A Mystery Dwarf

 Well, the mystery is "where did he come from?"

He's been sitting around in a little zip-top bag in a drawer of odds and ends and unpainted figures for absolutely ages.

He's a nice crisp 28mm resin cast and I'm pretty sure that he arrived chez moi as a freebie in an order from somewhere, but I really cannot remember when that was and which company I'd ordered from.

Anyway, I've not been doing much painting because I was away on holiday in Brittany for the first half of July and my little office/hobby room has been too hot for painting for most of the time since I've been back in the UK.

I have had the chance to start work on some sword-wielding North Star 28mm Mousquetaires and opponents from their 1672 range, mostly the opponents only, if truth be told. I've pretty much just blocked in the main colours on those, but I found time to finish off this little chap in between waiting for the paint to dry on the stabby guys.

I'm really rather pleased now he's turned out. I wasn't sure about a colour scheme for Dwarves for ages, but decided on a muted blue/grey palette, on the basis that in a tunnel or underground chamber muted blues and greys would make an adventurer harder to spot.

Of course, up close on a cropped image taken on a DSLR with a 25.7 megapixel APS-C sensor you'll spot loads of small errors that are near-invisible to the naked eye. In reality, as The Who once sang "It all looks fine to the naked eye but it don't really happen that way at all". You can't really tell from the photo, but he's standing in front of a Jon Hodgson tunnel entrance backdrop

Anyway, back to Shorty. He is obviously a Dwarf of high social standing, lots of nice armour, fancy breastplate etc so maybe he is a famous warrior or some kind of Lord. Who knows? He would be great in D&D.

The last two infantry units for my Midgard Warhammer Empire army

Finally! These are the last two units for my army. First up; a unit of Handgunners; 

I went back to a basic yellow and black colour scheme for these and gave them some kind of NCO whose job is to control the volley firing and reloading drills.

Next are my only other infantry missile troops, some Crossbowmen;

I've used a blue and yellow palette for these because I see them as being Tilean mercenary crossbowmen. 

The backdrop is another Jon Hodgson one.

The Foot contingent of my army is now complete; two groups of Ogres and eight of human footsoldiers, plus various leaders. 

I have assembled twelve armoured cavalry over the last few days, six heavy armoured Lancers to represent Imperial Knights and six armoured Pistoleers. I've got to finish off their horses, because a lot of the horse tack for these Wargames Atlantic Renaissance Heavy Cavalry comes as extra pieces to glue onto the horses. I'll hopefully be able to undercoat them, but I'm not planning on painting them until after my holiday.

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.

A warrior Queen and her comitatus

There are six figures in all. First of all, the Queen herself and her trusted councillor, a wizard.

Next, the four members of her comitatus. First, two trusted bodyguards;

and finally, her Champion and her Herald;

These are all 28mm metal Oathmark Humans from North Star. I really like these metal leaders and champions. They have a solid and businesslike feel to them and are nice to paint. There are several more sets of these metal figures,  mostly on foot but also some mounted ones, all of them holding lots of possibilities for use in many settings, including D&D and Frostgrave. 

These ones are very heavily-armoured, with mail and long leather jerkins with sewn-on metal plates which I've chosen to paint in bronze rather than iron, because I think it gives them a rather "barbarian kingdom" feel to them. They definitely look like serious business rather than flowers of chivalry, which I think suits a lot of small scale fantasy 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.

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.

A few more Dungeons and Dragons characters

These are all from Bad Squiddo, four figures in total (scroll down to see them all);

Above, from left to right are a Barbarian, a Warlock and a Fighter and below is another Fighter.

The eagle-eyed  might notice that the first Fighter has an artificial leg as well as missing an eye. She's obviously been in a lot of tough fights.

I like all of these figures but my favourite is the female Warlock, holding a skull marked VII, which must mean something. Who knows, perhaps she has a selection of different skulls for each day of the month?

Once again, I've used two of my Jon Hodgson backdrops, available from Bad Squiddo and Handiwork Games.

I've got more figures to post. Stay tuned!

 

I've been quite busy painting

 And I've found time to finish things off and photograph them. Here are some fantasy things. First, a 28mm Bad Squiddo female Goblin Fighter;

I wanted her to have blazing red eyes, but at this level of close-up detail, they are absolutely incandescent with bloodlust. Still, she looks pretty good at normal size and she'll be a nice addition to my growing collection of fantasy figures.

Next up are some plastic 28mm figures, a mixture of Oathmark and Gripping Beast, representing all purpose NPCs, mule train hirelings and village toughs. First, two well-equipped hirelings for our long-running D&D campaign at the club;

These have leather armour in the form of long riding jerkins, helmets, square wooden shields and swords. I've given them names. The one in blue is Sigurd and the one in red is his cousin, Arnaulf.

They come with a motley crew of mule-train and camp guards, clearly recruited from some dull village where the height of excitement is chasing away gangs of thieving pixies.

These are all getting a run-out on Sunday, so I expect at least half of them will get killed off or chased away by a couple of bored Orcs while our heroic band of adventurers are wandering around some badly-lit tunnels.

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?
 

A big gribbly thing

This thing is from Fenris Games, it is called an Otyugh and is a Dungeons and Dragons monster.

It (he/she/they/it?) is a resin model that comes in seven pieces and, which assembled is around 7cm tall and 10cm from the end of one arm to the other. Assembly is relatively simple and the pieces fit well with only a small amount of trimming and smoothing required

I've wanted to get this one painted up since I first got it, but holidays and life in general got in the way, also a loss of my Painter's Mojo. Still, I thought that this was a great way to get back into the groove.

I've painted it in a fairly similar colour scheme to the one on the Fenris website, mainly because I think that the green is the best way to go. The actual painting was pretty straightforward, the bulk of the heavy lifting was done by using Halfords' Dark Green matt camouflage spray paint and lots of drybrushing with lighter shades of green, although I sprayed an off-white matt primer into the mouth before using the colours you see now. I washed the thing with two different Citadel shades, Reikland flesh in the mouth and Mortarion Grime elsewhere. I kept the base simple, AK Terrains Dark Earth drybrushed with Vallejo Iraqi Sand.

The photograph uses a Jon Hodgdon backdrop from the Fantasy Ruins and Tunnels book.

I think that apart from D&D (I seriously hope this thing doesn't end up in our club's current D&D campaign), this is the kind of Gribbly Horror that could be useful in anything from Victorian Pulp Horror and Cthulhu to skirmishes in far-away planets in the distant future.

It's been a very long time ....... but I've got something finished!

I've not posted anything since mid-June, because I've been away on holiday and also because I had no urge to paint things. Still, I did pick up a brush again and I've finished off a nice command base for my 28mm Warhammer Fantasy-themed army for Midgard. Here it is;

Hopefully, people will remember that I posted the idea for this ages ago (it seems) and here are the results. He is very much based on the Elector Count of Averland, Marius Leitdorf and he will be my army commander and chief hero for my Averland-styled Midgard army, so it seemed a good idea to base him up with the army's battle standard. The standard bearer is a Wargames Atlantic renaissance armoured cavalryman mounted on a plastic Perry barded horse from the WotR mounted men-at-arms box.

I'm reasonably happy with the outcome, they definitely pass the  "one metre away" test, i.e. they'll look fine on the table.

I posed the figures in front of a Jon Hodgson Handiwork Games background.

Now, having got my painting mojo working, I really need to get on with some troops for Count Marius to lead.
 

Wargames Atlantic Ogres (all nine of them)

I've had a project in mind for a while, and these guys are the starting point. There are nine bodies in the box and I've used all of them. First, the Boss;

He's clearly the Boss, because he's got a nice tidy moustache and beard that almost keeps his fangs hidden. I bet he even uses moustache wax!

Next, two ogres with halberds, which they probably call Ver Big Choppas or suchlike.

Then, a couple of swordsmen with bucklers that would serve as a full-size shield for a human.

Another leader type, but not a Pwoper Boss and a guy with a dismounted cannon he's using as a "handgun".

Finally, another "handgunner" and an ogre with a Big Club and a dagger, which would probably be a two-handed sword for a standard human.

These are the start of my Midgard Fantasy army, which will be using Wargames Atlantic conquistadors (both foot and mounted) to make up an army based upon the old Warhammer Fantasy Empire province of Averland, hence the predominance of yellow and black in the colour palette I've used so far.

These ogres are huge, over 5cm tall and really bulky chaps too. I've got movement trays to turn them into two units of four figures, who would be led by their own Hero figure.

I've got all in foot figures for the army assembled and undercoated and I'll begin painting them fairly soon. I have Roman auxiliary archers to finish first.

28mm Wizards project

This is going to be a bit of fun, I hope. I am planning a Renaissance 28mm fantasy army based upon the Warhammer Fantasy Imperial Electoral Province of Averland for Midgard and other sets of rules (e.g. Sword and Spear Fantasy) based on the Wargames Atlantic Conquistadors, Landsknechts Ogres and Renaissance Cavalry sets and I thought that a couple of wizards would be a good idea. My original plan was to get a single sprue of the Frostgrave Wizards I set but then, I realised that the whole box would give me eight bodies which could come in handy in the future. 

I then got to thinking that the Warhammer Fantasy Empire used to have Eight Colleges of Magic and I now had eight wizard figures. Therefore I knew that I'd have to make up eight wizards who could be painted up to represent each of the eight colleges. I assembled all eight figures and have now undercoated them.

So, across the back line in the photo above, I have a Jade Wizard, a Bright Wizard, a Gold Wizard and an Amber Wizard and in front there are a Grey Wizard, an Amethyst Wizard, a Wizard of Light and a Celestial Wizard Obviously, I've chosen an undercoat of primer that will work well as a base for the various colours I'll be using for each Wizard.

As I said at the beginning, I see this pretty much as a fun project. I'll do a separate post for each Wizard as I finish him.

Some Fantasy Odds 'n' Ends

These are all from North Star for either Frostgrave or Ghost Archipelago. I'll probably find other uses for them, though.

First up, a pair of aged bronze statues, that I'm calling Guardians of The Gate. Here they are head-on;

And now sideways-on;

Now, a couple of Starfire Elementals, which I'm sure could be used in Sci Fi games as well as Fantasy ones;

Trying to get the cold blue fire effect wasn't easy, but I think it looks OK.

Next are a couple of pieces that I'm sure were for Ghost Archipelago, which I know I'll never play but are bound to come in handy. First a ruined stone head. I really like this resin piece a lot.
 

Finally, a giant terror bird - definitely the kind of turkey that isn't planning to become anyone's Christmas lunch;

It took me ages to get a colour scheme for this guy that I liked, but I'm pretty happy with how it came out.

I've used the same Jon Hodgson backdrop for all of these photos.
 

A few more finished figures

These would have been finished a week or so ago but an arthritic flare-up in my right wrist made painting difficult and painful. Anyway, here are two angry Yetis from the Copplestone Back of Beyond Adventurers set.

Blue skin and white fur seems to be de rigueur for a Yeti these days, but I wanted mine to be more naturalistic colourwise. I thought that a Yeti living in the woods or below the level where everything is covered in snow would need to blend in with its surroundings, so I chose a brown palette. I think that these are terrific figures which could fit into many different games and locations. I am particularly pleased with their reddish skintone.

The next figure is from Bad Squiddo. It is a Forest Spirit.

I've had this figure for absolutely ages, maybe as long as three or four years and it has been undercoated for most of that time. I thought I really ought to get it finished. It is a resin figure, cast by Ristul and is a sort of manifestation of the forest in animal form. I think it is a lovely piece, a spirit inhabiting a body that is both tree and creature combined.

I've got a few more figures finished, but I'm not happy with the photos, so I'll have to redo them tomorrow.

By the by, I don't recommend having arthritic wrists. It is not only very painful but it really limits what you can do.

Anyway, I won't be starting anything else off because I'm off on holiday soon.

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 final completed thing in 2023

Well, despite my best intentions, I've only finished one last piece this year. This is it.

I bought this at the club's Tabletop Sale back in May for (I think) £3. It is a Warmachines Mariner War Jack, whatever that might be, but I think it will be great for Steampunk and Pulp games, either as a McGuffin, an objective or an enemy.

I undercoated it in black and gave it progressive layers and areas of Vallejo bronze and brass, with oiled steel where appropriate (e.g. on the anchor and chain). Then it got all all-over wash of Nuln Oil.

I then washed the steel with Vallejo orange brown to give an impression of rust and a wash of pale blue mixed with green to create a patina of verdegris.

When I based it, I allowed the sandy basing gunk to stick to the thing's feet, to look like sand.

The Peaky Blinder is only there for scale purposes, but I doubt that his Lewis gun would be much use against such a Behemoth.

Some characters and leaders for my 15mm Warhammer Empire project

All armies need leaders, and in fantasy armies they need heroes and wizards too. So, here are a few I've completed.

Above are two generals for my army, once again from Alternative Armies. The figure on the left could quite easily be the Emperor Karl Franz and the other just has to be an Elector Count. Both are accompanied by standard bearers

Next, some Imperial Battle Wizards;

The two on the left are mounted and dismounted versions of Leonardo Da Vinci and the right-hand pair are Niccolo Machiavelli, from the Alternative Armies renaissance collection but I think that these are great as wizards. In Sword and Spear Fantasy, wizards don't really dominate games, I find them most useful to either bolster units in combat or to try and remove hits on units at the end of game turns.

I've given the mounted Leonardo figure a barded horse, to mark him out as a wizard of great power and repute.

I like wizards in purple, it seems a good colour for the Hermetic Arts and the Occult.

Finally, what self-respecting Empire army would be without a Hero on a Gryphon? Well, certainly not mine.

One of the things I like about Alternative Armies' figure ranges is that you can buy mounted figures and mounts separately, as seen here. The Hero is a man-at-arms from the Renaissance range and the Gryphon is from their 15mm Fantasy range. I think he will look pretty impressive on the table.