Till death do us part

 Just finished these 2 Ghosts (yes, I know the lady is technically a Banshee). This picture really is 2021 in a nutshell for me, and the irony is not lost on me the model is also named Johan(n)......

But at least I had fun painting them!

Really starting to dislike my phone cam. No matter what settings I use, frame, timer, etc...I just cannot get hots to focus. Everything is just off by a tiny margin. So for 2022 I will look for a proper camera.

Nameless Undead Champion

So, a while back I bought a single model that turned out to be a shop freebie (just effing great....) and it went through a few trials to become a Undead Champion. It's been on my desk for months now, and I'm not 100% happy with it (not in the least tbh) but I'm calling it done and dusted. I need to pump out more undead to have what I want/need for ....reasons.

50 Cent challenge: "I'm lovin' it!"

The return of the 50 cent painting challenge!

Also: The end of my painting dry-spell!

Jay!

<enough sillyness>

Last week there was a end of the school holiday childrens market, so toys galore. I picked up 2 cars for Gaslands, 1 Tractor for 20mm and this .....thing.

Someone, somewhere was "lovin' it" in a Happy Meal many, many moons ago. There is a spring inside so you can make the head pop-up. Well, the girl selling it asked 25 cents, and how could I resist something with so much potential?

After removing the top-bit from the heads-bit with a saw, and then cutting the spring inside I epoxied the top back on the rest of the .... thing. With a scrap bit of rough plasticcard for a base I grabbed the Milliput to fill in and clean up the screwholes and the slight gap on one side. I grabbed my still mint (and now no longer) Citadel skull box, put a few alien ones on one side and a few human ones on the other. Added sand to taste.

 

 

 Bring on the cheap discount automotive primer thats sticks to everything.

After that just a few washes, quite a bit of use of the dairdryer to speed things up and some powders to dust up the base.

And with that - Challenge completed! (...until the next one...)



For uses.....28mm scaled effigy....Congo? Any Pulp game? Something in Warhammer Quest? Let me know what you think.

Busy and bad

Well, I have been very busy. And very bad too. Let me explain.

After sorting out everything in my storage box in Tilburg on monday I have counted 22 boxes that I need to take back home, store in the attic, and then sort and sell/keep AFTER I have created my new room. (not throw away as I managed to dump 19 boxes of stuff, including almost my entire collection of RPG books from various systems and almost my entire collection of wargames magazines and what not. Considerable effort was exhausted :(

I then started clearing out everything that could be thrown out from our attic....that was tuesday well spent. On wednesday I did my best to help my mother-in-law in cleaning the hosue and I got pretty far, rebuilt the girls beds so they no longer sleep in a cage (not a cage of course, but I don't what the word is for a childs bed with bars on all sides) but one side is open, vacuumed 2 floors and was very supportive in whatever chore she gave me, but after she left I kinda broke down. I've been throwing away huge parts of my former life, my body is fighting me whenever I do something that should be a normal days work and I got really depressed. Like really really depressed. So I kind of shut down and went surfing on various websites.

I should not do that, it costs me money when I'm depressed.

So, 2 Calth dreads, 9 plastic RT marines, 4 metal RT marines, 2 Necromunda models, 1 WHQ Warrior Priest and 1 incomplete pit slave later, I have enough stuff for a Rogue Trader game, extras for a TNT game and another figure closer to collecting all of the WHQ figures.

But it wasn't all bad.

Yesterday, the mailman dropped off a small box with the 3mm order from Fighting 15's. Lastnight, i unpacked and checked them all, and made 1-3 moulds of each vehicle I had ordered, and made the first casts. I made more casts this morning and more casts this evening. I'll make more casts again tomorrow morning and in the afternoon. Enough to have 9-10 of each MBT and less so of the other vehicles....almost all will become wrecks, others will be converted into new vehicles.  Someone is picking up my Star Wars AT-AT, Millenium Falcon and Tie Fighter for 50 euros, money that is going straight back into the hobby pot and creates quite a bit of room in the attic.

Tomorrow, Erik and I will play our first testgame of TNT. I just fnished printing and laminating all of the markers. I think I will grab some Necromunda models and write up a 400 point Raider for testing tomorrow. But with my background, a Caravaneer or Preserver warband is what I will end up with, I think. I'd like to end this week on a high, thank you very much.

A tale of wolves, skeletons and landmines

Hmm, might make a great movie.

My fever seems to be gone so I finished what I had on the table. First up:

2 Old Plastic Games Workshop wolves that have been in my bitsbox since about the time I started doing GW games back in 1998. Rebased to smaller (and flatter) 45mmx20mm Renedra bases that seem to do them more justice. Didn't bother with greenstuff to hide the head-body join, these were quick paints to see if I could still paint figures (instead of all of the objects you have seen me paint). Grey basecoat, black wash, grey drybrush top down on most of the body and a grey+white drybrush over just the tops. Bone teeth, white and black dot for the eyes. Sure, the newer GW Wolves are much nicer, they also cost money and I had them in my bits box. Use and be happy with what you have. And these will work perfect for Frostgrave. And Mordheim. And whatever game they can appear in.

