What I did in my holidays

Posted on August 22, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

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=ZN16RxVNrvc Then following Luke’s videos on his YouTube channel I hade some flock. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsmD5774MOQhjYBkXqu3Jdw Using 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

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Updating

Posted on August 20, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

So that’s the Summer done and dusted. I have been a little slow on the progress reports. A combination of laziness and the Black Dog.

Look forwards to a flurry of updates, well maybe one or two. Let’s start with the painting done before Electric Love.

These two are from the Old School Miniatures range. “The Circus of Corruption” Jamie sent them to me and it seemed rude not to paint them up.

https://www.oldschoolminiatures.co.uk/circus-of-corruption-15-c.asp

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.

https://www.oldschoolminiatures.co.uk/alpine-gnomes-3-c.asp

As you might have guessed I love this Gnomes range of Jamies. Some scenery is forthcoming from me and this is the first.

Next up is from Alternative Armies. This guy will be used in my Beastman unit in my “Not” Imperial Guard Army.

GRN53 Zarglain High Prefect

I couldn’t get (rather couldn’t afford) the Beastman Squad Leader, so I settled for this guy from Forgeworld.

More updates on the painting coming soon. KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES!

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Tabletop Knights Gaming Day 2019

Posted on May 3, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

I really should have written this much sooner, as always laziness overtook me.
For a far more eloquent account of this event I will direct you to
https://www.battlebrushstudios.com/2019/04/show-report-tabletop-knights-games-day.html
I decided to forgo Walter’s Austrian Salute this year. Walter has no intention of expanding and with last years event with a lack of sales and culinary disaster I wasn’t keen to attend.
Christoph’s event, Tabletop Knights, was a bigger event and he is keen to expand.
Preparing for this event has taken a couple of months making two display boards, Nessus and Gone?
Two days beforehand i was struck down with the lurgy, cold, tired runny nose. Great!
First day of the school holidays, which would normally be spent sleeping in, we got up extra early so we could drive to Germany and set up for nine.
There were a couple of traders there.
Obviously Christoph with his lasercut Roostermodels products. Which reminds me to get a banner made up.

Roll The Dice. I had made some little give-aways for them and Martin appreciated them. I had hoped that he would bring some paint along as I have a few gaps with need filling. Sadly no.
Spiele Cafe had a tombola, which my Son’s happily indulged in, and some demo games.
Spellebrette (can’t read my writing) had discount GW.

My table set up

The day was started by and address by Korbi.

View of the hall

There was a 40K tournament running downstairs

So on to the tables and games.
Roll the Dice had two demo games. Wild West Exodus and the Warlord Games ripoff of Wings of War.

GW Night Vault.
Unpainted figures.

Summoners
Interesting models.
But not another rule set?

A Song of Ice and Fire

Gates of Antares
Interesting cardboard scenery

Last Days
Yet another zombie apocalypse!

Test of Honour

Frostgrave
With Christoph’s scenery

Dead Man’s Hand
Something that potentially of interest to me.
Christoph’s scenery

Freebooter’s Fate
Nice scenery from 4Ground

Guildball
Bloodbowl anybody?

Age of Sigmar
‘Nuff said

WH30K
Nice scenery from Deathray

WH40K
With added Tyrannids, a lot of them!

Walter playing Saga

The usual Star Wars
Legion and Armada

Painting competition

Trade was very slow. Until lunchtime my biggest sellers were some coffee mats that I’d made with scraps of wood from the Happylab recycle bin. I managed to sell my entire box of scrap off-cuts from laser cutting. I had a couple of enquiries about making some custom token trays. Sadly nothing has come of this. Martin from Roll the Dice bought some of my static grass to test out the waters.
I did enter the painting competion, and got a third place in the single figure catagory with my Earth Warden.
There was no culinary disasters and the food was hot, plentiful and reasonably priced.
Overall the day was a bit of a disapointment. Low sales, a supposed gaming opponent didn’t show and a long wait due to the 40K tournament for the awards ceremony. If I do attend next year I will not be putting such an effort into a display board.

Gaming Day

Posted on April 11, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

This is where I have been concentrating my energies for the last couple of months.

http://tabletop-knights.de/gaming-day/?fbclid=IwAR23rjTal2ubKyRXsgiAtH03nTu1fnTIlgy6ZOfkbogBfsIlvSetIT8jynM

There will be a rather more informative posting next week.

Picture this

Posted on March 5, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

One day I will learn how to take decent photos of my painting. Maybe if I stop gadding about from project to project? One thing that I have seen has been a little photographic scenic corner made by one of the Oldhammer Community. That would be useful and wouldn”t take up too much space. So I set out to make one. This is my work in progress and I’ll post when finished.

Basic shape cut from MDF and steps from foam

Detailing of door using coffee stirrers from your favourite tax avoider

Arial view of lentils, foam blocks and roof tiles

Windows and woodwork. When was this taken?

February

Posted on March 1, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

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.

Maybe learning to play the game might be useful?

Gnomes

Posted on January 17, 2019 by grumpyoldtin

This is the first project from this year.

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.