The pipes are blowing

Here we have something fantastic from Victoria Miniatures!  It is something you will see much more of on the blog.  This is the fantastic Highland Guard set.

Obviously, it is a set of ten.  Legs, heads and pouches in this image.

Now we have the guns, packs and torsos.  They all fit together very nicely.

These are the command sprues, so that you can make the Sergeant and Piper.

All the parts after filing and washing...

Assembly under way.

The piper comes with an alternate head.  It is so cool that he can be stylin' with his goggles but still slam the pipes!!!

Here's the Sergeant.

And the Piper!

There are a number of different heads, torsos, gun options, and so on.

More shots.  Everything was very easy to work with.  No air bubbles, or any of those other annoying things!  Spectacular work by Victoria.

I am going to enjoy painting these so much.  Also, if need be, the scale and proportions of these are close enough to work some conversion magic with a certain other company. ;-)

More poses!

And now for that size comparison.  If you need a chain sword or grenade launcher, etc., it should be easy pickins to do so!

Many thanks to Victoria for allowing me to do some work with these guys.  As I mentioned, you will see much more of these as time goes by.  Also, I will be working on her new set of  guardsmen... straight from the stockade!

Here's a link:

http://victoriaminiatures.highwire.com/products/highland-guard?pagesize=12

In full command... Drow style

Back to the Underdark where we find these stylish ladies.

They may look sexy, but you don't wanna mess with them!

Quick on their feet and even quicker with a blade, they will make 'short' work of you if you are foolish.

It is very cool to see the Drow version of the command squad after seeing the Dark Elf versions for so long!

As usual group shots just provide the most satisfaction, even if they are less dramatic than the single pose sets.

And I do love the very simple but elegant marble.  It sets off both skin tones equally as well.

Chorus line!

Time to get choppin'!!!

Prepare to defend yourself!!

One more stunning lady from the Underdark, courtesy of Raging Heroes!

This is one heck of an action pose for a one piece miniature!  That's one way to make a delicate miniature much more stable and sturdy.

Wait... she sees something.  Like only a Drow can...

Packing up...

As I was furiously constructing these boxes, Lyn Stahl of mini painting fame happened to ask me why I didn't just get boxes from the Post Office.  She then got a dissertation on my experiences of 20+ years of shipping artwork of all kinds.  Sorry about that!

So what do you do when you have to ship minis?  With recent changes by the Post Office, I have had to adapt my methods yet again... slightly.

I told Lyn that I construct all my own boxes for a variety of reasons, the first being strength.  You can see here that I have created these sections inside the box... which is also lined with a layer of cardboard.

Everything is glued together.  All of these extra pieces provide protection against vertical and lateral crushing, which is real important shipping these fragile minis! 

I also custom build them to avoid having lots of extra space inside the box.  Not only will it be more expensive to fill that will all kinds of packing materials, it will be heavier, and the figure inside has more chances to move around.  None of those things are good!

While most of our boxes are generously donated by our recycling minded friends, I also find giant boxes made of heavy cardboard out in the alley.  Or, I save them on the rare occasion when something heavy comes our way.

This board is perfect for those interior pieces!

Here is a box that I have specifically shaped for 2 pieces.  These days, you must have a box that is big enough to fit those computer generated labels that you have to print out.  Those are usually around 5 x 7 inches.

However, boxes of certain weights and sizes will whack you with all sorts of extra charges, so beware of that.

Here you can see the interior pieces being glued to the inside walls.

Getting there.  You can already see the mutual support these pieces offer.

Then it's time to pre-fit the miniature for the all important cross piece.  This is the one that really keeps the compression to a minimum from the top and the sides...

When one piece is a lot shorter than the other, I use white styrofoam to fill the void.  Light and soft.

This is what I use to cut all that cardboard.  It is my old mat-cutting machine.  A little sad that this is what it does 85% of the time, but the 2D art is mostly a thing of the past.  The other 15% is building terrain.

I used this to prefab a lot of the parts that went into the terrain making videos.

Once all the glue has set, it is time for the minis.  Those are wrapped in tissue first, making sure to fill the 'voids' between arms and weapons, etc.  Then some bubble wrap around the tissue.

Finally, if I have it available, I will use foam pieces to plug the additional gaps around the bubble wrap.  These were kindly donated by Phil!  Thanks!

Let the trumpets sound...

I have really been looking forward to this miniature, since it completes the Drow version of the Vestal Command figures.  I definitely enjoy the darker color scheme of the skin.  It lets me play around much more with some subtle midtones.

All of these have been painted in the same way as the video.  A combination of Shaded Basecoat, glazing and the work in the all important midtones.  There I mixed my glaze colors with regular paint to create those semi-transparent 'light glazes'  Lots of fun working with those!

She is also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321273654812?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

Wandering back to the Dragon

As most of you already know, there has been a certain project that has kept me imprisoned in the basement for 20 hours a day for many months.  Also, Cathy has her new job, about 3 months in.

This combination of factors has kept us away from one of our favorite places, and that is the Wandering Dragon Shoppe.

The original store was an amazing place, which you can see form my previous posts.  Late this summer, they moved down the street to a larger place to accommodate all the other folks who loved that place just as much.

If it is possible to upgrade this much on amazing, then only Kevin and Laura can pull that off!  Even from the outside, the place is marvelous.  Here is Kevin, hard at work as usual when not running around seeing what people might need.

All of the new space is put to great use.  There were so many new games I had never seen before... and there was room after room of them!

This is one of those rooms.  What's nice is that you feel like you can really take your time to check everything out and never be in someone's way.  Since they are in various rooms, you also feel like you can talk things out without bothering anyone else.

There were more gaming rooms than I could take pictures of!  And they are even more inviting.  You feel like you are playing at someone's house.

Ah, did someone mention miniatures?  And paint, and brushes, and files, and tons of hobby stuff?  Yes indeed!

More rooms for gaming!  Note that binder on top of the vending machine... that comes into play later.  Yes, there are a number of vending machine options.

And then the Main Gallery... still with the TV to keep up to speed on ESPN... and it is still very cool!

There are now multiple shelving units of games to test out now!

And when you don't want to interrupt your game for food, you just check out that binder to find a place to order that food, and have them deliver it.  We enjoyed some pizza with Memoire '44

And one of our last go 'rounds.  A neat system, which appeals to me more than ASL, since there is much more fun visual impact here.  It still had a similar feel, but faster paced.

Many thanks to Rich for hauling me out there, and congratulations to Kevin and Laura for all their amazing work here!!!