State of the Hunt, Week 10/2023: Blog for the Blog God!

Well, seems like I am back.

First of all, many thanks to everyone for the kind words and warm welcome after my short previous post! I am feeling incredibly humbled by your reactions, especially when I wasn’t really expecting anyone to still be hanging around this blog, checking for updates! I was also sorry to hear that people were actively worried for my wellbeing — I certainly did not mean for that to happen!

So what happened? Nothing much, really — or at least, nothing too different from what the rest of you will have gone through over the last couple of years. Two and a half years of a world-wide pandemic (and counting…) were certainly a challenge to get through with (most of?!) my wits intact. There were also health problems galore in my immediate family, a situation that is unfortunately still ongoing. But I did never make a conscious choice to step away from the hobby for a longer time — it just happened to fade into the background for a while.

In fact, I still vividly remember sitting in the garden during the late summer/early autumn of 2021, quietly tinkering with the World Eaters Rhino conversion that would end up being one of the last things I posted here on the blog before my hiatus. And suddenly, it’s more than two years later, and Eternal Hunt is now 11 years old, incredibly enough — and with little enough input on my part — at least for the last two+ years.

And now I am back — it was always clear that it would be a new World Eaters release that would draw me back out of hiding. And that’s exactly what happened. And I can assure you we’ll be looking at World Eaters kitbashes and conversions again before long, for however long this resurgence of Eternal Hunt may last.

But for today, I would like to take a small detour, if that is okay with you, and briefly look back on the last two years of my hobby hiatus:

So what have I actually been up to in all this time?

On the hobby front? Not much, to be honest. In fact, before the new World Eaters hit, my most involved attempt at creating something hobby-related was a kitbash representing a veteran bolter marine for my custom INQ28 Astartes chapter, the Golden Legion (I wonder if anyone remembers Praetor Janus Auriga, for instance):

As you can see, the model was based on one of the Easy-To-Build Primaris Marines. My aim was to build a fairly standard Space Marine (in a classic pose & wielding a boltgun), while also featuring some visual elements that would embody the look and feel of the chapter. I want the Golden Legion to read as a very knightly & somewhat ostentatious chapter, and they are also Imperial Fists successors, so the use of a medieval looking helmet was key. I chose the head of Rodicus Grytt, an Imperial Fists brother of the Deathwatch originally released in the Deathwatch: Overkill game set — does anyone even remember that? 😉

All in all, it’s a fun conversion, and one I hope to get painted one of these days, so Brother Laertes of the Golden Legion will be able to begin his life of service to the Velsen Sector. But I’ll readily admit that this isn’t a particularly impressive hobby output for such a long period of time — but I didn’t really build or paint anything else, to be honest.

At the start of 2022, an article of mine was published in the 4th issue of 28 Magazine, and I loved that! But to be fair, the article talks about the HeroQuest set that I painted allll the way back in 2019, so it doesn’t exactly qualify as brand new content 😉

Oh, and I backed Mike Franchina’s VERY intriguing “Trench Crusade Kickstarter”, which seemed like the best parts of Warhammer 40k Inquisition, the Mutant Chronicles and World War I aesthetic, all thrown into a blender, with some magic fairy powder sprinkled on top. Really looking forward to receiving those miniatures at some point in the hopefully-not-too-distant future!

Beyond that, I barely kept up with the hobby, only really following two of my favourite hobby blogs – namely Apologist’s blog and Between the Bolter And Me, and I tried keeping – vaguely – up to date on the lovely World Eaters army of my buddy Augustus b’Raass. And that was it — in fact, one of my first tasks, now that I am back, will be to figure out which hobby blogs & communities are even still going. For instance, I was really happy last week to find “The Bolter & Chainsword” still alive and kicking!

CITADEL

I think the main reason for my absence was that most of the energy I would have spent on the hobby actually went elsewhere — but where?

Maybe some of you will still remember my first fledgling steps in designing videogames, using Media Molecule’s design suite Dreams — I briefly posted about it, back in the day.

Now over the last three years, I have become an active member of the Dreams community and have been ceaselessly working on my various projects there.

Fair warning: This will have very little to do with the actual focus of this blog, so if you are only here for the little plastic people, feel free to skip the following.

