Missed the deadline

Foo. I had a couple minis painted in 12 minutes, but in one case the camera quit, and the other one was terrible looking (even for a 12 minute paint job). I did, however, get several figures mostly painted in the process, so that was a plus.

12 Minutes!?

So AG Productions (http://www.agpminis.com/) is having a speed painting contest. Twelve minute time limit. I can rack paint pretty quick but 12 minutes is NOT much time. I've made a couple of attempts, but so far I keep falling about 2 minutes short. If I succeed, I'll link the video here. Here's the contest info: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WybYyniQHoQ&sns=em

Missed the painting club, but

did get some painting done this weekend. I worked on Shoatima and tried rack painting 3 dark elves. I got about 80% done with the elves before my eyes started to bug me, so I took a break and watch a DVD instead (durrrrrrrr!).

WIPs & Space Hulk

The unseasonably warm and dry October weather this past week was too good to pass up, spray-primer-wise. So I sat down and assembled a bunch of stuff, as well as getting Shoatima prepped and based. I also did an initial color test of a dark elf spearman. WIP pics below.

As promised, I pulled the Space Hulk pics off the camera. I've posted the better ones below as well, but I'm afraid there isn't a lot of detail to see.

Shoatima

The base is some cork on a washer. The exposed part of the washer will be painted like water, as if the otter is standing next to a stream or river.

The completed Blood Angels from Space Hulk


Lightning Claws!


Genestealers (complete)


Dark Elf color test. The contrast in the pic is a bit high. For example, the shield is a mix of Chainmail Silver (VGC) & Black (P3), giving it a slight metallic sheen. The base is snow done with baking soda and glue.




I also got 24 Warrior of Minas Tirith assembled and primed. They are from the same ROTK set as the 48 orcs.

SPACE HULK: Delivered!

Finally!

I finished the last of the Genestealers at Sunday's painting club meeting. They were tabletop all the way, but I don't think I embarrassed myself TOO much with the paint jobs. I got a layer of Testor's Dullcoate on them Monday afternoon and handed them over to my friend during Monday night's gaming session. It was his birthday to boot, so it was a nice surprise present for him.

I tried to take a few quick pics, but I don't think they came out very well. When I get a chance to D/L them from the camera, I'll see if any are worth posting.

Ah well, on to more fun things. Next up, I think I'll try and get Shoatima ready for my wife. Then, we'll see. Perhaps that dragon...

PS- I also picked up this guy while at the game store Sunday. (I couldn't resist)

Step by step, inch by inch

The 2 genestealers I started the other day are finished. I put two more on the table this AM, but haven't had a chance to put brush to them yet. Next week is painting club. I haven't made it there in the last month or two, so I'm hoping to get there this time around. With luck, I'll be done with the all the Space Hulk stuff by then, but if not, I know what I'll be carting along.

War of attrition

2 more genestealers started, 5 left waiting in the wings. With luck, I could finish these before it's too cold to spray varnish outside.

Another evening of NDT tonight. Many goblin minis were slain last week. If the group gets through the next section, they'll be past where some of us played up to last time we attempted this module and into NEW territory. Very exciting!

Another one down

One more genestealer finished. Seven to go!

Incremental progress and some acquisitions

One more genestealer done this weekend. So, progress.

I really need to get back in the habit of painting in the evenings, even if just for an hour. That and terrain/block casting.

On the plus side, I just placed an order with Reaper for two figs and I'll be really happy to see them arrive. One is the 54mm "Finari" sculpture, which I've wanted for a while:



(This one was painted by Jeremie Bonamant Teboul)

The other is "Shoatima", the otter ranger. It's the fourth mini in Reaper's "Legion of Justice and Caeke" series and one my wife has been eager for me to paint for her use (she loves river otters and generally plays archers).



Tonight's a gaming night, so no painting this PM. I'm GM-ing "Night's Dark Terror" for my group and having far too much fun watching them traipse around the Dymrak in the rain after goblins. (If you like, you can read about the campaign on its Obsidian Portal page here.)

Speaking of orcs

Especially Mordor orcs.

So I got "The One Ring" RPG from Gencon (thanks to my brother who attended).



It sure is purty. I've been trying to sit down and read through it, but haven't much time or mental energy for learning yet another new system that may never get played. It's not that I don't have Middle Earth fans in my group, but gaming time is limited and switching between campaigns (and rules sets) can feel like more trouble than it's worth.

