11th Doctor, companion, and some more D&D...

Painting, I have been (apologies for the more crap than usual pictures):

The 11th Doctor, ready to join his two predecessors that I'd previously painted. Nicole (my previously alluded to young lady) had a look at all three together:

and judged them somewhat harshly: 'the ninth one's rubbish, it looks nothing like Christopher Eccleston. But it might just be your painting...'. She's lucky I love her so much. She also complained that the 11th Doctor looked like a zombie, but in my defence I hadn't finished painting him at that point (and yes, that second anecdote was added when she leant over and complained that her complaints had not been properly noted).

But what's the Doctor without a companion? (other than more interesting, if the tail-end of the tenth Doctor's run is anything to go by)

The Heresy Amy Pond. I love Karen Gillan, but I really hated painting this mini's face (and yes, as soon as this post is up I'm going to go back and fix the smudge under her eye). But with the pair of them painted up, it means I can do things like this:

On the non-Who front, I've finished a trio of miniatures:

A gaoler type from Heresy. Don't ask why he's based on a square base, or exactly what I was trying to achieve with his basing, as I think I originally started this particular miniature somewhere in the region of three years ago, before there even was a dnd project, when I bought the miniature because I fondly remembered the intro adventure to my generation's 'Red Box', the 'Black Box With A Big Red Dragon On The Front', where your character wakes up in Zanzer Tem's dungeon under the baleful glare of a fat gaoler...

The other two finished miniatures are an unlikely pair of bedfellows:

A Dwarf Fighter, originially a Heroquest mini, that was a bit of a nightmare to paint as some of the detail was a bit stretched (apparently back in the old days all plastic miniatures suffered from this, due to the limitations of technology at the time - sometimes we forget how spoiled for quality we are these days...)

And a Goblin Sneak (well, I guess he can be a Rogue for now, until I sort out a proper Rogue mini...), that was originally a character figure from Mage Knight Dungeons. Odds on if I ever play Keep on the Shadowfell he'll make a funny little Splug stand-in...

Well, that little lot brings the tally to:

111 vs 285 = -174. All I need to do is sell 175 miniatures and I'll be back in the positive! Or, more realistically, wait until the New Year for the count to reset to zero...

Plans for the near future include cybermen. Lots of cybermen. However, if I can't get the last couple I need for conversions, or if said conversions are less fun than I envision, it's entirely likely that plans for the near future will include Judge Dredd (because Dirty Frank in 2000AD at the minute is the best it's ever been), my Blood Bowl Team (Humans if I can finally get a Mighty Zug, or maybe Orcs, since I just saw an awesome Orc Coach conversion over on another blog using a Games Day miniature that I'm sure I own), or maybe even something like some of the Firefly project miniatures I keep getting out of boxes, looking at lovingly, and then carefully putting back away...

Century: 2011

No, it's not an Alan Moore themed post, it's my 100th painted miniature of the year:

A generic sand monster! Originally a Mage Knight mini, lots of drybrushing took me up to a hundred painted miniatures for the year, ready to stomp all over prospective heroes. He's a bit boring though, so I painted a bunch more too:

A snake (originally a dnd prepaint), because Conan spends an inordinate amount of time battling mundane foes!

A giant frog, nature's deadliest predator! (hee hee, look at his funny eyes, and imagine that I'd managed to take a better picture that made the skintone look less flat...)

A Grenadier zombie that I picked up for pennies out of a little bucket on em4's stand at Salute!

A pair of zombies, taking my painted total to 74. The chap on the left is Ken, an old Partizan giveaway, and the surfer dude on the right is from Hasslefree. I like the fact that he's wearing a shark-tooth necklace that has obviously failed to protect him from shark attacks...

And last but not least, my favourite mini of this batch, a snakeman! Originally a Clan Wars Naga Abomination, he'll make a good Conan villain (even though fighting snakemen was always more Kull's thing, but hey, they had Thulsa Doom in the old Arnie movie...)

