Somebody call for a doctor?
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Earth Reborn Progress
Painting is proceeding at a furious pace as Damian will be here in something like two weeks now! Here are some of the nearly completed figures so far. They are still awaiting a final wash and seal with varnish that will take a little bit of the shine off them but this needs to be done in a batch so I have to wait until I'm completely finished to apply it.
Nick Bolter the leader of the Norad Faction - Hoping the final wash will cool the armor just a fraction.
Vaquez the busty sniper of the Norad faction, I must say this picture dosen't really do her justice.
Frank Eienstien Salemite Leader - This guy is EXACTLY as I want him so im a bit concerned that the wash might dull him more than I might like, still deciding if I should apply it.
Jack Saw - Crazy Lumberjack or out of control food processor? Bit of a white patch I missed under his bionic eye. Will be going back and doing this before I finish. Also starting to think about repainting the Salemite bionic eyes glowing green.
Cherokee Bill - Some sort of infiltrator/scout for the Salemites. Not super crazy about this model but it will have to do.
So that is the progress so far. Still have four more Salemites, and two Norad to put together. I do anticipate Ill be able to get all of this done on time although it may get a little dicey depending on my work schedule and the weather (in terms of sealing).
Also need to base my last few skaven and put my broken woodelves back together. (curse you for breathing you slackjawed idiots at Game Geeks who broke them.)
So, we should have Earth Reborn, Mordheim, Operation Squad and Warhammer Fantasy with Dark Elves, Wood Elves and Skaven all ready to go by the time Damian touches down. Time to check out my Mordhiem list and see if I can come up with a new way to counter skaven sling spam.... Actually scratch that, need to make Potato fritters then settle down and paint another Salemite.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Earth Reborn
Alright in blatant disregard for my historical theme, its time for a futuristic board game! This game has everything! Futuristic weapons, zombies, mad scientists, ninja engineers and giant mechwarrior type things.
Future video blogs about painting the minis are to follow as soon as I find the time/energy to paint and video them.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Return of the Chindits
I finally managed to get a few decent photos of my second installment of Chindits. My own camera is on the fritz and insists on bathing everything in a creepy golden light so these are courtesy of my friend Wayne, who, despite terrible lighting, managed to take some great pictures at a recent game.
So without any further fanfare...
This rounds out my Chindit force for now (YAY!) I enjoyed painting them immensely, the sculpts were great and came out looking wonderful. We have recently started to experiment with vehicle rules so I may have to add some anti tank chindits to completely finish the squad. And a flamethrower, I definitely need a flame thrower…
Incidentally I have led my Chindits into battle against the Japanese and victory was mine, despite some desperate fighting with Bayonets.
So without any further fanfare...
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| Radio Op |
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| Medic |
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| 2 Inch Mortar |
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| Assistant Mortarman to the Stars |
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| SGT with Thompson |
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| SGT with M1 Carbine |
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| Burmese Scout |
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| Burmese Scout |
This rounds out my Chindit force for now (YAY!) I enjoyed painting them immensely, the sculpts were great and came out looking wonderful. We have recently started to experiment with vehicle rules so I may have to add some anti tank chindits to completely finish the squad. And a flamethrower, I definitely need a flame thrower…
Incidentally I have led my Chindits into battle against the Japanese and victory was mine, despite some desperate fighting with Bayonets.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
The Three Month Mark
So I'm halfway through the six month plan I made when I started this blog. So I thought I would take stock of what I have managed so far.
My first and foremost accomplishment is that my WW2 operation squad force is complete! I have posted pictures of some of it and am hopeful of having the rest of them photographed and posted here by the end of the week. I have been having a blast with Operation Squad although these last few weeks have seen a bit of a lull due to other commitments.
I have also managed to connect with the local hysterical historical gaming community. I've played with several new people and taken part in an epic 6mm Battle of Antietam game.
As well as enjoyed a WW1 Naval battle in which I was handily defeated by the British. There seem to be a great group of guys around here and even some interested in pike and shotte period minis.
Which brings me to my pike and shotte army… Absolutely NO progress has been made on this front beyond taking a couple of models off the sprue to do some test pieces. I did manage to pick up all the requisites including the elusive yellow spray paint that I wanted to get them started. Bad weather and real life commitments have been mostly to blame for this but I have also continually put it on the back burner for other projects. Hopefully as the weather cools off I will find more time to work on this.
