Blink Dogs

AD&D Blink Dogs

This month I have been entirely focused on sorting through my storage and rebasing all my figures to Renedra 25mm bases.  Boring stuff.  So I thought after two trays of the sodding things that I would actually paint something up to get a feeling of progress.

These four have been in my collection for many years, and I had given them a base coat of official DnD Blink Dog brown (very similar to mokey shit brown) and left it for a rainy day to complete the shading.  Naturally, years passed and I kinda got sick of looking at the bloody things and thinking "yawn, shading those is gonna be boring" before finding something else to paint.

However, I came up with the idea of painting them in various states of phasing in and out.  Et Voila.  My Blink Dogs suddenly became the most exciting thing on my painting table.

I achieved the look by glazing between the naturalistic Rottweiler parts to the green glow via Games Warpshop Sotek Green, which, I might add, I will die on a hill saying that it is blue.  It is goddamn blue.  Case closed.

I am a bit of a sucker for glazes.

Kings Minis tutorial magazine

He folks, the first of my 80's 'Eavy Metal style tutorial pages is now available to download for my Heavy Tier patreon supporters.  It covers the top ten tips I have for mini painters.

I am going to be releasing at least one of these a month.  Finger's crossed.  You know how my life is.  *sigh*  Once I have enough for a book, I am assembling them into a compendium for PDF purchase or via print on demand.  It should have around ten to twelve issues per compendium, and maybe some more content for you to enjoy.

This is an example of the sort of thing I will be doing...

Welp, I hope that is exciting.  Pop over to www.patreon.com/darkling to sign up

I am not dead. Kinda.

I am not dead.  Only dead inside.  Mostly.  Which as Miracle Max would put it, mostly dead is slightly alive.

But yes, it has been a loooong while since I posted here.  Why?  Well, I have been unable to post blog entries from my Samsung- as all the blogger apps are officially shit or broken- and Twitter has been much more of a party.  You can follow me at @delaneykingrox if you dare.  You should... all the cool cats follow me.  Some luke warm cats too.  A room temperature mouse does too.

Actually, joking aside I do have a surprising number of New York Times best selling authors following me on Twitter.  Plus Nerf Herder.  So... (dusts shoulder like Luke Skywalker)... I wont forget you when I am famous.

I have also been too busy with life stuff to really sit down and get focused on a proper blog.  The ripple effect of losing everything and being homeless keeps going for years- the paperwork alone of resurfacing is crushing.  But hey, I still have some hobby time set aside to keep my sanity at base standards.  See?  

Rick Grimes and truck from The Walking Dead All Out War game

Reaper Garbage Skip and Starship Generator

Assorted minis wot I have painted since last we spoke

Reaper Bones Valkyrie

I have such sights to show you.  But soon, when I am not so tired.

Silver Tower and Shawn Bawn WIP

Goddam it there are so many damn good figures in here!
Priming begins.  Going white this time to really make them pop.
Not set on colour schemes yet.

I thought I would play with some blending and stroke medium from Jo Sonja's range. I dragged out an old figure for some fun.

Still a ways to go, but I am impressed with the stuff.  Just need some practice and a few tests to see if it is trustworthy.

Climbing the Silver Tower

During roll20 dnd this morning I assembled the remaining sprues of Silver Tower minis.  (Pats back)  I considered finishing my cultists, but I find I have to really  concentrate to paint.  Smooshing grey plastic crack is about the level of concentration I need for me to effectively roleplay my angry little moon elf warrior street rat pocket rocket with ease. 

Last DnD session I glued together my project Z female survivors. Today it was my current shame project, The Silver Tower.  Next sunday?  Probably rebasing Doom minis.

To be fair, I wanted to wait til I moved in before finishing this game, the figures are so lovely that a little bit of special love was needed.

Also they are fragile as fuck.

I held off on the second monster sprue because I don't like doubles, so some conversions are in order.  I usually convert whilst doing commissions to eat up spare putty, this lot will need serious attention so I think they must wait until after my two remaining comissioned sculpts.

Oh, I also fucketh ye up olde Tenebrae Shard's fragile bits (no, not those fragile bits).  He will need some putty loving too.  I am also not sold on his face.

  I am not a fan of the thaumaturge face, and am thinking of switching it out for his staffs skull head.  Way cooler.

As for the second sprue, a little arm switching and head reposing would be a good start, but I have my heart set on doing the AOS28 (stoopid name) sightless conversion on the horrors I saw on Twitter the other week.  Way creepy.  I have that huge box of sprues coming back with me after xmas, so conversion parts aplenty!  Sure, the shame project will have to wait, but hey... cool minis!  Forgivable yes?

