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.
I really do have stacks to talk about, but the prevarication beats me. And of course the longer you leave it the worse it gets.
Anyway, I’m flying off to jolly ‘Ol Blighty tomorrow to attend this show.
I’m hoping this will be a better trip than when I last visited the UK. Sadly my gaming buddy Seb, https://mugodice.wordpress.com/ can’t visit with me due to work commitments.
Lots of photos and news when I return on monday.
Cut and screw. Repeat cut about a thousand times. Repeat screw about eight thousand times.
I have managed to paint something, but it is for a friend’s birthday.
And a small picture to accompany.
He never reads my blog so I think I won’t be spoiling the surprise.
Check out his band here https://forktail.bandcamp.com/releases
I’ve been thinking about this project for the last three months and the best way to present a table.
I had a table coutesy of Electric Love and I had the game, Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago.
I wanted islands for the game. What was the best way to approach this? The initial thought was to create some irregular shapes and make the contours with foam. Although they would look realistic there was only one drawback, they would not fit together to create other shapes.
What to do?
I went back to the roots of gaming and thought about hexagons. Looking at how other people had made hex terrain I made a jig to cut the foam.
Things would have been set, albeit with some hard work, to have a table ready for Salute. Then two things conspired against this.
My Wife’s Grandfather died last year. 93 with a full (SS on the Eastern Front, travels to Africa in a minibus, mountaineering, greatgrandchildren and good-health) life, before you ask. The family wanted to clear his house, including his workshop.
And at the same time we got a new neighbour who after moving in decided she didn’t like the wooden floor in her lounge. So it was ripped out and thrown in a skip. It was 20mm engineered, if that means anything to anyone, solid wood. Ever since doing the floor in the hobby room I’ve wanted a nice floor in the workshop. I’ve never had the money (can you hear those violins?) but now was my chance.
One view of how the workshop used to look.
Another view
The optimum time to strip out the workshop, lay the floor ready for shelving and tools was now.
Trimming wood with my new circular saw. I still have all my fingers BTW
First iteration of furniture arrangement
Possibly final arrangement
This obviously cut into the preparation time for Salute. Through previous Salutes and laser cutting I had met another gamer, Christoph. Previously of the Grune Horde and now the Tabletop Knights. He was also planning to run a table with GA. I proposed we join forces.
During this time I also started a couple of money making (success so far €4) projects. When I have time and unrestricted access to YouTube, not very often as The Clone Wars and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air are wayyy popular, I have been watching Mel’s Terrain Tutors channel. One personal project this year is to make a large amount of hedgeing for Flames of War/Tanks. To do this I would need a large amount of clump foliage. Mel showed how to make it relatively cheaply.
The main expense was purchasing the foam and over half of this cost was postage.
Don’t get me started on postage!
My Mothers old Kenwood came in handy
And you end up with a cup of foam
Mixing with PVA and Poundshop acrylic paint
A by-product of the manufacturing process was moss and litchen. Ground up even finer it was ideal for this.
Different colours to be blended when dry
The second money making project was a flockbox. I was not very happy with the quality of the grass tufts I had been making. It was OK but I knew I could do better. Mel’s channel had a video showing how he made static grass tufts. In it he used a flockbox.
I considered buying one but I couldn’t justify the forty quid PLUS the postage.
Luckily YouTube came to the rescue.
So with the help of eBay and my genius neighbour I made one.
The results are great.
Once all these jobs were done there was just about time to paint some scenery and paint my crew. See previous post.
Planning how to display my stock
The day of Salute arrived. The car had been packed the night before so we could set off without any panic or hesitation. Austrian Salute was at a new location, in Germany. The previous venue was looking for new owners, I wonder why? Christoph arrived and we set up. My heart fell a little. Although his modular terrain was a good concept the execution was not as good. No win for the best table then.
Walter giving his customary greeting speech
My tiny display table
Our gametable
The day went quickly although marred by another disasterous lunch. Why do culinary mishaps only happen to me?
On the plus side I did win second prize for the fantasy painting competition.
For the usual more eloquent description visit Sigur’s Battlebrush Studios site
Somebody yesterday on the Oldhammer Community page in Friendface posted an interesting question.
“Has anybody made replacement doors for the Mighty Fortress?”
The Mighty Fortress was a polystyrene castle made by Games Workshop in the mid-eighties.
Due to the age of this many of the plastic doors have disappeared or have been broken.
Some people on the Oldhammer page suggested 3D printing. This got me thinking.
Why can’t I laser cut replacements?
I dug my Mighty Fortress out and I used a piece of scrap 3mm MDF to guage sizes.
It fitted perfectly.
Next project.
A really quick and dirty job. These are from Dreamforge Games and I’ll be using them as Storm Troopers in my Not-Imperial Guard Army. It was a quick hose with the airbrush and a few little brush additions. Not my best work, but I just wanted to knock one out and have something on the table in a couple of days.
These figures actually deserve a bit more time and attention as they have some lovely detail.
Recently I got a parcel containing some miniatures from The OS Miniatures Company. https://www.facebook.com/OldSchoolMinis1985/
This is a company aiming to fill the gaps in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle army books. Obviously with an old school feel.
So here are some images of what I have managed to paint so far.
A cheeky little chappie blowing his own trumpet
A Chaos Barbarian. This is part of a challenge to be completed before Christmas.
A Chaos Dwarf Arse Cannon.
Test paint
A Work-in-Progress shot of the whole group of Alpine Dwarfs
I have just stumbled across this YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/user/PhatWOP001/featured
By a guy called Vince Venturella.
Full of interesting little nuggets of information. I’ve just watched one on oil washes which makes me want to ditch my Army Painter Quickshade which has been my goto solution for just about everything.
