Lockdown Day 26

Hi!

Here's a trio of Rusty Robots that I've now got finished!

 Mk1 Scrapbot, Forge Guard and Mk1 Scrapbot

I'm really pleased with how these little chaps have turned out and have a fourth just needing it's base finishing and two more base coated and waiting detailing which will give me my core warband.

The next step will be to sculpt up six robots for the next tribe, be it Black, Blue, White, Yellow or Green. After they are done, I'll try to get some specialists sorted out for each and then add more robots as I go!

 ID plates

Looking at my supplies, I realised I needed more greenstuff and I think at the rate I'm going, I'll need more bases soon as I seem to be blasting through lipped bases at quite a rate at present so I'm going to need to peruse ebay for more...

Firepike detail

I've also given into temptation and placed a small order for World of Twilight and will post a review on the miniatures once they arrive so watch this space!

My next update will probably be covering more Shieldbash or possibly some denizens of the Witchlands for Deadloque so watch this space!

In the meantime, All the best!

Lockdown Day 25

Hi!

Today I've spent a bit of time working through my assorted projects and laying out my collection to see what needs done.

As such, I've got the next two members of my True Atronian warband painted for War of Ashes, Shieldbash by Zombiesmith:

Wilddoe and Priestess

As I've already mentioned, I really love the quirky little sculpts as they are very much muppet vikings in style and have lots of character and have been an absolute pleasure to work on.

Here's the warband thus far:

True Atronian Warband

I have another six or seven to paint plus a large riding beastie so suspect that I'll be chipping away at the project for a few days yet. I'm also making solid progress on my Rusty Robots and will post a few pics tomorrow to show how I'm getting on with those little fellows.

I've been struck by how much enjoyment I've been having from the more cartoony or at least stylised figures that I've been working on over the last few weeks and hope to keep the mojo going by finishing the Atronians and the Flintloque boxed set asap and continuing on with my Rusty Robots too.

I'm also becoming more tempted by the prospect of picking up a few odds and ends to keep me entertained as I've noticed a couple of bargains on Ebay so may yet have a few extras to add onto my existing figures. To balance it out, I am going to post up some stuff that I hope to sell off to fund said purchases as I have got a fair few odds and ends that I want rid of but more on that another day, In the meantime, All the best!

Lockdown Day 24

Hi!

I've managed to complete the first of my Red Tribe Rusty Robots!

Forgeguard K-12 

Armed with a Firepike the Forgeguard are the professional soldiery of the Red Tribe and can be found guarding their Forgetowns and trading caravans. Built from a MK3a casing and equipped with sturdy armour plate, Forgeguard are doughty soldiers who are capable of holding their own against most of the more common denizens of The Scrapyard. 

K-12 is currently taking part in an excavation of scrap in the Rusted Mesa south of Wreck Valley.

Many moons ago, whilst at university, I sculpted a series of dumpy little robots and set about creating a world for them to live in. Sadly real life got in the way and with work commitments I never got much further than writing and doodling and making the odd stab at the little chaps. 

Handily the Lockdown has meant I have had a wee bit of spare time so I've set about making a small party of Red Tribe robots to explore The Scrapyard!

Here's the original concept art for a Forgeguard Robot:

Over the years I've managed to write something like a hundred thousand words on the world, its inhabitants and whatnot but I really wanted to make a go at bringing it to life and have decided that my next mini project will be to put together and paint two small forces to fight over valuable scrap in the wilds of The Scrapyard, a planet spanning dump located in a less salubrious sector of space and promptly abandoned to it's own devices by the supposedly intelligent races who created the mess.

Exploring The Scrapyard

I even set up a blog back in the day just for the goings on but never really got it going so maybe now is the time to do something about it.

Starting tomorrow, I think I'll post an article a day over there, be it sketches, background gubbins or whatever random stuff I can.

 Red Tribe Scrapbot

In the meantime, All the best!

Lockdown Day 23: Interlude of Ponderment

Hi!

After I posted my last update, I spent the evening and this morning having a bit of a ponder on what exactly it is that I have found so enjoyable about painting all these older figures and why I get put off 28mm so easily.

I think I may have stumbled over the answer as I sat painting a Void 1.1 Assault Androsynth. It's a considerably more modern figure than the stuff I've been painting and enjoying and it's technically very well sculpted. The proportions are better than Flintloque miniatures, the sculpting is smooth and detailed but I have had absolutely no pleasure in working on it whatsoever.

Last attempt at painting Syntha

I will finish it but why have I had such a negative response to painting this one 28mm sci-fi chappy? I suspect that it is precisely because it is a technically good, mordernish sculpt. There's just no character or charm to it. It's bland and uninspiring and I just don't have the jolly response to it that I did with the old plastic GW Ork boyz or my Flintloque project. Similarly, I could paint something similar in 15mm and actually enjoy the end result. Maybe it's because at the smaller scale a not quite perfect paint job is more forgiving or the techniques for getting the results I want are different.

In 28mm I love the charm and quirkiness of Flintloque with it's chunky, slightly cartoony proportions and the older miniatures are very forgiving to paint but this new figure I have sat down to paint has had me pick it up and put it down repeatedly and just been a bit of an uninspiring lump of lead.

During the Lockdown of doom, my enjoyment of painting has really helped keep me sane whilst being stuck in the house for 23 hours of the day and having found myself frustrated with this one figure has irked me and I wondered what I could do about it.

The Boar Company

My first response would be to sculpt all my own stuff as over the years, I have put together quite a few different projects that I have sculpted, be it Rusty Robots, Somewhere on the Border, Battletech SD or even tiny Orks, each chunky and hopefully characterful but there have been none that I have balked at painting as I created them myself and therefore didn't find myself stuck with what to do with them.

Rusty Robots

As I mentioned in my last post, I have actually pulled out the sculpting tools and am nearing finishing a group of Rusty Robots which I hope to get painted up this week and I have got enough of my Somewhere on the Border stuff to play all sorts of small skirmishes but I keep seeing interesting ranges that fire my imagination and get distracted!

 SD Battletech

I think that one remedy to the situation will be to spend a couple of days a week sculpting during the lockdown to see what I can put together and the rest of the time choosing only the miniatures I enjoy painting to work on. I think that I need to go for my book approach, in that if a book doesn't catch me within 50-100 pages, I discard it for another with the discard going to charity, in this case, miniatures which don't catch me being sent to ebay for recycling into the hobby fund!

Boodaxe Boyz

The other thing I am keen to do is explore some of the new and for the most part still readily available ranges that I find quirky, characterful and charming with the following three being high on the list:

Relics is a fascinating range of stitchpunk figures with bundles of character and very unusual forces to choose from. The downside is that the range got sold and seems to have pretty much vanished into the Aether which is a real shame.

War of Ashes, be it Shieldbash or Shieldwall are both in production and the miniatures are available, even if it is from the USA so shipping and import duties become a bit of an issue. The only niggle is that Zombiesmith is currently reworking the sculpts into a slightly larger scale which puts me off picking up any more for the time being.

The final option for the time being is the World of Twilight which I briefly mentioned in my last post. I've heard so many good things about the game and miniatures and it certainly ticks many boxes for me. The figures are certainly interesting and I may have to dip my toe in the water so to speak and pick up a few to see how I get on!

I also plan on keeping on with the Flintloque/Deadloque stuff as I have really had so much fun painting them that it seems a shame to stop when there are so many other great figures to paint.

As for the rulesets that have interesting factions, forces and races, I think I will translate them to 15mm as I did with the Syntha chaps which will allow me to keep the inspiration but make it more usable in smaller scale. I've done this for Warhammer to a certain extent with my 6mm Goblins who will eventually be a decent sized horde but using 3rd/4th edition Fantasy Battle as inspiration.

We shall see how things go in the next few weeks but I also have my 2mm stuff bubbling away too which reminds me that I have a bunch of Land Ironclads to work on...

Needless to say I'll probably get distracted by something during this time but hopefully I'll be able to keep my hobby mojo going and refreshed by my new approach so watch this space. 

In the meantime, All the best!

Lockdown Day 22

Hi!

As promised, here's some pics of the Witchlands shack that I built yesterday!

Constructed from cardboard, coffee stirrers and static grass, I was initially not liking the whole thing but as soon as I got a few drybrushes on it, I got a bit happier about it! I used a combination of techniques from the rather fun and retro Citadel Scenery book and the Wargames Terrain & Building book I mentioned in a previous post.

I even got a bit creative and made some tiny icicles on the building which was quite satisfying, if a bit simplistic looking.

I added a greenstuff skull to the side to make it a wee bit more interesting and covered the thatched roof with snow effect from Woodland Scenics. Sadly I'd had to add flow enhancer to it as it had almost dried out so it looks a bit watery now but still works for the most part. 

I need to make 2-3 more of these dishevelled abodes for my lowly undead serfs to live in and then I need to make the pine trees I've been pondering on for the last few months!

In other news, I've rummaged out my Shieldbash True Atronians and have cleaned them up and repaired them as best as possible but one has a head that's become detached, my one issue with the range is that although it's made in metal, the miniatures are really delicate and prone to breaking but I think I can fix it without too much hassle.

I'm also painting a couple of Syntha dudes who I found whilst looking for my Atronians and am using the miniatures as test pieces to try for a sleek, hightech look, much like my 15mm stuff that I posted a while ago.

There's also some sculpting underway which I hope to post some pics of once I have them finished and painted but that will probably be next week now as I have a fair amount of work to do on them before I get to the painting stage!

Commissar Moody has mentioned The World of Twilight and I must admit that I am sorely tempted by the wonderful world of the range. Maybe I'll dip my toe in and see how I get on but I really want to finish the Atronians for Shieldbash and my Flintloque stuff first. But they are really lovely figures and I suspect I would have a lot of fun working on them...

We shall have to see but for the time being, All the best!

Lockdown Day 21

Hi!

Well I've spent much of today working on building a small peasant shack for my Deadloque project and will get some pics up over the next few days.

As it's looking like the lockdown isn't going to be ending any time soon, I have found myself casting around for another small project that I can complete and tick off the list. At present my gaming table is in pieces as I'm still sorting through my man cave with all our many, many books sorted but still having to get the miniatures and art materials seen to so playing any games is currently out of the question till I have the place fully back in order.

I think I will need to spend tomorrow going through my unpainted lead to see what I have and what I can put together in the coming week as I feel the need to work on some more stuff, preferably themed around a setting or particular rules.

One such mini project that instantly springs to mind is Zombiesmith's War of Ashes, Shieldbash. A few years back I picked up some True Atronians during one of their sales and I painted up a couple of the miniatures but got distracted by various things (I think it was a change of shop location as I was living near Dundee but having to commute to Perth every day looking back at it)

There's something pleasingly Muppet like about the little figures (they are mounted on 20mm round bases!) and I still have about a dozen figures to paint from that little warband so I think I'll rummage out the remainder and get them cleaned, based and primed and see how I get on with them. I highly recommend the rules too as they are rather good and available for free!

I'll need to do a bit of repair work on them too as I am fairly sure that last time I spotted them, they were looking a little bit worse for wear so I'll need to look at them and see what I can do to get another quirky mini project done and dusted.

In the meantime, All the best!

Lockdown Day 20

Hi!

As it's Easter Sunday I've taken a much needed break from all this intensive hobbying!

Normal service will return tomorrow!

In the meantime, All the best!