Weekend WIP

I finally got around to painting some Infinity stuff. I've been nervous about painting them for a while after chatting with the guy at work who encouraged me back to the game as he is pretty handy with his airbrush. With my experience so far and what turns out to be pretty shaky painting hands I'm not sure I'm going to achieve the same results for a while... I'm happy to use it for mass basecoating though to save time and work from there.

So I got a 'test model' painted. Vanguard hacker who I wouldn't have minded having to strip the paint off as I can't see it being very commonly fielded. I really like the way it has come together, other than wanting to start from a darker grey to highlight up next time.

The backpack, and power nodes on larger models will get the OSL treatment from the airbrush, which I'm going to practice on something else next time I get everything setup :)
I'm not sure if anything else needs doing to the base, like a different colour in the gaps between hexes, but I will be coming back to do some weathering at least.

Which leads me onto the next picture.

These are the two bases for the remotes which I'd never be able to paint once when were based :) I originally had them quite a blue grey which I wanted to shade down, but decided on a contrasting colour for the blue armour, and plumped for the yellowy brown. I've added some scratches and sponged on some dark brown weathering type effects. I will highlight some of the dings and scratches and maybe add some rust or something similar as well :)

I'm looking forward to translating the colour scheme to the larger Morats and adapting it for the Unidrons etc as well. Hoping to get some airbrush time in either on Wednesday evening or at the weekend to get everything blued up

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Once More Around The Sun

I've never really been big on New Years. I know some people like resolutions and that kind of thing, but I just see it as a day like any other.

We have done the same thing for the past few years though which is to Play Malifaux at our friends house, and have a few drinks afterwards.
I played Titania again, and really stumped myself on scheme selection. 'Leave Your Mark' would have been far easier than 'Dig Their Graves' for example. Especially having The Primordial Magic to score late game. Anyway, another lessons learned game which is fine by me as I still really enjoy the master, and the knights from her box. I want to try and get my head around Titania herself as it's her I seem to use to least effect. I know there's a Schemes & Stones episode for her so I will check that out as soon as I'm able.

Following on from previous posts, I will still be listing Up & Coming items for the coming month, but they aren't targets to be hit or missed, rather what I want to be working on. As such they are subject to whim & whimsy, and are likely to change :)

So below is January's activity

-Update Project lists

-Add weathering to Hoffman's Constructs

-Get Nightmare Mccabe Table ready (should just be a case of getting wheels painted before I can pin them to bases and use them whilst the painting continues)

-Finish Titania's crew

Here's to a productive hobby and making happy memories this year

Thanks for Stopping by
Lofty

Seasons Gamings

We started a tradition last year to meet up with friends and play Malifaux around Xmas. We were at Element Games on Sunday to do just that :)

I faced both a new opponent (master) - Ironsides and a new opponent playing Pandora.

I took a fixed Justice list to both games, mainly to check out her new upgrades and the Death Marshall recruiter, and also because I was honestly expecting to face a lot more rezzers but I lucked out and drew the two opponents that weren't playing Rezzers :p

I did teach my Ironsides opponent to fear the Lady, and downed her in two attacks through the non charge bonus on her great blade plus the bonus flips from the Swordmaster upgrade. The red joker on the second damage flip sealed the deal but was over kill at that point :p

Pandora was hell. I have some really un-fond memories of playing my friends Pandora crew when it was his first master, misery, web weaver, sorrows. All that fun stuff combined with some daft placing on my first couple of activations made this a real chore to be honest. I won't say much more other than that I need to learn to block LoS and not have models too far forward when they don't need to be. Play the long game lofty :)

I also got my required models primed on Saturday, and kept working on the Raicho, including a bit of a treat working on his base.

The Press mold for the base is still quite tricky, and the picture doesn't really show it turning out better than I expected. I'm still not really a fan and for the first time in a long while I'm tempted to buy some bases for miniatures, as I don't think I can continue this method but want to maintain the hex pattern bases. I added a small fan, and two resin plugs from Zinge industries, connected by guitar string, and lowered a section of the base as I have seen this done on some bases available to buy and really like the extra dimension of the base.

