Frostgrave Ranger

It took me a while to find the right Ranger mini for my Frostgrave force. I wanted a mini that suited the look of the North Star wizard and apprentice, the old school GW troopers an the Reaper minis that made up the rest of the band. I also wanted it to be a female model, to try to give the warband more of a gender balance. In the end I settled on the Otherworld Miniatures range, and bought the female Ranger and Thief minis.

Now the full warband is complete. The rest of the gang is listed here: Wizard and Apprentice, Archers, Captain,Treasure Hunter and Rangifer, Knight and Male Treasure Hunter, and of course the Snow Golem.

I plan to organise a new round of games of Fristgrave in the near future, I'm unsure of I'l go with these guys, or start another warband. That's the thing with the lead pile. You finish off one set of minis, and there's another lot sitting ready to go.

This is also the first of the minis from the Cleaning out the Closet list for this winter.

Meg Maples Montreal Masterclass, Day 1

This weekend in Montreal saw the last Masterclass to be held by Meg Maples in North America before she moves over to Australia. As a Christmas gift to me from my family, I went along. This was my first painting class of any kind, and I didn't know what to expect in terms of how many minis I would need, how many minis I would get through.

We were given a list of things we would need to bring, and a list of techniques we would try to get through. The first day started off with two brush blending. Before the class, I was aware of the existence of this technique, but that was about all. After a day of doing pretty much nothing bu that (the techniques was explained first for the very good reason that it was the basis of the other parts of the class) I think I'm staring to get the hang of it.

The minis I put on the table at the start of the day. There was no way I would get through that many, but it was good to have a selection to work from.

Cloak on a Reaper Wood Elf King, my first attempt at two brush blending.

Black Wolf Raiding Party Leader, an attempt at the same technique on smaller areas.

Alexia. I love this mini, and I have had her for years, but have not had the courage to paint her, as I didn't have the skill to do so to the level I though she required. No time like the present!

This mini was one where I was using the two brush blending technique to work on the metalllics. Hence all the work on the sword. I am happy with the way it turned out,  but the pictures do not do it justice, I promise better pictures after the second par of the course tomorrow.

So, I am back home with sore shoulders from hunching over under my lamp all day, and a sore head from concentrating so hard. I have never spent such a long time in one sitting painting before, and it was hard work, but the time flew past very quickly indeed. I have learned a lot, including that I need to learn more about colour theory. In addition to the technique of two brush blending, which I will not go into here, as that's what youtube is for, I learned that to get proper shading, you need to go darker than you think. For example, with the elf king's cloak in the first image, I initially went with a darker green, as per normal colour triads, but it just didn't show up at all. I soon plumped for Coal Black (P3), a dark purple/green black, which turned out to be perfect. I used this as a means of darkening pretty much all the shadows from then on. Mixing the Coal Black with an Umbral Umber (P3) gave the darkest shading on the metals too, looking like a proper black at the deepest parts of the shadows, whilst still maintaining an natural looks. I think I'll be using much more of this colour.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow, as there is a whole lot more to learn, and I'm really excited to get these minis finished.

Colore ton Monde Novembre: Veronique Dubois

This month's Colore ton Monde challenge was to paint a non-combatant. This aligned perfectly with me painting minis from the Iron Scorpion boxed set for the new v2.0 rules of Dystopian Legions. The thrust of this campaign is the struggle between two sisters, Monique and Veronique Dubois, both of whom have the MAR non-combatant, meaning they cannot be targeted/killed in game, but if the rest of the unit is gone, so are they.

So, may I introduce you to the sister who sides with the Republic of France, Veronique Dubois, medic, and unit attachment for the Armoured Marines.

 Please excuse the bleaching in the photographs, I can't find my normal camera, and the flash on this one seems to be a little overpowering.

I have played one game of the new version of Dystopian Legions, with this lady on the table, and she more than made her pints worth, as her medic skill allows a 50% chance that any on my marines that get killed in any given turn can come back. This star quality is one of the reasons she jumped to the front of the paint queue. If only I could hire her for my Britannians.

