Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Fantasy Adventures => Topic started by: Severian on August 23, 2016, 03:49:28 PM
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Well, I was scrambling to get these finished so I could take them on holiday with us; it's taken a few days to find enough time and internet connection to post pictures. The pictures are taken on my phone; hoping to borrow my wife's shiny camera to take some better ones soon.
I started this small project after receiving the excellent Trudvang art book from the recent KS: my idea was to pit an assorted band of Scandinavian folklore-style trolls against a Kalevala-type wizard and some dwarves. Hardly very original, and I'm not sure the various troll types have got anywhere near the Paul Bonner/Alvaro Tapia aesthetic (in fact, I'm sure they haven't) but I'm pleased enough with their look and it's always nice to move some figures from the unpainted or half-painted category into the ranks of the finished. Now I just need to get them onto the table...
Anyway, first come the trolls and accomplices:
Giant (greater warbeast) 6pts
Ice troll (bellicose foot) 4pts
Troll shaman (heavy foot, wizardling) 6pts
Hill trolls x 3 (heavy foot, offensive) 6pts
Small trolls x 12 (light foot, offensive, mixed weapons, fleet footed) 7pts
And here are pics of the giant (from Fenris Games) and the ice troll (Reaper Bones):
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And here are two of the three hill trolls (Reaper Bones and an old Grenadier sculpt now available from Forlorn Hope) and the troll shaman (Borderlands, base wasn't finished when I took the photograph):
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Here's the last of the 3 hill trolls (Borderlands again, base unfinished) and the dozen small trolls (goblins from Alternative Armies eked out with Caesar 1:72 goblins - as I finish more of the former, I plan to demote the latter to Ravenous Horde speed-bump status).
As I say, I'll try to get some better pictures soon. And the wizard & dwarves should be up later today.
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Now for the wizard & dwarves:
Wizard (elite foot, spellcaster) 10pts
Wizard's bird allies/familiars (scouts, flying) 4pts
Dwarf lord (elite foot, trollslayer) 10pts
Dwarf thegns x 6 (elite foot) 6pts
First, a blurry picture of all of them together; then one of the wizard & his (small) wolf (both Reaper Bones):
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Next, the dwarf lord (another of the sometime Grenadier sculpts from Forlorn Hope); then his thegns (two more Forlorn Hope, and four old Citadel dwarves, including Thorgrim Branedim. Some of these have been half-painted for decades...).
I'll probably vary the dwarves a bit as I finish painting others - I'd rather have Thorgrim as the lord, for pure nostalgia's sake, but the Grenadier guy's base was too large for a penny, so by default he couldn't be one of the thegns on the movement tray I had to hand.
Last, the flying scouts. One Reaper eagle (or something) and two ravens (one mostly hidden behind a tree) from Warbases on a 4" square terrain base also from Warbases. Not sure how practical this will be on the gaming table, but it was lots of fun to do. I'll try to get some more pics of it to show it more clearly. Both it and the square hill troll base have inset in one corner 10mm dice trays for casualty marking, concealed by mdf offcuts topped with tufts.
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Nice mix of miniatures - particularly like the trolls!
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These are great! The ice troll is especially good, and the mix of manufacturers works really well.
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Great choice of miniatures, bases and painting!
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Thanks very much, guys.
Here are a few more pictures. Still on my phone, but in proper sunshine this time so maybe a bit clearer. Also they show the finished bases on the two Borderlands trolls.
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Finished a few more dwarves to add to the slowly mustering forces. Ropey pictures from my phone again, but I hope they give some idea.
Two are old Citadel dwarves (the one with the horned helmet has been part-painted for at least thirty years...) and the third from Alternative Armies (he does have a loin cloth somewhere behind that axe).
More to follow soon I hope.
I've also started to mull over using them for HOTT, which I bought a couple of years ago but haven't yet played. This might turn into another exercise in elaborate sabotting strategies, but that (in my book) is no bad thing. They'll also probably get an outing for Warhammer 1st edition when they've a few more comrades...
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Excellent collection.
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Some classic figures there! Cool stuff.
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I love those trolls.
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That stuff really says fantasy. I feel like playing a game if I see that setup.
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Here are a couple more dwarves - apologies for the more than usually bad photos. One is from the Citadel Fantasy Adventurers line - not perhaps the most successful sculpt, but he was in the painting queue; the other the Asgard dwarf scout. Thought it was about time he was finished - he was first undercoated in (I reckon) about 1985...
I have some Essex orcs nearing completion, so they may be next.
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Here are a pair of Essex orcs, on tuppences sabot-based as a HOTT warband element (60x40 rather than 60x30, but never mind); I have another four of them almost done, so can probably use them for Dragon Rampant as well.
In the first instance, though, they'll be great goblins alongside my random goblin hordes (which are slowly coming together...).
Also a reaper wolf; he's on a 50mm round base, sabotted into a 60x60 base as a HOTT beast element.
The element bases are a bit long-winded to make, but I reckon it'll be worth it in the long run, because once I've got a set of them, I can more or less swap anything into the sabots. That's the plan, anyway...
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These are great! Good work on the sabot bases, too. The patience involved is far beyond me, but the resultant versatility is a handy thing to have.
I think that Essex orc with the horned helmet is perhaps the best of that range - a really terrific figure. You've certainly done him justice!
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Here, with apologies for the long delay between posts, are a pair of recently finished Citadel orcs. They'll be part of my very slowly mustering HOTT hordes, and any other goblinoid army I get round to fielding.
In fact the majority of my HOTT dwarf and goblin armies have been sitting in their sabot bases on my gaming table for a good few weeks now: but I've been too busy or distracted with one thing or another to get round to taking any pictures, let alone finishing the last few remaining mostly-painted figures.
Most of my painting &c time has been hijacked by early-middle imperial romans and their German opponents (which I may post elsewhere if I'm ever happy with them...).
Anyway, here as I say are a brace of orcs: both had lost their weapons, which I replaced with plastic polearms from the eminently useful Wargames Factory orcs box. The first guy (with the polearm advanced) was the axe-held-upright one; I thought he looked just as plausible like this, to be honest. I have a few more of the same model, also axeless, from the same ebay lot and may experiment further.
If the weather, my dreadful photography, and the children's school holidays all align favourably, I'll try to get some better pictures up. Should be done with more goblins soon in any event.
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Excellent! That's a great skin colour. The guy with the upright polearm is one of only two types of FOT orcs that I've never been able to lay my hands on. I don't think I've ever seen that particular head before, on any body.
Nice use of the Wargames Factor polearms: the axe-wielder actually looks better with a polearm, I think. It makes his slightly awkward pose more natural, somehow.
Slow mustering is an inevitable feature with HoTT hordes, alas - it takes roughly double the time to produce 1 AP that it does to produce 2!
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Thanks! I'm very fond of these old orcs: their endless variants just add to the fun, I think. I owned a fair few as a schoolboy, but those are long gone. Great fun discovering them broken amidst ebay bundles now and repairing them.
The upright polearm guy is certainly the more plausible of the two, in their original forms...
My horde mustering problem (in fact, my painting problem generally) is mainly one of distraction: stuff sits 90-95% done on my painting table for weeks or months whilst some other shiny thing occupies my time. But I've decided not to worry about that and just enjoy the journey as it happens.
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Here are a few more goblins, from Alternative Armies. The last picture also shows the two FT orcs, in what I hoped was a better light (don't think it is). I should try to take better photographs, I know...
Anyway, a few more to do and then I'll try to get a shot of my assembled hordes and other HotT elements. There's another pair of Essex orcs up next...
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Great stuff! I hadn't realised they were so small.
Very keen to see the Essex orcs. With your sabot bases, you've always got the option of using the big Essex chaps as blades, the FTO fellows (who're fairly big themselves) as warbands and the small ones as hordes. On the other hand, a variety of size and shapes helps the "horde" look along: in HotT, I think it's not so much the quality of the individual fighters as their organisation that matters when distinguishing troop types.
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Thanks again! yes, they're small...
And here are the Essex orcs. The spear guy was done ages ago, but his companion loitered almost done for weeks until just now. They're in a 60x40 sabot; their versatility is a bit constrained by the size of their bases, though, which need tuppences; most of my figures are on pennies.
And, for fun, here are another couple of goblins I finished last week; and a group shot to round it off.
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Just back from a week away, during which I roped the children into a couple of games of Dragon Rampant; great fun, if a little tactically unsophisticated, at least as we played it...
Here are a couple of the excellent Nightfolk figures painted up for my two smallest ones (2 and 4) to use (both as single model elite foot units); their elder brother, who is 6, managed a whole dozen dwarves (heavy foot). Their mother had some bronze age warriors (bellicose foot). Opposing them, I had a ragbag assemblage of giants, trolls, goblins and wolves.
Anyway,here they are. Apologies as ever for the terrible photographs. The figures themselves are splendid; these were quick paintjobs, but I'm happy with how they turned out. Bases need finishing off.
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Just back from a week away, during which I roped the children into a couple of games of Dragon Rampant; great fun, if a little tactically unsophisticated, at least as we played it...
Sounds tremendous! I have similar plans for a mini-D&D holiday campaign this week. Dragon Rampant, I've found, is great for younger participants because of the buckets-of-dice element - even if 12 dice are a challenge for small hands.
The Nightfolk look terrific - great work on the face of the antlered gentleman, and the teddy bear is just an out-and-out winner!
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Thanks! The Nightfolk figures are enormous fun: they responded pretty well to a simple block-ink wash-highlight effort. I've a few more hanging about unpainted or half-painted; I may dig some more of them out.
Yes, the children were very taken with DR: the eldest had played it a bit before, and picked it up again very quickly. He's now busily dragooning his siblings into improvised wargames with various lego spaceships...
I found a biggish dice cup helpful for small hands rolling a dozen dice.
Good luck with the D&D. Which version are you going to use? I recently found my old early 80s Basic and Expert books (the first RPG I ever owned) and have been mulling over introducing them to the children (or at least the older two) sometime soonish...
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Good luck with the D&D. Which version are you going to use? I recently found my old early 80s Basic and Expert books (the first RPG I ever owned) and have been mulling over introducing them to the children (or at least the older two) sometime soonish...
Thanks! We're going with Whitehack (https://whitehackrpg.wordpress.com), a newish take on the original set of rules. It streamlines the rules exceptionally well. I only ever played AD&D as a child, and I struggled to understand the rules even then: I GMed Runequest, which was my starting point, as well as Dragon Warriors and various other things. D&D always seemed bafflingly abstruse to me, with its AC and THAC0 and levels, whereas RQ made it very plain what was happening (a loss of limbs, generally).
But Whitehack clears everything up very well and builds actual roleplaying into the rules: for example, if you can explain why your character should be good at something from his or her background, you get a better mechanical chance of succeeding.
I've already done a fair bit of RPG stuff with the kids: Dragon Warriors (which they love), Tales of Blades and Heroes (great for when they have their friends round, as it bridges the gap to miniature games very nicely and RQ (one-player adventures with my elder child). My wife was talked into Heroquest Glorantha last year and surprised herself by enjoying it, so she's pledged do do her bit in the D&D game too ...
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Whitehack looks very interesting - many thanks for that, I may well explore further...
I played AD&D before anything else, and yes, it was a bit baffling. But the Basic rules do a good job of stripping out a lot of the complexity whilst keeping the flavour of the original. I also have a fondness for the illustrations and so on. But I agree that RQ is a much better system, and greatly preferred it once I came across it; but by that point, I think, most of my RPG accomplices had moved on to other things. Anyway, I still have my old and now very shabby D&D, AD&D & RQ books, and a pile of old White Dwarfs with scenarios &c, so may well inflict them on the children at some stage. I'm reasonably hopeful my wife can also be drawn in...
But Whitehack looks as if it might work as a way in. I had thought about using Otherworld Skirmish (which I have), but somehow it doesn't quite work for me. Not sure if it's the tokens, or the cards, but for some reason I never quite got it.
Time for another rummage in the lead pile, I think. There are a good few mostly-done Red Box goblins and a big resin Wind Elemental (Scotia Grendel, maybe?) that ought to be finished soon...
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Well, after a long fallow period, I've finally managed more or less to finish some figures - a few reaper bones giant rats for whatever putative dungeon crawl I eventually get round to devising for my children.
Not the world's greatest paintjobs, but by way of an experiment - my rather hamfisted attempt at preshading and tinting/washing, with thanks (and apologies!) to Hobgoblin for his helpful explanations and tireless examples...
Anyway, thought I should post something, however unexciting, just to try to get things moving again. More interesting stuff to follow soon, I hope.
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Great stuff! Those aren't hamfisted efforts at all: those Bones figures have pretty soft detail at that size, which limits what you can do with them. Glad the explanations were of some help.
If you nabbed those free Dragon Warriors rules, you've got a perfect set-up for some simple dungeon crawls. Whitehack is a more elegant iteration of the D&D rules, but DW gives you some very child-friendly magic (in Whitehack, you have to design your own spells). Tales of Blades and Heroes is also excellent - it produces the most colourful combat encounters of the three, because it has all the tactical elements of SoBH. From my recent experience of GMing for kids, Whitehack is the best overall (because of the way it encourages creativity and out-of-the-box thinking), TBH is the best for one-shots, given its dynamism and wargamy aspects, and DW is great because of its brilliant scenarios and satisfyingly "zappy" spells.
One thing I've found that works well is having some helpful (if not friendly) weird creatures for the players to talk to and conspire with near the start of the adventure. I had a giant talking pumpkin eager to devour its goblin masters in our big TBH game at Christmas, and the worm fellow who would trade information for gold (which he swallowed) yesterday. Both worked a treat in a Labyrinth (or Alice in Wonderland) sort of way.
