State of the Painting Queue

As I've mentioned many times before, more as a reminder for my sake than for anything else, earlier this year, I put a moratorium on purchasing unpainted figures. 

What this has lead to, rather unintentionally, is renewed interest, if not enjoyment, in painting.

Perhaps I have swung too much in the "other direction" - here is my paint queue as of this morning:

For the curious, yes that is a very old Duncan Glow Imperial that I've had since the late 70s or very early 80s. I still can barely yo-yo.

 

Scales represented in that picture are 1/72, 28mm(or 32 mm?), 1/50 (the T-34 hull), and 54mm. Butterfly? Me?

I don't often share close up WiP shots, but I'm pretty excited about the progress on my Skaven Blitz Bowl team. As of last night, they are almost done with the base colors. I still have green, black, and a bone-like color to do yet (for their incisors). Then comes the wash, then a 2nd layer, and highlights.

This picture is a good deal brighter on my phone.

I'm following along with a YouTube tutorial, like I did for the human team. Same instructor - I find his instructions easy to follow, although I sometimes wish he'd show more of what he considers "armor" or where he applies a color because, as they are fantasy figures, I can't tell what's supposed to be what on these figures half the time.

It's possible I'll finish these over the weekend, but, I am also trying to ready a megadungeon-style campaign for my son (per his request) to have ready to take with us on vacation next week.

Fortunately, I really only need to have the ruins and upper level done. 

Of course, the ruins are three separate areas of multiple buildings/areas, two of which have their own mini-dungeons beneath - one connects eventually to the main dungeon. The third ruin connects directly to the main dungeon.

I'm using a number of freely available one-page dungeons to fill these areas, but I need to reskin them to the theme (Lovecraft tropes galore). The goal is to allow some exploration above ground as well as below, so he'll have choices about where to explore, creatures/NPCs to engage with, multiple ways in and out, that kind of thing.

So yeah, maybe finishing the Skaven this weekend is a little optimistic!

Shiny Happy People

Well, I don't know about "happy" but definitely shiny. 

The first three Res Publican soldiers have been completed - the painting has been done for a week or so, but I finally got around to sealing and glossing them.

I wanted a look that would be at home in the jungles of Venus but not out of place on an arid plain either. I think this works.

And maybe it's just me, but I get strong Mesoamerican vibes from this color scheme.

Just another 17 hastati and 10 triari to go!

I've been keeping an eye on eBay and boxes of cavarly for them as well, but that's a problem for future me.

Res Publica Color Scheme Test

 I knocked this hastati figure out rather quickly, once I finally settled on a color for the flesh.

 

Fear not! This figure will be given a shiny gloss, once his two compatriots on the table are painted.

I ended up using Vallejo Bronze for the skin tone - making them literally "men of bronze". Whether the background fluff will have them as metal men or just a play of light off their skin (think sparkly vampires from Twilight), I'll decide later.

The shield is Ceramcoat Laguna Blue -I love this color and used it with my lizard folk marines. I wanted an excuse to use it again!

The feathers are Ceramcoat Tahit Blue with a little white mixed in. Unfortunately, I'm out of Americana Desert Sand which I had been using for basing. So, a very old bottle of Anita's Nubby Linen it is.

Of course, with skin of bronze, I had to decide on something else for the armor and silver seemed like a good "go to" for fantasy figures.

Decisions Decisions

The other day I started to paint up the first of the Res Publica forces - HaT Hastati to be accurate. I wanted to see which of the yellows I had available would work for a suitably alien flesh tone. Yellow, I reasoned, would not only work as Venusians but as the famed Yellow Martians as well. 

Unfortunately, every yellow I have took multiple coats - too many for my taste - to achieve opacity. The one that did it in the fewest, Ceramcoat Pale Yellow, resulted in a figure, that according to one unsolicited observer, looked like a "butter sculpture". 

I liked the look of Pale Saffron from Reaper? (well, it came with my Bones kickstarter many many years ago) the best, but it was at least five coats if I had to cover anything other than white. I don't want to repeat my experience with the oranges I used with the Tanitans.

So, the figures have been stripped to bare plastic again (which gave me a chance to remove some of the more egregious mold lines that I had skipped). And, it strikes me that they look like B-movie aliens in their present state:

Now, I'm not saying I'm going to leave them this way - I'd paint their bases at the very least - but it's got me thinking of maybe giving them metallic skin. Perhaps literal "men of bronze"?

One of my favorite books in middle-school was Code of the Lifemaker. The cover art, which you can see here was just so intriguing. 

What if these Res Publicans are an ancient race of sentient robots? Maybe they have a similar origin story?

Would I paint the Triari the same way? A different metallic? 

So many questions.

Painting Update

We interrupt this WWII skirmish campaign to bring you this update. As I had mentioned previously, I had turned to painting to deal with the grief of Peppermint's passing. The result has been a bit of unanticipated output which seems to be sustaining for now.

Up first: Tanitia's forces are on the move!

With the last two of my black-orange-lined figures finished, I have completed my original planned force for the Tanitians, 

We have an overall military leader (standard bearer), a military hero (the one with the raised shield), a unit of orange-with-black-line bearing Mythos symbol shields, a warrior priestess (the real leaders of this society), the abyssal beast (actually, they're the ones most in charge I suspect), and a unit of black-with-orange-line (who are my favorite now).

Using two or three figures for a Portable Wargame Ancient's unit gives me some decent sized "armies" for bigger battles, if I so choose.

Here is the black-with-orange-line unit - don't ask me to ID which ones were the most recently finished!

I have a few more of the SCS Direct mermaid figures I can convert into warrior priestesses. The SCS box also came with a number of, what I can only guess are, female elf types. I have enough for a ten-figure unit so they could serve as adepts perhaps. 

That is, when I feel like dealing with this paint scheme again!

The Roman force, and Tanitia's primary opponent, which I'm calling Res Publica, is on the paint table now - just three figures to start, but as they say, Rome wasn't built in a day. They will be painted in a more traditional fashion, albeit with a very unnatural yellow for their skin.

Perhaps less exciting, I finished eight more Austro-Hungarians. I've also rebased my WWI collection to four-figure 3" squares. I really wanted at least one collection to reflect my love for Morschauser.

Two 3" squares can serve as an 8-figure unit (say, for One Hour Wargames) or each square can be its own thing. All of this is anticipation of a campaign I wish to play through later in the year or early next (depends on how long it takes me to paint up more Italians, to bring both sides' assault units up to snuff, the Italian cavalry, and to finish the planes for each side). Because the details aren't nailed down, my conception of what the units represent isn't set yet either.

There's a good chance I'll add one more 8-figure infantry unit, for a total of four. I have plenty of Italians, but I will need more Armies in Plastic figures for the Austro-Hungarians. But not all of them, which means I'll have the start of a small contingent of Germans.

It's funny how things work out like that!

More for Venus

Painting as means of dealing with grief has continued and the result is six figures added to my Venus collection.

Tanitians.

Had to overexpose these a bit in order to see any detail.

This completes the French force (10-figure unit, 1 leader, 5 figure gun crew), although I have more figures if I choose to paint them. 

The Tanitians have two more figures primed and waiting - that will complete their ranks (and I have no more figures). However, they will eventually get some Parrot People allies, who will function as Harpies when I am playing Age of Fantasy and treating the Tanitians as Dark Elves.

I have been sketching maps and brainstorming background for Venus - world-building is something I enjoy immensely, and I find it helps quiet the mind as well.

Next up on the paint table are some WWI Austrians to bring that force up to snuff.

On a Dusty Venutian Plain

I haven't had much time to play wargames of late - a lot of time was spent prepping for the wrap up of our D&D campaign. But, I did have about an hour late one evening last week where I put a small G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. game on a 36" x 30" clearing on the kitchen table.

The picture below is everything I dreamed of when I first started wargaming!

Tally ho!

Regardless of your feelings about the orange and black Tanitians (not Carthaginians), or the bare table, I think you will find there is a definite Victorian adventure novel flair to it. 

I have been drawing maps, brainstorming histories and personalities. This is the kind of thing I do not get from strictly historically-inspired games. And it has caused a revaluation of what collections I want to maintain and what I might want to move on.

That's the topic of a different post.

For now, I am working on finishing up a few French Foreign Legion to fill out their Gatling crew. I also have 5 of the black-with-orange-lines Tanitians to finish up.

And I should probably rebase the British and Russians to match the VSF collection as I think it's clear there needs to be more of these glorious lancer charges against lost civilizations or the civilizations of other planets.

A Hobby Heavy Weekend

Every once in awhile, the stars align and a weekend arrives with sufficient hobby time to do multiple activities.

