2013-11-25: Who’s This Guy?

When last I posted I was scraping the crotches of 4 dozen Empire halberdiers while on vacation.  As that task neared completion, I had to dedicate more of my vacation time to amusing my daughter so that my wife could enjoy her vacation and not decide to divorce me.  Marital Bliss and Epic Hobbying rarely coincide.

When we got back from vacation I had to dedicate time to my bees and other chores.  Then there was the small house fire, no one was hurt and almost all the property damage limited to one bathroom in the tenant’s unit, but arranging the repair took a long time though the end is in sight and the tenant should be moving back in this week.

Excuses.. excuses…. I have to say that a large part of my lack of painting was Empire fatigue.  I got tired of the little buggers… probably due to the intense focus on them this year and also getting many figures sorta done but not many slam dunk done (I am thinking of my swordsmen).  The Knights of Moor (both horse and bear flavors) would sit on my desk radiating “unfinishedness” at me while I assembled the halberdiers and got them primed.  Fear of them not ranking slowed me down for a while, but I did work out how to angle the arms and position the feet so that they would actually rank.  What worked for me was to assemble the halberd heads on the arms first, and let that that set.  Then, after working out the right angle on a test figure, glue the arms onto the torso, let that set, then glue to the bases already ranked up behind another unit… this allowed me them to rank.  Alternatively, I did some where I glued the feet down then put in the arms… but sometimes that way they would have gaps under their arms or impinge on the area for the head.  Speaking of which, the heads were glued on last as I think head positioning is more forgiving than arms.  This allowed me to get the faces all pointing the right direction to be where they had to be in relation to the arms which had to be where they had to be to get them to rank etc.. etc… Some feathers were snipped to get thinks to work.   I did one rank at a time and let each set (often for a day, partially to make sure that they didn’t get knocked out of place by my efforts to assemble the following rank and partially because of time) before assembling the next rank behind them.  All in all I did get a shot of enthusiasm when they were done.

For October I would pick up a base coat color and splash some on some halberdiers for an hour before going off to do something.  They would be easier to do if I just painted them all predominately in one solid color and added the secondary color, green and yellow as this is Stirland, but since Stirland is poor and known for its hodge podge armies, I went with the much more time consuming method of using several different greens and yellows as well as a lot of white and various browns to give each model an individual look.  Much more time consuming and very painful later in the process when I keep finding bits that I missed have to go back repeatedly.  The base coating is probably not halfway done as I write this but I have been pulled back to working on the bear and pony show. 

I spent my thunder months ago getting an okay black on most of them… but then lost steam on all the other bits.  Recently I have picked them up and decided that I did not like the green hoods and capes I had on them and have started painting the outside black while keeping the interior bone white to make sure there is contrast between the cape and armor.  I also went and gave the flesh a wash which had the desired effect of changing the washed out color I had painted the flesh to looking like FLESH!  and mostly finished flesh at that.  That little thing suddenly makes them much more compelling to me as figures approaching completion rather than half painted miniatures in half painted limbo.

I don’t have time to do any photos now as I have to go take a shower and then empty a storage closet so that the builders can install the new stairs to the tenant’s unit.

2013-08-20: A Bit Late

  Currently mid August and I have not gotten around to mentioning my pledge before but it is to put together 45 or so Empire halberdiers and start on the painting.  Since as of writing this (while on vacation on the Coast of The Frozen North) I have cut out all of the pieces and cleaned up all of the mold lines (I have scrapped many many empire crotches) this should be doable.  I also have 10 Spiffyswords (aka greatswords) with me that I can also build, but I didn't bring the rest of the unit so I probably wont prime it, just clean them up (and scrape even more empire crotches).

I have pictures of the troops, but I have to get the sd card reader drivers fixed before I can load them.

*edited to add* Here are the pictures of the halberdiers bits (5 of which I had previously cleaned and hot glued to a piece of molding) and the box of Greatswords.

