Chancellor Stahl's alternate uniform

I mentioned this in my previous post but here's a photo of Alrich Stahl in another alternate uniform. This is pretty much the same as the blue-green tunic version I posted earlier but with a new field gray officer's style tunic. I like the hat but there's yet another version of Erwin Rommel on the way from DiD that will have green cap with the same gold trim. IF anyone parts that out and it's sold at a somewhat reasonable price, I'd like to buy one as an alternate to the blue-green cap.

For this version of Chancellor Stahl, the boots are from Dragon as are the trousers- an early production item that has neither belt loops nor buttons for suspenders but does have cinch belt at the back of the waist. The hat is a DiD field marshal item with the iron eagle removed and a plastic self adhesive star stuck to the cockade. The tunic came from a company called Figures Home and looks like a mid-production era Dragon item. It's fairly unadorned aside from the iron cross ribbon and a poorly printed iron eagle insignia above the right breast pocket. The iron eagle was removed by burnishing a piece of Scotch-brand clear tape over it few times and quickly pulling it off. I always try to remove any overt nazi symbols because while Caelia is militaristic and totalitarian, they are not nazi. The use of German-style uniforms and a sort of "Anglo-Germanic" language is considered more an homage to Caelia's Dutch-Prussian-Germanic ancestry, and to take back their cultural heritage from its dark past. This is much the same reasoning as their former Cold War ally East Germany once used. I hope to get more in to the background of Caelia in future post but for now, the Propaganda Ministry uh, I mean the Office of Public Information hope that you will enjoy this image of our Dear Leader, Chancellor Alrich Stahl!

Peeking out from under my rock.

Yes, I'm still here! December and January proved to be a wild and raucous ride through life. As you might have guessed from my previous post, the Mrs. and I discovered that we're adding a little Geektopian to the republic later this year. We also lost some family members and I've been dealing with some mysterious health issue. So yeah....

Hobby plans for 2012 have been scaled back considerably but I've recently taken advantage of a lull in the "fun" of recent life to tweak my Caelian project just a bit. I still need to find some misplaced items to finish the minions project shown here earlier and "Dear Leader" Stahl has a new tunic that's a little more "every day" than the blue-green item seen previously.

I've also just about decided to reformat my blogging and possibly keep only this one active. I'm not really happy with Google and I'm definitely not pleased with Wordpress. I'll probably close my old, mostly unused LJ account and at least my one largely abandoned Blogger account. Claire's Big World is on indefinite hiatus and may close later this year. As much as I like the character, I've never been happy with her blog. I doubt I'll have the time to do much with it in the foreseeable future, so it may not be around much longer. I MAY try my hand at a "life and family" blog some time later but we'll have to see how that goes.

If all this sounds rather dour or even dire, then I must apologize because it really isn't meant to be. I am simply readjusting my priorities to reflect the ebb and flow of my life. RoG isn't currently slated to go away but it will likely become my primary "voice" on the internet for a while.

Hmmm... Well....

A quick update to mention that the Minions Project has moved forward a bit but I haven't yet located my other rifles. I hope to take some time before Christmas to get it all put together and post the finished photos here soon.

HOWEVER

It looks like things might be ramping down here at RoG for quite some time. Apparently, Real Life™ has decided to pay a visit to the Geektopian Republic in a way that will likely put hobby stuff on the sidelines for an indefinite period of time. It's actually quite a good thing and not entirely unexpected but it will require a major refocus of priorities. At the very least, hobby purchases will be virtually nil, although blogging may still be possible for a while. Like I said, nothing dire, it's all quite good. Just different.

¡Minions pt. Tres!

As promised, the next installment in the never-ending saga of my obsessive angst....

I decided to change out the uniform for a German "M45" (or is it 44?) uniform in the Leibermuster camouflage scheme. I'm not sure if this is the direction I'll ultimately go but I thought it looked interesting and it provides an obvious contrast to the previous entries. As I mentioned earlier, I also decided to try the Steyr AUG rifle and an alternate web gear configuration. This is a quick "bash" but I think I like the over-all look.

