Busy Days

The last few weeks have been a wonderful flurry of hobby activity for me. I feel like I have my mojo going very strong again, for the first real time since I stopped painting for other people.

Right after my last post, I started in on DM prep work for the family's upcoming delve into Greg Gillespie's Barrowmaze. After studying Greg's maps and keys for the dungeon, I knew that it was going to be a challenge to adapt it to a miniatures-based dungeon crawl. Greg's maps are very well designed and layed-out . . . but building them as a floor-tile dungeon would be next to impossible because they are so cramped. I took Greg's designs, cut a whole bunch of floor tiles downloaded from the Skulldred site and mounted them on foam core, and then re-laid out and re-keyed the "major" encounters to match the rooms and passages that I could easily build. It will make for a slightly less realistic dungeon lay out, for sure- but I think that it will be a lot more playable as a tabletop game. I plan on posting pictures of the games, as I know some of you have expressed an interest in Barrowmaze.

After studying the random monster tables for the various environments, I decided I was a little light in the dungeon vermin department, so I picked up a couple packages each of Fire Beetles and Giant Scorpions from Reaper and painted them up one evening last week. Again, since they are destined to die in droves, the paint jobs are quick and basic, but I was pleasantly surprised at how decent they look. Especially considering that these are Bones minis, and barely broke the $10 mark for the whole group of twelve. Definitely a good value.

Everyone's favorite gland donators

Roll save v. poison or die

About the same time that I ordered these guys, the Red Box Games kickstarter was wrapping up, and I was a pretty big backer of that project. The minis that Tre sculpted during the last few days of the campaign as stretch goals were so good that they drove me to search around the inter webs looking for older minis he had sculpted. I came across this great Not-So-Little-John priest type from Reaper, and fell in love. Readers of this blog will certainly know of my weakness for beer guts on minis.

Gotta love scale differences

He is joined here by a Dwarf from WOTC's Chainmail range. This guy is way too big to use in my WHFB Dwarf army, so I mounted him on one of the flagstone bases from Fenris and he will ultimately be a PC in Barrowmaze. I think the rest of the family will be rolling up new characters fairly frequently, as the dungeon is pretty deadly. The color scheme for his armor (yellow and black) was inspired by my older son's favorite soccer club, Borussia Dortmund (he happened to walk into my painting room wearing his jersey just as I was gazing at the mini trying to figure out how to paint him up). It was a nice excuse to use my favorite yellow painting technique again- a dark ochre base shaded with a heavy flesh wash and then highlighted up by adding in bone white. The cleric will make guest appearances as an NPC. I have an inkling he may be drunk fairly often. But just look at that whoopin' stick!

Hope you are well, wherever you might be- enjoy the last of your turkey sandwiches if you're on this side of the pond. Cheers, all.

Rogue Trader Sumo Wrestler Mustard Gas Energy Slugger

I reckon that title will get me exactly one Google result going forward.

Mini is from Scotia Grendel, who actually have an entire line of these guys. Base by Dragon Forge. I love it when companies not named Citadel come up with this kind of stuff. Completely-off-the-deep-end sci-fi = happy Veronakid painting projects.

You! Get in my belly!

This could very well be a wrap on my 2014 painting. Lots of DM prep work to get ready for a Barrowmaze-inspired Christmastime campaign. What better way to celebrate the holidays than by smashing zombies and skeletons with your loved ones?

As Long As The Lightbox Is Out. . .

. . . I might as well get a couple of old mini projects documented.

First up is my RT-era SPESS MUHRRRINES. Like probably a large percentage of you reading this, my first foray into mini painting was one of the power armored giants, although my first one was one of the plastics that came with the 2nd edition 40K box and not one of these incredible metal C100 models.

The paint and color scheme came directly from one of my painting heroes, Delaney King, who posted a similar project along with a very kind tutorial on her blog a few years ago. As soon as I saw hers (she has some wicked conversions in her force as well, stuff that's well beyond my skill level), I knew I would have to collect some old marines and paint them up similarly.

My RT Eldar force, painted up to use in games against the marines, takes their inspiration (of course) from the Rogue Trader rulebook. They used to be so much more characterful and "elfy" than the current models, which seem to me too bulky for elven types. Purple guns for the win.

I used almost exclusively inks on these guys- only the flesh (if I remember correctly) was actually painted on. I still like the alien-ness that I achieved on this project- one of my personal favorites.

Take care.

The Gang's All Here

Took a little break from painting WFB minis this week to work on a Rogue Trader figure- the "Mad Punk" from the RT601 Adventurers code.

While I was working on her, I brought out the Sensei I purchased already painted earlier this year and finally got around to fixing up his face and armor. Of course, as long as I was tidying up this model, I figured it was a good chance to tidy up all of my RT Adventurers. . . one thing lead to another and several hours' worth of work later, the group was ready for their family picture:

I have several more of these types of figures in the queue. Now I am more anxious than ever to get back to them. So many figures to paint, so little time.

Hope you are well, wherever you might be.