Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Rock on!!!


I know that Steve Buddle's miniature line is not called Spyglass any more, but it does now take away how fun his sculpting is to paint!


Some of my earliest figures were Spyglass, and I still have some around!  I was also saving this one for that mythical Slaine campaign.  Perhaps some day...


She's also here:



Tuesday, February 3, 2015

A little tuft here, a little tuft there...




This was a figure I had around for a while, but I wanted to experiment with some new tufts that I bought from Army Painter.


This time, I was combining Winter tufts... one with snow, the other without.


He's also available here:



I alternated the placement of the tufts, to make it look like a slight amount of snow had fallen.




Whiteout in Wappelville


OK, this is a look at what I have been doing for the last 48 hours.

That would be battling just shy of 20 inches of heavy, then blowing, snow for two plus days.

The original forecast of 1-3 inches became 4-6, 6-10, and kept increasing from there.  This is Saturday night as the storm was just starting to get its groove on.


Whenever you think to yourself... this has been a very mild winter, you invite this rebuttal from Mother Nature.


Late Saturday night, perhaps a foot of snow on the ground.  When I heard the direction that the winds were coming from, I realized that "Lake enhancement" wound not be far behind.


That is, super cold winds turning northeast, blowing over the lake, adding 5 more inches to the 14 we already had on the ground.  Ouch.


The aftermath, about 8 am Monday.


The neighbor and I had created a snow shoveling team, where one person would push the snow with one type of shovel to the other person, who would use a lifting shovel to toss it into piles.


We had to do that, since the piles rapidly reached head height, and that meant tossing snow over your head... a wee bit tiring.


I also knew that I would be going up on the roof today, as that drift you see on the right side of the house was nearly 4 feet high in some places.  Ice dams would follow, and soon water would trickle into the house.

You saw me dealing with this the hard way last winter!

I was not looking for a repeat.


When you live in close quarters like this, finding places to put this much snow is the primary issue.  All you can do is create massive piles, which are prone to being blown down into drifts by the wind, wiping out what you spent hours doing.


The most brutal task... the street.We spent almost three hours on this section today.  Mount Wappelville is now an entire range, rivaling the Himalayas.  It may take several centuries for them to melt. :-)


This is the tallest of the Mountains... it's about 2 feet taller now, and it extends back a good 12 feet.

At the end of the day I got do drag out an ice covered ladder and knock the snow off the roof.  That took about 90 minutes.  The sad irony was that I had to shovel all that snow after I was done.

Hopefully I might get back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.

This ranks as the number 5 blizzard in our history.  Interestingly enough, most of the top 10 have happened in my lifetime. More food for thought... we are still 20 inches behind last year's total at this time.


Monday, February 2, 2015

Ghost Train Games Alternative Civil War


Here is an interesting kickstarter under way by Ghost Train Games:



It's an alternative Civil War theme, which of course caught my interest! :-)

This is the 'world'...


And now the four primary factions, beginning with the North (minis NOT painted by me...)


The South...


Natives...


And Spain...


A few sculpts for you...


Very fun!


There are some PDF's of the rules and stats that you can download for free, if you wanted to give the rules a try!


The all important size comparison...


Have at it!


This is why you didn't see your regularly scheduled blog post last night folks.  Almost 19 inches fell, and the drifts were several feet high.  It's going to be a long dig out!



Sunday, February 1, 2015

Wanted Poster... SWF


Together at last!  The Copelie Sisters and their doggie!


I am still searching for a name for the K-9... although Clankey seems to draw me in more and more.

If I get a second dog, he could be Clunky! :-)


The Sisters getting ready to hang some poor guy...


This is the small gallows from Burn in Designs.  Still working on the big one... the deluxe "Stretch O Matic "


You'd be lucky if these girls were the last thing you saw before you met your Maker... or the Watchers!


In the Jailhouse now... this time, the Sisters are working for the Lawmen of Wappelville.


K-9 is always ready to see who's at the door...


The jailhouse is also from Burn In Designs.


That was a lot of fun to paint, and now it makes it even more fun to show off my newest Lawmen figures!


I do have another set of Sisters, which I will either convert into something else, or repaint in an Outlaw scheme...


This week I will be publishing the battle reports where the gals made their auspicious debut on the tabletop!!!


Wielding the Dark Swords


Once again, a fantastic miniature from Dark Sword.  Super fine details, as always!


I know I say this all the time, but they really are a joy to paint.  If only all manufacturers held themselves to this level :-)


She's available here: