'Rage', 'The Flower Thrower' for the AHPC 'Resistance' Theme

Hi All!

My entry for our Resistance theme lifts shamelessly from the theme's poster, which is Banksy's 'Rage' or also known as 'The Flower Thrower'. The original can be found in Beit Sahour near the wall separating Israeli and Palestinian communities on the contested West Bank. It depicts a rioter in sharp black and white, throwing not a Molotov cocktail, but rather a bouquet of flowers, which are depicted in colour. 

It is one of Banksy's most iconic pieces and can be found on t-shirts, posters and geegaws everywhere (in fact, Sarah has it on her favourite coffee mug). I found a 3d design of the image on Cults and printed a 40mm copy to work on.

To echo Banksy's stark contrast of the figure to the flower, I pulled out my greyscale recipe and did the figure along the same lines. 

It's a powerful image of protest and non-violent resistance, and I thought it particularly apropos in our current climate as the people of Minneapolis have been recently nominated for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for their nonviolent resistance to the ICE activities in their city. I'm sure the President was thrilled to hear of this as well. :)

Thanks for dropping in!

- Curt

Oni Villains for 'Hametsu'

Back to my Hametsu project. Here are five Oni demons to pit as villains against our intrepid heroes. This is the the first group of five.

I wanted a motley bunch of rogues for the Oni, thinking they should all be unique in their overall look. Thankfully, there are a load of Oni models available on Myminifactory, so I was fairly spoiled for choice.

I printed these at 40mm to make them more opposing when set against the character figures which are around 30-35mm. The red edge on the base is to denote their 180 degree field of vision in the game.

Thanks for popping in. I hope you have a great weekend!

- Curt

Klaus and Raegan in the Turnip Patch

 

I've been on a real fantasy kick these past few months and so here are a couple more characters for 'Moonstone' along with a long neglected piece of terrain for them to frolic in.

This turnip patch is an old chestnut from the sadly closed 'Architects of War'. Like many of their wonderful terrain offerings, the field is a fairly substantial piece of resin, nicely detailed, with white metal fittings for the foliage. It was an easy build, finished with a quick skim coat of Liquitex to fill in any gaps, primed brown and then drybrushed up to fit with my other pieces from them. Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy.

Next, I also have a couple more characters to add to the Moonstone collection. This time it's two Faun, Klaus and Raegan. 

The background story for this pair is that Klaus, being sort of an awkward fella, was teased mercilessly as a young faun by all the other kids. Well, teased by all except Raegan. Taking pity on him, the young Leshavult priestess placed him under her wing, keeping him safe and taught him how to protect himself. They now work as a fearsome duo, with Raegan operating as a spell caster, while Klaus runs interference, wreaking havoc with his big-honkin' flail.

I kept the colours fairly limited to mostly earth tones, so both of these painted up quite quickly.

As you can see, Klaus DOES NOT need more cowbell.

Here we see the the floaty Raegan, casting spells, ensuring Klaus remains a happy and healthy murder hobo.

Thanks for dropping in for a peek!

- Curt

 

'Quack' for Moonstone

Quack is a wizard/cleric in the Moonstone game. He's aligned with the Commonwealth faction, which are largely composed of humans and gnomes (though they do have some characters from other races as allies as well). He's not very powerful in combat, but is a terrific support character, being able to heal members of his troupe at a fairly good range (Moonstone is played on a 3' x 3' surface, so a 8-10" range is quite respectable), and to give his 'Foresight' ability, which provides a nice bonus to him or his allies for shooting and spells.

I had a lot of fun working on Quack. Looking at the figure, I imagined him as as sort of a ragamuffin, ill-kept fellow, so made his clothes and gear rather dirty and manky. For his bottles and the trippy smoke emanating from his potion I used some of the excellent Colourshift Paint from Greenstuff World. You'll probably see me using more of this stuff when I work on the upcoming faeries from this range. 

Thanks for dropping in!

- Curt

Faun Troupe for 'Moonstone'

Yes, the 'Moonstone' fever rages on with another faction for the game to explore. Today we have the Faun who populate the forest glens and green meadows of the world of Taubur.

A little more rustic than the Humans and Goblins, the Faun provide a very characterful contingent for the game. These are not the crude, brutal Beastmen seen in Warhammer, but rather are more along the lines of Shakespeare's 'Puck', or the 'Faun' from del Toro's 'Pan's Labyrinth'. 

In game terms they are a relatively resilient, quick-moving faction, utilizing magic that manipulates nature and summons animal allies to assist them.

These three 35mm figures are cast in resin and compose the 'Hunting Horns' box set. 

'Hoff' is the leader of this group. He's quite solid in close combat (with a ferocious charge ability), and can also give his fellow Fauns a movement boost by giving a blast on his hunting horn.

'Jayda' is a straightforward soldier type. Fleet of foot (hoof?), great with her bow, and also can be quite nasty in close combat.

'Mr. Toodles' (his name cracks me up) is the classic faun, more along the lines of what you'd encounter in Greek mythology - all about booze, music and merrymaking. He's essentially a healer, but can cause all kinds of mischief with his flute and various 'elixirs'.

