December is rather running away from me...

and I'm not likely to have anything finished to post up... the ghouls have some paint on them (but not enough) and my first attempt at a fairy ring hasn't quite worked so need to have another bash at that... Angel's gang has slowly been getting some recruits as well, but they need a bit of a g/s session.

It's all very Folk Horror at the moment, especially as I've been given the Lore of the Land as an early Christmas present - lots of bits about English folklore that has given me some ideas... to hell with brooms, I need some hurdles!

+++INPUT+++MECHANOIDS+++INPUT+++

some classic Who Mechanoids...

from an admittedly not so random question now I think about it to a 3D print to this, now available from Ainsty as the Mechanot... and it's the same shiny silver problem I had with the Giant Robot, shading and super shiny are beyond me so they have more of a lived in air to them...

I've change a bit from the Ainsty model/original design (which has three sensors in a triangular pattern) - I want to do some identifiers on the front panel, so filled that in with g/s - need to work on those decals at some point... another divergence is the area below the antenna... I did toy with paint in the white balls (or could have done some conversion work to add them in), but decided to inject even the slightest bit of colour in there so tried for a pale blue glow to suggest a power source within...

have also left the bases for now, as I'm entertaining ideas on doing a space station build again... so they could be deck plate or they could be dirt/gravel and grass...

so, pending decals and deciding on the base, done for now...

ECW Ghouls...

have been slowly g/s stuff to get some ECW ghouls from the Warlord placcy stuff and the Mantic placcy Ghouls...

first off Mantic Ghouls with g/s puffy trousers and shredded Llewellyn-Bowen shirts, some of the orginal rags should make for decent enough shredded stockings...

a mix of Mantic and Warlord bits for a more recently departed (or more careful) ghoul... sadly, the Mantic stuff is a little too big for the Warlord plastics, but with the more action poses you can get away with the head and arms ok... I do have some more planned, but the pose means they may have to use the original Warlord head and I'll need to be a bit more creative... but I've g/s'd out at the moment...

and finally, the above, mixed in with some standard fantasy rag Mantic ghouls...

introducing the Mechanot...

remember this fella?


now in resin with some lovely brasswork...


I have to say, it looks great, the brasswork has really brought this up to another level... even if I do say so myself ...

I should be getting hold of some shortly, so painted versions to follow, but it's available from Ainsty now.

Angel Blake again...

Angel Blake now with added prongs...

removed the old crown, losing the top of the hair in the process, and added a new one made from some etched brass cedar twigs from Hasslefree... replaced the missing hair with greenstuff, slight superglue accident and then was regretting my choice til it got painted... looks much better now... the heavy handling wasn't much good for the nipples though, so they got painted again and heavily glossed before the dullcote...

have noticed a few other spots of dirt now on the skin, and I've dullcoted, so need to have a worry at those... dammit...

and also been working on getting some of the Mantic ghouls upto the 17th Century...

Angel Blake...

another one for my vague Folk Horror project...

Angel Blake from Blood on Satan's Claw

one of the sub-boob shadows looks a bit heavy handed there, so that'll get touched up... but quite happy with the skin tones

not very happy with the crown of thorns (or hawthorn or whatever it is... any botanists in?), it was never going to be as fragile as in the film... (actually, is it mistletoe?)

but what looked ok when I was working on it (it's actually some 28mm scale barbwire), not so much now... has lost it's pronginess and pale grey wood I'd intended didn't really stand out very much against the pale hair and pale skin... am half considering some leaves to make it a bit more bramble-ish... not sure...

and got a bit more adventurous with my basing and added some purple heatherish touches...

UPDATE - new prongs here

Witchfinder General - the rules

and just found this...

Witchfinder General: Days of Revelation is set during the period of the 17th Century leading up to the English Civil Wars.

Courageous Witchfinders battle against the many vile abominations that plague a once green and pleasant land. Clandestine vampire factions, aided by their loyal Guardsmen of Blind Obedience, secretly strive to gain ultimate power over a deceived nation. Cruel barguests create fear and mayhem across town and country. Evil witchcraft is rife; vicious werewolves savage the innocent and crazed noctelinger hunt in the shadows.

This exciting new wargame rule book contains 108 A4 sized pages of furious wargaming fun. The game is inspired by folklore, myth and the propaganda pamphlets produced by all sides involved in the English Civil Wars. Witchfinder General: Days of Revelation provides background and rules for using: Witchfinders; angry villagers; clubmen; pikemen; musketeers; dragoons; cavalry; vampires; werewolves; witches; noctelinger and barguests. Designed for use with 28mm scale figures.

http://www.dashingdicegames.co.uk/

damn and buggeration... was going to use Fear and Faith, but may pick this up...

still only the two figures and the gibbet painted mind...

more minor set backs...

sigh... am trying to finish something this month, but it's not working out...

attempts at making tents has backfired slightly (yes I have Renedra bell tents - but not what I wanted ultimately), so that now has to wait til next month to get picked up again - lots has been made and bought for this little project, just not the sodding tents which are at the same time a small part, but big part...

and the Omega Prime bases for the Draconians arrived... lovely casts, completely flawless for quality... but for some reason, in a solid resin base, they are about 5mm deep... a basic base of 3mm which is solid resin, so you build another 1-2mm on top of that? why not take a resin blank and shave it down a mm to build up or carve down into a 3mm blank of whatever material..? the gradient on the base edge is the same, so the top surface area is less then on a 25mm round slotta... I've done some deckplate ones with only .5mm plasticard on top... so why so big? I've been looking online and some timber decking ones are ridiculously thick... and over cluttered, but that's another rant... so to keep things reasonably level, will look at making more of my own... so .5mm thick timber embossed plasticard anyone? so that means the Draconians are put back again... fussy I know...

just need to do the bases on some Federation Troops and I should at least have something painted this month... grains of sand, only .5mm thick see... sigh

a minor disaster

I've been bubbling away in the background with my Draconians, expanding the retinue... however as over the several attempts over the years to get a good colour for the ones I'd started, I figured I strip them all down... a month and a bit in the dettol and the paint has fallen away lovely... unfortunately so has the greenstuff on the conversion I did for the Draconian prince...


2008 that was... not the end of the world really, as I can redo the robes to better fit the new theme, but I really do need to pull my finger out... especially after having listened to Paper Cuts...

devout trooper...

another recruit for the witch barbecue...

lovely little figure from The Assault Group, available as a freebie with orders... a couple of quirks though caused a bit of head scratching... the tip of the musket is below the level of the integral base, so couldn't level him out very easily which meant a bit of undulating terrain... also, I was surprised the raised visor wasn't seperate, god knows how they managed to cast that... but it made paint past that and the hands a chore...

as he's wearing the wrong jacket, my plans to Ian Ogilvy him up a bit went out of the window and I was forced to actually google some reference pics rather than just watch a DVD... buff jacket and some more puritan troos seemed the order of the day... and he matches his mate a bit...

tried something a bit different with the base and used some static grass and the usual tufts... I quite like it, gives a kind of moor feel to it I reckon... but I have never liked basing so hey...

a quick gibbet

saw this on the Black Tree Design site when I was browsing and thought it would give a nice touch of dark, old English atmosphere... tried something new with the bushes, used the cleaning pads I had for the hedges for the body, painted brown and then added some leaf litter from Antenociti (usually used for ivy I think, bought it ages ago)... looks quite good and brambly...

pics don't really do it justice...

Witch Hunter

painted my converted Witch Hunter for my vaguely planned ECW Horror skirmish project... Witchfinder General meets Blood on Satans Claw meets Solomon Kane... details on the conversion are in the earlier post... quite happy with the blacks, tried for slightly different shades, boots have a hint of light brown from the black for a worn leather look, and the rest of the leatherwork is a very dark brown... I had planned black hair as well, but it needed a lighter colour to bring it all out a bit more... the angry shouty head has a nice crease in his brow, but now I look at it, it's all gone a bit Cromwell warty - which all things considered isn't a bad thing...

I didn't shade the white collar, just slapped on the brightest white I had just so it stood out more, the other bits of white have been shaded though...

the 'what every good Doctor Who story needs' project intermission

ok... so this stalled a wee bit... when I came to start undercoating, I completely fell out of love with the rock finish... it was all too rounded and worn, I wanted something a little more jagged - sheared rockfaces with tiny crevices and handholds... I came to realise I really wanted sharp edges and the whole thing stalled...

now I'd been giving it some thought lately, checking out various techniques online for wargaming and railroad set ups... bearing in mind I'll be building up on my existing structure, I needed a 'cladding' finish... bark bits are popular, but I couldn't see them working with what I had... recutting the foam wasn't winning me over... railroaders use the wet plaster in crinkled foil method (google is your friend), but would be too heavy and thick... however, I came up with a variation on that...

crinkled craft tissue paper... for the test piece I cut a thin strip, scrunched it up into a ball and then pulled it out into a strip again, without flattening it... slapped on some PVA and put on the strip, allowing the crinkles to stay and even creasing them some more... dry and a quick pj and I'm quite happy with that...

bearing in mind, there will also be the vertical definitions in the bluefoam that are absent here... should be good...

a Rescue to a Chase

more companions... Ian, Barbara and Vicki...

I'm slowly working through my companions... with exception of Dodo, because let's face it, what use was she? Susan should have been part of this group, but I had to cut her head off on account of it being a really, really, really ugly head... no paint job could have solved that one, so off it came and I'm halfway through replacing it...

and a shape of something to come...

watch this space, just don't hold your breath... it's going to take a while...

River WIP

well... almost done really...

As ever, looking for stuff that fits handily into A4 paper boxes (in this case a box for A4 label sheets), and as I've limited gaming space, confining myself to 3 or 4 foot square, a side/corner piece made more sense than having something run through the middle... I was quite impressed with Wirelizard's river banks over on LAF. Great idea... so I nicked it...

The three sections are a bugger to photo though, the above is the best I've managed (click pic for a bigger one)... I've added some marks on the photo to show where the joins are, but there are two peices the length of a sheet of A4 and a shorter peice... if necessary, the wooden dock/reinforced bank can be left out for a shorter section, if left in it should be enough room for my Dwarf longship if I ever get progressing with that, or any combo can be a handy entrance point for Sea Devils (again if I catch up with those)... the exposed bank is made from torn cork tile, nice and bitty and looks the job... the grass by the dock has some tracks in to show wear... I had gone with a patchier look all over, but when I did some test shots on my gaming tiles, just looked silly... by adding grass in those patches it has left faint thin patches of bare earth which looks more like the field/riverbank look I wanted so result...

The river itself could do with darkening... annoyingly, the reeds look the same colour as the grass, should have used the paler ones, so may give them a lick of paint to lightenen them up... and of course the water surface needs lots and lots of gloss to look watery... I did look at various ways of doing waves and so on for the surface, but as I want to add the longship at some point, it would be better just flat... also a removable/seperate jetty is on the cards...

I'll try and get some better photos at some point/when finished, but I wanted to get something up this month and move on to a long planned Who project...

Salute 2011

a good day, if long day, back at around 10.40 last night... three Frother's games and there seemed to be a lot of interest... the mansion in all it's glory, the first game was a bit slow, but the rules were trimmed back and the later games went better...

the mansion game together really well, especially considering how scattered around the UK the contributors are... of course, Akkie's Battlefield game was just one chaps efforts and was outstanding to look at...

the Tron game, oddly only got one pic of that, but it was genius in it's simplicity and won an award...

and Crooked Dice launched 7TV rather spectacularly... table looked great...

even down to the scale map of the table in the villains lair...

CD also had a Who game going...

other stuff included a nice looking VSF Aeronef game and a few ECW games (which considering my recent dabbling was nice to look at)...