'Stand back girl!'

Hello everyone,

A short post this time has I didn't have much time to paint this week.
Last Sunday was spend going to the Adelaide 500 (a racing car event) with the family.
I'm only remembering the loud engines and noxious fumes, but my two eldest sons simply adore these kind of things.
So it was a bit like a compulsory family excursion.
On Monday I did a little bit more conversion work on some doubles I got, to make some more individual companion models.

I'm not entirely happy with them, but I'm getting there and the head swaps turned out better than I expected. 

 This little girl started out as a Ravenwing Angelic figure. After I saw it on eBay I asked the seller how tall it was and he said that it measured 15mm.
So I planned transforming it into a second Arcanist, with a book strapped onto his back. When it arrived it turned out it was only 12mm and without a lip on it's feet it felt even smaller.
I decided to try my hand at sculpting a face and make it look like a little girl.
The first face I made was too large, better suited for 25mm, this is my second attempt.
While painting her I had no idea what to do with the rabbit as I didn't want her to look too drab, which is why it's pink and looks a bit like a care-rabbit.

Among the order I got from Alternative Armies we're more Rogue/Thief characters than I had a use for, so I decided to change one to a swordsman.
I added a hat, facial hair, sword and a scabbard.
The hat, scabbard and sword turned out alright, though his stance is a bit weird. His moustache and goatee look ridiculous in my opinion though, I need to do better next time.

A wraith, also from AA.
I didn't like the empty hood on the model and tried sculpting him a skullface. Some of the details, like it's teeth, turned out being too shallow as I painted him.
Lessons learned!

That's it for this week. 

Thanks a lot for reading

Best regards

Wouter

Protect the lady!

Hello everyone,

Like I said in my previous post, most of my hobby time this week was spend applying to all the miniatures I painted since I arrived in Australia, just over a year ago.
To be honest, there weren't that many of them but it took a lot of time cleaning my airbrush after each session. Especially as varnish has the tendency to clutter, blocking the exhaust.
Using a spray can was out of the question however with the high temperatures we had here last week.

Luckily I had some time left to finish some models, though two of them were a bit rushed.

A man at arms and a templar defending this lady's (civilian) honour.

I tried to paint a gryphon on this guy's shield, not 100% perfect but it'll do.

While unpacking everything to put some varnish on, I came across these guys who were almost completely painted except for the base. So I did this real quick and added them in the queue.

That's it for now, thanks a lot for reading!

Wouter

World of Twilight Kickstarter

Hello everyone,

I know, I know, this isn't really an update but a rather blatant commercial.
But hey, it's about two of my favourite hobby-related things: World of Twilight and 15mm.

A few days ago (now there's less than 40 hours left, so if you want to participate you have to be quick), Mike launched a KS to celebrate it's been 10 years since the release of his first miniatures.
To do so he sculpted a 15mm tower for a range he calls 'Legends'.
3 updates in, he suddenly showed of some more 15mm models which made me make a little happy dance.

If 15mm fantasy is your thing, make sure to check this campaign out!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1280484354/world-of-twilight-the-crooked-trade-outpost/posts/2428700

As for any progress on my 'Rangers of Shadow Deep' project, I'll do and update soon.
However, most of my hobbytime this week was spend on giving all the miniatures I painted so far, this and last year, a much needed varnish coat (or two).

Thank you for reading!

Wouter

Masters of the Arcane

Hello again everyone,

This week I’ve spend a few hours painting a few heroes for the 15mm Rangers of Shadow Deep campaign I’ve been planning. Nothing really special but I’m happy that I’m making some progress.

I’ve also been thinking on how I can keep this blog alive and I believe the key will be to do regular, but smaller updates. As my interest often comes and wanes, I can’t promise I’ll keep a steady pace, but at the very least I hope to do at least one update every two weeks.

The terrain piece is from the Burrows and Badgers range and is unfortunately too large for 15mm. However, as it sat in my ‘to do’ pile for quite some time I decided to spend some time finishing it. After all, I also hope to play some Burrows and Badgers somewhere in the future (I own almost every model in the range so it would be a shame not to). I found some more resin terrain pieces which I bought years ago, but didn't do anything with apart from washing and giving them an undercoat, which you can expect to see these in the near future as well.

 

 Conjurer: I painted him up as a bright wizard from Warhammer. The glowing staff didn't work out as I wanted though.

 Arcanist: this guy was originally a priest holding a cross. As I did not like the cross, I removed it, together with his right hand, and replaced with a torch. While not on a dangerous mission he's probably serving the crown as a scribe (hence the symbol on his tabard).

Raptor: A small conversion based on a frenu from World of Twilight, the only things I did was adding a second pair of legs, changing the tail and do some draconic ridges on his head and back.

 



 

This is a rather small scenery piece, but the bucket alone is half as tall as a 15mm mini, so it's unsuitable for the scale.

 

Thanks a lot for reading!

 

Cheers

 

Wouter



New Year, new beginnings (for real this time)

A very belated Happy New Year everyone! Once again I must apologise for my erratic blogging and late update. Truth to be told, I’ve been idle when it comes to hobbying for a long time since my last post. With me and my family moving house again, the search for a job (which isn’t over yet), a holiday to Queensland and one to New Zealand and especially a pain in my left shoulder that prevented me from painting for more than a half hour at the time. And without a goal or project to work towards, I’ve found myself being immersed in video games whenever I had a moment not doing anything else.

However, while looking at new posts at G+, I unexpectedly came across some reposted blog articles of mine. After talking a bit to the one who posted them (thank you Fred Jackson), I let myself be convinced to make get my blog going again. It would definitely be a good promise to myself for the new year. But for this I needed a project …

Shortly after I started searching for miniatures games to play with my two eldest sons, I came across the recently released ‘Rangers of Shadow Deep’. The thing with playing a game with my boys is that it kind of feels like playing to myself, with me making all the decisions and someone else moving the pieces. While this is fine at first and certainly counts towards the father-sons quality time, it isn’t sustainable for me personally as it lacks a challenge. So, when I found out that the Rangers of Shadow Deep was cooperative, I decided to buy the PDF and was happy to see it didn’t disappoint.

If I use 15mm, I can change the ranges from inches to centimetres. While this isn’t perfect when it comes to scalability, my sons could use the metric system, which they are familiar with, instead of the odd imperial one and it also takes up far less space for storage. After rummaging through the small miniatures pile I found out I had quite a few 15mm protagonists, but no heroes.

One of the things I wasn’t entirely happy with when doing my World of Twilight ‘Lost Boys’ project, though I won the best force award, was my green stuff work. So I also decided to learn myself some new skills with a very cheap airbrush (to get rid of these overly expensive spray cans and try out something new) and making some extensive conversions, as well as sculpting.

Also, my friend Richard (you can find his blog here: http://fanplasticlittlemen.blogspot.com/) in all his kindness, decided to part with his Casanii and send them to me. As I’m a sucker when it comes to making every single model unique, the Rangers of Shadow Deep project would be great training to get them done in the future. Once more: Thank you very much Richard!

Here are the first miniatures I painted this year, many more are undercoated and silently waiting for their turn in the que. Sorry for the bad quality of the pictures, they're taken with my Phone and the lighting outside isn't the best

 

 Some treasure tokens for the game and a trapdoor. The one on the 30mm lipped base sat, only partially painted, in a carrying casefor many years. Not sure if I'm going to use that one but it kind of felt good to complete that one too.

 

 Cocoon markers I made for the scenario with the spiders using cotton earbuds.

 

 These rats came with a Skaven beast master set. I had to remove all the tubes and Skaven iconography but they're the perfect size (see below).

 Some Khurasan zombies, I really like these as they are exactly how I see zombies.
Not carrying weapons or whatsever, just some ragtag walking corpses.

And last a small child, to be used as a survivor if a scenario calls for it.

 

I'm probably going to add some grass to the bases later. Unfortunately, the kinds I got here a bit tall for 15mm so I'll have to bring back some from my stock in Belgium when we get back from our holiday there later this year.

 

Thanks a lot for reading!

 

Wouter



The Lost Children

Last week was a week full with frantic painting as the competition is nearing its conclusion.
I spend so many hours behind my painting desk (our dinner table actually) that my shoulders started aching near the end of the week.
Seeing that I wasn't going to be able to finish it all, but had enough for the competition, I decided to call it quits and took a break yesterday.
The rest will be finished in the next couple of weeks.

Koi'Koi's children is a bit of a special project for me.
Not only because I was partially responsible for the creation of Koi'Koi and Jakiin, but also because the ferals remind me a lot of the lost boys from the Peter Pan story (though they are not really orphans).
A story I have liked since I was a little kid, despite discovering it's darker sides when I grew up.
Koi'Koi itself is a bit of an old fagin, using his protegees to further his own ends and needs.
His name is actually the name of the turtle I had at home, who was named after the first word my eldest son uttered when he was younger. We're still not sure what he meant though :D.
As Jakiin is named after my youngest: Jaquin, I felt it my responsibility to make an avatar for my two other sons as well, especially as they have showed interest in the game.

Paintingwise, I went for a more sober look compard to the official scheme Joe did. Not only because this suits my painting style better, but also because it speeds up the painting process as there are less colours to work with.
I did some research regarding the bodypaint used by african tribes and noticed that many were done in white, so that's the colour I went with.
I wasn't able to finish Benarii (modeled after my second eldest Benjamin), Lek'Saa with her four grishak jenta and my dompaku, but these will be done in the following weeks.
As I've been neglecting my duties in the Household chores to get everything done in time, I will have less hobbytime and they will probably take a week or so for each figure to finish.

 

Jakiin was already nearly finished when I started the project, which means he already had his base adorned with different kinds of grass tufts. However, I didn't take these with me to Australia which is why his base is out of sync with the bases of all the others.

The brave on the left is Jon'aa (Jonathan), the one on the right the regular one.

For my mutts I went for an unusual dark colourscheme, where I too my inspiration from the Uruk Hai from LoTR. They are all decorated by a three-fingered white hand :).

That's it for now, thanks a lot for reading!
Until next time!

Wouter
 

Keeping up the pace

I've been painting at every available moment since my last post.
However, things doesn't go as fast as I would like.
I always was a  a bit of a slow painter and now, with all the extra time I took for converting, I'm running out of time.
So I can only hope I will be able to get my second force finished as well before the competition ends.

But at the very least I finished my first force and another little pampered critter.
This is my Trebarnii ambush force with a Kelahn as support.
Luckily the new Trebarnii howlers came just in time and there are three different poses to start with.
The boss model didn't really look like a boss to me, just another Trebarnii brandishing a small tree, so I gave him some bark armour and leaves.
I apologize for the pictures being so dark, it's a rainy day here in Adelaide.

 

 

This is my pampered Daxu, not much changed since last time, I just added some flowers.

 

That's it for this time, back to my painting table :).

Thanks a lot for reading!
Until next time.