6MMRPC: Week 25.5 Large Earth Elemental Reaper Bones

Another posting over to Caffeine Forge. As mentioned in my last post, I was a bit disappointed with how my painting turned out this week. I found it a bit challenging to avoid painting this guy a single colour, yet find enough 'realistic' colour tones to use. I tried to bring some bright colours down with inking and then couldn't be bothered to highlight so many different seams and colours.




I suppose I'm fortunate that I have a deadline for this, or I'd be inclined to let this one sit until I could figure out how to 'fix' him. You know, indefinitely. I'm sure lots of us do this from time to time. Anyway, definitely ends up on the 'whatever, fine enough' pile. But completed nonetheless!






The mini itself is well sculpted with lots of character to be taken advantage of. My favorite part is the fossil embedded in the upper right hand shoulder. I didn't get a great pic of it, but you can get the idea.

6MMRPC: Week 25 Stony Head Terrain (Dream Pod 9 Heavy Gear)

A bit of a disappointing week painting wise. I managed to finish my fig for the caffeineforge weekly posting (which I'll reveal Wednesday), but I wasn't super happy with it's appearance. Similarly, these figs were pretty easy to paint up, but I'm just not too jazzed about them. I think part of the challenge is I want them system, size, and location agnostic...which prevents me from doing too many details. I don't want vegetation b/c they may show up in a dessert or badland. Similarly, bird droppings may tighten up the size or terrain biome they would be in. Bah.

6MMRPC: Week 24.5 Battle Golem Bones

The second week of my participation in the Caffeineforge roundup. This week the fig was the Battle Golem. I decided I wanted this guy to look very distressed. He very much appears to be a made of metal, so metallics would obviously feature prominently. I started with a mix of bronze and what would be iron. The sword (after soliciting opinions in the house) was a bright blue/white. I had hoped for more pop/shiny/gloss on the sword (meant to be totally un-distressed)....but close enough.

I toned the bronze down with some vallejo smoke, which has a nice effect to darken and grubby things up. After that I highlighted back up with the bronze (quite noticeable on the shoulder), and honed steel on the iron areas.

Then I got to work. I tried to do a verdigris effect, which I thought turned out fairly well. It's a bit harrowing at time how BLUE everything is getting. After hitting it with some smoke again, it calmed down.....perhaps too much.

The rust is a fantastic rust effect paint I have and love to use....simply paint and go. I think it's alcohol based, as it dries quickly and rustifies as it dries.

I'm very pleased with this 'old warrior'.

6MMRPC: Week 24 GZG Space Contractors

These guys have been on the side of my paint table for the last 2 weeks. I find a lot of my figs I progress on in fits and starts as I agonize about colour choices. Historicals being a key exception because, hey, there are definite colors that should be used.







This crew of space laborers (from GZG) received high visibility suits, and I had been reading 'Outland' (the movie starring Sean Connery) early in the year and the workers were color coded to different jobs. I thought it a cool idea.

I got held up for a while hoping to figure out how to make some super cool gold like visor reflective effects.....but eventually just wanted to finish them off.

6MMRPC: Week 23.5 Vaeloth Reaper Bones

Inspired by David (Tower of the Archmage) I broke out some reaper bones that I have collecting dust in my closet.  Caffeineforge does a regular weekly posting of a single miniatures (with the order determined more than a month in advance) painted by multiple different painters. Their skills seem around my own, so it's quite a treat to paint something, and then see what other folk have done with it conceptually and technically.

I managed to find about the first 10 of the bones in the list, wash them up (apparently the release agents can do weird things to your primer and/or cause the paint not to stick for long), prime, and paint the first one. It was a bit of a race on Sunday to try and get him finished, and pictured before the deadline.

David (another one!) at Caffeineforge only posts a single pic, so I had to download GIMP (a free photoshop program) and futz about to get a single picture with 3 views.

Unfortunately, the figure has no nose (this is not too uncommon with bones) so his face looks a bit funny. I decided to make his wolf pelt that of a hellhound, and contemplated trying to free hand a wolf muzzle on the shield. I didn't feel up to it and went with a classic chaos sign from the warhammer universe.

