Monsters of rock 2: electric boogaloo

As was anyone’s guess, the first finished minis of the year aren’t actually anything from the plans outlined in my last post. These rocky chaps were dug out and started in my end of year rush to drag my average painted miniatures for the year up to one a week, and so got finished as I figured it was probably the same amount of work to do that as to put them into storage:

One of the things I’ve found with actually using my miniatures for D&D rather than just to fill boxes is that a lot of the time it’s actually quite handy to have multiples of monsters, so these got dug out to add to the one that I originally painted fourteen and a half years ago. I slightly converted one by twisting its head around a bit so that they wouldn’t all look identical - I did consider cutting and re-posing an arm too, but figured that would take more time to fix and potentially re-sculpt, time I didn’t have as New Year’s was rushing towards me while I was prepping these.

As you’ll see, my painting hasn’t really improved in fifteen years, as they accompany the original:

But, you know, dry brushing all the way makes for a very satisfying painting experience!

It’s only been two weeks of the new year, but I’ve already gained as well as painted some miniatures, so the Tally doesn’t look as healthy as it might otherwise. Firstly, a nice chap over on the LAF sent me a Santa rat mini, which sorts this year’s festive blog post:

I also grabbed the GW mini of the month servitor, as that seemed like it could definitely find a place in an inq28 warband if my fancy turns that way again. I didn’t take a picture of that apparently (and I’m sat down fairly comfortably typing this) so you’ll just have to imagine the little cardboard box it comes in instead.

All in, the Tally for 2026 currently stands at:

2 vs 2 = 0

Still in the black! 

What’s next? Back on topic, with something actually from my myriad project list… 

Dem bones back in black...

Three posts in one night? What fresh madness is this?

An old skeletal champion type (who I think is a Ral Partha miniature that I picked up at a past Salute, but I could be wrong) got a quick and dirty paint job (including some experimentation with mixing washes on the mini, which was fun to try) and trying out the new rust Technical paint from GW, to take the Tally back into the black:

80 vs 80 = 0

That's technically in the black, right?

I love mushroom men, this I know...

I love Myconids, as I think I may have alluded to in previous blog posts. I mean, this is the shirt that my wife got me for Christmas that I wore today whilst painting these miniatures:

As the Tally getting back into the black isn't unreachably far away, I thought it would be nice to finish off the dozen mushroomy fellas that I had half painted on the TV unit for a little while. Well, I say a little while, I literally had to dust them off with a large soft brush before I could continue painting them...

My encounter group of myconids is broken into three groups of four models each:

The first group is Hasslefree's Agarix miniatures, lovely little sculpts that will do for generic Myconid types. I would say warriors, but really they're peaceful mushroom farmers who are minding their own business until adventuring parties come trampling through their domains and start attacking them because they're different looking...

The next group are from Ral Partha, and are 25mm rather than 28mm. I don't mind this though, variety is the spice of life after all eh? I converted one to be a wizard or cleric type (or a Rotpriest, if we're running these in 4e) with the addition of a mushroom staff, and added a mushroom piece from an old Games Workshop Night Goblin sprue to another with an outstretched arm to make a farmer type - is he sheltering then with his arm, or perhaps summoning them? Depends on the needs of the encounter! And yes, I am a big nerd, and colour coordinated the mushrooms to the Nintendo standard (green for life, 1up style etc)!

The last group are Myconid gas spores, mildly converted with a little cutting, scraping and bending from GW Tyranid spore mines from the old Battle for Macragge 40k starter set. I imagine that they grow out of the ground like any other mushroom, on several stalks, held up by their buoyant head, until the day that they are mature enough to pull themselves out of the ground and become mobile, still trailing their stalks beneath them...

I picture these as somewhat like guard dogs for a Myconid colony, probably floating aimlessly about near the entrance , acting almost as an early warning system for the arrival of bands of roving adventurers looking for loot and seeing these peaceful ambulatory mushroom chaos as nothing more than sacks of XP (the horror!). 

