Invasion of Mars, 1899 - Part 1

 I'm juggling projects at the moment (yet another reason it takes me forever to get a job complete) and I've even started a new one! 😆

I've always been a bit of a closet Steampunk fan and particularly like the fantastical yarns by the likes of H.G Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jules Verne where the conquest of space began - fictionally - in the 19th century! Typical of this type of early science-fiction were stories like 'The First Men in the Moon' (H.G Wells) and the Barsoom Stories (E.R Burroughs) where 19th century adventurers managed - in various ways - to journey to other planets in the Solar System. 

Above: Bedford (Edward Judd)  and Cavel (Lionel Jeffries) land on the moon in 1899.
Picture from 1964's British movie 'First Men in the Moon'.

Aside from the fictional stories I have always been tempted by the RPG 'Space 1889', a tabletop role-playing game of Victorian-era space-faring, created by Frank Chadwick...

"The game presented an alternate history in which certain discredited Victorian scientific theories were instead found to be true and have led to the existence of new technologies. In the setting, Thomas Edison invented an "ether propeller" which could propel ships through the "luminiferous aether" (the universal medium that permeates space, based on a now outdated scientific theory)...By the time of the game's setting in 1889, the great powers have used Edison's invention to extend their colonies and interests to the inner planets of the solar system. Venus and Mars have been colonized by the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Russia. Belgium has only colonized Mars and Italy has only colonized Venus whilst Japan and the United States maintain economic and scientific enclaves on Mars. ..."['Space 1889', Wikipedia.]

The Invasion of Mars - A Table-Top Skirmish
When I started my Molatero blog the original idea was to journal my making of a H.G Well's 'Funny Little Wars' army and it's subsequent use in a war-game. This never actually came off as I was repeatedly disappointed in the figures I acquired for this use. Gradually I moved towards the idea of - first - converting figures to my own liking and then - eventually - to actually making my own figures. This has finally ended up where I am today, making my little 'peg figures' - a style of cartoony looking little chaps that suit my less than serious tongue-in-cheek attitude to the hobby.

However, for a long time now I've been making single stand-alone characters while I perfect my current style of model soldier, so I thought that its a bout time I get back to my original idea - making a little army for use in a table-top game.

Above: There is plenty of inspiration, reference material and even game rules for a
Steampunk/Victorian interplanetary campaign. Osprey Publishing has a few books
that provide a great source of ideas.

The idea for 'The Invasion of Mars, 1899' - although still generally a concept which I can attribute to H.G Wells - allows me to work on a limited one-off project, while still gaining some experience of making multiple figures and units which I can then later use to make a full blown FLW war-game.

I'll be restricting my armies to limited units of three infantry, one artillery and one cavalry on each side, which I deem achievable even at my slow pace of construction! 😁

Making a Prototype Soldier
As usual, I start working out a new concept by making a prototype figure. In this case I jumped straight in by making one of the central figures for my Victorian Steampunk army by creating a 1889 Aether-Grenadier for my British expeditionary force...

This design is very much influenced on the models I had just created for my 'Assault on Innsmouth' series, where I had created a larger body so I could mouth an oversized head on a modified 'peg' body.

I really liked the idea of making a unit based on the Victoria diving suites as worn in 'The First Men in the Moon'. Game-wise, my notion was this would be a 'heavy, elite unit' which is why I am calling them Grenadiers. These would be armed with heavier weaponry and could add some variation to the look of my British forces.

While this design added a bit more detail than I usually apply to my cartoon-style of pegs, it's still quite simplified and didn't posed much problem to make in TINKERCAD...

Satisfied with the look of this model I 3D printed the component parts out on my Flashforge Adventurer 3 printer. The multipart 'kit' took several individual prints to make as I prefer to try and make print 'jobs' in smaller groups so that I can get the best quality I can (in theory, I could have - perhaps - have printed this model out in one go by using a LOT of print supports, but this could've got quite messy).