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Thanks! It was good to get something finished, in any event.
Yes, I did pick up Dragon Warriors and they look great fun; the original books were just after my time. Now I just need to make time for planning and painting and so on; this has been more than normally difficult of late, though, for one reason or another. But I live in hope...
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And here are some more rats - well, Otherworld were-rats, to be precise. Think these have come out OK, although the photographs are as bad as ever...
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These look good! A few giant rats and a couple of were-rats might give you a nice little introductory RPG adventure. The beasts could be hiding out in the cellar of an inn, perhaps.
I've been watching the Drunkens and Dragons YouTube series, and one of the most interesting things about the scenarios showcased there is the way in which an hours-long RPG encounter can be built from just a single room. He does some clever things like having computer-game-style "monster spawning" that can be stopped by achieving a particular goal. You could do something along those lines with giant rats and were-rats. Perhaps one of the were-rats is muttering a spell that keeps 1-2 rats "spawning" each round, while her companion and the rats seek to do away with the party. If you improvised some interesting cellar/sewer architecture and added a bit of exploration beforehand, you could get a great kid-friendly session going. I'm envisaging a chase after the spell-casting were-rat around a raised area, while rats flood into the room below and PCs snipe from behind barrels ...
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Thanks!
And thanks also for the RPG ideas - I'm trying to finish a miscellaneous cast of skeletons, wraiths and so on (oddments I've had half-done for a while) and will cobble together a scenario to accommodate what I have in hand. Your were-rat idea could prove invaluable...
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and a pair of wraiths (or similar), also Otherworld. These might need a bit more work eventually, but they'll do for now.
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Simple but very effective.
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Thanks! I may revisit them when I've worked out what I'm doing with the bases...
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I bought a cheap light box in the hope of making my pictures a bit more visible; haven't quite got the hang of it yet, but here are a few recently finished things in any event.
The wind elemental is Scotia Grendel; he's been essentially finished for months, apart from his base which I just did. I had to redo his highlighting after an unfortunate incident with brushed-on varnish dissolving washes... but he'll do, I think.
Next, an Otherworld cockatrice (still needs his base done). Bought him ages ago, and finally got round to tackling him last week. He's another trial of speed-painting with pre-shades & washes & some highlighting. Not completely happy with him, but again he'll do.
Lastly, an old WF skeleton, again mostly done a while back. You can't see it here, but his eye-sockets have some red wash; he's otherwise pretty basic. But he was finished at last, so here he is.
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Great stuff! That wind elemental is just exquisite - superb colours and very effective highlighting and basing.
I like the others too. One thing that might be worth trying on the cockatrice is a little black/dark lining around the eye and inside the beak, around the tongue and in the nostrils - just to make those details 'pop' a little more. If you use a fine brush and some thinned black paint (not much on the brush), you could really bring those areas into focus. But it's a nice paintjob and colour scheme in any case - it reminds me a bit of a Uccello dragon.
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Yeah, really dig the Air Elemental ( originally made for the Leviathan miniature wargame, they make more great elemenatls & demons ). Great dark menacing colour and the face comes out beautifully here. Thumbs up :).
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Thank you both for your very kind words.
The elemental is a very nice model - lots of detail to take highlights! If only I could remember exactly what I did...
The Scotia Grendel site is a bit of a treasure house of stuff, isn't it. I've got one of their barbarian warchiefs on a bison half-done; originally bought him to go with my ad hoc Praxian bison riders (who need more tattoos before they can appear in public) only to find he's about twice their size... But he'll make a great ancestral spirit, if he's ever finished...
Hobgoblin: I'm happy the cockatrice's colours remind you of Uccello (whom I'm very fond of). But I have to confess that the colour scheme is borrowed from the old AD&D Monster Manual (and the Otherworld website) - so perhaps it's School of E Gary Gygax... and thanks for the blacklining tip. I'll have a go when my hand is steady enough...
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Well, slower progress over the past couple of weeks but a good few things nearly done.
Actually done (apart from basing, which I'm still thinking about) are a trio of goblins - one Red Box (the heavier one) and two scrawny fellows from, well, somewhere.
I thought they were Midlam but I had a quick look on their site and couldn't find them, so maybe they're discontinued now or they came from elsewhere and I've forgotten. Josef Ochmann sculpts I think at any rate. There are three others from the same pack that are in various stages of incomplete.
I made them blue for a change; quite pleased with the effect.
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I think those are Rieder Design's "goblin terrorists". I remember seeing adverts for them in White Dwarf.
They look grand in blue - as does the Red Box fellow. He's great.
