Works in Progress

Well it's still been a while since my last post, and I'll be returning to Star Wars again shortly (like tomorrow), but with some time off between the holidays, here are some pics of what's on the painting table.

First are yet another set of old (1980s) 25mm fantasy figs that have been waiting 25+ years for their moment of glory. Instead, I'm using them to practice my big fig painting skills, trying out different techniques I've read of. The one exception is one of Parroom Station's Earthmen on Mars (the daft looking one), who's getting another couple of painting techniques tried on him.

Swirlin, the magician in purple, was one of my first two D&D characters, he died on his first adventure, and was replaced by Zerlin, who also died on his first adventure. Twirlin and Verlin were subsequent replacements, all dying on their first adventure. D&D was hard on first level mages!

In the purple fez is Ordant Five-Hands (the latter name coming from an angry barmaid), a later magician who actually survived several adventures. His greatest claim to fame was when the party was surprised at night by orcs. While the rest of the party was arming up, he cast his one ready spell and killed the orc leader. He promptly got clubbed unconscious and awoke to find the battle over and the orcs in retreat. His interpretation of events left him as the hero, which he re-told, and re-told, and re-told to his rather annoyed companions.

My other first D&D character was Rolstun Goldaxe, a dwarf, who survived everything, became wealthy, and was retired before something bad happened to him. I have his figure, but am saving it until my skills are better and he gets a worthy paint job.

Here are the rest of the guys I'm working on, sorry for the crappy photo but the "mostly white" paint jobs don't show up well in the flash. You can see the Liberace on Mars character with his flesh painted, a lizardman (who looks really good in the photo, better than I think of him in real life), a priest or prophet, and a guard. All are still in progress, it's slow painting characters rather than armies, it's always requiring switching paints and brushes.

I picked up a lot of Xmas trees last year from craft shops, department stores, and dollar stores. Most are winterized (i.e. coated in snow), but these ones weren't other than a white base. So I painted the base up to make them spring/summer/fall trees, and will add some flocking later. They'll crop up again in my next few posts.

I picked up some paper mache craft houses last year, and am working on these two (I have about four more of the same models) as 15mm village pieces. Rather simple looking, but they'll do cheaply for now until the rest of my stuff gets proper treatment. They'll also work nicely for Splintered Lands (anthropomorphic animals) gaming.

I also have a bunch of Creatology's tudor house wooden puzzles on the table. The three on the left are for 15mm gaming, the first two as Tudor houses, the third as a stone church. The one on the right will be a 28mm stone house (it has space left for a bigger door). A fifth one isn't here, it's going to be a 15mm wooden block house (sort of North American in style, for FIW gaming).

The roofs (rooves?) of the same from a different angle. I tried different techniques on them.