Painting Update - Scatter Terrain

Howdy folks,

I hope all is well on this CanadaDay long weekend; happy birthday CANADA!! The work and painting tempo have been rather busy as of late, but unfortunately that has meant little time to post. I thought I’d give a quick update on my progress with terrain. 

On the heels of my CanGames prep, I am getting around to finishing off the pieces from The Walking Dead terrain pack from Mantic. As well I just finished up a vehicle from the Marvel Crisis Protool New York City terrain box. And, I finally finished a piece I’ve had for some time, a Reaper gun locker that I painted up inspired by a Hyperion weapon box from the Borderlands video game.

Anywho, I hope you enjoy the pics. Take care folk, and stay safe on Canada’s bday!

From Mantic’s The Walking Dead, terrain box released a few years back…some great pieces adaptable to many genres.

From the MCP NYC Terrain Box, one of the cars that was included in the original core box.

A weapons locker from Reaper…

Journey up Lead/Plastic Mountain

Painted

15mm         27 

28mm+       35, +9

Fabricated

Terrain          2

Bought          8

Progress   +56

Cangames Prep - Odds and Bits of Terrain

Hey everyone,

Hope all is well on your respective fronts. Given that I have been a little pre-occupied for the last few weeks, this is just a quick post to plant the May-post flag onto the blog. The good news to this tragic tale, lol...is that I have been prepping figs, painting up terrain pieces, and scratch building some terrain for a game that I'm putting on for CanGames this upcoming weekend!

The game will be using the Danger Close rules, adapting them for the con and my memory...right now planning for 4 players who will have between 3-5 figures each. I have gone back and forth on what the setting is, I did have plans to have completed a few more buildings so that this was like an isolated farmstead or basecamp. As it turns out, my time was getting taken from me, so I painted up a bunch of 'contingency' terrain pieces so that I could have something if my fabrication was delayed…which wasn’t a bad idea given the past week or so.

So anywho…I ended up fabricating 2 terrain pieces…a shack/cabin in the woods/fallout looking piece, and a larger set-piece that looks more like a garage type structure. They both have removable roofs so the interior can be used and offer some flavour to the table…I’m pretty happy with how they turned out, and I really stepped up the weathering on them.

As well, I did some quick work on some dollar store 1 inch wooden cubes, 3 x sea containers by Reaper, and handful of terrain from Mantic’s Walking Dead terrain box. All in all, really happy with the output.

Journey up Lead/Plastic Mountain

Painted

15mm         27 

28mm+       26, +19

Fabricated

Terrain          2, +2 (28mm terrain pieces)

Bought          8

Progress   +47

Reaper Pathfinder - some new recruits

Howdy folks,

Not having had a consistent posting schedule these past few months has meant that a lot of my painting projects end up reaching completion and then wait on the work bench in the picture queue.  While I haven't kept up the pace, blog-wise, I have tried to keep consistent with my painting nonetheless.

Amongst the juggle of ongoing painting projects and larger force development projects I have had a warband project for Frostgrave subtly brewing over the past months.  The sole reason I started collecting from the Reaper Pathfinder line of figures was to assemble an 'iconic' looking band of adventurers for exploring and battling in the Northern City.  I definitely want the figures to stand out and look grand on their own rights...I'm not just looking for a stellar wizard or apprentice...my goal is to have all the figures of the company to project a lot of character.

So far, I think I'm achieving that goal...

I hope you enjoy the pics...any comments and advice are always welcome.

The Dwarf Ranger

the whole reason I picked this figure was the monster axe and dynamic pose of the figure...getting into the painting I realized just how many different elements were in this figure.  It took me a while before I had a cohesive colour plan going...my main requirement was to have green showing somewhere...

 

 

The Low Templar

 

Another great looking figure with some large hand weapons, the Templar was an interesting looking figure...not necessarily in a dynamic action pose, I thought it really captured the traveling adventurer really well.  These were also the first couple of figures that I had chosen for the company that I elected to have green be more than just a peripheral colour...I really wanted it to stand out...

 

I had some difficulties when painting the flesh and had some trouble with getting the face tones to my liking on half of his face...given the lines that were popping up, I thought I would show some experience in his face with some battle scars and utilize the lines that were making themselves dominant...and to be honest were getting in the way when I tried to give them an unblemished tone.

 

The trio presented a fun addition to the figures...painting them roughly at the same time gave me a bit of pause as I tried to make sure there was cohesiveness between them and with the other figures, BUT, to also make sure each figure had some character to them.

 

Thanks to google, and Reaper's image gallery, I can say there are some pretty amazing paintjobs out there and I really hope that I've done these figures justice.  It certainly was not my goal to try to directly emulate any of the paint schemes, I nonetheless want them to look appealing when compared with other examples...

