iPhone Test

This is just a test entry sent from my iPhone, well it's not mine being that it's a work phone. But when I'm not working I can now blog from anywhere!

Do Not Dip!

I repeat: DO NOT DIP.  Or this may happen:

Now I'm willing to accept that I:

1. bought the wrong stuff.
2. did it wrong.
3. both of the above.

I have a feeling that it's going to be point 3.  Anyway I have a sticky mess of a miniature that I'm too upset to think about how to fix right now.  Turps bath for a week most likely.

Anyway after I had a bit of silent reflection (ie crack the s**ts) I decided to just do it the old way, you know base colour, ink wash and then shade and highlight.  I'm pretty happy with the results and I managed to get quite a bit done.

I finished the rest of the archer unit by hand, didn't take any photos though so I'll put some up next time.  However I did manage to get a few of the characters done or close to done.

Starting with one of the Harbringers.  The Anubi hand hanging from this guys belt is a great touch to the mini.  The main reason I haven't painted many of these (apart from being lazy and easily distracted) is that I hadn't decided on a colour scheme.  I eventually went with my firts idea to use the atypical gold and blue.  I like the look, very Egyptian and very easy to paint.  Most the cloth will be white or light greys and I'll try to introduce one more colour for each of the character miniatures to make them unique.

The miniature below came out way better than I had hoped and the cloak just looks great, shading looks superb in real life.  Now if I could just figure out how I did it and do it again.

This was my first real attempt at feathers and I'm still not sold on the look.  I like the colours used but something isn't right, I'll leave it and come back another day with a fresh pair of eyes.  What is the deal with the Asar women going topless?  I know Egypt is a hot place but even if we put aside the issue of sunburn they are going into battle... just doesn't make sense.

I tried to do something different with this guys wings and do them like a pair of phoenix wings.. or something.  Again they look good but something just doesn't gel.  I'll finish the rest of him off and how it looks then.

To Dip or Not To Dip

I've been toying with the idea of picking up a can or two of the Army Painter Quickshade product for a while now and after seeing the results that Gus achieved with his Wargods miniatures I was sold on the idea.  As it turned out everyone I spoke too could get it in or have had it in but noone actually had any in stock.  After doing a bit of research with my good buddy Google it seems that a lot of people are using this approach but the majority of them are using something like this:

I don't know how close this stuff is to the Army Painter product but price wise there's no comparison.  Army Painter Quick Shade seems to run around $40 plus postage whereas the Wattyl is a cool $16 and a trip to Bunnings.

I know the two product aren't the same but I figure I'll give it a go.  I've been pretty happy with the results of my Tamiya Smoke/Thinners mix but the stuff is pretty rough to put on and if you brush it on you have to be really-really-gentle or it tears the paint off.  I'll go for the brush applied approach to help control the flow.  Besides I'm not too keen on cleaning up required after the dip and flick approach.

I'll try to get some miniatures painted tonight and I'll give this a go tomorrow.

Roman Seas

This is my latest distraction.

A great set of naval rules that can be played either as a boardgame using 1" hexes or as a miniatures game using 5" hexes.  Eric even produces a range of 6mm scale cardstock ships for use with the game.  Don't let the scale fool you, these boats are big, I'm talking around 12cm long for the smaller ships such as the Hemoila and 22cm long for the bigger ships such as the Hexeres.  And I havent even seen any of the flagships let alone anything from Marc Anthony's fleet.  The rules look pretty good, nothing complex and the hex based system makes for a fast game with none of those "discussions" over ranges or movement.

The suggested build time for a ship is around the hour mark although the first one took me around two hours as I took my time trying to work out the best way to cut all the fiddly curves without bending the card too much.  The ships come together quite easily and look great for a cardstock ship.  The price is around $10 for a navy set and most of the ships come with multiple colour variations and optional parts.  I don't even want to try and guess how much a resin ship would cost in this scale, let alone a metal one.  So the great thing here is that your navy is only limited by the number your print and build.  And they come pre painted!

I'll need to purchase another game mat for this one, probably get a double sided one with 5" hexes one side and 1.5" hexes on the other (Bag the Hun).  Won't get too many 5" hexes on a 6x4 mat so I may end up ordering two and I'll leave the other side of the second one blank in case I uhhh... *checks to make sure his wife isn't in the room* buy any other games that doesn't need hexes.

Everything Old Is New Again

I was hunting through the back shed the other day looking for something non wargaming related when I stumbled across a couple boxes hiding under an old ratty looking bean bag.  One of those said boxes was a collection of trees, foam hills and flock covered rocks.  Yes... rocks covered with flock.  I don't know why I did it, they look really really crap.  Anyway the great find in the box was the trees.  Pretty standard fare and a lot of them had flattened out in storage, but they were trees none the less.

So I turned to dynamic duo of wargamer terrain: MDF and white glue. 

My first thought was to base the trees the same as I did these ones.  I went for the cluster/group option seen below for two reasons.  Firstly I wouldn't have had enough of the mdf discs and I didn't feel like getting all handyman and making some more.  Secondly I thought that by putting a few on a base I could use them as 'dense' terrain.  I'll still use the terrain boards or felt to mark the area of a woods but I can now differentiate between light and heavy woods.

I'll put some more photos up once I've got the bases painted and flocked.