Still here! More Arthurians...

My, how the time flies!  Fall is my favourite season, mostly to spend outside.  As such, pursuits such as painting tend to be forgotten.  If you were wondering what has kept me from the painting table, perhaps this picture of my good friend will give you an idea?

Yep, it's hunting season!  But I won't bore you with the exciting details of my outdoor adventures.  You came here to see what I have painted.  Hopefully I will not disappoint!


I am pleased to say that my Arthurian levy troops are complete!  All that is left to paint for the Arthurian force are the 4 archers and the 4 command models. 

Here they are, all together:

And per unit:

Next, a closeup of the 3 figures which would act as leaders for each unit (even though there is no in-game representation):

Finally, to show that I have been up to other stuff, here is the whole Arthurian force to date with some 4ground scenery and a stand of trees I recently made:

Hope you like it!  I have gotten my Saxon army based (minus the command) so hopefully I can get a few painted up in November.

New Avatar!

So, I decided that I finally needed to make myself an avatar.  Using my mediocre skills with my camera, picasa, and gimp, I managed to turn this photo of Dok Dentokk (an orc character whom I think represents me nicely):

Into this:

 The picture was resized, of course.  Now if I could just figure out how to make interesting text effects in Gimp, I could make it look more interesting.  But for now, it fits the bill methinks!

Also, in case you were wondering, The orc is a Gorkamorka Bad Doc which I converted by chopping off his pistol and replacing it with a crude pair of forceps.  Open wide!!!

More Romano-British!

Well, I thought I would have updated you all more frequently, but distractions are to be expected in real life!  Was I very productive?  Perhaps not as much.  Did I accomplish anything?  You bet!

In Dux Britanniarum, your basic starting force for the Romano-British are one unit of 6 elite troops, two units of 6 warriors, and three units of 6 levy/peasant troops.  Add to that four ranged troops and four commanders, you get a total of 44 models in your starter army.  The Saxon starter army starts with three units of 6 warriors, 2 units of 6 elites, four ranged models and four commanders for a total of 38 models.  As of this blog post I have finished:

- 6 elites (my Comanipulares)
- 2 units of 6 warriors (my Milites)
- 10 levy troops (1 2/3 units), minus their spears.

What's that, you want proof?  Of course you do.

First up is the second group of Milites, all based and ready to go:

More of the same, but these ones were not a repaint but were started from scratch after stripping the old paintjobs.  I took some more photos of the leader and armoured guy.  Each will act as a commander for each unit of Milites (no in-game effect, just to stand there and look important!)

Next, I finished the basing and the shields for my Comanipulares:

Lastly, here are the levy so far - all is done save some of the spears:

These figures are primarily West Wind Arthurians.  West Wind Productions recently had a 30% off sale, of which I took full advantage.  I will write a detailed review of my thoughts about the models, and my experience with the company later.  Needless to say, I think they paint up well.  When compared to my Gripping Beast Milites, I find the West Wind to have a bit bulkier proportions (particularly legs and feet) but still rank up ok.  They have separate heads which provides for more variability (and also more fiddly assembly!)

How about some shots of the army in all its glory?  Sure thing!

So my total painted miniatures for this army is 28 (minus 7 spears) out of 44.  That leaves me with 16 Romano- British miniatures and 38 Saxons to paint in four weeks before my deadline... not likely gonna happen, but you really can't rush quality, am I right?

Dux Britanniarum!

My first foray into historical wargaming!  I have fostered a growing interest in historical settings for wargames over the past couple years, and I decided to jump on the boat with the Dux Britanniarum pre-order. I was even fortunate enough to get a free Arthur figure!  After having read the rules, I am keen to give it a try, but alas, I have no opponents at the moment.  What would be the best way to attract new players?  My thought exactly - have two painted armies!

What is Dux Britanniarum you might ask? It is a skirmish game set in 4th century Britain. At that time, the Roman empire withdrew its soldiers from the island, and basically told the residents to 'look to their own defences'. As history shows us, Britain did not stay Roman, but this game pits the remaining Roman colonists against the invading Saxon armies.  It makes use of in-game action cards to add some variety, and focuses heavily on a continuing campaign setting rather than static one-off battles.  Lots of fun!

Thus my quest begins.  I have set myself a lofty goal to paint up a Romano-British and a Saxon force by mid-October.  Doable?  Perhaps, though I will really have to buckle down.  So far I have completed one unit of 6 Milites, and a unit of 6 Comanipulares.  The Comanipulares do not yet have shields, as I am awaiting the LBM transfers before I get them finished.

On to the pictures!

For the Milites, I had received a lot of GB late romans that I felt would fit the bill.  The had already been painted (poorly) and for these I decided to try and paint over them.  While it turned out OK, I am not entirely happy with the results and for my other unit the models have already been stripped and reprimed.  The sculpts themselves are not too stellar IMO, which means they need a bit more TLC to make shine.  Seeing as I am on a deadline, I settled for something closer to tabletop standard.