  

The black tray is an insert to a small toolbox that I have been keeping my halberdier trays and bits in as I have been working on them.  Its been very handy to be ale to stop what I am working on and put everything (including sharp X-acto knives) back into the tool box and lock it up when my biggest miniature (my 2.75 year old daughter) needs attention).  Next year I may also plan on bring miniatures to clean up and assemble rather than paint when we go on vacation as this has gone rather well.

Oh, and I sorta kinda still have to finish the K-Nig-Its of Morr and the Bear Riders.  As usual the base coats are on, just the darn fiddly bits to do.

2013-07-24: K-Nig-Hts of Morr Work in Progress

The base coating is plodding along.  I think, think I tell yah, I have found a way to get a decent looking black armor without taking too much time.  Base coat of black with a little blue grey mixed in, and then take a wide flat brush to apply dryish blue grey paint with the side of the brush.  I have yet to take the next step and apply washes or white highlights.  I might not try to do too much with it and rely on a gloss varnish to make it look shiny.


The besides black, I plan on making use of white, muted green and either purple or red.  I was going with the red but then I thought that it would be hard to make the purple not look garish or too muted.  Especially on the lances.  But, a red with purple shading might pull it off OK and give some pop.
Unless I get much more hobby time then I expect (I have a guest visiting this weekend, bees may need some love, the garden is actually in ok shape but there is that toddler thing that demands attention) I don’t think I will get them done-done by the start of August.
I think August’s goal will be to assemble the halberdiers and great swords and perhaps paint a small batch of one or both.  I definitely have to scale down my painting level expectations on the halberdiers.  I just can’t pour in the level of detail into all of them and hope to get them done anytime soon.

2013-07-03: Double Down

My June pledge was to do a unit of Bear Riders to sub for Demi-Chickens.  Overtime at work and pressing garden needs kept me from doing more than building the bears.  The building was also delayed by having to order bits that I neglected to buy when I first ordered the knight bits from the DG kit.  But, while waiting for those bits to arrive I did also work on building some Knights of Morr for the Inner Circle unit I have in my army list.  So, I am going to paint both units in July.

Here is the unit of 6 bear riders I built.  The bears are a toy that I scrounged off the web.  It took a while to find a toy that was sufficiently detailed and realistic and the right size.  I kind of wish I had some alternative poses but oh well.  Three of the knights are demigryph knights and three are regular knights.  I had ordered the DG bits but afterwards figured I could use the regular knights which I have a surplus of.  I added bed rolls from the Ourtrider/Pistolier kit to add ‘something’ to the back, snipped shields for back supports, and various banner topper or other bits to act as a pommel.  I think I might also try to get the sheathed swords on as well.  The straps are strips of paper that I glued into place and then struck on the idea of adding a couple drops of super thin super glue which wicked into the paper and then hardened making them more durable than untreated paper… and probably less likely to have issues curling or falling apart when the paint is added.

And this photo of the Knights of Morr was taken before priming. It was a humid day and I had some graininess in the resulting coat, but currently the Frozen North has seen about 2 weeks of off and on rain with no end in sight so I risked it.  Could have been worse.  Three of them will have scythes (and be proper great weapons) while the others have lances.  In the future I will make more and will make two units.  I have to track down some more zombie scythes for the conversion however.

I will be attempting to do black armor (which I am not looking forward to) and white/grey horses/bears.  I figured that they might be going for the ‘riding a pale horse’ thing and from a painting view point it would be much easier than trying to get a black knight to stand out from a black horse.

2013-06-04: Beasty Boys

My Beast Wizard is done (well except for that little bit of scraped metal that I need to touch up and the base but move along, move along….).  I had a lot of fun painting him.  Most of the paint went on in just 2 or 3 sessions.  I also liked how the colors work together.

My project for June will be the long promised bear riders.  I have one mostly built (see picture) and I hope to slap together 2 or 3 more and get some paint on them before the end of the month.  They are demi-chicken proxies and I need to price them up and then drop something from my list to get them in.  I remember wanting to have them in my list, but they slipped my mind when I actually sat down to put the list together.  I think I will drop the archers as I already have a unit of them painted.

