Rise of The Risers.

After eight years my old riser is looking a bit worse for wear.  Me too, riser, me too.

It got me thinking about making some new risers to improve my shelving capacity.  It would be smarter and more practical than making a sprawling scifi wargaming table, after all.

Okay then, so... say I did make some new display risers, what would they look like?

My first thought is I want to do something like Colin Dixon's box dioramas. Something that has a detachable back wall for a painting, and each level of the riser is like a little biome.

From a practical standpoint, the new risers need to have MDF bases and sides for protection.  Rather than one large unwieldy display shelf, dividing it up into two or three parts would be more practical, allowing for easier transport and more places they can be used.

I also want them to have a wall at the back and lip at the front to protect my minis from falling off.

The last requirement is that I use some more vertical space to allow clearer displays of single 30mm or 40mm based minis.  The front and back levels can be wider for bigger figures.

Okay.  Now...

BY THE POWER OF PERSPECTIVE TRICKERY...

Yeah that oughtta work.

This strikes me as a nifty way to use up some scenery bits in my collection.  Things like gold glass chunks and gemstones to make the mine levels interesting, mushrooms, graveyard finnials, barrels, ravens and Reaper pillars of good and evil.

I can start with a basic fantasy display, and progress to science fiction, malefaux/western and maybe a Mordheim/Brinewind one to use the bar section from the Brinewind box.

But, first things first, a prototype.

Looks like either I lose a level or focus on 30mm base shelves rather than 40.  Hmmm.

Star Crafting Potnoodlandia

When I was a teenager, I picked up my first issue of White Dwarf in my local newsagent and inside was the launch of this new thing called Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader.

Yeah, I timed that pretty fucking well, didn't I?

Anyway, the thing about the game back then was we played it with scenery made from yoghurt pots and hover tanks made from deodorant sticks.  It was much more 2000 ad magazine future shock and space opera and much less rusty catholic church with pipes up the ass.

So I wanted to have a really vibrant psychadelic space opera game table, filled with cool aliens, Chris Foss style patterned ships and Roger Dean style landscapes.

So I gathered up all my scifi minis, bits, scatter and buildings with the goal of bringing it all together into one glorious gaming spread.

Turns out, I had a lot of cool stuff.

First off the bat, I found some Ion Age Crusaders painted in a grab WWII style.  After rebasing, I gave them a once over with light grey ready for their new look, and then made a note to research 70s scifi art space suits.

Naturally all my Rogue Trader minis had to come out to play.  Most are unfinished and painted in a much older style.  They will get punchier contrast and more colors added.  I started to put complementary colors onto a few but didn't far.

I had some Alternate Stars and Irregular Minis aliens, plus a few Chaos sorcerer minis that would make great Druillet or Mobius type aliens.

I also have a few space adventurer types from Reaper.  These can get more punchy colors later, but I slapped on the basic base coats.

Remember that Starwberry Punnet House I made ages ago? Well I pushed up the brightness and started to add extra stuff like dome windows from googly eyes and laser cut base rings, and flyscreen mesh onto the roof.  Think I will get some raised letters in alien font for the sign.

I gave a quick clean up to these Kyromek minis, rebased them and started looking for more vibrant alien markings to add to them.

I think this picture by Peter Andrew Jones is a great start for their new color scheme.  Maybe I could add some bendy antenna using broom bristles and some extra limbs.

Found some Minifigs alien plants, and some classic space cacti I started once.  These will need finishing and painting up.  I think I need to make lots of little alien plants to tie it all in with the olive flock.

Okay let's try to get the pot noodle pots looking a bit better...

PROTOTYPE TIME!!!

First up- let's try foam sheets.

UHG that looks really shit.

Maybe a better paint job?

Nope, still looks shit.  But not that shitty retro kind of shit, but just amateurish.  Needs finer details and panels.

Hold on... back in a moment...

Okay, progressing a bit...

I gave the whole model a dirty wash and daubed grey paint to see how it was working.

I wasn't happy with the crappiness of the surfaces, but I can worry about that late with some decent plasticard instead of cornflake packets.  I will give it a sand and maybe add some more small panels to cover the cruddy bits.  I want these to have a lot of color eventually, with various mints, sage and aqua tones on each panel.  But the panels need to look sharper than this IMHO.

Okay, might as well glue together some other buildings to get a rough idea of what the space will feel like...

I glued some junk to some other junk, but it's tricky to see with the paint slapped half arsed onto it like this.

I think what all this junk needs is some Foss-y blocky panelled raised platforms underneath to give some play options and raise it up a little.

Okay that was a monster session, I shall press on soon.

Purple Worm, Purple Worm *Guitar Solo*

John Dennet blessed us with this cunning looking Purple Worm from Grenadier.  I have had this mini for many years, and it just sat on the shelf with a grey primer coat looking miserable.  It was time to do it justice.

The metal cracked earth base is under the augmented one I made using bits of broken dried putty and crackle paint.