But maybe, just maybe, some of you will be interested to find out where I have been burning most of my creative energy these last years:

So, my main focus has been to work on CITADEL, an ongoing game project very much inspired by games like “Journey” (by thatgamecompany) or by the games from Team Ico and Fumito Ueda (“ICO”, “Shadow of the Colossus” or “The Last Guardian”). These games have been a massive inspiration to me, and I wanted to create something at least slightly reminiscent of them. Hence CITADEL.

In the game, you join a pair of shadowy beings called “The Wanderers” and explore the ruins of a fallen civilisation, the eponymous CITADEL. This all plays out as a third person action adventure, although the gameplay is really rather simple: You can really only run, jump & explore, as the various locales and the story of the CITADEL unfold around you.

So far, two (of four) acts of the game have been released. Check out this trailer that should at least provide some first impressions of what the game looks and sounds like:

And here’s a small gallery of screenshots giving you a better idea of the game’s various environments:

Now if the game should look a little dodgy to you: Fair enough, that’s because literally all of it has been made from scratch. Yes, the underlying engine takes care of A LOT of the work that is required to make the game function at all, but all of the assets & music were created by me. And that’s how even a fairly dodgy game can come to feel like a momentuous achievement: In fact, to create an entire world like this, basically from nothing, really feels like you’re shaping the raw energies of a universe, if you’ll excuse the hyperbole. Well, it does during its best moments — there’s also a lot of cursing, playtesting and trying to get my dodgy programming to work, obviously.

But yes, it was easy to spend a lot of time doing this, and it certainly continues to fascinate me. I could go on, waxing poetical on the brilliance of Dreams and the community surrounding it, but I’ll keep the brunt of that subject for elsewhere. Like I said, video game design is not really the focus of this blog (that being said, I’d be very happy to answer any questions you might have on the subject — I just don’t want to cram it down your throats).

And surely enough, the game shares very little, if any, common ground with Warhammer 40k or miniature wargaming, admittedly. The most grimdark – and hence Warhammer-adjacent – thing I may have created so far is the Sunken One, as somewhat Cthulhuoid creature appearing as an opponent in CITADEL’s second act:

Isn’t he a beatuy? 😉

Anyway, in the – somewhat unlikely – eventy that any of you should own both a PlayStation (4 or 5) AND a copy of Dreams and would like to take a look: The two first chapters of the game are available right here:

https://indreams.me/dream/miVNpyuKwhP

https://indreams.me/dream/mryKJhppVcd

I would, of course, love for you to check this out and let me know what you think, so if you have the means to do so, I’d be excited to hear your thoughts and impressions of the game so far!

But over here on Eternal Hunt, chances are we’ll be returning to our usual menu before long: As you may already have glimpsed in my previous post, I have been hard at work tweaking some of my older World Eaters conversions — and putting the new Khorne Berzerker kit through its paces! So I think that’s where we’ll be heading for the next post. And who knows, we may even meet some old friends again — like Lord Captain Lorimar:

In the meantime, I’ll be totally honest with you, because I don’t want to over-promise and under-deliver: Who knows how long I can keep this up? Maybe updates will be sporadic. Maybe there’ll be longer breaks again. These are tough times, and I am still a lazy bum when it comes to blogging. What I do know is this, however:

It was lovely to be welcomed back into the community, and if nothing else, I want to thank you all for it by sharing some new-ish work soon. So I hope you’re looking forward to that! I also hope today’s post, while a slight departure, wasn’t a complete turn-off.

And, in closing — how I missed writing these words:

Please feel free to let me hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

28:3

Hey everyone, just a quick post for today — and one that mostly works as a shout out to the fine folks over at 28 Mag who have managed to release another issue of their incredible mag earlier today:

If you are already familiar with the mag and the people behind it, 28 will need no further introduction. If you haven’t looked at an issue yet, let me just say that the mag is a veritable treasure hoard of fantastic models, conversion and painting tutorials, insightful essays and brilliant art, all crammed into one irresistible package.

