What kind of place is this Afropia?

Howdy folks,

I hope you are all well and good…a quick thought popped into my mind after my last post; I have mentioned Afropia in a few posts now and I guess at some point I have to give a little more thought and definition to this Imagi-nation. Initially my thought was to have only a single country as the primary setting, but quickly I realized this needed to expand to include at least one potential rival/belligerent…and then this quickly expanded to considering some additional options.

So, I now have the Afropian region to ponder.

At this point I have an idea on countries, some initial concepts on their political leanings, sponsor state in a case or two, and general geography. In total, the region is composed of 6 countries…1 country in the ‘centre’ with 4 others surrounding it with some degree of shared border + one island nation (blame Farcry 6 for this latest addition).

Petoriastan - thank you Family Guy, lol…although I don’t think it is a dictator state. Mountains to the north, plains/prairie-like region in the centre, plains and grasslands to the south. No solid thoughts on sponsor, but some colonial history…maybe British…

Mikaroon - to the north and east of Petoriastan…hills in the northern and western region, plains in the central and eastern, with coastline as its south border. My initial thoughts are former French/European colonial…

Federation of Alarus - shares the northwester border of Petoriastan. Federation had a nice sound to it, Marxist-Leninist for its politics; as such seems a classic Soviet satellite inspired state. Mountains and hills in its east and south-east region…hills pretty much everywhere else.

West Chartoria - again thank you Family Guy and my wife (who is worthy of her own nation-state) for the name inspiration. It falls on the western border of Petoriastan and that border also extends to share the western border of Aponwana. Hills in the north, mountains/hills in the west, shared savannah in the south east with both Petoriastan and Aponwana. Right now I’m thinking a more modern day take on South Africa, perhaps some former British colonialism history as well.

Aponwana - fully along the southern border of Petoriastan with their western border shared with West Chartoria. Savannah and grasslands throughout, I am picturing this as being more in line with a classic failed state vibe…former Soviet protectorate or something to that effect.

And finally, Yara or Tropico or something…not sure on the name yet, but heavily inspired by Caribbean or Latin America setting. Regardless, it is an island nation, to the east of Petoriastan or Aponwana.

That is where things stand at the moment. Next steps will be to review/focus the geopolitics of the countries…get them a flag, something to identify with.

Take care. Until next time…

Painting Update - Random Pieces

Howdy folks,

I hope all is going well on your respective sides of the dice.

Coming up to the end of the month, I thought it would be good to have a general painting update...nothing specific like my recent Marvel Crisis Protocol figures, but some progress nonetheless with a few pieces that cover a range of potential settings.

Mostly guided by my Afropia imagi-nation project, I have been roughing out some scenarios and campaigning ideas (game selection, force size, etc.) and thought that one of the constants certainly in post WW2 warfare/conflict has been the element of civil-military cooperative efforts for development. In the case of Afropia and more recent conflicts, I wanted to have some general construction vehicles, so I purchased a couple of D7 Bulldozers from Skytrex Miniatures. I know these are more in line with WW2, but I think they'll work for anything spanning the last 70 years or so.

At the same time, I wanted to have some scatter pieces that could work for a variety of settings be it military facilities, dockyards, etc. so I also purchased a few of their cargo loads for military vehicles. I picked up a couple of each, a cargo section of oil drums and boxes. Having recently played some Farcry 6, I was inspired to paint up my oil drums in a very nice looking Olive Green and Vermillion mix matching those drums found all around Yara.

And because some of these pieces are rather finicky at their edges (chipping or rubbing paint off) I thought I would try basing them on some MDF board that I had kicking around. At the same time, I also painted up some blank pieces so I could either have concrete platforms for 15mm or cargo pallets for 28mm...I thought they could mix well with any of the Rogue Stars, Stargrave, or Zona Alfa universe/scenarios. The painting on them is a little scratchy but given I haven’t seen too many clean pallets and/or pristinely painted area at aerodromes. Anyway, they should work at the tabletop level…

Thats all for now, take care folks...enjoy the pics.

2022 Lead Mountain Climb

Painted

15mm               24, +16

28mm+             21

 

Bought            +10

Progress          +35

Marvel CP - Doc Strange and Wong

Howdy folks,

 

I hope all is well on your side. Just a quick post for today, I recently had the chance to finish off the Doctor Strange and Wong expansion pack for Marvel Crisis Protocol. As has been my experience with these models to date, they are a double edged sword for me, lol. On one side, they are such fabulous and dynamic poses, on the other, they sure can take an extraordinary amount of time for me as my OCD grapples with getting them just right.

Now that’s mostly on me and my process. Funny enough, when I have a reference guide to go with my OCD tends to be even stronger. Again, the other side is that these guides have been a great way to further develop my style.

In this case, Wong was definitely a quick paint job for me, and the guides were helpful with various elements. But because there was no dedicated guide I had to develop my own plan…and it worked well for me. Now, Doc Strange was an interesting figure…quite dynamic with the spell effect and quite finicky with trying to attach him to it. My main disappointment is that the spell effect aside, the sculpt of the Doctor felt somewhat underwhelming and this one may be my least favourite of the range so far.

Regardless, the figures presented some great challenge and I hope I nailed the spell effect. Overall, my main frustration was having the glue crystallize on me after I glued the Doc to the effect…sigh, could always be worse.

Cheers. Enjoy the pics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2022 Lead Mountain Climb

Painted

15mm               8 

28mm+             21, +2

 

Bought              0

Progress          +29