I kept coming back to this article and mulling over it. I really don’t have time to get distracted by another project but it was sooo tempting. Late one night I pulled out a piece of paper and started doodling. The next day some graph paper was procured. Too late! Project started!
As Mr. Bickley had produced his model from individual parts I decided to follow along and make mine in modules starting with the front gate.
Upcock
Me being me, there have been a few upcocks in the design, but nothing that a hammer wouldn’t sort out.
Obligatory kitten for scale
The original suppliers who inspired this build are:
Another favourite thing. The Oldhammer Community Facebook page is running a “Paint a Bob” competition. During the month of September paint a figure sculpted by Bob Olley. To prevent any duplicity entrants had to post a photograph of their chosen model with this image as a backdrop.
I was undecided which model to pick, these wer my selections.
Ogre from Ral Partha
Skeleton from Essex
Chaos Dwarves from Essex
Sat at my desk this morning I decided on the Dwarves. Then I realised that they were a set of four, I dug the last one out.
I don’t know what it is, but when I get a box of bits from Curtis my imagination gets fired up. This part might fit well with this, ooh and then if I add this etc. etc.
I’ve known about Ramshackle Games for about ten years, maybe a touch more. I started off getting some fantasy models.
My Goblin Overlord
In my Lead Mountain I have a mahosive squiggoth-like creature which is destined to be for my Orc Overlord.
Then a few years back Ramshackle Games had a Kickstarter for sci fi troopers. This was my starting point for my necromantic “Not Imperial Guard”.
You can see more images waaay back in my blog
Ramshackle also make vehicles. Here is my command APC.
Later Ramshackle ran a Kickstarter for the parts to assemble Jet Bikes. Obviously I sucumbed. I have only constructed one so far. Painting it would be nice.
Then I have recently been in the mood to bash up some tankettes for my Orks. Curtis, the ever obliging, helped.
Very recently I ordered some parts to make up a robot walker type machine. In the box was included a few other bits and bobs. This one was a personal project of Curtis’s for his Realm of Chaos warband. I saw it and it called out for a little floating platform. A sort of mini Slann.
Here is the walker.
And it is accompanied by a floating sensor/gun platform. Based on a Kinder Egg with extras from Ramshackle.
If you haven’t as yet come across Ramshackle Games do have a peek at the website. There is bound to be something there for you. Would free world-wide shipping be an incentive?
This model was loosely inspired by a model I saw in the Trash Bash Bits group on Facebook. The original was made from a fly-swatter. It wasn’t quite what I had imagined but it sparked an idea.
The first iteration looked like this.
Standing figure from Moonraker Miniatures and the seated figure is from a batch of “O” Guage model railway figures sourced from eBay.
There were some issues, some of which I addressed in the next iteration.
The next iteration was like this.
Correction required.
Comparison shot of the two. You can see I have added some extra detailing to the cabin roof.
Iteration two with cargo and kitten for scale.
Iteration three will elimate these issues and hopefully be the final model.
“Hello” to my new followers, or rather I should say “Hello” to my new random followers. I’ve visited your blogs. We have nothing in common.
I am a curmudgeonly old git with no social skills or graces. There are no pearls of wisdom to scatter before you. If you think that using someone elses quotes and random unattributed stock photos is going to set the blogosphere alight. well ….
Copyright Antonious Achilleos
Somehow I don’t see myself ever being an “influencer”. Already that word is starting to have negative connotations.
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If you take the trouble to examine my site stats you can see that I barely have a handful of followers and lurkers, hello Ruth. I am certain that there are a couple of bots and one is a dog. Добро пожаловать мои верные товарищи-роботы! И собачий приятель.
I blog to keep sane.
I blog, badly, about a very dull niche topic.
I blog about nothing that would help you raise your blog profiles. In fact linking to my blog would probably kill your traffic.
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So please
copyright grumpyoldtin
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Images are Copyright their respective owners. Used without permission.
Every summer my Wife and the Boys drive down to Croatia for a holiday. Well somebody has to stay and tend to the chickens and cats. My chance to have a bit of time to myself and spread out and finish any projects that have been on hold for a while. I was a bit ill with a virus that made me very tired and demotivated so I didn’t do as much as I wanted.
Way back in 2011 I was approaching my redundancy at St. Martins and I used the time wisely. I made a whole load of these.