Colore ton Monde: Alten Ashley II

Alten Ashley is fully finished now. I found his sword, it was stuck to the paper towel I use to wipe my brush. Just as well for me I reuse this paper, otherwise the sword would be long gone.

I also redid his hair after seeing his close-ups I tried to redo his eyes too, but I don't think I made any improvements there. The face looks good from arms-length, but the closer you look, the more flaws you see.

Here are the final pics.

Colore ton Monde June

The results from last month are here. Please let me know if you can see it, as it's now on Facebook, rather than blogger, and I don't know what the access is. There was no real theme for the month, and we were left free to paint whatever. I chose to do the Tod-truppen for my Thule Society for IHMN.

As has been posted on the Club Chaos Facebook page, the theme  for the month of June is as follows:

* Le temps des boîtes *
En juin, beaucoup de monde sont dans leur boîtes, se préparant à déménager. On emballe, on emboîte, on protège. Pour le mois de juin, nous vous invitons à peindre un modèle "en boîte", que ce soit une armure lourde, une combinaison étanche, un transporteur de troupe, ou toute folle déclinaison que vous créerez.

*The Time for Boxes*

In June, lots of people are in their boxes, preparing to move house. We wrap, we box, we protect. For the month of June, we invite you to paint a "boxed" model, that could be in heavy armour, a diving suit, a troop carrier, or what ever other crazy variation you create.

I have a troop carrier for my Britannians sitting waiting to be painted, which takes care of that!  Sorted!

Finally, there are two other little things I would like to mention. First off, Ubique is running a wonderfully unique give-away on his blog, so for more details, click here. Obviously, it is not in my interest for you to enter, but I really do feel it's worth yours.
Secondly, I have rather generously been nominated for a Leibster Award by Ian, who had some very kind words to say about my blog, so I shall be posting my response to that shortly.

Kingdom of Britannia: Armstrong 12lb Gun

I am finally getting round to posting this. The gun has been completed for months, but I finally got round to putting the finishing touches to the base last night. I've had quite a break from painting Dystopian Legions, but I've been working myself up to getting the army finished. Only a few (well 4.5) units to go, and a couple of vehicles. Maybe the arrival of the Black Wolf Section, being a small but characterful section with a different scheme will get me on the path again.

Anyway, here are the pics your here to see:

Close-ups of the crew here. Full review of the mini here.

Urban War: Viridian Special Forces

As I posted at the end of last month, I painted up my Viridian Special Forces for March's Colore ton Monde. Here are some more pics of, and info on these minis. These are the first edition Viridian Special forces, and in my opinion, the nicer ones. The second wave ones have large shoulder pads. Which, although tying them in with the marines of the same faction, would rather stand out on the battle field. They are also a bit smaller than the other Urban War Minis, and have less to tie them in to the rest of the faction in general, but I still feel they have much more character.

The Squad Leader

It is interesting to note, that of the four members of this unit, 3 are female. As are the veteran sniper and commander figure. Furthermore, none of these female figures have gratuitously exposed cleavages. Yes, I am aware that this company made up for this with the syntha faction running around naked, but we must count the victories too. It is an example that games like Dystopian Legions have failed to follow.

The bases for these guys have finally arrived, and will be added shortly.

Colore ton Monde: Mars/March, The Masked Ball

Enough of the Oldhammer minis, back to the present, or indeed the near future...
 
March's challenge was to paint a figure with their face hidden. Really not to taxing at all to find, as there are a lot of near/far future games that stick a gas mask on their minis, and many many other ranges that have at least a few figs with full face helmets. In the end, I went with the Viridians I brought back from the UK, as I seem to be on a roll with them. I have five Special Forces minis, and four of them are wearing gas masks. Easy peasy. They also fit into the stealth motif of this months challenge.

 

So, there you go, faces all hidden, and stealth theme too. I have also had the call to say the bases for these guys have arrived, so they will be based and done very shortly.

I love the fact that of the five minis in this squad, three are female.