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.

15mm madness, Stick Putty, Kill Team Charlie Update

So now a break from the normal, after another food allergy related fit of insomnia, I went to the light side of minis and attacked some 15mm scale figures I have had sitting around forever- and you know, darn it, I really, really love 15mm figures!  When they are well sculpted, they are total gaming joy.  Nil time commitment, no fussing over details and repainting, basing and converting takes minutes- you can pack your whole game in a lunch box!

At about 2 am, I decided sleep was not going to be an option, and decided to go play with the stick putty I got recently.  Stick putty is a new product from procreate, and its supposed to glue together minis.  I tried it on a Ral Partha Djinn, and it does work to this end quite well- about as strong as superglue.  However I probably wont use it for this purpose much - its just begging for basing and armatures!  Why?  It has a 5 minute cure time.  Yes!  Five minutes from mix to a firm, but flexible set.  And its utterly brilliant for filling and gripping minis to bases, and blocking out mini armatures.  I will be buying lots of this stuff.

5 minutes.  5 freaking minutes.  Awesome.

Once set, you can tear up any left overs it to get nice ruined concrete effects for bases- so there is no wastage.
Now if you think its going to replace your sculpting medium, think again- five minutes is just too short to do much work, so cut off small amounts (I use artists palette knife) and do it in stages.  Now if you mount on washers, procreate stick putty is your beotch!  It fills the hole and sticks the model onto the surface, and rounds the edges so your scatter does not show that little integral base give away that makes some armies look crappy.

Now the down sides.  It smells awful for starters.  Keep the clam shell it came in to save your nostrils.  I am not allergic to epoxy putty usually- milliput, that little rascal has no perceivable effect on me- however this stuff is nasty.  As part of the test, I used bare skin.  My palms have been itching like mad all day.  Short story- wear gloves.

I decided to base up my post apocalypse road outlaws, and if sleep denied me after that, paint them  I managed to greyscale two packs, but only painted two- but it was delightful!  Definitely going to build a post apocalypse game board when I have some time.  By the way, if you want to be able to write little names on the side of a 15mm base, paint a white stripe, then using a 0.005 technical pen, etch in the negative space of the letters.  Far easier than trying to paint the letter strokes.

Khurasan Road Outlaws (15mm scale)

 I feel I am getting much better at 15mm- my first attempt was for a small Gauntlet style dungeon bash... I grabbed these minis from 15mm.com.  They need some baddies to fight now- but I have yet to find anything that floats my boat- it may be time for Bederken to release some 15mm!
For my 15mm I decided to use non metallic metals and work up strong contrast, so they pop off the table.

15mm.com dungeoneers.  In... er... 15mm scale.  Strangely.

If you have been wondering about my other projects, Kill Team Charlie has progressed a little since last I posted, though I just have not had the time to clear my sculpting desk to get the hyperbowl bases cast up- so its stalled until I finish the Lead Adventure Mutant Sculpts (which, btw, are soooo going to be part of this game set once I have finished).
Here are some work...

Kill Team Charlie progress continues!  C100 forever!

For those who missed earlier posts, these classic C100 space marines are mounted onto home made custom resin bases featuring a modular detail insert.  The actual outer base forms a deep bowl for scenic features such as deep puddles, hatches etc- and the sides have been extended so you can easily pick up the model by the base.  The bowl has been widened to fit a 10c coin, which is what I sculpt all my inserts on.  The whole lot is cast in resin.  I only have one polished and finished here, the others are pretty crude at this stage.
The Kill Team features mostly natural C100, and converted C100 models (20 odd at the moment), some early rogue trader era figures and a host of scratch built and converted figures from Reaper and Hasslefree- do check out the earlier posts!
I am also moving my Judge Dredd collection onto the same basing system- but thats way off in the future!

Hope you enjoy these!

Bederken Dungeon floorplans get an airing

As you probably know I recently released some 30mm square dungeon floorplans in .pdf format through my Bederken blog.  Well, I got my first prints all back and mounted up and I thought I would take some quick snaps to show it in action.  As you can see, going up from 1 inch standard to 30mm makes it much easier to play without minis bumping up against each other- plus you have the freedom to use modern lipped bases.

So the first fools to brave The Dungeon of Dave are some classic citadel paladins who probably have not had a decent dungeon bash since Dungeons & Dragons came out.

