Playing in the snow...

I believe that these girls are from Privateer Press.

As with everything else, lots more of these are on the way.

Playing in the snow!  Which we don't have in Chicago... or in White Bear Lake MN, where we are now.

In any case, I hope that Santa brings you all what you desire this Christmas.  Like paint, minis, brushes... you know what I mean!!!!!!!!!!

Hitting the road for Christmas

I wouldn't mind having one of these to travel up north for the Holidays!  Not many folks would want to get in our way, that's for sure.

I hope that all of you have a great Holiday season.  Your visits here are much appreciated.  Hopefully I have been able to keep you entertained during 2014!

These figures collected a few awards in their day.  A Gold in Squad Category at Games Day, and a Rogue Demon Gold for Vehicle at Adepticon.  I believe it also won a Silver Crystal Brush.

The army as a whole won Best Painted in 2012 in the Adepticon Warhammer 40k Championships.

I think the relatively simple army board was very fun, and effective:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2012/04/grey-knights-army-board-for-adepticon.html

I loved painting all the freehand on the Land Raider, of course!  Who doesn't love freehand?

Here are some images from the tournament:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2012/04/adepticon-day-one-mission-accomplished.html

I added my original scratch sculpted Dreadnought for this image.  I learned a lot in sculpting that... the next 5-6 that I sculpted were MUCH easier. :-)

I will be doing a set of photos of that old Dreadnought coming soon, so Happy Holidays, and stay tuned!!!!!!!!!

We won't take any Bull

Here's another look back at my 2012 Civil War Dwarf team tournament army.

I made two units of Bull Centaurs, mostly scratch built.

I used plastic bull figures from a craft store, Ogre Kingdoms bits, and lots of Aproxy Sculpt!

Here's a post showing how they were constructed:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2012/03/adepticon-team-tournament-army-civil_21.html

You can probably tell from those images that I abandoned the Ogre banner for my own printed versions.  As with everything else in this army, I had to match what my partner had done with his army.

He had created a ton of printed banners for his Iron Brigade, so that meant I needed to mirror that.

It was still very fun!

These units were mostly for flavor... since what respectable Confederate army would not have JEB Stuart?

I am hoping to get back to these and do much more finishing detail on the figures.

In the meantime... the Wretched Alliance of Appomattox continues!

A thin blue line

Time for one of the bigger group shots of the horsies!

More are still to come...

But this gives you a little idea of what they look like together!

I want to try to make some movement trays for them (these are already magnetized), but I have never gotten any info on how they would be ranked up in a game.

I based them all individually so that it would be easier to paint them, and deal with them as a whole.

It's scary to see these pictures!

It's been a long time in the making...

Aside from my skeleton horses for the Tomb King army, this is by far the largest batch of horses I have ever done!

I painted eight horses for my Khandish chariots, but it still does not match this herd!

Wait until I add a dozen more to this mob!

Blind in one eye...

Another Thrall!  I will be very curious to see these little guys next to their massive transport!

The usual glowy stuff

And the beat goes on!

That Really Grinds my Gears

Let's create another set of Steampunk/Sci-Fi/Wild West style bases!  This set will have more deck plating and gears!

I glued a variety of plasticard textures directly to the Burn In Designs wooden "punch outs".

Square Polystyrene rods were used to trim out the corners...

And my sculpey rivets were placed in a few key spots to finish off the base!

This process was repeated using other kinds of deck plating textures.

Each one was trimmed in the same manner with the square polystyrene and rivets.

Some of you might recall the plastic gears which I used on the RJ-1027 power generator.

Some of you might also remember how I used the left over plastic sprues on the original Wayward Eight bases.  They proved to be an excellent material!

I even combined them with the Happy Seppuku moulds again.  There are several articles on those bases!

Once again, rivets added for a touch of additional texture.

Looking more and more like a set of bases!

But let's not forget those very cool gears!!

Yet another set!!

Here's one of the previous sprue posts:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2014/07/still-happy-with-basing.html

This old man...

This old man is Sircan Abner, a leader of the Holy Order of Man faction.

He may be old and slow, but he's one mean SOB.  You can establish some synergy with him along with other underbosses and sidekicks, as well as the hired hands.  The Spica hired hands of the Holy Orders are more jack of all trades, which makes it a little easier to match up a broader range of characters with them.

This was also a very fun miniature to paint!  The draping of the cloak was just right to allow me to work in the slight reflection of the blueish tones in the shadows, particularly towards the bottom parts of the garment.

It is always neat to see the depth created when you juxtapose the warmer light colors with the much cooler shadows.  That can be important when you have to work in a narrow value range on white cloaks!  I can get contrast in a way besides pure light and shadow.

This does not overpower the rest of the figure, but connects it to the base... as if the blue is rising up from the base all the way to his glowing blue eyes!