Currently on the painting table

On the painting table: Batman Miniature Game!

Friday, July 26, 2013

A Tale of Two Grissels

In one of my last posts I showed some WiPs of Grissel1 in her early stages. I haven't had much painting time lately as I picked up a bunch of hours at my other job last week to cover some holes (stinks working on weeks off but extra hobby money is nice). After starting Grissel1 I decided I should try and paint Grissel2 at the same time to keep them as uniform as possible. Once I made this decision Grissel2 went into the stripping solution (using Purple Power currently) and the wait began. I have to say this may have been the best strip job I have seen as nearly all the paint came off perfectly. After that she was primed via the air brush and base colors were painted both with the airbrush and with standard brush. Here is their current status:
 


The metal was airbrush on and was painted with VMA gun paint. The red were airbrushed with VMA mahogany (you can see the overspray on the metal). Skin was painted with my trollblood base color, tartan with Froundry drab, red was paiunted with VMC burnt cad red leaving some mahogany in the cracks.


I drybrushed the heads of Resounder with my typical trollkin stone set up: P3 thornwood green, P3 bastion grey, P3 trollblood highlight, P3 Menoth white highlight. I will need to paint in the metal sections still but they look ready to roll.

 
Here are the girls next to each other. Man does Grissel1 need a resculpt. I am toying with changing the skirt section on Grissel1 to red like on Grissel2 but I don't know. Thoughts?

Friday, July 19, 2013

Color Me Disappointed

A few months back I (finally) subscribed to NQ via PP so I could get it mailed to the house and have it earlier than street release. Today when I woke up the wife informed me I had something in the mail and low and behold it was my first home delivered NQ. I knew, from the photo of the cover on PPs main page, that this issue was going to have a new trollbloods theme force....Yay. the first thing I did was flip to the theme force....OK Calandra cool and it was all down hill from there. I have to say meh I was not too excited (I kinda like the PoM one). If you haven't seen a copy of the new NQ the force looks like this:

Calandra theme force - Evolutionary Elementalism

Beasts: Mountain King, Storm/Slag/Pyre/Winter trolls
Units: KSB, Runeshapers, Warders
Solos: Runebearer, Runeshaper solos, Whelps

Tier 1 - Beasts are -1pt (OK always welcome)
Tier 2 - KSB starts with more Fury based on number of Runeshapers units/solos (Poor mans runes of war. Runeshapers are full cost and still FA:2)
Tier 3 - 3 different lights, lights get AD (So one storm, slag, and pyre I supose. AD beasts is goo but do they really want to be up in in?)
Tier 4 - Mountain King: choose a warbeast, all models get its animus first turn (limited utility IMO. If you had access to an axer I'd be far more excited cause rush one everything...nice. Immunity fire for all? Meh)

I may be missing something but it has aspects of runes or war but nowhere near as good. You have to take the mountain king if you want any real armor cracking. All in the all the list feels off to me. I have to say in the game of NQ theme forces Doug Seacat >> David "DC" Carl. Family Reunion >> Evolutionary Elementalism
Step up your game "DC" :)

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Let's Get Ghostly

At the end of last year Badger released their own line of airbrush ready paint. At the time the released there was a bunch of reviews popping up on youtube but I couldn't find a lot of retailers (at least one I deal with) that carried the line. A large portion of the line seemed repetitive to what I had so I wasn't overly interested except for a group of paints they call ghost tints. These are clear acrylic paints that appeared to have some really cool possibilities. After the initial urge to buy died down I kinda forgot about them for the most part with only the occasional thought of "hey I bet those ghost tints could be cool on X"

A few weeks back Andrew over at Schnauzerface minis released a Rhan tutorial and it got me thinking about the tints once again (you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm9f3mjkuhU ). I have decided I cannot pick up anymore factions so that helped me keep from buying a Rhan and trying to replicate Andrew's work. Then local player Bloodyarcane said he was starting up Ret so I told him when he picked up Rhan I'd paint it if he wanted. One thing leads to another and I ordered the 12 ghost tints through amazon and they arrived today:





There is a pretty nice spread of colors but I definitely see myself using some far more than others. I am not sure when I will get around to trying them out but look forward to seeing how they turn out.

