Sunday, July 20, 2014

Something a little different

Before I start this, let me first tell you that I have no idea what line of miniatures this one is from.  I bought this miniature probably around 1995/1996 back when I had about a grand total of $10 to my name.  It's a pre-slotta miniature, so it's probably from sometime between the mid-80's to the mid 90's,  Ral Partha's TSR series or maybe even the Grenadier miniature line.  I looked around the web to no avail, so if anybody has any idea I would be most intrigued to know.

Getting back on track, I painted this miniature back in the 90's originally, and it turned out terrible.  When I rediscovered my love of the hobby, he was one of the many that got the simple green treatment, and then sat in my drawer for the next few years.  While taking yet another break from the fellowship projected, I wanted to paint something different when I stumbled upon him.  I always thought this guy looked cool, so I had a crack at him.  Here are the results.





 

He really was a joy to paint.  I wanted to practice layering metals and he really proved to be a good model to do just that.  I wasn't sure how I wanted to base him, and since I have an over abundance of 25mm circle bases, I figured that would work fine.  I'm pretty sure I'll never use him in gameplay, but after spending years in my parents attic, he deserved a worthy paintjob.  I believe I did just that.

On a side note, after I painted him I realized he looked a lot like a warrior wearing the Dungeon Set 1 in World of Warcraft.  Take a gander for yourself.


Maybe it's because of the gold trim.  I dunno, but it reminded me of the Valor set.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

The Warhammer Chappel

I think it was either Friday or Saturday that while I was painting the 3rd hobbit in my Fellowship project I just go really bored for some reason.  I'm one of those painters that if I get bored with a miniature, I'm not going to do a good job.  I start cutting corners and get really lax on proper blending which causes the entire piece to look rushed.  I don't like my painting to look rushed as I put a lot of time into whatever I'm painting and I always go for the best quality I can produce.

This boredom sometimes happens when I'm going back a forth on a color, trying to get the colors to blend nicely but I keep messing it up.  This is exactly the case on what happened.  So rather than calling it a night for painting, I decided to paint something else.

After staring at a few projects in my room that are ready to go, I decided I wanted to paint a piece of terrain rather than a miniature.  I just finished up yesterday with the piece and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.  Take a look....











This particular kit has been out of production for a few months now (probably almost a year), so if your trying to find one at a decent price, it's going to be difficult.  I managed to grab 3 of these kits for $30 at my two local Games Workshop stores.  Well, I grabbed 2 and one Fortified Manor kit (which contains the chapel kit along with the watchtower and a few extra components).  So yeah, 3 total.

As far as putting it together and painting goes, I had fun with it.  I probably should've read some other people's blogs about putting it together as I fell into the trap of attaching the statues to the building before painting it which caused painting that area to be slightly more difficult due to tight quarters.  The painting was pretty straight forward and I got to use my new liquid copper airbrush color.  I painted it on with a brush since I don't own an airbrush and was pretty happy with the results.  Unfortunately, you can really drybrush the airbrush color since its very thin due to the alcohol content in it.  I decided not to go for any OSL effects around the torches as I wanted this to be a very simple piece.  I also didn't greenstuff the seams and gaps as I thought this added some character to the building as a whole.  Overall, I think it's a nice piece of terrain and I already have a few ideas of what I want to do with the next two chapels.

I will return to my Fellowship project and hopefully have an update on that soon.  Thanks for reading!

Friday, July 4, 2014

The Fellowship Project

We'll start off by saying "Happy 4th of July".  Yay!!!  Okay, now that that's out of the way, on to business.

In my last post I mentioned entering my skaven warp cannon into a local painting competition.  Well, I did just that last Saturday and ended up winning the painting challenge for the month of June at the local Games Workshop here in Libertyville and snagged a $15 gift card.  Here is a quick picture of the entry.


And no, I didn't come up with the "You Dirty Rats". but I thought it was rather fitting.  The next painting challenge for the month of July is free reign to do whatever you want.  I picked up a Hellpit Abomination kit, but I'm not sure if I'm going to complete it before the end of the month along with my other project.  Too much to paint, so little time.

I also mentioned something in my last post about going back to Lord of the Rings.  Well, I've done just that.  This isn't going to be a picture heavy post as I just began this project a few days ago.


Those are the figs from the OOP Mines of Moria.  I chopped off the slotta part and plastic glued them to closed bases.  I also filed down the roughness of Gimil's base so it'll match better with the tomb part.  This is actually going to be a gift for my nephew who's birthday is coming up in a few days.  My two niece's birthdays are next month (Aug.), so I have until then to complete this project.  I might toss a few WIP updates here and there, but I'll definately post the finished product when it's done.  This picture was taken a few days ago, and I've done a little work on this project at the current time.  So far, I have Legolas complete and Gandalf about 80% complete.  Keep tuned to see more of this.  Thanks for looking...