Holding out for a hero

As predicted, painting the Heroes for Skull Tales has slowed down the number of completed models this week. Batch painting is definitely a lot quicker, but I've enjoyed doing these more. Same feeling of accomplishment, but from a different source, I think.

Also, we've got a puppy moving in on Tuesday, so there's been a lot of moving things around the house to make it as canine-safe as we can - my painting area being in the living room that's meant a few things moving - and I'm going to have to stop leaving things out too. 

Fortunately my painting desk is an old writing bureau, so the desk part will fold up and lock.  It'll just take some re-arranging to ensure I can pack away and close things when I'm done.

Even so, I've completed 8 of the Heroes, and got the remaining 14 (plus two 'sidekicks' - a Zombie and Dog) undercoated, and all the flesh painted, which puts them into my Work in Progress pile, I suppose!

There are several 'homages' to Films, Games, T.V., and Books amongst the heroes - and I'm pretty sure I'll have failed to spot some too.

The Avenger.
I think he's been mostly dead all day.
I think he'd make a good Dread Pirate.
Definitely channelling The Princess Bride

The Cabin Boy.
Complete with Chicken.
I wonder if there's a pulley in there?
Maybe he's Guybrush Threepwood?

The Captain's Daughter.
So many jokes ...
I'll restrain myself.

The Cook.
Lovely Parrot. Two Legs though,
so not Long John Silver.

The Cutthroat.
I'm getting a definite Assassin's Creed
vibe from this one.

The Surgeon.
I've got nothing for this one.
No references at all.

The Twins.
Twice the Trouble.
But again, no reference point for me.

With two weeks to go until the vehicle painting competition, I might end up entering the ships from Skull Tales, but I also have Mantic's Scenery Booster for The Walking Dead game.  Four somewhat battered vehicles are in there, and I'm hoping to get at least one of them done by the end of the month as well. 

I'll just have to see if I can get them sprayed this week.

With just 8 models painted this week, I'm ahead by 173.  Just 16 left to go to have Skull Tales finished completely, and then I'll have to decide whether to do another 'project paint' or just have a bit of a 'this and that' month during March.

Running Totals

Painted: 229

Acquired: 56

All out of Enemies

I've finally completed all the enemy figures from Skull Tales - while I'm not done with the game, it feels good to say that this section of the painting is complete.

As it's the first full week of the month, I took a look at my work in progress pile to see if anything grabbed me, which really, it didn't.  I've been pushing on with the Skull Tales painting and really want to get it done, so while one or two things did say "paint me", they didn't say it very loud...

... though there were a couple of models sitting on my painting desk that I did get painted this week that aren't from Skull Tales, so maybe I can say I got into the WIP pile, at least a little.

Amazons

I found the Amazons difficult to do - there was a fair bit of bad moulding between the face and the spear that somewhat put me off the models. They were the last things painted this week, and I'm not too sure about them.  Still, they're perfectly usable, and from the distance they'll be looked at for gaming, are just fine.

Bootbiters

Whose boots they bite, I don't know, but whoever it is is probably going to need some new footware. The tentacles with the over-exaggerated suckers just made me thing of the Day of the Tentacle.  There was quite a bit of pondering about the suckers - but I did manage to resist painting them green.  Instead I did the suckers nice and bright, in homage to the Purple Tentacle, with the skin somewhat darker.

I feel like I could... like I could...
like I could... TAKE ON THE WORLD!!

Ghosts

The Ghosts were kept deliberately simple, just a few details picked out so they weren't the same colour all over.  I might go back and do something different with the hair though.

Longshades

These put me in mind of the Hydra, I almost imagine that the flesh is re-knitting over the skeletal head.  No idea if that sort of thing happens in the game, but that's my thoughts.

Stranglers

Animated Seaweed.  Sort of a more nautical Swamp Thing.  With one or two of the heroes I have yet to paint being mystical types, I'm thinking I might be able to get a couple of 7tv casts out of this set.  Perhaps one of the Undead and another of summoned Sea creatures.  I've mostly made Heroic casts so far (even the Shiva cast that I took to Board in Brum last year were 'reskinned' as heroes) so perhaps it's time I turned to the dark side.

Tarantula Anansi

A bigger creature this time - the Tarantula Anansi is the only model on a 50mm base in the game - it'll also make a good Giant Spider to pit against my RPG groups.  After all, the best way to make things more deadly in an RPG is to make them bigger.  Or combine them with another animal in a strange way ... I do have an Owlbear to paint at some point, though that's far from the strangest combination old school D&D came up with.