Last night I pushed along my Cthulhu cultists and cowgirls paintjobs but forgot to take pics.  Soz.

Elizabeth Summers and her Posse

Lil' Ole me dun made hersself a little bit of progress this very night.  On none 'tother but my Dead Man's Hand posse.  Yours truely was floundering about for themes, when I struck upon the mighty fine idea of making them akin ta alternative universe versions of characters I love.  That's some darn tootin grade a problem solvin' y'asks me.

So folk, we have what will as be 'Lizabeth Summers, Hope Lehane of The Boston Lehanes, Zoe Leafwind, Deputy Hawt and her Partner Waverly Earp (some folk talk have it they are sly for each 'oer), oh... and golly of it taint Ma Summers and her trader friend Drummer Gee with a pair o' shotguns. A thankee.

I dun halfway through this fine bunch o ladies.  Skin is last because I found a bunch of seams that need a fixin' for I can go on.

Gonna mosey off to my bed.  Nite folks.

Text message of C'Thulhu

I grabber this Eldrich Horror mini from Reaper many moons ago, and it was about time I painted her up.  However the face was a little dull for my tastes, the eyes on the side of the head don't scream predator, so I resculpted the face.

I did this in two layers. The first was greenstuff, the second my fave blend of 50:50 procreate and aves apoxie sculpt.  The latter is very firm and lends itself to building up masses very well.

Still lots to do on her.  I keep finding seams, do will have to give her a once over with a rat tail diamond file  after she has dried well.

F'tangtastic.

Hello? Oh hi C'thulhu, thanks for calling

Pulp Miniatures hooded minions

Just a quick work-in-progress pic for you to enjoy.  I made some progress over the last few days on my bargain bin score from my local bricks-and-mortar store.  Despite my best mental backflips, I am still buying minis faster than I paint them.  That just won't do.

Things have been a little stressful this past month so I found myself reaching for the healing power of impulse buying to soothe my troubled soul. 
I must confess, I spent a little too much of late setting up my home with vital supplies of kitchen utensils, fruit, storage containers,  Dead Man's Hand Daughters of The West minis, a few Reaper bones minis and art supplies.

Oh.  And Buffy Funko Pops.

Vital stuff.

So I have managed to start turning around my backlog nicely, though as yet have nothing finished.  These cultists should be rather easy to get across the finish line.

The minis (from Pulp Miniatures) are pleasant and simple, easy to assemble and paint with plenty of gaming applications.  I give them two thumbs up and will definately be buying more of the range in the future.

Cannot have cultists without some horrors for them to summon, and I had this Reaper Mini's Spawn of Cthulhu laying around.  She is just perfect for the job.  I am part way through resculpting her face because... well, for starters... I can *sticks tongue out*.

But I think the eyes where too far to the side in the original, and this will have more impact.  I am also eying off the wings for further resculpting at a later date.

This whole thing makes me want to track down some classic Cthulhu minis.

I iz a good girl, I am.

PAXAus (Penny Arcade Conference) reminded me that I had some minis from last year's PAX unfinished.

Actually, I had a LOT of minis from last year's PAX unfinished.

Actually, a lot in general.

I know.  I suck at this.

Yesterday I played catch up.  The biggest progress was priming and basing up every freaking mini I had assembled to my new basing style.

Somehow, rebasing from the dodgy course train ballast from when I first moved to Melbourne felt great. Like a renewal.  Bad energy out.  New energy in.  Mmmm delicious, crackly energy.  Like human souls.

I now use a hot glue gun to stick my minis to Renedra bases.  I find this gives the most durable bond, which flexes slightly absorbing the shock of ooohhh, you know, something like muggins here accidentally drop kicking them during gaming.

Shut up.  You do it too.

Hotglue also has several other benefits.  It's like a 'friends with benefits' deal but without the 'friends' part. Seriously.  Your glue gun is not your friend.  It will burn you.

Benefits include:

● Quick to set
● Cheap
● No fumes
● You can pose the mini
● No superglue remover needed
● You can fill areas
● Bonds to washers, metal, plastic and resin (pah)
● Doesn't force you to watch home renovation reality TV shows
● Can be used to assemble scenery
● Cannot get you pregnant

Once set, I texture the surface with a thin schmmmmear of super dooper glue or matte medium and add a mix of grits, herbs, bicarb soda and bits of my fingers.

