Happy New Year

Hoping you and yours have a great 2015!

"Let us resolve to do the best we can with what we've got"
-William Feather

Looking back, 2014 was another challenging year for the Zorcon household: Surgery, months in the hospital, police at the house, medical retirement, and a missing person, just to name a few. But we survived!

On the hobby front, while I fell a little short of my post count goal, all things considered, I am happy with my achievements.

Here's to 2015, and a chance to start over!

Happy New Year!

Familiar Friend

My Dark Heresy Character has a familiar!

At our last session, my character Nicodemus used a psychic power to bond with a small animal for the first time. He hasn't had the power very long (2-3 session), but if he didn't get something now, his only prospects for a long time would be slim to none.

Turns out, it couldn't have been a better choice! I hadn't yet decided what I wanted to get--A small rodent, a bird of prey, or something foreshadowing Nic's decent into the dark arts. After a bit of thinking while another player was taking actions, I had the idea of checking out a nearby pet store.

Now Nicodemus is a very flashy, sometimes temperamental, self important (and indulgent), usually-loyal-to-the-Emperor Inquisitorial agent. It popped in my head to ask about an exotic animal. It should be noted that our next mission is to take down a group of pirates. I could not contain myself with the irony having a parrot on my shoulder... Shiver my timbers! (sorry for the bad pun) I bought a Blaze Wing! It is a large luminous red parrot!

The next day, I trolled the interwebs to find a suitable figure. I found this 'little' guy for $2.12 from Reaper Miniatures.

For this quickie shot, I used poster tac to attach the tail feathers to the far side of the shield. I love this pose! So much so, I am going to make the parrot's base fit around/under my character's base so they can tactically move together or separately.

I may do a little green-stuff cyber-conversion with the intent to "upgrade" the bird in the future... In hind site, I should have bought two!

New Job, New Gear...

... New Journey!

Finally got my new workstation 100% up and running (had issues with procuring the correct adapter cable for the Wacom tablet).

I began working for a good friend of 20 years last week. It will be about 90% at-home, so my 12-year old computer needed to be retired! My employer had a custom rig built to my specs--The highlights are:

• Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz Processor
• 32GB DDR3 SDRAM
• ASUS GeForce GTX TITAN 6GB Video Card
• Samsung 512GB SSD
• Liquid CPU Fan

The Wacom Cintiq was also provided by my employer, and the TV was an Xmas '13 gift from my best friend, now connected to the new computer. The monitors, keyboard and mouse are from the old computer (about 5 years old).

We are starting out slowly in the new job for a number of reasons. Firstly so that I can transfer the day-to-day care of my mother-in-law to Mrs Zorcon. Secondly because my wife is having major surgery in 2 days. Thirdly, the holidays. And lastly, to allow me the time to get back into the swing of things. 

While caring for my mother-in-law 24-7 for the last three years has been the most difficult 'job' I have ever had, it is not the same as being productive at a desk for 8 hours! 

I am really looking forward to this new adventure and the opportunities it will bring!

Merry Christmas

Wishing you a Happy Holidays!

I hope you and yours have a safe and wonderful day today!

First Shapeways Order part 2

Launch Bays have arrived!

In part 1 of this topic, I showed you two different sets of iconography I designed and 3D printed for two of my Battlefleet Gothic fleets. Here we have a piece that replaces one of the original weapon assemblies that came with the game--Launch Bays.

Original Launch Bays

New Launch Bays Re-fit

I am super stoked how this turned out. It is exactly how I imagined it! The new launch bay creates a cleaner silhouette, and I am please with the simpler lines along the hull.

There was a small hiccup in the design--They turned out just a hair wide, but it was easy to sand the edges to fit. I am not worried and do not plan to update the stl file.

This ship is in process of a repaint and a remodel. In addition to ripping out and replacing the launch bays, it has had some other new bits added. The original bridge was cut off and a chaos bridge added. I also added Wing Shields and a Bridge Dome. The latter two are from Shapeways. They came in a set of bits called Cruiser Upgrade Pack 1, created by contributor Armand.

If you missed it, you can see the Launch Bay design file in this post.

Next step it to get some painted models to show!

More Moonshine Pie

Over the last couple months I created 3 new flavors of Pie!

General Preparations:

Combine all ingredients in a large stock pot, and bring to a boil. Stir occasionally.

Remove the pot from heat. At this point, you may let cool to room temperature before proceeding to the next steps, or continue on while its hot.

Remove the cloves and cinnamon sticks (if used) from combined liquid.

Pour 4oz of grain alcohol in a mason jar*. Add a cinnamon stick (if used). Fill jar with combined liquid.

The 'Pie' is ready for consumption! (or storage) I keep them in my beer fridge, but they will be just fine in a cool dark place. I estimate the final alcohol content to be about 40 proof.

