Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Fantasy Adventures => Topic started by: Luigi on October 15, 2020, 11:15:23 PM
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This will be a thread displaying the miniatures I paint (and have painted) over the years.
I've been collecting Dwarfs for almost 15 years and it took me just as many to come up with a colour scheme I was proud to share and put on display.
I also wrote a lot of lore on the Hold itself (Karak-Mingol) basing it withing the WHFB universe, I don't know if this is the right place, but if someone wants I'll gladly share the background I've come up with).
Well, let's get started with some pictures.
(https://i.imgur.com/YGYiGQm.jpg)
these are longbeards and they perfectly display the scheme I'm going for' green/blue with as little metal as possible.
Now, I know they are technically warriors, but due to the lore of the hold all, of the SkullPass models have been through so much that they've been promoted to longbeards.
(https://i.imgur.com/CTVt3Ox.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/lueK6gb.jpg)
this champion and musician also provide a better example of me avoiding any gold and any non-armor metal on the models.
(https://i.imgur.com/zpCpY9O.jpg)
The warrior with great axe sports an inverted colour scheme to distinguish it from the shield+weapon troops. For some reason he seems really happy about his job.
This is a fairly common theme in the army as well.
The slayer, poor guy, has suffered a stroke, as you can tell from his right eye. I also really dislike orange for reasons unknown, hence the green beard.
(https://i.imgur.com/Hm78k3U.jpg)
this miner instead shows my attempt at a monocoloured model, I've only used green; I'll probably try to add a few blue accents on the next members of his unit.
Pictures are fairly old, with some being even from the start of the pandemic, but this thread provides the perfect excuse to get back into painting :D
EDIT:
I'll add some lore and background to this first post, as things get added/modified I'll edit this post accordingly.
Thank you :D
No I don't have a blog featuring this hold; although it is a good idea and I think it's something I'l ldefinitely approach in the future, as sooon as my situation stabilizes and I get some more personal time to do things right.
I do, however, have most of the fluff written down, I might go and add it to this thread, perhaps editing the first post whenever things get updated/changed.
Actually Let me do it right now.
Over the years I've had people ask me what hold my dwarfs belonged to. I never thought too much about it untill running into this blog (https://bigsmallworlds.com/blog/) which is when something started moving in my head. a few Warhammer novels later and I had decided to create my own hold and base it where no other "official" dwarf hold existed; in Tilea. I always liked the warriors miniatures from BoSP but I've always only used them as longbeards, my excuse was always that they were a regiment of warriors that had fought and survived the now famous battle and thus were promoted to longbeards.
This formed the base of my background.
The following is what I've come up so far. Just like my collection, this is very much a work in progress. As ideas become more developed I'll add to it.
The dwarven hold of Karak-Mingol
(also known as Monte Trocchio by the tileans in the region)
In Khazalid the name KarakMingol loosesly translates to “tower mountain” this is also what the Tilean name Monte Trocchio means. The Tilean name for the hold is actually the name of a real mountain that I could to see from my window years ago, before moving to Canada.
Geography
The hold is located somewhere in the Apuccini mountains in Tilea. It’s in the southern-central region of the peninsula somewhere between the Island of sartosa and Karak-Borgo. The Apuccini are not a particularly impressive set of mountains and they never reach the mighty heights of more northern ranges. The climate here is much milder and forgiving, making the hold realtively easy to reach for travelers, merchants and enemies. This has pushed the dwarfs of Karak Mingol to develop one of the most extensive fleet of flying machines to patrol the area surrounding the hold.
While there are some veins of useful metals (copper/tin/lead/minor veins of iron) and some minor deposits of precious stone, the mountains offer little in what would be considered the foundation of a typical dwarven economy. This is reflected in the hold unique approach to commerce and banking, as well as its very unusual agricultural practices.
History
Karak Mingol is a relatively new hold, founded by some the dwarfs of Karak Grom, and its main clan Byrnik, that fought in the famous battle of Skull Pass. The fate of Karak Grom is a sad and unfortunately common one in these times of hardship and tribulation. How exactly these dwarfs ended up in Tilea and specifically here is not quite known, although their records seem to indicate a retreat from a massive Skaven invasion. The dwarfs migrated south over the course of a couple of centuries before finally stabilizing themselves where the hold is found today.
The colours of the hold are green and blue, a combination born out of the lost hold blue/gold and Clan Byrnik’s green/silver. The lack of any metal in its symbolism is probably due to the influence of Tilean culture. The Tileans are famous for “piangere miseria”, that is to lament and feign a state of perennial lack of any money as to ward any envy and attract others’ sympathy. In typical Tilean fashion. The richer the person the stronger and dramatic his lamentations will be. The dwarfs have always been wary of disclosing their true wealth to other races, so this curious habit was one they quickly understood and adopted.
More poetic dwarfs see the colours as a reflection of the deep azures of the Tilean skies and the green sides of the low mountains.
In real life terms this just means that I'll limit myself to a much more subtle palette of blue and green with little or no metal accents. I like the "comfy" look this gives the models and it also provides the added benefit of unifying the look of a whole army. A soft colour scheme, I found, is also easier on the eyes when playing the game and much more forgiving of less than stellar paint-job.
Economy
Karak Mingol is a bit of an oddity in the dwarven realm. The hold lacks access to many precious metals and its geography makes it nearly impossible to grow the typical dwarven crops. Because of this, KarakMingol had to turn to the only resource that never seems to diminish in Tilea; civil wars and mercenaries.
The ever-warring nature of the Tilean city-states means that the nearby humans are always in great need of both money to recruit mercenaries or weapons and equipment to arm soldiers. The dwarfs have thus learned to lend money to the Tileans, well knowing that when a clients somehow ends in power, another rival will soon rise, becoming a new customer.
The sale of armors, weapons and, most importantly, war machines, is also another important part of the hold’s economy. The dwarfs are exceptional engineer and weaponsmiths, their guns rarely misfire and are exceptionally accurate; their artillery is capable of massive destruction while still being reliable and (relatively) safe to use. Even their skill as engineer and architects means that often they’re hired by Tilean lords to erect buildings, build fortifications, design and plan cities; providing both money and prestige to the hold.
The same artillery sold to the Tileans (and built to the buyer's specifications) is frequently used as collateral when approving loans. This explains why Monte Trocchio often deploys cannons that aren't what you'd typically expect from dwarfs; someone couldn't fully repay the interests on their loan and so the dwarfs took back the cannons as payment.
(https://i.imgur.com/x1mkppo.jpg)
Someone couldn't pay their debt back, so KarakMingol reclaimed some artillery.
As far as agriculture goes, the rocky yet warm terrain of the Apuccini makes for the perfect place to grow olive trees and grapevines. Many, more traditional, dwarfs have often expressed disdain for such a thing as dwarven wine, but even they can’t deny that a dwarf can make better (which often just means stronger) wine than an elf.
And in a sense, both olive trees and grapevines are similar to the dwarfs themselves: they thrive in rocky and elevated terrain, they are slow growing but extremely resilient, require lots of constant attention but yield products of great value and can live for hundreds (if not thousands!) of years.
And while it might have started as a joke, a now typical product of Karak Mingol is durazmakk, a sort pasta of all shapes and forms created by integrating stone powder in the flour mix. Most Tilean dwarfs like to eat their durazmakk al dente.
Guilds
Mining guild: The hold’s very existence is due to the miner’s guild of Monte Trocchio. The miners that survived the gobri attack at Skull Pass were responsible for collapsing the greenskins lair and turning the tide of the battle. after rearranging themselves into their own mining guild they were tasked by their thane to find a suitable site for a new hold. No one is quite sure on how this particular spot in the Apuccini mountains was chosen. The legend of its foundation goes as follow: while consulting the map, the main prospector, still bleeding from the recent fight, had a drop of blood fall where the hold is located today. The prospector swore revenge on that particular mountain and the rest is history. Other dwarfs suggest, hardly containing a smile, that rather than blood that was wine that dripped from the prospector’s mouth.
Since the holds doesn’t have an abundance of metal, the guild focuses mostly on stone work and architecture; as well as providing the labour for the earthwork and terracing needed for the planting and cultivations of olives and grapes.
Engineering guild: When being initiated into the guild, the dwarfs of monte Trocchio are made to choose between one of the two “houses” that form the guild. The two houses are based on its members love or hate relationship towards gunpowder. To become a member of the house a dwarf has to build handgun or a crossbow and fire it in front of his mates. While there’s definitely a lot of rivalry between the two houses; over the years this has led to an ever-increasing standard of quality and craftsmanship in the weapons sported by both quarrelers and thunderers.
The guild has always adopted an open-door policy towards any engineer from other holds; because of this the guild is very open minded (by dwarf standards, at least). The fact that most of the time innovation comes from a client's absurd requests also helps a lot in somewhat loosening the Dwarven standards.
Technological ideas and innovation combined with the dwarfs’ skill in producing high quality artillery has in fact proven to be a driving factor in ensuring the wealth of Karak Mingol. The hold as a vast arsenal of cannons, bombards, mortar, catapults, bolt throwers; as well as more exotic pieces such as flame cannons and organ guns. The Engineering guild is also responsible for arming and maintain the large fleet of flying vehicles that crisscross the sky patrolling the area around MonteTrocchio.
Additionally, the guild provides the weapons and training to the many regiments of quarrelers and thunderers that make the standing army of Karak Mingol.
Additional bits of trivia.
*The very first cannon of the hold is the same the dwarfs used in the battle of Skull Pass. It’s called McDaddy the slayer of deamons after killing a massive deamon of Nurgle in a game in real life in which my opponent kept screaming "who's you daddy?/come to papa nurgle" everytime he'd move his Great Unclean One around.
*Twice a year the two houses of the Engineering guild have a competitions in which the members test their aiming skills and show off their craftsmanship in developing and building the finest crossbow/handgun. The competition consists of trying to hit moving targets (often captive goblins or skavens let loose from their cages) and it is divided in two rounds; one before and one after drinking copious amount of dwarven wine.
*Due to the lack of metal in the hold, the dwarfs of Monte Trocchio have special units that pick clean all fallen enemies of their weapons and armors. This equipment is then melted, and the metal used to craft weapons and armors of much higher quality.
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Some good looking dwarves there, have you thought about using a red for the slayers hair to give them a better contrast to the rest of the army? Though if you're happy with the green then it doesn't really matter. :)
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Some good looking dwarves there
thank you thank you :)
have you thought about using a red for the slayers hair to give them a better contrast to the rest of the army?
i do have some slayers I painted years ago with red or orange hair. Mine is a conscious decision of having no red/orange/yellow (as well as no gold/bronze) in the army.
but you're correct about the contrast. Maybe I can try with purple or bright white hair on the next slayers.
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I wasn't wrong, this forum does inspire me to pick up a brush and paint stuff.
(https://i.imgur.com/TbSAunW.jpg)
This is a dwarf miner.
I believe he was supposed to be a unit champion but I don't think I've ever used a champion without the steam drill.
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This week (this morning, really) sees two more addition to the miner regiment of Karak-Mingol.
In terms of fluff this unit belonged to the original army that founded the hold. The venerable age of its member reflected by the white/ grey in their beards.
(https://i.imgur.com/O1z0ZPK.jpg)
So far this is the only unit sporting a single colour (green) in their uniform as opposed to the usual blue/green scheme.
Eventually I'll paint a second unit in blue.
As you can tell from their facial expression
(https://i.imgur.com/QZ8Ga7s.jpg)
they're both pretty upset that I didn't paint their candle flames. But I have no yellow/orange/red paint whatsoever and they'll have to wait.
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Nice work! Do you have a blog with more background on this Dwarf hold?
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Thank you :D
No I don't have a blog featuring this hold; although it is a good idea and I think it's something I'l ldefinitely approach in the future, as sooon as my situation stabilizes and I get some more personal time to do things right.
I do, however, have most of the fluff written down, I might go and add it to this thread, perhaps editing the first post whenever things get updated/changed.
Actually Let me do it right now.
Over the years I've had people ask me what hold my dwarfs belonged to. I never thought too much about it untill running into this blog (https://bigsmallworlds.com/blog/) which is when something started moving in my head. a few Warhammer novels later and I had decided to create my own hold and base it where no other "official" dwarf hold existed; in Tilea. I always liked the warriors miniatures from BoSP but I've always only used them as longbeards, my excuse was always that they were a regiment of warriors that had fought and survived the now famous battle and thus were promoted to longbeards.