I originally planned to grab some infinity stuff at Element games, and save the postage, but I couldn't quite bring myself to add to the pile of unpainted miniatures in the end which I guess I should be pleased about :p

Looking forward to getting started painting again over the festive break, so watch this space :)

Thanks for stopping by

Lofty

One Step Forward...

So I mentioned in my previous post that I'd been home from work sick, and I managed to shift the earache, but the tinnitus and migraines might need another doctors visit :(

Anyhow, I managed to get a whole wealth of work done, and magnetised nearly all the weapon options a mounted Wolf Lord might need. It took a fair while yesterday, but it will be worth it, and I've not managed to find a straight answer as to how best he should be armed :)

I also managed to make him a base, which would have photographed better before primer...

I also alluded to some kind of special surprise to reveal this weekend, and it didn't exactly go as planned...

I bought an airbrush booth, after a lot of encouragement from a painter/gamer friend of mine at work. When the earache had subsided enough to break it out to test this weekend, I duly fired everything up, compressor still works, I still have some PTFE tape, great! I primed the base above, and the other TWC bases I made on Friday, plus my Wraithlord. I washed out the brush to get a coat of dark grey on the bases, the start of which can be seen above, and of course the brush got blocked.

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to clean out the brush, and it seems (from the state of the needle) that I either put it away without cleaning it last time :( or the German grey i was using had some gunk in the cap which is now lodged in the 0.2m needle cover...
This was a bit annoying, as all I had managed to do was the work of a can of primer in about 5 times the time it would have taken :p

So the upshot of all this is that I now have the 0.5mm needle for primer and larger groups model basecoats, and a new brush in case there is something else wrong with mine, but that one will have the 3mm needle for more detailed things, and general work :)

I also ordered a brush holder and a quick release attachment set to switch between the brushes easily.

So, hopefully I'll be able to document Airbrush setup 2.0 at some point this coming weekend. That's all for now though

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Weekly Progress

I've been really ill this week. I've had Tinnitus for a few months, but this week I've had earache dizziness and migraines to go with it, so I've missed the past two days at work, which I hate doing as it means someone else has to pick up my projects.

The silver lining of course is that I've had a little extra time to spend on hobbying. I've gone a bit crazy with the pipes/tubes on my Eldar 'Vehicles' but I wanted to avoid the feeling that the weapon mounts were just stuck to the back of a dragon, so I have tried to imply that they have a power source somewhere else on the model. I'm going to add some small sections of plasticard tubes on the cabling to break up the longer patches, and maybe insinuate protection for what looks to be quite vulnerable power lines. I've also tried to cover up the riderless saddle with varying degrees of success. The Dark Elf dragon variation looks pretty self contained without any of the above so I've just left it as-is, using the Wraithknight secondary weapon mounts, plus some armour on the back.

I'm also done with the Wraithknight now, except for some gap filling on the more ill-fitting parts that I have added recently but it's no more than a few minutes work, along with blending some of the more disparate joins.
I'm really pleased  with this as I think it looks a suitably less advanced/low tech answer to the model for an Exodite force, as well as a kind of life support system for the ancient dragon.

I'm going to try and get some bases made for the Thunderwolf Cavalry and mounted Lord model ready for an exciting new development which I will hopefully be able to share this weekend...

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

On the Payroll - M C

I was going to try and do something in the style of Sons of Anarchy's SAMCRO. However, 'Wild Ones Motorcycle Club Original' comes to WOMCRO which sounds weird...

Anyway...

I've made some decent progress with the nightmare McCabe box set, which I think is well worth sharing, especially after all the sulking and carrying on I did when I first got it :p

I also had the crazy idea (probably where SAMCRO came from above) to proxy the Wastrels from the standard McCabe box as some of the characters from Sons of Anarchy from the Through The Breach kit, so we shall see what I can manage to make of that :)

Bases are done, and waiting model placement before I add any grass tufts, if at all. Of course, I couldn't wait to see how it all looked so I can hopefully still get Cherri Bomb finished without either making a mess of the base or it getting in the way :p

The models themselves have been a real joy to paint with the exception of the already troublesome Ramone Biker, but I think they all look pretty good so far.

