Gaslands! Tamiya Half-track (1:35)

I've added another vehicle to my 40k motorcade (for Rogue Trader or from Gaslands!), this time an historical model pimped up with some sci-fi, kit-bashed additions.
The main model (1:35) is an excellent Tamiya, German half-track - a vehicle that has a whole host of detail and tiny bits of plastic on it's sprue to keep you challenged when constructing. The wheels and tracks are all moveable, but I decided to glue them in place to make painting a bit easier. I think the larger scale just about works. The additions to the build include an Ork gun (rear) and skull, a metal lasergun (?), bits from a computer motherboard, pieces of lego, rolled greenstuff, plasticard plating and other futuristic bits that I found that I believe are from Ramshackle Games.

Here you can see it with a Bob Olley Rogue Trader miniature that I had forgot to paint for a recent painting challenge:

I've put the half-track alongside my other 1:43 scale vehicles here, which looks like the start of a larger scale Gaslands! crew:

And here you can see the kitbashing in progress:

The painting itself was incredibly straightforward. Primed grey, pin wash with brown/black oil paints, quick highlight one with a light grey and then highlight two with the light grey and some white. Some rust and oil stains were added with appropriate colours diluted down and applied in vertical streaks for the rust and splattered on for the oil.

A mix of dry pigment and matt medium was then slathered on to the lower parts of the vehicle, starting with the tracks to show the terrain it has been driving through.

Next up, I'll go back to my Hotwheels scale cars!

Bob Olley's wrinkly warband

Bob Olley has the most identifiable style of sculpting. I didn't appreciate that quite so much when I was painting models as a teen in the 80's, but I recall finding them fun to paint. I remember thinking that the faces were kind of goofy with the poorly aligned teeth and wrinkly skin, but that they also made painting easier because there is so much depth in his sculpts. Those wrinkles across the model are perfect for applying deep shadows and pronounced highlights. Even with enamel paints.

A lifetime later and I further appreciate his models even more. A #paintabob challenge on the Oldhammer Facebook page inspired me to rummage around for my handful of unpainted Olley miniatures that I had lying around. It just so happenned that they had been primed and lined up for completion this year (having just returned to this post I notice that I had 6 Olley's but I only managed to find 5 for this task, never mind). His sculpting style really is unique and still really fun to paint; those flared nostrils, wide, open-rimmed boots, quirky details such as a fluttering flap on a satchel or an intricate head-dress and frowning foreheads to name but a few, remind me of why I love the old Citadel classics so much. The sculpting style of the sculptor provides character in the model. And this makes painting them such fun; in my approach I cannot take anything for granted, I have to look closely at the model to identify what is what before I start painting and I certainly don't have to worry about large areas of flat colour! In fact those wrinkles are perfect for my diluted wash/washing up liquid/layering technique over white primer; it's quick and easy to achieve great depth and contrast in with these washes and layered highlights because that depth is already there in physical form.

So here are the 5 Olley Rogue Trader models that I painted up for this months challenge:

First up was the Ogryn, painted first for the only reason that I wanted to start large, as it's been a while since I've had such a chunk of lead in my hand and also because it's size gave me ample opportunity to get stuck into painting his surface textures:

I used a multitude of washes here to start defining all the textures. I then built up my lighter layers of highlights over the top of this. The biggest decisions were what colour to paint the goggles (I went multi-coloured, green and purple ski-mask) and then an attempt at grey camo on his trousers.

Next up was a Squat, mostly because I just liked the contrast in size with the Ogryn. So many great little details on this fella; including the extravagant headset, buttons on his weapons and of course the protruding tongue. He needed a purple beard.

Following on from him was a more exotic creature, the face is pure Olley which of course poses it's own challenges. Is that hair or a partly revealed brain? How do I tackle that elongated mouth/tooth combo? I deliberately left them both ambiguous and instead turned my attention to a striking orange jumpsuit with a pale blue stripe. He deserves it.

I then moved onto Lorrita, who seems to be something of a cult sculpt of Olleys. Check out those flared boots, iron clawed gloves and cyborg-esque face mask. She was given a limited palette treatment to partly contrast with the vibrant colours of her peers but also because she seemed to me to be quite a darker sculpt. 

Looking at this large photo, I may have missed a bit of her facemask that follows the contour of her jawline. 

And finally I finished this one last night. I decided to go subdued again with the palette, staying with colours that blended in with the bland, desert basing, that kind of desert camo effect. Of course the visor/shades required a touch of colour:

So that was a fun month of painting. It's always easier to stay on task and motivated when there is a specific focus and deadline and I thoroughly enjoyed my month of painting Bob Olley's iconic miniatures. 

Next month: Orctober and I'm considering aiming to batch paint my unit of Ruglud's Armoured Orcs...

To do in 2019 (aka preparing myself to fail)

It's highly unlikely that I will paint any of these before a new idea/model/miniature jumps to the forefront, but just in case I do, here's what I plan to paint during the coming year.

I hope that priming them makes them a step closer to being painted (and also moves them from the "to assemble drawer" to the "to paint drawer").

Whadya see?

Orktober - Ork Madboy

My first involvement with this month's Orc(k)tober is a deviation from all my other best laid plans. I've moved from Fantasy into 40K to paint up this wonderful Bob Olley Ork Madboy who has been languishing for way to long in the to-do pile. He will eventually group up with a selection of other Bob Olley sculpts who will make a warband all of themselves. Imagine loads of over-bitten, wonky lips and an abundance of wrinkles. This guy didn't have the plastic arms/weapons that originally came with them, so I improvised by cutting down some fantasy orc arms and attaching a bolter to his hand as his weapon and then painting him with my usual greenskin recipe. I'm sure you've noticed the addition of him treading in a pile of shit, which I vaguely remember seeing in an old White Dwarf /Golden Demon with a similar model; it's just some brown paint mixed in with UHU glue and teased into position:

It's such a characterful sculpt, the pose is dynamic and fun and in fact the whole range of these Ork Madboyz (from the Stuff of Legends website) shows what a fantastic group they all are together. I would love to see a load of these painted up, my brief research did not show much love for these on the Internet. Anyone got any painted versions to share?

