Up River...one nerds trip to a miniature heart of darkness: November 2018

Saturday 24 November 2018

Totally Random Figure

Howdy folks,

I'm finally getting around to posting this figure...fittingly I seem to have waited until we had a some snow on the ground and overnight windchills down to -25c last week...very fitting. This figure has been in my inventory for quite sometime and on my workbench partially painted for probably 3-4 years.

It was kindly given to me by a buddy of mine that I met while dropping off and waiting for the kids at the bus...at the time, I was only painting historical themed miniatures and hadn't really gotten past or prior to the World War 2 timeframe. He on the other hand, exclusively painted fantasy...so when he discovered I had a very shallow painting pool, he gave me a figure that he thought would be perfect to get me out of that bubble.

Unfortunately it has been long enough since I assembled the figure that I have totally forgotten what the name of it is...or even what company makes it. SO, if any of you are dialed into the pulse of whats what out there, please feel free to comment below.

Now, since the time I assembled this beast, I have stepped outside of the comfortable WW2 bubble and have painted fantasy (thank you Frostgrave) and have been happy to have done so. However, because of how epic this figure is, I just couldn't imagine what the paint scheme should be...and I didn't have a plan for getting there either. I had already tried a first attempt at painting and didn't like the results...hence the 3-4 year (probably longer) delay on the bench.

At the end of the day, what really helped was reframing where I thought this figure could fit in overall...I'm thinking some awesome boss figure for Frostgrave or similar...and I really think the changes I made to my painting style last year really helped me get through this one.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pics...let me know what you think...I really tried to emphasis shades and the quirks of the sculpt of the model, leveraging the detail in those to make them pop and highlight.

Lead Mountain Progress - Expedition 2018

Painted:

28mm: figures: 44 (+1)

vehicles: 3

15mm: figures: 12

vehicles: 17

terrain: 1

Purchased - 26

Progress - +51

Legion of Stormtroopers...

Howdy folks,

As you recently saw, I am continuing to dip my toe into the Legion water...by this point, I'm pretty sure I'm past all the toes and getting closer to the ankle. I was really pumped to get the Snowtroopers finished, and maybe in my future there is some Hoth type scenery, etc to come...not sure, but have seen some very inspirational work online.

In the meantime, I recently went through the Stormtrooper expansion box to give these guys a try...first, I have to agree with many posts I've seen...the sea of white stormtroopers is starting to get to me...the poses, like those already seen, are very dynamic for these figures. It is not hard to imagine them doing battle on the small table.

Previously I had already tackled a couple of speeder bikes (zooooom!) and had based them in the same theme as some rebel troopers I had painted...ala Tatooine or some other desert appropriate environment...I'm happy with how this set turned out and they do look very much in the theme of deserty scenes.

Oh, one thing that I really wanted to do...besides get a nice looking overall paintjob...I wanted to make sure I applied some appropriate weathering to these figs...nothing worse that having crisp whites in the desert...its never that clean!

Anyhow, if you're here...chances are you're here for the pics...So, here goes...

"Bazooka" trooper...

Standard blaster-dude

Heavy Trooper, rocking the MG, I mean...SW-42...

Section commander - troop leader

Again...similar-ish poses with some subtle diff's...

Lead Mountain Progress - Expedition 2018

Painted:

28mm: figures: 43 (+7)

vehicles: 3

15mm: figures: 12

vehicles: 17

terrain: 1

Purchased - 26 (+7)

Progress - +50

Monday 5 November 2018

Ticket to Hoth...Veers and co.

Hello hello,

As I'm contemplating the whole Star Wars Legion, I wanted to continue with my "lets try out these figures" approach to investing and keep answering for myself, can I actually paint these. When I saw General Veers and the Snowtroopers pack at my LGS, I jumped at the chance to further explore. The figures themselves look very dynamic...they all have great poses and look very tactical, loll.

Veers has an excellent sneer as he's about to get all shootout...and the Snowtroopers have a great range of dynamic poses, looking very operational and 'assaulty'. It took me some time to get a paintscheme that I really liked and that also mirrored what I remembered the troops to look like from 'Empire'.

The box art from FFG had a couple of variances in the colour schemes...and the release pics showed a different shade as well...

--pic taken from Flight Fantasy Games website--

So, I then went to the internets and carried out a fairly complete search for movie screencaps and even found some shots from deleted scenes that gave a better amount of detail on the snowtrooper overall...if you're in doubt, trust me there are dozens of sources for pics...all the way from movie caps to Star Wars Battlefront art to game caps, etc...not to mention, as I was working through my colour choices and getting paint on model...Sorastro released his video and gave me another perspective...

For the bases, I again went back to some recent Star Wars Battlefront shots and go the idea of pseudo Star-warsy trench planking...this combined with some Citadel Valhalla Blizzard (an awesome snow effect) gave me the basing I really wanted as well...

Between all those sources and ideas, I landed on a scheme that I really like...I think mirrors the look I wanted...so, I hope you enjoy the pics...take care.

Group Shot