Ranger retouched and rebased

Just a quickie today.  I did a quick touch up on an old ranger with the goal of dotting I's (or, eyes in this case) and crossing T's in my mostly done painted collection.  Even with my workload I can fit in one mini to polish and wind up at a time.

The photo is crappy, but it's more about charting progress.

In the years since he was first painted, I have learned a great deal, and I thought it worth noting.
First thing I did was thoroughly dust the mini and give it some lahmium medium coats to matt the surface down ready for new paint.
The main upgrade in my technique is using strong contrast between shadows and highlights to make the model pop on the gaming table and in dim light. Though he was originally subtly shaded, I kicked him up a notch witha few simple glaze passes and some edging.  Deeper washes punched out the flesh and seperated the fingers.
The base was decorated with rotten wood, tufts and leaf litter to really sell the outdoorsy aspect of the character.

Rustoleum magnetic primer

It works!

I applied Rustoleum magnetic primer to the inside of a box file and it actually works!

Eight coats, stippled on with a sponge and voila-  Enough grip to keep my minis still even with a good shake of the box.

Great!

Lead addiction getting to me

Working on my Cancon aquisitions, Skulldred photo minis/boards and Hawkmoon sculpts all at the same time is seriously crunching me for space and mind juice.

My mistake was to base up and prime all the cancon minis I could like a conveyer belt factory.   It works too well...  This ate up several meters square, and prevented me from filing them away in bags like the rest of my collection.  Now I am going NUTS in my little workspace.  Lead addiction can, apparently lead to claustrophobia.

Owning a cat has also forced me into a much smaller space.  I cannot have both windows and the door open as she likes base diving out (1600 in vet bills) or jumping onto my collection.  She destroys game boards too.

No space.  No air.  Going... NUUUUTS!

To tide me over a stop gap until spoon' tells us his secret storage tricks, I have been blutacking my based minis to foamcore and placing them in box files so I can regain control of my office.  You get about 70 x 30mm bases in an a4 box, not bad.

Spending last night reboxing my 'painted' collection has unforunately highlighted that most of my minis are not finished to my liking.  Many are painted but not detailed, or have been rebased but the base not painted and finished.  A great deal of minis are base coated and washed, but not highlighted and worst of all, lots of them have naked shield bumps.  Yep.  I usually plan to do this kick arse shield and set the mini aside for later while I finish his mates.  Its sad that I have so many figures mostly done only to stop near the goal posts.

I have to do something about this!  But not now.  Too much work to do and too little space to do it in.  Box up everything then get Hawkmoon done and dusted so I can get back to Skulldred.

So all this made me think about my goals hobby wise, and I realise I have to divide my hobby into three parts to deal with my addictions impact on my living space.

First there is collecting minis.  Easy to curb, jusy stop buying.  The need to get that rare mini to complete a set is one part of lead addiction, and you always fight the feeling that your missing something amazing on ebay.  But its not too hard to fight the urge.  I soothe this ache by sitting down and sorting through my unpainted mini tubs.  Really enjoyable and relaxing.

Second, painting minis.  This is not top of everyones addiction, and to many lucky souls just owning is enough.  I want mine painted, and painted well (well, for me anyway- not to golden demon standard).  Worse, I like blended minis with crisp outlining.  I do not like obvious brush marks. I blame Fraser Grey.
This ultimately means my minis take a long time to finish.  I can kick out foundry style 'three shades to game ready' minis in no time... but finished to my personal tastes is time consuming.
Here I have to learn to curb my perfectionism, which is painful to an artist type.  That brings me to hobby division 3.
Gaming.  This is the part of my hobby that requires finished varnished minis and terrain.  I want, for example, a warband for each race.  That means a lot of minis painted to game standard at least.  If I can focus on a small number of Skulldred warbands, say four, to begin with, and get six key models done, I can relax and game with these for a while.
The terrain aspect is also a concern.  I love making it, but have no way to store it, especially now my Cat attacks it.

Order of initiative:  Daves new plan

So first things first, I am boxing away the whole collection, dusting down the shelving and getting the studio back into shape.  I need to clear several square meters to set up a Skulldred photo board and a space I can use dirt and sand away from my painting and sculpting space.

Once thats all done I can start trickling my projects through.  My John Blanche Undead Assault proj is taking up several shelves on its own, so breaking that up into sub projects will help.  All my GW plastics boxes I got for christmas will go into storage.

