The Last of the Wine (2011 version)

This year, in many aspects, I cut back on my miniature spending. This doesn't mean it came to a stop or anything like that. I just recently picked up the prepainted Dragons collector set from WoTC and I've had the Paizo prepaints on preorder for two months. I've also bought supplies like Army Painter primer, micro-files, green stuff, and other tools. However, miniature purchases have not been where they were in previous years.  This has been a funds thing in minor aspect but the major aspect has been time. For the last two years, work has been beating my ass with a tire iron so I've taken to a lot of short cuts (hence Army Painter and Vallejo Dips) and not buying as much as I used to since the stuff I've bought in the past I still haven't even primed. While I won't say that in 2012 I vow to improve my painting skills, I will try to paint more. Anyway, onto the last pics I'll post for the year. I hope that next year sees more people posting here. We have some great talent on board here and I'd love to be inspired by more of it.

These may not be the last of my trinity figures that I've had since the game came out, but I ran across them and painted them up. Armor is the iron/silver Army Painter spray followed by Andrea inks; brown, ultra marine blue, black. Skin is Andrea skin tone pack. The base is done up with Happy Suppuku mold that does Hexes. Nifty stuff there.

Reven from Reaper's Warlord game. I didn't do the two beastmen (woodchoopers in Warlord) at the same time, but I like them anyway. The orc is something like an orc sargent but a pig faced one. The green on the orc's skin is Andrea's six pack of green. These guys are pretty standard in basing terms.

Some Menoth figures from Privateer Press. He was a dip. He is part of a pack I'm giving one of my friends for X-Mas. I know it's late as I haven't given it to him but screw him as he didn't get me anything.

Two of GW's figs. The elf is a wood elf from the command group. The pic is so clear I can see a spot I missed on his pants. The gunner is another one I found while cleaning up. And again I gave him the wrong dip. Should have been soft and I used strong. The base on the wood elf is cork. I tried to disguise it a little by clipping it at odd angles.

Two more mega-miniatures. The first is dipped in Vallejo's Sepia. The second in Army Painter Soft. I weep for the crimes I commited against that second figure's eyes but done is done!

Have I mentioned I love Superfigs? Another robot with some paste for the base. Andrea silver set on this one all the way.

I took all these pics at the same time with the same camera and lightning and this is the best of six pics I took of the Black Legion here. The guy on the left with the great sword was my old 4e character, Rus, a fighter from the core I played for a while under a solid GM. The rest I painted later on. The bases are Heresy or I should say, were Heresy. They are cobblestone tabbed that go into the standard 25mm bases. The price of metal has risen so much that Andy at Heresy doesn't even make them anymore and recommended I go to Fenris for some resin versions. I hope they are a good match as I want to buy a few more of these style figs for games like A Song of Blades and Heroes and Havok and others I've heard good things about, not to mention Warlord, by Reaper, itself. I like the simplicity of the figs. I like these guys much more than the halbred ones.

I've already got a lot of figures in various stages of painting right now including a Red Box figure that would go great with the Chaos Mauraders from the north from Warhammer as well as a set of Orcs from Chronpia I think the game was called, as well as many more figs to prep.

I hope 2012 treats everyone better than 2011 did and that the paint flows freely in the new year!

Unknown Dwarf and Mega-Miniature Warrior Women

I don't even know the miniature company that makes this guy. Might be an old Grenadier or something. He was on a very small base so I used a larger base and some green stuff with a Happy Suppuku texture on it that I then through some winter grass ontop of to cover where the original base and the green stuff didn't quite mesh.

One of the great things about today's modern era is that between companies like the Army Painter, Vallejo, Reaper, and Games Workshop, no one appears to just be standing around waiting for the other guy to drop. The Army Painter has their dips and now Vallejo has their own version that thus far only includes two; black and sepia. The above, all three from Mega-Miniature, were dipped in Sepia.

The Vallejo dries much quicker and dries flat. Useful for those who don't want the shinny miniatures that Army Painter produces. However, you'll still probably need to hit with a coat of protection as the Army Painter does act as protection.

Lamenters Space Marine in Mk III Armor

A Few More

Starting with:

Reaper: Winter wolf.

Reaper: Female Pirate

Reaper: Rake

Games Workshop: Shadow Elf

Privater Press: Iron Kingdoms priest of Morrow

Renegade Psyker

We don't need no steenking binding!

Not quite dead...yet.

I have barely done any painting this year...but I have done some. I did some tonight, in fact. Nazis with lasers from Dust Tactics.

Eldar: Special Units

I wanted the special units to be thematically similar but still stand out. The turquoise was done as an ink wash, and I really enjoyed the effect it gave, so I decided to keep working with inks for the main colors. The result is that so far, these are pretty bright colors, but I like em enough to keep em.

Eldar: The Turquoise Wave. :)

2 units and then a collection of Farseers and Warlocks. I know nothing about Eldar, in general, as I don't play 40k and haven't for about 20 years, but I've always loved the Eldar sculpts.

Of note here is that the two odd colored Warlocks were done by me in roughly 1992-4. I think my skill has gone downhill considerably from then, but I don't obsess about the details anymore.

Eldar Army in Turquoise and Jewel tones

This is the start of an Eldar army a friend gifted to me a few years ago. I was starting to want to paint something other then my usual Privateer Press stuff, and so I pulled these out and started in on em.

Shots of individual Units up in the next post or two.

Note the Fire Drakes and Dire Avengers in the top right of this photo will not be shown in closeup. They aren't my paintjob, but they were pretty good, so I decided to not strip and redo them.

Malifaux: Colette's Showgirls Crew

I recently started into Malifaux and the first set I picked up was a Colette Crew. I did the paint here, but the bases are made by a guy local who started this project and then never finished it.

It's been ages!

So, I haven't been around in ages. I've actually still been painting quite a bit, as you'll see, but I haven't been posting.

This isn't unusual for me to go in fits of productivity though. It's just how I work.

Anyway, pictures in the next post or two.

Another Batch of Miniatures

Man, I see that there are followers on the old blog here, but am I the only one still actively posting these days? Sorry for the lack of white background or anything but with the way things are heading here, I figure fire and forget right? In the back row, we have the Reaper dragonmen set. I picked it up at Gen Con and got the freebie code. Good deal there. That guy in the back is on a small integral base and I threw him on a 25 x 25 and it's still too small.

Next row, from left to right: Plastic Empire guy with cannonball. He's from one of the old boxed sets from many moons ago. One Ral Partha, scarecrow. Two ladies from the Mega Mini line. Another Ral Partha Scarecrow and a Reaper spellcaster.

Next row, a Rafm skeleton, a reaper orc, who I painted dark green before decided that with the others I'd go black as I already posted, and a tiger of drizt from confrontation. I've had him since the figures were metal, before the plastic and before the collapse.

Last guy up front is one of the ringwraiths from the Lord of the Rings miniature wargame.

So enough about me, let's see some of the other figs out ther eh?

Games Workshop, Rattrap Miniatures, Reaper Miniatures

To the left we have a member of the Overlord faction for Reaper's Warlord game. In the center, are two Mongolian Death Worms from Rattrap and to the right, one of the heroes from the Lord of the Rings miniature game from Games workshop.

The base on the Overlord member is done with Sepukku Models. Unlike some of the other bases I've made using their molds, this one didn't have a lot of air bubbles and took the impression fairly well I thought. The base on the elf was done with Army painter rubble, highlighted with an old Iron Winds leather, and then Iron Winds leather and white and give a tuft of swamp grass.

I love the idea of the Mongolian Death worms and even wrote a little about them in my own blog. anyone know if they have any game stats? Acid and electricity? Alright! The only thing that's a little sad about the whole thing is the price. Rattrap is selling them for $14 now. When they first went to Games Plus as new figures, they were $10 but I picked them up for $7.50 and it was buy three get one free. To see them at $14 now, almost a 50% increase tells me that material cost are way up and I wouldn't be surprised to start seeing these in resin or another material in the near future.

Anyway, that's enough blathering from one mad man. Let's start seeing what everyone else is up to eh?

Reaper Black Orcs

Three Black Orcs from Reaper. I had to base them on the square bases because I intent to one day, perhaps mind you, use them for the Warlord game and it seems most of the black orcs for that army are actually from the Dark Haven line.

The update: Ral Partha, Games Workshop, White Wolf

Ral Partha, or Iron Wind Metals, had this figure as a Mage Knight one that they turned into metal. Went together very well. I wanted to try out some rust techniques on him and used several of the MIG rust, oil, and lots of metallics. He was sparyed down with an initial Army Painter plate mail metallic color and then worked on.

by the way, you may not be able to tell in that initial photo, but he's huge. Here he is alongside a Games Workshop lizard man and a Trinity soldier.

Some White Wolf figures. These are some Trinity soldiers. Once again, an Army Painter primer and I picked out the flesh and a few ot her details and gave them a dip. Notice that the bases are different because I lost the original bases that came with them. They were more figures that were just so old and relatively simple, that I wanted them done.

I had a pack of lizard men. They were the old type. I assembled them, sprayed them with one of the blue Army Painter Primers, did the necessary touch ups on the various scales, teeth and eyes, did all the weapons and shields in bronze and gave them a dip in the Army Painter Strong batch. Another group that I was tired of looking at.

