Beetle Mania!

Meet the latest monster from Mierce Miniatures... Thacladan, Mound Beetle.

Here's the finished mini next to the concept art.

He's standing on an 80mm base for sense of scale.

This is one of a series of brand new releases from Mierce that's on its way!

The views from above show the massive shell-like wings.

Check out their other monstrous creatures on their website:

http://www.mierce-miniatures.com/

A Secret no Longer!

As some of you might know, the reveal of the new Secret Weapon line of paints was a bit earlier than anticipated :-)  Back then, it was a test sample of six wonderful weathering style paints.  At Adepticon, the full set of 15 made their impressive debut!!

Cathy and I were asked to spend a little time at the Secret Weapon booth to demonstrate the paints, which we did on Saturday afternoon.  Much fun was had by all, and there were no permanent injuries.

Right off the bat, I was able to do a few quick tests and demonstrations of putting rust, chips and streaks on a Forgeworld vehicle.  Using only 3 of the paints, a number of nice effects were achieved in minutes!

It was a snap to get very nice rust effects, and scorching on the lascannon barrels. The ultra matte finish of the pigments (and some sedimentation on the rust paints in particular) made the dust effcts and blue hull colors really shine.

I had one of the Ruined Barricade sets to play with, so I slapped on some primer, and began painting right away.  I didn't even bother to wait for the primer to dry... I dove right in to painting, weathering, and even freehand!  In fact, I believe that primer is still drying. ;-)

There are many useful colors in the line which serve a wider purpose.  I was able to create several different flesh tone colors as well!  Cathy had a great time painting a wild west theme figure.  The subtle browns and tans yielded great results.

This was about 20 minutes from bare resin to what is in the image.  Based on the fun that was had at the booth, we are hoping to do something similar at the Secret Weapon booth at Gencon, for longer durations.

I will be able to get more concise information for you as GenCon draws closer, but rest assured, you will be seeing these colors a LOT in the meantime!

Send in the CAV

With Adepticon come and gone, some new things will begin to emerge on the blog over the rest of the year.  You have seen much of the Flames of War and even the peek at Bolt Action, but yet another tiny wargame will join them!

That would be Reaper's C.A.V. game, that has been jump started again with a new campaign.

I've painted a few of the Mechs as demos, but I continue to practice on various minis as I make myself more familiar with the range.

As tiny as Flames of War might be at 15mm, how about cutting that down to 6mm!!  Yikes!  The penny on the right is for scale.

This is made out of the modified BONES material.

I thought I would try the same sort of camo scheme which I have been painting so often lately.  However, in this game, vehicles disguise themselves with digitally projected holofields.  In essence, the Mech can mimic a nearby structure.

At this scale, getting those tiny little patterns will mean and all new kind of challenge.  It should be interesting, so stay tuned!!!

Heavy armor...

So, I'm going to try working my way back into regularly scheduled programming as much as possible, but also provide you with a few Adepticon oriented posts.  I did manage to get some pictures, and those posts will go up later in the week.

There are a host of long time projects that will continue, including the legions of Red Box Games figures.  This is the third figure in the "elite" set that are like heavily armored Marauders.

As with all the others from this and similar sets, I have had some fun using the snow bases as a foil to reflect those lighter sky colors onto the armor and swords.  They are not supposed to be polished steel or anything of the sort, so I try to keep that from getting too intense.  

It's even more tricky, given that they are supposed to be wearing red tunics!  That alone can make any blue that I paint onto it seem more like that bright chrome.

Sticks and Stones...

Well, Adepticon 2016 has come and gone.  It all started Wednesday morning with squeezing a semi trailer worth of minis, terrain, lights and tools into a Kia Soul.

By Wednesday afternoon, the Hobby Lounge (heretofore to be referred to as Fort Wappel) was in full swing.  It was a fantastic mix of painters and players.  More than a few intrepid tournament players stayed with me late into the night on Wednesday and Thursday painting their armies, while others put last minute touches on their contest entries.

It was fantastic to hang out with Sabrina and Mark, Syndjinn, Michelle, and so many more!

If the convention was five days longer, I might have been able to see half of what there was to see!  I never even made it to the Bolt Action or Flames of War areas.  Perhaps next time.

Since I normally slave away at the painting table in isolation seven days a week, having other human painters nearby was a rare and wonderful experience!  I enjoyed that so much, it was with regret that I had to take significant time away on Friday and Saturday to meet other obligations, which were also very fun!.

Doing a few quick demos in the Secret Weapon booth was a blast, talking Counterblast minis with Patrick was great, and hanging out in the Reaper and Mantic booths was also very fun.  Congrats to Cory on another great showing of Witchborn, and to the many groups which put on fantastic displays, such as the pirate game.

The Stuff of Legends Oldhammer game was a fun throwback, and a shout out to all the instructors and painters who competed in the contest.

A huge shout out to the whole staff of Adepticon for helping get the Hobby Area together, and it was a stunning effort by Drew to make the seminars and such a reality.

This post would have to go on for a very long time to include everyone.  I want to say thanks to every single person that came around to chat, no matter how long or how rushed.  It means a lot, and it will be the energy for all the long painting nights ahead.

Dinos on Dragons!

This is something quite wonderful from Albino Raven miniatures.  This Wyvern figure amazed me from the moment I saw it on the website.  Even then, I imagined it as a possible Rhinosaur mount for my Kings of War Salamander army.

Obviously, the rider is a cold one cavalry saurus.  It shocked me at how well it fit, and how easy he was to convert!

I primed both figures an off white to illustrate just how well they do mesh.  Four of these will comprise my heavy cavalry Rhinosaur unit.

Since the theme for the Salamanders is the "Army of Ash", I wanted to have as many fire breathing dragons as possible.  The army already has Fire Drakes and Ember sprites, and this seemed to be the icing on the very hot cake!!

The positions of the wings should make it pretty easy to fit all four of them on the movement tray.

The original Wyvern figure has an orc rider.  Check out the website to see the original version...

http://www.albinoravenmini.com/#!wywernrider/c1qqr

Size does matter

The large and the small!  A King Tiger and a Renault AMR side by side.  The AMR probably weighs less than the turret on the Tiger. :-)

The Colossus of the West, circa 1939, and the Beast of the East, 5 years later.

Sooo tiny...

It takes a village to take down a Tiger.  That is, unless you have a Firefly.

Much more to come, with some infantry stands soon!  Stay tuned.