Tartarus Rim 2024

[symphonicpoet]

Stealing an idea from Twisted Moon here, but . . . in a promise to myself to get more stuff done, I'll start a 2024 thread.

So far I'm getting some work done on some Colony 87 immigrants.

This first fellow was billed as the tech merchant, and I think that'll work just fine. He'll be one more person to inhabit the growing market on Landing, or the streets of Lgansport.

This next fellow was billed as a messenger, but I feel like he very much has the character of the angsty college kid I once was. (Messenger bag and all.) So I've tried to paint his pants as ripped up jeans and his jacket as the required black band gear. (In this case for his favorite ork metal act, Müshrööm Klöwd.) I can't fit all of that on the back of a jacket, so I've just used an M, a stylized red mushroom cloud, and a largely obscured K.

 

[Geroak II]

Good stuff, I really like civilians in any setting. They just make the World they're inhabiting much more believable.

Messenger's jacket reminds me of Can's song Mushroom:
"When I saw mushroom head
I was born and I was dead"

Edgy.

 

[symphonicpoet]

Thanks, Geroak! Another to add to the market: the "alien pet merchant." I figure he's more of a livestock trader, as, well, he's not too likely to worry about what sort of use to which his customers put their animals. And on the frontier they could be everything from companions, to work animals, to food.

 

[inchmurrin]

Good to see more civilians particularly like the pet merchant, when can we expect to see some pet? I never looked as cool as the messenger yours works very well.

 

[symphonicpoet]

^I never looked as cool as the messenger either. I just wanted to look that cool. (And I wore a lot of black t-shirts for a while. Spent a lot of years working backstage. Kind of a professional hazard.)

The pets will be coming soonish. The alien pilot, angry frog, nanny bot, and baby are in line first, but the alien is done, the frog is underway, and I expect the auto-pram and nannybot should be fairly easy.

So, 'bout that pilot:

He's got a pet. Does that count? (Of course, so does the merchant.) . . . cue the group shot . . .

 

[symphonicpoet]

Another guest for the market. He's probably just wandered in from the space port and seen something he likes. Absolutely nothing ominous about it.

 

[Geroak II]

Good job on these. I don't even hazard a guess what that alien pet is, but it sure has expression of a cat who's not too happy to be where they are... pilot's better watch out those claws...

He's probably just wandered in from the space port and seen something he likes. Absolutely nothing ominous about it.

Oh, of course not. Maybe he's just ordering some street food? "Don't be stingy with the mustard, ya hear me?!"

 

[symphonicpoet]

^The claws on the green creature do look ominous, don't they? And I suppose I get excited about good street food too. More pictures of bots and some pets incoming shortly.

 

[twisted moon]

always nice to see these colony 87 figures out in the universe.
will you be using the ambassador as a slann?

 

[inchmurrin]

Another guest for the market. He's probably just wandered in from the space port and seen something he likes. Absolutely nothing ominous about it.

Perhaps he want sone of the pets as street food and thinks his diplomatic status isn't being respected?

 

[Machen]

I would've gone with traditional Slann green, but I really like the dark saturated blue flesh tones you gave that exotic fellow, and damn, do they make him look scary! Interestingly, although he's unarmed and works well as a civilian, with the authority icon he's clutching and his dramatically pointing figure he'd work equally well leading an armed squad of frogmen.

Your subdued palette on these civilians' clothing really gives them a realistic feel.

 

[dazza36]

Wasn't familiar with this range of figures but really interesting and great job painting them up.

 

[symphonicpoet]

I would've gone with traditional Slann green, but I really like the dark saturated blue flesh tones you gave that exotic fellow, and damn, do they make him look scary! Interestingly, although he's unarmed and works well as a civilian, with the authority icon he's clutching and his dramatically pointing figure he'd work equally well leading an armed squad of frogmen.

Your subdued palette on these civilians' clothing really gives them a realistic feel.