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Ah - not quite, it seems. They're some of Alternative Armies' Nilbog's backwoods goblin band (https://www.alternative-armies.com/collections/goblin-hordes/products/oh1-nilbogs-backwoods-goblin-band), some of which were originally Rieder's goblin terrorists (http://www.miniatures-workshop.com/lostminiswiki/index.php?title=Dungeon_Dwellers_%28Rieder_Design%29#Pack06), with the rest variants thereof.
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Thanks!
I wondered if they might be from Alternative Armies, since I have other goblins of theirs; but I haven't got the hang of their new(ish) website yet, and missed them. Thanks very much for clearing that up. So that means there are five more of them somewhere astray in the leadpile...
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Here are some more goblins, red (and orange) ones this time, and a couple of dungeoneering types for them to pester. These are all Otherworld, and were finished a week or more ago, apart from the bases; but I've only now got round to photographs. There's also an old Citadel skeleton finished at the same time.
The goblins were mostly painted with washes and glazes over an ink-and-white-drybrush pre-shade; not sure how well they come out in the pictures, but I'm fairly happy with them.
My plan is to gather enough random old school monsters to spring a gentle RPG campaign on my children (and wife) over Christmas, but we'll see how far I get with that... at any rate, painting stuff is better than not painting it.
I've got a motley bunch of old and new lead and plastic in varying states of almost-done, so other things may follow soon.
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Just come across this thread and it is quite superb, some great minis and such lovely painting. :)
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Thanks!
I'll try to get some more things finished in the next day or two (but you know how it goes...)
I finally built a couple of the Oathmark dwarves from the sprue I got at Salute in April - and the next day a whole box of them arrived.... :)
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These are terrific! In particular, I love the goblin with the horned helmet at the back, along with the guy in the front and the delighted-looking fellow (not delighted in a good way ...) on the right.
I also like the slightly concerned expressions on the human henchmen: "Hmm," they seem to be saying, "Not sure whether the pay for this job quite reflected the risks ...".
Great stuff!
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Thanks! I'll see if I can take some individual pics later. There's also another goblin (the iconic guy with the mace from the original Monster Manual) who's virtually finished; when I came to varnish him, though, I realised I'd missed a bit. So he ought to be appearing soon.
All these Otherworld guys have bags of character, but I think it's mostly the sculptor rather than my painting... But they're lots of fun to paint at any rate - and the adventurer/hireling types (I have a couple more almost done) are properly loaded down with all the random gubbins and paraphernalia that your everyday RPG character can't seem to travel without. A very nice range indeed.
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Here, after the usual unexpected delay, are some more goblin pictures: some of the last guys in individual shots, and their fugitive comrade (who needs basing, and seems to have developed an obvious mould line...)
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Here's another Otherworld adventuring type, with a goblin for scale; and a couple of forest dwellers - a Radagast type wizard, and one of the Nightfolk range I decided would be a sort of potentially benign woodland guardian in my putative RPG campaign...
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Great work! The "Trampier" goblin has come out very nicely, and I love the one with the flail. Really nice work on the wizard too - the olive-brown hues have come out very well.
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I just had a very pleasant stroll through your thread. Your cast of characters is WONDERFULLY painted & blessed with an abundance of character.
Each new piece seems to get better than the ones before. VERY WELL DONE, one & all!
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love em all ...
goblins look great with the washes and skin tone variety.
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Excellent work, sir! I especially like the Goblins - the mace and flail at the top of the list. I hope you get around to that Christmas game. Sounds like fun!
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Many thanks all for your kind words!
Well, I'm slowly gathering forces and ideas for my child-friendly RPG effort, although the usual distractions of real life and unrelated hobby ideas (English Civil War paper soldiers took up a couple of hours yesterday, don't ask me why) make it slower than it might be. But I'm not in a rush - Christmas school holidays are a few weeks off, and my children are used to me being a bit disorganised...
Anyway, there are lots more things on the painting table waiting to be finished. I'll try to wrap a few more up before long. Thanks again to all for the encouraging words.
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Very good looking figures!
May I ask where the not-Radagast figure comes from?
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Thank you!
He's the Wizard Strigion from Scotia Grendel:
http://www.scotiagrendel.com/Products/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=221_222_46_203_232&products_id=4126
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Have you gone over your painting technique somewhere in this thread?
The colours here are super rich. You've either got very many thin layers, or you can work wonders with washes & inks. :)
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Thanks for your very kind words!
Most of the more recent guys have been painted with the "pre-shading" technique I've shamelessly stolen from Hobgoblin (though he does it much better than I do).
