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.

Jessie's Prints - Episode 34 - Teenage Mutant Sorceror Tortle

This week, I are mostly been printing... A Tortle!!

Epics N Stuff Tortle Sorceror - MyMiniFactory - 109539  

This week saw us return to The Rivenlands D&D Campaign at Dragons Keep Roleplay Club.  My clubmate and fellow founder Paul needed a mini to represent his Tortle Sorceror so he commissioned me to print and paint a supplied STL. 

He's a chunky boy and basically pyramidal in shape.  The mini came both pre-supported and unsupported, as is common these days.  However, he also came as a pair of pre-hollowed out variants for those wishing to not waste resin or just wanting a slightly lighter mini.  

This is the first time I've seen this done on a 35mm single piece character mini, so I printed a hollow one for shits and giggles.  The only issue I had is that the wall thickness just wasn't thick enough to prevent the odd hole appearing when I removed the supports. 

Painting

The customary zenithal priming was done and mounted to my base of choice (a two pence piece).  I said he was chunky and barely any base was visible under his girthy feet.

Paul supplied me with a photo of a make by Empire of Minis so I didn't even have to make any colour choice decisions. 

Base colours were a mix of Vallejo Acrylics, with midtones dry brushed on before picking out the highlights.

Serious Skin Problems

I really struggled with the skin on this model, in fact it was practically the last thing that got painted.  The sculpt had no texture and yet he is supposed to be a tortoise like humanoid.  Last time I looked they had pretty scaly lizard like skin and his was as smooth as a baby's bottom.  I have a small collection of greens and they were covering really horribly over the zenithal, particularly where areas of shadow were converned.

 

I persevered though and resorted to mixing in a bit of some Crafter's Choice acrylic that I found in a Wallington "Arkwrights" shop.  

G.. G.. G.. Granville! Fetch me that tube of G... G.. G... Green Paint!

This stuff is so random it doesn't even have a paint name, just a number (PNTA-134) but it's made by Royal & Langnickel and it did the job where my specialist miniature paints could not.  

 

This just goes to show that when you are painting don't just dismiss your art materials because they aren't Vallejo or Games Workshop.  Try out lots of different paints and you just might hit on some secret sauce.

6 Essential Resin 3D Printer Accsessories

I have been resin 3D printing for almost 2 years now and here are a few of the bits of kit which I have found to be invaluable.

Plastic Razor Blade Scrapers 

Nothing gets a blob of resin off your LCD screen better than a plastic scraper.  They don't damage the surface and they are cheaper than actual razor blades.  You can also use them to pry your prints off the build plate and they are disposable so no need to clean them.

Once you have these, you will find they have a multitude of uses around the house for all those DIY projects that they were actually designed for.

Spare FEP film

You never want your printing to be sidelined by a dodgy FEP, so having a spare film is essential for when the inevitable happens.  Changing out your FEP is just one of those skills you will need to master.  Some say that you can tune your FEP for optimal performance, but I just use the German specification gudentight.    I recommend buying from 3DJake.

Fun Fact: FEP is an acronym for Fluorinated Ethylene Propylene.

Silicone Baking Tray

Resin 3D printing is a messy affair, particularly when you are extracting your prints from the build plate.  It is hard to not drip uncured resin onto your table, so I use a silicone baking sheet as a table protector.  

Nothing sticks to silicone and these mats are super easy to clean and so cheap that you can cover an entire table in the things and still have change from a tenner (£10).

PTFE Lubricant (GT85)

Every now and then you will suffer from a print that just wants to stick to the FEP rather than where it is supposed to stick, the build plate.  The best thing I have found to combat this is to give your FEP a good spray with GT85 and a gentle rub down.  This creates a microscopic PTFE layer on the surface of your FEP guaranteeing that the print will release when the build plate rises.

Everytime I change resin, change my FEP or just engage in a spot of cleaning, I give my FEP a liberal coat and then buff it dry.  GT85 will change your success rate instantly, no more failed prints, bits stuck to the FEB or layer peeling.

Plastic Funnels & Conical Paint Filters

Trying to pour your unused resin back into the bottle is a nightmare task made tolerable with the use of a funnel.  Get some conical paint filters to strain out any bits of cured resin and your life will be so much easier and less messy.

The pound store is your best bet for funnels.  You can get a bunch of filters for pennies at the usual online retailers like eBay or Amazon.  A big shout out to Jayo3D who pack 2 or 3 filters in with their 1Kg bottles of resin.

Two Wash & Cure Station Tanks 

It wasn't long into my resin 3D printing journey before my wash tank looked like a winter's morning.  This occurs when the uncured resin suspended in your IPA cures and fall to the bottom of the tank making an amorphous plastic blancmange.  Honestly, this stuff is horrendous to deal with, so having a second wash tank that you can decant into and clean your IPA is a must.  I have found that running a few curing cycles on an empty tank can work wonders. 

