An Absolute Pleasure: Painting Resumes

Greetings friends!

So last night I resumed something I've been meaning to get around to for months, and that's resuming my studies, as a reward for this I decided to treat myself to something else I've been meaning to do for months as well: paint!

When I last left off I was painting my winter Hell Dorado purchases and it was these I picked up and attempted to resume.

So far the 'closest' I have to the finished article is my Greater Damned of Wrath:





(The top picture is without a flash, the bottom is with as while the flash reveals the different tones between the skin and flesh etc, it washes out a lot of the colour as seen in the non flash picture).

However; and I'm not sure it comes across in the paint job, I still have a long way to go.

In fact I look at this picture and he doesn't look that different to how I left him about 5 months ago:



I still need to work on the rotting bodies he has attached to him (they are still very green rather than 'sickly'), his protruding bones are getting there as is his stitch work. I think that his exposed muscle is nearly done and should be complete post production with an experimentation of the use of Tamera Clear Red (or whatever that stuff is called). His weird gore stick still needs a lot of work and until this morning I completely forgot about the rotting head hanging from his belt.

I do think that I have managed to take his 'inverted' skin around his hands and waist and create a nice colour that looks both fleshy and bloody at the same time.

I'm a little annoyed that the head/shoulders mould line has come out really badly as I literally spent about an hour getting rid of that, never the less, I might be able to correct that towards the end.

However after saying all this, I'm missing the point that I was really loving painting this model amount others. It was such a pleasure to do so and I am really looking forward to doing more later this week.

Anyway, that's all from me today, so to those reading this; stay safe and I'll see you Cryptside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Competitive Gaming: A Gender Divide?

Greetings friends!

I learned something today that I found most interesting.

Did you know that in South Korea there is an organisation who call themselves the International e-Sports League (or something like that) for now we'll call them the IeSL.

So this year they were organising the International Hearthstone Tournament; Hearthstone for those who don't know is a digital card game by Blizzard Entertainment and plays in a similar way to Magic: The Gathering.

Well, this wasn't the interesting thing, no what was interesting was that this tournament had two categories; Male and Female. The argument given was that it was to emulate 'real' sport where women are not pitched against men for a variety of reasons.

Well, as it turns out this was something that Joe Internet wasn't happy with and lobbied against this, the resulting change was that there was still two leagues, one mixed for both men and women, and one exclusive to women.

Now as most of you will know by now, I am quite passionate about equal rights for all, and by that I mean true equality.

What we see here is not true equality, but despite this there seems to be little to no objection, instead Joe Public thinks that not only is this acceptable, but it is the way it should be.

In a nut shell what we are looking at is simple:
- If a woman wants to play in a mixed league; she can. If she wants to play in a league with only her gender; she can.
- If a man wants to play in a mixed league; he can. If he wants to play in a league with only his gender; he can't.

Seeing this imbalance, and the acceptance of such an imbalance makes me wonder if I'm going insane, to quote Will Ferral, "Taking Crazy Pills!"

Now most arguments I have seen focus on a few points, and I will tackle them separately.

The first is that as these e-Sport games are non-physical then there is no gender divide and as such there is no reason not to mix the genders.

Ok, well first that is flat out wrong. It is a scientific fact that male brains (mostly) work differently to women's brains, having strengths in some ways with weaknesses in others, just like the rest of our bodies do. For this reason if one gender has the physical advantage over the other when playing a physical sport and that is why they are kept separate, then the same must be done for e-Sports.

After all, just as you have Strength, Agility and Speed, the same is true for the brain with Strength of Mind, Mental Agility and Speed of Thought.

If we are going to argue that these differences are so minuscule that they shouldn't be factored into e-Sport, then there is no reason not to have a single mixed league, there would be no reason to give women their own league while not giving one to men as well.

Which leads us on to the second reason: Choice.

What if a woman would rather play against only women?

Well why should that only apply to women? I can turn it around and ask "what if men only want to play against other men?" Should both genders not have the right to choose that? Speaking rhetorically; why should only women have the right to choose?

Which inevitably leads us on to the final point: Historical handling.

Essentially saying that men had their time before, that because men oppressed women and forbid them from taking part in certain sports etc, that women have the right to do the same now.

I'm sorry but that's just BS!

Explain to me in a coherent way why I should be opposed or oppressed by anyone because of what others who came before me chose to do? Have I oppressed or dominated women? Absolutely not! And oppressing and discriminating against potentially innocent men is no better than what those 'you' are fighting against.