So, white undercoat, ink wash (I've been using Liquitex Transparent Burnt Umber, because I have a big pot of it I bought for another project, and I like it, but I think Hobgoblin uses Agrax Earthshade or similar), white drybrush over that, and then a combination of simple washes and very dilute paint: where I've used dilute paint, I generally add a wash over that to bring out the contrasts a bit more. Then a little highlighting of details (eyes, belt buckles, what have you) and general tidying up, and that's it.
I'm not an especially handy painter, and I've tried various approaches, but this seems to work well particularly for non-human flesh-shades and fantasy stuff generally. The colours can look a bit washed out alongside the more laborious block-paint-shade-then-highlight technique I used to use (in some of the earlier posts in this thread), but it really brings out the sculpting (not quite so good for some of the softer detailed plastics, but there you are).
Anyway, I'm pleased with the results, and the comparative speed; and thanks again for your encouragement.
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Thanks, that explains it! Never tried that but will some day.
This thing with who's good in painting and who's just so-and-so ...
- Some have a very steady hand and good grasp of colour balance.
- Some master a technique and know its limits.
- You basically need both in order to get anything of note done.
True masters have all of it, multiple times. We mortals manage with a smaller set of skills & talent, but when it clicks, it doesn't fall that far from the masters' work. ;)
Oddly, your painting brings 70/80s Blanche to my mind. As far as I can remember how his minis looked like. Possibly thin, translucent oils and wetblending can be mimicked with thin acrylics and modern washes.
Meandering philosophical thoughts...
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Well, my painting is really just something I do in the evenings to relax. I'm happy if it looks OK, and if it seems to be getting better (though as you say that can be a bit hit-and-miss!). Working on technique is all part of the fun.
Anyway, here's my first Oathmark dwarf. I tried to make him so he could do dual service as an RPG character and as one of a band of warriors; he could probably do with a pack or something for the full effect.
I aimed for a sort of tie-dyed effect on the shield, but I suspect it probably just looks muddy. I might add a sigil or device of some sort but haven't decided. Also he has grown various mould-lines since I cleaned him up pre-build. But on the whole I think he'll do.
The detail in parts of the plastic is a bit soft (this guy doesn't have much by way of ears, for example) but for tabletop purposes it's fine.
I've one of the metals (the freebie, in fact) almost done...
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Looks good - a suitably hard-bitten dwarf! The plastics seem to go together very nicely.
One trick I've used on a few suddenly manifesting mouldlines is to "incorporate" them by putting a line of dots or dashes down either side with a pen or fine brush - to make the line look like a stitched hem. Another "cheat" is to paint horizontal and irregular dark lines across it - might not help in a close-up, but it'll conceal it on the table.
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Thanks!
Good tip re mould-lines. I find I miss many more on plastics than on metals (or perhaps the plastic ones are more obvious because of the generally flatter detailing).
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Love 'em!
I usually do 2 passes of mouldline cleaning - one during assembly, the second after priming. White primer really makes them stand out.
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With mould lines too, a light dry brush of paint on the plastic will show them up
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Here are a few assorted guys that have been sitting about finished for a few days now; flu and general seasonal busyness got in the way of picture-taking.
The usual apologies for ropey photographs...
So, first another Oathmark dwarf (the metal freebie) who I think looks better in person than in his pics; then an old Citadel fighter who I bought new in 1980-something and who didn't see paint until this year; and last a Frostgrave barbarian who for some reason I built with a pair of knives rather than anything heftier. I quite like how he's come out.
They'll probably do duty as rpg characters or henchmen at some stage over the Christmas holidays; and the dwarves at least are also likely to feature in a Dragon Rampant warband.
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Great stuff! You've brought out the face on the Frostgrave chap terrifically. I like build with two knives - it makes him look a really nasty piece of work.
Good to see that old Citadel fighter too. And the Oathmark dwarf looks great.
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Thanks! The barbarian's face (like most of my faces, to be honest) was as much luck as design, but it's nice when it works.
I've got various things mostly done so I'm hoping to get some of them finished in the next few days. However I'll probably spend some of this evening (once the children are abed) sticking together plastic goblins - my Oathmark mob arrived earlier. Fun times...
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Here's my first painted Oathmark goblin - a fairly quick effort, but he'll do, I think.
Also an old Citadel wizard I acquired from ebay; the top of his staff was missing so I supplied one with wire & greenstuff.
I recently had the pdfs arrive from the Trudvang rpg KS (physical books by Christmas, I hope...) so now I'm tinkering with forest trolls, frost wyrms, and fur-clad barbarians, some dug out of the half-painted pile. Oh, and more Oathmark dwarves & goblins. And a putative family dungeon crawl...We'll see how much of it gets done before the full Christmas thing sets in...
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Nice colours on that Oathmark goblin! You've really brought out the "realistic fantasy" aspects of the model, and that skin tone is great.
