30 October 2015

Death


One last figure I was painting along with the last few, the old Citadel "Death Elemental." Turned out a bit dull with the usual color palette. But then, I'm not sure he should be any more colorful or exciting. Not a very good photo, either. He's on a 40mm base, to give an idea of scale.



27 October 2015

Jabberwock the Second

I finished the second Jabberwock. This is a 1980s Ral Partha figure. A pretty good match for the Citadel Jabberwock!




26 October 2015

Phil & Geier

Painted two individual figures. First up is Phil. Phil the Spectre. He's a plastic "wight lord" kit from GW, and as with the black knights, I'm really impressed at the quality. Phil will probably end up leading a skeletal infantry division. I think it's only appropriate to give him aggressive & violent stats, and the ability to cast some sort of "wall of sound" spell.






Next is a figure I sculpted long ago. I have a handful of castings from when it was available from Black Orc Games (they seem to have disappeared?) I've only painted one of them before & thought I would paint one to fit with the palette of the current project.





23 October 2015

It's Official Now



It's official, now. It only took me a bit over seven years, but this is now officially registered as zerotwentythree.com instead of that domain simply forwarding to the Blogger URL.


I realize this probably seems like a strange vanity, but I don't have much of a life. So I indulge in these small pleasures.

22 October 2015

Diehard Miniatures


There are two new/upcoming miniatures ranges that have caught my interest. I've mentioned -- and posted photos of -- the Westfalia Fantasy Battles halflings several times on my blog.

The other is Diehard Miniatures. Their Kickstarter is online as of this blog entry.

EDIT: Apparently this has now been cancelled, and a new, reorganized Kickstarter will go up in early November.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/diehardminiatures/diehard-miniatures-oldhammer-fantasy-miniatures

I hope they don't mind me swiping one of their images (click to enlarge.) Strangely enough, the Eru-Kin are what have caught my interest the most. I really like these figures, and the retro-Warhammer idea of the Slann is more interesting to me than what it evolved into in later editions.


I'm already starting to formulate ideas on how to work retro space frogs into my Marienburg project...

21 October 2015

Black Knights (and Surprise Squires)

I finally finished the Black Knights, and have the somewhat too-contrasty out photo to prove it.


Do we get names anymore? Do we know who sculpted/designed these at GW? Whoever it is did a great job. My painting is just OK, but the figures are so nice they elevate a mediocre paintjob and look great on the table.


I recently (and unexpectedly) won a lowball bid on some of the really old plastic skeletons. They were already assembled, though they required some minor repairs & repositioning. Painting was quick & simple, and I worked on them as I finished the knights. So now I have some lighter cavalry as well as the heavies.



I have also re-based a giant hawk/eagle that was on loan to a friend while I repaired his (newer & bigger) eagle. I believe this is an old Grenadier model, and was painted ages ago.



Now that the Black Knight monkey is off my back, I can think about what to do next. I may paint a few of the individual figures I've prepped recently. Maybe I can think about the next unit (or large critter!) to paint while I do that.


12 October 2015

Road.... er, Bog Warrior?



I've left the simple cork roads sitting on the table for a bit now, and I think I'm getting used to them. I think I will just leave them as they are for now, make a few more, and keep going with other things. I can always add more detail to them later.

So, in terms of moving on to other things, the road looked like it needed more bogs around it. At some point I hope to work out a way to tie all of the little bogs together a bit.





I continue to procrastinate in regard to those Black Knights. I've made a rule for myself that I will not paint any more figures until they are done. That is why I now have a few road sections and more bogs (not painting figures!), and a few more miniatures prepped (not painted!) Joining the Life & Death Elementals is the Plague Elemental. It's the weak link in the otherwise outstanding Citadel Elemental series, in my opinion, but I'll see if I can do a better job painting it this time around. I just finished stripping the really old paint off of him. I finally managed to strip all the old paint off the Ral Partha Jabberwock as well.




08 October 2015

Road Warrior - Pt. 3

I quickly painted up a few more (the remainder of the first tile) road sections to see how it would look in place. I figure I can make changes later. These photos are larger than normal, so click-click if you want to see them full sized. The pics are just phone pics with my limited lighting set up, so detail is not exactly the best. In fact, I have included a last minute photo from the vantage point of my computer table, to show what I'm working with. A little peek behind the scenes.

I'm still thinking it will look better if I add some banked earth, building up along the side of the roads. This is OK for something really quick to throw down on the table, though.

