Spooky scary…

So, a couple of weeks back I looked at a calendar and saw just how little time there was left, so headed down to the basement to have a rummage through the boxes of miniatures to find some bits and bobs that I could paint to get my numbers up, and found some Dungeons and Dragons Wraiths… and then some more Wraiths, so onto the painting tile they went, as there are dozens of games that can benefit from some spooky types:

I like that each set of sculpts are based on different eras of D&D art; the ones from the old board game (that despite being all monopose sculpts have actually furnished me with a variety of things to paint) being based on this art:

Spooky! Mostly painted with a lot of drybrushing while watching Black Widow!

They don’t look as high contrast as this in real life, alas due to it being night time these pictures were taken using the garishly bright dining room light…

While digging through the boxes, I also found these other figures (originally from the Attack Wing game I think, gifted to me by my DM years ago) based on more modern Wraith art:

The details are a little soft, especially around their odd metal masks, but I think they turned out alright. Don’t look too closely at those masks though.

Being that they’re from Attack Wing, they were mounted on clear tubes. The first one I set out an elaborate system of bent pins to attach it to the base, but for the other three I went with the old faithful boatload of superglue, which worked just as well for one tenth of the effort. A couple of them got their tube adjusted at the tip, so that they would sit on the base at a funky angle and make them look a little more varied. 

And with these painted, the Tally stands at:

52 vs 36 = +16

I don’t know that I’ll be able to finish anything else before the weekend, so I’ll wish you all a Happy New Year now!

You there boy!

What day is this?

Well, it’s a couple of days after Christmas, so not quite on time, but here is this year’s festive painting:

Ebeneezer Scrooge and the ghost of Marley, from Artizan Designs.

I’d originally wined to have these ready to post on Christmas Day, but the week running up to it was just too busy to get any painting done! In the end they were finished nine minutes into Boxing Day, but I haven’t had a chance to take pictures and write a post until now.

While Scrooge might not see much actual game time, the ghostly Marley will probably get a run out when I get to playing some Silver Bayonet…

As Christmas happened though, this isn’t the only change to the Tally:

I got some Skaven and some Perry Chosen Men from my wife and children, and a pair of Game of Thrones Giants from my Mother in Law that will see use in both Frostgrave and the ASOIAF Wildling project.

All told, the Tally now stands at:

45 vs 36 = +9

So, 3 more days, how much do you think I can get painted?

Who is the most important Avenger?

 Probably Hawkguy:

He’s been sat half painted for years, but watching the current Hawkeye show prompted me to get him finished. Also fun was attempting to persuade my wife that he’s called Hawkguy rather than Hawkeye…

It’s a fairly tricky sculpt to get a picture of, given how hunched over he is. On the plus side, that means you can’t really see the lack of detail on his facial features, and my attempts to make him look more human. Part of me thinks I should have replaced the bow, but I think the original lump has a charm of its own (it’s an oooold Heroclix sculpt, so he’s good and chunky)

I went old school for his colour scheme, using the 1969 Marvel Comic Annual for reference, which was my first introduction to the character:

Once he was painted, I pinned him to a base I had handily prepared some years earlier - I was making some bases for The Walking Dead figures one past Zomtober, and this one came out too tall. Looking more like a typical ‘hero rock’ rather than post-apocalyptic pavement, so while it was no good for that, got stashed waiting for the right superhero to come along.

(This picture also got posted on Instagram with a caption claiming that I’d spent hours painting the invisible man, of course).

Finishing Hawkguy brings the Tally to:

43 vs 23 = +20

and also means I’ve got a half-decent spread of Avengers now:

Although you can really see the difference in sculpting styles between old and more modern Heroclix, look how giant Hawkeye looks next to the more slender Captain America! I should probably get around to painting some baddies for them to fight too, so here’s to hoping that I find some AIM or Hydra minions in a bargain bucket at a future Salute…

A necromancer walks into a bar…

Preparing for the project after Rangers of Shadow Deep, I’ve finished another three miniatures for my Frostgrave warband:

First, the most evil wizard I could find in my lead mountain to represent my necromancer:

Tim the Enchanter expy, bought at Salute many moons ago from Studio miniatures I believe?

A lovely little sculpt, detailed but not overly fussy, which made him a pleasure to paint.

Next is his apprentice, who is a sculpt from Heresy that I’ve had for absolutely years that I hadn’t thus far built due to option paralysis (as there’s a choice of 3 heads, and a Black Mage esque hat, any of which I’d have happily painted), but the need for an emo looking apprentice wizard expedited my choice!

You can’t really see it from this angle, but I’ve even given him a little smudge of eyeliner, as this is clearly the wannabe goth student that my necromancer has picked up from the local wizard college to do his bidding (largely lighting candles and carrying things so far, but I’m sure unleashing the mighty energies of death is just around the corner…)

I used Mephiston Red as a unifying colour across the pair - while the Necromancer has his fancy red cape and cloak (accessorised with a black tabard, for maximum gothic street cred) he’s just given his apprentice a matching capelet that he has to wear over his otherwise quite austere robes.

Proving that there’s someone on an even lower rung than the Apprentice, the final figure for this post is a zombie:

The zombie, whilst not technically a member of the warband, and will instead be summoned into play each game, on the other hand is literally just a corpse they found and have tied a matching red cloth around his waist to denote ownership:

And when we say ‘found’, it’s probably a warband member that didn’t survive until payday, and is now doing some involuntary pro bono work for the Necromancer, probably not best to ask too many questions…

The model is a plastic Frostgrave figure with a metal zombie head (from Westwind, if memory serves). I gave him a sack and a grasping hand (converted from an archer arm, I seem to recall) as I imagine him being like the butter passing robot in Rick&Morty - they reanimate him, hand him a sack, and say ‘you fetch the treasure. That’s your purpose, now go fetch some treasure’ as my plan for him is largely that (well, and being a speed bump to throw in the path of marauding monsters, but he doesn’t need to know that). I know I could have used any of the hundreds of zombies I’ve already got painted, but I wanted one that looked slightly more controlled and purposeful than the usual wobbly biter.

Tally: 

42 vs 23 = +19

Next, who knows? I had started prepping some figures that were easy wins to get my numbers up, but seeing as I’m only 10 away from my target of averaging one a week I might just dabble in whatever odd single figures take my fancy, probably including some more figures for the Frostgrave warband so that I can be ready for some solo play in the New Year! On that front, I have something of a dilemma - when I first selected my warband, I chose an Apprentice, as it’s just good sense to take one. Then I decided to play Dark Alchemy, during which you don’t get to take an Apprentice if you have one, leaving me torn between leaving the warband as-is, or taking a Captain instead and buying an Apprentice once I finish the solo campaign, which feels a little meta. I already have my Captain picked out, and have vague plans to play through one of the solo scenarios from Spellcaster magazine with the Captain, leaving me unsure which choice to make…

Christmas, a time for… Daleks?

Work continues apace on finishing miniatures to drag my annual total up to one a week before the end of the year, but I did take a brief diversion to paint this:

My deputy at work is a big Doctor Who fan whose favourite colour is baby blue, so I thought I’d add a deputy sheriff star to a Dalek and paint it up to give it to her as a little gift. Looking at the pictures as I’m posting this, I’m wondering if I should try to add Deputy or her name to the star, but worry that it might go horribly, horribly wrong…

Dalek miniatures have 48 little globes, I discovered while painting this, which each need to be individually carefully painted and highlighted. They look a little rough in these blown up pictures, but rest assured they look fine in hand! The idea that I might one day have an army of painted Daleks took a bit of a hit after painting just the one, mind… using dark grey rather than black to shade the recesses of the metallic areas has set some wheels turning in my head though, proving that everything you do is a learning opportunity!

Tally:

39 vs 23 = +16

Next, a return to our regular scheduled programming of finishing the various odds and ends on my painting tile, and not prepping a whole load of new miniatures that now need undercoating. Oh no, certainly not, laser focus, that’s me.

I am a robot

I go beep beep beep beep bop (probably, it’s been a while since my daughter has tried to explain the song stuck in her head that goes like that, to my absolute bemusement). Niche references aside, I recently painted this handsome chap:

Which you may or may not recall was sculpted by the needlessly talented SpaceCowSmith as part of a trade back in July:

You’ll notice that his arms are positioned slightly differently than when he first came to me, as well as having a missing knuckle - this is due to him falling off a table battling in space.

He took a very long time to get painted, mostly due to getting option paralysis after undercoating. In the end I went back to the source material and settled on red (after considering yellow, blue, multi-coloured…), and then weathered it to within an inch of it’s life, because I wanted him to look like a grubby little space robot. The rear panel looked like a perfect spot for a decades old transfer:

Thankfully it was still good. I imagine it being a warning not to shoot that bit, as that’s where the power plant is - so considerate! Also, hazard stripes on the gun - frustrating to do (so much tidying up and straightening!) but worth the effort, I think.

Tally:

38 vs 23 = +15

So, if I finish a mini every 2.2 days for the rest of the year, I’ll hit the average of one a week for the whole year. Challenging, but theoretically achievable…

Of men and monsters…

 The next two finished miniatures are both for Frostgrave:

This knight is the first finished mini for my Frostgrave warband, ready for some solo play after Rangers of Shadow Deep (as I’m planning to play through the solo campaign from the Frostgrave Folio). He’s mostly Fireforge bits, with a couple of accessories from the bits box to make him look a little more like he’s got enough supplies to last him ranging round a frozen city (although admittedly it’s only a pouch and a knife, so he probably can’t go too long before he needs to nip home for lunch):

As my warband is a Necromancer’s, I’d initially planned to make my Knight look a bit more evil, with a wild looking bare head and maybe a club or savage mace rather than a sword, but my daughter decided that he needed a helmet to protect his head, and who am I to argue with a 6 year old? A purple and black colour scheme make him look a little sinister though, so it’s all to the good…

(He’s a little dinky, coming from historical sprues, but not so much that it’s so jarring that I’d not use him).

The other mini is my Alchemical Monstrosity, for the first scenario in the Dark Alchemy solo campaign. As it’s a creature that’s a hideous combination of several creatures fused together with a whipping tentacle attack, I ventured into my bits box for the parts to make my own back in the distant past of mid-January…

Proof that you should never throw anything away, I’d kept these tentacles that I removed from a Horrorclix figure at least a decade ago (it’s pre-blog I think, it’s the chap in the straight jacket above the letter ‘e’ in Lead in the banner at the top of the page!):

I knew I had the perfect body, some sort of shifter from Mage Knight Dungeons. I couldn’t find the one I’d previously stripped, so I had to dig through boxes to find another (I found the stripped one in parts this week while looking for something else, coincidentally, which I’ll probably not need a second of but that’s the way it goes sometimes)

With copious scraping and some drilling and pinning, I had a very serviceable monster, that is incredibly difficult to photograph as it’s not really got a single best angle:

Then, ten months later I finished painting it! I’d originally put it on the back burner while I prioritised getting things finished for RoSD, but now we’re at the end of the year I’m painting whatever I can get my hands on as and when they take my fancy!

I went for very different skin tones on each area of the mini to try and really sell that it’s multiple creatures blended together, and where the detail is a little soft on the face went with bleeding eyes rather than trying to paint them in to add to the ‘flailing in its suffering rather than necessarily malicious’ vibe:

As well as the Alchemical Monstrosity for Frostgrave, it might also pull double duty as Possessed monster for The Silver Bayonet and as a … something horrible for D&D!

