Flapping

The last of the Drakons have now had their eyes dotted and their bases flocked thanks to a weekend largely free of movement problems. I'm quite pleased by these as I have managed to improve on my previous attempts. I have painted the highlights better and I have managed to hide the mould lines on the Drakons' bellies (which I failed to remove properly ... again!) using some vertical brush strokes. These also give a nice impression of texture too - an idea I stole from Golem's paint jobs on the ones they did for Mantic.



The only problem I have now is that I'm tempted to go back and do the same on the other Drakons too, however I still pave plenty of minis needing thier first layer of paint so I will have to resist for now.

Here's how they all look together:-



And if you look carefully you can see a scenery project I've started in the background.

The big one

Here's a not so little project that has been consuming my time recently - a Citadel Realm of Battle game board, all eight sections of it. I used the citadel scenery painting pack (which contains lots of paint but not enough flock or PVA) along with a tube each of white and black artists acrylic.

I got the final sections of flock on it in my lunch break yesterday and then emptied a can of purity seal on to them last night in the garage.

 

Hopefully all that effort was worth it and I will have some good games on these board over the coming years. If all goes to plan then they will be christened tonight in a 1250 KoW game against Daniel.

thigh bone

In a most unexpected development I have more painted stuff to show you. Maybe I was on a roll or maybe inspired by the bones miniatures or was it just that their stark whiteness in some way offended my sensibilities. anyway whatever it was here are three more of them painted up.



And also some more things I picked up recently - some Armorcast scenics. These are to be used during DnD sessions when we get some kind of remains in play effect. They are very simple but quite effective IMHO.

Fire


Frost/Water


Poison/Nature


Smoke/Shadow/Necrotic

The hip bone is connected to the ...

Bones! Reaper Bones! The nice chap over at Miniature Heroes decided to have a sale on Reaper miniatures so I decided to pick some up out of curiosity. For the price I have to say they are excellent, here are three I painted up yesterday - three ghosts for our current DnD adventure.



And here are some more I'm working on.



And here are those Dwarves I mentioned, still waiting to have their basing finished.

Its not as bad as it looks!

Okay so I've not updated things for a while but its not as bad as it looks. I have completed a nice units of dwarf infantry (pending photography) and also some more Mantic elves.

I was working well on the dwarves when I decided that I wanted to go to the Battlemasters tournament in Loughborough in October. My warm up games against Daniel suggested that I would need to make some changes to my list and I added another Drakon rider and two more bolt throwers.And here they are:-



I like the way the Drakon has turned out in red and I might need to add a few more highlights to my original drakon unit to match the effect I got with this one. There are three more drakons on the workbench and then hopefully its back to painting dwarves.

In other news I have now magnabased my Orcs and Goblins. I might do a posting about that one at some point.

And we're off again

Slowly but surely I have been picking away at the unit of Orc spears I have been working on for months. Due to the usual mix of lack of spare time and bouts of PNKD it has taken far far longer to complete this unit than I had hoped. On the plus side I am very happy with the result, the use of washes has yielded some good results, they weren't available in their current form when I painted the rest of my Renegade orcs. This is also the last "big" unfinished unit in the lead pile for my orcs and goblins which is something to celebrate.

 

In other news I finally broke my duck and bought some miniatures after a 6 month self imposed ban. I have gathered some more elves to tweak my army a little in advance of the Clash of Kings tournament in February. I have also bought in to the Kings of War and Sedition Wars Battle for Alabaster Kickstarter campaigns. The SWB4A should arrive later in the yeat and contains a pile of very nice looking miniatures, the KoW KS minis should arrive next year and will keep me very busy indeed.

I have also finally made a serious start on my KoW/WHFB Dwarf army. So far I only have a few more minis painted up but they were quick to do so I am hopeful of good progress as the year goes by.

The best laid plans

No progress on the orcs for a while, my movement disorder has been quite bad so I've not managed to find time to hold a brush when my limbs are under full control.

