Hey if you are part of the adventuring party and don’t heed the following warning. Just don’t blame me for any disappointment from knowing too much!
SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.
This should be a very short post. A bit like the previous one really.
I actually had a moment of madness this morning and primed the new minis that arrived the other day. Plus also the four new minis I picked up last night from Colin at club night.
I now have four mummies. So super chuffed about that. Plus a mystery mini that inspired me when I was shown it.
I’m not sure what or who this humanoid is, but I think they will be the owner of the haunted house. Possessed probably and extremely dangerous with that meat cleaver(?).
The shadows I’ll finish first. They will get a dry brush finish similar to the one I did on the Alien figures to give them some highlights.
After that it’s a little research into how to paint mummies!
And we’re back. This post is going to be all over the place (when aren’t they?) But we are starting off with a look at the progress I’m making with the Alien miniatures to use with Last Days (and the RPG).
I have 13 aliens assembled which includes the Queen. Which means I have 12 more left to do. However I decided to paint the assembled ones before putting the remaining ones together.
That meant I needed to decide how I was going to paint them. So it was off to the internet to look for some painting tutorials. Luckily with the older now out of print AvP game and the new Alien game there are one or two posts and videos about painting the aliens. And you guessed it they all had different colour schemes! Which means choose the finished look you like the most and follow that. And that’s what I did.
Here is the tutorial I decided to follow.
So far I have primed the figures with a black primer. Then dry brushed the models with Runefang Steel (which I just realised is the wrong paint! It should have been Leadbelcher! But I actually like the way it’s turned out.) Finally after the dry brushing I applied a wash of Nuln Oil. Now I just have to wait for that all to dry now before proceeding with more dry brushing. But that’s tomorrow’s job.
Painting progress of the Alien miniatures
You’ll also see above that I have some more supplies in to start painting the Big Bang Theory figures with. The important one was the orange brown for Raj. The others were just getting more in off paints I already had.
Not board game related but I do talk video games from time to time on here. And let’s face it I have been playing them since the dawn of the entertainment media that it is.
A couple of years back the Royal Mail issued commemorative stamps celebrating the rich history and achievements of the British video game industry.
Back then I didn’t have the resources to get a set of the stamps. But I did now. So when I saw that I could still buy them whilst pre-ordering the upcoming commemorative stamps celebrating British sci-fi. Well I snapped them up.
Royal Mail commemorative stamps celebrating the British video game industry.
I’m not a stamp collector. But these like the Asterix stamps that I have are just pretty cool to own.
The stamps bring back some find memories of simpler, more care free times. There was a sense of pioneering, pushing boundaries with the games back then.
The only drawback I see with these stamps is that Llamasoft and Jeff Minter are not represented. I love Llamasoft games. They have a unique feel, almost purity to them. Minter has been a gaming hero of mine since the early 80’s. He’s a coding god in my eyes.
Alice is Missing arrives
Finally I’ve been able to get a physical copy of the silent RPG Alice is Missing (I have a digital copy).
I just now need to organise a game or two using the discord server I have access to. Oh and learn how to assign roles, etc in discord. But that’s an apathy thing to overcome.
It’s been a couple of days since I last graced this blog with my shallow thoughts and poorly formed opinions. But isn’t that just the way things are during this global event?
Although gaming has not been taking place in meat space, we did have another virtual game night last Wednesday. And our four player game of Wingspan has reached just over the mid point of round three! But that is all hardly worth writing about (unless I get really desperate for something to say, and that includes a massive misplay by Jonathan in our game of Love Letter).
I did dig out the Zombicide figures for the Big Bang Theory characters and primed them ready for painting.
The Raj figure presented me with a problem painting that I hadn’t come across before. That problem being skin tone. Luckily Duncan was able to point me to some great resources online, such as this CMoN post and this one. I now have a Vallejo Orange Brown on its way.
Looking back at the post where I spec’d them out as a Last Days squad to use I felt a bit embarrassed by what I did. So I will be revisiting this squad and “fixing” it.
I did spend some time this morning cutting and gluing some of the Alien miniatures that Gale Force Nine sell and that have ended up in my possession. The plan is to try and do some of these each day. Or every other day. Or the mood takes me! Look apathy is a real thing ok?
At the moment I have 20 more warrior aliens left to put together. Plus the Heroes of Hadley’s Hope which is 13 figures. And at some point hopefully in the near future the assets and hazards model pack will also drop through the letter box, and that also gets added to the model building queue.
Now you can see why I came up with the above plan to tackle the number of models that need building.
After all that building I then have to paint them! Although I think I might be able to get away with not painting the aliens!! Plus finish off the outstanding bits I need to do rules wise.
All this to add Aliens to Last Days and to use if I get to run the RPG. But I think it’s going to be worth it. Last Days has the potential to be the best Alien based game going!
I know I should be finishing the stat update for the triffids. But hear me out. I started painting the triffids instead.
Basically what follows are notes for me so I don’t forget what I did. All paints used are Army Painter.
Despite painting the base coat of all the triffids, I decided to do just one to completion to iron out any kinks in the process.
The base coat for the stem of the triffid is deep yellow and white mixed together (equal parts). I think this when dry works very well, and gives me the colour I wanted on the stem in the middle.
I then used Pure Red, Lava Orange and Phoenix Flames for the layering/gradient. I didn’t go straight from one to the other when painting. I would mix equal parts of the previous colour with the new colour first and do a layer of that, before moving onto the new colour. I’m not too happy with how the “flower” front came out. It’s too solid one the red, and needs a bit more orange coming through.
The base of the triffid is Wet Mud, with the bit around the prongs Wet Mud mixed with equal parts white. And the prongs are ash grey.
A diluted Green Tone wash is applied. I like the green tinge the stem takes on. And I think it has really worked wonders on the lower half.
Once dry I super glued the triffid to a base. The I flocked the base. For once a little glue sticking flock to the triffid bottom works in my favour and makes the whole thing look better!
At the weekend for some reason I got it in my head I wanted a Finn Lego minifig with the now infamous First Order helmet with the bloodied hand print on it.
Naturally that isn’t something Disney or Lego are likely to sell.
So I did a quick Google to see if anyone was selling a custom figure. Instead I found a post/video showing how to do it myself using a toothpick and red paint.
I just needed Finn as a First Order trooper. Ok technically any First Order trooper would have done. But not for me. So eBay helped out by allowing me to purchase Finn in his First Order uniform. Which arrived this morning.
I then dug out a First Order trooper and removed its helmet. Then using a toothpick, and the Army Painter Zombicide Glistening Blood paint that I had, I painted on the infamous bloodied hand print on the helmet.
Which I think has come out looking quite good.
Yesterday I did finish off removing the supports from the final 6 triffids that Duncan printed for me.
I’ve now primed all 21 triffids ready to be painted.
After doing some research in how to paint the triffids. Which was mainly looking at triffid pictures from the 1981 BBC tv adaptation. I have a colour scheme that I will be using (just waiting for the Army Painter Wet Mud paint to arrive). At the moment I’m looking at tutorials on layering/blending because that’s the main technique I will need to painting the triffids.
Lastly the Alien miniatures arrived from Thirsty Meeple this morning. I just need the alien egg/face hugger pack to arrive.
SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.
Despite the next session of our D&D campaign still some distant time in 2021, session planning is still happening. Just without the immediate time pressure.
I’ve already discussed in a previous post as part of the belated #RPGaDAY2020 some of the plans for the session.
Luckily my friend Duncan very kindly said he would print some 3D models for me to make up a gift box of 3D stuff as a Christmas present for me.
Using a shared Dropbox folder I shared the 3D models for Duncan to use.
I tried to pick models that could be used in the next session and also in other encounters. So I went for statues, pillars, stairs, doors, oozes, and other bits.
That gift box of 3D models arrived this morning.
As you can see Nan enjoyed seeing what Duncan had printed for me. Although Nico wasn’t as impressed.
Now the priming starts as does perfecting painting stone.
Below is an annotated version of the players map for the Dwarven Excavation scenario from The Essentials Kit. Basically I’m using this to help myself work out and keep track about what scenery I need to bring the map alive on the table.
I did also stumble on the fact that Games Workshop sell some Middle Earth terrain that is not only affordable but perfect for what I need. So that has ended up in my grubby mitts.
Once I’m ready I’ll start sharing some test mock ups.
A big thank you to Duncan for such a generous gift.
For those that have been following the last couple of posts and my attempt to paint the Wizkids Rather Big Skeleton Dragon will know I wanted to do something outside of my comfort zone for the base.
I had the idea that the base would look cool with some skulls on it. You know like the remains of previous victims.
My memory recalled that there was indeed a product out there in the big wide world that was just skulls. I’d seen it on the shelf of my FLGS.
After a brief google search I found what I was looking for, and I had indeed remembered correctly. Within minutes the box of skulls was ordered and on its way.
With the skulls in my grubby mitts this morning (the joys of next day delivery) I knew I wasn’t going to do the base in a style similar to the box cover.
I chose a range of different sized skulls and therefore species that I glued to the base in some sort of “pleasing way”. Ok there was no real plan for their placement.
Once dry I applied a white primer, which then also had a skeleton bone colour base coat applied over top of that when that had dried.
The knowledge that I will eventually be applying a flock to hide the mess on the base is comforting.
Now I need to do some more waiting before I can do the wash.
I said I’d post with the next stages in painting the dragon skeleton. So here I am keeping my word.
After the wash had dried I dry brushed the bone with the skeleton bone paint. I then used a matt white to dry brush around the bone joints to bring them out more, plus along the spine. I also applied the white to the teeth.
I finished the painting off by applying a red tone wash to the teeth, and certain horns and claws.
The base needs flocking now. But I’d like to do something more than my usual primitive attempt.