This formed the base of my background.
The following is what I've come up so far. Just like my collection, this is very much a work in progress. As ideas become more developed I'll add to it.
The dwarven hold of Karak-Mingol
(also known as Monte Trocchio by the tileans in the region)
In Khazalid the name KarakMingol loosesly translates to “tower mountain” this is also what the Tilean name Monte Trocchio means. The Tilean name for the hold is actually the name of a real mountain that I could to see from my window years ago, before moving to Canada.
Geography
The hold is located somewhere in the Apuccini mountains in Tilea. It’s in the southern-central region of the peninsula somewhere between the Island of sartosa and Karak-Borgo. The Apuccini are not a particularly impressive set of mountains and they never reach the mighty heights of more northern ranges. The climate here is much milder and forgiving, making the hold realtively easy to reach for travelers, merchants and enemies. This has pushed the dwarfs of Karak Mingol to develop one of the most extensive fleet of flying machines to patrol the area surrounding the hold.
While there are some veins of useful metals (copper/tin/lead/minor veins of iron) and some minor deposits of precious stone, the mountains offer little in what would be considered the foundation of a typical dwarven economy. This is reflected in the hold unique approach to commerce and banking, as well as its very unusual agricultural practices.
History
Karak Mingol is a relatively new hold, founded by some the dwarfs of Karak Grom, and its main clan Byrnik, that fought in the famous battle of Skull Pass. The fate of Karak Grom is a sad and unfortunately common one in these times of hardship and tribulation. How exactly these dwarfs ended up in Tilea and specifically here is not quite known, although their records seem to indicate a retreat from a massive Skaven invasion. The dwarfs migrated south over the course of a couple of centuries before finally stabilizing themselves where the hold is found today.
The colours of the hold are green and blue, a combination born out of the lost hold blue/gold and Clan Byrnik’s green/silver. The lack of any metal in its symbolism is probably due to the influence of Tilean culture. The Tileans are famous for “piangere miseria”, that is to lament and feign a state of perennial lack of any money as to ward any envy and attract others’ sympathy. In typical Tilean fashion. The richer the person the stronger and dramatic his lamentations will be. The dwarfs have always been wary of disclosing their true wealth to other races, so this curious habit was one they quickly understood and adopted.
More poetic dwarfs see the colours as a reflection of the deep azures of the Tilean skies and the green sides of the low mountains.
In real life terms this just means that I'll limit myself to a much more subtle palette of blue and green with little or no metal accents. I like the "comfy" look this gives the models and it also provides the added benefit of unifying the look of a whole army. A soft colour scheme, I found, is also easier on the eyes when playing the game and much more forgiving of less than stellar paint-job.
Economy
Karak Mingol is a bit of an oddity in the dwarven realm. The hold lacks access to many precious metals and its geography makes it nearly impossible to grow the typical dwarven crops. Because of this, KarakMingol had to turn to the only resource that never seems to diminish in Tilea; civil wars and mercenaries.
The ever-warring nature of the Tilean city-states means that the nearby humans are always in great need of both money to recruit mercenaries or weapons and equipment to arm soldiers. The dwarfs have thus learned to lend money to the Tileans, well knowing that when a clients somehow ends in power, another rival will soon rise, becoming a new customer.
The sale of armors, weapons and, most importantly, war machines, is also another important part of the hold’s economy. The dwarfs are exceptional engineer and weaponsmiths, their guns rarely misfire and are exceptionally accurate; their artillery is capable of massive destruction while still being reliable and (relatively) safe to use. Even their skill as engineer and architects means that often they’re hired by Tilean lords to erect buildings, build fortifications, design and plan cities; providing both money and prestige to the hold.
The same artillery sold to the Tileans (and built to the buyer's specifications) is frequently used as collateral when approving loans. This explains why Monte Trocchio often deploys cannons that aren't what you'd typically expect from dwarfs; someone couldn't fully repay the interests on their loan and so the dwarfs took back the cannons as payment.
(https://i.imgur.com/x1mkppo.jpg)
Someone couldn't pay their debt back, so KarakMingol reclaimed some artillery.
As far as agriculture goes, the rocky yet warm terrain of the Apuccini makes for the perfect place to grow olive trees and grapevines. Many, more traditional, dwarfs have often expressed disdain for such a thing as dwarven wine, but even they can’t deny that a dwarf can make better (which often just means stronger) wine than an elf.
And in a sense, both olive trees and grapevines are similar to the dwarfs themselves: they thrive in rocky and elevated terrain, they are slow growing but extremely resilient, require lots of constant attention but yield products of great value and can live for hundreds (if not thousands!) of years.
And while it might have started as a joke, a now typical product of Karak Mingol is durazmakk, a sort pasta of all shapes and forms created by integrating stone powder in the flour mix. Most Tilean dwarfs like to eat their durazmakk al dente.
Guilds
Mining guild: The hold’s very existence is due to the miner’s guild of Monte Trocchio. The miners that survived the gobri attack at Skull Pass were responsible for collapsing the greenskins lair and turning the tide of the battle. after rearranging themselves into their own mining guild they were tasked by their thane to find a suitable site for a new hold. No one is quite sure on how this particular spot in the Apuccini mountains was chosen. The legend of its foundation goes as follow: while consulting the map, the main prospector, still bleeding from the recent fight, had a drop of blood fall where the hold is located today. The prospector swore revenge on that particular mountain and the rest is history. Other dwarfs suggest, hardly containing a smile, that rather than blood that was wine that dripped from the prospector’s mouth.
Since the holds doesn’t have an abundance of metal, the guild focuses mostly on stone work and architecture; as well as providing the labour for the earthwork and terracing needed for the planting and cultivations of olives and grapes.
Engineering guild: When being initiated into the guild, the dwarfs of monte Trocchio are made to choose between one of the two “houses” that form the guild. The two houses are based on its members love or hate relationship towards gunpowder. To become a member of the house a dwarf has to build handgun or a crossbow and fire it in front of his mates. While there’s definitely a lot of rivalry between the two houses; over the years this has led to an ever-increasing standard of quality and craftsmanship in the weapons sported by both quarrelers and thunderers.
The guild has always adopted an open-door policy towards any engineer from other holds; because of this the guild is very open minded (by dwarf standards, at least). The fact that most of the time innovation comes from a client's absurd requests also helps a lot in somewhat loosening the Dwarven standards.
Technological ideas and innovation combined with the dwarfs’ skill in producing high quality artillery has in fact proven to be a driving factor in ensuring the wealth of Karak Mingol. The hold as a vast arsenal of cannons, bombards, mortar, catapults, bolt throwers; as well as more exotic pieces such as flame cannons and organ guns. The Engineering guild is also responsible for arming and maintain the large fleet of flying vehicles that crisscross the sky patrolling the area around MonteTrocchio.
Additionally, the guild provides the weapons and training to the many regiments of quarrelers and thunderers that make the standing army of Karak Mingol.
Additional bits of trivia.
*The very first cannon of the hold is the same the dwarfs used in the battle of Skull Pass. It’s called McDaddy the slayer of deamons after killing a massive deamon of Nurgle in a game in real life in which my opponent kept screaming "who's you daddy?/come to papa nurgle" everytime he'd move his Great Unclean One around.
*Twice a year the two houses of the Engineering guild have a competitions in which the members test their aiming skills and show off their craftsmanship in developing and building the finest crossbow/handgun. The competition consists of trying to hit moving targets (often captive goblins or skavens let loose from their cages) and it is divided in two rounds; one before and one after drinking copious amount of dwarven wine.
*Due to the lack of metal in the hold, the dwarfs of Monte Trocchio have special units that pick clean all fallen enemies of their weapons and armors. This equipment is then melted, and the metal used to craft weapons and armors of much higher quality.
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I've been painting quite a bit of miners, but they all look similar to those from earlier posts so I doubt that people would be interested.
I finished this
(https://i.imgur.com/qlQHevm.jpg?1)
an engineer/artillery crew, I'm particularly pleased with the helmet, I might try a few helmets painted with no metal whatsoever
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Nicely painted dwarves!
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Lovely classic dwarves!
I hadn't realised so much of those mins was beard lol
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Thank you guys, much appreciated.
And yeah, I also hadn't realized just how much of the miniature beards actually do take!
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Some WIP pictures this time.
I experimented a bit with the helmets.
(https://i.imgur.com/nKqH9aR.jpg?2)
I tried for "less metallic" helmets.
I like 2/3/4 better than 1. I think I'll keep most helmet from being completely in metal from now onward.
As far as metal/color combination go, 2 is ok, but I prefer how it looks on the engineer from the other day (with the rims in metal and the centre in green or blue).
I definitely like 3 and 4, I might alternate a few in each unit.
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It's been over a month since the last update, but I've finally managed to sit down for a bit and get some painting done.
(https://i.imgur.com/drqjXEO.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/yQ0bzoj.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/MDhuVBX.jpg)
And a final shot with the detail of the engineer
(https://i.imgur.com/A2fwH5g.jpg?2)
The more I proceed, the more I'm pleased with the colour scheme.
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Latest addition to my Tilean hold
(https://i.imgur.com/sQVJImw.jpg)
Rodomonte Collera, somethingSlayer of Karak Mingol.
Even before taking the slayer oath, Rodomonte was quick to anger and easily upset, which granted him his name (Collera) when working as a trainer and commander for the militia of a Tilean village. The name stuck and, after taking the oath, the sight of his bright blue crest instill fear and terror into the hearts of his enemies.
No one is quite sure why he took the oath, or why he painted his hair blue, but no one - dwarf or otherwise- has had the balls heart to ask him.
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Nice work!
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Nice work!
Thank you WuZhuiQiu :D :D
Rejoice, for these days I'm being productive!
Two more dwarfs done. The first one is one more hammerer
(https://i.imgur.com/udpfzlB.jpg)
Two things, I really dislike this sculpt, not so much for the way it looks (it's not particularly good but still serviceable) but for the fact that ALL of the hammerers from this generation of models have the exact same pose; furthermore, this pose makes it impossible to reach the left side of his face underneath the hammer.
Also, I've painted the hammer head in green. I really like this, this will also make sense once the unit is complete, as I have a name in mind for them already. The name is going to be a pun on their weapon that works both in English and Tilean.
10 points to Gryffindor whomever guesses it. Hint: it's a play on word with the title of a movie.
and here's the second dwarf. Ladies and gentleman, Cateno Manovella.
(https://i.imgur.com/d7U5nOx.jpg)
Cateno is one of the oldest veteran servicing the artillery of Karak Mingol. Over his many many years of services he's has operated more machines and delivered more hits to the enemy than there are hair in his beard. or so he says.
(https://i.imgur.com/EBYaAzK.jpg)
It's a hard, sweaty job, but Cateno doesn't seem to mind.
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Here's more progress on my Tilean dwarfs. all of these come from a batch of used miniatures o bought years ago and I just now started to strip and repaint.
i've been having a few issues with these; the problem is that they were all assembled with plastic glue so I can't take them apart and it's nearly impossible to paint behind weapons/shields and be precise with faces and eyes
(https://i.imgur.com/DepcugO.jpg?1)
These two are definitely my favourite out of the 6:
(https://i.imgur.com/6YHWHkJ.jpg)
the drummer boy is missing a drum, but compared to some of his friends missing arms and hands, he really can't complain.
(https://i.imgur.com/ADtJJeH.jpg)
Mastro Lindo is an old grizzled gunner, with many years under his belt. Under his careful eye it's very rare that a cannon misses or misfires.
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Finally some update.
(https://i.imgur.com/Eps3LJm.jpg)
I've done some more longbeards. I'm calling these guys finished (apart from base and assembly) I can't be bothered anymore and I think the original owner sprayed or dripped some plastic glues on their faces since I've had the hardest time with their eyes and features (some had holes instead of eyes that needed filling).
(https://i.imgur.com/A4ooHbH.jpg)
And here's the back. I am pleased with how the capes came out and grey is a good enough colour to match the main pairing
I've never liked this generation of plastic dwarfs as they always felt too... anonymous and undefined. But I'll admit that they fill their role ok. I'm still pleased with my colour scheme (green/blue and no metal) and I'll probably eventually phase out all metal helmets in favour of coloured ones.
