Really loving your Empire stuff Weets!

Cheers y'all. Computer problems are plaguing me, but I've jury rigged the old XP laptop to work for 25 days (seriously, microsoft suck for pulling XP support). So here are the commission pieces, very beautiful they are too. The first ones nearly done:

Oh my god! that black jacket! wowzers that's nicely done!

Well thanks! It was a major headache and needed much tweaking and layering. I believe it really does look like a black leather now though.

More progress. She's not finished yet but I cant resist an update before I go make the dinner (chicken and mushroom pie with home grown broad beans). Such a great model, her proportions are so real she almost looks like she breathes. She reminds me of someone I knew in school who was a killer at hockey. Bloody murder that game is...

That's bloody good. Great job. My only niggle is maybe the transition from stock to barrel's a bit vague?

Great job on these Weety.
Nice models and you're doing them justice.

Yes I agree with that graven, I'll make the stock and the pump grip brown, and add a little sparkle to the barrel.

Thanks Dr H.


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Here we go.

Why in the blue blazes would you go bare-legged during a zombie holocaust? You're just asking for a scratch to get infected...

Sorry.

How're you finding working in a larger scale, weety?

Much improved. Okay, and now you're going to hate me: how feasible are grazes on the knees/shins? Dysartes got me thinking, blame him...

Nooo...don't harm the lurvly lady!

Those minis look awesome! Any chance that he'll commission you for some of the zombies as well?

Well I guess she left her legs bare because they were all out of shin pads in the spots closet. Errrrm. Probably also because the sculptor is very good at legs.

Dysartes, its very easy on the eyes, but it does take a while longer and uses more paint. One has to be subtler with washes and highlights. Are you still thinking of Dr Doom?

Don't worry JB the zombies are straight up after the survivors.

The one with the mask looks like she is holding a vibrator

Sometimes, size IS important, Miss Dee.

Good finishing touches, Weety.

 weetyskemian44 wrote:
Dysartes, its very easy on the eyes, but it does take a while longer and uses more paint. One has to be subtler with washes and highlights. Are you still thinking of Dr Doom?

Doom is, yes.

Well! Goodness me! I think its a machette. I'll be sure to pass that one onto the client (not).

Dysartes - hope your not in a hurry! I seem to have a queue developing. This month I feel like I really might not regret taking contemporary crafts as my degree subject. Maybe one day I'll even pay back some of that loan (not).

NEXT!

What do you think of this guy? I'm not done with those eyes yet, they look a bit mad right now, and he needs eyebrows.

I think he stole one of my shirts. It's a Pendleton so I want it back (unless he gets blood all over it).

Great work on the flannel's pattern and the jeans look right too!

That is very nice, Weety. The jeans are brilliant.

Cool I think its ok then, except the eyes, which look like googly eyes.

I would have it finished by now but my day job is like 32 degrees C (89F) hot with no breezes and I need a while to get steady again. Its in one of those old concrete box with no windows type buildings that they blatantly built in the 60s with the intention of it having a complicated system of ducts and air con units. I think small birds and animals have now taken up residence in the ducts as the whole thing slowly returns to nature. There's shrubs growing on the roof. Its a perfect example of entropy in a closed system as no one from head office will ever spend any money on it. Lol, thats my morning rant over.

Ahhh its good to get some time off work. Here's what I did today. None are quite finished. Pink tee shirt girl may get a hello kitty and everyone needs work on the eyes. Urban camo for the molotov dude.

Ooh, lots of shinies!

Fantastic work on the NYD figs, love the flannel shirt and the leather jacket

Empire stuff was all good, nice job on the hats.

Skaven were great, look forward to seeing your warpflame thrower crew.

Thankyou monkey. I love making hats now. I may make hats for all the other militia.

I'm fairly sure I'm done with the survivors now. Certainly spent at least 6 hours on each maybe a touch more. Zombies tomorrow! Click on the pics to see bigger and vote, or not vote, whatever floats your boat.

Those are very well done, Weety. I can just never get over game companies that put out cheescake models. Kind of like when I was teen and couldn't understand all the chain mail bikinis in my D&D stuff.

In NYD miniatures defence, the girls have very normally sized assets, so I'm not sure it classifies as cheesecake. There's a lotta long luscious legs though!

I like long, luscious legs. And those are some mighty fine minis. Don't get me wrong. Hey... that gives me a thought.

I'd like to see you paint a Sister of Battle in all her armored nunnery might.

Great job Weety.

Like the tattoos on machete-girl.
Good job on the kitty free-hand.
Think I've commented on the rest already.

All looking good and voted for.

Well. Zombies got readied yesterday. I'm somewhat disturbed by the pregnant one. Wasn't there a zombie foetus in Braindead?

At the carboot today we found 4 miniature overproof vodkas that had been sealed in someones cellar for 40 years. Cracked one open, it's a little musty tasting but still mostly ethanol and just a little methanol. Can always use it to sterilize wounds! Also got an autobiography of Bruce Cambell from evil dead, the book of Watership Down and all of the hellraiser filums.

Anyway zombies

 weetyskemian44 wrote:
Wasn't there a zombie foetus in Braindead?

There was indeed, and it ended up in a blender.

Good haul at the carboot.

Look forward to painted zombies.

Sort the wounds from the inside?

What! you like Hellraiser? Oh my god I love you right now :-) I'm actually just reading Clive Barkers Biography. I've been a huge fan for a long time now.

I love film generally. But weird films are the best. Used to have a few 'books of blood' with short stories by him. One of those short stories inspired the Candyman films! I must get to work now, but thanks for looking everybody, zombie painting must happen tomorrow.

Zombies!! These things are pretty gross...

Great work, Weety. Really like how you did the broken arm of the zombie schoolgirl.

Yeah, that one really puts me off my dinner...

Awesome zombies, Weets!

Super nice paintjob! Your style really works well for zombies, gives them a nice gritty feel to them..

Awesome sculpts as well I have to add, I can really picture them shambling along menacingly.

Excellent stuff, liking that purple tinge to the rotting flesh

Thanks Commander and monkey. I'll pass any compliments for the sculpts on the the creator. He'll like that.

The first zombie (pregnant and glowing) has such a horrible face. It reminds me a of a snippet of a war poem they made me read in school "the leering face of death". Can't remember which one that's from or who wrote it. Probably Siegfried Sassoon.

Zombies are fun until you think about how they are just like dead people. I thought to myself yesterday "I'm imagining what decomposing flesh looks like and painting a pregnant woman's corpse" and for a second I felt like the toxic junction of miniature painting. Actually toxic junction would have been a great place to look for inspiration but I just don't have the stomach for real life dead people so I watched resident evil instead.

Toxic Junction is that a band or an Underhive train station? Great work really sinister and gruesome

I wouldn't know... I've certainly never been there. Its where sick people (or serious artists engaged in direct zombie research) go to look at pictures of dead people, among its varied and mostly undesirable subject matter, kinda like a 4chan version of youtube. But I've never been there. If you're in GCHQ you can check apparently.

Thanks for the like!

And I think a larger picture of that nasty fracture is appropriate here.


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Ohhh I think I'm gona hurl...

O.k they are brilliantly outstandingly disgustingly brilliantly painted weets!