So it was four weapons and five of each type so that was twenty down.

Happy Seppuku has some molds where you can make various bases. The one I used here was the Wood Planks. Very bad for Wood Planks. First off, there are bubbles in the mold so you'll have to make sure to smooth those out. Second off, the 'planks' are so huge that you'd be better off using them as concrete streets or painting them up silver for science fiction use. The guys here were sprayed again with the Army Painter silver/steel bit and then touched up with a dip in the Strong tone. Another group of miniatures that I was just tired of seeing not painted.

Another Mage Knight figure, this one is actually plastic. I was testing out the differences between some grounding elements. Here I used some green stuff in front of the left leg to try and make some ground that might look like a cave and then used some spackle for the rest of it. This doesn't count the repainting of the actual figure itself which was relatively simple as I didn't go for a lot of detail on it.

This is another one from Ral Partha/Iron Wind Metals, but this time, from their Vor line. He's a Soviet Officer who did have a back pack but it didn't fit and I wasn't going to play with it. Once again the Army Painter to the rescue but here AI tried to add some more depth to the armor with several shades of blue, brown, and black and some highlights with silver as opposed to the Trinity group that I just sprayed and dipped. The differences are sublte in person but in the photos? Not too sure. the ground is liquidex sand and I used several layers this time and I am more pleased with the results.

Not keeping track anymore because the twenty lizard men, plus the six dark elves, plus the Trinity figus more than shoot past the old 52 we go for. The Army Painter colored primers and dips really made this batch go quick and they've been done for a while.

Reaper, Grenadier, Ral Partha

First up is a four pack from Reaper miniatures featuring the Black Legion. I hate brocoli bases so trimmed them off. Huge pain in the ass here. I have a new product called Instant Mold that I snagged from Coolminornot. You can use it to make impressions of surface details pretty easily so I had a resin table from Dwarven Forged laying around and used that to make the floor that the Legion members stand on. It's still a new process for me so the thickness of the wood planking varies from figure to figure.

I painted these the super lazy way. An 'iron' spray from Army Painter. A medium black for the tunics and gloves. Some brown for the hafts and floor and a dip in Dark Toner. Shake 'em off and let 'em sit. While I was bumming I did do a few touch ups of GW Mithril Silver though. But seriously, outside of some pooling on the floor, super quick job that I'm okay with.

Next up... The minotaur is a Ral Partha. The two in front of it are old school Grenadier figures. I've had them for many years and like many other things lately, decided to just finish the damn things.

Alternative shot.

Next Round of Updates

Work has been very busy. And there has been bad things on the home life side of things too. I've still managed to get some painting in, but it's been pretty slow still.

Onto the finished works. My apologies on the lack of quality on the camera shots. Still can't take a photo to save my life.

I think the one on the left is a wood elf from Games Workshop. It's a metal figure. Had it laying around for a long long time. The one on the right is a steam golem from Mage Knight that I gave a repaint to. The main purpose there was to test some liquetext sand on the base. M'eh.

Okay... left side is a wood chooper from Reaper's Warlord for their first orc faction. Second one is a cultist from the Superfigs line. I had others and painted them up in red to represent monks from the Scarlet Brotherhood. The third figure is the Queen's Assassin from some company that's out of business I believe. The fourth is easter mouse for the g/f. He is on a wooden disk I bought from Michael's when I bought the liqutex.

Guy on the left is an Empire Plastic Gunner. I gave him a dip of Army Painter Strong tone. Don't know why as almost all the others I gave a Soft Tone due to the yellow. Ah well. The guy on the right is a metal armored archer, also for the Empire, but I don't think they've made any of him for a long time.

The classic lizard man pack from Reaper. I gave it a spray with some Flames of War color, some quick paint and slapped it into the Army Painter Strong tone. Base had some of that tuft Army Painter stuff on it. Simple but I think effective. I can see how people can quickly pump some armies out with fair detail with this method.

This is from Fantasy Flight Games. The base I think is Micro Art Studio. They do some good work. The tuffs are once again Army Painter.

This is an ogress. First done by Crocodile Games and then by Reaper. Given base tones and brush on with the Army Painter Strong Tone. I have two of 'em so I figured I'd paint one the quick way just so I can put it on the table.

13 figs this go around with the previous 29 bring's me on up to 42.

Hope to see some more postings from the other bloggers here. Some great talent out there I need to steal... I mean, be inspired by...

Hey look! He LIVES!

Yeah, this is my first paint job in about 10 months, done for a figure exchange on the Reaper forums. I actually painted another skull marker as well, so this is really my second paint job, in 10 months. Now that I'm moved in to my new place, and the baby is arrived, hopefully I'll be painting more. Cheers.