Well this is taking a while to dry, the ground cover stuff is still cold to the touch so is still not dry (the joys of not living in a centrally heated house). Anyway I shoved some beasties on to see what it looked like and to be honest I am rather pleased with how it is beginning to come together.
I reckon it will look better when I have some colours on both the ground and the animals 🥴.
I did splash some paint around this evening, I got some more on some wolves and started making the cattle less white…
Tonight was another one where I had to force myself to paint anything. I had based up the goats earlier in the day, but really, really had to push myself to pick up the brush, needless to say I didn’t really get that much done overall.
For the first time ever I actually had to stir up a Contrast paint. The Apothecary White was a lump on the bottom of the pot, it took forever to unlump it (or should that be delump). Anyway you can tell the before and after effect in the photo above. The lady in the blue is the before and the lady in green the after.
So the bases on the goats were done today. I kind of think the bright green grass looks a bit out of place, but otherwise I am happy with them.
The strong wind totally knackered the old caravan, popped one of the windows and shoved in the side, ear the door. We have been meaning to take the thing down for about a year and a half so I think next weekend it really must come down (if it doesn’t come down itself that is).
So back to work tomorrow, I am going to have to remember to phone to get a hire car for Tuesday, otherwise my wife won’t be going into work for her meeting. One of ours is getting some work done for its MOT, so we are down to one car. It wouldn’t be so bad, but the nearest bus stop is 2 miles in either direction and we work in opposite directions too.
Today I got my two new rhino off the build plate, I went for a turning one and as I said a a calf that is either dead or sleeping… I also located my MDF board and set up and idea of where the miniatures could go (one day I might actually make something).
I also printed off some Gatling gun thingies for one of the lads at the club, unfortunately the barrel of one went weird and I lost one too…
He just reminded me he only needed the barrels and not the magazines… whoops.
And finally, I slapped some paint on the goats…
Not a lot, but I think that is the first painting this week…
Tonight I was a bit pooped so I cleaned up the rhino and calf I printed this morning and then set to work printing off the dead calf and adult that is turning to the right.
Ooh look another wolf!
Having an early night tonight, so will get the print off tomorrow morning, but I will leave you with a conundrum that I received in an email today, it was to do with staff training…
If any staff have expired due to Covid, please reassure them that they can continue in 2021. Now I could be wrong, but I think that I would have to shout really loudly to reassure anyone who had expired.
Tonight I remembered to take the wolves off the print plate. They were finished at 23.00 last night and only came of at 19.00 this evening. They don’t seem to have come to any harm though.
So I ended up with five wolves and they are in three different poses…
So this was going to be my rough plan, then Eloth suggested that I used the one turning and this came about…
I think I like the composition of the two adults trying to protect the youngster, however there is a dead, sleeping calf in the set, I might see about getting that printed.
The next thing I will need to do is get some kind of base board sorted to see how big it will need to be to fit things on.
Tonight I started printing a pack of wolves for the diorama idea. I will print off the rhino tomorrow, but basically it is going to have about four or five wolves and a pair of rhino, with one being a calf.
I kind of mocked it up a bit using some bits and pieces I had lying around…
Voila…. finished
It is not going to be a snowy scene, but further into the summer as the calf has been born. I will have them near a water hole and Mum is trying to protect the calf from the wolves….
High quality artistry here!
I have a couple of options for the adult rhino. One is the above one, other option is the first one I ever printed with the head turning, there is also a ‘leaping’ one which I don’t think would work. I want more of a stand off than a charge.
I have mirrored and fiddled with the size of the wolf that looks like it is slinking, this will allow them to circle the pair in the middle.
I will see how I get on with this idea as I have bucket loads to paint and make, but I do like building terrain so it might just be fun.