Gen Con by proxy

Mr. Joel, my cohort at Faster Monkey Games, is currently at Gen Con. I decided to take advantage of this and have him pick up several Hirst Arts molds I am lacking. Namely from the Water Cavern series and a Gothic floor tile mold. Now I can buildings/dunegeons in "finished" Gothic style, rustic Fieldstone, or make caves & tunnels. SQUEE!!

I plan to have a major castng frenzy after I get the molds from him. I'm going to try and expand my "Hirst Arena" project I started a while back. You can see most of what I've made so far in Fieldstone:




Check out the customized secret door!

Hirst Huts painted

I finished the two CD based huts I made from Hirst fieldstone blocks. Apologies for the blurry pix:



PS- I should mention I finished 2 more genestealers! YAY!

If you build it...

...are you just wasting time?

I recently starting plotting out a terrain build for a game, but partway into it I experienced misgivings. The idea was to make some terrain for a specific battle where the nature of the layout is pre-defined by the module. Was it really worth the time and effort to put this thing together for a specific session? It would take most of my evenings between now and then (I would really have to rush), and it would likely only get used once. Further, it would mean I was concentrating on getting some "prop" ready instead of prepping to run the actual session.

In the end, I'm opting to ignore the terrain and try to get my head ready to run a fun-filled session where I keep the action moving and the players on the edges of their seats.

hut pix

The Hirst houses still need to be painted.

Odds & Ends

The terrain bug continues to distract me as I made three peasant cottages this weekend: two from Hirst Arts fieldstone and wooden roofing tile molds, the other scratch-built from foamcore and balsa. I finished the foamcore one (pix to follow later). The Hirst cottages are still unpainted. All three are mounted on CDs.

I have an idea for a Labyrinth Lord mini-campaign that will use SBH for some NPC skirmishes. It has a military aspect to it, so the players will get to make some strategic decisions. We'll see how it plays out, assuming people want to play.

Like I need more orcs

But I am liking this new one from Reaper:



He's a "Black Orc Warbringer" from the Warlord line. It looks a bit different from their Bull Orcs. Almost GW-y, but not in a BAD way. :-)

Wargames Factory

I got my Celtic Cavalry pack the other day. The look pretty pretty sweet, actually. There's a dearth of shields (only one or two per non-horse sprue), but that's easily remedied from the bitz box. They're smaller than things like Reaper horses (i.e. Warlord deathriders), but not so much they couldn't be on the same field.

I have some RAFM "Tribe of the Midnight Sun" horsemen and archers that are pretty close in size. Now I'm wondering whether I should add some RAFM axemen and spears to make a nice quasi-historical army. :-)

pic as promised

River, cairn, bridge, hill, standing stones, and a Hirst tower I made a while back with various minis on the new battle board.


EDIT: I ended up repainting the one segment where the glue blistered. I re-coated it with PVA and it's looking much better. You can't see in the pic, but that's after I fixed it but the glue is a little wet still.

A River Runs Through It

Well, I don't have pix yet –I'll post some tonight– but I spent yesterday making a bunch of terrain, including a sectional river out of MDF. It's in four pieces, each ≈ 1' long, and can cross the whole (4') board. The sections are ≈7" across; which is equivalent to an SBH Long Move. ;-) I used 3/4" wide strips of foam core as the river banks and flocked them with sand and static grass. I also cut a bunch of other shapes from the MDF (new jigsaw!) and plan on making some ponds and swampy terrain.

I tried a tip I read in an old GW book on terrain making. I used PVA glue on top of the painted river water for a gloss effect. Overall it worked OK. It's more "satiny" than glossy. Unfortunately I tried using my heat gun on them to speed up the drying, and the glue sort of "blistered" in places on one section. I'm going to try gently sanding this off and re-applying the glue again.

I also made a hill with a cliff face (not finished painting it yet), a ring of standing stones, a cairn, and a Hirst arts bridge for the river. I also want to make a ford and rapids based on stiff clear plastic (like clamshell packaging) that I can lay over the water.