I have also failed to sell off any of my Warhammer Fantasy stuff. I think I might have been more successful in this had our purchase of a house gone through and the lust for gold had overcome my sentimental attachments. I am content to hold onto them however because my best friend is coming in February and it will be fun to have a variety of armies to field.
So that concludes my successes and failures for the first three months of my grand plan. So what are my new goals?
1. Have an awesome holiday season and decide on a Hallowe'en costume.
2. Speed up my microbiology course work a bit.
3. Finish at least the first part of my Spanish.
4. Construct a convincing deck of a Napoleonic ship in 28mm scale
5. Paint a pirate and Royal Navy warband to fight on the aforementioned deck.
6. Maybe add a unit or two of Skaven to round out my Warhammer fantasy army.
Given the hustle and bustle of the holidays this expanded scheme should carry me through to about February although I suppose I can hope that It might be finished sooner than that...
My first and foremost accomplishment is that my WW2 operation squad force is complete! I have posted pictures of some of it and am hopeful of having the rest of them photographed and posted here by the end of the week. I have been having a blast with Operation Squad although these last few weeks have seen a bit of a lull due to other commitments.
I have also managed to connect with the local hysterical historical gaming community. I've played with several new people and taken part in an epic 6mm Battle of Antietam game.
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| Fire and Fury at Antietam |
As well as enjoyed a WW1 Naval battle in which I was handily defeated by the British. There seem to be a great group of guys around here and even some interested in pike and shotte period minis.
Which brings me to my pike and shotte army… Absolutely NO progress has been made on this front beyond taking a couple of models off the sprue to do some test pieces. I did manage to pick up all the requisites including the elusive yellow spray paint that I wanted to get them started. Bad weather and real life commitments have been mostly to blame for this but I have also continually put it on the back burner for other projects. Hopefully as the weather cools off I will find more time to work on this.
I have also failed to sell off any of my Warhammer Fantasy stuff. I think I might have been more successful in this had our purchase of a house gone through and the lust for gold had overcome my sentimental attachments. I am content to hold onto them however because my best friend is coming in February and it will be fun to have a variety of armies to field.
So that concludes my successes and failures for the first three months of my grand plan. So what are my new goals?
1. Have an awesome holiday season and decide on a Hallowe'en costume.
2. Speed up my microbiology course work a bit.
3. Finish at least the first part of my Spanish.
4. Construct a convincing deck of a Napoleonic ship in 28mm scale
5. Paint a pirate and Royal Navy warband to fight on the aforementioned deck.
6. Maybe add a unit or two of Skaven to round out my Warhammer fantasy army.
Given the hustle and bustle of the holidays this expanded scheme should carry me through to about February although I suppose I can hope that It might be finished sooner than that...
Monday, October 3, 2011
Chindits!
At long last the first wave of my Chindits is ready! So without any further ado...
At the time of posting this I have actually nearly completed the next ten, I just need this foul weather to lift so I can give them a spray of varnish to seal them. I have nightmares of all the paint flaking off during play...
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Brettonian Knights like Brettonian days...
Brettonians are another of my hangover armies, things I start after a night of particularly heavy reading. I'm working hard to get all these half finished projects done so I can focus
Last year I read Mallory's Morte d'Arthur and was absolutely blown away by it. Even though it was written in the 1400's it has this kind of intense unknown pagan landscape that really fires the Imagination. It is full of misty forests and strange fey wells and frozen snow covered hills. It's a great deal of fun as well, until the Holy Grail shows up to remind us that there is nothing so fine that it can't be messed up by sanctimonious moralizing. I've always been fond of the Arthur ledged although I prefer the more energetic 'Welcher' versions like Culhwch and Olwen. I guess its just easier to see Arthur in a Welch warband rather than in an English cathedral.
As if this wasn't a heady enough brew, I also acquired an audio version of Barbara Tuchman's The Calamitous 14th Century: A Distant Mirror. This is an absolute masterwork of bringing history to the wider world. Winding the story around the character of one man, Enguerrand de Coucy the seventh, it moves the reader through grand campaigns, peasant rebellions, marauding mercenary knights, worldly prelates, Italian internecine politics, trends in art and literature, crusades, the black death, the murderous Breton wars and a dozen other topics that are spectacularly diverse and come together to produce the best picture of the time I've ever seen. I must candidly admit that I have listened to it three times and it will probably not be the last.
Anyhow, you can see how I was practically forced to start a Brettonian army... Unfortunately, as with many of these literary sprees, the inspiration dosen't always last. I plan to sell what I have painted and hope for a profit. I'm trying vainly to clear out the backlog of fantasy stuff so I can address my backlog of historical stuff. Sigh.
