Well I made it to 22:30 before needing to retire. I have been hot and cold all day and my back was a nightmare most of the day too.
I managed to have a couple of meetings today as well as answer some emails. So as a reward I sliced some Sohei for Ronin. I was going to do a samurai force but unfortunately the miniatures were sorted into groups of four or eight miniatures.
The ones I did do will be ready by tomorrow morning.
So in my pain filled time in bed, in between sleeping and yelping (sadly my back is still buggered) I had a mooch on my minifactory and ended up joining Highland Miniatures on their Patreon …they can be found here
I have been considering them for a good while and eventually bit the bullet.
The following image popped up in my Google image reminders, I made this kit to help out a school who wanted to visit the castle and have a Knight in it. I didn’t have the heart to tell them the castle was from the 16th century
Just call me Typhoid Mary!
Started to feel cold and shivery, started feeling a bit sick and have lost my appetite… so just to be on the safe side I took a Covid test….
The T line appeared almost instantaneously…. Definitely no faint lines for me!
I suppose on the upside I can have a lie in on Monday. On the downside all this uncontrollable shivering is not good for my bad back!
Okay, totally out of context but Joe came over this evening for a yarn about what we fancy playing in the future.
We also had a quick gladiatorial game too.
It started of easy enough, my Retiarius against his Murmillo.
He won initiative and hit my boy for three wounds, unperturbed I struck back and totally missed.
A couple of turns later I managed to get him in my net, I had already dropped it once!
I totally failed to hit him, even when he was wrapped up…
I managed to get some solid hits onto him but not enough to delay the inevitable…
It was nice to dust off the arena again… obviously I now want more Gladiators!
Okay not exactly, but I followed Eric’s advice and put a brown wash over the red. This desaturated the colour a bit…
Brown wash on the left, original on the right. I definitely am a lot happier
Tonight I got the vampire finished. To be honest I am not too happy with him…
I think it is the colours I chose as I really like the pose. I am torn to be honest. Part of me thinks repaint and another part thinks sod it… he is painted. There is of course another option and that is to print another one, look at some reference photos and start again.
We never got our game on Monday as my lot weren’t feeling well so we are going to have a try of something on Friday as well as plot some games. I decided to purchase some paper armies to try out Strength and Honour. I will still use the 2mm minis but might base them differently. Each ‘base’ is a legion two are on temperate ground and two are on arid.
This evening I managed one miniature done. This was deliberate rather than an inability to get two done.
Here he is…
A bit of a scary chap I think you will agree. Now I normally say something like it takes me about half an hour or so. Tonight I decided to actually time myself….so this chap took me…
Yes from start to finish he took me 29 minutes to do. I wasn’t rushing, just painting in my normal way.
On this one I went in the followingorder… boots, green smock, trousers, brown jacket. This was to allow some drying time for each of the different parts. The mask was a mix of zombie green and orange with various splodges of orange over the top while still wet. I also added leather brown into the eye sockets then used my thumb to remove paint from the eyes. These were then dotted with red.
Once again superglue on the base and showed in the base ready. A quick zip around the edges with my super wide black sharpie and voilà one scary scarecrow. Start to finish thirty minutes.
In case anyone is wondering..this is Worzel Gummidge…
https://images.app.goo.gl/RCqZ8dmvovUxF8FEA
Worzel was played by John Pertwee, who also played Doctor Who… I know which I prefer and it isn’t a wierd scarecrow from Ten Acre field!
Oh while I remember, the four beasties are by Tytantroll miniatures.
One day I will work out how to tag people on my blog as they really are lovely miniatures…I really fancy having a go at some of the miniature busts..there are some really great ones, the only reason I haven’t got one yet is because I can’t decide on one.
Finally, I said I had only painted one mini this evening, part way through writing this I decided to make a start on the vampire.
Tonight I got another pair done…
So here we have the scary boat and the witch with her basket of apples. To be honest if I were that boat I would avoid that red and green apple like the plague.
Again these were done in contrast. I did mix the flesh tone on the witch by adding a putrid green to the flesh colour. They won’t win any prizes but hey, they were both done in about an hour so that will do me. As the motto says you can have quick or good. I go for quick and okay every time.
Sadly there was no game tonight as all three of my kids were feeling crap today.
Finally … Exciting news… I am escaping my rock and going to my first wargames convention in about 12 years. I have booked the ferry for me and my son to go to SELWG on 6th August.
We were a bit naughty and got a cabin going down so it came in at £190… you can see why conventions don’t occur that often. Oh the above price was with my islander discount. The cabin is the killer at £121.
There were none on the way back but we can sleep when we get home. I now have to find some form of accommodation for two nights. Wish me luck!
Sometimes living in a cave can be dangerous… especially when this pair is in there too 🫣🫣🫣
I just went for high speed slapping paint on and attempting a sort of blend before the lighter colours dried. I think I achieved what I was aiming for. I couldn’t be bothered to get up and get my fast drying basing glue so I liberally coated the base in runny superglue and then shoved the mini in the base ready tub. I think this is why the bear has lost his toes. I also liberally spread superglue on my desk as I forgot the base had a hole in it!
Today I tried the FDM printer again… I haven’t used it for well over a year, but I checked over oiled bits and ran a quick test print… aka what was on the card.
Based on the model I still have to lower the build plate a smudge as the raft looks really thin. Furthermore the filament has sat there on the spool all year so has probably adsorbed some moisture and finally the model is a 28mm one shrunk right down to small scale… actually it is a bloody miracle I have anything to show for the 2 hours and 14 minutes it took.
Hopefully Joe will be round for a game tomorrow evening so I doubt I will get any printing or painting done.
This evening I cracked on and got the final pair done. I even tried doing eyes on this pair…
I also spent some of today sorting out my 3D printer files. Basically I downloaded a pile and got them onto my hard drive… I did a bit of printing too. I increased the size of the Vampire and Scarecrow, printed a giant centipede as well as did a test print of some more 15mm Samurai. I
kind of got these to allow me to do Ronin in 15mm. I will be able to do various Forces to go with my 15mm terrain.
Tomorrow I will get a start on the Silver Bayonet miniatures. The centipede is going to spend a few hours in the sun to make sure he is fully cured.
