Junk Finished!

Well, I can say now that it is pretty much finished!  I actually finished adding the sails about a week ago, but it took me a while to post the final product.  Without further ado, my Nipponese War Junk:

All in all I am pleased with the result. The sails, being separate sections, were a pain to assemble, and I had to glue them as well as tie the string.  In order to keep the sail stable, the string had to pass around the front of the sail.  I might change that later, but for now I am glad I can call it 'complete'.  The only other thing I might add is some detailing in the stern area where the black and red paint meet.  Maybe some yellow strapping to break things up a bit. 

Hope you like it!  Now I just need to paint up my crew!

WK minis - new batch arrives!

Yesterday was a great day.  I came home from work to find two neat packages waiting for me.  What was inside?  Well nothing other than the load of White Knight landsknecht dwarfs and goblins that I have been waiting to order for several months!  As usual, the sculpting and castings are great - mold lines are fairly small, and the detail is crisp.  I haven't had a chance to pore over everything, but there was one little guy that caught my eye.

I had to paint him up, so I assembled and primed him yesterday, and spent a little while tonight and got him painted up!  I am still trying to figure out the best way to photograph minis in my new workspace, so the photos are not as good as I would like - but at least you can see the little guy!  Without further ado, I present to you the first miniature that I have painted in about two months - Gob do Leon, the goblin special character from White Knight!

He was a blast to paint up - nice and simple, yet full of character.  He is mounted on a Scibor resin base.  He will go along nicely with the other goblins I have painted up.  Here are some pictures I took several months ago, after I had painted them:

I just realized I will have to change his base colour to brown from black... no big deal there... right?

Junk Update - with paint!

Been a little while, but I have not been idle.  About a week ago, I put a nice basecoat of paint on the junk:

Nothing too fancy, the paint scheme was loosely based on the Ralgard fleet in Uncharted Seas.  The colours are just the simple craft paints you get at any craft store - and they look a bit too bright at this point.  Solution?  How about some wood stain:

I think that's a tremendous improvement.  I used the minwax polyshade 'Antique Walnut' - now all I really need to do is go over it again with some highlights.  That and paint up the sails, but one thing at a time, eh?

Nipponese Junk update!

Got some more work done on the ship - most/all of the detailing is done now. I still have to refine some of the gap filling. I added some pieces to the gunwales and the stern, finished the railings on the main deck, and added a figurehead to the bow.

You cannot see it in the pictures, but I also cut out some plasticard to make a level deck inside the cabin. I have not done anything with the sails, as they are individual pieces of balsa and I will work with them once the main boat is ready to paint. I am considering trying a wood stain for the part I want to remain 'wood' but am unsure if it will work well since some of the dental stone pieces are supposed to be wood. They will not stain well, they will just soak it up and be a nice uniform brown. Perhaps I could seal the stone pieces with some diluted PVA glue.  Sounds like a good enough experiment to me.


Onto the pictures!

 Lastly, here is a picture with some of the crew, out for a pleasure cruise and some fireworks (yes, that is an old citadel Nippon Rocket Launcher!

Lead Adventure Miniatures

So, I was browsing the lead adventure forum: link and came across an update to their Bruegelburg range.  In case you have not heard, LAF has been producing some of the most detailed fantasy miniatures I have come across in a while.  The sculpting is crisp and clean, and the models are fantastically over-the-top, but in a good, original kinda way.  So, they have finished the sculpting of a unit of crossbowmen, based on the legend of William Tell.  These are an addition to their fantastic Bruegelburg range.  I haven't gotten any yet, but with these crossbowmen coming out this summer, you can bet I will be ordering a few packs!  They will be tough to paint well as the detail is amazing, but I would hope I can handle the challenge - just might have to work at a glacial pace!

Without further ado, here are some pics of the finished sculpts, which apparently are off to the caster:

Seriously... some of the best fantasy landsknechts ever!  I will definitely put these on my wishlist, along with the rest of their Bruegelburg range...

Oh yes, they are also making a cannon, in the same typical awesomeness:

Not much else I can say... more pictures can be seen in their progress threads here and here.

First Post!

After posting my efforts on several forums across the interwebs, I decided to bring most of my madness to one site.  So, hopefully I will have the time to keep things busy around here.  Feel free to comment on any of my work!

I will start things off with my current project: a Nipponese Junk for my current warhammer campaign.  Right now I am playing in an online WFB campaign set in the Karibbean: link

My character is a Nipponese samurai/ronin, and he needed a boat.  I found myself a nice little junk on ebay for pretty cheap:

I got it, and assembled it a couple weeks ago:

Width was somewhat disappointing, only about 55mm so I can only fit 2 20mm bases side by side, but for the price it works well.

Then, this past week I got back into casting my hirst arts molds (I now have a dedicated workshop!) and while casting the blocks for a castle/fort, I made use of some extra to cast some more details for the ship, in addition to modifying a few other parts:

Its not done yet, but so far I like the progression.  The clay tile roof is one of my favorite hirst arts molds.  That and the cavern accessory mold!  Pure awesomeness right there!  I will have to post more of my hirst arts adventures in the future.