Wednesday, 30 September 2020

Work in Progress Wednesday: Diehard Miniatures Undead Centaur


One of my assembly people got the unenviable job of assembling this delightful fellow that I picked up in the Diehard Miniatures Kickstarter a while ago. He's now the oldest model on my "Shelf of Shame" having picked him up back in September 2018.

That means he's just passed two years old, so I'm keen to get him painted up and sorted out. That said, he's a really beautiful miniature who deserves not to be rushed, so it may be a little while before I get him finished.

Monday, 28 September 2020

Bad Squiddo Guinea Pig

 

I got this lucky guinea pig with one of my Bad Squiddo orders. Grey undercoat, drybrushed white, then contrast paint over the top. Simple work, but does the job.

Wednesday, 23 September 2020

Work in Progress Wednesday - Assorted Bad Squiddo


I've got a few more Bad Squiddo models ready for paint I thought you'd want to get a look at.


I suspect this Lizardlady is going to be from the jungles of Q'barra in Eberron. I think contrast paints are going to work really well on her.


This badass pirate lady is going to be so fun to paint! Plenty of details, but not so busy to the point where it'll drive me up the wall.


The druidess model will have a bunch of different uses - whether a druid, a wizard of some kind, or a priestess. Shouldn't take too long to paint, either!


Annie included a Lucky Guinea Pig in one of my orders a while ago. I've got her on a base and some undercoat down before I get a quick paint job on it.


We also have a giant iguana I impulse bought. Another one for the possible monster encounter at some point, but I don't have a particular plan for it.

Monday, 21 September 2020

Tabletop Quality Gnome Bard


In one of my recent trades, I was gifted this Gnome Bard. He's one of the D&D or Pathfinder pre-assembled miniatures, though I'm not sure which. The quality of the sculpt wasn't great - a lot of mould lines were left and he was a bit bendy.


The price point is so-so, at least in the UK. You can probably get some low quality metal sculpts for D&D cheaper, but they're OK value for being pre-assembled. I find them better than Bones, but not quite as good as Bones Black - though the range for Bones Black is still pretty limited.

I do keep looking on a couple of the messier bits and wanting to go back and tidy it up. But I have loads more to paint, so I will leave it unless he's still by the painting table while I'm using the paint I need for the clean up...

Friday, 18 September 2020

Future Friday: Dungeons and Dragons


With lock down effectively continuing for me, I've been looking at new things to entertain myself. As a surprise to me, I've started to really get into Dungeons and Dragons.


It started off with some old friends planning a Descent into Avernus campaign. This was a situation of both a setting campaign I've been interested in playing since it came out, and also a collection of excellent people I haven't role-played with in far too long, so I jumped at the chance.

Then I decided to watch some clips of Critical Role on Youtube. Specifically, I was playing a Kenku and wanted to see how Matt Mercer had run a Kenku NPC. I found that entertaining so watched a few more clips. Then I read the wiki a bit. Then I watched an episode.

Now I've watched several whole arcs, am watching the new episodes as they come up and have a favourite ship.

(If you are interested in getting into the current, second campaign of Critical Role, I'd recommend Episodes 1 - 4, then 26 - 30, 45, 80-87, 98 and finally 105 to present (currently episode 109). This does miss much of the Fjord-Ukatoa arc and some shenanigans in Xhorhas, but I just read the summaries of those so don't know which episodes to recommend.)


Because D&D Beyond gives me access to all active D&D material while I'm in the Descent into Avernus campaign, I got reminded of quite how much I love the Eberron setting, and how I've always meant to run a campaign where the PCs are a bunch of "monsters" from the nation of Droaam trying to get their nation political recognition from the more traditional nations.

As a result, I've been writing quite a lot of campaign notes, though I won't have time to run this until one of my existing commitments is complete, it's going to take a long while to get this all written up, so it's a good time to get going.


I also feel I should absolutely recommend Exploring Eberron at this point, an unofficial supplement written by Keith Baker, the creator of Eberron. It covers a lot of the stuff he's wanted to put into more detail before but never quite had the word count for.


From a blog and miniatures point of view, this is also absolutely the excuse to give a bit of a theme and purpose to the "random models I like" projects I've had sitting around for a while. Even if I end up running on Roll20 or another online forum, I'm likely to be able to utilise pictures of my painted models to help players visualise NPCs and monsters they encounter.

Also, if my readers have some interest, while I've been noodling around some of my campaign design ideas on my Facebook, I could put some of the more developed ideas up here as I get them finalised.

Still, at the very least, hopefully it'll be a motivation to get a few more figures done.

Wednesday, 16 September 2020

Work in Progress Wednesday - O-12

 

I've got quite a few O-12 models now, and I thought it would be worth getting a shot of them assembled and undercoated ready for paint. I'm working through some of my Shasvastii first, but these should be a fun side project at some point.

I still need to do a couple of test schemes to work out exactly what I'm doing, but the broad idea is a quick tabletop quality scheme that looks good at a distance. I'm also totally going to be taking advantage of contrast paints as much as I can get away with.


First up, there's the Operation: Wildfire minis. You've got three line infantry, a big lad with a suitably large gun, a drop troop, a sniper with a visor and an infiltrator. The infiltrator, the Gangbuster, is a bit of a weird one as he still has to deploy as a model and not a marker, and the two alternative Gangbuster profiles have different equipment that make them much better suited to the role. Everything else I can see myself using regularly.


I also grabbed the Beyond box. Cuervo is an extra shooty drop trooper who will cause a whole bunch of damage. Centre is an Omega unit with HMG - a beast of an attack piece that will be a primary hitter in a lot of lists. On the right, we get a Beta Trooper, who's a heavy infantry who can take a specialist profile. While I do like tougher specialists, I suspect we'll see a lot more of him once he can join a Fireteam and move up with a big gun.


Team Sirius was the "Advance Order" pack that came out when O-12 was released. Unsurprisingly, she hit retail before I got around to painting her. Whoops. Another model who deploys up the board, this time she gets a robot friend who sprays glue, a la Judge Dredd Riot Foam, all over anyone who gets too close. Again, likely to be an absolute staple.


Hippolyta is an Aleph model who comes to O-12 and was a limited edition sculpt with the pre-orders. I'm not sure how much use the big expensive character will be in practice, but I'll give her a go to see what happens...


Here are two high value targets from Dire Foes boxes I got on the cheap who are going to be objectives for my O-12 when I get them on the table. Included for completeness.

So, that's all I've got of O-12 at the moment. It should be a pretty playable force once I add a couple of Remotes and the Support Pack to get a doctor and engineer...

Monday, 14 September 2020

Progress with the trolls


I've managed to get the first of the three Aenor Miniatures trolls painted up. There's still two more to go, but the first being finished is a big deal for me.


I'd originally planned to do them as a "little distraction" from my Shasvastii project, but it turns out that there's loads of beautiful detail on them that takes quite a bit of time to sort out. So my plan now is to finish up the two Shasvastii from the Wildfire box before returning to the remaining two trolls.


Also, as is the way of things, I've of course spotted a couple of bits and pieces I'm not quite happy with with how the model has turned out - little mistakes and overpaint that I want to go back and fix. I'm going to put him to one side for now and come back and do those little fixes when I get back to his brothers.

Wednesday, 9 September 2020

Work in Progress Wednesday - Fenris Games US Imports

 

Here are two minis I've picked up from Fenris Games that are in the painting queue.

On the left, we have "Brath", who is made by Barbaric Splendor miniatures. On the right, Dagny the Viking Guard, by Bronze Age Miniatures.

As both companies are US based, Fenris acts as a UK supplier for these models, meaning that you can get them an awful lot cheaper than if you bought from the US yourself. There can be a little bit of a lead time if Fenris is out of stock, but they display stock levels openly so you can make the decision yourself easily enough!

I'm really looking forward to getting some paint on these two, and maybe you've been inspired to go pick something up from Fenris yourself?

Monday, 7 September 2020

August Progress Check


 August was pretty good for productivity. I managed to get back into painting, getting three projects sorted out.


I've kind of ended up focusing a little on selling bits and bobs I'm not using any more to make space. That ends up taking time I could be painting, but clearing space out of the flat is really good for my general positivity, and that should hopefully lead to more painting in the future.


I have had a bit of a slow down on buying things, too. I've realised I've been buying more and more stuff without being ready to paint it, so I'm trying to hold off on those easy hits of buying new exciting stuff I'm just not getting to. It's been the case with models and books, so it's time to put the brakes on.

I still need to have a think about how to structure my day / week to paint more regularly, as this seems to be the best way to get more done. Something I'm mulling over at the moment.

Wednesday, 2 September 2020

Work in Progress Wednesday - EM4 Ganger

 

Another model I'll be painting in the future. In this case, an EM4 Savage. I think I picked him up from Forlorn Hope games originally, but they seem to have shut down. He's still for sale in other places, though.