Kroot completed

Here they are: dark skinned bird creatures that stand as tall as a horse and are armed with light cannon.

Thanks to Paul for swapping them to me. I enjoyed painting these guys.

Lizards!

These fellows have been in my painting box for at least ten years, probably more.

I distinctly remember lodging a request with my mate, Pete, when he went to work in the UK to bring me back a box of GW Skinks. As a non-gamer, I’m sure he found the experience confronting. Still, if the most confronting thing you ever have to do is walk into a hobby shop and ask for toys then you have lived a very sheltered life, my friend. Pete has since redeemed himself by living such a harrowing life that I feel positively confronted reading his dispatches from the front.

Anyway, so I bought these skinks because I have a soft spot for the lizardmen (and rats). But how to paint them? The default seemed to be green? Why? Hard to say, really. Any skink I have seen is brown, and when you look at other lizards in the wild they have an amazing and beautiful range. This was in part why it took me so long to get around to painting them. I could never decide on a scheme, and I felt inadequate to the task.

Recently I have decided to paint things because they are no good unpainted when I am dead. Better to be painted shithouse than not at all.

A little research came up with the poison frog of South America. This test paint is an attempt to capture that scheme. White undercoat, black eyes, space marine blue hands and feet, blood red dorsal surfaces (that’s back, to you), yellow ventral surfaces (front), orange crest gills, brown for the bow and quiver, silver for jewellery. Wattyl Stain & Varnish. Tamiya Matt Clear varnish.

I’m pretty happy with this guy and now I just have to discipline myself to do the rest.

Kind of a return to StarGate

These magnificent sculpts were once part of the Eureka line until someone decided to rock the boat and claim, without credentials, that they were breaching copyright. Luckily Alan had a few that he claimed he would never paint and passed them on to me.

Here they are, showing the stages in a block paint, Army Painter (Wattyl Stain & Varnish) process. The final shot shows them with some highlighting on the white skirts and a metal dry brush. All that remains on the models is the base work, and this is a pretty standard job for me.

Enjoy

Just completed – Ratmen

Here are the Ratmen (Skaven, Hosbecites from Slipstream) completed. The technique was extremely simple:

• assemble and glue to base
• spray white
• divide into two groups, painting the fur on one group red-brown and on the other black brown, leaving white gaps where I want the flesh to be
• paint flesh (Formula P3, Midland Flesh) on hands and feet, in ears, along snout, on tail and between legs
• divide again into groups and paint the clothing on each group in straight red, blue, green and yellow, making sure to leave any straps or belts exposed in white
• paint all metal
• paint any leather such as pouches or arm guards
• paint wood
• when dry, paint with Wattle Satin Stain and Varnish, Walnut shade
• paint base burnt umbar (only a simple base here as they are so small)
• splat a bit of PVA on each base, making sure to connect to at least one foot  and to work in angles not parallel with the edges, then dip in a bag of flock
• Paint the base edge green
• spray coat with Tamiya Clear Flat varnish.

The only delay in the process was in waiting 24 hours for the Wattlyl Stain and Varnish to dry. Otherwise these steps could have rolled one after the other and the job could have been done in half a day… for someone who did not have a thousand other jobs to do including being interrupted by demanding children.

On the workbench -good progress for Queen’s Birthday

Long ago – twenty years or more – I decided that I wanted to skirmish war-game because the entry was so much easier. You only need up to a dozen figures and you were playing, rather than paint a dozen and realise that you are only a tenth, if that, of the way through one side. But there was no usable set of skirmish rules as far as I was concerned. I wish I had a dollar for every time I have talked up the Song of Blades and Heroes engine from Ganesha games.

So now I can churn out a couple of complete ‘armies’ a weekend, and cover a much broader range of historical, fantasy and science fiction settings.

Take for example these beautiful Brigade Games swashbucklers, just perfect for the heroes of my 30YW/ECW games using Flashing Blades.

Or these modern Bundeswehr from Eureka Miniatures, painted in a generalised camouflage pattern and useful for my science fiction games. The rules for these, Flaming Plasma, are approaching a good play-test state.

So all is well. I see that Eureka have some modern French Foreign Legion that have not even made it on to the website yet. Man, am I salivating for them… FAMAS armed troops? You bet. Just the ticket for science fiction Colonial militia. I can’t wait.

But now: Mega Miniatures villagers. A topic that is a little dry, but one that is essential for Renaissance skirmishing. After all, someone has to be tending the pigs that the ‘heroes’ come to scrap over.

On the workbench

Despite my delight in AT-43 being pre-painted, I find that I have too many UNA troops to be useful in a skirmish game. This is due to having bought two starter sets some years back. So I have repainted some in a simple scheme, again using the dipping technique with Wattyl Walnut Stain & Varnish. This time I used a brush to apply the varnish rather than dip. BUt the result is the same: good shading with a minimum of effort.

Next of the to do list I have some ECW cavalry by Eureka (Gordon’s Horse), Swashbucklers from Brigade, peasants from both Foundry and Mega Miniatures, and some Bundeswehr troopers from Eureka. Not necessarily in that order.

The Kaiser’s SG teams

Here is the start of some SG (StarGate 1900) teams. The figures are Renegade: a mixture of early and late war.

These will form 4 teams of eight men, two in Feldgrau, and two in a ‘colonial tan’ colour that I mixed myself. The Pickehaub and Stalhelm troops will be separated so that we have uniforms for ‘comfortable’ and ‘hostile’ alien terrains.

This is just the first coat, sprayed on. Next step is to paint the detail of belts, packs, flesh and weapons. Then I will dip them in Wattyl Stain and Varnish, and finally I will come back and give them a few highlights.

Even at this stage, I have to say that I love Renegade. They are chunky, oversized men – something that I have criticised in the past, not least from my friend Nic over at Eureka. But as age creeps up and my eyesight isn’t what it used to be, the large size and deep detail cutting really helps to make these personal figures.

On that last topic, I picked up some Eskimos (SG team for cold alien planets) and Arab Civilians from Eureka on the weekend. They are great figures and I cannot wait to get the brush on them.