Red Rum! (Red Primer?)

A couple of quick shots from my new phone. These are some battle boxes for Khador from Privateer Press that have been hit up with the Army Painter red primer. These include the original metal and the new plastics as well as that demon from previous pics. The metal figures are smaller, but have larger heads and more detail. Still, I like the plastic ones because they have more sense of presence. At least for this boxed set.

That demon is from Heresy miniatures and I wanted to make him with the bone scythe but there were many gaps in assembling him and if not for Green Stuff, I would've broke him down into parts.

This batch... I'll probably do the old metals with Army Painter dip after I lay down the base colors and use the demon to test the red effect I'll be going for on the plastics.

No Miniatures but Related Purchases

Had to see my doctor so figured I'd stop by games Plus again.

The Army Painter cans are barbarian flesh and matt black. I'm always running out of the latter as it is one of my default choices. The barbarian flesh is for some Avatar of War plastic slayers I haven't opened yet but intend to later on this year. The basing material is a simple one but I like the coloration.

On the 'second row' if you will is Vallejo's answer to Games Workshops liquid green stuff. That is pretty cool so I figured I'd see what the competition is doing.

The bases are 40mm armorcast slate. Its a very detailed set and I'll probably be buying more basing material from them.

Lastly, silver, old gold, and white gold vallejo metallic alcohol based paints. I've heard a few good things about them and figured I'd try them out. Alas Games Plus did not have the other gold colors I was looking for but I've heard it's not difficult to shade these with regular washes and inks so that's good news.

Anyone out there pick up anything cool or different?

Prepainted Madness!

It's All In The Prep

While I'm not a fan of the way Games Workshop is going overall, sometimes they make some products well worth the cost. Here, the boxed set innards of the Demon Prince, which goes for something like $33 a pop. Strangely enough, a resin Ogre character, with no extras, no sprue material, etc... goes for $38. Ugh. The stupdity. I can smell it through the internets.

Lots of pieces here. There are at least three distinct ways you can make this bad boy.

Okay, the guy on the left is a Reaper Stone Giant. The guy in the middle is the demon assembled. The green stuff is liquid green stuff. It's.... interesting. If you have large gaps, I think you're better off working with standard green stuff. You can't tell from this picture but that stone gian'ts left arm on the rear needed a huge chunk of green stuff. The little guy is a demonic champion from Heresy. Have to wait for the base material to dry, do some sanding on the green stuff, and then prime away! The stone giant should be a super quick finish while I suspect that the demon prince may take a little longer and the little guy I still have to put together. The bases are all done with Happy Suppuku by the way.

Anyone else doing any assembly of projects or other good stuff? I know that Dread Fleet by Games Workshop is consuming a lot of people's time.

First Miniatures of 2012

Another year of crappy pictures. Lighting was good but maybe I need to work on my Macro understanding. Anyway, these are two figures I bought many moons ago when I was going to run some Freeport. They are true 25mm so like like some halfling version of serpent men when sized up to the new figs. I also don't remember the name of the company that makes them.

A skaven slave, I think from the Mordenheim range from Games Workshop. He was about 90% done. I finished off those few parts there were not and threw some basing material on him.

Ah, Red Box Games. They make some 'evil' barbarians that would fit in perfect with a Games Workshop Chaos Marauder army. The base is done with Happy Supukku Broken Earth or Ice base. I'm fairly happy with how this one came out despite the horrible, horrible picture.

Back side shot. Also terrible. Ugh. New Year I'll have to start doing more camera work.

So:

Red Box: 1
Games Workshop: 1
Unknown Company: 2

Off to a good start already.

First Miniature Based Purchases of 2012

So I've already spent some money on the hobby at my 'local' hobby shop, Games Plus. On the left we have some 25mm cobblestone square bases by Micro Art Studio. They have a lot of great bases and conversion bits. I'm not going to use these for my initial plans though. I wanted something to match the Heresy bases I've used on the Black Legion but while these are good, they are too peebly for my needs.

I also picked up a resin cleaning kit from the evil empire. The price wasn't too bad. The brush is longer than the standard other tooth brush in terms of the bristles and the mold cleaning tool has a very solid feel making it easy to use.

Not pictured is the new No Quarter, #39 by Privateer Press as well as the 'Eavy Metal Masterclass book by the evil empire again. It's a compendium of material from White Dwarf magazine but it's all in one place and is an easy reference when you want to see how they did a particular figure.

I suspect with Secret Weapon having a Facebook coupon, I wll be buying their washes soon. I like to support smaller companies when possible.

Anyone else start the year off with some miniature goodness?

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!