Given the quality of the content on display, it almost seems unfair to call favourites, and it also has to be said that I’ll definitely be going through the new issue many more times — there’s just that much content! But on a first readings, some things really stood out to me right away, such as…

…Mikal van Leeuwen’s absolutely incredible Eternity Gate diorama:

Seriously, I cannot even…

…Jacob Petersson’s fantastic models that beautifully straddle the line between 40k/INQ28 and Mordheim:

…Isaac Tobin’s/weirdingway’s “Pantheon of Urumet”, created for Jeff Vader’s “The Fifth Chaos God” challenge: Those models look both completely unlike Isaac’s prior work AND completely unlike anything else you might have seen so far:

And I have also instantly fallen in love with Stepan Samosevich’s Dark Mechanicus and Death Guard models that appear as part of the Hazmat gallery feature:

But seriously, this stuff is literally just the tip of the iceberg. The latest issue of 28 comes with a whopping 224 pages –and it’s ready to download right now, so what are you waiting for — head over there and click on that button 😉

 

To my absolute delight, there’s actually an article I wrote in this latest issue: I talk about what INQ28 is really about for me and how it feels like a fascinating way to explore the 40k universe. I am really happy for my contribution to have made the cut, and on the off-chance that anyone should have come to this blog after reading my article, I have compiled a small list of posts that deal with the models and warbands I talk about, should you wish to learn more about them:

 

Inquisitor Gotthardt and retinue

Head here to take a closer look at the warband and its members.

Redactor Orlant and his Ordo Scriptorum warband

Find more about what happens when some archive clerks have a really bad day in this series of posts:

Part I: In principio erat verbum, et verbum erat scriptum.
Part II: The Office – grimdark edition
Part III: Grimdark Librarians of the 41st millennium
Part IV: The State of the Hunt, Week 18/2018: Bad Bank
Part V: More Grimdark Librarians of the 41st millennium

Incidentally, the second-to-last post in that list also takes a closer look at Countess Mandelholtz, another character mentioned in my article:

The Bloodbriar Syndicate

The posts corona and here talk about the Bloodbriar Syndicate, one of my more recent warband projects, still very much WIP at this point.

 

So anyway, congratulations to the 28 team for another spectacular issue! I think we all have some reading to do this weekend! 😉

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

State of the Hunt, week 32/2020: Not dead yet…

Oh my, it’s certainly time for another update! I must apologise for the lack of content over here: It seems like, unlike everybody else in the hobby scene, I didn’t use the Covid19-related downtime to paint 10,000 points of tabletop models — in fact, I haven’t even managed to paint more than a handful of models this year, to be honest. And while I would love to blame current events, world politics or any other kind of external force, the more likely explanation is a mix of my eternal laziness and several distractions.

But once again, my good friend Annie provided me with the motivation to get back to the painting table — albeit for a different reason than usual…

I. All good things…

Earlier this month, Annie left the blasted plains of northwestern Jhermani for one of the big Hive Cities further north. Which is great for her, but actually a massive catastrophe for my personal hobby productivity, because our joint painting and converting sessions were always a shining beacon of “finally getting stuff done”. Under no circumstances does this mean, however, that we won’t be having any painting sessions in the future — quite the opposite, I hope. The logistics will just be slightly more complicated. But that remains a problem for another day.

For now, I wanted to create something nice and topical for Annie to wish her well on her way, so I picked up a brush (for the first time in months, I might add), and made her this:

“Guten Flug” means “Have a good flight” in German, in case anyone was wondering (because y’know, that gobbo seems to be a pilot and everything…). The model itself is a Blood Bowl event model Annie gave to me a few years ago, so it seemed like the perfect choice for this occasion. The plinth was made from a piece of Zebrano wood I got from my uncle (who uses different types of wood to create his own knife handles). I’d say it all makes for a nice little ensemble — and the piece should fit right in with all of the nifty Blood Bowl stuff in the showcases at Annie’s new place.

So all the best, and don’t think you’ll be safe from me ‘oop north 😉

II. Supply drop from the lowlands:

Another shout out must go to my buddy Augustus b’Raass who sent me a lovely bitz drop earlier this year — what a delight!

To my great regret, I have yet to figure out what to do with most of those lovely bitz — but thinking about that is already half of the fun, and also seems like the perfect activity for lazy summer afternoons in the sweltering heat…

At least I have already started messing around with some of the stuff Augustus has sent me: Some of the heads from the Necromunda Corpsegrinder Cult seemed just perfect for some of my models, after all.

