I done nearly lost my nerve, Bill...

Painting mojo is a mysterious thing. One thing I've learned from reading other people's blogs and hanging around on the LA forum is that your drive to actually get stuff painted needs to be nurtured and protected.

So imagine my disquiet when a batch of figures more or less wiped out my mojo at a stroke.

The guilty parties are these Mantic Orcs.

They were cheap enough but when I came to paint them there were some horrific blanks where detail should've been behind the legs and under the arms. Obviously this is the price you pay for cheap, one piece body plastics but dear god it was a struggle to get anything out of them.

So what now? I was disheartened and depressed and really didn't want to pick up the brush again.

A change is as good as a rest. So I did the one thing guaranteed to bring a sense of wellbeing; stuck on a western and painted some cowboys.

In this case it was starting over with the Deadwood series and finishing off the last few Black Scorpion resin miniatures I had left. 

A world of difference; full of character and detail and fun to paint. 

I'll take some proper pictures next week if I can get some decent light. 

This also means that I have more or less enough figures for a decent western skirmish. Although... is more or less actually enough? After all, I get paid tomorrow...

Orcs, half-breeds and fearless vampire hunters

I've been having a bit of a trawl round ebay of recent days I scored some Mantic Orcs for my Dragon Rampant warband. I wanted to mix up the racial mix a bit, so some GW Orcs, some Oldhammer Goblins and these chaps should give a varied feel.

A unit of 6 to start - although I'll probably mix and match the varieties within Units in the end - and my first experience with Mantic.

They're... ok. Not as good as GW plastics and certainly nowhere near as good as Perry. Probably on a par with some Warlord ones I've dealt with. A little soft detail here and there and probably not as much poseability and variation within the units as I might like but they are dirt cheap.

Secondly, Dr Frankenorc is proud to present my solution to the fact that I find boar riders very silly: the Centorc.

This is a very simply cut and shut conversion of an old 4th edition Warhammer Orc and elf with some greenstuff chainmail and a mane added. As a proof of concept, it looks fine - certainly enough to make a unit of 6 look possible as heavy cavalry.

Thirdly, I painted the playing pieces from Fury of Dracula 3rd Edition. These were very soft on detail so I relied on quite heavy washes and highlights.

I also picked something else up on ebay that I'm very excited about but there will be an update about that next week....

They rose from the dead...

Having finally wrestled the Term That Would Not End to the ground with a manly grunt, I have returned to my hobby desk. Last night I sat in front of Lord of the Rings with She Who Must Be Obeyed and finished off the test batch of the Undead from Dwarf King's Hold.



I think the effect is quite striking when en-masse so I'll start on the rest of them this week.




Gaming wise there'll be no RPGs or board games until the other side of Christmas, but I am hopeful that I might get a game of X-Wing in.

Expect some more painting updates soon(ish).

PS - well done to everyone on the painting challenge. I am in awe of your productivity!

Paint Table Saturday

I get to use this again, as I've actually managed to paint on a Saturday:

So, what's on the table?

Well, first we have D&D. I'm painting miniatures for my players. Unfortunately, as it turns out, new players have a rather hackneyed visual of their characters. Our wizard player, for example, sent me this as reference:

My reaction was about as you'd imagine. Anyway, based on a recommendation from Edwin in the comments last month, I pootled over to Midlam Miniatures who furnished me with the last word in  bog standard wizardry.

The miniature is exceptionally crisply cast with a very fine cloak and a characterful face. He's been lovely to paint so far - I'll definitely shop with them again as some of their townfolk are excellent. They even popped me a couple of nice D6s in the box.

So here he is with basecoat and simple shading:

Hopefully I'll finish him tomorrow.

In second place on the table, my new major project. A while ago I mentioned that I'd scored a copy of Dwarf king's Hold with some rather lovely Mantic undead. I thought for a while about the paint scheme to use and eventually settled on doing something not naturalistic. As the game presents these as creatures being raised as the game goes on I though that something more ethereal might be in order.

A long time ago I developed a technique for my Cryx which gave an effect somewhat akin to the Army of the Dead from the Lord of the Rings movies which seems like a great opportunity to repurpose.

The trick of it is to use artists ink rather than painting ink as it gives a much greater depth. The actual process is simple: undercoat black then drybrush progressively from dark grey up to white. Then block in large areas with white. This gives your rather gleefully monochrome figures like so:

You then add a good green in wash which gives you this rather lovely effect|:

Finally, you block back in the white and add more green if required - that's for tomorrow.

Very simple, and hopefully very effective. So the rest of the undead will be on the table this week - marking permitting. I also have another session of D&D on friday, so I'll leave you with the photo I took today while thinking about what can dot the landscape:

Still here - and still suffering...

...from shinybloodyitis.

I've got through yet another Ofsted - the joys of Special Measures are unbounded; truly, 'tis the gift that keeps on giving - and rewarded myself by having a little splurge on ebay. Having decided - with your help - that I'm going to build my Bloodbowl kit, I figured that I could spend the money I'd earmarked for Bloodbowl on something else. After all, the money had already been spent, theoretically speaking.

Some fast talking appeared to convince She Who Must Be Obeyed of the logic of this position (or else she simply wanted me to shut up so she could get back to watching Judge Judy) and so I have now found myself the proud owner of this:



For the princely sum of not very much at all.

Space Hulk in a dungeon, basically. The added advantage is that SWMBO is a fan of dwarves so she'll probably play this with me.

I've never had any Mantic miniatures before but I have to say based on this evidence I will be getting some more. Incredibly crisp sculpts and the miniatures ooze character - especially the Dwarf Mastiff and miner.  I am very much looking forward to painting these.

I am, however, determined to finish the Civil War vignette before I start putting these chaps together. Some landscaping has been done and hopefully we should see some progress before the weekend is out.