2013-05-07: Demands

The beginning of May has come and gone and my swordsmen have not yet been completed. The demands of "getting the crops in" (I have a veggie garden and the Frozen North thawed in the span of 2 minutes and I found myself needing to build raised beds, fill said raised beds with soil, recover from the shoveling of cart loads of said soil, and then planting planting planting), a demanding 2 year old, and now the demands of overtime at work have conspired to deplete my painting time.

The swordsmen are still not done.  Here is how they stand now:

They are very very fiddly and I am getting sick of running down the line of models with one color on my brush and seeing all the little missed bits that need a different color.  And of course when I next have that color I am seeing all the bits that needed that first color.  And what the heck is this thing hanging from his belt next to the always useful on the battlefield hour glass?:

I will keep chipping away at them over the course of this month.  And for May I will pledge to do an entire WIZARD! 

 

Ohhhh… ahhh…. Yeah its a cop out but in addition to needing to finish the swordsmen, I also need to finish building the June pledge, which will either be knights of Morr, a metal steam tank, or bear cavalry. 

2013-04-19: Teddy Bears on Parade

I worked in the garden last night instead of painting, but I was able to take a few pictures of the Swordsmen and the Musician+Bear.

  

I have said earlier, the base coating is taking a while to finish as their are many colors and many fiddly bits.  My hope is to get the base coating done soonish, then put in some simple highlights and some quick and dirty washes for shading.  Most the shields I hot glued to a piece of wood to allow me to paint them separately.  I usually don’t have that foresight or opportunity.

 

Looking forward I have three options as to what to paint next month.

A)  Another Steam Tank!

B)  Knights!  I want to give most of them cool hoods and scythes in order for them to be Knights of Moor/Knights of the Black Rose.

C)  Bears!  I have not fallen in love with the new Empire Demigrifs.  So I had looked around for an alternative.  The Thunderwolf models were a possibility, but they are pricey.  I came across these bear toys which I ordered and was very pleased with the size.  I like the fact that they are pretty realistic and have a solid pose.  The only thing I could wish was for more poses, but oh well.

   

 

So readers (reader?), which of the three options should I do?

2013-04-16: A Little Behind with Pictures

For April I decided to paint up a unit of swordsmen and a musician with a bear (the later two are part of the same miniature).  I did a few head swaps since I like the furry hats of the newish Empire archers.

This picture is from a few weeks ago and is the models primed with Armybuilder ‘Skeleton Bone’.  I had used black primers in teh past (often spraying white from above to pop the highlights) but this time I decided that I want to start with a brighter base since I have gotten tired of all the work it takes to get a good yellow over black primer.  The bone color seemed a nice way to have that lighter base without risking having super bright white spots showing where the paint didn’t reach.

The musician and bear miniature was primed a month or so ago and is in some picture from that time.

At this time I am still grinding through the base coating.  The primer has proved to be less aggravating to paint over and works well with my subdued scheme.  All the little pieces of equipment (including skulls and hourglasses, its an Empire thing) is taking a long time as its fiddly painting and I also am not sure what some things are and thus dither as to what color to paint them  My life would have also been easier if I had painted them all an identical pattern, but Stirland is supposed to be rustic and its army hodge-podge so I think they look better when each soldier has a different set of clothes.

I will try to get pictures of the work in progress soon.

2013-04-01: Better Late Than Never

Travel and childcare kept me from posting earlier.  The War Altar/Steam Tank is done except for adding some magnets to make the swappable components.

    

2013-03-15: The Ides of Hobby

No pictures tonight, but I wanted to update what has been on my painting desk this week.

I continued painting the Directorate Firestorm Armada models needed for the next round of the campaign I am participating.  Since Directorate frigates have served me well I am adding 9 of them along with 1 heavy cruiser and several escorts.  The bronze color is almost done, so I maybe able to get the dip shading done this weekend if I don’t get to fussy with detailing.

I dug out the ogres for the Garagehammer challenge and started assembling some ogres.  I realized that I don’t have enough parts for as many ironguts as I had wanted to do.  Oh well, I will just do more bulls and ironblasters and perhaps do a few converted ironguts.