The gas spores seem to be fairly large in the reference imagery I could find, but a little handwaveium deals with that (I mean yes, if you try to apply physics to a fantasy setting they'd probably need to be bigger in order to contain enough gas to float, but worlds of magic, that's why).

So, having finished these dozen miniatures brings the tally to:

78 vs 80 = -2

which would have put me back into the black if it weren't for the second round of Christmas presents... (Not wanting to sound ungrateful, don't get me wrong!)

Work table Saturday: Firefly, skeleton and Myconids...

Had I been more productive last Wednesday, this would have been a paint table Saturday, but alas it just wasn't meant to be. 

First of all, a gunslinger type for Firefly:

Star Wars miniatures body (having originally donated his head for a VSF Martian conversion that I realise now has neither been painted or posted despite having been built at least three years ago) with an Anvil Industries head that I picked up at Salute.

Yes, I know, I changed my mind on what basing system to use for Firefly. I'd only finished a couple of miniatures before now for this project though, so it won't be too much work to go back and rebase miniatures. 

Although this spate of preparation productivity started with me wanting to paint a skeleton miniature that I had knocking around (that you'll see at the edges of coming photos), I ended up with the urge to prep some mushroom men. As I'm sure I mentioned in a previous post, my love for myconids came from an old Inquest supplement, but really, what's not to love? Myconids are categorically awesome:

Yeah!

Rockin' Myconid pics aside, I've cleaned up all the mushroom chap miniatures I own, some Agarix from Hasslefree and Myconids from Ral Partha:

Whilst converting one of the Ral Partha chaps into a Rotpriest (one day, 4e, one day) with a little mushroom staff, I had a little bit of an accident:

Judicious use of liquid Green Stuff and Superglue managed to fix it though, but it was a pain as it was such a thin contact point that I couldn't pin it for strength:

Looking through my notes on ideas for Myconid encounters, I found this statblock:

Hmm, what miniatures could we grab back from John that would make a good basis for a floating mushroom spore?

Pow, minus 4 to the Tally (now 22 vs 34 = -12), but 4 more minis to paint! Apparently, I didn't take any pictures this morning of the minor conversion work that I did on these to repurpose them to my needs, so you'll just have to use your imagination for now...

Having made my Rotpriest conversion, I wanted to do something with the other Ral Partha Myconid that had a more exciting looking cap, and after a dig through my bits box turned up a GW goblin mushroom piece, he looks like some sort of wizard farmer (is he about to stroke those mushrooms, or is he summoning them?)

Which brings us to where I am now, waiting for the glue on the basing to dry so that I can start applying undercoat!

100th Post, Post-Salute Post Post and the Lannisters I'm working on...

So, 100 posts! To celebrate, I've finally gotten round to changing my blogger profile pic to this:

Because as much as I love Sam & Max (RIP Lucasarts) it says more about me and my tiny attention span...

I even considered changing the header image too (as it's been a while since I painted any modern zombies) but I still like that it plays on 'Dead Lead Project', as it's a blog about dead lead (as in the miniatures that I will likely never get round to painting) rather than necessarily just miniatures of dead things. Any road up, on to more miniatures that I've acquired since Salute that I will definitely get around to painting:

The Dog handler from Warlord Games that was ordered at Salute as they'd run out (and even came with an extra dog) for my Stark force, and a bundle of bases from em4... the 40mm variety of which don't fit into the War of the Ring bases from Games Workshop that I hope to eventually use when I've painted enough miniatures to be playing anything bigger than a skirmish scale game:

Except for upside-down, when they fit perfectly. Curses. Oh well, it's better to realise something like this now than once I've stuck horses to them, and I suppose I can scavenge some Terminator bases from old 40k starter boxes...

A selection of bits and bobs from the Perrys that I forgot to pick up at Salute and some Blu Stuff, 2 part mould-making wonder goo (more on this later...)

Some mushroom men from Ral Partha, to go with the Hasslefree Agarix I picked up at Salute - these are especially dinky though, so I might need to convert some sort of Ogre-sized Myconid to balance it out...

