Grom the goblin

One of the first off the blocks from my Cancon haul... a classic Kevin Adams nineties goblin.  I prefer his earlier works, but how could I say no to dis widdle belly. 
I painted him a while ago but forgot to take a snap.  Plus... some days you just lose your mojo.  I tried to get super nice blending on his belly and stuffed it up.  Dirt got in, I rubbed it off and it all went downhill from there.  I may strip him down one day and go again when Mars isn't in retrograde and shit.

Asgard, Hasslefree, Rarities and my new 30mm Ply Bases

I got a few hours to base up and partially paint Hasslefree minis Svala and dynamic kaylee-For one of my Skulldred demo game warbands (aka the orange team!).  Kev White, as usual, rocks my socks with two awesome figures, understated details, fluid, dynamic and paintable as heckaroonie on a stick.  Yep, well worth your cash - get em here.

Hasslefree Svala and Kaylee (converted) WIP paint jobs

I lightly converted Kaylee, shaving off her chaos symbol and replacing it with a grinning monster face, as well as adding extra fabric to her arms to give more space for her team colours.  All this was done with greenstuff.  I then decked out her base with mushrooms, creepers and leaves to make use of all the new space on my BRAND NEW BASES!!!!

So the story with my bases is that I really needed some extra room around my figures so they dont bump up against each other in gameplay.  I also like decorating them, so having the extra room is great.  I made a bunch of lipped deep dish bases, since I hate the way you cannot pick up lipped bases, but have had issues with leeching oils through the resin- clearly my resin is out of date :(
I decided to try out some laser cut 30mm ply discs and you know, I love them!  I am sorely tempted to move my whole collection across to them now.
What can I say?  Cheap, roomy, easy to pick up, easy to modify, light, have a little bounce to protect the figure, soak black paint up so they chip black, and look the business.  At 30mm, they are the exact same footprint as Malifaux or Warmachine bases, but without the annoying lip.  You know, I am totally sold on this.  Very surprised, considering my experience with plywood bases for HotT has been less than spectacular.

Converted Hasslefree Kaylee framed with some Asgard gems- Lizard man and Poisonous Stalker
Kaylee's shield sculpted by me.  All Work in progress paint jobs.

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Kaylee vs. Lizardman wips - playin' Skulldred, naturally!
The lizardmans pokerchip base gives me room to sculpt a torn apart
adventurer using procreate.

 The figures shown are all part way through painting, really needing neatening up and a bit more shading.  The next ones are even more WIP...

Citadel WF6 Aggressive Aardvark, LE-4 The Black Dwarf and DL2 Hobgoblin shaman
Primed and ready to be drooled over.

So you can see the raw wooden bases onto which I have mounted some dead sexy rare citadel gems- including the 'other' black dwarf (see my earlier posts for the Jes Goodwin masterpiece from Asgard).

The only pain with the ply bases is that the laser scoring around the edge needs sanding off.  I found if you use two grits- course to get the lines off and a really fine to polish it really shiney, it looks just like plastic once painted.  Using a diluted chaos black wash allowed the paint to soak in- making the base absorb the paint deeply and so it chips to black- which will keep my collection looking a little less played with hopefully.  The underside, being perfectly flat, also looks nice when you flip a model on its side too- no ugly slottabase grooves.


I do worry about acids from sap in the plywood leeching into the model and causing leadrot.  A few really old models I have prised off wooden bases show damage where they contact the wood.  I have kept a thin layer of epoxy around the figures to protect them, and sealed the surface with superglue here and there.  That ought'a hold it.


I think its about time citadel allowed 30mm bases for 40k- the models have scale creep'ed to a point where they could really do with the extra stability and protection.  Don't you agree?