Added piano hinges

Field of Battle

I just finished a new 4 x 4' sandboard. It's two 1/2" thick 2 x 4' MDF boards with some coarse + fine sand and painted with browns & greens. I'm going to try attaching them with a piano hinge for storage. Here's some pix with some undead facing off against some orcs and some random bits of scenery chucked onto it.

More stuff ordered

I went ahead and got some Celtic Cavalry from wargames factory. These are 28mm figs, btw. According the website, the box includes:

"11 sprues - enough to create 12 cavalry figures with options for both light and heavy (chainmail armored) cavalry. Figures are multi-part hard plastic with separate heads, arms, shields, weapons, and saddles for maximum customization."

All for $19.95 + S/H!

I'm pretty excited to see what I get. It would be very cool to have a nice troop of horsemen to field for RPGs or SBH-type skirmishes.

Was reading a back issue of Free Hack when

I saw an ad for these guys:
http://www.wargamesfactory.com

I think I'm gonna have to get me a box of celts or vikings. I don't really need any more orcs right now! ;)

SBH video review and battle

These guys from Serbia did I nice vid about Song of Blades and Heroes. Check it out:

inching along

Two more genestealers done as of last night. I also got a couple Reapers finished off: A gnoll and a female duellist (rapier). I grabbed another GS and a goblin standard bearer to paint. The gobbo might be handy for SBH. Now if the humidity would just go down a little, I could spay seal some of this stuff!

Genestealers without End

Got the two GS from painting club done (bases finished) last PM. I also knocked out one Reaper fig that had been languishing at 90% complete, so that's cool. They still need sealed, though (maybe tonight before gaming). I've put two more GS up on the table to work on, more of the simple poses and bases.

In other news, Marthrangul got spray primed red the other day (Army Painter Dragon Red, same as I used for the Terminators), so it's kinda cool to see him with color on.

Painting day!

Finally getting back to the painting club today. Gonna try to make some inroads on the genestealers. I got two painted over the last couple weeks, hopefully I'll match that today. I think I'll pick the simpler sculpts first, just to get the head count up a bit. Part of me hesitates to leave the more complicated ones for last, but at this point I need to do something to clear this mental logjam.

Whose wife loves them?

She found this bag and snagged it for me. I'm kicking it Old School now!

sigh

so I kinda blew the genestealer deadline. :-( May and April have been really busy months for me, with hardly any painting.

WAAAAAAAAArgs!

Well, those are done at least:




Two of them are on Reaper wolf minis instead of the WOTC plastics, giving me an even dozen:


All sealed and ready to rumble! Looking forward to fielding them.

I've got some sorta mental block or something

I stole 15 min to do the ink wash on three goblin wolf-riding archers (so they're done), but no more progress to report on the genestealers. :-(

Part of my problem is classic painter's ADD. I have so many minis –some older, some new– that I'm interested in painting that focusing in just one type is a real chore in itself.

The other issue is that I've let these Space Hulk guys languish so long that I'm feeling guilty about them and so that mental baggage actually creates a level of inertia about them. Silly, I know, but there it is.

So here's what I'm thinking: A) I need to make time to paint. B) When I sit down to paint, I will only work on ONE genestealer at a time alongside something else. That something else can be whatever I want, but the deal is I have to spend at least part of the time working on the genestealer while I'm at the table. I'll see if I can't try to put this method into practice tonight.

Slow start

1 down.

sigh

I'm worried that this is going to actually be tougher than the orcs. For one thing, the next few weeks are going to be pretty busy with family stuff (Easter, birthdays, etc.). Also, the genestealer minis are less uniform in appearance than the orcs were, so "rack" painting is difficult. Even with the uniform color scheme for the aliens themselves, each fig has to be approached slightly differently, especially the funky bases with things like pipes and machinery.

17 Genestealers in 25 days

Apparently I need to set a deadline, here. So that's the goal: one Space Hulk genestealer every 1.5 days. Starting April 20th and finishing by midnight Saturday May 14th. Time to get these darned things off the painting table!

Slaaaaaaaack

Not much painting done in the last several days, but I've decided that the big dragon project has to wait until ALL the genestealers and wolf riders are done. I need to finish these to mentally "clear the decks" as it were. Otherwise, I'm afraid I'll rush the dragon because I'll be worrying about getting done with the other minis.

I'm going to TRY to get some painting done tonight, but my folks are coming into town to stay with us a few days and I'm going to need to be on call for getting stuff ready and wrangling the princesses-in-training. We'll see what happens.

