End Of The Week (32.5)

I started the week with a plan. It was a good one too. But no plan survives contact with children. So currently watching the little one running around a trampoline park. At least at the time I am writing this. I am claiming thirty and a half minis for the week. The half and some of the whole numbers being animals.

There was a twitchy sphincter moment when I didn't think I was going to get close to finishing what I started. I got some time after the little one went to sleep and more or less caught up/+. I am now nicely North of one hundred painted minis. So on balnce, I am happy and The New, New Cruelty fins the situation acceptable.

So there were a few bits that needed finishing from last week. The five armed civilians, which I think are Scotia, have been hanging around since last week so it was nice to get them done. There was also a female crossbow woman from  Northstar's Frostgrave range, that needed a few spots of paint. Other than the pigs, all the animals were started and finished this week, whilst the pigs just required a few details. Don't ask where they came from as they were a random purchase on the market. The darker animal between the bugs is a bit of a mystery. I was assuming this was a domesticated dog but it has some prominent brows which could be nascent horns, making it a goat. The treasure pile was given to me by a friend, in the late nineties. It had been sat in a bits box for some time after being purchased from a bargain bin so its probably a late eighties GW mini.

The main focus of the week was the guys in suits. These should work for any modern game and some sci-fi stuff. They are a mix of Future Wars and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang from Copplestone.

As I have the laser cutter up and running, this has been used for a bit.  I might be playing Midgard: Heroic Battles so I thought I would get ahead with some bases, counters and measuring gauges. I have also finished the one hundred and thirty of so hex tiles for the next terrain hex project.

I have prepped a fair number of figures. Most of what I got in York is now bases on textured bases. I was planning on painting these but they are not primed. This should give me enough figures for an ulfhunder unit for  Midgard. What's above is about half of them.

Next week is all about the little guys.

Stargrave

Life has a habit of getting in the way if gaming. Still I have found North Star getting in the way of saving money. Most of my figure purchasing budget has been through them or one of their subsidiaries.

I like the idea of Stargrave but didn't get the rules. I will probably get round to it but will wait until it gets to be a little cheaper. They figures tho seemed like a pretty good deal and that was before the stretch goals.  Over the years I have spent a lot of time putting plastic minis together and this was one of the better experiences. Two handed weapons seem to have arms that fit together very nicely. As with other Northstar kits the figures are perhaps in the smaller end but they more than make up for this by the number of option choices. 

It's left me with enough bits from two frames to do two frames of gnolls, a project I have been meaning to do since I got the original gnoll set. If anything it's the sci-fi gnolls that gave really got my interest.

Given a bit if time I might get round to actually painting them and maybe doing a few more warbands 

The Big Lock In

I have been off work for a few days now. I've not got "it" I don't think but I have a cough that wakes the kids up. Not that I am getting to see them as I am currently in "splendid isolation". Still the bench is in good shape and I don't handle boredom well....so....

These have already been strange days for me. I went from working from home for eight years back to the real world of work. Mainly because I was about to become a dad, which I now am. This hasn't allowed as much me time. Until now.

At one point last year I really was getting back into painting and then the job and then the baby came along. No such excuse but good problems to have. In fact, as I am not allowed to go anywhere I have no excuses.

So back to the paint table. There are some figures to paint but I am currently feeling the terrain side of things, with maybe a little bit of figure painting on the side. So I have some post apocalypse stuff in mind.  For years now I have wanted to do some junk fences and, since around 2015, I have really been looking for the bits. Just about have enough now but still feeling the urge to over supply myself. There are a few bits that might make it useful for other things like modern or even sci-fi but they were really aimed to have the end of the world look. There is some junk piles. Always good for dressing up the battlefield. When I was having a tidy up I found some aquarium plants that I got to make trees for 6mm sci-fi in the mid nineties. They are getting incorporated into the junk, the fences and some areas of scrub. Last summer I started working on some mesa type terrain. I hope to get them finished off too. There are some scrap cars (some all out war and some really cheap stuff my mum got me before she died, imagine, still having toys brought for you in your fifties) that need that post apocalypse vibe finishing off. I have been planning a post apocalypse game set in London for a few years now and wanted to do something for that too. I have some ideas for scrap vehicles and thought I might do a scrap tank and a ruined scrap tank too. There are also some toy vehicles that I would like to make a bit more table top friendly. There is also some quasi industrial stuff to do. This is all scratched built but I am aiming for the higher end of scratch built so very little in the way of soup cans and bottle tops. The plan is a real deep  dive into the bits box I have been sat on for thirty years topped off with all the bit I have been acquiring over the last few years.

