Halfling Yeoman of the Guard...

Well, my good mate Peter Brown of The Mouldmaker and The Assault Group has got around to Kickstarting a horde of mounted Hobbitses on giant... erm... well... male chickens. Oh... roosters I should say. Lovely minis and nicely priced. Pop over and pledge...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chickstaterii/tag-halfling-yeomen-of-the-yard

There're freebies as well... go click and have a look. Pete molds most of my minis so we know he's a good guy.

enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk

The Assault Group Dwarves - Kettle Drummer WIP

After a long hiatus due to children being off school, social anxiety issues and spending time looking after my mum I have returned to the maelstrom.....2 new (very comfortable) settees in the front room mean that miniatures have been relegated to the back (dining) room.....very little space for anything, however I've got the painting table in a reasonably accessible corner with the luxury of the dining table to my left and an empty mantelpiece shelf to my right......the heights of luxury. 

A recent order from The Assault Group included a bunch of accessories for my mounted dwarves including holstered pistols and kettle drums....I remember seeing a Dixon Miniatures Mongol Kettle Drummer back at my earliest Northern Militaire by around 1974 (I think, possibly '75 but not sure if Dixon had started by then as I've read 1976 before now so may have the year confused) and was desperate to go back the next day but my father had other things to do of course (God bless him, he'd taken a young me there for the first day out of his weekend). If anyone has a copy of that Mongol Kettle Drummer (Camel) please let me have a pic or a trade! Anyway, Milliput mixed and Kettle Drums cleaned up it was a simple job of supergluing the drums to either side, having already attached the rider's body, and filling in relevant gaps....I'm certainly a poor sculptor so merely flattened out visible areas between the 2 drum and will paint accordingly...... the separate arm choice was one with a raised pistol - the easiest to convert to holding a drumstick. The drumsticks are merely cut off pins from an IKEA sewing kit. The earmuffs are a thoughtful addition as I realised the drums were rather close to the ponies' ears....

More TAG posts here.

Contact me on enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk

One or two Assault Group Dwarves just turned up...............

Courtesy of Uncle Pete at The Assault Group......now I can start moving onto the artillery section of the Steam Cannon....

Started on one of the limited edition Kickstarter Wizards....daughter home from university so little time for more at the moment!

enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk

Dwarf Steam Cannon - most definitely a work in progress.....

Woke up one morning thinking of pirate ships...as you do. Popped down to the local (ish) pound shop and picked up a couple of toy plastic ones. The recent release of The Assault Group dwarves has really got me keen to do stuff after something of a post divorce lull......  The ship is, unfortunately, softer plastic so will be a bit of a swine to paint although I do have some acid etch primer that may help that. I picked up some of the dwarves off a friend who had bought too many and am just waiting for my battalion to arrive so I can play with command figures for the crew......I had bought some a while back but for the life of me can't find them....insert frustrated emoticon etc.

The ship as bought....

Took off the sail and checked for scale....

First job was to strip it apart and add decking..there is a motor in there for anyone who wants to add more realism to their bath time naval battles by the way....

Added 2 old Ral Partha Dwarf Steam Cannon engines from the bits box...along with the cabin housing...lolly sticks have a million uses...

Rear transmission added with 'far too small' wheels...

One pack of Trent Miniatures wheels later (courtesy of those nice people at Arcane Scenery).....plus resin goods courtesy of The Dice Bag Lady.

11/03/16....added the start of a front section...I'm now thinking along the lines of a medieval Cog so will be looking at a rear section as well.....there's probably names for all these bits but 'section' will have to do for now....

No idea of colour scheme or where it's going. Once the TAG package turns up I'll explore adding an artillery piece as I'd like to keep to the figures from the same range.

21/03/2016 more work on the fore section...

The Dwarves are from The Assault Group.

First side piece for a pivot gun.....will go on the right hand side (nautical term??) in the middle....

Cheese and bits from The Assault Group of course!

Update 5th April 2016. My poor old mum suffered from a stroke the other weekend so have been in and out of Bodelwyddan hospital in North Wales for the last 2 weeks or so. Operation today and now at Wrexham hospital so will be visiting there later..... anyway, last addition to the ship was a rear section...early days as usual....I make it up as I go along so we'll see what we see when we see it!

I envisage a crenelated rear and more underneath to link it to the rear of the plastic....

10th April update....just ran out of super glue so concentrating on the vodka instead....

Finally an update...started work on the side piece which is turning into a staircase......for now anyway!

Last one for now.....2 swivel cannon for the rear and the start of the 'retractable' bottom stairs...

28th April 2016 and I think she's finished barring tiles for the cabin roof and the miniatures themselves.....oh, and a base of some sort....any thoughts for extra bits/details let me know please!

and finally (8th May) tiles on the cabin roof......no excuse not to start painting it now I suppose...

As always; enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk

Lord Dozy of the Dragon Isles......I've painted myself.....

As a follow up to the earlier post, I've now painted the TAG Tudor mini...great fun and I have a few more of the associated range to finish....previous post about them here.

  

The actual sculpts below and more details about the adventure from Pete Brown himself here.

All now available as part of Tudor Pack III....get a piece of me folks whilst they're still hot!

As always; enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk

Me as a Tudor Nobleman.......sweet sculpt......

A short while ago a good hobby friend, Pete Brown, set up a Kickstarter campaign to introduce the world to a new range of Tudor miniatures designed by Nick Collier and released by 'The Assault Group' .... for some reason it didn't attract the attention it deserved and the Kickstarter was pulled......however I had put some pennies towards a face sculpt and they have just been sent out.......very impressed!

Now available as part of Tudor Pack III....get a piece of me folks whilst they're still hot!

I still don't understand why it didn't fund when Cool Mini or Not / Reaper can command millions in funding.....go figure, every pun intended......The Assault Group still have a massive range of figures that are well worth checking out..........Tudor range here. Tell them I sent you.....Pete also runs The Mouldmaker......source of God alone knows how many miniatures across the hobby universe!

As always; enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk