Kings Miniatures

CANCON booty

2012-01-29T07:56:00.001-08:00

A great cancon haul for me. I got a whole bunch more kryomek figures in a bargain bin, including aliens, chunky cyclos and swat. Cannot wait to paint those to match my rogue trader stuff!

I also scored myself a Steampunk Dorothy from Guild of Harmony, a pack of silurids for Malifaux then wrapped up my spree with a ten pack of cote d'arms paints so I can sniff my way back to the 1980s once more.
Add that to yesterday's haul and I had one full boot on the way home!
Anyone get any good stuff?

Cancon day 1

2012-01-26T23:06:00.001-08:00

Finally, finally, I rocked up to the bring and buy sale in time to get some bargains! Usually I am digging through piles of plastic high and dark elves and goblins looking for something decent.
I am now the proud owner of some Cryomek aliens, plastic rat ogres and some first edition Eldar scouts.
Met a guy fielding two 1980's hobgoblin rocket launchers in his chaos dwarf army (props), and found an Aussie cote d'arms stockist. Finally!
Exciting but frantic mood today. Looking forward to chillaxing Sunday.

Here's a picture of an Asgard Dragon lizard tyrant facing off against a Grenadier giant by mark copplestone in the first ever Skulldred convention game!

Cancon

2012-01-26T04:43:00.001-08:00

Hey folks, I am in Canberra tomorrow for cancon. You will find me lurking at the eureka miniatures stand doing live sculpting demos. If your interested in how minis are made, want to pick up some green stuff pushing tips, wanna shoot the lead breeze or want to just give me money for no reason stop on by!
If space is permitting, I also have with me a skulldred demo board, so may get some games in if you rock up with a small warband.
See you at the show!
Oh and I will be selling bederken blister packs too!

Storage tip: Chinese food containers

2012-01-21T04:11:00.001-08:00

A quick tip, take away containers flipped over make great storage stackers for minis. I blue tac the figures to a bit of stiff card.

Happy birthday - heres diffusing

2012-01-19T19:22:00.001-08:00

Never drink and blog. I somehow typed 1979 instead of 1976. Unfortunately the tardis could not take me back to change the date of my birth to comply with my blog as I had already visited that timeline and would cause a world ending paradox.
Instead I have to post a correction instead. Thus stealing away the smug satisfaction of correcting someone on the Internet for my dear readers!
Though being a horse would be kinda cool (works for sarah Jessica parker) I am still a rabbit.
Mind you, the dreaded beast of Antioch was a rabbit too.

So I rewarded myself yesterday with a day off to sit and paint something and kinda discovered a neat new painting technique that I will be using a great deal from here on in.
It's getting pretty steamy here in Sydney, so I dragged out the retarder to keep my paint from drying on the brush. I decided to make up a batch of some ready mix retarded, flow improved matte medium- elsewhere I think its known as gunk. I can't remember the link- battle bunker perhaps.
Anyway, I thought I would use this to practice wet blending. Normally I use a glaze technique to build up layers of shading, but this can take a bit of time. I never nailed blending before- its always eluded me.
Normally you either go wet onto wet, a highlight onto mid tone for example, or wet next to wet and use a damp brush to transition. Both can cause hard edged if you stray too much into the shadow portion of your models, or if you lift off too much paint with your brush work. I decided to try wet on wet, and it occurred to me that what I really needed to do was just diffuse the brush strokes edges. Imagine the difference drawing an ink line on two sheets of paper- a dry one and a wet one. The ink line on the wet one would diffuse as the edges dilute.
So here's what I did. Load and wipe one brush with retarded paint. Then load and wipe another brush with water/flow aid/retarder/matte medium.
Stroke brush 2 over the surface to moisten in, the apply brush 1 on the highlight. The paint edges blur!
A little coaxing with brush 2 will soften the edge further, then whilst you wash brush 2 and reload it, the strokes are dry. The matte medium helps the damp brush liquid stick to the surface, the retardant stops the whole thing evaporating and the flow aid breaks the paint tension and lets the paint diffuse.

Apart from avoiding the hard edges, this technique makes hard edging really nice and blended!
I looked around but this does not seem to be a discussed technique, so I am calling it diffusing.
Pics once I master the technique.

Day of the Dave

2012-01-18T04:10:00.000-08:00

Hey mortals,
Tomorrow is my birthday! Yes, its the Day of the Dave. Strangely, I have not asked for any miniatures as gifts this year because... well, take a look at the last post. The last thing I need right now is more miniatures right now. Oh, go on, maybe one more. No! Resist. I don't need any more miniatures this year... especially taking into account the four.. wait... six stripping jars awaiting a gunky afternoon of Dettol fumes. Stripping jars. You start with one and next thing you know they are multiplying like rabbits.
Speaking of rabbits, I was awfully dissapointed to find out that I was not a Dragon as I had been previously lead to believe. Yes, 1979 was the year of the Dragon... but unfortunately chinese new year falls after my birthday. I am a child of chinese 1978. Year of the... uh, rabbit.
In fact, my birthday is more cuspish than I thought according to one researcher. I was equally horrified to find out that, according to my wife, I actually fall into Gen Y.
Gen Y? Are you frikkin serious? I watched reality bites, curtain haircuts, Nike Pumps and had to sit through Nirvana whinging about royal tea or some other depressed bollocks. Gen Y? Do I look GEN Y? Look at my hair? Not foompy! I know how to navigate using a map and compass... look, see? I dont live on Facebook!!!! GEN Y? NOOOOOOOOO.

Hell.

1979 is not a transitional year. I say, the moment John Lennon was shot... that should be the moment the generations switch.
The only way to rectify this is with retro denial. So here I present what was lurking in jar numbers... oh wait, jars 7 and 8. How many of these things have I got?

Spot the cool 80's figures!

Yeah baby! Now we are talking some seriously cool 1980s lead here. Lets kick off with the first ever Chaos 'treacher' marine, the first ever Space Dwarf (aka Squat), The Dwarf With No Name, The Complete Adventurer (mark 2), Talisman Orc, AD&D Stirges and one of the two Female Space Marines. Yes. Space marines once had equal rights. One of Bob Olleys space pirates also lurks above- a great line because they where the last gasp of 70's Starblazer style space opera- check that cloak.
You may also notice a Grenadier Hunting Dragon- which I grabbed because not only is it a nice figure, but it graced the Grenadier advert that used to run in GM magazine- which was the independant role playing magazine back in the 1980s. You know... when big peroxide hair was in (isnt that right Wayne? You know who I am talking about) Jes Goodwin himself sported a pretty good and tall mullet back then, which appeared in a great deal of his work. Check out the chaos sorcerers and the elf spear weilding wardancer in this pick. Dungeon Punk at its best!
As you can see, I collect a wide range of figures. My main motivation is getting those peices I always wanted as a kid. Not sure what I will accomplish by this task. One day I will open up a Jiffy bag from the UK and... game over... I will have them all. What then? I wonder what feeling will come with that. Still, its a long way off.
I am waffling. Heres a close up!

Iron Claw Space Pirate, 40k Navigator, Treacher Marine, Female Marine
Space Dwarf, Chaos Sorcerers, c100 Space Marine, Undead Carrion Rider, Dwarf with No Name
Grenadier Hunting Dragon

So thats this weeks stripping experience. Sadly its into baggies and into storage for most of these, until one fine day when I have time to paint them up and blog them.

Hey, another window I have up whilst I type this tells me that I share the same birthday as Janis Joplin, Tippi Hedren (the chick from The Birds), Martin Luther King (no relation) and Edgar Allan Poe. Star signs are right... we have so much in common. Oh wait, I just noticed the actress who plays Peg on 'Married with Children' and Dolly Parton also have my birthday. They actually are a lot like me when I wear heels. Spooky.

Well folks, that is probably me for a few days... I expect to get nicely drunk tomorrow and achingly recover for a few more. I have a theory that its not birthdays, but birthday celebrations that age one. Maybe if I go hard tomorrow I will creep into Gen X where I belong. Move over Winona... Daves on his way!

Later lead fans.

Pledge 2012: Purchased: 1.2 squillion Painted: 0

2012-01-10T02:29:00.000-08:00

Welcome, welcome to Kingsminis 2012, and what a year have I got planned for you, dear readers!
First, to some unfinished business of 2011- namely, bragging about how frikkin' many frikkin' Reaper minis I aquired for frikkin' dirt cheap in the recent Tin Soldier stock sell off. Uh... Frik.
Ahem.
So I promised a picture of some of my recent Reaper wind-fall, and here, courtesy of my lovely wife standing on tippy toe, risking life, limb and the ever present danger of chipped nails, is a picture of me sorting through the boxes and stacking by doubles. I had to get these filed, logged and safely locked up in storage (except for a few choice figures I plan to paint this month) before I posted because... well... even I would consider breaking in to my house to get this lot. Mind you my alignment is chaotic good, so hey.

No. I do not have enough Reaper miniatures.

As you can see, I am literally giddy with joy here. Thats my giddy face... see. It is a lot like my other faces I must admit. I am probably the only man in history outside the company to own 9 packs of Reaper giant battle frogs.

Also, due to time constraints I finished last year with more rants than pictures of retro minis... something I plan to rectify as part of my new year rez-a-lead-shunz. Here we go!

Citadel Wizard aka Chaos Wizard.

Kicking off the year is a loving reproduction paint job of a citadel classic wizard that I always drooled over as a kid, as it magically appeared in the corner of a Colin Dixon Diorama in a 1980's White Dwarf 'eavy Metal article on Colin himself. Ahh, vertical dioramas... remember those? I used Cote D'arms paints for this- and as you can see the orange is exactly the orange from the 1980s Citadel acrylic range. I highly, highly recommend them. If they where in dropper bottles they would be perfect! The reason, I think, such figures capture my imagination, is that they where unobtainable at the time. I would spend hours pouring over old White Dwarf magazines (we are talking issues probably ranging from 45- 99 to put this in perspective) and seeing images of figures that where unlisted in the then modern catalogue. Thank heaven for the internet!

Dave Andrews drew the floorplan to my imagination

I was recently delighted by the arrival of a beaten up box of Games Workshop Caverns floorplans fresh from fleabay. What horrors lurked within? Well, it was at least two sets of caverns, and all manner of floorplans from other sets all in one box. Score! Dave Andrews loving pen and ink added the flavour you just do not get with modern digital art floorplans, especially the D&D ones which try to emulate video games. Tsk. The best I have seen are inked adventures, but still not a scratch on the old card buildings and floorplans for old world atmosphere.
Speaking of which... here is a work in progress of my McDeath Skirmish set.

McDeath Skirmish work in progress:
Citadel 1980's Knight of Harkness, Banquo

Yes I could not resist the lure of collecting the whole McDeath tribe and painting them faithful to the game art. If anyone has a Sandra Prangle, McDeath or a Lady McDeath I suggest they may be bad for your health and only I can save you by removing the threat from your household, coating them in paint and placing them in a secure location next to all the other McDeath figures on my shelf. Down spot, ye daft beastie! Och, he's doon toasted ma wee limited editions agin! Nae Dwarf Haggis for ye tonight!

The Harkness shield was done using this technique

It is also stripping week this week- where I take the spare hours of my night and scrub, scrub, scrub til the lead doth shine anew. Pics next post. Be warned, they may contain images of spacefarers, citadel original first run giants, chaos sorcerers, Ral Partha Giants, first edition Eldar and judge dredd minis!

Wae Hae!

Happy new year!

2011-12-31T03:22:00.001-08:00

Thanks for reading my blog this year- 2012 is promising to be a more relaxed year for me, with a lot of projects wrapping up and general headspace clearing, so plenty of old school mini pictures in 2012z
I wanted to go out this year by showing my last eBay arrivals- a brilliant lot of old school goodness- starting with a visual feast of minifig rococo elves, a citadel TSR dungeons and dragons minotaur, a grenadier hirelings set and a rogue trader era citadel space Zoat!
Old school goodness! Thanks to all my traders who made my collection possible.

Come back in 2012 to see these all lovingly restored and painted!

My wife got me a wonderful Games Workshop weapon smith monkey thing, the red box ad&d and a box of grimey wortshop flagellants which I had fun drunkenly assembling whilst my brother in law, made up some space wombles for his complete set of original chapter marines. Geekmas. I actually found assembling the plastics really restful, and maybe will have a crack at assembling some more mainstream GW stuff in the new year.

Tonight was spent joyously unpacking and filing Reaper minis from my recent wind-fall into keepsies and tradesies.
There are some amazing figures in there- three colossal spiders, two goroliths, three huge dragons too- very few doubles, though if your after Neanderthals, mummies, giant killer frogs and orcs I am your man to trade with! I guess I will post trade pics next year.
Well off to curl up with some apple schnapps and the new Conan movie- (I am merrily set with low expectations and lots of schnapps- yay!)

happy new year!

Christmas!

2011-12-20T18:14:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone!

Last year I swore an oath to paint some limited edition citadel christmas minis for this Yule tide blog.
I only managed to get Sanity Claws, missing out time and again on bids for the other merry miniatures such as Christmas Marines, space Santa et al.
I think to do him justice I should build him a little rooftop base- so with other sculpting jobs coming in I found myself pushing it back and back. Bad me.

King oath breaker- I hope that doesn't mean I have to hang around haunting my lead pile looking like a member of the frighteners waiting for Aragorn marks to show up and release me.
Geddit... Eh, eh?

I collected my recent windfall of reaper figures from the warehouse the other day, and am exceedingly pleased with the assortment. I have a dozen of the same figures - giant killer frogs, giant hunter ghoul things, mummies and orcs- but the rest where all individual and not a single figure I already had. Photos of me swimming in reaper blisters early next year!

Oh so much great stuff to paint next year!

Well happy holidays everyone, I hope santa brings you lead and painty things!

Daves in DARK HEAVEN

2011-12-10T00:25:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wandered around a game store and thought, dammit, I wish I had all of these miniatures. And have you ever, after several visits, looked at the same old stock and thought- you know what, I picked up this figure last time and the time before... I bet one day I will get over that little mental hump that stops me buying it. Yes, some deep part of you says... you know your mine, and I know your mine... soon... soon....
I don't know how many hours I killed in the city bending over the Reaper shelves of my game store, mulling over the figures. I developed calves squatting down to root through the blister packs- probably the only think saving me from deep vein thrombosis was my love of miniatures. You know, deep down I knew I would have to pretty much own them all if I ever was to be happy. Such is lead addiction, as you all know. Is it a curse? Is lead addiction a cause without hope?

Turns out, Nope.

A weird thing just happened to me in the last half an hour that I though blog worthy. A client who owed me some money from a long time ago paid up inexplicably. Ten minutes later whilst nosing through the huge backlog of emails I found an email warning me of an liquidation auction. I checked, and it was closing in ten minutes. Ten minutes later I was the proud owner of almost the entire liquidated stock of Reaper Dark Heaven and Pathfinder miniatures from my now defunct local game store. The total cost? The exact amount paid by my client. Spooky.

It just occured to me that a lead addicts dream has come true... I quite literally am the owner of all those figures. Mine. The lot. Bargain price. Ridiculous price. It's like... like... Christmas has come all at... oh, wait.... Oh wait.

Crap. I also just realised that totally throws out my purchase:painted pledge ratio for the... millenium.

Stiff drink needed.

Life is really, really weird.

Cote sniffing

2011-11-24T18:58:00.001-08:00

Hello Ladies, how's the flower arranging this week?
My cote d'arms shipment arrived recently on the same day as my deluxe ceramic dimple palette- so an evening of old school painting commenced!
For those who do not know, Cote d'arms and citadels first line of paints are one and the same! Made by the same company, same formula, same colors and even the same dinky little pots. The same company makes p3 paints too- yay them!
When I discovered this little fact recently I immediately jumped online and ordered a set- since these where the paints I remember from before my huge mini hiatus- I vividly remember the smell and properties as if it was yesterday.
Well, the first three bottles smelt different - an almost alcohol tinged smell, but the black is exactly the scent I associate with The Monster paint set!
I was hurled back through time on the giddy wings of my nostrils to 1983.
Man, our clothes sucked.
The paints are brilliant- I highly recommend them, both on value and pigment. The deadly nightshade, blazing orange, titalating pink and goblin green are fabulous colors. The nice thing is a lot of the colors are toned down from the garish shades citadel switched to in the 1990s- and the cool/warm versions of colors are more exaggerated- so with the goblin green you get a pleasantly muted bluer green- perfect as a cool partner to the warm citadel camo green. The blazing orange is more akin to that which you see classic John blanche figured get their skin and sun shields- cooler and a little more towards the magenta hue than citadels current Chinese made brand.
It's shamefully cheaper for me to buy a big batch of cote d'arms and ship it 12,000 miles than it is to buy a smaller equivalent of citadel here, which will surprise no one.

I painted a classic masked citadel wizard based on one in a Colin Dixon diorama and I have to declare my love for the paint. Matching classic paint jobs is now so much easier now I have the same paints!
New pics when I get some time- I am blogging this on a bus between meetings. (sigh)

Repainting Dungeons and Dragons minis, The Guild and Windows.

2011-11-09T04:51:00.000-08:00

Yay.
Installing my entire computer system again. As a digital artist who has been around the block a few times, that means a lot of software packages that all need nursing, registering and whatever... Point is it was a long hot day with boredom and task bars.
Fortunately for me a package of D&D plastics arrived for me to tinker with whilst watching endless spinning gifs telling me my pc maybe hasn't crashed just yet.

So the good news is you can easily take off the paint. Nail polish remover on a cotton bud and in a few minutes of gentle rubbing and voila. Bad news is that there really isnt that much detail underneath to clean the mank off of. Those figures may look like they are clogged up with paint... really they are just a bit smooth.

I was actually quite impressed with how some where painted- certainly good enough for playing Dnd- which is mostly in darkened living rooms with a map a few feet from you. I would certainly consider them as a gaming option- especially now they are going to be rereleased in non-random packs.
Personally I would love to see them release unpainted styrene versions- even if just available via mail order. But anyway- there you go.

I stripped down an Everfrost ranger, but it really wasnt worth the trouble IMHO. I think the stripper may have taken off a little detail, which was superficial at best. Spray primer and undercoat, and it was back to looking rubbery and gluggy.

So for test figure 2, I tried overpainting. Rather than use spray primer, I washed the figures in soapy water to clean off any grease, and using a big brush and Vallejo dark grey gently drybrushed the model. After this dried, the thin dusting of paint gave the next overbrush purchase- and voila, the model was nicely covered and ready to paint. I would recommend this method to undercoat- perhaps only stripping really gluggy trouble spots using gentle cotton wipes.

I grabbed a hook horror, Lightening Lizard, Digester and Giant Carrion Crawler too- and the bigger creatures are much better than the human sized figures- the horror itself is excellent. Grabbing plastic versions of really, really big nasties is a great solution- but I myself would run to Reaper for my player characters personally and Otherworld for all other monsters.

To get rid of the plasticy look on some of the monsters I first filled the gaps and then stippled Vallejo Plastic Putty using a pin and a sponge. This put some fine texture on the smooth surfaces. Green stuff sticks perfectly well, so details can be popped back on if you can be bothered. I think I will write off the everfrost ranger as a bad experiment- but I can see my Hook Horror appearing in many a Skulldred game.

That was my hobby time for today. Oh, and if you have not seen the delectable Felicia Day's hilarious websode series on MMOG addiction, you MUST watch the guild. Every bit as great as the original Red vs. Blue.

Linky: THE GUILD

HEROQUEST challenge

2011-11-06T21:57:00.000-08:00

Wayne Ashworth commented he was thinking of tackling the Heroquest game on an old blog entry and it got me thinking. Of all the projects- thats the one isnt it? Thats right up there in our collective gaming consciousness that sits like a dark cloud. Very few of us have painted the whole Heroquest box. We all wanted one... but how many of us had the patience to repeat and rince all those figures?

I got a fair whack of the way through my heroquest figures in a few days... though as I do not have the game so I did not have the motivation. I found mine in a flea market, looking desperately played with. I had to rescue them. Here they are some of the undead so far...

Brains... and corn...

I have to confess that I have only ever played one or two games of Heroquest at highscool. It reminded me of Guantlet, but with more waiting. ;)
I actually found a mint, unopened Heroquest I found in a dusty old atiques store and sold it on ebay for squillions and bazillions a while back. I now live on an island and drink ice tea all day.

THE CHALLENGE

Anyway, the challenge is this. Todays the day. Go dig it out your heroquest from your attic and fetch out the first batch of figures. Today is the day you start your COMPLETED heroquest project. Yes you are... stop complaining. Your going to feel FABULOUS when you finish.

So here is my advice on painting your set using regurgitated pictures from my blog to illustrate.

First. Treat it like a bunch of small projects. Today, tackle your cleanup and priming for your skeletons and mummies. Cleaning them up is a vital step, because we are going to be using a lot of drybrush and it will show up any seams.

Skeletons and mummies are the easiest figures to paint- any monkey with a pot of Bevlan mud citadel wash can do them in no time. Here is tip 2. Dont look at the other figures. Put them back in the box. They do not exist until your skellies are varnished. Having the others lined up waiting like a factory line will suck hit points out of your morale. Small, bite sized chunks of awesome gets the job done.

I strongly suggest priming with tamiya grey primer before you spray your undercoat. The plastic they used is kinda shiney- so if you just put wash directly onto the model it will bead and look awful. The primer will act as a strong glue between your undercoat and your model- so heavy gaming will not chip the paint off easily. Here is a test. Take a model that you sprayed chaos black. Rub it between your hands like its a cold day. Now look at the mess you have. Now, do the same with something sprayed first with primer. You will never look back! By the way, dont clap... throw money.

I use a black undercoat to keep the lining strong. For the skellies you may like to go white and shade down with washes. Whatever floats your boat. A soft drybrush of a lighter grey or white over this will bring out the details and make it easy to see what your doing. I use vallejo model color deep sea blue for this.

Tip number 3. The important trick when painting mass armies of figures is to minimise steps. And, dear reader, handling time is a major step. Though you probably don't notice it, you spend a great deal of time picking up, looking for and reaching for and placing individual miniatures. Sticking your models on a strip of wood in batches saves you a massive amount of steps- at least for the bulk of the stages. Yay.

Strips. A factory for fiends.
Citadel 1980's Elric, Moonglum, Norse Dwarf,
Rogue Trooper Nort, Judge Dredd and Anderson

Tip 4. If you start with the undead, your going to get a big morale boost early on- they are easiest by far to paint, and are pretty much entirely bone color.

Start by going from this...

To this... is a real morale boost early on

I recommend base coloring all the colors on all your models first, before shading and detailing. This is not the modern 'Eavy Metal way- but it will really help you feeling like your getting somewhere. There is a big difference between a figure thats unshaded, vs one thats got great trousers but is otherwise jet black. Both take the same amount of time, and a slip up will not mean distaster- you can easly fix a base coat- but not a richly shaded section.

Start with the skellies bone first, then do the mummies, then metals, then browns, then flesh. Once thats all base coated, your most of the way to having your undead army sorted. Put away the mummies. Focus on the Skellies shading. I used Devlan Mud and Gryphone Sepia mixed with a little water. A couple of washes and then a few gentle drybrushes and I was pretty much done. The nice thing with having all the base coats done first is that the brown wash can pretty much go across everything on the skelleton. This cuts out steps, and as you know, we are all for that- right?

Once you wrap up your skellies, the mummies bandages can be done with the leftover mix. I went blue/green with my skin so they would stand out from the skeletons and orcs.

Since your models are always kicking around a dungeon, it does not make much sense to put a flocked base on them, or even grit. I have seen a few like this and it just doesnt work with the game board. Now I went a bit swish and remounted mine onto round bases, then sculpted on some pavers in procreate.
The fastest way to tackle this problem is to buy some resin dungeon bases. All you need to do then is slice your model off its base using a gentle rocking action on the blade (wear goggles)- and drill and pin the figures on. This technique will allow you to paint all the bases for all the figures in one go. Stick them all on a pole using bluetack. Prime. Black spray. Grey drybrush. Light grey drybrush. Spray varnish (gloss), spray varnish (testors dullcoat) Done. Drill your holes as and when you finish the models. Having a prepainted base waiting for it is a joy.

Once you have finished a set, put them up on display. This will help lift your morale enough to complete the box. Leave your heroes till last as a treat.

So these tips should help. Post up links if you take the challenge!

Parsley, sage, flock and time

2011-10-23T18:44:00.001-07:00

Some folk just cannot seem to understand the joy of miniatures. For them painting little figures is just so repetitive and boring.
Last night I found myself using a diamond file to sharpen thirty odd spokes in a parsley shredder. Why? To shred foam and sawdust to make fine flock scatter, of course! It's surreal moments like these you often catch yourself in whilst engaged in this hobby that the aforementioned folk miss. Some hobbyists too- if you find yourself blindly laying down cash to solve problems without looking closely at what your buying and trying to come up with cheaper ways to solve the problem.

Hence my parsley mill, now adapted with all the glee of Gomez Addams sharpening his fence, solves the problem of nil resistance my budget coffee grinder foliage maker cannot overcome- once your chunks get to a certain size, they no longer shred because there is nothing to stop them moving out of the blades path. The chunks are perfect of tree foliage and bushes but for basing you need that extra find grind to turn it to flock.

The parsley shredder came to my attention in Canberra during the 1990's when my friends introduced it as the 'Mull-o-matic'. Though the herb they where shredding was not destined for scenery, it struck me as a nifty tool. I filed it in the back of my mind.

Teenage mutant ninja turtles!

I grabbed one this week for ten bucks. Unfortunately the blades are more like lumps if steel- so it is no good for tough materials like foam, it jammed instead if sliced unless you put in more effort than I could care for.
Not any more.
Bwa ha ha.

Diamond files. Fun for all the family.

After a hood hour of filing and contemplating the unusual nature of my hobby the blades where Dexter approved sharp and the foams resistance proved futile. In a few minutes I had a Chinese take out container full of grade A fine flock.
My timing is bad though- today is big object garbage collection day so all those thrown out backpackers couches will have been collected by the government to recycle into some other generations problem.

So foam shreds into perfect flock. Leaves, too, shred nicely- though remove the stalks or you will wreck your shredder. The funny thing about scale is that the resulting leaf scatter, which is made from real leaf scatter, does not look rich enough. I look out my window and see the fallen leaves that I gathered the material from, but on the base it looks nothing like it. So, I put a few drops of sepia ink and a squidge of glycerine (to help preserve the leaves) into a shaker pot and shook up a perfect batch of forest floor scatter in no time.

MORE ON AD&D SKIRMISH

The AD&D battlesystem skirmish book from last episode has me all excited about terrain again. All my feverish need for mounds of flock will be revealed in the Skulldred project, by the way.

Speaking of which, I fished through my collection and was pleased to find the Ral Partha stone giant and the rare Marid where in my possession. These both appear in the book and are lovely figures. I was tempted to sell the Marid, because it gets upwards of 50 pounds on eBay, but damn it's charming.
Strangely this sent me on a bit of a d&d spin. I was looking at some of the larger preprinted plastic minis by wotc last night for a good basis to repaint and convert some big classic monsters. The forums seem to think stripping them is nightmarish. May have to experiment. Some of them would be great if only they released them unpainted.
Strange business model. All the power of hasbro behind it and rather than look at the successful GW business model, they choose the prepainted plastic pokemon model and cut away a massive chunk of their market.
Imagine if they turned to making unpainted themed hard styrene dungeon packs instead? First level box of Kobolds, treasure, doors, skeletons, orcs and bugbears with swappable parts, scenario booklet and floor plans?
Instead you have to hunt down enough kobolds to... Oh wait, no... It's a githyanki... Damn, won't be able to play that scenario this week.... Hmmm, reaper do packs of five...Otherworld whole warbands...

Waste.

Is it okay to steal someone elses nostalgia?

2011-10-21T00:16:00.000-07:00

This arrived for me in the post yesterday, a solid chunk of old school goodness...

My new precious

The AD&D battlesystem's little punk kid skirmishes. I grabbed a 2nd edition copy for small change, as I wanted to check out all the Skirmish systems out there and see how my pet project Skulldred was holding up. The moment I started flicking through the book I remembered just how horribly technically over complicated AD&D was... even trimmed down for skirmish play, such horrors as thac0 (to hit armor class zero) and saving throw vs. petrification tables dwell within.

I am sure its fun enough, but it leaves me cold, and I never really liked the expressionless and stiff looking Ral Partha figures. However, ten minutes in and I couldn't help but get nostalgic. What?? How could I get nostalgic about something I never had or was into? Is this sensation psudeoonostalgia? or some form of nostalgia reflex my brain kicks into when it sees something just a little bit crappy and old? Hmmm. Strange.
It may have something to do with the spray fixative I have been zapping my board with.

Anyway, if you see this book, grab it. Not to play... oh heavens no... just for the chockablock old school looking minis and a vibe that's really 1980s (even though, somewhat embarrassingly, its a 1990's publication). There is just so much charm oozing from the pictures, and there is not one illustration in sight... its all colour photos.
So here I am, inexplicably, drooling for old Ral Partha and full of inspiration for scenery and a fresher look at base decorations.

It has been just the ticket to set me back onto my righteous path of completing my skirmish board and wagon raid project... though at the moment its looking more like a game of 'nick the donkeys'.

Anyway, back with more painted old school goodness soon.

Don't Noch it... Or rather... Do.

2011-10-13T19:30:00.001-07:00

Just glued down my Noch grassmat onto my board and was itching to update... It's awesome. Total board coverage in seconds- close to GW grass( though summer grass looked closer). The grass stands up and I have lots left after coating my 60cm square tile- certainly enough to do raised banks.

Wish I tried these ages ago.

Noch should pay me for advertising. :)

***update***

Having stuck down my mat I have a good tip - leave excess and fold it over and glue underneath, rather than trimming to the edge. This gives a neat transition between the panels and stops the edge lifting.

Noch grassmat and next project

2011-10-13T18:07:00.001-07:00

I am getting a bit sick of painting pack mules and hunting for cool wagon carts online, so I am thinking of having a short break from my main 'caravan attack' project for a brief journey into the depths of the future.... Woooo cue spooky theremin music!

I just got my first Eldar pirates arrive in the mail today, and some Sulaco bases from Fenris- so it prompted me to tackle some of the backlog of rogue trader era 40k minis, paranoia figs and Judge Dredd goodness loitering in my filing cabinet of lead. I will need figures to playtest Stardred with.

Pack mules can wait a few days.

However not abandoning the project, no sir, in fact I armed up for more terrain board love today!
I had to pop into the city for passport photos, so naturally I gravitated toward the model store for some tickling of my credit card.
I came away with a Noch spring grass paper roll, which is destined to form the major playing field of my next board segment- and probably be the star of my next photo tute since folk seem keen to see how I did that board. Always happy to tute!

The Noch sheet has two benefits that I can immediately see. Fear and surprise. Surprise and fear... No, wait, four, four benefits... Fear, surprise and cheapness and sticky uppiness.
I picked up a roll at a major mall hobby store, so not the cheapest way to buy one, but at 12.50 it's still cheaper than a tub of glade grass from Greedy Weasleshop and covers more flat terrain, plus it stands up properly like grass. Man I really want a static grass sieve.... Really, really badly.

Not bad enough to pay for one though.

Tsk.

To help blend the mat into the board I grabbed Nochs matching loose flock which is soooooo much cheaper it's worth re covering most of my terrain bits to match.
Unlike the brilliant GW battlemat (a really good and well priced bit of kit) Noch mats are glued to paper, so it does not feel like blasphemy slicing it up. Mix pva with dish washing liquid to break the surface tension and minimize warping- slather it on, then press it in place with another board and some heavy books.
Before I do my next board I am going to glue a thin sheet of plastic wrap down with lots of pva and weight and clamp it- this should create a stretchy layer that should help stop the upper layers warping the wood. In theory.

Noch also charge like wounded bulls, but consider my shopping list so far....

MDF boards $30
Pva glue. -$5
Left over tea - (free)
Craft paints- $10
Grass sheet 12.50
Static grass 13.95
Cork chunks -free
Flex filler $14
Cheap brush (for making long grass tufts)
Other scatter $10
Wire $6
Foamcore $10
Foam from old chairs (free)
Coffee grinder (20ish)

I am floating around the 100 dollar mark, but of course most of this stuff I had spare or could replace with stuff found in bins- and I still have leftovers.

This gives me a pretty good board, complete with a near infinite supply of trees. I consider that a win so far...

Dave

Sculpt-a-long

2011-10-11T02:34:00.000-07:00

Hello. Hows your day going? Mine was lousy. I want to send it back to the manufacturer for a full refund. Anyway...

Grenadier Orc... not its finest figure.

You know that one figure that lingers around your collection... not worth ebaying, but not really good for parts. yeah, that one. For me it was this Nick Lund Grenadier orc... to be fair, he probably knocked this one out really quickly to meet a deadline... I have produced some stinkers in my time under that ticking clock. The studs are poked in with a tube, rather than raised, the weapons are little more than a square with the end cut off- nothing is finished or refined, the face has no character. Perfectly acceptable for a mass army, but nothing to put it into a hall of fame like Ugezod's shaman, for example.
Anyway, off days in sculpting aside, I found myself experimenting with magic sculpt / green stuff mixes, and rather than risk a commission, decided to try the sculpt-ability out in a fun little sculpt along.

Grenadier Orc. Somewhat converted.

So lets talk mixes. This is a 1:3 magic sculpt : green stuff mix. Make sure to mix the magic sculpt parts precisely 1:1 so that it sets, then mix it into the green stuff. Magic sculpt tears raggedly when you bend it, but has the benefit of setting shore D hard (most resins set shore D for example). Green stuff is shore A... rubbery. Mixing the two means rather than tear, the putty bends. The magic sculpt takes off a little of the stickiness of the green stuff, removes some of the memory and allows you to feather new pieces together without a noticeable seam. You can further improve the mix with a tiny amount of super sculpey- which has a waxy texture that makes green stuff spongier and less sticky.
Mix up your putty, set it aside and go wash your hands.

Poke by poke putty poking

Start by shaving off the models face. The key word is shave... only take off thin slivers of metal at a time using as little pressure as possible. A rounded blade (see below) is best for shaving off metal, and it must be fresh and sharp- the blunter the blade, the more force you need to apply and therefore the more dangerous. Only work with a fresh, absolutely sharp blade! The usual disclaimers about being careful and cutting away from yourself and all the crap apply- look, if your too stupid to operate a scalpel you really should be in a different hobby. Go sue your parents for giving you bad safety training, not me.

Rounded sculpting blade- stolen from another website for
illustration purposes, and you know, Winona Ryder style fun.

Okay, so the trick when first sculpting is to mass in, then refine. In figure 1 I start with a blob, then use a little lube (I use KY, you can use vaseline, canola oil, spit, glycerine or whatever) applied with a finger onto the face. I first pat the ball into the rough shape of a head, impressing in the jaw line, forehead, cheeks and so forth until it roughly resembles what I am after.
Once that is complete, I start suggesting the details lightly- if you squint at the subject your trying to copy, you will see the bigger details first- this is what you want to get in next. The fine details sit ontop of that work, so don't worry about them yet.

For the mouth, I use the green stuff rubbery nature to best effect. You can sculpt things bigger and then push and stretch them into position. I started with making an open mouth, then press the lip up into position.

The eyes are really tricky to do and take practice, but don't loose hope. It took me ages to get eyes happening. For this guy I used a very simple technique. Very, very gently, poke in the silhouette of the eye opening so that it appears faintly- about the depth of the eyelid. Then stab a needle in either side, creating both the curvature of the eye, the tear duct and corner in one go. Again, this uses the rubbery nature of the green stuff to effect.

Easy eyes. Gently poke outline, then stab twice.

For the nose I stab in a pin just above the lip, and pull up gently for each nostril.

Figure 10 shows how the teeth are shaped on the base before being picked up and placed using the back of the sculpting tool. Don't roll it on your skin. Skin + epoxy = bad. The teeth are then poked into holes I widened with a pin, once inserted I pushed the lip back into place.

Well, why not give it a go... and why not post pics :) And why not send me money and miniatures. Why not indeed?

Adventures with magic sculpt and the darker side of milliput

2011-10-10T06:12:00.000-07:00

Putties! I love putties! I have dozens of them and mix them together in weird, blasphemous experiments that would curdle the blood and boggle the mind of mortal men. Two more rocked up into my lab of epoxery pokery recently, and I thought I should comment on them. Tis what I do.

Magic sculpt is cheap to buy in bulk, clean to handle, thins with water and dries to a solid finish that can be drilled and sanded. If your used to milliput, magic sculpt feels 'airy', kinda lighter and fluffier, and will take a little getting used to. The trick here is to wait for a bit before sculpting. As a filler, its a killer. Cleaner and less crumbly that milliput, with less of an acrid stench, if your filling gaps this could be on your consideration list. Bulking out, weapons manufacture and other such goodies appeal, and it would be the first thing I reach for when sculpting scenery.

I have been using it to make some dead trees after I got a batch for free in an ebay deal. I rate it.
One tip I picked up is to get some rough woven cloth, wet it and press this into the magic sculpt to produce a bark finish for trees. Works nicely.

The downside for me is it costs the same to post as it does to buy- which cuts down the appeal somewhat for us Aussies. The sculpting properties are not really going to replace my usual mediums, but I have to say that when mixed with green stuff it produces a killer putty- lighter in colour, less sticky, easy to blend into surfaces, able to form a crisp edge, yet with enough memory to make organic forms. I have taken photos of an orc I have converted using this mix, and I will post it in a tutorial on my lunch break.

I rate it. Now if I can only find a supplier locally.

BACK IN BLACK

The second putty I have been playing with is black milliput. I poked some into a silicone mould of a modern lipped base and got a perfect base cast out- though its more fragile than resin- its a damn sight less toxic when casting as you can wear gloves and do not inhale anything. If you saw my Grom goblin last episode, that's the base I made. Shatters when force is applied, but you can reinforce it using some wire or mesh and its good.
The appeal of black milliput is that you can fill bases without needing to paint. Great for under those slottas!

The Bigger they come...

2011-10-04T09:40:00.000-07:00

I love the citadel giant. Its one of the best miniatures of all time, and a delightful model kit. Yes. Thats me... talking about a modern citadel product in good terms.

No, I am feeling quite well.

I also happen to think Jes Goodwin is hitting balls out of the park with his new look Cennobite/ Green goblin inspired Dark Eldaer... the most Rogue Trader looking things ever. Shame they are "finecast" aerobars.

On my unassembled modern model pile is a set of aquatic trolls, Dark Eldar Wyches (what a kit!) and a plague cart. I am soooo tempted to grab some more giant kits. Love, love, love.

Citadel Giant and classic Elric (Jes Goodwin)

Anyway, the problem with giants, as so finely demonstrated by all the undercoated but not painted giants at Cancon and MOAB, is that they scare the crap out of you. How do you even begin to paint something that big? That much detail?
My giant was assembled on my birthday, hours after I unwrapped it (bless my wife, having to go into a games workshop store and beat away the frothers and gawping depressed tweens ("look, a girl... in a game store... WHAT DO WE DO????"). Anyway, that giant, so hurriedly and lovingly assembled sat on my shelf ever since... grey and plastic and daunting.

Kaylee and Svala from Hasslefree (Kev White),
Jes Goodwin Elric, Chaos Champion.
Bob Naismith Chaos Champion conversion with head from modern Chaos Sorcerer

The trick to painting your giant is to pick up a brush and put some paint on it. Before you know it, a few hours have passed and your done. Ignore White Dwarf... their tutorials always focus on perfecting and shading each part before moving onto the next... great for teaching- but not for marathon paint jobs, psychologically and practically. In the old days, the trick was to finish all your base colours first, then shade, then highlight. That way, your figure feels like its progressing, and if you accidentally slip when slapping on the base colors, you don't wreck a nicely finished section.

I would go further and say before detailing, whack on some varnish... that gives you a few seconds to wipe off mistakes. Plus, as the pictures in this blog attests, you can game with partially shaded models. Most of the figures in these photos are just colour glazed over a grey undercoat thats been drybrushed white and hit with badab black. Passable gaming in minutes! Sure, I then go over the top with more subtle glazes and highlights, often repainting whole areas... but its super thin, so no build up of paint.

Anyway, got the giant to a gaming standard... which means I have to fix up a lot of details, but pretty happy with the fact I got through him. It actually did not take much longer than doing a regular mini... you just need a bigger brush!
Now, I have that Tom Meier Forgotton realms beastie to tackle next on my 'big things that hang around my shelves for aaaaaaagggggeeesss.' Remember Dave, just pick up the brush and start....

Skulldred mayhem!
Another Bob Naismith Chaos warrior needing to reload
Grom from Groms goblins guards in backdrop, about to be lynched by
a Perry Bros female chaos warrior
Citadel Fantasy Specials Dead Adventurer in foreground

Quick tip: Brilliant budget shields

2011-09-21T22:41:00.000-07:00

I have been looking around at the selection of shields available on the net, and have not really been very excited by the options. Its on my list of Bederken must-do products (its a big list), but for now I have a bunch of minis needing something to cover up their ugly bumps. I mean the ones on their wrists. You know. Where the shields are supposed to go.

Got a great solution today. Thumb tacks plus copper washers. Allow me to illustrate.

Shields. 5 bucks for frikkin hundreds

A dab of superglue, a quick snip and I have a perfect greek style shield just begging to be painted with funky retro iconography. The nice thing about these is they automatically come complete with a pin to firmly attach them onto the shield boss. All I need to do is drill a small hole and I have the most firmly attached shield you could possibly wish for!

Oh, and of course I have the means to make hundreds for a few bucks.

This works really well for my Macdeath Skirmish project as these shields exactly match the artwork for the Knights of Harkness shields! Bingo.

Tutorial: Making mini sculpting tools

2011-09-16T22:48:00.000-07:00

My heat shrink came in the mail today, so I finished upgrading my sculpting tools to the level of 'reet propa like'.
Here are some snapparoonies for you to glare at.

Pokey things wot to poketh da putty wiv.

So here's what you need...

Ingredients: Heat shrink, dowel, paperclips
Tools: Saw, file, pin vice, superglue and sandpaper

First cut the dowel into a comfortable size. Nick out a wedge where your thumb rests- this will help orient the tool in your hand- so you can 'feel' if your holding it in the right direction. I hold my pencils weird- crossing my index finger over the top- have done since a child. Weird, but comfortable for me. That means everyone will find my set of tools a bit strange to hold. Serves them right for nicking them in the first place.

Its also a good idea to whittle down the tips into a taper- the thickness of the dowel allows your hand to relax whilst holding the tool- but the thick end blocks viability somewhat.

Next drill a hold in each end to hold the paperclip. As I use paperclips to pin minis, I had the exact size of bit (#69). My tools are double tipped- saving digging around on the desk for the tool I want- if your prone to poking yourself in the eye, maybe go down the other route.

The paperclips are straightened, and I run a diamond file over the surface to be stuck to give the superglue a bit of purchase. Once fixed in the hole, I set to work on the tips.

You can hammer out the ends if you want a wide tool- but I prefer to use jumbo paper clips, as they are much sturdier. The galeforce 9 diamond files are excellent, and will make short work of the metal. Finally, polish up the surface with extremely fine wet and dry paper. Its important to get a totally smooth finish- any roughness at this stage will cause your tool to rip your putty.

The last step is to make the grips. This is done with heat shrink- available from electrician supplies. You need some a few mm wider than your dowel. Simply slip the heat shrink over the dowel and wave over a heat source, such as a gas stove to make the sleeve fit. A couple of layers will make a nice grip. I grabbed a mixed pack with six colors- and color coded all my tools.

Now the paperclip metal is quite strong and will last a while. You will have to keep sanding your tools to take off dried putty- so all tools will eventually wear out. No problems- ten minutes and a fresh paperclip and your back in action.

When leaving your tools for a while, wrap the tips in an oil rag to prevent rusting.

The next step is to find some clear rubber hosepipe from an aquarium supply that fits the ends. Cut this up to make protective sleeves for your tips- now your mobile baby!

I really love my new tools, and wish I had thought of doing this earlier. Thanks to Victoria Lamb for showing me the tools she got from Gencon!

Strip show

2011-09-16T18:57:00.000-07:00

I smell of Dettol. You know what that means? Fresh new (old) miniatures.
4 kilos of sparkly clean lead pile ready to bend to my evil will.
Bwa hahaha.
I have been rather slack lately, collecting figure stripping jars and leaving them months to stew in their Dettol dips, but on my quest for mental clarity through completion of backed up tasks I took a few hours out if my morning to scrub, scrub, scrub.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your outlook) I immediately refilled the jars with my stripping backlog.

Strip show day is like cristmas. You forget exactly what lurks in that filthy black morass, and this particular batch was exceptional. Most of my missing Citadel FA range appeared,along with a few judge Dredd perps(always fun), a Spawn of Naarglesh, FF bonesnapper, treeman mcklinty, Chaos girl/insect demon and many of you will be pleased to know, the remaining members of my c100 kill team Charlie!

Woot!

Happy Leadmas!

Here is a pick for you to pick through and identify if such is your whim.

Gameboard progress

2011-09-14T06:55:00.000-07:00

Forget hearing the lamentations of your enemies women... now this is happiness.

Early Citadel Fantasy Adventurers FA19 female warrior tackles
a swarm of converted Citadel FF Red Orcs.

This morning I finished flocking and filling the first peice of my modular game board and had a bit of a game on it at lunch time. I have never had a proper board before, and though I suspected it would make a huge difference having some top notch scenery to the verisimilitude (yeah I had to look it up) of the game, I am having trouble shifting the resulting grin from my chops. It makes every difference!

So my cunning plan was to make small 4 boards rigid enough to lift up and shift about. My flats small, and storage is limited, so having to pack down my game everytime I needed to eat got quite annoying. Now I can go crazy, crazy on a campaign and simply lift the peices, dice, figures and all out of the way when space is needed. The boards stack vertically, and the scenery fits into 2 storage tubs.

Blank game board, work in progress.

So I started with a sheet of MDF which I cut down to a portable size that had enough room to have a major feature on it and at least four tactical situations. Plenty of flat room for modules to sit on (I use old cd's) too. I am going to make chocks that clip to the side so all four peices can be stacked in the back of a car if needed. Finally, a series of magets are countersunk to allow the board to snap and hold together.