Would you agree that studded leather is the worst sort of armour to paint (quite apart from the fact that it apparently never existed)? It's the only black mark against the Oathmark goblins, I think.
Good work on the wizard too!
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Thanks!
The goblin's skin is actually just a very light shade of drakenhof whatsit (the blue citadel one) over the usual preshading. I thought I'd have to do more to him but he looked OK so I settled with that.
Weirdly I don't dislike studded leather armour that much, although you're right it can be a proper pain to paint; in this case, though, the studs are prominent enough to take the drybrushed highlights pretty well, and an orange wash took care of the rest; I then just dabbed a little brass on the studs.
I quite like the contrast of small bits of brass or bronze against cloth or leather colours, so the visual aspect of it appeals, even if it's wholly imaginary. And I confess chainmail and all that can go a bit stale - I keep looking for excuses to make it bronze, or gilded, or something equally impractical and unlikely. We'll see how the Oathmark elves turn out but I suspect if they're properly chainmailed some of them may end up with odd colours (I have various citadel pots of reddish bronze with peculiar names that are just looking for an excuse...)
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Well, in the couple of months since I last updated this thread I have actually completed a few things, with some more very nearly done, but events have got in the way of posting anything.
More to follow in the next few days, but for now here are a couple of Oathmark goblins, an Oathmark dwarf, and a Frostgrave barbarian.
I'm partly curious to see how these display - I think some aspect of the site transfer might be stopping me seeing older (uploaded) pics here.
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Since that seems to have worked, here are a few individual shots, plus a bad pic of three dwarves from Alternative Armies I found in the leadpile. They're very nice figures, I think, and fun to paint; I'll try to take some better shots of them over the weekend - and some of the various goblins, dungeon beasts and adventurers also to hand.
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Very nice! The indigo-skinned goblins are coming out really well, and I like the variety in the clothing colour. The purples and yellows imply a fair bit of vagabondage in the past.
Did you get any RPGing done over the holidays in the end? I've just paid off my holiday GMing obligations with an adventure that I'm writing up for my blog.
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Thanks! I've a few more Oathmark goblins on the slips, and a fair number of finished pale-skinned cave goblins I'll try to get photographed soon.
RPGs didn't in the end happen over Christmas for one reason or another, but I've finally managed over half term to get a D&D campaign started (using my old red Moldvay Basic rules). Well received thus far...
The blog is great, by the way; lots of good things thus far. I reckon your point about shields and armour class was very well made, for one. But how to resolve it, though?
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Here are some adventuring types. Two of the three are old Citadel FA guys, dwarf and (I think) elf hero - although he's doing duty as a human fighter, mostly because he has a bow visible, and he was to hand. The sword is a replacement for a long-lost original. Not sure who makes the half-armoured woman - think I got her as in a pack at a show a couple of years back. The spear is an addition from an old WF skeleton box. Anyway, she's doing duty as an elf, hence the possibly over-pale skin tone.
The tent is part of the Adventurers' campsite set - Scotia Grendel, I think.
The usual apologies for shabby pictures...
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Nice work! I like the faint air of trepidation about the dwarf.
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Thanks!
I picked up some drawing pens and have been playing around with pupils for eyes. The results are often slightly unexpected...
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Here are some cave goblins; they've been finished a while, but I've been having trouble uploading pictures. This is by way of a test to see whether I've figured out how the gallery thing works...
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-250218222500.jpeg)
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Success, I think. Now for some individual shots.
A pair of archers:
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-250218223030.jpeg)
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-250218223114.jpeg)
A slightly blurry billman (well, bill-goblin, but you know what I mean):
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-250218223205.jpeg)
and a part-armoured guy with a sword:
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-250218223256.jpeg)
They're all from Alternative Armies; I have a few more waiting to be finished, including (of all things) a piper (bag- not Pan). The cave mouth piece is probably from Scotia Grendel, though I haven't double-checked.
I've a good few dungeon critters of various shapes & sizes done or almost done; pictures to follow in a day or two, I hope.
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Wow! Those are excellent!
I love the grey skintone and the blank eyes - very effective. Those were formerly Metal Magic goblins, I think. They make a tremendous group: eerie and unsettling. Brilliant!
I look forward to seeing the dungeon monsters.
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I will second what Hobgoblin said. Rather creepy and great eyes.
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Those cave goblins look great!
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Thanks very much, all!
Hobgoblin: I'm sure you're right about them being former Metal Magic. Alternative Armies have all sorts of interesting odds and ends of old ranges...
I bought these a couple of years ago and came across them before Christmas. They have lots of nicely defined detail so take drybrushing pretty well, though they looked a bit ungainly in the bare metal. The rest is just ink washing and silver-grey, first diluted then as highlights.
