6MMRPC Round 2

The new round of the 6MMRPC (http://6mmrpc.blogspot.ca/) started June 1, and of course I was late getting started. I did get a little paint time yesterday so I worked on finishing up a few quick ones. Both to get them off the table, but also to remind myself how to paint. It has been awhile since I had painted.

Up first is 2 figures from Soda Pop Miniatures. I had picked these up years ago at Gen Con when they were metal. I have to say that the assembly for these were terrible. The arms did not want to sit properly in the sockets and I did a lot of filling with glue. I primed them black then airbrushed them with Minitaire Gun Alloy. I was pleasantly surprised how nice that looked. Some black wash to pick out detail, then blue wash on shoulders and knees. Finally an orange wash on the visor - call it done.

I also threw some paint on a Reaper Bones Flesh Golem. Nothing special.

Just good enough to call him done.

So my record for the year is 17 - 6. That is 17 bought to 6 painted. My goal is to blow this out of the water with more painted than purchased this year. I have a ton of Bones from the 1st KS and I am tempted by what I have seen for Bones 3, probably burning all my Jokers there. After those I have plenty of Malifaux that need some love. That doesn't include the minis that I want to try and paint for display. I think I will mostly be tackling tabletop / tabletop + in this round. No matter what, every step is progress!

Practice on flesh

Over the weekend I went to Knoxville TN with Dave to a Pathfinder event for charity. We were not there for the game, we were there for the painting classes run by the awesome Rhonda Bender. Alot of the class was for true beginners who had never painted before, but I enjoyed going over the basics again. You have to have a strong foundation to build upon.

The class I got the most out of was on skin tones. We were given a choice of some Reaper Bones mini to practice on so I chose the Clay Golem.  It was a little rough at first and when we added purple to the shadows I was thinking I was about to ruin this figure. But you can tell me if it worked.

Paint Club - Night #1

Tonight my buddy Dave (http://grey-wolf-studio.blogspot.com/) and I had our first night of starting a paint club. We met up at ThroughTheDecadesSportsCardsGaming, which is not a miniature game store at all but they do carry board and card games. Magic the Gathering is a big thing there. Dave had approached the owner about possibly hosting a paint club there and the owner liked the idea so.....

Dave working on some Sedition Wars figures. Even though there was a Magic tourny going on we could barely tell and Dave and I enjoyed a few hours chatting and painting together. I opted to work on some of my Malifaux figures and chose my Ten Thunder Archers,

This is after 2 coats of red.

Looks like 3 coats was the magic number.

Here they are with the shadows put in. The rest are some close ups.

All in all a decent progress for a few hours while trying to start a weekly paint club. The holidays coming up will put a hiccup in the routine, but hopefully we can get some more people involved.

Stay tuned for more!

Sedition Wars and a Present

Sorry to be late with my latest update but last week there was a death in the family. My wife's uncle passed very suddenly and we will just say that it was far from the best circumstances. Lately when this kind of tragedy happens I find myself thinking about my dad who passed 2 years ago. He was a model car builder and in the last few years before he passed we grew closer over different modeling techniques. One of my many regrets was never getting around to have him teach me how to airbrush the right way. Everytime I sit down to paint I think of him, bittersweet, I know.

Anyway, right before this bomb dropped my awesome wife got me my Christmas present and told me I could have it early!

That is my new Badger Krome Airbrush! I was doing a little kid happy dance when I got it. I have used it once and I love how it feels in my hand. The double action is really nice and smooth and it has a needle limiter so you can set your paint flow to be consistent every spray. I still have a lot to learn about using it beyond basic priming and basecoating, but I will get there. Here are 8 Strain models that I primed and basecoated with the airbrush then I finished them off with the brush.

I tried several different color washes as you can tell before picking out some details. I am not super happy with them, but these are ok for a board game. Just need to finish up a bit on the bases and paint in the rim with black. This will put me up to 12 minis done for the #6MMRC. Hopefully I will get some more done this week/weekend.

A Few More Done...And a Surprise!