Finishing these two brings the Tally to:

37 vs 23 = +14

And I realise as I’m typing this, let’s me cross another thing off of the Challenge:

• Finish something old
• Finish a piece of terrain
• Finish some scatter terrain (3/3)
• Prep all of the monkeys in the monkey box
• Paint all of the miniatures in a boxed game
• Play a game with fully painted miniatures
• Finish a complete skirmish force for a project (at least 16 miniatures, unless it's for a much smaller scale game like Frostgrave)
• Repaint something (either a miniature that I have previously painted, or one that was received painted

• Convert a miniature and show WIP pics

• Finish the last member of the Nextwave team
• Complete the classes project (and when I do that, start a project to have painted miniatures to represent all of the Races in the Players Handbook)
• Add at least 3 entries to the Monstrous Alphabet Project (2/3)
• Average at least a miniature a week by the end of the year (so, paint 52 miniatures)
• End the year with the Tally in the positive!

What’s better than a monkey?

 A monkey in space:

Jokaero are great. Digital weapons in the old Inquisitor rulebook: awesome. The fluff that they’re inveterate tinkers that will if left unattended upgrade your bathtub but it might also be a weapon: awesome. Whilst looking like a space orangutan: awesome!

I caved and bought a finecast version a few years back, as I figured that my chances of scoring a metal one for a reasonable price were firmly somewhere between slim and none. Alas, even with plenty of liquid green stuff, as I was painting I kept finding more and more little bubbles, but c’est la vie. There are a couple on the mysterious apparatus on his back, but I figure maybe they’re special technological holes too advanced for our stupid human brains:

I think I started painting him at some point last year (or possibly the year before!), but after being let down on my Blackstone Fortress Escalation order my enthusiasm cooled somewhat and he got relegated to the boxes in the basement of half painted miniatures sadly awaiting their turn in the sun. Luckily for him though, I couldn’t resist his little face! Looking at the pictures as I’m posting, I wonder if I should have gone a shade lighter on his fur, but I think I’ll leave him as is (as I’m rapidly running out of year!)

Tally:

35 vs 23 = +12

P is for Purple Worm

This weekend I finished painting this beastie:

I know, I know, there’s only a 2.5% chance of encountering one in Frostgrave, so I should really be sorting out some ghouls or wolves or something of that ilk, but I watched Dune, and he was just there on my painting tile ready to be drybrushed when I was too tired to do any proper painting. And that smile, that damned smile:

It’s a Reaper bones figure, a little small for a true D&D Purple Worm perhaps but just right for making an appearance in Frostgrave and Rangers of Shadow Deep (and especially nice for the price!). Lots of drybrushing and washes made this a very pleasant model to paint of an evening.

I did originally try to weather the lower portion of the worm to make it look like it was all grubby and dusty as it burst out of the ground, but it looked absolutely terrible so I had to go back in and tidy it up again.

I had been planning on adding some greenery to his base, but decided against it in the end as he’s most likely to make an appearance in a Frostgrave game where shrubberies are few and far between.

To give you an idea of scale, here he is with another current denizen of my painting tile, a knight that’s mostly Fireforge iirc:

Painting this brings the Tally to:

34 vs 23 = +11

and also updates the Monstrous Alphabet to:

A is for
B is for
C is for Carrion Crawler
D is for
E is for Elemental (More than one)
F is for Flameskull
G is for Goblin
H is for
I is for
J is for
I is for
L is for Lich
M is for Mind Flayer, Myconid, Mummy
N is for
O is for Owlbear
P is for Purple Worm
Q is for
R is for
S is for Shambling Mound, Scarecrow, Skeleton
T is for
U is for
V is for
W is for
X is for
Y is for
Z is for Zombie

So, only one more to go until I get to cross another entry off on the Challenge:

• Finish something old
• Finish a piece of terrain
• Finish some scatter terrain (3/3)
• Prep all of the monkeys in the monkey box
• Paint all of the miniatures in a boxed game
• Play a game with fully painted miniatures
• Finish a complete skirmish force for a project (at least 16 miniatures, unless it's for a much smaller scale game like Frostgrave)
• Repaint something (either a miniature that I have previously painted, or one that was received painted

• Convert a miniature and show WIP pics

• Finish the last member of the Nextwave team
• Complete the classes project (and when I do that, start a project to have painted miniatures to represent all of the Races in the Players Handbook)
• Add at least 3 entries to the Monstrous Alphabet Project (2/3)
• Average at least a miniature a week by the end of the year (so, paint 52 miniatures)
• End the year with the Tally in the positive!

