Weekly Workbench 17 September 2017

    A little late this week, between Cub Scouts starting up, PME starting back up, and my mother arriving a day early for her visit it really threw my week out of wack for getting things done.  This includes the Painting Guide post which will be out on this Wednesday.  I did get in a game of Warlord Games' Test of Honor on TableTop Commander's After Hours Paint and Chat Ep.99 hosted by Rocky's War Room.  The game was surprisingly easy to learn, especially online with no rule book to refer to.  I had a lot of fun and won the first scenario.  Thanks to Matt for hosting and to Bob for being a worthy opponent! I will likely look at picking this up once the Frostgrave campaigns are up and running and my SAGA war bands are completed.

Fantasy:

    Here is where the majority of my work this week got done.  First up is Duncan's Frostgrave Summoner crew.  They have been base coated and washed and now just need some minor highlights and then dull coated.

First up is the Summoner himself.

The Apprentice bringing forth some extra-planar entity.

The Captain.

Sheppard's Garr War Dog from Reaper Bones is in the same state.

War Hound in need of some highlights.

And I also finished up six large Reaper Bones rats, always useful and playing a role in the first scenario.

Playing the primary antagonist in the first scenario will be the Alchemical Monstrosity, represented by this HD Minis D&D Displacer Beast.

Need to clean up the lines and add some dull coat.

Terrain:

    Dave Graffam is  having a sale on his paper craft sets over on Wargame Vault.  Most sets are only $1.00!  This is a cheap way to quickly get some terrain on the table and add some variety.  He has everything from fantasy buildings, medieval buildings, frontier buildings, ships, walls, bombed buildings, floor tiles, and accessories. The first set I printed out and started putting together are the Wooden Crates, which will add more dimension to the Alchemical Workshop in the first campaign and find uses in other scenarios as well.  I am using insulation foam to wrap them around for added stability and durability with the kids.  After attempting to cut the foam with a hot wire cutter and an xacto knife I found the band saw works just fine and provides the straightest, cleanest, and quickest lines.

The start of my crates.

    So far I have completed a 4x4x2, 4x2x2, 3x3x2, 3x3x1, 3x2x2, 3x1x1, (2) 2x2x1, (2) 2x1x1, and (5) 1x1x1s.  I still have (2) 4x1x1, (2) 3xx1x1, 2x2x2, (2) 2x1x1, and (4) 1x1x1s left from the first 15 page printing.  The kits look really good, though I will need to invest in some other color sharpies to handle edging as the black is really apparent on the crates, and pretty sturdy on their own when printed on 110lb card stock.

That is it for this week, the painting guide will be out this week and next week will have a terrain tutorial as I finished the painting last night.

Weekly Workbench 3 September 2017

Historical:

My Scots Thanes for SAGA finally got their shields (title photo) and bases finished.  I was able to give them an overcoat today with the drop in humidity so they will be ready to go for some action soon!  Final pictures next week.

I also primed and started painting the Scots warriors and hope with leave this week I will have them knocked out before the next update.

Sci-Fi:

The Boromite Gang Fighters for Beyond the Gates of Antares have been painted and washed.  Some came out very dark and you can see the differences in versions I have done.  I will need to do some serious highlighting with red to get some of these Boromites out of the purple skin tone they currently have.

Fantasy:

As seen in the cover picture, I over-coated Shep's Chronomancers, Ivy's Elementalists, and Mugzy's Sigilists, which I painted this week for Frostgrave.  Tone of detail work on the Sigilist wizard and I still need to add a gloss varnish to some of the gold and they will be done.  I also put together two zombies from parts out of the Cultist box sprues.

I also started building another wizard, apprentice, and captain for the #Triplespruechallenge with the remaining pieces from the three sprues.  This time I have an Illusionist who needs at least one more pouch and a cape made from green stuff, the apprentice who has Monstrous Form cast on him, and the captain with some crushed cultist skulls.  I also clipped the built in bases for these guys as it has been a pain basing the others.