Preslotta Citadel Paladins and C11 halfling attack Kev Adams Zombies and Reaper Wizard

Classic early 1980's Citadel creepy crawlies and Red Orcs attack!
Grenadier halfman takes aim in background.  Molemen by Reaper.  Ooze by me.

Thirty year old minis get some playing with!
Some classic Red orcs have been converted here- headswaps and
scratch built weaponry.

Another angle.  Note the green ooze sneaking up on a red goblin in the background.
It was made with a hot glue gun and a plastic base.

 As you can see, my red orc tribe has expanded since I last posted.  These guys are about 50% done.  I swapped out a couple of heads and weapons to give more variety, keeping at least one of each variety in archive state.

The creepy crawlies are a personal favourite of mine, I have been collecting these for a while now.  When you get them they just look like a little lug of brown metal, but with a little TLC they transform into some classic vintage gaming niceness.

Well that's me for tonight... enjoy dungeon bashing!

Red Orc Restoration, C29 Creepy Crawlies, Heroquest Undead

Original, cleaned and fully restored painted FF24 Red Orc (aka Red Goblin)

Happy new year lead freaks!
Over the holiday season I got a few nice emails encouraging me to do a lot more stuff this year.  Get that!
So with that in mind I wanted to start the year with a tute.

During the holidays I got stuck into the lead pile and knocked off a few jobs that where bugging me.One of which was some sexily bad Citadel Red Goblins!  That clever son of a gun Beepie (bpi) painted some of these last year so well that it encouraged me to hunt them down on evilbay and get me some retro badness.  The elongated heads and faint eyes make these models look bad to begin with, but as you can see a little love and pow!  Its like Gygax & Dave A. are still alive and rolling up stats.

These old figures can be restored with a dunk in bicarb soda water to halt any potential lead rot, and a gentle working over with a copper brush.   Wear a mask.  I had my lead levels checked this week by my GP, and came up clear.  Yay for me.  Anyway, find a soft copper brush- mine is a cheap BBQ scrubber from the supermarket.  Test it with some gentle brushes and look for scratches, then go for all holy hell.

As usual, I use diluted grey-green miliput brushed on with a cheap brush to fill minute surface cracks.  A quick smooth off with fine sand paper, and a polish with bluetac and you will have a lovely painting surface.

Beepie sanded off his shield bosses so he could paint some insanely small insignia on the shields, and looking at the models I think that's a great idea.  This brings me to my next subject.  Augmentation.

Converting old miniatures feels a bit naughty, I tend to only do this to broken ones, but there is no harm in using a little putty to fix up a figure to modern tastes right?  I call this augmentation, because I am not really converting the figure at all, but it would be wrong to say they are perfect archive pieces.  The orc to the right is my faithful archive model.  The next batch (these figures are dirt cheap because, damn, they are ugly) I am augmenting.

To give an example, the models sword is battered and wonky.  Great for an orc, but most figures from this era suffer the same problem.  Applying freshly mixed milliput grey-green with a moistened card and carving a smooth, sharp edged blade is a great augmentation.  Fingers of this era are often just lines, lacking the comic book knuckles that the early eighties brought that beg for highlighting.  A small amount of greenstuff mixed 8:1 with sculpey a black clay shaper and a little patience can make all the difference.  Speaking of which...

C29 creepy crawlies (beetles, scorpion, unknown chaosy two headed  lizard thing and giant tick)

These bad boys are mostly C29 creepy crawlies.  They have been modernised by gluing on slotta bases and then very carefully sculpting a dungeon floor surface using procreate to hide their integral bases.
Any help identifying the mysterious two headed, one winged chaos snake thing is most welcome!  Really early chaos familiar perhaps?

MB Heroquest plastics.  Yay.

Continuing on the old dungeon theme, I found a bag of unloved Heroquest figures in a flea market a few months back.  By some strange twist of fate, a few months before I discovered a shrink wrapped mint Heroquest box in an bric-a-brac and antiques store not one hundred paces from the same spot!  Tenner.  Bargain.  Its now in my vault...  will be selling that on ebay soon, once the Aussie dollar drops a bit.

