Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Sekrit Projekt

Can you tell what it is yet?



With prospective crew.
The mortars are place holders/test models. I wanted to see if the moulds I made with this stuff worked. The next step is to either find or make with the moulds two more cannon barrels to go with the Sea Dogs deck gun on which I am basing these guns. I foresee issues making these with the putty and moulds, as the mould lines will likely be horrendous and I had issues lining up the top and bottom of the moulds I made for the frames. So last night I rolled out some milliput sausages in a vaguely cannon shape. I'll wait for these to dry before sanding them down and decorating them.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Here be Dragons

From time to time, my 4 year old daughter catches me in my minis cupboard, and sometimes asks to see them and or play with them. Mostly they are unpainted, so I let her play with them. However on Saturday, we had some time to ourselves, and it came about that she wanted to paint some with me. Who am I to argue? So out came the brushes and paints.

She wanted to paint one of the ladies (she has little or no interest in the male figures). The 'lady' I offered her to paint, was the middle one of these models from Reaper. However, she needed to be undercoated, so I explained undercoat to her and I slapped on a coat of Gesso, then we left the mini outside to dry. Meanwhile I asked her if she wanted to paint a dragon, and showed her one of my shredders of which I have many, and all but 2 are painted (even those two were a birthday gift from a friend and came to me painted). She was all for painting a dragon, and set about choosing her colours. Here are the results. She did all the basing herself (I only helped by getting the grass and flowers off the packaging they came in).




She saw the number on the back of the base of the shredder I was painting and asked about it (when you run 8 unpainted shredders, you need to be able to distinguish between them), then told me the number of hers would be 41. Also, I asked her what it would be called, to which she replied without hesitation 'Rosie', so Rosie it is.



My effort, painted whilst she was doing hers. She wanted to know why I was only painting with one colour when I had so many to choose from. Another session and he'll be finished. Not yet sure what colour scheme I'll be going with on my Everblight beasties, but the shredders are great little minis to try things out with.


This is the lady she wanted to paint from Reaper. However, after looking at it once it was dry she noticed bits she had missed. We had to put the paints away as her little sister had woken from her nap (and we needed the kitchen table for lunch), so I'm sure there'll be another session to finish this mini. I may have to go looking for other minis, maybe in a larger scale, for her to paint in the future.

As to gaming, that may be a step too far as yet, but we'll see. She has an interest in gaming (board games etc) like all children do, but she may not be ready for wargaming yet. I don't want to push it on her either. If anything I'd try her on RPGs first, as they can get the imagination flowing without necessarily being based on bloody conflict. Anyone out there got similar experience on introducing youngsters to the hobby?

Colore ton Monde: September 'on vote!'


Augusts minis for the 'Colore ton Monde' challenge are posted here, along with September's challenge. Go check it out, I love the little sister model, and the imaginative base for the Soda Pop mini. I wonder if that's the original base, or a 'conversion'. Either way it works well.

My entry can be seen here.

Onwards to September, and this month the challenge is as follows:

Le 4 septembre, on vote !

C'est le temps de voter au provincial, allez exercer votre droit ! Une fois votre vote déposé dans l'urne, prenez conscience que c'est le petit peuple qui a le pouvoir de décider.
Pour le mois de septembre, nous vous invitons à peindre de la troupaille: un modèle "de base" pour un de vos jeux, un simple soldat, de la chair à cannon, etc.

On the 4th of September, we vote!

It's time to vote in the provincial elections, please exercise your right! Once your vote in a ballot box, be aware that it is the little people who have the power to decide.   For the month of September, we invite you to paint a trooper. A basic model for one of your games, a simple soldier, cannon fodder, etc..

So, yes, as you may have gathered from that, it is indeed the time of the Quebec provincial elections (they were yesterday, and passed not without incident. I'll keep the politics out of these pages though). Unfortunately, I couldn't vote, as I'm not a Canadian Citizen (soon, soon), but I can at least vote with my brush and paint up some of the 'cannon-fodder' cluttering up my shelves. No shortage of choice on that front for sure.

My recent games with Legion of Everblight means I have been slightly inspired to get on and paint up my Blighted Swordsmen. Failing that, I could always go ahead and paint up the rest (or at least some of) my Long Gunners to go with the standard bearer I finished a month or two ago. Both are pretty generic models for Warmachine and Hordes. Lets see where this month takes us. Hopefully there'll be a little more time and inspiration to get things moving and make a dent in the lead mountain.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Not the Golden Gobbo's 2012

Due to the untimely death of my laptop, I was not able to get this guy finished in time for entry to this years Golden Gobbo's. As you can see from the rules for entry here, it's not enough to paint a mini, but we need to write up a background and stats for out little lead men. So, although he is painted, he is not competition ready, as I don't have access to my PDFs of 3rd Ed to write up the rules in time. Next year for sure. (Next year I may even have my hardback copy of the rules in the right country to work from!). I'll refrain from writing out the background I had thought of, as that way I can reuse and recyle it for the next time.

I know the date on the mini is on the cusp for the actual dates of 3rd edition (if not downright past it), but I feel he would fit in fine with my 3rd Ed. Wardancers, at least thematically, as I would like to think my painting has improved since then.

The shininess on the mini is due to me photography, as he's already had a coat of Dullcoat to take the shine off him. If I had been feeling a little more adventurous, or had a little more time, he's the perfect mini to paint tattoos onto.

I went for a rather subdued palette on purpose, rather then the gaudy 80's rainbow I could have chosen (even back in the 80's I wasn't into that much).

As always, click the pics for bigger versions.

Iolair Greenleaf




Edit:
Posted on the BLOOD forum for C&C here.