Managed to get some paint time this week and I decided to bust out my 3 Guild Riflemen for Malifaux. I really like the fluff for these guys and as usual for Wyrd the models look fantastic. Now I just need to get them in play!

Good enough for the tabletop I think. One of the big reasons for doing the 6MMRC is to get as many models painted without adding to pile. So far that makes a total of 4 done (Just need to seal them) and the whole Sedition Wars set assembled and primed. I know many people have a list or spread sheet keeping track of the models they own and what progress has been made on them. I think if I did that I would just get depressed, so I just take my small victories as they come.

As for the surprise, I found out this week that this little blog has now passed 2500 page views! That is quite a shock to me to say the least. I want to thank everyone to happens to stop by this crazy little space in my head and I guess I am going to have to come up with something as a give away or contest. Until then keep on painting!

#6MMRC Week 3

This week I ordered and received a new airbrush hose and adapter. Luckily supplies do not count in the reduction challenge. Last week I tried out the Harbor Freight Deluxe Airbrush when priming my Sedition Wars figures. I learned a few things:

1. I like the double action airbrushes for the way you can control the paint flow.
2. A water trap is a necessity, not an option.
3. I do not like the Harbour Freight Airbrush. This is more about how it feels in my hand than anything. I have larger hands and the airbrush was uncomfortable.

So I inherited my dad's modelling supplies when he passed away, which included two Paasche Model H airbrushes. They are single action, bottom feed airbrushes. I know they are not the "best" for our line of modelling, but for priming and base coating it will do just fine. I had ordered a Badger brand airhose with an inline water trap and the adapter to fit the Paasche brush to the airhose. There will be more airbrushing this coming week!

What I did manage to finish were 2 miniatures, 1 for Malifaux and a very basic repaint of a Heroscape figure for a client. Here we have the Lone Marshall for the Guild. In the fluff he is a Death Marshall that has managed to absorb the taint of the evil magic he fights instead of being corrupted by it like most are. I went the "Death rides a Pale Horse" theme for him. He is mounted on a Dark Ages base insert.

I feel I did an ok job for the first time ever painting a horse. Not very realistic, but neither is Malifaux....

 Here are the before and after shots of the Heroscape figure repaint. The colors were chosen by the client based on a community approved custom figure.

Major Progress! Thanks Mr Airbrush!

So I managed to get a good chunk of the day to work on some hobby stuff and I decided to bust out the airbrush. I currently have a few airbrushes at my disposal and I have hardly used any of them. Today I used the Harbor Freight deluxe airbrush. It is a bottom feed brush with both a bottle and a cup attachment. Since I was planning to prime a lot of figures I used the bottle.

So this makes a complete set of Sedition Wars and the Kickstarter extras all primed up with zenithal highlights. I hope this counts as my zombies for Zomtober with the crew at #6MMRC. Now it is time to airbrush on some base colors and then pick out details and call them done. The character models will get more attention, but the "rank and file" guys will get just enough to be decent on the table. On a side note I was in a Family Dollar store the other day and as I was wondering around I found this:

It is a silicone pot holder, but I immediately thought I could use it for a stamp for bases. Here is the first test:

Not too bad. I am not sure but I think my green stuff is getting too old. I will try again with some softer air dry clay I picked up. Keep picking at those mountains!

Conquering the Lead Mountain - Late Start

Ok folks, I have decided to join some fellow bloggers in a personal challenge to "Conquer the Lead Mountain." The goal is for six months you work to finish as many models as you can without adding to the pile. Most everyone who is participating in this started on Sept 1, so I am a month late, but this is still a great idea and I am hoping it will help motivate me to paint more and to blog more. You can check out all the rules and the other people joining the challenge HERE
As for my start I am currently working on my Lone Marshall for Malifaux:

Plus I am learning to play with and airbrush so I am practicing on my box of Sedition Wars:

So here is to a hopeful (re)start to my blog and my painting queue!

First mini of 2014

Here is the first mini I have finished this year. It is the Angel of Shadows from Reaper. I got this as a present several years ago and she was lost in mountain for a good while. At least she is finished and I think a good start to the year!

My messy desk

So here is a shot of my messy paint desk along with several of the various minis I am working on. I put some color to Cthulhu's head tentacles,  played with the basing for a Reaper mini and I got the flames on Kaeris to a point I am happy with. That plus some various prep on some random figs makes for a productive night!

Gotta keep working on the mountain of minis!

Lady Justice and Judge

I had a great weekend relaxing and I got to hang out with my buddy Greyhorde and we did some painting. These two models won't win any competitions, but they are good enough for gaming. Plus I have another set that I can work on later if I feel that I want to do it better. Hard to say right now since ME2 dropped at Gen Con and a new plastic box set for Lady J was released. The new Death Marshalls are awesome! For now I can calling these two done after a good clear coat.

Life happens

Wow, it has been almost one full year since my l last post here. Last year was a very rough year and 2013 hasn't been all that kind either. More work, more things breaking and everyone needing my attention all at once. This year was especially nasty in that two days before Gen Con my underground power line to my house broke. So instead of having fun and geeking out with like minded peoples, I spent the weekend digging a 35ft ditch. What can you do? Had to be fixed. Everything is back to normal now and the kids have started school for the year. With routines coming the norm I am really trying to get "butt-in-chair" time at the paint desk. So here is a shot of one of my WIPs:

Here is Kaeris from Malifaux.

Trying to get back into the game.....

So far the year 2012 has been crap for me. In January my father-in-law passed away. Lots of problems that are on-going settling his estate. The first of July my dad passed away. He left big shoes to fill for my brother and myself. I did manage to go to Gen Con for 3 days, which was totally awesome, and that gave me a break from my troubles and re-energized me to get back into painting. So here is my latest work: This is Reaper Chronoscope 50014 Nick Stone. Great figure and he was fun to paint. I used some colors that I never had before, namely teal in the armor. This figure is coming out in the new Bones line from the Reaper Kickstarter, so I will get to paint him again in the future. I hope that I can keep the ball rolling this time around....

DnD Game and Terrain Part 2

The party bravely advances into the dungeon after getting the gates open.

From Feb18-2012 DnD

The party starts to explore inside, finding a room that is described as a laboratory.

From Feb18-2012 DnD

Here we are attacked by a spectre (the figure in yellow) of a wizard's assistant.

From Feb18-2012 DnD

The sound of an oncoming golem on patrol causes the group to be nervous.

From Feb18-2012 DnD

After a long battle and 2 characters nearly killed, the golem is defeated.

From Feb18-2012 DnD

Here the remaining group starts into the deeper level.

From Feb18-2012 DnD

In the end the group managed to find the wizard, but he had trapped himself in a time bubble so the party could not retrieve him. When we left the dungeon we discovered that the time bubble had ripples and we had been gone for over a year! The evil we were trying to stop had taken over while we were gone and now we must fight an uphill battle to defeat it.

This was by far the best game of DnD that I have ever played. Good combat, lots of role playing and several puzzles to figure out. And to top it off, this was only a set up for the real story! I will definitely post more as we get the games in!

DnD Game and Terrain

About a week ago I went down to a good friends house to get in a game of DnD. What the players did not expect was the our host and DM had built a 3 tier game table for the main part of our story.

The story is the group is sent to find and bring back a wizard's apprentice who may know how to seal an ancient evil relic back in its containment box. The wizard who had sealed it away originally has grown old and too frail to do it again. We were told that the apprentice, Kadoc, had bought two levels of a dwarven outpost that the dwarves were going to seal up and leave.

When we arrived to the mountain that dwarves had carved out for the outpost, the curtains came off the table and here is what we saw:

From Feb18-2012 DnD

We have an inn, a mill, blacksmith and market. And of course, the mountain face and ominous door into the unknown. But it was late when we arrived so we decided to rest in the inn and keep a guard.

From Feb18-2012 DnD

In the mourning we managed to get the main door open, only to see 3 gates blocking our path.

From Feb18-2012 DnD

The rogue then found a secret entrance to the left of the door that took us to the room that controlled the gates that had been locked in place.

From Feb18-2012 DnD

More on the adventure to follow.....