The First of the New Year...is about the end of the last

Howdy folks,

I hope the new year has started on a positive note for you...the end of the year definitely saw an uptick in distractions from the hobby for me and I made the decision to actually take some days off and slowly chill my way into the beginning of this year.

So, allow me to say:

And speaking of chill...we've been under an extreme cold weather warning for...well, long enough that I can't remember when it started...BUT it should warm up today.  By warm, I mean it is currently -16 with the windchill at -19...I think the first time in a couple of weeks it has been that warm...huzzah!!

So, while I was entirely distracted from blog posting, between commitments and deadlines I took whatever painting time I could.  I'm very happy with how it went, I managed to get through a few figs and try out a few modeling and painting techniques.  Ironically, a few days after Christmas I injured my foot which kept me in a chair with my foot up...so from that I was able to begin a phase of one of my long term projects.  Here's a small teaser of the first installment of my Royal Canadian Dragoon Squadron as part of my 4 CMBG force:

Battlefront Leopard 1's - 15mm

At the beginning of December I stumbled across three zombie figures that had escaped the previous mass painting of the undead, so I decided to see how quickly I could paint them up in three different tones.  Overall, I'm happy to be done, but I must say if I had to speed paint zombies, I would focus on green tones as they can be developed much quicker than a brown rotted look.

While overall I'm happy with the result, I think I'm most happy with the tones I was able to capture in the middle zombie and in the clothing for them all...note for next time...

 

The end of the year also saw me revisit my Rogue Stars figures and start on another crew...for this crew I thought I'd have an odd assortment of explorers so I started with an explorer and a gunbot...in my head it seemed a reasonable grouping.

For the basing, I was very heavily influenced by some of the cinematic settings of Bladerunner 2049...

-movie still from Vanity Fair-

-movie still from FilmSchoolRejects.com-

 

I really like the orange and yellow hues in the scene and I thought I would see if I could replicate or at least match as close as possible this setting for my bases.  I started with painting the base bright orange (Vallejo) and then hit it with agrellan mud (citadel)...once it dried I actually repainted everything with bright orange or light orange depending on what was at hand...when it dried it actually kept the mud-flat look and showed a great mix between the brown and orange of the two paints...looking at the base in some of my pics I think I definitely nailed the look...I'm really happy with the result and I can't wait to run a few more figs through the process...I even have a couple of Hasslefree figures that are going to get the full Agent K treatment...

 

The gunbot was an additional collection of inspirations...I decided to go with a metallic paintjob over the majority of the figure, but I wanted to hit the 'mask' with a contrast and chose an Ironman type look for it...kind of explains the blue/light look for his centre...

 

-pic taken from wiki-

I decided not to try to capture the 'bronze' trim of the mask, but instead focused on the red and its tones...in the end I'm very happy with the results...as well, I had to adapt as I lost the holstered rifle that is on the back of the original model.  I figured as the explorer has a sword, a sheathed battlesword on the back of a gun slinging robot in a sci-fi setting would fit in nicely...

 

  

Slightly changing gears in setting...I also finished a random barbarian figure that I bought a year or so ago at Cangames...I decided to choose The Northern City as the setting for this figure.  Although the figure is set for anything but cold and Arctic conditions, this figure allowed me to try my hand at capturing a wider range of skin tones creeping into the frostbitten...I'm pretty happy with the results...I had initially tried to give the final tones a hint of blue but it did not turn out well and ended up drowning out all of the other tones, so I went back to flesh and then varying whitening/graying. 

 

 

I will have a proper year recap in the next few weeks to see how I progressed, but for now here are the raw numbers:

 

Painting in 2017:

 

Painted:

28mm - 91 (+6)

15mm - 75 (+6 vehicles) 

 

Bought:

28mm - 108
vehicle - 1

15mm - 132
vehicle - 7

Overall PROGRESS: -82

Zombie Horde

Hello Everyone,

 

Hoping that all is going well in your collective domains and homelands...just a quick post today as I show off some pics of my attempt at zombies.  I know I'm a little late to the game...haha, very punny...and the zombie trend has been long established, BUT, here I am.

 

On the heals of my recent tries at The Walking Dead and my caving in and buying into the fad, I thought I'd better get some undead painting under my belt so that I can tackle all of those Mantic beasties and survivors.  I headed back to my favourite recent resource, and looked up Sorastro to see his take on the undead in his Zombicide painting.

 

 

 

As per my experience thus far, I did find his video very useful...to be honest, it did take a lot of consulting to specific moments and colour choices in the video to get comfortable with tackling this horde, but I'm glad to have the resource handy.

