Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Cold winter, hot stove...


It's a fine day in Wappelville.  The sun is shining, it's 13 degrees and snowing, and planes are crashing into houses down the street!  What more could you possibly ask for?

When it gets cold outside, Chef Babo gets things going in the kitchen!


Wage has a new helper.  He washed a million resin parts a few weeks ago (this is only half of them).  More just arrived yesterday, so he's going to be very busy!


Babo decided to make some Parmesan Cheese biscuits.  They smelled so good while they were baking...


Voila!  Golden crusty cheesy goodness!!!


Uh oh, things are getting hot at the Wappelville Jailhouse as well!


I guess a few campfires got out of control.


Smokey says, "Only you can prevent Forest Fires".


Hmm... maybe it's bacon.  Who wants to hang those dirty Outlaws on an empty stomach?

This, by the way, is the small gallows from Burn in Designs.


Those Grey Knight bases got a few rounds of paint, as you can see.


Not quite finished, but moving along!!


A tuft in time saves...


Since there have been a number of questions regarding the grass tufts that I use on my bases, I thought I would feature that in a post, so that it can be referenced more easily in the future!

I absolutely love the Army Painter tufts!

For years and years, I went with a more typical static grass.  You know, the kind in the big old plastic spice containers?

That was fine, but it definitely had limitations.  It wasn't always handy, since I would have to wait for the glue to dry before taking pictures.  Also, it was all the same height.

There are many different colors available for the static grass, but they don't necessarily stand out all that much.

Later in this post, you will hear about another advantage of this form of grass tufts.

Meanwhile, the variety in the Army Painter tufts is fantastic... including some of these new sets which I just purchased:


These are some tried and true tufts that have found their way onto my Wild West Exodus Lawmen bases.

When you look at these two images, the color differential between these is immense!


These specialty packages are great as well.  I have been using the poison ivy on my Memoir figures.

The Meadow flowers outperformed other similar products.  It's much easier to tear these away from the mass than the other types you will see.  The 'flowers' on those types tend to fall off as you rip the tufts from that primary mass.


Unpackaged.  A nice variety of heights and shapes!


Let's compare this to another unnamed company's version.

While you have the different shapes, the height is still more like regular static grass.


This is the other issue.  See that white opaque paper on the bottom?  I guess that is supposed to make it easier to glue to your base, but it really just gets in the way.  To make matters worse, on any base that is not white, that paper shows through!!

The Army Painter tufts are very flexible.  They can be shoved into just about any space between rocks, etc.


Let's use these bases as an example.  It would be almost impossible to use those other tufts on such dark, rough hewn bases as these!


Not a problem for the Army Painter tufts!!!


Ready for action in no time at all!!


I am really looking forward to using the new colors that I purchased... the Tundra Tuft in particular.