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Love the colour scheme you've gone for on your dwarfs. It makes me want a dwarf army of my own! Very expressive faces there, some of those longbeards look proper shifty - I love it.
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Love the colour scheme you've gone for on your dwarfs. It makes me want a dwarf army of my own! Very expressive faces there, some of those longbeards look proper shifty - I love it.
Thank you mrjeki!
and yeah all I can think now it's this.
I've always been a fan of understated colour scheme and dwarfs seem to be quite fitting for that (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T55ArHjeR1c)
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It's been a while since I've updated this post, but that doesn't mean I have not been painting.
i'll put up a few pictures,
(https://i.imgur.com/akfnogx.jpg)
First this guy. I will put him and his tiny bolt thrower on a 40mm base. This way I can use it both as an unit filler for my crossbow dwarf (since it's really a puny warmachine) as well as a proper artillery piece in larger games. I'm particularly pleased with how the face came out. I wanted him to look resigned and annoyed with whatever is happening around him. I think it came out alright.
(https://i.imgur.com/LtwgLpT.jpg)
these two longbeards came out alright too. I initially wanted all longbeards to have the same anvil design on the shield, but I found myself painting other shields and I wasn't going to waste precious painting time.
(https://i.imgur.com/yqSO8HJ.jpg)
finally, a shot of the unit with a freehand banner. For the banner I used a 40k fist transfer that I just painted over. I ended up using it as some sort of pencil sketch I like how it looks. And am now more convinced than ever that this colour suits dwarf really nicely
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Excellent work, good to see you're still working on the dwarfs.
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Excellent work, good to see you're still working on the dwarfs.
Thank you Voltan. It's a slow process but it's encouraging seeing progress, no matter how minor it is.
Here's another update. I finally based this little guy.
(http://i.imgur.com/aFhwdVx.jpg) (https://imgur.com/aFhwdVx)
I went with a simple basing of sand and drybrushing so that I can easily repeat it across hundreds of miniatures. I also find the grey to be a good complementary colour to the green/blue scheme of the army
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Nice additions since I last checked in.
You a have a lovely cohesive force coming along here.
8) 8)
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Nice additions since I last checked in.
You a have a lovely cohesive force coming along here.
8) 8)
Thank you!
Cohesive is definitely an adjective I like applied to my army.
(https://i.imgur.com/g9rD3B1.jpg)
I also finished another couple of standard bearers.
I always try to keep them as neutral as possible as to be able to fit them in any unit. Even multiple standards in the same unit in the back ranks.
The guy on the right was also done in such a way to be a marker of some sort to remind myself which WMs are runed
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Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 120 days.
Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic.
:'(
Yes I am sure, thank you for reminding me of my lack of consistency, LAF.
Anyways, I will soon be unpacking my hobby stuff and I should be able to start working on my dwarfs again. In the meanwhile, here's a picture of one of the last models I did before putting all my miniatures away.
(https://i.imgur.com/DRkHIGE.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/YKp6kOX.jpg?1)
definitely one of my favourite models.
He gave me the inspiration for doing non metal armour (except for chainmail, but I might experiment with that as well).
I'm planning an entire unit of ironbreakers with green armour. The only problem is; I still don't have a good and/or punny enough name for such a unit.
My friend suggested "The Grick", from green and brick. But I don't know. I'm still undecided
this particular guy will probably be the unit champion or perhaps a thane with shield.
If he does become a character, I'll also be needing a somewhat Tilean name for him as well.
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I've been coming up with some ideas for banners and unit names.
(https://i.imgur.com/FTP4Ek9.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/A5nGlos.jpg)
as you can tell they're very rudimentary and the fact that I can't draw for shit doesn't help. especially on such a small surface (3 x 4.5 cm, that's way smaller that I thought it was going to be)
I might color them up to get a better idea of what they would look like in the flesh. They're sized to be the actual dimensions.
having these done as a free hand is going to be probably the hardest thing I've done hobby-wise
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Minor progress is still progress.
Yesterday I started a couple of movement trays that are going to be a "shield marker" for units as well.
This way I don't actually have to glue shields on models (such as thunderers and quarrelers) that were never sculpted to be carrying a shield in the first place.
It's also going to give a much better visual representation of the dwarven shield wall one reads so much in the fluff.
and finally it'll let me use all those shields I have and I'll otherwise never use
(https://i.imgur.com/UxK9X1u.jpg)
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Something more useful and concrete this time.
I made some progress and this idea I had for movement trays.
i've always liked the idea of being able to field missile troops with or without shields.
However, I've never liked how the shields looked on them since placing regular shields on the back won't let you see them, and those small tiny, buckler style, shields that came in the box are not deserving of being called shields.
Also since dwarfs are meant to be able to deploy a formidable shield wall, I thought of building a literal wall made of shields.
(https://i.imgur.com/UxK9X1u.jpg)
I built the frame directly into the movement tray.
(https://i.imgur.com/ut5Gsn1.jpg)
Then I simply went through my bits and glued shields to it
(https://i.imgur.com/jfFyR0V.jpg)
Even on the sides
(https://i.imgur.com/sy54k2d.jpg)
Let's see you charge into this
(https://i.imgur.com/qSA9LCr.jpg)
three main issues I noticed with this first attempt.
1) the frame is a tiny bit too tall, I might go slightly shorter next time to have more shield and less frame visible
2) these shields are way too convex. The surface area for the glue to stick to is just too small for my liking. Using flat shields would work much, much better.
3) this uses a lot of shields. Which is not a bad thing since I have countless that would otherwise just sit collecting dust. It's something to keep in mind though. Also, the deeper you go the better it is; meaning that starting at rank 3 you end up using less shields than you would by sticking them on individual models.
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Nice trays
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It's a nice idea, and it reminds me of the shields along the sides of a Viking longboat! :)
If you want to save on shields, you can try press-moulding them using Oyumaru (or similar) for the mould, and a suitable cheap putty like Milliput for the casts. The other advantage is that whilst the putty is still not fully cured, you can gently flatten them a bit to make the less concave (but be gentle, and do it when they're partially cured!).
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if you put a few shields together, you can make a multi-shield mould too, which saves you casting and placing each one individually.
If nothing else was going to convince me, this absolutely would .
Why didn't I think of this?
And thank you guys!
My throng has been languishing for far too long
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I also created a quick list of the models I have and that are yet to be painted.
this is not a comprehensive list, as I went from memory and haven't checked my collection yet or put any of the vast majority of heroes (we're probably missing another 100 or so miniatures)
These are obviously "naked" units and lack any Runic upgrade. the cost of command has been included for those units I know for sure I have the models.
For artillery I'm counting 4 models a piece (war machine + 3 crews) even though many of them came with 4 or more crews. the extra crews (which I have yet to tally up) will end up as Engineers characters.
the Lord on shield bearers I wasn't unsure on whether to count as 1 or 3 miniatures, so I count them as 2.
The first observation is that I have way less miniatures than I thought. Which is a really good thing as the whole project looks a lot less daunting than I thought it was going to be.
the second thing that jumps to the eye is the fact that I sorted most them in groups of 10, for the most part. This is done intentionally as it's either how I obtained them (Thank you Battle for Skull Pass for providing years of dirt cheap dwarfs), or it's done to make painting easier as I'd be focusing on 2 ranks of 5 at the time.
The list will be updated over the next few days as I go through my collection and many boxes to see what I have and what I forgot I had
Less than 1000 miniatures is a much more approachable goal that I can actually see myself complete, wish me luck
Edit: I forgot to post the link to the list.
Here's the list (https://pileofpotential.com/Luigino?project=83630141)
If you sort them by ascending name you'll actuallty sort them by Core-special-Rare etc, since I numbered them accordingly
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Wow, that list is heavy as a dwarven list should be! Please keeep it up, I really like huge projects as yours, grats for the painting and the lore.
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Wow, that list is heavy as a dwarven list should be! Please keeep it up, I really like huge projects as yours, grats for the painting and the lore.
thank you thank you
Yeah it is a big project, But it's not as gargantuan as I had first thought ("Gargantuan". You know, I've always liked that word "gargantuan", I so rarely have the opportunity to use it in a sentence).
The lore actually turned out to be the part of the project I enjoy the most.
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New pictures.
Not really progress, but I did attach two shields to the hammerer command group and based a total od 6 miniatures.
(https://i.imgur.com/0YlTy5W.jpg?5)
The front
(https://i.imgur.com/JFqlb67.jpg?1)
The back
I also started playing around with an oathstone
(https://i.imgur.com/jKBzTQ9.jpg?1)
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New update.
I've finally finished all the hammerers I had primed and prepped.
I still have some 25-30 others hidden somewhere but they have to be found, stripped, and primed.
I absolutely LOATHE painting these models. I'm not sure why, but they're just a pain to paint.
for now I'm calling this unit finished, here they are.
The Green Maul
(https://i.imgur.com/fUGJ3IH.jpg)
I also touched up and based this crew member/engineer
(https://i.imgur.com/hEUZ6j7.jpg)
More interestingly, I've finally started working on my main army standard. I still don't have a model picked out for the BSB himself so, the Thane here is just for Scale
(https://i.imgur.com/s9wbpT7.jpg)
and here's with a quick paper mock-up
(https://i.imgur.com/rRXLkxj.jpg)
I might remove the cone/tip but I'm liking it more than I originally thought I would
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Now thats a banner to paint freehand on!
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Very minor update today,
In a rush to finish my last batch of half started miniatures before the birth of my firstborn, I went ahead and applied some finishing touches.
Mostly, this meant basing some miniatures and prepping the bases for a few others.
To make my bases I usually use a mix of grout, sand, filter medium, discarded flock and anything ese that's granular enough I can just scoop into an old jar.
For some reason, this time, the grout clumped up on a number of bases; and, after drybrushing, I was left with whitish globs.
I decided to try and paint details directly into the base to hide the clumps and to add a touch of colour I went with mushrooms.
(https://i.imgur.com/aRDfCq9.jpg?1)
yay or nay?
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Nothing wrong with the odd mushroom or two...
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So...
Turns out I have even less time than I think. Not that I mind, but things will considerably slow down for a while.
However I did manage to finish a few things in the past couple of months.
(http://i.imgur.com/7iPPmMv.jpg) (https://imgur.com/7iPPmMv)
First, these two guys.
I painted them years ago and just sat missing their left arm collecting dust. So I grabbed the left arm from the thunderers' kit (the one that looks like they're about to do something that'll get them called into HR) and did some quick and dirty block colouring + wash + highlight.
I don't particularly like them; the models AND my paint job, but they're now finished. And a mediocre paintjob is always better than unfinished models.
I also painted my very first non dwarf miniature of my hobby life.
(https://i.imgur.com/RSKZSsC.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/zE8fBZo.jpg)
I call him "Greendalf"
He's not really a miniature, seems to me more like some sort of (LOTR?) board game piece, I have no idea where he came from since I got it for free at a garage sale.
I do like him though and he scales really well, if I had an human army I'd absolutely use him as a wizard. Maybe he'll stand in as a Runesmith or a crew member in some of the artillery, who knows.
Finally this guy
(https://i.imgur.com/jzCl6h6.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/bQgc1LR.jpg)
he's a norman/viking dwarf and definitely one of the miniatures I enjoyed painting the most in the last while.
It's also my first attempt at doing coloured blades and it looks really nice. I might give him a shield at some point, and he'll probably be the champion in a unit of dwarfs armed with swords.
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They all look great! I like the colour palette you use on this force.
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They all look great! I like the colour palette you use on this force.
Thank you Pattus, that's very nice to hear!
It also appears that my green Gandalf isn't Gandalf at all, but rather one of the pieces from the board gane "The a-maze-ing labyrinth".
Surprisingly good sculpt for a kids' game; but I swear I was convinced it was the grey wizard himself.
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Another minor update, do you guys remember the big banner I was planning?
I actually started the pencil-sketch process and will try to paint it soon.
I am, however, a bit worried about the lettering and runes. Maybe a thin sharpie or liquid ink pen could work?
(https://i.imgur.com/r3LbYGJ.jpg)
I tried to base it off Italian city heraldry and came up with motto in Latin.