For the "gear heads", here's the breakdown of what I used.

• Dragon- Boots and Uniform
• 21st Century Toys- Helmet and Rifle
• Sideshow Toys- Web gear

The Sideshow gear deserves some note as you typically find these on eBay or through online retailers for way more that it should cost, IMO. This is the web gear from their GI Joe "Stalker" figure and while it's quite adequate, it seems a bit "old school" (say, Dragon quality from the early 2000s) for something that comes from a figure retailing for well over $100. I bought a few sets when Monkey Depot had them parted out back in Summer 2011 and they were just under $8 a piece at the time. I don't think I would want to pay much more than that considering the "just OK" quality and my need for multiple sets.

 I still wouldn't mind picking up a few SMERSH rigs from the Cobra Trooper or Officer but those have become difficult to find and typically expensive. Again, the quality of the one set I own is OK but not quite up to the standards of say, Soldier Story, Playhouse, etc. Having a few SMERSH rigs would've probably led me to stick with an AK74 for my troops' primary weapon. It's cool though because this equipment set up seems to work pretty well, too. I'll live with it a few days and see if I still like it.

Minions, pt. Dos

Oh yeah, some additions to my previous post. I mentioned that I had already "bashed" some prototype figures of the more Eastern Bloc/ Warsaw Pact style version of the Minions. This first guy is based on a different copy of the same figure shown in the previous post. Yeah, sad to say that there actually SIX of these Hasbro "Indiana Jones" German Officer figures who play the rank and file troopers.

I was actually pretty happy with the way this guy turned out so I'm not sure why I kept buying gear and looking at other alternatives. Just to be sure, I even bashed a senior NCO/squad leader, as seen here.

I was genuinely happy with these guys. The only real problem I had was a lack of a squad machine gunner and that is mostly due to a lack of post-WW2 Soviet or Warsaw Pact light and medium machine guns on the 1/6 scale market. Even that isn't entirely insurmountable since the RPK squad light machine gun is basically just a "hardened" AK that can handle sustained full auto fire. Externally, the main differences are a long barrel, bipod, larger buttstock and either a drum or extended length magazine.

I'm not sure why I didn't pursue this course because honestly, I like these guys a lot more than the late WW2 German soldier seen in the previous post. They would all use the same basic service uniform as seen on the previous guy (the so-called "M43" German uniform) while the camouflage seen here would serve as the field or combat uniform.

Minions, etc.

The problem with the way I write is that it's often done in small burst and then saved for later completion. When I look at my list of blog posts, I always find a few that are still in draft form and I ask myself "Where was I going with that?" For finished posts, I often discover upon review that the editing is choppy and occasionally makes no sense. I just finished an overhaul of my post "Writing Against Type, part 2" because there were some amazing verbal gaffes in it. Heck, there probably still are! Sorry about that but hopefully it flows a bit better now.

As mentioned in that post, I have been working on some antagonists that basically look like WW2 Germans. To re-hash, this was done for comedic effect and as a commentary on what we as a society are willing to accept. It's also dead easy to make up (or "bash") 1/6 scale figures this way since there's so much 1/6 WW2 German equipment on the market. My original idea for the minions had been to make them a bit more post-war, generically "Eastern Bloc" looking. For inspiration, I looked to the Cold War-era militaries of countries like Yugoslavia, Poland and especially East Germany. In the end, the figures looked somewhat like East German soldiers from the late '50s-early '70s, except for the AK 74 rifles, which would place them in a later time period (the "74" is the smaller caliber younger sibling of the AK 47/AKM family). Just for sake curiosity however, I decided to see what they would look like "bashed" as a somewhat idealized but plausible late WW2 German soldier.