Red and bronzes go well together. I didn't want to overpower the fig with metalics though, so I stayed with a leather for the armour (despite the fact it's entirely nonsensical to have leather over metal rather than vis versa). I even tried to paint the eyes...which went about as poorly as expected, but without experimenting, you won't get better. Overall I'm pretty happy with this one. 

6MMRPC: Week 23 Perry Miniatures Russian Dragon & Cuirassier

I've managed to polish off the last of my Perry Miniatures (wave 1). Much of the work was done at the same time as the officers, but last week I got antsy and finished off the officers to show some progress.








I'm rather happy with how these guys turned out. I must say the smaller pics look much sharper than when you zoom in across the whole computer screen.

I think my favorite horses are the rather orangey ones. They do, however, manage to avoid getting to an unnatural tone.





From the back the figs do look a little bland, as the regimental colours (blue) are a lot less obvious.










The cuirassier I decided to choose a festive colour of pink. It turns out I only have about 3 shades of pink, and one is positively neon. I may need to try and expand the range a bit (or even it out), but honestly, one doesn't get to paint with pinks very often. I may have to track down some girly figures to create a paint need.







The red lining on the armour was a bit tricky, and therefore got a little sloppy. I'm also not entirely happy with the coppery colour on the side flask. But these are fairly minor quibbling. I'm sure they will look just fine on the tabletop field of battle.





Outstanding items for pretty much the entire force are:
-Add some chunk foliage to the bases to make them more interesting.
-Add an identifier colour to the bottom of the bases (so i don't lose my figs when the lot of us join forces to play Borodino).
-Varnish my figs. I noticed, in particular, some chipped primer off the metals very early. I'm not sure if I didn't lay down a think enough layer of primer, or should have rinsed with soap and water my figs before hand. I'd like to protect the paint jobs from the rigors of handling/gaming. The great fear is the frosting effect, so I do need to wait for a low humidity day....which in the pacific northwest may occur briefly in july.  *sigh*

DBA French Indian Wars - Booze run (part 2)

The much needed supply(booze) column is heaving into sight of the fort. (More intro is here).

Various bases in the woods on either side of the road are native american 'blinds' unknown even to that player whether they are true units or not (approx 50% are fakes).

DBA French Indian Wars - The booze must get through! (preamble)

Fort Wo-blee gate has been sustained through many a winter by their regular beer and rum ration. Lately the hard road has turned more hostile, and numerous shipments have mysteriously disappeared! The garrison is in crisis, with formations crisper than ever, drill faster, and morale in the gutter. The ration must get through to survive the winter!

 A view of the long road and heavy vegetation the fort guards. The fort dominates these prime agricultural lands, and the few deer and beaver residents from the rapacious French to the North.

 Our good provinical british subjects, having been reinforced with a small group of regulars and their contingent of guard and cannon will escort this critical booze shipment.

Local rangers have agreed to help blaze the trail and scout ahead for trouble.








After a long tiring trip, the column is finally on the last leg of the journey. The pace slackens a bit, and the lethargy imposed by the long day soften the senses of our troops.

Yet in the depths of the wood, the perfidous french await, and their indian allies hide under cleverly camouflaged 'blind' bases.

6MMRPC: Week 22 Perry Russian Officers

Well another week slides by between posts. This week I have finished up my command figures for the Russian Napoleonics. These two fellows are lead/pewter. Surprisingly (mostly to myself I suppose), these are the first horse figures I've actually painted. I agonized and stressed over the horses for some time (I did 11 at once, as I worked on these guys and my other Russian cavalry (dragoon and cuirassier)) at the same time.






I'm reasonably happy with how they all turned out. The basing will need to be tarted up a bit with some other vegetation, but I'll probably treat all my bases at once when I'm done everything.
There's an intentional space for the name of the commander (small paper stuck with blue tac to allow changes). I think once this is on there it will look less sparse. It's more noticeable on a small officer base than the double sized troop bases.



The fellow above I can't tell if the camera has washed out his mustache, or I need to bring it up a bit with something more yellow. This could definitely enhance the look at range.

Mr Swords face looks a bit shrouded in shadow,  and his gorget looks awfully grubby, but I suppose these will be less obvious at range.

I managed to get in a game of DBA at the beginning of the week. Hopefully I'll get a post up shortly.