Thanks nerdster. I'm especially happy with the skin. The recipe is almost all vallejo. I started with my usual P3 armour wash over white primer which gives a graded gray. Over this I wet blended a fairly thick layer of 'old rose' a pale reddish pink. Then I thickly applied a flesh-tone wash, and before this dried I added basic flesh tone, and sorta mixed it in with a stippling motion. Finally highlights in pure white with flesh tone mixed, bloodstains in flesh-tone wash mixed with red wash and a very watered down blue wash in certain areas I thought might be more ripe.

Wow... that's looks.... disgusting.

Nicely done weets. The skin on the legs really shows off your talent well. Pretty darn amazing. The blue was an excellent add.

I had a quick browse through your thread, and I must say, I really likin' those old school beakie marines! Lovely paint job on those (and on the other minis as well!)!

Thanks! It was such a long time ago - perhaps I should do more of em? I've got lots more unpainted. There's never enough hours in the day!

In other news I'm starting the Mantic Marauders. Looking forward to it but I have the classic mantic problem that some of the models are badly cast. I'm probably going to have to do a bit of sawing and putty work for this one:

Well I fixed those orks. It turns out that you can bend this plastic with hot water.

Here's my prototype ork. Whadaya think? Too pale? I'm considering another thin coat of green wash on the skin.

The darker they are the more boss they are

Well the client wants another layer of green so he'll be more boss.

All orks are boss. i just can't afford another horde army.

Looking good....and I don't see another layer of green changing that for the worse

Hiya internet folks! I've been trapped in stupid work a lot recently serving tourists cut price junk food and other tat. Unfortunatly this cuts into my painting time. One day I will quit the day job I will! Here's what I did manage to get done.

..

Excellent looking orks. I love 'em.

Yeah, good job. Really liking the colours on the guns.

Well I've got the day off tomorrow so I might paint the big un's in between the inevitable chores. Pies don't cook themselves you know. Well not round these parts anyway... And there's laundry. Oh woe is me.

Pies to wash, clothes to cook...oh it never ends.....

Nice work on the Orks. Nice skin you have going on.

That's right monkey, oh the carpet needs ironing and I must vacuum my work shirts. At least I don't live on a barge, I'd have to scrape barnacles off its bottom!

Hi Dr H. The skin was a multi layered thing. I started with pastel green base coat, used old rose to highlight the lips, nose and veins and then its 2x green wash layers and 1x layer of umber 2:1 grey wash mix.

I wonder what you've all been up too? I'll go have a butchers.

More painting got done inbetween laundry and such. Here are a few choice shots. It seems hard to carry off NMM on such large minis, I think maybe I'm missing something. More dirt maybe.


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More shadows...


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And don't tell me, you can see mold lines right? Damn mantic and their inferior restic plastic.

Looks good mate! And no, no obvious lines. But working with other companies' plastics does actually make me appreciate GW sometimes...

Yes its so easy to cut through GW plastic neatly.

I added a whole bunch of shadows and dirt just now. I can definitely see the difference its made. I just spotted another mold line! Arrgh the curse of perfectionism.

....

They're looking rather spiffy. And now I'm hankering after some to cut up for my boyz

I don't know. Those look a little too hi-tech to be GW orks.

Nice work Weety. I like the little splashes of colour.

Monkeytrolls orks are more high tech than most orks though vallhalla,

More splashes today I think. Time to finish the boss.

In other news picked up a nice bunch of old school orks at the carboot sale with an old school paintjob that I'll have to show you before I strip it. its so vibrant and bright and early 90s. I want em dirty and dark as befits a dungeon ork though.

I got 7 arrer boyz and a command section for a pound each, and a nice catapult and crew for a fiver(I'm not sure what they need that for in the dungeon, maybe they are sentimental about it and just keep it in the corner). Factoring in the saving on postage that's a saving on internet prices. Pics laters

Here is what I got from the carboot!

I DID NOT PAINT THESE!! Sorry to use caps but I just know someone will be congratulating me on my new retro style shortly. Check out the 8 ball catpult ammo. Whoever painted these back in 1991 or whenever had style and a steady hand.

I just couldn't resist the princess. I saw her in a box of junk and thought I'd take her home.

...

Nice find Weety. Looking forward to seeing your work on the princess.

Nice retro style you're using these days weety! And love the weathering on the princess!

Look forward to seeing how you deal with these....and Leia is a great find, no sensible geek should be able to resist that....

I knew it monkeytroll! Nice weathering, yeah it looked like she'd been in the carbooters trunk for many years rubbing around in a box of old coins and keys. That'll weather your Leia a bit.

I'm sure this was just supposed to be the trash compactor scene Leia! I mean if that's not the face of impending doom I don't know what is!

Hooray I got it finished! This was fo sure my favourite faction. Lions with chainsaws, hmmmm. I went with the paint scheme off the box cos I couldn't decide what the right colour for lions with chainsaws in their mouths would be (sharks with fickin lasers on their heads homage there I think?).

Anyway some pictures.

...Lions with chainsaws...

What...? Oh, probably some kind of team/squad name or something...

...lions with chainsaws in their mouths...

Wha...? Holy... There are lions...with chainsaws in their mouths... *mind blown*

Great job Weety. Looking really nice.

Oh my, that bunch looks like fun now that you made them all so pretty.

Much love for the carboot treasures too. I still like that style of paint scheme for Orcs and Goblins. Over the top? Perhaps, but you zoggin' know wot yer dealin' wit, dontcha!

I. Love. That black and red uniformed ork.

Hi thanks for stopping by. You may wonder why I'm up at five in the morning... that's because its CARBOOTSALE day! Do Americans have carboot sales? There's nothing quite like it for modern antiques. And you can try out the lost art of haggling. It's fun, try it with me "What? Ten for that? You must be mad!"

Thanks valhalla it was a complicated scheme to get right. Black is tricky.

Yeah JB I'm still in two minds about stripping them even. The guy I got them off didn't do a half bad job and it gives them period charm (aaahhh the 90s, my decade, now long dead, when I could still believe in the future, whatever happened to the future??), maybe I will just zing them up a bit with some wash and highlights, make em look like an old 'eavy metal job.

Dr H its good to know that there are such things in the world and that you can buy the whole faction for just 19 euro's and have them for your armies of entropy. What could be better than lions with chainsaw mouths to reduce order in the universe? Do it Dr H you know you want to...

We call them Garage or Yard sales, but yeah, we have em You do wonders with those Mantic Orks weets! Seriously!

The sheer amount of goblin green on those OG Orks burns the eyes

I've heard of those but i'd always pictured them being small affairs, maybe I'm wrong though? Probably got the wrong impression from the name. Being in america its bound to be bigger than I would expect.

Our local car boot sale might have several hundred cars full of junk for sale out in a field and several thousand happy junk buyers like myself wander the ranks of folding tables. Its like some moden bazaar, a market fair for the 21st century. Its where playstations go to die. There's treasure in them there car boots, buried under mountains of tat, junk and obsolete machinery. I do love it!

Hoping that the guy with the orks will be there again so I can do him a deal on the rest. He also had a chaos champ on a gryphon, that stupid giant skeleton thing (nagash?) and some boar riders.

Wish me luck

Ah, when it is a large consolidated event like that, we call them "Flea Markets". In Germany, they call them "Flohmärkte".

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/08/living/tl-flea-markets/

I suppose the difference from a carboot is the absence of cars though some American flea markets have people selling stuff from the beds of their pickup trucks.

or "Swap Meets" I suppose

Its great that these informal markets still exist. I keeps people in touch with the original systems of commerce, bartering and haggling. And everything from everyones childhoods is there, today we found the osbourne encyclopedia of the world circa 1980 - so many memories, that book taught me everything I knew.

