Eight is enough

After all the very tiny Memoir '44 vehicles, it was suggested that I try out the "next size up", which would be Flames of War scale.  

Rich donated a U.S. Easy Eight for the experiment.

This is an example of "Primer Painting", where my first layer is a combination of regular paint and primer.

Early on, I had to feel around for the various details, as I would have to get familiar with the various cuts and shapes.  I didn't prep this, which is the time I normally use to pre plan where certain lights and darks will be placed.

The hull and turret are each very different for me, as I have been painting early war Shermans with the one piece cast hulls and short barreled guns.

Even at this early stage, I am trying to think about where I want warmer or cooler greens to go.  This is very important in limited palette exercises such as these... where all I have to choose from is a variety of green!

This is about the extent of the cooler greens, highlighting to a very grayish green.

Adding some yellow should be just enough to warm up a few highlight areas.

This variety in warm/cool shades of green will keep this from being too boring to look at.  When you combine this with the eventual rust and dirt effects, there should be lots of fun stuff for the viewer to check out!

Also, I have been using the #6 filbert the whole time.  It keeps the line moving, not letting me get bogged down in one area for too long!

This is getting closer and closer to the glazing stage.

OK... time for glazing!!!

Stay tuned!

This little piggy went to market...

Hopefully you are not getting "boared" with these Mierce Miniatures yet :-)

This time we have a regular boar, also on a 60mm base.

These could also make some interesting mounts for 40K orks.  Toss some plasticard armor on them, a bit (or a bunch!) of Dakka, and BOOM!!!

Landscaping your Tablescapes

Tonight we have two tastes that go great together.

A brand new set of Tabelscapes tiles from Secret Weapon Miniatures, and a whole metropolis from Burn In Designs!!!

Lathan, Master of Lasers, carefully plots the layout of his Medieval village.

As you can see, the structures are designed to have decent height, as well as a wide enough base to actually block LOS, instead of hiding the foot of a goblin. :-)  Check out that windmill!  And yes, it does spin!!

The Tablescapes tiles are held together by some ingenious plastic clips.  They fit snugly, but can be removed without too much pressure.

We rolled dice on them, and we were pleased with the lack of clattering, and that they did not bounce all over the place!.  It was so much nicer than a certain other variety of plastic tiles that we all remember...

Joe also happened to have some very neat flame markers on hand.  These were LED tea lights with painted cotton over the top.

Another view of the windmill.

We all loved the fountain, as well as the Astronomer's Observatory.  You get a nice view of the flame marker as well!

The Tablescapes could be oriented in any direction, in any combination.  Once these are painted up, it will present a magnificent table on which to play!

The terrain is not so tall that movement trays will topple over, but enough to get the point across.

The Black Coach/Hearse is a very nice item.  There is even a casket which can be partially open!  Bring out the Dead!

These towers are just that... towering over the battlefield.

Down on street level, you can see just how cinematic this scene can be with some paint and some minis!!!

Rudy certainly appears to be excited!!!

In other business, I meant to show you those rivets that were cut from the tubes of baked sculpey.

As you can see, I have two sizes.  I mention once more that it was so much easier to cut these from the tubes than it has been with the polystyrene tubing which I have used thus far.

Those chunks just flew off into space like comet landers with no harpoons.  Not so with the sculpey!!

So, kudos to Mr. Justin and Lathan on the incredible work they have done making such wonderful terrain for us to enjoy!!!

A Mammoth task...

This is actually the largest of the Mierce Miniatures thus far.  Some of the other critters have been more beefy, but this is definitely the tallest!!

His weapon is almost the size of a small human figure :-)

I had a lot of fun working with subtle reds and grays, attempting to get the Woolly Mammoth look.  That meant using deep reds and greens together, lightened with seafoam greens and cyan.

Make sure you have lots of peanuts around this guy... he won't forget you if you do.

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.