I need to either read up on how to set up models for photography or, more likely buy a new and better camera. Even with the macro feature on this one seems to kind of grain out on me and pick up too much glare.
Anyway without further ado…
One of the great things about Brettonians is that not only are you free to paint your army in any scheme you want, but you a free to paint each individual a different color scheme. I chose to keep the champion and banner man fairly similar to reinforce the idea that the members of the unit are feudally linked to the particular family whose banner they are following.
This particular character was inspired Amadeus VI of Savoy who makes periodic appearences in A Distant Mirror. He was reknowned for always wearing green, being accompanined by a body guard dressed in green and often lead into tornaments by ladies dressed in green. Where his nickname comes from I have no idea.
This guy is one of my personal favorites the inspriation behind him is Guy Du Bas-Tyra from Raymond Fiest's magnificent Riftwar saga.
This is another shot I tried of him. It was my first attempt at stubble on a model and I wanted to capture his face, unfortunately I failed.
This was an experiment in using patterns. It worked ok but I think it makes him look a bit too fancy for a regular knight. Maybe for a character model.
Banners are awesome. You know it. I know it.
This is the unit champion. I really dislike the stretched out neck on the horse. I guess it would look ok on a galloping mount but here it just makes it look like the horse is having some kind of cardiac event...
This is a random shot.
So much for the knights. On to the artillery!
Obviously it is missing its counter weight. I actually have this painted but am struggling to find a way to suspend an extremely heavy metal weight up in the air. I need some kind of hard core superglue I guess.
And last but not least a shot of the crew of this incredible machine. Unfortunately the child/teenager/midget sitting on the wheel barrow suffered a terrible varnishing accident which completely screwed the paint job and it was a terrible shame because he looked AWESOME prior to that. Lesson learned go easy on the varnish.
That concludes my Brettonians for now (although I have to admit to having 2 more units of knights in need of painting). My full focus can now go to my Chindits who have been waiting so patiently...
Last year I read Mallory's Morte d'Arthur and was absolutely blown away by it. Even though it was written in the 1400's it has this kind of intense unknown pagan landscape that really fires the Imagination. It is full of misty forests and strange fey wells and frozen snow covered hills. It's a great deal of fun as well, until the Holy Grail shows up to remind us that there is nothing so fine that it can't be messed up by sanctimonious moralizing. I've always been fond of the Arthur ledged although I prefer the more energetic 'Welcher' versions like Culhwch and Olwen. I guess its just easier to see Arthur in a Welch warband rather than in an English cathedral.
As if this wasn't a heady enough brew, I also acquired an audio version of Barbara Tuchman's The Calamitous 14th Century: A Distant Mirror. This is an absolute masterwork of bringing history to the wider world. Winding the story around the character of one man, Enguerrand de Coucy the seventh, it moves the reader through grand campaigns, peasant rebellions, marauding mercenary knights, worldly prelates, Italian internecine politics, trends in art and literature, crusades, the black death, the murderous Breton wars and a dozen other topics that are spectacularly diverse and come together to produce the best picture of the time I've ever seen. I must candidly admit that I have listened to it three times and it will probably not be the last.
Anyhow, you can see how I was practically forced to start a Brettonian army... Unfortunately, as with many of these literary sprees, the inspiration dosen't always last. I plan to sell what I have painted and hope for a profit. I'm trying vainly to clear out the backlog of fantasy stuff so I can address my backlog of historical stuff. Sigh.
I need to either read up on how to set up models for photography or, more likely buy a new and better camera. Even with the macro feature on this one seems to kind of grain out on me and pick up too much glare.
Anyway without further ado…
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| Knights of the Realm |
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| The Green Count |
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| Black Guy |
This guy is one of my personal favorites the inspriation behind him is Guy Du Bas-Tyra from Raymond Fiest's magnificent Riftwar saga.
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| Black Guy |
This is another shot I tried of him. It was my first attempt at stubble on a model and I wanted to capture his face, unfortunately I failed.
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| Viney Knight |
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| Banner |
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| Champion |
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| Random Shot |
So much for the knights. On to the artillery!
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| Trebuchets: Throwing heavy things since time immemorial. |
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| Side Shot |
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| Other Side Shot |
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| The Motley Crew |
That concludes my Brettonians for now (although I have to admit to having 2 more units of knights in need of painting). My full focus can now go to my Chindits who have been waiting so patiently...
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