I'm not exactly rushing through these, but they've somehow made their way to the top of my painting list while there is still so much stuff that I just primed and stuck in a drawer :/ I am trying to get some older WIP models done at the same time though (Alt Franc, Brutal Effigy, Lone Marshall, Pale Rider) and they are pretty close to being done too.

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Up and coming - May

Last month was a little looser in definition than previous iterations, but I did manage to do everything I wanted to on the vague list I set out.

The usual suspects are still loitering though...
Scenery - I've made what I think is enough scatter terrain to go along with my table setups, so the only thing that I think is left are the two mdf building kits I have left to assemble. Then perhaps some crates/similar once I can see how all that looks setup for games.
Product Reviews - I think as long as I stick to one or two a month while there are outstanding items, then this doesn't need to be added to future monthly lists :)
Infinity - I'd like to get my Sogarat Feuerbach painted up as my proof of concept for a colour scheme, but not necessarily this month. As long as I make a start I'll be happy.
Bases - Simply put, I've got a lot of bases to make for models that are sprayed and waiting for paint, so I'll keep chipping away at these.

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Catching up

Wouldn't it have been great If I'd sprayed up some more minis this weekend during the sun? Well, yes but also no. I decided to spend my time working through my backlog of un-assembled Malifaux kits, with the view that I will also get the bases made this week, models pinned to either bases or corks, ready to be sprayed next sunny weekend (next year probably :P). There's only a couple of lawyers left to assemble, after pushing through the Ortegas (including Abuela - worse that the Austringers!!) and some Neverborn which I can then spray up altogether (plus some of my wife's recent miniatures) one afternoon. This will give me a lot of choice of what to paint when I sit down to do so and maybe help with burnout etc.

I'm drawing a line in the sand now, and making an effort to complete any models which are either half done or just primed before I buy anything else.

I also made a few more pieces of scatter terrain, after reading some interesting threads on the forums, and now I think once I've finally got round to finishing my scenery kits (review incoming once I have), we have a solid two tables worth of terrain of the right mix, blocking, sever etc.

Also this week, I got my light studio in the post, and hope to be able to test it out in Sunday, as we have (non gaming) friends staying with us Friday night/Saturday.

That's all for now, will hopefully have some bases made to show soon
Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

The Scenic Route - Scatter

Alongside the paint racks I talked about in my last post, I picked up some MDFterrain bases I got one set of each, with the intention of adding variety to our current terrain collection (more on which to follow this month).

They arrived in giant sealable bags and I promptly set about making the first few ideas I had for scatter terrain, the weekend after I had made the paint racks.

-A simple wall just using broken parts of a pot stand from IKEA, with gravel and sand around the edges of the base

-Rocky outcrop using the same bits of pot stand, also with some of it cut in half to add more topography/variation

-Rough terrain from bits of scrap cork, sand and gravel

I will be painting these and adding grass tufts, hopefully this weekend. I think they look great for little to not time at all spent on them and I look forward to trying them out in some games.

CAVEAT
Some of you may already be aware but MDF as with other cheap wood aggregates is very prone to warping when damp/wet. Part of the sand/gravel process involves a layer of watered down PVA to stop it all coming off during painting. I was at least semi-prepared for warping and had found this resource in advance.
It wasn't any real shock when the wall had curved up like a banana, I wet the back and left it overnight but not before realising that the PVA glue had not only warped it but also probably helped it set into that shape, so I gently bent it and heard some creaks and cracks where it was holding that curved shape.
It is now ready for another load of water to be applied to the back (i might leave a wet piece of kitchen towel on it to stop the water pooling/running off), but It will be fine after that :)
UPDATE - I left wet kitchen towel on then and pushed them back into shape and they are completely flat again the morning after.

All in all, well worth the money and I have more ideas to create scenery from quickly, easily and at little cost.

Thanks for Stopping by
Lofty

The Living Infinite - Aggression Force

A new blog category!

