Posted on by maenoferren22 · 13 Comments

The Best Laid Plans…Do You Want To Know More?

Some famous Scottish blokey wrote thus…

The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft a-gley,

So if you remember yesterday’s post, where I waxed lyrical about how I was going to (and I quote)…

“My plan therefore is to try and keep to one thing at a time. As I am not doing a One Ring for a while my Patreon models will keep as will my Neolithic hunter models (that haven’t been printed yet). So here goes. I will endeavour to get all of my samurai 6mm terrain painted and sorted ready for some games. I have a 6mm army so then I can use them in that.

After that get The Khmer army painted and based so that the Samurai have someone historical to fight. After this get the 15mm Samurai miniatures and terrain finished, then move back to get the 6mm Baccus army painted. This way I am not getting bogged down on one project, but I need stuff done. A few people have been doing a tray at a time. I really think that I am going to need to do that to keep me focused. Wish me luck!”

So how am I doing so far? Well have a guess!

Knackers here totally forgot that he was supplying the Arachnids for the Starship Troopers game tomorrow. So instead of painting fences or teeny tiny Samurai, I have been building giant bugs, what makes it worse is that I am building the things that will cause my character’s demise. How crap is that!

So far I have five warriors here, plus two more in the shed, these are the first two hopper bugs out of the six I have. I also have a Tanker and a Plasma bug and half a dose Firefries. We are going to die! For tomorrow these are going to have to be bare plastic, I will try and get them painted over the weekend. I still have another ten warriors to make in this box, I honestly doubt I will need the two boxes still in plastic.

Funnily enough I nearly sold these off a few months ago as I never thought that I would ever get around to using them.. silly me!

Today however I was shared some images of some Lego Bugs, , Troopers and a troop dropship… might just have a peek at them…no painting required! 😉

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 4 Comments

Managed a smidge of Painting Tonight

Woah, three days of painting in a row, looks like I might be getting going again.

Okay to be honest I tried out some more Contrast paint on the Proxy MI.

And to be even more brutally honest… I painted their boots and faces with contrast paint… not exactly the height of achievement, but at least it is something 😱. I do quite like the blue-grey on the body armour. The green on the radio op and engineer works quite well too. The flesh wash is ok, but I went over my flesh wash so that might have made a difference.

What I really want is a black (but they didn’t have any) – I have 25 odd arachnid warriors to paint up and I reckon that the Contrast paint would speed them up a fair bit.

I will see what I can get done tomorrow. I would like the elves finished. I think this is the last of them, but knowing my luck there will be another 60 hidden somewhere.

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 2 Comments

Firefries Finished

‘Twas a long day today, but I did manage to get some painting done.

I redid the feet, tail spike and mandibles in white then added a flesh wash to the feet and tail and red to the mandibles… I am calling these done.

Yes I could spend a few more hours highlighting etc, but to be honest these will do. Once they are varnished they will do the job on the table.

As a total aside, my Facebook feed popped up with a post from ages ago, this is the forerunner of the Algy Lacy comics using our Pulp RPG and Lego miniatures.

Tomorrow I will make a start on more Proxy mobile Infantry…I think!

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 5 Comments

Firefries Making a Start

Well I decided to make a start on the Firefries.

This is them after their initial green wash, I wasn’t sure before I started, but to be honest, I like the way they are looking. Various spot colours to add, but to keep them muted I might actually redcoat parts in white and then use the washes to add the extra colours.

These were undercoated white and painted with Army Painter green wash.

When I have painted with washes in the past I have used a darker colour for an undercoat and then give them a light coloured dry brush, then paint with the washes.

This time I wanted a quick effect hence the wash straight over the white.

I will try and crack on with these tomorrow night.

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 6 Comments

Fleet Rescue – Almost Done

Tonight I decided to paint… to be honest I reverted to my childhood and used my fingers… or finger to be more exact.

I have the security and marine contingent completed now (apart from the bases). These will go with the two pilots to give me a full crew.

I was reading my set of four graphic novels/comics and noted that the unarmoured minis above could also act as police officers.

I dirtied up the ship a bit as the only place it could ever possibly be clean is in space…. but once it hits dirt then it will get grimy fast. I started with a brush and it looked like I had painted it on with a brush so out came the finger 🖕(I used that one as I could hold a paintbrush too).

