So, as my avatar suggests, I live in the land of poles. Normally this is great as it's cheap to live and I have a steady income well over the national average as a native teacher of English. However, this also sucks donkey testicles because all of my wargames stuff is back in England and during a recent visit there I somehow got dragged back into the hobby after a 5 year hiatus.
Now, I've been selling old stuff on the wonderful world of ebay (mostly my old LOTR models and some blood bowl stuff) to fund a fresh start over here. So last week I put in an order with my local (local in England anyway) games store and am now eagerly anticipating the arrival of:
As well as this small order to start my paint collection, I also have a few Vallejo paints on order from another store and have bought a few still in blister models from ebay including a Mordheim Vampire, one of the old eldar avatars and the elf mage from IoB. Oh - and resin bases
The idea is to model and paint these guys up trying out new techniques along the way and then maybe start an army of something I like the look of, or just get my Ogre's, Nids or BA's sent over to finish off and get a few games in.
If I'm missing anything from my shopping list let me know
Edit: Apologies for not having any pics of actual figures, the waiting is akin to christmas as a 5 year old and I need to feel like I'm doing something proactive. I'll update with pics of the unboxing and cleaning up of the finecast models - It'll be my first foray into the world of finecast and I'm hoping it doesn't all go tits-up on me. In fact speaking of finecast problems, I haven't ordered any greenstuff... bollocks.
Edit 2: My figures actually had an attempted delivery on Tuesday, BUT the Polish post is a bit shit and they never even take packages with them on rounds and then claim that you didn't answer the door when they tried to deliver so you have to go and pick it up. Work appears to have gotten in the way of that so far but finally. Finally tomorrow morning I'll be able to pick them up
Pretty sure you already know this, but just in case you don't, you'll want some superglue for the resin. It's always annoying when you get new stuff and realise you can't do anything with it due to lack of tools etc.
Luckily I have that covered, I actually know where to buy superglue here where as plastic glue, among other things, has been hard to track down but thanks for the tip
Thinking back I've actually missed being accidentally superglued to various items.
Right, so all my stuff is here and has been for a few days. I've just had a busy couple of weeks and haven't really had chance to look at the stuff let alone put anything together or paint.
So here's a nice picture of a box:
Now a couple of the resin bases I bought, they're volcanic but I think they look pretty good as worn flagstones too. I was testing out some different techniques and tried my hand at stippling for the first time. The lava isn't great on the other base, I somehow forgot to order any yellow paint and had to resort to mixing from orange.
Last pic is the hammer from the Empire Captain. It's supposed to have the initials KF but thanks to copious amount of flash it actually read '[]E' took me some time to make it readable. This is actually my first experience with finecast and while the model itself was in good order with no holes or cracks, the flash and mould lines were aweful. It took me ages to clean up completely but at least I didn't have to green stuff anything once it had been removed.
Anyway, not much of an update but it's a start. Feedback welcome and encouraged. Next update will be some finished mantic ghouls (pic below) - the free ones from the paint set - that I'll be testing myself on. I haven't properly painted miniatures for a long time (3 colour nids while I was back in the UK in the summer don't count) and getting back into isn't as easy as I thought.
Ok, so after a hectic month I've finally got down to painting some stuff.
I made a bit of a mess trying out new techniques on the mantic ghouls so wont post up pics of them but they did give me some much needed practice.
Christmas was pretty good and I ended up with a package from home containing a second empire captain, some shiny new paintbrushes and a box of empire pistoliers which were all completely unexpected but now I guess I can turn this into more of an Empire plog
Anyway, here's some pics of the first empire captain in progress. I'd rather get critiqued at this stage where it's easier to change things so bring on the pain.
Here's the front - Boots aren't finished yet and I haven't decided on a colour scheme for the cloth parts yet although purple and white is what I'm leaning towards at the moment.
Aaaaand the back. I'm pretty happy with how the cloak came out and the embroidery part will likely be gold
Anyway, small update but I have to start somewhere
I like the purple cloak, and well done with the gold armour, what was your technique? I hate painting gold but have just been pointed in the direction of Vellejo Liquid Gold, which apparently covers really well.
The freehand is really shaping up too, well done for being brave with that so soon back into the hobby
Cheers Just so you know if by freehand you mean the comet on the cloak, that's just part of the model
The gold was vallejo's tinny tin - or just tin bitz - over a black undercoat. Thin coat of army painter gold. Badab Black wash then highlight with the gold again. Pretty simple overall but I'm happy with how it came out
The left shoulder looks really messy here, I went back to it after I looked at the pic for the first time and it turns out the camera does lie! It really doesn't look like that
OK, so last time I said Castellan Crowe was up next but I changed my mind and instead started building my pistoliers/outriders.
I couldn't choose which of the two units I wanted to make so decided to do both and hopefully have them interchangable. Now, as I said in the OP, I don't have much in the way of tools and I definitely don't have any magnet (yet) so I started by pinning the horses. This is quite painful when you don't have a drill small enough BUT I improvised with my penknife and a rather pointy screw.
