The Great Cyclops of Polyphemus

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It seems I've developed something of a reputation for being able to find gold.  Charity and pound-store gold to be precise.

Because I'm a fantasy gaming fan, and because I love a bargain, I will always take the few minutes when available to poke my head in an Oxfam, Mind, or Heart Foundation store, or any bargains shop with a toy aisle, to see if there is something of use.  If you are a fantasy gamer and you aren't using Schliech and Papo models, you are missing out on some of the best value fantasy models out there.

A while before lockdown I was following the lovely lady around a few charity shops , when I chanced upon this wee chappie:

Helloooooo!

Now, he looked a bit goofy, and hardly threatening, but he was a hefty lad, and had the added bonus of costing a mere £2.  Well worth taking a chance on.  Fast forward one pandemic later and, my how he's blossomed!

Finished: front

The painting for this guy was greatly aided by the new Airbrush, and initial undercoating and fleshtones were done swiftly.  All the rest was painted by hand.  The whole of the flesh got a layer of homebrew glaze, followed by some retouching.

Left arm, rusty bracelet and Turtle Pauldron 

A lot of the model was inevitable going to be leathery skintones and browns, so the Turtle shell shoulder pieces and the loincloth provided good options for some contrast.  I went to nature for the Turtle shell, and the sea for the underwear!  Sailcloth is likely the only readily available material large enough to cover such a derriere!  And this is often preserved with a red pitch to help protect it.  So red pants it was, ideal for the army he'll be joining.

Rear 

On the back of the model, most of the work had to be done, with a lever action for one of the arms, a carrying strap and a bunch of screw holes needing modification and filling, resulting in a modicum of re-sculpting.  Nothing too challenging as I'm not really a sculptor, but plenty of it.

Right side, Join the Club. 

In the same manner as previous models, nature makes the best stone tools.  The huge mace he swings is a carved twig, a piece of slate and some string, all basically sourced from the garden.

A hefty lad lefts his mark 

The base is made to match the fantasy elements to augment my Ancient Greeks, giving them a Dragon Rampant option.  On such a large base there was room to express his scale in a new way.  I added a footprint by raising an edge in the filler base, and painting inside it darker and semi-gloss, as if the compression of the foot squeezed moisture to the surface.  The grass in the footprint was deliberately pressed down into the glue to give the impression it had been flattened by tonnes of weight.

Grrr! 

For a toy, you can't fault some of the detail here.  This was once an Early Learning Centre toy (weirdly violent for them), and they could obviously afford to get a decent sculpt done.  Look at that expressive face; far less goofy looking now!

And as for scale, here is a family shot:

His 40mm cousin to the left, his 32mm scale boss on the right

He stands 7.5 inches (about 19cm) tall, foot to eye.  With the Club adding another inch or two.  I think I've put about 10 hours in to fixing and painting this chap, and I reckon every minute was now worthwhile.

Also, there this:

Until the batteries die, that's an added bonus I doubt anyone's £80 GW giant is likely to offer.

Onto the next project....

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A Miserable Business

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Who enjoys re-basing miniatures?  You do?!  Get out, ya' weirdo!

Seriously, it must rank universally lowly on hobbyists ladder of preferred activities.  I've always found re-basing miniatures to be an awful job.  And the project to reanimate two tired old ancients armies I'd hung on to is absolutely a case in point.

If it wasn't for the lock-down I doubt I would have got round to this job, and it is still a long way from finished, but the absolute worst part of the task is past now:

    

Five file boxes in total, 59 bases if I remember correctly.  Some four hours of jabbing a paintbrush covered in PVA into every orifice, attempting to cover as much of the old flock as possible.  On the face of it it didn't take that long, but it isn't the sort of job one enjoys, although there is plenty of satisfaction to finishing it.

Of course there's a fair bit of work to go yet.

Tatty lads

It should be obvious in the image above that some of these chaps need some TLC.  Whilst the Revell, HaT and Italieri sculpts in the armies are in reasonable condition, the Airfix models look pretty sad.  They are thin and glossy plastic of a very old formulation, and hold paint very badly.  All these figures are painted in Enamel (with no undercoat either - it was when I was very new to painting!), and it simply hasn't survived the flexing.  Something acrylic paint should be better at, so long as it adheres!

Whilst I am not going to do a full repaint, I will fix up the weapons, helmets and limbs that seem to have suffered the worst.  The big unit bases will make it impossible to get to everything, but they should also hide some of the sins, especially after the subsequent stages I intend, and offer more protection in handling.

That's all for now.

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Iwata Neo - Quality and Value!

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Fortunately, whilst slower than normal, mail order is still a thing, and although I have limited what I pick up given the circumstances, one item of note has arrived.

After eight or nine months of trial and error, I feel I'd got to grips with the basics of airbrushes, and the tell tale sign of that for me was recognising the limitations of the kit I was using.  My no name airbrush that basically came for free with a compressor, performs well enough at high pressure but that isn't what most model painting beyond undercoating requires.  Having however proven concept to me it made me willing to invest more money in a proper devices.  Enter the Neo.

Iwata is one of the most respected makers of Air brushes, the Neo isn't exactly made by them, but I guess it is designed by and approved by them, and manufactured by a reputable subsidiary.  Essentially this rather confusing set up makes it Iwata's entry-level brush.  Entry level here still means handing over £85; but that's about half the price of the mid-upper range models.

But every penny is worth it, with you getting a product of far finer build quality, with superior tolerances and design throughout, having had some time to try it out I've found it to work at lower pressure, with both high and low quality paints, it runs without feed jams, and cleans very easily.  It also comes with interchangeable cups so you can use small amounts of paint.  It can generate good splatter-free coverage at pressures around 8-12 PSI, and can be used up close for lines down to a couple of millimeters.

It is not for large jobs, one of the no-name models will work perfectly well for those tasks (such as undercoating dozens of models at once or basecoating scenery), but for everything else it is far superior.

If you happen to be looking to get into, or improve your airbush kit, I can't recommend this highly enough.


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Time rolls On....

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Easter came and went, lets just say it was, quiet.

I bet yours was too.

The last two weeks were very weird from a work standpoint, as well as a living position.  But the lack of a commute and the extra free time as a result did mean I got a lot of hobby time done.

So in no particular order:

Stan for Scale

Well over a Kilo

 So first up is a Grand Manner Church; another generous donation from James S.  Well worth the effort this hefty model needed.  This model is as far as I can tell, no longer in production, but the painted replacement currently sells for £180!!

Next are some additions to the Imagi-Nations 15mm project:

Hussar!

 Another unit of Hussars, and a light Horse Limber; all from Warrior Miniatures of course.  The limber is from their Gallia 19th century range but it will suffice at a pass, at the less than a pound that it cost.

Next some fantasy:

Reaper miniatures

 These are newer Kobolds from the Bones range, to add variety to my Dragon Rampant army, enough for a single unit themselves, I think they will be best blended in.  The details are finer but the models softer too.  I think I like the older models more, but these are still great additions.

Back to terrain:

  

I've picked up some OO/HO railway pieces for use in WW2 games mainly.  The most important bit to get done was the track.  Here are just over 6 feet of track.  I toyed with using ballast as railway modellers would, but in the end, I opted for painted texture instead.  I think this actually looks really good.

Not bad for super quick.... 

So I cut strips of 5mm foamcore and then shaped them to a gentle embankment.  Each piece was then painted with a thin (creamy consistency) layer of filler.  When this dried, a thicker layer was applied to the banks and textured.  The rail lines - which are standard fixed sections (from Peco I think) with the connectors removed - were then glued to the foamcore with PVA and weighted down overnight.

Once that was done I sprayed the whole black, and then drybrushed the ballast up with brownish greys, forcing an old, big, brush between the sleepers.  After that the surface of the sleepers got a drybrushing of browns.  Finally the tracks themselves got a pretty sloppy coat of gunmetal, and a surface highlight of steely-silver.  Real rails tend to have shiny surfaces, but are pretty grubby where the wheels don't touch, so it doesn't require too much care.

I have to say I'm really happy with the result. 

Finally for today, a random giveaway miniature from the Conan game bemused me for a while, until I realised there was a perfect use for it....

 

Atop  couple of painted garden rocks, he makes an excellent Spartan General, probably most suited to being the leader in the fantasy variant of my army, but he can do duty as a historical character if required.

Not bad for a couple of weeks.

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All the Time in the world.

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Oh yes, there's no shortage of that now is there.

So I've been filling at least some of my down time with painting and modelling, as the gaming prospects are limited.  That said, we've managed to cobble together a play-over-WhatsApp version of Magic the Gathering, although a single game generally lasts about two days.  So it's faster than Monopoly at least.

Here' a few projects from the last week:

20-28mm 

Firstly I finished some more Bocage, adding a couple of open gateways and short sections using the approach posted below somewhere.  I liked them so much that I figured something similar for my 15mm models would be great.  There was still a fair amount of foliage in the pack I'd bought so I improvised up a smaller scale equivalent.

15mm 

These were super simple, some 15x80mm strips of 2mm MDF being the first stage.  I skimmed these with filler and gave it a rough texture.  Once dry the bases were painted in full, before adding the hedgerow.  the foliage was mixed through PVA in the same way as the larger Bocage, but a simple pile of it on the bases was all that was needed to represent well grown hedge five or six feet tall in scale.  The gates were simply chopped up coffee stirrers painted appropriately.

15mm

Lastly I added another unit of 15mm Ionian mercenaries to my Imagi-Nations force.  Not a fan of painting these, so I'm glad to be done with them.

Stay sane people.

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A long overdue project... Well there's time now.

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Given I now have no commute, I can pretty much start work when I get up, finish early and have two more hours of the day for myself.  You have to take the positives where you can in the present climate.  Cooped up alone is not that unfamiliar, but a lack of external social opportunities is obviously not great.

Anyway, yesterday's project was a rebasing effort on a pair of my creaky old - but beloved - plastic ancients armies.  My Imperial Roman and Ancient British armies are a mixture of mostly 2025 year old models, and the present painting reflects that.  The old basing was if anything worse, being onto scrappy bits of card in threes and fours.  

They were stripped off the bases a year or so ago, and new bases were finally cut out of sheets of 3mm MDF a while after; but yesterday I finally bit the bullet of getting the piles arranged, repaired, and rebased.

Imperial Rome

The Romans are mostly Revell and Airfix, the latter needing most of their shields supergluing back on.  Thankfully, despite the near thirty year age of the Aifix figures, they do not appear to have any of the brittleness issues older models were notorious for.

The bases are 80x60mm, with the intention of each being a stand-alone unit.  For example a single infantry base for the Romans contains three ranks of five men with a designated officer model to the side.  This could represent a single Cohort, or half a Legion, subject to scale.  This basing is with a view to use in Kings of War Historical, but would work for Hail Caesar or other games.

Ancient Britons

The Celts are a mix of Airfix, HaT, Revell and Italieri.  Repairs were surprisingly few, but the chariots and scratch built light horse needed some work.  I had to resort to the brutality of a hot glue gun for some poor souls.  The large bases reduce individual risk to models, and also allow the warbands to look suitably disorderly.

The next stage is to get the base texture and colour sorted.  A lot of the models have old flock on the base, and the simplest solution looks to be the paint it light brown, if it falls off in the process it's no loss.  Sand will then be added to unify the whole.  After that it'll be touch ups of the worst paint damage - mostly spears, swords and helmets it seems - and then a shaded varnish to protect it all and finally give the models some contrast.

Which, in the present climate, may not take that long to get to...

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What will you do with all that free time?

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Like many others I find my commute has got a lot shorter in the last few days.  And the permitted options to get out and about rather more limited.

The new office in all its' glory

This of course means that painting and gaming will now become even more the saviours of sanity than usual.

True story...

 Still, yesterday was full day one in the new setup.  Starting work ridiculously early, I was able to knock off by 4pm, and finished up these trenchwork markers for 15-20mm:

 

A super easy job, being sandwiched foamboard, painted with two coats of thinned down filler, then progressively lighter browns - the first coat a solid finish, then three or four drybrush passes.  Finally add a little static grass to the lower front edges for effect.

These are mainly meant to indicate the front of an emplacement, and the use would be that a figure in base contact with the steep rear side would count as in a full foxhole, trench or emplacement.  The largest pieces will fit my 20mm German mortar and machine gun stands.

I also finished up some more road segments, but these are scarcely photogenic (being chopped up doormat with a little paint) so didn't make the journalistic cut.

Keep yourselves sane people.  Make things, paint things.

SdKfz 171 Panzer V: Panther - 2nd Panzer Division, June 1944

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Super detailing tank paint jobs is a slow process, even if the enthusiasm is up, you are sitting around waiting for various oils and finishes to take often days to dry.  That is partly my excuse as to why it has taken me three months to finish this one model.  Going next level on the modelling side of the hobby is no key to speed painting.

Still this vehicle is finished, and ready to supply some serious muscle to my otherwise second line German units.

  

  

  

  

This model has really leaned on the wet effects, draining off fresh rain, splattered with wet mud, covered in oil, rust marks, silt marks and general grime.  Clearly the crew spent more time in Normandy cafés than they did cleaning their charge.

The foliage is sections of torn up coloured sponge, hand painted with drybrushed highlights, to get the full look; I sourced tiny twigs from a shrub in the yard and attached these to the model first, this gives the sponges - which are soaked in PVA glue - something to adhere to, as well as making the whole look more like tree branches loaded onto the tank.  Its a much better look than lichen, or simple flock.

You may notice some shiny impact marks on the tank too...

 

I experimented with these based on a technique from 1/35 scale modelling:

They are not great, but for a first attempt they look okay.

The Armourfast Panther kit is, to be perfectly fair, pretty basic, bought a long time before this project went to a super-detailed aesthetic, but the details that are there are crisp and well enough done. 

The tracks are the inevitable weak point, as being single piece castings any attempt at realistic treads is impossible, using a rust base, water stains, weathering powders and some selective metallic's, I've tried to improve them.  I also tried a different effect on the exhaust system, picked up from some other tutorial; which although hidden in the images was simple and looks pretty nice.  One for another model perhaps.

Next up may even be an actual game with them, Covid-19 permitting...

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Miscellany - or how computers and cardboard slow the painting...

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Not too much to report from TML towers these last few weeks, as I'll admit to being caught up in a couple of more ancillary interests to the blog, Card Games and Computer Games, and the conflux twixt the two.

In the last Year or so I've got very much back into playing Magic: The Gathering, and I think the odd image has popped up on here to reflect that:

Definitive 'kitchen table' Magic

Many, many years ago I used to play, but fell out with the game at the time, as it was purely a financial game.  The lack of information, the lack of ways to buy single cards, and the limited ways of playing meant that in the mid 90's he who had the most money, and hence the most cards, invariably won.  When I worked in a games store customers would regularly spend hundreds of pounds on boxes of cards, I could get a couple of packs a week.

Nowadays the game has blossomed with the internet age, and the formats out there mean that friendly, and even economic ways to play exist.  It's still not a cheap game compared to some, but you can probably get a couple of competitive decks together for less than a GW start collecting army.

Also there are a couple of online versions of the game, the most recent of these being the 'Free-to-Play' Magic: Arena.

Arena

Now unlike some other games, see below, you really can choose to download Arena and play it for free.  F2P games generally rely on in game micro purchases to make money, and keep you coming back, but Arena seems to offer a decent balance of play so that even if only played casually, you can get involved and win games without spending a penny.  Plus it is an excellent tool for learning the basics of the game.

Previously my videogame of choice for a couple of years had been War Thunder, another F2P game, but this time an Air, Sea and Land combat sim; in the mould of World of Tanks, but far more detailed:

It's not my actual gameplay, as the T34 is not on fire in the start zone.

The downside being, it really was not balanced for free play, as good as everything is in the game - 1000's of accurate vehicles, realistic physics, beautiful graphics, 16 on 16 team games by default - you are simply grinding away to little or no success unless you spend money.  I paid for premium access and bought a few downloadable vehicles to improve my win rates, before eventually concluding I didn't have the time or patience to progress further.  The fun of flying you favourite fighter into battle would so often be punctured by a blast of gunfire from an opponent you never even saw.  War Thunder is an exercise in frustration that Arena happily replaced.

Well, until Civilisation VI appeared.

Now at this stage, I've only had Civ VI for a week, but I am loving it.  My PS4 spends a lot more time as a YouTube and Netflix portal than it ever does as a games console, but Civ is really my jam, and for the time being at least it is changing that.

Bronze Age India expands

Back in the day I used to play Civ II on my PS2, Civ VI shows all the core of the game is still there, but the details are greatly improved, and the games' graphics are a stellar improvement in every respect.  It's simply a case of finding time to play when I can, as I try to guide the Indian Empire in its ongoing negotiations with Persia and America, and the seemingly endless war with Arabia.

And so in essence, this is why the painting output is what it is at the minute, and not like the huge volumes I used to have a few years ago.

Well, there's other reasons too, but these are some of them!

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The Beast of Caerbannog and the final Rabbits.

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Rarely can any wargamer call a project truly finished, but for the Rabbits of War-tership Down I can truly say they are completely done now; given I have finally put brush to the last of the Kickstarter models I purchased, and with their regular price and postage from the USA simply being prohibitive for this gamer, I won't be adding anything to the collection!

A unit of light foot 

The added models allowed me to assemble a final regular unit, but I puzzled what to do with the assortment of novelty parts, extras and spares.  Eventually I settled on a specialist unit of elite Monk Botherers!  Equipped with sniffer dogs and snails, Beaters - both of the musical and brush variety - and Torturers, skilled in skinning Monks the way a Rabbit might expect from their human foes...

The Beast and an elite unit of Hunters

That still left a couple of spares to make a blood stained rabbit hero, and a standard bearer for the force.  Plus the fearsome beast of Caerbannog itself.

The rabbit was one of the decor pieces from the Kickstarter, to which I added parts from a deep dive in the spares box, and made a scenic base for what in game would clearly count as a cunning, and probably poisonous, Greater Warbeast!

The final push for this army completed, I await their likely first outing.  Three of my group are going to attend the Rampant Age day hosted by Wargames Illustrated:

https://www.wargamesillustrated.net/shop/rampant-ages-day-2020/

Obviously in the fantasy section.  It felt like the Rabbits would be ideally suited to provide some charm to the event, also the potential match up of these against Chaos Warriors or similar cheesey GW models is too much to resist.
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