Monday, July 15, 2013

pGrissel WiPs

I got started working on most of the minis from the latest what's in the box series. I primed everything (except Borka) via the airbrush. Once the primer had time to cure a little I basecoated the blue skin on Grissel, the bomber, the scattergunners, and keg carrier with my standard troll blue via the airbrush. The storm troll got basecoated with my standard elemental troll skintone. I then roughly blocked in some of the leather sections via the airbrush on the minis. That was all done two days ago. This morning I did some extra work on the queen of jams pGrissel. This is Ms. Grissel in here current state:




 
After the skin and leather skirt were airbrushed I painted her scarf with VMC burnt cad red, the tartan with foundry drab, the boots with P3 battlefield brown, and blacked out the metals in preparation for metallic paints. There is obviously a lot to do still but she is coming together pretty nicely. I think I am going to try and add details to the tartan on her seeing as it is a large portion of this mini...we will see. My work week starts tonight and one of my regulars is off this week so could be a long one. Fingers crossed it will be ok and I will have some more photos for you. This latest barch of minis had me excited to paint so gotta ride that wave ;)

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Oh Buddy! What's in the Box Part VI (I think)

I was up until well past 4am last night with a coughing child so I took a little nap this afternoon. When I woke up my wife brought me a package I received while sleeping.....oh happy days. Those of you that follow along can probably guess whom sent this pack but for those newer to the cave it was from Mr. Rob Hawkins. OK you don't care what I have to say lets get to the shinnies!

 Pretty straight forward....unit of scattergunners cause eGrim demanded it dammit :)

Storm Troll. One of  the last light I didn't own 

 
Bomber #2 cause what's better than two boostable 4" AOEs? Four of them. Once again at the request of eGrim and Gunnbjorn. You can see more angles and info on this conversion here: http://robhawkinshobby.blogspot.com/2013/07/bomber-conversion.html


Here is a little pGrissel conversion. pGrissel was the last of the trollblood 'locks I didn't own and mainly because I don't like the sculpt. Well I figured it was time to pick her up and rob did minimal cosmetic work on here since it is a tough model to convert without major work. He swapped out the much nicer hammerhead/end cap from eGrissel in exchange for the original (they are the same hammer they should look the same now?) This brings us to the best part of the post.......





What can you say but badass! You can see step by steps from Rob here: http://robhawkinshobby.blogspot.com/2013/06/building-better-borka.html the only thing that has changed from Rob's blog post can be seen in the final picture above. Rob sculpted some fur coming out of the gauntlets to match the artwork even more closely. I am so thrilled with this mini I cannot truly put it in works. I cannot wait for the plastic champ kit in September so I can properly fill out my family reunion list.

 One big happy family of troll beat down heading your way!
 

When I took that final photos I realized how much it looks like the cover of Forces of Hordes: Trollbloods. I may have to re-stage this photo when everything is painted up nice and pretty. OK I have to run I think I have a date with my priming stations :)

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Broadside Bart WiPs

I mentioned the other day how scatterbrained I have been with my hobby time of late. One of the projects I have started is Broadside Bart. I idea of playing Bart/Galleon has been really intriguing to me of late and when I backed into a second place finish at the last tourney I used the winnings to pick up a Bart. I am still doubtful I will get a Galleon anytime in the near future but I was inspired to work on Bart.



This is Bart in his current partial painted state. I did the vast majority of the work on him in an afternoon when I was particularly inspired. The reds on the coat were painted via the airbrush and the rest was done by hand. I cut the treasure chest out from under his foot and will most likely do a cork rock bluff when he gets based. I am up in the air a little on the yellow tassels but we will see. What do y'all think?

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Holy Hell! What's Goin' On?

Well I look up and another month is gone and I have barely been on to write or update anything. I really don't have a ton to show as finished projects but I have been hitting the cave from time to time. I was pretty scatterbrained in the month of June and bounced back and forth between a few projects. Those of you that have follow along have know my propensity to wander and have my mind drift. Here is a run down on what I was up to in June and I hope to have some photos for y'all in the near future:

  • Played 6 games with eGrim at 50pts (need to get a bunch more)
  • Wrote an article on eGrim from my buddy Northblade's new blog http://www.hobbyhysteria.com/
  • Picked up new resin bases and a scenery kit from http://www.secretweaponminiatures.com/ to try out with my Blindwater force
  • Started working on a couple test bases
  • Picked up Rask and started painting him
  • "Borrowed" Les' Galleon after a quick game and started to lay down the base colors to help him "speed up" the painting
  • Played in a 35pt SR2013 tourney at a FLGS and despite being very rust backed into a 2nd place due to scenario points
  • Purchased Broadside Bart (with tourney credit) and started to paint him.
Well there you have it pretty much all my hobby related activities for the month. I hope to get Rask and Bart finished here soon for you and need to get back to working on my Hunters Grim. I really don't know where the time has been going this year as every time I look up another month is gone. I hope everyone if having a great start to their summers and hope to have some pretty photos soon.