...and to all a good night!

As alluded to over on Instagram, I'd been working on something thematic to post for Christmas:

Pulp Santa!

Recently rereleased by Artizan Designs, I actually got this miniature when it was originally given away as a freebie for placing an order (5 years ago or so, I think?)

He hasn't photographed particularly well here (especially the snow!) but I'm fairly happy with how he turned out!

He was based on a 30mm DS base rather than a 25mm round, as I figured if he ever got used on the tabletop it would most likely be as a thematic festively themed random event with my zombies rather than anything else...

This miniature was also my first attempt at modelling snow - I dug out a pack of snow scatter that I picked up on the cheap at Salute a few years back and wanting a 'drifts of snow' kind of effect, mixed it with PVA to make a paste that I lathered onto select areas with a toothpick. When it dried though, it didn't look fresh and wet enough, and I was inspired by a conversation in the comments on Instagram to try giving it a coat of GW Ardcoat, which gave it a much more pleasing finish! I may have to pick up some of the new technical paint that GW have released for modelling snow bases to try out in the New Year though...

Finishing Santa takes the Tally to:

56 vs 342 = -286

Almost catching up on last year's number of completed miniatures, if I recall correctly...

Anyway, with all the festivities over the coming week, I'm unlikely to be posting anything now until the annual year-in-review post, so I'll take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Nananananananana Batman!

Way back when Knight models were first talking about doing a set of rules for gaming Batman on the tabletop, I had a Spanish-speaking friend translate the beta rules for me. They looked pretty interesting, and so around the time my daughter was born when they released the finished rule book I ordered one (also because by ordering when it was first released I got a Limited Edition Alfred miniature), and told myself that I'd paint up some proxies from my stash of Heroclix to try the rules out before investing in the boutique range of miniatures. Then I went to Salute and bought a ton of Knight Models miniatures in order to get a free Limited Edition Red Hood Joker, because that's the way the world works.

A short couple of years later, Pow! Here's that originally selected proxy Batman:

Wham! Including a shaky freehand Batman logo! I drew it in first with a soft pencil, because I am not good at freehand. I was briefly tempted to use the old school 'bat in a yellow oval that would literally paint a target onto the wearer's chest' but ended up going with a more modern black on grey.

It's not a bad sculpt for a Heroclix figure (which are generally fairly variable) - the musculature is nice, as is the drapery on the cape, although his eyes are a little squiff and took a couple of goes to get to a level I was happy with.

Zap! Bat-cape! I was originally planning on painting him with a black cape starkly edge-highlighted with a very dark blue, but got a bit carried away and ended up going for an overall dark blue cape, from a black basecoat up to Dark Reaper mixed with Caledor Blue (one of the good things about comic characters is that over the years there have been so many different costume variations that you're spoiled for choice when it comes to canon!)

[side note - I spent some time picking out the different bricks on his crumbling gargoyle base with various different coloured layers of paint and shades, and you can barely see it on the finished miniature]

Batman might hate guns, but he'll happily kick a mook while he's drawing a gun so that he shoots his own dick off it seems.

Finishing old tall dark and brooding brings the Tally to:

55 vs 342 = -287

Recently I've been thinking about making terrain a lot (in part due to infovore.tim posting stuff on instagram), but to do so I'd need to clear my hobby desk off of the hundreds of pots of paint currently cluttering it up, but if I did that I know I'd then end up wasting a bunch of time digging for the right paint to finish the half-finished miniatures also cluttering the desk up... I guess I need to set a line in the sand, choose the miniatures that I plan to finish in the next fortnight,and then clear the desk off to build terrain once they're done and dusted. However, realistically, I'd probably finish two of the miniatures, and then get an irresistable urge to start something else, and so the cycle continues...

Ragman

Another miniature finished, this time for the Batman project:

Ragman!

You know, Ragman:

No?

My road to Ragman is something of a convoluted one - I first saw this miniature way back in the misty days of the past in an issue of Inquest Gamer that had a full visual spoiler from the then brand new Heroclix set Collateral Damage (back in the day when physical media was still a thing that you could purchase) and, though it wasn't a character that I was familiar with, thought it was a pretty interesting and dynamic sculpt. Many, many years later, I ended up ordering one randomly whilst picking up some other bits and bobs from Blue Rat Games with the vague idea that maybe I could convert it into some sort of fantasy wraith.

Obviously, I stashed it and didn't get around to converting it.

For the last couple of years, I've been working my way through a backlist of Batman comics, in in-universe order, starting with Year One, and this year I hit some comics featuring Ragman. A guy with a murderous cloak of rags that makes him kill nazis (well, the Ragman from the era of comics that I've been reading, as opposed to the other that a quick google suggests also exist), although he struggles against it, that I already own an interesting miniature of? Consider me sold!

So, a-painting we did go!

This is a difficult miniature to photograph, given it's dynamic pose...

The angle where you can actually see the rags of DC's 'Tatterdemalian of Justice', each of which is the captured soul of an evildoer. Except for here, where it's just a random daub of paint, which was oddly therapeutic to do...

My original idea was to give the body a wash to grubby it up a little, but I ended up not doing this as I liked how bright some of the colours were in contrast to the rest of the model...

Tally

54 vs 342 = -288

I've dug a random assortment of half-finished bits and bobs out of the painting queue, so we may even see another post or two before the regular end of year post!

In other news, apparently this little corner of the internet hit over 100,000 page views at some point in the last fortnight - even if only 6 of them are real people that have found my stuff and liked what they saw, that's okay with me!

Danger Vault Dweller!

Whilst painting up my Vault Dweller recently, I also painted this 50's style robot from Black Cat Bases:

Having just gone on their site to put that link in, it looks like he might not be available any more. He's more Forbidden Planet than Fallout admittedly, but I think the style fits. 

I bought this miniature innumerable years ago, so long ago in fact that I think Black Cat Bases actually disappeared off the radar for a while and have since come back...

It's a bit of a rough sculpt, but a metric ton of sponge weathering and judicious application of the GW Technical paint Typhus Corrosion in key spots make it look alright I think? The port in his back came with an optional key, which was a fun option but not for me...

Tally:

53 vs 342 = -289

A wanderer, a survivor...

My daughter's new bedtime routine has occasionally afforded me a little bit of painting time recently, which has allowed me to finish off this chap that you might remember from my previous post:

As you can see, I added a couple of pieces of shoulder armour to the conversion to make it look more like the armoured vault suit:

(although I'll settle for 'inspired by' rather than trying to be a direct copy of it). 

The little piece of leather padding on the right shoulder was probably the part of this miniature that took the longest - I just couldn't seem to get a finish that I liked on it, and so wound up repainting it several times...

I was half-tempted to paint the body of the shotgun green to break up the expanse of gunmetal, but ended up settling for a wholly silver body as per the in-game model it was inspired by.

I painted this survivor as having come from Vault 172 - technically non-canon, as there were officially only 122 Vaults constructed by Vault-Tec, but the number has a certain significance to me, so on it goes!

A closer view of the helmet - weathering is just great fun to do! I painted all of his equipment to look dirty, covered in chips and dings, so that it would look lived in and well-worn, from the scratches in his leather equipment to the layer of dust and grime on his vault suit.

And here's a better view of everyone's favourite post-apocalyptic fashion accesory, the Pip-Boy!

This was another miniature of firsts for me: my first time ever painting stubble on a miniature! I guess years of White Dwarf painting tutorials have finally come in handy, as I carefully glazed the beardy bits of his face with a mixture of grey and flesh...

And finally, a size comparison shot with the power armoured chap I previously posted.

Finishing him brings the Tally to:

52 vs 342 = -290

Taking my yearly rate up the the baseline acceptable level of an average of at least on miniature painted a week!

There was also another miniature that I was painting alongside this one that wasn't quite finished tonight, so who knows, we might even get two blog posts in one week for the first time in a little while...