Next, my Comanipulares, are BTD armoured late romans which I acquired in their latest 50% off everything sale  .  They painted up quite nicely, and for the price I say the detail is great.  The faces are quite expressive, and take to painting pretty well!  Its definitely easier to get a nicer result when you aren't painting over a sub-par paintjob!

All in all they were pretty easy to paint, and I look forward to starting on the rest of them.  I have about 8 weeks to paint 70 more figures, so here's to hoping it just gets easier from this point forward!
Watch this space as I update my progress.  I hope also to share some more insights about the game, and this fascinating period in history!

Here come the little folk!

"What are you doing?"

 "Tomatoes, sausages, and nice, crispy bacon!"

Hobbit references aside, I am now pleased to share with you all a secret project which I had worked on this summer!

White Knight, with his wonderful range of landsknecht gobins, gave in to popular demand to see a separate set of halfling heads sulpted by Kev Adams to fit on the goblin bodies.  In my conversations with him, I was able to trick/beg/barter a set of mastercastings of the aforementioned halfling heads to paint up so he could show the world some painted examples.

Upon receiving them in the mail, I was delighted to find the 12 crisp heads, with great details and expressions.  The pick of the crop to me (and WK will agree) were the bare headed halfings, who simply oozed with character.

I set about assembling the 6 heads that most appealed to me, and slapped on some paint.  Here are the final results!

First up are 2 of the bare heads and a nice feathered cap.  The strapping chap in the middle is my favourite of all 12 heads.  Nice bushy eyebrows and a full face.  I found the sculpt somewhat resembled my late grandfather, so in his honour the middle halfling with the halberd has been named Tom.  I don't normally name my miniatures, so that's a pretty big honour :)

Next up were some more heads, a couple with handguns and another halberd.  I made a slight slip up with the guy on the right - adding a blue wash to add some colour around the eyes ended badly.  My wife said it looked like he got a black eye, so I decided that was a better story than taking time to fix it.  So the halfling on the right got into it last night with a surly (and quite drunk) dwarfen merchant at the hogshead tavern.  Today he showed up for duty with a nice shiner and his pride mostly intact!

These guys were lots of fun to paint up!  The details pick out nicely, and they don't overwhelm the models.  I find models with tons of little details can be somewhat cumbersome to paint, even if they give good results.  To me, these little guys are both fun and rewarding to paint, and nicely fill a gap in the miniature market.  I hope to finish off a few GW halflings soon so you can compare the size and scale of each.

Enjoy!

Crowdsourcing...

In the past couple months, I have been made aware of crowdsourcing sites such as kickstarter and indiegogo.  For the uninformed (as I once was) it is an online platform where small companies can raise capital by advertising their product to a wide audience.  Typically this is done by showcasing their product, and by giving incentives for supporters (ex if you pledge $50 you will get $60 worth of merchandise, etc.)

I was initially hooked by the amazingly successful Kings of War campaign on Kickstarter.  I am sure in line for a lot of swag once it is produced!

Letely I have been impressed by a few other active fundraisers for miniature-related projects.  The first is a small project to have the illustrious Kev Adams sculpt some pirate goblins: http://www.indiegogo.com/pirate-goblins?c=home


Basically the guy is going ahead with the goblins regardless of funding levels, but you can get a better deal through the preorder.  I will be down for some of those, as I can never seem to get enough goblins...  The greens are already done, and the models really look stellar! (photo taken from the indiegogo page)

Speaking of which, a new project on indiegogo by Titan-forge miniatures: http://www.indiegogo.com/drakskullsmenace showcases their plans for an undead greenskin army!  I like this, as there is a distinct lack of quality undead greenskins.  Sure, there are the awesome skeleton orcs from the old GW cursed company (I painted these up a couple years ago):

But those were only one pose, and have been out of production for years.  I think this will be a pretty successful project, mostly because I like the concepts and models.  Not sure if I will have the funds to join in, but its pretty cool to look at!

I say as long as we get a steady stream of high-quality, reliable projects, crowdsourcing projects like these will be a big boost to the miniature industry!

Some worthy sea dogs!

Between working and enjoying the summer weather, I have been able to put a few more strokes of paint to lead lately!  Namely, I have been trying to finish some crew for my Nipponese Junk.

First up, we have the captain.  Haru of the Shugyosha Sueshiju (my meagre attempt at a Japanese name using an online translator).  Its an old preslotta citadel oriental hero.  Also, my first model using a gradient background (wooo!).  I got the gradients for free online, here.

The base was sculpted into a woodgrain effect with greenstuff.  At the time I had no other ideas on making a decking base, so that is what I came up with.  Not my greatest result, but functional enough.

Next up I finished two Cathayan crewmen, using wargames foundry chinese pirates.  Pretty nice models, though the hands are a little big...

 

I have a couple more of the chinese pirates to add, and then there are some nice old citadel samurai awaiting my loving attention.  Though my attention has been on a different project as of late.  A secret one.  Intrigued?  Well don't worry, the project is not that *big* ;)

Also, a special thanks to the Kev Adams Challenge for posting a link to my blog and highlighting some of the WK goblins I have painted!  I hope there are many more to come!

Thats all for now!