Latest From The Workbench

 Well it has been a couple months since I posted any painted stuff. I have had these guys done for a few weeks but just hadn't got to taking any pictures . In fact, I am getting ready to start basing a huge Sea Peoples army and some other 20mm WW2.  Anyway lets get on to what's done now.

First up some Myceneans!

All these guys are from the old Bull Dancer range. They are 25mm rather than the popular 28mm, but, they are really nice sculpts. I have the ones shown here, and about 10 others I had painted previously. My yearly pleas for more have mostly fallen on deaf ears, that is until this year. My plea on TMP was responded to by the original owner. He said the masters were in the hands of Ral Partha Legacy. Contacting them, I found out that they are in fact working on new molds and some fixes to some of the masters. So there is some hope that I can get my hands on more of these guys fairly soon.

These two guys are from Footsore Miniatures. The one on the left is a promachos, and a lochagos on the right for the Mortal Gods range and they are cast in resin. Now I'm not too sure how big a fan of resin that I am, but these were really nice detailed figures and they have some sturdiness to them.

Next up some mounted Dead of Dunharrow.

This just about completes my Army of the Dead, just need to get ahold of a banner bearer. I have plenty of warriors, the king, and the three hunters so I can almost call this one done.

I have also been working on terrain 

I have been working on some of the 4Ground terrain I have bought in the past. These are part of the Japanese Gates and Fencing pack. super easy to assemble, and prepainted. I have to take a moment to talk about the basing material. I used the same material on these fences as I did on everything posted above it. It is the Mediterranean Soil mix from Lukes APS. This stuff looks great and has a great mix to it. I will certainly be using this stuff for my 28mm figs in the future.

Last up this time around is the Third Prussian Corp for the 100 Days campaign.

These guys are all the old TTG line now manufactured by Alternative Armies. I am doing this project and basing for Napoleons Battles. The two exceptions to the NB basing scheme are the artillery (I hate those skinny bases the guns hang off of), and the cavalry (Just cut them in half, so two bases equal one in NB). This is a nostalgia project more then anything that will morph into the Peninsula as well. Third Corp included the Russo-German legion troops. I did them in Russian uniforms, may or may not be accurate but it is a definite break from the boring Prussian uniforms. Flags for the line units are from fighting 15s, the Landwehr flags are all downloaded from Warflag.

Well that is all for this time. Hopefully I'll have another post soon.

A LOTR Christmas

Back in March when I was preparing to move out of California, to Kansas, my 28 yo daughter asked that when ever it was that I bought the ole dirt farm (my words, not hers) if she could have some of my painted figures. Needless to say, that was a little gut wrenching. But, it stayed in the back of my mind as I moved and got settled. Then I had an epiphany. Why don't I find a Fellowship of the Ring set and paint that for her. Why wait till the old man croaks?. We are both big fans of the movies, and enjoyed watching them together when they came out. I was able to procure a set thanks to a TMPer and I had it in my hands by mid/late July. As you know, most gamers, unless they are deranged, never start a project early. They start it when they really have to. I am no exception. So I started around Thanksgiving and had them done in plenty of time to get to California before Christmas. I am not the speediest of painters, and I wanted to do my best work. I wanted to paint them like the movie so I perused film stills to get the colors as close as possible. I also wanted them to look like they did post Rivendell/pre-Moria since Gandalf was involved. Here is the first group, the Hobbits.

I am a block painter so I blocked in the main colors, did a bit of drybrush highlighting, then did a sepia wash over these fellas. Oh, and I gave Sting a little blue hue. When flocking I have been mixing static grass, fine flock from Woodland Scenics, and some rock together, brushing lightly watered down PVA (the water in the brush), then sprinkling the mix onto the glue. I have never really watched how to use static grass properly, but I just like the texture it gives the base. The next group is the lot that made it to Edoras.

I was really pleased with Gimli, and that was my daughters favorite as well. There were some details that I could not glean from screen shots so I ended up watching a portion of the movie to try and get a glimpse of equipment items. Legolas' quiver was one. I like how it turned out, just not sure of the color. His bow was another point of contention as I had seen screen shots of s red brown and one that is almost a lt grey/white color. I went with a red black color and did some dry brushing with Vallejo red leather. I liked the end result. On all of the Elven blades I used a new paint I had gotten in one of my ModelBoxes, Aged Silver by Instar. It gave a nice glimmery metallic finish to those swords, and made them stand out. Here are the last two.

These two were fun to paint, particularly Boromir. Now I think Boromir should have black on, but, I had seen a screenshot with it looking more leathery. So I went with Vallejo Black Red with a Vallejo red leather drybrush and a black wash. I don't really like painting black that much so it worked out better anyway. Gandalf was pretty simple and overall I was happy with the result. These guys are as good as I can paint, and while I will probably try out new techniques from time to time, I don't really intend on improving too much more. I enjoy painting, but for me the end result is gaming.

 I need to practice a bit more with the photo box I bought on ebay. It works pretty well. The only issue I had was that the LED runs off a USB, and the cord was too short to have the box on top of the desk.  I'll try to have some better angles the next time I post. When might that be? Well I was planning on a larger post with more painted minis, as well as a year in review/look ahead to 2019 for this coming weekend, so look for it then. That is all for now, I hope you enjoyed this post.