New warbands: Hassledwarfs

New warband #2.  A lovely batch of dwarfs from Hasslefree minis.  As with the elves I went with washers.  They certainly look a lot better on the smaller base, and feel sturdy.

I think I may field them as snow white and the seven dwarfs.  I have a hasslefree Kaylee who would make a good Snow White and the sleeping Beauty from Reaper.

I am going to give each dwarf a strong, cartoony theme color.  Great figs!

Some (nearly) finished stuff

Lots of minis this blog- not one completely done,  but very close.  My camera phone does not do a good job in low light- I must dig out the digital cam that I used at the start of the blog.

Enjoy!

Gotrek

I found this on  fleabay going cheap and grabbed it for my brother in law who is a hopeless, sad little fanboy.  Felix got away.

The paint job was ok, so rather than strip him I just worked over the top.  As with the ral partha sorceress, I dusted and cleaned the model first, used washes to darken and fill the gaps in the joins, reestablished flat colors using vmc and foundation paints, then worked up the shading.  Finally black ink with flow aid was used for lining.
The blood is good old tamiya red clear acrylic.
The base was filled with spak and magnetic sheet glued to the bottom.  This makes a nice solid feeling base.

Enjoy.

And before...

He just needs some varnish and its off to gather dust on a shelf!

Ed.  You fanboi you.

Wear Purple Day

Today is Wear Purple day in Australia- to show gender variant and intersex youth we care.
And we should... among the transgender community alone youth suicide rates are around 45% according to some accounts- with many cases unreported.  This is a direct result of how society treats these kids.  People should not have to suffer for how they where born.

The wargaming community should be much more aware.  Its quite common to use the term transexual as a slur on a poorly sculpted female figure for example- and I already mentioned GWs sins in this department regarding Slaanesh.

Take a moment to visit wikipedia and look up transgender and intersex if you have never heard of these conditions or you still think they are mental disorders.  Then perhaps show your support next year with yer paint brush like I have here.

Its a silly little gesture,  but the more people know, the better this world will become.

Purple!

Undead assault: Emerald Dwarf progress

S'up dudes and dudettes?  A quick iphone snap of tonights undead assault 'emerald dwarf' session.

Work In Progress.  Fantasy Tribes Era, Pre Slotta Dwarves from a more civilized age.

   Thanks to BridgendSteves disc of reference photos, I can confidently move forward on details.  Steve had closeups of the rooftop and sally port dwarfs- plus angles on the undead horde that threw up some priceless clues to their identies.  Sadly the diorama needs a good dust and better, diffused lighting, if you work at warhammer world get thee to a supermarket for a static duster and restore this treasured part of gaming history!

   Matching colors is tricky as this diorama dates firmly in his enamels stage, however I did go old school by popping open a goblin green from the 1980s I aquired off ebay (yes that sucker is still good!).  Mmmm... smells like mullets, space invaders, rubik cubes and clannad albums.

Cheers Steve!  Support the man in thanks by visiting his ebay store and procuring more lead!

I am gonna need to offload all my doubles on ebay to help pay for the remaining undead.

Thanks also to all you weirdos emailing me with undead assault minis!  Keep em coming... I need lots of skellys still, sword swingers, spearmen and ghouls. Oh plus that ballista.

I am going to have to dremmel off the champions weapon to fit a ballista bolt... seems a shame to damage a perfectly good figure but I guess its for a great oldhammer cause.

Greeble heep!

Undead assault: Sveta Patchmaiden

First Emerald Moon Dwarf off the blocks...  Sveta Patchmaiden next to her photo.  The base echos the set she is standing on in the diorama with cunning use of cocktail sticks.

Sveta Patchmaiden, Pre-slotta era Dwarf adventurer (Perry Sculpt?)

 

 

I just got a disk of photos arrive from BridgendSteve, (cheerz mutchly good sir) haven't had time to look at it yet, but oooooh, so exciting!  Gonna get me some large prints!
Hopefully if there are some good shots of the banners I can digitally flatten out, undistort and clean these up to make some printable banners to scale.  (Though I plan to then graphite transfer and handpaint my own. Just to be hardcore).

I plan to assemble a digital checkoff list from Steves pictures to help track, ID and trade each and every figure.  By the end I should be able to give you a complete shopping list!  It would make a dandy collectors page on ccmwiki!

I had the heartstopping realisation that the ballista is a mini not scratch built as I had previously thought.  Fortunately I had a set of defibs in my car and mi6 on standby to fix me long enough to win the card game.... wait... no that was casino royale... I get so mixed up with my exciting life and bond movies.  Where was I?  Oh yes... The dwarf ballista used to come with the stretcher crew.  Now I have to hunt down yet another mini!

My Ral Partha jabberwock arrived too... not certain I want to saw him up to get him coming out of the water...  anyone got a broken one?

Speaking of which, I am also looking for the wings and tail of the Orc Wyvern that was used by Pete Taylor to build his infamous yellow chaos spawn.  I got me a bust umberhulk and scorpion- just need those missing parts.  And yes, the umberhulks mouth is destined for a three headed minotaur belly.  Bonus points for oldschool cool if you spotted that one coming.

I am sick with flu at the moment (where is mi6 when you need them?)  So I probably will be getting some hobby stuff done in the next few days whilst I recover.  It will be good to get a few more wins on the project board!

Enjoy. 

Undead assault pt2

Just a quick post whilst I am on my way to work...a quick and dirty smartphone snap showing the dwarf warband so far.

The double handed weapon adventurer is not in the best condition as his sword is mostly missing and he was very tarnished so I still need of a replacement.

Behind the sally port door you can just make out the dwarf thief that is pictured on the watch tower in a tasteful floral green number.

Sneaking in on the right is the Tom Meier Wraith that was zapping the door.  The figure is dated 1976- which if I check my own base... yep... its as old as me.  Its one of the first dynamically posed models as far as I can tell, and a masterclass in drapery.  This puts it firmly in the most influential minis of all time in my opinion.
  It, like a handful of the undead minis pictured are Ral Partha imports.  Citadel handled the license in Europe at the time.  You can still buy these from the pleasantly perky folk at iron wind metals.

Which reminds me... must find a broken Jabberwocky too.  I already have one done up in the same colors (previously blogged) but a submerged undead munchy one would be brilliant.

I am thinking I should make some 40mm multibases of undead, and make sure my bridge and arch can take that width.

Thanks all for the support so far!

Mega minis metal magic magnificence

My birthday treat arrived today- a fantastic 24 peice Dwarf set from mega miniatures.  These originally came from Metal Magic, and where sculpted by Bob Olley.
I am a late comer to appreciating Bobs style I must be honest.  I violently disliked the look of iron claw minis- and still - even in my mellowing tastes- cannot quite appreciate his flower pot headed goblins and rather squishy looking black orcs.  Maybe they too will grow on me eventually.  I always liked open smooth surfaces with smooth shading (Fraser Gray was my god) and dynamic poses (Jes Goodwin checked all my boxes).  Bobs stuff was...  wibbly and covered in wrinkles and details, his poses constrained and lacking that excelsior kapow.
I gather his style polarises people- your either a fan or just dont get it.  Me, I am transitioning.  I think sculpting The Bederken Dwerg allowed me to understand a bit about the temptation to sculpt detail on everything.  Its like stealing the painters choices away though... takes away options to blend and freehand.

I adore modern day Bobs work thoroughly.  His brass bull for Reaper is breathtaking and whats not to like about his malevolent retro scifi blended mutant scrunts.  Plus I now adore Iron Claw scifi pirates, and have gathered quite a posse of them lately.

Bob's inventiveness with dwarfs is a shining example of why the man is a real artist.  His gothic dwarf head dresses, iconography, weapons and shields stand apart from everyone who ever put putty to stunty.  Check out the scans from the metal magic catalogue below.
Sadly some minis in the pictures are not in the set- sold off to other companies.  I may have to find the rest later this year.  I hear impact minis has the standard bearer.