For instance, one of the bare Corpsegrinder faces seemed like the ideal piece to add some extra oomph to this 30k World Eater in Cataphractii armour I converted back when “Betrayal at Calth” was released:

The angry expression in combination with the tubes and augmetic plugs seem just perfect for a World Eater, yet the lack of mutations led to me using it one a 30k model, rather than a 40k one.

But fear not, my 40k World Eaters were also able to claim a skull, so to speak: One of the slightly more elaborate, horned Corpsgrinder masks ended up on the rocket launcher wielding World Eater I converted a while ago:

I kept tweaking this model for what feels like ages, swapping in head after head, but now I think I may finally have found the right part to complete the conversion.What do you think?

Oh, and speaking of World Eaters, I have finally started to paint the next member for my “Hateful Eight” project, the icon bearer based on one of the classic metal World Eaters from the 90s. I shared the conversion with you in a previous post:

Having painted the little goblin pilot shown above, I didn’t want to lapse back into utter laziness again, and seeing how I already had the red paint pot before me, I got to work…

This reminds me that I’ll have to share my current World Eaters recipe one of these days — in case anyone’s interested, that is!

Anyway, this is what the model looks like right now:

Still some work left to be done, but I think I am on the right track!

III. Visiting some Islands…

Wait, you didn’t think we’d make it through this post without a mention of my current infatuation with Media molecule’s “Dreams”, did you? Seriously, though: Just a short heads-up, because I have been plonking away at my game, “Islands”, and making small tweaks and updates based on user feedback. So regardless of whether or not the game is actually any good, it’s at least getting better and better 😉

I have also created another trailer for the game that I think gives you a pretty good idea of what it looks like. Check this out:

If you happen to have access to both a PlayStation 4 and a copy of Dreams, I would be delighted if you were to check out my game. It can be found here.

 

Anf that’s it for today. I certainly hope this update finds you all well! If you have any thoughts or feedback, I would, of course, love to hear them!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more! And please stay safe and healthy!

State of the Hunt, week 26/2020: Tributes in plastic and more digital Dreams

Time for another update, lest this blog fall into complete disuse. Be warned, though: Today’s post is a bit of a stitched-together chimera of different things. But hey, better than no new content whatsoever, eh? So step this way, please. I have some things to show you:

I. A few tributes in model form

While I didn’t have the time to work on any new models, I do have some pieces from earlier this year that I have not yet featured here on the blog, so this seems like a perfect opportunity to finally give them their day in the limelight!

First up is a conversion I am really happy with. By way of introduction, let me reiterate that my buddy DexterKong and me are basically sharing (and co-developing) the same 40k adventurescape, our little corner of the 41st millennium, so to speak: the Velsen Sector.

On top of being fun, this basically serves as a very handy resource, because the background we have (and continue to) come up with really serves as an extra layer of texture that informs our conversions and character ideas. Now a couple of years ago, Dexter came up with a character that I have been jealous of ever since. One Inquisitor Uraccen Falx, of the Ordo Xenos:

Inquisitor Falx by DexterKong

Dexter imagined Falx as a bit of a crackpot and a conspiracy-theorist — to be fair, he came up with a character at a time where conspiracy-theorists weren’t as much of a dangerous real-world political influence as they are today. But the idea of an Inquisitor who was basically a huge paranoiac, expecting vile xenos conspiracies behind everyone and everything truly appealed, and I think you can really see that kind of background in the model: Falx is an old, drawn, perpetually exhausted fanatic who will not allow himself to rest, lest “they” finally get to him.

In case you are interested, you can find out more about Falx here and here. For today, suffice it to say that this was one of those models that I always regretted not having come up with myself — until I realised a while ago that I could at least do the next-best thing and build a version of Falx for my own collection.