I literally screwed an outrider in the ass.
Next was the weapons. The outriders have cloaks that are attached to the arm that steadies the repeater handgun while pistoliers just have 2 normal arms with no cloak so I'm going to have to replace everything but the body and legs when I change units. The heads also need to be changed, pistoliers are young and outriders are mostly older bearded guys so more pinning/magnetising ahead.
Small update really, just to show I'm getting there slowly but surely.
The arms aren't actually pinned yet so they won't be so loose once I'm done.
Edit: I've been busy today and pinned the whole unit. I'm not sure how I'm going to fix the arms, I'm thinking pins in the pistol arms and holes in body join and just leave the repeater arms as they are because they seem a fairly tight fit and they'll obviously cover any holes in the body.
Firstly Castellan Crowe is started. I need to finish off stuff like the scrolls and extras but he's mostly done.
And the back:
Aaaaaand here's ANOTHER empire captain. This one I plan on keeping for my army and I decided to make him into a BSB so I made a green stuff banner using a cocktail stick for the pole. I also had to chop his arms off to reposition for the banner to not go over his shoulder like the hammer normally does. I also decided I didn't want a pistol on this one so chopped off the gun, green stuffed the handle to make it look like the hammer grip (had to bulk it out quite a bit) and now have the hammer to try and attach.
This guy will be my entry for both of the march painting comps so I ditched Crowe for a few days in order to get this conversion done
Feedback welcome, I've taken the lack of feedback so far to mean one of two things; either I'm at that 'perfectly acceptable' stage where no one feels they need to point out mistakes OR no one cares I like to think it's the first reason
The captain is pretty much ready to be primed, however I thought I'd post up a pick of him almost finished in order to get feedback on whether there's anything I've missed.
So please comment if you notice anything that looks out of place or needs green stuffing or any mold lines I've managed to miss. Extra pairs if eyes are most welcome
I will say I know the pose looks a little weird and something he wouldn't be able to hold for long, you just have to assume it timmy mallets mallet and not a steel warhammer
I could imagine him holding it further up the handle but throwing it up and letting his hand grip it further down as he points with it. Nohomo. The only critic I could give, and believe me when I say no matter what it's better than anything I've ever done, but the banner looks a little too thick around the pole.
I agree I probably should have shortened the hammer grip, I think I miscalculated (read; didn't really do any measuring) before I attached it
As for the banner, I have actually been trimming it down but if it still looks too fat then I'll have another crack at it. I just need to wait for the 2 bands either side of the banner grip to dry before I touch it.
Update of progress on the captain. Had a bit of an issue with the primer when I sprayed him. I'm using some random company spray paint - it's pretty good especially for the price and I've used it before on a feew test figures (and crowe) and it's been fine. However when I went to spray the captain I shook for a minute or two, sprayed on some paper for a second to check the consistancy and then sprayed the figure only for the nozzle to eff up and splatter the paint a bit thick on the front side of the captain. Some warm water and a toothbrush later and I cleaned most of it out (spray paint is damn sticky and refuses to budge) let it dry and tried again with success!
Anyway, these pics are very basic base coats only although the banner in the second and third pics is pretty much the final colour - it's just hard to see but it's layered from 1/1 black/purple mix up to 2/1 purple/bone. I'll take some better pics so you can see it before I ruin it with some free hand empire designs.
Front View
Arse view
One thing I've been thinking about is the colour scheme of my army. I know this is something to do BEFORE you start painting but I was planning on purple and white for the main colours with any trims or frills etc being red. However, I'm now starting to lean towards purple and yellow as the main colours but going for al three of the difficult colours to paint in one army seems like it might be stretching my abilities and I'm not really sure it would look better than purple/white anyway.
Any thoughts on this baffling conundrum or just critique or general suggestions of things to add, or ideas for the banner are all welcome.
These are looking awesome Mr Turnip. i always think that purple and red don't fit together very nicely, they have a habbit of being too similar unless you are planning on making the purple very pale compared to the red. Your fading and shading on these guys is great, much nicer than my own so i will have to take a tripp to Polesville and steal your brain....sorry that's the way it is.
Cheers, thinking on it I am actually leaning towards a dark green cape now just for some contrast. That and I'm bored of red
You can take a trip to Polesville but can you let me know when you find my brain, it's been missing for a while
Right, so this isn't an update. That much is clear (although I did use the few hours I had spare today to remove all the mold lines on the pistoliers/outriders and stick them together with white tack in preparation for making them interchangable - yay).
This is, however, a request.
I need a design that I can free hand onto the banner of the captain. Any ideas are welcome - or designs if people are willing to bother. My free hand skills aren't up to scratch as it's been a while since my last attempts which even back when I was at my best I still couldn't quite get things exactly how I wanted them, so something fairly simple would be best. The banner is purple and I'm thinking the bulk of the design should be bone or similar.
