Update!: Of figures and paint, and things of this hobby....

June is upon us already and moving into the second week!

Egads!

Okay dear readers this post is a little long and pic heavy, so you might want to get yourself a drink and relax before going on.

OF WORK and FIGURES.... (Part 1)

So there I was...

In the last two weeks, I have been doing quick dash about roundabout trips to my other two sites to coordinate shipping out some equipment and making things happen.

This has given me a chance to do some brainstorming while driving, and while up at each site, to hit a  local game store and see what it is that they have on their shelves.

And that usually means making purchases.

The first one was "The Soldiery" up in Columbus.

I'll admit it right here and now, I really, really, want to like this store, as it has so much of that "80's game store feel to it; (all the way down to the Index Card taped to the counter where it states in BIG, BOLD, BLACK LETTERS: "Do NOT lean on the glass, it will break."

Obviously someone has done this while trying to impress whatever counter-chickie that was there at the time with tales about their "40th Level Character" and probably trying to sneak a look down her low cut shirt at the time.), but in reality, I don't think I can. Trying to get to the minis is hard. It's up a set of awkward stairs on a rickety balcony-style second level, and my knees just don't seem to like those stairs. 

And well, in true typical fashion, the service almost always hovers between "Sucks" and "Non-existant".  I walk in, counter monkey suddenly darts off to ""Arrange old Magic Cards". I'm looking for something, (obvious that I am searching), and counter monkey heads off to the little back room behind the counter where they can still see the shop but be out of visible range to actually make contact and assist the customer.

Plus there is the usual fanboy contingent that just is "there", as it is their "hangout". I'll get more into this in another post as I am starting to derail onto this subject.

*ahem*

So I swallowed my pride and checked it out. While there I picked up an AD&D 5th Edition Adventure book, and an accessory.

(I'll get more into the AD&D 5th Edition Book later on but needless to say, I posted a review of the first 30 pages on a Facebook site and I stirred up "The Wrath of The Fanboys").

While there I also picked up two Reaper BONES figures:

A female pirate?...Arrrr.....

And a Water Weird...

I have a few of the translucent BONES figures in my possession right  now, and have been reading on how to "light them up" using LEDs, and this one might be my first attempt as it already has a nice hollow base in which an LED can be inserted. This is a project though "For the future".

Oh and while there, I maintained the tradition and bought a set of Chessex Dice for my wonderful wife:

I'll admit...these are nice and her collection is coming along very well....

Coming home later that week, I did some painting and some sealing and actually accomplished a lot of smaller things that had been waiting for a while to be finished up. At long last I was actually "FINISHING THINGS", and clearing out my "Completed" queue and making space on my work area where the finished projects set.

The weekend was absolutely beautiful with good temps, a nice, steady, easy breeze, and made everything just right for sealing.

So I did...

But first....breakfast!

Served to me by my wonderful wife (Gawd bless her!), Melodie Murphy.

Yum...

And after some watermelon....

It was off to the table....

SEALING and "Git 'Er Done!"....

So I wandered into the work area, and got a nice idea of what needed to be done.

So for sealing I took a hodge-podge of stuff just needing to be done and sealed.

Sealing results for this batch:

15MM:

2 M48 Tanks

3 M41 Tanks

1 M42 "Duster" AA Vehicle

1 M577 Command Vehicle

28MM:

1 Stack of Barrels

2 Candelabras

1 Stack of Gold Bars

3 Wooden Coffins (courtesy of Knuckleduster)

6 Giant Rats

2 Coca Cola Machines 

Hey..even 28mm figures can get hot and thirsty after a hard day of gaming!

I was pleased with the result...

And with this, all of the hard armor assets from Bongolesia's "Mysterious Neighbor To The South; The Fandango Republic"; is done.

Yeps, they are ready for action, and I sense some "border dispute issues" coming up real soon...

OF WORK and FIGURES (Part 2)...

So the next week saw me off to another site for a few days, and while it was kind of a frustrating week, I was able to do some purchases, (in fact waaaaay too many I do believe, but let's just consider it an "insurance policy against dying" for now), of stuff.

