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@Moltar: Thank you. Yeah, making those guys was fun. I do enjoy sculpting a lot every now and then.

@Dr H: Cheers, glad I finally did them!

Okay, for the past just-over-a-week I've been sick as a dog and got barely anything done. Very annoying, costs a lot of time and nerves. All I managed to do was some basic terrain making:



10 sections of the fences I built (about 60" total), 7 smaller sections of walls/hedges (about 3"-4" each). Not sure I'm 100% happy with the hedges. So far I finished three sections of 28mm dirt roads, between 27 and 30cm long and 9cm wide. I currently have one more straight section, a straight narrower section and a bending section for the wide road settling downstairs. First stab at making these flexible acrylic roads. Seems to work alright so far.


Last Sunday, right before getting all-totes-sick, I went to Wiener Figurenschau 2014 at Vienna Army Museum.


Here we go again. Really glad I cought the tasteful Vienna sightseeing bus in the picture.

Right two metres into the entrance hall I ran into a dear client of mine who told me that the Perrys were at the show. So off to the Perrys we went.





Holy lead mountain, they really brought everything it seemed (except Alan Perry who I think might be in the Netherlands, reenacting WW2). The new foot knights, what seems to be close to the whole range of metals (which is a rare thing to see 'round these parts) plus a ton more stuff from Wargames Factory, some Warlord Games stuff, some North Star (who have a nice sale going on at the moment btw) toys and so on. Have I mentioned that due to the obscene amounts of toys I got for my birthday I took a vow not to buy any more miniatures for the weeks to come?

Well, I stood firm AND highly cunningly circumvented my vow by buying two rulebooks. That new Osprey one about knights, Lion Rampant (two copies actually, one more for Mr. Gaming Nemesis), and Muskets&Tomahawks including the card deck. There were a lot more vendors at the show actually and a hot five tables displaying games (or battle setups rather). Possibly illustrating the state of wargaming pretty well.

So here are a few pictues of some of the tables. Sorry about the picture quality but flash photography wasn't allowed and I stick to rules, goddamnit! Wouldn't want Prince Eugen's cuirass to dissolve into a little mist of dust simply because I want better pictures of some toy soldiers.

First of course a table showing 28mm ECW figures cought my eye:












Very nice use of felt and cool buildings. No idea why they went with ECW over TYW but I guess the former is less icky and less work to paint due to uniforms and whatnot.

Then there were two rather hidden and deserted tables, one with some Dystopian wars models, the other one showing a rather nice little Dark Ages scene:


Not sure why but next to the setup there was a folder with printed Mordheim rules in it on the same table. So maybe they're using Mordheim rules for their Dark Ages stuff? Interesting.


Then there was the Durham Wargames Group. Very nice guys, brought a smashing looking game from the Seven Years War with them and I am devastated to report that all the pictures I took of it were crap except for one:



Showing the Austrian troops, at least a part of them (all 28mm stuff). Amazing, sloped table, very nice buildings from Hovels and some homemade, home-brewn rules set. Good stuff.

I decided not to take a lot of pictures of the usual pieces from the exhibitions because I posted those in prior reports of events from the Army Museum and I didn't want to stay for too long because I didn't feel that well. Originally I had planned to have a table/stand there as well, painting stuff, putting stuff on display and so on. Between being sick, the whole thing being a two day affair and the number of visitors I'm glad I didn't. Granted, I was only there on Sunday, not on Saturday, but I the number of visitors was alright-ish. Nothing overwhelming. I hope that the vendors made good business on the days. The ambience of course is amazing. I find it absolutely commendable if museums work together with local hobby groups and organize shows such as this one. On the other hand of course lighting is absolutely horribly at the museum so it's always good to bring a lot of lamps. I was a little disappointed to see such little fantasy/sci-fi stuff. When the show was announced I had hoped for the sci-fi/fantasy crowds to show up as well. I think that the show could definitely have been better advertised. I only knew of it because I'd see a poster at the museum back in February. I really think that the historical and fantasy/sci-fi wargamers in the Vienna area should have more events to meet up and get some kind of coherence into the community in eastern Austria.

Oh well, hope you like the pictures of the show and the terrain. Sorry, no other updates as of now.

Fences are looking good and I enjoyed the pics. Great looking boards. I really like the wind-blown tall grass one. Hope you get feeling better, Siggy!

Yeah, the fences look nice. Were they a kit or scratch-build?

Get well soon.

Thanks, guys! I got a little better today actually. Finally.

@Moltar: Yeah, very good use of felt. I see it used every now and then for gaming tables and it looks great.

@Dr H: Everything in the picture is all scratch-build (except for ze Germans of course ).