I could not resist basing up the lot and will be ramming them up my painting queue so I can play Skulldred with them!  Hopefully tomorrow will be dry for a spray session.
The casts are great- really good value minis- Its tempting to get a second set to make a hott army too- those warmachines look great!

Its looking like I may not make it down for Cancon this year.  Though if luck is with me I may squeeze in a day- I certainly wont be doing everthing I planned this year.  :(
Hopr to see some of you there!

Sandra Garrity Dwarf

Old school? Why yes, right this way....

Sandra Garrity Dwarf

Reaper classic female dwarf
I had an overwhelming urge to base up some really old Ral Partha skellies with old school bases referencing AD&D battlesystem Skirmish photos. Big fat 30mm square, 2mm ply.
No idea why, I guess a change is as good as a rest.
Once the skellies where done I figured I needed some old school heroes to fight them- and this reaper minis classic Dwarf sculpted by Sandra Garrity (not Julie Guthrie) was just the ticket.

Links. Warmallet 60,000 and the Missing Links.

Skarsnik just made me realise that I missed off a links section to all the blogs I follow- you can now find them on my sidebar.  Happy browsing, and send me a message if you want linkage loving!

I also found a widget for page counts, and look at that... I am rocking up to 60,000 views.  How about that?   I was going to post up a whole heap of Rogue Trader pics ready for 40,000... you know, but it slipped me by.

Rogue Trader minis, with a Paranoia Troubleshooter (purple hair)
Citadel 80'

So here is my Warmallet 60,000 (hits).

[ It took 20 thousand years after someone accidentally pulled the plug on the Emperors throne, and mankind freed from his psyonic opression cheered the hell up, allowed women equal rights and stopped pissing around with Catholic Church Iconography... the Eldar then started to respect humans as intellectual equals instead of a dirty, pipe ridden mob of skull worshipping cultists and a new age was formed where everyone, you know... mostly get along.    Turns out the Astonomicon was like a dog whistle to the orcs and what has making the more or less peaceful orcs go a bit loopy.  The Necrons turned out where just escaped animatronic Terminators from James Cameron Theme Park World that got a virus and went a bit squiffy in a freak video programming without instructions incident.  Easily turned off once you had new battereis in the remote.  Zoats showed back up (still eating Zoatybix) - they had been off on this great party planet with some insanely good pineapple and cheese on sticks.  They appologised for being late, but did bring along some pretty awesome Kryomek... sorry...  Zerg... sorry... Tyranid repellant (same formula as Bat shark Repellent funnily enough)  - turns out the Tryanid where attracted to cabling plastics used in power armor all along- just like how cockroaches are drawn to the wiring in my bloody microwave.  Humans suddently realised they could take the Eldar and Necron antigrav technology thats been laying around for decades actually was better than tank tracks, and switched over.
Anyhoo- everyone gets back to some space pirate shooty explory space adventure action!
 No one ever did find out what the little venty, jetpacky nozzles where for on the Marines backpacks.
 In the future there is only war whatever you like! ]

I am basing all my paranoia, 2000ad and Dredd figures on 30mm resin Sulaco bases and giving them all a 'lit by neon' in the dark blue future cities look.  Vibrant feature colors on drab base tones, so every single scifi figure I own is compatible in style for gaming.  I am daydreaming of building a cool game table to play it on in the distant future once I have space.  Oh, for a garage.

Jumping in my blue box we hurtle back in time to the early 1980's and after defeating a nasty outbreak of Sontarans using a jellybaby we arrive in time to photograph some of Citadel's first releases- Fiend Factory and Fantasy Adventurers (aka FA and FF to us collector types).

Fiend Factory Gnome Theif, Wraith, Medusa and Fantasy Adventurer Dwarf

 I have been slowly collecting these since I discovered the joy of ressurecting old school lead using modern painting and finishing techniques.
I have decided to base them all on 30mm modern with moody, torchlit dungeon lighting.  The monsters are all lit brighter and warmer at the front, as if caught in the adventurers torchlight, and lit by the eerie blue glow all dark places appear on TV.