This would be a officer figure, so I created a little 'ray gun' but - as a nod to the Victorian Steampunk style - also gave him a sword. 😁

Above: My Space Grenadier (left). You can see how my recent Innsmouth mutant
inspired this bigger than usual 'peg' design.

Having constructed and primed my 'kit' I noted some things I might change for the rest of the unit but was generally pleased with the way this was going. The rest of my British units would be based on my original, slightly less bulky, peg body design and have different uniforms and equipment - just to mark my grenadiers out as being 'special' (elite).

I then moved onto the painting. Again, this is a kind of prototyping too as I have to work out the colour palette that I will be using. NOW... I don't usually like showing my painting in progress, mainly because it shows off just what a sloppy painter I really am! BUT... I think it's only fair I should show you my process.

Here (above pic) you can see how I apply blocks of colour working from the back (or bottom) most part of the model and work outwards. At this point you can see how I am a bit slap-dash, going over 'lines' and not exactly being very precise! The idea here is that, as I add each additional layer - working outwards - I gradually work a little more neater and effectively cover over any over-painting I may have done on the previous layers. AND SO... In theory, by the time I get to the outermost - top - layer I should end up with a nicely painted little model! (Sorry to disappoint anyone who thought I was - by nature or skill - a good painter. I'm not!) 😂

NEXT: I finish off this prototype and start banging out the rest of the unit.

Edit (17/4/21): The day after I posted the above entry I came across a set of gaming rules that seem absolutely pertinent to my idea of a Steampunk skirmish, these are Osprey's 'In Her Majesty's Name', by Craig Cartmell and Charles Murton and published by Osprey...

Annoyingly, these rules seem to be out of print now (typically) BUT there still seems to be some support and updates for them here: The Ministry of Gentlemanly Warfare

Innsmouth Bad Boys - Part 1

 Moving on from the 'good guys' I made for my 'Assault on Innsmouth' scenario (a H.P Lovecraft inspired pulp-horror skirmish game I have in mind), I have designed two of the townsfolk mutants. These are intended to be two of Innsmouth's heavies and will provide artillery support for the town faction.

Above: 'The Deep Ones', undersea demons that the the followers of
Dagon aspired to interbreed with. Source: The H.P. Lovecraft Wiki.

For those that haven't read Lovecraft's story, the inhabitants of Innsmouth displayed a spectrum of mutations culminating in their final change into immortal fish-like humanoids called 'Deep Ones'. In their abdominal worship of the demi-god Dagon, the townsfolk interbreed with the Deep Ones which culminated in a range of aquatic hybrids.  

Designing a Mutant Peg Figure!
So far I haven't really taken my peg figures into the realms of the horror genre, so what I am doing now is a bit of a jump into the unknown for me. In other words, I am - as I have done in the past - making this all up as I go along, I don't have any templates for these new designs.

My first attempt to create a mutant creature was simply to modify my usual peg body by adding a hybrid head...

But this first attempt at a 'shark-man' was not satisfactory at all, I needed to create something a little more monstrous - in both look and mass. So, I decided to create a new, slightly larger body and by doing so I would be able to mount a larger head on it.

Above: By simply upturning the normal body and enlarging the normal
component that I use I was able to create a base for more massive heads!

The massive heads do lend themselves to a cartoonish horror quite nicely, especially as I am trying not to let my monsters look too out of play against my other peg figures. Hopefully, I have maintained a balance here - I can't goo too wild or 'realistic' (relatively speaking).

First to be designed in TINKERCAD was my 'frog man' cannoneer. It's a bit tongue-in-cheek and a sort of cross between Lovecraft and 'The Pirates of the Caribbean' but it makes me smile...

Happy with my 3D design I printed out all the various parts in the form of a kit. Every time I make one of these 3D figures they do seem to get a tiny bit more detailed or have more components to them...

I was particularly please with the cannon and I think I will try to scale this component up to make a proper canon for my normal peg soldiers. That done I moved on to the second of my Innsmouth heavies - my new and improved shark-man (the cocktail sticks are just place-holders until I could fashion better harpoon spears)...