I managed to finish the rhino tonight and had a fiddle with a Wolf’s colouring…
Tonight I wanted something easy so went for the hairy beasts…
Not really much I can say about them except they are rather large and not too bad to paint. Still some work to do on them, but they are getting there. So I survived my first day back in work. Spent this morning trying to sort out colleagues IT problems, which meant I dint get as much done as I wanted. Hopefully it will all work tomorrow…
Thankfully the couple of days of solid rain seem to have eased and I managed to get out and get things sprayed…
Now interestingly enough, when I bought the spay wheel (aka cake spinner) it was very smooth… so in a fit of curiosity I wondered how thick the layer was. It was evidently thick enough to support itself when held…
Considering this is spray paint, then it must have had a fair few layers down on it. It was actually quite satisfying scraping it off with my knife as it lifted in sheets.
Anyway enough whittering on about my paint fetish…
I have new toys!!!
So I got this very nice parcel from Museum Miniatures this morning and, shock horror, I didn’t actually open it until this evening… how about that for self control!
I have got quite a lot to paint… first up the hoplites…
Spartans are without the crest, I have twice this amount, interspersed amongst the troops are some of the officers.
Next up the skirmishers…
I have some light/medium cavalry (and a free Companion cavalryman)
And finally a pile of stuff I really didn’t need, but looked cool 🙄
I never actually got anything undercoated today as the rain was apocalyptic out there and not good for me or models to be out in it. So this evening I actually resorted to undercoating things with a brush (shock horror). I actually cannot remember when I last actually decided to actually undercoat this way (except in an emergency… which I suppose this was, in a way). For this undercoat I went for a sand colour with a dry brush of white over the top, I decided to do it this way to see what effect it would have on the Contrast paint.
To be honest I was a little hard with the dry brushing on the lady with the basket and snapped her off at the ankles! I will see how things get on tomorrow.
I also got a bit of paint on these two…
This is the same figure, one mounted and one on foot. I have gone for a dark blue cloak, which I intend to cover in dark tone wash tomorrow to darken it down a bit. I went this way so that the horse would be a different shade to the rider.
No printing at all today as I reckon I have got enough to keep me going for a while. I have based up the wolf from yesterday as I intend to print some more for my diorama idea. There won’t be any snow (or at least not large amounts of it. My mother n law gave me some MDF sheets yesterday so they will be ideal (I think), if not I will improvise a base.
Tonight I started watching Louis Theroux on Netflix. I forgot how much I like him… right I am off to drive Tanks on War Thunder, I just wish I knew how the bloody tech tree works!
Tonight I decided to carry on with the wraiths. They won’t win any prizes, but they look ok.
I think that the greys and blacks work. I decided on an antique bronze type colour for the helmets and more exotic weapons as I felt it was better than a shiny steel look. I will photograph these tomorrow in the daylight so that they will show up all the errors, I mean so that you can see what colours I used. I will get the base edges done tomorrow.
I also got the mammoth off the plate this morning and managed to squeeze in some cows and a couple of woolly rhino to join the herd.
Yes both of these are printed in the same colour! I am not sure what happened to the white balance in the right hand photo, never mind you can see what they are at least 😂.
I learned an important printing lesson earlier…. remember to change the wash and cure station to cure when you stick you recently printed things on it. Wash tends to rotate them at about 1000 rpm and they really don’t stay in situ.
Regarding the Neolithic stuff, I have a couple more animals to print off, but that is really it for them, just to get them painted up.
I am a bit on the buggered side this evening. As I mentioned earlier on this week, the horse came in and as a money saving thing we order the shaving in bulk. We unloaded and put about 200 of the bales into the stables today. I was stacker so it meant, in some cases, arranging them above head height. We then went and got 10 bags of coal and carried them to the trailer. I then needed to change some light fittings for my in-laws. I hate working with my hands above head height. To make matters worse the lights were ornate and heavy… all in all I am just having a whinge 🥴
Tomorrow I shall hopefully get my printed stuff sprayed and will start painting too. The way the wolf and rhino were placed in the photo above makes me think about doing a diorama using them as a ‘natural’ scene…
Bogenwald 