Keeping the Karmic Wolves at the door

Today I broke my painting drought with a full on onslaught of my leadpile.  Many fell to my mighty brush this day, (I hear America has been scoring pretty good on their own to do list today as well), and I discovered one really good trick; and that trick is this... kill your karmic blockers.
There is, I dare say, one or two figures hanging around your collection like a bad smell, never being painted and draining your enthusiasm just looking at them.  For me, its been a half orc (I only have one) loitering around the fringes of my orcs, an elf archer, a samurai warrior (I do not collect Oriental fantasy figures as a general rule) and a dire wolf, the hobgoblin and the Chaos Warrior from the brilliance that is the BC2 Monster Starter Set.
  Having these figures is not good for your hobby soul- they accumulate at the fringes of your collection, gathering as a clogging sense of dissatisfaction that taints the whole.
  Today, being sick with a cold and generally unmotivated to sculpt, I tackled those figures, and the rush of vitality that returned when they where finished was astounding.  Invigorated thus by the fall of my karmic blockers, I stormed ahead and got 90% of the way through 28 figures- completing a handful of those to my liking.  Count em.  28.

Set aside a day of pain to tackle those ones, and you wont believe what it will do for your lead pile.     Kill your karmic blockers today.

Citadel FA19 female fighter with sword, Dwarf Adventurer, Talisman Necromancer,
C13 Lesser Goblin, ADD OH2 Samurai, Wood Elf

The dwarf and Lesser goblin here are what I call 'soft targets'- things I know I can paint really quickly.  On days I do not feel like a challenge, I bee line for these.  I love the old lesser goblins- I have a bag of them somewhere and now I have the smaller 20mm bases I may do up a tiny, tiny warband.  The Samurai here was the biggest karmic blocker in my collection!
I decided to go really far out with the Talisman Necromancer- slapping on a Wizard of Oz makeup to match his cartoonish look.  The FA19 female fighter is one of the best faces on any citadel miniature ever.  EVER.  Its so subtle, and such a joy to paint.  It would have made a great starter character for D&D.

Citadel BC2 Monster Starter Boxed Set 90% complete

If you have been a fan of my blog, you will know my fondness for the BC1 monster starter set.  Here you can see I am almost done painting it- just little things like shading boots and jazzing up the bases to go now!  I remember the first time I painted the dire wolf, I just painted it black with red eyes.  This time around I was determined to go realistic with the fur and really make him pop.  The hobgoblin is now a favourite of mine, having totally ignored the box art and struck out in vivid green lacquered armour instead of the run of the mill copper scales that where making me yawn just thinking of painting them.  I have a second vile goblin, and will be painting him lime green with dark blue trims and black armour me thinks.  Oh, and yes, I have the BC1 complimentary heroes boxed set now... will have to wait for a dry day to prime them up.

(left to right) C22 Creatures Chaos Hounds 1 & 3,
Unknown Vintage Wolf (middle), Reaper Wolves (top right),
BC2 Vicious Giant Wolf

So one thing you can do to get through your lead pile is rack up a bunch of figures all at once.  I hunted around my collection and found all the wolves I had, and saved myself a heap of time by mixing the colours up at once.

Mystery wolf, BC2 Vicious Giant Wolf

If anyone knows the mystery wolf, I would be glad to have it identified.  Its pretty stiff and old looking, but cannot find him on any citadel collectors sheets.  I thought he was the FF giant wolf.

I also managed to knock down some chaos familiars, Norse Dwarves and a couple of Asgard beasties- but they will have to wait for a later post.  I am tired as hell with cold!

Songs of Blades and Heroes: Barbarians VS Nasty Orcses.

Flu has put aside any hobby aspirations this weekend, but I do have something to post for you.
Tonight my wife Kathryn soundly destroyed my orc warband at Songs of Blades and Heroes.  Again.
  Its the first game we played in a long while, and it was nice to get to use some of the scenery I made a while ago.   I remembered to take a few snaps on my iphone during the match as you guys would probably like the retro citadel lead.

1980s Barbarians, vs. Orcs.  The Partially painted Perry demon is on the barbarians side.