The first thing that strikes me is that the helmet, although it fits, seems way too big. I'll admit I'm not an expert on WW2 German subjects (haven't watched enough History Channel "Those Darn Awesome Nazis" marathons, I guess) but WW2 era Stahlhelme (plural) seem smaller than their WW1 ancestors. This version (from 21st Century Toys) is allegedly the WW2 "M1935" but looks more like the size of the WW1 "M1916(?)". It doesn't have to be perfect and in fact, I can still think of others projects to use this helmet for, but it just looks "off" to me. I think I still prefer a more post-WW2, East German/Warsaw Pact appearance. The other issue I have with this guy is that he would reset my project in to an alternate WW2 style setting. That could be fun and I could even include some overtly Sci-Fi elements but I'm just not feeling it right now. I'm going to give this another try with the basic uniform but replacing the helmet with East German "M1956". I've "bashed" this style before and liked the look of it but this time, I might swap out the AK74, "Chi-Com" chest rig and related gear I used for something more "Western". The back story I've worked out is that, while they keep their old-style "Germanic" uniforms and helmets, they switch to NATO small arms, including perhaps the Steyr AUG (rifle) and the FN Minimi light machine gun (known in the US as the M249). Since I already have a couple of these basic dressed troopers on hand, it shouldn't be much to put together a quick test "bash" to see how that looks. Hopefully I should be able to post a follow up and a photo in the next day or two.

From the compost pile... uh, ARCHIVES!

I may have mentioned this before but RoG is the successor blog to an earlier effort here on Blogger that I eventually divided in two. I decided to save the old blog to my desktop but I didn't save it as a file that could be readily uploaded back to Blogger. Reason being that some of the information was no longer current, some of the complaints no longer relevant and much of it just wouldn't make sense or be in context here. Still, it's interesting to visit the saved file and see what was on my mind "back when". In particular, one thing that has bothered me for a few years and still bothers me today, leads me to offer this delicious copypasta from May 17, 2010.

I've been on the internet since the late '90s and, in that time, I've participated in a number of forums covering my various hobby interests. In more recent years, I've also been a board admin and a moderator, so I understand the challenges faced by people who run message boards. I've seen both the good and bad of board administration and the behavior of board members. My complaint is that, I'm beginning to feel that two boards where I've participated for several years are becoming increasingly regimented and even a bit capricious. I get that both of these boards are big and probably need a larger degree of formality to keep them in check. However, both are beginning to feel a bit stifling in the sense of being in a small room where the heat has been set a bit too high.

In one particular case, a well-known board devoted to 1/6 scale action figures that severely limits criticism of controversial subjects. While I get that you don't want every post to have the potential to erupt in to a 20 page pissing contest, there are times when posters, especially manufacturers announcing new products, clearly don't have a clue. Without the ability to offer any criticism of a figure based on subject matter, you're left to stuff a sock in it while your hobby gets taken down a path you'd rather not see it go. I keep wondering if there's a limit beyond which even the staff of this board will say enough is enough. Beloved American Serial Killers of the 20th Century, perhaps? No, I doubt it.
At what point do I, as a member of the hobby community, finally get to say "enough"? How tasteless do 1/6 scale manufacturers get to be, and how long do they get to push "controversial" subjects in the faces of people who object to them before they finally lose the protection given them by the staff and owners of major on-line hobby forums? As of now, I really have to wonder if that point can ever be reached.

At the time I wrote this, I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable with two message boards where I was an active participant. The one I discuss but didn't name in the above post is One Sixth Warriors. They've had a ban in place on current events political discussions for many years and, sometime in the couple years or so, decided to extend that rule to cover discussions of the subject matter of the figures various manufacturers release or members post. I don't feel that the year and half or so since I wrote this has seen any great change in this situation (not just about Nazis but any potentially controversial or antagonizing subject) and in that time, I have largely stopped participating at that particular forum, aside from an occasional, bland "drive by" response that I never return to once I've offered an opinion.

This also touches, tangentially, on a subject that never fails to rile me up. The concept that a fight isn't a fight until someone has been pushed into a response. That's really a subject that deserves its own post, rather than allowing this one to veer into "tl;dr" territory. So until next time, and whenever I get around to writing that post, I'll say "adios"!