 

Salim Ghadafar

 

I found this figure to be very challenging...I think I must have repainted his base colour at least 3 or 4 times...each time I was trying to stay as dark as possible...in this case I was hoping to more closely emulate the image from the Reaper gallery, Salim G.  I thought that the colour looked pretty sharp...however once I got started I ended up going with a darker/navy type blue that more closely resembled my Merisiel paint job...

 

The figures work well together and I like the paint scheme I ultimately stuck with.  Again, I was having some trouble with face tones as well as some residual metal on the face...there was a 'dot' of metal stuck near the left eye of Salim, I couldn't get my eye colour technique to work well and I was really reluctant to carve the eye socket out and have to repaint the face...so instead I painted a battle scar slashed across his eye...

 

I like the end result and am really happy with the adventurer look it gives him... 

-my camera was giving me troubles and I couldn't get any decent pics...even after switching cameras I only ended up with 1 usable picture...sigh-

 

So with a half dozen figures to work with, a few more still to come, I give you the beginnings of... The Rhino Company of Adventurers... 

A few or many years ago, I was working on some fiction that involved a reference to a mercenary unit...I'm not sure why, I must have been subconsciously inspired by 'The Wild Geese', Mad Mike, and stories of African adventure...I ended up settling on the name The Rhino Company...it has since stuck in the back of my mind in many of my gaming adventures and backstories...so here I give you the first official history of the company and their auspicious beginnings as a collection of Felstad and Northern City explorers.

  

Painting so far in 2017:

Painted:

28mm - 79

15mm - 54

Bought:
28mm - 108
vehicle - 1

15mm - 132
vehicle - 7

 

Overall PROGRESS: -115

Some Reaper Recruits

Hello folks,

I hope everyone is well...it would appear that we are presently into the second coming of 'summer', the temperatures of the past week have certainly stood out as the highlight of the past few months and especially given the cool trends we were having at the beginning of the month.

Personally, I'm good with the cooler weather, but we also didn't have our normal summer in this neck of the country...so I see why folks are pretty pumped.

I thought I'd share with you a few Reaper pieces that I finished near the end of July, beginning of August...I really do like the Reaper pieces...there's a lot of character in the individual figures and the Pathfinder series of minis are outstanding.

I'm trying to kickstart some posting momentum so I'll keep this only relatively short and simple and let the pictures do the talking.

Cheers.

First off, for our more advanced treks into the Northern City, we have 'the Overladen'...a great looking fig, packed down like a good little pack mule hauling the treasures and necessities for an adventuring band.

slightly different aspect...looking downwards toward the figure...

I'm not sure if I'd trust that chicken...looks a little off coloured...not sure if it's supposed to be supper or a trap for beasts...

A couple of great aspects of all the various kit that our apprentice/pack mule is carrying...the figure itself was a lot of fun to paint, the main challenge being the identification of all the different kit and ensuring a consistency of colours amongst the pieces of kit and the ways they overlap and cover each other up.

The next figure I have is from the Reaper Pathfinder line...it is Merisiel the Iconic Elf Thief.  I really like the various 'iconic' figures they have...my first attempt was with their Iconic Skald which I'm really happy with how it came up.

So, inspired by the Iconic figures, I am slowly and deliberately putting together a separate Company of Adventurers all based on these figures.  When I saw Merisiel, I automatically thought she would be perfect as a Treasure Thief, she literally has a buttload of daggers...as well, depending on the rule additions, etc. she could easily serve as an assassin.

So, to keep some consistency amongst my Company, I wanted to make sure that each figure had at least some green within their paint scheme, the Skald was fairly subtle green trim showing beneath his leather robe...for Mis, there is more to see, however I did not make it the primary colour of her outfit.

Various profiles...the figure took a bit to come to life for me...I had tried at least 2-3 variations on the main colour schemes before settling on the blue and green...another great figure that I'm very pleased with.

 

While I can't 100% remember...I think I received the Skinsaw man as a Christmas or Father's day gift...I wasn't certain how to get it to work in the company, BUT, I really liked the look of the figure and the character of the figure...and after reading some of the backstory to the Skinsaw man I was more determined to include him into the warband.

Again, I made sure to add some green in the figure, but reading the various Frostgrave characteristics of the different wizards, I thought that the Skinsaw Man would be an excellent Fire Elementalist...and to help emphasis that I tried to make his jacket look as closely to fire as possible...getting the jacket to this point was really enjoyable and I can't even remember how many layers I invested into this look...I'm really happy with how it turned out in the end...I used VJ Red (vermillion I think) and then introduced a small ratio of bright orange with each layer.  The last layer or two was a heavily watered down bright orange applied deliberately in select spots.

 

 

Painting so far in 2017:

 

Painted:

28mm - 58
15mm - 11

Bought:
28mm - 53
vehicle - 1

15mm - 0
vehicle - 7

 

Overall PROGRESS: +8