Vallejo Shifters - It's all Dust Baby!

In 2023 I managed to snag an absolute bargain of an eBay joblot. I got a metric ton of airbrush paints including this trio of Vallejo Shifters sets.

I've used them on a few models so far but my main gripe is that the supplied swatches don't at all marry up to my experience.  I decided to make my own swatches and to test if it using a gloss black undercoat made any difference to the effect. 

Before anyone shouts "You should have used spoons!", I probably should but my main objective was to have something I could tuck into the box as a handy reference and not have to dig out my cutlery drawer.  Some of these paints don't look anything like what is in the bottle and their names are no help either.

Galaxy Dust

• 77.002 Light Violet Green - A minty coldish green which flips to a greyish purple at about 20 degrees.
  
  
• 77.008 Green Gold Cold Blue - A nice verdant green which flips to a dark blue.
  
  
• 77.009 Turquoise Violet - A really nice 70s blue flake flipping to a solid purple with flecks of irridescent blue. This is the standout colour of the set.
  
  
• 77.010 Emerald Green Mauve - a darker more blueish green flipping to purple.
  
  
• 77.017 Green Silver Blue -almost identical to 002 but a bit more opaque to begin with before flipping to a much greyer colour.
  
  
• 77.018 Dark Green Tin -a really nice warm green which flips toward yellow.
  

Magic Dust

• 77.001 Violet Old Copper - nah, this is definitely a purple to blue shift and it's really quite good doing multiple flips the further away from 0 degrees you get.  Nice.
  
  
• 77.006 Gold Pale Blue - this was way too subtle for me.  It's a greeny gold to begin with and it pretty much stays there.
  
  
• 77.007 Pearl Violet - Purple to a dark grey.
  
  
• 77.011 Old Silver Pale Violet - Another super subtle shift which just goes black to my eyes.  I will chalk this up to a faile in application even though this was the most successful swatch of the three.
  
  
• 77.012 Silver Pink - Is it? just looks Greeney Purple to me.
  
  
• 77.015 Gold Yellow Burnt Orange - Green to a very nice Gold.  Just pipped into second place by 001.  I used this on the cockpit glass of my Swordfish II model and it looks great even if it has a propensity for spiderwebbing.
  

Space Dust

• 77.003 Orange Violet - This is the colour I chose to use on B'lakor's wings and over a curved surface it works quite well.  However, this doesn't cover great and will need multiple coats to get a really pronounced effect.
  
  
• 77.004 Electric Blue Intense Violet - Blue to a sort of purple, just not as successful as 001.
  
  
• 77.005 Green Blue Velvet - I think I might have messed this one up, I'm not getting an effect at all but it is a really nice metallic green.
  
  
• 77.013 Bright Gold Brown - Very subtle but a transition from green to an orangey brown is there.  Perhaps on a larger curved surface this will work quite well
  
  
• 77.014 Old Gold Grey Violet -  I'm just not getting the gold here.  It's another green to purple transition.
  
  
• 77.016 Red Gold - this is definitely a green to gold transition but it is green for a long time..
  

To Gloss or Not to Gloss, That is THE Question. 

I have to say I can't see any difference myself.  However, airbrushing the paint onto a gloss surface made a huge difference when you are actually spraying.  The gloss is a barrier and makes the paint much more likely to pool or to spiderweb.  There is a lot of acrylic medium in the mix which is what suspends the metallic particles, but this takes an age to dry and if you are like me patience is something I have yet to learn...

Overall Opinion

There are a lot of colours which basically look green.  I imagine that there is some perfectly reasonable physics paper which explains how the light refraction effect works.  I will continue to use them and these swatches are going to help a lot in the choices I make.  However, it really does depend on the miniature you are painting and the exact curves on the model to achieve the best results.  

Space marines or any character wearing pauldrons or other similarly curved armour pieces is going to look great using shifters.  Large Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs) with flat panels I'm guessing less so, but I am intrigued to see what it looks like on a windscreen of a car.

Blue Monday

I wasn't planning on making a post today, but when I find something on the interwebs that I think is amazing, I tend just jot it down in here and share it with everyone.

Blue Maps Monday

Tim Hartin has been making his Old School Blue Maps available every Monday since 2022.

What is an Old School Blue Map

Old School D&D modules were famous for their gatefold covers and the ubiquitous blue maps which were found inside.  Fun Fact! this is a well known anti-copy technique using a particular shade of blue called "non-photo blue".  It is also widely used by traditional illustrators to make their initial sketches as the blue will not be picked up in any subsequent scanning or photography stage.

Back in November 2011 I wrote about the various free software options you could use (at the time) to make maps at the "Dungeon" scale maps and included a fun little level editor Tiled 

Sadly the tileset I created is lost to the mists of time, but I will rebuild it and make it better than ever...

Mwahahaha