I think I may have to sit down in the future and prepaint a whole array of shields so that I can check off a load of figures quickly.  I am inclined towards making some flat centered shields ideal for painting and getting these cast up rather than filling citadel plastic shields.

Maybe I print off some paper banners to begin with from my oldhammer resources too.

I am thinking of setting up a 'totally finished only' shelf.  No varnish, no tufts... your not coming in!

Critical Mass

Okay, so heres the thing, dear reader.  My push to base up and paint all my minis has been violently successful in the first months of the campaign.  The thing is... well, if you take N number of miniatures that occupy S space in baggies, stored in boxes, then attach them using G glue to some very nice 30mm MDF (B) bases you get this forumula...

S(B x 30) = 1A+ (G+B+fingers =Z7 debonder)

1 being 100% and A being my arse.  Yes, the mathematics proves it.. I am up to my arse in minis.

By basing things I have increased their surface area, and that is a greater area than I can deal with neatly.  My current tubs method is not working as they dicontinued my 3 litre tupperware tubs, and you cannot store 30mm based and painted minis economically in take out containers.

Therefore I am up for suggestions on how to store my preciousnesses in an economical way.  Right now, I am leaning toward box files with magnetic sheeting... but a decent box file costs about 20 Australian bucks (or in Canadian Dollars Aboot 20 bucks).  An a4 sized bit of rubber steel sheet is pretty pricey out here also.  Australians are getting screwed badly with pricing.

I dont want to lay them down in foam trays... in my experience thats like rubbing sandpaper on your paintjobs.  I want to go the 'standing up with magnets' route.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Rebase-age groupshot

Its been a while since I did a group shot.  My blog started with lots of groupshots of minis on black.  I kinda loved that, so I did a quick phone snap after decorating some bases with flock in what little hobby time I had.

  Terrible pic, but hey...

Most of these I have posted earlier, but remind me in the comments if there is any I haven't and I will snap some proper pictures with the digital camera rather than my phone.  I know the beastman, mordheim dog and ludmilla loinripper are new.
Once again when I have a moment on the PC (wife is using it for an urgent lolcats update), I will put proper captions and stuff in.
Tired.  Long day.  Need a cup of tea.
Somewhere the tea is getting cold...

A legion of eight!

A legion is, last time I checked, slightly more than eight... but as these are Greater Skeletons, maybe their like Chuck Norris, who is a delta force of one, after all.

This is a brilliant boxed set- very characterful, realistic take on skeletons that predated the Perry cackling whacky teeth skeletons that dominated my early years.  I really dislike citadels current plastic skeletons... I dunno, they look like chunky halloween decorations.  These Skeletal figures are beautifully sculpted and much more realistic in their proportions, but if I can put on my critical hood for a moment, come from the era in Guthries early work which was very stiff in its posing.  That said, all of Ral Partha releases at the time where stiff as hell, holding weapons in a weighless way like you see a king holding a sceptre in a medieval painting.

   By the way, I think Julie's modern minis are breathtakingly fluid in their posing- the summoning miniature with writhing nymphs is a masterpeice of figure work... so hey, hard to fault the lass!  My first sculpts make me cringe and I have only been doing it for a few years.  I am just saying that I realise these figures may look a bit flat and stiff to modern gamers.

  But, what they lack in depth and dynamics, they make up in old school charm, are a pleasure to paint and I do have a soft spot for them.  The Undead Balrog, hound handler are really strong designs and classics of their type.  Plus the assembly of the Balrog is genius... one of the easiest multipart models to assemble ever.  I gave his neck a gentle bend to give him more depth.  If you havent done this before, its actually quite easy.  Wrap the part in tissue to distribute the pressure of your pliers and make small, slow gentle bends.  A quick bend will shear the model at its weak spot.  I suspect heating the model would help, but rarely find a problem reposing.

WIP:  Julie Guthrie's Undead rising from the grave

It was a hot, dry day today, so I rushed through some 'nearly there' minis to get them to varnish stage... but ran out of time.  So, I guess I am about fifty percent of the way through this lot...  The further back, and more unfocused, the more unfinished.  I think they need 'shrooms on their bases.

Another reason I am hurrying these ahead of my Undead Assault Project is that the boxed set I received was sealed, but on opening I found them just starting to tarnish.  So the faster I get them well and truely sealed, the more likely they are to survive the next decade.  My priming didnt get into all the cracks, so I was eager to varnish them.  Fingers crossed for next week.

