Posted on by maenoferren22 · 5 Comments

Dark Future… Mechanical November ‘18

Azazel does a great community challenge each month. The idea is to get people painting. November’s challenge was something mechanical. Not something I would normally bother with, but in all honesty,  as it was a challenge I decided to give it a go. I had a mooch about for anything mechanical. The options I found were:

6mm road wars vehicles

10mm Gatling gun and crew

15mm Flames of War Vehicles and tanks

20mm Dark Future Vehicles

I decided on the latter:

img_5709

They went from the bare plastic to something I am rather pleased with.

Rather than going for all four vehicles I decided to just do two cars and two bikes as well as drivers and a couple of operatives in their body armour to act as the dismounted drivers.

There were some issues with the builds and painting for that matter one regarding painting… I am rubbish at edge highlighting and then my original green on the renegade was too close to the khaki of the main body, it really got lost. this was solved by simply painting over it in a dark green.

For the look of the thing, all of the dashboards and engines were painted too. I don’t normally undercoat black, but it was what I had a rattle can of so I went with it.

img_5757

The build issues weren’t hard to overcome, it just meant a bit of thought had to go into things.

Firstly each car has 5 pre-drilled holes (actually 7 for the Interceptor) some of these should have been filled prior to painting, but I forgot.

I added various bits and bobs from either greenstuff or some extras from a world war 2 tank sprue in my bits box.

The drivers proved to be problematic in that they just fitted into the Marauder and just didn’t fit into the Interceptor, I didn’t actually realise this until I came to glue the body to the chassis. Much swearing ensued… at least I know for next time… no doubt I will forget and do exactly the same as this time!

There were a whole host of weapon sprues available but I kept it to two forward facing guns for the Marauder and then three for the Interceptor (one in a turret).

I was lucky to be given some spare waterslide transfers for the interceptor, one had hornet on it which is appropriate as I had decided to paint Yellow and Black onto the rear of the car. The Marauder transfer came from an ancient GW Brettonian sheet of shield designs.

So how do I feel it went…

I am pleased to get them to where they are, I probably (or definitely) spent more time on these than I would normally. I would like to think it was because I was wanting to try and improve and not because it was a ‘challenge’… I know I thinned the paint a lot more and put lots of layers on (something I wouldn’t normally do with vehicles). Adding all the extras is something new too. I deliberately went out and bought extra bits and bobs, jerry cans and oil drums etc, not to mention drivers and people on foot. Maybe I was enthused by how well I thought they were looking!

When I will get to paint the other two cars and bikes is anyone’s guess, but my mate and I both have the ‘Atomic Highway’ Roleplay game so maybe they will get painted up for that. Either that or get booted onto eBay to help fund the 3D printer pot.

My December’s challenge is going to be a pile of 28mm Heroes from my Flintloque stash.

I  started on the Ghoul officer, but have nearly finished him before December…

img_5904

Luckily I have plenty more to keep me going…. one day I might get to finish my Mongols.

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 2 Comments

No Painting tonight…

Gale force 10 winds, torrential rain…. is causing the lights to act like a disco.

The kids are traumatised as their Minecraft world, they have spent weeks on has become corrupted as the PS4 flickered on and off.

I thought I would show some images of the ghoul forces… these were painted up for my friend for his birthday.

The squad in all of their glory, the faces aren’t visible on the colpack.

A close up of the colours…

The officer is wearing his elfskin coat otherwise his uniform would be green and red too.

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 1 Comment

Oil Drums, Ghouls and Frogs

All in a night’s hobby time of an evening

First up the oil drums. These came from Elheim.

I was going for a rusted look, I think I managed it. These were undercoated gun metal then dragon red from Army Painter was added with a sponge. This was stippled over with Model Colour red leather. To be honest I am really pleased with how they came out especially as it is the first time I have done anything with a sponge.

Next up is my Ghoul Officer, his greatcoat is made from the flayed skins of the poor unfortunate’s that came across the path of his unit..The Kryptovski Death Guard, mortal troops in the service of the Dark Tzar.

Just visible beneath his coat is the dark green tunic with red collar. The black colpack and red plume will give him a bit of extra height. I haven’t decided on the colour of the fur, probably black or dark grey. I have a unit of ten of his minions to bring further terror to the nations of Urop.

And Finally frogs… the kids and I had a couple of games of Croa. A frog hopping game where there can only be one froggy queen in the pond. Ooooh it got brutal!

Frogs killing frogs, frogs being eaten by pike… good fun had all around.

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 3 Comments

Graveyard Gamble

I am pretty new to this Kickstarter Malarkey,

so I was very pleased to see a parcel waiting for me on the kitchen table when I got in tonight.

What seems like an age ago I backed a Kickstarter by Hammerlot Games. They were producing some resin gravestones, and as I have a rather large undead force for the Witchlands I reckoned I would give it a shot.

This was my pledge… I reckoned 40 plus gravestones would be enough.

To be honest 10 would have been enough, but they were so lovely!

Hammerlot were wanting 1000 Euro’s they managed a whopping 14,000 plus, which is very impressive. As you can see from the above the delivery date was July, and I got them in November… am I bothered, not at all. The company were up front at all times and kept everyone up to date by regular updates and to be honest I think a little team of 4 people would be hard pressed to deal with such an increase in demand, they also moved production to a new location (see I said they kept us up to date).

I am really impressed with the quality.

These are the two sets of twenty gravestones…

Following are the stretch goals…

They really are awesome. A close up of the gravestones…

They are all different, no two are the same.

A close up of some of the others…

I really do like how the handles of the tools are made out of bone.

So was my Kickstarter gamble worth it, most definitely. I am looking forward to getting them painted and onto the table…

They will work well with my Witchland’s forces

A ghoul officer orders an undead engineer squad to lift up a tomb lid…I grabbed the unpainted lot as I couldn’t be bothered to dig out the painted mob…

This gives some idea of the painted types…

https://bogenwaldblog.wordpress.com/2018/02/12/undead-forces/

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 4 Comments

Further 5 Minute Makes

I managed another 5 minutes tonight.

A few more moulds

The Greenstuff oil cans worked reasonably well.

I was going to add them onto a base this evening, but to be honest I really couldn’t be arsed…I will hopefully get something done sometime soon.

Oh and while I remember, it isn’t always sunny on Shetland 😉

Tonight’s five minutes were brought to you by…

The more astute of you will realise that 5 minutes would just about get to the opening credits.

I painted two oil drums too….

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 3 Comments

Dark Future.. 5 minute makes

I had about 5 minutes to do something tonight as we went to the delayed Firework show and then played One Night Werewolf for about an hour (used different characters this time). I went for more Greenstuff in reusable moulds.

These oil drums are going to be for some scatter terrain, so trying just part ones.

As I enjoyed the fireworks, I thought I would share…. after 3…… oooooooh

Ahhhhhhhhhh

To be fair my wife took these shots using her phone…

The fire went pretty much horizontal…

Having an early night tonight as most of this morning was heaving a cast iron stove around for my mother in law, a great lady, but a cast iron fire, is a cast iron fire. .. oh and don’t you just love it when they don’t bother putting construction diagrams into the box….

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 2 Comments

A Break from Painting…Werewolf Hunting

Too much on tonight so no painting.

However we did get to play ‘One Night Ultimate Werewolf’

This was a great little game, Lasting about 5 minutes per session. We played it five times in a row…. however everyone kept shooting me… to be fair I was the werewolf twice in a row.

Each person is a character in a small village, the villagers win if they kill a werewolf and the werewolves win if they survive.

The cards are lovely…really thick and very colourful.

The picture above is from the App supporting the game. This isn’t necessary and we played our sessions without it.

The rules are really easy to understand. Basically night falls and everyone shuts their eyes as they go to sleep. The first to wake up are the werewolves. They check who the other werewolf is, if any…they then shut their eyes and the seer wakes up, they can check one person’s card to see who they are. The problem is that the robber wakes up next and swaps cards with someone else. They then go back to sleep and the trouble maker wakes up and swaps cards. In the morning the accusations fly and the loser is the one that gets the most votes (and the silver bullet). Because of the Shenanigans of the card swapping sometimes you end up as the Villager when you started off as a werewolf.

The other cards are for more advanced games, we will come to those in future games.

I haven’t explained it that well, but it was a fun Games session nonetheless!

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 6 Comments

Dark Future, the Interiors

Made a bit of a start painting the cockpits on the cars. Brown seats for the buggy types and coloured for the Interceptors.

I also added lots of bright buttons and lights as well as trying some dashboards…

I actually only needed to paint the engines on two. They can only be seen on the buggies!

I have already started on a blue interceptor to match the seat cover 😉. Too be honest I am a bit worried as to what these will come out like. Edge highlighting has never been my forte. More like my minus forty. But it is something different. I will have a mooch online to see what inspiration I can get.

I only wish I had drivers to add into them. The original drivers had the steering wheel moulded onto them. These will look a bit weird without them.

Having had a look I can get some from Ramshackle games, problem is I only need 4 drivers, they have a good deal on their stuff but do I pay £20 for stuff I will never use?

I will have to have a think on that.

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 2 Comments

Remembrance

Well that’s it one hundred years since the end of the First World War.

This is my Grandfather Robert Surtees Knott Renwick of z Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers..gassed at 3rd Ypres and was one of the lucky ones to be invalided home. Sadly after recovery he went down the mines and the coal dust finished off the job the gas started. He died aged 58.

I was working in a school the other day and one of the teachers were a bit concerned that when she asked her class what remembrance meant four had said nothing or not much. But you know, what does it mean to a kid of 10 playing Call of Duty or other such game on a PS4. My kids know what it is about, but to be honest have no real understanding.

When I was a kid the old men in the village had been in the second and the really old men had been in the First World War. Well to a 10 year old everyone over 30 was old. These guys would occasionally tell tales of where they had been or what they had seen. Then there were others with one arm or leg. Every November 11th they would mass beside the Greenside cenotaph, but year on year there would be less of them. My dad went every year, he had been in a reserved occupation in WW2, working in the mine with my Grandad as a surface occupation rather than down on the coal face.

So I honestly believe that the vast majority of today’s kids are a long way removed from the understanding that I had. Unless they have family in the forces or are in a garrison town then it really is small wonder that they write ‘nothing’ or ‘not much’ when asked what remembrance means.

Today we took part in the pages of the sea event at St Ninian’s isle. This is a natural tombolo with the sea on both sides of the beach.

The sand was raked through a stencil.

There were a number of different ones including nurses.

They did look very effective.

The following one reminds me of shadows, I suppose the arty side of me thinks of the shadows of people long gone…

We left around two hours before the end, hundreds were done by then, and by all accounts around 800 people turned up.

Tonight I have mostly been listening to:

https://youtu.be/FsynSgeo_Uo

https://youtu.be/XDyip7SIJkQ

https://youtu.be/cnFzCmAyOp8

https://youtu.be/QmBLSGy6g58

https://youtu.be/BB2Ad04mukI

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 2 Comments

Tingaholm

Tingaholm rising out of the mist on Tingwall loch this morning.

Tingaholm was the site of Shetland’s local parliament until the late 16th century. It was once an islet accessed by a stone causeway, by 1774 the stone seats had been ripped up to provide grazing space and in the mid 19th century the water levels in the loch were lowered, and the holm has appeared the same ever since.

https://www.thingsites.com/thing-site-profiles/tingwall-shetland

Pinched from my Wife’s post on Archaeology Shetland.