Author Topic: The Grumpy Gnome‘s Fantasy Projects Blog (latest update on page 61) (Read 104085 times)

Grumpy Gnome · « **Reply #480 on:** February 16, 2021, 08:03:33 PM »

The progress for the past week...

https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog/2021/02/16/so-much-to-do-so-little-time/

As always, feedback is an appreciated gift.

Little Odo · « **Reply #481 on:** February 16, 2021, 09:17:50 PM »

The jungle bases look fantastic - great work there!

I also like the way you have done the Uruk Hai. Limited palette, but very effective.

Grumpy Gnome · « **Reply #482 on:** February 17, 2021, 03:27:13 AM »

Thanks for the kind words!

Looking at stills from the movie compared to GW marketing photos, there is quite a difference but screen accurate is very hard to replicate at 28mm and not look like a dark blob. So I tried to find a happy medium between the two. It is nice to hear when someone thinks my painting works.

BZ · « **Reply #483 on:** February 18, 2021, 08:18:24 AM »

Really nice jungle/forest tiles!

CookAndrewB · « **Reply #484 on:** February 18, 2021, 07:35:18 PM »

My thoughts with the GW bases: either grass/flock them, or give them a few more hits with a dry brush trying to match colors to other pieces. I don't think they are awful, but I do think they could look better without a ton of energy.

Koyote · « **Reply #485 on:** February 18, 2021, 07:39:42 PM »

Very nice work here.

The white face paint on the Uruk is well done.

Grumpy Gnome · « **Reply #486 on:** February 19, 2021, 04:38:28 AM »

Thanks for the kind words folks, they always help motivate me.

I am almost done with the modifications my wife suggested for the Citadel forest base.

The handprint is one I redid, the one from the original owner was not quite right. The various handprints I have done on the Uruk-Hai have been hit and miss, with some much better than others. The biggest mistake I think folks often make is making them far too big (EDIT: Although, to be fair the film does have some examples of Uruks with larger than hand sized stylized “white hand” markings on them). My biggest... pardon the pun....mistake tends to be not getting the spread of fingers right. The handprints are important to me to try to make individual models more identifiable, although the movies seem quite happy with makin them look like fairly uniform clones.

Melnibonean · « **Reply #487 on:** February 21, 2021, 02:37:55 AM »

Good work on those jungle bases. Very nice.

Grumpy Gnome · « **Reply #488 on:** February 21, 2021, 08:27:37 AM »

Thanks mate!

As you can see I designed them to work with the old Citadel grass mat we have.

But I am not a huge fan of that shade of green.

It is a very practical mat but aesthetically it just is not doing it for me and my wife. She thinks we should keep it and the jungle terrain whereas I think we should just use the swamp terrain we have coming from the Dwarven Forge Wildlands Kickstarter.

We just added some trays (small mats with a metal plate in them) and mats to our pledge. Since the swamp trays will not have the glossy “water” application permanently applied, I am thinking it can serve as both wet swamp and dry jungle.... especially if we use the more “exotic” plants we are getting that my wife is not a big fan of for her Middle Earth swamps.

Transitioning over to increasingly more Dwarven Forge terrain has been challenging in more ways than one. Expensive, difficult to source and requiring a little additional painting to suit my tastes but we feel ultimately worth it. We will have to wait and see what tables we can build.

There should be a blog entry soon about our Dwarven Forge progress.

CookAndrewB · « **Reply #489 on:** February 22, 2021, 04:38:36 PM »

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with, Rick. I love the look of the Dwarven Forge stuff, but man is it pricey. Still, if you eased into it over time I don't think it would be a huge issue. My problem is with easing into anything over time. I want a 20x40' table full of terrain yesterday

Grumpy Gnome · « **Reply #490 on:** February 22, 2021, 06:30:53 PM »

I hear you! Truth is, I am not one-off moderation when it comes to my hobbies so yeah, I want enough to fill our 6x4 table. But we have to pace ourselves... as I keep telling myself. There is very little Dwarven Forge makes that we do not like, although we like some of it more than other bits of it.

And we intend to use the more cost effective Dungeons and Lasers pieces for dungeons.

Our mate Tom helped make it affordable to get started but yeah it has gotten rather expensive. If we did not have unused holiday money to reallocate we would not be getting the things we are getting. I guess you could say our next holiday will be to our 28mm fantasy forest.

The weekly update blog post is finished... not much on Dwarven Forge but lots of other things to talk about and show, such as the Citadel forest we have been working on.

https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog/2021/02/22/so-many-projects-so-much-to-talk-about/

As always, feedback is appreciated.

mirjeki · « **Reply #491 on:** February 23, 2021, 11:14:02 AM »

That Citadel wood looks fantastic. Well done to you and Anja - you've almost made me want one! I say almost because I did actually have one once but it was just too delicate for my storage options. The foliage would often snap off or even bits of branch.

I think it would fit in really well with the Dreadhollow stuff with the way you've painted it. Great work.

Nice job on the broken tree too. I hope the layer lines aren't too obvious. I gave it a somewhat thick spray primer to try to fill the layer lines a bit, I hope it hasn't taken away from any of the details.

I'm looking forward to seeing you post about your new DF sets when they arrive. I'm very very tempted by the Plaguestone Cavernous Alchemy Lab myself, but I don't use a lot of my current DF stuff anyway at the moment due to covid (not a lot of gaming happening in general) so I keep talking myself out of it.

La Revolution looks interesting, I'll add that to my list of historical fantasy to watch (alongside Kingdom).

Grumpy Gnome · « **Reply #492 on:** February 23, 2021, 12:46:26 PM »

Thanks mate! It is a bit fragile, especially compared to the Dwarven Forge stuff but we like how it came out and we got it for considerably less than what Dwarven Forge trees cost.

The tree you printed for us was a bit challenging in regards to drybrushing due to the print lines but no, none of the details were masked by your priming. Our usual techniques are just not the best for 3d printed pieces so we have to learn some new ones.

We wanted the cavernous lab but could not afford it, so instead we ordered some of the interior bits rather than the whole set. Our order should be with us any day now and I will do a blog entry about it when it arrives.

I tried a couple of times to get into Kingdom, since it comes so highly recommended, but just was not able to.

CookAndrewB · « **Reply #493 on:** February 23, 2021, 04:27:50 PM »

The trees look better, for sure. Remind me, were the trees pre-painted?

Grumpy Gnome · « **Reply #494 on:** February 23, 2021, 06:17:15 PM »

No, the trees were painted from scratch by my wife. If you look close you can see she used some branches and leaves from the original kit and some from the newer forest by Citadel. We have another set of the older forest and a set of the newer forest ( the ones without the base) to do yet. One set of the older forest we found as old stock on sale at a hobby shop, the others were won on eBay if I remember correctly. All unpainted and unassembled. Both can usually be found on eBay but tend to go for more than we are willing to pay.

We have looked at other options, like Schleich for example but again these do not tend to go cheap on eBay, even in fairly beat up used condition.

That said we are going to try some Toyvian trees to see if they are decent quality despite the budget price.

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Author Topic: The Grumpy Gnome‘s Fantasy Projects Blog (latest update on page 61) (Read 104085 times)

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