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...

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...