So that’s what I did:

For the most part, this was very much a case of trying to “colour inside the lines”, so to speak, trying to match Dexter’s original model. I diverged from the original design in one or two small ways (choosing a different tilting plate as well as a – very fitting – shoulder mounted AdMech gun. I also used a different sidearm, mostly because I didn’t have any of those ancient Eldar pistols left 😉 , but I think it’s still recognisably the same guy. The one really brilliant part of the original model that I didn’t quite manage to capture was Falx’s scrawny neck, making him look like a tired turtle, poking out from inside its shell. But oh well, I am still pretty happy with the finished model (and with having a version of Falx in my collection now).

DexterKong’s version of Falx also uses multiple servo-skulls made from xenos-trophies, to show his ultimate disdain for those vile creatures. So while I was at it, I also built Falx a little friend:

The next thing I want to share with you happens to be yet another tribute — albeit to a video game this time around:

Early this year, I blazed through the adventure game “Primordia”, which I simply cannot praise highly enough: It’s a wonderful little graphic adventure with lots of style which is both fantastically grimdark and, at least in places, rather funny. It also resembles the look of a classic franco-belgian SciFi comic series, which was what drew me to it in the first place. Just take a look at this, and you’ll see what I mean:

Oh, and if you play it with your eyes half-closed, you may be forgiven for thinking it’s basically “Adeptus Mechanicus Forgeworld – the videogame” 😉

Anyway, the game’s protagonist is a robot named “Horatio Nullbuilt”:

And I liked the game so much that I thought it might be a cool little project to built a model resembling him:

The conversion isn’t quite finished yet. Plus it only really makes sense if you know the game — otherwise it’ll just look like a slightly dodgy, off-brand AdMech conversion to you. But I’ve already had a laugh building this guy so far — especially when it came to recreating his trusty little plasma-torch 😉

Of course I also made a kitbash to represent his loyal sidekick, Crispin Horatiobuilt, a small spherical robot with a chip on his (nonexistent) shoulder:

Here’s a piece of artwork showing both of them as they appear in the game:

To be fair, I did “40k-i-fy” both of them a bit, but I think they are still pretty recognisable.

It may be some time before I actually paint those two, but I’ll be going for a colour scheme closely resembling their appearance in the game. In the meantime, I really recommend you check out Primordia, if you haven’t already. It’s very pretty – in a highly anachronistic way – and rather grimdark, too.

And while we are on the subject of video games…

 

II. Meanwhile, in the world of Dreams:

I am not going to lie to you: Most of my hobby right now is still spent messing around with Dreams, Mediamolecule’s incredibly accessible game engine.

For starters, since my previous post on the matter, I have made lots of small and larger tweaks to my game “Islands”, including adding a final, secret level and a second unlockable ending. Here’s the trailer for the game again, for those who missed it last time around:

I was also lucky enough to be able to coax fellow hobbyist and blogger Azazel into giving the game a try 😉 If you want to follow suit, I’d be honoured:

The game is listed here. Unfortunately, in order to actually get to play it, you still need access to both a PS4 and a copy of Dreams.

Mediamolecule will be hosting a digital event called DreamsCom’20 event next week and, brilliantly enough, have called for digital exhibition booths for the event. I loved the creative challenge, plus my game can frankly use all the publicity it can get, so I used the booth template very helpfully provided by the developers and made my very own exhibition space:

It’s weird and wonderful stuff like this – in addition to the sheer creative joy that is at the heart of Dreams and its community – that I believe is what makes me spent such an obscene amount of time on it at the moment.

To wit, on top of designing a complete game, I have also come up with my very first animated short (made for the “Tiny Worlds Community Jam”), called “The Bug Ronin – Search for the Light Within”:

In this case, I have uploaded the film on YouTube, so feel free to check it out here:

And I have also sculpted a male head (as part of the sculpting masterclass that is part of Dreams’ tutorials), resulting in this finished piece:

Frankly, this seems to me like something created by somebody far more talented than me (especially if you compare it to my previous attempts at sculpting a face). This time around, I have gone for a character design slightly influenced by the style of the “Dishonored” games.

Anyway, the point I am trying to make here is this: I have created all of this using the same suite of tools. And none of it would have seemed remotely possible to me before!