Yep, you are correct I didn't have enough different things to keep on top of at once :P
I wasn't planning on making any headway into Infinity until later in the year if I'm completely honest, but I posted out of curiosity on the Facebook of our new local games store asking if anyone played Infinity locally, and the person responding from the shop wants to learn how to play so I guess we will be learning together once he has gone and looked at rules/minis :)

I had a look at what I have, and it looks as though I sold all of my 2nd edition miniatures, and have only since bought the new Morat Aggression Force starter. I remember putting a load of effort into the larger base included in the boxed set, for the Sogarat with Feurbach, who I had also pinned together. I glued him to the base ready to be sprayed alongside some other miniatures this weekend just gone but I of course forgot to spray him...

I've decided to go with a modified version of their concept colour scheme, with more dark blue, less grey and maybe orange accents? I had also hoped to be able to airbrush this project but I think more and more that this will never happen.

I'm trying to resist buying any more infinity miniatures until I know for certain that anyone is around to play. I'm still getting a definite 'No' from my regular wargaming buddy :P
If it all works out, I'm hoping for regular Wednesday evening for Infinity games at the shop.

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

On The Payroll - Robo Kitties

I managed to get the last two models assembled for Hoffman over the (busy) weekend, and the Hunters along with the Watcher raised an interesting problem.

All three models have a very thin connection point to the base. In the case of the Hunters I had to plastic glue them straight to the base for strength, and then wonder about how to base them. I eventually decided some kind of mud on the side that the models are one, and sewer type basing on the other side.

I managed to pin the watcher through one very thin and unstable leg to the base. In both cases however I wasn't looking forward to lifting them away from the magnetic storage I have been using of late (future post on my new storage/transport method incoming).

The workaround is these oddly angled pipes that are on the bases.

I have inserted a pin through the base which I've bent to be flush versus the base and then glued, I will also add greenstuff over the top of this to reinforce it. Above the base is a length of plasticard piping, filled with greenstuff which I pushed over the pin sticking out on top. I then glued this in place, and greenstuff the join on the base. Let it dry, and presto - I can pull the miniature away from the base without using the model to pull on, meaning they have no fear of coming away from the base, and I retain my sanity :)
I don't think the pipes look desperately out of place either to be fair. My only regret will be when I come to paint the hunters I think, as they are quite low to the base.

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Weakly WIP

Yeah I'm trying out puns as post titles again, bare with me, but I'm not sure it's going to last long :P

I've got a couple of things on the go at the moment, but more so because I'm weak (oh look, it relates to the title....)

I knuckled down and primed all the Neverborn bases on Saturday morning, I mixed up my own dark grey, watered it down and went to work. It took a reasonably long time as I had to use a relatively small brush instead of just glomping it onto the bases in order to preserver the already pained skin parts of most of the models.

Setting these aside to dry, I decided to start assembling some of the Hoffman miniatures I caved in and bought with some cash I received from family at Xmas. I went ahead and did Ryle and the Guardian first, along with their bases. Just missing greenstuff topping to take flagstone details.

I am going to be pinning unfinished miniatures to unfinished bases and priming the whole lot together with this crew. I seem to have a habit of owning WIP miniatures that can't be used until they are eventually finished, which is not only frustrating, but not really a good use of the minis :p

I have my Peacekeeper (WIP) is based on a sewer style of base, and I will carry this throughout the Guild Constructs.  The idea of Hoffman working on his creations in some kind of mad engineers laboratory, is one that I really like :) I also added some 'charging points' to the Peacekeeper, as he was giving me a very 'Igor' vibe, and I love the idea of him getting recharge via some mad lightning conducting thing... I may have over thought this a little. Here he is, WIP anyway.

There is a technical paint that I've seen from Games Workshop which looks like a decent slimy green kind of effect so I intend to use this to add some interest to the bases, as well as perhaps some blood, because the sewers of Malifaux end up with all sorts down there...

That's it for now, lots more on the painting desk though :)

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Mother of Monsters - All your base are belong to us

I had recently written a post about a new basing method which I had waited for (delayed) delivery of before being able to base my Neverborn models which were otherwise ready to undercoat and get on with.

