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…
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.
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.
As you can see I haven’t done a huge increase.
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.
I got another officer finished this evening, this one was I a quite simple uniform with bit gauntlets and a cloak that meant there was no braid to be found anywhere…
So that is three down, two left…
We have an officer with his dolman thrown over his shoulder and a vampire officer next to him. I just liked the ‘gentleman about town’ look on this one.
I will try and get the ‘Silver bayonet ‘ beasties sprayed tomorrow and them might start with one of them tomorrow evening. I keep forgetting that I have two more days off as we had today off too…
Okay, to be frank, I cannot remember any examples in either literature or artistic renditions of elves being in the lancers, but this one evidently joined and no-one noticed his huge ears!
Tomorrow I will carry on with another officer from one of the Guard regiments.
I have three individual miniatures left to go from Alternative Armies followed by a sedan chair with armed occupant. In amongst these I will sort out the 3D printed miniatures too.
I am also considering getting some plastic pikes I can get 24 for £5.00 so it might be worth giving them a go as my concern about the metal pikes is that they will snap off the hands or arms if dropped. The plastic may have more flex.
I have also started getting a bit interested in the 2mm stuff again. I may be busy over the weekend!
Well I said I wanted to get him done and I just about managed it this evening…
I still have a bit of work to do on the wolf pelt and a bit of work on his face, but otherwise I am calling him painted. The following is the illustration of the character in the book.
I managed to shear of the sword hilt whilst cleaning up a lump of white metal beside the sword! But it doesn’t look too bad. I was going to rebuild it like I did with Giggers…
But frankly couldn’t be bothered.
Tomorrow I will get him finished and make a start on one of my other ones.
I spent a lot of today slicing and printing, but in doing so I was reminded of the conundrum… how many angels can dance on the head of a pin… my version is less complicated… now many hands can sit on the head on a penny…
As you can see from above it is quite a lot… I printed out a whole load as I wasn’t sure how many I actually needed, but here is one if them stuck onto one of the miniatures to replace his resin pike.
The Eagle came out quite nicely too… I decided on this pose as I wanted him to be attacking the Goblins I the rise…
The way I will pose him is coming in feet first, hopefully it will look okay. I also printed up another warg and rider as well as another four foot.
I am also printing up some beasties for Silver Bayonet…
Finally I got some paint added to this dwarf officer.
Well as you know, or maybe don’t, I am doing a Battle of the Five Armies diorama. It started long ago with a small number of miniatures!
It started with two…
Moved to four….
Started getting silly!
I am now printing an Eagle and have another build plate full of Goblins after printing this lot off… Well Gandalf and Bilbo were there… so we’re lots of bats… it says so in the book…
My original base size is in the top photo…to be fair it was going to only be a dwarf and an elf smacking each other.
Oh and whilst organising the above printing I decided to bite the bullet and work on the Pike hands… guess what… the original designer had open hands to take metal pikes… Huzzah!
Bogenwald 