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.