This final point has nothing to do with equality and fair play and everything to do with revenge and as they say; when you seek revenge, prepare to dig two graves.

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Look, I know this is a sore subject, there will be those who skim over my points, think I'm attacking feminism or whatever and miss what I'm trying to say.

There will be those who argue that by comparing e-Sports to physical sports is laughable and there will be those who think that I don't have a right to express myself because of an inherited gender bias, but all I'm asking for is true equality.

If we are to reach true equality, then there is only three ways of doing so within this situation:
- A Single Mixed Leage
- Two Leagues; 1 Male, 1 Female
Three Leagues; 1 Male, 1 Female, 1 Mixed.

Call it whatever you like, but any other form of system is gender biased one way or the other and frankly unacceptable in the modern world.

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Until next time; stay safe and I'll see you Cryptside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Who's ever heard of a Cowboy-Ninja?

Greetings friends and happy beginning of the week to you all!

So on Friday I had a bit of an eye opening experience. It all started in the early morning when I was listening to the latest episode from The Gamer's Lounge where Bill and honey tongued John talk about the recently shipped KickStarter; Relic Knights.

Now Relic Knights is a game I've been interested in for a while, it was just a question of seeing how the actual game turned out.

I mean the models are from what I can see, great:



A mixture of what is unashamed cheesecake crossed with manga themed OTT fun



And if I was to be honest I would say that I've had my eyes on these girls for a while, I've just done so knowing that the game and range is part of a KickStarter that's been (to date) nearly 2 years building with continuous extensions to it's lead times.

Now the game is here and it's something I am very interest in, especially when you factor in the similar visual theme (and I understand similar humour) to the game Tentacle Bento.


- At some point I hope to record an episode for Hobby Sofa with Mrs Loxley where we cover this game, it is SO much fun.

And then the wheels fell off the bus! My world was turned upside down and my eyes melted while my brain exploded!

I learned that Sodapop Miniatures had recently turned away from CMON as distributors and instead formed a team to use the company Ninja Division as distributors.

The thing is; that's not where the team ended. Oh no!

So it turns out that our friends at Cipher Studios are also acting as developers through which Ninja Division will distribute!

So what does this mean?

Well Ninja Division have their own form of street team called the Ninja Corps and with the mixing of these companies the Ninja Corps cover all of these.

Now the thing is, at present there have been few games that I've actually bought into and would recommend to people, the two main ones bring Hell Dorado (see my very long review HERE) and Tentacle Bento. The latter being a game that I've been shouting to anyone who is willing to listen that they should give it a try and play.

To top all of this off, the Ninja Corps also has allocations for what they call 'Web Ninjas'; those who promote product via blogs, podcasts and vid-streams.

Yup, so jumping on this I have emailed their teams telling them what I do and asking if this is something they would be interested in, if the reply seems favourable I will then go ahead and submit an application form and not before too long, you may see yourself being talked to by your very own Ninja!

You're probably wondering what this means to you guys?

Well I have an answer to that too!

It means not only more hobby related content to feature on these pages as well as more regular episodes of Hobby Sofa, but it also means that there should be competitions and prizes!

So wish me luck friends! And with hope in due course things will move forward in a positive direction!

Until next time; stay safe and I'll see you Cryptside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Wildstar: Growing Apathy

Greetings friends,

Today I bring you sad news, but first let's rewind to the end of June.

I was playing Wildstar; my current favourite MMO and weighing up the options as my introduction month was coming to an end and the requirement to pay the monthly subscription was looming.

I had already un subscribed due to the fact that I was not sure I could personally justify the costs.

Just before renewal date on the third of July I reactivated my subscription largely down to my strong desire to carry on from where I was. The story was getting interesting, new mechanics were being thrown at me, my rocket ship house was begging to take form and my hoverboard was freaking awesome!

Now, only a week later things have taken a spin for the worst.

The novelty of the hoverboard has grown stale, the storyline has pretty much taken a standstill, instead re-enacting older stories just in a new location, my house is nearly done (and the ground floor is pretty much as I want it) and I am just no longer getting the joy I was getting out of the game 1 week+ ago.

I'm left looking at my other games, like Final Fantasy 14:ARR and thinking that my money would be better spent there.

The good news is that I can do this and not loose my stuff allowing me to return to Nexus in six months to a year's time and continue.

My plans at the moment are quite simple:

I have 10 more days of boom box rewards to open, so I will do that - and these played a large part in keeping me coming back as a continuous carrot on a stick, but with less than two weeks to go I know that when they dry up I will have less incentive to log on daily.