The soil colours all come from Jo Sonja acrylics, nice and thick, easily found everywhere and cheap.  My straight girl friends say this is the same quality as men on dating apps.

Shhh you.  I am not a man hater.  I know... oooooh, at least... er... a handful of men I like.  If cooked well.

Random mixes of Burnt Umber and Earth Brown form my base, with a wash of agrax earthshade for missed cracks.  I hate to miss a good crack.  I then drybrush a range of colors on depending on my mood.  Usually my mood is somewhere between angry feminist beige and medium grumpy fawn brown.  Occasionally P3 'Jack Bone (🤔 just realised that is a double entendre 😒).

PAXaus Reaper Paint and Take

Yesterday I had the honour of being a speaker on the Women In Games panel "Always Here" at PAX Australia.  It was a fantastic day of catching up with gamedev friends and supporting girl devs.

  Today, however, I had little on, so I decided to kill some time at the Reaper Minis Paint and Take tables tickling some bones with a hairy stick.  I got a leeeeetle bit carried away, and painted three minis.

The competition was nail biting, and the audience where really damned lovely and we chatted nervously as the judge picked over our offerings.  All the suspense paid off and I ended up winning a champion spot...

Or... you know...

three champion spots.

Three of the five bases are belong to me.  Bwa ha ha ha.

Actually, putting aside my braggy-for-laughs character I play here for a moment and being genuine fragile, insecure me... I am giddy as a school girl.  I haven't won anything since I was one, and even then it was third prize at our local Virgin Games Grenadier minis painting competition.

So yeah.  Stoked.

All entries had to be painted then and there at the tables using the supplied paints and brushes.  No lamps.  No scalpels to clean up the models.

I maaaaay have purchased quite a few Reaper minis whilst at PAX.  What was that?  Of course I will post pics here... tis what I do.

Squeeeeeeee

*dances off*

I picked up the 25th anniversary mini, familliars of land and sea, victorians, pugwampis, a cowgirl and a ghostly hanging judge.
The sea familliars are for my recent pirate thing.  I mainly got the familliars for the pug and iguana.  Because reasons.

I am tempted to kick off some female wild west teams after I get through all these.

Roll20 UX experience

So I player my first roll20 gsme yesterday and have come to the conclusion that it desperately needs a UX (user experience) designer to work on it.

Thought I would list out my suggestions for great improvement.

1: List player names and character name on avatar.

2: amalgamate tabs and floating UI into one tab set. On right, keep play space uncluttered.

3: make seperate, obvious tab for toggling between character sheet and tabletop.

4: make tab icons more obvious.

5: GM hits button to auto generate initiative order for combat, instantly placing a strip down left with each chararacter and enemy in order.  First is highlighted- current player has YOUR TURN message and sound.  Avatar is highlighted and framed, token is framed.

6: Enemy tokens get numbers appearing top left so you can discuss which is which and this appears in the creature's initiative order entry.

7: dice rolls show dice image and big bright FAT numbers.  Critical rolls make different sounds.

8: current armed weapon icons appear above your avatar when it is your turn. Click to roll to hit, they then have a damage icon next to them.

9: hitpoint tracker circles around PCs allows GM to track HP. Players see just their own.

10: player maps scroll to include newly revealed enemies. Checkbox this off if you don't like it.

11: optional wound and heavily woundee icons for enemies and/or PCs. Simplified to one, two or three red slashes signifying light, medium and heavily wounded appearance.

12: GM sets a big, fat count down for waiting game.  Optional GAME HAS BEGUN voice announcement calls players to their computer.

What are your thoughts?

13: character sheet is a mess.  Fat icons on anything that can be rolled.

14: hitpoint tracker, spells, weapons, skills can be seperated from sheet and brought up in mini tabs.

15: launch pop ups as browser tabs as default behaviour.

Power weekend

I put in a killer session yesterday and managed a great many things. I am proud of me. Yes, yes I am.

First up, I assembled and based up my Female Zombie Survivors from Project Z.  The sprue is lacking in useful things like head and arm variants, but chockers full of RPGS, rifles and uzis for some reason.  Details are a touch too fine and fragile, and posing them so their hands meet their guns is a bit of a bitch without ball sockets.  Still, I persisted and with a lot of filler and a somewhat chewed tongue got this little ragtag bunch together.  I would rate the kit as 'good, but flawed'.  A version 2.0 would be very welcome.

They scale pretty well against Walking Dead Total War minis on the table- but a touch smaller.  I much prefer WD:TW in material, thickness, character and durability.

Speaking of Walking Dead: All Out War, I base coated and washed these little loot tokens.  An easy kill.