Next up will be an update on the Gaming Studio and some nifty buildings for Moonstone.

Thanks for dropping in! I hope you're having a terrific day.

-Curt

'Dim & Dimmer', Two-Headed Giant for 'Moonstone'

Continuing on with my obsession with all things 'Moonstone', here is 'Dim & Dimmer', a rather cantankerous two-headed giant, out for a stroll and a bit of lunch. 

Again, similar to many of the models for this game, there is a wonderful sense of whimsy and character to this fellow (these fellows?). I love the cow over their shoulder and the 'bagged lunch' hanging from their belt.

I had a bit of fun painting the tattoo on their belly. I figured the ubiquitous t-shirt meme 'I'm With Stupid' (with a Giant's take on the spelling) would be a suitable tag on their expansive gut.

In game terms, 'Dim & Dimmer' is quite unpredictable as they're largely governed by random card draw, but if the stars align, then opponents are likely to end up as a bagged lunch. :)

Thanks for dropping in. I hope you're having a terrific day!

-Curt

Entry #12 to AHPC VIII: 1870s era Prussians in Demi Ronde

This week I decided to tap into my inner child and try my hand with some classic toy soldiers.

These 40mm beauties were sculpted, cast and cleaned (!) by my good friend John Bertolini. I always tease John, telling him that he's a Renaissance Man. Mr. Bertolini is a master timber-frame carpenter, enjoys the simplicity of manual labour, but also shares a  passion for food (his wife is a culinary writer), travel and history. He also has a great love of classic toy soldiers, especially those from late 19th and early 20th century Germany and Austria.  John participated in a past Challenge and you can see some of his wonderful work here.

As Greg has been entranced with all things Franco-Prussian lately so I decided to ask John if he could provide me with some suitable figures so I could riff on Greg's excellent work.

In toy soldier speak these figures are sculpted in the demi ronde style, meaning that they share elements of both classic two-dimensional figures and modern 'fully round', or three dimensional designs. I really find the style charming and always find myself smiling when I was working on them. When I was building-up the units I discovered that I needed some standard bearers and drummers. John, being his usual accommodating self, simply got out the greenstuff and balsa and made me a few on the fly - wonderful!  

A French drummer.

French standard bearer.

As to painting, I tried to go with the classic toy soldier style. So while there were areas where I couldn't resist to applying a modest highlight, I endeavoured to honour the figures and kept things fairly clean and minimalist. 

Same with the bases. No groundwork here, just a mottled effect with green paint to keep it nice, simple and toy soldier-like. The banner is from Warflag, with a bit of paint touchup.

The wonderful thing about working on these figures is how nicely they come together once they're all ranked up. I also love the sheer physical heft of them - with all this lead the bases have a substantial weight that just feels so wonderful in your hand. I don't know what it is, but the 'solidness' of the based elements really taps into my lizard brain - something that you can't find an equivalent with plastic figures.

As previously mentioned, John also provided me with a French battalion which I might take a whack at later. To be honest, what I'd really like to do is 1759 Plains of Abraham in this style as I think that it could be quite spectacular. John? Can you whip something up for me? C'mon, pretty please!

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Thanks for dropping in folks. Have a great week!

Entry #3 to AHPC VIII: 'Kingdom Death' Prologue Survivors and The White Lion

Last year Byron came for one of his visits and introduced our gaming group to 'Kingdom Death', an artfully composed hybrid of a horror RPG, tactical skirmish and board game.

While the gameplay is (brutally) ingenious and the figures are amazingly sculpted, the themes are very, VERY adult, and so definitely not to everyone's tastes.  Nonetheless, we loved it and became immediately hooked. So when the Kickstarter went up last year for the updated version I completely lost my wits, mortgaged the dogs and backed it to the hilt. Anyway, the first avalanche of stuff (suitably titled 'Monster 1.5') arrived at our door this autumn, so I thought I'd use the Challenge to  complete some of the core elements of the game.

These first four figures comprise the 'Prologue Survivors'. These poor souls awake in a world of darkness, with no memory of their past, little clothing and only lanterns and a few shards of masonry as weapons. 

Since I'm going to have a LOT of figures to work through, I decided to save myself the torture of determining what colours to use figure-by-figure and instead use a hybrid greyscale effect that incorporates lanterns' glow for a bit of visual interest. 

The main elements of the effect was achieved using an airbrush and then switching to thin glazes to highlight both the greyscale and lantern glow. I realize it's a little over-the-top but I think it works okay for the game's setting. 

The beginning scenario has the four survivors being immediately set upon by a huge lion. Using only their bare hands, some stone shards and lanterns they are forced to fight for their lives. 

I decided to use the same lantern-lit greyscale effect for the White Lion, with a fallen lantern providing under-lighting to the lion's face, underbelly and flanks.

The light effect of the dropped lantern.

These figures are quite large, with the humans coming in at around 40mm. The Lion, not surprisingly, is a bit of a brute in comparison. The funny thing is that he's considered to be a fairly small creature in the game - Yikes! 

I hope to get a few more of the game's monsters done this Challenge - wish me luck!