Niceman

Hello all :) Not sure if anyone even remembers me as I haven't been here for a couple years while other interests kept me from miniatures, but I've got back into painting and a couple friends and I are making the trip down from Missouri to join the fun :) Looking forward to catching up with the people I do know and getting to know all of you I have yet to meet :)

very slick :) Great details on 'er and good refections on the gold. Well done :)

Thanks! Forgive me also... forgot to mention. The art is on the center of the page... small print in the corner will be my name "John Macdonnell"

A few weeks ago did a small piece of sci-fi art for the fun of it and I posted it at Renderosity. A week or so later I got an email from the assistant editor to Sci-Fi Weekly magazine, the online publication for the Sci-Fi channel and Sci-Fi.com. He said he had seen my art and wanted to use it as the Featured Art of the Week. Tentatively it was scheduled for last week, but another artist was chosen. I'm happy to report, however, that I am now officially the Featured Artist for this week, Feb. 20th. For the next seven days my picture will be seen here: http://www.scifi.com/sfw/ and it is also earned a place in their permanent gallery. For their size restrictions, the picture is about a third the size of my original, but there is a link with the picture to my gallery at 'rosity, where you may see it full-sized. Now that that's done I promise I'll start posting more mini pics soon :P

Thanks! I've made several more since I did those. I'll see about putting them up in my gallery as time permits :)

Again one that I did earlier last year and I apologize for the roughness of the pic. Was going for a clever sort of reversible cloak for times when he needed urban camoflauge just as much as in the wilderness.

Hello all. Before I dropped off the face of the Earth last year I was able to do a couple of my own minis. Here's one. Not great, and my photograpy is rough, but I'm sort of learning all over again. For your consideration: oops, forgot about the no nudity part. I think though the camera angle and my poor photography is obscuring any incriminating evidence. Much apologies if there's a problem with this one....

Thank you all. It's good to be back :) As before when I've done these soldiers, they're designed to be played with not looked at, so on the table they look fine, but in your hand they leave a lot to be desired. I'm glad people are enjoying my artwork as well. :) The Guantlet pic does seem to be a favorite, as is the game itself, especially since our place is $5 at the door, play all the games for free, people tend to go crazy on that former quarter-eater ;) As for Artimus, yah, his mace is a bit extra shiny, but that was almost a joke for our D&D group...it's VERY magical :P (+2 Heavy Mace with the Holy and Impact enhancements) Here's two more of our group while we're talking about pics and I'm taking photos of the few minis I've done over the past year... Jack Fallstaff, a new fighter just added into the group, and Koranna, our resident sorceress-babe ;)

Hello my friends. I'm sorry I've been away for so long, but I've generally been way too busy, way too distracted, and a bit way to ashamed to visit when I didn't have anything to contribute. I hope things are getting to the point where all that can change. A year ago this time I was working on my stuff...dioramas and the like which seemed to be well received. In between now and then I've been working on a 120 piece commission of british soldiers I only recently finished due to distractions created by my purchase of Poser 6, and delays due to my working at the new 80s era video game arcade my friends and I have opened. In any event, since it was taking me so long to paint these soldiers I didn't want to delay them any further by working on my own stuff. Likewise my other interests and responsibilities had got in the way, but the arcade seems to be running smoothly and I've got a semi-decent handle on Poser so I can start wading through my minis waiting for my attention again. With luck soon I should have something decent to show you. In the meantime, here are a few shots of what has been keeping me away: The British army (forgive my poor photography as always): And for the sake of it, (and I trust you'll forgive me as they're not miniatures) here is a small selection of Poser art that I've done in my absence... My Gallery at Renderosity (some pics contain nudity) And one I haven't posted there... a character for our local D&D game

"I suggest we stop at the scout base." offers Keiri. "Perhaps do a bit of research on where we're going. Even just astronomical radiotelecope data would be useful. Might do well to pick up a few emergency items for just in case as well."

"Hehe, if you do then the boss probably will." chuckled Keiri. "Employers don't usually give paychecks to smouldering piles of ash. Hell, the odds of finding something useful are huge. Most ancient artifacts I hear tell are things like coffee cups and little widgets. Granted they're always made out of something exotic like cobalt or selenium so they're still worth a fortune, but the big and important things that you could buy a planet with are all so rare it doesn't matter. "It does make me wonder though," Keiri contiued, "what our employer is really looking for. He talks about surveys and raw materials, but also Ancients and psionic freaks. He knows more than he's telling us that's for sure, which means we'd have either quit on the spot or gone after it ourselves. Whatever 'IT' is...."