A long time ago (twenty plus years ago) I wanted to do something a bit more in keeping with more modern 28mm terrain alongside a version of the building that has been post apoclyfied (it is a word, I made it up). If time and the current pre-apocalypse allow, I might get here too.

I am also liking the sci-fi vibe at the moment with X-Com leading the way. I can see some terrain and maybe even some figures being done for that. Some of what I am doing and planning will work across a number of genres. I have been playing X-Com 2 which covers sci-fi and even post apocalypse which works out fine for me. Some of it should also work with the concepts I have for a mecha game.

There are some All Out War minis to finish off which I guess are also post apocalyptic. I was in the very early stages of doing a doom lords Blood Bowl team and there is also a Nurgle team which is just about ready to go. There are a whole load of random stuff on the bench to. There is stuff from twenty years ago from the future wars range by Foundry and some wild west stuff, which may also be foundry or Northstar. On a number of occasions I think I have said that I have finished off all the dark ages stuff. I just found some more so they are going to go into the queue to.

My main interest this year has been the Star Wars Legion game. At some point I would like to give it a go but my main interest was in using them for roleplaying as the only game I am in (was in/on hiatus). I ordered some more yesterday and I have a pile on the table.

There is a lot of stuff going on in the big wide world. Not sure what to do about it in this forum as there is plenty of good information out there. That said Now that I have a reason to pass stuff on to the next generation, maybe I will chose to post some stuff here.

End Of The Week - And I Am Reasonably Pleased (35)

This week I am more than happy with my painting performance. I am getting closer to having a completed force for my Viking RPG game. Thirty five figures done and dusted (well varnished) so I am quite content. Admittedly the majority were relatively simple and most were on the small side. Still a fair amount of work has gone into them so I am not counting them as a half figure.

I have a figure that I used as a black elf  (svartalfar) leader but when I saw these I thought they would do what I wanted. A king queen and a couple of palace guards. The touch of purple is possibly too much but I thought it gave them a nice imperial feel.

Every king and queen need a few hench elves. I am not sure about the pointy hats. I did think about doing a christmas game featuring black elves so maybe it will work.

Three more of the black tree designs high elves painted as black elves. I have already done a set of these last year but a few more can't hurt.

 This is not really a black elf but a mage from thr Frostgrave Nickstarter. I could think of no really useful purpose for him before but he seems to fit with the bad guys.

I have done two batches of lizardmen skinks. The onl small one in a mix of plastic and metal. The first batch was almost all metal. These were quite well detailed figures.

The second batch of this week's skinks. These are almost all plastic and relatively simple models to paint so a very quick job. I really didn't put that much effort into them.

Finally a group shot of all of what I have done. So I now have 36 in total. I have some of the newer plastic skinks too. I might get them done in the not to distant future. I have to say that I think the older figures are much nicer even if they are mono-pose.

End Of The Week - ?/^&$%" (0)

Some progress has been made, never as much as I would like. Most of the current project and the background project now has a base colour and a wash although there are a few I have barely touched. Almost not detailing has been done and that is what generally takes the time. What I have done so far looks pretty good to me. If I pushed it today I would probably finish but I have friends here so that is unlikely to happen. My plan is basically to add another five figures into the mix. If I can finish them next week it would put be back on track. A bit of basing of some more elves (alfar) has been done. These are planned as black alfar for the Viking Game.

Today's post is a little bit early so maybe I am being a little bit premature in saying this but I haven't finished any figures again this week. It has been a very busy week for me. Painting has played a major part in it but unfortunately the paint has been emulsion and the objects involved were walls. Someone now has a Slytherin themed bedroom. After a series of some hard and some fun days, painting has not been on the top of the agenda.