To be fair, none of this has anything to do with 40k or INQ28, so many of you probably won’t really care that much. However, I am, in fact, already thinking about how this new skillset I have been acquiring might be turned towards the 40k side of my hobby time — in fact, I would love to start by creating some digital sculptures for some of my characters — Redactor Orlant and the Countess Mandelholtz, in particular, immediately caught my eye…

For now, fellow Dreamer Alex Markov is already creating some highly impressive 40k content in Dreams:

So yeah, so much for my little heads up regarding my current projects. It goes without saying that I would love to hear any thoughts and feedback you might have!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more! And please stay safe and healthy!

State of the Hunt, week 22/2020: Dreaming of Islands

Hey everyone, seeing how the blog has been quiet for longer than usual, I thought it would be a good idea to give you a bit of an update on what´s been happening over on my end:

I am still alive and kicking, obviously. The truth is simply that I have recently been dropping pretty much all of my hobby time (as well as quite a bit of my non-hobby time, alarmingly enough) into a completely different creative endeavour. You could call it a lifelong dream, really.

Because, deep down, I have always wanted to be…a LUMBERJACK!

…

Nah, but seriously: As some of you may remember, video games have always been another big hobby of mine (why choose one nerdy pasttime when you can have ALL of them, eh?) And one thing I have always wanted to do was to make a real video game myself. But while there are many tools available for doing that today (ranging from the stupendously easy to grasp text adventure tool Twine to game-engine behemoth Unity), the scope of what I was able to create had previously always been limited by my inability (and/or unwillingness) to properly get into programming. So it looked like my dream would have to remain just that. And then „Dreams“ happened.

I have already talked about Media Molecule‘s mind-boggling game engine/machinima Studio/3D modeling software cornucopia in my previous post about creating a character bust of Gregor Eisenhorn, but that didn‘t really seem to elicit that much of a response. For today, suffice it to say that Dreams, with its very intuitive interface, has enabled me to create something I would have considered impossible before.

So, TL;DR: This blog has been quiet because I have been spending all of my recent hobby time on creating a video game.

If you come here mainly for the modeling, painting and 40k content, which I suspect goes for pretty much all of you, then rest assured that this isn‘t a permanent state of affairs: I will definitely be back to cutting up little plastic men (and women. And everything in between and beyond) sooner rather than later — not least of all because my buddy Augustus b‘Raass sent me an amazing little supply drop recently — anyway, don‘t fret: I‘ll be back in a bit!

Now, if anyone‘s still reading, or if some of you are maybe interested in finding out more about that game I was talking about, I would be happy to share a few details:

The game is called „Islands“, and it‘s an exploration-centered third person adventure/platformer with a slightly cinematic bent. You are playing as a mysterious wanderer on their quest to travel the eponymous islands. My main inspirations were thatgamecompany‘s Journey, Team Ico‘s/Fumito Ueda‘s games (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian) and Us Two Games‘ Momument Valley series (from a visual design standpoint). And while Islands is very obviously not nearly as good or polished as any of those titles, if you like any or all of the aforementioned games, well, my little project may just be for you… Just be advised that it has absolutely NOTHING whatsoever to do with the grimdark world of the 41st millennium 😉

So anyway, sorry for rambling away. But while I don‘t want to sound overly dramatic, it‘s no hyperbole to say that this feels like one of the most thrilling creative endeavours I have tackled yet. Sure, the game is pretty dodgy in a hundred places, and probably quite derivative to boot — but it‘s my baby, for what it‘s worth… 😉

So if, by any chance, you should find yourself in the possession of both a PlayStation 4 and a copy of Dreams (because both things are needed to get to access my project, unfortunately), then I cordially invite you to check out Islands — in fact, that would make me very happy indeed! Its title in the Dreamiverse is „Islands Prototype“, and here‘s a thumbnail that should help you identify the right game:

Oh, it‘s also listed here..

You could also leave some feedback, of course, which would make me even happier still 😉

In closing, I will be leaving you with a few impressions of the game. While Dreams also works as a fantastic repository of already available assets, I have decided to up the ante for this project and create all of my own graphic assets, so as to max out my learning curve. So everything you see in those pictures has been completely „scratchbuilt“, as we would say in tabletop hobbyist parlance 😉

Anyway, on to the pretty pictures:

Update, May 28th: I had to spend an hour in the car, waiting, earlier today, so I threw together a quick trailer for the game as well:

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more! And please stay safe and healthy!