I’ve never been a gum-chewer. But in the last year, the gum needed chewing, so I got down to business.

That isn’t a metaphor.

About a year ago, someone offered me some gum, and I was intrigued by the vessel it was offered from— not a metallic bubble pack, but a plastic jar with a very interesting lid.

The lid is a truncated hemisphere, but the flat cut of the top isn’t parallel to the base– instead it’s angled, creating an interesting shape. The flap at the top is a separate piece that can be (permanently, and destructively) removed, and there’s a satisfying row of parallel indentations around the edge. As it tends to do, my brain took in the shape of this lid and filed it into the Terrain Scrap Archives, a filing system in my brainmeats where I track “stuff I’ve seen that could probably be used for terrain, someday, maybe”. I didn’t immediately know exactly what use the lids would have, but I knew in my core that there was a piece of terrain somewhere inside it.

A year ago, I painted up an Onyx army for my friend Tom. Afterward, we discussed the fact that we had forgotten to include an HVT in the army, forcing him to use a variety of off-theme civilian models alongside the army for the past year.

Obviously, this travesty could not continue.

We chatted over the possibilities for a Combined Army civilian, and one that made us laugh quite a bit had a pretty simple concept:

Cross this…

…with this:

Aaaaaand that’s the entire concept. Sometimes the simple answer really is the right one. 🙂

Like many new Infinity players, I spent a lot of time before and after picking up my first army ogling Corvus Belli’s extended range of models. The aesthetic style was a really refreshing change from the Warmachine models I’d been building for the last ~7 years, and I was frankly awed by the talent on display by their artists and sculptors. While the model range has, of course, its share of duds, I would put the best Infinity models ahead of the best from any other gaming minis line. The character designs were great, the poses extremely dynamic, and the sculpting unbelievably crisp. Stand-outs from these early browsing sessions included the Sepulchre Knight, the Geckos, and Scarface; models with gorgeous detail that make cool little movies play in my head when I look at them. 🙂

I don’t have any projects ready to blog about this month, but I did put together something y’all might find interesting, so let’s take a quick look at that instead. 🙂

Someone on WGC Infinity asked for tips on sculpting the mechanical muscle underlay that powers Heavy Infantry armor. I’ve sculpted quite a bit of it over the years, and it’s actually a fairly interesting topic, so I spent an evening recording a demonstration for him.

Hopefully someone finds it useful. ^_^

Aaaaaand that’s it for today. I’m finishing up a small army for Adepticon at the end of March, so I should have some cool stuff to show off next month. 🙂

-Spud

As I mentioned three months and two blog posts ago, I started up a Dungeons & Dragons game with some colleagues at work. I DMed throughout the Fall, and for the Winter, I’ve swapped seats with the other experienced player. I’m now playing a character as he runs the group through a published module. We’ll likely keep rotating in bursts (at least until everyone loses interest and we stop playing. 😛 ).