A Viking Ship and Some Normans

Another recent Cold War delivery was a 28mm Viking ship. The ship model is made by Old Glory. It comes with the ship, the mast, the oars, and the crew. I took some work-in-progress shots to help show that I painted the model in stages then did a final assembly and touch-up.

Here are a couple of shots of the hull and the deck during the painting:

Nothing unusual here. Just a variety of lighter browns drybrushed over a dark brown base coat. I then picked out the detail like the items on the deck. For these I used more muted colors, like khakis and tans, since I planned to make the vikings colorful.

Unfortunately, with the show fast upon us, we were severely pushed for time and I wasn't able to take proper pictures of the completed piece. I did manage to snap a few shots while at the show before the customer picked up the model:

The base was simply a piece of MDF. The water is Durham's water putty applied with an artist's spatula. I made the wave effects by dragging the spatula toward me and moving it back and forth in an S pattern, but also while rocking it a bit from side to side. Allison then painted the water colors on.

We also did some display Normans for Architects of War. These were the Conquest Plastics. While I am not normally a fan of plastics I did think these were pretty nice. The detail was fairly sharp and the assembly was easy. I especially liked how the lower arms attached  into a socket in the chainmail sleeve. This assembly avoids the seam at the shoulder normally found in plastic kits.

The shields are LMBS decals. Allison and I had to do a bit of work on them to get them to fit properly though. They were a tad bigger than the shields and had a hole in the center of them for a boss on the shield. This meant we had to paint the missing detail of the decal where the hole was. It isn't an easy task trying to match the colors on the decals so if you attempt it be prepared to put some time into the process.

TSR, Grenadier and GW LotR Minis

So, as promised in a previous post, here is the lot of TSR, Grenadier and Games Workshop Lord of the Rings minis that I was working on for an order.  This isn't so much a tutorial about how to paint each of these figures, as that would take forever, in so much as a series of photos with contemplations.  If you really want to know what colors I used, you could always ask and I'll tell you. 

I started by showing you how I painted the Red Dragon in the previous post.  Here's another shot of him:

 But, I also had a few Lord of the Rings characters to do.  At first I didn't know they were part of the same order; Bob must have snuck them in there on me:

The Fellowship of the Ring box set, plus Bilbo.

Merry, Frodo, Bilbo

Pippin, Sam, Gimli

 During this painting process, I was seriously wishing I had picked up that book from a few years back where they published the screen shots from LotR.  It was a beautiful book, the info and pictures were great, but at the time I couldn't justify the price.  Well, now I can justify the price. 

Aragorn, Legolas

 Most of the colors chosen are from the GW box art, some of it is from online pictures of movie stills, and some of it is my own because I didn't want the figures to appear too dingy and dirty. 

Boromir, Gandalf

 Then, there were the TSR miniatures:

Bazz Draconians

 Apparently there are little to no descriptions of what Bazz draconians look like and I honestly don't have the time to re-read the book series to see how they are described, so I went with these colors.  A number of other painters used similar colors (so we must be like-minded, scary thought really) and there were a few pieces of cover art that used greenish olive colors too.

Tika and Goldmoon

 When researching images for Tika and Goldmoon I came across some weird-ass images of fan art and people in costumes.  Please do me a favor and google Goldmoon, you'll see a hilarious image come up of someone wearing a shiny, gold jumpsuit and glasses, with a huge, gold, moon in the background.  You'll see what I mean when you get there.  Make sure you acquire some brain-bleach before viewing. 

 I'm not happy with the sculpting of their faces on Tika and Goldmoon, they are rather flat and manish.  Otherwise, these are some nice, classic figures and I can't complain too much.

I don't get too uppity about the sculpting of figures.  I look at it this way, these are the predecessors, the parents, of the modern figures.  Sure, the modern figures are more detailed and in most ways ten times better.  But, you've got to look at the technology being used today to create these new figures, they didn't have that in 1983.  You have to appreciate these older figures for their charm and nostalgia, for what they are, and admire them. 

Tode and Verminnard

 Verminnard is hilarious. I never recall thinking, back when I was a kid, that his outfit was S&M, but now I really see it.  I like the figure because it reminds me of my childhood reading the TSR series and my husband and I can bond on what we thought the characters looked like; we frequently disagree.

Drizzt

 This has got to be my favorite, if only because I had the hots for Drizzt when I was like 14.  This old skool Crystal Shard Drizzt really takes me back.  Again, don't google Drizzt unless you want to see some strange fan art of him naked and making out with Artemis.  There isn't enough bleach in the universe to undo what I've recently seen.  Oh what I do for my painting.  And to think, I was too lazy to go up into the attic to get the Crystal Shard book so I could look at the lousy cover art.  I really should have done that.  Really.

druid, Sturm Brightblade and radom ninja

 As you'll see here with the druid and throughout, I chose to add a little detail to the clothing here and there.  I feel that adding simple designs to rougher figures can really enhance them.

fighter, cleric, and druidess

 For the druidess I wanted her clothing to appear diaphanous and sheer.  There is just the hint of skin at her breast and thigh.  Later, Bob went back over her clothing with a varnish to make it shimmer a little but yet not appear slick like silk or satin.

cleric and two mages

 Again, you'll see with the cleric and mage at the center that I added designs to liven up their cloaks.  Since the cleric had a Ankh in her hand I decided to go with the deity Isis.  The mage with her staff of the moon and sphere just made me think celestial so I gave her a simple cloak of stars.

three mages

 With these three mages I patterned up their cloaks or shirts accordingly.  The mage on the left I went with glowing alchemical symbols (they are random) and made his sphere and staff one resembling fire.  As for the elder mage on the right, his robe was simple enough (flat enough) to give it a robe of eyes.  In the center, that mage just needed a patterned shirt.