With that little lot added to the tally, we come to:

106 vs 285 = -179

Still no Mighty Zug (why do people keep bidding the amount he costs new on old grotty ones on eBay?) so no more progress on the Blood Bowl team, so I might see if I can get a Threshold team painted up for Strange Aeons. But, then again, every time I say I'm going to focus on a particular project the following blog posts are as eclectic as ever... And also, a series of Doctor Who has just finished, which is usually when I actually get Who minis painted...

Adeptus Titanicus on ebay!

So, having a bit of a clearout I've listed a couple of bits on eBay, the only one of which most of you will likely be interested in being the following:

The old long Out of Print Adeptus Titanicus game. I'm sad to see it go, but realistically, I'm probably never going to start an epic project (I prefer God's true scale, after all) - despite the loveliness that is all the little different plastic weapons:

For full details (and to bid!) see the listing at:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Long-OOP-Adeptus-Titanicus-epic-game-Games-Workshop-inc-original-rulebook-/140614272967?pt=UK_Toys_Wargames_RL&hash=item20bd4387c7

Monsters of rock!

Now let's see how many hits the blog gets from people searching for 80's metal compilations... (although in other news, I've had two hits on the blog from the search term "obscene miniature figure". What are people searching for?)

So yeah, my plan to remain focused on finishing my Blood Bowl team didn't exactly pan out. I ended up flipping through the rulebook, did some quick mental maths, and then realised that I'd planned to include the Mighty Zug in my team, a miniature that I do not own. So, onto the back burner they go until I can find a reasonably price copy of the Zug mini (although I'm impressed at the guy selling it on eBay at £14.99, more than double the price it's available at direct from Games Workshop...)

In distracting myself from painting fantasy football players, I made a start on some of the minis that got hit with undercoat last week (because I think I'm subconsciously sabotaging myself into having more half-painted miniatures than finished or bare metal combined...), and this beast was the only one that got finished. He was originally a miniature for Mage Knight Dungeons, and was great fun to paint (basecoat, drybrush, wash, go out for a coffee and a cigarette, drybrush, drybrush, drybrush, finishing). He's the first mini finished for my new Conan project, but as Conan's always fighting generic fantasy weirdies, most things for the project can also pull double duty in the dnd project.

On the Conan front though - my original plan was to paint up a few bits and bobs here and there as I worked my way through the Complete Chronicles of Conan, ordering and converting miniatures as the fancy took me story by story. However, I've since finished the entire thing (it was hard to put down, what can I say), and I still don't have a Conan mini! I'm tempted by some of the Reaper ones, but nowhere in the UK seems to keep them in stock...

And as usual, I've been buying things. You may recall a post or so back I mentioned my desire to start an old-school undead army based on the novel Zombieslayer? [well, old-school for me is mid-nineties, I'm only a youngster] - The first few bits arrived during the last week:

Kemmler, Krell, and some of the old skeleton horsemen, which came complete with their original box:

Ahh, the old box design, how I miss thee... I'm torn with Krell, whether to remove the back banner (because it looks silly - how does he get through doors?) or leave it on out of a sense of completeness...

Also arriving in the last week was this little bundle:

"10 human arab style figures", bought via eBay from a chap over on the LAF, as although they're a bit dinky, they'll do quite nicely as one-hit wonders for Conan to punch out. I quite fancy trying the Foundry Dusky Flesh Triad (and they've even got a sale on currently!) but the £8 postage pretty much forces you to buy £80 worth of stuff in order to get free shipping (and it seems they don't do 2000AD miniatures singly any more, only in packs of three...)

Inevitably, we come to the tally:

99 vs 285 = -186, which admittedly is a step in the wrong direction...

Fantasy Football

No, it's not the Blood Bowl team I mentioned I was painting, I got asked to go over the crappy paintjobs of some cake decorations to make it look like their hair actually fit their head. My favourites would probably have to be the guy I gave a swoopy side-parting to, or the chap on the right I added mutton chop sideburns to (hey, my attention span is only finite). And as tempting as it is, no, I'm not going to add them to the tally...