I have green paint on the War Steam Shrine Tank and have started doing the bronze/gold trim.  I need to give it some more love as I will be out of town the last week of the month.  Tick Tock Tick Tock.

Tonight I cut out 5 halberdiers from the sprue and added archer heads (furry hats are important since they will be a snow based army).  I also added blades to the arms taking care to use the X-acto blade to cross score the contact surfaces before adding the glue, and then letting the glue melt the plastic for 30 seconds or so before making the join.  I have found that in halberdier and spearmen models I have bought in the past that that joint is very vulnerable to breaking so I wanted it to be as secure as possible.  I can not say enough about taking the time and care with scoring and letting the glue melt the plastic when assembling plastic miniatures as the plastic really makes a weld instead of a joint that consists of two pieces of plastic stuck together with dried model cement.

I placed the artillery and the death wizard into the display cabinet tonight.  Its really nice to see them on display there… and really nice not to have them taking up space on my painting desk!

2013-03-08: Now with more Snow!

I had Tuesday off since it was Town Meeting Day in The Frozen North.  It was a rare day off in which my daughter’s daycare was actually open, so it was Happy Hobby Day for DaDa!!!

I had great plans of assembling a horde of ogres and base coating some Empire swords men.  But in the end I spent most of the day doing snow bases on my artillery and crew, fiddling with my War Steam Shrine Tank (which I talked about earlier), and deciding how to convert up some knights of Moor.

Here are some pictures of the artillery and crew. Ohh… ahhh…

 

 

 

I have decided that the WSST will be my painting challenge for the month.  Now I just have to find that engineer for it.

2013-03-07: Transform and Steam Out!

During the last few days I have been busy throwing together an idea I have been musing about for a while.  Many moons ago I bought one of the very old small steam tanks to use as the heart of a skaven rat tank.  That didn’t happen and later I bought a plastic steam tank hull to for the same project and I never got around to doing a rat tank again.  The parts lingered in the basement until the new war altar kit came out and it looked great except that the griffin on top made it look very top heavy.  So I struck on the idea of sticking it on the back of a steam tank.

So I through together the engine and cannon from the old metal mini-stank, added that to the plastic hull, and placed the podium over the hatch (which I will magnetize later.  I added magnets to the bottom of the griffin and put a piece of steel inside the steam tank ceiling so it latches on well.  The magnets will allow me to swap them out to place the steam tank turret on instead in order to use it as a steam tank.  I have to dig up the old engineer from the mini tank to place inside the turret and then I will prime it all up for my painting project for the month.

Oh, the shields on the side (since I didn’t buy them when I got the hull) are from the knight kit and from the banner things in the war altar kit.

     

2013-02-28: Month 2 Wrap Up

Here are the finished (except for basing) of the cannon, mortar, and their crews.

 

I am a big fan of the Vallejo flesh wash.  I base coat some sort of flesh color and then pick out the highlights with flesh/white mix (or just white).  Then I apply the wash.  I have found that this is a very quick way to get a very nice flesh effect.  Below are the pictures of an artillery man before and after wash:

      

I decided to put my artillery pieces on round 60mm bases.  While I could do some shenanigans with not basing them, I think they will look better based and I also wont have to deal with any questions about mini’s touching in not when in play.  The bases arrived yesterday and I will slap them on this weekend.

My Directorate ships are mostly base coated.  The gold/bronze is taking a while since I paint those areas brown and then go over with gold and there are lots of fiddly tubing to paint with this color.  But I hope that they will be base coated this weekend.

I have to tally up my ogres this weekend and see if I have enough to take the plunge and do the Garagehammer painting challenge.  Two challenges at once seems like a lot, but the ogres should paint very fast and I would like an excuse to paint them,

2013-02-11: Hobby Fail

   The artillery pieces are moving along.  I primed the unprimed crew members (and the musician + bear model for later painting).  Nothing to see here, move along, move along.

