Celt in Kilt

Kilt time!  Tartan Time!

One more fun Reaper mini.

He's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321444357833?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

The battle for Caen

A while back, Rich and I settled down for another campaign, utilizing some of the new terrain pieces we had been working on.  The Campaign was caled The Battle of Flanking Caen.

Here are a few views of the battlefield prior to the first fight.

Seeing the board from this angle, with all the terrain, looks very daunting!

The British elite troops are in the woods on the right, squaring off against the Waffen SS and their armored support.

More Brits in the woods!  Ready to charge into town!

Here you can see some of the 'generic' forest hexes that we created.  Using these really gives you a sense of difficult terrain ahead!  

Again, if you recall the last terrain making post, we had realized that we needed to fill out all of the hexes with terrain, not just what the units were standing on.  It was all too easy to simply shift a unit from a non terrain hex onto one that only had the original painted versions.

So, many more hexes were created.  All worthwhile, however, to get a view such as this!!!

And this.

As with all campaigns, you have the reserve rolls.  You don't have to use them, especially if the units that are available won't be very helpful.

Rich decided to keep his armor roll, placing it off board in reserve.

I rolled two infantry units.  Knowing that I would have to attack the town of Caen, I felt that some extra infantry units could be very helpful.  They are ideal for city combat.

The trick is, you don't know what cards you are going to have!  So, if you place them all in one section, they might never get to move.

I decided not to take the chance, and put one in each section... despite the temptation to put them in the center, so that I could go after the town.

Also, I knew that I would only have 4 cards to begin, making it even more likely to get the extra units stuck in the back line.

Speaking of assaulting the buildings, tally ho!!!

Uh oh!!  The dastardly Axis had a counter attack!  Will the brave warriors of the Union Jack be able to hold out against such a surprise attack?  Stay tuned for our next episode, as the Batle for Caen rages!!

Out hunting

As we all know, Reaper makes a plethora of D & D ready figures.  It's almost impossible not to find a mini in their vast collection of sculpts that won't match your character.

They range from the dramatic to the somewhat more mundane.  Villagers, rangers, you name it.

Something for everyone.  Including a little skin here and there :-)

Having a variety of different sculptors is also a very unique quality.  I think it keeps things from looking too repetitive.

Minbari in Black

Now here's some old time stuff!  This goes back to the mid/late 90's.  At this point, I was doing a lot of "media" art, as it's called.

I was doing a lot of sci-fi convention art shows at the time.  My specialty in art school was painting portraits, so it seemed natural to try and do images of favorite characters!

Here's a watercolor that I painted of Mira Furlan for a convention.  I was lucky enough to have her sign the original!

Another watercolor.  I don't even remember the name of this Trek movie any more. :-)

 Tribble time!  Pesky varmints! 

And one of my favorites.  Minbari in Black.  I had a lot of fun with this one.  You can also see the airbrush work that I did.  

Yes, back in the late 90's, I had a ton of airbrush equipment.  Very fancy brushes, a nice foot pedal compressor, water traps, you name it.

Sadly, they went unused for so long, that all the hoses disintegrated!  The brushes themselves, which were tempermental enough when they were used every day, were beyond rescue.

Even the compressor was acting funny, so I put what remained in a box and gave up on it.

Looks like it's just me and the "hairy sticks" from now on!

Pacific Rim

The Pacific Theatre set for Memoir '44 is going to offer many opportunities for new game play situations, terrain, unit types, and so on.

What I have been looking forward to is all the painting and modeling experiments I can do!  We have been trying out a lot of new materials... black lava effect from Vallejo, vegetation combinations, and so on.

I will also get a chance to paint new stuff like the Japanese light tanks!  I was fortunate to have some old vegetation around that was actually the right scale to slap on the vehicles.  Very cool!  It allowed me to get the same effect I was seeing in all the reference images I found!

Why do I paint NMM?

Now that I have been able to take some pictures of a few of my Arthurian series of paintings, I thought I could use them in this post to explain why I use the Non Metallic Metal technique.

The question has been asked over and over again, and now I have pretty pictures to go along with the explanation!  Yea!

Before I get started...this is NOT a debate about NMM vs Metallics.  Please dispense any hatred at the door :-)  It does not matter to me what anyone uses.  I don't really care about the absolutes and other insanity that flies back and forth between the rival camps.

There is one reason, and one reason only why I use the technique.  I spent many years painting 2D art.  Since there are no metallic watercolors or pastels, I had to "create" the effect of metal, as artists have done for centuries.

These images are examples of knights in armor, painted in watercolors.  The principles here are exactly the same as what I do on a miniature.  Obviously, there is a "back" to the figure.  However, The concept of reflected light, horizon lines, strong contrasts and reflected colors all apply to both 2D and 3D.

The first image has a bit of Sky-Earth Non Metallic, or SE-NMM.

For this second painting in the series, the object was to show the height of the glory of Camelot.  Summer vegetation, bright colors, sunny sky, and SE-NMM.

Now we see something different from the 4th painting in the series.  The fall of Camelot.  Fall colors, grey skies, and less reflectivity and bright highlights on the armor.

Again, the idea is to reflect as much light as possible.  You have seen me do this many times in miniature form.  In some ways, it is much easier to paint the effect on a 3D miniature than to create the illusion of shape on a piece of watercolor board!

There you have it folks.  The reason why I use the Non Metallic technique.  Simply has to do with my path to miniature painting.  I hope it makes sense to you all! :-)

Stu strikes again!

I don't know where he keeps finding them, but Stu Has another 'lady friend'.

Maybe he heard the screams as the zombies closed in...

And then decided to pop a cap in some Zombie brains!

Uh, oh... Da Preacha man is at it again too.

There'll be no funny business on Preacha Man's watch.

Those zombies don't stand a chance!