I started the weekend off by finishing up a couple of new additions for my Tanitians (aka "not Carthaginians"). Up first is a unit leader and an ordinary swordsperson:

The figure on the left, who will function as a leader figure in rules that have them, is by Classic Toy Soldiers (CTS), from their Carthaginians box. The fellow on the right is from HaT, Spanish Infantry I believe it's called.

The CTS figure appears to be Spanish infantry as well - albeit substantially taller. In fact, I believe the HaT figures from the Spanish infantry box are undersized (compared even to the HaT Carthaginians).

Another CTS figure will serve as the army commander:

His shield design was copied from an Eldritch horror font set. Size-wise he fits in perfectly with the HaT Carthaginians.

Finally, for the Tanitians, a figure I'm most happy about. She started out as an SCS Direct mermaid figure and will now serve as a Tanitian warrior-priestess (in Fistful of Lead:Bigger Battles, she'd be a hero figure):

I lopped off her tailfin, and then a bit of PVA coated tissue covered her mer-person lower extremeties. Some tin-foil folded on itself many times and glued over the mermaid's sad little wand (or was it a dagger?), formed her sword. I *may* paint some tentacles coming up over skirt, but then again, I may not.

At this point, I am five of the black-figure pottery figures from completing my originally planned Tanitian force.

Because I am a man of extremes, I tried my hand at some 2mm figures as well:

I think it's pretty clear they are Austrians, late war, circa 1917-1918. Close-up (below) you can see how the paint was sort of hit-or-miss on my part, but the figures, at least the prone ones, are clearly there. Some of the other poses confuse me as to what they represent.

The base is the 20th Century infantry base from Irregular Miniatures. They are, to borrow a phrase, "cheap as chips." They also paint very quickly. It took maybe 5 minutes from base coat to flock to do these two bases and I could have done a good dozen or so in barely any more time.

 I have in mind to do a divisional level game set in Italy, in WWI (obviously).  However, 2mm may not be the ideal choice, as much as I like them. Everything looks fine in bright light, but by and large, I like dim lights and that makes the figures nearly impossible to see against the base. I also really want to do a Granny Grate army (I did some tests a decade a go that I was quite pleased with but I had not project in mind at the time and so painted some generic British red-coats), so I'll try that next.

Early Sunday morning, I finished the last three of my Marine Iguana inspired Lizard Warriors:

This gives me a complete unit of ten. By my original plans, I need only complete the shaman and the force will be complete (I do have a few other figures to paint though to act as handlers for the Spinosaurus, but they are not necessary).

Finally, all work and no play blah blah blah.  On Sunday, I was invited by Cloud Captain to join him and a friend for a game of Age of Fantasy out at Hobby Town.  It was a battle of Greeks (28mm) vs Ogres (Cloud Captain's 54mm barbarians for our planned Venus games and a frost dragon). 

Cloud Captain shared command of his ogres with me, so that I could learn the rules.

Greek general attacks the frost dragon.

My favorite picture - this fellow held on to the end, bravely, but futilely, swinging his weapon above his head at the ogres on the hill.

Although we ogres lost, it was great fun and a rare non-solo game for me. The rules are straightforward and I would say by the end of turn 2 that I had a decent enough grasp on them. 

You can pretty much map army ideas to existing concepts (apparently, if you support the patreon, you get access to a points calculator for full customization). My Tanitians, for example, map well to the Dark Elves (and I plan to field them as such), while the lizards are clearly Saurians.

I hope to get a solo game in soon using the rules.The rules would certainly work for battles among the various native Venusian factions. Incorporating the Europeans with their rifles and Gatlings may require a small amount of effort to do so.

Tanitian Light Infantry

It took a bit, but the first batch of Tantitian (aka Carthaginian, and in this case, their Spanish allies) have been completed. The intent was Greek black-figure pottery and I think it works pretty well. I almost prefer it to the orange (red-figure) unit I painted.

The next batch is already underway, including a figure to act as a leader for the unit - a Classic Toy Soldiers figure that, even kneeling is almost as tall as these figures from HaT. Indeed, I'm not sure how these figures are so much slighter than the Carthaginian figures. 

Were the Spanish notably shorter in real life?

In any case, three figures works as a unit for The Portable Wargame : Ancients rules, so I hope to get these on the table soon.

An Elephant Never Forgets

The other day I saw a post over on The Eastern Garrison and I knew I had to completely redo the elephant I had done earlier.

He was fine as he was - although I had never finished painting his base - but I really wanted him to blend in better with the Tanitians (he is a spell caster/beast for them/servant of the Yellow King, Azathoth,  Cthulhu, and the other Elder Beings - no need of a howdah and crew). Having witnessed the glossy black elephants in the Eastern Garrison post, I saw the path forward with clarity.

Behold!

The symbol is one of Cthulhu that I found online.

He still has two red eyes and the central yellow Third Eye.

HaT markets him as 1/32 but he looks small to me. However, in comparison to the triceratops, he is the right size (the triceratops should be. and is. bigger). So, at least they are in scale to each other.

On the march.

Warriors, forever!

In Fistful of Lead: Bigger Battles beasts/monsters count as two units - they have quite a few abilities. In GASLIGHT, I would undoubtedly give him hit points to bring down and make him a main character, so he would be allowed saving rolls as well, making him formidable. 

I think the only change I would still make at this point is a round base for him, so he fits in better with the others. However, I have no rounds of sufficient size. I want the base to extend beyond his horns - the tusks are long, yes, but the horns are quite big, and both are delicate, too, as they are made of air-dry clay.

In any case, I had already started on a batch of three SCS Direct lizard warrior when I was distracted by this idea. Back to those!

First Complete Tanitian Unit

This weekend I managed to finish up the first Tanitian (Venusian Carthaginian) unit of 10 figures. Now, you may have heard me mention 12 figures before. Let's just forget that - I like 10 better. If it turns out that 12 is needed, then I'll paint more.

This batch also was the first time I tried a white undercoat and it made a world of difference. I believe it was three coats of the orange paint, rather than 6+ for black, grey, or sienna. This sped up completion considerably.

Applying gloss before black lining - with pen or paint brush - makes corrections easy, as mistakes can be wiped away for the most part. However, it's all too easy to erase more than intended, so in some cases I just globbed on more orange to cover up mistakes, when I cared enough to correct them at all. From wargaming distance a lot of the lining imperfections blur away, at least with my poor vision.

Digressions aside, here are the new recruits:

This batch of shield designs comes from a collection of Cthulhu Mythos symbols I found.

And here is the complete unit of 10:

And from the shield-side:

  

Both Fistful of Lead: Bigger Battles and GASLIGHT suggest having a leader figure or two in the bunch. While the standard bearer is clearly a leader, less obvious is my intent that the checkered pattern shield is the 2nd-in-Command. It is my favorite pose by far and so I made sure to only have one of that pose in this batch.

With the exception of the standard bearer, the figures are all HaT Carthaginians. The standard bearer is from the Classic Toy Soldiers Carthaginian set.

On the paint-table already in progress are three Dulcop arditi looking a bit like they're in a musical. That will make more sense when I show you a picture of them, but not until they are finished. Waiting close behind are Italian cavalry, more French Foreign Legion, Tanitian light infantry, more 1/32 lizard warriors, etc.

Orange You Glad I Didn't Say 'Banana'?

Finishing out April and kicking off May, I finished two 'not Carthaginians' (Tanitians in my world(s) - named after the Punic goddess Tanit). I say finished because I started these early in the year but it takes many, many, MANY coats of orange to actually cover the base coat. I have tried black, grey, and, with this pair, raw Sienna. Next time, white.

The black-lining is done with architecture pens and takes considerably less time,especially since I learned the trick of varnishing the figure before black-lining (then again after).

The figure on the left is by HaT. The figure on the right is by Classic Toy Soldiers. They scale well together and the CTS figure is the only plastic Carthaginian leader figure I am aware of.

The shield designs are simple - they have to be because I am hand- painting and do not have great brush control! The leader has the well-known symbol of Chaos, while the hoplite has a design inspired by one found when searching for 'Eldritch symbols' online. Despite being named for Tanit, the Tanitians tend to worship, or at least interact with, a fair number of entities best described as cosmic horrors.

Indeed, it is rumored there may be a portal to Carocosa and to the court of the famed King in Yellow in one of the Tanitian temples. Who's to say?

Any individual figure does not bear close scrutiny, but at wargame distance and en masse (as much as seven counts as a mass), they capture the look of what I imagined when I conceived of this idea (albeit in a shade of orange not at all like the one I sought. I gave up after awhile and just went with one I found pleasing to my eye).

In the following overexposed picture, you can witness a 'rumble in the jungle' of sorts as Tanitians and a force of lizard warriors collide in a clearing.

Another 3 to 5 figures are required to fill out the unit for Fistful of Lead: Bigger Battles or for use with G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T., etc. However as they are now, I can field them in smaller games like Fistful of Lead, particularly as I purchased the Might & Melee rule book awhile back.

Currently on the paint table are three Armies in Plastic French Foreign Legionnaires to finish up a 10-figure unit of those.

Games (how's that for a generic title?)

Gaming for the new year has kicked off with a revisit of a game from Minden Games, Battle Over Britain.

As you can probably surmise, it's a representation of WWII aerial combat. Less obvious perhaps is that it's 1 on 1, is abstract, and plays quite quickly. There is a solitaire module which I own (it adds little to the existing solitaire rules but does give you more planes to choose from) and other air battles as well.

d12 are hit points, white d6 are ammo remaining.

It's an interesting little game that feels right even if it looks completely wrong. The rules are straightforward but there are enough special rules and optional rules to add flavor and variety.

The average game is probably less than 10 minutes, so it's a prefect space filler or you can play a longer campaign of connected battles, if desired, including one where you play a particular pilot through multiple (hopefully) encounters.

In the picture, I'm using my laptop as the playing space - I have been playing Verdun a lot on Steam and decided I need to shut the laptop down and enjoy some screen-free time (my son isn't the only one who needs to step away from the computer sometimes!).

Also of note, my copy of The Princess Bride Adventure Book Game arrived:

I purchased this on a whim on Black Friday - the price was something like $9.99 USD. Even if it's a terrible game, it comes with figures (I'll give the game a proper post once we play it).

Finally, some figures have entered the preparation stages:

Two things are probably worth noting about the picture.

On the human figures, the black that follows the mold lines is soot from a candle. It ends up on the needle that I heat up and run along the lines. I've mentioned using the hot needle before - it works well enough to smooth them out without marring the figure too badly, but I care less and less about mold lines (with the exception of the one on the helmet). Life is too short.

The gold figure is a Classic Toy Solders Carthaginian. I had no idea they had Carthaginians of their own until recently. Everyone always focuses on HaT (like the figure to his left). The shield is a little skimpy - accurate or not I don't know- but it'll do for my purposes

Work in Progress: The Big Bloody Meatball

This is a work in progress, so please excuse the obvious areas needing touch up. 

Association with the Yellow King is common for Venusian elephants who have studied the collected ancient wisdom found in the depths of overgrown ruined cities deep in the jungles. As witnesses to that which no mortal creature should ever know, the corruption of their form is inevitable.

From the side he looks like a bloody meatball. Trust me on that one. For now the backstory is their cloaks are freshly acquired dinosaur skin, but I may make it a solid and brighter red for more of a cloth cloak (and toy soldier) look. The HaT elephant is kind of short  and stubby looking so it's not exactly imposing.

In general, its appearance cracks me up - like something from an early 80s science and sorcery cartoon. That said, I love it.

Clearly some touch ups needed as mentioned. And basing (well, painting the base).  And sealing. 

And i might add some things to dangle from the horns(the ones above the regular eyes are horns, the lower ones are tusks) - a unicorn skull, cyclops head, that sort of thing.

There will only be the one elephant cultist associated with the Tanitians. Again due to the  "beasts count as two units" thing in Fistful of Lead Bigger Battles. If I come upon another HaT elephant at a price I can't pass up, then I may reconsider the army composition.

Painting Table Update

While gaming and game related activity took precedence this weekend, I also finished a few figures.

First up, I've finished the firing poses for the Bersaglieri and am now moving onto the advancing troops. These three together will form a bombing squad in Trench Hammer.

 Next up, the last of Reaper Bones lizard warriors for the games to be set on Venus. I could have sworn I had three archers as well, but that seems to not be the case.  I have only six total which is not enough for a unit - but they can function as dino handlers, howdah crew, etc. in the meantime.

And here's the current state of the paint table.

The elephant is not in the queue yet - I just have to find someplace to put it while it waits. The HaT Carthaginians will serve as some kind of Venusian - these two are for testing some painting ideas I have. Also pictured, Armies in Plastic French Foreign Legion and Austrians. 

Hoping to get a chance to work on the French soon as they finish up quickly once the white is painted in.