I usually choose to give clothing patterns only because it suits the figure.  I don't try to force a pattern on to something.  Sometimes there are cloaks/robes that are too furled/rumpled to do much with and it would take me forever to get a pattern onto it.  And then the pattern would be obscured.  When a cloak is flat enough, that's when I like to give it a pattern or huge design.

Well, that's it for this order.  Like I said, if you really want to know what colors I used for a particular figure, just message or post to this and I'll be happy to tell you.  For now I've got to go, I've got some gardening to do and a TON of Cthulhu figures to do for an order.  Right now I'm working on some Mi-go and Ghouls.  I bet you can't wait to see them.

Later,
Allison Chicka

Games Workshop/ Citadel Finecast Orc Shamen Review

A customer sent a GW/ Citadel Finecast Orc Shamen for us to paint up for them. After hearing all the horror stories online I was a bit leery of tackling anything Finecast.  There are loads of stories of poor castings and miscasts with tons of airbubbles and chunks of resin here and there from bad molds. While we've worked with a bunch of different resins before I wasn't sure what to expect with all the bad publicity.

First thing I did was pick up a Citadel Clean Up Kit:

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m2000577a_99239999058_CleaningKit_873x627.jpg

This is a brush and a Mouldline Scraping Tool. The brush's bristles are supposed to be the right firmness for brushing away flash on their resin pieces. The Mouldline Scraping Tool is specially built for scraping off the mold lines on their resin. The kit is a bit pricey, as are all things GW. But they are quality pieces. Mouldline Scraping Tool is pretty heavy and it's neither sharp or dull.

I am a firm believer in using the right tool for the right job. I value my time greatly and the proper tool will help you do the job well and in less time than if you used something less ideal. The Mouldline Scraping Tool was amazing. It quickly and easily knocked off the light mold lines present on the figure. I also used an Xacto blade to see how that would work out and though it works, I feel the Mouldline Scraping Tool does a slightly better job. Overall I like it a lot and highly recommend it. It can't reach all the places but the fine point of an Xacto blade can take care of those spots well enough.

The pieces themselves were well cast. There was a light light mold line around each one that easily cleaned up. Assembly was a breeze. The resin glues very easily with super glue. I used my favorites; the Loctite Gel Control and Precision Max glues and they both worked just fine. The resin sticks together pretty quickly so be careful. There's not much time for re-aligning pieces once they make contact with each other. The fit on the pieces was really good. The only pieces where the fit was not right on was one of the boar's rear legs. In the end after a touch of green stuff, priming, and painting it the seam  could not be noticed though.

Now here's some pics of the cleaned pieces:

 There were only two very casting flaws on this piece. On this pic if you look at the bottom of the right leg you'll see a feather around a thong on the orc's ankle. The very tip of this was missing. Also, there was a very small airbubble on the bottom of the staff on the bone. It can be seen on the right, just above the pouch hung on the end of the staff:

This pic shows the one seam that was not a clean fit. A little it of green stuff hid this just fine:

 Another pic that more clearly shows the airbubble on the bottom of the staff:

The figure was well detailed and the detail was cast pretty crisp. It was almost too detailed as there are tons to things to paint up on it! We've had to adjust prices on GW items to better reflect the time that these castings have been taking to paint.

In all I was very pleased with this piece. GW charges a hefty sum for their models and while I felt the 3 issues I had with the piece were minor, for what they are charging per piece one would think the piece should be perfect out of the package. Would I buy a Finecast piece for my collection? Probably. The detail on the piece was excellent. Is it worth the money they are charging for Finecast? Well, that's up to the individual to decide based on what they are comfortable spending.

Unfortunately I do not have any painted images of this piece. We were in such a rush getting ready for the show I did not have time to image the piece up before heading out. It did paint up well and the customer was very pleased with the piece.

There are 3 more pieces that came in and if there is interest I may do a write up on them as we get to them to get a better idea of what the overall quality of the line is. If they are as nice as this piece was I would be more comfortable with the Finecast line.

15mm WWII German Nebelwerfers, ATGs, and Vehicles

Here's another batch of 15mm World War II German stuff. These are all Battlefront figures from their Flames of War line. Vehicles are airbrushed and markings/ numbers are decals.

SdKfz 251/1 D's and a Truck

75mm Anti-Tank Guns

Nebelwerfers

This is an addition to a customer's existing German forces. We have one more batch to do and it will round out his German Army.