More importantly, it seems Games Workshop is quietly releasing a new game, which I feel obliged to buy despite not knowing anything about it since I still regret not saving my pocket money and buying Warhammer Quest when it was readily available (which explains the copy of Space Hulk still sat unused in my pile o'games). The main worry is, if I don't buy it, and they stop making it, I'll then want it. But more realistically, I'll buy it, and never use it, and still be sad that I don't have Warhammer Quest...

The Captain!

...his name is The Captain (see the Nextwave theme song here if you don't get the reference)

So yeah, several years after originally planning to do Nextwave in miniature, and only a couple of months after suitable Heroclix minis came out, I've actually finished painting something!

The freehand "Heartstar of the space between the galaxies" isn't perfect, but his sneakers look nice from this distance, so hey, it's a win overall I guess. I've got the rest of the Nextwave squad in the painting queue in various stages of completedness, but who knows when my fancy will swing this way again... (although, I yesterday discovered that Heroclix have made a Dirk Anger fig... but if I get that, I'll need to convert some wacky figs, like windmill-faced Samurai, apes dressed as Wolverine, and cuddly koala bears of doom...)

Finishing The Captain brings the tally to:

98 vs 270 = -172

Only a couple to go to break a century! I wish I had better focus. Once this post goes up, I'm planning on going back to painting my 3rd edition Blood Bowl Human team. However, it's entirely likely that I'll get distracted and start painting the 11th Doctor and Amy Pond, a not-Ash (of Evil Dead fame), or even Judge Dredd.

But don't quote me on that, I've got a load of miniatures ready for undercoating...

Back on the horse! (Redux)

Back in the swing of things, and actually painting miniatures, who knows how long it will last?

But before we get into all that, a slight diversion - I got taken to the Doctor Who Experience by my lovely young lady for my birthday! It was awesome, but can really be summed up in two pictures:

Olly loves Cybermen, but fears the scarecrow. There were many more pictures taken (although Nicole was less than impressed when I asked for front side and isometric views of every costume for painting reference...), but I think these two say it best...

Anyways, onto the miniatures (and apologies in advance for the worse than usual pictures, it's a new camera and a new light that needs a daylight bulb hampered by my measly skills):

An exotic bodyguard for 7tv to guard my evil genius whilst lazing around in a skimpy bikini -

She's from Copplestone iirc, and was my first time experimenting with a Foundry triad (Oriental Flesh). I quite liked using the triad, as it made painting flesh a lot more straightforward, and might pick up some more in future (curse Foundry's long-lamented postal charges, I may have to wait until next Salute to pick up the next batch...)

The Vulture! He's been sat in his base colours for... I don't know, a couple of years, but I finally got round to finishing him off. He's a repainted heroclix fig, with all the blurry facial detail and wacky scale that entails, but he was one of the first heroclix figs I ever got, so still holds a certain charm. With him done, I'm 66.66% of the way to having my own non-canon Sinister Six! (Although if I were to go canon, I'd probably go for the second line-up, consisting of:

• Doctor Octopus
• Mysterio
• Electro
• Sandman
• Vulture
• Hobgoblin

as that's who I'd most fancy painting).

And last but not least, some goons from Heresy, for use as technician types for 7tv (yeah, they had ipads then, what of it?) and SF goons for Doctor Who. I don't know why, but I do love to see a wedding ring on a miniature.

And thus, to the tally:

97 vs 270 = -173

Still not great, but getting better (and hey, we've almost hit a hundred finished minis!) - fingers crossed I can hold back from restarting Mass Effect (after all my xbox saves got wiped, I couldn't bring myself to start the big games again, but I'm getting a hankering...). Then again, it's only the fact that I can't seem to find my copy of Zombieslayer to re-read that's stopping me from building an old-school Undead Warhammer army (well, old-school to me at least, I'm only young); Kemmler leading blocks of zombies with zombie Wyverns, with none of this Vampire Lord malarky... Eh, it could go either way really...