Of slate, glue and drill bits

On Sunday I managed to find a gap in my relentless schedule of being unwell and I set about doing the bases for the Maidenhead babes.

This is the first time I have used slate for bases so it was a learning experience for me. I decided to work on the heavy infantry. For some I just stuck chips to the base, others I clipped one foot from the base slot and repositioned the miniature slightly so one foot is up on some slate, for the rest I went the whole hog and clipped and pinned both feet to the slate. The slate drills nicely but it is a bit labour intensive with just a pin vice and drill bit. I think it would have been a lot easier with a dremmel.

On Sunday evening I had sore hands and my fingertips were covered in a mixture of slate dust and super glue, I think it was worth it though as the end result does look nice. Next up I need to wash them and glue sand to the bare sections of base prior to priming.

Still no sign of that £$%#ing camera. :(

Slow and unsteady

The last week has been eaten by PNKD so progress has been limited to undercoating the Ultraforge giant who will henceforth be known as "Crouch" (after the Liverpool and England striker, Peter Crouch). When I am well enough I will now have plenty to be getting on with.

Unstuck

The second lot of Maidenhead miniatures have arrived from Artemis Black's. Actually this time I ordered some Spyglass, Masquerade and Hasslefree miniatures as well, all for the same project.

Last night I stayed away from MarioKart and got down to the business of cleaning up the new lead and assembling things ... or that was the plan anyway. It turns out that I've run out of spuerglue so I had to content myself with just trimming off flash instead.

On the pictures front I can't find my darned camera anywhere, when it turns up I will do some pictures.

The green suits you madam

I bought MarioKart Wii on Saturday ... I have a funny feeling that this might eat into my available painting time. Despite this I still managed to have a productive weekend.

On Sunday afternoon I decided to have a go at protecting the modesty of the Babes that Time Forgot. I dug out my green stuff and my new modelling tools and armed with tips from the internet (including FU-UK) I set to work adding extra clothing to the babes. I've only ever really used green stuff/milliput/modelling clay to fill gaps in miniatures before. The one time I have used it to add to a miniature was simply for adding straps to my Black Orc battle standard bearer recently (which worked pretty well actually). I have no illusions about being a sculptor and I was looking forward to this task with a certain amount of trepidation, after all it would be fairly easy to ruin a perfectly good miniature with a botched job.

I am happy to report that it all went rather well (I think). I decided that the original plan of furry bikinis might be a little ambitious for a first try so I opted to do simple boob tubes instead. Getting the green stuff to stick to the miniature was the hard part (my green stuff is several years old) but a combination of patience and vegetable oil saw me through. So far I think I am happy with the results but I'll wait until I see how they paint up before I make up my mind.

After all that I still had plenty of green stuff mixed up so I decided to try and make some 15mm scale squigs for my HOTT night goblin army. I made 8 bodies/heads but the legs and tails will have to wait until next time. The results were not so good (sculpting really is hard) but they might look okay with a bit of paint on them. At the moment they are nicknamed 'the angry peas'!

And again ...

7 more goblins down ... only 12 more to go. I've now passed the half way mark on this project. (That put me up to 59 painted so far Sam!)

On the negative side I ordered a shed load more Maidenhead stuff from Artemis Black's. I've now ordered enough stuff for a reasonable starter army. The ebay bits and bobs should be dropping on to the doormat today or tomorrow so I'll be able to get cracking any time now. I think I should finish the gobbos and paint up the giant before I really get under way though.


I've been looking at colour schemes and I think I would like to do my Sabre Tooth Cats like this. I'm still looking for something Id like to copy for the Terror Bird though. Any ideas?

He's off again ...

5 more goblins added to the painted pile and 7 more almost complete. Not a bad evening's work. I should soon be able to play SoBaH at the club.

I've been making a few more purchases. On their way to me at this moment are some bags of slate chips for the bases of the Maidenhead minis and some sculpting tools to help me do their bikinis.

On the army list front I have realised that if I switch to a Beasts of Chaos army then I will be able to use the same army I had been planning on with only minimal changes.

Saved in the nick of time (+ march roundup)

The Maidenhead miniatures arrived last week whilst I was on holiday and they are very nice indeed. I had been planning what to get next when WHAM! Games Workshop go and throw my plans into disarray. It looks like the list I was planning to build may no longer be legal under the updated Hordes of Chaos rules due in White Dwarf soon.

I guess I will put further purchases on hold until I can get a copy of the new rules which should help with the pledge. The lot I have bought already will do fine for a SoBaH warband.

I really should get on with some painting shouldn't I.

Round-up for the year so far as of March:-

Miniatures Bought: 27 (1 giant, 11 infantry and 3 cavalry)
Miniatures Painted: 47
Miniatures Sold: 42