I'd actually forgotten that I had some Sea token models, they were hidden away in the Skull Tales Box, but as I was looking through for painting inspiration, I heard the small box inside rattle, and lo and behold found some more things to paint. Something about the Megalodon makes me think it's just shouting "Hello".

This also means that I lied when I said I had all of my ships painted - so technically I've painted up six vehicles that could be entered into the monthly painting competition I mentioned last week.  I fully intend to get something else painted for that, however - but these will remain as a fallback should I need it.

Familiars

Finally, I painted a couple of Critit familiars that have been sitting on my painting desk for a while - the Octopus was painted at the same time as the Kraken, above, for what I hope are obvious reasons.  The Eagle, I grabbed as well, as it's the only other Familiar that I had left out to do, and I decided that covered me for at least a little 'work in progress'.  Technically they are Mrs. Hill's models, but I painted them so I'm going to claim them for my 'done' pile.

Next week I'll start on the Heroes, and might also get some paint onto something with wheels or tracks.  Or I might not.  If the weather continues like it has this weekend, storm Ciara is going to prevent me from getting any spray undercoats done anyway.

36 models completed this week, so I'm up 165 for the year to date.  I'm going to need a bigger cabinet.

Running Totals

Painted: 221

Acquired: 56

Skull Tales - A Woo Hoo!

I've carried on, as I said I would, with the Skull Tales miniatures this week, and have made a fair bit of Progress.  If I carry on at this rate I should have all the enemies completed by the end of next week, and be moving on to the Heroes.

Contrast paints, with some highlights and details have been my go-to again, and likely will be for the whole project to give it a cohesive look when I actually get around to playing the board game.

I'm very glad I've got around to purchasing some Dullcote, to give them some protection, both from figure cases and fingers.

Bounty Hunters

Starting with the Human foes, I wanted a bit of colour to the Bounty Hunters, so gave them the bright yellow shirts.  I'm still of two minds as to whether I should add in some red stripes too, but for now they are complete.

Next up are the Undead - which I'm sure will prove very useful in my 50 Fathoms game, there being a number of situations in which Zombie Pirates might well turn up.

Drowned Ones

The drowned ones are disgusting.  In a good way.  It wasn't until I was painting them that I discovered they have some barnacles clinging to them too, which is a really nice touch.

Mummies

The Mummies got a straightforward 'mostly bandages' paint job, with some purple to add an Imperial tone.  These might well get use in some 7TV pulp as well - as there are two matching ones, perhaps as extras to go with the Crooked Dice pulp villain that I really should get around to painting as well.

Skeletons

 Skeletal Conquistadors will fit right in to 50 Fathoms, and definitely provide a different kind of undead to the Tomb Kings that I've been 'borrowing' from my dearly beloved when I've needed them for RPG situations.  I really do need to get some Skeletons of my own at some point - weirdly they are one of the things I've never actually got hold of.  But as I'm trying to keep the 'acquired' pile down, such things can wait.

Mermaids

Beautiful but deadly, I resisted painting the Mermaids with red hair.  These ones at least - I do have some from Dead Earth Games' Pirates of the Dread Sea.  Somehow I doubt I'll be able to resist painting at least one 'little' mermaid.  

Treasure!

The last thing I managed to finish this week was another piece of Mantic Treasure - a lovely pile of Treasure chests - I've already got some individual ones that were painted a while ago, but these make for both a good objective, and some reasonable cover too.

So - next week, more Skull Tales, but I also want to dig through the unpainted pile and find at least one Vehicle.  I'm part of several wargaming groups on Facebook, and one has a monthly painting challenge.  I've not got involved in many, but I really should.  For February the challenge is Vehicles - so I'll also take a look next week and see what I can find that inspires me to have a go at later in the month.  I think that all the ships and boats I have at the moment are painted, so it'll be something definitely not Piratical.  At least in a Golden Age of Piracy way.

25 Models painted this week, so the running total is looking healthier, but I didn't manage as many as last week.  Not that it's a competition, though I'm ahead by almost 130, for now.

Running Totals

Painted: 185

Acquired: 56

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate's Life for me!

Sunday again.  This may be a thing.

Having tried out my colour scheme for the Royal Marines in Skull Tales I did, indeed, get the other Seven painted this week, along with the two Officers.  They'll likely find use in my RPGs before I actually get around to playing the boardgame.  This happens a lot with boardgames with miniatures in them - the minis get more use than the game itself - or at least, they get re-purposed for use in RPG scenarios.