As for pointers on what the design could be; I've not decided on the fluff of my army BUT I will have a slight undead undertone going on. I have some zombie pirates I made ages ago back in the UK which I'll probably add in as free company to the army to get it off the ground. Also I always liked VC fluff so I could go for something like a border kingdom that has been infiltrated by vampires and the peasantry are becoming gradually corpsified. We'll see where it goes as I build the army
Cancelled one of my lessons this morning because I couldn't be arsed to go teach a small child English and I used the time to get some more paint slopped on to the captain. Win win situation.
The cloak is now green and I'm happy with how it came out, it's also the only part of the figure that's finished bar any touch ups that may occur from unsteady hands.
Extreme closeup...whoooooaaaahhh /Waynesworld
Aaaaand the cloak.
Apologies if it's getting boring seeing updates on the same figures all the time but I'm trying to motivate myself to get through them quicker. Once this guy is finished I'll finish off crowe and undercoat the various parts of the pistoliers/outriders and then I have mr Krell Lord of Undeath to get started on Should be a busy couple of months especially with a trip back the UK planned for May.
Also, still after suggestions for the banner. I'm kind of at a loss with what to do with it
Edit: I'm probably going to attempt a dumbed-down version of this:
On one side of the banner with a twin tailed comet on the reverse side.
Any thoughts? Am I in over my head? Or is it a good idea?
Edit 2:
Having trawled through some basic lore stuff and the uniforms and heraldry book I've decided on an Ostermark army - mostly because the colours fit but the close proximity to what was once sylvania and the fact mordheim is there too makes perfect sense for what I had planned for the army Seems I lucked out, I always seem to do that when it comes to army backgrounds.
I'll write up some fluff I think when I get round to it - probably when I run out of stuff to paint after the outriders a finished.
Update on the banner. Went with the pic from the previous post. It's actually from WAR but looks pretty awesome.
I'm really happy with it so far, all i need to do is tidy it up a little and go over the brown border with either bone or gold, haven't decided yet and probably put a border on the gold cross with a little shading as it looks a bit plain.
The reverse side only has a border at the moment. I was thinking of the twin tailed comet but after seeing how this side came out I'm thinkning of trying something else as the comet idea seems like it might look a bit shite. Any thoughts?
So I can't stick either the captain or crowe together and I can't really make too much of a start on my mini project either.
This month for the army painting and monthly painting challenge I'll be doing my pisoliers/outriders - these are pretty much ready to be primed with everything glued that needs to be glued and I'll just wait until I get magnets before attacking them with a pin vice/screw again meaning the all powerful white tack shall be making an appearance on the pics again when I get them painted
On another note I prepped Krell, Lord of undeath and he's ready to be stuck together but that takes us back to the lack of superglue part again so I really need to get down to the shops and pick some up.
Aaaaand yet another note. This is my mystery project.
There will be a prize of +3 rep (all I can give) to the person that correctly identifies wha this will be. There are clues;
1 - It's a comedy piece (there's always something amusing in most of my armies)
2 - It's for my empire army
3 - There is no third clue.
Well, 12 hours and no one's attempted a guess so here's the next clue in the form of a picture. This isn't subtle and if no one bothers to guess from this I'm going to assume everyone is dead because seriously how could you NOT try and guess?
Extra points go to the person that identifies the base model too (there's a pic on the first page)
The cloak (well really it's a trench coat) needs a lot of work and I've done 4 green stuffing sessions on it so far because I've found i end up squishing the un cured green stuff with fingers by accident if i try to cover too much at once so I'm gradually building it up. Plus I'm crap at doing cloaks with green stuff. This is pretty much my first attempt and I'm struggling to get the folds natural-looking but after last nights work I think it's looking better and I'm kind of seeing where I should be modelling the recesses
The first picture I was like wtf is going on... looking back now you can make out the guitar sitting down there. But this model is going to be sick, cant wait to see the finished green and then with some paint!
Yeah the first pic was supposed to be cryptic yet have something in it that could be made out. To be fair at that stage it was mostly just a blob of green stuff attached to a mantic ghoul. It still is but hopefully a more defined blob of green stuff
I realise now that my brain really doesnt work in the same way as most people so only someone with an obscure view such as myself would have got the correct answer, then again I already knew so maybe not
Anyway, I'm working all day today and tomorrow so won't make much, if any, progress for a few days so look out for updates on Friday
Edit: Change of plans, I have a pretty clear schedule tomorrow morning and afternoon thanks to cancelled lessons because of Easter (students trying to blag longer weekends) so I actually might get something done. I'll probably base coat the pistoliers and finally get pics up for the monthly painting challenges and while they're drying green stuff more of the trench coat and get the wizard's head glued on
Edit 2: Here's the monthly challenge unit dry-built
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