Back to the wargs

I got two gobbo riders painted last PM, but the camera's batteries were dead, so no pics yet. =(

Skin is goblin green (VGC), pants are coal black (p3), tops are cobra leather (VGC), belts are scorched brown (GW), metal is gunmetal (VGC), hilt is dwarf bronze (GW), wood is gun corps brown (p3), and eyes were black + bald moon yellow (VGC). Then the whole thing got washed with badab black.

The overall effect is not bad. There's no saddle or reins, and the little HQ guys look like they'd bounce right off, but they are unmistakably goblins riding wolves, and that's what matters!

I may saw off a few weapon hands and swap them out some holding bows, maybe even a standard bearer. I dunno yet.

Back from Garycon 3

It was quite a blast. There quite a few miniatures games going on in addition to the RPG-ing. I took a few pics and will upload them soon. The only one I played was Siege of Bodenberg, where I was on the invader (Hun) side.

The poll is closed and it looks like I'll be working on a dragon soon. The model in question is Mathrangul from Reaper Miniatures. I picked this model up a few years ago and it is still waiting in the wings. Here's a shot of its piece (templar mini for scale):



I had previously gotten it assembled and primed


The top of the head and one claw I plan to paint separately, then attach later. I also want to make him with a decorative stand for shelf display, but able to be removed for play. I have a few theories on how I may attempt that.

The plan is for it to be a big ol' red.

I still am working on the genestealers, but since the dragon is going to be less of a speed paint, I figure I can work on the SH minis in between stages of the big model.

baby steps

Well, I didn't end up painting the wolf riders (played with my new iPad instead!), but I did get them primed, along with several shields and some bow arms. I can make the pin holes in the wolves' backs this PM before the session and at least we can field the models. It may be after Garycon before I actually slap paint on these, but we'll see.

Gobbo riders, part 2

I should mention this is not a major project. I expect to finish it within a few days at most. Last PM I got the pieces of the goblins glued together (although I may still swap out a couple weapons for bows and/or spears). It's rainy here today, so this PM I will try to brush-on primer them and do a simple paint job. Goblin Green for skin, gray tunics, yellow eyes, Cobra Leather for the pants, and some Tin Bitz + Gunmetal for the weapons (Scorched or Beasty Brown for wood hafts, etc.). At that point they're ready for the table. Ideally, I'd like to have all ten ready for tomorrow PM's game.

Warg riders innnnn the SKY

What do you get when you take this:


and this:


and this:


and mix them together?

Hopefully –with the judicious application of a jeweler's saw and some milliput– some warg-riding gobbos. Pics to follow in the next day or so.

I'm working from some bitz and pieces I've got lying around. At first I thought just removing the Heroquest goblins' bases would work, but that quickly became messy. Sawing off the top half and gluing to the WFB goblin rider legs was much simpler. I have 10 of the WOTC Timber Wolves and I'm going to try just mounting the gobbos with a pin w/o gluing so I can add or remove them depending on whether I need wolf riders or just wolves. Nothing complicated. No saddles, etc. Just some mounted greenskins to wreak havoc. And, really, what more can anyone ask? (Besides hordes of zombies, that is.)

Post-Game Analysis

Well, the 48 are painted and sealed and ready for orc-y mayhem, all within the time allotted, so it's all good. Now it's time for a bit of "lessons learned."

Pacing: Overall I think the pace I set worked well. A dozen a week sounds like a lot, but really it was just 3-4 nights a week for a couple hours. Also, "rack-painting" 3-4 of them at a time goes faster per figure than painting them individually.

Color scheme: Planning out the colors ahead of time helped a lot. Likewise, the initial test-fig made me more confident of my color choices. That said, the next time I paint a large group like this, I'll probably try some more variation in the colors. Maybe having a couple of choices for the cloth or leather, etc. There were a couple of these minis that ended up with a lot of the leather color dominating the color scheme. If it had been a smaller project, I would have been tempted to re-do them, but I pressed on. Which bring up my next point.

"Get it on the Table": This was the mantra I had to repeat. I'm no Golden Demon painter, but I do like my figs to look nice. I'm what I like to consider "tabletop+" quality. Sometimes, I had to sacrifice some fiddly detail to keep moving on the overall project. As I looked at some strap or buckle that I wanted to make stand out, I would often stop myself and just pass it by. Part of it was the nature of the GW plastic sculpts, but I don't want to blame the materials. The simple fact was I wasn't going to waste the time and energy puzzling out each individual model's details. I still did things like put a touch of metallic on the belt buckles, or a little bleached bone on the teeth, or a spot of orange on the eye. So I guess I didn't jettison ALL the details. =)

I'm not a big wargamer, so despite having painted minis for years, most of the figures I've painted were for RPGs. This meant I was trying more for variety than quantity. So this was a neat exercise for me and gives me confidence to try getting more of the little hordes of minis crowding my table painted up.

48 orcs? What 48 orcs?

Oh, you mean THESE 48 orcs!



I'll post some better group shots when I have time to take them, but I wanted to get the mob pic online ASAP. All 48 are DONE, except for varnishing the last 12 shield & weapon boyz. (EDIT: I sealed them Thu. night, so they are all ready for the table!) Speaking of which, here are the final 6 I completed last PM.



This was a lot of fun, but I don't know if I wanna paint a mob of humanoids again anytime REAL soon. The blog was very useful for tracking my progress and motivating me. I'll have some postgame analysis in the near future.