Flames of War! All the flames!

One post a year! Lol. I finished my entire Flames of war collection some time back. Quite a haul, I think!

Stacks of 'tracks!

Relic Knights crossover heroes!

Why do I never post entries consistently? Oh let me count the whys...

But better late than never right?

So today I present to you Super Dungeon Explore's Relic Knights crossovers, months after they were done.

I have to level with all-a-ya'll, Relic Knights designs aren't really my thing. But blow up their heads in the best of SDE's chibi tradition, and I'm sold.

Here's Princess Malya:

Codifier Kisa:

One Shot:

Seb Cross:

This model needed repositioning; Too much of a forward lean meant he kept facepalming... the ground. After the first hundred times, I'd had enough.

And finally Kasaro To.

Oddly enough this miniature is actually less cartoony than his Relic Knight peers... go figure. Also, keeping his back banner pointing correctly skyward was a pain! I ended up gluing it to his tetsubo.

Silly banner.

And because there's no such thing as too many pictures...

I realise I've hardly shown off any of these miniatures on this blog!

Now that I'd finished the first of the dungeon boards, I could not resist taking pictures of the Super Dungeon Explore! miniatures I had finished on it:

First, the skeletons from the Shallow Grave spawning point:

 

Turtles from the Rock Pile spawning point:

 

 

Flaming gels et al from the Fire Whirl spawning point:

 

Fire elemental boss Roxor: 

 

Death Spectre - Does his scythe remind you of a video game?

 

Vampire Von Drakk with his monstrous bat shapeshift:

 

Rockgut the troll. I absolutely hated the colour scheme on this model... until I added the purple in his mouth. I feel it tied it all together:

Goodly hero Van Wildling and his bestial werewolf form Van Wilder. Fancy that - Castlevania meets cheesy 80's comedy in one fell swoop:

 

Miserable toads! Futurama hypno-toad on the left, real-life tree frog on the right:

 

Gallery of villains! Minibosses from various special releases:

 

Von Drakk heroes:

 

Kobolds! Kobold spawning point. Don't quite remember the name, but this is one of my favourites:

 

Dragon hatchlings from the Dragon Clutch spawning point:

 

Caverns of Roxor heroes! Some of the best sculpts in my opinion. I love not-Link on the far right:

 

A selection of core box heroes. More to come:

 

I'm sure you can tell I've gone a bit super dungeon explore crazy, since the last post over a year ago! :p

Long time no update! (again!)

Helloooooo!

It's been too long since the last update. No really.

Don't worry though, the hobby's still been rolling along, even if I haven't really been posting.

So lately I've been going through a bit of a patch with real life that made me neglect this blog (seems like it happens every year doesn't it? Ha!), but I did keep up with my painting.

It seems I do my best thinking while painting, which is probably why I do it so much. Meditative really.

I'll admit it, when it comes to painting little toy soldiers, I'm something of a lifer.

Now that I've got a bit more spare time on my hands though, I decided to get started on a project that I'd been keeping for a special occasion - Tyson Koch's Super 3D Dungeon Boards, from Kickstarter.

So... without further ado, here's a test piece of detail:

Now, as far as casting is concerned, the pieces are far from perfect, but you do kind of expect that with polystone resin pieces.

Resin casts are very individual, and may come shrunken or warped, rarely absolutely perfect. It's a bit of a gamble really, and since I intend to play dice games on this thing, it's cool in a 'meta' sort of way.

In terms of surface, think greasy (yuk), super smooth or matte.

These ones were a mix of super smooth and matte, meaning I had to just hit the surface with a bit of matte varnish before priming it in black:

 

So what's up with the airbrush then?

I figured now might be a good time to dabble with using an airbrush. 

I'd used an airbrush before to lay on base colours (particularly for my Imperial Guard tanks) but not to lay on colour gradients.

So, after half an hour:

 

Slick! Too slick.

Verdict? Mmmm... no.

Something about the smoothness of the result didn't sit right with me.

The airbrush worked great, but it looked much too smooth. I like the idea that there would be some contrast between the smooth gradients on the miniatures and the textured finish of the surrounding surface to help them stand out.

So I broke out an old friend -  the trusty GW tank brush:

 

Years of friendship leave a scar on the stoutest of hearts

Here I was halfway through. Better, no?

...and here's where I got after an hour. I put in the painted pile of loot in the out-of-bounds corner of the board, and its really added interest to a dull corner.

Look at it from a distance, however, and it's the river of lava still draws the eye most.

I like it!

The treeman (ent, if you prefer) and a digression

Here's the first character choice for my Warmaster Wood Elves, one of Splintered Light's excellent treemen:

Converted Wild Riders for scale. Still haven't finished the unit, dammit.

And here's the reason why the Wild Riders unit isn't finished, despite some good progress, a Super Dungeon Explore skeleton:

Really, I could paint them all day. Well, not really. But they are pretty fun to do. And fairly fast!

In other miniature related news, the temptation to work on this is legendary:

3D Super Dungeon explore tiles, put together by Tyson Koch and Kickstarter! Very pretty indeed, only minimal issues with warped tiles.

The urge to break out the spray cans and get to work is unbelievable. We'll see how long I can hold out.

Wood Elf Challenge week 3 and prototypes!

Challenge? What challenge?

So... When GW closed down Specialist's Games, I went on a Warmaster buying spree, picking up the rest of the models I was planning to use for Wood Elves.

What better way to keep tabs on getting models done than participating in a challenge right?

The plan is to get a unit of three bases done every two weeks. I actually paint faster than this, but given the complexity of some of the conversions I will be doing to make my Wood Elves look like their Warhammer counterparts, this sedate pace is. perfect.

This week's challenge unit is Glade Guard. Just FYI, week 1 was also Glade Guard and week 2 Dryads. Just to clarify though, week 1's Glade Guard didn't include a proper command base -- I'll be adding them later.

Here's how I did them -- one base is going to the earlier unit lacking command:

Painted! Simple and easy:

Lined up and ready to pew pew pew:

 And now, the fun part. Here's what my Eternal Guard will look like:

 

They are insanely complicated to make, out of Copplestone Rangers:

Brass rod spears and green stuff chest plates, arms and helmet accessories. See why I like the slow pace?

And, made out of GW Dark Elves, Wild Riders:

I am really happy at how these units have turned out, even if they are tons of work. Should look great when all done!