Mecha Front - NorAm Quad (colored art)

I'd tossed out pieces of this artwork as part of a puzzle game on some gaming forums. Now that everyone has had time to fiddle with it here's the full art. Anthony did a bang up job on the piece and I'm absoultely in love with it. Each mech for the game will likewise recieve a simular treatment for their art and unit entry in the rulesbook.

Seb had previously helped with the graphics layout for the Robotech and he's graciously offered to help polish the stuf for Mecha Front as well. He's currently touching up the early stat card borders I'd put together so that they look a bit more prfessional.

Both the artwork and graphics are shaping up to look pretty sharp and I'm quite pelased with how things are going. My only regret is that there's not 40hours in a day, while I'm making plenty of measurable progress it always seems like there's so much more to do.

I'm well on schedual to having a game ready to demo at Adepticon. I should have things ready to roll this week unlike last years where I was down to the wire until the nigt before the convention. I learned a lot of stuff from the last minute rush last year and while it went smoothly I always like improving and refining on my previous works.

In other dealings I also picked up several great models this week which will all be getting their own highlight posts (when I have time to tackle them). A local store is launching a Mordheim league which prompted me to drag out my old models and pick up some new ones as I absolutely love that game. I combed through my bits box to find all my long ignored fantasy pieces and ordered stuff that I can use for some new warbands.

Tau also had their release this week, but there were some sort of production issues so they are in very short supply. Being a fan of all things mecha related I have a couple of the new models on order but they likely won't be in for a couple weeks which means I am a sad panda with an empty wallet with not much to show for it at the moment.

Season 2 for Zombicide also closed which was the major knock out blow to my wallet. I love the game and supported the new kickstarter, but having dropped $300 on models I won't see for 6-8 months it can be kinda harsh. The wait sucks but man when that box arrives I'll be crazy happy. I got tons of mileage out of the first release and once the second one arrives I'll have an insane number of survivors to use and lots of tiles for huge custom games.

The kickstarters have been kinda steep on price but I really like helping support a great start up company like Guillotine Games and they have an awesome product. This time of year is always expensive as there's a lot of convention to hit and a lot of great models released before summer. I always seem to be flat broke during the spring but such are the perils of the gaming life.

Anyways that's a brief update from my very busy desk and I'm hoping to have more Mecha Front info to share after Adepticon.

Nexus Armor 2

A bit more progress. Total work time is about 6 hours at this point.

Nexus Armor

Started on a new 3d model. I'm hoping to have it print worthy within a couple weeks. These are still in the rough but gives a good idea of the body shape.

More Previews from the Front

Here's a few more pieces of concept art for Mecha Front. The first two are scout class medium mechs. The third piece is a concept for the heavy Blackfrost mech.



NorAm Quad Roughs

I started roughing out the NorAm quad mech design and playing around with the proportions. So far I think it's looking pretty good although I'm dreading having to design the hip connection points.

The quad is on a 120mm base and is slightly over 80mm tall so it's a very big boy.

Comments & critique are welcome.

 

 



Mecha Front

I've been busy at work on a new game called Mecha Front. It's going to be a skirmish level game focused on what else but giant stompy robots pounding each other into oblivion. It'll be a N-Scale 15mm game which means the mecha will range between 50-70mm tall depending on the weight class.

Standard units will be mounted on 60mm bases and the super heavy quad mechs will use either a 90mm or 120mm base. The game will be focused on quick action and game play, average model count is 4-5 mecha per side. Typical game time will be 30-45 minutes.

The rules will be maintained as a living pdf document so players will always have free access to the latest updates and it will allow for me to address any game play issues without forcing players to buy new copies of the rules.

Here are some of the rough concepts, I will update with samples of the rules and 3d renders as I progress. So far things have been coming together beautifully and I'm very excited about this project.


Neo-Bloc Units

NorAm Units

Terrain Update

I finally got the prints in today, it took a little bit longer than expected as he was out with the flu. I've been lucky enough to dodge it this year, normally I get the flu bug almost every Jan without fail. Perhaps if I continue hiding at home for the next week maybe I can avoid that trend.

Due to the larger size on some of these pieces they were printed on an objet machine as it helps keep the cost down a bit and also has a larger build area available. To optimize the print quality they were printed in halves that can be paired together. This helps elminate excess contact points for the support material and also helps keep the pieces from bowing. (Not that I knew any of this initally) I was going on Paul's advice as I'm lost when dealing with the technical aspects of printing, I just make models.

Here's some shots of the raw master parts, they need to be cleaned and primed for molding.

(Infinity Orc Trooper shown for scale)

After a bit of sanding and clean up I got the first two casts complete. While I'm not all that skilled at painting I gave them a quick paint job to help show some of the detail. Because I'm a goof I forgot to take shots of the resin casts prior to painting. I'll update with pics of the bare resin shortly.

I printed out some graphics on self-stick mailing labels as I'd never be able to freehand that stuff.