I have three Directorate frigates painted and just waiting for the sealer/dip (I like to use a little polyshade mixed with regular polyurethane to give a little depth without excessively muting the colors),  I got back the silver prime I used for them tonight after loaning it to a fellow Firestorm Armada player.  I will have to prime 6 more frigates, 6 escorts, and a heavy cruiser tomorrow.

I primed several Drindrenzi gunships and a carrier yesterday night.  Today I noticed that two of the gunships had primer flaking right off of them.  Arhhgh! Rookie mistake!  I didn’t wash them down to remove the release agent from these resin models.  Well, those two gunships are now patrolling the Simple Green Sector and will be re-primed when they get back.

2013-02-06: M2 D6

I base coated the cannon and mortar a few days ago.

I had to then put them aside in order to work on some frigates for my Directorate fleet that I need for a campaign I am involved in.  They are coming along very fast, but if I remember correctly, putting the bonze/gold color on the brown is fiddly and takes longer than it should.  I also have several escorts that need to be primed and also painted in the next week.

 

When the new warshrine kit came out I (and others) thought that the griffon looked to big and top heavy.  An idea I had was to stick it on top of a steam tank chasis to give it a suitably big bottom.  I also wanted to me able to convert it back and forth to a regular steam tank.  Magnets will likely be involved,

2013-02-04: My List

2500 Pts - Empire Roster

State Troops (69#, 464 pts)
48 Halberdiers, 464 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Halberd; Light Armour)
1 Sergeant (Hand Weapon; Halberd; Light Armour)
10 [Det] Swordsmen (Hand Weapon; Light Armour; Shield)
10 [Det] Swordsmen (Hand Weapon; Light Armour; Shield)

Master Engineer (1#, 65 pts)
1 Master Engineer, 65 pts (Hand Weapon)

War Engines (4#, 120 pts)
1 Great Cannon, 120 pts
3 Crew (Hand Weapon)

War Engines (4#, 120 pts)
1 Helblaster Volley Gun, 120 pts (Volley Gun)
3 Crew (Hand Weapon)

War Engines (4#, 100 pts)
1 Mortar, 100 pts
3 Crew (Hand Weapon)

War Engines (2#, 250 pts)
1 Steam Tank, 250 pts (Steam Tank Weapon Systems; Steam Engine Rules; SteamTank Boiler; Causes Terror; Large Target; Random Movement; Unbreakable)
1 Engineer Commander (Hand Weapon; Repeater Pistol)

Luminark of Hysh (3#, 120 pts)
1 Luminark of Hysh, 120 pts (Chariot; Large Target; Swiftstride)
2 Acolyte (Hand Weapon)
2 Warhorse

Wizard Lord (1#, 200 pts)
1 Battle Wizard Lord, 200 pts (Level 4 Upgrade; Hand Weapon)
1 The Lore of Metal

Battle Wizard (1#, 100 pts)
1 Battle Wizard, 100 pts (Level 2 Upgrade; Hand Weapon)
1 The Lore of Beasts

Greatswords (34#, 364 pts)
23 Greatswords, 364 pts (Always Strikes Last; Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Full Plate Armour; Stubborn)
1 Count's Champion (Always Strikes Last; Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Full Plate Armour)
5 [Det] Archers (Hand Weapon; Bow; Skirmishers; Volley Fire)
5 [Det] Archers (Hand Weapon; Bow; Skirmishers; Volley Fire)

Knightly Orders (6#, 170 pts)
6 Inner Circle Knights, 170 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Barding; Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Full Plate Armour)
6 Warhorse

Pistoliers (5#, 90 pts)
5 Pistoliers, 90 pts (Hand Weapon; Brace of Pistols; Light Armour; Fast Cavalry)
5 Warhorse

Arch Lector (2#, 255 pts)
1 Arch Lector, 255 pts (Always Strikes Last; Battle Prayers; General; Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Light Armour)
1 War Altar of Sigmar (Chariot; Large Target; Stubborn; Swiftstride)
1 The Golden Griffon
1 5. Banishment
2 Warhorse

Warrior Priest (1#, 70 pts)
1 Warrior Priest, 70 pts (Always Strikes Last; Battle Prayers; Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Light Armour)

2013-02-04: February Pledge

I decided that my pledge for February will be to do finish up the artillery of my army.  The motor and cannon are primed and I have 5 primed crew members for them, that along with painted crew (my January pledge) and other mostly painted crews that just need to be finished, I will have all the crews for all 4 war machines I have (I painted a Helstorm Rocket Battery previously thus it is not in my to paint list).