Somewhere the teas getting cold.
Citadel Chaos Champion. Reaper Lorna The Huntress. Twinings Irish Breakfast.

The flock and static grass is held on with watered down PVA. Once dry, I sprayed matt sealer initially from a height, so it wouldn't blow away the bits. After a minute or two I lowered down the height of the aerosol and by the third pass I could put it a few inches away. Cheap hair spray also works I am told. I will try that on the next one. Anyway, the fixative keeps all that scatter firmly in place.

I am yet to paint it properly, plus I need to put in flowers, mushrooms, animal burrows, roots and puddles yet... I want a really temperate, wet, damp environment.

Anyway, here are some shots of the game taken on my crappy iphone camera.

Ral Partha 'Harryhausen' Cyclops, Citadel barbarian,
Citadel Chaos Champions, Mike Broadbent Matakishi Cat (converted)

This shot shows the stone boards I created earlier in this blog... its in something like 'how to make indestructible scenery from expanded polystyrene'. The effect looks really stoney right? Thats Woodflex polyfilla stippled with sponge. Brilliant stuff- great for mud, lava, stone and rock.

The battle for lunchtime rages on. Using Skulldred beta 3.0 rules.

Kates Amazons rush to their doom for the first time.

Tonight Kate and I had a quick match after dinner. Kate thinks that her low level Amazon should survive when she drops her guard, takes a direct hit in the head by a chaos champion's meat cleaver the size of her torso and falls back off a 6 meter cliff onto stone. The jury is out. Next month I am fitting spiked traps.

Matakishi cat, Runestaff Flana and my shelf of technicolor lead things

2011-09-12T10:19:00.000-07:00

Great. Insomnia again. Fortunately I just found a whole list of Sulphite free food alternatives that I can try. Did you know you can make your own Baileys at home? Yay! Sulphite free booze for me!

So my lovely wife took some photos of some of my collection yesterday, and I thought I would post up some pics since I have a few hours for my antihistamine to kick the butt of whatever is keeping me up and itchy.

First off, since the good doctor asked... is my conversion of Mike Broadbent's Matakishi cat for my wifes Skulldred warband.

Converted Matakishi cat- available from Matakishi's tea house..

The 'mostly painted' shelf- Citadel, Eureka, Ral Partha and BeDerken figures in da house!

The 'mostly painted' shelf. My sculpt of Flana Mikosevar for Eureka front and centre.

WIP of my Jes Goodwin's Nurgle Champion- shield sculpted by me.

So as you can see I nudged along my Nurgle warband a little by adding a shield. This is scratch built using a 50:50 greenstuff/brownstuff mix. Its also painted using the talc medium I spoke of in an earlier post- matte as matte can be. I just got the teeth picked out in white- I will glaze those suckers down when I have the chance.
Its gotten me into the vibe of sculpting some 1980's style shields for my figure range.

Well I am actually yawning now. Good night, leadaholics, and sweetly painted dreams...

Medium bliss

2011-09-09T09:00:00.001-07:00

It work Folks! Adding talc and flow aid to Liquitex matte medium makes a killer medium that pales Vallejo by comparison. Flat and matte, flowing smoothly from the brush and leveling with a soft edge. A huge vat of it- perhaps all I can eat for a year for under twenty bucks.

This deserves a funky thumbs up.

Whilst I have my hipstamatic app open I took a shot of this...

My armory catalogue I have been checking figure off from for the past few months. Its a cruel master that forces me to look at ebay and spend my pocket money.
A heap of Fiend factory, space farer and fantasy adventurers await stripping and checking off... I have most of them now if I include broken ones.
I think the ones I am most excited about are doing up all the Space Farers ready for an old school Stardred game- I made up some digital floorplans last year for a starship rpg I ran and cannot wait to have the red redemption running about shooting lasers at eat other in them!
However I am Painfully aware of my project vows. Skulldred baggage raid first- kill team Charlie second- 15mm post apoc team after that...
Then weighing up night horrors /citadel gothic horror Cthulu temple, Judge Dredd/paranoia block war, FF /FA old school dungeon, Fantasy town, macdeath skirmish or Frazetta death dealer barbarians.

Any votes?

If anyone has a FF manticore wing set (the one that looks like a hood ornament) I would love to get them for the forlorn manti that appeared in a job lot this week- otherwise it's reaper wings for this fine fellow, and only half a crossing off from the list. Or perhaps he becomes a mount for a broken goblin.

Oh I almost forgot to post this- a first glimpse of my new mdf board mounted gaming table panels for the Skulldred baggage train raid. Now I can pick up my games, figures, dice and all when I need the table to do boring stuff like eat.

Nothing special yet, but the first board I have made yet. This is a photo of the look development corner.
I am trying a different approach with it from the usual instructions. It is entirely designed to not scratch figures!
If you think about it, gluing down sand is like making a huge sheet of sandpaper. Not good.
I am trying all soft options- the soil for example is made from used dried tea leaves, pva and acrylic paint. Its spongey to the touch, looks just like muddy soil and detritus and smells nice. Drinking 2 cups of tea covers an area the size of my hand.
Good thing I am English. Somewhere the teas getting cold... Literally. ;)

Cork for stones, foamcore for paving and woodflex for rocky structures. My only mistake was choosing citadel flock- now I have to fork out top dollar to match it. Anyone know a cheaper option for glade grass that's the same or close?

Ciao for now!

fixing liquitex medium with talc

2011-09-08T19:11:00.000-07:00

Morning folks- thanks for tuning in again to another brave, daring episode of Kings Minis- brought to you in spooky technicolor. Last episode we left our hero hanging from a cliff pondering mediums... well, actually not, but lets pretend we did. On with the show...

Now I have said that I find Vallejo matte medium to be the best for the crazy medium heavy blending techniques I use. Well, thats all dandy, but it only comes in tiny little dropper bottles. Handy, but expensive in the amounts I use. I love the stuff. If it was edible I would probably snack on it.

Enter Liquitex....

Now Liquitex products are pretty good- if you are a 2D artist you will swear by them as a graphic medium... however, as a miniature medium the Matte medium dries far too glossy to build up highlights and shadows- the light you paint with is reflected and it makes it hard to see whats going on. I kept thinking this was a shame because you can buy it in 473ml bottles for about the same price as 2 Vallejo droppers.
Well heres the good news. Talc.
I caught an offhand comment by Jen Haley the other day on youtube (http://www.paintrix-miniatures.com/) that festered in my mind last night. Matte medium is just gloss medium with talc in it. Well, if thats the case, perhaps Liquitex simply does not have enough talc in it. Bingo.

Tried a quick test today using various mediums and mixes of industrial talc (non perfumed) that I had handy from resin casting. Its true. Adding talc kills shine on medium.

YES!*

(*Thats me trying to capture the volume of the exclaimation issuing from my lips in the biggest font blogger will let me. Kinda not quite got there IMHO).

It works. It works well. Cheap, truely matte medium in bulk volume.

Ta Ms. Haley. You little brush goddess, you.

So I made up a master mix of 1:8 talc to liquitex and thinned with distilled water with liquitex flow aid (1:10 as per instructions). I am going to test this out once I have some painty time.

Huzzah!

Happy unbirthday to me!

2011-09-07T22:03:00.001-07:00

Don't you just love it when eBay sellers go above and beyond? I got a package today from one seller that gift wrapped inside the box! Awww, thanks VP!
It felt like my birthday too- a lovely set of old school dwarfs including 'The Dwarf With No Name' and a Vorpal kitty no less!
Got to be happy with that...

It's a cool feeling when you know a seller is checking in to see their old figures painted and restored- kinda like visiting rights. Museum archive- just one of the services I provide here at Kingsminis.

I get Especially warm and gooey when the figures in question are old roleplaying figures- I like the idea of them having been on many adventures before they travel 12,000 miles to continue their adventure down under!

Other nice things that arrived recently are a bunch of spacefarer jetbikes- ff dark lord, nightmare dragon (boo) and a boxed set of game workshop cavern floor plans. I am going to mount those on stiff card to preserve them for more adventures.

I am looking forward to a break soon - my work is very intense and I just know there are jars of figures soaking in Dettol just staring at the back of my head whilst I work. I hate unfinished projects hovering about- at least when they are stripped and filed away they are not mid-task.

My addiction to early figures is getting worse- I am playing running flushes and full houses with the Fantasy adventurer and fiend factory at the moment. I am looking forward to posting a photo of the ENTIRE range painted. How utterly, (and I pretext this with meaning in nerdy context), how utterly, utterly cool would that be.

Of course, you then need the fantasy cavalry to match... That's another fifty odd rare figures... Then you start spilling into fantasy tribes... And flying spaghetti monster help me then...
I can only hope by that time my addiction wears off or I make a fortune and can be a man of leisure.

It could happen.

Next up on my hobby table, the raiding game continues with more pack mules, a bill the pony paint job and booty markers- plus I restore a bunch of old wolf models (a gift from another great eBay trader) ready to harass the baggage train!

Stay tuned!

Bill lives!

2011-08-30T06:22:00.001-07:00

Lots of putty flying around today, so between sculpts used scraps to finish bill the half pony off.

Ironically (Well, in the Alanis Morrisette meaning of the word anyway) I also won a complete Bill the pony on eBay today. Hence a quick addition of a fringe mane.
That brings my total to five pack animals- for the raiding party game.

Kate also scored this little critter for her birthday- a converted Matakishi cat barbarian for her Amazon tribe. The original sculpt is by Aussie legend Mike Broadbent- trappings and base by yours truely.

Next to the cat is a 15mm sculpt of ghost rider I did whilst on holiday a few months ago. Sun, surf, sand, spa and a mobile sculpting kit! Bliss.
The little guy was my third crack at 15mm - this time I used paperclips for rigidity and hardened 2:1 white:black procreate. The white was hardened by leaving it out to air. This makes the perfect 15mm sculpting material as the resistance means You have to really MEAN each impression.
I am looking forward to doing more 15mm later in the year.( and before you ask -no, he is not being cast up!)

Bill progress

2011-08-23T03:57:00.001-07:00

Thanks to a bout of allergy based insomnia, (try finding food without soy or sulphites in it) I found myself with a few hours to kill - too fuzzy headed on anti-histamine to trust myself to sculpt something for clients - so I got bill a little further along instead.

I deliberately made the packs different to the actual mini, since I may as well make him a variant since I am going to the trouble of building his missing half. I figure I may find one on fleabay at some point.
I have a preslotta donkey and pack mule heading my way from the uk, so that gives me four pack animals and a cart horse ready for his cart. Plenty for brigands to raid!

I am surprised by the lack of decent wagon wheels and bits available. Think I may have to make some for my mini range.

Finally felt drowsy by the time I got to doing the fetlocks- so back on the waiting shelf for ol' bill and the rest of his wagon train until the last project mutants are all done.

Frugal fruits of the foamy forrest: Making foliage for a couple of bucks

2011-08-12T05:34:00.000-07:00

You know those times when your standing in the hobby store and you have that tub of scenic material and you know you really, really need it for your project but you just can't shake that little voice in your head that says 'Well gee willikers Mister, that's just a load of shredded foam they painted green - and by-golly thats just some sawdust dyed yellow.' Yeah. My inner monologue sounds like a 1950's TV kid. Wanna make something of it?

I wanted to make something of it. I wanted to make my own. And golly gosh, gee... I did.

50c of cheapass gamer

So armed with a discount store electric coffee grinder, some tubes of students acrylic and a bit of foam discarded from one of the many evicted backpackers furniture piles commonly found on any street curb in Bondi beach, I tackled my greatest challenge yet. Make an unending supply of foliage material for the price of a single bag from my hobby store. Coffee grinder included.

Step 1: Rip up the foam into chunks. Pop it in the blender and give it a few whizzes to get it into inch sized bits.

Step 2: Take a screw lid pot, stuff in a little foam and add water. Squeeze and stir in enough cheap craft paints to make about twenty citadel pots worth up. Use the foam chunks to be your color guide- it will lighten up a tad, but not much. Alternatively buy a can of house paint from the store- you can get their little computer to match a sample you already have.

Step 3: Lay out a protective sheet of plastic in a warm, sunlit place. Put some newspaper down on top of that. Make sure there are no breezes or pets in your chosen location.

Step 4: Stir in the foam chunks a handful at a time using an old kitchen utensil that has holes in it (a strainer is ideal). Press the chunks against the sides to take out most of the paint without discoloring, then lift the batch onto the paper. You want the paint to thickly coat the foam, so that it hardens when it sets.

Step 5: Screw the paint lid down and store away for your next session. Clean your tools, then go off and do something less boring instead. Leave the foam for at least 24 hours to dry. You can try using a hair dryer to speed up the process, but only if you want green paint and tiny bits of foam everywhere in your house.

Step 6: The foam should be crunchy dry now. Grab that old grinder and pop the pieces back in for another whizz. Now its crunchy, the blades will make a much finer job of shredding it up. Make a few batches up of different sizes and mix them together for your final batch to add some natural variety.

Do not use the grinder for coffee now. Well, hell, I am not going to stop you... its a free world after all (and if not free, certainly a lot cheaper world with this technique). The coffee would taste like Starbucks if you did. Always switch off a grinder before poking around inside it, even with a utensil, and never blame wargaming bloggers for dismemberment.

Skulldred Raid Project part 1

2011-08-12T02:43:00.000-07:00

First up I have to apologise for the camera work this post. My proper camera is not charged and I have only a short window to blog- buts since this stuffs all work in progress, it will do for now.

The gaming project I have decided to work on first is my Skulldred family battle board- the one I play my wife on. I decided to complete everything associated with that core game first. That means some choice scenery items, player models and tokens for things to rescue and loot.

So the project kicks off with a baggage train for adventurers to protect and raiders to raid. My pack mule collection was rather thin- especially since I picked up a boxed set Bill the pony without reading the text and found, well... something out of The Cell. Turns out the boxed set was incomplete by one half of bill. If you ever list things on ebay that are incomplete, I think its polite to write that in the title for lazy people like me in general and specifically for me. :)

Citadel packhorses- adventurers boxed set and bill the pony... uh, make that half a bill.

Fortunately for our little Demi-Bill I can rebuild him. I have the technology. A pointy implement, paperclip and some epoxy putty.
That leads me to a great tip... I have been using 5 minute epoxy putty to do armatures and building understructure for bases. Its like having a slightly smelly, milliput that understands my patience is limited and behaves accordingly. The brand I use is Knead-it. Though it should be called Knead-it-wearing-gloves-or-you-get-a-nasty-rash. Great stuff.
Once I get some sculpting time (commissions at the moment) I am going to place the model in front of a mirror and sculpt the B side using a bit of green stuff. I probably will stick my tongue the corner of my mouth whilst I do so, just to enjoy the cliché.

I also started tacking down some resin treasure items to poker chips, but think I will post them once their are done. Besides, I ripped them off from Phreeds treasure tokens on his blog. ;)

The Adventure Ends
Citadel FS28 Slain Adventurer, Grenadier Death Giant, Citadel WF6 Aggressive Aardvark (Cerebus)

Last to begin but first to finish is my slain adventurer token, played here by a citadel FS28 slain adventurer. The cause of his situation is Citadels, well, shall we say blatant 'omage to Cerebus. I have decided to rebase him. I realised he really should be on a bar room flagstone base standing on a pile of dead folk and spilt tankards. I am also going to strip and resurface him like I did the pack mule above -he is just too rough and will look great with smooth blending and some properly defined fingers. Still, no time for that right now, so I will leave him be- and perhaps get some Skulldred sessions in with the little guy first.
The Grenadier Death statue is is inspired by the recent Citadel Garden of Morr statue. I realised I had just the thing for my scenery, so a quick repaint later and voila! Again, it needs rebasing on a stone plinth methinks. I find many of these figures on ebay that are broken.. thinking I may make a bunch of these at some stage for the table if I can get these cheap enough.

Now the progress on the main stars. I am going to do myself a bandit warband, though since I do not have the figures I need, I decided to finish off the small Realm Of Chaos warband I started so I can game with them.

Kats Amazons rebases. A mix of Reaper and Citadel figures
Daves Chaos raiders: Mainly converted and Augmented Citadel 1980's chaos champion figures

So these are the best ones so far- rebasing them took the majority of time here, but I have pushed the painting along a little on my team, and scratch sculpted a chaos shield for the horned champion and blended in the new Reaper weapon swap for Big Bertha. Lots to do still.
A spike backed chaos warhound arrived the other day, which I think will make a great addition to the team.

Well thats my hobby time all used up. Back to sculpting figures for other people. Hope your enjoying the blog so far.

Matakishi is the man

2011-08-09T22:04:00.000-07:00

Matakishi is one of those I am happy to call a 'legend' in the games hobby. His blog, Matakishi's tea house is a must read for any gamer.
It was at the tea house I learned how to make a smooth miniature surface- a huge barrier I had to overcome when I first started sculpting minis, and its from the tea house where I got my latest revalation about the hobby.

Matakishi is a projects man. He makes small, contained projects, then works them through to completion. Scenery, figures and often rules too. A playable game table with everything on it finished to a good, if not excellent standard.
My collection is a sprawling, seething mix from which I pluck models to paint based on whim. As I paint some barbarians, I know there are more in storage and more on their way from the land of ebay. My goal has to paint complete collections of sets that interest me. Worse still, I have several figures I want to paint really, really well... so they remain unpainted of course.
Well, readers of my blog will remember the dead energy projec, where I took some figures that, well, they where not my favourites... and I painted the living hell out of them? That project really released some hobby karmic blockage, and I followed it with a painting spree that really dented my lead pile!

Matakishi focuses on game projects. Small, doable and inspiring. That ideas really got me primed up.

I am next going to attack my collection with the goal of making two finished themed warbands for Skulldred, along with finished game items to play some simple scenarios. Everything on the table finished and to a good standard- including tokens, goal markers and a few choice scenery items.
Now... the question is what scenario?

Demonette

2011-08-04T05:11:00.000-07:00

Jes Goodwins Chaos Familiar Demonette

A quickie but a goodie. Jes Goodwin's kinky little demonette from the Chaos Sorcerers range- recently re-released by GW as part of the famous familiars. Remember the beastman with the chaingun that had this girl growing from his head with her pubic hair woven into his goaty braids? John Blanche did that little bit of 1980s Realm of Chaos Gold- you can find it in his Ratspike book along with other great conversions. I grabbed an extra set of familiars just so I could shred them up for similar conversions.

This lass is going to have resin poured into the pool in front of her... though I may transfer her to another base first. Not decided yet.

Realms of Chaos divide!

2011-08-04T04:44:00.000-07:00

I really do not like square bases. I realised my army of vintage chaos figures are just going to sit on the shelf unless I did something about it. Inspired by Donvoss of Berlins brilliant 6 man warbands for Realm Of Chaos recently posted here on Lead Adventure I decided to move it across to 30mm round bases for Skulldred. You can see my rant about how brilliant I am finding my new bases in previous posts.

Daves 'Eavy Meddlers -Skulldred Warband
Converted citadel warriors, Chaos Champion

Remember this conversion? The spikey club (aka Dil-dorr- wrecker of retreats) unfortunately was just not strong enough to stay on such a heavy model, so I am replacing it with a suitable metal weapon from Reaper minis. Needs some milliput to form a rigid support and perhaps a chain to tie it all together.

Original Chaos Warrior - Big Bertha conversion

The other conversion is just a headswap- taking the modern chaos sorcerer head and situating it on an old chaos warrior and dressing the join up a bit. Think I will add some severed heads to that one to really tighten the look up.

The brilliant think about skirmish gaming is you really get to focus on your individual models more. Huge armies look great, but a skirmish warband is real narrative delight. With Skulldred, I am focusing on making a game that can play smoothly with around 20 figures per side.

Asgard, Hasslefree, Rarities and my new 30mm Ply Bases

2011-08-03T07:34:00.001-07:00

I got a few hours to base up and partially paint Hasslefree minis Svala and dynamic kaylee-For one of my Skulldred demo game warbands (aka the orange team!). Kev White, as usual, rocks my socks with two awesome figures, understated details, fluid, dynamic and paintable as heckaroonie on a stick. Yep, well worth your cash - get em here.

Hasslefree Svala and Kaylee (converted) WIP paint jobs

I lightly converted Kaylee, shaving off her chaos symbol and replacing it with a grinning monster face, as well as adding extra fabric to her arms to give more space for her team colours. All this was done with greenstuff. I then decked out her base with mushrooms, creepers and leaves to make use of all the new space on my BRAND NEW BASES!!!!

So the story with my bases is that I really needed some extra room around my figures so they dont bump up against each other in gameplay. I also like decorating them, so having the extra room is great. I made a bunch of lipped deep dish bases, since I hate the way you cannot pick up lipped bases, but have had issues with leeching oils through the resin- clearly my resin is out of date :(
I decided to try out some laser cut 30mm ply discs and you know, I love them! I am sorely tempted to move my whole collection across to them now.
What can I say? Cheap, roomy, easy to pick up, easy to modify, light, have a little bounce to protect the figure, soak black paint up so they chip black, and look the business. At 30mm, they are the exact same footprint as Malifaux or Warmachine bases, but without the annoying lip. You know, I am totally sold on this. Very surprised, considering my experience with plywood bases for HotT has been less than spectacular.


Converted Hasslefree Kaylee framed with some Asgard gems- Lizard man and Poisonous Stalker Kaylee's shield sculpted by me. All Work in progress paint jobs.	.

Kaylee vs. Lizardman wips - playin' Skulldred, naturally!
The lizardmans pokerchip base gives me room to sculpt a torn apart
adventurer using procreate.

The figures shown are all part way through painting, really needing neatening up and a bit more shading. The next ones are even more WIP...

Citadel WF6 Aggressive Aardvark, LE-4 The Black Dwarf and DL2 Hobgoblin shaman
Primed and ready to be drooled over.

So you can see the raw wooden bases onto which I have mounted some dead sexy rare citadel gems- including the 'other' black dwarf (see my earlier posts for the Jes Goodwin masterpiece from Asgard).

The only pain with the ply bases is that the laser scoring around the edge needs sanding off. I found if you use two grits- course to get the lines off and a really fine to polish it really shiney, it looks just like plastic once painted. Using a diluted chaos black wash allowed the paint to soak in- making the base absorb the paint deeply and so it chips to black- which will keep my collection looking a little less played with hopefully. The underside, being perfectly flat, also looks nice when you flip a model on its side too- no ugly slottabase grooves.

I do worry about acids from sap in the plywood leeching into the model and causing leadrot. A few really old models I have prised off wooden bases show damage where they contact the wood. I have kept a thin layer of epoxy around the figures to protect them, and sealed the surface with superglue here and there. That ought'a hold it.

I think its about time citadel allowed 30mm bases for 40k- the models have scale creep'ed to a point where they could really do with the extra stability and protection. Don't you agree?

Victoria Lamb

2011-08-01T07:48:00.000-07:00

Had a brilliant night on Sunday hanging out with the Ozpainters crew. I finally got to meet the one and only Victoria Lamb. I have been a big fan of her work for years, and have to blame her influence for the Sisters of Battle collection I have tucked away somewhere. Check her site out and see what I mean.
We got to sit for a few hours and trade tricks and I got some sneak peeks at what she is working on. Subjects included about all things green stuff, and I naturally asked her if she cuts her toast with her slayer sword. I know I would.
I also got to check out some minis painted by some real pros- Andrew of Aetherworks fame (and no slouch in the golden demon trophy department himself) has a brilliant collection featuring work by such luminaries as Jeremie Bonamant Teboul, Jennifer Haley and Anya. You think they look good on the interweb- you should see them up close!

I am talking about the miniatures. Sheesh.

Of course this means I have to up my game a bit - hanging out with the ozpainters sure is going to drive that.

One tip I did pick up is that my sculpting tools are just not fine enough. I got me some needles and made a new set today using a gas stove, hammer and diamond file. Tried them on my lead adventure sculpts and found I got much more control over the finer details.

Daves back... now with the awesome power of bleach

2011-07-30T01:16:00.000-07:00

Yes. Bleach.
So my 'real' job is 3d artists, as you may know, and this month has been crazy busy crunch time. Result- no miniatures stuff, but my bank account is healthier (in theory- freelancers tend to get paid months after work).

Today showed a little chance to get something done, so I decided to tackle the most urgent problems in my collection- bloom.
Bloom begets leadrot which begets, well, lead poisoning and angst as your classic mini crumbles like a Skeksis Emperor sitting on the Something Wicked This Way Comes merry go round.

The solution is alkali. Lead+ acid = sugar of lead = leadrot. Alkali neutralises the acid. Yay Alkali. Up until now I have been using bicarb, but someone on some forum somewhere suggested bleach. Turns out, its pretty darn strong alkali, and pretty darn good at cleaning up minis!

Harpic bleach gel. The result, 24 hours soaking later

A soak overnight in some thinned bleach and the figures turned from ash grey to murky brown. Wearing gloves, I brushed this with a soft copper brush and it came up dazzling shiney. Not minted new shiney, but the sort of shiney that gives you confidence that the figure is risk free, and certainly a nice painting surface. Take a butchers hook at these three...

FS7-1 Naked Girl Bound Hand and Foot, FA11-2 Illusionist
FS22-2 Victim hanging from Gibbet. Bases detailed in procreate.

They are some of the earliest citadel figures, and as you can see are nice and shiny now, awaiting a tickle from the hairy stick. I just love how politically incorrect the range was then, from stoned druids though to one legged bondage babes. Oh and look, not a skull in sight. Though I was too young for miniatures when these originally came out, as I have collected citadel figures I have been drawn more and more to the very beginnings and now find myself with baggies full of spacefarers, fantasy adventure and fiend factory figures. I think because they where 'anything goes' and the citadel clichés had yet to be established makes these figures stand out from the throng, plus the delight in getting an old, cruddy looking thing and trying to make it stand up to modern standards.

Anyway, bleach gets my tick of approval and joins in ever increasing box of foul smelling bottles in my tool kit.

I am looking forward to some free time soon, I have to finish up a bunch of sculpts and I am back to painting things then blogging them... yay!

Enamels: Seriously oldschool

2011-07-03T08:42:00.000-07:00

The moment I opened the bottle of mineral turpentine I was transported back to 1986. My bedroom at the farm where I grew up, with it's seventies carpet and rainbow patterned walls left behind from when my sister owned the room.
That smell was the smell of early miniature painting. Sure, Citadel had released a range of acrylics at that stage, but all the back issues of White Dwarf and Heroes for Wargames all talked about enamels. John Blanche and Aly Morrison both swore by them, though both admitted to using anything that would go on a brush- including nail polish.
Mineral turps. Mmmm.

My resin base project slowed when I found resin leeching through my acrylic paint- turning it to mush. Obviously I needed to let the plastic set longer, but time is precious and I want my bases now! Plus, as I was cash short this week from eBay Kung Fu, buying black resin was off the menu. So how would I get stable, chip resistant paint on my gaming bases?
Enamels!
It hit me like, well, the smell of mineral turps. Enamels are bulletproof.
If you strip minis, you will be familliar with dunked enamel. Kids using newsagent quality brushes as thick as a licorice stick to apply humbrol the thickness of whipped cream to some poor unsuspecting mini. Tough stuff indeed.
Enamel seemed like the solution. So off I popped for a tin of matte black humbrol and a bottle of turps.

The smell of turps reminded me of so much- a metallic blue chaos warrior I painted- a minotaur and.. Fraser Gray. I remembered the reason I got into enamels in the first place. Fraser is, unquestionably, the father of smooth blended clean style mini painting. How did he do it? Enamels, mentioned an article (I think it was in fantasy miniatures). Back then I tried to emulate this using John Blanches instructions but failed to get Frasers amazing results. I wrecked brushes and a couple of chaos hounds. Back then I did not know of Dettol, so paint strippers where the only way to remove paint. It barely worked, so the dogs went into the failed pile.

Fraser Grey Art- enamels never looked so good.

I remembered this in the midst of the fumey daze and decided to try again now my painting skills are a little more mature. Fortunately I had some white and grey lurking in my paint box from art school and by Jove it was still fresh!

Wow!

I applied a grey base coat to a paranoia troubleshooter, let it dry, then applied a thinned, fresh coat with a fine brush. This time, I know brush flow control, and tapped off the excess paint onto a paper towel. Then, using thinned white and black I worked in some shading, and washed my brush out in turps. Then tapping off the turps, danced the brush over the area to blend in the shading.

Did I say wow? I meant WOW!
I nailed it- A perfect smooth blend ala Fraser Gray. My inner child jumped for joy (though, looking back, it could have been dinner).

I actually enjoyed painting in enamels! That really surprised me.

Going to grab some more colors tomorrow if I can- try getting that brilliant Orc and Chaos Dwarf skin effect he used, and the matte blues and reds I need for the troubleshooter with laser.

Anyone else use enamels here?

End of an era. Start of a display.

2011-06-30T23:28:00.000-07:00

Bookstores, sadly, are going down the toilet one by one. Strangely huge mark ups have not saved the Borders chain here, and our favorite after work hang out is shutting it's doors.

Sigh. I am very sad.

Anyway, on a brighter note I just bought me a whole bunch of the shop fittings from the admimistrator. Partly as keep sakes, partly because clear acrylic risers would make great display stands for my minis! Plus a mile of black plasticard! Nice.
I am sure the feeling of being a vulture will go away shortly... Perhaps leaving the faint tinge of remorse.

Declutter your studio. Declutter your mind.

2011-06-29T18:16:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to sculpt in a very cramped, very dusty room- and yesterday it suddenly got to me. I snapped. I had to do something, right then and there. A massive clean up started at 2pm and went through to the wee hours. However, unlike my previous attempts at cleaning (think Scott Pilgrim drying his hands), this was a controlled attack based on strategies garnered from a declutter your life book my wife bought to help dig herself out of our dining/library/sewing/piles of random crap room (easily confused with our bedroom/library/piles of random crap room).
The thing I wanted to share in this episode is a few tips on clutter and the psychological, nay, spiritual impact of filing away unpainted minis.

Triage
I first went through my shelves and picked out the unpainted and unstripped figures onto a tray. Anything still to be stripped of paint was taken out of the collection and put into a tray ready for the dettol jars. All unpainted minis where bagged by category and set aside.

Tip of doom 1:
I then created a filing cabinet (of sorts) for my Lead Pile.
I took two clear stackable storage tubs and divided them into two with foamcore. The tubs where then broken down with divider cards, and all my minis where bagged, tagged and entered into the correct slot. Look at all those little cards! Fiend Factory, Fantasy Adventurers, Lotr, Paranoia, Rogue Trader, Chaos, Things with Big Heads from Bob Olley, Jes Goodwin Ogres, AD&D - ahhh, the deep, strange enjoyment a mini collector you probably understand.
The good thing is now I can quickly flip to a section and check to see what I have already got- I have been plagued with doubles of late. Seriously, part of my brain says I do not own a female night horrors vampire. I just keep buying her!

Side note: Space farers- what's with the sudden ebay rush this week? Months go by, not a single one, then boom- the entire lot every way you like- painted, job lot and still in bag- your choice of these teeny, tiny little sci fi kitch range!

I store my minis in plastic baggies- NEVER store old figures in wooden or cardboard boxes- sometimes these have acids in them, over time these react with the lead in the figure and you got yourself a lead rot nightmare situation.

Tip of doom 2:
I then blue tacked my figures to black pieces of foamcore and board all cut to 3x6inches. This allowed me to pick up my whole display collection, dust it and move it from shelf to shelf in batches of 24. A large nylon painters brush for the figures, a damp cloth for the shelves. Again, no cleaning products- lead rot is such a curse!

Tip of doom 3:
Box of doom. When de-cluttering, and this tips a corker, rather than moving stuff around endlessly, just carry a box around with you. Anything that does not belong on the place your working on goes into the box. This stops you endlessly circling junk around. This is the best tip ever for me!

Tip 4:
Be merciless. Little bits you have been meaning to use for scenery, scraps of material, weird tools from gameforce you never actually use... paint pots with a little bit left- just a little.... screw all that its time to ditch them. You got minis to paint and need that mental energy.

The Dust settles on the aftermath...
The net result of this onslaught is two shelves of neat, painted minis and a floor I can actually see. That's the physical difference. The mental difference is suddenly I do not have a thousand unfinished projects glaring at me from every corner of my studio nibbling at my mind. What I now have is a neatly boxed collection, and a display of finished, and mostly finished figures. Clean. Zen. Achievable.

Tonight I am going to hoover the ever living crap out of the studio and finally transfer the remaining citadel paints into Reaper bottles and ditch the containers.

Once I have the LAM mutants finished its back to Kingsminis business as usual- pictures of old school figures tickled with a hairy stick!

Go on. You know its time to clean your studio.

Airbrush fun

2011-06-26T00:49:00.000-07:00

Tried out an old airbrush I had laying around to see if it was actually useful for mini painting before I invested in a pump and a decent airbrush.

Turns out, quite handy I think. I base coated the flesh tones for a citadel giant, twenty barbarians and thrud in no time. If just for that, it would be worthwhile. If I was rocking a space marine army, or war gaming in general- it would be a must have.

So what are your thoughts and experiences on airbrushes? Worth getting? More fuss than worthwhile?

Lipped bases for sale?

2011-06-26T00:45:00.000-07:00

I have had a couple of folk ask if I intend to sell my deep dish lipped bases.
Thats a thought, though they would have to be top quality- something my home resin kit isnt really set up for.

So, since the idea has been mooted I am looking into professional resin casters in Australia to see if someone can vacuum cast them for me. I am also getting some prototype digital printed masters done with a few extra features that could be integrated into the base for extra handiness. I dont sell tat. :)

If you would be interested in such a base system, with reversable base cappers (in metal), deep cappers (in resin) and seperate lips that can take a regular 25mm round base, either temporarily or be glued in- drop me a line or comment below. If enough people are keen, I will add them to The BeDerken line.

It would be uber cool to get the base made in black plastic- but none of the companies I have spoken to are willing to take the punt. Shame really. Resin it is.

F'Nurgle old tat

2011-06-19T19:27:00.000-07:00

Since I have not had a chance to post some finished work in a while, what with being far too busy with sculpting work, I thought some old tat would suffice. Here are a couple of old photos I took of some paint jobbies I did on my brother in laws Nurgle army a while ago. Yep, my bro' is a big 40k mythos fan- though he never plays the game itself. He buys me figures in exchange for painting and assembling his.
Now he gave me a chirurgeon back pack to add to another figure, but when I tried it on the early 1990's Plague Marine, it was love at first sight. He looks made for it, and so fiendish I have to make myself one first chance I get.

Forge world aero bars and my fave plague marine conversion

I call them Aero bars because they are full of bubbles. Note the dude with the speakers gun arm and wire pipes- practically all that had to be rebuilt from scratch after breakage from under the surface bubbles. The pipes where virtually non existent to begin with. Really a shame, because these two are some of the coolest looking minis GW produce. Hopefully once all the issues with finecast is ironed out, they may transition over to the main range.

Two more early marines.


Damned grenade! WIP of one of Ed's, modern Legion of the Damned I like these minis. One of the better releases of modern times.

I actually painted my original plastic marines as legion of the damned back in the 1980s- I think its a bit of a shame how the mythos has changed them to a pop in special unit. Never mind, not like I am playing the game any time soon.
I do have some placcy marines laying around that one day I may paint up. I think probably original mentor legion- back when they had the owl logo. Then again, maybe I will go get a life instead.

Hardcore base traitor

2011-06-19T07:57:00.000-07:00

I am a traitor. Yes, it's true. After dedicating many hours to gluing sand to hex bases in honour of olde skool righteousness, I have, dear reader, fallen in one night to the charms of the "modern lipped base".

Faced with a very short amount of hobby time this weekend, I decided to push on with my c100 kill team charlie project by running off a few more resin bases.

Yep. I make my own resin bases. Hardcore huh?

Since I made only two moulds for the original hyperbole base, I realised it would take a fair while to base all my c100 figures up. Hmmm. The only route to getting this project done was to bite the bullet and make a mould that could churn out a whole mess at once. This meant blood.

My deep dish bases are made by hollowing out a plastic base- very fiddly, as a single slip can snap the rim. Or, az the case was, a finger. Carving out nine of the bloody, and I mean literally bloody, things was a big decision. Better than manually casting bases one at a time though.
So, ten bases, three blades and a huge vertical cut on my right thumb and my new mould was complete. A quick foamcore box, pinkysil 2 part silicone and a can of mould release and voila...
1x 40mm, 9x 30mm, and 5x20mm bases from one pour. My master is reusable, so I can run off another silicone mould and do two lots very 10 minutes.

Silicone mould, resin bases(black), resin cappers (white),
Citadel Chaos Dwarf, C100 Space marine (converted)

So you can see the bases I made are hollow and deep, with a wider mouth. As you may know from my previous rants about bases, this is so I could sculpt base detail on a ten cent coin to be cast separately. These 'cappers' just snap in. It saves making lots of big moulds for base styles I rarely use.
My gripe with plastic lipped bases are they are too shallow, which makes them hard to pick up- especially on heavy metal figures. I deepened mine by gluing a disc of plasticard to the masters and sanding them down to a smooth edge.

However, (and here is the beginning of the end for my Hex cult membership), the first batch came out so well I immediately saw the potential that the deep dish gave me.
I could rebase minis really quickly- I need only clip off the sides of the slottabase and I could transplant the whole base decoration onto the lipped version onto a ball of 5 minute epoxy putty. (Note the poor little chaos dwarf in the above picture suffering this fate).
The second feature was that preslotta bases could be glued in and their feet would be level with the lip. Hmmm... this could be good indeed.

My skirmish rules Skulldred (see links) plays best when figures have the larger bases, since figures get into base contact a lot- scratching was occurring on my fave gaming figures. Lipped bases seemed a good idea. I decided to base up some of my new chaos Dwarf ebay acquisitions as a warband and see if I liked it.

[Insert suitable Top Gear style pregnant pause...]

I liked it.

Works in progress. Citadel Chaos general (Earl Harkness from McDeath), Bederken Dwerg,
Citadel Minotaur, Citadel Perry Bros. Chaos Dwarves and the orc from the White
Dwarf Boxed Set

I ended up getting all the above bases out of the first mould. A ball of 5 minute epoxy, and twenty minutes later I had all these guys done. Procreate stick putty is brilliant for making rocky textures- check out the chaos dwarf on the raised stone. That took, literally, ten minutes to make and cure.

All that remains now is to save up my pennies to get some clear resin and a black resin colourant- and I can make nice, pretty, chip resistant black bases. Lovely.

So that's it. Hexes no more.

Once the feeling of treachery wears off, that is.

eighty one today!

2011-06-09T06:06:00.000-07:00

Hey, I passed the eighty reader mark!
Lets celebrate... you grab yourself a drink from your fridge! Mail me one whilst your at it.

When you start a blog, you kinda feel like your shouting into the void. But your mossy stone keeps a rolling... and before you know it your linking up with the coolest droogs from around the world!

Sculpting has taken up my hobby time this week, so no pictures to celebrate the 80 mark. The good news is that I should be finished sculpting the ten Mutants for Lead Adventure Miniatures shortly, then, once I have finished basing the new releases for Bederken, its mini time and the next episode of 'eavy dave. :)

Right now I have a warband of dwarves on the go which I will be posting soon. Great fun.

Anyway, its late and I have to go. Enjoy your celebratory drinks- and thank you for your readership!

15mm madness, Stick Putty, Kill Team Charlie Update

2011-06-04T03:05:00.000-07:00

So now a break from the normal, after another food allergy related fit of insomnia, I went to the light side of minis and attacked some 15mm scale figures I have had sitting around forever- and you know, darn it, I really, really love 15mm figures! When they are well sculpted, they are total gaming joy. Nil time commitment, no fussing over details and repainting, basing and converting takes minutes- you can pack your whole game in a lunch box!

At about 2 am, I decided sleep was not going to be an option, and decided to go play with the stick putty I got recently. Stick putty is a new product from procreate, and its supposed to glue together minis. I tried it on a Ral Partha Djinn, and it does work to this end quite well- about as strong as superglue. However I probably wont use it for this purpose much - its just begging for basing and armatures! Why? It has a 5 minute cure time. Yes! Five minutes from mix to a firm, but flexible set. And its utterly brilliant for filling and gripping minis to bases, and blocking out mini armatures. I will be buying lots of this stuff.

5 minutes. 5 freaking minutes. Awesome.

Once set, you can tear up any left overs it to get nice ruined concrete effects for bases- so there is no wastage.
Now if you think its going to replace your sculpting medium, think again- five minutes is just too short to do much work, so cut off small amounts (I use artists palette knife) and do it in stages. Now if you mount on washers, procreate stick putty is your beotch! It fills the hole and sticks the model onto the surface, and rounds the edges so your scatter does not show that little integral base give away that makes some armies look crappy.

Now the down sides. It smells awful for starters. Keep the clam shell it came in to save your nostrils. I am not allergic to epoxy putty usually- milliput, that little rascal has no perceivable effect on me- however this stuff is nasty. As part of the test, I used bare skin. My palms have been itching like mad all day. Short story- wear gloves.

I decided to base up my post apocalypse road outlaws, and if sleep denied me after that, paint them I managed to greyscale two packs, but only painted two- but it was delightful! Definitely going to build a post apocalypse game board when I have some time. By the way, if you want to be able to write little names on the side of a 15mm base, paint a white stripe, then using a 0.005 technical pen, etch in the negative space of the letters. Far easier than trying to paint the letter strokes.

Khurasan Road Outlaws (15mm scale)

I feel I am getting much better at 15mm- my first attempt was for a small Gauntlet style dungeon bash... I grabbed these minis from 15mm.com. They need some baddies to fight now- but I have yet to find anything that floats my boat- it may be time for Bederken to release some 15mm!
For my 15mm I decided to use non metallic metals and work up strong contrast, so they pop off the table.

15mm.com dungeoneers. In... er... 15mm scale. Strangely.

If you have been wondering about my other projects, Kill Team Charlie has progressed a little since last I posted, though I just have not had the time to clear my sculpting desk to get the hyperbowl bases cast up- so its stalled until I finish the Lead Adventure Mutant Sculpts (which, btw, are soooo going to be part of this game set once I have finished).
Here are some work...

Kill Team Charlie progress continues! C100 forever!

For those who missed earlier posts, these classic C100 space marines are mounted onto home made custom resin bases featuring a modular detail insert. The actual outer base forms a deep bowl for scenic features such as deep puddles, hatches etc- and the sides have been extended so you can easily pick up the model by the base. The bowl has been widened to fit a 10c coin, which is what I sculpt all my inserts on. The whole lot is cast in resin. I only have one polished and finished here, the others are pretty crude at this stage.
The Kill Team features mostly natural C100, and converted C100 models (20 odd at the moment), some early rogue trader era figures and a host of scratch built and converted figures from Reaper and Hasslefree- do check out the earlier posts!
I am also moving my Judge Dredd collection onto the same basing system- but thats way off in the future!

Hope you enjoy these!

Tower of DOOOOM!!!

2011-05-23T06:49:00.000-07:00

So hey, how you going? Have been busy as hell of late- the only things I have been able to paint have been some production models for Bederken- you will get to see those when I launch the new range.
However I have finished one little task thats been nagging me for a while, a new paint rack.

I lashed out on one of those four level carosels, and I have to say... really not impressed. The 'American craftmanship' the box proudly states equates to wobbly, with plastic trays too big to grip a citadel pot, and too tight to allow Vallejo or Reaper paints to comfortably sit. That, and the thing takes up one hell of a lot of space. I tried to love it... put brushes in the little holders... rebuilt it with different heights...I guess it suits some people, but for me, I just wanted to see everything at once and have my desk space back.

So, one night, armed with nothing but a packing knife, a metal ruler, lollypop sticks, some bostick glue, sticky tape and a bunch of MDF sheets I use to make wargaming scenery, I knocked up the TOWER OF DOOOOM!

Total cost, about ten bucks.

Its alive. ALIVE!!

I am calling this one a prototype in a thinly veiled attempt to hide my lack of craftmanship. Cut twice. Measure using thumbs.
So this is the entire four level carousels contents. As you can see, plenty of room left and I am taking up about an eighth of the space. It holds seventy dropper bottles and slightly less citadel pots. Two of these should do the trick, unless I get seriously addicted to collecting paint. Hmmm....

Dave gets 'Eavy. Must be the biscuits.

2011-05-05T05:52:00.000-07:00

I get quite a few emails by readers wanting a step by step tutorial on how I do my thang. Since I do things a bit cack handed to everyone else what with medium rich tints and all that. Well, since I was undercoating and prepping a heap of figures, I though it would be fun to finally do it.
However, I decided to have a bit of retro fun and... well, Behold, a lost article from a more civilised age.

Hmmm... that looks familiar.

Next one will indeed be covering tinting and mediums!

Keeping the Karmic Wolves at the door

2011-05-02T08:06:00.000-07:00

Today I broke my painting drought with a full on onslaught of my leadpile. Many fell to my mighty brush this day, (I hear America has been scoring pretty good on their own to do list today as well), and I discovered one really good trick; and that trick is this... kill your karmic blockers.
There is, I dare say, one or two figures hanging around your collection like a bad smell, never being painted and draining your enthusiasm just looking at them. For me, its been a half orc (I only have one) loitering around the fringes of my orcs, an elf archer, a samurai warrior (I do not collect Oriental fantasy figures as a general rule) and a dire wolf, the hobgoblin and the Chaos Warrior from the brilliance that is the BC2 Monster Starter Set.
Having these figures is not good for your hobby soul- they accumulate at the fringes of your collection, gathering as a clogging sense of dissatisfaction that taints the whole.
Today, being sick with a cold and generally unmotivated to sculpt, I tackled those figures, and the rush of vitality that returned when they where finished was astounding. Invigorated thus by the fall of my karmic blockers, I stormed ahead and got 90% of the way through 28 figures- completing a handful of those to my liking. Count em. 28.

Set aside a day of pain to tackle those ones, and you wont believe what it will do for your lead pile. Kill your karmic blockers today.

Citadel FA19 female fighter with sword, Dwarf Adventurer, Talisman Necromancer,
C13 Lesser Goblin, ADD OH2 Samurai, Wood Elf

The dwarf and Lesser goblin here are what I call 'soft targets'- things I know I can paint really quickly. On days I do not feel like a challenge, I bee line for these. I love the old lesser goblins- I have a bag of them somewhere and now I have the smaller 20mm bases I may do up a tiny, tiny warband. The Samurai here was the biggest karmic blocker in my collection!
I decided to go really far out with the Talisman Necromancer- slapping on a Wizard of Oz makeup to match his cartoonish look. The FA19 female fighter is one of the best faces on any citadel miniature ever. EVER. Its so subtle, and such a joy to paint. It would have made a great starter character for D&D.


Citadel BC2 Monster Starter Boxed Set 90% complete

If you have been a fan of my blog, you will know my fondness for the BC1 monster starter set. Here you can see I am almost done painting it- just little things like shading boots and jazzing up the bases to go now! I remember the first time I painted the dire wolf, I just painted it black with red eyes. This time around I was determined to go realistic with the fur and really make him pop. The hobgoblin is now a favourite of mine, having totally ignored the box art and struck out in vivid green lacquered armour instead of the run of the mill copper scales that where making me yawn just thinking of painting them. I have a second vile goblin, and will be painting him lime green with dark blue trims and black armour me thinks. Oh, and yes, I have the BC1 complimentary heroes boxed set now... will have to wait for a dry day to prime them up.

(left to right) C22 Creatures Chaos Hounds 1 & 3,
Unknown Vintage Wolf (middle), Reaper Wolves (top right),
BC2 Vicious Giant Wolf

So one thing you can do to get through your lead pile is rack up a bunch of figures all at once. I hunted around my collection and found all the wolves I had, and saved myself a heap of time by mixing the colours up at once.

Mystery wolf, BC2 Vicious Giant Wolf

If anyone knows the mystery wolf, I would be glad to have it identified. Its pretty stiff and old looking, but cannot find him on any citadel collectors sheets. I thought he was the FF giant wolf.

I also managed to knock down some chaos familiars, Norse Dwarves and a couple of Asgard beasties- but they will have to wait for a later post. I am tired as hell with cold!

Daves fingernails are green

2011-04-20T20:24:00.000-07:00

Well I am still buried under a heap of commissions right now, which is pleasant for me (green stuff permanently wedged under fingernails aside) - if a little draining on my miniature time. I always scoffed at Ally Morrison saying he "rarely if ever converts miniatures when he gets home because he is too busy playing with putty all day long" (white dwarf 1986). Sac up! I used to think. Get some hobby stamina ya Scottish git and make me some more Talisman figures whilst your at it!

Now I get it. Now I understand. Your forgiven Mr. Morrison. Except for not making those talisman figs... your still off my Christmas list for that.

I have fifteen figures on the table right now for private commissions, plus my own figures for my Bederken label. Current conversions and paintings this month?

Er... I base coated a Talisman Monk... does that count?

But, that said, most of these little putty suckers are getting darn close to finished... which means that Asgard Stalker is going to not know what hit it. (hint. Its paint)

Ed. I know your listening. Your "Legion of the Definitely Not Looking Too Healthy- May Have to Have a Lie Down In My Flaming Boney Armour" marines are also on that list. Yeah yeah.... Nurge Fliers too.

Witchhunter cross dressers, bugbears and Nuns (oh my)

2011-03-21T05:43:00.000-07:00

This is my AD&D 4th ed character, Regan Black... a male paladin witch hunter trapped by a spell in the body of his worst enemy - the witch who killed his wife. Without muscle memory his sword skills are useless- and fearing for his life in close combat without his brawn to save him, he is desperately trying to get the witches body to learn the longbow and start off as a first level ranger so he/she can hunt down his real body and find a way to switch back and defeat the witch.
Very dramatic, and EXTREMELY hard to roleplay- considering my GM is a woman and very happy to step on a dodgy portrayal of her fair kind. So much fun it almost makes up for the horrible AD&D 4.0 system. Going to convince her to switch to something mega retro like Labyrinth Lord. :)
Our whole gaming group are digital artists, so quickly we got into painting our characters...

Regan Black. Day one.

Since the adventure takes place in the frozen north, the effect of being mind switched into a witch wearing a skimpy Frazetta style sorceress costume was instant hypothermia as her protective warming spells vanished. Having staggered back into town and scrounged up some clothing from the villagers, I ended up stuck with a red / blue ensemble. She still has the witches red corset and gloves on, but with a male puritanical witchunters eye for fashion, I constructed the rest of her costume with practicality in mind...

Regan Black... as depicted by me. Now I have to find a mini...

I needed a figure quickly, but the only thing in my collection even close was an AD&D thief. A little green stuff and she has a corset, fur shoulders and fur lined boots. The great thing is I can peel off this stuff and the figure underneath is unharmed!


Converted Reaper 'Callie' female rogue and Converted Citadel 1980's AD&D Female Thief

After a few sessions, all the guys got bigger, chunkier modern figures. Mine was getting a bit lost on the gaming table, and besides, I mainly use a bow - so I decided to get a new figure. Callie from Reaper minis was close, the had a dorky face. I dremmelled it out and replaced it with a little green stuff. Again, a corset and fur was added to give a frozen north look. Its going to be fun keeping my miniature up to date. Considering the figures only around 8 bucks, I wanted to keep figures for all stages of her growth. At the end of the campaign I have some reminders!


Grenadier Bugbears

On a more retro adventure, I picked up these three mystery figures from fleabay. I found out they are Grenadier bugbears. To be honest, they are very old school, ugly looking chaps... stiff with a weird head... but hey, I just love painting up old awkward figures.

Polishing turds, some call it.

Anyway, there was a touch of character about them that drew me in. I tried a little something different here with the bases.

And now... demon nuns.

Reaper Battle Nuns

Ye Systrs Infernale, my Hordes of the Things 28mm army made up of demon possessed nuns expands with another blades unit. These are straight out of the box Reaper battle nuns. I love these figures... having converted a bunch into 40k style Sisters of Battle elsewhere in this blog- I have a bucket load of the things in my bits box.

The other units are a little too rude to post- having been lovingly converted to show a little more flesh, and one having snapping jaws where a woman shouldn't have them if you catch my drift. The army features bits of Slannesh figures, Reaper figures and lots of scratch built stuff- insane nuns tearing at their clothes, changing into succubi and generally enjoying the battle. Its a scream to do, but not sure if it should be brought out at a family orientated gaming convention.
Its a big time commitment considering I have yet to play Hott- but I figure I can always use them in Skulldred- as multi based models are perfectly acceptable!

Unkillable cheap scenery

2011-03-21T04:53:00.000-07:00

So, dear reader, I am a gamer cursed with no suppliers of that dense pink foam everyone uses to make scenery. Being Australia, the land of the robber barons, it would probably cost a fair packet to0. But I no longer care- I have found a technique to make UNKILLABLE scenery from recycled expanded polystyrene. Free from any household buying a plasma screen in your neighbourhood.

The problem with styrene is that it has no strength. Apply any weight to it and it will snap. Drop a metal mini on it, and it will dent. That, and it looks like crap when you paint it. It does. Stop doing it. Thats an order.

To fix the first problem, I turn my styrene into super sized, super cheap foamcore by sandwiching it between two sheets of paper using PVA glue and pressing it under heavy books overnight. This distributes the energy across the whole surface and makes it really hard to snap. To make larger pieces of scenery, I first sculpt them using a foam wirecutter (a must have tool) and assemble them using cocktail sticks to pin the layers together. Once I am happy with the cut, I mark the edges with a pen so I can align them again, take them apart and sandwich them individually. Finally I reassemble with PVA glue and wooden skewers to add strength.

To fix the problem of denting and overall look crapness, I use the holy grail of mini scenery making.

Pollyfilla Woodflex. Oh yeah.

King's Un-killable combo.

Now woodflex is not as cheap as whacking sand into PVA glue, but the results are so, so much better.
Woodflex does not crack or flake, is slightly rubbery and has a perfect texture for stone, mud and rock straight out of the tub. Not having sand glued to the surface means its less likely to sandpaper off your paint job too. It forms a rubbery skin over the surface that will distribute any force across the whole model- so no dents or snapping!

I thin mine down using demineralised water. I use a palette knife to smear mine on. Leave it ten minutes, then shape it. Leave it over night to dry.

If you want to get some brickwork effects I suggest a two step approach. Do a base coat and use a damp sponge to stipple down the surfae, let that dry overnight to form a tough skin. Applying a second thick coat, give it fifteen minutes to dry then score in the brickwork or cracks. Use the sponge again to tamp down the scratchy lines and give a natural effect. The stairs in the next picture are unpainted, but you can see its a great look.

Citadel 1980's Runequest duck.
Converted Reaper 'Callie' female rogue and Converted Citadel 1980's AD&D Female Thief

The polyflex gives a great rocky look, and forms a skin that protects the polystyrene. Its a really cost effective way to make unkillable gaming scenery. More pics of my finished gaming tables later on! With luck I may have a Skulldred table at CANCON or MOAB with some pretty scenery.

Hope that helps... comments as usual below.

Bederken Dungeon floorplans get an airing

2011-03-11T03:24:00.000-08:00

As you probably know I recently released some 30mm square dungeon floorplans in .pdf format through my Bederken blog. Well, I got my first prints all back and mounted up and I thought I would take some quick snaps to show it in action. As you can see, going up from 1 inch standard to 30mm makes it much easier to play without minis bumping up against each other- plus you have the freedom to use modern lipped bases.

So the first fools to brave The Dungeon of Dave are some classic citadel paladins who probably have not had a decent dungeon bash since Dungeons & Dragons came out.


Preslotta Citadel Paladins and C11 halfling attack Kev Adams Zombies and Reaper Wizard


Classic early 1980's Citadel creepy crawlies and Red Orcs attack! Grenadier halfman takes aim in background. Molemen by Reaper. Ooze by me.


Thirty year old minis get some playing with! Some classic Red orcs have been converted here- headswaps and scratch built weaponry.

Another angle. Note the green ooze sneaking up on a red goblin in the background.
It was made with a hot glue gun and a plastic base.

As you can see, my red orc tribe has expanded since I last posted. These guys are about 50% done. I swapped out a couple of heads and weapons to give more variety, keeping at least one of each variety in archive state.

The creepy crawlies are a personal favourite of mine, I have been collecting these for a while now. When you get them they just look like a little lug of brown metal, but with a little TLC they transform into some classic vintage gaming niceness.

Well that's me for tonight... enjoy dungeon bashing!

Tin Soldier Closing down

2011-02-12T12:56:00.000-08:00

Sydney CBD's one and only non GW miniature shop is closing down for renovations. I can now choose to buy figures from the expensive GW stockist, the slighting less expensive stockist or GW itself.... hmmm, looks like online shopping from here on in.

Been a wonderful arrivals week. Kill Team Charlie's ranks have now swollen to well beyond a skirmish team for a start- its now threatening to be a decent army. There are so many I have to buy a stick to wave at them.If you have not seen it- Stedder's posted a great Delirious inspired C100 army in beige-white recently!

C100 forever!

Nothing much on the painting front- the weather has been drizzly and stormy, so spray painting was out of the question- the only painting I got done was most way through two Reaper Bugbears.
I did manage to assemble my Brother in Laws Legion of the Damned - which includes a nice retro legion figure- I will post it up once I get that one painted. :)

Tutorial: making mini paints from artist tubed acrylics

2011-02-03T13:23:00.000-08:00

Admit it, you have looked at those tubes and priced them up, right? And I am guessing you may have tried to use them with what one could call 'mixed' results. Today I am sharing a formula for turning top quality artist acrylics into useful mini paints.

First up, picking your paints. Don't go for cheap student paints or craft paints (Jo Sonja)- you want the maximum star permanency rated paint... which means its tested to not fade over time. Squeeze the tube a littel between your fingers and it will feel firm, not runny. Next you need to check the opacity rating. Like citadel foundation paints, heavy density paint does not let much light through- its pigment rich- not as rich as foundation, sadly, but that stuff is really heavy on the pigment. Lower graded paints are unavoidably translucent- colours such as lemon yellow are commonly so. It does not matter which you get, but be aware that translucent paints do not need as much medium added later on.

Your going to need some more ingredients. Liquitex flow aid (aka flow improver), de-mineralised water (from your laundry section of the supermarket), Liquitex Matte Medium and industrial talc (not perfumed bathroom talc!) That last item can be found at casting and moulding suppliers.

I use reaper dropper bottles, but do my mixing in larger squeezy bottles, as you need room to modify and tune the mix.

First, you need to get your mix right. On a palette, take a small squeeze of paint and call this ten units. You need to make this runny, so we need to add flow aid / de-mineralised water mix (1:20 ratio) until it just starts to break down into a gooey fluid. Count your drops whilst you stir.
Next you want to extend and add body to the paint, so matte medium is required. Start with about 1 or 2 units, and stir this in. Next add a small amount of industrial talc. Adding talc gives a solidity and glow to the paint you may find familiar. Back in the 1990s, a white dwarf article mentioned that talc is used in citadel paints, so having talc on your models was not going to effect the paint job much- this clued me into trying it out, and it makes a big difference to some mixes.
Finally test your paint on a crappy mini. Put some mini paint side by side and compare feel, flow and coverage. Add more de-mineralized water and medium until it feels right. If its too gluggy, use flow aid. Be careful not to add too much, or you will get a fuzzy surface. If your into wet blending, you will like having more flow aid in your mix- drying times are extended and its easier to work... just like Reaper master series. However personally I find its better to add this post mix whilst painting, so the paint can be used as a base.
Once your paint is behaving nicely on your miniature, its time to carry your mix data over to your big bottle.

Mark a half way point on your bottle, then half this again and again. This gives you a good measuring indicator. Start by squeezing paint into the bottle. Leave it for a while with the lid on and it will settle, giving you a good measurement to apply your ratios. Always leave a good amount of room in your bottle so you can adjust medium and water later on. Shake well between tests, and remember to discharge what is in the nozzle before testing, as this is unlikely to have changed between adjustments.

Finally, once your happy with the mix, port it over to your reaper dropper bottles. Pop in the bead, snap on the cap and screw on the lid. Lastly, apply a label that notes the colour, manufacturer and ratios for later mixes.

Now every paint mix will be different. Some work well, some not so. I found liquitex reds are really vibrant. Windsor and Newton make good stuff, and some one Derwents paints can be handy... I used the Matisse antique blue to give a more realistic, toned down Crimson Fist space marine base colour.

If you want custom mixed colours to hold you over for a whole army, I suggest first mixing the medium/water/flow aid/talc mix for each colour seperately, then once they behave well, working out a mix ratio of these. Syringes can then be used to get exact ratios. Make up a big bottle of this and refill your small dropper bottles or cleaned out citadel pots when you need them. That way you guarantee the right color for your whole army for years.

Anyway, hope that helps. if anyone has discovered other great formulas for this mix, or any vital ingredients I am missing (I have been looking at rubbing alcohol as an ingredient in washes for example) then post a comment below!

Happy mixing.

Casting up the Sci fi bases

2011-01-30T04:50:00.000-08:00

Been casting and mould making today... got a half dozen or so of the squad bases casted up. That and drinking beer, cooking gourmet sausages, making tiramisu and swimming in the sea to get away from the heat. Sydney is a great place for summer weekends.

The cast up deep dish base I made works a treat- the caps pop in and hold nicely- plus I discovered the caps fit perfectly on to a regular round plastic base. The deep dish bases can be picked up even with a heavy marine on it, just like I planned. Chuffed to bits! So eager to paint them I forgot all about the tiramasu in the fridge. Oh well, miniatures over calories is a good thing I guess.

So the first six are based, though the paint job is a while off being finished, and already I am feeling the glow of a project coming together. I cannot wait to sit back and look at the whole team finished now. Quite a bit of work to go, but damn its a fun project!

I am thinking of getting some 3D models printed for resin casting now. Hell, since I am a 3d artist on one hand and a miniature sculptor on the other I probably should make some 3d sculpted miniatures or busts at some stage.

I also find myself toying more with ideas for a science fiction figure range after I finish my current batch of comissioned sculpts. Sort of NASA at war, rather than anything that would fit in the 40k universe... besides IP issues, its either 40k gothic, pulp era retro, Aliens or manga... that leaves a gaping hole of 70's and early 80's sci fi. Space opera stuff. Taking a bit of Chris Foss inspiration to bed to flick through.

Anyway, pics shortly.

Kill Team Charlie recruits

2011-01-29T06:30:00.000-08:00

Kill Team Charlie - Reaper Chronoscope bot, Hasslefree female marine
Citadel C100 space marines and Rogue Trader Adventurers Assasin

Okay, so my favourite project just got a shot in the arm after this weeks Stripathon. Here is a family pic of the team, missing the six dudes rocking out in a jar of dettol right now. Yay. More scrubbing.


C100 ultra rare Female Marine, C100 Marine

Okay, I am just messing with you... there was no female marine in the c100 line. But there is now, thanks to the wonders of green stuff. The model on the left was made by taking the model on the right and carefully whittling out the torso and head section. the key word here is whittle - only work with a brand new blade and peel away thin layers at a time, like scraping off tin foil- never apply force, as your knife will snap and probably take out an eye. Always cut away from you and use safety goggles. A round blade is safer than a pointed xacto for this job. A dremmel is better!
Anyway, the face and torso was scratch built using greenstuff over a bent paperclip. I widened her hips too, to give a better female proportion. I also added some more tech and wires to break up the model a bit more- I have several of these figures that need to look different. I will start the next one with correcting the pressed down nose cone... it looks like the master was not reinforced and got squished a bit in vulcanizing... all the other marines masks are sharp and pointy.


C100 marines

Not sure you can see it, but her face is pink and scarred on one side from a laser burn. Forget bullets in THIS universe!


Converted Rogue Trader Assassin, Hasslefree Libby female marine

Two more recruits are Libby, from Hasslefree and a broken Assasin from the Rogue Trader Adventurers. She is actually quite rare, but arrived in a bitz lot - so languished in my bits box for a long while. The original owner had converted her to be a superhero by shaving off her backpack and shuriken. What better job than joining a Rogue Trader inspired team! I fixed up her damaged torso with GS and upgraded her arsenal. I also improved her weaponry (boom tish). Note her arm weapon is a copy of the one built onto the captain figure from the c100 range. A cool weapon that should have stayed in 40k!

The Hasslefree conversion is a no brainer... anyone can stick a back pack on her and she is a great stand in 40k model. However I wanted to go a bit deeper into the conversion, trying to integrate her into the look and feel of the c100 range. Kevs sculpt is so clean and crisp, and just aching for smooth shading! (Do grab yourself one, its a great figure). As you can see I took the chainsaw arm from a c100 death guard and am currently constructing a C100 style 'wobbly' backpack and another cool fist mounted weapon arm. A little bit more work to go on her before she joins the team, but you can see the gist of it coming along. Note the under support layer I am building is a mix of milliput and green stuff - giving a rock solid support so the arm is nice and solid for gameplay. Mixing the two putties allows you to file and drill the result well. Great for armour.

See ya!

Daves Blue and Orange Period

2011-01-29T06:01:00.000-08:00


Dwarf Adventurers - Three breasted, Chaos, Zombie, Ninja, Demon Dwarf. Cyclops mutant Orc

You know how it is, you have a bunch of colours on your wet palette and you start looking around for other things to use up the paint. This week it was blue and orange.

One tip today is the brilliance on Flow Improver. A 20:1 mix water to Liquitex Flow improver dropped into citadel paint will make it instantly fluid and stop it clinging to your brush! You know how when you do fine details it just likes your brush better than your model? Flow Improver.

Too much, however and your surface will become fuzzy as the paint fails to grab itself and cracks... some accuse reaper master series of having too much flow improver because of this effect. I never basecoat with Reaper Master Series, instead going with VMC or Citadel. (For shading glazes, they are brilliant though because of the huge range of colours).

Failing that, use dish soap instead. It had the added benefits of being cheap and helping intermix citadel and VMC paints effortlessly. I use a 1:20 or higher ratio of washing up liquid in a reaper dropper bottle.


Monster Starter Set Lesser Goblin

As you can see, my labour of love Monster Starter set has gotten a little attention. I got the empty box off EBAY this week - sent all the way from Germany. Its great as a reference for colours- not a green orc or goblin in sight!

Fantasy adventurers and White Dwarf Personalities attack the Gazebo

2011-01-29T05:29:00.001-08:00

In 1982 Citadel was producing 'preslotta' figures in a line called fantasy adventurers for PCs and fiend factory for baddies. Everything was totally geared towards role playing, because at that time GW was an importer of Dungeons and Dragons. The idea that wargames with rules that require lots of figures sells lots of figures had not yet dawned.

I picked up a few figs from the line that I fancied, and quickly realised that they where not as bad as I first thought, and many had oodles of charm. Whilst the fiend factory floundered around with dodgy looking monsters, fantasy adventurers was scoring home run after home run.

FA18-2 Female Cleric with Mace

This figure, apart from the bug eyes (which as you can see I am having trouble getting to look natural) has oodles of character and is, as you can see, just perfect for classic old school dungeon bashes. You may also note that the character carries two crude wooden crucifixes. Christian uproar against D&D was hitting a peak at this point, and shortly after the crucifix was replaced by an Anhk... most famously in the dungeon starter set, which not only was released with the crucifix holding priest replaced by one with an ahnk, but the box art was crudely adjusted too! Good luck finding those collectors items!

Anyway, at this point in history, GW was totally down with JC, he even appears on the shields of some of the paladins of this era. Speaking of which...

Paladins, Lawful knights and Clerics. Gain Hymn attack +3.

These are a few work in progress pics of whats floating around my painting table.

Goodly Knight of Law, and converted paladin

The figure on the right (neither are finished) had his crucifix removed and smoothed to allow me to paint a design upon it. I chose a naked depiction of justice, as I pictured the character as a black knight who does the right things, but in wrong ways. I replaced his tonsure with a Brian Blessed beard and hair. The sword is from Reaper weapons packs (which I always think are expensive but damn it, they are so convenient that it pays for itself in no time).

Anyway, I am having a blast collecting and restoring this range, though I am in no hurry... the set is quite extensive and having a resurgence in popularity on ebay. If you have some tucked away, now is a good time to sell. Especially to me. You at least get to see pictures of them here, right?


White Dwarf Personalities boxed set (and doubles)

Speaking of ebay, you know those bidding wars that go crazy, then, for no reason at all, another identical item pops up like a few days later and no one bids... well... this is my lucky strike right here. The two figures to the left are GW founder, Eidos owner (Lara cha-ching Croft) and writer of Fighting Fantasy books- Ian Livingstone himself. The goblin and his mate need no introduction I am sure. Well, after months of trying to track down the set bit by bit, watching bidding wars go crazy over two of the figures, I landed a whole mint condition, never painted box of the buggers for small change. Go figure. These need neutralizing, polishing and priming ASAP, after many years in a cardboard box, lead rot is a threat here. Right down the front you can see The original White Dwarf himself.

Just goes to show you bargains do slip through the net.

Oh yes, I will be flogging off my cleaned and doubles of these soon on Ebay. I will post when.

Last nights strip show

2011-01-27T21:20:00.000-08:00

Last night I plucked up the courage to empty out my stripping jars and scrub clean everything. Its been months since I did this, so I had no idea what lurked within. After many hours I finally ended up with 160 shiny miniatures and a few surprises. It was like christmas!

First up, Jiff. Yes, Jiff cream cleaner.

You know that black, sticky gunge that sticks to all your tools whilst your cleaning minis and forms a film over everything? Jiff. Instantly lifts the gunge and removes the dettol smell. Secondly, since its alkaline, it works on the figures too- neutralising any acids and halting lead rot. Its helps remove the stickiness and last scraps of paint. It also renders your kitchen sink use-able again! You heard it here first peeps. Give them a good rinse in clean water afterwards to remove any lingering chemicals before priming though!

Emerging from the primordial soup was a complete adventurer starter set to compliment my monster starter set, a bunch of new recruits for C100 space marine Kill Team, Jes Goodwins Manticore, Griffon and Ogres, a fist full of Kev Adams Goblins, Ral Partha Cyclops and enough preslotta adventurers to fill a D&D manual. My first talisman toad (armoured) and three copies of the same orc creature from the white dwarf personality boxed set. Doh. Off to ebay for you sonnies.

One big surprise. A really ugly figure covered in enamel from a job lot cleaned up to reveal itself to be a gem. A Citadel Fantasy Specials peg legged dungeon torturess! Boo-yaaaa!

Its still hideous.

So my fingers are worn to stumps from copper brushing, but I can rest now that one more thing that's been hovering on my to do list is done! Of course, the problem with this is that its just created 150 new to paint items and 10 to ebay off items. Sigh. This hobby just takes and takes.

Next entry (as soon as I get my camera back) I will be showing off some polished turds as I turn my brush in the goodly direction of a few great fantasy special clerics, female clerics and knights of law! Plus, them Red orcs are back... and this time they have brought mates.... and Vordak from lone Wolf pops up in a conversion.

Later leadheads!

Convert or die! Chaos Bertha, Modernised Red Goblin, Kill Team Charlie and the Hyperbole Base

2011-01-13T20:18:00.000-08:00

First up today is a couple of conversions...

Left. Vintage Chaos warrior. Right. Big Bertha.

I always loved the figure to the left, but by the time I was in the hobby he was a faint memory in a citadel journal. I was rubbing my hands together with glee when I finally found one on ebay. I was horrified when it arrived badly broken. Fortunately another appeared in a job lot chaos army I rescued. Then Big Bertha made the pain all go away with a relaxing night at the sculpting block.

I love converting figures. I always start with the best intentions. Fix a weapon, add a little hood... but I always end up going a teensy bit over the top. I have some converted figures that it would have been just as quick to scratch build.


Kev Adamsified red goblin

This classic fiend factory red goblin (see previous posts) was too near my brand new sculpting block I have made when I needed something to test sculpting on it. I decided to fix it up a bit.
I started by grinding off the shield boss to make space for a decorative shield. To give him a more stooped look I sliced off the head (easy with this old soft alloy) and pinned it further down the chest. Its amazing how this little change stops the models head looking too long. A hood was added to exaggerate the hunch.
I then filed back the fingers and toes slightly and added freshly mixed green stuff putty. After leaving it to set for a while I poked in the fingers with a dremmel blunted and rounded off xacto knife- my 'Tom Meier tool'. The blade was filled with milliput so later it can be filed to a flat, sharp blade. Finally I added the missing eyes and lip, some belt string and a strap for his shield. The whole job took about ten minutes of actual work, and turned a few cents of figure into a perfectly good dungeon critter!

Converted citadel Fiend Factor Red Orc


Pre-Rogue Trader (Warhammer 40k 1st ed) C100 Space marines And the Dave King Hyperbole base.

I was going to call my next trick the Dave king awesome base of utter brilliant awesomeness, but shortened it to the hyperbole base instead. My new motto for this year is if it is broke, quit winging and fix it, and one thing I whine on about is how lipped bases are great, but impossible to pick up during a game. This leads to sticky fingers on models, and that just ain't cricket. But oohh, they look pretty, and the extra size makes for more stable models with more protection against scratching. Whine, whine, whine.

So I fixed the damned things by making my own. Taking a regular base, I extended the depth down using plasticard and bevelled this to create a rounded lip just big enough for fingers to find purchase on and fingernails to roll under as you lift. I then sanded and polished the whole thing shiney smooth and hollowed out the base to create a deeper, wider bowl.

The deep dish allows for integral bases to sit inside, flush with the lip, deeper scenic features and cappers. Since I only had a few lipped bases, I decided to cast the cappers separately. That also means I can make a couple of cappers that have slots already cut, so all I have to do is just fill in the gap. Rather than cut out custom discs and sculpting the cap onto this, I widened the dish so it would accept Australian 10c coins. Whenever I feel like making a new cap, I just work on a 10c coin and know its going to fit. Nice.

The final change was to glue a 10c coin to the bottom of the master to act as a pouring spout. This means the lip of the base is perfect without having to grind flat. A quick adventure with Pinkysil and Easycast (Barnes casting supplies) and my first test base was ready a half hour later..

My pre-rogue trader c100 space marine team, (Kill Team Charlie) are my first victims. I am basing them up for corridor sci-fi skirmish gaming. I have a few more in the post, and some in the dettol at the moment, and have bravely decided to convert some of my doubles. I am toying with the idea of making a second team to go up against them using more of my old Rogue Trader, Judge Dredd and Paranoia minis. However I think these guys may need some retro alien scum to blast away instead.

Well thats me for today. Later lead heads!

Dave finally gets a Chaos Army together

2011-01-10T03:50:00.000-08:00

Prepping my HotT army and hunting around for figures it struck me that I had a damn lot of classic Realm Of Chaos minis that I have yet to get around to painting. I realised I was being a doofus not making an army with them. A single paint scheme would mean fast strip painting, and would be a glorious thing on the shelf.
The thought boiled around in my head for a while. The problem is I do not like square bases, and wanted something really different. I am not a joiner, a fanboy or a conformist.

Some of my old chaos figures. Preslotta to the front, third compendium slottabase to the back

Frother Spikehead solved it for me. (cheers) He posted up some of Fraser Greys brilliant, gob smackingly good pictures on the Citadel Archive Thread, and I saw how Fraser (who totally was my painting god in the 1990s because of his super smooth style) did his orcs on little raised clumps. I realised I could do the whole army on individual diorama like chunks, mounted on old school plasticard squares- like people did with mdf and card back in pre-slotta days. The chunk would act like a plinth, so when the figure is on its own attention is drawn to it as an individual piece. Together, it would move as an army and be tournament legal. (Not that I ever plan to play.) It would also mean I could keep all the tabs intact on all the archive figures.

The other problem is that I do not like the mainstream chaos colours, and wanted a non denominational 'chaotic' army. I already have a red army - my Sisters of Battle. I also have a lime green shelf of old orcs, and felt that I had done that to death too. I did not want a pastel army or a neutral metallic one. I wanted something different...

Here are some pics I have already posted earlier on at my first attempts at the really old stuff. Again, I wanted non- denominational, but the results where not striking.

Classic Chaos Warriors

Later that day the colour scheme then fell into place. After a few hours look through old White Dwarf mags with no luck my eye fell on the Eavy Metal Chaos Warrior himself (the one I lovingly repainted for my blog logo). Magenta and Blueish green. Not quite Nurgle, Not quite Khorne, the pinky magenta a little of Slaanesh, the turquoise spot colours a little of T'zeench (Gesundheit.). Non conformist and old school all in one go!

So here is the test model, backed by some speed painted troops. This is the least favourite of the chaos warriors, which is why he went first. That helmet.... uhg. I will go in and do an NMM style green metal on all of them (starting at the front ranks) and more lavishing of detail when I have time, but I wanted them all mostly done so I had a sense of achievement and could get a feel for how it looks. I like it so far!


Citadel 1980s Chaos Warrior and his mates

Citadel Chaos Warriors, Champions, Lords and shield maiden.
Mostly Jes Goodwin & Bob Naismith 'Realm of Chaos' Era Citadel
With a few much older ones.

The army is going to be fielded with John Blanche yellow-white demons of all types- bloodletters, Daemonettes and scratch built things. The banners will all be 1980s style too, and the shields heavy on old school style symbols - swastikas, ying-yang, demon faces, evil moons and so on.

It also gives me an excuse to cut up some old broken chaos warriors and do some Realm of Chaos mutation stupidity!
My lovely wife got me some mounted Chaos Champions and knights from GW for Christmas (how damned nice are those horse!, so they will have to be converted to crapola too!

Now I am daydreaming of having an army consisting of every single chaos warrior ever released. Can you imagine that? Hobby heaven!

HotT on the trail: Succubaen Nunnery continues

2011-01-10T03:17:00.000-08:00

Stand 1: Warlord BattleNuns (Reaper)
Stand 2 Converted Warlord figs (Reaper), familiar (Rackham?), 10mm Chaos Beastman (Eureka)
Stand 3, Citadel Dark Elf Prisoner, Anti-Paladin (Reaper), Familiar (Reaper?)

The HotT army continues slowly, as I now need to convert a great deal of the remaining figures to polearms and bows. Still, I toyed around with a couple of new stands. I want the army to feel like the Fae world is rupturing through, so I am using 10mm beastmen as tiny little imps running amok around the legs of the wanton devil nuns and their sexy slaves. I am thinking of switching out those reaper battle nun blades for red hot demonic pokers, complete with braziers strapped to their sides, scorched rips in their clothing and skins.

A motley Crew, Asgard Black Dwarf and friendsElf

2011-01-10T03:08:00.000-08:00


Some poncy Elf, Nob the Mercenary, Bird Thing (Chaos Familiar) The Black Dwarf (Asgard), CP2 -Bryan Ansell's Heroic Adventurers boxed set Cleric FF5-2 Demon with sword and whip

I thought I would go back to doing some mixed group shots this year. What a motley crew.

Starting on the left is an experimentation piece, starting with white and working down using thin washes. Yawn. I also tried out some NMM since I was trying out new stuff.

Nob got a polish- I worked up flesh tones, but still have not got around to doing his clothes. He is a citadel mercenary- a variant of the militia figures- you will find a few with the same body in that line. Both ranges go for moderately high prices now a days. You want old school character, this range was a high tide point.

Bird thing is one of my favourite figures of all time. A classic Jes Goodwin sculpt.

Next up is a real joy for me. White Dwarfs great cousin, The Black Dwarf. He is from Asgard miniatures, and from a series of probably the coolest dwarf proportions from that time. I spotted him back in the 1980s in an 'eavy Metal article by Aly Morrison. I took the red and black chequered hood and tiger fur from his pic, but went in a different direction with the rest. God how I loved that figure and poured over that article! I have about 80% of the figures from that display now, some of which I have painted in the same way to fulfil a childhood whim. The converted figs may have to be scratch built. :)

Asgards Black Dwarf- so ahead of its time its breathtaking

This guy is the grand daddy of all Chaos Dwarves. Look at the poise, the brooding nature, the expression and detail on the shield and that unusual weapon! Whoever sculpted it (answers in the comments if you know) should be really proud.


Hans - Citadel C26 Feudal work in progress

I have never really loved the feudal range to be honest, but am starting to see the character in them now. This one needs a bit more work, but I like the atmosphere of the piece so far. All my peasants are getting the drunken Brughel, Gilliamesque 'oh look Dennis theres a lovely bit of filth over here' treatment.

Red Orc Restoration, C29 Creepy Crawlies, Heroquest Undead

2011-01-10T02:38:00.000-08:00


Original, cleaned and fully restored painted FF24 Red Orc (aka Red Goblin)

Happy new year lead freaks!
Over the holiday season I got a few nice emails encouraging me to do a lot more stuff this year. Get that!
So with that in mind I wanted to start the year with a tute.

During the holidays I got stuck into the lead pile and knocked off a few jobs that where bugging me.One of which was some sexily bad Citadel Red Goblins! That clever son of a gun Beepie (bpi) painted some of these last year so well that it encouraged me to hunt them down on evilbay and get me some retro badness. The elongated heads and faint eyes make these models look bad to begin with, but as you can see a little love and pow! Its like Gygax & Dave A. are still alive and rolling up stats.

These old figures can be restored with a dunk in bicarb soda water to halt any potential lead rot, and a gentle working over with a copper brush. Wear a mask. I had my lead levels checked this week by my GP, and came up clear. Yay for me. Anyway, find a soft copper brush- mine is a cheap BBQ scrubber from the supermarket. Test it with some gentle brushes and look for scratches, then go for all holy hell.

As usual, I use diluted grey-green miliput brushed on with a cheap brush to fill minute surface cracks. A quick smooth off with fine sand paper, and a polish with bluetac and you will have a lovely painting surface.

Beepie sanded off his shield bosses so he could paint some insanely small insignia on the shields, and looking at the models I think that's a great idea. This brings me to my next subject. Augmentation.

Converting old miniatures feels a bit naughty, I tend to only do this to broken ones, but there is no harm in using a little putty to fix up a figure to modern tastes right? I call this augmentation, because I am not really converting the figure at all, but it would be wrong to say they are perfect archive pieces. The orc to the right is my faithful archive model. The next batch (these figures are dirt cheap because, damn, they are ugly) I am augmenting.

To give an example, the models sword is battered and wonky. Great for an orc, but most figures from this era suffer the same problem. Applying freshly mixed milliput grey-green with a moistened card and carving a smooth, sharp edged blade is a great augmentation. Fingers of this era are often just lines, lacking the comic book knuckles that the early eighties brought that beg for highlighting. A small amount of greenstuff mixed 8:1 with sculpey a black clay shaper and a little patience can make all the difference. Speaking of which...

C29 creepy crawlies (beetles, scorpion, unknown chaosy two headed lizard thing and giant tick)

These bad boys are mostly C29 creepy crawlies. They have been modernised by gluing on slotta bases and then very carefully sculpting a dungeon floor surface using procreate to hide their integral bases.
Any help identifying the mysterious two headed, one winged chaos snake thing is most welcome! Really early chaos familiar perhaps?


MB Heroquest plastics. Yay.

Continuing on the old dungeon theme, I found a bag of unloved Heroquest figures in a flea market a few months back. By some strange twist of fate, a few months before I discovered a shrink wrapped mint Heroquest box in an bric-a-brac and antiques store not one hundred paces from the same spot! Tenner. Bargain. Its now in my vault... will be selling that on ebay soon, once the Aussie dollar drops a bit.

I converted the minis by carefully shaving off the plastic base with a razor. I say carefully, because the plastic used for these is much harder than modern citadel plastics, so does not take stress well. If you try this, dont cut with something like tin snips, you will get white stress tears and odds are the leg will snap off. A fresh scalpel and some patience payed off, and I had these, two zombies and five goblins prepped for a little mid week old school insomnia indulgence.
I plan to go back and do some sexy blending later on these, pick out the teeth then varnish the ever living crap out of them for sticky pizza fingered gaming in the near future. I googled heroquest to see if anyone else had painted their figures recently and to see what they did, and I was really surprised how big a community it still has! You go Heroquest fans!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-23T17:26:00.000-08:00

Well, a big Merry Christmas to all my readers! Thanks for following my Blog this year and for all the comments.

I have just not been able to crank out the paint jobs I wanted this month, but its been for a great reason. My miniature company Bederken is taking up a lot of my time right now- with a Christmas rush and solid days of sculpting for my January product release.

My new years resolution. Finish that monster starter set, and paint my existing leadpile to within an inch of its life. Yes sir, the pledge is every damned figure is going DOWN next year, or my names not Gertrude McPoppinflaps.

I wish all of you a great new year!

HotT upgrade

2010-12-17T22:42:00.000-08:00

Last night I managed a marathon session and got four stands converted and based up. Grabbed some before and after pictures, but a dinner party is cutting into my time right now, so have to just type.

Its been great digging through my reaper lead pile for this- even if I dont get to play, having completed a converted custom army is giving me good vibes. My love of Reaper battlenuns (I posted previously on my 40k conversions of these) had surfaced again, this time their are being all sexied up as Corrupted Sisters of Seduction! Slannesh has nothing on these gals.

The fun thing about this army, I am discovering is just how many figures are a slight modification to take their absurb fantasy costumes into dark seducers. :) Later!

HotT Succubus army

2010-12-15T04:54:00.000-08:00

Adding some Green stuff to I-KORE celts and Classic Citadel Chaos Thugette

HotT demoness blades stand. One slap of paint later...

So I have been messing around with a succubus infested Hordes of The Things Army as you may well know, and I have just wrapped up my first stand to try out the look. After spending some time staring at it, I will then know if I want to go ahead and make a whole army to match.

I don't usually use flock on my bases, as I find its a dust trap and looks tired quickly, but for HotT I liked the idea of little dioramas making up an army.

Now the figure to the right is a Chaos Thug (aka chaos Marauder) from the 1980's Realm of Chaos era. As you can see from the picture of the green stuff sculpt, I gave her a more feminine look by building up her lips, adding a John Blance-esque bow and extended her hair to hide the eye patch. I also sculpted on a skull onto her shoulder guard to give her another focal point. For this conversion I did not to trim back the metal, so the model is unharmed by the process. Later I can peel off the green stuff and restore her. I do this to quite a few of my citadel classics if I need them for, say, an AD&D game.


Hordes of the Things! One of Blue Moons zombie boxed sets

Until I get the chance to build up a succubus force properly, I decided to re-base some Blue Moon zombies for my hordes units. I speed painted these months ago for an AD&D game. God Bless Tamiya Clear Red!
I had doubts buying the boxed set- the packaging is so garish and cheap and the sample paint jobs do not really do the figures justice. I was very pleased when I got them out. The integral bases are soft and clip away easily, they assemble in interesting ways, and I had the whole lot put together in one night. I only had to do a little filling, and was happy with the results. Since then I have picked up a lot more blue moon figures- their villagers are very handy! I hope some day they shift to slotted bases and better packaging art one day though. Clashing bright Red on Blue- uhg.


Reaper Bone Caller, Blue Moon Zombies

Summoning my zombies into battle is my sorceress (Reaper Bone Caller)- a wonderful figure that slots right in to my theme. Here she is just undercoated and given a badab black wash.

I am tempted, since I am putting a bit of effort into making a HotT army, to perhaps sculpt a few succubus chaosettes for my Bederken range! Semi-Naked demon girls... what's not to like?

A couple of stands made up of Hasslefree Kalee's converted would do great things to the eyeballs too.

Monster Starter Set Dark Elf and warrior maiden

2010-12-15T04:21:00.000-08:00

C01 warrior maiden and BC2 Evil Dark Elf Captain (monster starter set)

Two citadel minis tonight. On the left is the C01- yes, C01warrior maiden- from the very first 'C' series. Looking at the sketches in the catalog (no photos sadly) the warrior maidens where a seriously nice range of the early citadel figures and I now look forward to hunting them all down. Of course, now I have pointed you lot at them, I probably have driven bidding up haven't I?
I forget who the trader was on E-Bay, but he used the line 'yes, you didnt know you had to have her until you saw her'. He was right.
Like all early citadel she is true 25mm scale, making her look like a little naked teenager next to the later Amazon models. The fine strap holding on the underwear is missing on one side, I do not know if its a casting fault or a previous owner has tried to trim it off, but for archive sake I left it missing and painted on the line. Its always a juggling act how much you repair or trim away things on vintage stuff... quite often I leave on some flash in order to preserve the figure. I am guessing its a perry sculpt, as back then they where the only employees.

So as you can see, after last nights discussion about how to do the darned dark elf, I went with an albino look and kept him white and blue. I love the monster starter set, and will shortly have them all done and ready to display. Looking at the squeezed face I would guess its an Aly or Trish Morrison sculpt- purely because its reminiscent of the Talisman elf faces.

Twas Brillig...

2010-12-13T22:42:00.000-08:00

Hey folks, welcome to another instalment of Julie/Julia. This week we take a break from cooking french cuisine and instead focus on old miniature painting.
Since I started this blog I have fallen in love with restoring these really old figures- the uglier the better. I have an Asgard she-ogre on the go which is probably the ugliest model ever made- and I am having a lovely time trying to make the paint job sell her as art. Tough job, as you may see soon. But kicking off this episode is...

FS6-3 Dungeon Torturess variant

Yes, the brilliantly politically incorrect FS Torture set by citadel featured naked women wot are being tortured like. Lots of proud giggling tweens in the eighties had these. Pre-internet we had to get our boobie fix elsewhere. I think it was either Lee Chinnery or Gareth Parrys elder brother (hello!) who showed me his 'naked girl on a cross' model back in 1989, and I was instantly hooked on the idea. Sadly, I missed the boat, as by then Citadel where more politically correct and the figures impossible to find. I had to wait till I had grey hair to start buying them up- they are very expensive and highly sought collectors items now. Dammit.

Less collectable and far less rare seems to be this variant of the whip mistress- from the Fantasy Specials line. You can frequently snap her up for a couple of bucks from evil-bay.
One word of advice, with all miniatures from this era you will find the surface very uneven. A couple of brushes full of watered down Milliput grey-green and a quick sand makes all the difference. I left the weapon and shield pitted for effect, but you can see just how rough the surface was all over.
She got a lick of Vallejo model colour paints using thinned layers of model color matte medium tinted with the highlight colors of red, purple and flesh. I gave her a more Mediterranean skin tone, as she seemed to step straight out of a harem in some Conan adventure. I glazed a little green into the recesses too.
Its hard to make out in the photo, but I sculpted a snake slithering on her base between her legs- this gave an element of Orientalism and danger. Of course, the between the legs thing is also a metaphor. I too was an adolescent boy once.

Now, burbling as it came, is the C29 Jabberwock with eyes aflame. This Lewis Carol homage hailed from the Spring 1985 Citadel Journal. I have wondered about this figure since I saw his head poking out a moat, devouring zombies in John Blanches fantastic undead diorama. Getting hold of one was an exciting day for me. I know, I know. Sad bastards, line on the left. Owners of the original Warhammer Fantasy Role Play can find this chap in the bestiary section. He seemed to be discontinued by the time the 1989 catalog appeared. I hear rumour there is a standing one too, but have not encountered it. Probably the Ral Partha one.

I had an hour to spare last night, so knocked this guy out really quickly- simple yellow-green matte medium tinted glazes over a catachan green base, followed by really thin red and turquoise glazes for variety. The photo doesnt catch the contrast in the yellows sadly- he really pops in real life. I may sculpt some stuff on his base later on... such as a sign pointing to Tulgey woods or a few gilliam-esque severed limbs.

C29 Young Dragon 'Jabberwock'

Now a confession. I know I have been promising to finish that monster starter set, but I have been dragging my heels over the Dark Elf. I don't know why, but I just dislike citadel Dark Elves- especially when they are painted purples and blues. GURPS Illustrator and awesome Artist Simon Lissaman painted me a great dark elf female for my 21st birthday, and he went with a pale flesh skin tone and green clothes- it looked great- sort of an edgy elf. However I am torn- since its a classic set, should I go with the classic look... hmmm?

Answers on a postcard... or alternatively, in the comments section below.

Next episode... more stuff.

Multi basing for HotT

2010-11-22T23:58:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine recently invited me to join in their 28mm scale Hordes Of The Things games and it drew me to exploring multi-basing, or diorama units. The idea had always appealed to me, but in all my years I have yet to stick two figures on one base. Go figure.
If you haven't tried multibasing, I really suggest giving it a bash. The moment you place two or more figures on a base, you have relationships, and if you do it right, a narrative. That's not often possible with one figure alone. Suddenly, it opens up a whole exploration of what figures go together, how they interact and what does it all mean. Deep stuff.

WIP. Two I-KORE amazons and a Citadel Chaos Thug

Pictured above is a quickly assembled test piece for my HotT Army, to see if I liked the look and theme. Because HotT is very loose and unrestricted with no army lists, I decided to take the opportunity to steer away from mainstream fantasy army choices and do something completely different. Its going to be made up of evil hot chicks.

My army is going to be a coven of witches and succubi led into battle by a legendary Sorceress, her corrupted heathens, demons, fae, familiars and perverted nuns. Basically a more Dark Ages or perhaps Conan style take on Slannesh. Raiding my lead pile has uncovered a LOT of evil hot chicks. My hordes base options are probably going to be zombies crawling out of swamps... because that's just plain cool.

BASES

First off, HotT recommends 20mm deep bases for blades units at 28mm and that just does limit what is possible for modern figures. To give myself maximum freedom, I went with 30mm instead, so that two ranks forms a square block 60mm x 60mm. Nice and neat multiples.

After exploring cutting MDF boards, which gave ragged looking to the bases, I tried using double ply plasticard- and this is the method I will be using from here on in. To cut thick plasticard, you just need to run a blade along it and you can snap it like chocolate cubes. When you have to make twenty or so bases, this is a blessing. MDF requires a lot more dedication and patience, and I do not think looks as good. Once cut, I glued two layers together and filed down the sides for a good, clean sturdy base.

The paint job here is just grey spray, badab black wash followed by matte medium heavy tints of purple, ocre flesh and snow shadow. Everything else is just washed in blue, until I have time to do proper shading and detailing. About ten minutes each to get it this far. Now I can sit back, look at the colors and decide if I am going to dedicate some time to this. I think the black/blue equipment vs pastel unwell skin colors is the way to go.

A blast of insomnia last night also produced two Slannesh figs...

Original Citadel Daemonette and converted modern Kroot

Again, the Paint jobs are nothing fancy - just a few matte medium heavy glazes over a grey base, built up over about eight quick passes.
The Kroot demon was made with a simple Tyranid arm swap, blended together with some green stuff at the shoulders. The head also was converted by slicing two kroot heads in half, and blending the join with a 6:1 mixture of greenstuff and supersculpey. The sculpey in the mix helps you blend the GS into the plastic- but without effecting the setting. You don't need to bake it in these proportions. A nose and tongue was also added.

Insomnia can be useful.

Polish my knob(blar)

2010-08-27T06:56:00.000-07:00

Actually its a lizardman, but I love a pun.

Blu-tac to the rescue

Here is a wonderful old Lizardman model I picked up from Ebay. Blackened with age, its ideal to show off just how good blu-tac is for cleaning tarnish. I set aside a chunk of tac that I only use for cleaning minis- because you dont want this crap on your wallpaper. Its not effortless, but the results are great.

Monster Starter Set and other work in progress

2010-08-06T07:28:00.000-07:00

Finally had some time to hit both the green stuff and the leadpile. All these are works in progress, but I figure you wont care- nostalgia and miniatures is a potent drug. Enjoy!

Work In Progress - Citadel C23 Ogre by Jes Goodwin

Jes Goodwins amazing Ogres really set the standard for me- there has not been a single Ogre from Citadel to compare to his range. I am most of the way through the collection- having landed my rare mutant Ogre and most recently a pair of Skragg The Slaughterers. I love this range because, much like 50mm figures- you have room to shade and play. No rush on this one, I plan to take my time and enjoy.

Work in Progress BC2 Monster Starter Set Chaos Warrior and Ogre, and CH2 Mighty Zog Arkwright

The monster starter set continues- here you can see on my bottlecaps the warrior of chaos and the ogre- to be honest one of the worst ogres of the era- but one I have grown to love. He looks so stiff and characterless to the modern miniature eye- I am guessing an early Aly or Trish Morrison (anyone know?)- since it seems more at home with the Talisman range.
On the right is the one and only Mighty Zog Arkwright- one of the definitive 1980s chaos warriors (Bob Naismith perhaps?).

C06 Dwarf Assasin, C09 Elf, RuneQuest Troll Mistress Race Troll (RQ3)

There is a particular joy in taking an old figure and painting it up shiney and new- these early Eigthies Pre-Slotta C series miniatures appear only as line drawings in the catalog because photos where expensive to print back then! The Dwarf assasin was this mornings coffee and cerial paintjob- all of these are works in progress.

I'll be Baak Tom Miers classic Baakesh Va about to trample a classic Jes Goodwin Citadel mini

Everytime I went to my local Game Store in the 80's (Warlords in Southend- hello!) I always picked up the Baakesh Va boxed set and put it down due to lack of pocket money and the knowledge that at home there was several examples of why I shouldn't be put near multi-part models. A snotling pump wagon (pump pile), a Dwarf Gyrocopter and a Manticore- limply held together with Araldite. Fortunately, not only have Darksword rereleased the model, I now am armed with ninja like pinning skillz.

I just wanted to note that I contacted Darksword about a miscast issue I had and they emailed me back almost immediately offering a full refund. Great stuff. However I had already reconstructed the damaged areas, so eager was I after all these years to push on and make this bitch sing for its supper. If thats a laboured mixed metaphor then I am a monkeys barrels chance in a snowstorm.

Baaks a Tom Miers sculpt, and interestingly he has chosen to change the proportions and pose quite a bit from the Larry Elmore original painting- the head is nearly twice the size, for example. I am curious as to why- since Tom is such a master of proportion.

This is a great model for master hobbyists to show off- pinning, filling, gap resculpting and rebasing- and at the end look at those wonderful surfaces to paint on.

So also on my slab right now is a bunch of Rogue Trader figures - New kill Team Charlie recruits, a complete chainsaw warrior set (including the timescape one) and of course Bederken Dwergs... Yes "when they are done" draws ever closer...

I got the black lung pop

2010-07-28T16:06:00.000-07:00

Well I have been sick, again. AGAIN. I notice the new flu vaccine appeared shortly after a double bout of particularly bad flu was going around. Coincidence or conspiracy- you decide.

Anyway, feeling better today. Unlike my last flu, I didnt write any new skirmish rules- I just lay around being all deathly with a machine gun cough because I had no choice.

I just have one work project to clear up and I am back at my sculpting desk. Yay Bederken. Then, once they are off to the mould makers I am going to take a holiday.

Still, whilst I have been ill I have received some lovely classic figures- Aly Morrison hobgoblins and a few of Ruglugs armoured orcs. May have to do an binge paint session to catch up with Thantsants wonderful collection.

Skulldred

2010-06-26T07:30:00.000-07:00

So recently I wrote a skirmish rules system based on the things that annoy me about wargames. Well, I went ahead and published the .pdf for all of you to give it a playtest if you like...

www.skulldred.blogspot.com

Its free to download- the price of admission is sending me some feedback on how it went so I know if its worth dedicating a huge chunk of my time to developing. Just because I have some crazy ideas on what sucks about dice mechanics and the bad habits game designers fall back on, does not mean it directly translates to a fun games experience for all.

Skulldred is maths lite, stripping back all the bullshit like comparison tables, effect result tables and so forth, and instead focuses on getting the very core basics of the game right, so if does not matter if you have a handful of vanilla troops or a freaky warband- everything is on the table, easily remembered, dramatic and fun.

Anyway... love you to give it a go!

The Zen of Lead pile

2010-06-26T07:19:00.000-07:00

Winter is the perfect time for spring cleaning, and there is nothing like digging down through your miniatures workspace and finally seeing what color the table is underneath.

Brown. Apparently. Who'da thunk it?

I read an thread recently about a poor soul desparing about how big his backlog of miniatures is, and some guy... get this... said the best thing to do is sell a bunch of them and paint one a day. Sell them? I am having a hard time getting through my pile, but its my pile. I sifted through ebay and lovingly grabbed each damn one.
So, if I do the maths how many years will it take to paint them all?

Who cares. If your collect miniatures, your a collector. This... shelf full of little baggies is my lead pile... is my collection, and every little chunk of lead is a beautiful thing. Yeah, even the Asgard stuff.

Each one represents, at best, a little slice of fantasy- a work of imagination and creativity. A mini is no less an artful thing- painted or not.
Having dipped my toe into sculpting, I know how much work goes into the original- the mould and the whole damned process. The models in my collection have been drooled over, bought, painted, played games, lived in boxes (whilst its owner got a life), hit boot sales and finally travelled 12000 miles around the world to get to me.

So if your lead pile is getting you down, don't let it. Think of your collection as something enhanced by painting- don't think of it as a huge to-do list. Its still going to be there when you do get some time. Think of it, perhaps as a menu for your next painting project.

Mind you, if you do take the advice and want to sell them, gimme a look first yeah?

Skirmish rules, what to do?

2010-06-16T22:42:00.000-07:00

So I have had flu for a few days, and apart from painting a new banner and blogging, haven't been able to acheive much. Codene and coffee do not good minis sculptures make- and I certainly don't want to be touching my business accounts with this lack of concentration and a thumping headache.

So in my waking hours I have been laying on the couch- which is next to the wargaming table I posted up a few days ago, and my thoughts have been turning to systems.

I wrote a draft of simple skirmish game system that you can play when you have the flu. Or drunk, or terminally stupid- all of which is a good thing in my book, vis-a-vis game systems. Something that you can dungeon bash with, do small skirmishes and probably 50 miniatures a side battles if you want.

So I am pondering now what I should do with it.

My issue is that it would occupy a similar space to what Andrea has done with his wonderful Songs of Blades and Heroes game series- and I would not want to steal any of his fire- SBH becoming the standard of indie gamers skirmish systems is a good thing in my book. Just take a look at all the wonderful little warbands people are putting together cheaply and joyfully, and compare that to the mainstream games to see what I mean.

That said, my game (beta name Skullbash) it is a neat little system that some players may enjoy, as it has quite different mechanics to SBH. You never modify a units target numbers, you only ever add dice to your handful for each strategic bonus, its all out in the open and you tot up the dice before the roll- so it gives you that dramatic 'hangs on a dice roll' feel. Results can be seen at a glance the moment the dice settle. No tables.

So what are your thoughts? Should I bother doing a beta playtest release? I guess if it is a cheap PDF download or a POD print yourself jobbie then both could coexist nicely.

What Mabden wants... Mabden gets.

2010-06-15T21:02:00.000-07:00

Remember picking up white dwarf magazine and flicking through it until you hit that mottled green bit- 'coz thats the bit with the cool pictures of miniatures?

Mabdens comment inspired me to make the effort and go full eighties metal.

Much better on the eye, methinks.

Rather than rip art off, which I find deplorable, I took a few minutes to paint a homage to John Blanches Chaos Warrior that has a thing against H's, this time without the helmet, and look, turns out it was ME all along!

Bwa ha ha- die H's. I mean, bwa a a.

Retrolicious!

Whats in the box? Smells like the sweet air of freedom.

2010-06-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

So every time I am in the city, I tend to pop into a game store and blow a little of my hard earned on some new Reaper figures. Look, I know I don't need them, and I can stop any time I want. Its under control. That? Oh that pile of unopened Reaper boxes is just my backlog- I will get around to painting those soon.
So I was looking for a way to keep myself from the store, you know, perhaps if I can find something else in the city to interest me I won't keep coming back with those little green blisters, and you know, dear reader, I finally have. Sorta.

Its called Reaper minis on-line delivery service.

I just got my first box delivered this morning and I can say this- my game store is just about to miss out on all that fat cash, 'caus mate- this is MUCH better value! With the exchange rate, free UPS shipping and a copy of Casket Works thrown in, I managed to pick up a huge box of figure for the same price as a single store visit. How much?
Look, that doesn't matter... look, see- leeeeeaaaadddddd!!!!!

What matters is I no longer have to be asked by the clerk every time I go in the store if I am on the system- (even though be both know the system isn't hooked up and that data is just sitting there), smell that authentic living in the trenches odour of Flames of War players or spend hours riffling through unsorted figure shelves whilst my back is screaming for the sweet release of maybe a sit down and a cup of tea.
Nor do I have to wonder why the guy never remembers me or that conversation we had only yesterday when I was in the store with a desperate need for Bugbear figures.
Look.... LOOOK!! Delivered to my door- a whopping great box, full of even more Battlenuns, ropers, demonic lashers, dire wolves, dire bears, dire straits and lots and lots of women clearly inappropriately dressed for the adventure they are having!

GET ON MY LEAD PILE!

You know, it occurs to me that I may just have a problem.

Songs of Blades and Heroes: Barbarians VS Nasty Orcses.

2010-06-13T07:52:00.000-07:00

Flu has put aside any hobby aspirations this weekend, but I do have something to post for you.
Tonight my wife Kathryn soundly destroyed my orc warband at Songs of Blades and Heroes. Again.
Its the first game we played in a long while, and it was nice to get to use some of the scenery I made a while ago. I remembered to take a few snaps on my iphone during the match as you guys would probably like the retro citadel lead.

1980s Barbarians, vs. Orcs. The Partially painted Perry demon is on the barbarians side.

Boxed set orcs attack! Monster starter box set orc, Nick Lunds Chronicle Mighty Ugezod Shaman

Felled Forrest: I finally got to use one of my scenic peices in a game

This piece is made from branches mounted on mdf and blended in using woodflex poly filla. The root systems are made by soaking twine it it pva glue. One tip I picked up here- shave the edge of your MDF down to a thin edge- the small 3mm lip is enough to tip a mini over- if you match flocks to your battlemat then the sharper edge means it blends in nicely.

Kat's Reaper Chicks do a victory dance before heading off for mead.
Left to right (Viking Girl, Lorna Huntress, Cavegirl, a converted succubus, Female Pit Fighter and another cave girl- all from modern line available now!)

Monster starter set Orc hangs with One of Golgfags second(?) generation Ogres.

Another closeup showing the nice roots you can get with pva and string.

What I wanted to do with my game board is capture the feeling of the environment I grew up in - dank, mossy, peaty, muddy forrests of oak and chestnut trees. I have to source some fallen leaf scatter to complete the look. At some stage I hope to make me some riverbed modules (complete with ducks, swans and perhaps a submerged monster), derelict, overgrown cottages and rotten, creeper covered bridges.

And finally we have a new look here at Kingsminis- based on the old retro ads from 1980s white dwarf- complete with blue faded photo images. Hope you like!

Later.

Dungeon of Dave photos

2010-06-10T17:22:00.000-07:00

Hey folks, the picture drought is over. After all, thats really why your all here right? Inspirational nerdiness.

Well this is some pictures my wonderful wife Kathryn took of my latest hobby project- an old school dungeon tile set. I always was envious of my mates who had the Games Workshop Dungeon Floorplans and Halls of Horror boxed set, a feeling instantly resurrected on seeing a picture of it in the Heroes for Wargames book.

Modern Reaper Kobolds descend on the Retrodel Dungeoneers!

These prototype boards are made from 3mm MDF board, with very thin resin casts of flagstones on them. I sculpted a 5x5 square original, then cast it using pinkysil silicone in a lego frame. I would say for my next batch I would reduce the thickness of the MDF, as these are very chunky. Satisfying, but chunky!

F4 Mercenary 'nob', a mildly converted AD&D female thief (green stuff added- no damage to original) and a C11 Halfling "Renko"

Finally back on subject, the adventuring party is made up of 1980s Citadel figures - for your shopping pleasure they are... left to right, F4 Mercenary 'nob', a mildly converted AD&D female thief (green stuff fur trims and corset added- no damage to original underneath) and a C11 Halfling "Renko" who has appeared elsewhere in this blog. You can just see the foot of Fluffy the Chaos Hound in the top left too.

Once I have the basic floor tiles, I am planning to sculpt and cast some suitably chunky doors and arches. I am not sure I will go as far as making walls yet - my wife keeps giggling at photos of 3D dungeons and saying things like "ooh, what a cute doll house". Do walls get in the way I wonder?

So I dont know about you, but I am totally disliking the direction of AD&D 4th edition- and after a quick skim through think I may try to bend my DMs arm into playing Pathfinder rules instead. As far as I am concerned, 4th ed is not Dungeons & Dragons.

I am not alltogether happy with the Reaper Kobolds- the Otherworld ones also do not do it for me - though they are great figures they are not what I have in my head when someone says Kobolds! I did actually do the textures of all the Kobolds in the video game AD&D Online: Stormreach, by the way. Something I am very proud of because it was a massive job to do all the different tribes. Anyway, the modern lizard Kobolds are not what I picture either. Maybe I might tackle sculpting some Dungeon Critters after my Dwergs line is released!

Cheap dry erase Gaming Board

2010-06-10T00:52:00.000-07:00

One of the D&D dungeon boards I tried recently was a home cooked dry erase board and my prototype works really well.
I made mine out of 3mm thick MDF because its sturdy enough to take a knocking from players, deep enough to get your fingers under and has the benefit of being able to be lifted and moved with the miniatures still on it. Great for when you walk off the end of one board, and need to place another tile.

Basically grab some 3mm thick MDF and cut it into exact square pieces- small enough to fit in your gaming bag or minis case. You want this to measure a multiple of your game grid- so something like 10"x10" if your doing D&D scale- or if you use modern lipped 'warmachine' bases- go with a 3cm grid (30x30cm). I prefer 3 cm myself as it gives minis with outstretched swords a little room. Less scratching.

The next step is really what sets the board apart- besides the price. Grab some cheap craft acrylic paints and paint it up to look all dungeon-ey, grassy or ye olde parchment-y. Whatever. If your crap at painting, you can spray glue a print out of a textured surface instead. After you draw your grid on with something like a Sharpie (though I suggest painting on soft grey lines instead so you can see the dry erase lines clearly)- simply laminate the surface using a roll of sticky book cover laminate. This takes a little practice to get right- but a few air bubbles won't be a problem.

Because the grid is under the laminate, the lines will never rub off. You also don't have to worry about scoring grid lines- which I can tell you now is a real bitch of a job.

Once I am finished my reversible game board will have cost no more than 20 bucks Australian to make. For that I got 9 10 x 10 grid double sided dry erase boards. Nice.

Another handy tip- if you accidentally put permanent marker on a dry erase board, scribble over it with a whiteboard marker. You should be able to wipe it off.

Ciao.

Stripping paint off minis

2010-06-06T22:44:00.000-07:00

I strip my minis using Dettol. Its safe, easy to use and cheap- and it does an awesome job. The other bonus is the caps are handy for blue-tac'ing figures to when you need to handle them. I simply stuff my figures into old glass coffee jars, top them up with dettol and leave them for a day or two. You can actually leave them in for a few months with no problem, and its probably a good way to protect them whilst your getting around to painting them.

Do use cheap heavy duty rubber gloves when come to brush off the paint, as the sludge is very sticky andno matter how much you wash, that Dettol smell hangs about. Enamel paint is a bitch to get off, as it has a high density of color and tends to sludge up your scrubbing brush and leave other figures in the jar tinted- if you get the chance, do these figures in a seperate jar to save scrubbing all your figures like a madman.

Picking needles

After rinsing in warm, soapy water (lead does not rust), the figures are ready for picking over and polishing. I pick over using a thick sewing needle mounted into an old paintbrush handle with milliput. Mount your needles so most of it is in the handle, and go for thicker needles - thin, long needles run the risk of snapping and pinging up into your eyes.

Since you don't want to scratch the mini- grind down the tips of my needle a bit. Also, hold the picker loosely using as little pressure as possible hook out any remaining slivers of paint. Dont worry about the fine stuff, the next tip will save you all that pain.

Blue Tac Ball of Doom

Take a fresh ball of blu-tac (one that that you WONT be using on your rented appartment walls)and scrunge it into the model, twisting it around like a lemon on a juicer. You should find that all that crap gathered in the chainmail is now on the blutac, and your model is polished up on the upper surfaces. Nice trick, huh?
If you have a seriously old model, you may need to consider a dremmel with a soft brush. Read the warnings and be careful- these are not toys yeah?

I managed to save a seriously deteriorated Death Jester and Ninja recently by neautralising the lead rot using a baking soda solution then creaning away the damage with a dremmel. I used a mask and gloves for this, as I do not want lead poisoning. The theory is that acids cause leadrot, and baking soda is alkaline. Works in theory, but I will let you know in a few years if it worked. Stay tuned. :)

Chemical Baths

A highly dangerous manouvre is inducing lead rot by bathing the figure in acid (lemon juice or vinegar), then in baking soda. THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. As I understand it, (I get my facts from TMP) what your doing is basically turning the surface of your model into Sugar of Lead- which is absorbed into the body easily and will give you lead poisoning very quickly indeed. Apparently it is deliciously sweet. DONT TASTE IT. The soda will neutralise the corrosion, and the result, I am told is a shiney as new mini. Risky, risky, risky. I would probably consider it to save a $300 ultra rare mini, but I would be throwing away all my gloves and containers if I did.

Smoothing the Surface

So once the figure is stripped down, qite often you will find the surface is a little pocked here and there. You can smooth this out using Milliput grey/green mixed with water. Often called milijuice. Brush it onto the smooth areas, taking care not to get it in any details. Once very close to dry, give the model a polish and later perhaps a bit of a fine sanding and you should have a silky smooth surface to paint on. I tend to do this on exposed skin, like barbarians and trolls, and very old models which tend to be quite roughly sculpted.

Prime and forget

If your lead pile is getting mountainous, prime your freshly cleaned figures before storing. Never store your figures in a wooden or cardboard box- they tend to be mildly acidic. Disposable chinese food containers are also good for storing unpainted minis.

Doh... not another Devourer
One last tip about stripping is to not leave your big jars of minis so long you forget what is in them and buy more. I got most doubles that way, and yep, this week discovered three more I had doubled up on. Tsk. Bad collector. No ebay this week for you.

Thanks
Anyway, this is just a quick post whilst I am having a coffee break. More proper posts with pictures and everything once my new Bederken minis go off to the moulds. Please comment- it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and more like posting up pictures :)

Dungeon Floorplans

2010-06-04T03:53:00.000-07:00

My current exploits in the hobby have been centred around making an old school D&D style dungeon game board and its been quite an interesting adventure. I have tried all manner of ways of making flagstone floors, from printed and etched, hydrostone, polyfilla, cork, stamped and so forth.
Tonight I cast my first resin flagstone sheet directly onto 3mm MDF backing, and bingo. Exactly what I was looking for. Resin casting is usually not cheap, but the amount you need for a flagstone sheet is tiny- and the silicone mould I made will survive long enough to make at least a seven level dungeon- so really its only about half a bottle of pinkysil and a box kit of resin.
The result is lightweight and sturdy, and it would take me an afternoon to cast up everything I need to make a decent nights gaming table. Nice.

My floorplan uses a 3cmx3cm square size, rather than the traditional inch you find with dungeon tiles, as some players have warmachine bases on their minis, and the extra room means models don't rub up against each other.