Instead of painting I have been board gaming. This has been an enjoyable distraction. There may be some more of that next week. I will probably get around to posting some pictures of the games when I get round to it.

Fantasy Necromancer Miniatures Are Fun

Fantasy miniatures are still my thing this week and this Necromancer, I call him Vetis Bane, is a pivotal character in the legends that hold my dark age fantasy world together. I have talked about the miniatures and the ideas behind in a few places on the blog already, such as here and there. Given that things have been a little slow this evening, I have had a chance to get some stuff done as well as some time away with friends. Note To Self: This was a very good weekend.

So I am still largely working with inks, certainly for the main blocks of colour. Obviously, some of the details have to have some colour before they get a wash. One of the reasons is that the palette of colours that I have in ink is pretty limited and I find it difficult to mix them together consistently. The effect on the clothing isn't half bad. There is still a bit of work to do on them but as it has been a busy week, I suspect that these three will be the only ones  to get fully finished this week.

The figures are almost all Northstar apart from the most human head, which is Westwind. I think I am right in say that all the Northstar parts come from the Cultist box. It seemed the most obvious choice for the parts as it covers all the bases when it comes to poses and states of decomposition although possible some GW parts would have been okay as well.

My posts have been a bit thinner on the ground this month. Whilst I was managing a post a day almost all year (and on aggregate, more than that for the year) January is proving to be a very busy month. I am not sure how and why that is, apart from the exercise but it is proving to be fun

A Good, Bad Guy

A good, bad guy is great for most RPG and having a 28mm figure to represent them on tabletop is even better. I talked about the idea a while back HERE. In my game that bad guy is a necromancer (possibly the best bad guy for fantasy) called Vetis Bane. He is written into the myths of the land but the players have yet to meet him in person. Not that I am modelling him on Sauron.

Once you have done the big reveal and put the bad guy on the table with the players his days are numbered. You need an exit strategy or the players are eventually going to catch up with him. However, this guy is a necromancer and if he can bring zombies back from the dead then why can't he bring himself back? This would give me a bit of a back up if something went wrong and the players got closer than intended.

The idea is to have the bad guy in various stages of decline. Normally, withered and decayed. I looked for a metal min for the purpose but couldn't find the right figure on one that could be easily converted. It wasn't until I had gone through that process until I thought about what I actually had already.

So I was going  through what I had in boxes and I found some Northstar Cultist figures from their Frostgrave figures. Whilst no absolutely perfect I figured that they would be a good place to start. I didn't like any of the heads in the back so I found this metal head and thought it would just about do. I haven't made up my mind. What do you think?

Undead Of Some Sort

I've had another go with the inks today and have all but finished off what I started yesterday. These are some more Frostgrave figures. I am not sure what I will use the for. Mostly, I have selected them to paint because they have been hanging around, primed and based for about two years now. They also seemed like a good choice to try the inking thing on. It's a little more ethereal.

Still a few more details to finish on them, especially on the faces but they are pretty much done.

Hill Or Frost Giant

I think I got this guy from Northstar as part of the Frostgrave range when it came out. It's not the biggest giant miniature I posses but he is nicely posed and has what I consider a very giant like face.

This week I thought I'd try out a few techniques that are new to me. One of the things I came across lately was to use washes as the main paint. It doesn't work for all colours, especially on bigger areas and it seems to work better on grey. The colour on the base is the one I started with. Obviously on black you are not going to see it and on white it's going to be a bit too translucent but maybe that's not a bad effect either.

The skin and the fur are essentially washes which have been highlighted. The flesh has worked out very nicely and the fur is not too shabby either. The white hair and anything that is brown has had some paint and I think I gave the head of the axe a different colour of grey than the rest of it.

My plan is to try this out on a few other models. If it works this should speed things up a lot. This giant took about an hour which is pretty good for a bigger model.

Bases, Washes And A Need to Clean Up The Workbench

This is going to be a quick post. I am coming down with a bug the kids have given me. Yey.

The FabLab went okay. I was bounced out a little early so I didn't get all that I was hoping to do. Hopefully the staff will finish off my stuff for me and I will be able to pick it up on Thursday. I still managed to get fifteen plus bases cut and all have been glued, most have been flocked and some have been painted. I should have just about enough to run a game when these are done and there will be enough for multiple options when the rest get finished.