*A full batch will use about 1-1/4 bottles (1000ml)

COFFEE ALMOND ROCA MOONSHINE

Ingredients:
1 gallon Cold Brew Coffee Concentrate (I use Trader Joe's brand)
1-750ml bottle Almond Roca syrup (I used Torani brand)
4 packets Spiced Apple mix (I use Alpine)
4 whole cloves
1 Tbs Vanilla Extract

Note: This recipe makes about half batch compared to my others.

--------------------------------

GINGER-LEMONGRASS PIE MOONSHINE

Ingredients:
2 gallons Apple Cider
3 Ginger Roots (peeled and sliced)
10-15 stalks Lemongrass (cut off bottom and peel off dried layers)
2 cup Granulated Sugar
2 cup Light Brown Sugar
1 Tbs Vanilla Extract

--------------------------------

CRANBERRY PIE MOONSHINE

Ingredients:
2 gallons Cranberry Juice
1-1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
1-1/2 cup Light Brown Sugar
4 packets Spiced Apple mix (I use Alpine)
9 whole Cinnamon Sticks
8 whole cloves
2 Tbs Vanilla Extract

Hope you like them!

First Shapeways Order

A new era of my hobby.

I received my first batch of my own custom 3D designed and printed loot today! I am very excited about the prospect of designing little bits and baubles for my own use and then be able to offer them to anyone else who is interested.

First up is a 'Khorne Tower", representing a MoK on my chaos cruisers. Sorry for the poor image, the pic I took with flash was just a white blob. These will look so much better all painted up, but I couldn't wait to share.

Next up is an Aquamarine badge. They will be placed on all of my space marine ships, but I am working on a modified design to use on my space marines.

Launch bays are on their way. I can't wait to see how they look!

Ten Days or Whatever of Kwanzaa

This year's Cards Against Humanity holiday event!

I missed last years event, '12 days of holiday bullshit', and I was forlorn for 12 months waiting and hoping there would be another event this year. The team over at CAH put me out of my misery--Figuratively and literally! This is what came in my first gift.

Well worth the entry fee and still 9 more gifts to go!

BFG Fleet Reorganization

I love charts!

No pics of little painted toys today. I have a bevy of spreadsheet charts showing the progress and layout of my growing Battlefleet Gothif fleets. After quite a bit of research, I have chewed threw the original BFG and Armada rules books, the official FAQ's, and the community driven 2010 FAQ and BFG:R rule set.

Through all of that, I re-evaluated how to assign my Space Fleet collection into my Battlefleet Gothic fleets, and have updated the progress charts from about a year ago.

The Imperial Navy took the heaviest losses, shared about equally (points wise) across cruisers and escorts. I moved the majority of the over 1,600 points worth of ships to my Rogue Trader fleet. All of those ships fit better stylistically and thematically with an exotic and flamboyant space Noble.

The Pirate fleet has been re-christened a Rogue Trader fleet. Actually, I would have rather had a Rouge Trader fleet from the beginning, but I never liked any of the official lists. I am using the fleet list from BFG:R.

I have made the most progress on my Space Marine fleet. I even started to name the ships! The names are Latin names for sea creatures to play off my homevbrew Space marine chapter, the Aquamarines.

The chart looks quite a bit different because from last time mainly because I changed the colors of the final 2 status', 'Repaint in Progress' and '2nd Gen Finished' to stand out better.

I also removed three 'To Get' ships as they are out of my budget for the foreseeable future.

Defense Systems are not a fleet per se. Although I am treating them as a separate planetary defense 'ally' fleet. While the progress chart is new, I already had a number of systems built and painted.

These ships and defense systems will be primarily used for planetary scenarios. However, there are plenty of other uses too.

The Chaos fleet was one of my after thought fleets. I have some ships, but not really enough to field a usable fleet. I am looking for some inexpensive options.

The Ork fleet is the other after thought. But in this case, I already have, or have the parts to scratch-build all the ships.

The Eldar fleet are made up almost exclusively by Space Fleet figures and fit best as Corsairs. I plan on picking up some Craftworld ships to field as allies.

The last fleet in this chart-packed post is not a fleet--These are terrain pieces, or Celestial Phenomenon.

Well, that wraps up today's episode.

Shapeways

My side project has become official.

I have officially opened my Shapeways storefront!

It is branded under my graphic design business, Design by Zorcon. Although, I almost branded the storefront under Games of Zorcon, as most of what I will design will be for games.

Only 7 items uploaded so far, but I have that many more in progress.

Yesterday I had my first sale! Unfortunately because the item was in 'Beta' status and hadn't been printed yet, Shapeways declined the order. I have since ordered the piece myself, and once processed I will remove the beta status.