Recent Work…

I’ve been finishing up the primed figures that I have laying around the hobby room. I have a few more to go, but this seemed like a sufficient amount of painting for a blog post. Plus, I desperately need to get these guys dullcoted for use in games, and wanted to photograph them naked (so to speak).

Otherworld Miniatures – Pig Faced Orcs. These are wonderful sculpts to paint…just the right amount of detail. Except for the eyes. I think I’m going to have to learn to paint eyes (gulp!), otherwise they look like they’re squinting in photos. Orc Tribe: Squintface Skullsplitter.

I located the boxed set of Pig Faced Orcs from Otherwold on the Paizo website, of all places, and ordered it as a Christmas present to myself. These figures are great! I debated giving them rusty weapons, and such, but in the end decided to keep it clean. There are another 21 figures in the box set, and I’m planning to give them a variety of skin colors. I don’t think I’ll use the blue-grey you see on the center orcs again, though…it looks ok in photos, but is rather murky in real life. I’m really tempted to order the Otherworld box set of female adventurers…they’re sensibly dressed and fitted out in adventuring gear, which is important if for no other reason than we have a couple of female players in our gaming group.

Reaper wolves and dire wolves. I think the dire wolves turned out ok, but I’m pretty sure no real-world wolf ever sported such horrible looking fur. I have fur fatigue, though, and they are unlikely to be repainted.

These worgs/dire wolves were fun to paint. The normal wolves, not so much. I need to put some real effort into figuring out how to paint fur…it’s a ubiquitous material in fantasy figures (especially monsters), and even makes an appearance in Napoleonics from time to time.

A Tom Meier sculpt for the De Terlizzi Masterworks line from Dark Sword. Great sculpt (of course), and the casting was near flawless, requiring all of about 30 seconds of cleanup. I really love this figure, though I’m a bit nervous about transporting it around to games.

These Meier figures are great, and the casts from Dark Sword are nearl-immaculate. I only wish there were more of them available for purchase. I didn’t intentionally paint this figure up like some sort of armored pit crew for Team Lotus, but I do quite like the colors.

A few random figures that I’ve had around forever. I’m certain the spear-armed lady on the right is a Reaper figure. I suspect the skeleton is also Reaper. The priest might be an old 25mm Grenadier figure, but its provenance is lost to me in the murky depths of time.

Verdigris is tough. It’s a lot of fun painting up 20 (and maybe older than that in the case of the priest) year old figures. I have the old Grenadier boxed set of halflings on my shelf, and maybe I’ll get around to painting them, someday.

I have a few more figures to paint up from my stash of primered models, and then I’ll be moving on to a terrain project. I had intended to do an elaborate gaming board, but I think I’m pivoting (trendy word, right?!) to cheap cardboard modular dungeon tiles, simply because I know they’ll get used many times.

There are some rear views of these figures in the gallery below. Enjoy.

 

 

Otherworld Miniatures – Pig Faced Orcs. These are wonderful sculpts to paint…just the right amount of detail. Except for the eyes. I think I’m going to have to learn to paint eyes (gulp!), otherwise they look like they’re squinting in photos. Orc Tribe: Squintface Skullsplitter.

One quickly discovers that the same cloak was used over and over. I love the orc on the right’s floppy hood.

Reaper wolves and dire wolves. I think the dire wolves turned out ok, but I’m pretty sure no real-world wolf ever sported such horrible looking fur. I have fur fatigue, though, and they are unlikely to be repainted.

A Tom Meier sculpt for the De Terlizzi Masterworks line from Dark Sword. Great sculpt (of course), and the casting was near flawless, requiring all of about 30 seconds of cleanup. I really love this figure, though I’m a bit nervous about transporting it around to games.

I’ve been trying to push my highlighting a step beyond what looks good up close under the painting light so that the paint jobs read better on the gaming table. I think I could take it further.

A few random figures that I’ve had around forever. I’m certain the spear-armed lady on the right is a Reaper figure. I suspect the skeleton is also Reaper. The priest might be an old 25mm Grenadier figure, but its provenance is lost to me in the murky depths of time.

Hello, 2017

Hello all. It’s been a good while since the last post!

It’s been my tradition to do an end-of-the-year recap of my hobby activities, as well as some sort of projection/prognostication about what will happen in the coming year. Well, I’m going to keep it short and sweet:

2016 was a mediocre-to-bad hobby year. 1st world problems, right? !

2017 will be better. I’m not forecasting much activity on the historical miniatures front this year. I haven’t heard from my regular opponent in quite some time, so the Lasalle project is on hold for now. Who knows, he may pop back up, and things might take off again.

The one hobbyriffic bright spot from 2016 is that I’ve been playing quite a bit of good old D&D with a couple of groups of friends. For now, I’m going to concentrate my efforts in that area. Tangentially included in said efforts will be some sort of elaborate 36″x36″ terrain board for Song of Blades and Heroes. I plan to start that project very soon!

So, that’s the plan. I hope the new year finds you all well. I’ll close this out with photos of recent work, all in 28mm…

Mr. Rocklobber and Goblin Companions. These are all Red Box Minis. The troll/ogre fellow is a resin casting. Rocklobber is my first large(ish) monster figure, and was a blast to paint. I’m going to try and do more things of that sort in the future. Notice the long braided scalp on the front goblin’s spear? Yikes! I think he’s supposed to be the mastermind of this bunch. Pot of sky blue paint shown for scale.

The entire Goblin warband. The guys with spears in the back were painted a looooong time ago. It’s nice to have finally finished up the collection.

The heroes. Some are new to the blog, some are not.  I’ll break these down into logical groups, and get some closeup shots. The vast majority of these minis are Red Box, sculpted (and sold) by Tre Manor.

The elves. The middle figure is a de Terlizzi masterwork mini, sculpted by Tom Meier. The other two are Red Box. I think these have all made an appearance on my site before, but here they are again!

The wee folk, plus Gus the mule. The humanoids are all Red Box minis. The pack mule is a Warlord figure from their ancient Romans line. They use Pilum in fantasy settings, right?! And no, I’m not insinuating the shorties are jackasses by association. I need more halflings in my collection.

A couple of human casters. Both are Red Box. The fellow on the left is new, and might function as a druid, or some sort of hedge wizard. The fellow on the right has been seen on this page before. He’s seen quite a bit of use, and is looking a little worse for the wear. His robes were inspired by Jimmy Page’s Zoso outfit.

Various humans from Red Box minis. I think these three have all been seen on the blog before. The fellow on the left is Ivan Brown-cup, my 5th level Cleric of Chauntea. Man, that’s nerdy!

A couple more humans from Red Box. The fellow on the left is new to the site.

The heroes. I’ll break these down into logical groups, and get some closeup shots. The vast majority of these minis are Red Box miniatures, sculpted (and sold) by Tre Manor.

A couple more humans from Red Box. The fellow on the left is new to the site.

Various humans from Red Box minis. I think these three have all been seen on the blog before. The fellow on the left is Ivan Brown-cup, my 5th level Cleric of Chauntea. Man, that’s nerdy!

A couple of casters. Both are Red Box. The fellow on the left is new, and might function as a druid, or some sort of hedge wizard. The fellow on the right has been seen on this page before. He’s seen quite a bit of use, and is looking a little worse for the wear.

The wee folk, plus Gus the mule. The humanoids are all Red Box minis. The pack mule is a Warlord figure from their ancient Romans line. They use Pilum in fantasy settings, right?! I need more halflings in my collection.

The elves. The middle figure is a de Terlizzi masterwork mini, sculpted by Tom Meier. The other two are Red Box. I think these have all made an appearance on my site before, but here they are again!

The entire Goblin warband. The guys with spears in the back were painted a looooong time ago. It’s nice to have finally finished up the collection. Sorry for the DOF issues. I was being lazy.

Mr. Rocklobber and Goblin Companions. These are all Red Box Minis. The troll/ogre fellow is a resin casting. Pot of sky blue paint shown for scale.

Aldo Nova

Every now and then I get a wild hair, and paint a fantasy figure, or two. There’s no sort of project attached to these figures, though they do occasionally make it onto a table for roleplaying games. Here are a couple of my recent efforts.

I painted this Dragonborn wizard for a friend. It’s a reaper figure. I have to say it was a real pain in the ass to clean up…all of those spiky bits and undercuts meant lots of flash, and I’m not sure I managed to get it all. On the other hand, the level of detail makes for a really striking figure in the end! Can I officially say that I REALLY hate slot bases? There I said it. Hate them. I wish they weren’t so prevalent in fantasy figures.

Balasar the Dragonborn and Ivan Browncup venture forth into the dread Plane of Blue Posterboard. (Ivan is a Red Box Miniatures figure)

This is a “DeTerilizzi Masterworks” miniature, sculpted by the completely masterful Tom Meier. Meier absolutely captures the feel of the DeTerlizzi sketches these figures are based upon. This particular figure came in 3 parts, and was an absolute breeze to put together. Fantastic casting, too…cleanup took all of five minutes. A real treat! I think it may be time for me to learn how to paint non-metallic metals. Also, her face needs some more attention!

By request…