Thank you! Slann green looks great sometimes too. I use a variety of colors on my frogs. I've usually tried to kind of reference real frogs and toads. I've got a green one that's based on a rocky mountain spotted toad. The more colorful ones, like him, draw on different poison dart frogs for inspiration. I read somewhere that higher status Slann tend to be more colorful. I don't necessarily follow that exactly, but it kind of makes sense that even space fantasy species would have some ethnic discrimination similar to humans going on. (The "lower status" rocky mountain toad Slann serves as the pilot of the Rainbow Connection and the Chewbaca to my own miniature Han Solo.) So far I've honestly assumed the Slann are a bit better about that than we humans. (They are supposed to be old and wise.)

And yes, I figure he'd make a great (or . . . well . . . ominously terrifying?) . . . an effective leader model. Kind of had the same thought about the pointing. And he has a communicator looking thing on his belt.

And yeah, I shoot for a certain level of verismo in my space toy costume choices. I do put in some color, but more on richer people and fancier people. Ordinary people out working I figure wear practical clothing. I have a kind of "would I wear that?" test, not unlike Liz Bearup's fantasy armor rankings. Anyway, thanks!

Perhaps he want sone of the pets as street food and thinks his diplomatic status isn't being respected?

You might be right about that. It's hard to argue with good street food, and one person's pet is another person's fancy dinner. I suppose we eat some odd things around here. (Snake. Turtle. Alligator. Frog. Crayfish.) I suppose I've seen all of them as pets . . . and on menus or in stores. (Why am I suddenly craving Cajun?) But then I suppose I'm part New World frog on the Moginot side. (And my wife is from yet another former French colony where people are by reputation even more adventurous about food. Don't care what it is or where it's from. Put it on my plate and I will eat it. So far this has worked out pretty well for me. So far.)

Wasn't familiar with this range of figures but really interesting and great job painting them up.

It's a great range. You can get it from Crooked Dice now.

 

[symphonicpoet]

So the pet/food debate becomes a bit more visceral:

This last one is from Whitehorn/Krakon's "Warts and Wings" kickstarter, but I figure it fits in especially well.

And here's a few pics of the expanding gang in situ at the Landing Market on Proserpine. (Which is also very much a work in progress.)

 

[Geroak II]

Nice work, I do like those atmospheric pics a lot. Whatever those creatures (Birdies? Hedgehogs? Or most likely just some completely alien species) in second photo are, they do look adorable.

 

[symphonicpoet]

^I'm not quite sure what they're supposed to be! I kind of got a "tribble with a beak" vibe, but I wanted to give them some stripes, as I already had too many solid color shorts of critters. They kind of came out looking like little owlet/hedgehog puffballs. Baby owl bears? Tribbirds? Hedge puffers? Whatever you call them, I agree, they are incredibly cute. Every kind on the rim is going to want one. I just hope they aren't too much trouble. I need to get the last few painted up.

Also glad you like the atmospheric shots. I need to get that done too!

 

[inchmurrin]

Agreedd it is difficult to differentiate them between pets and food. And the atmospheric photos are excellent especially the one with the pilot spaceport noir?

 

[twisted moon]

excellent work.

 

[symphonicpoet]

Thank you both!

Inchmurrin, I think there are three models originally called pilots, though there's a few folks in the shadow that I'm not sure who they are. The first of the atmospheric shots has both the old Citadel pilots and a Space Lords cargo master, I think he is in the background. (That's the one with the yellow container cafe on the right and the left container kiosk on the right.) But I think you mean the one with the frog pointing and the alien fellow with the . . . space cat? That has the grey container labeled USSIL in the foreground. (Which both stands for USS Inaugural Lines, named after a minesweeper that was once a museum boat on the river in my hometown and is now a shipwreck not too far downriver, closer to where I live now. She broke her moorings during a flood and ran aground.) I also love that it sounds like Usil out of Dune. Anyway . . . whichever you mean, thank you.

 

[Machen]

Well, I'm highly impressed and a bit envious; your sci-fi setting is much further along than mine. This is a world I look forward to revisiting as you update it.