One thing I have been meaning to mention - so far this year I have managed to buy a grand total of zero miniatures (cue round of applause). I'm wondering if I can extend this period of abstention to 6 months or even a year, only time will tell.

Despite the halt in purchases I find myself in possession of more miniatures now than I had at the start of the year after a bout of trading over on TWF. I managed to swap a couple of army books and some GW plastic goblins (that I never really liked) for the following:-

10 Mantic ghouls
10 GW LoTR elves
16 GW Dwarf warriors
9 GW Dwarf miners

Not sure whether to count these as new purchases for the purposes of the pledge or not. As some were swapped for miniatures I already had that would count as 28 extra miniatures. Hmm.

A bit quiet

Okay so I haven't posted for ages but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy.

I've been working on some Renegade Miniatures Orcs with spears, a unit I first started in 2008. I'm now past the half way mark so should have something to show before too long.

In the mean time I have been revisiting past glories and re-photographing some of my elves with the vain hope of getting then into the new version of the KoW rulebook when it is released later in the year.

Here are the shots I have taken:-

http://s266.photobucket.com/albums/ii278/Maccwar/KoW/

A monstrous update

Another productive weekend and I'm only half way through!

Firstly some Mantic Elf Drakon riders. This would have been my new unit to take to the Mantic Invitational next weekend but unfortunately I can't make it this time. I kept to my painting schedule and these are now ready for my next game of Kings of War.



Next up is my Arachnarok spider, finally finished in a bit under a year. This means I'll need to get a game of Warhammer in at some point so I can use it.



I'm now planning to clear off the last few stragglers on my workbench before starting a unit of Orc spears which have been on the painting pile for some considerable time. Beyond that I'm hoping to start some serious work on my Dwarves but we'll have to see how that pans out.

Has it all gone quiet?

No it has not! Whilst I may not have posted for a bit I have been busy painting away in the odd spare moment here and there. My persistence has paid off and I now have my FIRST FINISHED PROJECT OF 2012!

May I present to you the completed Space Hulk terminators.

Space Hulk has only been on the to-do list since 2009 so that's relatively quick by my standards. I have Dan to thank for the progress here as we arranged to get together to play the game which spurred me on to complete the project. Now I just need to get in some more games with this set.

And that's not all, we have more. Here are two more Mantic High Elf mages for my army. The mounted one is a limited edition figure that was only available with one of the army sets, I can't quite remember how I got my mits on one but those Mantic chaps can be very nice.

And there's still more, I was on a roll this weekend I can tell you. Here is an addition to my Kings of War dwarf army - a big and decidedly nasty Steel Behemoth. (The model is a Ramshackle Games brass coffin with a chimera turret)

Almost coming to the end of the list, but not quite yet. Next up is a Hasslefree barbarian for my D&D miniatures collection. The picture is rubbish but the miniature is lovely. My paint job here is a bit bland, I couldn't quite work out how to make it really pop but I have a mountain of miniatures to finish so on went the paint and now he's done.

Well that's all the finished stuff for now giving me a total of 21 miniatures and 1 vehicle painted so far this year against none purchased. At this point I'm hopeful of a pledge win for the year. I'll leave you with a quick snap of what's on my workbench at the moment, hopefully she'll be joining the painted pile soon enough.

The Scale of the Problem (2012 edition)

Carrying on the tradition I thought start the year with a look at what still remains in the lead pile.

28mm Scale Projects

Orcs and Goblins
System: Warhammer and KoW
Status: Several hundred figures painted, some more in the lead pile
Comments: Thousands of points painted. Loads painted in 2011.

Bretonnians
System: Warhammer
Status: 18 knights started, about 100 more models unpainted. No progress in 2011.

Dwarfs
System: Warhammer and KoW
Status: 85% unpainted, about 100-150 models in total.
Comments: At least they're assembled. Should be 2500-3000 points easily when done. No progress in 2011 ... bought 20 dwarf berserkers and a steel behemoth.

High Elves
System: Warhammer and KoW
Status: Almost all painted (if you don't count the 60 miniatures still shrink wrapped)
Comments: Refurbished, magnetised and slightly expanded in 2011, if only I hadn't bought that load of stuff in the sale this would be all good news.

Blood Angels
System: Warhammer 40K
Status: Mostly finished.
Comments: Over 2500 points + options available for use. Not a bean painted this year and to add insult to injury I bought some more assault marines, gah!

Space Hulk
System: Space Hulk
Status: About 2/3 finished. All of the Genestealers are completed, just the marines to go.
Comments: No progress in 2011.

SWAT teams and Criminals
System: Officer Down, about 40 models in total.
Status: 80% painted
Comments: The problem with this project is that it needs more scenery. No progress in 2011.

10/15mm Scale Projects

Aliens and Marines
System: Xenomorph
Status: In the post
Comment: A late 2007 purchase. About 40-60 models in total. No progress in 2010.

High Elves
System: HOTT
Status: Unpainted (48 points + options). No progress in 2011.

Undead
System: HOTT
Status: Unpainted. No progress in 2011.

Dark Elves
System: HOTT
Status: Unpainted (48 points + options). Bought January 2010 expanded December 2010 none of it painted.

Mongols
System: DBA
Status: Unpainted. No progress in 2011.

Later Muslim Indian
System: DBA
Status: Unpainted. No progress in 2011.

Later Achmeneid Persian
System: DBA
Status: 30% Painted. No progress in 2011.

And the new year is off to a flying start!

5 miniatures painted and none bought so far. 4 more Hasslefree children bought in December and a GW LOTR Golum which I bough a long time ago.



Well okay all of those were started last year and would probably have made it on to the 2011 painted pile if I hadn't taken a detour and magnetised the elves.

A practical guide to defying gravity.

That final batch of painted miniatures for 2011 would have been a little larger but I decided it was time to get round to a task I had been putting off for a while - magnetising the bases for my Mantic elf army.

The method I chose, using magnetic tape and steel paper works well for Mantic miniatures as the Mantic bases are solid and have flat bottoms.

To save on materials and therefore money I chose not to cover the whole of the bases and for this reason I chose to put the steel paper on the bottom of the bases rather than the magnetic tape which is the more usual way round. The steel paper is so thin that it doesn't affect the stability of the model when you only cover part of the base.

Anyway, enough prattling.

What you'll need is some steel paper and some 15mm magnetic tape (both bought from Magnetic Displays). The steel paper is self adhesive (as is the tape) and behaves just like thin card so can be cut with normal scissors and you don't get any nasty sharp edges.



Cut the steel paper into 15mm squares and stick to the bottom of the Mantic bases.



Cut 15mm sections from the roll of tape and place one square on the tray for each miniature.



For plastic miniatures the grip is strong enough to allow you to turn your miniatures upside-down. This doesn't work quite as well for heavier metal miniatures (but then I'm only using part of the surface area of the base) although its still adequate for the kind of handling the unit is likely to get on the tabletop and the degree of tilt you are likely to experience when fighting up or down hills.



For my cavalry I've used wider tape (20mm) which seems to work well. Hopefully I won't lose by a time out next time I use this army in a tournament.

Cue female singer of above average body weight.

And that was 2011. Time for one last picture of some painted miniatures and it's all over bar the shouting.



Here we have the last three miniatures of 2011 - an ancient GW plastic chaos warrior, and a couple of Hasslefree minis. The first HF mini is painted to look like my eldest daughter and I have used her school uniform as the colour scheme. The second is "Amy", daughter number two's wizard character for when we play RPGs.

Sadly 2011 was another pledge fail for me - despite painting vast numbers of goblins I still managed to buy more miniatures than I painted - that sale on Mantic elves in January cost me dearly ... and the assault marines, dwarf berserkers etc etc.

Still ... looking on the bright side I have plenty to paint in 2012.