I was thinking of perhaps adding a crossed hammer and harquebus on one side and a crossed axe and crossbow [to keep with the motto] on the other (But I already have trouble drawing fairly easy geometrical shapes, free handing symmetrical weapons is going to be a nightmare)
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Another partial update:
I started painting the banner. This was the first time since middle school I put brush to paper. It’s also my first foray into free-handing.
This is what it looks so far.
(https://i.imgur.com/YwJmBtb.jpg)
For the back I’m going with a simple split scheme for now; I might go back later and add some details.
(https://i.imgur.com/iKCPcQN.jpg)
I sketched the whole banner (including lettering) on a large piece of cardstock (the backing of a note pad) and then slowly filled it in a la paint by numbers.
for reasons I’ve yet to comprehend I decided against priming; this turned out to be a terrible decision.
The cardstock is extremely absorbent and rough, this meant that every colour had to be applied over and over and over again before it stopped showing the brown of the paper underneath.
This isn’t too much of a problem for the grey area (the tower looks alright) but for the sky and the grass it was a nightmare.
I started with miniature paint but soon realized that it would basically act as very expensive primer so I switched to some cheap leftover acrylic in tiny plastic pot I’ve had for years and never used.
The roughness of the paper (made worse by wet paint) also made it extremely hard to do straight thin lines.
I was really worried about curling and warping, especially once I really started applying watered down layers for highlights.
It turned out this was not a problem at all, it is now pleasantly wavy, but I suspect that painting it on the main sheet and then cutting it after drying was a good call.
The lettering, which I attempted to do from the beginning turned out to be a problem as with every layer or two of colour I’d have to go back and re-do every single letter. So I’m just going to try and be careful at the very end.
Looking at it, I suspect that black letters wouldn’t be too readable and might opt for a bright grey instead.
The Runic inscription on the other hand, came out well and showed some staying power, albeit that too requires another passing of black to make it really pop
For the “hooks, I did not calculate the length correctly and they are now way too short; this is not a big deal as I can just cut some cardstock extensions, but still.
So far I’m very satisfied with how it’s coming along, but for my next paper banners I’ll definitely spray/prime the cardstock before I sketch anything. I’m hoping this let’s me have more vibrant colour with less layers and, to have an easier time with straight thin lines.
I’m not sure what to do with the circular window in terms of colour.
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Another update:
here's the first dry fit run of the banner
(https://i.imgur.com/mb96EuN.jpg)
I went for chains because I wanted to try yet another thing I had never done. They were a bit of a pain in the ass to work with and I think they might have ended up a tiny bit too long.
They do, however, make it really easy to remove the banner for transport and storage (or I want to swap out for a different banner)
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Another update.
I finished the lettering on the banner.
(https://i.imgur.com/jPv4gQn.jpg)
As you can see the spacing had to be done differently since writing with a brush isn't as easy as with a pen or pencil.
It looks more balanced though, I don't mind.
Left to do now is to add the other smaller banner on the side and to decorate the pole, I was thinking something along these lines.
(https://i.imgur.com/XEJREMu.jpg)
The decorations can be non- dwarven shields/weapons taken as trophy from winning games. Or dwarven shields from units that distinguish themselves somehow in a game.
The square legionnaire type shield at the bottom I just think looks cool and might be used for the dwarf actually acting as the SB.
For the smaller draping flag I'm unsure if I want to do a single colour, a gradient, or draw something on it, but something on that side would help in balancing the look of the banner.
I also have to decide on a miniature to be the thane that will hold the banner.
Since the banner Is that big, I had to settle on dwarfs without raised weapons or plumed helmets.
These two are perfect.
(https://i.imgur.com/AHW12jE.jpg)
Now, I'm very partial to the first guy's belly, but the plate armoured is both one of my favourite miniatures,
he also has a very noble and portrait like pose, which works well for such a role.
At the end though both are going to get stripped and repainted and I'll get to use them both.
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Thank you GMwang.
Before my Saturday shift, this morning I did a bit of work. Nothing fancy.
first I finished these two guys.
(https://i.imgur.com/PhvNvTq.jpg)
I have a dozen or so of painted bodies rattling in a box, so I grabbed some painted arms and glued them,
The guy on the left is not really meant to hold a shield (he's a quarrelers and his left arm is molded to hold a rifle with both hands) but the shield itself hides the iffy joint.
I'm not in love with them but I'd rather have 2 extra completed models than an ever increasing pile of half touched miniatures.
I also finished my shieldwall/movement tray
(https://i.imgur.com/b4u1tfL.jpg)
I tried something I had never tried before and took a more abstract approach to painting it, hence the XXXX pattern. It works... alright-ish. There's a couple f very details to finish off but I'm calling it done.
(https://i.imgur.com/B9JBJ4c.jpg)
As you can tell I didn't even bother with the inside of the shields.
(https://i.imgur.com/OWYsxdm.jpg)
And here's with some thunderers.
basically this allows me to have my shooting unit count as wielding a shield without actually having to glue a shield on them, it'll also help me remember the shieldwall rule. Plus I think it's a very dwarfy thing to do.
I love the concept though and will surely be making more. I have hundreds of shields coming in soon, so I'll probably be making a lot of these.
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A nice idea.
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Thank you Louie
I gathered all the painted bodied I had lying around and assigned each one of them whatever bits that would fit on them.
i really dislike this generation of plastic dwarfs and painting them is never fun. But I cannot stand having half done miniatures so I decided to work through these before moving forward with other models.
This is what I had on my work space as of this Monday
(https://i.imgur.com/uwm4f0W.jpg)
a quick priming
(https://i.imgur.com/RkMoXal.jpg)
and we should be good.
I finished 5 of them so far
(https://i.imgur.com/zHqxyj4.jpg)
they look ok, I'm just glad to be actually finishing models
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and here's the latest update
(https://i.imgur.com/4e9c2pU.jpg)
5 more random dwarfs.
The 2 thunderers on the right were painted while holding my 5 months old in one hand so the details on the rifle are a bit wonky.
I made a mistake with some bits ending up with with the wrong body so the guy on the right is holding 2 hammers and he looks just as confused as I am about it; but I'm calling them done.
slow progress, but still progress
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Keep up the good work sir
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Thank you Louie, encouragement is always very helpful in keeping up with a project.
I've painted a bit more in the past few days but failed to take pictures of any sort.
I'll have something uploaded in the next 24 hours.
In the meanwhile I've been trying to come up with clever/punny names for the various units
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The 2 thunderers on the right were painted while holding my 5 months old in one hand so the details on the rifle are a bit wonky.
Painting any minis at all with a 5 month old is impressive. I doff my cap.
The army is looking great so far. Love your commitment to the short lads and look forward to seeing more.
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Painting any minis at all with a 5 month old is impressive. I doff my cap.
The army is looking great so far. Love your commitment to the short lads and look forward to seeing more.
Thank you Old Hob, the hold is coming along nicely. Slowly but steadily.
it's been a bit more than the 24 hours promised but here's an update.
I finished 5 more random dwarfs: 2 musicians, 2 warriors and some sort of artillery crew member.
(https://i.imgur.com/QpRce5p.jpg)
I particularly like the eyes on number 2 and 3.
I also prepped 3 EM4 dwarfs, one of each type, to see how they'll paint up.
(https://i.imgur.com/wpYW0Sj.jpg)
(I have 147 more waiting to be rebased and cleaned up, something I'm not too keen on starting right away)
finally, I found this kinder egg toy in my bits box so I started working on a little treasure pile token.
(https://i.imgur.com/SOVq8Df.jpg)
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So, not much painting this week, but I did manage to still be somewhat productive.
I finished building 4 more shield wall movement trays for some of my thunderers (I reckon I'll probably be needing a around 18 or so once the whole army is done).
(https://i.imgur.com/VPWnr77.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/aIRibcB.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/tk1L5CR.jpg)
as some people suggested on this forum, I don't need "shields" to make shields. any random flat round piece works just as well.
(https://i.imgur.com/1oKd4qE.jpg)
I've used lots of empty and smooth shields as I plan on using the space to actually have the name of the various units written on them.
(https://i.imgur.com/rEGlqgG.jpg)
And this last one is for a friend of mine who's also my main opponent, he'll be finishing it off with elven shields for his dark elves.
I also started making another terrain piece/objective out of a kinder egg toy.
(https://i.imgur.com/TtrYd0B.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/90WGS8d.jpg)
and I made myself a priming stick with a piece of wood that came from who knows where and that had been taking up space for months.
(https://i.imgur.com/abPBknH.jpg)
Finally, I cleaned up my work/hobby space because it was an absolute disaster
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I love the painting style and themes here - your project is looking really lovely! In a Dwarfish type way of course. I like the shield wall idea too.
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I love the painting style and themes here - your project is looking really lovely! In a Dwarfish type way of course. I like the shield wall idea too.
Thank you Ragsta, I'm glad you like my style and colour choice. Definitely the single project I managed to stick to the longest.
So.. 2 weeks have passed and I don't have too much of an update. I mean I painted but it's not going to be one of those cool updates. I also forgot to take pictures so I'll have to come back and add them later.
First I finished the 20 shields with the winged hammers you can see in my last post for my hammerers. It's unbelievable how long doing tiny shields takes. I forgot to take a picture, like I did of another dwarf I finished, just a regular standard bearer for a unit of warriors.
I did however take pictures of the banner.
(https://i.imgur.com/dySMIxO.jpg)
The banner is a reference to a children song about a painter gnome (close enough to a dwarf for me) who falls in love with a mermaid that swims into the Po river and so he builds a paper boat to reach her. The boat then proceeds immediately to sink into the water; so maybe not the best luck for my dwarfs.
it's the first time I did free handing on something this small (that's a 20mmx40mm base, for reference), and while I'm really satisfied with the paper boat i am less than pleased with the lettering. I'm in the process of getting some small stencils made to try and sole this issue.
I also started painting the shield walls which are slowly getting to where I'd like them to be
I also decided to REALLY tackle part of my pile of shame. I fished out about 40 dwarfs from a batch of used miniatures I got years ago.
they're mostly thunderers and dwarfs with a shield.
There are three main problems that are really making me hate these.
1) they're already primed. And they're primed with a rather glossy black primer on which paint tends to bead and it makes me feel I'm fighting the paint at every step. they're also primed a bit too much with primer having pooled a bit in certain area.
This is not unsurmountable and since they'll most likely just end up as cannon fodder in the back ranks, I can definitely live with it. And from experience I know that after the first stage of block painting things start getting better
2) They're already based and the bases have already had lot of stuff glued on before being primed. Rather messily I'd add, with sand and dirt often encrusting the lower details of the models. The models are attached to the bases with plastic glue so I can't really remove them. Again, nothing too bad. Just an annoyance I have to put up with.
3) and this is the worst. The models are already assembled with plastic cement. Even worse they're assembled with extra details .Extra pouches, ammunition belts, buckler shields...
All things I avoid like the plague since they only slow down painting, the poses in which they're placed will make it an absolute nightmare to get details such as faces and boots.
Here you can see two progressive staged of my block painting.
(https://i.imgur.com/EuU1jZk.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/SMHp1bc.jpg)
This is definitely the part of the painting process I dislike the most, it doesn't look like any real progress is being made and every brushstroke actually seems to make the miniature look objectively worse.
The good thing is with so many miniatures all having the same colour scheme this is going to be quite an important jump in progress.
I'm hoping to be able to finish them in 3-4 weeks.
There's an upcoming tournament I'll be participating in late November and I'd like to field a list without any artillery, so I'm trying to get more miniatures to give myself more options.
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Here's another update. A big one this time.
While I did progress quite a bit on the batch painting from my previous post, this time is all about completed models. First of all this is my "army" as it currently stands. there are few things I'll re-tweak (we'll get to them later) but these models are otherwise finished and do not need any more painting.
First off
(https://i.imgur.com/a2L4y3L.jpg)
The dwarven hold of Karak Mingol.
This is all the models I have painted from late 2019 to today. I have probably 3 times as many painted from my earlier years, but they're waiting to be bathed in stripper and brought up to my new standard and then even more that are yet to be unboxed or primed.
