Pancakeonions

I have that guy, he's a bit too small unfortunately!

I had one Ogre Palace Guard from Kings of War Vanguard (Mantic's fantasy skirmish game) and the other day I acquired Gregor Clegane (the Mountain) from ASOIF Miniatures Game. He's the same size, just about! So here are my two palace guards. I need one more to make a unit for Kings of War! (but mostly just for fun...). The models are based on a 40mm base, and stand about 1 3/4 to 2 inches tall. Anyone here have any cool recommendations for an ogre-sized, heavily-armored, fighter type? I'd love to pick up something from Reaper, but I don't see any "fancy-man" ogres that would fit the bill; Reaper ogres all look savage n such. Some things I'm looking for: - Full helmet covering face - Cape or cloak, preferably with some cod-piece bit of cloth hanging down in the front. (see the red bit on the guy to the right) - Armor with a little bit (or a lot) of details/ filigree so that I can add the bronze detailing that you see on these two fellas - spear or long weapon (like these) rather than a sword would be preferred. Shield is OK. - something that you think, in your opinion, would complement these two chaps adequately! - Hopefully available in retail, or not too hard to buy....!

Magnificent rotters, thanks for posting. I'm looking for inspiration for the equally grim and grotesque bloated men from the boardgame Everrain. They look quite a bit like these fellas...!

Still basking in the warm glow of completedness (oi! Fancy sea base! Entire port city! Several more ships to battle! Nononono.... I'm fine now) lol So I finished up the aft cabin this last week. I put down another layer of Vallejo dark yellow on the doors and the windows. The doors and parts of the windows got Contrast Dark Angels Red (so it matches the side-stripe). Then the gold and metallic finishes got a bit of white so they'd be brighter. I used Scale 75's Elven Gold and Emerald Alchemy to pick out the flourishes, nautili, mermaids, lanterns, etc. I used a bright white for the name plate on the rear, so when I finally chicken out over freehand, I can print something out that'll match the white printer paper I have... Then I varnished with Testors Dullcoat (rattlecan) which seems to work really nicely on Bones. And voila The finished ship! Staring down the Revenge! Sailing the high seas of adventure - my 6-year-old got to take her out on her maiden voyage with a crew from my Big Box of Baddies Here's a nice shot of the full playing area, with the staircases marked off, and both doors to the aft cabin shown on the middle deck: Coda I worked on this from May 11 until June 11, went quicker than I was expecting. Tracked hours, pretty crudely, and estimate it look about 41 hours of work. I still can't find the gunport hatches. Hahahaha. And the anchor ain't done. It's too big an awkward anyway, I'm fine leaving it in the box for now. No name yet inspires me... Nameplate remains TBD! A few more parting shots:

Wow. I'm done. I can't really believe it... But it's done. Once I've come to my senses, and varnished the aft cabin, I'll take some close ups and post a few here. Can't believe it. Done!

More progress! Working from home has its benefits. I typically start work at around 6am, and work through until I have to pick up the kids, around 5:30pm. I try to break it up with exercise, sometimes a TV break, or... more likely... a painting break. So I've been able to make significant progress in the past few weeks, and I'm quite pleased with how she's coming along! But getting to spend my "commute time" at the paint table is simply marvelous. I finished the lower hull by applying Contrast Snakebite Leather everywhere, and painting the ridge where the magnets sit black. I was very relieved to find that Testor's (rattlecan) dullcoat does remove the "Bones Tacky" that comes with so many paints on Reaper Bones. I had initially thought I wanted to do a green stripe up the middle of the ship, but my six year old convinced his daddy to try red. I think it looks good! I set about applying another layer (by brush!) of Vallejo Dark Yellow primer along the strata of the boat with all the gun ports in the middle hull. I then applied Contrast Dark Angels Red over that, and painted the gun ports themselves black. I painted the stripe black, that sits above this red layer, and used contrast paint directly over the German Red Brown primer along the railing. I felt it came out OK (though if I had it to do over again, I might use a while primer for the middle stripe, before applying the Contrast red, to make the red more bright and vibrant - for example, that's also Contrast Dark Angels Red on Sophie's waist, but over a much lighter primer of Grey Seer). Edit: it's a bit hard to tell in the photos below, but Sophie's waist is a brighter shade of red. I think I prefer that a bit, but it's very minor. I wasn't quite sure what to do with the filigree in the front of the ship. GW Screaming Bell (a red metallic)? Black metallic? Red? I finally opted for gold (Scale 75 Elven Gold - I like their metallic colors) and don't regret it a bit. I primed the filigree white (as I did with the rope nearby too), and used two coats of Elven Gold. Last, I washed the ropes in Skeleton Horde (Aggaros Dunes might've been better, but ...) Looks pretty good to me! This color scheme will next get ported over to the aft cabins, the next and last step on making her seaworthy! Here's what the middle deck looks like, now that it's done: Adding on the masts, figurehead, and lower deck - she's very nearly ready!

I am opposed to all types of scale creep! 🙂 Having now used (much larger) paintbrushes to apply the Contrast paint, it wasn't too bad. I could afford to be a little sloppy with the Contrast, as it's forgiving so long as you don't let it pool in place, but using big brushes to apply a base layer, ensuring you get all the nooks and crannies on this massive model (that an airbrush just breezes over) would be a long and arduous procedure for me.

Finished up the last two masts last week, and began washing the decks. The Vallejo German Red Brown got GW Contrast Snakebite Leather as I really like how it darkens the Vallejo primer into a nice deep wood color. The German Dark Yellow on the decking got Seraphim Sepia - I really like how that turned out too. The washing went surprisingly quickly, and once I'd finished it, I was about 30 hours into the project, and at this point, I think I could call her done! But I want to add a red stripe up the mid section of the hull (the lighter, unwashed hull with all the gun ports), some black lines running along the hull, ropes here and there, and there's lots of details around the figurehead, and on the aft cabin. One very annoying point - a "Bones Issue" - is that the dang thing is slightly tacky, particularly those areas where I've washed it. Nothing major, but I notice it, and it bugs... I really wish Reaper could figure out what the culprit here is, and fix this "tacky" problem. I have a few cans of testors dullcoat, and I think that should fix the issue, but it's still annoying. At this point, I think she's table ready! But also at this point... The detail work really begins! Sigh...

These are great! I think he has dice, but... You can't have too many dice!

A year or so ago, a friend of mine with a young son gave me two boxes of old Grenadier minis (Fighting Men & Specialists), telling me to have fun with them. They're awesome, but a bit too small compared to other figures I have (and I already have a few of them in my collection!) So the other day, his son asked about D&D - and I immediately realized what his birthday present was going to be! Fully painted (and well sealed - no big fan of lead here!) Fighting Men and Specialists (and a few female adventurers of the same 25mm scale that I've found online). I also have a big box of unpainted Bones, with way more stuff than I'm ever going to use. I was going to paint up some Goblins, Kobolds, maybe some Undead... But what is an iconic, lower level D&D monster that would be fun to have? (bonus if it's been in one of the Reaper Bones KS that I already have!) Ideally, it would be a similar scale to the 25mm dudes, so none of their models that they've hit with scale creep... Love to hear your thoughts!

Rounding out this month's activities, I managed to put paint to a few other things. I did one mast and the bowsprit with these colors - starting with Contrast Snakebite Leather, I did most of the wood (see pic below, sorry it's a bit dark, I'll try to get a better shot for a future post!). This really brings out the grain, and darkens the wood a good bit. I liked that choice, but had considered going darker (maybe Wyldwood Contrast?), but that would have been really dark (it's what I used on Sophie's skin, see above). Following that, I picked out the details I wanted to be lighter (the sail, the rope) with brush-on GW Gray Seer. I oversprayed a lot with the airbrush, and was a little sloppy with the Snakebite Leather, so this helped clean that up and get it ready for most Contrast Paint. The rope I went over with Contrast Aggaros Dunes, and the sail I went over with Contrast Apothecary White. The metal details I did with GW Warplock Bronze (a darker shade of bronze). Finally, I did the yard, base, and a few other details in Black Templar. Finally, I used a thin layer of white PVC glue to attach felt to the bottoms of the masts and bowsprit, to help with scraping against their respective attachment points. These pieces of felt dried nice and soft (and in the picture below, haven't yet been trimmed, so there's a lot of felt sticking out around the edges) and I think will go a long way to helping keep the model looking good, particularly after I've varnished it too. Once everything was good and dry (about 24 hours after last paintstroke), I applied a paint-on varnish to the tops of the mast, the ends of each yardarm (the little nub of yard out beyond the rope), and to the black base that sits on the deck. I also applied a little of the paint on varnish to the tips of the bowsprit. This was to help keep the paintjob well-protected, later I would apply a spray varnish to everything. While some of that dried, I used craft black paint to paint up the latticework covering on the lower deck, and GW Agrax Earthshade on the same covering of the upper (main) deck. I think the latter might be just a bit too light, so I'll probably add some GW Nuln Oil to darken it down a bit. One mast down, two to go! Edit: here's a better shot of the painted mast and bowsprit

Another burst of project energy as the month of May winds down! I varnished the cannons, wheels, and Sophie - something I'd planned to do, but my 6-year-old demanded it sooner, as he knows he can't play with daddy's toys until they're well protected. (and Daddy isn't letting him play with Sophie anyway!) He loves the toy cannons, ha. As I noted above, I primered a bunch of the ship in GW Gray Seer rattlecan (masts, bowsprit, cannons, etc). This was mostly because I was nervous about the airbrush I'd borrowed from a friend, and was worried I would just end up brushing on the Vallejo primer. That airbrush is an intimidating piece of technology! As it turns out, the airbrush wasn't bad at all, and once over the learning curve (thanks for the practice, left over Reaper Bones minis from previous kickstarters!) I was able to quickly lay down a layer of the base brown I'm using for Sophie's Revenge. If I had it to do over, I think I would *not* have primered the masts and bowsprit with Gray Seer, asusing the airbrush to "re-primer" them with the Vallejo German Red Brown primer was perfectly adequate. I did the masts, bowsprit, lower hull, upper hull, and sections of the aft cabins. I *still* can't find the gunport covers, but if I ever do, it'll be easy enough to airbrush those, and pop them into their joints in the hull. But for now, she's going with open gunports! Much easier to use than I feared! A few hours later, here's what was covered in brown: The next day, I then put down a layer of Vallejo German Dark Yellow as the decking for the upper decks (on the upper hull, and the aft cabins). Being new to the airbrush, I didn't have too much control here, and will have to go back over some of the sections with the German Red Brown. That's to be expected for a newbie like me...! But at this point... It didn't look half bad! In fact, using the magic of the "three color rule", I could at this point, call it a day, and claim she was done! (where the three color rule is the minimum amount of colors required in many tabletop wargame tourneys to call your army "painted") Here's where things were yesterday midday:

Wow! Bravo!

I think he looks great!

Cheers! This weekend I put on a bit o paint. I used GW Gray Seer primer on the masts, cannons, Sophie (the figurehead) and the bowsprit. The yard arms (the part of the masts holding the sails) are glued in place, as is the whole of the bowsprit - I didn't think those bits needed to be magnetized. I'll just varnish the heck out of them, so they don't get too scratched up back in the box. I'm planning to use an airbrush with Vallejo German Red Brown - and am hoping that GW contrast Gore Grunter Fur will be a match (ish). We'll see! The dang thing comes with 20 cannons, and I am *not* looking forward to the assembly line work on those guys. I'm planning on doing Sophie in a colorful, gypsy-pirate thing - I have some great contrast paints for that. Is there anything as daunting as a huge line of the same dang mini that you gotta paint... A wee bit later... Got some paint on Sophie and some guns today. Sophie is Wyldwood (skin), Black Templar (hair, boots, belt), Magos Purple (hair bandana), Nazdreg Yellow (shirt), Blood Angel Red (top skirt), Griffhound orange (middle skirt), volupus pink (bottom skirt). I used Scale 75 Gold for the guns, necklace, and belt buckles. I think she looks magnificent, and really appreciate the quick painting time for contrast. The guns are Wyldwood and Black Templar, with Aggaros Dunes for the rope. Leadbelcher for the metal details, and the guns themselves are drybrushed with Iron Warriors (black metal color). The wheel is from the Brinewind Expansion (Skeletal Captain, 712) from Bones V - it has a better base to take a thin magnet than the wheel that comes with the ship. I think she came out A-OK - what might you do to give her that extra je ne sais quoi?