This is my current painting set up while I am between houses and I just fancied having something a bit more tailored for my needs, rather than an old tray.
Can you tell what it is yet? Part 2
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Category Archives: Toy soldiers
Can you tell what it is yet?
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Can you tell what it is yet?
A little side project.
A new bit of kit. Almost. Well not really
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Warning this contains product placement!
This is nothing new or revolutionary, it’s just a bulldog clip holding some hand towel. But it is something we all use in some form or another. Something to wipe your brushes on.
I started off, like many I suppose, with hand towels from the toilets at work. These did me for many years. I still have a couple of packs left, now used for drying resin pieces after being scrubbed in bicarb solution. Then when I bought a house with my now Wife I was introduced to kitchen towel. Definitely a step up in the right direction. About two years ago I started to take painting a little more seriously. About this time my Wife started to work for her friend Jane at The Begging Bowl, London.
Note: if you want possibly the best Thai food outside of Thailand at non wallet bursting prices try this place. Jane, the Owner/Head Chef, worked under David Thompson (Goggle him) at NAM. *
After a few weeks I was invited down for lunch. When I went to freshen up I was struck by the sheer quality of the hand towels. Soft and luxurious almost like cotton. Brush heaven!
Needless to say on every trip a few would vanish into my pocket.
The moral of this story, check out the hand towels next time you fine dine.
* Other Thai restaurants apparently exist
June’s workbench
A unit of Napoleonic infantry, ready to go
Goblinaid
I finished my Romans early so I did a Goblinaid figure, Paul Hick’ Napoleonic Goblin. It was an opportunity to try out paints for my Red coats. After a bit of looking through books the uniform looks rather Frenchie. It is fantasy so I don’t think anyone will complain, too much.
If I feel brave I might take one of my 95th Rifles and experiment with darkening the uniform as it is too light.
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Touching up my Romans
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Romans Sah! ‘undreds of ’em!
Go Austria!
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May’s workbench
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My Field of Glory Imperial Roman Army.
I need to add highlights to the armour, finish Scorpions and Auxilliaries.
The carry case, in the background, is handmade out of canvas and an old yoga mat. The ties are leather and the buttons made of briar wood.
The trays are laser cut with steel base.
Troops are based on laser cut bases engraved with my initials (just to sure as one lot of Romans looks much like another).
At the bottom are my playing aids.
FOG play aids
April’s Work
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Warploque Albionican Empire Ogre
Warploque Albionican Empire Engineer and Captain
Warploque Albionican Empire
Warploque Albionican Empire
Reaper Necromancer Babe
Goblinaid WIP
WIP
Another basing interlude and thoughts on motivation
Just trying out a new product for basing. No More Nails. I have no idea what the German name is. I’m using this to glue the figure to the base and to fill in between the figure base and the base.
So far the result is fairly promising, the only thing that I need to work on is smoothing it out afterwards, it’s not as easy as the ready mixed plaster I have been using.
I really should be getting on with the projects that I said I would rather than getting distracted. I have just about finished the Albion heroes and the Albionican unit. They just need varnishing and photographing. The Reaper Necromancer Babe is underway. I will need to do some interweb research on what near naked skin looks like. Surely there will be sites I can study in great depth? Other distractions have been the Goblinaid Spacer Goblin sculpted by Mark Cragg. Prepping a unit of Napoleonic English and a Raging Heroes female kommisar.
Peter from D6 Painting and Gaming wrote a good article on his blog about what keeps him motivated to paint. At the moment I have been distracted by various models rather than committing to paint. I think that everybody has some form of reward system. Mine is if I paint a unit I can paint a hero/leader. I love painting individual figures and find painting units a chore.
There are two things I use to keep me on track. The first and probably the most important is to keep my Lead Mountain out of sight. Only one project on the workbench at a time. I love opening boxes and picturing the painted model in my mind, or discovering a model that I had forgotten that I had. It is also slightly discouraging seeing how much work there is ahead of me. At the moment all bar a couple of boxes are in storage in the lager. The second thing I use is a list. One item on the list a month. It helps me stay focused.
Next month is my Roman Army. I need to finish my Scorpions and a unit of Auxiliaries. Add metal highlights to all the other units. Photograph, catalogue and put on the website.
After that:
A unit of Napoleonic infantry
The reanimated DKK Troopers and command vehicle from Ramshackle Games
GW Squig Mangler
Unit of plastic Warlord Games Celts for my Albion Army
Three Ork jets from Puppets War which will be proxy Deth Kopters
Finish a unit of Faeries and a unit of Undead for my Albion Army
Finish my Bolt Action Home Guard and a unit of British Infantry
Ultraforge Tree Woman a proxy giant in my Albion Army
So if I stay on target, this will be the next nine months work. This doesn’t allow for any distractions like taking any commissioned work (no takers yet), any Kickstarter bits arriving or the bust of Kevin Adams which I am itching to get started on.
For those lucky enough to be going to Salute tomorrow
From a Foundry mail shot
SALUTE 2014
I’m off to Salute in the morning: so it’ll be a few days before I get back to this missive!
We’ve dug out all sorts of barely released and never released items to take this year’s Salute. This includes a Victorian Egyptian Adventure range, unseen Trojans (including 11 chariots (!) apparently there are actually 15: but I couldn’t find the others) , Napoleonic Mamelukes, unseen Hittites, Carthaginians, Ancient Spaniards and barely released Persians We have also discovered stocks of loads of Kevin Adams Orcs and suchlike many of which have barely been seen by the public. In fact Kevin himself will be coming along to keep them company.
Stealing toys from my Boys
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I’m guilty as charged m’lud. Recently I’ve started using a little bit of black-lining on my models. It’s made up of Vallejo Black, Johnson’s Klear and a touch of water. I store it in an old Vallejo bottle and use the lid to dip my brush in. Problem is the bottle top is not the most stable and I’ve been propping it up in the corner of my tray. I had thought of getting some wood from my Father in Laws and drilling a hole in it. Tidying up my Boy’s room this afternoon, “Lightbulb!” There were some wooden blocks that I had to put away and in amongst them was a little red cube. It was a matter of moments to get the drill and make a small hole with a slightly chamfered edge. Just the right size and not too space consuming on the tray.
Production line
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Making a start on movement trays in my Father in Law’s workshop. I only have enough clamps to glue two at a time. Luckily I’m not in a rush.
Another brief basing interlude
I don’t know about you but I have been using basing sand since year dot. Then I spend ages painting and highlighting it to make it look like soil.
Is there another way?
I thought I’d try out something I saw in AK Interactive’s Weathering Magazine where one modeller used soil. That’s right soil!
So I went out gathering, some dark forest soil (shown here), some fine pale river silt and a mid tone.
This is the first test piece, I put some gloss varnish on one side to represent wet soil. I think that the “crumb” (blame programs like “The Great British Bake Off”) is too big. This is a result of the size of the sieve. The bits of root give it a slightly more random realistic look.
Recently at a fleamarket I picked up a new addition to my painting tools. This should deal with the size of the crumbs.
genuine grumpy old tin 