So my pledge is to paint a motor, cannon, and crew:

I will also pledge to finish (including basing) all my other crews:

Yeah, there is a wizard in there that I will also finish, but as he was mostly painted from before the start of the challenge.  But I want to finish him this month.  The two wizards in my list (beast and metal) are below, but I am not pledging to do them this month since I need to spend some time assembling models.

 

2013-01-31: M1 D31 Helblaster is Done-ish

The helblaster and crew are done.  Mostly.  I still need to base and seal them.  Oh, and I think I do want to go back and get the lenses on the telescope to look better.

I think I will chip away at the 40ish halberdiers a little bit each month, say 5, while having something else as the objective for the month.  The idea being that not only will it not be se monolithic a challenge, but I will also be able to paint each 5 like each other but differently from the others.  Hence, I can get a nice motley look (appropriate for Stirland) at the end when I combine them all without having to spend the extra brain energy making each guy in a block of 40 look different.

Now I just have to decide what to do for next month.  I have 20ish swordsmen assembled.  But part of me wants to paint either a steam tank or a war altar (or a steam altar) now that I have got the bits in the mail.  I also have my demi-bear project I can work on now that those bits have arrived as well.

I will mull on it over the weekend and post when I have made up my mind.

2013-01-24: M1D24

Last night I worked on base coating the yellow sections on the HB and added highlights to the green.  I am so used to dry brushing or using other fast and dirty methods to get highlights and shading that I really enjoy it when I apply highlights with a brush, at least when it actually works.  At the end of the evening it was looking pretty good.  I gave the crew some attention, but they need a lot more TLC.  I will chip away at them over the next few evenings.  I got to wrap this project up since the end of the month is coming and I need to spend some time on my Firestorm Armada Directorate fleets as I need to come up with an additional 140 pts of painted ships before the next phase starts in a few weeks.

2013-01-13: Hobby Challenge M1D13 HSB

The base coating is almost done.  The HSB needs some Stirland colors added and touch up painting, but it came together quickly this weekend.  I think I made the correct decision in painting it in its components, especially the barrels.  The crew need much more work, but I think they will come together quickly when I have some time.  That will be a rare commodity as I will be traveling this weekend to a Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Gaming convention where I will be playing Game of Thrones 2nd Ed board game and showing off my home made Settlers of Catan tiles.  I know, its a rough life.

2013-01-11: My Birtthhhhday Presssssent…

I primed the Helblaster Volley Gun and and a crew member.  I used brown primer (Krylon) on the crewmember and parts of the HVG that were ‘made of wood’.  I used silver primer (Armybuilder) on the ‘ironwork’.  I also primed up some destroyers and frigates (again the silver primer from AB) and a carrier (black auto primer) for Firestorm Armada.

This  was the first time I used the silver primer and I am curious as to how it will turn out.

In recognition of my birthday, I also picked up something for myself :

2011-01-11: Volleyball gun cleaned and other ideas

Over the last few nights I prepared the Helblaster Volley Gun by clipping it out of the sprue and cleaning mold lines.  Its been a long while since I actually did that since most of my miniatures are bought off of Ebay and are usually assembled, though I still have to do clean up… sometimes so much clean up and fixing mistakes that I think that I should have just bought them out of the box and saved myself some time.  Anyways, it is with a crew (2 of them have already been primed at some point in the past) waiting priming.  I will prime the metal bits on the right silver and the rest brown. 

 

Here are some archers I did a while ago and represent the color scheme I will be going for.  Note the snow basing and snow shoes.

Here is a metal magic mage (Mmm… M&M&Ms!) that I will get to at some point.

Here are concepts for future work.