To be honest I don’t know whether I overdid it or didn’t do enough… but you know what, its where it is and I am not going to repaint it as it has taken me long enough to get the brushes out. It still needs a mat varnish cover to hide the shine in the transfers – speaking if transfers I have a packet full of the things from when GW sold them for their 5th edition Brettonians… I could only find one and it was blue and yellow. I actually wanted black and white 😱.

On the painting front, I followed the advice of Tangibleday and got a nice painting light.

It is an Ottlite. It has a white light and us handy for taking with me wherever I am painting. Not the cheapest thing in the world. But works well and is small enough to carry about.

Next up will be the Firefries, I think, as I want something a bit quick to get me motivated again. Just under two weeks left of this job, but I have an interview for another school on 3rd July.

Finally… we got a second hand fridge on Friday as the one we had was too small for 5 of us. So we got it home to find the dimensions weren’t exact… to cut a long story short, after removing all of the cladding in the passageway and chipping stones from the wall it still didn’t fit! Luckily we managed to get it into the porch. The joys of living in a 200 year old Croft house!

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 4 Comments

Fleet Rescue… Some Progress

Hello lovely people, long time no see… the job front hasn’t settled down any put in a couple of 11 hour days lately, but tonight I rebelled and left at 17.00. We’ll okay to be honest the only person keeping me there is myself. I am doing things in work rather than bringing things home. My main bugbear is finding supply cover, they are elusive beasts the supply teacher, especially in a secondary department on a small island… (which I found out today has 11000 occupied dwellings) 7 Secondary schools chasing one maths teacher. I have been coming home and basically flopping for the evening, but tonight I decided I would get some painting done.

I started on the rescue vessel, got some paint onto that.

I would like some transfers, so might have to have a shot at the transfer paper and see what I can come up with. I decided to make it bright as it is a rescue boat, one day I might actually get round to finishing the designs for the combat ship.

One another front, my 3D printer hasn’t been on since I started this job. I have got so much to print (the last things were the worm/leech things)

I also got some more bits done on the troopers….

Finally In my slob state in the evenings I have been playing Ark on the console and it suddenly dawned on me I had a nice reference for skin tone….

I can never work out where to place the highlights, but I think the above might help…. not that I will be painting any topless blokes anytime soon.

I am going to try to get back into painting at least 30 minutes a day and getting something on my blog more regularly too.

The bugs I built are now sprayed white as I want them to be bright… question is do I do down the speed paint by using a wash (or layers of washes) or do I go for a proper paint job, or yet again try some of that new GW paint… only time will tell.

Till next time (which hopefully won’t be too long).

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 4 Comments

A Pale White Shade

Further work on the pilots, shading done with the blue wash. I also managed to get some paint onto the belt accoutrements.

I am just about managing to do half an hour a night, if I had longer I would be a bit further on (talk about stating the bleeding obvious). I will try and get the belts finished tomorrow then move onto the troopers.

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 5 Comments

A Paler Shade of White

More work on the pilots this evening…

Only did about 30 minutes this evening as I had been off tromping round a field for a couple of hours putting up electric fencing. The horses are off to their summer paddock on Sunday so we were getting it ready to go.

These will get a bit more done tomorrow. I forgot to bring in the blue wash to add shadow to the grey areas around the head.

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 2 Comments

Whiter Shade of Pale

Well I have just spent a very long time painting two spacesuits white… if I ever need to paint a spacesuit again in the future it is going to be anything but white!

Still a very long way to go but some progress has been made. The faces have been repainted so often that I think the detail is going! Next time I will paint the. White then put a flesh wash over the top and see how it looks 🤔.

I decided that a blonde female would be a bit of a cliche so went for dark haired instead.

The neck collars are going to be the same colour as the knee and elbow patches and the belt apparatus…I haven’t a clue yet 😱.

Hopefully I will get a bit more time tomorrow evening, first up will be highlighting of the boots and gloves as it will be something that I am bound to forget.

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 2 Comments

Bug in the Wild

I thought I would photograph him out in nature…

I photographed the troopers too,

I also had a bash at painting the two pilots, bit of a disaster, both faces have been painted so many times. They just looked wrong at every attempt

I reckon they are going to go a bit shiny like the Reaper Bones do. The plastic is more rigid than the bones, but they still have some give in them. I forgot to spray the one with the red base and brushed undercoat on. In hindsight it was possibly a mistake.

We shall see what tomorrow brings.