While the majority were Reaper BONES figures, I also got a Chronoscope Figure as well as some of the older Reaper "Dark Heaven" figures and one of the "Legendary Encounters" figures.

So here is what I picked up during Week #2:

Thou cannot ever have enough witches for ye olde Witchhunters to pursue...

A Geisha..I am actually looking forward to the challenge of painting this figure. I can see all sorts of uses for her in games.

And Mouselings!  (Don't ask...)

Oddly enough, no slave girls, dancers, wenches, or "damsels in distress"...

How odd...

And then some more....

A future project I shall do for my wonderful wife (Gawd bless her!) since she loves Buckbeak from The Harry Potter movies...

A nice healthy piece of cannon fodder right here. Just a generic dungeon crawling goober that is trying to kill monsters, get treasure, and go up in levels.....I sense a violent, horrible, bloody death in this ones future....

One of the rarer Reaper P-65 minis. A fighter and his wolf companion. Yes I will need to fix the bent sword but I liked this pack and it needed an owner since it had been sitting on the shops racks since 2003....  .

But no slave girls, dancers, wenches, or "damsels in distress"...

How odd.

And yet, I DID get females...

Female Elf fighter type. Maybe she is out to try to assist the male fighter posted previously....or perhaps trying to save his bacon...

A female vampire... Perhaps she is dealing with the male fighter, (that shouldn't be too hard for her really...)

And a female assassin...

And another female fighter...(Are we noticing a pattern here?)

And a female bard, who will play some nice lovely tunes to help drown out the hideous screaming of characters being torn asunder by evil creatures...

And a female dwarf fighter, (with no beard)...

And a female paladin. To be honest, I like this figure and may get another one to make it into a worn graveyard statue...

But no slave girls, dancers, wenches, or "damsels in distress"...

How odd.

But I DID get this fellow: 

He actually looks pretty good for a pre-paint. I'll probably touch him up some, maybe put a sparkly gem in his staff, base and flock, and seal and be done with it.

So I didn't get any slave girls, dancers, hookers, wenches, or "Damsels in Distress" this time, but with the last picture right above, I think that putting him on the table with change that situation reeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaallll  easily...

Oh and I also go some paints and a copy of a recent WI, (but that is coming up in another post as this on has gotten way too long), for reading and discussion.

So that is part of what came home with me. More to come!

Thanks for reading!

Work trips, tartans, figures, game stores, and other thoughts on this day....

It's Sunday, November 9th, and I am sitting here behind the keyboard when a portion of me is screaming, "NO YOU FOOL!!! Get thee behind thy brush and paint thy figures!!!!"
Instead I have a few thoughts, (mostly game related), and pictures that I wanted to share instead...

It's been an interesting week to say the least.

Last week I left on Monday for a business trip North of Chicago into the town of Kenosha, Wisconsin. Wednesday was supposed to be the "big day" with an onsite walkthrough and meeting, followed up with a "after meeting, meeting about the previous meeting that we had just had", (Gawd bless Corporate America)....
Well that didn't happen.
So essentially speaking I wasted three odd days up there.
While I was there I found two game stores....

#1: A GW Store right around the corner from my hotel.  Operating hours were M-T (Closed), W-TH-F: 12 noon - 7 pm (with a closure from 2:00 - 2:30 for lunch), Sat-Sun (12-8 no closure for lunch)....
The hours struck me as rather odd, and the first question I thought of was "Why can't the guy eat BEFORE he comes to work?"...
There I go thinking again...

2: The second store was called "Coliseum Games" and is located in a strip mall, off of 75th Street. I only saw it when I pulled into the parking lot to have lunch at the Charcoal Grill. (Good food).
Now, the store is smaller than average sized, and although it's generally clean and the staff is friendly, it seems to focus entirely upon
A: CCGs,
B: Board Games
C: Some RPGS.

When I asked about miniatures he said "Oh yes! We carry those also!" And showed me his miniatures lines.....
X-wing, and Star Trek Attack.....

"So you don't carry any 15mm or 25-28mm lines, like Reaper, Foundry, Old Glory, etc?" I asked him...

*blink blink*  was my reply.

Sigh...and the search goes on....