During some spare time while waiting for paint to dry, I started painting my Dwarf Runic Golem.  Long way to go on this guy!  Definitely a miniature to have an airbrush as painting this by hand is going to take some time, especially with trying to avoid brush marks.

Terrain:

I cleaned, built, and primed the Goblin Town platforms from The Hobbit Strategy Battle Game starter set and should have them painted by the end of the week.  They will make a great addition to the Frostgrave table as well as The Hobbit.

I also primed the foam tower ruin and should get that painted up and finished this week as well.

While not terrain, I tried using a wet pallet again, going through a couple of variations. So far this one, with the sandwich box, paper towels, and parchment paper seems to be working the best.  Other versions with a sponge would have the parchment paper drying out as I painted no matter how much water was in the container and it would curl up as I paint.  So far with the paper towel that has not been the case.

Stop by next week, should be a lot more progress with me on leave, though Saturday I have a Spartan Race, as long as Irma decides to leave us alone.  Make sure to check out the Painting Guide on Tuesday for Gandalf!

Weekly Workbench 27 August 2017

 

    Another week of lots of different happenings, though  not enough finishing so far.  The humidity finally started dropping and looks like we are going to have a good week coming up as well.  This will allow for a lot of priming and and finishing to be done.  Be sure to click on any pictures that interest you for a larger view.

Historical:

    On Wednesday, with a nice drop to 47% humidity, I got a lot of priming done and the rest of my SAGA Scots warriors primed and ready for painting, which will hopefully be this week.

I also primed three Dark Age Archers, will will be used across multiple different games.

    Continuing my work on SAGA miniatures on Wednesday I started my base colors on my last Scots Thane and first warrior and finished them on Friday.

    Friday night I finished the the base colors, and following a technique Kenny Boucher of Next Level Painting recently displayed, I varnished the miniatures with a gloss varnish and once dried, applied the flesh wash and dark tone wash.  This seemed to work a lot better than usual and did not leave any "coffee stains".

On Saturday, I finished up with some highlights and laid down the dirt for the basing using Vallejo Earth Texture 26.219 Brown Earth.

    I also did this for the other Thanes and Warlord.  While I should finish the bases for the Thanes this week, the Warlord is waiting on a wolfhound coming from Footsore Miniatures. Unfortunately their furnace broke right after I ordered them and so shipment has been delayed going into the second month now.

I also placed the LBMS transfers onto the shields. I will touch up the paint this week and attach them to the Thanes.

Also on the historical side on Wednesday, I textured the Normandy base with Rust-Oleum Multicolor Textured spray paint in Desert Bisque.

Sci-Fi:

    No work on my Boromites as I am still debating on continuing with touch-up and dark tone or stripping and starting over.  I would like to get them on the table though so I might just push through with them.

Fantasy:

     My Dwarf Runic Golem arrived and after some cleaning and washing I glued him together and primed him.  I cannot wait to paint this large fellow up! 

Standing next to Shep's Chronomaner shows just how Large a construct he is!

    In the same delivery from Alternate Armies I also received their Eternal Guard which will make for some nice armored skeletons in Frostgrave!

    I started with the base colors on Mugzy's Sigilists from North Star Figures, as well as their flesh and eyes.  Their trim and cowls will be in white, while the fur lining will be in a snowy grey.

    I also did some sculpting work on the wizards' bases, a skeleton's cloak, as well as some spear hafts and sword blades to replace the flimsy PVC ones on the Reaper miniatures.  The Green Stuff is only slightly more firm than PVC at that thickness though, so I am not sure how well it will work out.

Terrain:

    I finally broke out my hot wire foam cutter and tried out some terrain building with insulation foam.  Here are two 3" x 6" walls that will be useful if any of the kids' wizards take the wall spell.

    I also build the corner of a ruined building to give the Frostgrave board some height beyond the Stone House Miniatures wall segments.  I started off planning on doing the walls in field stones and realized how much time it was going to take I decided the ground floor was good enough before being switched to cut stone.

