Some miniatures for Song of Blades and Heroes (Frostgrave undead and construct)

[fred]

Very effective

[beefcake]

Here I was expecting an undead troll. Very good.

[Commander Carnage]

I really like what you've done with the contrast paints, especially the Mantic Marauders. How heavy do you dry brush the grey and white after priming black?

[Hobgoblin]

Reasonably heavy with the grey, but drybrushing rather than wetbrushing - so the grey paint doesn't get into any recesses.

I'm going to paint more of the Mantic orcs later today, so I'll post some WIP shots.

On a side-note, Mantic no longer appears to be making them (aside from the command sprue). That's a real shame - I think they're better than both the resin Marauders and most GW orks: more Ian Miller-ish and baroque.

[Commander Carnage]

You can find them on ebay for a reasonable price. Search Fate of the Forge Star. They were part of an early starter set. I think it comes with forty of them.

[Hobgoblin]

Yes, there seem to be plenty about on eBay. I got loads of them free from a sadly defunct local shop, and I'm going to paint up the last 20 or so soon. As I'll have so many spare gun arms (having used lots of the bodies for these guys), I'd probably just get the fantasy versions if I needed more. But I'm surprised Mantic have discontinued them; I think they're much better than the more comedic/generic ones they do now. It's even odder that they still offer the command sprue, which fits much better with these guys.

Anyway, here, as promised, is a WIP photo. This is the grey drybrushing - Vallejo Medium Sea Grey. Onto the white now ...

[Hobgoblin]

And now drybrushed with Vallejo white.

[Commander Carnage]

Thanks for the work in progress shots. I look forward to seeing how they look after applying some of the contracts paints

[Hobgoblin]

Your wish, my etc. Here's one with a few contrast colours splashed while waiting for the kids to get ready to go out:

[Hobgoblin]

I'm trying the black/grey/white/contrast technique out on some 1/72 goblins from Dark Alliance. My idea with these is that they'll form warbands of large creatures ("Swamp trolls"? "Grendel-kin"?) in 15mm HotT (on 28mm bases) and hordes in 28mm HotT.

I'll either double up the warband bases to make old-fashioned 60mm deep hordes, or just use the individual 30mm-deep elements. I don't think the missing 10mm (28mm hordes are generally now based 40mm deep) will make any real difference, as warbands and knights destroy hordes, and behemoths and beasts will catch them in pursuit in any case.

Anyway, 1/72 figures are quite hard to paint well because of the soft detail and stubborn mould lines. So I just want an acceptable "mass effect" that will allow me to rip through loads of them very quickly. I think they'll go six to a base, so the box of 48 should yield eight elements. Those, coupled with two trolls like the one above, will form a full 24 AP army.

Here's the test figure. He's not great, but he took no time at all, and I think a big mass of these will look OK when based up together.

[fred]

It’s effective, if the detail isn’t moulded in, then any wash or dry brush method will struggle. But he has come out fine, and if you are wanting lots of them, then they should certainly look good together, suitably malevolent.

[Hobgoblin]

Thanks!

Here are some very quickly done pirates (for my son's birthday game of The Fantasy Trip this weekend). I wouldn't use contrast paints for the clothes if I were doing them again, but they'll do for now (I might add patterns to the clothes later to disguise the pooling). And they look bright and distinctive enough on the tabletop; with the rest of the crew to paint, that's really all that matters!

I had more fun painting these crab-men. No idea who made them, but they should make for a nice initial encounter on the island the pirates find themselves on. They're quite big, as you can see. I wonder if they're meant to be HG Wells-style moon men.

[Hobgoblin]

This is the illustration I'm thinking of for the Wells connection:

[Hobgoblin]

And this ugly little fellow from Reaper Bones (a 'hound' of the Sahuagin, I think ...).

[Vladimir Raukov]

The lobster/crab men came out wonderfully, as did the fish-dog. I see what you mean with the pirates, but I still reckon they look great.