[[ Keiri mainly spends her time familiarizing herself with the ship and it's system. An unfamiliar ship can be a finicky piece of equipment to gamble one's life on, so she doesn't want to get caught in such a situation. That includes the so called 'Dragonfly' in the vehicle bay. ]] "Well, all I know is that when I was in the Navy, my Master Chief had served on one of the Kinunir Class Battle Cruisers." mentioned Keiri as leaned in the doorway taking a pull on a snack-drink bulb. "Each one of those has a Black Globe defense shield....Ancient stuff. Some research team found a treasure trove of a hundred of them. Not like the nuclear dampners or meson screens we can make. These things stop EVERYTHING...light, kinetic, radiation, the works. The Chief of course couldn't tell about the workings of the Globe, but he did say the manual the tech guys taught him was all about what NOT to do. 'Don't push that button or you'll lose an arm'. 'Don't throw that lever or you'll vaporize the ship.' Ancient tech is it's own kind of animal to be sure."

The Ancients were around 300,000 years ago. Super high tech....floating cities, disintigrators, AI lifeform computers, teleporters, the works. They created the Vargr race from genetically engineering wolf-stock canines from Earth and for whatever reason spread humans across the spiral arm of the galaxy. The Viliani contest that Vland is the original home of Humans, while the Solomai maintain Earth (Terra) is the home of Humanity. The Ancients had a 2,000 year long war which destroyed whole worlds and the disappeared after that. Their artifacts remain in places, however. Always rare, always worth a fortune, and usually dangerously incomprehensible.

Keiri doublechecks her screens and confirms the signals from Launch Control. "Now all we need is the pilot." she says with a smile.

"Accept message." confirms Keiri as she double checks some of the readouts on the bridge's remote engineering console.

[[ Bummer. It was a good run as far as it went and I hope the Real World will let you have more free time in the future. As for this game, I've ran Traveller for many years and I'd be more than happy to continue this campaign or start up a new one for everyone. ]]

[[[ sorry for the delay.... didn't get notification that anyone had posted ]]] "Your guess is as good as mine." replied Keiri. "Some forgotten world they're looking to exploit. I will tell you one thing though. The subject of psionics came up. I don't trust our boss much less people like that. I have a feeling they're looking for more than resources."

"I can respect that." says Keiri, happy that it seemed someone has finally given her a straight answer for the first time since she took the job. "Reminds me of this rating I knew back in the Navy. Lwedsoiquowictz was his name I think. We used to take bets at shore leave as to how many hours it would take him to trip over something planetside and wind up in the infirmary. Put him in space though and he could swim through a wiring conduit like a Doyle's Eel and fix connections we didn't even know were broke yet. "Hell, something tells me on there's going to be more than a few surprises on this trip so I guess having an extra wrench on board is a good thing." she says. "Just don't tell the others I said that."

"Awful touchy for a Chief Engineer." says Keiri. "You'd think someone in such an important position would have better people skills." Keiri sighs and relaxes her posture a little. It's going to be a verry long trip so she doesn't really want to be at this guy's throat the whole trip, but he needs to know where she's coming from. "Look, I'm sure somewhere out in the world you're a nice guy, but I've had several surprises since I took this job... like discovering after I was hired as what I thought was an engineer there was some other person doing that, and in a matter of hours not only is that person replaced, but an outsider is brought in. Now, I'm getting paid regardless so I can handle not taking care of the engines, but from the looks of it I've been working in engine rooms for almost as long as you've been alive, so I'm just wondering what makes you so special?"

Ok...more of an oversized Speeder. I understand now :) Forgive the confusion :)

I may be missing something. I thought the vessel we will be in is pretty much a standart Type-S 100 ton scout ship. A Ship's Boat was mentioned in addition to the standard air/raft. At 30 tons the Ships Boat would be taking up more than a third of the ship. We'd have to be getting rid of most of the living quarters just to make it fit. Yes?

[[[ Ship's Boat? This is a standard 100 Ton scoutship, right? At 30 tons the Ships Boat would be taking up more than a third of the ship..... Am I confused? ]]]

Very cool :) The one wing makes me think of Venger from the old D&D cartoon :P

"Oh this ought to be fun!" says Keiri, rolling her eyes, and follows the young man into the engine room. Keiri has had more than twelve years training when it comes to starship engines, which if their new "Cheif Engineer" is indeed in his twenties, is more than half the time he's been alive. In her eyes, he had better be some prodigy that grew up in an engine room and had a Lanthanum Pacifier for him to warrant the position he now has. Keiri quietly leans in the doorway watching Dante as he goes through his checks, just to see how much he knows....

Keiri enters the entryway just as Dante is introducing himself. The young woman catches herself and quietly sizes the newcomer up, inwardly seething about being passed up for the Chief Engineer job now not once, but twice. On top of that by what appears to be...a kid. The thirty-eight year old spacer steps into view from behind Dante and looks him up and down, her arms crossed. "Chief engineer, eh?" she asks incredulously. "Just how old are you, boy?"