Dredd campaigns set in Sector 55.

The Squid Squad

Residents of Little Korea, the squid squad are easily identifiable by their neon pink all over jumpsuits and black facemasks.  They are one of the most organised and disciplined gangs in Sector 55 and should be approached with caution.  Their suits offer protection against all chemical attacks and their masks include breathers and headsets rendering Stumm Gas and Sonic cannon ineffective.

I found a free guard model on Thingiverse 5021982 and scaled them down to 15mm to match my other Judge Dredd minis.  This was pretty much the limit of how small I can print a standard 28mm mini as they were a little vulnerable in the ankle area.  I love how they came out and with a quick lick of paint they are absolutely ready for a rumble in Mega City One.

The Fatties

It is almost impossible to find models of fat people on the internet.  Of course the officially licenced range has some fantastic minis but these are 35mm.  Milliput to the rescue.  I blobbed on some putty and roughly sculpted some corpulent citizens to flesh out any gathering.  I only made 5 but if I get a really great scenario idea that needs more then who knows. 

There is a distinct lack of protest banners as whenever they are depicted in the comics they always seem to be shouting about something or other.  I did have a go at modelling belly wheels but it was an abject failure.  They of course come in a wide variety of jumpsuits and track suits as they are always in training for their next big weigh in.

TV Media Crews

In Mega City One there are almost as many TriD TV channels as there are citizens.  From documentary channels to citizen broadcasters the airwaves are chock full of options for the discerning viewer and 24 Hour News is just one small slice of that media cake.

Looking like a cross between the anchor men of old and corporate shift workers, these guys are a common sight at any incident.  They band together like fleas on a rat, but when they smell a story it's dog eat dog.  Oh and don't think that they aren't above creating the odd incident on a slow news day.

The Barbarellas

These costumed crusaders can usually be found defending their home turf of Jane Fonda Block.  The Barbs, as they are colloquially known, work double duty as an organized crime gang and the block's Citi-Def. 

Armed with stub guns and reflective body armour styled after an old holovid from 1960s.  Membership of this gang is exclusive and you only get in if you are a prime specimen of health and vitality.  One of the gang's most lucrative rackets is running the many Fonda Fitness Centres which also give it access to a steady stream of new recruits in peak physical condition.

Jessie's Prints - Episode 25 - Efreet

This week, I are mostly been tasting...  Middle Eastern Delights

Regular readers will know that my favourite D&D setting is Al-Qadim but it was never well supported in terms of minis.  Time has been kind to the genre though and there are plenty of neat minis that can be downloaded all over the internet including. 

Efreet - Pinshape 48509

As soon as I saw this guy I new I had to print him my other two Djinn are a bit too weapony and this guy is all about giving out wishes.  I'm really pleased with the paint job on this guy and his muscles benefitted from the zenithal highlighting that I've been doing lately.

Talking of Al-Qadim, I recently acquired a copy of the Caravans boxset for the collection.  Whilst in these woke times there is absolutely no chance of WotC revisiting this setting on account of "Cultural Appropriation", I absolutely love how different it is to regular D&D.  If you are interested or have never heard of one of the best settings TSR ever came up with check out my Al-Qadim article.

Jessie's Prints - Episode 24 - I like Big Girls, I Cannot Lie

This week I are mostly been printing big women.

My foray into large scale 3D printed models continues in the early weeks of 2023 as I have printed off a series of large scale ladies.

Becca - Cyberpunk Edgerunners (Cults 3D) 

The standout character from last year's Netflix Original Anime Cyberpunk Edgerunners was of course Rebecca.  A cute little anime girl with a foul mouth and a fouler temper, Becca is the eptomy of the live fast die young aesthetic of cyberpunk.

There are a few Becca STLs out there some good, some bad but this is the only one I could find which was free.  That's why the pose is so weird but then so is Becca.

Harley Quinn (Fotis Mint via Printables)

When I heard that Fotis had put all of his sculpts onto Printables I jumped at the chance to print one out and chose Harley Quinn.

She is the spitting image of Margot Robbie and printed pretty well as a single figure with the exception of the back of her head which is nore an issue with my attempt at supports than the model itself.  The base printed seperately and I don't know what happened with scaling but it is a bit of a chonker.  This is going to be a real challenge for me to paint as I'm not very good with actual faces.

Ylenia Bloodthorne (Capritor Miniatures)

My clubmate Dan backed this Capritor Kickstarter and sent me the files to download and print for him.  This is my first foray into 78mm multipart minis and she came out okay.  I had little instruction in terms of sticking her together (hence the weird arm position) and she is so fragile that if you breathe on her she will snap.

This is part of the issue with resin printers and more specifically the resin you print with.  Sometimes a mini will just be too spindly to survive and Ylenia is in that category.  But I guess what can you exect for something so highly detailed and anatomically correct.

Is the OGL Debacle D&D Red Pill Moment?

I didn't get too excited when I heard about the release of One D&D, I'm not really a D&D player having moved over to the OSR years ago.

