A New Project Looms

My brother (of Catthulhu fame) has a complete set of the old HeroQuest adventure game. He is wanting to eBay it and asked me to paint up the minis.

As you can see from my previous post, I love the HQ minis. They're just fun! So I'll be working on those over the next few weeks and posting my progress. I may even do a video or two about speed and rack painting. Whee!

A couple more (just for fun)

I plan on using a couple of these HeroQuest knight minis in an upcoming video. This one was a color test (took about 40 minutes to paint using TAP paints).

And here's a Reaper zombie speed paint that's been sitting for a while:

Who knew??

Ultramarines Primarch Robert Guillaume

Episode 2 (parts A & B) are up.

Here's the video link to Episode 2

And here are the stills of the finished druid:

Painting on camera

I've just launched a short (?) series of videos on my YouTube channel about painting for tabletop. You can catch the first crude effort here!

Get it on the Table - ep.1: Prepping the Mini

I'm still fine-tuning the camera and sound set-up, but you should be able to see basically what I'm doing. The idea is to walk a person through some of the basic steps for getting minis ready to play, as opposed to more advanced or "display" techniques. While I emphasize simple methods, I still strive to make the figures look good.

I hope some folks might find it useful!

Painting away

I haven't done much with the Moria terrain lately (I've hit a few logistical snags), but I have painted a few minis, so I thought I'd post the evidence. These were all done with TAP's war paints. I'm really enjoying the paints, but the finish is a little glossy. I've hit these with a layer of Krylon Matte sealer, but maybe a second coat when it's less humid is in order.

First off, a Chaos Space Marine (going to be Alpha Legion) and some Battle of Macragge Ultras.

 

Next up are some of the Skull Pass gobbos, including a shaman:

 

Finally, here's a Beastman from Reaper's Warlord line:

 

The GW's were spray primed with TAP's color primers (Alien Purple for the goblins and Navy Blue for the Astartes). The beastman had been spray primed white a while back. All of them were done with a "speed paint" process of basecoating followed by a wash and a (very) few highlights. It's a great "Get it on the table" method, which I find more satisfying sometimes than struggling with "fancier" paint jobs.

Speaking of Middle Earth

After playing in a mammoth (400+ minis) 1st Age ME Chainmail game at Garycon last month, my Moria project is all the more on my mind. Beyond that though, I'm looking at getting things together for a broader LOTR scope beyond Khazad Dum.

I picked 30 or so WFB High Elves on eBay recently to represent some 1st Age Gondolin-style fun. And I also unearthed several sprues of WFB dwarfs I'd bought years ago on a charity auction. Between those, the Rohan cavalry, all my orcs and goblins, and the Minas Tirith soldiers, I think I could field some gnarly battles!

So my goal now is get the elves and dwarfs and horsemen prepped for painting. Warm weather is here so spray primer opportunities should be easier to come by (at least until the humidity sets in). I think I will try some TAP color primers to speed the paint process along for these minis.

Apart from that, the Moria terrain still addressing and I'll probably want some ME scenery for "normal" surface battles.

Futzing about

I painted up one of the RAFM "Tribe of the Midnight Sun" cavalry figs I'd bought who knows when. They'll make a nice little rohirrim unit along with the plastic celtic horsemen I have from Wargames Factory. I also painted one the GW Dark Elves with the TAP warpaints. It came out fine, so I won't need to sweat a lot of color issues from the dried out older pots.

(Pics to follow soon) Here are the pics (lousy though they are):

TAP Goblin Pics

TAP Mega Set: More thoughts

Back from Garycon, I sat down and painted a GW Moria goblin archer captain (pics to follow) last night using the Army Painter set. The paints are smooth and cover well. The metallics are fine and the inks give a nice wash (Strong Tone is roughly equivalent to Badab Black from GW).

The color limitations aren't really much of an issue (so far). I was able to make a fairly convincing reddish skin tone with one drop each of the barbarian flesh, lava orange, and leather brown. I'd like a Tin Bitz, but I still have my GW pot for that, and it could probably mix that from the bronze, brown, and gun metal.

I am thinking about using them to speed paint some night goblins (Skull Pass), but I should probably stay focussed on the Moria project for now.

Buh BYE kittehs!

I dropped of the Catthulhu minis yesterday. WOOT!

To get an idea of scale, those are 1/2" bases, for the most part.

Now on to personal projects!

Promised Moria Pix (Ent, Wight, and Gollum)

 

Apologies for the lateness and the quality of the pix. I've been playing with a homemade light box and I'm not happy with the results yet.

 

Cats & cats & cats

Still plugging away on the Catthulhu Kickstarter minis. I think I will forgo tiny animal minis for a while after this project. I'm about 2/3 done, so I figure 3-4 more sessions should do it. They don't take long to paint individually, but the strain on my eyes limits brush time for such small figures.

Looking ahead, I want to get back to the LOTR stuff. I figure I need to focus on the terrain a bit, as most of the minis I need are really done. There are plenty of odds & ends to fill in (Rohirrim, Smaug, Gondorians, etc.), but the Moria section is pretty well stocked with goblins and so forth.

I made a recent purchase that I am excited to try out. A bunch of my paints are getting dried out, so rather than making a careful inventory of what is good and what is gunk, I bought the Army Painter Mega Set. It's a good deal for all you get. I've not tried their Warpaints before, but they get good reviews. I'll post my impressions after I have a chance to use some of them.

Cats and more

I had a week off from work and did a lot of painting. I've finished about a half dozen kitties for the Catthulhu thing. I'm not posting pics as they should be for the donors first.

I also painted up one of the barrow wights and Treebeard, which was fun. I will post pics of them soon.

I also played a simple SBH skirmish with my oldest daughter using some fan-made LOTR stats from the Yahoo group.  She ran Gandalf the Grey, Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas while I ran some gobbos and a cave troll.

The fight was over pretty quick as Legolas skewered the goblin captain forcing a morale test that catastrophic for the forces of evil. Only one warrior and one archer remained to fight, and they were no match for Aragorn & Co. It was fun to dust of the SBH rules and roll some activation dice, though!

I've been killing orcs for over sixty years, and I'm GOOD AT IT!