Also got a few more orcs, some large fellow gazumped me on nagash and the griffon, I couldn't get close enough to the table. He saved me from making a horible mistake to be honest, its one of the daftest looking things I've ever beheld.

Some folks think that old Nagash model is one of the ugliest models that GW ever made.

Then there is the beauty that is the Razorgor.

Well I had to look that up. Its not pretty... it is supposed to be a giant mutant warthog though, so I'm going to give it a C-.

I was just trying to describe to a Canadian what a carboot sale was the other day, she was quite baffled!

Great finds though, when you repaint that catapult you should keep the 8 ball (or at least paint it again as homage to our mysterious painter)

Loving the marauders! You even managed to make the chainsaw lions look good. I threw mine straight into the bin after chopping off the useful bits...

.... Where are these carboot sales that actually has GW stuff?

All I could find at my local one is unbranded batteries and Sweets which are "only slightly" out of date.

Nice find!

Hi I'm back! laptop trouble. I'm still running XP.

Well I have a break from commissions for however long it lasts. I wonder what to paint? Hunters? A knight maybe? I could go for it with a really bright and colourful knight on horsey.

I wish I had a good source of villagers. Villagers are a problem, it seems they are all rather expensive for an unarmed model, and frequently lacking detail. I think hasslefree do the best villagers, but they do want an arm and a leg for the best ones. Also I have a hankering for granny weatherwax in an opera dress but thats a tenner with postage. One day...

Car boot again tomorrow if its dry enough. Got my junk sack ready and my lucky haggling hat is dry. I want something by faberge for under a pound preferably but I'll settle for a Dvd

I think a nice bright knight on a horsey sounds good.

Helldorado has some peasants. I'll have a rummage!

Are those the oriental peasants with the straw hats? I can't see any others. I was looking more for unarmed npc types to fit in with Adv heroquest. Barwench, blacksmith, cleric, random people with farm impliments etc.

I didn't find any minis at the carboot but I did get bioshock infinite so I didn't get around to painting a knight yet. Fun game.

I was thinking of these two guys (middle and right):

I've got them somewhere...

An oar and a rolling pin... hmmm. Not farm impliments but close. Is he a baker? And maybe that's not an oar, maybe its a bread oven paddle. Yes, It must be, why else would a baker have an oar.


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And the other guy might qualify as a back alley thug.

But I would never look a gift horse in the mouth. And every village needs a baker and a mugger.

Wsn't there a militia set for either the Empire or Brettonia, that would make suitable villagers? Had some pichforks and the like amongst the weapons.......Or was it the Mordheim sprues? Hmm, it's all geting grey and misty....memories fading.....

There were some Mordheim villagers, but I expect they're goin for piles of pennies on ebay these days.....

Note quite what your looking for weety but Otherworld Miniatures have loads of cool minis for your Dungeon.

http://www.firestormgames.co.uk/wargames-and-miniatures/otherworld-miniatures#category_270818

Cool thanks. I found what I was looking for at fenryll miniatures already though. But otherworld minis looks like a good place to pick up the random stuff too. If I ever need a cockatrice or a basilisk I'll know where to look now. Such a wide variety of animals.

I've got the empire militia set monkeytroll, but I don't want all my villagers to look the same. I get bored of painting the same legs and there's only 4 types.

Boris and Loris have rounded up a gang of their hunter pals and can now be fielded as skirmishers for the empire



And my first knight is ready for colour (I can't decide what colour though, need to look at some pictures of knights)

Reaper has a selection of townsfolk too I think. You should craft bowstrings for them weets!

Cool I'll check em out. I need a whole village full. I don't know why except to say that I love tiny people.

Tiny bowstings?! What would you make them out of? I've got some really thin wire that came off a wine bottle...

Natural fibers, like from a stem you might usually throw away

Lets see what do they make cordage from from... jute or cotton or something...

I'll give that a go later. Must get to work now bysiebye.

Good start on the knight. Look forward to what you do with him.

Nice group of archers.
Is that a mould-line I spy?

Nah you must be imagining it. Cant possibly be any left... Where?

Second from right. wrist to elbow? Could just be the stitching of the cloth.

That's a hair or fuzz...

On close inspection its a mold line. Damn those sneaky mold lines


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Still they're only rank and file...

I've been waylayed by the potato harvest today and had no time for paint. Its like 'the good life' but less funny.

Potato harvest? Is that a euphemism?

They are sneaky buggers, those mould lines. We will say it's the stitching on the sleeve.

You could make bowstrings using UHU - I've seen spider webs done that way.

No defo just potatoes vallhalla - I wish it was a euphemism for something lighter. But we've got enough spuds for a year now so its worth it.

Thanks Doc, stitching...

Good Idea dystartes, It could be messy but I've got a steady hand, I'll practice on a spare bow.

I've a lot of boring hard work at the mo what with potatoes and everyone in my shop quiting at the same time so no updates yet. I had a very weird day yesterday, the shop seems to have picked up a mascot in the form of a racing pigeon, and everytime the boss chased it out it would come back in the other door and perch on my tills.

Also two of our staff just suddenly quit after both claiming to be ill for a few days, then an hour after they handed their noctices in some young people came in and said to me "we'd like to warn you that some of your satff have been stealing from you." "Oh right" says I, "you mean watsisname and watserface?(names changed to protect identity) That sounds entirely believable"

Persoanlly I don't think we sell anything worth pinching, but I suppose I'm in the minority there.

Sorry this wasn't about warhammerz. Cant be helped. I'm on holiday next week so lots of warhammerz soon. I've got a bright wizard in the post.

I'm brushing up my group photography skills to get me in the mood for painting. Getting these big shots is tricky with a small camera. I had to take it right under the skylight with two daylight lamps and a light tent made out of paper. Still not getting a very good level of detail, but its ok from a distance.

Look great all together as an army

Excellent "family" photo! It is almost a Warhammer Fantasy army.

Yeah the regiments need a bit of filling out yet but before long it'll be an army. It was fairly unplanned at first but now I'm always on the lookout for old metal empire models or the new plastic stuff if its on-sprue.

There's a lot of painted modern plastic models out there for good prices, but I want to put the models together myself and get all the extra conversion goodies from the sprue.

My first knight is finished! I'm so pleased with it (considering its a battlemasters model I made it look good). I went for a knights panther scheme. Hoping to get some more panther knights soon. Will everyone just stop out-bidding me! 2hours to go on a nice group of four old metal knights panther with modern plastic horses. Fingers crossed etc. Its my birthday today so I might go ahead and wack a high bid on them. I got shoes, perfume, chocolate, wine and lead crystal wine glasses, so I'd better get the warhammer in myself...

Happy Birthday Weety!

Knight looks nice. Good work on the shield and the metals (obviously) look great.

You can drink the wine out the bottle, so stick the glasses up on ebay and get some figures

Happy birthday weets, no homemade wine this year? Your post seems far too intelligible for it to be blackberry wine o'clock which I was quite expecting by now


That is a lovely finish on the armour, there a touch of something else in with the armour wash? It looks almost pinkish in hue, suitable for a slaaneshi knight.......

Yes happy bday weets , lovely looking knights -- i was trying to think of something witty to say about garters and knights and presents , but failed ;-( sorry -- i cannot believe your on your 194th page ..how time flies..

Lurvely knight! I really like the purple and how it works with the yellow and blue. I never would have considered matching those three colors on the same mini.

And Happy Birthday too!

I suppose the metal areas do look a bit purple/pink. Its actually a very complex grey but it is tending towards lavender in the shadows and blue in the highlights. I think NMM is improved with a little subtle colour.

Thanks for the birthday wishes all. Monkeytroll I've given up on homebrew for a while as I've too many hobbies and that one encourages drinking. Been making blackberry crumble instead.

I didn't win the knights. Maybe next time. I got some knight horses though so I'll look out for some horseless knights.

You should try a more complicated blazon on your next night- So often the heraldry on miniatures is simple 2-color schemes, when often in real life they had quartered and barred and quarter-barred-champhered-chevroned mix'n'matches of a half dozen individual arms on their own coat.

Ok, but this was just my first ever knight so I took the easy route. I might get the chance to try that though Anvildude as I ended up ordering 8 new plastic empire kinghts last night. That's the second time this has happened, I must be starting to like new plastic or something.

Actually I'm feeling a bit rebelious and heretical over the vanilla thing of painting all the knights in a regiment the same colour. How much nicer it would look to have a glorious rainbow of hereldry. Then again if I ever need to sell up then a vanilla nights panther would be easier to find a buyer for. So I'm not sure what to do I'll decide when they get here.

Here are some more meat shields for the empire, and a wizard. Soon the amy will be complete! Mwahahaha!

Here, that Drummer git's wicked...

Maybe add some scribbles to the swordsman's parchment?

Wizard looks like he could be fun.


You know, you should get your brewing back on-line, get your kiln back on-line, and start putting out home-made wine in home-made flasks....

Belated happy birthday, weety!

The knight looks good, and I'm intrigued to see how the wizard comes out.

Monkeytroll, yeah I'll make that my business plan for when the poo hits the rotary ventilation device.

The wizard looks like a good subject for experimental colours and textures. Swirly patterns and stuff.

was just painting the crossbow dude and I'm taking extra special care as he is a rare Tillean mercenary I think. That's warhammer for Italian probably.

I'm very happy as I just managed to score a single old metal knights panther. I couldn't afford more than one at that price though. But he will give the regiment class so he's worth it.

Happy belated burpday

And the minis look cleen.

As always, your stuff is amazing.

Well thanks for the positive vibes valhalla and miss dee. I had a great birthday and I'm currently sticking together lots of knights.

I noticed that the box has enough bits to make loads more than 8 knights so I got some more bodies and horses from the bits store. I'll have 2 regiments, one of panther and one of reiksguard. And the knights of the white wolf heads can be pirate heads or whatever.

1001 Knights?

This will be interesting. I just need popcorn, a large bowl, a comfy chair, a microwave, a large soda pop, some salt, a happy Daschund, a side table, opera glasses, a large feather, a plushy rug, light, good conversation, a glass of Riesling wine, a Warhammer Fantasy rulebook, another soda pop, a midget, a cool breeze, a few miniatures to paint, a nice picture on the wall, gel, a Rubik's Cube, high top sneakers, and a fluffy pillow...and maybe a sandwich.

They would have to be Arabian knights...

Everyone needs a happy daschund in their life.

Well if you are sitting comfortably, then I shall begin;

I totally get the appeal of these new plastic multipart kits, there are so many spare bits. I'll be using the spare heads, shields and weapons for years to come. On the other hand its depressing looking on ebay and seeing how many thousands of knight kits were stuck together badly and never painted or just crudely daubed with colour. All that wasted plastic and once entusiastic hobbyists daunted into giving up because it seemed like too big a job. Its like watching kittens drowning.

So I had better do a proper good job or I'll just be contributing another failed project to the waste heap of plastic mediocrity... Painting requires determination and a can-do attitude. That's my motivation, no more models for the shelf of shame...

More knights are on the way, but here is the core of the two units ready for primer;


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Oh and I finished the Tillean mercenary. He's a handsome fellow with his hair and distinctive face and if they weren't so darned expensive I'd have a whole band of them.

Weety... has to do a proper job... on a mini.

I can't comprehend that statement.

Love the painting style!

Those old plastic Knights do nothing for me I'm afraid, I'm sure you will get some joy out of them though with your standardly awesome paint job

Good stuff.

Just look at that variety of crests and armour types! Look at those different shields! They're just screaming for unique, one of a kind heraldrys!

Tillean mercenary looks nice Weety. Like the breast plate.

Thanks Dr H, I really pushed the boat out on the breastplate and nailed it. Its 'I can't believe its not metal' NMM. If only it always looked that good.

Anvildude you are tempting me with your unique hereldry - at least for the panthers. I think the reiksguard are just too conformist to not wear a uniform - I might go for something more interesting than the usual red, white and steel. I might instead do them in that black and gold style armour that was all the rage back in the 16-17th centuries.

SJM well I've got a metal knight from the 80s in the paint stripping jar with a bit more character. Did you know the empire knights have had the same horses since like 1989?

A fun thing to do with knights would be to make a joust diorama, I'd prefer to use brettonians though, they are more jousty. I still haven't made a diorama... but one thing at a time.

One thing at a time........

I'm not sure I understand....is that a real thing? I'm not sure I can get my head round that concept.....

Tilean looks great, I feel he's just stepped out of some Rennaisance version of The Expendables

I'm with Anvildude on the unique knights, they're the peacocks of your army...and they should have squires getting into arguments about who's best too

I've decided to chuck that vanilla empire stuff in the bin on your advice anvildude and monkeytroll and go with what feels right and chivilric. I've looked at lots of pics of 16th century knights and this is what I came up with for the first two - bear with me, this acreage of NMM takes time:



Also here's my lovely metal panther knight and his horridly painted horse. Needs more paint...

I want a striped lance!

loving good, that's a nice old knight model... And a fairly abused horse!

Full-on barber pole lance!

Stripes huh? I'll try that on the next one. So many colours to choose from. I'm going to have to strip that horse.


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This morning I managed to cobble together a champion for the knights:



Also I finished the NMM on another knight, sugggestions for colours are welcome.

NMM turned out great weety... very authentic looking. I really like it!

Thanks Mr G. splitta, it was a challenge and I'm learning with each new knight.

This is what I've got so far. I'm thinking of doing the barber stripe on the lance in white but its quite a daunting task to do well and I'm not feeling steady enough yet. Another mug of coffee required before I attempt it. I also thought I might give the horse white sock markings, wadaya think?



And here it is again much bigger so you can see all the brush strokes.

Beautiful work weets. I like the effect of your shading technique on the horses legs... makes them look sort of glossy like a well-groomed horse should look.

Nice work Weety. The metal looks great.

Love the armour on that last horse. Not sure about the brown horse... seems very... brown, maybe some white socks? Just to its hock to break up the brown.

Looking good!

Yes I was thinking white socks as well to break up the brown. It'll have to wait till tomorrow though as I've burned out for the night. I'll look at some pics of horses in the meantime. Thanks for checking it out! If anyone has a suggestion for a knightly colour scheme I've got plenty more knights left to paint.

How about houses of westeros?

Great looking knights - and their gee-gees too.

For the stripey lance you could use a thin strip of masking tape and wind it round if you're worried about wobbly line syndrome....

A pink panther perhaps?

Amazingly I have not been watching game of thrones graven. You'd think it would be up my street but I haven't found the time. I'm sure I'll watch it some day along with all the other unmissable TV I missed.

Thanks for the tip monkeytroll that should help. I'm not sure about an entirely pink knight though, maybe pink and another colour.

Well I was going to paint more knights but I was in a non-chivilrous mood so I did pirates instead. They've been sitting in my ready-to-paint nook for ages. I'm specialy pleased with one eyed willy's stripy pants.

Arrr Jim lad, pieces of eight, batten down the hatches and beware of the Black Spot me hearties.


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Moor pirates...

Very nice non-sequitur...

We just had "Talk Like a Pirate Day" here in the colonies, so painting pirates seems very appropriate.

It was "International" talk like a pirate day, we had it everywhere.

Great looking pirates, Weety. Liking the bandannas.

Very believable paint job, they look great! Your ability to jump from one project to another is also commendable, once I start painting something I cant switch or I'd go mad. Mainly the reason why I'm currently wading through Grots at the moment...

good stuff.

Ooh those pirates are fantastic!

Thanks chaps, they really do look like pirates now they've got their stripes and spots. I'll be doing more of these so long as my supply of cutlases and pistols holds out! Talk like a pirate day was it? And noone round here told me! They weren't even talking like pirates themselves (no more so than usual this is penzance).

ARr Swab the decks or I'll keel haul the lottayas with the cat o nine tails, Ahoy there splice that mainbrace me jolly jack tar Arrrrr.

Well that's got that out of my system.

They look great! Uk was distracted by referendum. Also, that just shows why Hastings is a better capital of pirate-dom than Penzance (long running argument between our towns for Most Number of Pirates world record, for the uninitiated ) Arr, and so forth.

Lovely metal work on the Knight Panther.

Wow what a slow painting month. I'll be honest the world news has been totally distracting me from painting, its fascinating watching the world at the moment and I've been trying to learn as much as I can about how it might effect us here. Are 50-90% of us about to die horribly? Its a compelling question and one that makes painting little plastic figures seem dull. I know I know apparently it could never happen here, but judging from history things don't always work out the way people expected.

But I felt like some painting anyway so I got a sprue of republican era roman soldiers to give me something stimulating and new to work on. These are the ones:

My late repulican legionairies are ready to paint! How cool are these guys they look just like they did in my old illustrated roman history book. I decided to cut them off their silly little bases and put them on proper ones. They can serve as retro mercenaries in the empire army now! I believe these are equiped as the legion was at the end of the republican era when julius ceasar was entertaining ambitions of power and empire. I am suprised by how short their gladius's are but I can see the point (pun) of it. They bludgeon the enemy with their huge shield and then shank em while they are wincing. And of course if you are going to have such a heavy shield you con't want to be wieghed down with a heavy sword too. It also makes sense of why bows play only a secondary role in classical warfare. The short bows of the time would struggle to put an arrow past that shield. So long as the line held and the bowmen didn't sneak round behind them...

These are really nice figs! although they shouldn't have their gladii in hand, their sheaths containing one still...
These short gladii make totally sense in context with the main weapon of the legionaire: That was his pilum, a very special, harpoon-like spear. It was constructed to be thrown on short distance into the enemy's line. If it didn't apply wounds, it would be nailed into their shields, yet, making them useless. (Shield protection is a very active task, anticipating your foe's hit and trying to counter the strike with the shield's buckle.) The legionaires then would connect to the enemy, stabbing them with their short swords on minimum distance, where their big shields gave maximum protection and long swords or spears were useless. (Spears and lances were the main infantry weapon throughout all times before the introduction of firearms.)

Don't underestimate the power of ranged arms in antique warfare, though. They had armabustas of different sizes, from classical size up to the famous ballistae. Their auxiliary troops used the sling and stone, which is a weapon at least as dangerous as any bow in trained hands. They were facing not what you would call shortbows, but the mighty composite bows of the parthian cavalry. Their bows had a penetrating power and a cadence that would make your infamous english longbowmen running back into their sherwood forest, crying for the sheriff. I saw a composite bow (from later, mongolian times, though) in a museum that had the power of 500 libs! You had to lay down on the ground and use your legs to fire it.

Having the nerd rant out of my system, I am one of those admiring lurkers of yours, I find your style of painting very inspiring, and your technique very convincing, since I first read this blog I have positively enhanced my own skills because of. Also I love your choice of colours. I am looking forward what you will do of these brave roman guys! (Tipp if you want to be accurate: this kind of helmet was brazen, not iron)

Yep I was thinking brass helmets - the romans in my history book had them. As for the swords well I've started painting so maybe they will have to have two swords each! Or maybe I will get the scalpel out and lop them off.

I have a bow - its a 25lb draw so I cant even imagine what 500 would feel like... I suppose what I meant was is that the roman army only used bowmen as auxilaries and prefered to get stuck in up close. The parthians on the other hand... didn't they beat the roman army a fair few times? They must have rode around the shield wall and shot them in the back.

I'm glad you enjoy my painting. Hopefully I will have more to show soon. I'm feeling the roman vibe but I have a lot of real life on my plate until the weekend.


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I was thinking red shields with yellow detail, dark blue/black plumes and biege tunics - like the legions in my history book.

What they lack in numbers of men, they make up for in the number of swords...

I've used a 50lb bow before. That was enough. Well enough for 100-150 metres and a soft target. 500lb is more than many crossbows, would not like to be holding that when it snaps...

Sounds good, Weety. Look forward to seeing them.

I've used a 50lb bow before. That was enough. Well enough for 100-150 metres and a soft target.

And that is the reason a) the romans, as most military forces in former times, had close combattants,precisely spear and shield as their main force,
b) the english bowmen were something no other medieval force could copy,
c) only the introduction of firearms changed that.

To use a bow effectively you need to be trained and experienced. It is said that you had to be bowman in third generation to be good enough to use the english longbow. You needed a lot of training to draw, aim and fire in one smooth movement. A "real life" longbow could have about 200 libs. I saw one from bronce age in southern denmark thaw was made of a young fir, being about three fingers in diameter. A certain german archeologist (I forgot the name, met him years ago) that has specialized in bow shooting had to train about ten years to be able to use such a bow alone, not to speak of being precise. But he was able to reach the 500 meters, ballistic even 700 meters.

The origin of the roman legions was a kind of conscription army, like most armies of the latin/greek world of early republic. It was easy to train someone to use shield and close combat weapon, plus a spear is a very cheap weapon. So bowmen, like sling shooters (wich is even more difficult than bowshooting, I am told) did only see service as auxiliary troops. Armabustas were easy to use even for untrained users, but it takes time to load it.
Once the romans had found their combat tactics very effective against most other armies of their times (typically using the old "phalanx" tactics) they stuck to it even when they changed into a professional army. As they never suceeded in defeating the parthians (one of their most prominent "victims" being Marcus Licinius Crassus, one of Caesars "triumvirate", they incorporated a lot of parthian mercenaries as auxiliary troops, though.
If the composite bow (easier to pull, smaller, thus easier to handle, yet powerful) hadn't been so vulnerable agains the comparatively cold and wet european climate, it surely would have shaken the european theater as strongly as the use of stirrups (ore in former times, the horse itself)...

Ooh some Romans! I have been wanting to collect a small army of those guys for ages now. Tis going to be fun seeing how you paint them all up.

Yeah I'm going to enjoy them. History is great. I might get some celts as well.

We're watching 'Split Second' with Rutger Hauer. Classic film I totallly recomend it to everyone - its set in a 21st centuary london which seems to be a foot underwater. Lots of daft giant guns and monsters and hilarious dialogue.

Ave ceasar everyone. I love these warlord miniatures romans I must get more. I wonder if they do auxilairies, or gladiators! that'd be cool.

Heres the prototype. I enjoyed the brass.

"We need to get bigger guns. Big fething guns" Classic

Nice looking Roman, they'll look excellent as a group

Aha! Someone else who's seen split second. Hilarious film. Its a dark apocalyptic odd-couple buddy cop comedy spoof B movie monster flick.

We were discussing Rutger films a few weeks back at work and I was recommending Split Second as well worth a look - like you say the dialogue is hilarious in places, and Rutger is such a bad-ass

Yes, such a bad ass! And his girlfriend is carrie fisher from sex in the city, and its got pete postilthwaite (is that how you spell it?)

Talk about bad-ass: that roman is bad-ass! The sheath is what I love best -not because you cut the spare sword away (which I appreciate) but because of the brazen framework! Second best the face! A grizzled veteran serving as optio, now that his 20 years of service are nearing their end. He surely will not accept the farmstead in Aremorica, but sign in for another 20 years, if they promote him to centurio. His "boys" probably nickname him "old spittle", both because of his soft and mediating style of communication, and because twenty years of hand milled grain pulp for main dish have taken their toll on his teeth... As you see, that little man totally speaks to me.

He does seem to be missing one or two teeth and has that grizzled veteran look! Its just the way the model looked to me so i put two tiny dots of beige in the top row to give a gap tooth look. I might fill in the rest of his mouth with a little dark red wash. He also might get a shield design but I'm dubious about transfers and have none so it'd have to be freehand.

The other three are nearly at his level now - they just need their brass doing.

Roman patrol is ready! Its been fun. I ought to get back to the knights now before I end up buying more of these. Wait till xmass.

Very cool looking patrol there

Now how about scratch-building a ballista for them?

I could make one out of matchsticks and cotton...

Off you go then.......

Lovely little squad. now to their 5996 battle brothers... (Their number is legion, you know...)

Very nice

Romans are very impressive - as are the pirates, the Empire, etc, etc

I ain't dead...

Just resting. But I'm feeling a glimmer of the muse today. If I can fit it in after all my chores and cooking minestrone I might open up the desk and paint an elf. Hell its been a month since I painted now so I'd better had. I watched dungeons and dragons yesterday and despite being a terrible film it was actually quite good and it had Richard O'Brien in it as the owner of a maze! Got me to thinking about elves and dungeons etc... So watch this space

I'm watching this space.

*Blink, blink...

Did someone else hear something in the parlour?

Well I won't make you wait too long then. This made my hand ache. Must be outa shape.

Very old school weety, they look ready for some action.

Yeah they're so old school they are almost celtic and they look ready to slit someone up a treat.

Well I'm gearing up for a big xmass eve advanced heroquest game so I banged out the skaven warlord. Not totally happy with this, I think I had shaky hands when I was doing the tiny runes



Made a start on a wizard. Needs more arcane runes and sigils. Check out the stone effect on the staff, I was going for a jade effect

Hitting the ground running I see! I like Ratty and all his trinkets especially. It would be nice to see him with the overall tone brought down and more attention put on the stuff he's carrying. I don't see the runes you mentioned?

The runes are on the halberd blade... They are not very clear. I agree he deserves better (I have another copy of this model somewhere).

Ohh! I see them now, very delicate. Nah he's great you're being too critical, they're all great. I'm not really seeing the jade effect on the wizard staff, maybe another angle would help?

Excellent stuff as usual Weets, love that wizard. and the green on the poison windglobes

Purple pants for the win :-) love me some persian genie inspired clothing!

Welcome back, weety!

The jade staff top looks good, it has that 'waxy' appearance that Jade has, sort of half way between matt and shiny.

Thanks all! It's good to be back. Holding onto tiny models for hours gives me a sore left hand so I needed the break - maybe I should start sticking the model to something bigger to give me more purchase? Anyone else get hand pain?

I'd have to do some painting to tell you. Sometimes when I'm sculpting something fiddly though. All the pros seem to use something, either cork or paint pots mostly.

Sculpting huh? Sounds cool.

I'm totally ill today. So I'm staying home and trying to paint between sneezes. I spent a lotta time on this swashbucklers shield.



And here's close up on that staff - feel free to make suggestions I'm not done with it yet.

More wasting time with green stuff than sculpting to be fair.

Stunning work, love the shield freehand, very striking. I think I see what you mean about the staff, like a soapy, jade stone effect? Very nice.

Hope you feel better!

Yeah I hope so too. Sneezing is fun but it gets tiring. And I think going to work with a sneeze would be undiplomatic. It'd be so embarrassing knowing that all my germs and viruses are getting on peoples drinks and snacks as I bleep them through the till. I think its best not to do that to my elderly customers especially, they'd probably die if they sneezed this much.

It may be the pictures but the jade looks a little dark, have you thought about adding some of the striations?

Hmm that ones got dark lines on a pale background but I did it the other way around. Perhaps I was thinking of malachite. I'll certainly add more detail to it - and maybe some brighter greens and oranges to the mix.

Good to see you back around these parts, Weety.

Nice work on the Elves, Skaven (I wouldn't worry about the runes, I've done much worse at my best...), Wizard (nice purple) and swashbuckler (good job on the shield).

Get well soon.

Seven models over three days? Well, either that's the real weety back, or an impostor whose been hoarding for a while....

Ratty looks cool, I do have a soft spot for the old metal skaven, that one was a member of one of my warbands way back when I used to roll dice alongside my miniatures And you may think the runes are a bit shaky, but that blade is tiny, I certainly wouldn't want to be painting anything on it.

Nice band of olde-worlde elves too, although obviously there's a part of me saying that they should really be chopped up and turned into Slaaneshi cultists

And similar sentiments about Mr purple-pants too - needs to lose that silly comet symbol and become a proper wiz

Great work on the swashbuckler, the shield is lovely.

Wrap up warm, plenty of vitamin C and the occasional virgin sacrifice, stay indoors and paint....that's what my doc recommends.......

Thanks monkey - yes its important to remember that it is tiny! I'll have to get my slave-borrowers to touch that up.

Unfortunately as to your cure I have no virgins to sacrifice. I could pop down the pet shop when it opens and get a virgin guinea pig? Why do I always wake up at 4am? I swear I get earlier every time they change the clocks. By 2020 I will be waking up at midnight Like some hammer horror vampire.

Well I'm glad someone keeps these rare models in their original state. With mad Mechs like yourself out there they should be getting rarer by the minute! I bet you could make some nasty slanneshi ho's out of them elves.

Hi Doctor H! Thanks I'm feeling better already. Apart from being awake at this hour.

Turn the staff into a baby cthulhu? looking great, like the jade idea, and grand to have you back.

I had a great idea for what to do with the excess militia bits and knights of the white woof heads
Cutthroats, thieves varlets and footpads, ready to mug the hero in a dark alley:

....

Well, I've consulted Dr Septarius von Egad's Big Book of Dark Arts, and it doesn't specifically rule out the use of either hamsters or gerbils.....

That's some nice cloakage you've got on the cut-pads and foot-throats

Nice work on the bandits, looking forward to seeing them with some paint

Nice, they look like honourless ruffians.

Here is another one - this one has a torso made of sprue and greenstuff and I'll give him a big cloak with hood, assassin style

Very well done, good proportions and it looks like a solid match for the rest of the miniature. I feel like you had dabbled in greenstuff sculpting before but this is a bit of a sudden escalation? I could be wrong.

This is the first time I've sculpted cloth anyway. Partly its because I need to use my green stuff up and start the next packet before it gets old and tough!

Green stuff is perfect for sculpting cloth it would seem. Once its been stretched out thin and left to cure for a mo-mo then so long as you keep your fingers wet you can hardly go wrong. I've probably left a few finger prints on these which will show up when I paint. I should get the pvc gloves out for my next go.

Well you're doing a fine job. Kneadatite definitely excels at organic forms so it's perfect for cloth. If it's something you want to keep up then I recommend getting some colour shapers. They have a 200% Sculpting enchantment on them as standard. It's amazing how much easier everything gets when you are using them.

Goblins have been spotted abroad...



I love goblins. So adorable and evil. Like toddlers with sharp teeth and spears.

As you can see I get distracted easy. I'll get back to the bandits, and eventually the knights. But goblins have got me captivated atm.

For those of you who share my love of ancient miniatures here is a quick look at the latest acquisitions. A Nice big gang of 1980s chaos warriors and champions.

....

Oh yeah, classic 80s models - some nice Lords of Battle in that lot

And because I got them as a poorly painted job lot auction I didn't pay so much. You can easily pay ten or more pounds a model for the lords of battle and realms of chaos stuff, they are just so rare and unusual. I think I got these for 23 quid. So if I paint them up nice and market them well I could make 70+ profit. Not that I want to sell them. Damn. I love them too much.

I've a real need to find alternate employment. Many years ago I made a real enemy of a deputy manager. She moved away. But now suddenly she's been put in charge of my store from on high. I am in hell. HELL. I roast on the spit of retail. Your pity is appreciated.

oh poor weety is there no where else you could go for another job or are you to far away from a major town?

Love your latest works and the nice haul of old minis!

Gobbos look sweet and cuddly

Lovely haul of classic chaos there, looking forward to seeing you put some colour on them.

And you have my pity.....I'll tell the srevo-grots to throw an extra laser-eel or two on the sacrificial altar this weekend to send a pox on your boss.


Gir - She's in Cornwall, they don't do major towns at all down there

Fantastic gobbo's Miss Wheety.

Thanks everyone. I can't wait for my day off now, so I can make a start on these fellas.

A pox on the boss hmmm. I shall see if I can find any of her hair lying around and make a voodoo doll.

My tiny town does actually have many shops I could work in, all of which have the superb advantage of her not being the boss. Honestly they shouldn't let psychopaths be managers it's cruel. I'll get job hunting. How hard can it be with ten years of retail experience? Probably harder than I think.

The Chaos warriors do look ace, I remember having a few back in the day, never had the one with lion skin over his head I remember he was always on my want list but never got purchased.

Good luck on the job hunting, I was never aware that you had more than a few shops in Cornwall in the same location

All the times I've been there I must have been going down too far

Penzance is a thriving metropolis of 20000 people! I read that somewhere. We got 2 launderettes! And 15 pubs! Priorities.

Goblins everywhere! I must get more goblins, you can never have enough. These ones are from harlequin miniatures:



Mutant albino rat guy:

Sorry to hear about the return of the crappy boss. You have my utmost sympathies.

Goblins looking good. As does the rat.

Love those goblins, so much character, and your mutant rat is really nice too. What an awesome haul on those Chaos minis, I recognise a few of them fondly.

Well no picture update just yet. But later when I get back from the salt mines I will show you what I've been doing with the knights. Ooo and I got a sprue of five zombies in the post today! I love zombies and they are necessary for the Adv heroquest game I've got planned.

Hello ya'll wassup etc. Damn I'll be glad when its Xmass I'm tired of tinsel and trying to flog advent calenders. Feeling a little bah humbug.

Here's a nice WIP pic of my reiksguard contingent. They look better in real life - its hard to photograph such a large unit in my little light tent. Shadows and highlights need a little tightening up and I'm painting the breastplates brass.



And I stuck the zombies together, these should be fun to paint. They'll be gruesome.

Love it! And I'm really interested to see you bring those zombies to life...

It may be a small light tent but I'd be sooo excited to see a shot of your entire painted collection. I think my head will explode but it'll be more than worth it.

Love the way the colors jump out on that cavalry weets. Very auspicious WIP shot.

Well its all going according to plan. The zombies have been fettled, filled and primed. I've also based and primed the rest of the skaven troops and their warpfire thrower ready for paint. And finally tomorrow I have a day off work. Quite a few days off work actually. My nemesis is now in charge of shifts you see. I've done my level best to suck up, follow instructions to the letter and push my customers to buy more socks but she still cut my hours in half. Secretly happy about that... More time for fun! Anyway I do all the housework and cooking around here...

I'm in almost the exact same situation at work, feel for you, pal. Still, plenty of time to paint and to take the requested picture.

My lover spilled a vase on my camera this morning. But I find that if you carefully dry old tech from the naughties it usually works ok. I used to wash my old nokia by accident all the time,

Posted that twice. How do I delete. Oh well. Anyway the camera is working after being rested for a few hours (dismantled and stuffed with absorbent kitchen paper). So I will go take a photo.


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Haha! It still works and there's no water in the lens!

Stuff I'm gonna paint tomorrow.

Gloriously retro. Put phone in rice

Or rock salt maybe.

Knights are looking good.
Looking forward to the zombies.

If you use salt, make sure to keep it out of the equipment you want to dry as it could cause corrosion if a small amount becomes dissolved in the water you want to get rid of.

Also, put somewhere warm to get the water to evaporate and then be absorbed into your desiccant of choice. If it's cold, the water will be happy to stay where it is.

Well its been a lovely day off. Here's what I did.

First I tried to give this guy a great coat. Its not looking great, but now this layer is cured I've got a solid surface to work against with the next layer.



The zombies have had a whole bunch of washes and skin tones. Next I'll add highlights and stuff.





And a champion of chaos arises... Going to try and do green NMM on this guy.

Good start, weets. Nurgle will be pleased!

Cool mutant rat guys a really old Throt the Unclean model

All appears to be on track here....

And good to hear the unexpected wash did no harm to the camera.

Monkeytroll its the tech that's lasted for ten years that's the proven reliable stuff. I did have a newer camera but it wont charge up anymore and it has one of they fancy internal batteries that you charge with USB.

Llamahead thanks a bundle I've been trying to remember his name all week. In the catalogue he is just called "mutant skaven warlord" Throt the unclean... good name.

Well another bright sparkly day off work looms and I'm awake at 4.40am. Force of habit I guess. I'll be back later with an update.

Casy'slaw I've been thinking how I would photograph all the models at once and I'm really not sure how. I could try putting them in the bath... that's white and is under a skylight. Hmmm big mission.

Love them! The red hoods really do it!

The goblins Joyous_Oblivion?

Progress shot. I'll do some close ups after the finishing touches are done.






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Well that's the zombies done! Damn I'm good at rotting flesh. I will be looking out for more of these plastic zombies they're great. The range in metal is sadly disappointing and overpriced these days. I don't know if anyone else has noticed but oop metal minis are going up in price (maybe cos xmass). I'm saving some money for January in the hope that all the other collectors will be broke.



Please be clicking for the zoom.

Those zombies are looking great weets. Very pale and skeleton like... more so than most people make them. I like it!

