Pledge 2012: Purchased: 1.2 squillion Painted: 0

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!