Season of Scenery - Part 3

Stayed home yesterday with a nagging cough (Mostly gone now though.), so got a small moment to work on another pair of the 3D printed terrain pieces in my backlog.

This is a well. Not all that exciting. Just a well, but it'll add some more character to my WW2 East Front setups and something else for opposing forces to hid behind. It'll get "Winterizing" along with my other finished pieces.

I'd originally planned to add a little length of paperclip to act as rope dropping into the well's depths, but time wasn't on my side so that might have to be done at a later date.

Along with the above, I worked on this fiddly bugger. Each of the wooden barrels were individual 3D prints and I decided they'd make better as a based in-game objective or just scatter terrain, setting dependent. To that end, this piece will be based with a "neutral" grassy, non-winter theme so it'll fit more games. It took way longer to paint than anticipated with all those "iron hoops" banding each barrel, but I'm glad it's done; just needs a flat coat varnish and some grassy effects added. 

On the table is another East Front 3D printed house and the remainder of my Fidwog Quar figs (That I'm determined to get finished before the imminent release of the new Starter Set next month.).

Hope all are safe and well out there and prayers to those poor souls in Nepal and Tibet. 

- Dai

3rd Awr-Range Wardens (Quar Fidwogs - Part 8)

Heavens to Murgatroyd, I found myself with a couple hours once more this weekend for hobby!

To finish out my second basic Quar Fidwog infantry squad, I slapped some paint on their Fynrydhad Squad Support Tractor. Same tiny kit as the previously painted version from the first squad, just a couple different items of stowage. 

A little white sponge-dabbed on the tracks and lower carapace so it will match better with the Winter theme of my Fidwog.

Losh the tractor commander is new to the regiment. He's kept mostly to himself to this point, afraid one of his squad-mates will out him for being underage. Being only an adolescent, the regiment recruiting officers would never have accepted his application to the ranks, but Losh painted on some extra spots on his snout and so they didn't think twice that he might not be an adult yet. 

 

Bits of stowage from the bitsbox, painted in drab colours to contrast from the burgundy hull. Scrappy #2 painted to indicate which squad this tractor is assigned to. Purple skin on the driver, my fav to paint so far.

I stuck a spare infantry backpack to the side of the turret to show the driver is planning for an extended period of service out in the field. 

And here it is with it's Squad #1 partner. Shame that the rules really don't work well with more than one of these at a time, but for Xenos Rampant I think I can make them work easily. (That is, when I find time to actually play.)

This new tractor needs a coat of flat varnish still though, so forgive the glare.

And a pic to show off the completed second squad which also finishes off the Fidwog Infantry box. I've just some more Specialists, a Courier and Syrnol (Major) left to paint so VERY close to "Fully Painted" for this project which feels good. 

I've been having issues with my cheap Light Box so today's post features some bad paint deskphotos, apologies.

Last for this post I realised in my previous post I had missed highlighting one of the painted troops, my Anti-Tank Lancer! These guys lug about these explosive "Grafaenk Mk4 Lances" that they literally throw like javelins at armoured targets to destroy or disable them. Obviously the range on these things is mostly determined by the strength of the Quar that is throwing them, so one would have to get pretty up close and personal to be at all effective. Suffice to say, casualties amongst these Anti-Tank Specialists can be rather high...

Most consider Specialist Orven to have a "screw loose" and not just because he's tasked with the most dangerous task on the battlefield. He's always the one trooper in the regiment who seems to hunt down trouble, whether it's attempting to take down a Tokish Ailthean tractor head on or stepping up to the largest Quar in the Regiment just to prove who's toughest, it's almost as though Orven has a deat wish. 

Love the pack of "Lances" on his back. Kind of eager to paint up the second Lancer for my Fidwogs.

That's it for now. Hoping to get another WW2 East Front house done when next I'm presented with a hobby opportunity to post about. 

Hope all are well and safe out there,

- Dai

3rd Awr-Range Wardens (Quar Fidwogs - Part 7 & Season of Scenery - Part 2)

Another chance weekend where I was afforded time at the hobby desk whilst my wife and her sister and Mum went shopping!

And so I present yet another Quar update to showcase the troops from my second squad of Fidwog infantry, an Anti-Tank Lancer and the cutest trio of "Fidwog Fydo's" you ever did see. 

These plastic infantry kits are lots of fun to assemble with plenty of options to help customize poses and so forth and that's even before adding some 3D printed arms and accessories (Like the below shown pair of soft caps.) to further personalise. 