I think these need a bit more work, but I am just so excited by my new photographic lightbox (and the fact I now have photoshop again) that I wanted to take some pics of SOMETHING.  Something Like this...

Lord Aquila from Citadels Heroic Fighters Boxed Set

 This is actually one of the first miniatures I finished painting at the time I started this blog.  I recently rebased him onto a 30mm lipped base from his original hex base.  I find the base makes him feel really proud and draws focus to the model.  I guess psychologically it suggests a little display plinth.
  It was a practical move, since the main reason I switched was it gives extra support and protection to my Skulldred skirmish games.  All this box set brethren, some Paladins, 'Battle Lords' and 'Big Fighters' all recently got the base switch, and its amazing how much more character they seem to have.  They have been on my shelves for ages and I barely look at them... but pop them on chunky decorative bases and whoomp- they get some presence.
Though not entirely happy with the paint job, I feel I should preserve him so I can see how far my work has progressed over the last two years.  At some point I may decorate his base with some 80s mushrooms, but for now I think he is good to go.


For those of you who are eagerly waiting some new Bederken releases, you may be happy to know this little blog photo session was squeezed on the back end of photographing the new models.  Yep.  Pics soon.
Well I have to go back to the land of work-work-work.  Webstores and miniatures do not build themselves.

A motley Crew, Asgard Black Dwarf and friendsElf

Some poncy Elf, Nob the Mercenary, Bird Thing (Chaos Familiar)
The Black Dwarf (Asgard), CP2 -Bryan Ansell's Heroic Adventurers boxed set Cleric
FF5-2 Demon with sword and whip

I thought I would go back to doing some mixed group shots this year.  What a motley crew.

Starting on the left is an experimentation piece, starting with white and working down using thin washes.  Yawn.  I also tried out some NMM since I was trying out new stuff.

Nob got a polish- I worked up flesh tones, but still have not got around to doing his clothes.  He is a citadel mercenary- a variant of the militia figures-  you will find a few with the same body in that line.  Both ranges go for moderately high prices now a days.  You want old school character, this range was a high tide point.

Bird thing is one of my favourite figures of all time.  A classic Jes Goodwin sculpt.

Next up is a real joy for me.  White Dwarfs great cousin, The Black Dwarf.  He is from Asgard miniatures, and from a series of probably the coolest dwarf proportions from that time.  I spotted him back in the 1980s in an 'eavy Metal article by Aly Morrison.  I took the red and black chequered hood and tiger fur from his pic, but went in a different direction with the rest.  God how I loved that figure and poured over that article!  I have about 80% of the figures from that display now, some of which I have painted in the same way to fulfil a childhood whim.  The converted figs may have to be scratch built.  :)

Asgards Black Dwarf- so ahead of its time its breathtaking

This guy is the grand daddy of all Chaos Dwarves.  Look at the poise, the brooding nature, the expression and detail on the shield and that unusual weapon!  Whoever sculpted it (answers in the comments if you know) should be really proud.

Hans - Citadel C26 Feudal  work in progress

I have never really  loved the feudal range to be honest, but am starting to see the character in them now.  This one needs a bit more work, but I like the atmosphere of the piece so far.  All my peasants are getting the drunken Brughel, Gilliamesque 'oh look Dennis theres a lovely bit of filth over here' treatment.

Heroic Assortment

Lords of battle Aquila and Manfred, Imperial Dwarf, Dwarf mapper, Muleskinner, Dwarf, Barbarians (aka norse)
Citadel 1980s.  I copied the paint job of the dwarf mapper from a brilliant PJ by A Frother over at the Frother forums- he used a wonderful green tinged muted pallette.
The two Barbarians have been part of my wifes Songs of Blades and Heroes warband, and it is rightly smiting my arse right now.