Which way sir?

Deciding I should have painted both Darkclaws from the game at the same time so I didn't get the painting recipe  different, I got the other one undercoated and cracked on with that this week as well.
Did I get the paint scheme the same?

*shrug*

I'm not certain - but it's close enough.

Once I was setting that up to undercoat, it dawned on me that if I stuck with this, I could get the whole boardgame painted up over the next few weeks - burnout notwithstanding, so I picked three other groups of Enemies from the game to get painted as well.

Pirates

Cannibals

Cursed Ones

I've been working mostly with Contrast paints for the basecoats, with a few highlights, and metallics added. The Contrast works well, though I have found that after they've dried there are sometimes areas where the paint 'pulls back' from the undercoat and has needed a touch up.  Or perhaps I need to be using thicker coats in the first instance.  

As with most things, practice will likely help me find the best way for me to use them.

While finishing off the bases I also decided to get a couple of scenery pieces that have been sitting on my painting desk for several months finished off. 

I made some 'pirate treasure' objective markers for a 7TV event last year, and used some smaller Mantic Terrain Crate pieces that I had lying around.  I had undercoated two larger treasure piles at the same time, but as they weren't needed for the event they hadn't managed to get any paint on them at all.

GOLD!

Now they're looking rather better, they can be relegated to my painted terrain box, ready for when they are needed.

There are a few more sets of Skull Tales enemies sitting in my sanding tray, that I'll hopefully get sprayed tomorrow, if the weather holds after work, and I'll get to painting them over the next week.  If I complete them, there will be around 60 more models left to do to have the game fully painted - though most of them will be the 'character' models, so there'll be no batch painting involved and they'll probably take longer.  Still - it would be good to have a 'fully painted' game.  Unlike wargaming armies, at least with a boardgame with finite expansions I can honestly say that it will be 'done'.  Well, unless an expansion gets released to make me a liar (Firefly Adventures, I'm looking at you ... you were 'done', once, but then Inara, Book, and the Tams were released - and I've not got them painted yet - or even opened the boxes ...).

I've got 30 models done this week, and no new arrivals yet.  Kickstarters should be arriving next month though - including Mantic's new Terrain Crates - which will add about 400 to my 'acquired' total.  It's early days yet, but I DO intend to get more painted than comes 'in' this year.  We'll see how I feel once the arrivals start!

Running Totals

Painted: 160

Acquired: 56

50 Shades of Brown

I'm a day late on my updating every Saturday.  So maybe I'll just say I'm going for every weekend... until that doesn't happen as well.

In my defence, I spent a lot of yesterday drybrushing brown, brown, brown, and brown.

I decided that this week I would build and paint up the TT Combat crates that I got for my birthday.

All they need is an 80's Detective in an Audi...

While building them I remembered I had some other crates that I'd got for Christmas (2018 *cough*) that I'd built, but never painted - so I dug them out too before I began painting.  I'm not sure which company they are made by, it's been that long since I built them.  I think they came with a couple of "Jungle Outpost" buildings though.

... or an Intrepid Archaeologist searching for a stolen McGuffin.

While trying to find them I came across some fences, and since I'd be painting them in similar colours to the crates, they got added to the painting pile.  Which meant that the fencepost/columns that came went with them would also need to be painted.

8 Fences, 2 Fences with Gates, 10 Columns.  I'll need something for them to fence off now.  I've been having ideas for a new skirmish gameboard that they might work with - but I'll be waiting for better weather before I start painting up new base boards and suchlike.

Oh, and there were some chairs and tables too, so I added them as well.

These will most likely find play as added decoration for RPG battlemaps.  They're a little strangely scaled against each other, though they all came in the same set.

I did manage to get some paint on a couple of other miniatures this week as well.  I'm currently running a couple of Savage Worlds RPG campaigns, one of which is Pinnacle Entertainment's 50 Fathoms setting - think Pirates of the Caribbean meets Pirates of Darkwater (for those that can remember that cartoon) - one of the races, the Scurillian, are a group of magically created Crabmen, and my players have recently recruited one as a member of their crew.  I was frantically scratching my head for something that could represent them when I remembered I backed the Skull Tales - Full Sail Kickstarter last year mostly for the large number of Piratical/Fantasy miniatures.  The Darkclaw monster, while not exactly matching the description of the Scurillians, is close enough, so got painted up to add to the crew.

I just want a hug!

The same game has a set of Redcoats as well, so I painted one up, mostly using Contrast paints, with a few highlights, as a tester.  I'll hopefully get the other 7, and the two officers done over the coming week.