What next? My painting tile is a mix of genres currently, featuring some for Frostgrave, some Ronin, and a robot, amongst other things. But on the other hand, I received a copy of The Silver Bayonet last week and so had a rummage in the basement to see if I had any suitable figures:

Living in the woods, hugging a tree…

Next in my desperate sprint through the painting queue before the year ends is the final entry in my Dungeons & Dragons Classes project, the Druid:

To recap, here is everything else so far:

Classes (as of 5e Player’s Handbook):

• Barbarian
• Bard
• Cleric
• Druid
• Fighter
• Monk
• Paladin
• Ranger
• Rogue (and also here)
• Sorcerer

• Warlock
• Wizard

Originally when I was looking for a Druid mini for the project I was considering using one of the sculpts from the old board game expansion Forbidden Forest:

(Especially fun is the fact that the antagonist Druid in this has a separate staff, cloak and headdress that you can dress him up with)

But then I remembered this chap, that I think was from Wargames Illustrated at Salute a few years back, and fell a bit in love with his look of absolute disdain (I imagine he’s looking at someone who just thoughtlessly stood on a flower). It’s a lovely little sculpt, with a bunch of little details that add visual interest (the various bones and whatnot hanging off him) without there being so many that it’s a pain to paint.

Speaking of painting, when it came to it I went for a faded leather duster look, even if the idea of a nature loving Druid wearing that much leather might not feel quite right (although I justify it to myself as him having honoured the animal to continue using it after its death, rather than having killed it for fast fashion). What in hindsight might be a bit of flash rather than an earring I painted silver, which just makes it look a bit like he’s got a chipped paint job… but that’s how it goes sometimes. I also wanted to give him a non-white skin tone, to add a little more variety to my miniature collection. Unfortunately, I base coated his face months before I came back and finished him, and could not for the life of me remember what colour I’d originally used, leading to an evening peering at various Foundry skin triads trying to work out which one was closest in order to highlight the flesh…

[edit - my copy of The Silver Bayonet turned up the day after I posted this, and I suspect this Druid might slot nicely into that…]

Finishing him brings the Tally to:

33 vs 23 = +10

And let’s me cross the Classes project off of this year’s Challenge:

• Finish something old
• Finish a piece of terrain
• Finish some scatter terrain (3/3)
• Prep all of the monkeys in the monkey box
• Paint all of the miniatures in a boxed game
• Play a game with fully painted miniatures
• Finish a complete skirmish force for a project (at least 16 miniatures, unless it's for a much smaller scale game like Frostgrave)
• Repaint something (either a miniature that I have previously painted, or one that was received painted

• Convert a miniature and show WIP pics

• Finish the last member of the Nextwave team
• Complete the classes project (and when I do that, start a project to have painted miniatures to represent all of the Races in the Players Handbook)
• Add at least 3 entries to the Monstrous Alphabet Project (1/3)
• Average at least a miniature a week by the end of the year (so, paint 52 miniatures)
• End the year with the Tally in the positive!

Looking at the Challenge, I’m probably on track to cross a few more off by the end of the year, which is nice! Also, at the start of the year I considered expanding the Classes project to include all of the races in the Player’s Handbook, which if I look back at things I’ve already finished would look like this so far:

• Dwarf
• Elf
• Halfling
• Human (there are plenty more, I won’t link them all here!)
• Dragonborn 
• Gnome
• Half-Elf
• Half-Orc
• Tiefling

(I’ve also done a Goblin adventurer, which appears in the Monster Manual iirc)

So only four miniatures to paint and I’ll complete that project too! Although I know I don’t own any Tiefling miniatures, and am fairly certain I’ve not got anything that could be pressed into service as a half-orc… that sounds like a problem for next year’s me though…