Birthday Unsurprise

Today is/was my birthday, and as part of my gift from my wonderful family, I was given the rather fetching cake you see in the picture there! Yum yum! This was along with some other Lego, that I may or may not have chosen myself! I hide nothing, it's a great toy that all the family gets the benefit from!

I was also given a rather nice set of brushes, as pictured below. Yes, there are some Windsor and Newton series 7 in there, yes that is the most money I have ever put out for single brushed, by about a factor of 10. I do believe they will be worth it, indeed they are a required purchase for what is to be my Christmas present. I am heading along to the Montreal Masterclass, run and taught by Meg Maples in December, and I am rather looking forward to it.

 

Before that, I guess I better get my brushes broken in. Well, maybe broken in isn't the best term to use here, I think I'll be rather careful with those brushes...

Halloween Masks

My good lady and I do love Halloween, though we don't always have an excuse to dress up,. This year, we are heading out for a Halloween supper with the kids and a local kid-friendly cafe. Well, it's more than kid friendly, it's designed to be a place where the kids can run about and play while the parents have a seat and a coffee.


We didn't want to go the whole hog for a costume, but we did need to do something. Luckily, this site came across my Facebook feed last week, and I figured it gave the perfect answer. Cheap, but looks good.

We chose the bird mask, and then set to using the pdf Template required to make the masks out of old cereal packets.

I think they work rather well, especially after the coat of silver paint.

Colore ton Monde: Alten Ashley II

Alten Ashley is fully finished now. I found his sword, it was stuck to the paper towel I use to wipe my brush. Just as well for me I reuse this paper, otherwise the sword would be long gone.

I also redid his hair after seeing his close-ups I tried to redo his eyes too, but I don't think I made any improvements there. The face looks good from arms-length, but the closer you look, the more flaws you see.

Here are the final pics.

Dystopian Legions: Codename Iron Scorpion I

My box has arrived. I am now the proud owner of the Dystopian Legions two player box set, Codename: Iron Scorpion. Not only does this box contain the new version of the rules and a campaign guide, it also has 2 armies (The Covenant of Antartica and the Republic of France), as well as templates, dice, cards and counters, but it also has scenery in the form of a ruined fort in multiple parts, all ready for the included campaign, and other games. That's pretty unbeatable for content I think. Full contents are listed on the Spartan Games website here.

I'll post pictures and a review shortly, and will get on with building the minis in the next week or so, as there area few local gamers who are waiting to play with me. November's going to be another Dystopian Legions month here on Lead and Paint!

Signal Boost: American History Too

I would very much like to draw your attention to American History Too, a thirty minute podcast, coming very much from an academic stand point, being of direct use to students studying history at University, particularly Edinburgh University, but of course, learning and discussion are by no means the preserve of mere students, some may even say they're even wasted on students.

As a further gaming link, as if one was needed, you may have heard of one of the podcasters before in gaming circles. Dr Malcolm Craig, is a real renaissance man, as he is also the Writer/Creator of both Cold City and Hot War, two excellent indie RPGs that I can thoroughly recommend to those of you who play RPGs.

One criticism I would make, they need to work on their logo, but hey, I'll let them off since they're just setting out.

 

Go check them out, they now have a whole two episodes for you to listen to.

Colore ton Monde: Alten Ashley I

Some WIPs for this month's Colore ton Monde challenge mini. I went with the monster hunter angle, rather than the monster itself, which is of course covered by the always flexible monthly theme (go here to see October's theme). So here are the first shots of Alten Ashley.

Alten is very much close to being done. These are only WIPs for two reasons. First off, I started painting his sword that sticks onto his back at the same time I started painting him, but by the time I got round to finishing him, I had misplaced the sword. This is very annoying, and I hope it turns up, however, if Alten is ever using his sword in a game, that game is not going well for him!

The second reason is that, as always, I was very happy with the way he was looking, till I saw the pictures. My eyes are just not what they used to be. So, I'll be going back over the mini, mainly to sort out his hair and face.

The plants on his base are some chopped up plastic aquarium plants that I recently re-purposed (all the fish have finally passed on in our tank, so I had to doe something with all the bits). They work rather well I feel. I went with thistles, as they are purple and cream, which fits in with my other mercs, without me having to give him a garish purple coat, thereby breaking his camouflage. There is also a little purple on his boot-knife, just to keep him on theme.

Here's a close up of the face. I was trying a couple of new things here. First off, the stubble, and secondly, giving a tint to the bottom lip. Both f these to give more character to the paint job. However, I'm not sure either works with my normal way of doing eyes, i.e. ignoring them and letting the inks do the job of suggesting the presence of eyes.

It was this picture that convinced me I'll have to go back and get out the little paintbrushes before I'm happy with this guy.

Colore ton Monde: October

This month's challenge has been posted on the Club Chaos facebook page, and not wholly surprisingly, it is a Halloween based challenge. Last month's entry by me, with a link to the other entrants can be found here.

This month's theme is as follows:
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* Monstrueusement vôtre *

Octobre, avec l'Halloween à sa toute fin, est le mois de la peur et des monstres. Pour le mois d'octobre, nous vous invitons à peindre une créature monstrueuse, qui inspire la peur ou les cauchemars. Nous étendons aux défenseurs de la veuve et l'orphelin qui combattent ces dits monstres, ou à tout modèle déguisé.
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* Monstrously Yours *

October with Halloween at its very end, is the month of fear and monsters. For the month of October, we invite you to paint a monstrous creature who inspires fear or nightmares. We extend this to cover the defenders of widows and the orphans who fight these so-called monsters, or to any model in disguise.
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So, a straight up Halloween theme then. Time to go have a rake around in the Legion of Everblight bucket and see what I can pull out.

Colore ton Monde: September, New Tech

This has been a slooooow month, with real life getting in the way of hobby time to a much larger extent than normal. I won't bore you with the details, but I will excite you with a painted mini. One whole big fat painted mini, that is the grand total of this month's gaming output. Go me!

The theme of this month's challenge can be found here, and the rest of the minis are posted on facebook here.

He is rather fat though, that much is true. He is a Sumotori, a heavy (literally) for the Triad faction in Urban War. There are another two just like him to be finished off. In the end, the paint job really doesn't live up to close inspection, but he's done.

How I spend month's gaming time will be entirely determined on which of the products I have ordered arrives first. I am awaiting the Iron Scorpion box set from Spartan, which has been already delayed at the printers, and there's usually about a month's lag in me getting things from them over on this side of the Atlantic. I am also close to receiving two Kickstarters from Chaosium. Horror on the Orient Express, and 7th Edition Call of Cthulhu. Both of which are currently scheduled for a mid-October release. If these arrive, I intend to put together a gaming group for that, which won't necessarily compete directly with my gaming time, as that's likely to be a weekend evening event, however, prepping it is highly likely to eat into my time at the painting table.