Monday, 18 April 2016

0-man the War-Ox

Meanwhile in the Far Future of the S.D.Z.A. World

O-MAN - The War Ox (A Worlds of Future Past Tale)


Zero had never fitted in - even with the wastelanders, he should have been able to call family. His mother was what was commonly known as a trash-dweller, a wastlander that literally lives off the trash piles outside the walls of the city-states of the Machine Empire. His mother had been raped by a Morlock, and Zero was born a subhuman thing. But his mother, Sarah, loved him and protected him till the day she died.

Zero, barely ten years old and wandering alone, came across the remains of an Ancient Alien Space Craft. Ssuch debris was not uncommon in the wastelands since the Machine Empire took over - their stellar-grapples (a type of super powerful tractor-beam) bring down space debris for them to loot and assimilate. But it was unusual to find one that had not been picked over by the Vulture-Droids of the Machine Empire.

Stumbling inside the strange craft - Zero found the remains of what he assumed was a suit of armour or a space suit, but it was much much more.

The "Ocs" were a race of bio-borgs, their bodies had atrophied after centuries of exposure to pollution - and so had created "overskins" for them to compensate. They were exploring earths system when the Machine Empires stellar-grapples had caught their craft in its field, dragging it into the earths gravitional field disabling all the systems on board, including the Ocs' bio-mechanical overskins. The Ocs quickly died when their overskins shut down - but their craft soft landed, as its systems came back online as the ship free-fell into the earths atmosphere. So the crash bareley damaged the Ocs ship at all, and the ships stealth systems quickly rebooted and hid it from the Machine Empires Vulture-Droids.

Over time all the overskins slowly powered down becoming inert, as their hosts had died they had source of energy (the bio-borg suits draw power from the host) but one overskins A.I. had the sense to shut down by ejecting its original host - and it waited.

Stumbling around in the near darkness Zero came upon an 'open' overskin - for some reason he reached out, something about the space armour drew him to touch it.

The lights came on, the overskins internal workings hummed and whirred into action, and the suit enveloped him . . .

When Zero awoke, after (according to the readout in the overskins heads-up display) was seven weeks - he was different, changed - more evolved. The overskin had re-written his DNA completely - he now looked like what the Ocs originally looked like - tall, fair haired, perfect muscular humanoids. The overskin had also re-educated him - not only with the History and Technological Achievements of the Ocs, but the history of Earth - everything up till that point. The Fall of Mankind, the Rise of the Machine Empire, the Year of Chaos, the R.D.S. Virus - everything.

 The overskins systems postulated that because the R.D.S. Virus was so enmeshed into Zeros very DNA its systems were able to achieve in a matter of weeks, what it was programmed to achieve over the life-span of the chromosonally damaged Ocs.

Zeros new lease of life gave him a new purpose - to find the Heralds of the New Dawn, and join the rebelion against the Machine Empire - fighting the good fight like the F3 team, and free Earth from the Tyranny of the Machine Empire.

Zero was gone, but not forgotten - he was now 0-man the War-Ox!




We Use Big Guns Too . . .


Slight liberties taken with these, as you don't see rifled troops in the source material (at least not Good Guys) - but, I wanted to expand what was available for them for them to work within the confines of S.D.Z.A. Carl's done a great job on making the rifle match the sidearm!

Sunday, 17 April 2016

Another Test Model Undercoated

Another Test Model Undercoated, again from the "Bots" Set.


. . . STOP . . . PRESS . . .


STOP PRESS! The Salute Discount has been extended to Monday - why you ask, because two very nice gentlemen got in touch and asked. 

Rather than just let them do it (which would be unfair - and its hard to extend a discount code for just two people LoL) I've extended the codes life (SALUTE16) on the system.

But Don't forget, although the discount is extended - you only have till Monday to take advantage, Tuesday onwards everything is back to normal!

Saturday, 16 April 2016

Prepping a test print for painting

"Fish, plankton, sea greens . . . protein from the sea!"


Multi-Pose Models

One of the things we are trying out, for "Henchmen" Models (for want of a better term) is a multi-pose system. It dawned on me that there was actually no need for separate arms and weapons, whilst they are a converters dream (I myself like separate head and weapon sprues) - it struck me that there are pretty much just four "poses" for a model holding a rifle - Aiming, At Rest, Raised, and an "over the shoulder" pose - pretty much everything else was just a variation on a theme. So, after discussing it with Carl Stoelzel (of Stoelzels structures - who's turned out to be something of a genius with Z-Brush) this was what grew out of that basic idea.
Separate Head Sprues (as many as realistically possible) a Sprue of "Grunt" heads, and a special sprue for Squad Leaders/Officers etc, four Torso's, and four Sets of legs. Without repositioning the Toroso's (so just front facing, no swivelling to the left or right), and giving the heads a different tilt or pitch theres a lot of variation already. If it works well (and they sell of course LoL) for the Henchmen, I can see this as an option for characters too - with each Character being provided with an Armed and Unarmed Torso. Tomorrow, a little Chatter about the newer Characters and about the Alternate Futures of S.D.Z.A.!

Friday, 15 April 2016

Most Heroes don't wear their "Super-Costumes" all the time, and most miniature Companies don't release miniatures for characters in their civilian Guise - but We . . Aren't . . Like . . Most . . Miniature . . Companies . .


Wednesday, 13 April 2016

F3 Test

Just for Nexus and S.D.Z.A. devotees (I'm not sharing this with a wider audience - so just here and the Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/UNI.TECH.HQ/) a test render of the F3 Team (these aren't the final poses either).



Giaour Queen

The Giaour are Rednecks and Survivalists who have lived in the Barrens so long they've evolved into a self mutilating cannibal society and live alongside the Carrion - often picking over their leftovers for food. Vile in the extreme, with an almost hive-like structure to a tribe - and each tribe as an unnaturally seductive Queen . . . .


Tuesday, 12 April 2016

Ronin-X

Ronin-X (A.K.A. Jack Hughman) is a Rogue Prime - Not all Primes are allied with a Faction, and have been dubbed "Ronin" by the Initiative.


This guy was sculpted some time ago - and though I love the quirky style of this sculpt, I wasn't entirely sure about releasing it - but those who've seen it have been nagging me to, so it's going to get a limited release through the Retro-Booster (and then maybe available as a promo model, and at events).

Monday, 11 April 2016

B.U.G. (British Union Ground) Trooper


B.U.G. (British Union Ground) Trooper - filling out the grunts for S.D.Z.A. and providing Jacob Nexus with Backup :-D