In the future of tabletop terrain, I've got some more little (and one larger) bog/fen/marsh bits underway. I have three more cork tiles. At least one will be straight sections like this, so I can place the road laterally along the table. Then a few angled sections, one or two crumbling/ruined sections of road, at some point I would like to make a bridge... that, of course, means I need to work on a river.... It seems I will have a table "ready" and maybe even play some games sometime around 2023. By that point I suppose we will all be living on Yuggoth Pluto in robotic bodies anyway (if Skynet hasn't wiped us all out by that point,) so this all seems futile at times.

Still procrastinating on those damned Black Knights. It's like a slow motion race between the Knights, Yuggoth, and Skynet.





Road Warrior - Pt. 2

I tried a base coat, wash, and then some dry-ish brushing, and this is about the best I've come up with for a very light color on my paved/cobbled road.

I'm not entirely sold. But it doesn't exactly look bad, either.

The cork is so tightly compressed, it's hard to get the joints to show up on the top surface when painting. The nice thing about this stuff was that the chunks of cork were large, so I was hoping it would read as large stone.

I'm also wondering if it would look better put onto a thin base, with the earth banked up at least half way (probably more) the sides of the road.

To be honest, I'm not certain the addition of the cobblestone matt on top of this would improve it for me. I suppose there's no way to know without just doing it, but I'm really thinking about returning it as an unnecessary added expense at this time.



As a little background, The Wasteland is the hinterland of city of Marienburg. My campaign is planned to center on the western half of this area, including the Bitter Moors, The Little Country, and the marshes closer to the city itself. Possible plans for action in Bretonnia -- in the Pale Sisters, Gap of Gisoreaux, and even into Forest of Arden.

A sloppy composite of several WFRP maps is below. I will be using this as a reference for an eventual hand drawn & colored map of my own.


A brief background, as gathered from various sources and perhaps elaborated a bit, is that the area was once pleasant and green. In the time before men moved into the area, there were High Elf colonies here. The Old Coast Road is a remnant from that time -- and old raised road of close-fitting white stone. The Elves got into some sort of tiff with the Dwarfs over shaving or some such foolishness, and eventually left. In their absence, Fimir and Skaven eventually moved in, battled it out a bit, and broke & poisoned the land so badly that it became a no-man/elf/rat/demonswampgoon's-land. But men did eventually settle where they could. The city of Marienburg is most populous, but smaller settlements can be found, especially in The Little Country, to the south.

So there you have it. Creepy moors & marshes between the mountains, the sea and the River Reik. Ruins of several diverse ancient civilizations -- Elf, Fimir, and Skaven. I like the idea of the old (*cough*cough* "Roman") roads, and have decided there are more than just the Old Coast Road in the area. Currently there are a number of active players in the area -- Marienburg, the Empire, Bretonnia, and in the mountains are Goblins, Dwarfs, and Skaven. There is an Elf enclave in the city of Marienburg, as well as mercenaries attracted from abroad. Perhaps more ancient & twisted things lurking about the foul fens and moors...


Well... I went a long way to explain a piece of terrain. But that's where I'm coming from with all of this, and where the raised, white stone road(s) fit into it.

02 October 2015

Road Warrior

I've been thinking, and have previously written elsewhere, about building some raised, paved roads.

My initial thoughts have been to do something vaguely Roman-like. I've considered a few ways to do it, but the thing I'm hung up on is the base. I know I want to use MDF/hardboard because it's sturdy and is very resistant to warping in all of my other terrain projects. But it also requires power tools and makes an awful mess, both of which create a problem, as I do all of my hobby work in the carpeted attic above the bedrooms (very) late at night.

After reading a recent blog entry at Oldhammer on a Budget, I went looking for the roads in question. I found them at Michael's Craft store, though they come in a pack of one brick and one cobblestone and I only wanted one or the other. So I opted for a large (18" x 36"!) sheet of the cobblestone stuff instead. It was on sale, and cost just over the price of just three smaller pre-cut road sections.

While I was there, I also spied some chunky cork tiles that I thought I could find a use for. They are 12" x 12" x 5/8". My first thought is to just paint the cork and see if it has a suitably stone-paving look to it. Alternately, I may be able to use it as an alternative to the MDF/hardboard if it resists warping. I will just need to be more careful about chips & dents. So with that in mind, if painting it directly doesn't look good, then I can try mounting the cobblestone stuff on it.





I'll follow up with some paint tests if/when I can get some time. Everything seems to be conspiring against me getting any painting done lately.