Koth-Yan, Elephant Beastman

Here is my most recently finished miniature.  It was finished a couple weeks ago, but fall typically demands me to be out of doors much more often, and thus things like posting photos to the interwebs get delayed.

Back on topic, this is a model from the older Dragonblood line of miniatures from Shadowsea.  I picked up this gem in the previous Antimatter Kickstarter for Shadowsea 2.0.  Despite this figure being from an older range, it is still a gorgeous piece. 

The body is resin with the tusks and the flail being separate metal pieces.  Everything assembled nicely, and as with everything else made by Antimatter, the figure was a joy to paint!  I was a bit intimidated by the grey skin, but I think it turned out nicely.  I was also quite pleased with my verdigris weathering attempts on the bronze armour plates.

Being an older model, it was not designed to fit specifically on a round base like the newer figures are.  At this point I am not concerned about making it fit, as the base is pretty close to what it would be regardless.  If you were so inclined, it could pretty easily be put onto a DS round base.

Hope you like this guy, my Axibalan force is slowly coming together.  My eventual plans are a Tlactl, Ocelotl, and an Amazon leader.

Draconids Kickstarter - 48 hours left! Lots of terrain unlocked!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/524168246/rise-of-the-draconids

Just under 2 days left in the Rise of the Draconids kickstarter.  The pace has picked up a bit, and thanks to some rearranging of the stretch goals, we have passed a few today already.

Next up, and just a few hundred dollars away, is the fungal patch.  I think it will turn out spectacular with Eric's sculpting skills.  He does not have specific artwork yet, but he says it will be similar to some of the older D&D fungal forests, as in these pictures:

Should be great, lots of new unlocks to reach in the next couple of days.  Make sure to head on over to pledge for these great figures!

Shadowsea - Rise of the Draconids Kickstarter

This has been mentioned in my post a few days ago, but I thought I would highlight this specifically.

Antimatter Games is currently funding the production of some more lizardman figures for their draconid faction (along with a few other stretch goals).  The funding has unlocked the initially targeted figures, and with another 10 days to go, there is still lots of potential to unlock more!

Additionally, there will be a published painting guide by Eric Louchard, showcasing his painting technique using washes and glazes to bring out the best detail for these figures.  I have followed many of his tutorials, and am always amazed by the skill he possesses.  It should be a great resource to have in my quest to improve my painting skills.

Eric will also be sculpting the lizards, as he has sculpted most of what is currently available in the range.  He has already started on the draconid Royal Guard:

As with previous Antimatter KS projects, you can order figures from the existing range as pledge rewards, and they can typically be shipped within a few weeks.  I am looking forward to complete part of my collection of their figures - they are always a pleasure to paint!

You can check out the KS here.

Shadowsea Axibalan Coyotl Warriors

Time for some more Antimatter goodness, this time from some land-based Shadowsea figures.  These two sculpts were part of the original Cavalcade line of Dragonblood miniatures which were purchased by Antimatter last year when Cavalcade closed its doors.  Sculpted by the ever-talented Kev Adams, when I first saw these minis I knew I had to have them!  They are definitely some of my favourites from the Shadowsea line.  Just really great detail and character, and very fun to paint.  I made some heavier use of inks and washes on these, particularly with the feathers and the cloth.  The bronze and gold were painted using washes over a light primer which were then drybrushed with the appropriate metallic colour to help differentiate it.  I think ti worked out quite well.

In case you had not noticed, Antimatter is currently running a Kickstarter campaign, titled Rise of the Draconids.  If you had not figured it out, this one is primarily to fund the production of more lizard/draconid figures.  It is going quite well, with all of the Draconid starter set now funded and further figures as stretch goals.  There is a little less than two weeks to go, so feel free to stop by and pitch in!  The bespoke Coytol are available as rewards, so you can definitely pick up these beasties at a nice discount.  Check it out here.

Shadowsea Kickstarter relaunched

Recently, Antimatter Games launched a new Kickstarter campaign to fund the revamp (complete with new miniatures) of their Shadowsea skirmish game.  This is the sister game to the lovely DeepWars, set on the surface of the Underlands.  The rules will be updated to be compatible with DeepWars, and indeed both rulesets can be played simultaneously (which could make for some interesting games!)

Ever since I got into DeepWars, I have been nothing but impressed with the quality and detail of Antimatter Games' products. They turn out a great ruleset, with beautiful figures and great customer support.  The price per figure is a bit more, but you usually need less than 10 models for a well-rounded force, so it is a relatively cheap game to play.

The campaign has reached it's funding goal (horray!) but it is slowing down currently as they try to unlock stretch goals.  There is some really awesome stuff to be had, and some great deals available.  Some sculpts have been mostly finished, and pictures have been posted, which I will copy here:

To make things even better, Antimatter Games recently acquired the Dragonblood line of miniatures from Cavalcade miniatures, who are closing down.  The Dragonblood miniatures were the original miniatures sculpted for ShadowSea, so they are now available as part of this campaign.  Backers really are spoilt for choice!