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yes, goblins are great - and the tent higher up.
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Thanks!
I have another tent and other campsite paraphernalia from the same set on the painting table...
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Those are very nice goblins I really like the skin tones. Are you sure they are not Midlam miniatures though?
http://www.midlamminiatures.co.uk/forestgoblins.html
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Thank you!
Are you sure they are not Midlam miniatures though?
http://www.midlamminiatures.co.uk/forestgoblins.html
You're exactly right - so they are. Apologies for getting this mixed up, and well spotted! They had been in the lead pile for a year or two, prepped but unpainted, without any packaging. That's my excuse, anyway...
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Here's a spider. I think he's Magister Militum... He sat half-done on my painting table for weeks whilst I vaguely thought about colour schemes. I eventually decided to go with something very basic, partly because I want him as a cave or dungeon monster, and I reckoned a gaudy colouring wouldn't work, and partly just to be done with him. Anyway, here he is:
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-010318231539.jpeg)
and here he is again:
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-010318231447.jpeg)
and here's another Oathmark goblin:
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-010318231236.jpeg)
and the two together for a size comparison:
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-010318231402.jpeg)
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That's a creepy spider - and a distinctly nervous goblin! Great stuff - I think the understated colours work well.
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Glad to see the gobbos painted to a good standard. It's a nice and sinister collection that gives me nice old fashined fantasy vibes.
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Thanks!
I have various other eclectic bits & bobs that ought to be done soon...
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Here is a miscellaneous bunch of rats and boxes, plus a couple of trap doors. The rats are North Star (I think) and Reaper; the boxes mostly Fenris. Trapdoors are Infinity Engine, iirc.
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-030318153826.jpeg)
and a couple of closer shots:
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-030318153908.jpeg)
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-030318154102.jpeg)
and some scorpions (Rapier). And yes, they are gloss varnished....
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-030318154158.jpeg)
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That's a very useful-looking batch of dungeon stuff. Nicely done! Who makes the floorplans?
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Thanks!
The floorplan is one of a set of Iron Kingdoms Unleashed Catacomb Tiles I picked up cheap on Amazon. I was hoping for caverns rather than dungeon floors, but it was going for a song so I wasn't too bothered to discover they were all dungeon type stuff. Double-sided, sturdy card. Not sure they'll get any gaming use, but they'll do for photographs...
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A useful tip - and just four quid on Amazon! I just ordered some: they look like they'll be handy for a section of the megadungeon.
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A bit random, this, but Hobgoblin's recent musings on armour classes and 15th century foot knights with poleaxes reminded me I have some, legacy of a Wars of the Roses project that never really got off the ground (I have one big painted unit of bows & bills & foot knights, and a pile of unmade Perry plastics...). I've always liked poleaxe-armed foot knights as a concept, anyway.
So I dug out a few of them, and finished the bases of my two favourites, and here they are. I painted them a couple of years ago when I was still using AP dip, but (unlike a lot of my efforts with that evil-smelling gunk) they didn't suffer too much from the process. They're Perry metals.
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-080318201229.jpeg)
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-080318201309.jpeg)
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-080318201350.jpeg)
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-080318201428.jpeg)
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These look good!
Useful figures for RPGs, I'd have thought, as henchmen or mercenaries or guards.
Thanks for the tip on the catacomb floorplans, by the way. I picked some up on Amazon and reckon they'll do very nicely as an undead-populated section of the megadungeon. They're nicely designed, in that they have big sections, but there's no compromise on line of sight.
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Thanks! I have a few more in the final stages of basing (and other less tangential things done but unphotographed) but have been thoroughly ambushed by work and other real life events so have hardly picked up a brush all week.
More things to follow soon, I hope.
Glad the floor tiles proved useful - at that price they can hardly fail...
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Fantastically characterful miniatures. I'm still going through the whole thread soaking it all in.
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Thank you!
It's a bit of a random assortment... My inclinations are always towards assembling grand forces for mass battles, but I've realised that time and circumstances, and my own short attention span, make skirmish type games (DR or smaller) and RPGs a more sensible (and achievable) goal....
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Here are the remaining poleaxe men - well, those that are finished, anyway. I'm sure they'll find some use somewhere.
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-190318233008.jpeg)
and here is a dwarf smith, from Northstar. He's been half done for ages; I've recently been reading The Winter of the World and that prompted me to finish him. He's a great figure. I'm mostly happy with my painting of him, what can be seen of it under the awful photography (apologies as ever...)
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-190318233150.jpeg)
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-190318233312.jpeg)
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/31/12373-190318233228.jpeg)