(https://i.imgur.com/90wbIfB.jpg)
here we have, at the front, 2 units of longbeards. One is made of the BoSP models and one is made of 6.5th edition models with shields. They're going to be increased in size. Eventually bringing them both to 40+ units, the unit on the left is called "Il vecchio conio" and a freehand banner is in the works.
(https://i.imgur.com/QqVQbDs.jpg)
here's a unit of thunderers. They're sitting behind a barricade/shieldwall. I like fielding my shooting units with shields and there's no better way to do so than a literal shieldwall.
this is the first one I made and I have to admit I went a bit overboard with the green/blue alternate colours on the shields. Still, a cool little project I like and will be making many more of in the future.
The unit lacks a standard bearer for now just because I'm yet to fish one out of my unpainted pile, but he's coming. eventually. The musician has to sit in the back rank because the drum won't let him sit flush against the shields.
(https://i.imgur.com/uYFGlry.jpg)
another 10 thunderers, this time from BoSP (I have sooooo many models from multiple copies of that box).
The unit is named "Tuoni" and along two twin units named "Fulmini" and "Saette" they will all get a personalized shield wall with their name on it.
(https://i.imgur.com/GqVf6hk.jpg)
here's 6 (5) quarrelers. There are more (oh so many more) to come and technically the standard bearer was an artillery crew member with his clipboard of grudges. They too will be getting a shield wall.
(https://i.imgur.com/v4Q0VvQ.jpg)
this is a unit of warriors with great weapons. Not too fond of these models but they're serviceable enough. Like all my other melee unit this one will also get bigger as more models get stripped and painted.
you can also see the standard bearer I finished in my last update. He looks like he's holding a sign at a protest more than a standard and I think this is due to the fact that the banner is way too recangular and is lacking any "framing" elements at the top and/or sides.
the idea though is to put him in the middle of the unit and he does look a bit better as you can see here
(https://i.imgur.com/VeS08wf.jpg)
also the guy left of the bagpiper looks like he's having a REALLY good day.
(https://i.imgur.com/7sPpTHj.jpg)
this is a blurry picture of a smaller unit of warrior with great weapons. this too will probably double up in size once all is said and done. You can see that some of the models don't have a painted base or have a brown base. this is one thing that will need to be fixed, but I doubt it'll take much. something to do for those days one really cannot get himself to paint anything.
(https://i.imgur.com/Fojf9dE.jpg)
This is a unit of 9 miners. The champion is on my workspace completely done, except for the eyes.
You can see some unfinished bases and also that the flames are not painted. That's because I have no yellow, red, or orange paint of any kind. The ones I had dried out years ago and they're not colours I really use in my army so I never bothered replacing them. (I tried a couple flames playing around with white, browns and the flesh colour but.. meh)
(https://i.imgur.com/OaZyDah.jpg)
This is the unfinished BSB, the hero manning it is currently in an acetone bath and I'm having trouble with the left pennant, but you can still tell that it looks absolutely ridiculous inside a unit. Which is exactly what I wanted.
the motto, in Latin, says "comminus et eminus se defendit" I had not touched Latin since my years of high school in Italy 15+ years ago and it took me longer than I'd like to admit to translate the one I had thought of originally. (many thanks to my dear friend who's a professor of Linguistics and whose help has proven invaluable)
(https://i.imgur.com/NRTKvgI.jpg)
These guys here are my unit of hammerers, called "The green maul" they're 25 and will probably reach 50 once they're all painted. I decided to give them green hammerers and blue armours. one of their banners will read "Pacta sunt servanda" once I feel a bit more confident in my ability with lettering (or once I get some stencils)
(https://i.imgur.com/ss68rJF.jpg)
All of them have a shield with a winged hammer rom the warrior kit. This is such an obvious and simple "conversion" yet it's one I've always been very proud of. Mostly because these shields take longer than they have any right to take to finish.
(https://i.imgur.com/FpzoIxb.jpg)
this is my artillery, beside my beloved bolt thrower I'm not too fond of these models. But you can't call a throng a throng without firepower. I have a lot more warmachines coming.
The crew members are a random assortment of minis pulled from the pile and painted, so many don't necessarily match the machine they're supposed to go with.
(https://i.imgur.com/etPB5R9.jpg)
these are the heroes/character painted so far plus a miniature from the board game Labyrinth. I might use him as runesmith; or maybe as my next DnD character.
Considerations:
first, there are a few things I need to touch up; mainly in terms of bases. Not only some models have an unpainted base, I want to base all of my artillery, as well as paint the movement trays. Certain models; (mostly the GW warriors) were an early experiment with multibasing. and they work, sort of, but they'll need to be removed and rearranged to allow better deployment.
Second; the army as of now is not particularly impressive, especially considering these are maybe 15% of my total models.
But I'm really proud of how they turned out and it's nice to see them all deployed to remind me that while the final goal might not be close, I've already covered quite some ground.
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You definitely should be proud of that force, they look good and you’re making progress!
I think putting time in to complete the bases will be a good investment. Bases are easy to overlook, but they make a big difference for pulling the figures together into a unified force. I think cohesive basing provides a sense of context for a collection (some of the collections by folks on LAF, such at Knight Commander Tyr and Koyote, among others, really show that - the basing is almost like a character of its own). It doesn’t have to be that detailed to work, though, just consistent across the army.
I’m looking forward to seeing how your army develops (that other 85% still to paint is intriguing)!
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You definitely should be proud of that force, they look good and you’re making progress!
I think putting time in to complete the bases will be a good investment. Bases are easy to overlook, but they make a big difference for pulling the figures together into a unified force. I think cohesive basing provides a sense of context for a collection (some of the collections by folks on LAF, such at Knight Commander Tyr and Koyote, among others, really show that - the basing is almost like a character of its own). It doesn’t have to be that detailed to work, though, just consistent across the army.
I’m looking forward to seeing how your army develops (that other 85% still to paint is intriguing)!
Thank you Pattus, it was nice actually seeing all the miniatures out together.
I agree with the bases as it's one of those things that won't take too much time but will truly pay off.
As for the rest of the army... it's slowly coming. I've been mostly pulling and stripping miniatures at random, but with the upcoming tournament I might be a bit more targeted in my process.
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Looking great Luigi, and I'm pinching the idea of the priming board for the shields!
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Looks great and you can never have too many warmachines.
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Looks great and you can never have too many warmachines.
Thanks Voltan. I can definitely agree with that. I have plenty more incoming, both black powder ones and more traditional pieces.
Looking great Luigi, and I'm pinching the idea of the priming board for the shields!
Thank you! And yes please, it's such a simple yet effective idea. I'd love to see other people's take on it.
Another update for today, nothing too big.
I finished batch painting the 37 dwarfs from last time.
(https://i.imgur.com/jQEPmfz.jpg)
I then fished 3 out of them and focused on them till completion, finishing off a miner that had been waiting for far too long on without his eyes.
(https://i.imgur.com/SDLGLVQ.jpg)
Here they are, from the right...
(https://i.imgur.com/o5C91VP.jpg)
and from the left.
Whomever sold me these REALLY went heavy with the primer, some of the details, especially at the back are almost entirely obscured by te primer
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I didn't paint too much these few days but I did manage to finish a single miniature this morning in between dropping off my daughter at daycare and starting work.
(https://i.imgur.com/Pb7MkOw.jpg)
You can tell he's really worried about that mass of thickly and glossily primed miniatures he himself has just emerged that's lurking behind him.
lovely little sculpts. When I first started I used to dislike musicians and standard bearers models a I considered them "wasted" models as opposed to the actual troops you always need more bodies of.
It just never occurred to me that I could have multiple musicians in a unit or multiple standards.
Plus it's very refreshing for once not having to paint a weapon or a shield
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Another small update, only thing I've managed to paint is another thunderer.
Here he is, I really couldn't get the camera to focus and he's since bene placed into a unit in the cabinet and I don't really want to go take him out.
The background probably didn't help either.
(https://i.imgur.com/pV9f9aJ.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/ucMI3sN.jpg)
As you can see from the back, the previous owner had attached shields and what I assume is a bandolier of ammunitions.
I also had to clip the sight off of the rifle since the model was already glued and it prevented me from otherwise reaching the face.
I like how the double coloured helmet came out
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He looks great! I have liked the colour palette for your army since the beginning and it works on this figure, too. The colours on the gun barrel and other metal parts also look good.
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He looks great! I have liked the colour palette for your army since the beginning and it works on this figure, too. The colours on the gun barrel and other metal parts also look good.
Thank you Pattus! Then i'm sure you'll like what's coming next.
Another update, fairly big this time.
I have a tournament to attend to at the end of November. I technically have all the miniatures I need fully painted to field a rather nasty list, with multiple pieces of artillery. But where's the fun in that?
I decided to experiment with a list completely void of warmachines and that would allow me to play dwarfs in a way you would not expect.
So I spoke with the tournament organizer who like my idea so much he offered to 3D print the missing miniatures.
Here's the first (of many) flying contraption I'll have to paint in the next 2-3 weeks.
(https://i.imgur.com/Ob4EGt1.jpg)
I specifically requested the version with the balloon because I already have several gyrocopters and ornithopters with rotors and/or wings designs.
I've never worked with resin and I am extremely impressed with it.
Good thing I never had a 3D printer otherwise I'd be literally submerged in unpainted models.
I was so excited I started assembling it before any painting (which I never do).
this immediately fired backward after I realized that doing so prevented me from inserting the pilot in the cockpit since he wont fit through the ropes.
(https://i.imgur.com/EQVp8TO.jpg)
No one can convince me that he was not sculpted to be a commuter standing on the bus and holding onto one of those loops hanging from the ceiling.
Digging through my bits I found the solution though; a drinking dwarven pilot from Black Tree Design.
(https://i.imgur.com/Ifxe9ri.jpg)
He's so small he fits without issues, actually he was too small and needed a tiny cork booster seat to be able to see through the cockpit.
(https://i.imgur.com/8OCs1KB.jpg)
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Awesome, is it going to count as a gyrocopter or are you using some other rules for it?
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These will by gyrocopters, and I have a coupe of slightly larger ones with an elongated tail/platform that will be gyrobombers.
I'm planning a flying circus list with 6 gyrocopters and 2 bombers. It will lack any sort of serious punch and staying capabilities that dwarfs are renown for but for once I'll be able to move.
But for regular games and scenarios I'd be more than willing to look for alternative rules or even come up with some myself
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That’s lucky you had a suitable crew figure! The original and the replacement are both fun sculpts. I think I prefer the replacement, though. I suppose if a pilot is going to be under the influence, a balloon is probably the least hazardous contraption to be flying!
It sounds like it will be a super-characterful army for the tournament!
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That’s lucky you had a suitable crew figure! The original and the replacement are both fun sculpts. I think I prefer the replacement, though. I suppose if a pilot is going to be under the influence, a balloon is probably the least hazardous contraption to be flying!
It sounds like it will be a super-characterful army for the tournament!
thanks Pattus, I agree on the balloon and its relative safety! Hopefully this is reflected on the tabletop game wise
Sunday up(date)day,
I've made some progress on the first balloon.
I had started working in batches on all of them (a total of 8-10 flying machines) thinking I'll make fast work of them all.
I soon stopped when it turned out that batch painting models larger than infantry (which is realistically all I've ever painted before) is much more draining, so after having slapped the first base coat on one model i decided I was going to focus on one or two of them at the time till completion.
here's some pictures
(https://i.imgur.com/83HYxQY.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/CMcEVsd.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/AesqUte.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/0NdBdll.jpg)
the green is 90% done (missing a yellowish highlight here and there, the shields and the interior of the cockpit)
the blue is on the second layer.
It's slowly coming together.
I also assemmbled and modified the bases and stands.
As you can see here
(https://i.imgur.com/wbWXNVc.jpg)
The stand has too thin a peg and the model too wide an opening for it to be stable in any way.
So I took a few of these plastic beads and widened the hole with a drill bit.
(https://i.imgur.com/eS3QHI6.jpg)
a drop of thin plastic cement and and it makes for a much snugger fit
(https://i.imgur.com/0FhmcwI.jpg)
I also weighted down the bases when plastic and hollow
(https://i.imgur.com/GdyjPGD.jpg)
Or put a washer directly in between the base and the stand when MDF.
