More Odds and Sods

More finished stuff hot off the paint station - a Paladin, the second Jomsviking Bondi mentioned in my last post and a small Burrows and Badgers scatter terrain piece. 

First up is the Paladin, an old early 80’s TSR Dungeons and Dragons Paladin. I named him Rogelio de la Vega (Bonus interwebs points for getting that random reference.) and decided I’d paint him up in colours I don’t normally choose, so it was a fun experiment and I think he came out just fine. I like to think that he is a terrible dandy and an obvious show off, more likely to step in to stop a nefarious act only to bolster his reputation in the eyes of onlookers.

White plate armour? That must mean this guy has some money to spend on enameling!

The crossed keys symbol doesn’t feature in my limited DnD searches online. Guessing it’s from the real life Catholic reference? Or not. Either way, it helped key in (see what I did there?) the purple in his colour scheme beyond his feathers.

Pale pink cloak and darker pink tunic were both applied in craft paints. Rather surprised with how good their finish looks!

This next bloke is a metal mini by Gripping Beast, a Jomsviking Bondi for my Dark Ages project. That fancy helmet and green poncho-cloak-thing combo must have been a nice part of a loot pilefrom a raid in the Mediterranean or some such. I kept the paint job on this one simple so he wouldn’t stand out too much from the others in his unit.

Not sure this feller is all that fearsome like the other  Vikings? Don’t tell him I said that though

Last up for this post is a little resin piece of scatter terrain. I got it for my church terrain (to be featured in a later post) and it’ll add some fun Burrows and Badgers style design elements to the whole affair. Simple painting to look like the stone mausoleum it’s supposed to represent.  

Basic paint job so it looks stone-y. Was going to try for a marble effect but… no, not this time.

Sister Tomasina looks to the scripture whilst next to the  mausoleum of Sir Gorgonzola. Little does she know, his life crumbled about him when pressure was applied.

There’ll be more soon, tho at a bit of a slower progression.

Dearly hope all are well out there,

- Dai 

Horace, Knud and the Jacob Sheep

A few random mini's cleared off the Mountain this weekend, painted to a table top standard. 

The first is an old early 80's Dungeons and Dragons Cleric by TSR. A lovely little sculpt, though somewhat smaller than current larger sculpts, being 25mm rather than 28/32mm. Regardless, he/she will be added to the rpg collection for the next game I run. (Whenever that will be.) I call him Horace - that seems to be a good name for a do-gooder cleric type.

No eyes painted on this one, that cowl hangs down too much to make it worth my while in attempting. Also, the sculpted detail about the neck of the tabard I think is supposed to be a necklace(?), but the detail is so soft I elected to just keep it the same colour as the tabard. 

Wasn't going to struggle to clip the integral base off so it looks like this cleric is on a step of sorts. Which works for me and will help it match better with the other fantasy figs in my collection height wise.

Next up is a little Kobold mini by Ral Partha from the mid 90's. I owned this mini for almost 30 years before I put paint to him - Shame on me. Kobolds seem to have gone through a transformation in design from their early iteration in Dungeons and Dragons, turning from little large-headed underground "men" to now, flat-out tiny dragon people. This fellow seems to be in the middle of that transformation, part little man, part scaly thing with a tail. I named him Knud, though gawds know why, in game Kobolds tend to die if a player even breathes on them so naming one could seem pointless!

If he has an eyepatch, it must mean he's "Dead 'ard" and survived a battle or two right!? 

More likely he just cut himself shaving!
I have another 2 or 3 of this style kobold sculpts in the paint queue.

Last up for this post is a nice small flock of Jacob Sheep. These fleecy fellows are by an unknown producer (Feel free to shout out if you recognise them in the comments as I'd love to give credit where it's due.) and are a bit soft in detail, but for "sheep" they'll do nicely. I chose this breed of sheep primarily for my Dark Ages project, but they'll do just fine for fantasy and other historical periods. Kept the paint jobs very simple on these as essentially the base is just a scenic element or at best an objective. The pics are a bit naff, but they'll do and I'm happy to see this little flock off the Mountain.

Hoping to get another couple figs painted and posted in the next week or so so watch this space!

Stay safe out there all. It's a nasty time of life.

- Dai

De[ad]cember

The end of the year is nigh....

Ominous eh?

Okay, maybe not. Goodbye 2015, hello 2016 - I turn 40 later this new year, now THAT is ominous!

My Kickstarter rewards from the last Red Box Games Kickstarter arrived along with a set of their lovely zombie models and I've been painting furiously during my week off (Which is now at an end, I go back to work once more on the morrow - another ominous moment.). This set of 9 undead are all individual sculpts and great ones too, which was great and all are on the gore-lite side of zombie, which was also somewhat refreshing, but also made for painting to be a quick and simple affair. I'm not really inclined to put amazing amounts of effort into low hitpoint badguys as they'll probably spend little time on the tabletop in my rpg, being so easy to kill! (again)

Group shot - lots of shambliness and minlessness about this lot. Which i like very much.

Really like these sculpts - far more creepy side of zombies captured in contrast with the typical goriness and violence that other manufacturers produce like say, Mantic or GW.

These are all seem best suited to a fantasy environment due to their attire seeming rather poor and peasant-like.

And all bald and incredibly scrawny, which indicates less violent deaths, and probably more virus/disease-based endings for these poor souls.

Now I think about it,  these zombies will also be perfect for use with the recently released Dragon Rampant (Currently on sale, cheap! Click the link to see details.) rules set by Osprey Publishing!!! (Their fantasy version of their awesome Medieval/Dark Ages skirmish rules set, Lion Rampant - also currently on sale, cheap!)

 Also got this crossbow wielding fellow finished for my Frostgrave project. He's a rather old Citadel Miniatures (I think) orc, with exquisite detail sculpted throughout I think. I've painted him up in my Hobgoblins scheme rather than a typical green due tot he fact that orcs in my settings are of the pig-faced variety.

Lovely determined expression on this one.

A pouch of bolts and a nice hand axe hanging from his belt. Thought the red grip on the axe contrasted well with the brown leathers and purple jerkin.

Sheepskin seemed the more believable choice for his furs - sheep are easier to "hunt" than wolves or bears.

Lastly and again for my Frostgrave project, I slapped some paint on this 1983 TSR warhound. A fun and very simple sculpt and I decided he'd be a Doberman. At least that was what I was going for.

Per-dullcote, so the grassy loose pieces are long cleaned.

And a little out of focus on the face in this one, the chainmail also looks more defined in real life.

Not sure I'll get in another post before the New Year comes around proper, though I am working on my final two character miniatures for my rpg campaign, which will allow me to commence running it in the next couple weeks or so! (I'll be sure to leave an account here if there's any interest.)

Happy New Year to you all - I hope hobby-wise, it's a fruitful and fun 366 days! (It being a Leap Year and all.)

- Dai

Trip trop, trip trop, trip trop

Admiral Drax requested some pictures of my recently painted bridge with some figs alongside for scale determination so here you go.

Also managed to get the two (very ugly sculpts) old 1983 TSR Trolls painted in a short hour and a half session for future roleplay games and a Reaper Minis Assassin who also was done up in short time. Hope you like.

Somewhere in not-Britain a Canadian convoy rolls over a bridge.

Lots of space for two lanes here.

Tigers? We ain't got no stinkin' Tigers!

Boogah boogah boogah!

Bridge works with 28/30mm too.

You brought goats, right?

Honestly, I didn't bring goats, not curried or anything.

This cloak fends off the rays of the sun.

When yer ugly, raise up those arms and be proud

My 9-year-old son sculpts better than this.