Just a little jolly Nurgling merrily scurrying through the undergrowth, on his rat

Killing a couple of birds with one stone is, I imagine, pretty tricky in reality but a real motivator in terms of my hobby. This little conversion was completed a while ago having been influenced by a few of the more zany Golden Deamon entries from the late 80's (ie the orc on a bicycle) and will fill a a space in my Beastmen unit for my Lost and the Damned Army and at the same time be entered for the Oldhammer Forum's newly revived Goldon Gobbo painting competition.

Just a little, jolly Nurgling merrily scurrying through the undergrowth, on his rat:

Forstgrave bestiary challenge - rats and a blood crow

Sometimes the smallest creatures can provide a whole lot of nice detail to a game. You have to have rats lurking in a corner of a dungeon or creeping around some barrels of a street corner. And of course the lowly adventurer likes an early, easy kill. The crow certainly adds a bit of flavour, not just with it's dark, brooding and menacing pose but with the addition of a perch - in this case a damaged signpost for the city of Felstad. 

The Rats are Reaper bones (very cheap with just enough detail), the dark three primed black, highlighted up with greys/browns on the fur and a touch of Elf Flesh - Bleached Bone on the skin. Albino rat was primed white, washed with Baal Red and then highlighted up with very pale pinks (from a Titallating Pink base with added white).

The crow is from the metal Nurgle Lord kit and has been in my bitz box for years (quite surprisingly as he adds a fair bit of character and could have been used for a whole host of conversions or basing/scenery). Well he gets his time as his own model now, rather than supporting another and was painted onto a black primer, highlighted up with some greys and then glazed with some blues and purples. The wooden sign was kept deliberately pale with Graveyard Earth as a base and highlighted with very pale greys. After the freehand writing was applied it was washed with some greens and browns to create a weathered look.

Some quick paint jobs but pleasing to cross off another two requirements for my Frostgrave Bestiary Challenge.

A rat chase through some new dungeon tiles

I just had to make a few more dungeon tiles, as I had a fair few ideas ruminating in my mind's eye, derived from other's modeller's work and some I remember from Warhammer Quest and other dungeon explorer maps. And some of my own ideas too. So revisiting my insulation foam process for the tiles and my magnetised, modular wall design, I set off to complete my oeuvre of dungeon tiles. I thought about how best to present them here on this blog and decided to have a little run though of my attempts with an npc and a rat:

A simple corridor with steps leading down into the dungeon. Run from that rat!

Running around the corridor's corner, the rat gets a little closer.

Into a more sandy corridor, with mining track. The rat is slightly distracted by a small hole in the wall. 

Our hero creates some distance between himself and the furry one as he runs through a hot, lava room. How did he get in?

The  lighting changes, must be something to do with the summoning star in the middle of the room.

He had to run in and run out of this room, running up to the bars and back again, the rat in hot pursuit, He still admired the different coloured tiles and simple patterns. 

The light floods in and washes out the subtleties of the blue coloured tiles. I bet those patterns took a long time to do, thinks our gallant npc as he runs through what appears to be a newly made archway.

Hmm, I think I've seen this archway before, he ponders before he screams like a girl and runs away with his hands in the air. There's a raaaat in the kitchen.

Across a rickety bridge spanning some slimy sewage. The rat contemplates jumping in...

Interesting. Am I in a swamp or a dungeon room. It almost looks like it used to be a forest.... The rat looks knackered and falls back. A quick swim in a sceptic pool sees him a bit invigorated.

A skiddy marble floor sees our hero slip and slide as the rat regains momentum.

And up some stairs. Yikes, they're broken, jump over the rat and back down...

Shit after all that, a dead end!

Some pretty shitty photos of my new dungeon tiles, but it was a bit of fun having them chase through all the new sections and walls. Here's the new lot in one shot, I think you can see the painting and detail much clearer in this photo:

I need to do some proper nice photoshoots of my stuff, decent lighting, adding details and narratives etc. Well it just so happens that I've finished school and when the kids and wife are out, that's exactly what I'll do. Just need to finish painting up some of this dungeon scenery I've got stashed away...

Dungeon tiles: submerged room

I've been wanting to start on a new dungeon tile where I get to use some coloured water effects. Every dungeon crawl needs a room like this, with the mystery of what lurks beneath or what the murky liquid actually is... In the back of my mind I had this scene as I started work on it (I wish I had added an eye or tentacle poking out now in hindsight):

Here's a few work in progress photos:

Here you can see I've added some cut up felt tip pen lids for pipes, a piece of plastic tubing for a rogue metal pole and some twigs and seed pods for alien like swamp fauna.

Just before the painting stage I also added some Mantic skeleton bits and a mushroom, all of which I thought would look quite cool partly submerged. For the painting I used my usual technique of a dark grey household paint (it's in a huge tub) then drybrush/highlight up with added white, wash down with a very dark grey and add some final glazes of green/brown to dirty up the stone.

It was the next stage that gave me the most trepidation, pouring the Woodlands Scenic Realistic water onto my polystyrene tile... After some research, experiments and remembering my past attempt here, I realised that I would have to properly seal my tile. For this I was instructed to use Polyeurathane Interior varnish, which I brushed on liberally over the areas which would receive water. One this was dry I mixed the Realistic Water with a very small amount of green ink added and a very thin amount was poured in. Of course the liquid found a very small gap in the construction of the tile and seeped out, but I remedied this with a glue gun dam and re-poured:

You may also wonder what the velcro strips are for, well I'm experimenting with detachable walls that can be used on the dungeon tiles and some Frostgrave ruins I've got in mind...... More to follow...

And here's the finished water effect, pretty happy with it!

And here's some photos with models involved, you can add your own narrative:

A partly submerged GW troll that  converted and painted some time ago

The first Reaper Bones miniatures I have ever painted, decent sculpts and detail for a bargain price.

Here's another source for my inspiration which is from SaintJG at DevantArt:

Many thanks for looking.