Second:

2 Armoured skeletons, the left being the newer Games Workshop skeleton, the right a mix of parts from the same Games Workshop sprue on a Frostgrave body. I can't remember having painted undead since at least when Mordheim came out, so I just looked at a few videos to get ideas and went from there. Bone spray, Deval Mud wash for the base, Vallejo Dark Sand overall, Vallejo Pale Sand highlight, done for a skeleton....I don't like the bleached skull look. The only ones I ever saw like that were the ones my fellow students bleached for their own collections, the sand colour is more natural. I've always used red a binding colour for my undead and I don't see why I should change that now. Red with a Devlan Mud wash to make it grimy. Undead don't wear shiny clothes. Undead being....dead and I doubt they give a damn... Weapons and armour went through a few trials untill I settled on just washing it all over with a brighter orange mix and calling it done. I'll go over that particular process again with the next lot, and do it better. Or different. Or the same, who knows. The weathering on the shields worked particularly well I think. Other then a few speedpainting mistakes and general sloppyness, I'm moderately happy with them. I know what look GW tried to create with the left ones skull but my painting makes him loook stoopid. Oh well.  Hey look, 2 armoured skeletons for Frostgave. And Warhammer Quest. Done.

Third:

15 landmines. Not much to say about these, I started them back in It's a Trap! (October!? Time flies!)
Army-ish green, Deval Mud wash, red trigger, normal basing style dusted on the ends of the mines. Mines themselves are Oyumaru moulding copies from the launchers op top of the Furioso Dreadnaught....I thought they would make great mines. Sue me :) Added some small tufts to a few, and newspaper bits to two more, and left the rest bare. They are going straight into my counters box. Will work fine for Inquisitor, TNT, Necromunda. 15mm round 2mm plywood bases that are sadly no longer available from Fenris Games. Damn, I like these. Might have to go 2mm MDF now.

Right, now all I need to finish is the 3 Cars cars I'm working on, and then I can put some primer on new bits and get working on those. And repeat. I have a game of Frostgrave scheduled for thursday evening, so I'm looking forward to rolling up new monsters. Or more of the same. I don't mind painting the same stuff again.

No progress on the Wasteland Ruin. Right now I will finish painting the inside grey with a sponge too, and then call it a day, maybe paint the doors and tiles etc, and just game with it. And start the other bits for the square, and do all of the additional weathering atc at the end, with a broad brush. I've been staring the damned thing to death for the last week so it is better if I take some time off that particular ruin and get started on a new ruin. Something more suitable for Mordheim. Or dare I say, Frostgrave?  Yes, that sounds like a good idea.

Wasteland ruin progress and Frostgrave

Increased the spectacular factor of the ruin by adding bright orange rocks and pink big grains of sand all over for rubble, making sure to leave places clear where I want to put miniatures or stuff.

I did the borders as well. I can always make rubble piles to slide up against the walls later.

Also, played my first game of Frostgrave since November I think? I'd been guiding games at my house, which is fun, but playing is more fun. My Necromancer did rather well till he got mauled by a couple of marauding wolves that bit him for 13 hitpoints. With 1 life and 1 action he managed to Leap to the top of a tower, and my opponent instantly attempted to Push him off (but failed, even when I rolled a 1!). Erik, you bastard.

Anyway, I made myself a promise that for the time being, each game I play, I will try and paint all of the monsters that show up (if they are in my inventory or if I can trade them with other people). So for this time I'm supposed to paint up 2 armoured skeletons, 2 wolves and 1 ice toad. Skeletons no problem, I traded a second hand mostly basecoated and on the sprue undead army a while back, and I found some old Games Workshop wolves in my stash. I'm stumped on the Icetoad though, I know of a few nice ones but can't afford them at the moment. Maybe when Erik buys some more, I'll order some with him, if I can sell more Epic that is. Currently 12 euros in my Paypal left as I had to go out and buy new Matte varnish, as the pot is getting way old and it is almost impossible to stir properly. I'll also need to replace some Vallejo paints that I use a lot, notably Flat Brown that I use for all of my basing.

Anyway, here is a shot of the skellies and the wolves in their unprimed goodness.

I based them all on thin flat bases, I don't like the GW plinths. 1 of the armoured skeletons has the body from the Frostgrave soldiers sprue and this works very well with the newer GW Undead. When the glue and basing stuff has dried (meaning tomorrow) I'll sculpt some tatters on the shoulders of the soldier conversion to blend the arms in, and then they will head for the painting line next week. There's no particular reason I went with squares btw, but I can't find the round 20mm bases I have *somewhere* and aquare fits just as nicely with Warhammer Quest so no problem there.

I've also taken up a comission of sorts to trade a lot of Post Apocalyptic miniatures for 2 painted 40mm objective bases for a "Mad Max styled game". I'm thinking water and gas canisters, maybe a Raider idol/marker, not sure yet, I'll cobble up a few things and see what he thinks of it. Will be fun to do, and a good investment to get models to go with Fallout as the entire lot seems to be made up of Raiders.