The Fydos themselves are 3D prints ordered directly from the Zombiesmith Miniatures website - smaller than I was anticipating but otherwise lovely crisp sculpts with a huge amount of character that were loads of fun to paint up.

Group pic proving that even I can "batch paint". Kinda. 

As with the members of the first squad, here are individual closeups and some blurb to give them more character.

han-Gaefyn Alchaehyl is "han-Gaefyn" in name only. Half the day he seems to be high, smoking some mountain weed or other. His squad members do appreciate how his drug usage helps keep the squad LMG operator cool under fire though.

Gaefyn Chir is a local from the Awr Range area, coming from a small gold mining settlement near the 3rd ARW outpost. His father was killed, serving in the 3rd ARW during a Tokish incursion and so Chir felt honour-bound to enlist once he turned of age to follow in his father's footsteps. He both wields his father's aged rhyfle and sports his soft-cap. 

Gaefyn Marn also wields an aged rhyle though no-one else in the squad knows where it came from. Marn is known to "appropriate" items, often selling them on to others in the regiment. Questions are rarely asked though as his ability to source hard to find comforts has become very much apopreciated.

Gaefyn Raessi is the cousin to Gaefyn Chir. He too wears his father's outdated softcap in honour of his parent's sacrifice at the front. Raessi is known to take silly chances in battle, only the Ancestors know how long his luck will hold out before he is called to their number. His cousin feels responsible for Chir's safety and is constantly checking over his shoulder.

This is Yawdryl Fynn, a no-nonsense squad leader, or at least that's what he thinks. The truth is his Quar see him as just "loud noise" and don't take him seriously at all. Luckily they are well trained enough in the regiment to perform their duties at a more than efficient level. (Fynn also has a reputation for visiting the single Dynas (Female Quar) in the local villages far more frequently than the other squad members. His appetite for their... "services" is well known.)

The following pics are of a trio of Fydo's, canine companions and guards the 3rd ARW use in the narrow passes and mines of their alpine territory. In the Clash of Rhyfles rule set they are fast close combat critters that I'm excited to try outwhen I next get to play.  

Fydo's in the Clash of Rhyfles are typically illustrated and painted up with more normal "dog" fur colouring, browns, black, white etc. I felt mine needed to stand out more so I went with some whimsical bright schemes instead which I felt was lots more fun.

Rus is the only male Fydo in regiment's kennel. He can be a little erratic whilst out in the field, but he is the best tracking Fydo of the three.

This sculpt has the Fydo cocking his leg to pee. I took that as an excuse to glue on a small length of paperclip for further effect. Think it turned out pretty good.

Cam is a good girl and the kennel-master's favourite. He claims she is as smart as any Quar. Rhyflers at the garrison joke that he'd probably leave his wife for Cam the way he speaks so fondly about her.

Was a little worried using pink on this one due to it looking a bit "Cheshire-cattish"?

Duro is the youngest of the Fydo pack and still learning the ropes. She seems happy following the others though and should prove a capable addition to the 3rd in time.

Tricky to tell with the lighting in the first pic but this little fydo is having a good scratch at her cheek with her back foot.

Last up for this post is another of the 3D printed WW2 East Front buildings I previously posted about - the Russian Orthodox chapel. This is a very nicely detailed print and I really enjoyed putting colour to it. The interior also has detail and I even glued in some bench-pews but my back was killing me so I called it quits. I'll come back to the interior another time. (Probably when I add Snow effects.)

And that's it for this post. Hope all are safe and well out there. It's supposed to be 105 degrees here today... If I don't melt, maybe I'll be able to post again should time allow for more hobby.

- Dai

Season of Scenery - Part 1

 Dave Stone at the Wargamesculptorblog is running his annual Season of Scenery "challenge" - an effort to encourage his readers and blog subscribers to push out some terrain items from their backlogs. (Vehicles count too!)

I have plenty of unpainted stuff sat in tubs and bags and of late, my gaming table decor has started to feel a little stale, so yesterday I decided try and get some of the 3D printed pieces I'd added to my collection a year ago painted and ready for Winter effects (That I plan to do to all of the 3D printed pieces at once when they have been painted.).

Not hugely exciting, but I think the following will help add more depth to my play setups and only the one pic cos... c'mon, they aren't exactly "eye candy" right? :)

Three tri-stacks of hay, a small shed, two out-houses, 2 log piles and a wood-cutting scene. All kindly done on a mate's fdm printer.

It was a decent tho humid day yesterday, so I set up to paint these primarily with craft paints. Think they came out okay. They are currently drying after being dullcoted. 

Short post but at least some progress and nine items marked off the paint mountain AND I primed six of the 3D printed East Front buildings from the same set so they are ready for the next round. Not a bad start. Hope to get more done this weekend. 

Hope all are safe and well out there,

- Dai

Amelia Pond - that was a great name!

 Now I have your attention, you'll swiftly realise that this post has nothing to do with Dr Who** as the title might have otherwise lead you to believe and is infact just a post about a pond. Yup, that's it, a piece of terrain that represents .a. .pond. A frozen pond at that.

This particular sculpt is a lovely resin cast designed and sculpted by Dave Stone over at the Wargamesculptors Blog and purchased directly from his webstore. If you've been following my blog for a bit, you'll know I have a snowy Winter terrain set up for my WW2 games and I felt the little farm/settlement I've already put together was direly in need of a natural water source. Knowing Dave puts out a quality product through his blog posts I decided to click "purchase" and this lovely thing arrived in swift order from across the pond shortly thereafter. 

The sculpt was poured in opaque green resin and the details very crisp. Dave suggested I paint the underside in dark colours (Which I did - prussian blue then black and sealed in with Modge Podge) to show depth beneath the ice. I then liberally slapped on a grey wash over the ice areas and once dried a very watered-down white wash to fill in the cracks and show the definition in the piece (This part didn't work exactly as planned, but it'll do.). The surrounding areas got a quick light grey base coat then successive lighter grey and white drybrush to look like snow. Once dry I glued on a few frosty grass clumps and called it a day. This weekend I'll give it a blast with some Dulcoat to seal the paint job.

Not sure how or if this piece will affect gameplay, but I'm very happy with the result and my table has a little more interest added to it.

Dave is also running a Season of Scenery challenge and I'm trying to get at least a couple more entries before the challenge is over at the end of this month so hopefully I'll have a post or two more for August to share before the challenge is over.

Hope all are well out there,

- Dai

** Amelia Pond is actually my all time fav Doctor's Companion from Doctor Who (And Ms Gillan is rather easy on the eye - obviously!), even more so than Ace, Sylvester McCoy's fun companion from when I was a lad.

Green Meanie

Sunday saw the end of my 7-day break from work. Most of that time was taken up dog sitting for 5 raucous and annoying dogs, so not at all restful. But! As my previous 3 or so posts have shown, I've had a bit of time to work on my unpainted mountain, so not all bad, eh?

So to the subject of this post's title, after seeing Dave's own painted Space Ork on his Blog, I was suddenly inspired to (finally, I've only had this mini for almost 20 years or something) get this big bugger off my unpainted mountain as a palette cleanser type effort. He's an older metal Games Workshop Space Ork Nob (A larger, leader variant of the violent alien species). I'd originally picked him up to join as a mercenary-type character for one of my Rogue Trader teams for an old INQ28 project. Now, strictly speaking, the typical merc within the Ork faction are of the honourless Blood Axes Clan, but this fellow didn't fit the "Blood Axes" aesthetic, nor (My personal favs) from the Evil Sunz, so I painted him up to be from the Goff Clan. So black with black and white chequers. He had a lot of detail, so it took a LONG time to get him done, but looking at the finished result, I'm pretty happy how he turned out. No idea when or if he'll ever see time on the game table, but I'm glad he's finished.

Ridiculously huge weapons make for a comical figure. I decided that the little pet (A Squigg) on his banner pole should be a garish colour to contrast well with the otherwise dull rusty metals and dark skin and black clothing. The sculpt does have eyes under that helmet, but they were so damned small I felt that if you were peering that close to look at them then you can paint the flippin things in.

                                                 

Curious place for piercings.

Not the back banner he was supplied with (No idea where that went.), luckily had a selection of plastic options as a replacement and this one was the most fun I think.

I cheated a bit with the chequers, using a very fine Micron pen to draw the lines, then filled with paint. End result after a quick gunmetal sponge are some "good enough" pauldrons!

Those big arms should have been pinned, but I had to paint him in pieces, so I hope the Gorilla Glue holds!

Lastly, I also got this simple resin effort off the table - named a "Water Container" and from the now OOP Warlord Games "Project Z" range. I've seen these things in real life on the farms where my in laws live, but they are used for chemicals and not water, but whatever. I based it's colour scheme off one of those though, with a little murky looking wash in the recesses as though it's been left out and alone for a while. It'll feature as a small scatter terrain piece for my Zombie Outbreak project game.

Not sure what'll be next as I feel a small break from the paint desk is required. (My back says "THANK YOU!".)

Hope all are continuing to stay safe out there,

- Dai

More scenic pieces

 Finding a little more time to myself in the last few evenings has allowed me to work on some more terrain pieces in my unpainted mountain for the Season of Scenery challenge.

The first of these are a pair of wrecked vehicles from the Waling Dead minis game. The car kinda looks like a Mercedes and the truck a Chevy in my mind. 

Painting was simple base/drybrush/multiple-washes. Tried to make them look like they’d been left out for a bit too. The sculpts are good enough for gaming and their price point and the box comes with duplicates too which is nice. 

These will find use in my (ever so slow cooking) zombie survival game project.

Joe’s Tows. No tow hook tho. Joe isn’t that smart. Neither is my freehand lol

Third piece to show is a statue I put together. 40mm base with a Gatorade bottle lid and an old metal Reaper miniatures kneeling Paladin on a curved lipped 25mm base. With a little dry brushing some washes and some basing elements to age it I think it came out looking better than where it started, which honestly wasn’t very encouraging! Lol

I think it’ll be usable for both fantasy games but also historical at a push? We’ll see. 

This post was put together exclusively on my iPhone so I hope it and the pics comes out okay, feel free to let me know.

Have moved onto something very different now these are drying after being varnished. Hope to have pics posted up soon.

As always, stay safe out there.

- Dai

All Praise the Three-Armed Goddess!!!

 Today is my second entry for a fun little challenge that Dave over at Wargamesculptors Blog has run during Summers called "Season of Scenery" - an effort to help motivate hobby bloggers to get some of their backlog of terrain pieces done during these hot and sweaty (At least it's hot and nasty where I live in the world) Summer months. 

My last post featured my first entry as vehicles are allowed and this one will be completely different from that!

Nice Statue of Saint Celestine, patron saint of white chocolate and skulls.

Earlier this year, Games Workshop released a new range of plastic miniatures for their Adeptus Sororitas range (Battle Sisters/Nuns to the older Warhammer 40K gamers reading this). Lovely sculpts that like much of what they design these days command a high msrp. A terrain model was part of the release which included this statue as part of their "Battle Sanctum" kit. I didn't want to shell out for the whole model as I have plenty of 40K buildings in my unpainted mountain waiting to be assembled and painted, but I saw that statue and thought.... "That would make for a cool terrain centerpiece for my Genestealer Cult project (That has sat long neglected *cough cough*)...." So I hopped on Ebay and found a seller selling just that part of the kit and for an affordable price. 

Now, although the stock sculpt is a very nicely designed piece, my image in my mouldy ol' head of the statue for my army was a different image. So once the kit arrived, I pulled out my Greenstuff and got to sculpting!

And.... enough waffling on! Here's the pics:

Pre-primer. I wanted her to pretty much look as if the Cult members took a treasured statue

 of the Imperium and corrupted and changed it to represent their own hero/idol. I changed the sword with some spare Genestealer claws instead of the standard winged crossguard, snipped off and replaced the Sisters of Battle Fleurs de Lis here and there with little skulls and added a spare Genestealer skull on the base of the statue where you're supposed to glue the little candles. I thought it would make for a nice little altar to a fallen family member.

The head and arm were sculpted from scratch. Now, I'm not going to say I'm ever going to be producing miniatures professionally as from this pic is all looks like turd. But I wanted them both to be a bit rough looking, rough hewn sculpting- my Cult are not known for their artistic talent! 

For the scheme I went with something similar to the Studio scheme, but wanted the "added" parts to look as though they DEFINITELY do not look like they belong there.  

This is a rather large model and I am sure I could've painted it to a higher standard, but oof.... that's a lot of alabaster/bone and I got bored quick! So tabletop standard is good enough for me.

Have to say, those wings are lovely.

Her 3rd arm was based off of a Genestealer fan art I found online. Didn't want it to be all splayed out to show the claws as I didn't feel that it looked natural. Gave me a small task to try to make a 3-finger-fist which I think I did well enough.

Close up of the face all painted and pretty.

The sword is the standard sculpt with a couple changes. I like it. 

Close up of the base. Red candles for some spot colour and the nice white skull of ol' Aunty Bess the 1st 'Stealer to land on the planet and start the Cult "all those years ago"...

I have another piece to post up on probably later this week and maybe some more. Has been a nice excuse to get some long unloved terrain off the unpainted pile.

Forgive also if I haven't commented on your blogs of late. For some reason my Reading List isn't populating with ANYTHING and I don't know why. Waiting to see if it fixes itself, but if not in the next few days, then I'll reach out to Blogger to see what can be done.

Stay safe out there through Covid Delta folks!

- Dai