May progress

Posted on May 16, 2015 by grumpyoldtin

Not painting as much as I should be. I’m managing upto an hour a day rather than my ideal three hours. Here is the Rough Rider progress. At the moment I’m not so happy with them, but then I had a similar situation with my Ratling Snipers earlier this year. Suddenly after another colour or two they’ll start to “pop” and I’ll be happy. Patience is the lesson I need to learn.
Most of my spare time in the last few months has been taken up with making artwork for laser cutting.

Even then I get distracted into little side projects. I had been pondering what to use as treasure tokens when browsing on Goggle Images I came across some pictures of old coins. It was a matter of moments to copy them into Photoshop, up the contrast and turn into black and white. Then into Illustrator and draw a cut line. Export as EPS and then to the laser cutter. And bingo! I’m rich! About two hours worth of cutting and I should have a decent trove.

Wassup for May

Posted on May 7, 2015 by grumpyoldtin

These are Forgeworld Death Korps of Krieg Death Riders. I’ll be using them in my “Not” Imperial Guard Army as Rough Riders.
I have promised myself that if I finish this squad by the end of the month I can do a tank.

March Workbench

Posted on March 2, 2015 by grumpyoldtin

Here are some, ahem, Forgeworld Deathriders which will be serving as Rough Riders in my Imperial Guard army.

Varnished, prepped and undercoated

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August progress

Posted on August 25, 2014 by grumpyoldtin

Here are some work in progress shots of my command vehicle used in my Not DKK Army. Vehicle by Ramshackle Games from the recent Kickstarter.

Undercoat and the start of weathering

Weathering finished and dozer blade.

Rubbing away the white paint. I used the Hairspray Technique for this. It is a bit disheartening to spend hours painting on weathering for it all to be painted over.

Masking for the blue paint

Blue paint applied

Cutting the masking for the black stripes. This camouflage scheme was inspired by the film, “Inception”.

The original design

Black stripes. I wasn’t as successful as I had hoped with the masking and had to do a fair amount of retouching.

Start of muddying up the dozer blade. I used weathering products from AK Interactive.

And the finished result

July’s workbench

Posted on August 2, 2014 by grumpyoldtin

This last month saw me more involved with the Boys so there was less time devoted to painting.
I managed to finish two squads of Ramshackle Games “Iron Brotherhood” troops from the Kickstarter campaign, but I didn’t manage the command vehicle.

These will complement my Anvil Industries “Tox Troopers” and the Raging Heroes “Toughest Girls of the Galaxy”, another Kickstarter I backed.
As you can see, a far amount of work to go before I even start on the camoflage.

Scribd

Posted on July 22, 2014 by grumpyoldtin

Am I the last person to the party with this resource?
http://www.scribd.com
I just spent an afternoon reading and adding to my “Library” all the books that I had thought of tracking down on eBay.
Warhammer Ancient Battles for forty quid? I don’t think so. Most of these titles I’d only look at once or twice a year so money (I don’t have anyway) saved.

July’s Workbench

Posted on July 7, 2014 by grumpyoldtin

This month I will mostly be painting two squads of Iron Brotherhood troops. I got these from the Ramshackle Games Kickstarter last year. I will be using them as zombie troops in my Not DKK Army alongside the miniatures from Anvil Industries (already painted) and the Iron Empire troops from the Raging Heroes Kickstarter. I plan to add some real DKK and the Leviathan from Dreamforge Games.

If there is time I will also paint the APC from Ramshackle.

ACHTUNG!

Posted on June 8, 2014 by grumpyoldtin

Just a little side project

Another basing interlude and thoughts on motivation

Posted on April 16, 2014 by grumpyoldtin

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.

Production line

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Production line

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.

Inception inspired camo

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Inception inspired camo

I’m looking for a camoflage design for my “Not DKK” army vehicles. This was inspired by Inception.

Knocked it up in Illustrator on my desktop machine and then emailed it to myself so I could tinker with it a bit in Snapseed on my iPad.

Does anyone have any experience making spray masks? The larger ones are easily done masking tape, but I’d really like the darker ones to be very exact and regular.