blacksmiths part 1

not much to show on this so far, but it's a start and is probably the best chance to show the chimney off as I doubt it will be very visible once the building goes up...

the forge is from Ainsty (and comes with the bellows), the anvil was very nicely donated by a Frother... the chimney is blue insulation foam, brickwork carved on, then liquid g/s to have crisp up the edges a bit and to toughen up the foam...

am really torn on which design to go with the building itself, have been checking out various ones on the market... so watch this space for that...

Who Dares Wins

finally finished the SAS...

enough for a 4-man section plus one armed with pistol when he gets around to rescuing Lewis Collins (who is still headless) and gives him his MP5 - and the addition of a lone agent type with night vision goggles and a silencer (also from TAG) simply because it's a nice figure and fits the SWAT bodies of the other men...

had started these a while back, but got put off with blacks... getting sick of blacks... anyway, when that was done, I started on the bases and had thought of just doing grey concrete, but it looked so damn dull - I didn't want dirt and grass as these are for my urban/bunker plans, so found these bases on eBay...

of course, the new bases meant cutting away the slottas and then the integral bases and all while everything was painted (I must stop doing that), so again, not brilliant work, touched up pj's and some clumsy attaching to the base which was hidden with some extra debris...
I like the bases, detail goes down into the base on a couple of them which is nice and it turns out I have matching plasticard kicking about so I can replicate that flooring on the scenery when it get's started... I toyed with different colours, but white seemed best and a bit of colour was given to the rubble with a top drybrush of Foundry Sand Light and and partial dabs of Gryphon Sepia. I did toy with exposed wires or maybe paperwork, even the police tape I made ages ago, but then that would over clutter the bases just for the sake of colour.

Mast Beast update

as Ian has announced it, I'll share it here...

the Mast Beast that I sculpted has been purchased by Fenris Games and will be in production shortly for those that are interested...

pics of the sculpt can be found here, although it has a new g/s foot instead of the placcy Warlord foot... use of the skull for production was very generously allowed by Ebob...

quite chuffed to be honest, can't wait for it to be made...

brotherhood of the erm... capelthwaite

 or something... Conquest Mini's do some lovely Native American figures for the French-Indian Wars (as luck would have shortly available from Warlord Games), including some cracking Last of the Mohicans figures, of which this is Magua...

I've loved this mini for years and finally picked one up a few months ago and in the best tradition of stealing (partly from White Knight over on LAF - but mainly from the film Brotherhood of the Wolf) and not a million miles away from my original Solomon Kane inspiration, I decided that a strange and dark-skinned companion would not go amiss... no doubt converted by some zealous missionary and brought back to amuse the King, he's now found a higher purpose...

now, that isn't his original musket (which would have been 100 years too advanced, but probably get awayable), as he was sadly bent in transit and it couldn't be repositioned without snapping, so off it came, I took the musket from the Warlord ECW weapons sprue (think it may actually be a matchlock) and tried to pin that in place... sadly, I couldn't get the barrel drilled and pinned, so instead pinned in the stock and built up the barrel with g/s around a very long pin - it may not be the best looking musket in the world, but by god it's all pin and damned sturdy... 

I did him in basic skins and buff leathers - no doubt his more traditional clothing would have long since gone the way of his old gods, so he made his own when called upon to fight...

so, the Witchhunter warband so far... rather character driven admittedly, need some musket fodder....

oh... and a capelthwaite is a large shape-shifting black hound from Westmorland if you were wondering... and yes, I have plans...

release the hounds...

finally got around to finishing the houndmaster and his pack... annoyingly this was a pain - firstly I needed a head... after considering the Bearded Tweedy head from Crooked Dice, I found some GW Empire soldier heads on ebay - on the whole they are too large for the Warlord plastics, but this one in a hat managed to hide that fact enough and he looks comparable to the Hasslefree head on the Witchhunter...

then I couldn't quite decide on what colour to paint his clothes, I didn't want him all in black, I knew the dogs would be tan, so another buff coat seemed silly... I had tried a faded red, but that didn't work... in the end I figured, he probably once worked for a lord or squire, someone with land who would need dogs, his family has probably been in service for generations, hence the older style hat, so some faded hand me downs seemed appropriate... the base colour is Vallejo violet brown (or brown violet)...
 

it was during the storytelling in my head (I can't be the only one can I?) that I had trouble picturing him running through hedges and ditches after his dogs on the chase in shoes and hose... so - and I hate doing this mid paint job - cut his legs off, which left him flopping about by his chain... with the boots from one of the Warlord command figures, he was reattached and all seemed well...

then the chain broke... and his hand came off... so I had to replace the chain, and getting a new loop was a pain in the arse, so it become a leather strap instead of an iron chain, the hand was repaired, the chain reattached.. and everything patched up... I hope... sadly, this may rank as one of my better conversion jobs but thanks to the hell of painting it, not my best figure overall, I can see lots of niggles everywhere... not least of which is that he's still damn shiny, so will need to touch him up with Dullcote again...

plague house...

This was one of my Salute purchases... kind of an impulse really as I'd been umming and arring over a few lasercut buildings... technically, this was one of the prepainted models I think, as it had a touch more detail on it and this particular building (the medium Medieval hovel) isn't available as a basic kit like the timber frame cottage... either way I got to work...

 as before, balsa added for timbers, but I tried liquid g/s for the render on this one, and it gave an interesting finish when stippled...

the cracks and exposed wattle are part of the original lasercut kit... the inside came with a seperate sheet of mdf for the detailed interior, I didn't use this as I was going to dress the interior myself, and it also meant I had two buildings (all bar a roof) from the same kit... the frame of the fire pit is included, with added sand for ash and some chopped up matchsticks for burnt logs, the straw is the bristles from an old toothbrush - I wasn't sure that was going to work at first as it's a bit disconcerting looking at pink and blue bits at the bottom of your model...

the kit also comes with some teddy fur for thatching, but as I'd already done towelling, I did it again here... I original tried a single piece, but that didn't look right, so did some uneven strips - my intention for this was an old hovel away from any village, so it would be dirty, unused and grotty... annoyingly, I'm not 100% sure that the thatch has worked this time, the colour seems a little bit off...

oh, and I just couldn't resist the plague cross on the door... I know it should be red, but that seemed a bit too garish...