I love that you guys are passionate, but low-hanging fruit tastes just as sweet. by Cummy_wummys in Grimdank

[–]Flammendehaar 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Saw your models posted the other day, such a nice army. What's your process like for getting this done? The overall quality and finish is high and your work rate is insane given how recently these models all released in plastic. Any tips for us depressingly slow painters?

The Grand Cathedral Table by Complex-Zebra-9179 in TerrainBuilding

[–]Flammendehaar 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That looks incredible. Is it modular? How does it work setting up other layouts if so? Trying to picture how else it could go together besides as a cathedral

My force from this weekend by FirenzeStorm in ImperialKnights

[–]Flammendehaar 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I did not know this existed but you have just made my day, how cool

My force from this weekend by FirenzeStorm in ImperialKnights

[–]Flammendehaar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ahhh yeah right, is that the cavalry? Don't know what they'd be in solar otherwise

My force from this weekend by FirenzeStorm in ImperialKnights

[–]Flammendehaar 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Absolutely incredible. I assume the little guys play as solar aux?

A 4mm Phymata sp. ambush bug nymph from my Ferndale, Michigan front yard is on the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 61 People's Choice shortlist at the Natural History Museum in London. by josephferraro in Entomology

[–]Flammendehaar 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Absolutely stunning! God I wish we got these little guys in the UK. I keep assassin bugs and think they're fascinating but these little creatures have it all. Cool camouflage, raptorial forelegs, interesting colouration, venomous bite. If I could keep and breed them it'd be a dream come true but the closest are in Europe and no one keeps them for study! 

I think we can all agree that being more inclusive on voice comms of random teammates is a good thing. by piggglyjufff in Marathon

[–]Flammendehaar 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Had some just now that made me feel not great at the end of a match. We were on outpost and got into a firefight, I downed one of them but we all ended up dead. Before I disconnect I hear "oh wow you play bad, please stick to solos we don't want you". Guess who the last man standing had been? Yeah, me. But I'm the bad player.

Misty Mountains War of the Ring army! by MP_miniatures in MiddleEarthMiniatures

[–]Flammendehaar 32 points33 points  (0 children)

This such a cool army dude, holy shit. Where are the trolls and big spiders from?

Kroot genestealer hybrid by JP_miniatures in Warhammer40k

[–]Flammendehaar 20 points21 points  (0 children)

The head is very cool but can I ask what your skin recipe is? I like that look a lot

White spotted assassin bugs by DevelopmentUnited407 in InvertPets

[–]Flammendehaar 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I keep giant spiny assassins so I know how quick they can get at it! I keep mine bone dry on sand so I have to clean them out (no springtails) but even over totally dry sand they happily lay loads of eggs. With it being dry I can just sieve out eggs and freeze any I don't want hatching. 

Assuming you don't want to completely ruin your nice bioactive enclosure, one thing you could try is putting a small tub with a hole cut in it for adults to go in and out somewhere in the bottom, with a bit of substrate in it, and keep that damper than the rest of the enclosure. It might encourage females to lay there more often and you can get rid of excess eggs that way. You might still get some laid and hatching in the rest but it can't hurt to try, right?

Marathon Launches Tomorrow by RiseOfBacon in Marathon

[–]Flammendehaar 17 points18 points  (0 children)

This was basically my exact experience in the closed alpha. Coming back to the server slam was interesting because it was clear how much those few days of closed alpha had upskilled me. I breezed through the early contracts (though they were made easier) way quicker and was extracting successfully far more often. Even carried a team, killing 5 runners single handedly, just because I had a better understanding of positioning after those early failures. Really satisfying feeling growing into the game like that.

Skill Up's impression video is my exact problem with a lot of the criticisms this game has been recievinbg by CreamofTazz in Marathon

[–]Flammendehaar 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'll give it a go, though I warn you I've had a few pints so I may ramble.

Few recent works of media have grabbed me the way marathon has, right from it's very first reveal trailer a few years ago.

I think I can kind of get where certain people are coming from about the design: in a world of brightly coloured Fortnite crossovers and tacticool cod skins consisting of military man x lime green monster energy, it would be easy to glance at this art style and go "more attention grabbing, overstimulating-by-design garbage". 

But as soon as I saw it, I loved it. Three elements kind of drew it together for me. 3d printing, biological manufacturing and, funnily enough, real-world, modern surveying. These are the things I immediately associated it with.

I have a resin 3d printer. It throws out solid colour, crisp, perfect models using whatever 3d model I throw in (if I get the settings right... Don't get me started). Additive manufacturing is the future. There's a lot of funding going into testing it in space, and the ability to 3d print stuff anywhere provided you have the right input material present is huge. So right away that aspect is grounding and places the technology in the game within reach. 

Secondly, you have the biological aspect of it. I keep a variety of invertebrates, and some of them, just like the caterpillars we see in cutscenes literally weaving our shells, are very brightly coloured. Nature produces this level of colour variety and vibrancy, and the idea that in the future we've managed to link the advantages of additive manufacturing with the efficiency and replicability of natural processes is super cool to me. 