I'm quite pleased with how these little monsters turned out. I think I'm starting to get to grips with this 3D figure making malarkey (even for saying that my cartoon style is fairly simple). 

They are quite intimidating and should give the townsfolk a bit of a chance in their defence against the Federals and their puny human weapons! 😉

NEXT: Scratching my head over the colour schemes and painting.

Peg Figures Batch Complete - Mixed Bag

 Well, I got this little mixed bag of characters completed. Mixed is the key word here, as I have mixed feelings about this latest series of 3D printed 'pegs'. 😕

Three out of the four are original prototypes which were early 3D test prints, one of them - the musician - was THE first print and so I'm not altogether happy with them. Still, rather than consign them to the scraps bin I thought they might be interesting practise models for my painting.

The final figure is a new print that I made for my Lovecraftian 'Assault on Innsmouth' set. He is a salty seadog who is ready to repel boarder! Yar! (Any similarity to one Captain Haddock is purely coincidental! 😄

Anyway, here's the finish pics, enjoy...

'Private Toot' - An early prototype, but useful practise for a potential Christmas
tree ornament. Hence the Christmas colours!

'Mr. Clank' - Again, a sort of Christmas ornament inspired figure. I'm trying to decide
on what kind of figures to include in a Xmas ornament box set.

'Winter Soldier' - Yes, this could be another Christmas themed figure. But, I just
wanted to get back to doing traditional soldier models again!

And for my Lovecraft series, here's a salty seadog - one of the Innsmouth townsfolks!

As I mentioned in the 'Winter Soldier' caption, I desperately want to get back into making some traditional soldiers again (along side my Lovecratian themed figures). But, as you can see, I am already starting to plan for next Christmas as I hope to make even more of the family presents myself this year.

A Mixed Bag of Character Models

 Just when I think I've done with prototype figures I think of another issue - 'but what if I...?' 😑

So this week I am doing a bit of house cleaning as I am finishing off a couple of my early 3D printed prototypes, trying out adding another new bit of detail on another figure AND adding a bit of a bonus fun figure just for the hell of it! 😁

I've decided that I'm going to make it a habit to make a random bonus figure each week that's nothing to do with any of the themes I'm involved with, just so I don't get bored ( a nasty habit of mine). This week I decided to make a simple little robot figure...Because I like retro robots!

(This kinda backfired on me already as one of you little rascally readers saw a snap of my robot parts in a pic and said 'you could easily do a knight using those parts'! Du-oh! Now I'm thinking 'ooooo, there's an idea! Drat!)

Anyway, here's a pic of this week's batch of 'peg' characters primed and ready to paint...

Latest Pegs - Lovecraftian Heroes Plus One

 It's been a busy week at work and as I come up to my annual leave I am suffering from that pre-holiday fatigue where I'm finding it very hard to be motivated and just want to veg in front of the TV with my feet up! 😴

The Good Guys...
Still, I did manage to finish off a small batch of my 3D printed 'peg' characters, all of which are 'Call of Cthulhu' pulp horror RPG themed. For my 'Assault on Innsmouth' series I managed to complete a couple of 'heroes' in the form of a US Navy shore party seaman and a Federal Agent...

And the Wise Guy!
This is a bit of a bonus figure! Someone commented - after seeing my detective - that they would love to see a mobster version of him with a Tommy Gun. This intrigued me as it was a chance to try out my idea of my 3D printed 'pegs' being multipart kits - so just changing a couple of arms and the gun should easily give me the basis for a gangster...

Well, I'm kinda Lovecrafted out at the moment - really I will have to sit down a doodle some designs for the next batch in the series as they might be a little more tricky! So, next I think I will get back to my roots and make some peg soldiers!

I still have a couple of my 3D printed prototypes to paint, both 'toy soldiers' in Napoleon-esque type uniforms. So we'll see how they turn out. 😁