Boxed set orcs attack!  Monster starter box set orc, Nick Lunds Chronicle Mighty Ugezod Shaman

Felled Forrest:  I finally got to use one of my scenic peices in a game

This piece is made from branches mounted on mdf and blended in using woodflex poly filla.  The root systems are made by soaking twine it it pva glue.  One tip I picked up here- shave the edge of your MDF down to a thin edge- the small 3mm lip is enough to tip a mini over- if you match flocks to your battlemat then the sharper edge means it blends in nicely.

Kat's Reaper Chicks do a victory dance before heading off for mead.
Left to right (Viking Girl, Lorna Huntress, Cavegirl, a converted succubus, Female Pit Fighter and another cave girl- all from modern line available now!)

Monster starter set Orc hangs with One of Golgfags second(?) generation Ogres.

Another closeup showing the nice roots you can get with pva and string.

What I wanted to do with my game board is capture the feeling of the environment I grew up in - dank, mossy, peaty, muddy forrests of oak and chestnut trees.  I have to source some fallen leaf scatter to complete the look.  At some stage I hope to make me some riverbed modules (complete with ducks, swans and perhaps a submerged monster), derelict, overgrown cottages and rotten, creeper covered bridges.

And finally we have a new look here at Kingsminis- based on the old retro ads from 1980s white dwarf- complete with blue faded photo images.  Hope you like!



Later.

Cool Lead: Kev Adams Goblin Court

Not a retro Citadel, but you will be damned to tell the difference- this lovely set was sculpted by the goblinmaster himself- Mr Kev Adams.  (cheers), and is a tongue in cheek reference to the classic Dwarf Kings Court.  Colin Dixon did an updated Kings Court for the company too.  I dont know what company this was made for, but apparently it went belly up.  I nabbed these off ebay with some trepidation, but have been richly rewarded- what a wonderful set!

Kev Adams Goblin Court

Talisman Dwarf and Satyr,  Mormo Jabberbinder (Ugezod Orc Shaman) and early preslotta beastman

Talisman figures are very hard to collect.  They are reasonably rare, and run up high prices on Ebay.  Because of this, inferior pirate copies are common.  Aly and Trish Morrison headed up the Talisman range, giving the figures a goofy, whimsical look which packed them full of olde charme.

Mormo is from Ugezods (huge sod, gettit?) Death Commandos, and where sculpted by Nick Lund.  They are quite primitive sculpts in some respects, I am going to go out on a limb here and they they showing a craftsman developing his skills, in much the same way early Perry figures can be far too shallow.  Because of this, they are difficult to paint and have calamari lips- which puts people off.  Details are indistinct and gaps between layers are not quite a paintbrush width apart.  That said, if you can manage to paint them they are packed full of quirky character.

http://www.solegends.com/citboxes/bc4deathcommando.htm

The final peice here is a beastman from Runequest.  The sketches for this range are shown in the book Heroes for Wargames (Paper tiger, way oop- but the old school bible).  Sketches by John Blanche.  Whats interesting is how close to the sketches the sculpts are- even to the point of trying to to reproduce his whacky flowing weighless stances and finnicky surface detail.  Again, this makes them hard to paint, but a worthy challenge.
  I picked grey for all my broo because of those John Blanche and Ally Morrison painted from the series.  I have most of this series now, as well as the Chaos warriors from the same sketch series- very satisfying because they where OOP by the time I started collecting, so even though I could see pictures of them in White Dwarf, I couldnt buy them at the time.

Love ebay.

Evil Assortment

Chaos Familliar, 'Skeletor' Chaos Thug, Rat Ogre, Beastman, Demon, Uzegod Shaman, Chaos Familliar, Vile Goblin, Skaven standard, Beastman

The Demon seems to be a self portrait by one of the Perry bros- though this may just be another case of artist subconsciously recreating what he sees around him.  The demon and second beastman here are only half painted.