Today I got back to do proper stuff and you can hardly get any more proper than some of those mighty fine Brotherhood models. The two in the middle, The Raven and the Queen of Shadows (such amazingly lovely figures. Loved doing the QoS again and I'm blown away by The Raven. Really proud how the colour scheme on her worked out). The two in the left and right are WIP. Really like the red lady too though. She probably got involved with the Brotherhood but thought "why dress up in all grey and black if I can dress up like a goshdarned superhero with a crossbow?".

Right-e-o, update!

First off, a mercenary for the Imperial warband, so he's wearing a little red and turquoise:


I wanted to make this one look really handsome and pretty much like the most awesome dude in the history of mankind. The kind of exotic danger dude you'd find in a penny novel and such. So he got these eyes.




Here's half-face-half-skull dude. Very, very cool model again. He's part of the Brotherhood warband.




Speaking of whom...



Aw yeah, done and done. Hope you like them!

Stunning Sigur! Wow... Some of your best work I think. What... no Guy Fawkes??!

Great job. They all look excellent.

@Gitsplitta: Yus, these guys are proper venetian and whatnot. Thanks for the comment!

@Dr H: Thanks. They took way longer than planned, I couldn't charge as much as they'd be worth but I really like the litte fellas.


Heyhey, another 28mm WW2 review. The article summarizes my thoughts on my first contact with Artizan Designs 28mm WW2 figures. Is their good reputation amongst many wargamers justified?



http://www.battlebrushstudios.com/2014/09/review-artizan-designs-ww2-germans.html


Hope you enjoy the review.

Wow the group shot of the Freebooters Fate minis is amazing so many excellent painted minis all together, very impressed.

those Freebooter minis look awesome in the group shot...
i love how little nitty-picky things about a single minis paintjob just completely disappear in a group shot...
some of the highlights that look a little harsh individually, really help a model stand out in a group...

keep up the good work...

cheers
jah

@GiraffeX: Thanks. I just got done editing pictures of smaller groups and wow. I'm not one to blow my own kazoo but I do love the look of these models so much.

@jah-joshua: Hey, thanks very much! Yeah, single minis against the white background may look a little stark but these are gaming figures after all and despite the very muted colours have to "pop" on the table. I always try to keep that in mind. And even on showcases and so on - lighting never is as strong as when I take pictures (presumably) so they have to sport contrasts. I'm considering using different photo background in the future instead of white. What do you think?

Alright, some more scenery I made. Today - white fences, a.k.a. (light) cover, not blocking LOS:



Aw, look! The little door actually opens up in case Lt.Perkins here thinks the war isn't going too well and it's time to go home.


It's almost enough to surround that little patch of plowed field I made a few months ago.


The reason why it's not too long in total and why the single pieces don't have the same length is twofold: First, I didn't originally plan to have a little door in there. Second, these pretty much are just a by-product of the tall, LOS-blocking wooden fences I'm working on (7 sections of 13-and-a-bit cm each, about 48mm tall). It's probably not hard to tell that I made these out of coffee stirring sticks.. Very simple pieces of terrain, quickly done, highly recommended.

For the tall fences I'm still not quite sure how to base them. I even considered making two sets of bases with just pins sticking out of them and sticking the fences on when needed. So I could switch between say "standard grassland bases as you see on these fences above and desert/steppe like bases, maybe for something urban too. The thing is, I pretty much need terrain for all eventualities and I barely have a set of regular grass/woods one. So the whole prospect of making up a proper collection of terrain is kind of daunting and I try to keep stuff exchangable and /or generic.

These white fences above probably are the least generic stuff I've got but as I said, they were just a byproduct and I wanted to make something of the rounded ends of the stirring sticks. And they still probably fit for 19th, 20th, 21st century. I mainly made them with the US in mind so they'll work for the American Civil War as well as the American War of Independence and ...well, maybe some other stuff. Zombies, alien invasions, something like that. To be perfectly honest, a certain image I had in mind whilst making these ...



I'd love to do an X-Com thing on the wargaming table some day. Oh well. As you may be able to tell, I'm already kind of in a Halloween mood, so all kinds of ideas are bubbling up. All for which of course I have no time what so ever.

Anyway, enough talk, hope you like the terrain.

Limited response? Time to break out the old Spehs Mareenz!



These are two WIP test miniatures for some Space Hulk Chaos Space Marines. I was tempted to do the weathered bronze this way because it's an easy way to get some contrasting colour onto red CSM. I also recently got me a bottle of GW's "technical" Nihilakh Oxide. I don't know, it's probably just because I'm used to doing this effect differently but from first try-outs I thought that the stuff is toss. There really is absolutely no merit in getting this stuff if you've got a remote idea of making the stuff yourself (turquoise mixed with varnish/water/wash/...).

Anyway, doing some funky stuff on these terminators. What do you think of the colour scheme? The customer said he fully trusted me with coming up with some colour scheme for them. Over on Tale of Painters I recently did an article on the Terminators I painted in recent years and noticed I almost exclusively painted red terminators. Why the heck did I go red again on these guys? Well, I want to do the Genestealers in the traditional colours so red and gold contrasts them nicely. Only whilst looking through colour schemes and talking to people I realized that the colour scheme I had in mind was very, very similar to what the Crimson Slaughter dudes look like. Maybe I had the look of them in the back of my mind.

What do you think of the look of the dudes? They're not fully and all finished but that's about the look I'm going for.

I knew there was another blog I meant to come back to and comment on.

Really like the fences. Good job.

Good work on the Terminators.
Odd thing to like, but I like the blue helmet

Sorry, just figured you get tired of my commenting all the time.

Fences look great! Nice balance between a playable design and something that looks appropriate with the figures. Really like the color combination on the chaos termies too. Should be fantastic when complete.

Awesome stuff Sig. You have to go to a gaming convention to get a showing like you had at the museum.

I agree that red is the common color. This is on of the reasons I'm going Blue on mine. Different and I need a change from painting yellow!

A friend of mine is into Tall ship Naval warfare. Any recomendation on a good system? Minis?

@Dr H: Thanks very much. Whilst painting the first guy especially I always flip-flopped between "this looks nice" and "this is the worst thing I've ever done".

@Gitsplitta: :p As a general rule of thumb: I never ever get tired of comments. The plog just looks a little sad if I'm the only one to post in here. Thanks for the comment, mate. I too think that the terminators will look really good once the whole unit's done.

@solar_lion: Cheers. I wanted to go blue but I intend to paint the genestealers the old regular blue/purple thing so I needed something that contrasts and didn't want to go Nurgly. 18th October I'll be at VIVAT II, Austria's only wargames show that's exclusively about historical wargaming. Doing the painting workshop again there and I'm convinced it's going to be a great day out. I might also attend Tactica in Hamburg this year (after burying my plans for going to Crisis). And of course I'll be at Austrian Salute 2015 next year in March. Actually, there'll be some naval stuffs at VIVAT this year. Somebody's doing Trafalgar and built some really pretty ships. I've seen some of the models unpainted in real life. Very nice stuff. Here's a link to info on the game including miniature manufacturer and rules: http://www.vivat-htt.at/trafalgar-1805-nelson-und-villeneuve-auge-in-auge/


Here's a picture of the rest of the bases:



As you can see, very simple and straightforward. I was thinking of making a mould of these so I can recast them at any point (as I do with some of the bases I do) but time is tight (as it always is) and I can make these again relatively quickly lateron and then make proper resin copies.

Sometimes simple is best. Very cool that you make your own bases. Might have to try that some day just for fun.

@Gitsplitta: I always thought that's the regular thing to do? :p




Here, I just painted these as quickly as possible. They aren't perfect by any means and it seems like I got the worst possible angle of them, not showing the pretty sleeves at all but whatever. They're for a test game of Lion Rampant, humans versus Dark Elves. :p

New WIP picture of all of the Terminators:




...and a bunch of Knights I did over the weekend. Such cool models (released in 1992 IIRC), especially the faces. As with the Greatswords, these had to be painted fast, (they're only for a test game to introduce a friend to wargaming and for testing a new set of rules) so the quality isn't quite up there.

Termies are coming along well Sigur.

Those Knights are quite impressive even as a fast paint job, they look much better than my normal

@GIraffeX: Thanks muchly! To be fair, the paintjob probably was only speedy by my sluggish standards. Been working on the guys between Friday and Sunday on and off again (most of Saturday and Sunday though) and just left out the last 15% of the work, so lots of the neatening up, some detailling and so on.

Well, what do you know, it's another update tonight!



But that's it now, good night.

Beautiful looking work!

Wow. Nice every thing.

Love the face on the second Terminator in that latest pic, Siggy.

I'm with Dysartes... they all look great as per usual, but that one is special.

 GiraffeX wrote:
Termies are coming along well Sigur.

Those Knights are quite impressive even as a fast paint job, they look much better than my normal

Mine as well.. Termies and posessed look great ..Love the metals!

Good work on all the armoured chaps, still great for a quick job.... er, and the other armoured chaps that are slightly more futuristic too.

@ckig: Thanks very much!

@Warboss_Waaazag: Thank you. That's the kind of comment I like to see.

@Dysartes: Cheers. There's a bunch of fun stuff on these possessed sprues.

@Gitsplitta: Glad you like the fella so much. I have to admit that I wasn't sure about that head because it looks a little ill-defined but there is something about him.

@Solar_lion: Thank you! To be fair, they took me quite a while to paint of course, it's just that I basically forwent (I'm fairly sure that this is the first time in my life I'm using this word. I had to look it up because it sounded so weird at first) the last 20% of the work of neatening up things and so on.

@Dr H: Thanks, doctor!



Alright, there's a new update in town. Still WIP but getting there.