Hotz Game Mats

I recently placed an order for a felt game mat from Hotz Mats, the same folks who also produce the fine Whitewash City cardstock buildings.  I've gone for one of their Small Town Western Mats.

It's approximatley 72 x 45 inches (183 x 114 cm) and I've gone for the double sided option with the other side having only the rock scatter pattern.  This will be fantastic for Gutshot, Six Gun Sound and Wargods of Aegyptus.  It will also be quite useful for WWII games if I ever get some Afrika Korps sorted.  It's still a good 3 weeks away so I'll post some photos once it arrives.

Wargods of Aegyptus - Heru and Asar Update

I've managed to get all of the Heru and Asar undercoated, based and all the flesh areas base coated.  Which from the photo doesn't look all that much, and it would be if it wasn't for the fact that I did it in one session.  Sleep and food breaks none-withstanding that is.  The goal now is to get a unit of 10 of these to tabletop standard per night over the next 3-4 nights and then get 3-4 of the characters done with whatever time I have left.

What the photo doesn't show very well here is that most of the shading has been done one the flesh, a little highlighting here and there and a targetted ink wash wouldn't go astray but I think I'll get the rest of the minis dones before I start getting bogged down in the nuances and details.  I will not allow myself to be tempted to spend just a little extra time to make this mini look just right or give that mini the paintjob it deserves and so on.

My primary goal here is to have a painted army on the table this Saturday night.

Should be possible... right, heh?  I mean who needs sleep anyway?

Wargods of Aegyptus - More Heru, Some Asar and the First Anubi

I started painting my Heru for Wargods of Aegyptus.  Very nice casting with only minimal cleanup required.  The quality of the sculpts is just amazing and the detail just pops out at you when you start to put the paint on, these are going to be a pleasure to paint... which is good because I have so many to paint (with more to come).

Another Heru Swordmen unit and the Asar Warhawks starter.  Initially I was only going to get a Warhawk Unit pack but the cool characters made this pack a must have.  The only qualm I have with a couple of the characters is that I find the sculptors desire to make most of the female characters topless just a tad juvenile.  The Basti range of miniatures turned me away for this exact reason.

The Swordsmen and Warhawks based and ready for undercoating.  Airbrush this time me-thinks.

The characters from the Asar Warhawks starter... except for the one second from the left, he's the Master of Words from the Heru Starter.

The two Harbingers from the Warhawks and Heru starters respectivley.  I have another one on order which is probably one (or two) too many but I'm planning on not having to buy any more of these for quite a while.

All the accessories that came with the characters: gongs, idols, books, jars... you name it.  I don't think these play a part in the game, at least not from what I've read of the rulebook.  Oh I got the rulebook too.  Very glossy and professional, up there with the stuff GW put out and even laid out in a similar fashion too now that I thnk about it.

The start of my Anubi forces, Harbinger, priest and embalmer.  I have 3 units of warriors on order, along with another unit of Heru.  These guys are really just add-ons for the Heru army but I may expand these later into an army of their own.

Same guys from above but based and waiting for an undercoat.

That's all for now.  I'm planning on doing a lot of painting tomorrow so I'll post photos when there's something to look at.

Terrain - Hedges & Forests Part 6

Warning!

I should have seen this coming but the Tamiya paint, well moreso the Tamiya Thinners, reacted strangley to the craft paint I initially sprayed on the hedges. Not in a bad way mind you, but weird none the less. Almost a day after I splrayed the Tamiya paint on the hedges the paint still hadn't dried. What I had was a tacky, almost rubbery goo on the surface. After three days now it has dried and hardened up but for a while there I was worried that the hedges were ruined.  So the moral of my tale here is don't mix your paint manufacturers, or better still: test and test again.
 
So back to the hedges....  I've managed to mostly flock two pieces of the hedges using different methods. 
 
 

The hedge below is using Model Scenics Foliage and comes out like a fluffy gauze. I cut out strips and glued them on with MDF glue (it's slow to dry but the fumes won't stink out the house and I have heaps of it). It's the easier of the two to put together and I think it will survive being handled fairly well.  The few places where the foam shows through is pretty clear in the photo ut you really don't notice it on the table.  The only thing I don't like about this one is that the colours are pretty one dimensional.  Also I think I'll get maybe 4-5 of these done from a $14 pack, these could get costly.

The hedge below was made up using a combination of Model Scenics Bushes and some offcuts of the Model Scenics Foliage.  The hedge looks fuller in both depth and colour variation but I'm worried it could suffer from too much handling.  The coverage needs to be fuller using this method as the flat areas of the foam show up against the undulations of the flock.  Once this is done I might even give it a light spray with some spray adhesive to help hold it together.  The process of flocking sothing usig this method is quite slow as you can only do small areas at a time and only one side of the hedge until the other side dries.  I could use the scenics glue as it dries faster, I'll have to investigate this I think.  Again I think I'll get maybe 4-5 of these out of a $14 pack so I need to get down to the game shop and see if they sell bigger/cheaper bags.

I think I'll continue flocking using both methods.  Mainly because I want to use the stuff I already have and secondly I don't want to have all my hedges looking the same.

So far I'm pretty happy with the results of both methods.  The cost is starting to convern me a little but hedges are a common terrain element in just about any wargame so it might be a worthwhile investment.

Terrain - Hedges & Forests Part 5

If you look really carefully at the photo you'll notice millions of tiny little cuts all over my hand... no?  Can't see them?  Well the thinners in the paint did, not immediatley.. oh no it waited, it waited for me to completely coat my hands with the stuff.  Almost got finished and then a tingle... tingle turned to a pins and needles feeling and finally the pins and needles just fricken' hurt.  Luckily all I needed was some warm soapy water and a hug from my youngest.

Hmmm oh yeah I did some more work on the terrain too.  The tree bases below will need a little brush work to bring out some of the details, possibly a bit of flock here and there.

I tried the paint (Tamiya) on a small piece of spare foam and I really expected it to shrivel up, but it didn't so I gave all the hedges a spray of green on the foliage which helped hide almost all of the silver/white bits that were left.

You can see here the coverage is quite good.

Lastly I got the forest bases painted, everything here took almost 5 complete pots of the Tamoya paints but the colours looks great. 

I'll let the paint dry overnight and I'll have a go at flocking the hedges tomorrow.