After doing that I finished off a few more details on the figures.The Gripping Beast Romano-British are coming along nicely but I am struggling to bring out some of the details of the Northstar Frostgrave figure. Then I moved onto doing the washes. There are still a few details that need to be attended to as well as the highlighting. Hopefully I should get this done for close of play tomorrow.

Zomtober is on the Horizon. Although I have missed out for a couple of years, I have a plan that means that I should be taking part, I got a few minis today just for the purpose of running the game. These are perhaps the most expensive minis (in 28mm anyway) I have purchased in a while.I have primed them today but they should be being started in earnest in the next week or so.

Closer Than Expected

The holiday is looming so time is running out to finish the week's target. With a bit of luck and dedication I will probably get to the five figures per week. ALong with the rats being finished I am more or less up to date. If I get the time I may even make it to ten but I am much less certain about that. What I am seeing is that the week I get back I should make ten. This would leave me on target. Some days I really do think this is turning into Bridget Jones diary. Anyway, here are the clerics that are nearing completion.

Over the last few days I have been looking around for  a few ideas for projects. The Viking game has a major villain called Vetis Bane. I know it's not very Norse but it sounds really good. What I have lacked was a suitable figure for it. Whilst there are a few figures that would probably do the trick, my specific needs are a bit more complicated. What i wanted to do was create a range of figures something along the lines of the mummy in The Mummy. There needs to be stages of decay. Fully intact, a little zombified and skeletal. The plan had been to find a model to convert. So far the figures I have seen would be too difficult to convert. They have goods or are gripping onto something. Then I realised the answer has been staring me in the face for well over a year.

This is a Frostgrave Cultist frame from Northstar. If I take the right body from the frame along with skeletal and zombie arms and a human head and arms from elsewhere (not sure about the head)  but the arms can probably come from the soldiers sprue.

Maybe this is a project for when I get back.

Earth Elementals

Just a quick little post, Some work has just been finished off on the smaller one by Northstar. Orange is apparently the new black. The larger one is a reaper bones crystal golem I think This has a few more bits lined up for the base as there is acres on unused space there. I like this model a lot and might get another one and actually paint it as a crystal golem/elemental.

Rats

Rats. Northstar rats in particular. Nice looking miniatures on line but lots of flash, so much so I still don't think I got it all and I will have to hide some of the undersides when I do the bases. These were brought because I don't have any medium sized rats I have plenty of smaller rats (which are ral Partha) which are about accurate size of slightly bigger and even the odd humanoid rat. I figure as well as a fantasy game they would do for Fallout or other post apocalyptic genres (anything that has use across multiple games is good).

Over time I have been a big devotee of the Frostgrave range. Whilst I don't own the complete range I am not that far off it. Here I went as far as buying three packs of figures because I liked the look of them so much. In hindsight, whilst the figures are nice, the castings are pretty poor which is unexpected as most of the Frostgrave stuff has been excellent.

They are still work in progress (and have been sat on the bench half painted for months) so no close up shots yet. As these get finished off. I would hope that they will improve. These are nice looking sculpts and fit my purposes perfectly although this may take a while. Rat wise I need a rat swarm and some larger ones still and all my rat needs should be taken care of.

I have had some more second hand malifaux stuff  through the post today. It wa cheap so I guess I can't complain but it did arrive a bit battered. Maybe I will move on to doing a bit more of that as time goes by.

P.S. Not sure what happened when I first went to post this but this morning I found the page full full of gibberish. A few unkind souls might say that there is nothing new there then. When I came back into the room the cat was sat next to the computer so I am guessing that might have something to do with it.

Marking Time By What's On The Workbench

I haven't done much painting for a few days and this morning I was feeling the absence. Although I have had plenty to do, I have found time to do some painting. The New Cruelty dictates that I paint five figures per week. This means finish the paint job, nothing else. Things like bases, decals and various bits of set dressing doesn't count. By this standard, I have finished eight figures this week. As a bonus I have gotten close to finishing with quite a few more.

I showed six Blood Bowl Human Team linemen earlier in the week. These are here. As I thought I might get a couple of quick wins, I started and finished a couple of earth elementals. I will take a some better pictures of these and post them next week.

I have gotten close to finishing another seven Blood Bowl Players. One Troll for the Orc Team, four Human Blitzers and two Human Throwers. There are a couple of  Frostgrave miniatures that are pretty close to being done.

When I was doing the eyes of the larger of the two elementals (one Reaper one Northstar) I spilt a load of blue paint. This sent me off on a huge side track to use the paint. There have been some chemical barrels lying around, primed but unpainted, for a while. They have now been painted and washed and a little bit of work will see them done. A lot was used on the coins used as Blood Bowl re-roll counters. I have eight from the Humans and Orcs and some more from the Dwarf and Skaven teams.  I did  bit of work on the hands used as markers and the ones for the Orc team are fairly close to being done.

Now all I need is some spray varnish.

Gratuitous Work In Progress Shots

What chances I have had today I have spent painting. This should have been a good day for painting as my other half is out of the house for a few days. Trouble is the dog is missing her and has spent a lot of time going mental.

My first six Blood Bowl Human linemen are up. Progress on these has been quick but I have chosen a fairly simple colour scheme (Widnes Vikings' away strip). Compared to the Orc Team, these should be a doddle. Anyway, I have no pictures yet so I will do a bit more work and get some shots up.

The Troll

There is also the Orc Team Troll. This has taken a bit of a back seat for some reason. For a long time I have found large minis a little off putting as projects go (and horses to but I have got better at painting them). Whilst I haven't done much, I have taken the opportunity of having spare paint on my palette to add some details. This makes it officially a background project. The figure is hugely animated and will look really good when finished. My only gripe is that there is a lot of areas on the model that are hard to get to. When he is done he should make a nice addition to the team.

Speaking of background projects, I have three fantasy figures on the go. These are all Frostgrave creatures, a beastcrafter, a golem and an apprentice. These have been on the bench for the best part of a year so I figured that it was time that I at least made an effort with them.

Frostgrave "finest"

I guess the reason why they are taking so long to get done is that they don't current fill any needs, they are just things I like the idea of painting them. So the repeatedly fall to the back of the queue.

Gnolls Again

Although I am itching to get on with the Human Blood Bowl Team I am a little intimidated by the project. There is a lot of work in there and there is a few more figures to buy as well. Whilst I don't think that is going to stop me starting, it is going to give me the excuse to finish off what I already started.

Work in progress but nearly done

The gnolls were the last project I started before the laser cutting thing. So they have been sat there gathering dust for a while. This is one project I have been putting off because despite how the figures looked online, what I have been getting from the Frostgrave range has been a little below par. There was a lot of quite chunky flash and this seemed to my mind to be making them hard to paint.

Now that I have been painting them again, this seems a little less of a problem. The figures are looking pretty good. These still have a bit of work to do but it is mostly detailing and some work on the base.

My main problem is that the Frostgrave stuff hits my particular gaming niche at least as far at tabletop RPG goes. Whilst these are more D+D, a game I don't really play, they do represent a race I don't have any figures for. As well as their more traditional use, I keep thinking they would do as an enemy race if I ever do get Titansgrave off the ground.

Going back to The New Cruelty, I am pretty much on target to get double the required number of figures

Plans Never Work

In the Blood Bowl game there is a god they players and fans worship called Nuffle (not NFL). If Nuffle exists, he is not smiling on me today. I was up early with a plan to varnish the prc team. When I picked the varnish up it was apparent that I didn't have enough varnish to do it. So I moved on to the humans that I was going to undercoat. The wind was blowing them everywhere. The spray was more or less non-existent beyond about three inches. Then the cat managed to scatter them all over the place. Anyway, they are done now and I need to leave them to dry for a bit before starting painting them.

Way too many figures for me to contemplate and this isn't all them

So now it's about finishing stuff off. There is a lot of odd Frostgrave figures on the table.The gnolls are the most advanced so they are looking like the first choice. I have some rats, a beast master and some monsters floating around to. The North Star gnolls should not take long tolong to finish although I should be careful what I say. As I have become used to painting orc linemen, the gnolls are tiny. I went for a neutral colour scheme which means washing and highlighting should be quick. As they have been sat around for a while, it would be nice to put them in a draw and hide them away after they have been painted.

Anyway, this is another month over. I have just about managed to maintain an average of a post a day if not an actual daily post. So I am still on track to keep it going till the end of the year and beyond. The blog is nudging 400,000 hits and I would hope to get there in about a week. I won't be happy until I hit the million mark but I am guessing that this is a while off.

End Of The Week - Miniature Painting Update

It's actually been a better week for painting than I was expecting. It started with having to finish off five Ratling/Halfling snipers. My urge is to say that they are finished but I am guessing this is not really the case. There is stuff that I can do on them but the truth is that I am never really going to be happy with them. For the time being I am going to keep them on the table and play about with them until I am happy with the final result.

This should really screw up my timetable. Last week I was supposed to finish them and move on and I set myself a goal of finishing them and do another five figures. At the beginning of the week I thought that there was going to be no chance of that happening. Then I started the dryads. I have a dozen of these and I was expecting to finish six of them so that I could be caught up with my goals. Instead I managed to get all twelve of them done, based, varnished and even managed to get some extra bits on the bases.

The week's work didn't end there. I have based and primed a load of figures including seven gnolls and another figure that I thought was a gnoll for a while. It turns out it's actually a beast crafter and to be honest, although I like the figure, it's probably of no use to me at all. There are a few other figures primed and based. There are a couple of earth golems and a genie ready to go too. These should be easy to get done.

I was a little unhappy with the way the bases on The Walking Dead Miniatures bases had turned out. As well as varnishing them, I put a few tufts on the bases to hide the worst of it. I'll put these back in the box now, it seems like a good place to put them. I was looking at the new releases for the game. There are another twenty four figures due out. Whilst very nice they work out at around £4 per figure. Now I know you get some other bits with them but they are not much use to me. Whilst I like them I am not sure I like them that much.

Painting On Saturday

Having a few other things to keep me busy this afternoon, I did a good bit of painting today but not as much as I would like. Having seen how far I got yesterday I am fairly confident on finishing the dryads this weekend. So I decided that there was a need to do a bit of prep for next week. As there is not much prepped and ready to go I thought I should do something to make sure I could hit the ground running next week.

So I went through the draws that I have that are full of figures and dug out what I wanted. I had been thinking about doing the plastic Frostgrave gnolls. This was not going to get done as I don't think I have the patience to cut them out and glue them together. Plastic figures have a lot going for them but they take ages to put together which is putting me off at the moment. Then I found a few other bits that I was thinking abut painting.

Then the weather did not look promising so I am going to have to spray in the morning when hopefully it's sunny. From there it's on to the finishing off this week's work.

I like to put a good portion of the basing before I start painting the figures. The easiest way I have found is to glue the figure to the base with super glue after making sure the base is smooth enough. When that has dried cover the base and figures base with PVA. It normally works out better to do this as a batch process. Then cover them with sand or whatever I am using. I leave them for a bit before clearing the area around the feet so they don't dissappear.

Silly Ideas And More Primer

As I was set up to use some primer and the weather was a little bit better this morning, I decided that I might do a bit more. The good weather did not last long and the heavens opened up again so I have come back inside. In previous houses it was possible to do this in the garage, here, not so much unless I want the whole house to smell of primer.

Most of it was just random stuff left in the draws next to the work bench. All sorts of stuff really. Some for X-Com, Frostgrave/Viking game/Skyrim, post-apocalypse, a reaper dragon and even some D+D in the form of some plastic carrion crawlers from a D+D board game I found cheap on a market.

One bit of frivolity though. A relatively time consuming piece of frivolity though. I saw someone online with a painted a Blood Bowl range ruler, throw in template and scatter template online. I have had some gold paint knocking about for years so I figured I would give it a go, So a coat of primer, paint and varnish later, U had this. Nicely dull thanks to the matt varnish.

What I didn't get round to doing was varnishing the figures I already have painted. Probably a good job, I am not sure matt varnish and rain mix well. Maybe another day. Still, I might try and get some painting done.