I painted a faux gloss effect on the model by trailing little specular highlights down the body, catching the ridges.  These become more purple as they reach the head, giving an opalescent chitin feel.

God I love this mini. It looks like it is happy to chat to the adventurers.

Citadel Fimir

Limited Edition Fimir.  Small, stylish and, unfortunately, very, very rapey.  The back story for Fimir makes me never want to be within 500 yards of Graeme Davis.

That said, the creature designs are very cool, and I really enjoyed painting this one.

One day, if I can get another, it's tail is coming off and will be used in a John Blanche Minotaur tribute.

Troll Schlongs

You cannot be an old school mini painter and not have painted troll dicks.

There are a disturbing amount of troll dicks in the early Citadel Miniatures releases.  It really was troll dicks and torture porn for the first few years.

These are both early works in progress, as I have to stop and go wash my hands and my eyeballs out every few minutes.

Actually the first official citadel mini is free swinging too.

It was a weird time.

Playing With a Stranger's Thing: Grenadier Demogorgon

One of my favourite minis of all time, The Grenadier Demogorgon by John Dennett has gained a wider audience after it appears in the TV show Stranger Things in the kids' Dungeons and Dragons game.

In this version I went with simple and bold colors, with the goal of getting the entire thing done in one sitting.

I have two others, one of which is joining my From The Pitt style red demon army of Dennett demons, and the other is getting ray guns for some future skirmish action.

I may grab a few more next time I swing by Mirliton because I keep thinking of cool conversion ideas.

Brilliant mini.

I like big butts and I can lie perfectly well thank-you.

It's a bit of a joke amongst my fans and romantic partners that I am constantly rebasing miniatures.  But it is actually quite a stressful thing for me, as I battle between a neurodivergent need to have my bases all consistent, and the realities of there not being a single perfect basing system.

So I am rebasing again, by the way... but for a good reason.  I keep damaging my minis.

The new mini style has 3mm thick bases, either with flat sides or a minimal bevel.  This allows me to pick them up by the base.  I have upsized my bases to protect any overhanging parts as best I can.

Previously I used Renedra 25mm bases, which are great and all, but as you see the minis aren't as stable or protected as with the 30mm ones.

I found the modern 32mm GW ones to be too thick and too slanted to pick up easily, so will be using MDF bases or the Impact Minis/EM4 30mm multibases, which are 3mm high.  Fortunately, Impact sell them by the THOUSAND.

Yes, you read that right.

Though I like the look and feel of the MDF, sanding the edges smooth is a must for my ADHD obsessiveness not to kick in.  And that means a LOT of dust and aching fingers.  So I have settled on a compromise of mixing MDF and plastics and trying my best to not freak out.

Seventy Nine Cents to the Dollar

Ground Zero Games (GZG) have never been great at the whole 'selling us stuff from a website" thing.  Mostly the lack of photos on their last couple of efforts has been infuriating, as there are some wonderful true 25mm minis in there.

When I have all mine done I will get decent photographs done for their site.

WIP Citadel Chaos Ogre

This Jes Goodwin Chaos Ogre is a work in progress, as I want to replace the poker chip bases I used to use with a decent sized MDF base.

Once I have rebased it I can focus on the little glazes that will make it pop.

The one major change I have done lately in my style is pushing up the values and contrast.  I was finding my early stuff is now murky and unreadable at a distance.  So from here on in I will be turning up the volume.

This ogre is rarer than the others in the range, as all the spikes caused the moulds to tear when the minis where being pulled out.  You can see a spike has snapped out of the socket when this one was put into the vulcanising press.

Thus, the spikey ogre was put out of production early on.

Ral Partha Ettin

This Ral Partha Ettin is by Dennis Mize, and has evolved extra long arms in order to snap off enough times to make 80s kids learn how to pin limbs properly.

Minifigs Valley of The Four Winds

Minifigs Valley of The Four Winds

I absolutely love taking very old minis that may be considered janky or rough and lavishing attention on them.  These Valley of The Four Winds minis by Minifigs (Available from Miniature Figurines dot co dot uk) are a great example of minis that shouldn't be discounted for their age.  They predate Warhammer!

I am not entirely finished with them, I have plans to add some clothing patterns onto the first two, and apply some glazes to the lips on the mouth mini to make it more lush.

I may also break out the putty to add something to the rider mini (left) which had a broken weapon on arrival, and looked better standing than riding.

"Shouting Head on Arms" is the stand out mini from the range, and is the best butt demon that exists.  I may grab some more and use them in conversions.

So Bosch.

Bird Murder and how it affects where little models appear.

Hey, you.  You're finally awake.

Remember how everyone moved to Twitter from Blogspot because it was much faster and immediate?

Then remember how some total flopcock narcissist idiot bloated on his dad's apartheid mining blood money decided to piss on everything?

Yeah, that.

Anyway, hello again.  Nice to see you.  Between you and me, you have aged honey... use some moisturiser okay?

I have minis.  Lots of minis.  I will be working on minis therapeutically.  Wanna watch?