(https://i.imgur.com/x2VfGbm.jpg)
These models aren't really heavy (the resin is extremely light), but they do stick out quite a bit in height from the rest of the army and there's a real risk of brushing an arm or a sleeve against them when moving miniatures around, so a but of bottom weight isn't going to hurt.
I might finish the first one tonight if I get some time for painting, the model has finally entered the stage where I can actually see some progress and I think it's looking rather nice.
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A very quick update on my work break.
A couple of nights ago I finally finished the first Gyrocopter/Hot air balloon.
I think it came out rather well and am particularly satisfied with the painted wood-pattern, it was the first time I tried this technique and the results are excellent, if I say so myself.
I was worried about following the "grain" of the prints on the shields, but I think the model would have benefited with a vertical grain, so I'll try that on the next model.
Doing the ropes grey was also another thing I'm not too pleased with, and will probably switch to brown or brown+grey on the next on/
(https://i.imgur.com/dlMdrnU.jpg)
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That dwarf blimp has come out really well. Love the blue. It really pops on this one.
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I agree with Old Hob, that looks great! It’s a very interesting model, too, blending the dwarf style elements in a new way (or at least new to me, I haven’t really followed how the GW dwarves’ style shifted during the AoS years).
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It really is a great model, and well -painted.
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Nice work.
I've never been a fan of blue/green schemes, but you've really pulled it off.
Great PJs
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Wow! Thank you everyone, it's really nice getting this kind of feedback and it most certainly helps in staying motivated with the project; especially during the most tedious phases.
I actually started working on the other 6 almost right after.
(https://i.imgur.com/1paN6ut.jpg)
You can see them here right after the first or second base colour being applied. I learned from my mistake though and did not assemble them yet, and I'm focusing on anything that's not the basecoat one piece at the time.
(https://i.imgur.com/I9tLfCq.jpg)
this picture has actually made me realize that I'm making the same mistake on the gondola as the last time and am leaving the rotors and ropes unpainted. I will be addressing that in the next painting session. Tonight I should also probably start stripping my older gyros I painted years ago.
Like this one.
(https://i.imgur.com/3N6RbLu.jpg)
The picture makes it look worse than it is. the model is painted to a more than acceptable standard but it just doesn't match the rest of the army in terms of colour, what I will try and retain though is the screw flight stand as I think it's particularly fitting for such a model.
These are absolutely my favourite gyrocopters ever: they're tiny, easy to assemble and have a certain charm about them that it's harder to find in more modern sculpts.
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Quick update during my break:
(https://i.imgur.com/kqLXhQS.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/kgq3xIX.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/xylweT9.jpg)
The wooden portion of the gondola is done. I think. I might go back and do a lighter blue (celeste or azzurro) highlight here and there.
I like the vertical grain on the shields, but I might just invert the shields' colours on the other gondolas.
the browns are still just at the first layer, but they already do work better than grey.
I might push the green further with a yellow highlight, but honestly I like how it looks so far.
unfortunately lately I've been getting very little painting since both my daughter and wife were sick.
all is good now so I'm confident in being able to see some real progress this weekend.
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Another update. It's been a while.
I finally finished ALL the remaining gondolas for the resin gyrocopters.
It's been an extremely tedious work and having to paint the same model over and over with nothing in between wasn't very enjoyable.
The fact that they are also way more detailed than an average infantry miniature definitely took a lot of the enthusiasm away.
(https://i.imgur.com/jovrZ9q.jpg)
left side
(https://i.imgur.com/JeWYHY2.jpg)
right side
(https://i.imgur.com/57kQkQm.jpg)
front
(https://i.imgur.com/yGzPaPV.jpg)
rear
I am pleased though with how the wood came out, and although I can see a few mistakes or missed areas, I'm calling them done for the time being.
This should allow me to finish the balloons, rotors, tails and pilots on time for the tournament.
In the background you can also see the 30 or so thunderers and warriors I had started in September.
I have a newly found appreciation for infantry models now so once I'm done painting for the tournament it should be easy getting back into finishing actual units.
I also went through my pile of metal models looking for a replacement pilot
(https://i.imgur.com/nKXXaXC.jpg)
And I started stripping the 2 harlequin (BTD?) gyrocopters and the BSB model.
(https://i.imgur.com/eEcpp5p.jpg)
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Great progress! Painting the same thing over and over definitely can become a chore. Can’t argue with the results, though, that will be one impressive swarm of copters for the tournament! Now, just add a Bluetooth speaker playing Flight of the Valkries on a repeating loop and you’re all set!
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Thank you Pattus. I actually have been listening to Ride of the Valkyries (and the rest of Die Walküre) a dangerously high number of times while painting these guys, in ope of getting me motivated to keep going. I fear I mightend up dreaming in German on of these nights if I don't get finished soon.
Quick update before bed.
I actually painted a lot and made a lot of progress since last time I uploaded pictures, but just like last time I did not take any of the actual process.
In any case, the balloons are all finished
(https://i.imgur.com/0pw7x0x.jpg)
but it’s really hard to photograph them since they can’t really stand up on their own.
I also worked on the pilots.
(https://i.imgur.com/6yrF9pM.jpg)
these two are finished
(https://i.imgur.com/Du3k9GV.jpg)
You can see that I “cheated” with them, I only painted what’s actually visible once they’re in the cockpit .
I’m usually the type of person that spends time highlighting the sole of miniatures… but after having to work on these models (and nothing else) I really just want them to be finished.
(https://i.imgur.com/4hXSPPf.jpg)
I’ve now started working on the tail/carriage for the two gyrobombers and will be doing the rotors as well.
I’m hoping to have them finished tomorrow (or tuesday) as I should have some time to paint.
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All the resin copters are now finished: painted, assembled and based.
but this is not an update for that (that'll come tonight after work).
I stripped the metal gyros and started assembling them.
In the past I remember them constantly coming apart just by looking at them funny so I decide to try a more heavy handed approach.
(https://i.imgur.com/0b3AUJt.jpg)
I used a literal machine screw going through the base (and all those cents I brought over when moving to Canada 15 years ago are finally coming in handy).
The head of the screw was a bit thicker than the base so I had to indent a little alcove with a dremel.
(https://i.imgur.com/pxr3XWk.jpg)
this thing is not going anywhere.
(https://i.imgur.com/axc3yhm.jpg)
I then screwed directly into the gyrocopter (with a drop of glue).
(https://i.imgur.com/VsNz9Ic.jpg)
this was an orginal GW base which isn't hollow, so I had to grind a bit of space for the screw to sit flush
(https://i.imgur.com/zDIKZTE.jpg)
To increase the area of contact for the glue and screw I used one of those size markers found on hangers, hidden with some cork
(https://i.imgur.com/4iXgYeR.jpg)
screwing directly into the second one. This is slightly slanted, but that's not a bad thins as it'll look like the pilot is maneuvering some sort of spin.
(https://i.imgur.com/Kt3Gm8u.jpg)
I remember the rotor/blade attachment being a particular weak one so I just screwed them in with a tiny screw.
(https://i.imgur.com/wGGY5Y1.jpg)
I was very worried about ruining the models but the results came out satisfactory, I even used a tiny brass ring from a base guitar string to have one of them fit a longer screw.
I realized the metal pilot I used into the resin hot air balloon wasn't a spare but now he's stuck in there and one of these gyro's will be without pilot for now.
(https://i.imgur.com/KE4wyuT.jpg)
Look at him sitting snuggly and mocking my miscalculation.
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yup, they look sturdy now, just don't decide to take them apart again. :P
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yup, they look sturdy now, just don't decide to take them apart again. :P
Oh god Voltan, after this I don't want to see anything more complicated than an arm-chest attachment on a miniature.
Quick add, I found this phone picture from Tuesday, as I figured a late and small update is better than no update.
(https://i.imgur.com/KJRjnEG.jpg)
While this picture shows them mid-painting they are now fully highlighted, drybrushed and assembled.
The BSB is also much further along with just the final highlight and drybrush needing to be applied to his face .
I have a tournament in 2 days and am rushing to complete them.
I'm hoping to be able to post a completed picture of everything before the tournament
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Another day, another update.
I've finally finished the BSB here he is in all his glory.
I really like this model and considering he was originally just a nonGW (BTD?) ironbreaker champion I'd say he got promoted quite a bit.
(https://i.imgur.com/q6Dvj5l.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Oe6sIii.jpg)
I am particularly pleased on how his eyes came out; he looks like he will not be easily impressed; which, along with his statuesque pose, is perfect for a battle standard Bearer.
(https://i.imgur.com/MY8PPx5.jpg)
Although now looking at him with the much magnified picture I realize he needs a bit more work on his eyes :'(
I also found another picture from last week of my recently completed airforce.
[img style="max-width:100%;" src="https://i.imgur.com/x7JsWLC.jpg"]
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Wow! That’s a great air force. They should add some mobility to your stunties on the battlefield.
I ageee about the standard bearer and how his eyes turned out, he looks great.
Good luck with the tournament!
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Loving the colour scheme your using.
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Thank you both!
And Pattus, luck wasn't on my side at the tournament (I ended up winning the "The dice are my enemy award lol) but i had not had this much fun with the game in a long, long time.
I wish I had taken more pictures, and I'm sure more will pop up once everyone starts uploading them to the event page.
In the meanwhile here's a shot of the army at the tournament
(https://i.imgur.com/mDLDUX0.jpg)
ETA: my opponent took better pictures of my army than I did :P
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It’s great to hear that you enjoyed the tournament. The dwarves may have died in vain, but I bet they looked glorious doing it!
I’m looking forward to seeing additional units as you add them to the war host.
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It’s great to hear that you enjoyed the tournament. The dwarves may have died in vain, but I bet they looked glorious doing it!
I’m looking forward to seeing additional units as you add them to the war host.
Thank you Pattus, they definitely got some comments, both for the look and for the originality of the list.
Here’s some more pictures from the tournament, specifically from my last game.
(https://i.imgur.com/fcL3yMd.jpg)
This is what my deployment looked like at the start (from his POV)
(https://i.imgur.com/phf253A.jpg)
This is turn 2, you can see the miners that have just popped out and my airforce surrounding the enemy.
before the game I was 100% convinced this would be an easy victory and this is the moment I thought I’d start to win .
Oh boy was I wrong .
(https://i.imgur.com/tp6lhri.jpg)
this is what it looked like by turn…5?
In the top right you can see 6 of 8 copters removed as casualties along with the miners.
The gyrocopter was defeated by the cannon crew triggering the miners running away off the table and cascading into a mass escape off the edge of the table.
hats off to my opponent who was a great sport and played really well, I have not had this much fun losing in a while.
and I truly believe that are absurd moments like these that really make the game.
here’s a few more details.
(https://i.imgur.com/lM2ipQP.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/7vr2wgd.jpg)
Details of my airforce
(https://i.imgur.com/UyHSZWV.jpg)
one of my gyros failing to defeat 7 thunderers even after charging them in the back before being charged and pulverized by 20 or so hammerers
(https://i.imgur.com/Y1hOFOy.jpg)
my army cowardly hiding strategically staying back letting the copters fly out to settle some grudge
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Congratulations Luigi. That was an awful lot of hard work, but the results are stunning.
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Thank you Old Hob,
I'm very satisfied with how it all turned out.
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The airships really to look marvelous.
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Much appreciate Louie!
A thing I've noticed is that this tournament has really galvanized me with the hobby. And I decided to channel this newly found enthusiasm to dive right in and do some batch painting of things I would normally just push to the side.
(https://i.imgur.com/RGz7bpf.jpg)
These are 7 random models fished from the pool of dwarfs I had started before focusing on the tournament list.
These are models that I would usually cherish in painting but the fact that they're already fully assembled and primed with something way too glossy makes them a bit too easy to be pushed aside.
They're slowly coming to life and, if anything, will just end up in the back ranks of better looking ones.
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Another day another update.
I have actually finished the 7 dwarfs above.
They came out a bit differently than usual and I blame bot their primer and me painting with my daughter on my lap.
I also tried starker and lighter highlights of green.
They came out well enough to blend into the ranks and files once placed in units.
I only took a single WIP picture, which I always seem to forget
(https://i.imgur.com/YhXOdzB.jpg)
and it's unfortunately too dark to make out much.
But for the final picture someone suggested I tried a background so I half-assedly did something with my work laptop and its tiny screen.
(https://i.imgur.com/KVc0D0O.jpg)
A little too busy
(https://i.imgur.com/ZuEGYZB.jpg)
Much better
I also finally took a picture of the BSB which I realized never had a proper picture taken.
(https://i.imgur.com/3zVQPrr.jpg)
This guy is really tall (well, not him, his banner) so much, in fact that it's hard to fit him into the frame
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The new recruits look nicely done to me. Achievement unlocked for painting these with your kiddo on your lap.
Man, that banner is MASSIVE!
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...Man, that banner is MASSIVE!
That's because dwarves spend so much time in the dark they have to squint when on the surface!
Still, it's very neat!
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The new recruits look nicely done to me. Achievement unlocked for painting these with your kiddo on your lap.
Man, that banner is MASSIVE!
thank you Old Hob. One of the reasons I started this project was because I wanted to be able to showcase an array of free-handed banners.
And I also figured that since dwarfs in Warhammer lack centerpiece models (even their gyrocopters are tiny) I decided I could go wild with it.
I'm most certainly pleased with the result, even though it's still missing something draping off the left.
That's because dwarves spend so much time in the dark they have to squint when on the surface!
Still, it's very neat!
I always said it's because my dwarfs are compensating for their very short... list of unsolved grudges, so their kind of coaxing and provoking enemies to come and start something.
here's another small update.
I finished 7 more thunderers from the current batch.
I just did a quick and dirty job on them. it turned out dirtier than I'd like and not as quick as I'd hoped. But all in all, they look good enough and especially if placed behind a shield wall, they won't look out of place with the rest.
(https://i.imgur.com/gCjMFpU.jpg)
I believe there's now only 5 or 6 thunderers left among those I already started before the tournament. I might even end up finishing them all before the end of the year.
(https://i.imgur.com/ZAV7pR6.jpg)
The previous owner had glued the buckler type shields to their back as well as pouches and ammo belts. He had used plastic cement so I was able to remove only a few before deciding that it wasn't worth the effort.
I really like simplicity in my miniatures and all those things always felt like unnecessary frills on what are mainly game pieces.
Still, I'll admit that once painted the bucklers don't look too bad and (what I assume to be) bandoleers do add a welcome break from otherwise plain armour
All in all I'm satisfied with it and I really don't want to pass a negative message: the project is proceeding rather well and I'm excited and quite optimistic for where it'll be in a year's time.
If I do not finish the next batch before NYE this might be the second last update of 2023; I'm absolutely planning on having a group shot of what the army looks like so far.
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Nice job on the new recruits! I expect a volley from a unit of thunderers will leave a mark on most opponents.
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Nice job on the new recruits! I expect a volley from a unit of thunderers will leave a mark on most opponents.
Thank you PM. I've always been very fond of Dwarf thunderers, the image of dwarfs with gunpowder weapons was what, to me, set Warhammer apart from other fantasy settings. And for years I would field a dwarf army without a unit of thunderers or two (or three!). In game terms though they never do as well as one would hope. Except against cold one riders, for some reason I always really well against them, but I digress...
And speaking of thunderers, today I sat down and actually finished something I had been postponing for months.
I finally completed the shieldwalls movement trays I had built a while ago.
First I just did a quick wood grain effect on the shields
(https://i.imgur.com/MJZQlg5.jpg)
In my previous attempt (visible on page 4) I ended up with too busy a paintjob so this time I opted for something more uniform.
They're also painted in a sequence as the idea is to field them next to each other.
The plain shields also made a perfect canvas for the units' names.
(https://i.imgur.com/vcdhicG.jpg)
TUONI (Thunders)
(https://i.imgur.com/SbKsDo3.jpg)
FULMINI (lightnings)
(https://i.imgur.com/q3oKDYw.jpg)
SAETTE ([lightning] bolts)
I hesitated so much with these because I was worried about doing the lettering, but today seeing them there collecting dust got me motivated to just grab a brush and write the names on them.
And they're not bad at all, if I say so myself. I might even go back and draw a couple of tiny bolts on the shields next to each name.
In Italian, "Tuoni, fulmini e saette" is an actual expression (albeit not used often, nowadays) found in novels and stories.
I also thought they'd make for good names for regiments of dwarf thunders whose guns are as loud as thunder, their shots as bright as lightning and their bullets as fast as lightning bolts.
I REALLY like the concept of a literal shieldwall for dwarfs and it's definitely something I'll be doing more of.
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Those trays are a very cunning idea! I can just imagine those little buggers running up fild and hastily constructing another Wall.
Cool!
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Thanks GS!
Hopefully in future games, those shieldwalls will prove half as useful as they look.
One final update for the year.
I have been surprisingly busy these past 10 days and didn't get to paint too much. In fact I got kind of stuck on these 11 guys.
(https://i.imgur.com/ZB8NX9K.jpg)
the good news is that they are really close to being finished, so I should be adding these guys pretty quickly, hopefully a day or two.
I did manage to finally base all the artillery pieces I have painted so far.
these were painted rather early in the project and as such they don't display much colour, this makes them get lost on a grey base; good lesson for future war machines; a coloured chassis is definitely a must.
(https://i.imgur.com/MDYtZKB.jpg)
But here's the real update: state of the union army as of the end of 2023
(https://i.imgur.com/n4p2KRq.jpg)
and a few close ups.
(https://i.imgur.com/amwPtPJ.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/RqPLqYu.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/OmhgEzP.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/a5U4QeO.jpg)
that's all for now.
happy new year everyone, if you do go out and celebrate don't be like him
(https://i.imgur.com/nXXriBf.jpg)
don't drink and fly.
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Thank you everyone.
First week of the year means first update of 2024.
I completed 12 more dwarfs, mostly thunderers and a couple of command figures. I'm starting to have more musicians and banners than I have units.
(https://i.imgur.com/vOs5fDy.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/3x2y0Ob.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/9LbdnKX.jpg)
I've also update my Pile Of Potential (https://pileofpotential.com/Luigino?project=83630141) with a more accurate account of what I have, what's painted and what's left to do.
According to that I'm 1/5 on my way to having painted ALL of my miniatures.
Hopefully by this time next year I'm at 1/4 done at least.
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New weekend, new update.
I had about warriors left from my last group of miniatures and while painting them I also decided to throw in a Thane and a cannon from the same batch of used miniatures.
I’m glad I did because it didn’t add too much time and it’s nice to get more dwarfs ready.
I went for a very quick job on these guys, and decided to opt for all coloured helmets..
(https://i.imgur.com/lz872Ql.jpg)
I think they came out well enough.
(https://i.imgur.com/pEmhkdg.jpg) (https://i.imgur.com/JAM956A.jpg)
The thane was a particularly speedy paintjob with lots of washes and quick highliths. He doesn’t have any flesh, which sped up painting quite a lot.
(https://i.imgur.com/nUFcNT4.jpg)
the cape is not my best work, but for something that will probably never be seen I couldn’t be bothered too much.
And here’s the cannon.
(https://i.imgur.com/1XXCQ2C.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/MU3zTbZ.jpg)
this is my first attempt at a coloured cannon. I really like how the blue chassis contrasts the metal barrel and the green detailing works nicely as well.
I did make a couple of mistake though; mainly I did the colour before doing the metal drybrushing meaning that I had to be very conservative in its application to avoid having to redo the blue and green sections. The primer was also black and smooth while I usually use beige, green, or brown and always something with a satin finish.
I still don’t know if an actually coloured barrel would work but this one looks miles better than the first one I did.
I also dived right in on the next few miniatures, I found that having some sort of continuity between jobs makes me more productive rather than treating them as separate events.
(https://i.imgur.com/q7zFoRs.jpg)
whoever I bought these guys from had already primed and cemented them, which results in a lot of weird poses and questionable choices for equipment, as well as a more tedious painting process for artillery models.
(https://i.imgur.com/EumjSOK.jpg)
It also means that some parts snapped and broke which will force me to do some impromptu kitbashing, which might actually be a good thing.
But rather than complain and leave them at the back of my que I decided to tackle them right away.
We’re exactly 2 weeks into the new year and we’re seeing some decent progress already.
I’m hoping to be able to keep it up
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Great update! I particularly like the Thane, the fur of his mantle is very well done. Makes me want to blow off the dust from my Dwarves army (but I must focus on the Orcs first :D)
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Thank you Philotep!
Very late update.
we're closing the month with an organ gun, its crew and a slayer who looks like he's had a stroke.
(https://i.imgur.com/E2gttRA.jpg)
The guy whose hand snapped just got a random shield I already had painted, and as you can tell I really didn't spend too much time or put too much effort into them.
(https://i.imgur.com/sQdqKfT.jpg)
The slayer has been doing his squats
(https://i.imgur.com/tZgkuNi.jpg)
The plastic organ gun/cannon kit was never my favourite but it's serviceable enough. Noting fancy here, just a series of green and blue washes and drybrushing for the chassis, and a boltgun drybrush over the black primer.
Not my finest job; partially because I really don't like these models, but I think they look more than decent on the battlefield.
Most importantly, models look much better finished and in the glass case among its comrades than lingering collecting dust unpainted on my desk.
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I think they turned out quite well! It’s definitely better to have them completed and in the battle line, rather than collecting dust on the painting table. Will you paint some that you’re more enthusiastic about next?
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I think they turned out quite well! It’s definitely better to have them completed and in the battle line, rather than collecting dust on the painting table. Will you paint some that you’re more enthusiastic about next?
Thanks PM.
Actually, looking back at them a few hours later I find myself liking them better than I did right after finishing them.
as per the second part of the question: yes.
I have officially started the process to do en-masse stripping of all the miniatures I painted before starting this project (we're talking the bulk of my collection, with over 300 dwarfs). So far I have stripped all the remaining BfSP warriors and thunderers (and I'm really looking forward to those), a coupe of metal warmachines (which will require some pinning and minor conversions) and a about 35 or so of metal crew members ranging from 4th to 7th edition. There's also other random dwarfs that ended up in the stripping bucket that I cannot recall (I think another of the plastic organ gun, a handful of miners and warriors, a few characters?).
Going back to these old models, some of which were the very first models I ever put paint on, has truly made me appreciate how far I've come.
All in all I'm probably looking at at least 3-4 months of work, so I'd better get started. I'll try to take pictures of the progress as well.
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Thanks PM.
Actually, looking back at them a few hours later I find myself liking them better than I did right after finishing them.
I generally feel the same way. If I can I try to get outside and take walk after a painting session, and then come back to look at them. Having some time to think about something else before you start judging them has really helped me to think clearer about what I like and what I should improve on :)
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I generally feel the same way. If I can I try to get outside and take walk after a painting session, and then come back to look at them. Having some time to think about something else before you start judging them has really helped me to think clearer about what I like and what I should improve on :)
Very true indeed. this afternoon they actually looked even better. Mostly because I spent hours scrubbing and stripping batches of old miniatures and had to go through years of very amateurish paintjobs, which really made me appreciate my current output.
Speaking of which, new update.
I finished stripping the first batch of old miniatures and ended up spilling them all over my desk
(https://i.imgur.com/8z6qVyQ.jpg)
Out of the stripping bucket, I noticed that the plastic miniatures came out 1 of 4 ways.
(https://i.imgur.com/nR1z9qW.jpg)
Some were primed and the primer stuck (like the first guy on the left). These were bought already painted from a friend of mine in 2006/7, you can tell that the paint came off perfectly but the primer stuck.
Others, like the next 2, were painted by me and my brother. These were painted without a primer and also with a mixed of acrylic and enamel paints.
most of it came off, but some of it seems to have stained the plastic.
These were actually painted multiple times over the year with me simply painting over a different colour.
I will be priming these guys as well: despite being soaked for days and having been scrubbed multiple times, they're not getting any cleaner.
Other miniatures (painted around 2010/2011), like that armless miner were primed by brushing black acrylic paint directly onto the miniature.
these came out the cleanest.
The last ones where bought a year or two ago already primed and painted. The paint came off and the primer mostly stuck, but it lost all of its glossy finish.
during the scrubbing process, some of the miniatures got damaged and their hands or weapons snapped. this happened to both plastic and metal miniatures.
