Base problem

That moment, late at night, when you've just finished a batch of bases for some minis, then you go back to the minis you have ready to rebase, and realise you didn't do enough.

Guess I'll be painting four more of them tomorrow evening!

Finishing some Viridians

In the first painting session for about 2 weeks, pulled out some old Viridians, with the plan to finish off some paint jobs that had been sitting around for far too long This was inspired in part by the Viridian Wars blog, and partly by Colore ton Monde ending, which has made me go back an complete old stuff for some reason, rather than starting any new projects.

This may also be inspired by the spring clean going on in our house this weekend too.

So, a triple whammy of reasons to go back and fill in some blanks that have been staring at me. I hope there'll be some more of this to follow in the rest of the month. In fact, this month's mini for the Khador Caster Challenge fits this bill too, as I have an eButcher sitting around base coated that I plan to do next.

So let's call May the spring cleaning month, and use it to our advantage shall we!

These guys were painted for a Colore ton Monde back in April 2014, but have been sitting on whote bases ever since. No more! Now they are based to fit the scheme of the rest of my Viridians. Although, there are another 4 or 5 of these bases to go, but they will be completed soon. These bases are from a discontinued line by Secret Weapon. The other 5 are from a similar line, but are different enough, with none of the large modelling of these bases. Hopefully keeping the palate the same should make them all blend in seamlessly.

 

Looking at them I the harsh light of a close up photograph, there's a lot of things about the way I painted these that I would do differently now. Only a year's difference, and still so much to learn and master.

Dystopian Legions: Kingdom of Britannia, Armstrong Gun

I fielded the Armstrong 14lb cannon in my Kingdom of Britannia army for the first time this week, and I must say, I was suitably impressed. The rules make it not only good anti armour, but also very good against infantry, especially the multi-wound kind.  It was definitely the Man of the Match as far as I'm concerned, so, I think it's rather safe to say it'll be making a return to the field soon. Which of course means I better finish off the paint job!

The crew have been painted for a while, but the gun was waiting till I had made a nice little scenic base for it till it got a coat of paint, as I do like the nice bases these guns come on. The scenery has been built now, and the gun is ready to be painted. Hopefully in time for my next game.

The crew:

 

The loader has been magnetised so he can be removed from the base for transport. I may have to do the same for the gunner, but so far it seems to be fine as his hat doesn't go much higher than the gun.
I went for a rather traditional British Army Artillery scheme here.

The Cannon:

The barbed wire is from Army Painter, the sandbags and bricks are Secret Weapon. I forgot to place the box of ammunition that comes with the mini on the base. I'll do that before painting.

Alexia, base WIP

This mini has been on the table for a while now, but I thought it was about time to post a few WIP shots of the base, and mini for Alexia. I had the mini painted mostly up for the Longest Night event, but I had held off on the base, as I wanted something a little more special for this lady. In the end, I opted for this base by Secret Weapon.

Here, Alexia's base all but done, some muddy water to add, and some touch ups to the mini after all the man-handling required to remove the horse from its previous base and pin it to this one.

I went on to touch up the paint work, and fill in the base with some water effect, stained with Secret Weapon's Sewer Water wash. Perfectly named I feel, and the colour works great as swamp water. I dumped some grass and leaves in the mix at the last minute, as I was too eager to get the water in there, I completely forgot how I had actually planned to place these before adding the water effects.

Furthermore, I had also planned to varnish the model before I put the water effect in, as I didn't want the spray varnish I use for a dullcoat clouding up the base! This will have to be worked around, as already the paint job has chipped again where I repaired it last night. I guess I'll have to paint on the 'ard coat, then mask over the base to spray with dullcoat.

Shopping spree

I had a long lunch today, and walked that little bit further out of town than my usual gaming store to the hobby store (Udisco). This is the warehouse sized place that sells all the other modelling stuff, whether it's model trains, planes. boats, RC cars, airplanes, helicopters, the works. They have a large (and I mean huge) selection of miniature soldiers in 1:72 and 1:35 scale. Up until my recent foray into historical minis, I have always gave this section a miss, but I decided to give this section a good browse.

In the end, I spent too much money in the place (I always do, but what they have is so reasonably priced compared to hobby stores), and came out with the following:

The Haul

Dead Trees

• box of dead trees
• box of 1:35 NATO tank ammo and boxes
• 2 packs of tree foliage (3 colours total)
• scenic long grass
• Bone saw with 2 blades (called a razor saw here)
• Water effect (same price as a small bottle in the games store for x10 the volume) this time it's the sculptable water effect rather than still water.
• 1 box 1/72 scale Mounted Samurai
• 1 box 1/72 Ashigaru-Yari

This may seem like completely random purchasing, but there's method to my madness, hear me out.