    The outside join came together pretty smoothly and only needed some minor compound to smooth the lines.

    I did realize I am going to need to find some thinner foam or a way to uniformly split the thickness of the foam as the two wall pieces did not come out even thickness.  I think I could figure out a couple of plywood jigs to do the trick.

  Well that does it for this week, be sure to stop in Wednesday to see the painting guide on the King Under the Mountain himself, Thorin Oakenshield!

Weekly Workbench 20 August 2017

Lots of different workings being done this week, though not as much as I would have liked.  I did figure out some better lighting for my pictures today though, so everything but my Scots should have better lighting!  Remember to click on pictures to see larger versions!

Historical:

Speaking of my Scots, I nearly finished my Thanes for SAGA.  I still have to add the shields, and spear for the Warlord, once I add the LBMS transfers tomorrow.

Sci-Fi:

A little more work on the Boromites testing out some similar schemes.  Not sure I like anything so far and might just strip and restart as I have learned a lot from when I first started on these.

The first picture is where I left off last week.

This next picture is what I tested this week, adding The Army Painter's Rough Iron to the Mag Gun and some of the equipment and then washing in Dark Tone.

The last one was my original plan from a couple of months with the Rough Iron added.  It was washed in Strong Tone and maybe Red Tone on the skin.

Fantasy:

A lot of work done here this week.  First up, Shep and I went done to Fredericksburg to Your Hobby Place, our first trip since they opened and a really nice looking store and gaming area, and picked up a bunch of cheap Reaper Bones miniatures to flesh out the Frostgrave bestiary before we start playing.

Skeleton Swordsmen and Skeleton Spear-men are the most common.  On the right are two packs of Giant Rats, important in one of the scenarios for intro campaign.

Next we have a Great Worm, hungry with empty sewers for the past 1000 years.  We also picked up a ghost to use as a Wraith.  All primed (except the skeletons which we will just use unpainted) and ready for some paint.


We also picked up a Warhound for Shep's war-band and a two figures for Gideon's apprentice (r) and Enchanter (l).  Gideon painted his team himself, not bad for a five year old!





As stated last week, Shep's Chronomancer and Apprentice were the first Frostgrave items to be worked on this week.  Shep, loving all things frog like, wanted green to be the primary color for their attire.

The Apprentice usually comes with a half mask on the left side of her face but we thought a scar from a time jump incident looked much cooler.  I did not feel up to the task of doing a clear hour glass with sand so we went with the red mystic power instead.

 I also got Ivy's Water Elementalist and her apprentice completed.  These were much simpler paint jobs due to the very clean sculpts.

Last up, Duncan wanted a Summoner for his wizard, and as I did not have one I decided to make him one for the Triple Sprue Challenge competition being put on by Osprey Publishing.  The rules are pretty simple, using one sprue from each of the human box sets (Soldiers, Cultists, and Barbarians), create a wizard, apprentice, and a captain.  Putty is OK for filling gaps and metal rods or green stuff may be used to make staffs but no other outside materials or pieces.  All entries must be unpainted and submitted via email or using the hashtags #Frostgrave and #Triplespruechallenge on social media (FB, IG, and Twitter).

Summoner

I made the Summoner using a Barbarian body, Soldier head, Cultist arms, Cultist spear haft, Soldier flame from the torch, and Cultist pouch.

Apprentice

This was a modification from my first attempt, fixing the staff and adding the bag.  The apprentice is made from a Soldier body, Cultist Head, Soldier right arm, Barbarian left arm, Cultist left hand, and Soldier bag.  The staff is made from the Soldier glaive haft, Cultist shield, and Cultist skull head.

The Captain

Originally starting off to be another Enchanter, the Captain has a Cultist body, Barbarian head, Cultist right arm, Soldier left arm, Soldier backpack and pouches, Barbarian right hand with war hammer, and Cultist spear tip for a knife.

That's it for this week but be sure to stop by on Wednesday for the painting guide on Bombur from The Hobbit!