A plastic base, wire looped and glued into position, sand and PVA applied and primed in black. I didn’t do anything with them until now. This was the base build for some hedges. Following Mel’s videos on his YouTube channel I made a load of foam clump foliage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN16RxVNrvcThen following Luke’s videos on his YouTube channel I hade some flock. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsmD5774MOQhjYBkXqu3JdwUsing Luke’s videos I purchased some Tacky Glue, I must find somewhere here in Austria that stocks it because the postage was a killer. At my local DIY store I purchased some spray adhesive.
Stage One: paint base brown. Stage Two: drybrush base. Stage Three: apply Tacky Glue to wire and press on clump foliage. Stage Four: spray on adhesive and sprinkle with flock. I didn’t bother photographing these stages as you will get a better idea from the videos.
What I managed to do. There are some still to do but I had run out of clump foliage and the blender used for making it was awaiting a part from the UK.
Figure for scale, available from Heresy Miniatures
I must mention that Mel has been hard at work and recently had a Kickstarter to promote a book all about making wargaming terrain. If you missed it, or like me don’t have a form of money that Kickstarter recognises…. you can get on board herehttps://terrain-essentials.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
More from Jamie. These are from the abolutely gorgeous Gnomes range. This is part of the Baggage Train. I swapped out the goat and replaced it with a snail which I thought was more appropriate.
This is the second board that I made for the Tabletop Knights gaming day. My kind Daughter gave me a copy of Destiny 2 when she gifted me her old PS4. One of the worlds you visit is Nessus.
This is not my image and it is used without permission
I fell in love with the visuals and wanted to recreate them. In the small space of a Kill Team board I wouldn’t be able to do it justice, but maybe I could give a taste.
First up was to make flocking, My local DIY store gave me a small piece of pure white foam and the poundshop provided cheap paint to colour it.
Planning out the board
Laying down 10mm of foam under the “metal” floor plates. I wanted them raised so there was some variations in the floor level.
The buildings
Adding the sides for extra strength.
Glueing parts into position
The crane
Adding colour and weathering.
More details.
Some of the columns in place with vegetation.
Set dressing.
Over all I wasn’t so happy with this board. There were a few tiny mistakes. I didn’t like the colour scheme on the buildings. I would have approached it differently next time. I have no idea where I am going to store it now. I did offer it up for sale at the event, but no interest.
This is the first post of three regarding the Tabletop Knights show in Germany.
This will be about the first display board, Gone?
I saw this image, credit to whoever did this (if you let me know I will credit that person here) and thought, “I want this!” If you are interested I have a Pinterest page devoted to scenery. Look for Nik Green. I highly recommend Pinterest as a resource for keeping ideas from all over the interweb neat and tidy and in one place.
I got the dimensions of a Kill Team board, thirty by twenty two inches, and got two sheets of chipboard cut.
Clamping the sides
Burning the splinters off the cheap wood frame
Trimming the foam for the inserts with my Proxxon
Foam inserts fitted
Playing around with ideas
Track chopped out and starting to detail the edges with strips of cork tile
A Lego wheel being used for detailing
Gravel from Walersee and fine river silt used for detailing
Building before and after painting
Starting to build up the layers
I made a pipeline out of some scrap pipe from a skip and some laser cut supports. I magnetised the feet so it could be removed for transportation.
Everything in situ
Silt! Silt everywhere!
Paint and weathering applied
Tuft mania
And then scatter
I think the scatter needs to be more yellow to match the tufts. Added to this was some water effects. Overall I am very happy with this board. Some minor tweeks as noted are required.
As a reward to myself, I am not a fan of batch painting, for finishing the Gnomes I painted this fellow.
I couldn”t get the figure I was after (see previous posting) so I got this guy. Originally from Forgeworld, I got him second hand from The Troll Trader. He’s allright for a Truro Boy. https://thetrolltrader.com/ He will be the squad leader in a unit of Beastmen in my Not Imperial Guard 40K army.
Obviously I got distracted after that. So rather than finishing the Dwarf Skiers from Old School Miniatures, sorry Jamie. I found these really cute Elementals on Thingiverse. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3388214 I wasted (no) time in printing off a load and here is a test paint of one.
These are going to be based up for use in Dragon Rampant. Not that I am ever going to play it, more’s the pity. At the moment in the queue I have a: Renaissance Army from a recent Kickstarter, Undead Army mostly comprised of Bob Olley Essex Miniatures (gorgeous sculpts, I ended up buying some more to fill the gaps in my collection), Orcs and Goblins from my spares box and now an Elemental Army.
And then a couple of weeks ago I got a box of bits from Jamie. https://www.oldschoolminiatures.co.uk/ I got more distractions in the shape of more Gnomes. I’d asked for a unit of Undead Gnomes to go with my Undead Army and in the package was this guy.
I had to paint him immediately. I made a totally impracticle 20mm base for him to go on.
Now I need to crack on with two Kill Team display boards which need to be finished in about six weeks time for a show in Germany.
You may remember I have been growing closer ties with The Old School Miniature Company. These ties will continue to grow. I have reviewed my sales from this blog and they have amounted to zero. When it is time to renew my contract in March I’m not going to pay for the additional functionality, but settle for a more streamlined site and save myself seventy Euros. I’ll keep the dot com this year as I have had cards made up with that address, Next year I will get my own site and save more money. Maybe. OS Miniatures have their own shop and I have been getting a few orders from it. So for me it’s a lot easier to make one parcel stuffed full of bits and post it off and let them do the marketing, which I suck at, etc.
Anyway back on topic.
A while back OS miniatures did a Kickstarter for a Gnome army suitable for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. This came complete with Army Lists for Third Edition and Sixth Edition. They looked like a nice fun army and Jamie from OS Miniatures obliged me with a set.
I’ve painted them in a quick and dirty style. Base colours, a wash and highlights on the flesh. The banners probably took more time than the units they are with. The image is scanned from a book. Resized in Photoshop and printed out in BW on my laser printer then painted. Each base is magnetised and the movement trays are from a big batch of Micro Arts Studio that I got on the cheap from Troll Trader. The grass tufts and flowers are made by me and will soon be on sale at OS Miniatures.
This year hasn’t been terribly productive for me. May comes along terribly quickly and then for three months I’m tied down with Electric Love which takes all my energies then the end of the year seems to arrive before I know it.
My Mighty Fortress addons have been popular, but not enough to retire on. But apart from that I haven’t made anything of note. This has been partly a lack of confidence/laziness and intimidation from seeing other company’s work. And partly due to depression.
I got myself a new toy.
My set up
It is the Ender 3 from Creality, It seems to be taking the 3D printing world by storm, a combination of price and quality. It is still not good enough for miniatures, for that I’ll need a resin printer, but for scenery and vehicles it’ll do. If you apply the “Three foot rule”. I’ll post results next year. I’ve made some modifications, fan covers, LEDs, stepper motor dampers and bed handle. Next up will be TL Smoothers. I’ve been hitting Thingiverse, there’s a lot of interesting bits there for free. I’ve been printing some APCs for my Not Imperial Guard Army.
I have just been given a Laptop and I am getting to grips with it (PC 😦 ) because I’d like to get back into 3D modelling, something I used to do twenty years ago. I think the future is 3D modelling and digital distribution. For me a combination of laser cut, 3D and vac forming will make some very interesting models.
I don’t have a product of the year this year. I have invested in Kill Team and Blackstone Fortress (gorgeous models) from GeeDub. But painting or playing them hasn’t happened. I do plan to make a Kill Team demo game for Austrian Salute. I have played a couple of games of Tanks with Number One Son and they have been fun. My big time sponge has been a Playstation 4 gifted to me by my Daughter. I have been playing Destiny 2 but have been getting frustrated as there seems to be no story to it and you have to be online to play. The downloads for it are huge and I can’t play them unless I pay. The Nessus world is gorgeous and I’ll be copying the style for my Kill Team Board.
I have been resisting buying figures (ok ignoring Kill Team and Blackstone Fortress) because I am so behind on my painting. The Dragon didn’t get touched and I have Alpine Dwarfs and a Gnome army to finish. I have been sooo tempted by an Athurian army from Footsore miniatures but I don’t have anyone to play against and I’ll never paint it.
Best wishes for the New Year to my regular readers, my lurkers (Hello Ruth!), my randoms (WTF do you have in common with me?), anyone else who stumbled across this and the one follower who I am sure is a dog.
https://terrain-essentials.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
To everyone out there…..
genuine grumpy old tin 