Deadcember: Scibor Necromancer

 Scibor miniatures produce some lovely sculpts (perhaps not everyone’s tastes) but still wonderful character and detail, in my opinion. This is the first one I have bought from them; having been disappointed to find the original sculpt of this being only available in 54mm size. I loved the sculpt as soon as I saw it with the Necromancer actively raising his undead minions and the lovely triangular composition in particular being pretty inspiring. So I was made up when I heard that this sculpt was also available in 28mm scale too and immediately purchased it from their website. It was, I’m sure you can imagine, a pleasure to paint after I had decided to base the Necromancer on the Emperor Palpatine due to their very similar appearance. I knew I wanted him to made up of blues and blacks and have slightly warmer, contrasting flesh tones for the summoned zombies. The model will fit in well with my Mantic zombies and therefore they have a new leader to direct them around the dungeon.

Frostgrave Bestiary Challenge: Boar and Snow Leopard

The Snow Leopard, incongruous away from the melted snow, approaches the static and serene boar

Circling around the boar, the snow leopard ruminates whether it can take the bristly beast down. 

It decides to approach from the rear, avoiding those pointy tusks, but realises quickly that it's rear end is worse.

The snow leopard gets too close and as swift as you like, the boar turns, grunts and chases the snow leopard away. Perhaps an easier meal awaits back in the Frozen City

The Spotted Dog Tavern Interior

I put together a photoshoot combining some of my recently painted ncp characters and some of my older scenery and floor tiles. It felt a bit like playing with a dolls house (with two daughters, this is from experience) due to the arranging and re-arranging of the composition. I deliberately tried not to create a narrative diorama, but the positioning of a certain figure in relation to the scenery or another figure always means something, but I will let your imaginations project onto the scene portrayed here.

Star Wars: Mos Eisley Scratchbuilt Scenery

Having painted up Greedo in his traditional colours, I quickly set off to pursue my favoured aspect of the hobby; scratch-built scenery.

I didn't need to do much image research to find inspiration on the Internet as the films settings are ingrained in my memory, but a bit of a refresher of re-watching the movies over the wet weekend with my kids didn't hurt. Re-visiting A New Hope set my mind on recreating some buildings from Mos Eisley on Tattoine as I particularly like the desert setting, the combination of rectangular and spherical shaped buildings and of course it being a "wretched hive of scum and villainy". And where Greedo hangs out.

I used a combination of foamcard, polystyrene balls, yoghurt pots and some resin doors and accessories that I picked up years ago:

Here you can see me experimenting with some self-cracking paint to create a weathered look on this door.

The second one, of course, was more successful!

Here he is to show the scale

And a few WIP shots to show you the build. I haven't got around to painting up the tall generator yet.

A small tip for maintaining a rectangular shape whilst the gluing of the 4 walls dry:

And using my trusty circular cutter for those awkward archways:

Next up, some generators made up pretty much entirely of recycled materials...

Star Wars: Greedo

I realised that one of the reasons I never really got into 40K was not because I had a preference for fantasy but because the sci-fi vision served up by GW in the 80's just wasn't Star Wars (although I realise there are references to it). For me Star Wars is the Ultimate Science Fiction Universe and Space Marines and the other various 40k factions, quite simply, weren't. 

Living a slightly blinkered life these days, I didn't even know that there was a Star Wars game and models and that these models were fucking cool and totally represented my love of the original films. So lets start another new project; Star Wars Legions. Well I happened to be passing my (not so) local games store and inside found a Greedo model which looked just the ticket (turns out I've actually picked up one from Star Wars Imperial Assault game, which is a board game rather than the tabletop game and that these are also, annoyingly, a different scale). However the scale of these matches some of my other, very limited, selection of 40k based models (for example; here, here, here and here)

So I just had to paint him up in his traditional colours and base him the same way as my others, which just happens to be a sandy equivalent to Mos Eisley.

I will attempt to put together a squad of Bounty Hunters from the films and then locate them all in my own scum-ridden corner of Mos Eisely (cue for some scratch-building of scenery...)

Oldhammer

Everyone has an opinion on what defines a movement, or indeed likes to broadcast what their interpretation of it is. And Oldhammerers do like to bang on about their perspective of it and how others have got it wrong!

Going to a community event (BOYL a few years ago) where someone has sculpted and cast a cool miniature and then given it away to attendees is pretty damn amazing and transcends any zeitgeist of a hobby movement. So this, for me, is Oldhammer:

Gaudy Garb - some unreleased Citadel Wizards

Sometimes I look at my paint rack and think “fuck me, there’s some nice colours on there that I never use”. This is an actual quote from my internal monologue. So it plays out that I wanted to paint something different from my usual limited palette and move into the realms of various bright and vibrant, perhaps even gaudy colours. So last night the task was set; but what models would suit the oranges, greens, pinks, purples and yellows? Well history tells us that the rich like to display their wealth with clashing, colourful clothing so I rummaged around and found these limited release Citadel wizards that I picked up from BOYL a few years ago. I kind of re-imagined then as haughty lords in a tavern and will again play them as npcs, but I wanted them to look like foppish dicks flouting their vivid couture in a grimy Inn, looking completely out of place. I’ll do a photoshoot of that asap (now that I’ve completed my tavern workers) too.

Imagine a couple of Barbarians entering the Spotted Dog and seeing these two twats ordering half flagons of shandy and sipping carefully on them [scenario/photoshoot opportunity] Maybe they do have a magical air about them though so the Barbarians should be wary...

Talking of out of place, I’ve got a real urge to post these on the Dark Age of Sigmar (Aos28) group.

Tavern crew - Otherworld NPC’s

Otherworld Miniatures produce some really excellent miniatures, particularly their npc and adventurer range. So it would be rather remiss of me to not buy some and paint them up to add to my tavern interior collection.

I've got a couple more npcs to paint up and then I'll show them in all their glory inside the Spotted Dog tavern.

My little world (wip)

Following on from my last post about my new cemetery, I thought it was time to try and get some decent photos of my current tabletop set up. It's not a very accessible site (the corner of a low attic) but it gives me an opportunity to set up my stuff without any hassle from the wife or kids! I can just look and admire my handiwork up here, which is all very lovely until I smack my head on a low beam.

Pretty much everything you see in these photos is scratch-built, the only exceptions being the aforementioned GW Cemetery and the toy fort that I [originally] painted up for my son! He's grown out of it, so, as per my plan, so it's become mine! The scratch-built stuff is largely from the modelling workshop articles from early White Dwarfs; you may recognise the Townhouse, the Barn, the Cottage, the Ruined Temple and the Inn/Forge, but there's also some scenery that is inspired from elsewhere (the entrance toFighting Fantasy's Firetop Mountain for example). And then there's the scenery that's been inspired from a great many parts of the Internet and put together with my imagination and often some prolonged problem solving; my Mausoleum, Church, Ruined building, trees and my modular tiles.

As the title says, this is WIP; I've got more modular tiles to make and some much more fancy ruined buildings, roads, a backdrop, plus some more interiors/dungeon tiles and a load of miniatures to populate this little world of mine. Here's what I have for now though; enjoy!:

Best get cracking then...