However, the handful of times I played 5th Edition, I found it was increasingly difficult to play without having a DnD Beyond account.  The shift to digital sessions and VTTs during lockdown was a gift from the Gods for WotC.  A whole new breed of player was introduced to TTRPGs without the Tabletop and this online thing just felt right to them.

Now that lockdowns have been lifted, IRL play has returned but for a growing segment of DnD players they have stayed online safe within the technology bubble and IP that WotC owns.  The revelation that they intend to milk this captive audience for every red cent they can should come as no surprise.

As Gary Gygax famously said,

"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules."

Subscribing to a system with little option for homebrew and games being run by ChatGPT style bot DMs very much sounds like the plot of The Matrix.

My fervent hope is that, like Neo, this new breed of player throws off its bonds of slavery takes the red pill and finds out that other TTRPGs offer a much more interesting, diverse, challenging and satisfying experience.  

Jessie's Prints - Episode - 23 - OMG Akira is 40!

Today I learned that the classic Anime Akira is 40 years old.

Thanks to Katsuhiro Otomo for bringing this groundbreaking work to life and making such an impression on me as a teenager. 

Fortuitously this coincided with the completion of my 3D Printed Kaneda Bike model which I began back in July not long after I got my resin printer..

Where can I download a 3D Akira Bike Model?

Well handily you can download this model from Thingiverse

Life is a Journey not a Destination

This is a big model meauring 9 inches long and 3.5 inches tall and Kaneda is 4.5 inches tall, so too big for my Photon Mono 4K.  I had to slice each half of the bike using Meshmixer and in hindsight I should have hollowed it out because it used up a huge amount of resin.  

The sheer weight of the parts of the bike (480g) or the way I positioned it on the bed created some defects with tearing of the seat on the left side and the right rear tear drop and seat being mishappen.

It was a major job to get it all aligned and fitting nicely and if I had my time again I would probably scale this model down a touch.  I followed the glue-up with some milliput to gap fill and a lot of sanding.  I decided to reslice the control panel as the misalignment of the join between the parts was just too much for me to bear and I'm glad I did.

Kaneda came out great on the first try but I had to reprint his right hand after the fingers broke off during painting.  Kaneda is a bit low poly compared to the bike and I guess that few people bother to print the figure as a result.  Rescaling may also fix this issue to some degree but I would definitely try to learn how to smooth out those facets in blender or meshmixer.

The Future is Clear

The next challenge was to make the canopy without the use of a vacuum former.  I printed out the supplied canopy and then filled the inside with milliput.  With a screw driven into the milliput I created a sort of buck (red) which I could hold with a pair of molegrips.  I then clamped a piece of acetate (green) in my workbench and heated it up with a hot air gun (Thank you middle aisle at Aldi).  

When the acetate was sufficiently hot and drooping I plunged the buck into the acetate.  Overly dramatic? Perhaps, but this is seat of your pants modelling and, despite it being a completely sketchy process, it worked amazingly and I got a stunning result on only the second try.

It Ain't a Picasso

Painting was surprisingly pain free with the bulk of the work done with automotive rattle cans and plenty of masking tape.  Touch ups were done by spraying the paint onto a card and then brushing onto the model.  Surprising effective thanks to the self levelling nature of rattle can gloss paint.

Panel gaps were lined in dilute black acrylic and the detail work on the dashboard buttons and screens completed in short order.

Stickers or Decals?

IMHO an Akira bike without decals looks wrong so I scoured the internet to find decent images, harder than you might think, purchased some white decal paper.  You won't believe the hours I spent deciding if I would go with the poster version solo pill logo or the "Good for Health Bad for Education" roundel version for Kaneda's back patch.  I borrowed a laser printer (thanks Paul) and printed up a sheet.

What a nightmare!!! The laser copier couldn't cope with the decal paper and it made a right mess.  I briefly contemplated printing out a set on sticker paper, my rational being that in-universe these are actually stickers applied by Kaneda himself.  I persevered and managed to cobble together a set I was reasonable happy with.

The process of application was also troublesome with some of the toner coming off and the decals wrapping back on themselves.  If anyone has tips on making your own decals please pop a comment in the box below.  If you want to download the Akira Bike decals please feel free.

Final Touches

I scratchbuilt a headlight lens from plasticard and the indicators got a lick of paint.  Necessity is the mother of invention and, when it came to the mirrors, I turned to the foil inside a crisp (chip) bag.  Yes, trash went into the making of this model.

I'm pretty pleased with the end result especially given that this is the first really big model I've scratchbuilt.  There are some things I would do differently like creating two decals for the dashboard.  There are somethings I might go back and fix like adding some neon piping around the tyres.  It's never ending really, but for now (at least) I have stuck a fork in this project, I'm done.

With all modelling it's less about the finished article and more about what you learned and how you stretched yourself along the journey.  Please feel free to share links to your own modelling stories in the comments below.