I sat down over the weekend (1/1/17 it must have been) and tired to use the mountain themed Basius pad to make the bases I wanted. I don't know whether it was me not following the picture guide provided on their website, whether it was the greenstuff I was using, humidity, alignment of the moon etc. but I couldn't get any results worth using. the bases had either nice crisp details and rounded amorphous edges, or stuck to the pad which I had drenched with water, or a mess of greenstuff that didn't make its way into the details of the texture pad properly.

After working on trying different things all afternoon, I decided I could use my time a lot better, and in the hour after putting the greenstuff away, I had cork/gravel bases made up for all my Neverborn models and got them pinned to their bases, which I also added magnets to.

I was a bit disheartened if I'm honest as I use cork and gravel on most of my models so I wanted to try something different and I had hoped that this would allow me to do that. If I'd known I would end up doing this I could have had everything based a long time ago ready to use.

I'm not giving up though, I'm going to give them another go when I get around to the infinity models I have to paint.

In better news, I did get a game with Lilith this week. We visited our friends on New years eve and played a 50pts game and a henchman game before some drinks for new year. I proxied Lilith using my guild models and some empty 40mm bases and had a great time.
The scheme pool had me scratching my head whilst I was thinking in Guild mode, but once we started playing I soon realised just how different the approach to these schemes was as a Neverborn player. There are a lot of rules for Lilith which I felt aren't worded fantastically on her card (Tangle of Shadows is tricky). This wasn't helped by the fact that I was looking at the cards for the second time only whilst playing as I hadn't read and learned them, thinking I wouldn't be playing until I had finished the crew. Very different from the Guild though which is a really nice change of pace
All in all a success though, and a lot of fun to look forward to once I've got the crew painted and ready :)

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Product review - Basius Texturis Kickstarter

Turns out I can't work the Scheduler very well here on Blogspot...

I originally wanted this post to go up on the 24th to avoid complete silence over the holiday weekend, but it didn't publish when I set the scheduler to do so. Ah well :) see below anyway.

I backed a kickstarter this year for a greenstuff moulding base system. I have long been a fan of making my own bases, but I saw something similar to this system around on the internet and thought it was a good compromise between making my own bases (as opposed to buying resin bases/toppers) and saving time by making the process a bit easier.

I wont mention what I thought of how well the kickstarter was handled, as apparently delays on that platform are the norm rather than something to be annoyed about. Some creators probably handle expectations better than others too I guess.

I pitched in for 6 of the new pads mainly for Malifaux but I also grabbed two for Infinity, as I love the game system and the models even though I think I'm destined never to play it.

The pads arrived needing a good scrub with hot soapy water, as either the resin or the release agent smells unpleasant to say the least. Even now they have a strange aroma.
The detail is fantastic, very crisp and varied throughout each of the ones I have.

I went with a trial run for this on the metal Sam Hopkins I got for Xmas (along with a convict gunslinger card. 'Party Boy Hopkins' has become some kind of weird in-joke with my friend, long story). I wasn't sure about how the recess in the base would affect the process, so I used a circle cutter to cut the right sized plasticard circle to fit in the indentation.
I loaded up said circle with greenstuff and laid it face down on the pad in the area I wanted the texture from. I pushed this down using a spare 50mm square base to get even pressure after thoroughly wetting both the pad and the greenstuff.
I left it for a minute or two then carefully pried the plasticard away from the pad. There wasn't much overhanging the plasticard which is great. After it had cured for a few hours, as greesntuff requires I glued it to the base. and pinned the model as I usually would.

The only problem I had was that the plasticard circle was maybe 1/1.5mm too small, so I added some sand to cover the gap between greenstuff and the base, and it looks fine in my opinion, and I've learned what to do and what not to do for the next time I use them.

These are well worth checking out now that the kickstarter has ended, maybe even some of the larger products from their similar range if you want lots of variation on one theme.
Watch out for these featuring on at least a few models coming up :)

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty