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Archive for the ‘Miniatures’ Category

Terrain upgrade

February 27, 2019

Like many other hobbyists (I assume), I have terrain pieces amassed through the years. After showing some old green hills in my previous post, I figured there might still be some use left in them. While I claimed they were from the 1990s, thinking back I’m fairly sure they’re mid-2000s as I remember us making them in my current apartment, so 10+ years old at least.

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Now, when these were built, we prized durability a lot. The hills were carved from blue foam and then covered with a pva/sand mix. A phrase from an old White Dwarf sums it up: “In the morning you’ll need dynamite to shift it.” Of course the sand we used was a very cheap one, so it’s coarse as anything (and I’ve still got about 5-6 kg of it down in the basement). This in turn led to the hills (and the gaming boards built in the same manner) being terribly miniature-unfriendly. Basically, if you knocked a metal mini over, it was almost certain to chip. Good times!

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I was already contemplating throwing the hills away, but as they already existed, I started thinking that they could be revived and actually put back to use. Out came the craft store acrylics, the static grass and the tufts, as well as some coffee stirrers, tea leaves and some sunken resin barrels and what do you know, they actually turned out pretty nice! The static grass helps with the aforementioned chipping issue too.

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They can be used either as table edge pieces or put together to make a larger island. Painting them as islands obviously limits them to more nautical games, but I’m fairly certain I’ll have some of those with my lovely new ocean mat.

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Here’s what they look like with scenery items and miniatures placed on the pieces.

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I think it looks mighty nice! Finally, a before and after shot:

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Sorry for the slightly overexposed quality of the photos, the pieces are so large that I had to rely on daylight rather than my usual lighting – and to be honest, I couldn’t be bothered to tweak camera settings.

Posted in Miniatures, Pirates, Scenics | 20 Comments »

Custom mat from Deep-Cut Studio – a review

February 16, 2019

It just so happened, that I wanted a gaming mat for sea battles – possibly unsurprising considering my pirate infatuation. Turns out such a mat isn’t all that easy to find! You’d assume it to be a common gaming mat staple: a lovely, greenish-turquoise Caribbean seascape is pretty iconic and it’s not like pirate gaming isn’t popular. However, this assumption would be wrong. While there are seascapes available, many of them are very much a dark blue. This is nice in itself and probably fits most naval games wonderfully, but it’s not ideal for evoking a sunny Caribbean/West Indies feel. Furthermore, I wanted the mat to be mousepad material as it’s easy to store, lays flat and has a nice feel to it.

After doing plenty of googling and window shopping, I ended up looking at Deep-Cut Studios’ custom mat printing service, Print-O-Mat. I was overjoyed, now all I needed was a suitable image, and surely one would be easily available. How wrong I was. As is apparent in hindsight, you need a very big image for a quality print, and I was going for a 3x3ft map – roughly 90x90cm to fit my small table. While there are beautiful stock photos of Caribbean waters, you need a very high resolution for a high quality mat. After spending hours searching through various photo archives both free and commercial, I settled on something especially designed for the purpose: a printable battle mat image from Tiny Worlds. A bargain at $4.50, it suited my needs wonderfully. While it was also very blue, purchasing it as a file meant that I could simply use Photoshop to tweak it to my needs. I edited the colour balance to make the mat more green to evoke the correct genre feel.

Original on the left, colour-tweaked on the right

Pleased with the result, I headed to Deep-Cut Studios’ site and used their simple interface for creating the mat. The final price for a 90x90cm mat was around 40€ with a flat postage rate of 15€. Deep-Cut is situated in Lithuania, so no customs charges for a Euro customer. I was quite happy with the price altogether! The mat was very speedily delivered in a work week, and boy, was I impressed with the end result.

As you can hopefully see in the photos, the mat is crisp and vibrant. While colours are a tad darker than the original image, it’s still a faithful rendition and looks pretty much just like I imagined, and it should be noted that the lighting conditions and camera settings distort the colour in the photos! I threw down some super old hills that were originally made for WHFB way back in the 90s (I think) as well as some of my badlands/scifi cork outcrops that make for surprisingly nice rocky shoals. I love how it looks.

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Overall verdict: I’m super happy with my custom mat. Great quality and quick delivery at a very reasonable price point. While a part of the credit obviously goes to Tiny Worlds for the original image, I’m really, really happy with Deep-Cut’s service and will likely use them again.

Posted in Miniature reviews, Miniatures, Pirates, Scenics | Tagged Deep-Cut Studio, Tiny Worlds | 13 Comments »

Rubble City go go

February 1, 2019

Painted stuff! Not miniatures as such, but very useful nevertheless. Inspired by both Azazel’s monthly challenge and my lack of time to focus on miniatures, I figured it would be fun to add some generic scenery pieces to my table. All of these are from Fenris Games, one of my favourite companies for miniature terrain, and part of Fenris’ Rubble City range. For a change I figured I’d photograph the pieces on the gaming table!

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I actually painted these fieldstone walls last year after buying them at Salute, but as I gave them a bit of touch-up, I thought to include them here as well. There’s nothing super special about them, but that’s pretty much what I like – they’re nice, clean and generic enough to go with pretty much anything.

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There’s a similar charm to these rubble walls and corners that I got as part of Fenris’ Rubble City Kickstarter. Like the fieldstone walls, these are super clean sculpts and very crisp casts so a veritable joy to paint.

Paint jobs were simple, but I’m happy with the end results. I painted all the pieces using mainly craft store acrylics. I started with a dark brown base coat, stippled on browns and grays, followed with progressively lighter gray drybrushes. I then slapped on some Agrax Earthshade and finished everything with Athonian Camoshade (think Agrax Earthshade but green) at the base of each piece and painted splashes of the wash here and there. I think the stone looks quite naturalistic, which is what I was going for!

These are really useful gaming pieces, so I figure’d I’d show you a couple of shots with figures. The walls and ruins fit wonderfully into my Caribbean setting, but would definitely not look out of place on any fantasy or even modern table.

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Posted in 18th century, Miniatures, Pirates, Scenics | Tagged Fenris | 21 Comments »

From the painting desk #62 – Dastardly pirates

December 15, 2018

Plenty (for me) of painting done recently! I haven’t added all that many pirates to my pirate crew recently – that changes now. I realized I have a ton of wonderful pirate miniatures, and what do you know, they could be painted! With that intro, here we go:

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On the left is a female pirate from Bad Squiddo that I bought on our visit to CRISIS in Antwerp in early November. While she’s pretty much on the borderline of almost being too fantasy, she’s just suitable enough. A lovely sculpt in general, her hair looks weirdly unfinished which gave me a bit of a headache. Are those ribbons? Dreadlocks? In the end I just painted everything as hair. That gripe aside, she looks very menacing and has a sweet Jack Sparrow/Black Sails Anne Bonny mash-up vibe. The axe is brutal, too. The miniature is also a great example of a non-sexualized female pirate miniature, we definitely need more of those.

Next up is a carpenter from Black Cat Bases. While he’s not explicitly pirate-y – he could well be used as a carpenter on a merchant ship – I added him to my pirate crew. A lovely, characterful sculpt that was fun and easy to paint. What more could you ask for?

My third pirate in this lot is one of my favourite pirate minis of all time, a knife thrower by Foundry. He’s one of the most characterful pirate minis in existence, and looks like a really rough customer. I used a darker skintone (as with the female pirate) for some variety, I think a pirate crew should be a motley one. There’s a narrative element as well, as in my imagination he’s not a European – I’m sort of thinking Queequeg in Moby Dick, so some South Pacific blood in him. Absolutely loved painting this one!

These three are a welcome addition to my crew. They bring my pirates up to a total of 18 or so – might be time for an end of the year group shot?

They also serve as a great reminder, that when basing and painting style are consistent, you can easily mix miniatures from different manufacturers despite the somewhat different sculpting styles.

Posted in 18th century, Miniatures, Pirates | Tagged Bad Squiddo, Black Cat Bases, Foundry, From the painting desk | 18 Comments »

From the painting desk #61 – Terrors that flap in the night

November 18, 2018

It’s more than a couple of weeks since Halloween, so time to recap! As is tradition, I put on a horror themed miniature game for my friends, which in turn was a good incentive for me to get some vampires painted.

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These two ladies are part of Bad Squiddo’s My Last Sunrise line, and they’re lovely! I showcased the third one in a previous post. Long, flowing robes and clean sculpting (courtesy of Gus Kearns) made these really fun to paint. Again, I went with a very grey skintone – I had both corpses and statues in mind. I painted the robes in bright colours to counterbalance the grey skin. The painting isn’t as smooth as I’d like – it was a bit rushed so the blending is just not there especially on the blue dress. Other than that, they’re ok.

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Another miniature from said Kickstarter campaign, this one needs no introduction. He’s obviously the big D, Dr. Acula, Alucard, the mysterious owner of Carfax Abbey…so yeah Dracula. A quality sculpt by Gary Morley and a easy to paint mini, I’m quite happy. As with the notorious cloaker, I went with a very, very classic look with red cape linings and all. I went for a more human – if pale – skin than with the brides, to represent Dracula being a bit more sophisticated and trying to blend in with humans.

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This one is from Reaper, and documentation in this blog reveals that I bought the mini…nine years ago, back in 2009. Sheesh. Well, after nine years of waiting, she’s now finally painted! As you may have noticed, I love painting red, so I went with that here as well. It was a quick, rough-ish paintjob but I feel it does the trick. After all those years in the cupboard I’m just happy that the mini is finished. It’s still a pretty neat sculpt, so kudos to Derek Schubert!

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Vampires come in all flavours, and this one from Heresy is definitely one of the nastier-looking ones. Paul Muller has managed to sculpt one of the nicest vampires around, in my opinion. I gave the mini a really quick paintjob consisting mostly of drybrushing and washes, but I’m still immensely happy with the end result. It looks like a nasty beast, just like I wanted it to.

The Halloween game itself was great fun as usual, with vampires successfully eating every single villager before sunrise. A random selection of photos shows you many of the usual suspects appearing in these Halloween games as well as some of the painted minis showcased above. You can click on any photo to open a bigger version in a new tab. Thanks to the players for the photos!

The hunters…

…and the hunted

Nosferatu stalks his prey

A hapless nightwatchman flees from approaching zombies

A damsel in distress

It’s a monster rampage!

Due to some really poor luck on the vampire’s part, these two basically spent such a long time together that they became a couple

Posted in 18th century, Game reports, Miniatures, Pirates, Vampires/Werewolves, Zombies | Tagged Bad Squiddo, From the painting desk, Halloween, Heresy, Reaper | 13 Comments »

Citadel painting handle – a review

October 27, 2018

After 20+ years of painting, little tends to change in my painting routines. While obviously the level of painting goes up slowly but surely, the biggest change in my painting has been the adoption of a wet palette a few years back. Imagine my surprise when I found myself looking at a new painting tool! I’d been hearing a lot of positive feedback about Citadel’s painting handle, and as it’s a very affordable piece of kit (6,50€ here in Finland), I decided to give it a try. Now, I’ve hardly ever used a painting handle. While I have occasionally experimented with blutac and paint pots, a few occasions of minis suddenly falling off and crashing into the table quickly dissuaded me.

My friend Crab Man sitting comfy. Base is 25mm round.

Having used the handle for a week now, I’m really happy with it! Also, it has changed my painting a bit. The handle is very nice to grip, the spring mechanism holds the miniature’s base securely (although I’ve only used it with 25mm round slottabases so far, it should work with 32mm, 40mm and 60x35mm oval as well). It does help with finger strain, and helps me keep the model I’m painting just a little bit higher, keeping me from hunching down as much as usual – something my neck and shoulders are thankful for. It also keeps my grubby fingers away from the mini itself. The only downside I’ve noted is that the stiff mechanism can be a bit difficult to operate with one hand – although that obviously helps secure the model in place.

Overall verdict: There isn’t all that much that you can say about a painting handle review-wise. If you’re looking for a new painting handle, or are looking to try one, and use minis on round plastic bases, you could do far worse than this. At the price point it’s excellent value for money, and I’m looking to buy one or two more just for convenience. As an added bonus (or minus, depending), it looks a bit like a somewhat painful adult toy, while it’s actually a pain-lessening adult tool.

You can get the painting handle from the Games Workshop web store as well as their physical stores.

Posted in Miniature reviews, Miniatures | Tagged Citadel | 6 Comments »

From the painting desk #60 – All the single ladies

October 19, 2018

With my painting desk finally set up and Halloween approaching at full tilt, I’ve been painting a lot in the last couple of days. It’s time to showcase my first finished minis in god knows how long.

The first one is a pirate from Black Scorpion. I really love the posing of this mini, it makes for a nice change compared to typical fighting poses and gives the character a whimsical, flirty feel. I painted the legs as having pants on because I’m quite sure no one would choose to dress their female minis in a cropped top and a loincloth while the men are fully clothed, amirite Black Scorpion? For a bit of diversity and a painting challenge I went for non-caucasian skin which I think turned out nicely. The closed eyes are a nice touch and saved me the trouble of painting eyes!

Photo of pirate miniature blowing a kiss

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The second miniature is a vampire from Bad Squiddo’s My Last Sunrise Kickstarter. It’s a wonderful sculpt of one of Dracula’s brides. I love the combination of alluring and monstrous on the mini – the exposed leg and flowing dress create a wonderful contrast with the snarling, beast-like face and the hand that is almost a claw. And no, that’s not white in her hair! I haven’t yet given this mini a blast of matt spray so the old Citadel ink I used catches the light something awful.

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This was super fun to paint! A really crisp, clean sculpt and it was easy to make her look good. The drapery is great and the face is full of character. Of the three female vampires in the KS, this one looks least like a human, prompting me to paint her in a very gray, inhuman tone. For the base I went with my autumn mix as it fits the horror theme much better than my bright Caribbean basing.

It’s really good to be back in painting action. Hopefully plenty more blog posts on the horizon too!

Posted in 18th century, Miniatures, Pirates, Vampires/Werewolves | Tagged Bad Squiddo, Black Scorpion, From the painting desk | 11 Comments »

Fortstarter

June 27, 2018

Such a long time since my last post! No, this blog is not going under or anything – the combination of home renovations, Emmi moving in and a busy time at work have simply meant that I haven’t had the time (or space) for anything miniatures-related. All this is slowly changing, however, so I hope to have the blog running/walking/lurching again soon.

Spanish fort in 28mm

At the risk of sounding like a Slug Industries shill, there’s another sweet Kickstarter going on at the moment. It’s for an 18th century Spanish fort, based on Fort Matanzas. As you can imagine, I couldn’t really miss out on it, so I went in for both the fort and a gun battery. Sure, I already have one fort – which I’ve yet to show by the way – but who’s counting. The combination of these three will allow me to build a fairly formidable fortified town. Maybe throw in a few ships and I see a coastal assault scenario or six in that.

Have a look at some more photos and throw some money around!

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I’m actually writing this post on a train from Dublin to Cork, as I’m on a conference trip. I cleverly picked a conference that’s near casa sho3box, and I’m looking forward to a couple of days of geeky hijinks. I’m transporting a Playmobil ship to him, I kid you not.

Posted in 18th century, Miniatures, Pirates, Scenics | Tagged Kickstarter, Slug Industries | 9 Comments »

From the painting desk #58 – Long John Silver

March 31, 2018

I’m not much for the whole yarrrrrrrrrrr thing, but I’ll make an exception here. A while back I previewed a lovely pirate from Slug Industries – Long John Silver as portrayed by Robert Newton. Phil who runs Slug Industries was kind enough to send me one of the resin masters for painting. It’s a great mini and painted up wonderfully. I had a wonderful time with the parrot and everything. I did my best to recreate the five o’clock shadow and the ruddiness of his cheeks, and I’m quite happy with how they turned out.

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I should note that the eyes weren’t botched, I was going for this look that is outrageously cartoony for an actual human being:

The miniature in question is currently available through Slug Industries’ The Sailboat Malarkey Kickstarter! I should mention that there is no commercial transaction involved here, Phil who is running the KS is a personal friend that I’ve gotten to know through internet forums and Salute visits, so I’m quite happy to advertise it without any special incentive. I helped Phil out on the KS by taking the comparison photo of various manufacturers’ pirate minis alongside Long John that you can see on the Kickstarter site.

As it happens, I’ve been promised an extra, unpainted Long John Silver model by Phil to give out to a lucky reader of this humble blog. Let me know in the comments if you want to take part in the raffle – I’ll pick a winner at random next Sunday (April 8) and we can sort out delivery after that. Even if you don’t luck out on that, there’s always the Kickstarter.

Posted in 18th century, Miniatures, Pirates | Tagged Kickstarter, Slug Industries | 27 Comments »

Piratical 2017 recap

January 6, 2018

This year has been a weird one hobby-wise. On one hand, I must have painted less than 20 miniatures all year, which is very few even by my modest output standards. On the other hand, I’ve been fairly prolific with terrain – building a whole new pirate board for example. To showcase what I’ve done this year, I set up most of my pirate stuff on my new board for a major photo shoot. To be honest, this is what I’m mostly in the hobby for: I game very little, so the pirate project is more of a dollhouse thing than something for frequent gaming use. I think this goes back to old Citadel Journals, where dioramas with tens of minis were used to display the variety of miniatures available. Another, more recent example and a great inspiration has been the pirate gallery on War in 15mm.

The table has many items that I haven’t featured in dedicated posts. If there’s something that catches your eye, just let me know in the comments and I’ll do a separate post. There will be one on the table itself, too!

My pirates have become by far my most enduring and consistent project of the past years. I’ve stuck almost exclusively to them since 2015, and there’s been no drop in enthusiasm. On the contrary, I’m more and more interested in the 18th century (and there has been a bit of an overspill into 17th and 19th century too) and I’ve for example amassed quite the collection of books on the subject. Might be a post or two in those, too.

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