Now to find time to watch the other hundred or so videos.
This, I expect most of you know this already, is the eighth iteration of the Warhammer 40K rule-set. I hadn’t played since Rogue Trader, the first iteration, back in the eighties.
I was lured to this by a new streamlined ruleset and the promise of not having to lug around armfuls of codices like the previous editions.
Something simple for me and the Boys.
I used the money earned from gardening towards this coupled with a discount from my “Local” (ha ha) gaming store.
The box is rather beautifully presented and it feels value for money. Fifty odd figures, thick rulebook and dice etc.
No complaints there.
A unit of Pox Walkers from the box
Top left, an old Chaos Marine from the eighties. Centre three figures from the Death Guard “push-fit” box. Rear right, a plastic Chaos Marine from the nineties?
Also purchased were three Index books with the stats for the new rules. Had I have known that G’Dub were going to publish new codices immediately I wouldn’t have bothered and saved myself some money.
I visited my local WARHAMMER store to introduce myself to the new Red-Shirt and in chatting mentioned that I was a bit peeved about the time gap between Indices and Codices. “Well I knew that!” I was helpfully informed. “But I didn’t. Me customer, me spend money. Peeved customer not spend money.”
That didn’t go down too well.
Some of my longterm readers may remember a post from early 2015 https://grumpyoldtin.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/januaryfebruary-work/
Well I never heard a word of thanks or received a t-shirt. I was a little disheartened by this.
Anyway, earlier this year somebody posted on the Oldhammer Facebook Community page that a group from Exeter was planning to attend BOYL.
BOYL, Bring Out Your Lead, is sort of THE event to attend for Oldhammerers. Hosted at Wargames Foundry it is a chance for people to meet up and play games with old figures and game systems. https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/pages/oldhammer
I posted asking if anybody knew Joe Bloggs, the guy who’d asked for the illustration. I got a response asking why and I replied that I was the illustrator and I was still waiting for my t-shirt.
I did get an apology from Joe and the promise that the t-shirt would be sent.
But I did get another message. Would I be intersted in letting my illustation be used for a new miniatures company? There would be some lead and a t-shirt in exchange.
This company had just run a Kickstarter for a very Oldhammer Gnome army which I had fallen for big-time but didn’t have the funds to back.
My response was immediate and in the affirmative.
Just after this Joe sent the t-shirt. It was a less than positive experience. The shirt had been worn and then washed, for which I was grateful. I don’t know why, because most of my clothes these days come from flohmarkts (I’m not very cash rich at the moment),I just didn’t want to touch it. But more dissapointing was the fact that the design had been printed in white on a black t-shirt. Had I have known I would have produced reversed artwork. The t-shirt looked awful.
A couple of weeks ago I got a parcel from OS Miniatures.
In it was;
A t-shirt
And some minis from a new Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/882426675/old-school-miniatures-presents-the-alpine-dwarfs?ref=profile_created
And a gnome which I couldn’t resist painting
I’ve had further good news.
My illustration is the basis of a miniature sculpted by John Pickford.
AND would I be interested in producing some more illustrations, potentially to be used for future miniatures.
A nice little project for those long winter nights. http://oldschoolminiatures.blogspot.co.at/
I did manage to do a few bits and bobs before and during my time at Electric Love, but I don’t seem to have photographed everything. I plan to remedy this before too long.
This was inspired by the Blanchitsu articles in White Dwarf and I rather liked the floaty bits that people had made. This is part of my ongoing Imperial Court which is slowly building up.
This is a little speeder I’d lasercut and will be putting up for sale.
My old gaming buddy Seb had sent me some figures. With them was this halfling which I liked but just didn’t quite know what to do with. So rather than having it sit on the leadpile I thought I’d paint him up and return him. I had a blast painting him and I made the most impractical gaming base ever.
This was the Mayor of Helsreach, a freebie figure from Curtis of Ramshackle Games.
I really cannot for the life of me understand why people are prepared to pay me double the amount I pay myself laser-cutting for a few hours work pulling up weeds in their gardens.
Is there no value to creativity?
On the plus side though, it means I can afford to get a few tools for the workshop.
I would have written this a lot closer to the event, but I was a bit put off by events and didn’t really feel like communicating.
This was to be my fourth visit to the Austrian Salute, my third as a trader.
Plans had been made since Christmas to make and paint a display board. The aim was to win the prize for the best game. i may be crap at sports and generally poor at life but I really wanted to be good at something for once in my life. My wife thought I was bonkers and said that if I applied that much energy into other areas of my life who knows what i might achieve. I have proposed that she teaches me guitar for the next two and half months. It is something I have always wanted to do for a very long time. I actually bought a guitar thirty years ago. So maybe the time is now.
Note: this tuition hasn’t happened.
Two and a half months of feverish building and prevarication and one afternoon of actually playing the game. This seemed to throw up more questions than answers.
I had a t-shirt printed up for Number One Son and made sure the Gameboy had plenty of juice.
We arrived slightly later than planned which didn’t seem to be a problem as the venue hadn’t quite got it together to open up. Omens of later.
Setting up was slightly difficult as I had both Boys trying to “help” but it did get done.
I managed to persuade my Son to play, but he only lasted half an hour as the Gameboy was more exciting.
After a very disappointing lunch (sent back for being unappetising after an hour wait and rude and abusive staff) it was back for the afternoon.
In fact the lunch experience spoilt the whole show for me and I wasn’t really in the mood for anything.
On the plus side, I did win best gaming table.
May I recommend this Kickstarter from The OS Miniatures Company?
genuine grumpy old tin 