Enough of all the Z stuff, now onto R stuff.  Well, arrrrrrr stuff.

Pirates.

I actually got to apply some paint, having found said paints as I unpacked on Saturday.  My back is killing me by the way, thanks for asking.  It was nice to return to the hobby, albeit in a limited space with a limited selection of paints.  But I have tools aplenty.  I have tools up the wazoo.

TMI perhaps.

Aaaaaanyway, behold! This is my Work In Progress shot of The Merry Skyjackers.  I don't know about you, (I really, really I don't) but I love to come up with backstories and names for my figures whilst I paint.  I know, I am missing a few screws.

Story of my life.

So in the mix are Crusader, Artesan and Reaper pirates.  I may have a slight pirate mini thing right now.  I dunno why.


Oh, and I switched to a new blogger app as blogger is just flat broken now. But answering comments isn't available in the new app. I am not ignoring you.  Shit is never easy.  For interactions, you can follow me on Twitter using this handle: @delaneykingrox

Life is slowly returning to the light.

First day back on hobby

It is only my first day back on the hobby so I thought I would start slow.  Just a bit of base prep tonight then basing and priming tomorrow.  I am aiming to get back in the swing of things, and slowly work my way back to sculpting.  Aquiring lamps tomorrow to that effect.  Two outstanding commissions to do.

Most of these minis where just what was on sale at my local bricks and mortar.  I nabbed me some bargains.

So here we have a couple of ranges of pirates, official DnD blink dogs, Spoderman villain clix, pulp cultists, Reaper anniversary minis and super rare Sandra Prangle from McDeath.

Oh and Paternoster Detective Agency, Clara Oswald the greatest assistant and the second worst Doctor Who thanks to Moffat. Fite me.

So spot any delicious new minis you like?

Chessexy

I am no longer homeless!  Hooray!  No, wait... upgrade that to a huzzah!

Throw in a 'hey nonny no' for good measure. You've earned it.

So yes, I am now a denizen of bright bohemian Collingwood in sunny* Melbourne.  It is very gay and very artisan breaddy and coffee snobby.


(*usally pissing down)

So to celebrate my total lack of space, I purchased two Chessex carry cases.

They good.  They very good.

You can't buy a case without something to go in it, so some Artisan pirates looked at me funny from the bargain bin.  I picked up two Reaper pirates for a budget warband.

Also those stone finished Renedra bases are bound for Funko Pops! That didn't ship with stands.

Hobby time returneth.

I feel like life is restarting.  I have a new home, new phone, new job and PAXaus is very soon.  See y'all there.

X

Updatage

Well, I know it's been awhile, but great things are a'happenin'.

Yay.

First up, I am a keynote speaker at NZGC, so if you are in New Zealand come and say hi.

So I have returned to Melbourne, and am now the Art Director at Tantalus Media and it's sister company Straight Right.  This means I can afford to get a home soon and my minis shipped back to me, ta da da dum, I am back to painting minis and stuff!

First purchase in a long while... I grabbed some Pulp Hooded Minions packs that where in the bargain bin- awesome figures- guess noone plays pulp around here.  Oh well, their loss.

Hope you are all having a great time!

Guardian (not Eldar- the Other Guardian)

Oh you know, just me in The Guardian...

https://amp.theguardian.com/culture/2017/jul/27/people-have-no-idea-how-big-a-deal-it-is-the-australians-pushing-the-gaming-world-forward

13th Doctor

I just wanna say I totally regenerated into a woman before The Doctor made it cool.

Welcome Jodie, and safe travels!  Can't wait for the miniatures!

Sandra

I arrived back in Melbourne today to start my new job on monday, and as a wonderful omen this wee lassy was waiting for me at my friend's house.

This is Sandra Prangle, one of the McDeath set, which I am now only two figures from having it all its entirety.

I traded her for some artwork a while back, but have only just returned to claim her.  :)

Can't wait to paint her.  

Fenris Games stock Darkling

Fenris Games now stock my Darkling Minis- and you can buy individual minis from Geronimo as he breaks uo my boxed sets (which I can't do because I have no storage right now).

I will be back in business properly in the next two months, and will get the chance to expand my range then (having all my lovely greens back from storage and a home address!)

Anyhoo- pop over to Fenris to grab some Dwerg and Toad love!

Countdown begins

Something wonderful has happened and I am only one or, at most, two months away from getting my entire collection back!

Big announcement soon- and no doubt a flood of exciting posts here as I finally get to finish off some figures!

Thanks for all the support folks X