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...

the Mast Beast

here you go Brummie, a mast beast - essentially a variant of the Hobby Horse more commonly seen with Morris Dancers and something a little more sinister for the witchhunters to get all wound up about...

essentially a shed load of g/s over a eBob dolly, with an eBob horses skull (GW ones were toooo big by half) and out of sheer laziness, a Warlord plastic ECW foot (actually the foot from the witchhunter himself once he had new boots)... I made the cloth over the body a bit more clingy than it probably would be to emphasise the head and arms of the man inside just incase anyone gets confused and has recently watched Time Bandits...

in the main, I'm very happy with it, there are probably issues with the drapery and movement, and I need to touch up a couple of spots, but it kind of evolved on me from a standing beast to one in the middle of a kind of winding ducking dance... if that makes sense...
 

horse brass appears more traditional with modern beasts, as seen on my main reference here, but I prefer more simple ribbons... I've also assumed real horse hair rather than straw... not sure on what colour to paint it yet, sack cloth looks good, but I can't help but feel that black will make the skull really stand out and look as creepy as hell...

I'm still undecided on Morris Dancers proper, but I do have another very May Pole centric figure in mind...

very big thanks to eBob for the skull - couldn't have done it without it...

skirmish board

for a while now I'd had 4 2ft square foam terrain boards for a nice 4x4ft playing area... sadly following several downsize house moves, I no longer had the space other than the floor - however good luck finding a level surface with these floorboards, the square tiles tended to follow their own inclination and a 2x2ft playing area just didn't really cut it... so I flogged them and bought what appears to have been one of the last Mat-o-War green mats going.... only at 6x4ft it was more than I'd ever need... cue another moment of inspiration from Silent Invader over on LAF and his notice board table (which was reversable)

so with a cheap cork notice board from eBay I set to work... first off, the corner pieces were not solid (I said cheap right?), so they were filled in with g/s and smoothed flat so I had a nice consistant edge - this is going to be stored upright, so the metal edging was essential... the new corners were then painted Foundry black midtone which was a good match for the original plastic and then varnish to an inch of it's life... next came the scary bit... I had planned to cut the Mat-o-War so I had 4x4 as a loose mat and then 2x4 going spare, but this project gave me a use for the 2x4 - it was just the thought of cutting possibly the last mat going was a bit daunting... this could be an expensive screw up... so I chickened out and bought a cheap grassmat from eBay...

this was glued in place, only when I was pressing out any airbubbles, off came the grass (see cheap again), eventually I had a brown board with green patches... not good... so back to plan B and I stripped the cheap paper mat off and cut the expensive Mat-o-War up... once commited it went on quick enough, but again I had a couple of bubbles in the mat despite my best efforts - however the sturdiness of the mat came into it's own as I was able to slice the bubble, insert more glue and press it closed with no sign of the cuts and no sign of the bubble... this was working fine until I had a glue accident and the top surface got a few splodges of UHU which, despite clean up, managed to still leave some dark spots when dry... but a cunning plan occured and with some scenic spray cement I added some static grass - with a very dodgy nozzle, this was more random than I planned and so there is more on there than needed, but it helps give some more colour and texture to the grass and helps match up with the terrain I have... this was kind of at the back of my mind, as I had thought about the exposed earth areas on my terrain and I didn't really fancy doing that to the mat...

so, there it is... a handy skirmish board, a little under 3x2 feet that can sit nicely and flat either on the floor or on my small painting table (when it's clear)... it should be big enough for the small games I have in mind for either Folk Horror or Doctor Who, although some distances may need to be shortened... I just need to finish more scenery - the three river bank sections fit nicely along the long side and by removing the dock area, the two sections fit on the short side... I have some dirt tracks in mind (again nicked from Silent Invader) and this has led me to think about a bridge section as well... we'll see...

oh, and I kept the cork board on the other side - I plan to use that for urban/industrial terrain...

as it's May...

as it's the start of May, I figured I'd quickly get this finished... it's been a thought for a while and is a simple enough quick bit of scenery...

the Maypole itself is one of my Woodland Scenics trees which I decided to sacrifce as finding a straight and sturdy twig was not going well... the branches were removed and a bit of g/s added to give the stump look, not that you can see them well in the pic, there are also wedges at the base were the pole was stuck in the ground... the upper garland was an old Citadel plastic shield with the main shield removed leaving just the rim, wire keeps it hanging down from the top and loads of g/s was smothered over the shield rim to get a nice irregular shape... this was then covered in a mix of leaves and purple flower bits... I had tried several different ways of doing ribbons, using thin plasticard, g/s and paper but nothing looked right... the lower garland started life as a way of having some decorative ribbons against the pole... then I discovered something very strange... they didn't have ribbons - they are a Victorian invention, as are most of the dances, and even more oddly, an invention attributed to John Ruskin, the reknowned artist (and alleged paedo) that my former university and current employer is actually named after... turns out he thought it was good healthy fun and when he was training teachers, he taught them the dances and they went to schools all over the country and took it with them - so that really annoying attempt at synchronised dancing in primary school is his fault... on the plus side I didn't need to worry about bloody ribbons...

so, just an interesting piece that any good puritan witchfinder could take great objection to...

and as you may have noticed, the flowers from Salute have made a showing, I need to restrain myself...

the swimmer WIP

a bit of silliness really, but I had the armoured pikeman on the sprue and was wondering what I could do with him... historically, witches of course would be swam, this entailed more than just chucking them in the river as you needed to get them out again so the witches were usually tied by rope to men on either bank or in boats...  if they floated, they would be hauled out and prosecuted for witchcraft - which would I assume depend on how much slack the swimmers on either bank gave the rope... anyway, with this image in my noggin, I fancied trying something different with some wire I have kicking about and figured that in a gaming situation, the swimmer would need to catch the witch in the first place... the fact that he's wearing plate armour so he can get close to the target just screamed do it... so there you go, no idea if he'll get finished or even have a practical role in a game, but he's there...