Ready, Aim, Fire!

I expect a lot of my painting is going to be RPG or Boardgame related for a while, possibly both linked together.  I do need to get a new 7TV cast together for July though - not that I'm able to go to Wargames Illustrated's 7TV Day V: The Crosstime Caper - as it clashes with Summer Stabcon (again!) - but I'll be having a game there with another 7TVer, just as I did for the Pulp day last year.

Hopefully the Supers Unlimited models I backed on Kickstarer from Kitbash Games will arrive in plenty of time so I can add to my 'acquired' total, but also get some painted up as a cast.


One thing I've noticed this week is that there's nothing like high-def photography to make you realise just how sloppy your painting is, but that I really don't mind all that much.  They're never going to win any painting competitions, but they're plenty good enough for my gaming table, and that's what really matters.

So, with 8 Fences, 2 Gate Sections, 10 Columns, 13 Crates, 6 Pallets, 5 Tables, 4 Chairs, 1 (very low) Bar, 2 Bookshelves, 1 Darkclaw and a Redcoat painted this week, I've managed to complete 53 things.  Drybrushing is my friend!

I'm still ahead of the game, and building up a bit of space for future arrivals.  I've still avoided any new purchases, and I'm not likely to head off to any shows - though Chillcon IS tempting me - so I'm pretty sure I'm going to end January well ahead.

Running Totals

Painted: 130

Acquired: 56

Staying just ahead of the game

I'm intending to update this Blog every Saturday - I didn't manage it last weekend as I was away at the Winter Stabcon - a bi-annual boardgames/rpg con in Stockport - there's even a bit of miniatures gaming goes on as well.  In fact, it's the place that I was introduced to 7tv 2nd Edition, from Crooked Dice, which has now become my go-to rules for skirmish gaming.

This week I stuck to my rules, and managed to accomplish a fair bit.

The various Reaper Bones Heroes that I was working on have been finished - and I now have 30 of them done.

Hopefully the photography will get better as I get used to my camera and the light box that Mrs. Hill gave me for Christmas.  I appear to have manage to paint the heroes in 'colour sets' of a sort - the first 10 tied together with Red. Not that this was in any way a conscious decision, it just happened to work out that way.

Though as I have another 30 or so heroes undercoated in my work in progress pile as I stuck them all to bases and sprayed at the same time, I may end up continuing this theme.  After all - Team Red outnumber all the others 2-1, and I can't have that.

Red Team 1

Red Team 2

Blue Team

Turquoise Team

Green and Yellow Team

Brown Team

I also went to the work in progress pile and found a load of Reaper Bones Goblins that I'd experimented on with Citadel Contrast paints.  It turns out the Contrast paints work very well over the bare white bonesium.  I doubt they'd do well over the newer Bones Black material without an undercoat - but these were all white so the contrast went straight on.

All that was left to do were the bases, so I did them at the same time as the Heroes, and got 45 of the little green meanies done.

 

The trays are Scenery Bases from Warbases - keeping the disorganised rabble in check a little.

Here are some close-ups of the Goblin Heroes (Villains?)

The last bit of painting I managed this week was actually just before Stabcon - I was running a Fantasy RPG session, and needed some "Shadow Panther Familiars" - as Mrs. Hill happened to have a couple of big cats from Critit so I 'borrowed' them and got them painted up.

This brings my painted total so far this year to a pretty reasonable 77 models.  Not bad, I reckon.

However, as I mentioned earlier we went to Stabcon, and this usually involves buying something from Fanboy 3 who always have a stall there.  Mrs. Hill and I rather enjoy Mansions of Madness, so got a new supplement - Path of the Serpent - which adds 12 miniatures to the number of Mansions of Madness minis I need to paint (not one done yet ...).  I also had a birthday, and a good friend got me some TT combat terrain (I love the smell of lasered MDF in the morning, smells like ... Scenery).

All told, I now have 56 more 'things to paint' than I did at the start of the year.  Still, I'm ahead by 21, so it can't be ALL bad.  And none of the Kickstarters I backed last year have arrived yet either ...

No idea what I'm going to paint this coming week - though I doubt I'll manage to finish off quite as many miniatures as I did this week.  I also need to work out how this blog thingy allows me to put down permanent links to other folks blogs, as there are several that were in part the inspiration for me doing this one, Cheaphammer!!! and Brummie's Wargaming Blog, I'm looking at you two in particular here!

Running Totals

Painted : 77

Acquired : 56