I hope that as I continue to level I will get more money and eventually get enough to buy an extension on my sub via the ingame CREDD system, if this is not the case however and if by the end of my remaining ~3 weeks I do not have the ingame currency then I will be waving "see you later" to Wildstar.

- I think part of the issue is my lack of people to play with. I want to have a rich and engrossing role play experience while levelling, but I am unable to do this because of the requirements I impose; largely that it must not be static RP and instead be dynamically done while questing, not standing around in the capital city, it must be out in the world relating to what we are currently doing in missions. It also has to be based around my extremely sporadic and infrequent schedule that my family life allows.

Sadly from my experience only a select few are able to live up to these requirements and Wildstar just doesn't do anything for them.

Still, the growing apathy I am developing for the game is a good thing. Before when I still loved playing it I didn't want to stop playing. Now, I could take or leave it.

Until next time: stay safe and I'll see you Cryptside.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Masks We Wear: Realistic Roleplay

Greetings friends!

Today I would like to talk to you about my experiences of Good Roleplay.
- Emphasis on the 'Good'.

How many of you have been playing either tabletop roleplay games, or video based games and you run into someone who is bad at roleplay? I mean god damn terribad awful at it!

Come on, hands up!

I see two of you have not raised your hands, let me guess; you don't play Role Playing Games? Yeah thought so.

It's unfortunate, but bad roleplay has become a thing of the genre, it's everywhere!

You want to see a bad example? Log into WoW on a RP server, head over to Silvermoon the Blood Elf capital and just look for the groups of players congregating.
- I guarantee you at least one is a dragon, another will be a vampire and another will be something like 'King of Silvermoon' or something of equal grandeur.

This is just one example of bad roleplay, something where you read it and it makes you reach for the tissues as to stem the blood flowing from your eyes and brain.

Another example is a lot more subtle, but is perhaps further reaching. This example is the unrealistic character development. For example; imagine someone in a fantasy setting, they are a noble who under the cover of darkness wears a mask and a cape and journeys into their town to save people from crime. A fantasy version of Batman if you will. However this character meets the region's King, doesn't know who he is and acts like a dick around him, when there is no way a noble of that region would not know who the king was, and would also know that said king was famous for chopping the heads off from those who insulted him!

It's jarring, and is virtually always met with the defensive stance of "it's my character and that's just what he acts like!"

Another and final example is what I would call 'misplaced alignment'. Alignment if course referring to the good ol' Lawful Good - Chaotic Evil scale.

Now what so I mean by having a misplaced alignment? It's simple really, and that is selecting an alignment and moral compass for your character that is HUGELY different to your own.

Disclaimer: Obviously there are the exceptions where people can carry this off, but they are the exception, not the majority.

From my experience to roleplay a character effectively you need to play a character that is +-1 your own alignment.

What this means practically is that if you are a Lawful Good person in real life, the choices you have are as follows:
- Lawful Good
- Neutral Good
- Lawful Neutral
- Pure Neutral (at a pinch)

Why is this? Why would a Lawfully Good person struggle at playing a Neutral Evil character while making them convincing and realistic?

The answer is simpler, and a lot more personal than you may think.

Good roleplay comes from within the player.

You need to have that side of you inside you somewhere to play it realistically, if you don't then all you have is a flat character that the rest of the party puts up with rather than enjoys being around.

Of course you have situations where you can't literally use what is inside you. Look at White Wolf games like Vampire and Werewolf, obviously no one playing that is actually a supernatural being and so unable to relate to the situation, but you still need something that you can tap into.

Come on, we've all seen it; the suave and sophisticated Vampire who is played by a socially inept slob which comes across as creepy and far too rapey, or the Feral beastly Werewolf played by the weedy maths nerd who when it comes to smashing face considers 'run away' to be a valid tactic.

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Based on these examples I have 3 rules that I try my best to stick by for 'main' characters:

1). No Supernatural Creatures who's sole 'hook' is that they are a supernatural creature.

2). If someone tells you that doing something is stupidly outside of your character, they are more often than not, right.

3). Never RP outside if +-1 Your alignment.

Note: if we are talking about walk on characters or extras, then fine, go crazy! Make 2d bad guys who are Dragon-Wolves that glitter in the sun! This only applies to your own going main characters.

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These three rules are those that I base all my 'mains' on and the longevity of my two main characters in video games is a testimony to the success of the rules.

The first character is Dr Loxley Von Kulstein from World of Warcraft, an undead human scientist who has few scruples when it comes to the advancement of his own science.

While I may not be undead or a mad scientist there elements I can relate to, and essentially Dr Loxley is who I would be if I was freed of the guilt-based ties that guide a lot if my choices and actions.

Of course playing a borderline psychopathic doctor can be jarring for the main storyline, which is why Dr Loxley actually falls under the 'side character' mantle. He will never be a main character in any of the role play sessions outside of the occasional spin offs as he does not fit enough 'hero' tropes to allow for the limelight.

My second character is one who for the time being I will call 'Chuck'.

Now Chuck is a character I created for the game The Secret World and as a part of this has his own life in the fantastical world that exists in this alternative life.

He has a twitter account that he posts on more regularly than I do on my own, he has a blog that he writes in semi regularly, he even has a house in Camden picked out as his place of residence. On Valentines' Day he took his girlfriend to a swanky Hotel in Venice all the while hunting evil and keeping down an equally successful job working as a tech consultant for a London based Police Force.

Notice my use of the words "He" and "His"? This is a requirement. In order for me to keep Chuck as a realistic character who's invisible life does not impact on mine, he must remain his own entity. In order to make him realistic and believable I need to pull on who I am and what I know, to react in a believable way with believable and almost real emotions.

I can not do that and not loose myself to the character without keeping both personas as separate. In other words; Chuck is not me, and I am not Chuck, but if I was living in Chuck's world, and the events of Chuck's life had happened to me, then there is a good chance I would be Chuck, and when Chuck feels an emotion, in some part of me, I am feeling that emotion as well, at least for that moment in time.

Obviously I can not reveal the details of who Chuck is, or what his blog/twitter accounts are, doing so would breach the third wall and begin making the roleplay experience a lot more confusing.

When you get that deep into a character, things are different. You don't think about their reactions. I don't stop and go "What would Chuck do?" No, I just do, because in that space and time part of who I am has become Chuck. I am not reacting to events as a player controlling Chuck, I am reacting AS Chuck!

This is how (in my opinion) you can create a good, or maybe even great, roleplay experience.

Until next time; stay safe and I'll see you Cryptside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Bright Future of Wargaming

Greetings friends!

So over the past few days I've written quite a few different blog posts, however unlike what I normally do, I did not post them.

The reasons behind this select posting was down to me being aware of where the writing was coming from.

I was writing posts that were based off a combination of both anger and frustration and would have been either boring or insulting to read.

Today however I have a post that I most certainly want everyone to read.

It is my belief that today is possibly one of the best times to be a wargamer.

There; I said it.

I know, this is a complete contradiction to everything I have said before, but I think it's true.

You see, I just spent the last 15 or so minutes talking to my head of department about the game X-Wing as it was revealed the other day that he is a bit of a wargamer himself, playing X-Wing and Saga at the moment with a bit of a 40k and Ancients history.

It occurred to me while talking to this guy, that this was not a bad way to spend the last 15 minutes of the day and that things were pretty good, all things considered.

It also occurred to me that this sentiment can be extrapolated out.

Let's have a look at some of the current wargame movers and shakers:

We have the behemoths of 40k and Fantasy Battle,
There is of course Saga which seems to me to be THE historical game,
For WWII there's both Flames of War and Bolt Action,
If you are interested in Wild West you have WWX and Malifaux which in turn moves into Horror and Steampunk,
Staying with Horror and Steampunk there is Empire of the Damned and the elephant of Warmachine & Hordes,
If you prefer your games more grimdark Warzone and Deadzone,
Maybe you prefer sport games? Well there's Dreadball and Bloodball (which I understand still has a very large player base),
What about Hi Sci-Fi? Infinity has your back and is due to go from strength to strength with 3rd Edition only a short jump away,
More gore on your menu? Give Hell Dorado a go!
What about post apocalyptic? Well that's EDEN for you!
Maybe you fancy something that's more Feudal Japan in style? You have to try out Bushido!
Do you like spaceship battles? X-Wing or Attack Wing all the way!
Maybe you like spaceships and the like but would rather play on-planet rather than off? Dropzone Commander!

Hell, the list is almost endless, and these are all games which are currently bring supported by either parent companies or third parties. That is not including the games that are in development like Guild Ball, Liberal Crime and of course; CRYPTS.

We also have to remember that with most of if not nearly all these games come with a line of miniatures giving you an almost listless supply of proxies for your game of choice!

Are we saturated right now? Possibly, but I don't think we have reached critical mass just yet.