1/35 NATO 105mm shells

The dead trees are perfect for 28mm scenery and or bases, and the foliage will do them proud. Dead trees will go especially well on the kind of trench bases my current Khador seem to be based on. Go look at any WWI photography, dead trees everywhere in the trenches. The grass is great stuff, I already have some in a different colour, and going with the trench bases/scenery, the shell cases and boxes will fit right in. They did have some metal casings, but they seemed kind of skinny for what I wanted, and expensive (the sealed box meant I wasn't sure what the ones I bought were made from till I got them home. The razor saw was a bit of an extravagance. In theory, this will allow for better cleaner cutting for conversions. In practice, I'm a ways away from doing the kind of conversion that requires a razor saw.

Ok, so what are these made of?

 And the 1/72 Samurai? Yeah, that one is harder to justify, but I'll give them a post of their own to explain, and to showcase them.

Tutorial: Ice bases I

Ok,so not so much a tutorial, as 'I tried this and here's what happened'

I was reading some blog/forum or other (sorry if you're reading this and it's you, but I just can't find the link)a few days ago, and I saw mention of ice bases. It struck some inspiration in me, ans i remembered a few years ago I had found some rubber moulds for rocks in a hobby store. I had tried to use these moulds with polyfilla as a quick and dirty way to make some scenic bases/scenery. That was a failure as the polyfilla never cured well in the moulds, and even a few years later the remnants on the moulds are rubbery and not set. Anyway, back to the now, and the idea came to me to fill one of the moulds with some Still Water. Ever keen to see what this stuff can be used for, I filled one of the moulds. As an afterthought, I realised this may have been better if I had first tinted the water with some blue/white paints. Instead, I ran to the fridge* and pulled out the baking soda, and sprinkled it on top (well the bottom of the rock). It floated, so I grabbed a spoon, and used it to push the baking soda into the Still Water. I then placed it on top of the fridge and left it to cure. 48 hours later, I pulled it out, and this is the result.

Flash to be trimmed

In the mould

Then on to cleaning up the 'flash', colouring the underside to give a tint to the ice, and finding a use for it. Both my Legion and Khador are Northern factions, and are therefore suited to ice terrain. Maybe a 'jack or 'beast base, as the mould I chose was larger than 30mm.

The above pictures show it off well, but in reality, it's a little too transparent, and there's no visible definition. A wash of some kind should bring out the details of the rock/ice pattern, but what colour to choose?


*As an aside, what is it with North Americans and their compulsion to put baking Soda in the fridge. I know the theory is that it soaks up the smells, but really, if your fridge smells, clean out the offending food! In all my years in the UK, I never had this problem, and yet here, every fridge! What's up with that?

Battlefield detritus

My laptop finally gave up the ghost, so I have a) a little more time to paint (less distractions), and b) no way to post what I have painted. I have snuck onto my good lady's PC this afternoon and so am posting these few pictures of the painted cannon wreck markers/scenery/space filler/objective tokens, or whatever you think they're good for.

From what I have seen, green was a good colour to paint the cannon wrecks to make them French. I will likely use the rest to make a few more bases and paint them blue to represent British artillery wreckage.

Modelling

This evening has been rather bitty in terms of what I got done. My previous post shows I was inspired to get on with some Napoleonic French. However, I found out to my dismay that the French Line Infantry i have are for the period 1812-1815, so don't cover the Peninsular War, which was where the Légion Hanoverienne and Légion du Midi served (both were disbanded before the 1812 campaign). A mild setback, as I'm sure no-one would notice the difference if I painted them up as I wanted anyway. Still, it got me round to putting a few more of these minis together, and on different bases from my usual pennies. maybe I can just add a quarter underneath (25cents). A possible, if not more expensive, option.

Also, I picked up some movement trays from GW, for their Lord of the Rings game War of the Ring (in the picture above). These allow me to fit my minis based for skirmish into formation for larger games without needing to rebase them, although I will have to figure something out for the 95th, as they're all stuck to pennies. Maybe I'll just stick them on top of other bases as they are. I also wanted to make use of terrain, placed on the same bases as the miniatures. I have seen this method around, and it works really well for 2 things. It allows you to make mini dioramas within the units, adding to the character of the figs, and also, it fills out the unit whilst saving on minis. To this end, I wandered into my FLGS, and bought some bits, mostly GW cannons and the like, for a couple of dollars. I brought them home and chopped them up, and this is the result.

I'm sure they could also be used as objective markers, or even casualty markers at a push. I want to get on and give them a coat of PVA, and get them painted, but I'd best wait at least 24 hours to let the Polyfilla dry.

Lastly, I put a little more paint on my Napoleon Diorama. The drum may be finished, but Raza has a ways to go.

Tutorial Linky

I follow the Massive Voodoo Plog with one eye, and I like the turorials they have recently posted on miniature modelling. I repost them here for your reference and mine.


Realistic arrows
Underwater dioramas
Realistic spiderwebs

There's an overview of all their tutorials here. There,s so much to see on that website. Inspiration on a great many aspects of the hobby. Off to see what needles I can nab from the lab to use as arrow shafts. Not sure if I'll be getting an airbrush soon. That'll have to wait till I live somewhere with a garage.