Monday update

Not much to report, I started work on the three wolf-riding archers over the weekend. I also got some other gobbos (and two pewter wolves from Reaper) primed, so that will eventually give me a dozen of them. The archer still need their bows and their leather armor finished (plus an ink wash).

It's RPG night tonight, so it's unlikely any painting will happen this PM.

Wolf Goblins & conversions

Two more wolf riders painted last PM. I also converted three to archers. More about that in a minute. First off, here are some pics of a few completed ones.



The spear & shield one is an older WFB one I did a couple years ago, the other two are recent.

Here's a "hobgoblin" made from a WFB orc and a WOTC winter wolf. He's supposed to be Vlack (anyone? Bueller?)



You can see what the model look like separate here:


The hole is drilled just behind the hump of the wolf's back and I don't glue them together so I can remove the goblin rider if I want just a wolf mini. They fit together like this:



Now, the archers. I took one of the normal goblins (unpainted) and put him in a vise, wrapped him in a paper towel to avoid marring the surface. Then I used a jeweler saw to cut off his weapon arm at the shoulder.




Then I take a bow arm from a gobbo WFB sprue, which I just spray primed the whole sprue at once,



aaaand glue them together!

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.

It's a Poll!!

I don't want to jinx anything, but the project is drawing to a close and it looks likely I'll make the deadline (knocks on wood). I'm looking ahead to future projects and trying to decide what to do. While I think I will take a week or two to focus on those genestealers, I'm pondering a few possibles for after that.

Take a look at the poll above and tell me what you think sounds fun or interesting. You can vote for more than one option. I'll leave it up until after I get back from Garycon (3/29)

Day 26

No minis painted last PM, but we played two rounds of Space Hulk wherein I got annihilated playing the terminators. We also played a quick round of SBH, where the Starwood Clan Elves (see below) beat my Gnolls (Quick tip: failing a morale check right next to the edge of the board? = Bad Idea). Fun was had, though. Tonight, PAINTING.

Day 25

The friend for whom I am painting the Space Hulk minis is coming into town this evening, so I'm going to play some SH tonight instead of painting. I may get a chance to start the last six orcs tonight before he gets to my house, but more likely it will be tomorrow or Thursday.


We might play some Song of Blades and Heroes too. I'd also recently made up a bunch of pre-gen 300 point warbands for pick-up games like these. There are:

• Orcs (of course!)
  
• Goblins
  
• Undead
  
• Dwarfs
  
• Elves
  
• Gnolls (aka "Hyena men")
  
• Humans
  
• Bugbears
  

Feel free to use the lists for your own games. I make no promises regarding battle-effectiveness. I was mostly basing it off of what models I personally have on hand.

42/48!

Got these 6 finished last PM and put static grass on them this morning. I'm not crazy about how much leather is right next to itself in a couple of these, but that's tabletop speed painting for you, sometimes you just have to go with the color scheme and move on.

Weekend Update

Jane, you ignorant- wait, wrong update!

I put 6 more orcs on the painting table Saturday PM, I only got the skin done on them, but it's a start. My normal gaming session may be canceled for this week. If so, I'll try to use the time to make some progress.

End of Week Photos

Here are the greataxe orcs



And here are the first batch of the shield boyz I painted Fri PM:



Current count: 36/48 (back on track!)

PS- I realized I miscounted the days and labeled the End of Week 3 posts as Week 2. Fixed now. Going into the last week now with a dozen to go! Deadline: Fri PM (3/18)

Day 21 update

Since I was up so early (4am), I did finish the basing of the greataxe orcs this AM before work. I also began some shield orcs. I only did a basecoat on the skin and the tunics, but it's a start.

End of week 3

I didn't get a chance to paint last night, so I am 4 orcs behind :-( (Still 32/48) I'll try to paint some tonight.

I did get online at the crack o' dawn this AM and order my iPad2 though! With luck, it'll arrive in time for my trip to Garycon. I went with the black 16GB & Verizon 3G. I also snagged a blue neoprene cover.

Why the heck not?

Jim over at the Underdark Gazette has a Fiendish Plan to increase awareness of old school RPGs, RPG sites, and various OSR Games. So I present

Felicia Day as a Hot Elf Chick