A couple of discoveries during the journey worth sharing- polyfilla woodflex is absolutely brilliant for making wargames scenery- it does not crack or flake, and gives a rocky texture that wont scratch paint of minis. Two thumbs up. The second is that you can harden Balsa wood- which is news to me, and totally opens up a whole new modelling route for me. Simply paint on superglue, or (or slow set resin) and voila. Clumbsy, impatient modellers like me can make stuff that doesn't crumble!

Now, to write a set of dungeon rules to go with my new toy!

C'ya nerdlings.

Drop that can of Boing, Perp Judge Anderson

2010-05-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

Judge Anderson from the 1980s citadel range. A charming range with lots of quirk. I think Aly Morrison was responsible for the majority of figures, I have a photo of him at his desk with Judge Dredd reference art pinned to the wall, and most of the figures have similar cartoonish faces to the Talisman range.
Experimented with painting neon light colors on her. Not sure if it worked really. My wife asked why she was half blue. Will try the next batch in stronger, more cartoon effect with dark edging.

Asgard Owl Bear

2010-05-13T07:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, I have NO idea what went through my mind when I purchased this hunk of lead. But I like him. I really like him. He go boo.

Asgard owlbear

Asgard was the training ground for a lot of infamous Citadel sculptors- though I dont actually know who sculpted this one. They probably wouldnt be keen to put their hand up either. However I do have the Dwarfs from the series and they are brilliant. My fave has to be the Black Dwarf, as he appeared in an article by Aly Morrison in White Dwarf. I am also keen to grab some of the chaos monsters from that range.

Hope you like him. He go boo.

Fluffy the Chaos Hound

2010-05-13T07:11:00.000-07:00

One of the original 1980's Citadel Chaos Hounds. This bicephalous mutt got bundled into the McDeath deal, thus sealing his fate as a collectors item. This one arrived thick with tarnish and had a cracked tail, however as you can see, he came up quite good in the end. A few more passes of paint to go.

Chaos Hound "Fluffy"

Unlike some of the Mcdeath figures, Fluffy comes up quite a bit and often sells for under a tenner. Its a really hefty model, much bigger than the later chaos hounds of the Realm of Chaos Era. As you can see, he is pretty much a horse. Perhaps if I get another I may do a mounted conversion.

In the painting by John Blanche, Fluffy has a spiked mace tail. I was tempted to put one on since the tail was already damaged, however I felt restoration would be better in the end. Enjoy!

Reaper cuties

2010-05-13T06:56:00.000-07:00

This pic is a converted Succubus from Reaper minis. I resculpted her back to hide the wing joint, so that she could be a human sorceress for my wifes sexy amazon SOBH army. Fantastic cheesecake curves.on this model and a great expression to boot.

Converted Reaper Succubus

Next up is another Reaper mini- part of a two pack of Cave Girls. The other figure in the pack is absolutely perfect, very 2000 BC. This one has a strange, almost comical face with bowled forehead- rather than resculpt it, I simply used a dark colored band of color across the face to help minimise it, and drew the attention to the hip using a tatoo. I went from disliking the model to finding her rather charming.

Reaper Cave Girl

Basing part 2- a how to guide.

2010-05-13T06:20:00.000-07:00

I got asked how I do my bases. It surprises me cause I think mine are pretty much functional and crappy. However, your wish is my command.

I went for a classic 1980's finish for my figures based between Phil Lewis and Kevin Adams style. I wanted robust bases that could withstand gaming, and be dustable. That ruled soft flock out- which always looks shitty several years down the track as it flakes off and greys with dust. My color inspiration comes from the sales poster for the Citadel Monster Paint Starter Set- which showed very yellow green grass on Skragg the Slaughterer and his goblin pals. Nice.

ATTACHING THE BASE

First, prime the tab. Yes the bonds weaker, as your glueing paint not directly to the model, but I am told it will protect the figure from lead rot- especially if the PVA glue or basing material is acidic. When gluing a figure together you want the contact points raw for maximum bonding, but when your holding the figure on the base, it does not matter so much. Leaving a relatively weak bond to the base gives you the option to crack off the old base and refresh it in years to come. This is why I use more expensive, rubbery putties such as green stuff and procreate to build up bases around the feet and tab, rather than millput- which I often use for sculpting stone and rubble. Flexable putties are much easier to remove and flex when dropped. Polyfiller wont- unless you use the wood version- which I suspect is acidic. Now that stuff is GREAT for doing dungeon tiles with!

I use regular superglue to base the figures. Once glued on, flip the figure over and either fill the slot with epoxy putty or paint a thick layer of paint over any exposed metal. Again, this protects the figure from exposure. Just like a Jedi going after a shape shifter in a bar, you must be extra careful. Superglue in the eye is a hospital trip you dont want. When popping the cherry of a new superglue, always turn your head away or wear protective glasses. If your worried about looking like a wanker, well- sorry to break it to you, YOU COLLECT MINIATURES! May as well be a safe one.

SURFACING

I use a mix of Bondi Beach, grit from the streets, flock and brushings from my workbench- which often contain metal filings and bits of Bederken Dwerg figures. This is mixed with PVA glue to make a gloopy concrete. You can use this mix to make scenery, I refer to it as modellers cement.
Anyway, use a cheap brush to paint the cement onto the base, and then sprinkle fine sand to dry off the surface. Wipe your brush clean, then use it to dust off any spillage on feet. An old scalpel blade can be handy to push the goop under the feet.

The grade of sand you use makes a massive difference to the drybrushed- so experiment.

If the slotta holes are really wide, like you get on some precut horse bases nowadays, a little stickytape is all you need to block the hole. The small gaps dont need to be filled if you use PVA.

Finally I run my thumb around the edge of the base to cut a small ledge around the lip of the surface. I think it looks nice.

ORNAMENTS

Mushrooms are a MUST for a retro citdadel figure- the old world was FULL of mushrooms and venus flytraps. I suggest making them in bulk, rather than doing them for every figure directly on the base. Grab a cork, stab it with wire- bend the ends over to stop the shroom falling off, then whack on your putty. Leave the stalk long enough so you can drill and glue it in your bases later on. Check out Kevin Adams wonderful bases from the eighties- he used stippled putty for grass and sculpted plants, skulls, shrooms and flytraps galore.

For painting, I use a thinned wash of black acrylic, overbrush with GW Catcachan green, then finish up with a drybrush of Camo Green. Washes of brown, red, purple and Dark Angels Green add Frank Frazetta-esque touches of color.

For science fiction I use VMC green-grey washed with 50-50 GW badab black and blue washes. Gives the thing a 1980s scifi video feel I kinda like.

Basing

2010-05-08T00:08:00.000-07:00

So I recently got invited into an D&D campaign for like the first time in decades, and casting around for a mini to play with I settled on a slight conversion of a 1980s Citadel AD&D female theif model. Hard to find, but rather than damaging the figure I settled on adding layers of greenstuff over the existing model, giving me the freedom to clean it all off once I am done. More augmenting than converting.
Anyway, for her I used a classic milliput stone finished surface on a round base, and I have to say its far more practical for gaming than my beloved Hex bases with sand. The dilemma is that now I have a huge collection styled in exactly the same way, do I go a different direction for part of the collection to give a consistent look? A quandry.

Love to hear your opinions. Vote below.

Yay- keep rocking the HEX.
Nay- mix it up.

Busy busy

2010-05-08T00:00:00.000-07:00

Quite a delay in posting I am afraid Retrodelics- my work life has rudely interrupted my hobby life. Tsk.
Thanks for the emails. I have had a few requests and questions. Lets tackle them.

Q: Can I get a close up of the Monster Starter Set Ogre?
A: Totally. I will be posting close ups of the completed monster starter set once I, you know, complete it and stuff.

Q:Good pages for collecting retro citadel. Well, FROTHERS (FU-UK) has a great 'citadel archive' sticky thread, which is well worth going through every page of. Take a day off and cruise it with a bottle of fine tequila. For the definitive AD&D mini collection, google Otherworld minis. Stuff of Legends is a must have bookmark, as well as the collecting citadel miniatures wiki. Am I the only one who thinks wiki is a stupid name for something. Put it in the sin bin with google, blog, skype and twitter.

Q: Whats the best way to find old stuff?
A: Ebay. Naturally. Search result combinations to try are '(1980s, vintage, OOP, rogue trader and rare) + (GW, citadel, warhammer, talisman)'. Tad obvious, but I am hardly a font of deep wisdom. Joining the collecting citadel miniatures yahoo list also gives you a headsup on auctions.

Q: How do I stop getting ripped off?
A: Tough one. Go for quality figure photos, ask if the photo is of the actual model sold if duplicates are listed. Its almost impossible to tell a good recast from a late line model, but the bottom line is you want a figure thats good quality. Most recasts you will encounter are gravity fed tin copies made from silicon moulds- very warped, softer details, lost details, inferior metals and a ragged double mould line are the main problems with these. A clean double mould line is a by product of the manufacturing process at citadel - the putty masters are cast in resin, and from these resin masters the production moulds are made. Lazy workmanship means the original mould line is not smoothed off, and a double line results. A ragged double line that digs into the figure denotes a poor silcone mould copy and is definately the work of a pirate. If you imagine where the two parts of the mould run against the figure you get very thin silcone edges, and these need to be trimmed with sharp scissors or they have a tendency to fold in and cause crappy joins. Hence the ragged edge.
I have no doubt that some professional casters may be tempted to make proper vulcanised plate spin cast copies and these are often impossible to tell from an original even placed side by side. Quite often you just have to shrug and say 'close enough'.
I wouldn't question the integrity of a seller, however you do have a right to return the figure if you are not satisfied with it in most deals. Remember that some genuine dealers may have picked up fakes in job lots and have not spotted them, so its not part of a conspiracy against you. Accusing someone of fraud and piracy is a major thing. Try for a refund, then complain. Most dealers are in it for the love, its not exactly big money.
That said, a policy of checking frequently to see if the trader keeps getting the same stock back in- its amazing just how many rare rogue trader figures some guys get manage to find every month.
Ultimately dont pay too much for a figure- if you pay more than a modern figure your a nit wit.

Q: I heard someone lost his whole collection to theives. Do you insure?
A: Yes and no. I have read a couple of cases of insurance companies not paying out on miniatures, even when Citadel where asked to value the collection.
Instead I keep most of my collection in cases in a secure storage lockup rather than at home. I rotate these when I get fed up looking at them, or once I finish painting them. At most I only ever have about fifty or so figures out at a time. If I ever was robbed I would only loose a couple of hundred bucks worth. Sad, but something I could live. I wouldnt take any more than a case load to a convention. I don't buy super rare stuff either- so no chicken dragons or Mcdeath sets for me. All this adds up to a pretty secure collection.
It is actually one of the reasons I am doing this blog- so I can eventually see them all in one place and check which ones I have already when buying online. Gotta love blogs.

Q: Whats next?
A: Once I claw my free time back I have a huge clean and priming session planned to protect my current batch of exposed metal. I lost some lovely figures to lead rot recently due to a citrus air spray I was using, (doh) and its gonna be the last time!

Back soon with pictures!

Lead getting heavy

2010-04-08T01:03:00.000-07:00

Okay, lead pile is getting seriously heavy.

New arrivals include 1980s retrodel juice Sauron The Dark Lord, Chaos Dwarf Marauders, the four classic Elementals, as well as life and death elementals, Ally Morrison hobgoblins and some more zombies. You can never have too many zeds, right? Damn straight.

Adding to the pile is a few tasty Reaper peices this month. I couldnt resist the quaint mole men 3 pack, and also grabbed the cavegirls- all of which I dove straight into painting the minute I got home. My first Darksword batch is also coming along, though I am seriously disliking the integral bases. Judging by the new release photos they have not learnt their lesson yet. A half an hour date with a razor saw is not my idea of fun. Anyway, three down, two to go. Beautiful figs, but I am leaning more towards Kev Whites style of figures right now. Which leads me nicely onto a big box of Hasslefree arriving today. I am pretty stoked with them all- Oakley, powered armoured libby and a whole team of zombie fighters. Awesome stuff. I will have to put these on a backburner, however, as I need to post some more Retrodel soon, coz thats what this blogs all aboot. Fortunately the hasslefree box contained sprues of metal shields, which will be put to good use on some of my old figures shortly.

My war vs. the Leadpile is going to have to be stepped up in the coming months, otherwise I will just have to stop collecting until I dent it enough to gain its respect again. Expect to see pics of soft touch figures such as dwarves, orcs and Lords of Battle soon!

If your reading this, you will appreciate Somewhere The Teas Getting Cold...http://teasgettingcold.blogspot.com/
orcses. Retrodelicious.

Ciao for now.

Kill team Charlie upgrade

2010-03-28T19:53:00.000-07:00

KTC just got a some new recruits this morning thanks to the wonderful world of Ebay. I am now toying with the idea of going beyond the full set and including a few multiples. The charging troops will look cool together flanked by heavy lasers. Perhaps even an imperial robot or dreadnought could come along for the ride.
Should be fun.
You just know its going to spill out into the full series 2 marines.
Resist. Resist.

Pete Taylor inspired Demon

2010-03-27T07:54:00.000-07:00

So here is my Scratch built 'Realm of Chaos era' style Spawn inspired by, and dedicated to, Pete Taylor. Full bore speed modelling and painting without a seatbelt!
Yeah, yeah, this model is unpolished, rude, crude and you know what, I kinda love him for it.
He was made mainly from scrunched tin foil over wire, covered with a thin layer of green stuff. The yellows are inspired by John Blanches orange washed yellows from the 1980s, and he is sitting on a dreadnought base.
Look, to be honest its crap - I wouldn't dream of releasing a figure this bug eyed and unfinished, but he brings a nostalgic smile to my chops everytime I see him. Buzzbluhhhlrkkk!

Pete Taylor inspired scratch built spawn. Tin foil, wire and greenstuff.

Skellies, and using stages

2010-03-27T07:39:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be a good time to explain a trick I use to get through my lead pile. Firstly, pick soft targets. These are things that dont require much effort to do, such as chainmail clad dwarves, ghosts, snotlings, knights etc. 'Soft touches' or soft targets are the thin edge of the wedge, and having these 'wins' under your belt will help inspire you to keep going.

The next trick I use is kinda implied in the tutorial page on undercoating, but I will explain further. I paint my models in stages. The first stage is to clean, prime and preshade my models. They can now sit on the shelf and be admired- with the preshading you can see all the details clearly. Alternatively, and I find myself doing this a lot, they can now go into a foam case and into storage- relatively safe from leadrot. Either way, it can be a ages until you get around to stage two.

Stage two for me is to paint my models to tabletop standard using layered glazes to build up color over my preshading. Once this is done to an okay standard, I can happily stop, and call it painted. A zap of varnish and the models are done.
The third stage for me is to then take my tabletop standard models and rework them, using glazes to smooth transitions and add richer colors. Finer details are painted in, patterns are added, expressions worked at. I can now do this at my leasure, knowing that worse case I can just strip it.
Now this technique wont win me any Golden Demons- but it does mean my unpainted lead pile does not crush me.

To show you what I mean, check out these skellies I attacked friday afternoon.

1980s Skeletons, Armoured skeletons, Nazgul, Skeleton champion

This is an example of stage two painting - battle ready. These are mainly done with preshading glazes, working six figures on a strip. Bones and chainmail get drybushed and weathering is glazed on. I used a screwed up, flayed out old brush to dot on rust and chips, and used black and brown washes over most of the model. Finally, thin bestial brown was washed into armour, simulating water damaged steel. Not perfect, but I am sure you will agree, ready for battle. I can consider them 'done for now'. (I havent done shields for these yet- I have some custom shields planned).

Later, when I have time, I mount a few of the figures individually on bottlecaps for handling, and refine the paint job at leisure. I focus on no more than three or four at this stage, squeezing the refinement stage in the gaps in my life. Got ten minutes? Fix the paint job on that pouch. Got half an hour free? Finish off that champions face. Start with the command and front row of your units, then sneakily rework the back rows when you have time. Your opponent will only see the sexy PJ's up front!

1980s Lord of The Rings Witch King of Angmar, Undead Chariot champion

This image shows the battle ready job on a sexy witch king of angmar and skeletal champion (horn head, from the chariot boxed set). These are both entirely done with glazes over a greyscale preshade. Yep.
I decided to do something different on the Witch King than classic black, so I started layering on rich colors circling blue, then glazed them down to darken them. If I keep going, I will end up with a rich black effect, with subtle color shining through. I decided to keep it as it is for now, he is much more interesting this way.

Hornhead is also just glazed down, and really could do with having his little magical discs detailed, he could do with some hard edging and so forth- but for now I can check him off.

Deadites... Sally for... Sally for... sally forward.

Imperial Space Marines: Kill Team Charlie

2010-03-27T06:49:00.000-07:00

If your a fan of this site you would know your Warhammer 4000k: Rogue Trader, from your Warhammer 40k. The original was Weird, wonderful and- as most of us remember it- rich and full of promise. It was like 2000ad punk, smashed into the good bits of Tolkien (no poems), presented by Max Headroom (look it up gen y- theres an awesome film you need to see)..
Okay, so the modern child of Rogue took a few interesting turns, but slowly has become a smaller, more restrictive and exclusive universe. Women marines? No. Halfling cooks. No. Beastmen troopers. No. You cannot wear power armour unless you have implants, you cant do this, you cant do that. Roll 4, 5 or 6 on a D6. Oh, I have an invulnerable save on that- check the codex.
Sigh.

So for my next mini project I decided to tackle some of the earliest Warhammer figures in a different way- pushing them away from gothic and towards early eighties science fiction. I wanted them to be able to walk into an episode of Rogue Trooper or ABC warriors and look the part. So lets take a look at the figures!

First edition space marine with heavy laser

Now with the first ever 40k figures, you notice the evolution start straight away. Batch one is prototype, with built on backpacks and absolutely chock full of detail and equipment. They hit white dwarf before 40k did- although a cryptic ad for a Rogue Trader role playing game was seen on a flyer about that time, we had no idea a new battle game was in the making. You can spot a first edition marine easily. Those ball jet thingies on the backpacks point up like exhausts, and there are many more science fiction stylings such as wiring, piping, letters, scanners and laserguns. Bolters do not yet exist, but a lot of the trappings we have come to know and love are seen in embryo- such as powerfists. Interestingly, the sergent model hints strongly at the future, with his nazi inspired skull eagle and skull emblems. A cool touch to this model is that he has a helmet hanging from his waist, from which dangles the middle breathing pipe. It gives the model a very visceral, pragmatic feel- especially when you notice his helmet is modified to make room for his cyborg eye.

First edition marines

I decided the best way to exaggerate the science fiction feel of these characters was to pick a totally new scheme based on the colors common in science fiction at that time. In the late seventies and early eighties Orange, White, Black and Beige where the future. Take a look at Star Wars, Buck Rogers, Disneys The Black Hole, BattleStar Gallactica, Robotech- you name it. White, Black, Beige and Orange. Thats why commodore 64's where that awful monkey shit beige. It was proper high tech.
I found VMC medium grey was a perfect offwhite beige with a slight warm note. Citadel Blazing Orange would counter this nicely, once thinned and glazed over the beige. I wanted my troops to be dirty, but not rusty- this is futuristic plexisteel or ceramite- not iron. They have been in toxic environs, been blasted with lasers and space dust. VMC ocre and green-grey dirtying up the palette nicely.
For the bases, I was considering round, however a glance through Heroes for Wargames, all the 40k models where on hex bases too- fortunately I have bags and bags of them. Easy choice. I also decided to give the base a moon dust feel, keeping with the science fiction angle.

So after taking these pictures I got most of the way through six marines, including the limited edition power armoured marine released about the same time. I am calling them Kill team Charlie now, for some reason.

Hope you likey.

Chaos Knights and Warriors

2010-03-27T06:23:00.000-07:00

As promised, here are pictures of my work in progress on the old chaos knights and warriors ranges.

Its interesting to see the lineage in these lines- the first and second miniatures are actually variants- with the first being a slotta based model. The head of the second reappears elsewhere in the later range too.
The fourth mini shown came to me in a collection marked 'old D&D models', and I had trouble identifying him at first, as he was painted as a traditional templar. After I cleaned the paint off, I noticed the skull face weakly etched on his mask and started sniffing in the chaos section of Solegends. Yep. There he is. It was nice, he came in a vintage matchbox wrapped in cotton. The acids in paper cause leadrot, so I expect this guy to start dissolving in years to come because of this. However I did give him a dettol bath, rinsed in demineralised water and scrubbed him hard with bluetac and a soft dremel to help prevent this. Time will tell. When you restore really old figures be sure to seal the slot hole using paint. If you spray varnish, give the underside a blast too.

Early Chaos Knights and Warriors

A pleasant surprise was the succubus on the shield, which I did not notice until I was half way through painting this batch. A bit worn off, but a little paint magic to exaggerate the masses and she popped right out again.

So love to hear your comments before I finish these up- do you think this scheme is working, or should I go back to a more traditional red and black 'evil' painting style?

2010-03-25T15:08:00.000-07:00

Very happy this morning, because the comments posted on my last article reflect the calibre of reader I am getting through here. I hope to keep you all stimulated!

With Mabdens point about the "secretive and mysterious" days- there was a journey of discovery- and a magic to it all. Especially growing up sandwiched between the drab, bland suburbia of Thatcher's England and the rich, anarchic magic of the worlds found in UK comics (2000ad, Eagle), Terry Pratchet, Fighting Fantasy and White Dwarf (I drew up on a farm surrounded by urban developments, so I had forrests and dark places to fuel my imagination- I was very lucky).
Funnily enough, the nearest analogy to how the miniature hobby felt was almost like dungeoneering. There was treasure caves, and magical books and secret tricks and arcane lore. You where all working in the dark, and occasionally you met a dwarf. No, wait... hang on, lots my train of thought there.
Lead Mountain also hit the nail on the head (I get a good class of reader)- without Ebay (and I suppose improved international postage systems) I can now have the exact models I couldn't find no matter how hard I dungeoneered through the maze of game shops, magazines, journals and friends collections and bitz boxes.

Another interesting thing is that recently I saw a fascinating speech by an old, well respected Australian media man, who said that modern media like chatrooms means like minded people flock together, reinforcing their mindsets because the worlds they choose to inhabit are all alike- and every point of view they encounter helps crystalise their own. He said he was trapped in Russia during the height of communism and noticed his friends daughters room was full of contraband rock and roll stuff. He realised then that people will seek out what inspires them and reinforces their world view.
Well, all that stuff aside- this blogs about finding that magic again and crapping on about it- because, thanks to technology we can!

Okay, so thats enough high brow stuff. Lets talk Lead!

Last night I attacked the lead pile and took a huge painting chunk out of the original Chaos Knights I posted a few days ago. Although tempted to do a fresh take on some of the work from Heroes for Wargames, I decided I was sick of painting red schemes and looked for something more interesting. I wanted the figures to exists before the pre-defined Chaos gods, so by using both Nurgles greens and Tzeenches purple-blue domains together in a very muted palette circling around a green-brown from VMC I just aquired and my current color darling, Hawk Turquoise I should come up with something interesting.

Pics shortly!