Category Archives: painting

painting

Not bad for a week

Battletech, Battletech Alpha Strike, painting

So in the space of about a week I have painted the lance (four mechs) in the BattleTech Inner Sphere Fire Lance, the thirteen mechs that come in the BattleTech Alpha Strike box set, a mech from the BattleTech Beginner Box, and a mech and ground support vehicle BattleTech Mercenaries Box Set. There are three more mechs drying off before the bases are done to make them complete.

The remaining mechs and vehicles for the Mercenaries box set have been primed and started the paint process.

Obviously I still have four more box sets to paint up and a support vehicles pack. Plus the nine blind gothic boosters.

Next box set to go through the process is the BattleTech Aces Scouring Sands box set, and a single gothic booster.

The gothic booster is to test an idea for a gothic colour scheme I have in mind. I have a plate armour gray primer coming. Which obviously will be the underlying colour of my gothic mechs.

One nearly down, lots to go!

Battletech, Battletech Alpha Strike, painting

It’s no great secret that the part of the miniatures gaming hobby I dislike, nay hate, get no enjoyment from at all, is the assembly and painting side.

So it will come as a big surprise not only to you but me that I’m painting some BattleTech minis.

At last years UKGE I bought some paint pens. Which saw me paint two or three bits of Halo Flashpoint scatter terrain. I even primed some miniatures. However the novelty wore off and I stopped.

However in an attempt to delay, even stop the nagging by Diogo in the mornings to have a walk and be fed, I changed our morning routine.

So now instead of barely having time to drink a coffee before the nagging (barking) starts. I get up, make my coffee, open the back door, and put down half of Diogo’s breakfast. I stay down stairs doing something like sleeving two Wingspan expansions whilst drinking my coffee. Diogo is much more chilled, comes down, goes out, eats. Then goes back upstairs to destroy the evil pillows on my bed. However I’ve managed to delay our morning walk by an hour, and there is no nagging. Although we still get the excited getting ready barking.

Once the card sleeving had been finished I needed something else to do downstairs. So I started out with the Inner Sphere Fire Lance that I had.

Zeus BattleTech mech

I primed them with a green primer, then using red, light grey, gunmetal, black, and dark aluminium I painted parts of the mech armour.

It’s not the best painting in the world. Thanks to old age effecting the eyesight, and fine motor control of the paint pens. Although I never was the best painter.

However with the pot of shader that you just dip the models in I’m getting that used universe look I like.

The models look barely tabletop ready. But from a distance they are ok, just don’t look at them close up.

I just need to flock the bases now (stuff on the way).

The models of the Alpha Strike box set have been primed and I even finished painting the easiest of them, the Atlas mech.

Atlas from Alpha Strike box set.

I still have a lot of mechs to paint.

But it looks like I have the time now.

Unnamed blog post

Last Days, miniatures, miniatures painting, new arrivals, painting, RPG

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.

BBT Squad Prep and Aliens

Alien, Last Days, miniatures, miniatures painting, painting

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!

1 Triffid Down…

Last Days, miniatures, miniatures painting, painting

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!

1 triffid down, 20 more to do!

FN-2187

Last Days, lego minifigs, miniatures, miniatures painting, painting

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.

Goblin Druid

miniatures, painting

I did some painting yesterday. It was just one figure. But it had been partially started a few months ago. All that had been done at that point in time was the hat mask combo.

So it was time to finish it.

At the time of buying I was after a goblin wizard. It was to be used for the Matt Colville Tomb of the Delian Order Adventure that I was going to be running (my first experience as a DM – and yes the power went to my head).

However my Internet travels looking for one were fruitless. But I did find this goblin druid. It looked wizard like! I could use that, who’d notice?

And no-one did.

The only time this plan will fail is if I need a goblin druid and wizard in the same encounter. Hopefully this will be a rare occurrence. Planning and all that.

So now I have a table top ready goblin druid that will masquerade as a wizard from time to time as and when needed.

Adding Agitators

painting

This is a short post! ‘Thank god” went the shouts around the Internet.

Earlier today I shared on Facebook and Twitter via Instagram the photo below, asking people to guess what I’d been doing.

Here is the answer.

A few days ago I was watching a video on YouTube by Lukes Aps.

After watching that video as I was ordering more paints (I needed more for the cave tiles) I also ordered a bag of 8mm ball bearings.

So with the new paints that arrived at the same time I’ve added agitators to them. I feel so pretentious saying that.

There is not any way in the world at any point in my life I’d think I’d ever be doing this, or speaking like that.

But it’s a useful tip to know.

Update on planning for session 1 #3

D&D, painting, RPG, session planning

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.

Ok let’s start with the painting of the cliffs.

On 3 of the cliff tiles I added some flock. Which was way way too light. I thought I was going to have to clean it off and forget it.

However I was hit by a brainwave, yeah unusual for me I know. So I broke out the green wash and dabbed it on the flock.

I’m now much happier with the results.

Decided to start on the cave tiles with two of the larger ones I currently have. In the photos below the wash is drying so looks glossy. But they won’t end up like that.

I’ve done a supplies restock, and have more of the colours I’m using for the cave tiles on the way.

I now have the Ghosts of Saltmarsh source book (a post will appear over the next couple of days on that). So I can now feed information from there in to my planning.

Such as I now have a location for Saltmarsh on the Sword Coast. I’d originally in my head had it in the area below. But about a week ago when things started to click I moved it much further south. South of Baldar’s Gate and nearer to the border.

However in Ghosts of Saltmarsh they suggest that Saltmarsh is between Neverwinter and Waterdeep. It gets further narrowed down when they say that Thornhold is south of Saltmarsh. So based on the information given, I’m placing Saltmarsh at the northern end of the Mere of Dead Men.

I’ve also identified the islands that the opening encounters will take place on. I was going to treat the second island as a wilderness encounter. But thanks to the new book I have stats for seals! So if they land on the opposite side of the island to the small fishing huts, they will come across seals on the beach.

The fishing huts are a summer resting spot for fishermen while they catch fish, cure them, before returning back to their community with their catches. Which will be fresh fish they caught on the journey back, and the cured stuff. These fishermen will give the party a ride to Kythyss. The fishermen know about the pirate base. There is an accommodation between the pirates and the fishermen. The fishermen say nothing about the pirates, provide them with fish. In return the pirates keep the fishermen safe.

Once the party have reached Alaron for the festival I want the party to get a boat. Most likely a keel boat. There will be one or two ways for them to get one. I like the idea of them owing a powerful figure. And you can be sure that at a later point they will be calling in that debt.

The town map for Kythyss will actually be the Saltmarsh town map. Makes sense because my players won’t be exploring Saltmarsh for a long time. Saves me prep time, and one less thing to create.

There are one or two adventures in Ghosts Of Saltmarsh that I can use for the campaign. So if I fancy a break from planning I can use on of them.

I’d also at some point like to run some underwater adventures as part of the campaign. But at the moment I don’t have a credible excuse for allowing the party to breathe underwater.

Anyway I hope you found this thought sharing interesting.

Chains and Barrels

D&D, painting, RPG

The bank holiday weekend saw me experiment with painting one of the barrels that was printed for me by a friend. Plus an attempt to paint the piles of chains that came with the cage I bought.

The end result for the barrel I’m very happy with. The metal was painted with Runefang Steel, and the wood with Mournfang Brown. Then a mild brown wash applied. The groves in the wood didn’t come out dark enough for my liking. So I applied a second layer of the wash just to those groves. Which gave me a result I was more happy with. I do like how the wash gave the metal a rusted/copper look.

The chains are ok. And will do. For those I used the Runefang Steel again, and then a dark tone wash.

I also started a couple of chests, that I think need the wash applying again to darken the groves more.

Now to do the other barrels I have printed.