#2: A drive through Chicago can be one of too things...
A: Interesting
B: Utterly depressing.

If you drive along the waterfront, you get "A"...
If you drive anywhere else, you get "B"...

And if you drive down Cicero Avenue, you get "utterly depressing".

Driving South down Cicero Avenue is like watching your grandmother dying in the hospital. It's horrible, sad, and depressing and there is nothing you can do to stop it, as it's a progression / "de-gression" that you are unable to do anything about.
Whole blocks of the area are nothing more than "churchs", a bar, a pawn shop, and one of those questionable little "fast food markets", all of them having more bars on the doors and windows than you would find in Sing-Sing....
The rest of the area is blocks and blocks and blocks of commercial establishments that have been abandoned, or have been empty for years, (possibly decades). and up for sale. The "For Sale" signs having been in the window for so long that they are bleached out from light and age....
You know it's bad when the real estate office is closed and up for sale by ANOTHER real estate office.

I was seriously thinking of taking some photos to show this, but I wanted to use my camera and not my crappy Iphone camera, and to be honest, it wasn't out of my safety that I didn't, instead it was because it was too damn depressing.

Next time I do the drive though I think I am going to....just so folks can see what "a city in decay" looks like...

#3: Last month, I was painting some more of Bob Murch's wonderful "Pulp Figures", and in doing so, decided to try my hand at a tartan pattern.  So I read up some tutorials and read a lot and learned a lot. Amazing what some of these guys can paint....

So without further eloquence, may I introduce you to;
"Laird Angus MacHaggis of Clan MacHaggis"....

While I was "pleased" with the tartan pattern, my wife (Gawd bless her!), noticed something that I did also.

"The white stripe on the tartan seems to draw your eye to it, and then you can notice any mistakes." She say.

Holy cow she was right!

So I went back and did some more test tries.

I ran the tartan red color and then ran four patterns, from l to r: gray, white, yellow, and a dark flesh color:

Hmmm...decisions, decisions....

Eventually thought I settled on the yellow which gave it enough color but not enough to take away.

So I repainted him and here he is now.....

You can see the difference in the tartan pattern on the kilt....I did like it...

Colorful enough, but not demanding attention.

Meanwhile back to my Egyptian Figures....

A while back (Sept. I think), I started working on some Blue Moon Egyptian Agents.

Well, to make a long story short, figure #5 just didn't "do it" for me....there really wasn't anything there as in "figure", and I kept looking at it and saying "That looks like an old stature you would see in a cemetery"...so I decided to try to see if I could replicate that "blackish-green" that you see on so many odd and old statues...and yet, still allow it to be a "member of the spectral wandering undead"....

So here is my attempt...without the flash, and with the flash....

Creepy old cemetery statue?

or

Restless wandering spirit trapped between this world and the next???....

YOU decide.....

Once I got the basic color scheme down, it was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.

Another figure I've been working on is the one that I call "Thurg"...he's part of the Pulp Figs set PWM11 "Callous Captors"....

"Thurg works for Mistress X....Thurg hurts people that lady says to hurt. Sometimes Thurg pull on arms and legs and they bend where they aren't supposed to...Makes people scream loud. Hurts Thurgs ears...Lady says Thurg do a good job and will get a cute pet bunny for birthday. Thurg like bunnies....huh huh huh...."

While working on my figs I discovered some old Ral Partha "Slave girl" figs....and thus Blue Moon Egyptian Agent #3 suddenly became "Abdouk the slave-trader"....

WIP: Abdouk the slave-trader and some of his "wares". They can be yours if you can meet his price, or haggle a good deal... The gag on the blondes mouth, keeps her quiet, as she is always screaming for help, and telling people that she is a "kidnapped princess sold to Abdouk by one of her fathers enemies, and her father will reward anyone who rescues her..."  He's heard it all before and besides...a princess brings an even better price.....

Currently my "need to flock, wash, and/or seal count looks like this....

Just a few touch ups and we are good to go with this set!

Unfortunately I am about to kick myself though as Murch has release some more figs and I will be sending him yet more of my money....sigh....that man is an evil genius I tell you!!!

More to come my friends!