By the way, the great news is that Iron Wind Metals still produce all the figures in this range.

Yay!

The bad news is that (at the time of writing this blog entry) they are individually listed and scattered throughout the fantasy sections of their webstore.  Most are in fantasy armies/skeletons, but some are in roleplaying and supernaturals if I remember rightly.  Its no biggie, I suppose... whilst hunting through you will encounter lots of cool old school classics, so it is time well spent.

I must confess I am starting to burn out painting bone and zombie flesh.  Even the Splintered light stuff for Skulldred is undead.  I may hoff break and do something really out there next.  Maybe some Realm Of Chaos or Malifaux for a change... oh... no my Malifaux figures are all undead too.  Hmmm.

 

Female magic user

A parcel arrived today with a couple of minis- one of which was this Ral Partha 01-337 Female Magic User.  She turned out to be the mid level of one of the three stage figures ral partha put out for dnd gamers.  Sculpted by Tom Meier, it features his trademark 'too fine to paint' details.  Bloody impressive is our Tom's steady hand, as he proves here by sculpting a raised pentagram on her belt buckle using nothing but green stuff and inhuman patience.

Occasionally I get a mini that just needs a bit of sprucing up rather than stripping.  This one was neatly undercoated and base colored, but the pevious owner seemed to have stopped mid way (perhaps the low level version of her died and he no longer needed the mid level!) and heck, such a nice shade of pink too.

Ral Partha 01-337 Female Magic User.  Sculptor:  Tom Meier.

Whilst my wife was enjoying a double bill of 'my big fat gypsy wedding', I decided to see if I could knock out a figure on the same day it arrived.  I took some photos along the way.

First I needed to address the flash.  Almost all minis from the 80's have the remains of flash under their paint jobs.  Kids where not clued up on cleaning this off I guess... or too lazy.  This one was reasonably well cleaned on the outside, but a chased off some flash under her arm  and had to re shape her wand arm, which was poorly cast and had a thick nub of metal on it.

As she arrived, mounted on a 30mm x 2mm MDF base by 'Warbases'

 

Next I re-established the base colors, painting over the scuffs and bringing her to an even, matt finish.  If your trying to get good at mini painting, the first thing you should try and do is just base coat neatly and evenly.  It takes a bit of discipline, and it is not how your shown how to do it in white dwarf or painting guides these days, which focus on completely finishing a section before moving on to the other- but I suspect this is mainly due to making it easy to illustrate, rather than being the best method to actually paint.  John Blanche (who?) mentioned this in a Blanchitsu a while back... he still gets all his base colors down first before shading.

  By the way, I firmly believe you should paint your gaming miniatures with their base colors before playing with them.  Undercoated or raw minis are dreadful to play.  By at least getting all the colors in, your minis look good at a distance- at which, lets face it, most games are played.  Once colored in, your good to game.

My current base painting technique involves the brilliant, BRILLIANT Liquitex Burnt Umber- which provides deep rich soil colors when applied in varying thicknesses.

So I kept the shading and detailing very simple, as I wanted her finished in one sitting.  I used slightly thinned black ink to edge all her details- flow aid helps here.  I also used a few glazes, which as you probably know, I thin with matte medium and flow aid.  Here I used an old bottle of Titilating pink from the monster Citadel Boxed set.

Varnished and ready for Skulldred.  "A wizards staff has a knob on the end"

A rear view.

Undead assault: Emerald Dwarf progress

S'up dudes and dudettes?  A quick iphone snap of tonights undead assault 'emerald dwarf' session.

Work In Progress.  Fantasy Tribes Era, Pre Slotta Dwarves from a more civilized age.

   Thanks to BridgendSteves disc of reference photos, I can confidently move forward on details.  Steve had closeups of the rooftop and sally port dwarfs- plus angles on the undead horde that threw up some priceless clues to their identies.  Sadly the diorama needs a good dust and better, diffused lighting, if you work at warhammer world get thee to a supermarket for a static duster and restore this treasured part of gaming history!

   Matching colors is tricky as this diorama dates firmly in his enamels stage, however I did go old school by popping open a goblin green from the 1980s I aquired off ebay (yes that sucker is still good!).  Mmmm... smells like mullets, space invaders, rubik cubes and clannad albums.

Cheers Steve!  Support the man in thanks by visiting his ebay store and procuring more lead!