 

More than a few years ago, I had purchased a bunch of figures from a local gamer who was thinning his collection...I had bought a variety of Studio Miniatures, Hasslefree, and Blue Moon zombies and survivors as a timid step into the zombie world...and like many purchases they had to take their place in the queue on the workbench.

 

Fast forward to this summer...and the time for the Blue Moon figures was here!! This is an assortment of zombies and undead that each come in two parts...torso with head and legs with base...it seemingly gives you extra options to make your collection more unique.  Given my foray into Frostgrave there is a real need for having zombies at the ready...So, armed with a video reference and a setting, I thought I'd make my first horde ready for the Northern City.

 

The colours are a mix of brown, green, and blue.  I based the figures in whatever sprays I had laying around and ended with an assortment of Army Painter Uniform Grey, Vallejo Chieftain Green, or Vallejo British Armour (Italy)...the Uniform Grey was for the zombies that ended up as pale bluish; Chieftain Green was for the pale green, plaguey looking zombies; and the old British Armour (Italy) was for the rotty, old looking puke brown zombies.

 

That's about it for now...enjoy the pics...thanks for views and constructive critiques as always.

 

Take care. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Painting so far in 2017:

Painted:

28mm - 76

15mm - 17

Bought:
28mm - 97 (+4, had a pack from Studio Miniatures come in the post this week, happy bday to me)
vehicle - 1

15mm - 132 (+132, added plastic box of Battlefront Strelkovy Company)
vehicle - 7

 

Overall PROGRESS: -144

Old West Gunslingers...a legend or two in the mix...

Howdy howdy all,

My buddy Mike has been on an Old West kick lately after he picked up the Dead Man's Hand ruleset and figures...in the past month or so he has put up a bunch of posts of his progress including a battle report.

Inspired, I grabbed a quick set of four figs to paint-up...I really do like the era and the figures, so this wasn't a particular hardship for me...I'm actually running near the end of my Old West minis...I'm almost at the end of figures I picked up from North Bay Hobbies.

These ones came up really fast, I was fairly surprised how easy they felt to paint this time.  Amongst the chosen, I painted up Pat Garrett, Kid Curry, Wild Bill, and William H...aka, Billy the Kid.  They only took a couple of nights for me to tackle, and one of the nights I also had the American History Channel show "Gunslingers" on in the background for inspiration...

I think my favorite episode so far is the Wild Bill...

 

of course, followed by Wyatt Earp (if for no other reason than to see a cheery Kurt Russell...

 

The figs...

 

Group shot...Mr. Garrett, Kid C, Wild Bill, and Billy the Kid... 

 

 Pat Garrett and Kid Curry

 

And larger than life, J.B. Hickok complete with longhorn belt buckle and army scouts sash, along with William H. Bonney...or Henry McCarty depending on your preference

 

The Cops...and a couple of Gunfighters

Howdy all,

Looks like today is a two post day...while I've been fairly quiet on the electronic front, I have been plugging away when I've been able to on various figs.  As you may recall from an earlier post I recently completed a couple of The Cops from the North Star Figures range as well as a great looking Hellboy-esque figure from Hasslefree.

Continuing on those lines, I have completed the rest of The Cops...the SWAT and beat cops were fun to paint up and are nice looking minis.  As well, to augment these officers, I also painted up Deano from HassleFree Miniatures.  This guy is awesome, definitely one of the cleanest minis I've had the pleasure to paint up. 

I was inspired to paint Deano up as a RCMP Tactical Response officer after recent events in Ottawa, this is NOT a political message, for those interested, here is some media related to the event...given their response and outstanding professionalism I felt compelled to paint Deano up right...I hope I've done the fig justice.

As well, I have included some recent Artizan Wild West figs that I completed...these folk are from the Doc Holiday and Ringo blister as well as the Frank and Jesse James...


Please enjoy the pics, constructive comments and criticism are more than welcome.

Take care.

picture by the Ottawa Citizen online...

 

The Cops, group shot of the working officers, along with Deano on the upper right.

 

The beat guys... 

 



Deano

 

I was inspired to paint this figure up after seeing the various pics that came out of recent events in Ottawa when our law enforcement professionals were called in.  These folks worked hard to secure a very large area and acted with great professionalism.

 

Hot Fuzz inspired comment, check out his horse...I mean arse...

 

 

The SWAT 

 

 

I'll be your huckleberry...deathly ill dentist with a double barreled shotgun...not a good combination...