the Nine Sisters

a Salute purchase, a resin stone circle from the Square... on the face of it, a stone circle is easy enough to make yourself, but for £4 it's a hell of a lot less effort...

I added a base to the resin cast, just to help even out a slight kink (hey £4), and to give the entrance to the circle a more gradual slope...

base was textured, painted to match the other groundwork I have... I tend to go grey for stones, but wanted something different here to make it stand out (and many stone circles tended to have travelled some distance), so went with GW Karak Stone, drybrushed with GW whatever it's called now Bone... bit of dark tone wash and job done... grass, grass tufts and then flowers... may be over done for some, but I wanted an effect similar to the Rohirrim burial mounds in Lord of the Rings...

it's a generic, unscaled item on the Square's website, but works well for a small circle in 28mm...

Frothers 4th semi-annual charity mini...

UPDATE: Donations open now...

and it's a humdinger...

Dags over on Frothers wrote:

The official start of the Frothers' Charity thingy isn't until early next week but, as it's already on the web, here's the green for the next figure (sculpted by Kev White of Hasslefree Miniatures)...

For those interested in the background to the mini have a look here: http://www.judgeminty.com/

I'll post how you can get a copy once we go live.

But there is a Facebook page for those not FBphobic (or Frotherphobic!)...

https://www.facebook.com/The4thSemiAnnualFrothersCharityThingy

I've been following the Judge Minty blog for a while (scroll down and look right somewhere), so am salivating at the anticipation of such a cracking mini... spread the word, it's for a good cause...

UPDATE:

Dags over on Frothers wrote:

This year’s Charity mini is a sculpt of the eponymous hero of the forthcoming Fan Film Judge Minty sculpted by Kev White of Hasslefree Miniatures based on the character written by John Wagner that introduced The Long Walk in 1980.

 
There will be approximately 400 Judge Mintys cast – 200 in Metal and 200 in Trollcast.

As always, there are numerous people that deserve huge thanks for getting this project off the ground….

The cast and crew of Judge Minty, in particular, Steven Sterlacchini, Steve Green, Daniel Carey-George and, Minty himself, Edmund Dehn – without them it would not be happening.

Matt Sprange from Mongoose Publishing and the guys at Rebellion for allowing us to infringe on Mongoose’s license and 2000AD’s IP. Again, without Matt’s help this would not be happening.

Kev White for the sculpting (and Sally for letting him do it!)

Pete Brown and Ed Fortae for the casting

Ian ‘Geronimo’ Brumby for the bases

So how do you get your Judge Minty mini?

Easy…. Make a donation to one or both of the Just Giving Sites:

MS Society - http://www.justgiving.com/CharityMinty1

Cancer Research - http://www.justgiving.com/CharityMinty2

Then, and this is the important bit because it’s changed from past years, send an e-mail to charitymini AT gmail DOT com with;

1. Your Name
2. The address you want the mini sent to
3. Your Just Giving reference number
4. Your preference as to Metal or Trollcast or both

You won’t get an instant reply but will get an e-mail informing you of dispatch

There is no minimum donation per se. I've always hated telling people what they should give; it should be what you can afford but if you would like multiple copies I'd suggest £15 per mini – all money is going to the charity of your choice.

However, to shamelessly cash in on the Kickstarter fever that appears to be gripping most at the moment, the more you donate, the more you’ll get…. The first extra will be an exclusive Frothcity 1 base designed and cast by Ian (Fenris Games) Brumby (assuming he’s still alive and hasn't died of pleurisy!) that will go to everyone donating £25 or more. There’ll be more, hopefully to follow. 

Postage is being covered by a mystery Frother but, especially if you’re outside the UK, take that into account when making your donation and add in a little extra J

When will you get your miniatures?
Even though we’re a bit more organised than usual these things take time especially as everyone is doing this in their spare time around their usual work.

Firstly Grey Matter will be moulding and casting a few in resin. Then he'll be of to Pete for Master moulding & master casting. Those masters are then shipped off to Ed in the States. Production moulding and casting and return shipping all takes time especially with the holiday season approaching. Hopefully they’ll be going out in late February.

Lastly, a huge thank you to you guys; without your generosity we’d never be able to continue.

carry on camping

ok, just to explain that I haven't been completely idle for the last few weeks - although due to a couple of weeks required for cat sitting in November, can't guarantee how much will be happening next month... anyhoo, this little project has been bubbling away for a while and mainly involves the simply splendid APEX Investigators from Fenris... what those figures initially led me to, was a kind of field research team, useable for UNIT or even a SG-1 kind of set up... the main requirement was a main research tent and that took some working out... but I got there in the end...

all very army surplus and Time Team and I have two of them - it's essentially made from a basic frame of metal tubing which kept the basic cereal card cladding in place, additional tubing was added inside to represent the rest of the frame, thin wire was glued on the outside to match the inside upright tubes and then clad over in normal paper (did experiment with tissue paper but didn't work)... the roof is lift off, and is essentially a normal build for any kind of roof, but with tubing and paper cladding to give it some more shape and I reckon it works... the only stumbling block now is whether I try for a wooden sheet floor or plain grass - both appear equally common on photos of the real thing....

now, all the lab equipment inside needs power, so I needed a generator... this came from a handy sci-fi crate again from Fenris. I added some wire for the stand/handle thing, added a petrol cap with some tube and g/s and tweaked some of the detail to show as somekind of dial indicators, need to add some buttons still...

now the crate had no detail on one side from the casting, so I press moulded the grill pattern on one side with siligum and made a g/s copy on the otherside (sorry Ian)... it's not brilliant, does the job and may well get hidden a bit by a bush or something, but after the 2nd attempt, I was happy enough...

a bit big maybe, but for a chunky robust portable generator it does the job...

next was some flood lights, annoyingly this was the greatest time sink after the field tent, as I was happily press moulding the lights I'd made as and when I had a spare bit of g/s - but when I came to add them, I realised that design wouldn't look right - they are good, and will come in handy with the planned bunker as they look more like wall emergency lights I now realise... my second attempt has proved not very press mould friendly, so I need to rethink... but I have a few of these at least...

the final need for this little project were tents for the field workers themselves, so I cut a bit of bluefoam to shape, added wire for the supports and g/s'd it to get a nice smooth(ish) finish... a bit of detail was added for the access flap, seams and so on and tried to make it match one from Argos... there is a vent flap on the back, but it doesn't show up on the photo... all it really needs now is some cleaning up and adding the zip tab thingy... not sure how well that will press mould though as I would like a couple...

strong box cart

I had to make the order up when I got the new windows for the blacksmiths from 4ground, otherwise the postage would have been more than the windows, so I went for this strong box cart...

apparently equally used for powder storage as well as money, it's a nice little kit, very easy to assemble...

of course, I had to tart it up a bit, but that was easy as well, a bit of thin card (one of those business cards you get in with your ebay order actually) to make the main supporting beams stand out a bit more, and some narrow plastic rod put into the hinge recess...

I had toyed with a big sheet metal cross on the back, so the hunters could use it as a mobile altar, but this was a) too GW and b) bordered on the kind of thing puritans didn't do anyway... but as it was more likely to be used with the hunters anyway, it went black... hey ho...

and, as I realised I hadn't done a comparison shot for the blacksmith...