Here's to hoping we can get some more backers in the last two weeks and unlock a plethora of new models from the stretch goals.  I really want those Sunless Kingdoms models :)

DeepWars Ruin Finished!

I took some time this weekend, and finally finished the paintjob on my sunken ruin for DeepWars.  I am quite pleased with the result, although I had thought of trying one last wash with a darker grey to tone the colours down a bit.  For now I will likely not, but if you think it is a bit too bright, I would appreciate any suggestions.

The painting was fairly straightforward - I started with a base of flat latex exterior house paint.  I mixed black and white to the colour I wanted.  Subsequent layers had differing amounts of cream added.  After I was satisfied with the stonework, I painted the sealife.  Many different shades of purple, pink, green, red, blue, yellow, orange, green (did I miss any, lol?) were applied to give it a sense of diversity.  Mostly it was a base of purple, and other colours drybrushed on.  Although I did apply some blue washes to the whole structure.  The sand was done as my gaming mat - a base of brown with purple, green, and blue, followed by another drybrush of brown.  Final touches were applied with bright blue-green to simulate the shining effect of the ethers in the Shadow Sea.

Onto the pictures!  We will start with overall shots:

Next, a few closeups of the encrusting life:

A better view of the stairs and platform:

Top view with the corals:

And a final parting shot with my painted miniatures so far - the Dagathonan Salvager and the newly finished Draconid Shaman (who will get his own blog post shortly!)

I am very pleased with the way this piece turned out.  I think it has a nice shallow reef feel to it, and the plaster/glue trick really looks like coralline algae!

As always, comments and suggestions welcome!

DeepWars gaming mat finished!

The canvas gaming mat has been finished!  It was pretty simple really.  To refresh your memory, I started the mat here.  After the acrylic had all dried and I was ready to continue, I gave the mat a generalized heavy drybrush of med-dark brown.  This made it look more earth-like and less pastel-like.  After that, to finish it off with a suitably-spooky ether-lighting effect, I did a light drybrush of some aqua blue.  Then I trimmed off the excess bits of canvas.

The finished mat:

A closeup of the texture:

Finally, the only painted mini I have that has any aquatic themes.  Suitably out of focus for this picture:

It's Fish-Head from the Mordheim Frenzied mob!  I hope you like it!  I am eager to get some DeepWars minis in a couple weeks, and to get some suitably aquatic terrain...

Speaking of which, Antimatter games is running another Kickstarter!  Their last campaign, to relaunch ShadowSea, fell just short of its goal, unfortunately :(  So, the fine folks at Antimatter decided to run another campaign to expand the miniatures range for DeepWars.  They started with a lower goal this time, and have well surpassed that, getting funding for many new miniatures!  As I type, they are just shy of 13k raised.  The coolest thing though, is if they make it to 30k, they will build this terrain:

A wrecked sub!  How cool is that, and massive too!  Only 5 days left though, so they need some more supporters!  Why don't you check it out, and pitch in too!  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/524168246/deepwars-guardians-of-the-abyss-mini-kicker

DeepWars by Antimatter Games

So in addition to my Arthurian project, I have taken on another distraction - DeepWars.  I am getting a starter set later this month, and have downloaded the rules from the antimatter website

DeepWars, and its sister game ShadowSea (which, incidentally is on Kickstarter right now: link) are based in an alternate reality of Earth where, in the 17th Century, a fantastic subterran continent is discovered beneath Antarctica, filled with treasures and mystical artifacts.  DeepWars takes place underwater in the subterran oceans.  The game has a nice mix of fantasy, steampunk, and Cthulu type intrigue.  It was their dark mariners that got me interested in the game:

In anticipation of my starter set (I chose the scaly horde), I decided to make a custom gaming mat.  I recently saw a tutorial (link) of making one with canvas, sand, paint, and acrylic caulking.  I wanted to capture the eerie abyssal feel of the game, so I came up with a few test colours:

For a mat, I used a canvas painting dropcloth from home depot.  This one was 4x12 and cut to make a 4x4 mat. It won't quite be 4' long at the end due to the shrinkage, but will be mostly 4x4. Nobody plays on the table edge anyway...

I wanted to do 3 base colours - some purple, deep blue, and green.  I got craft paint from Michaels, and bought a bag of playsand from Home Depot, along with their DAP acrylic caulking that contains a bit of silicone.  I found the playsand was too fine, so in addition to the playsand, I  mixed in some small gravel donated from the side of the road at the end of my driveway.  Here is the setup before I got started:

 Here are some pictures of the wet board:

Here are some pictures of the board today.  It is mostly dry, but there are still some soft spots:

What are those tiny coloured bits?  I bought some small craft shells from Michaels and scattered a few to make it more 'bottom of the ocean-ish'.  Currently, I would agree with your thoughts that the colours are a tad too bright and garish.  My plans from here are to drybrush brown over most of the mat, followed by a light, scattered drybrush of aqua green/blue.  I am also considering doing a wash of dark brown to add some shading, but I am unsure as to how well that will work.  Washes work well on sand bases, but this is more of a paste, so I think it might end up pooling and looking odd.  Any suggestions?