Pre-Xmas Post

This could be my last post for the year, given how busy the next week will be (despite getting a lot of miniatures-related work done), but we'll see.  I must have been a reasonably good little boy (at least this week), as I had a rather interesting first on Tuesday - four parcels in mail for me.  I'd made some orders since I know I'm unlikely to get much mini-related stuff for Xmas, so I took advantage of a number of sales.

The four parcels were:

• Some new Shapeways items, mainly Star Wars spaceships and fighters, plus some 1/600 Sparrowhawk fighters and JF-17s.
• My GZG Xmas special order, a mix of 6mm sci-fi infantry, 6mm accessories, 15mm accesories, and their Recreational Vehicle (or Research Vehicle, depending on your point of view).  My freebies from Jon included the spacesuited explorers pack, his new explorer on a mule (ATV sort of thing), and some 2/3mm walkers, which I also can use for 6mm.  My winter order, to take advantage of my coupon, will be some spaceships and 15mm infantry, explorers, etc.  Maybe some backup 6mm tanks, so I have more than a platoon of some of them.
• My second (!) order this month from Splintered Light Miniatures.  I had to make the second order since after I placed my first they released a cool new Egyptian undead line, and I wanted to take advantage of their Xmas sale.  I also picked up some of their new Vikings, in particular the character pack, to help with my Cormac Mac Art/Turlogh dub O'Brien projects.  My order earlier this month was mainly to round out my Sons of Horus (Egyptian hawk-men) collection.
• Finally, there was my order from Hydra Miniatures.  I took advantage of their sale to pick up their lovely Valkeeri ladies, their robot queen, and the first range from Matt's new 15mm line, the Akarr (bird-men too).

I'm going to try to be quiet over the holidays, unless some gift cards or hobby cash end up under the tree.  Rebel Minis, GHQ, and Brigade Models UK all have sales going on too...

Happy holidays everyone!

Nice Little Miniatures Wargaming Intro Video

Not by me, by some folks on the west coast:
Miniatures Gaming 101

Let's Walla-Walla Down By The Rubber Trees

Thanks to the movie Meatballs for the title.  This is way late, but here's how I am putting together some rubber trees for rubber plantations in 3mm Vietnam-land.  They'll also work for peach orchards and the like in Terrible Sharp Sword (ACW) and Sharp Practice (Nap) games.

First up is the parts - dollar store (on left) and craft store (on right) mini pom-poms, the cheap dollar store ones are actually better in the long run - easier to paint and some of the colours can be used without any painting.  I also use 13mm pins, inserted through the pom-poms, as in the three examples out of the bag in the pic, and some craft store wood sticks.  I used an awl to poke some holes in the wood sticks, for sticking in the trees later.

As I said, some of the pom-poms didn't need any paint touch ups, but a lot did, so I used some basic green craft paint (Hunter Green) to touch them up.  The pic below isn't the finished pick, but "in progress".  The pom-poms absorb a lot of paint, so it's a bit of a bugger, but it worked in the end.

Below are pics of the trees once I glued them into the craft sticks.  There isn't much depth to the holes, so it took a bit of work, but it came together.  Now I just need to add sand and paint the sticks, and the trunks.

6mm Scenic Frenzy

As you'll recall from my (now-retired) schedule for 2012, I was going to spend August on 6mm terrain and scenics, so here are some belated pictures from that effort. Most of these are still ongoing, and will probably linger on my table for the rest of the year. When I'm bored with prepping figures, I'll spend on time on these.

First up is a massive ruined factory from Gamecraft Miniatures. This is made of acrylic (thin plexiglass), but the roofs, doors, and interior walls and floors are scratchbuilt by me. The interior walls are actually ruined floors from Gamecraft's city ruins line, just turned on their side. I had some spares when I put together the city ruins (no photos of that project yet, it got packed away).

Some 6mm ACW figures for scale:

The kit gives you the option of putting the entrance together with a Soviet star or German swastika, and I went with the latter since my project plans call more for late war fighting at the moment.

I also have been working on the sci-fi outpost buildings available from Angel Barracks, mainly painting them with leftover paint from other paintjobs.  Mostly I'm doing these in metallics, as if they're being built from the scraps of ruined spaceships.  The terrain will be a grey, moon-like finish when done (needs a final drybrushing).  These aren't quite done yet, but I've blocked in most of the bigger panels.

These are some sci-fi Jetson-like urban buildings built from trophy/plaque bases, as someone demonstrated once on The Miniatures Page.  These are 3 of the 5 I did, and have been primed, but the grey was darker than I anticipated, so I need to hand paint them a lighter grey.  The others will be yellow and white.  I need to improve my technique a bit, as too much grain is showing from up close, but I'll live with these ones.

Some JR Miniatures huts, for fantasy and any future ancients or medieval projects in 6mm.

A wall section for my 6mm High Elven city.  A few years ago I picked up some fancy wood trim on sale for cheap at the local craft superstore, and finally found a use for it.  The wall itself is just a strip of balsa, with the blocks scribed in, and the trim glued to the top and later cut.  I have enough for a 36" wide by 12" deep portion of the city (sitting on the table's edge) and a small 8"x6" or so fortress.  The wall sections will be interrupted by towers, also scribed and then capped by some fancy wood bits to look like organic-inspired towers.  Those will be shown once I get them coated with sandable sealer.

Inside the elven city will be a large water fountain, with these statue of an elven hero standing in the middle.  He's actually an old 25mm fantasy figure, making the statue about 25' tall.  As usual, photographing white didn't turn out so well, but he's been painted a winter white and drybrushed with a metallic white to make him look like marble, with a gold staff and sitting on a jade base.

And here's most of what else got started in August.  At the back centre-left is a Simply 6 ruined building; back centre-right is one of those Gamecraft city ruins I mentioned above.  This was the demo one (to see if the matt board warped when primed - it didn't), it still needs to be painted properly.  In front of it is a ruined cathedral, in the process of being primed with black gesso.  Also in the pic are two ruined castles from JR Miniatures, a ruined bridge and farm complex from Simply 6, three Baccus bridges, and some Baccus stone fences (bottom left).

Pic Plentiful

I've now emptied my camera onto the computer, so this is the first of at least 3 posts, all with glorious pictures.  Some I'd forgotten I'd even taken, so you'll get a 3mm rubber tree tutorial out of this eventually. 

First though, I'd like to say Blogger's new editor is really bloody annoying.  I was using the old one as long as possible, but they're making that harder to do.  But I'll persevere. 

This post is less coherent than the follow-ups will be, as it doesn't really have a theme, it's all the oddities.  First up is a re-purposed Blarney castle from a music box I found in a local thrift shop.  It's about 6mm, so I did it up as an evil Warhammer Chaos or Vampire Count lair, with some warpstone showing through the walls and up on top.  Perhaps it was hit by a falling warpstone meteor.

My now 2yo nephew helped paint the green at the base, so I've begun his training.  The glare is from a glossy coat of sealant, I'm dulling it with Dullcote for the table. 

I've previously posted some of the Creatology wooden puzzles that I'm using as cheap terrain, and have finally finished a few.  These are the same building, but converted to different scales, on the left is 28mm, intended for fantasy or the like, and is meant to be a fortified stone house.

On the right is a 15mm stone church, intended for Solomon Kane or other settings.  The cross is a spare bit from one of the other wooden puzzles.  Both were spray painted with a textured paint, then the roofs added and painted later.

I recently took advantage of Black Cat Bases' September sale, and amongst the things I picked up were three planets for space gaming.  This is the one I'm going to do up as an Earth-like planet.  I've just started the land masses, and need to figure out how to give them some life so they don't look like one flat colour.  Once I get the land and oceans done, I intend to paint some cloud cover over everything.

The other two planets will be an ice world, like some of Jupiter's moons, and a Mars-like red planet.  I think I need to order some more planets though, as I have lots more ideas for colour schemes.

Finally, from JR Miniatures, this is a 10mm tower that is slated for use in my Imaro (African fantasy) setting.  I need to do a final drybrush of the roof, but it's otherwise done. 

Next up will be a ton of 6mm terrain and scenics pics.

Pic-less Update

Given the lack of updates here, you'd think I wasn't doing anything, but it's actually been a couple of the most productive months I've had, at least in terms of getting things ready and in some cases painted. It's been so busy, I haven't had time (or room) to get some photos of all that's going on.

If you've been following my schedule for 2012, and its re-jigging, then you'll recall August was to be 6mm terrain month, and a lot got done. So much so, that I decided to bail on the rest of my non-painting schedule for 2012, and concentrate on finishing the 6mm stuff, and prepping ALL of my 6mm figures, across all projects. So that's 6mm WWII, sci-fi, fantasy, and ACW. Along the way, some new (and final) 15mm 18th century India figures are getting done, as well as all my new 15mm sci-fi. If there's time, the rest of my 15mm will get done too, before 2013.

My goal for the abandonment of the plan is to take a big chunk out of my huge backlog of metal, and then spend 2013 only painting. I noted before that despite my plan for 2012, the terrain work was getting all the attention, and my painting table hasn't been used since March. Even the painting I'm doing now has been downstairs at my bigger "building stuff" table. So I want to have nothing really left to do next year BUT paint.

If I get super far ahead of schedule this fall, I'll keep rolling through my aircraft, 28mm pulp and sci-fi projects.

I hope to get some pictures up this week, I've been having fun customizing some of Gamecraft's 6mm buildings and ruins, so they'll probably be first.

RAFM Space 1889 Expansion Campaign on Indiegogo

Well last month it was Kickstarter and the Big Lebowski figures, this month RAFM has started a campaign on Indiegogo (a lot like Kickstarter) to seed an expansion of their Space 1889 line, including some Martian creatures unique to the setting.

Like a sucker, I fell for it! Full details are here.

Here's a photo and some illustrations to get your mojo going: