Tieflings

 Yes, Tieflings. Six of them in total. Scroll down to see them all. These ones are from Bad Squiddo.

I decided that a bold colour palette was the way to go for these lovely figures. Above we have a Fighter of some sort, possibly even a Paladin and a spellcaster with a grimoire under her arm and a mystical McGuffin in her hand, maybe a Warlock or Wizard.

Next are two more Fighters. I decided to tie all the more martial Tieflings together with the colour of their clothes, making them kind of swaggering and dandified swashbucklers. The one on the right has some kind of small pet creature on her wrist.

The last two seem to be rather useful additions to any band of dungeon adventurers; another spellcaster and a rogue. I will say that these two are my favourites of the six. I could see the spellcaster working as a Druid, Sorcerer or a Wizard and the Rogue speaks for herself. I mean, everyone likes a sneaky thief with assassin-type skills, surely?

The backdrops are, as usual from Jon Hodgson's terrific books available from Bad Squiddo or Handiwork Games.

Carpathian Fun and Games

Or maybe not. I've had some of these Bad Squiddo figures for ages. Scroll down to see them all.

 

These are a mixture of figures from the Bad Squiddo Fantasy range, but I decided that the six of them would make a rather nice fantasy Carpathian Vampire Hunting group. As we all know, young women make the very best vampire slayers, don't they? As you can see in the first two pictures, two of our valiant slayers are brandishing their personal Mr Pointy weapons and I'm sure the slayer with a crossbow is reaching for a long range Mr Pointy of her own.

I decided to give the group a colour palette that would tie them together and nothing much goes better than red and green.

Below is another Bad Squiddo figure that I've taken to calling Dave Dead while I've been painting him. I hope he's Grateful. OK, he is literally Death Incarnate, but whatever you do, don't ask him where his Sting is.

I'm rather pleased with all of these. Next, I'll finish off some vamps and victims.

A Bad Squiddo Sci Fi figure .......

 .... but I think she has a very Grimdark Imperial Guard officer vibe.

Definitely looks like she could be leading the charge against Chaos Heretics, marauding Orks from Outer Space or some other enemy of the fascistic Empire of Man. What do you think?

I can see that I made a mess of one of her eyes now, so some remedial brush work will be required. So it goes. She's a nice figure, though.

The last of my Bad Squiddo D&D figures

Only two, this time;

These two are pretty heavily-armoured, so I've decided that they might as well be Paladins. Of course, they could be fighters, but very well-equipped ones, so hardly likely to be Level 1.

I decided to keep the colours simple, but I do like the green/red contrast theme for lots of things. I'm not sure how one might play the bird of prey in D&D, but I'm sure it could be done. 

Once again, I used a Jon Hodgson backdrop.

I'm working on some more Fantasy figures at the moment, making progress but not very quickly. They'll get done before long, though.

Six female Pulp figures

These are all 28mm figures from Bad Squiddo;

Those of you who read this blog regularly will recognise that I've used the same setting as in my previous post. Well, what can I say? I already had the lightbox set up so why not take advantage of it? I did use a different Jon Hodgson backdrop, though.

These six will work for all kinds of Pulp games, including Eldritch Horror and also for VBCW. As usual, they are lovely clean casts and a joy to paint.

I've got a lot more stuff in varying degrees of completion, so it is now just a case of actually finishing them off and not giving in to starting other figures instead!

By the pricking of my thumbs......

.... something wicked this way comes.

 It's a Shoggoth!

It is a big resin piece, around 7cm long, 4cm high and 5 cm wide from Fenris Games. It is a one piece cast with three optional metal tentacles, which I used because, when it comes down to it, who doesn't want a dreadful sanity-threatening, slithery, protoplasmic Horror with tentacles? The young Assassin, a Bad Squiddo Lucrezia Borgia mini is here to provide a sense of scale.

The backdrop is from a Jon Hodgson book and the flooring is from a Warbases dungeon tiles set.

I'm rather pleased with how this Thing came out. I finished the eyes and larger pustules with a lick of gloss varnish after spray varnishing the finished beastie in a matt finish.

Hopefully this Abomination might get some gameplay in the future.

Linus Van Pelt never expected this.......

 ......The Great Pumpkin Arises !!!!!!!!

Well, not actually. This is the Pumpkin King. Hallowe'en will never be the same again. Trick or Treat? It doesn't really matter to this being. He's coming to get you. Just leave the tub of sweets outside the front door, turn all the lights off and hide under your bed until dawn.

I had a lot of fun painting this one. He's a lovely resin piece from Bad Squiddo.  I've had him for quite a while but now I'm going through the unpainted mountain I'm picking out things I just want to paint rather than things aimed at specific rules. He's a big guy too, around 7cm tall, so over twice the height of an average 28mm figure. The backdrop is, once again from one of Jon Hodgson's background books, available from Bad SQuiddo and Handiwork Games.

Feelin' Hot, Hot, Hot!

Here's another resin piece from (I think) Bad Squiddo;

He is some kind of Fire Elemental or Daemonic entity. Anyway, he's a hot guy. He is also a nice simple sculpt and cast, with lots of crisp detail which made painting him a doddle. 

As I say, I think he is from Bad Squiddo, although he isn't on the website. If he is a discontinued model that would explain it. Also, I think Annie sent him to me as a freebie in an order of other stuff. Nice mini, though, standing at around 5cm tall.

If he isn't Bad Squiddo, perhaps someone could tell me where he's actually from?
 

She's big, red and angry.....

 ...... yes, she is a female ogre (28mm Amazon warrior for scale only)

I didn't want to do her as a green Princess Fiona sort of ogre. I wanted her to look more "human", so I gave her a human flesh tone, which I darkened with Citadel Reikland Flesh wash, because I liked the idea of her becoming red when filled with rage and in stone-throwing, warrior-crushing mode. 

She is a Bad Squiddo resin figure and a lovely piece of sculpting. She was a joy to paint because the casting is so crisp and detailed. I'm really very happy with how she has turned out.

The background is a Jon Hodgson fantasy one from Handiwork Games and the hapless, about to be squished warrior is from Bad Squiddo.

I'm sure she'll have lots of opportunities to see tabletop action.

A very strange and unsettling graveyard

This is a project I started about 18 months ago, although I'd bought the various bits and pieces months before I started work on it. I finally completed it last week. Here is the overall piece, looking down from above;

 The model is around 40cm by 30cm, based on a sheet of MDF. The perimeter is made of Renedra railings and gate pieces and the pieces inside are all from Fenris Games with a couple of extra gravestones from Bad Squiddo. Below are some closer views of the graveyard, with Jon Hodgson backgrounds.

Now, this is clearly not your common or garden graveyard and who knows what kind of people, if people they are, might lie under the ground in such a place? Those gravestones seem to be slowly sinking into the ground and some of them a clearly very old indeed.

The various obelisks and columns hint at some very unusual religious practices and one really has to ask "Why is the water in the pool bubbling?". Of course, another relevant question might be "Who lies here and why are all the interments carried out at night under the baleful light of a gibbous moon?".

I'm really happy with how this piece has turned out. I think it is the perfect place to carry out some investigations into the practices of the locals and examine the sacred books kept under lock and key in the crypt of the local church.

From 2024 into 2025

Well, this should have been a review of my achievements in 2024 and a list of my plans for 2025. However, as regular readers will know, I suffered as huge flare-up of arthritis in both hands last year, which pretty much threw all of my plans way off course. When I was able to paint again, I concentrated on some quick wins by painting stuff that I wanted to paint and not things that were long-term projects. So, really, my 2025 plans are pretty much based around a few of the things I was supposed to do in 2024 plus a couple of new ideas. I'm not going to bother listing anything. Just getting various stuff done will be a win as far as I'm concerned.

I will be trying to focus on Midgard, though. This is because I already have two or three armies that might easily be repurposed for Midgard without much effort. These are Principate Roman auxiliaries, a force that is almost complete but just needs some archers, a Dominate period Roman army that really just needs a couple of mounted leaders and maybe some skirmishing light cavalry and, thirdly, a fantasy Norse army based around my Bad Squiddo shieldmaidens and some jötnar and other mythical beings. 