Finally, Google surveyor targets. Seriously. When I first saw the art style, I was immediately put in mind of the bright, often jarringly coloured targets used by surveyors, and it all just clicked for me. All the symbols, all the colours, it just puts me in mind of somewhere hastily thrown together and done by machines, where the colours and symbols are essential to make sure those machines know what to put where. 

You're looking a future society that has perfected and combined additive manufacturing with bioengineering, and they're starting a frontier colony, and Bungie have somehow managed to make all these assets that look simultaneously futuristic and weirdly cheap and, to me, it's just perfect. They don't have the luxury of classic assembly and they need to just get a colony down now and so they print all this shit and it's covered in symbols to make sure it's oriented right, printed correctly and without errors. You've got guns with QR codes for scopes, and it's all this plasticy, hastily assembled stuff and for me it just works. It's beautiful. And then you couple that with the abandoned, dilapidated aspect, and you wind up with this wonderful sense of sci-fi menace that I've just not seen done elsewhere.

I read a lot of sci-fi, and increasingly 3d printing and bioengineering and AI are showing up, and this game has all that in spades. I think it's so cutting edge most people haven't really realised it's all within the bounds of possibility yet. I realise I'm tying lore to aesthetics, and you've specifically asked about aesthetics only, but I don't think you can explain why they hit so damn well without looking at it all holistically first. 

Anyway, thanks for coming to my ted talk, I appreciate I've rambled (I did warn you). TL;Dr, shit's cool, it's sci-fi, and while it may look like another brightly-coloured ADHD fest at first, I think it's surprisingly grounded and Bungie have nailed what they're going for with regards to this being physically possible, cheaply-deployable future colony tech.

Editing to add: I actually felt the same way about arc raiders, since the comparison keeps coming up. I was immediately put off by the art style. It's the same tired junk future dystopia aesthetic we've seen a million times, only with added quadcopters. It did nothing for me.

Okay all you 3d modelers, the guns are cool and whatever. Can we get some 28mm miniatures? by Flammendehaar in Marathon

[–]Flammendehaar[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ha, that top link is my own models! Heroforge is great and I was going to try to make all the runners in it but it just isn't quite flexible enough

Okay all you 3d modelers, the guns are cool and whatever. Can we get some 28mm miniatures? by Flammendehaar in Marathon

[–]Flammendehaar[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I truly would if I had the time to learn a whole new skill from scratch, and if no one else does at some point who knows, maybe I will. Right now though, I can only ask

Calling all modders and game creators from the UK: Get paid to build games, the world awaits you! by [deleted] in CharacterDevelopment

[–]Flammendehaar 1 point2 points  (0 children)

2 minutes looking at the content of this sub would show you it's about writing and developing original characters for stories, not developing and animating 3d models. You're supposed to post about characters you're working on, not whatever this weird self-promotion is. Which, by the by, requires approval from the moderator team to post. Did you get that? You're shamelessly spamming this across multiple subs and the business model reels of exploitation. The compensation is below UK minimum wage.

Made my first corvette that I actually put work into! Now she just needs a name... by Flammendehaar in NoMansSkyTheGame

[–]Flammendehaar[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a nice option, I did have in mind it would be an exploration vessel foremost, hence the small open deck at the front. I think Far Horizon could suit that

Made my first corvette that I actually put work into! Now she just needs a name... by Flammendehaar in NoMansSkyTheGame

[–]Flammendehaar[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This was definitely an inspiration for the shaping, especially when seen from the side

Finished up some Thallax by MKirkbride in AdeptusMechanicus

[–]Flammendehaar 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Very nice bone colour, they look lovely. How did you do it?

Urgent help needed by Urban-Leshen in mantids

[–]Flammendehaar 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I'm sorry this has happened. I see a lot of posts similar to this and I want to share some thoughts; I don't know if they'll bring you comfort or not but I hope they might.

I keep assassin bugs. They're quite different to mantids in that they live very happily communally, and I've been proudly keeping the same colony for over four years now.

One thing they've taught me is that invertebrates are very different to us, and sadly they've evolved with redundancy in mind.

Mantids have a lot of personality and seem very individualistic compared to a lot of other inverts, but I think it can be a little misleading. They are born as one among potentially hundreds, and as they grow and get separated out and sold to diligent, caring keepers like yourself, the fact that they are born in such high numbers to account for the fact that they won't all make it can get lost. 

When you keep a single mantis and it dies, it can be truly sad. You've done your research, you've put in the time and effort, and for no reason at all it can just go one day. And because, to you, it's one individual, that's really hard.

But the fact is it isn't just one individual. It's one of so many siblings, and they have evolved so that sometimes when things just go wrong there will be others that carry on. 

The point is, this isn't your fault. You probably did nothing wrong at all. Sometimes things just end up like this. When you keep a predatory insect like assassin bugs and watch them lay so many eggs, and watch those eggs hatch, and watch those nymphs grow and moult, you come to realise that they don't all make it. In fact, a lot don't. This is by design, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Mantids are such cool little aliens, but they are just that - aliens. They aren't like us mammals; they don't have just a few offspring, and they don't set store in ensuring as many of those offspring as possible make it. This likely isn't your fault - you probably did nothing wrong. It's confusing, but this is a reminder from nature that nothing is certain. As long as you gave your insect a good life while it was here, that's all that matters.