Next up is a fantasy orc from the Greenskin Combat Cards collection.

A shit load of projects

I've been blogging now for two years (it's the anniversary today) and the more I blog, the more ideas I seem to get. The quantity and scope of these ideas quickly snowball and I soon find myself trawling through google images for further inspiration and hobby websites to purchase the bits neeeded, all of which completelty overwhelms my actual blog entries and the actual time I can realistically allocate to making them happen. It's very quick and easy to make a few purchases when at the embryonic stage of these ideas (and they pile up quickly) and the arrival of them in the post leads initially to elation and a re-kindling of the excitement of that idea before it recedes into a slightly hazy memory as I have to stash the bits into the depths of a muddled to-do box that itself is hidden away in a hard-to-reach cupboard in the kitchen. There's always another project that I've made a start on and that needs to be finished first. To help keep these burgeoning ideas alive I have a huge "Ideas" folder on my laptop and on my phone (I must merge these one day) which includes research, images, annotations, sketches etc. I occasionally remember to re-visit this folder and when I do I am instantly again overwhelmed with the shit load of projects that I have to get around to doing.


This blogging space is great for trying to stay on top of it all, for setting realistic timeframes, for organising my thoughts for future projects and probably even more so for keeping tabs on the gamut of ongoing projects. Who else has a load of draft posts stashed on their blog, hinting and reminding of some of those embryonic, to-do ideas?





Right now I decided it's a good time to take stock with where I am with all of these hobby projects. So in an unusual step amongst a lot of the blogs I follow and certainly this one, I'll show a load of wip photos and reduce the effect of dropping "finished model bombs" which I have tended to do in my posts.
Let's start with my two, early days wip boxes, spot anything cool or interesting..? Can you see where I'm going with any of these?

Next up are some wip projects that are a bit further down the line, starting with some primed dungeon furniture for my Heroquest/Frostgrave family games. A combination of Grendel Scotia scenery and some original Heroquest parts which have been added too with some insulation foam to create a stone base and bits from my bitzbox to decorate the tables and stalls:

And here's the last batch of dungeon tiles, with some pretty patterns engraved onto the floor:

Next up; the models for a small Rogue Trader, Bob Olley warband, Squat, Ogryn, Ork, female cyborg? and a dinosaur. The dinosaur, nicked from my son's stash, adds to the wrinkle factor. He'll be given some guns and armour and perhaps even a bionic leg (I've a picture in my inspiration folder of course).

Sticking with 40k, I've got some more Heresy Gangers to add to my Freeway Fighter posse:

Here's another big project which I'm chomping on the bit (s) to get into, Nurgle Blightkings, 40k'd up with some steampunk additions. Yep, Blightkings, mashed with the drones, the Skiitari, some small clock cogs and a tank. Plus a load of other bits I couldn't be bothered to get out and photograph. I have a load of ideas and inspiration for this, but the gist of it is that these will be loosely based upon the original, classic and iconic Nurgle Champions from the Realms of Chaos, which I recently completed the collection and painting of:

Next up is a project I've wanted to do for ages, a trash-bash spaceship. It will be for my Logan's World Mercenary Warband and will be comprised largely from stuff I've saved from the recycling, as well as some old broken toys, some old computer parts and a few other bits I've picked up. This stuff is all hidden away in the depths of my garage. I've ordered a few additional bits from Zinge Industries so that I have hatches and doors to add a level of realistic detail. Can you see where this might be going?..

Ps. the decorated yoghurt bottles were a skittles game that my 4year old made for me on Father's day. We've had fun with it, but the wife will just chuck them if I don't rescue them... The sparkly decorations that he lovingly put on will be recycled as gems on some Frostgrave bases. See nothing goes to waste, everything can be added to my to-do list.

I've recently realised that my love of modelling, making, being creative and imaginative in three dimensions stems from my childhood love of Lego. Which of course has also been rekindled (much like my love of toy soldiers) by my children. They love Lego, we love making it together, so I was lucky enough to receive this from my kids (read wife) for Father's day:

It's possibly the first time that my wife has acknowledged my geekyness and love of toys/models, but I'm very happy doing this with my kids. As this is MY lego, they've been relegated to the role of parts finders, much to their disgust.

And finally something that I'm actually painting, although progress is slow as I'm distracted by my Lego Millenium Falcon and the European Championships (as well as all the usual life stuff getting in the way); a dragon ogre shaggoth conversion:

So, to conclude this lengthy post, here are the shitload of projects that I have, at one time or another, flying around in my imagination, in need of tying down:

Realm of Chaos Retinue Table challenge

Bitzbox warband challenge

Frostgrave Bestiary Challenge

Fighting fantasy Warband

Rogue Trader Post-Apocolyptic mercenary project

Dungeon Tiles



And projects I'll be starting:



Steampunk Nurgle warband, based upon the original Classic nurgle champions

Bob Olley warband with dinosaur

Trash bash space ship

Finishing a full 3rd edition Nurgle army

Orc and Gonlin mercenary contingent

Chaos Ally Mercenary contingent


Fuck me that's a lot of work. When will I be too old for all of this?