A bundle of knights and a priestly type from Forlorn Hope Games, who seem to have more em4 miniatures than em4 do, for use as plate armour wearing Hedge and foot knights...

From Hasslefree, I got the metal Boudi that I wasn't able to get as Salute, and added a 'not Ramona' as well to take the sting out of paying for postage (and also because I made the mistake of reading other people's blogs when they included lists of things that they'd bought at Salute, more fool me...). It also came with a free dinky homunculus, to make up for the fact that the order was delayed by various shows, who I'm sure I can find a home for somewhere in the multitude of generic fantasy drawers (and should be pretty quick to paint, as he's so tiny!)

And last but not least, a delivery from Foundry, of the two packs that I wasn't able to pick up at Salute - the archer command (for commanding my Lannister archers) and King Ronnie's Court (as I wanted the jester to convert into Shagwell, of the Brave Companions / Bloody Mummers). I also added a pack of armed Medieval peasants to take the edge off of the shipping charge (better than it used to be, but still not ideal if you're only picking up a couple of packs), as I'd like to build a warband of the Brotherhood without banners at some point (and handily a couple of the miniatures in the archer command pack look like they'd be suitable candidates). Speaking of which, I could do with getting some LOTR Ruffians miniatures, especially the chap carrying the noose (Spoilers - the Brotherhood without Banners are fairly keen on hanging people). Foundry even threw in a free knight, which was nice.

Unfortunately though, this takes the tally to:

8 vs 339 = -331

What can I say, it's been better... Only 8 finished models this year though, that's a bit of a sting... I hope to change that (if only a little) though as I'm still working on the generic fantasy miniatures I need for D&D, as well as having built these:

My first Lannisters! Perry plastics with a metal knight from Forlorn Hope / em4 to give them some variety (and also so that there's at least one miniature that I can paint really, really quickly as he's entirely armoured), these chaps have since been gesso'd ready to start painting:

Finally, I've also been working on something else. Although I'm not sticking slavishly to either the books or the TV series for my Ice and Fire Project, I'm quite enamoured with the armour worn by the Lannister House guards in the TV series:

Plastic Warriors of Minas Tirith will furnish me with near enough armour, but the helmet is another matter. So, stealing inspiration entirely from Mr. J over on the LAF, I set about making my own:

Cut the head off of a plastic Uruk Hai (originally painted about a decade ago!) and shave it down so it's less recognisable:

Take a tiny square of plasticard:

and cut it into a crest shape:

and gently file until it's the desired shape:

 

Attach it to the trimmed down original crest of the Uruk helmet, and realise that you've been over-zealous with your scraping and filing. Don't worry overmuch though, that can be easily fixed with the addition of a glob of Liquid Green Stuff that can then be re-filed.

To ease casting (probably), attach the head to a pole. It's the sort of thing you see done all the time, so there's probably a reason for it (I jest, it's to provide a channel for the milliput to get pushed into, and will also form a handy neck on the cast head that can be trimmed down to the required size)

Many failed attempts with Blu Stuff later, such as attempting to cover the entire head and cut the Blu Stuff into a two part mould (for some reason I was expecting it to dry to a rubbery finish, but be warned, it sets pretty firm):

we have the first half of our two part mould:

I had it  end around the crest for ease of removal later. After some careful cutting to tidy up the edges and put in a slight slope to help align the two halves of the mould, we have this:

An incredibly unpretty mould. Looks aren't everything though:

As it works! The pictures pretty much as out of focus as a picture can be, so you'll have to take my word for it. Now it's just a case of cranking out some more of these and cleaning them up before I start working on push moulding some Lannister Lion shields, and then it's go-time on Lannister House Guard conversions...

I was also going to write an aside on my plans for my Ice and Fire project, and how I see the composition of each House's forces going, but I think that this post is already long enough that it  might be an idea to save that for another day...

Post-Salute Post 2013

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