Nothing that couldn't be fixed with a quick kitbash.
(https://i.imgur.com/aBtiqYh.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/ZZQtFb4.jpg)
here you can also see that the metal miniatures came out extremely clean, regardless of the type of primer it all sloughed off cleanly.
I then started sticking the miniatures to be re-primed on a piece of cardboard with hot glue
(https://i.imgur.com/yOdirKW.jpg)
Hopefully we'll be getting at least an hour of decent weather soon so I can get started.
Once all of them are primed I'm probably going to be very systematic in my approach; divvying them up into units and focusing on them in batches of 10-15.
I'm feeling fairly confident and rather optimistic, and hoping to have all of them finished by the end of march.
After that I have 4 more jars of miniatures bathing (mostly the rest of the metal crew members, a few warmachines, and a bunch of 7th edition warriors).
(https://i.imgur.com/VHz57ii.jpg).
And that's all for this first day of February
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Love recovering old minis. I find 99% isopropyl alcohol in an ultra-sonic cleaner does really well against painted plastic.
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Love recovering old minis. I find 99% isopropyl alcohol in an ultra-sonic cleaner does really well against painted plastic.
I'm yet to use an US cleaner.
Any one in particular you'd suggest?
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Nope. I'd spring for one which you can run for a set time (some of the small, cheap ones for jewelry have an annoying 3-minute only cycle). They're one of those products which is listed under 850 different Chinese brand names...while all being the same thing on Amazon. lol
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It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
And while I have not been online much this past month and a half I’ve been really busy with stripping my old dwarfs and painting them up to my current standard.
So much so, that I managed to tackle my backlog and complete a serious chunk of dwarfs.
I’m extremely pleased to announce that I finally completed ALL the thunderers and ALL the longbeards/warriors from the various “Battle for Skull Pass” sets I have accumulated throughout the years.
I also started adding an extra step or two of highlights to them, especially with the green and I’m fairly pleased with the results.
So let’s get started. Here we have 14 thunderers.
(https://i.imgur.com/XuvwXgJ.jpg)
And their respective command groups
(https://i.imgur.com/TmYFSsg.jpg)
note on the left the two standard bearers I converted from the warrior ones. It’s a very straightforward kitbash using some of the many guns that came with the quarrelers kit and that I would generally have no use for.
This will make it easier to give full command to future thunderers units I have planned and that came without banners.
Here's 4 more crew for artillery, nothing fancy but gunners and machinists are always useful to have.
(https://i.imgur.com/Uq8AYVR.jpg)
and here’s some longbeards.
(https://i.imgur.com/GNkkCoH.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/E6cDW44.jpg)
You’ll notice that some of their weapons have been swapped and some of their horns have been snipped. They were damaged during stripping and quickly fixed with a simple hand swap. As per the horns… I don’t know I like to think of it as battle damage.
This particular batch of miniatures has been particularly frustrating;
(https://i.imgur.com/ljhJmhZ.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/nbUAxV9.jpg)
about 6 of them are not from the starter set but are instead those miniatures that came free with White Dwarf 219/220. (https://i.imgur.com/KHik06f.jpg)
Now the sculpt is identical to the others but they’ve actually got much shallower and softer details making them very tedious to paint to the same standard as the others. I also have no clue how I got so many of them since I never bough a single issue of WD.
I’ve also started prepping 70 or so bases.
(https://i.imgur.com/rld9mqB.jpg)
This is it for now, almost 50 dwarfs in almost 50 days. That’s some really good output if I say so myself.
I probably won’t be painting actual miniatures for the next couple of weeks since I was going insane towards the end but will be still doing some hobby stuff, probably movement trays (I now need more shieldwalls for the thunderers) and possibly some more freehand banners.
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Great job! That’s excellent productivity, in my opinion, and the results look very good. I feel for you regarding stripping old figures- I find it tedious to clean off the old gunk and it’s frustrating when some get damaged in the process. Your repairs worked well, though.
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Yeah, this is coming along a treat...and I say that as someone who generally dislikes bright blue and bright green! (Must be something tainted in your blood, as my buddy also paints all of his armies in those two colours!)
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Cool color scheme. Love em!
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Thank you guys.
The more I get done for this project, the better it all looks.
That last wave will probably be the last large addition to the project in a while. It left me a bit burned out in terms of painting.
here they are finally based and trying out the new trays I made.
(https://i.imgur.com/JGtEnZC.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/7K9tIHq.jpg)
Not wanting to be totally unproductive, I decided to do some more stripping and priming as well as building some movement trays.
(https://i.imgur.com/t02FNLU.jpg)
Here's another batch of metal models stripped and ready to be primed. Mostly Artillery crew and a few 4th (5th?) ed. dwarf thunderers. Can't wait to get to this unit as they're definitely some of the favourite models in my collection.
While stripping a couple more figures got damaged and this time they were metal. rather frustrating, especially with tiny bits and details with miniscule contact points.
(https://i.imgur.com/foLqaAZ.jpg)
The miner's pickaxe on the right (FA0920b in this set (https://www.stunties.com/stunties/index.php?title=Black_Tree_Dwarven_Regiments#FA0919.2F920.2F921:_Miners) lost its tip, which I turned into a hammer with a couple of leftover plastic cut-offs. It turned out pretty well and I'm certain it will look natural once painted.
the guy on the left (last miniature in this kit (https://www.stunties.com/stunties/index.php?title=GW-Organ_Guns) had already lost the tip of his botefeux (?) and I thought about turning it into a spear or large shovel, but the breaking point is on a slant following his fist so I ended up using the cannon shield. it kind of looks like one of those stop signs used by construction crews to direct traffic, but it works well enough. Hopefully the glue will hold te tiny connection points well enough.
(https://i.imgur.com/7LELV72.jpg)
I also finished a total of 10 movement trays, a couple of large ones (10x5 and 9x5 models respectively) I also finished a few more shieldwall trays.
(https://i.imgur.com/jXhuc11.jpg)
I actually experimented with a fully enclosed style and am very pleased with it, going forward I might do all of them in this style.
I'm currently stripping the last of my plastics, which in itself feels like a huge accomplishment, and hope to be willingly painting by the end of the week. Maybe even have an handful of models finished and ready.
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I thought those enclosed ones were supposed to represent a shield-wall or something.
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I thought those enclosed ones were supposed to represent a shield-wall or something.
Oh they are. I just run out of shields for the last 2 which are now looking like small animal pens.
If that's what you're asking.
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Personally, I much prefer to see the little stunties all stuck up in a pig pen.
Oh, sorry. Too much orc in me, I think. They look great!
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Personally, I much prefer to see the little stunties all stuck up in a pig pen.
Oh, sorry. Too much orc in me, I think. They look great!
Thank you DWB, I won't lie that sometimes seeing them perform rather poorly in game I feel like closing them in a pen might actually be a fitting punishment.
New update!
First off,
I finally stripped ALL models, metal and plastic, that still had paint on. I then spent hours sorting through dwarfs and bits and organizing them into coesive units. This left me with a winebox containing my weight in dwarfs (I have way more metal models than I thought)
(https://i.imgur.com/xhnqSYe.jpg)
what's good about this is that now not only is it easier to complete whole sections of the backlog (instead of completing scattered models); but I don't feel too bad about painting "new" models while I still have old models to strip.
I then completed three more shieldwall trays. I found a solution for my dwindling shield reserve and bought an obscene amount of 1/2" plastic screw caps. any hardware store will have bags containing hundreds if not thousands of these for very low prices. They work perfectly as round shields for my walls.
I then finished an assortment of artillery crew figures.
2 bolt thrower loaders
(https://i.imgur.com/n2JqUXR.jpg)
I couldn't, for the life of me, manage a decent eye on the shouting guy so I just painted him as if he were squinting.
2 gunners
(https://i.imgur.com/mbTP7sS.jpg)
The guy on the right was damaged during stripping. the hand is a bit from a plastic kit while the sponge is just the end of a Qtip shaped and hardened with PVA glue. I'm actually surprised of how small the original sponge is.
I'm honestly impressed on the amount of characters old metal crew members have. For models that are nothing but palliative wound markers they're often much more interesting than the machine they're operating.
It's a shame that GW entirely changed the look of dwarfs with their plastic kits; nothing beats old GW metal dwarfs in terms of esthetics.
one of the bases had a hole in it and I tried plugging it with leftover bits that I'd otherwise never use.
it kind of works
(https://i.imgur.com/pxy5yZ7.jpg)
and finally 2 more "twin" models.
(https://i.imgur.com/tjMPWpB.jpg)
These are gunners for the skull pass cannon. But they're generic enough (a huge advantage if you ask me) to work well for any warmachine really, or even as engineer characters.
this is it for now. Friday my parental leave ended, and on Wednesday I'm starting a new job, which means this might be the last painting update of substance for a while.
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Hopefully you will be able to find at least some time in your new schedule for painting. I’ll be looking forward to updates, even if the figure count is smaller than in your past ones.
The new additions all look excellent! Nice job on the repairs, I wouldn’t notice they’re not stock parts in most cases.
I’m also a little envious of your well organized box of unpainted stuff - my unpainted stuff is mostly in complete chaos, which can get in the way of enjoying the hobby process.
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Thank you Pattus, I will vouch for organizing one's backlog. I think it really does make painting and assembling models that much easier. Also it led me to "discover" models I had forgotten I even had.
Like this conversion of lord on shieldbearer I did in my early days of warhammer and that I had completely removed erased from memory.
(https://i.imgur.com/MJbMY24.jpg)
Definitely looking forward to get to this guy.
I also realize I forgot to attach a picture of the shieldwalls in my last post
As you can see the screw caps are a perfect match and will fit seamlessly among "real" shields.
(https://i.imgur.com/RMm1Y5t.jpg)
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Going over Padrissimus' Tilean campaign yet another time an idea started forming into my mind.
So i dug through my bitsbox and pulled some of the junk and items I never had an use for.
(https://i.imgur.com/4Srr7wk.jpg)
that rubber spout is from an olive oil bottle and that blazer (?) button was found literally on the ground in the parking garage below City hall.
They were a prefect match, and with a couple of what I believe to be earrings studs, the mortar itself was basically done.
(https://i.imgur.com/68yOfQV.jpg)
I decided to spiff it up a bit and used the broken piece of stud from an old pair of jeans to fill the inside of the barrel
(https://i.imgur.com/RLDEGfB.jpg)
The frame itself is just balsa wood scraps and broken matches I had leftover from building movement trays. I used a triangular file to create two identical grooves
(https://i.imgur.com/1fvOApF.jpg)
Which I then topped off with thin matches.
(https://i.imgur.com/3v0GLQA.jpg)
Made a base with more balsa and started thickening the frame with more matches
(https://i.imgur.com/F2D5vEX.jpg)
A few years ago my brother gave me these thin decorative strips of wood he uses on furniture he makes. they fit perfectly here.
They actually have a slight texture but I suspect after priming it'll be basically gone. They'd still work as wood planks.
(https://i.imgur.com/qI6jX7R.jpg)
added some more and I'd say the frame itself is done.
(https://i.imgur.com/LEZFpEv.jpg)
I'm unsure if I want to cover the pins (here I tried with something boxy, but perhaps small dwarf faced bucklers would work better?) or leave them exposed.
(https://i.imgur.com/OQvZD7A.jpg)
At first I thought of just closing the back like I did the front and just assemble it after painting. Now though I wonder if I could instead leave it open and add some sort of gear and lever mechanism to give this thing a more "dwarf engineered" look.
It also came bigger than I had anticipated, not that it's a bad thing, it just means I'll have to build a crane for it to be loaded and prepped.
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quick and minor update.
I started "dwarfing up" the mortar
(https://i.imgur.com/nKFnOGh.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/6zWdqQf.jpg)
I added more of the strip to hide the beams from behind.
I decided against the gear mechanism at the end; I have neither the bits nor the patience, plus the space left this way is a perfect fit for a crew member.
(https://i.imgur.com/I1RMaXr.jpg)
The sides and the front will be kept empty for ease of painting but I'll add shields and runes to it to give it a more fortified look and perhaps a surface upon which write the machine's name.
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I like that a lot! The dwarf faces on the fittings add a lot of character. I’m looking forward to seeing this model painted and crewed.