Wednesday 25 July 2012

More about Lego - and a holiday announcement

Well, it is Wednesday once more. I didn't get the dwarves completed, but I am Ok with that.

I have stumbled onto a new project which I will talk about more next week, but it will involve going back to painting some GW miniatures. The piles of those that I have, unassembled, in boxes. Some still in shrink wrap. But that is for another time.

Today I wanted to put up some photos from the Lego exhibition that I went to, as well as some of the Lord of the Rings lego.

The Lego exhibition was quite enjoyable. It was quite crowded when I went and was a little poorly set out from the point of view of moving around the exhibits. But these difficulties were overcome and I managed to take some photos.












There were a number of movie inspired sets, a whole bunch of Star Wars and many display scenes. I think that my favourite display was the Flying Navy. Custom mini figures ahoy and damn the torpeedos!



And lastly some photos of the Lord of the rings lego. I now have the complete set, including the "hard to find" Orc forge kit. You can tell that it is hard to find, because they state this on the side of the box. But a handy browse of ebay completed the set for now. Some of my photos didn't work out so well. Here are the ones that did.




The next update will be next Wednesday as I am taking a long weekend and going out of town. Nothing lego or miniature related, just visiting friends and catching up over lots of food.

Cheers.

Monday 23 July 2012

The long slow march

My progress over the weekend was not as great as I had hoped. But progress was made, so it is still a victory over distraction.

There was plenty of that still, but painting time was found.

I played my first game of Dwarf Kings Hold, where I took the shambling undead against my friend commanding the grumbly dwarves. The game plays quite well. It went quite quickly even though it was our first game. The counters and boards were quite good, although not of the thick card quality that I have been getting used to from Euro's, Fantasy Flight and games like Space Hulk. But the card is still actual card, and not the thick paper that was supplied in the very early games workshop games.

Oh, I managed to lead the Undead straight to the bottom, with the dwarves hammering them left and right. Out of the three dwarves who started though, two fell to the undead clawings, mostly due to their own fumblings, rather than good dice rolling on my part. The final dwarf managed to hold out long enough to stand victorious by the objective and raise the hammer high in victory. However I am not sure how he was going to get out of the hold, as he had another 4 skeletons to get through on the way out. Oh well.

Next time I am sure that the Dwarves will join the shambling undead horde and not escape into victory. Oh yes, next time...

So how do the Dwarven re-inforcements look? I'm glad that you asked.


I was thinking about using blue for the other two warriors, but went with purple. The undead are being painted in mostly blue cloth, so I wanted the dwarves to be a bit different. The yellow went well and I very much like the blond beard on the dwarf. This was quite easy, with a bleached bone base, followed by 2 yellow washes.

Onwards towards completion!

Cheers.

Friday 20 July 2012

Back online - some progress as well

Well, that was an interesting week.

Took photos, went to go online on Monday - hmm, cannot connect. Restart computer and modem. Still could not connect.

Tried phone line - not working.

So after a few days the phone company fixed their problem and I was again able to access the wonders of the internet.

I used the time off line to do some painting and also catch up on some reading. More about that in another post I think. Also some photos of the Lego exhibition will also have to wait for another post later on, because I should get on with posting some pics of the work that I have done.

So Monday's post was to be about the work in progress done on the skeletons.


Which I thought were starting to come along quite nicely, and brings us to todays actual post.

The skeletons are now complete, with their little dogs too.








The small items at the bottom of the pic are the Soul Pits. They were fairly easy to paint, and with the well watered down wash of Scorpion Green look suitably arcane and sickly at the same time.

Then it was onto the remaining Dwarves. These were started last night so I have only started on the armour so far.


The two dwarves with the shields are the last of the warriors. They will be painted in a similar way to the earlier warriors, but with blue tabards. The shield breakers, the ones with the two handed hammers will be painted in a more uniformed scheme as I see them as the older guards, or at least the professional soldiers of the Dwarven Hold Dwarven expedition force.

All things being equal I should have a game report of our first game to post next Wednesday.

And as long as the internet spirits are kind to me, a post with updates on the progress on the last of the Dwarves on Monday.
 
Till then,

Friday 13 July 2012

Dwarves are Done!

Well, the first 4 anyway. 3 and corpse if you want to get technical.

I am reasonably happy with them all. I tried using the new Ceramite White paint from GW. It was quite good, however it is thicker than I am used to, so I ended up with a bit of a patchy finish on the shields.

And what is next?

More skeletons...


I quite like the axe in the head and also the skeleton who is throwing his spear. The undead dogs will be interesting, but hopefully quick to paint. There are also the two soul pits (not pictured) which are used to summon larger skeletons in the game.

And then more dwarves.



2 Shield breaker dwarves, and 2 more dwarven warriors.

That only leaves after this for the dwarven dog and 10 skeletal revenants.

Well, that is about it for this update. Still happy with the progress.

I shall see how I go over the weekend, as a few things are going to potentially get in the way of my painting time. But they should be enjoyable distractions.

But then all distractions are usually enjoyable, otherwise I would not be distracted by them.

Cheers.

Wednesday 11 July 2012

Distracted by...

Lego and PS3...

Well, only a little.



On the weekend a sale encouraged me to purchase the Lord of the Rings lego sets. I later found out that there was an online store exclusive one as well. So that was ordered as well. It is not in the photos as I am guessing that it is currently winging its way to me. I also got a number of the new Series 2 Star Wars mini sets. I particularly liked the AT-ST walker.


I am pretty excited about the Lord of the Rings lego. Rumour has it that there is going to be some sets related to the Hobbit released in December. I am guessing that is to go with the first Hobbit movie that is out this December.

So other than the lego, I have also been distracted by Rock Band on the PS3. I am currently downloading some song packs to increase the number of songs. More Iron Maiden? Don't mind if I do...

But worry not dear readers, I shall return to the painting soon, and will have an update on Friday. Hopefully with completed dwarves. Well, as long as the distractions give way to the painting once more.

Monday 9 July 2012

The slow Dwarven march towards progress

I had a reasonably successful weekend for painting. The Dwarves are moving towards completion and with luck I should have them completed in time for Friday's post.


In trying to keep with the background of each dwarf being an individual, I am going to paint each one with a different combination of colours. So far the dwarves in red tabards have one with black leather and one with a creamy cloth, and also the gloves change between the dark brown leather and a lighter leather. The green ones have the same, different gloves and cloth colours.

The beards were interesting to paint for me. It has been a very long time since I have painted any dwarves, and these are very different from the others that I had painted. The beards are much smaller leaving more of the miniature exposed.

The shields are each going to have a different device on them, keeping in line with the images from Dead Rising in the Magnificant Seven Dwarves scenario on the last page. I am looking forward to painting the shields as the last thing on these ones. Well, other than the bases.

Looking forward, after these are done, and I am hopeful that I will get a couple of games in this weekend if they are, next up is the last 4 skeletons, the other 4 dwarves and also 4 revenants, the other model that makes up the undead force in this game.

Until Wednesday.

Cheers.

Friday 6 July 2012

Skeletal completion and Dwarven WIP

It is the end of another week. I am very happy with my progress this week so far.



I got the 8 skeletons completed. I tried my hand at free-hand painting on the shield. Although the device is not very difficult, I still need to work on this sort of stuff a lot more. The devices are not even and their size varies a lot.


But they are done now, so it is onto the grumbly bearded ones.

The dwarves are a different challenge for me. Trying to get the metals smooth is not something that I have tradionally been very good at. These are going well so far. I have done the base metal and then the wash to start with.


And look, the corpse dwarf is in focus this time. Say goodbye to Mr Bloby.

The dwarves on the back of the box are more individual than the skeletons. I have another 4 to do after these ones (and their little dog too) so I am going to try different cloth colours and gloves to divide them up. I will also give each of the dwarves with a shield a diffent background device to tell them apart.

Onwards to the weekend and more painting progress.

Cheers.

Wednesday 4 July 2012

SD Gundam is GO!

Wednesday came around quickly this week.

I thought that I would post some pics of a completed and a work in progress Super Deformed Gundam from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms range.

When I was last on holidays I purchased a few of these kits. These are some of the normal soldier types from the set. I also have a number of the heroes.






I started painting one of the soldiers from the camp of Cao Cao to see how it went. I was quite pleased with the results when it was done. It was suggested to me that I can even use these in gaming, with the Hordes of the Things rule set, because it is quite easy to use different models in that system. So spending a little time I worked out what I would need to purchase to make a force for each of the three sides from the Three Kingdoms period.


That was as far as I have gotten so far, as I started onto the Mantic stuff below for Dwarf Kings Hold, but I will return to this project eventually. At least I didn't purchase the complete three forces straight up. But that is a temptation for my next trip away.

The models themselves come in red, yellow and blue plastic. And when I finished painting the first one completely I was told "Congratulations Ian. You have painted a red model Red." Oh well.

Back to the new stuff and I will have another update on Friday.

Cheers.

Monday 2 July 2012

Half done skeletons

The painting over the weekend was quite successful. Even with spending some time to clean up and do other domestic chores, progress is continuing to, well, progress.

I am painting the skeletons like the ones on the back of the box. So lots of blue cloth, red / blue divided shields.




The next stage is the leather, shafts and detail on them. As well as the basing.

So with an end in sight, I hope that Fridays update will show more progress.

Then it is onto the Dwarves!

Cheers.