More Wargames Atlantic giant spiders

About a year ago, I posted about the excellent Wargames Atlantic Classic Fantasy Giant Spiders. Back in January I decided that I really had to assemble and paint the rest of the box, and here are the results. I've taken two pictures of them. Firstly a simple shot showing the spiders against a plain backdrop and, when you scroll down a second picture set up as a small action diorama.

As you can see the six big spiders are absolutely huge posed with a Bad Squiddo Freyja's Wrath female Berserker (who I use as my Barbarian character for D&D). The smaller spider is the Barbarian's latest acquisition, Fluffy the giant wolf spider.

I wanted to use a simple but menacing dark palette for these spiders. After assembly, a tricky job,they were glued to 5cm MDF bases which were then covered with a mix of PVA glue and calcium sand (which is used in reptile vivariums). 

I undercoated the spiders in Halford's matt grey spray primer and, once dry, gave them a wash of Nuln Oil. Next I set about a series of dry-brushed layers in dark, medium and pale grey and then set them aside.  Once dry, I then finished off the spiders with a wash of diluted W&N Indian ink and, when that was dry, I picked out the fangs and eyes in a pale grey. The Indian ink had dripped down onto the bases, which was what I wanted and I finished the bases off with a simple wash of lightly diluted Agrax Earthshade

I should have made seven giant spiders and one large one, but somewhere over the last year, I seem to have lost the head/thorax part for one of the big guys, I might have to look at some kind of human/arachnid mutant at some point.

Anyway, as promised above, here is the diorama;

I'm pretty happy with this picture. I think it has come out really nicely.

The scene was set up in my lightbox, using a Jon Hodgson backdrop, a selection of my 3D printed ruins and a floor made from my Warbases dungeon tiles. I took several shots with aperture priority using different light intensities and different apertures, shooting at an exposure range between ISO 100 and ISO 800 with my Pentax K-70 DSLR. 

Egyptian ruins, plus a fountain.

 First, the fountain;

This is another 3D print from Dungeon Scenes. The murky green water has been given a coat of acrylic gloss varnish. I allowed the green paint to go up the walls of the fountain, hoping to create the effect of algal growth. I think it looks OK. The 28mm guy is for scale only.

Next a number of resin pieces from The Square, who can be found at many trade shows. These are all based up for desert-based gaming;

Spot the 28mm guy, he's looking pretty small against these pieces.

These were easy enough to paint; base coat spray, dry-brushing in lighter colours, a wash here and there to bring out the details, a few bits of Gamers' Grass and lots of sandy ballast. Job done.

Hopefully these will get plenty of fantasy, pulp, VSF and eldritch horror use.

I'm going to have to get back to painting actual minis now. Sadly, the painting mojo is still hiding somewhere.

More 3D printed stuff - this time science fiction

This time it is sci fi terrain pieces.

 Once again, this is all from Dungeon Scenes. The figure is for scale purposes only.

I thought that I would go for a Grimdark theme for these pieces rather than shiny clean advanced technology or a Mandalorian-style dusty Cowboys in Space look.

The big rusty blue thing at the back has been painted to be an abandoned installation of some kind, mainly because I had previously dropped it and one of the sticking up pieces had got broken. The two generator type pieces are clearly the kind of ancient technology that suits a degenerate and xenophobic civilisation that doesn't really understand how its machines work, or maybe it is alien tech that does abominable things in strange and incomprehensible ways?

The hexagonal sensor array (or whatever else it might be) at the back isn't as Grimdark as the other pieces, especially the bronzed tower.

I'll get these in front of some of Jon Hodgson's sci fi backdrops at some point.

The two generators could definitely feature in Pulp or VSF games, as well as more conventional science fiction settings.

Overall, I am pretty pleased with how they have turned out, even though this photograph doesn't really do them justice. 

Quite a lot of 3D printed ruins

A couple of years ago, I bought a load of 3D printed scenic items at the club's Tabletop Sale from a guy who trades as "Dungeon Scenes" and who can be found on Facebook, here. For a variety of reasons I'd not got round to painting any of the stuff until now. Here are various bits of ruined buildings, you'll have to scroll down to see everything.

First, some nice ruined arches and columns (the Bad Squiddo Amazon is for scale purposes only).

Next, a corner piece with arches and another piece which shows an overgrown red tiled floor and low walls.

Finally, seven pieces from a much larger ruined building. This could represent a manor, church, an abbey or maybe some kind of Elven stronghold?

Obviously, all the above could feature in fantasy games, pulp, horror or historical settings and I am planning to use them as parts of the scenery to sit in front of Jon Hodgson's backdrops.

I found these remarkably easy to paint. I washed and dried them off before priming them in Halford's grey plastic primer, which pretty much provided the base coat and then the rest of the work was dry-brushing and adding grassy flock mix and other odds and ends of vegetation. I'm very happy with the climbing plants entwined around the windows in the final photo. They are wire-stemmed model railway small scale trees and really add some nice atmosphere.

I have some sci fi bits and pieces to paint up next, and I have also finished off a small fountain piece which I need to get varnished.

Some figures I painted back in the 1990s

I was looking through some old PC backups on DVDs last week and I found a file of photos I took in 2005 with my first digital camera. They were of some Warhammer 40K figures from the 1990s. So, here they are. There are some more of my comments at the bottom.

There were a few more pictures in the file that were either out of focus or simply not very good in terms of painting quality. These were definitely the pick of the bunch, although I can see a lot of mistakes with them. There are also plenty of places where they really needed tidying up and splashes etc being removed. Some of the shading is pretty terrible and I can see lots of things I'd do differently now.