I think it is safe to say that like with everything there will be a time when we reach critical mass and with only so many wargamers in the world and therefore a limited amount of cash a lot of these companies will fade out to obscurity or die out all together (I'm looking at you Hell Dorado and EDEN, seriously you both can do so much better! Sort yourselves out!) and when this happens it will be determined which of the companies are the market leaders for models, miniatures and game rules.

Some might argue that GW's actions over the past year or so would mean they were due to hand their crown over to the likes of Privateer Press or Wyrd, but then people have been saying that about GW for decades and we still see them as market leaders. But as the late King Terenas Menethil II tells us; no king can rule forever.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see another company take over the running. Not for a while, maybe 20 or so years' time.

I would be surprised if it was PP and pretty astonished if it was Wyrd. No my vote from the current contenders is Mantic.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of Mantic. In fact I actually think their models suck balls! But they are ticking all the boxes and more importantly; are quite a bit cheaper than GW - but some would argue that is for a good reason.

I think if given the right amount of exposure we could see Mantic take the helm as market leader, especially if they tapped into the 'young adult' market that GW has hooked.

Regardless of all this, I think we can all agree that choice is most of the time a good thing, and with that in our minds, let's all look out the window at the bright blue sky and beaming sun, before turning back from the window, turning up your painting podcast of choice and getting your paint on!

Until next time; stay safe and I'll see you Cryptside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Customisation: Why mess with perfection?

Greetings friends!

So over the past couple of days I've been playing more video games, largely due to one of the bi-annual Steam sales.

Thanks to this lovely money saver I have been able to pick up a few new video games at a steal of their RRP (like Borderlands 2 GOTY for ~£8).

So last night I was playing Borderlands 2 and creating my character. In these sort of games I like to play sniper characters; it's quite contrary to my usual 'charge in with guns blazing' or 'hit them with the biggest axe you have' style of 3rd person adventure or RPGs, but I played a sniper for the first Borderlands and found it more fun, so when picking between Zero the Assassin and the 'Gun-Zerker' the choice seemed pretty obvious to me.

What I found interesting was when it came to assigning the head and colour scheme for the character, there were a good number of heads (five?) and about 10-15 colour choices giving a very large combination available, however I found myself sticking with the original head and colour scheme.


The more I thought of this, the more it came down to "it's what looks 'best'".

I am reminded of my character in Wildstar who is teetering on the verge of reaching level 30 and still running around in his Highwayman costume that I got from beta.

Now in Wildstar you can change the colours of nearly every item of clothing, and I have seen a plethora of people rocking this costume set in blues, greens, pinks and ivory in order to set them apart. But when I look at mine I have him still in the default colours:


The reason why is quite simple; there are more colours available in the default version with better shading and colour matching. Plus I really like the look! Why mess with something when someone else has already made it perfect for me?

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It's then I think about my wargaming, where a large number of my models have been altered either in the sculpt itself or the paintscheme compared to the 'factory default' colours that comes on cards and packaging.

For example:


Seamus: Traditionally depicted in greens, here spouting an equally flamboyant orange jacket.



The Dreamer: Usually shown as a blonde haired child, here has been warped and twisted into Sadako from Ring.




An 'in-progress' shot of me adding hair to my Lelu.




Not content with the studio sculpt, I built my own Wicked Dolls out of putty with yellow static grass as stuffing.



And of course; my very own Undead Executioner, complete with spilling guys and burlap hood

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So it is interesting to me; why constantly modify and alter models in wargaming, while keeping my videogame characters looking like the factory defaults?

I guess for me it comes down to the work involved.

With video games you don't have to physically assemble and paint them. This is all done for you.

In other words. It looks great 'out of the box'.

In wargaming however, you get these unassembled, metal models that need to be covered in paint to stop them looking like POSs.

Now I have never bought a set of (well painted) miniatures before, and it would be interesting to see what I would do with them if I did.

Would I strip them and repaint? Would seem like a waste of a good paint job to do that.

Would I alter them slightly, putting my own unique signature on them? Maybe; but I'd struggle to call them 'mine' if I hadn't really painted them.

I would probably leave them 'as is' displaying them proudly as a purchased set of models painted by 'X' painter.

This is pretty much how I see the video game characters.

Now if you had to buy models, assemble and sculpt them, before painting them and then 'scanning' them into the game so they appear as they do in the real world; you know I would make mine look unique in both paint jobs and sculpting.

On that note, that's all from me, so stay safe and il see you Cryptside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley