Pre-painted Space 1889 15mm available!

Over at Highlander Studios there are now a few pre-painted 15mm figures available. I'm sure more will be showing up soon. But you had better snag these fast before they are gone!

Airships from the John Carter of Mars Trailer

Well its finally here, the trailer for Walt Disney's John Carter of Mars. I must admit that I am still excited even after making a list of all the things I wished they had done differently. So why am I posting this to a blog that is supposed to be about miniatures?

I guess because at first I was little disappointed with the style of the air ship shown in this first teaser trailer. Ever since I had first heard that Disney was doing the movie I had been dreaming of all the toys they would be producing once the film was released. I had envisioned all sorts of Victorianesque airships lining the toy aisles of my local department store. Giving me easy and possibly cheap access to ships for my miniatures to man. Of course the scale would be wrong but I could probably fix that.

I surmise that one reason they chose to go with their current ascetic was to avoid any comparison to the airships in Return of The Jedi. One could argue that Jabba the Hut's ships were very much influenced by the ships of the original illustration from Burroughs books. Which is one reason why those specific Star Wars toys are so easily converted to VSF miniature gaming.

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At first glance I thought that these wings were some sort of energy paddles.

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But on closer inspection I realized that they are in fact sails. This sort of deck layout and use of numerous multi-sails feels very Space 1889! Their appearance is that of some strange Oar / Sail combo.

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The deck it's self looks very promising too. From this still it would appear to be planked and made of wood. I am assuming that this frame shows the bow of the ship with cannons on both the port and starboard sides. 

Only time will tell what kind of ships we end up with on the shelves.  But heres to hoping!

Martian Steppe Tiger (Part 1)

One of the things I loved most about Frank Chadwick's  Space 1889 universe is his wildlife on the planet Mars. It seems to me that he took some of the best creatures from all those great books we read in our younger days and somehow made them all fit into his version of Mars. He has everything from oddly Barsoomian multi-appendage lizards, to the tentacled Kno Shoshu (which reminds me of a creature from a certain War with two certain Worlds if you catch my drift).

Let us not forget the Martian "horse," the Gashant. How do you turn Edgar Rice Burroughs' multi-legged steed the Thoat on its head? By taking away legs of course! While the talented Mr. Bob Murch did sculpt  excellent examples of the martian Gashant, I have always been disappointed with the fact that there were never any other miniatures of the martian wildlife.

Which brings me to my first martian animal project the Steppe Tiger. I took a look at all the renderings I could find of this savage predator. Here are a some examples:

Illustration taken from page 182 of Space 1889 Core Rulebook

Illustration by Tim Bradstreet and Rick Harris taken from Steppelords Of Mars

Illustration from page 93 of Savage Worlds Space 1889 Red Sands

Illustration from the upcoming German edition of Space 1889 from Clockwork Publishing

Since this was my first attempt at "converting" a miniature with green stuff, I decided to look for  a figure that was as close to the illustrations in Chadwick's book. The best miniature locally available to me was Reaper's 02897: Hellhounds.

I was particularly drawn to the pose of miniature on the left. It seemed like the perfect stalking pose of a large cat, minus the fact that it was a demon dog of course. 

The first thing I had to do was remove the tail and the spikes from the rear elbows of the creature. Next I filed down the nose to give me room to sculpt the snout of the martian steppe tiger. I also needed to soften the appearance of the spine that is so predominate in this figure.

Even though the original illustrations from Space 1889 do not show the Steppe Tiger with ears, I really like the ears Jason Wiebe sculpted on these Hellhounds. The ears seem very cat like to me and so I sculpted the mane of the tiger's head around them.

I added a bit of bent coat hanger for the tail. I filed the tip to a very soft point and later I added some of Reaper's "brown stuff" to make it look like it was a little furry. 

In these photos you can really see the texture of his fur and hopefully the wispy mane that this martian creature is known for. My only concern is that it may need more pronounced claws as the only claws visible in this photo are my unkept fingernails. 

Ahoy from the Luminiferous Æther!

Ahoy from the tranquil ocean that is the Luminiferous Æther! I would like to welcome you to "The Æther Oar" my blog dedicated to Victorian** Science Fiction Miniatures. Here I will transcribe a log of my misadventures in the minuscule.

**Now dear readers, before you get your Pantalettes in a twist I must forewarn you that when I say "Victorian" I also mean "early Edwardian", possibly "Steam Punk" and any other "thing I fancy."
In other words if I decide on a whim to write about playing a game scenario with the same premiss as the  Georges Méliès 1902 film A Trip to the Moon you shan't be able to stop me. So please do refrain from bawling at me if I am not a VSF purist. I do have other blogs to contain those other ventures but some time the lines do blur a little.  Thank you and Welcome Aboard. 

Just testing the Heliographic Communicator...

"Before me lay the Lost Sea of Korus, while farther on I caught the shimmering ribbon of Iss, the River of Mystery, where it wound out from beneath the Golden Cliffs to empty into Korus, to which for countless ages had been borne the deluded and unhappy Martians of the outer world upon the voluntary pilgrimage to this false heaven."