I converted the minis by carefully shaving off the plastic base with a razor.  I say carefully, because the plastic used for these is much harder than modern citadel plastics, so does not take stress well.  If you try this, dont cut with something like tin snips, you will get white stress tears and odds are the leg will snap off.  A fresh scalpel and some patience payed off, and I had these, two zombies and five goblins prepped for a little mid week old school insomnia indulgence.
I plan to go back and do some sexy blending later on these, pick out the teeth then varnish the ever living crap out of them for sticky pizza fingered gaming in the near future.  I googled heroquest to see if anyone else had painted their figures recently and to see what they did, and I was really surprised how big a community it still has!  You go Heroquest fans!

Dungeon of Dave photos

Hey folks,  the picture drought is over.  After all, thats really why your all here right?  Inspirational nerdiness.

Well this is some pictures my wonderful wife Kathryn took of my latest hobby project- an old school dungeon tile set.  I always was envious of my mates who had the Games Workshop Dungeon Floorplans and Halls of Horror boxed set, a feeling instantly resurrected on seeing a picture of it in the Heroes for Wargames book.

Modern Reaper Kobolds descend on the Retrodel Dungeoneers!

These prototype boards are made from 3mm MDF board, with very thin resin casts of flagstones on them.  I sculpted a 5x5 square original, then cast it using pinkysil silicone in a lego frame.  I would say for my next batch I would reduce the thickness of the MDF, as these are very chunky.  Satisfying, but chunky!

F4 Mercenary 'nob', a mildly converted AD&D female thief (green stuff added- no damage to original) and a C11 Halfling "Renko"

Finally back on subject, the adventuring party is made up of 1980s Citadel figures - for your shopping pleasure they are... left to right, F4 Mercenary 'nob', a mildly converted AD&D female thief (green stuff fur trims and corset added- no damage to original underneath) and a C11 Halfling "Renko" who has appeared elsewhere in this blog.  You can just see the foot of Fluffy the Chaos Hound in the top left too.

Once I have the basic floor tiles, I am planning to sculpt and cast some suitably chunky doors and arches.  I am not sure I will go as far as making walls yet - my wife keeps giggling at photos of 3D dungeons and saying things like "ooh, what a cute doll house".  Do walls get in the way I wonder?


So I dont know about you, but I am totally disliking the direction of AD&D 4th edition- and after a quick skim through think I may try to bend my DMs arm into playing Pathfinder rules instead.  As far as I am concerned, 4th ed is not Dungeons & Dragons.

I am not alltogether happy with the Reaper Kobolds- the Otherworld ones also do not do it for me - though they are great figures they are not what I have in my head when someone says Kobolds!  I did actually do the textures of all the Kobolds in the video game AD&D Online: Stormreach, by the way.  Something I am very proud of because it was a massive job to do all the different tribes.  Anyway, the modern lizard Kobolds are not what I picture either.  Maybe I might tackle sculpting some Dungeon Critters after my Dwergs line is released!

Dungeon Floorplans

My current exploits in the hobby have been centred around making an old school D&D style dungeon game board and its been quite an interesting adventure.  I have tried all manner of ways of making flagstone floors, from printed and etched, hydrostone, polyfilla, cork, stamped and so forth.
  Tonight I cast my first resin flagstone sheet directly onto 3mm MDF backing, and bingo.  Exactly what I was looking for.  Resin casting is usually not cheap, but the amount you need for a flagstone sheet is tiny- and the silicone mould I made will survive long enough to make at least a seven level dungeon- so really its only about half a bottle of pinkysil and a box kit of resin.
The result is lightweight and sturdy, and it would take me an afternoon to cast up everything I need to make a decent nights gaming table.  Nice.

  My floorplan uses a 3cmx3cm square size, rather than the traditional inch you find with dungeon tiles, as some players have warmachine bases on their minis, and the extra room means models don't rub up against each other.

A couple of discoveries during the journey worth sharing- polyfilla woodflex is absolutely brilliant for making wargames scenery- it does not crack or flake, and gives a rocky texture that wont scratch paint of minis.  Two thumbs up.  The second is that you can harden Balsa wood- which is news to me, and totally opens up a whole new modelling route for me.  Simply paint on superglue, or (or slow set resin) and voila.  Clumbsy, impatient modellers like me can make stuff that doesn't crumble!

Now, to write a set of dungeon rules to go with my new toy!

C'ya nerdlings.