I am gonna need to offload all my doubles on ebay to help pay for the remaining undead.

Thanks also to all you weirdos emailing me with undead assault minis!  Keep em coming... I need lots of skellys still, sword swingers, spearmen and ghouls. Oh plus that ballista.

I am going to have to dremmel off the champions weapon to fit a ballista bolt... seems a shame to damage a perfectly good figure but I guess its for a great oldhammer cause.

Greeble heep!

Undead assault: Sveta Patchmaiden

First Emerald Moon Dwarf off the blocks...  Sveta Patchmaiden next to her photo.  The base echos the set she is standing on in the diorama with cunning use of cocktail sticks.

Sveta Patchmaiden, Pre-slotta era Dwarf adventurer (Perry Sculpt?)

 

 

I just got a disk of photos arrive from BridgendSteve, (cheerz mutchly good sir) haven't had time to look at it yet, but oooooh, so exciting!  Gonna get me some large prints!
Hopefully if there are some good shots of the banners I can digitally flatten out, undistort and clean these up to make some printable banners to scale.  (Though I plan to then graphite transfer and handpaint my own. Just to be hardcore).

I plan to assemble a digital checkoff list from Steves pictures to help track, ID and trade each and every figure.  By the end I should be able to give you a complete shopping list!  It would make a dandy collectors page on ccmwiki!

I had the heartstopping realisation that the ballista is a mini not scratch built as I had previously thought.  Fortunately I had a set of defibs in my car and mi6 on standby to fix me long enough to win the card game.... wait... no that was casino royale... I get so mixed up with my exciting life and bond movies.  Where was I?  Oh yes... The dwarf ballista used to come with the stretcher crew.  Now I have to hunt down yet another mini!

My Ral Partha jabberwock arrived too... not certain I want to saw him up to get him coming out of the water...  anyone got a broken one?

Speaking of which, I am also looking for the wings and tail of the Orc Wyvern that was used by Pete Taylor to build his infamous yellow chaos spawn.  I got me a bust umberhulk and scorpion- just need those missing parts.  And yes, the umberhulks mouth is destined for a three headed minotaur belly.  Bonus points for oldschool cool if you spotted that one coming.

I am sick with flu at the moment (where is mi6 when you need them?)  So I probably will be getting some hobby stuff done in the next few days whilst I recover.  It will be good to get a few more wins on the project board!

Enjoy. 

Good bye Megaminis, Hello skeletal legions

Yep, they are closing up shop and selling off the moulds.  Sad, but understandable.  The income you get from minis does nor justify the time put in moment.  At least we have kickstarter now to protect us from risky mould cost decisions and handle preorders- so its not a bad time entirely to be in the biz.

Do your hobby a favor.  Dont buy that next overpriced (but gorgous) GW box you where looking at getting... take that money, even if its just this month- go find some obscure little mini business and spend it there (horrible postage prices be damned- after all your getting screwed by the man either way).  Lets stop some more doors closing!
My money is aimed at Hasslefree- thems some fine assed barbarians Kev is making.

I am crestfallen it comes at a time where (thanks to the wonders of IVF financing) I wont be able to risk the moolah to pick up the Metal Magic dwarf rights for Darkling games.

I console myself that I got me a nice big order of megaminis recently, and I am sure some great companies will carry the torch.

On the hobby front I have only had time to restore, prime and base a box of Julie Guthrie Ral Partha undead that was dangerously close to decay on its arrival.  From the depth of grey spotting, I think I rescued them in the nick of time.  A good clean with a wire brush and a prime and I think they'll live.  Er.. unlive.
Its a great box set- mine was complete with instructions and dnd stats.  A couple of the figures appear in Undead Assault, most notably the double handed swordsman appears twice- he is knocking at the castle door.  Back then GW distributed RP, so John Blanche included many in the diorama- including the Yellow Wraith shooting the door.

Ebay sale warning

My swap tub is officially too full now to put any more stuff in, thanks to my recent market haul, so I am facing the terror of ebaying it all*.  What a time suck.  Uhg.

*except the space quest goblins that no one ever manages to sell on ebay.  Those things are like lead pile tartar buildup.

Anyway I decided to check out turbolister to see if it absorbs some of the time suck horror, and to make this announcement that I will be selling off a bucket load of stuff in the coming fortnight, so I feel compelled to do it by external forces.  Now I said it, there is no backsies... I have to do it.

Watch this space for link to the sale.

Amanda Palmer, Antimone Carver and the walking lead

Occasionally, twisted paths align and you see parallels in otherwise unrelated lives that give you an insight into the ungraspable nature of the world.
By a strange twist, I found myself falling in love with two completely different things yesterday, and those making me realise something about why we, and by we I mean bloggers, do what we do.


Anyway, I stumbled across the web comic Gunnerkrigg court which I found myself reading in one sitting.  Though far from original (even going so far as to point out its references by having the characters watch Princess Mononuke, and by publishing a Harry Potter crossover fan story), it smooshes together a rather captivating world from a melange of sources, and that world has a breathtakingly tangeable structure built from intageable imaginative things.  You can inhabit the world as easily as you could imagine living in Hogwarts or riding in the Serenity.
Well, the thing is, that a quick wiki search on Gunnerkrigg threw up a recommendation by Neil Gaiman and,  curious to read what he thought of the comic, I followed the reference back to his blog.  There I discovered a TED speech by his wife, Amanda Palmer of Dreden Dolls fame.  Having seen many a great TED video recently, I clicked on it.

Art of Asking

I swallowed down my initial reaction to the street performance roots of this speech.  I hate street performance artists by default, and want to slap anyone who gets in my face to force me to confront the issues they percieve I have by labelling me 'audience member'.  I actually did theatre arts, and worked in the theatre (even ran a candy floss shop at a street theatre fund raising festival) I did Brecht, smashed my fourth wall and so on and so forth, and honestly I can say I found experimental theatre the equivalent of experimental dentistry.  I hate embarassing people as much as watching them be embarassed.  I would rather sit back and entertain them with a nice sturdy fourth wall in place, thank you very much. So, though Amanda comes from this background, I persevered and was well rewarded.

I quickly realised she is, infact, is quite different to those mimes I want to punch on sight.  As at the core of her message is genuinely connecting to people, and how rewarding that can often be.

Blogging is about connection, and though I have been accused of being socially adept on occasion,  and more than happy to public speak to rooms of over a thousand people, I rarely spend enough time to connect to anyone.  But I do spend a lot of time at home, doing my stuff and then blogging about it.

Now, I had been thinking lately, why is it I spend so much time blogging about the stuff I do?  I had a nasty feeling it was somewhat of a narcisistic trip, and did not like that idea at all.  Do I need people to see I restore and paint minis to have my collection, or even my own existence validated?  Uhg.  Do I need validation in the same way those mimes do?  Somebody punch me.

Well no.  The Gunnerkrig court to Amanda Palmer experience made me realise that the reason I do what I do, is that I am constantly being rewarded for this connection.  I spend my time writing and making stuff that I like, and share it with people who like the same stuff.  A connection, albeit as thin as an electron, is made, and people respond in a postive, rewarding way.  Its not about ego, but connection.

Aww, warm fuzzies all round.

I can validate this in a very tangeable way.  I have on my shelf here six or seven figures people have sent me, free, no strings attached, simply because they value what I do.  These are not just crappy figures either... these are very rare figures indeed.  I even have a McDeath scenario box someone sent me because of the blog.  Not that I am rubbing my hands together at this as a profit, because I myself have mailed out lots of free minis too, but its that people care enough to connect with me by sending things of value.
Thats just physical things too... the amount of time people have spent writing me emails, sending me links and hunting for mini IDs should be counted.  If I include my Skulldred project, there is hundred of hours of other peoples timeplaytesting, writing notes and doing fun stuff like web comics and battle reps.


So first a big thank you from me for reading and connecting to the blog.

Undead Assault is proving to be a really positive experience for me, I hope John Blanche gets to see how much his diorama still captivates and inspires people.

Anyway, enjoy the links... I will be back with some painted things soon.

Undead Assault: Can you solve the mystery of the sword?

Okay, so I noticed this....

The sword has been added.  Only problem is... where is it from?  Its small, more like a dagger.  Is is a treasure item?  Which range is it from?

Comments below, and bonus points if you have one!

The Dude Abides!


UPDATE:

The winner is Alan Puzio- who spotted the sword on a ral Partha Goblin Drummer!  Seriously, how good is this guys identify skills!

Alan, I am sending you something!

Man, I looooove this project!  The more I examine and talk about the diorama, the more interesting things come to light!

Now... Ral partha goblins... I had some here somewhere....
 

Flea market score

I found this little lot in a flea market today.  Anyone want an unopened rogue trader medics pack or a 2002 white dwarf?
The haul includes a snotling pump wagon (no roof version unfortunately), a pile of Kev Adams gothic horror figures, tarzan, aleister crowley and a pack of grenadier undead skelly dogs.
Noice!
Anyway, posted a picture for you to have a little look through and enjoy.

Undead Assault on maths

Its time to start planning my tower... so I did a quick bit of finking and used the measurements of the minis in the picture to extrapolate rough proportions for my keep.  9x14 should do the trick, though I may adjust this for playablity... after all, my models are on 30mm bases... so they will have to have room to stand.  My cunning plan is to make the upper floor of the keep to take the bases, then work down the front wall down to the sally port, then do the front where the bridge connects.

Extrapolating lengths based on known variables.... kinda.

I have yet to get me some of those pillars, but already have the sally port and front door, so the bridge will have to be stage 2.  I am thinking about taking a mould of these and casting these in resin simply to reduce the weight and allow me to make the doors open-able for gaming.  I will go with the authentic models to start with, then explore this avenue later.


For the table, I am planning something a bit special.  Instead of digging down for the river, I am planning on building up from it.  The gaming table boards will be entirely made up of glossy, murkey green water.  The ground sections will be individual island modules that are placed ontop of the water.  I ordered a tub of magnetic responsive paint- basically enamel house paint with micro iron balls in it.  I am going to try this as a layer below the glossy water effect and see if I can get magnets to adhere to it.  That way any islands I place on will stay put!  I am planning on doing this with a dungeon board as well.

The keep, cliff face and sally port will all be one module, the bridge will connect to this with magnets.  The stone archway, mushrooms and hill will be seperate peices mounted on MDF, and these will sit on the islands.  I have already started the giant mushrooms using wire on heavy washers and magic sculpt.  The caps are shaped over citadel paint tubs.

The major change I will be making is the ground texture.  To be honest I always thought the one John used looks jarring and ugly.  After painting the Undead leader with the exact matching colors on his base... yeah... uhg.  Not really going to make me happy unless I do something more modern and natural.  I will be using a mix of mosses, flock and leaf scatter for a more natural look- keeping towards the catachan / camo greens I used to use a lot on my bases.

The stonework is a concern to me.  I will be making my keep from foamcore, so that expanded foam cell look will have to be sculpted on- perhaps with a thin layer of magic sculpt.  I may have to carve it from EPS now I think about it.  I may just modernise it a bit with pencil carved eps and give it a slightly different, more detailed look- as, even as a kid... it always looked like foam packaging to me.  Not sure yet.  What are your thoughts?

Undead assault: new arrivals

These tasty little morsels arrived today,  a couple of vital missing members of the John Blanche Undead assault project.

Barring this project, I am cutting way back on my collecting this year to focus on painting and enjoying what I already have.
Though assembling complete sets of things is dead satisfying (especially arranging them all together for the first time) it will be more satisfying having the figures done and varnished rather than dwelling in storage.
The time I spend scouring ebay, posting feedback, opening packages, stressing about late arrivals and filing away figures can be better spent this year.  I am dead exhausted most days- time management is now really critical to my mental brainythinkyproper wotsit...  so setting aside one part of my hobby will help immensely.

My current painty time has been marred by bad weather with bad timing... either too hot to work in my studio or too wet to spray or varnish.  I have done a few minutes here and there- but nothing worth posting yet.  Three members of the emerald dwarfs are base coated and one eyed Brunhilda is mostly done.

I desperately have to finish my new Darkling Bederken minis so I can get them up on the site, and I have an elf army from Splintered Light I still need to prime up for Skulldred.
Busy, busy...

Hoff to a good start...

A quick pic of my hoffbeat painty rest break... I feel better after messing around with these.  Its got my juices if not flowing, but defrosted enough to peel off the cling film and stick it back into the mental microwave.

The spaced out druid is fun, but I really should have done a bit of a proper fill and file as he is from the era of rough surfaces and crappy fingers.  Not sure what to do with his lantern yet.  I may do source lighting, but he is already pretty light.  Hmmm.

The Asgard adventuress was the first in a whole slew of bare bristol warriors with crossed straps.  Citadel did a bunch almost identical several years layer which appeared in fighters and chaos fighters and I think Ral Partha did one too but I will check on that... I will do a side by side shot once the others are painted up.  Needs a lot of work on the eyes still, and I suspect she should be a brunette... (opinions below)  She had bug eyes, which is always hard to paint... and is generally poorly sculpted except for the obvious bang on bits.  Anyone know who sculpted her?  Still, nice to finally have her transition from ugly grey lump to ugly colorful one.  More polishing required before varnishing.

Third up is one of the snap together chaos cultists from dark vengence. 
How exactly does dark vengence differ from regular kind?

I decided to go way out there with style, painting them to be gleering out of the darkness with source lighting.  For colors I am keeping tightly with orange vs midnight blue, and keeping them muted.  The base is a Renedra 25mm plastic base.  Yeah, yeah but it will work better in tightly packed necromunda hives.

Finally is the lovely confrontation hybrid beastie from Rackham.  One of my Skulldred playtesters is using the system to resurrect the Arkalesh game world... and I love that idea.  I have enough rackham to make large dirz, goblin and undead warbands, as well as a good fist full of smaller bands.
Painting this guy is F.U.N.  plus I realised if I kept the basing simple grey flag stone, this versatile bastard is ideal for Inquisuitor, weird world war, nurgle, warmahordes cryx, modern horror and cyberpunk genre games.
Thus I went with a green metal armor and offset this with purplish hues for the flesh.

Oh you can see some bob olley dwarfs from mega minis just behind on my painting rack.  These will be appearing in Skulldred if all goes to plan.  I painted one with a white undercoat and cried 'sod this 'after a couple of hours and sprayed the rest black.  I just have to face it... I am a black undercoater.

WF Spaced Out Druid, Asgard Adventuress, GW Chaos Cultist, Confrontation Hybrid

Reward yourself with Hoff break

Before I explain Hoff break- I can happily confirm Aussie Import Cheaper than cheap ass matt enamel spray beat my expensive GW can, after I blazed through my collection in a primer frenzy.  It does clog though, so you have to wipe the nozzle with a rag every ten minutes, but boy you can prime a LOOOOT of minis for a few bucks.  I switched back to matt black and the results are just dogs danglies.

Its a truely flat black- feels like a chalkboard- not satin as I expected.  It worked a treat on the cheap as chips chaos cultists I bagged at CANCON so that ticks plastic off, a forgeworld psyker, do thats resin checked and metal... well, it does bukkit loads of that too.
As I went back over the figures I primed skull white I can definately say it has mileage, as my can is still going some fifty figures on where the GW can gave up.  Excellent!

Anyway, back to the HOFF break thing...

I have been dividing up my time methodically this month, trying to find that happy work/life/business/hobby balance, and I realised I was not actually having very much fun in the latter.
This struck me as a little strange- I am after all, neck deep in lead n paint.  I should be happy as a pig faced orc in a M.U.D.

I realised it was because I was in factory mode.  Hobby WAS work.  My great escape from the pressures of life is to kick back and make something dull and grey come to life.
What I have been doing is rinse and repeat tasks which, though burning through my assigned to do list, is hardly an escape.
Even my current lifetime dream project 'undead assault' was calling for wave after wave of brown clad undead in a little factory line.  A change is needed...

Now I have to say, I am definately winning the war on lead-valanche... (that moment when you scream "I have too many minis!"-) having rebased, magnetised, polished, repaired, primed, textured, glued, undershaded and glazed my way through hundreds of figures since I last posted a shot of all my trays... but for all this progress I am not getting any 'runs on the board'- finished minis to proudly drool over for my self.

I decided to take a break and dust off something really FUN to do.  A 'Dust off' day... which my wife heard as Da Hoff day.  Like I don't already celebrate that...  geesh.

Now what shall I enjoy painting?  Hmmmm.... rummage... rummage...

Aha!  Perfect...

A confrontation Dirz Hybrid monstrosity.  Big, kick ass and intimidating as the Rackham PJ was so daaaamn good.  What else?
A Kev Adams beastman...  Spaced Out Druid... that boobs out Asgard female adventurer sitting on my shelf and.. ooh, a sample chaos cultist from my new army.  Right, that little lot should cheer me up next hobby session.

Do you need a Hoff break?  You do look a little sunken...  go on, dust off something really out there to paint!

Post your selection in the comments below if your joining me!

Repainting plastics tips

By request here are some tips on turning prepainted plastics into proper minis.
First you need a proper blade... dont mess around with craft knives here, go get a surgical scalpel from your art store.  Be ultra careful with these as you can cut yourself down to the bone with ease.
The super sharp blades will cut through the vinyl very easily without pressure, so you can trim back the mould lines with gentle strokes.  Always cut away from you, and in fiddly areas try to cut away from details towards boring areas.
Its a good idea to sever the model from its base before cleanup- I use tin snips to do this.   For thin footed models I like to leave a little base tab to anchor the figure to my new base.  Its better to make big hacking cuts away from feet, then trim back with your scalpel.

To hide the mould lines and fill the slight nicks and ramps from misaligned moulds you can use either expensive liquid green stuff from games porkchop, or grab some acrylic heavy sculpting medium aka texture paste from your art store.  This acts pretty much exactly the same but without the green dye. You can add industrial talc or baking soda to make it thicker too.  Vallejo do a plastic putty too.  All pretty much the same thing.  Its really thick acrylic paint medium.
Damp a brush and smooth this goop into the cracks.  Wipe it with a wet finger so it is only in the cracks.  Once dry, gently brush on more to cover the filled seam.
The acrylic paste can also be stippled on to add texture to parts of the model.
For really thick gaps try slow setting zapagap and sprinkle on bicarb soda.  This sets rock hard, so keep this for solid, hefty models that do not flex much.

For any big changes, and to repair any accidentally severed feet, try green stuff (duro-kneadatite) as this is really sticky and  flexible so will go with the bendy vinyl.  Green stuff, dispite the marketing, it not the best filler in most cases.  However here the flex is important.

To strengthen limbs, carefully drill into them and insert a sharpened wire or pin.  I usually poke several pins in coated in superglue, then clip off the excess- poken them a little deeper with pliers and fill the hole behind it.

With swords its usually best to snip them off and pin on a plasticard or metal replacement.  I use greenstuff and a thick filling superglue like delta thick or zapagap to anchor it into the vinyl hand.

Stripping the paint is possible, but its best to just paint directly over it.  If you have to strip, use cotton tips dipped in nail polish remover... dettol won't usually work on this paint.  The rubber is easy to damage so go slow!

Rather than undercoat, I just brush evil empire lahmian medium on my models as a base.  It one of their few paint products worth every penny.  It kills the gloss immediately and gives a nice surface to take washes.

Citadels sadly oop foundation paints thinned slightly are the best paint for recoloring.  The current base paints are hella shiney.  Go lightly on your paint passes as detail is often soft.  I find a light drybrushing of white helps bring out details and helps the layers of paint stick on too.

Finally its a good idea to varnish the ever living crap out of the model... a flexible acrylic varnish is best.  Light coats of watered down weldbond will do the trick too.  This hardens up a bit too, and I suspect stiffens the model up a tad too... but it may be my imagination- I have not done a side by side comparison as I have yet to do doubles of the same figures.

If your feeling fancy, try sharpening up some of the soft edges.  Build up an edge with greenstuff and once its totally dry slice sharp with your scalpel.

I will post some pics of mine later... got me a wicked warband of crocs!

I cast resurrect!

I spent this evenings hobby time blocking in colors on the undead I currently have for the assault project- and have spotted a few of the missing figures on ebay that I will land with any luck (you can help by not bidding on fantasy tribes undead or skull faced preslotta chaos warriors for a month or so ;).
I found VMC german uniform dark brown perfect for the cool browns of the cloth, and adding citadel dark flesh got the warm highlights.  The greener zombie flesh is parchment liquitex and catachan green.  For the guts, john goes for the complamentary orangey red- a pairing he uses even today on his space marines.
These figures are really quick to paint- and it strikes me that John would have taken far less time to complete the diorama than I first thought.
I decided to base the hordes on a mix of 40mm round bases (poker chips) in batches of three, and some singles on 25mm x3m rounds.  Champions and necromancers are getting 30mm bases to differentiate them from the rotten rabble.
So far I have twenty of the horde moving along nicely!

Whilst I had the putrid skin colors mixed, I blocked in another wave of figures not for the project- some kev adams zombies, Malifauxs bette noir, a few chaos thugs and my female nurgle gun conversion of the nurgle lord- which is exciting because she has been loitering on my desk since xmas.

I also managed to get the bases painted up on twenty or so minis... a bizarre mix of repainted Dreamblade figures, heroclix and DND plastics that I have been itching to game with.  I rebased them all on mdf rounds yo match the rest of my hordes.

Its nice to feel some progress happening.