I do have a fourth fantasy Midgard project, which will be a Warhammer Old World Empire army with human foot and horse and some ogres, all based around the Wargames Atlantic conquistador sets of foot and mounted troops plus the Landsknecht ogres. I think I'll need to find a suitable Battle Wizard from somewhere, too. 

I do have one small urgent addition to my 18th century Syldavian and Bordurian imagi-nations, too. I won't say what it is, because it will be required for Winter Wonderlard V at the beginning of February.

So, that is pretty much all I have to say about future plans. 

A few more recently completed figures

All of these figures are from Bad Squiddo. Scroll down to see them all.

First, a rather sinister-looking Jester;

I wanted him to have burning red eyes, which look a bit messy on close examination on a blown-up photo but which are fine on a 28mm figure. I'm not sure that he is very full of jolly japes and witty comments. I certainly wouldn't trust him to do a children's birthday party gig.

Next, we have Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, eldest daughter of King Alfred the Great of Wessex and ruler of Mercia from 911 until her death in 920. She was buried in the now-ruined St Oswald's Priory in Gloucester. She is accompanied by a female warrior.

Her companion's shield design isn't particularly of the period, being a late Roman one but I rather like it.

The remaining four figures are from the Bad Squiddo Community Minis range. Firstly, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Harriet Tubman;

And secondly, Julie d'Aubigny and Ching Shih.

I'm sure that most people have heard of the first two, but maybe not the second pair. 

The Battlezone scatter stuff....

 .... and this really is the last of it!

Below is a big piece of Battlezone pipework, which will fit in anywhere, seeing as one end rises from below ground and the other end has a couple of closures. The piece at the back is a length of 2cm plastic plumbing pipe stuck on a couple of little legs capped shut at one end and with a connecting piece at the other. It is designed to come out of the side of a building. Why might that be? Who cares, but it'll look good.

Here are a couple of large generators with attached pipework. These will fit in anywhere, ideally with a building at the end of the pipes.

There is also a platform made up from a few odds and ends and a pallet of some kind of cargo.

Finally, I've made a few barricades/roadblocks from a few odds and ends of doors and wall sections, held up with braces. These are bound to be useful. Everyone and everything needs to hide or shelter from getting shot at. In all of these pieces, I've chosen a grimdark colour palette, especially for the generators. Maybe how they work is an obscure and arcane secret, but so long as the initiates/operators chant the correct prayers the things will keep on generating whatever they generate?

Once again, my Bad Squiddo Ghost of Gaia is here to provide a sense of scale.

So, that's it for the Battlezone stuff.

Mantic Battlezone sci fi buildings

Ages ago at the club's tabletop sale, I bought a big box of Mantic Battlezone plastic buildings, which I never got round to assembling until now. Here are the first few pieces. Scroll down to see them all.

The Bad Squiddo Ghost of Gaia is for scale purposes.

I'm showing two views of this final piece for today. This is because there is some nice detail on in interior. The down pipe in the interior photo isn't Mantic. It is a piece of 2cm diameter plastic plumbing pipe cut to fit.

I have to say that the separate components are tricky to put together and I eventually resorted to using model glue to ensure a nice strong bond. I didn't want my buildings coming apart in gaming use. In hindsight, I should have used greenstuff or Milliput to fill the more obvious gaps, but it is too late now.

Having said that, I am really pleased with the painted and based results. These pieces could be used in so many settings; gang warfare in the depths of a hive city, scavenging the remains of an abandoned mining base on a forgotten planet, post-apocalyptic survival against mutant or alien hordes, Games set in a wretched hive of scum and villainy or just on a battlefield between implacable enemies. The possibilities are endless.

I decided to go for a grimdark, worn-out and run-down feel to everything. That kind of look and feel appeals to me when it comes to science fiction gaming. There is plenty of rust on the walls, grimy floors and a general appearance of a civilisation fallen on hard times or outposts on hostile planets or moons.

I've finished everything off - a couple of weeks of hard slog, I have to say, and I'll post everything over the next week or so. 

I am planning to use some of these pieces with my Jon Hodgson sci fi backdrops to create some nice little dioramas. They will obviously have lots of uses in Xenos Rampant and with my own Reivers Of The Outer Rim rules, which I am currently planning to simplify and re-write.

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. 

A very odd miniature....

...... from Bad Squiddo.

He is called Turkey Man on the Bad Squiddo website and, if you click the link I've pretty much stuck to how he was painted there (by Warpfiend Studios). He is, I think you'll agree a rather disturbing figure, standing about 45mm high. 

He is definitely a creature of nightmares and therefore highly suitable for all manner of Pulp, Horror, Victorian Science Fiction and other associated Weird wargames. One can only speculate how such a being came into being.

My plans for 2024.

A few days ago, I looked back at what I had planned for last year. Now, I am going to look forward to the coming 12 months and look at the things I want to work on as my main projects for 2024, as well as note down a few things that I can work on in between if I'm feeling a bit bored with the main job in hand.

I have three big 28mm projects (the first two being the most important);

An Elven Army for Midgard which will also work for Sword and Spear Fantasy. I have all the figures for these. They are the excellent Oathmark Elves from North Star. I have Heavy and Light Infantry and the recently-released Cavalry. I've probably got more Heavy Infantry than I really need (I went for the original High Elf army bundle North Star released when Oathmark was first launched) but I'm sure I'll find a use for any leftovers.

A 1940 French Infantry platoon with various support options for Chain of Command. These are all Warlord Games. I've two boxes of infantry, a M1897 75mm gun and a Hotchkiss MMG. I'll have enough figures for an extra Groupe de Combat, extra crew members for the gun and MMG and probably a sniper team and some engineers. 

More 28mm Bloody Miniatures 17th century figures. These will be two more of the Foot releases as well as the recent release of Horse.

Another 28mm project I hope to get done is another Xenos Rampant force using the Wargames Atlantic Deathfields Bulldogs. I want to give these a real Weird WW1 vibe.

I've got things to complete from 2023 too. Top of the list are those 28mm Bicorne Miniatures pikemen.

At some point, I'll carry on with my 15mm Warhammer Empire themed army but I really needs to be in the right mood to work on this.

I will carry on working on scenic stuff too. I have loads of 28mm Sci Fi things to get painted and also some 28mm Renedra plastic buildings. I've also got various 15mm and 28mm odds and ends which I can work on in between the big projects. I also need to work on trees, river sections and other stuff. I might even get round to doing my long-planned but never started modular graveyard, complete with weird sculptures and other stuff. I've got all the bits I need. All I need now is the willpower and the time to make it happen.

I've also got the Bad Squiddo Community Miniatures figures to do. These will also be worked on when I need a break from Elves or French infantry.

Inevitably, I have Pulp/7TV figures to work on too, but that part of the backlog is slowly shrinking.

There are lots of other things I might get round too working on (late 19th century North West Frontier in 15mm, 28mm Bad Squiddo Soviet Women, various WW2 North Africa in different scales etc) but they aren't actual objectives.

I expect that this time next year, I'll still have things I never got round to finishing, or even starting! So it goes.

Moon Goddess statue

OK, this is my first attempt at a photo using a background from one of my new Jon Hodgson backdrop books.

I got two books via a Kickstarter; one is a fantasy set and the other is sci fi. Both are excellent. They are available from a few different places, including Bad Squiddo and Handiwork Games.The figure is from Bad Squiddo, but she isn't available in the Shop. Originally supposed to be Genepil, the last Queen of Mongolia. Annie designed her as part of the Bad Squiddo Community Miniatures project but later withdrew her as it turns out that the source for her was actually a photograph of an anonymous Mongolian noblewoman. So, she is never going to be available and is therefore rather exclusive.

I didn't need a mini of a Mongolian noblewoman but I definitely wanted to use the mini, so I decided to turn her into a statue. I put her on a resin plinth from Fenris Games and then added a couple of MDF squares to create a set of steps. I added some textures to show that the status is of great age, both ballast and, after painting areas of moss and lichens.

For the photo, I simply posed her on one of my Warbases pre-coloured dungeon tiles.

My idea was to create an arcane statue of a Moon Goddess, sheathed in precious metals and with a prominent silver crescent Moon on her headdress. I have slightly overexposed the image to make it look like she is being illuminated by the light of the full Moon. Below is an alternative shot, which was taken without any exposure compensation.

I like both photos, but I think that the brighter one suits the purpose of making her look like she is absorbing the power of moonlight.

Now, all I need is to work out a game setting where she might come in handy. She could definitely be the objective in a Back of Beyond Pulp game.

Two Bad Squiddo resin historical figures - Jeanne de Clisson and Mata Hari

I've had these two for absolutely ages, but I only got round to washing and cleaning them up when I started work on the North Star resin Necromancer and Apprentice in early March.   

First, Jeanne de Clisson, both front and back. Her white coif doesn't show up well in the first picture;

Jeanne de Clisson was born in the Vendée in 1300. She was a member of the noble Montaigu de Belleville family. She married four times, but it is her third marriage to Olivier IV de Clisson that led to her fame. Olivier was executed by the French King Philippe VI, le Fortuné. As a result, she took up arms against the French Crown. She sold off the Clisson lands and raised a force to fight French forces in Brittany. She later took to the sea as an English privateer with a fleet of three ships, attacking French vessels and killing the crews.

I've chosen to paint her in green because I like the colour and I didn't want to just do another standard Jeanne de Clisson figure. In green, she becomes a more flexible figure for all kinds of gaming.

Mata Hari, born Margaretha Geertruida Zelle in 1876, is best known for having been executed as a German spy in 1917. She is portrayed as an archetypal femme fatale but her life was really terribly sad. Her marriage to Rudolf MacLeod, a Dutch officer serving in the Far East was a miserable thing. He was a brutal alcoholic infected with syphilis, which he passed on to his wife. Both their children were born with the disease, from which both of them later died. After divorcing MacLeod in 1903, Margaretha moved to Paris, becoming an artist's model and exotic dancer. She claimed to be a Javanese Hindu princess and became the mistress of a prominent French industrialist, Émile Guimet who was a devotée of Oriental Art. Mata Hari was a promiscuous woman and ended up as a courtesan rather than a performer. As a Dutch citizen, Mata Hari was able to cross borders freely during the war, the Netherlands being neutral, and she was recruited by the French Deuxième Bureau as an agent. She was charged with getting close to senior German military figures and she may, or may not have become a double agent.

In any case, the French government had her arrested, tried and executed as a German spy, although there doesn't appear to have been much in the way of evidence.

I've chosen to paint Mata Hari as a kind of generic femme fatale figure, who could quite easily be a Temptress in fantasy games, a seductive priestess, a mystic or something else.

I am pretty pleased with how she has come out, although I think that I could have done better with her face. I will have to do a spot of touching-up to improve that. I've stuck to green again but with lilac as a foil. Even her hair is lilac, which I think gives her an otherworldly feel.

Bad Squiddo Undead Things

Well, I've been busy today! I was up before 7 a.m because the dogs were being loud and excitable and I've been at home all day waiting for a parcel delivery, so I thought I'd paint some things that have been lying around for ages. 

All four are Bad Squiddo 28mm figures, and I have to say that they are terrific figures to paint.

First, there are two renaissance skeletons; a Landsknecht Doppelsöldner and a fine gentlewoman, maybe a countess or duchess.

I really love these. They are so animated and full of character.

I decided to try and get a few hints of rust on the Landsknecht's armour and double-handed sword and I think that it has worked pretty well.

Both figures were undercoated in black and given a top-down zenithal blast with Army Painter Skeleton Bone spray. I then used a combination of paints and drawing inks to build up the colours. I am really happy with the end results.

The other two figures are Mummies.

These were given the same black undercoat and skeleton bone zenithal treatment and I then built up the finished effects with dry-brushing and dark brown drawing ink. They were pretty quick to complete but I think that they will work well on the table.

These will be good for all sorts of horror and pulp games, as well as 7TV Fantasy and Pulp. I cannot recommend these figures highly enough. They are excellent.

Anyway, even after all the painting, basing, spray varnishing and photography, my parcel still hasn't arrived.

Bah!