Thanks gits. All ways of painting zombies are valid but I thought the pale look would give my zombies a good gothic look. I saw some good ones in the gallery that were bright green!

Well I got a bit carried away with the chaos warrior... I'm not sure he looks nurgle anymore... But when I think 1980s chaos warrior this is what I think of:

Zombies look suitably rotten, and the chaos warrior is very retro Great job on the sword and the shield.

Fantastic zombies! I particularly like bone club zombie. Retro chaos warrior is excellent too, you channel that old school GW vibe so well.

Chaos warrior is brilliant for Zombies and Ghouls the Mantic stuff is actually better than the GW models but lovely bright job regardless

Punctuation is important Llamahead! I had to read that a few times. I will check out the mantic stuff though as I hear they are cheap.

Thanks chaps I'm glad you like my retro chaos guy. He won't fit in with the butch macho chaos warriors though! It'll be an eclectic regiment.

Well yesterday I ploughed through the skaven. Once I've painted up the plastic ones that came with adv heroquest I'll almost have an army.

Great looking ratmen there, they even have bases I notice Must dig out my warp-fire teams someday, I'm sure they can be re-purposed into my muties.

 weetyskemian44 wrote:
Punctuation is important Llamahead!

The irony being you've missed an apostrophe in the title

Skaven look scab-tastic, btw

It's...

I hang my head in shame. But I stand by the assertion that a certain amount of punctuation is necessary, even if it takes the form of orkmoticons.

Back to work today. Gordon Bennett it's like being in an episode of 'Are you being served' but re-imagined by Franz Kafka.

Next up on the table are the rest of the chaos warriors and some more plague monks.

OK... can you please explain the "Gordon Bennett" reference? I heard Holly say that on Red Dwarf and I never understood it.

It's an exclamation of surprise or wonder, generally thought to be a minced oath version of 'gor blimey', which came from 'God blind me'.
I seem to recall hearing that there was an actual Gordon Bennet who had a preposterous lifestyle back in the 1920's and so the name became interchangeable with the oath around that time - not sure of my source for that though.

You nailed it mt. This from "Phrase Finder" (which I'd never heard of before)

"The expletive Gordon Bennett appears to be a minced oath. It is a version of Gor blimey, which is itself a euphemistic version of God blind me. That, combined with Bennett's famously outrageous lifestyle and newsworthy stunts, is sufficient to explain why his name was picked out. "

They had quite a good summary of Bennett, who was an American newspaper reporter and eventually mogul, though he eventually moved to Europe after... "James Gordon Bennett was publicly horse-whipped this morning, by Frederick May, brother of the girl to whom Bennett was engaged to be married."

Apparently, he'd gotten drunk and mistaken the fireplace for a urinal during his soon-to-be father-in-law's New Year's Eve party.

Publicly horse-whipped for peeing in a fire-place at NYE? Nice
Was never sure he was real, have to file that under Fact now

Fascinating stuff. I only found out he was real when I got the internet and could google stuff.

Well today I have a choice of many chaos warriors or a pirate or a black orc leader. Maybe I'll try and paint them all?

In acquisitions I've bought some skeleton sprue from the 80s. I love those old skeletons so I've taken a chance on a job lot of old sprue that I think I can get 5 skeletons out of (and a lotta spare skulls).

Also picked up this damaged lord of battle for a song. I'll get a picture of what he is supposed to look like and try and remake him, better than before, we have the technology.

Hah, I have the exact same figure with the exact same damage - I think I replaced the Axe head with an even bigger axe head !

Even bigger axe sounds good. I've got tons of different plastic axes so we'll see what fits.

Well I didn't get so much done today. I had a lot of xmass drinking to catch up on.

This guy is worth photographing though. Not quite done with him. Shield needs neatening and the breastplate is a bit half baked but you can see where I'm going with it. A much butch-er style of chaos warrior than the last one.

I love that model - I got one in a box of bitz from ebay - I think he's in metallic blue. I really like the checkerboard effect on the shield, and the red "bunny ears" add a great spot colour - awesome paintjob, on an awesome old model

Good work on the rats and the warrior, Weety.

Have a good Christmas.

Merry xmass to all the people of dakka. I have many things to show you soon. I'm too busy watching filums and drinking to operate a camera right now though.

Enjoy Weets, Merry Christmas !

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Weety!

Your blog of miniature goodness continues to spread a lot of new and retro joy. Wait, is "retro joy" a real phrase or am I just making stuff up as I go along?

Retro joy is totally a thing! I get it everyday when I see that my shop still has chewits and tizer. People who thought such things were unobtainable come in and say "wow I never knew you could still get that"

I still have the same number of great things to show you and I'm still unable to operate a camera because of booze and filums.

See you in the new year. Hopefully 2015 will be a year of joy and stuff. But I am predicting it will be the year the mucus hits the blowdryer.

Happy New Yeat weety, looking forward to seeing what you have instore for us.

I'm ready to show you some of the things now!

Badass oldhammer orcs.



Cunning goblin netters.



A Vampire Lord to lead the skeletons and zombies, with his personal ghoul servant.



Chaos warrior! I love painting these fellas.

LOVE the Orcs - (l-r) Yaskin & Harboth of Harboth's Orc Archers plus one of the Boyz from Ruglud's Armoured Orcs if I'm not mistaken (I have a close affinity with Ruglud's Armoured Orcs ) Those two Regiments of Renown sets where amongst my first GW purchases back in the late 80s - fond memories...

I've got the rest of harboth's archers in the wings waiting for a rainy day.

Hopefully that rainy day is soon

For what it's worth, this is my Harboth, re-painted mid-90s, hence the green edged base. The green chest plate was going to be a stylised orcy type face, but never did finish it ! Have to see if I can find my Yaskin.

Lovely as always, Weety. Good job all round.

I see you went for gaudy trousers too Ruglud.

Thanks again doc!

Gearing up for a game of adv heroquest. This time we have a new band of Heros featuring the lost wood elves from before. I've renamed them zinfandel, sauvingion and shiraz because its easier for my booze addled brain to comprehend. They are joined for their first mission by Rioja the Teillian mercenary and his band of crossbowmen (basically unarmoured henchmen with crossbows and daggers). The first mission is to clear out an orc and goblin sewer infestation. The city council believe that a more dangerous foe than orcs is mustering these dark forces and thus are bankrolling the mercenaries to help root out the evil.

Primary mission: locate and distroy the forces of chaos

Secondary mission: Kill 50points of orcs and goblins.

Its a one level mission as it's set in a sewer so all stairs down are re-rolled, one quest room full of chaos chaps and everything else is greenskinned. So long as the dice roll low it should be a cake walk of slaughtered goblins but there is a slight chance of a troll!

If the heros manage it in one go they all get 1fate point and 200 gold each from the city. If they take two missions to get it its just 200 gold and if they take three then just 100 gold. If they have still failed after three the city fires them in disgust and any remaining henchmen leave to find less jinxed employers.

Should be fun. Wish them luck.

Oh disaster! Sauvingion's been stabbed to death by a lucky goblin. All was going well in the long narrow tunnels of the sewer, until the heros discovered a statue of an armoured man with a rare and beautiful gemstone set in its chest. Upon trying to remove the stone the statue came to life and set too with its great axe. One henchman had his head lopped clean off before the statue was subdued (the stone however is worth 400 gold!) Sauvingion must have exhausted his luck and favour with the gods surviving that fight for he was cut down cruely within sight of the stairs out by a lucky wandering goblin.

Attrition was high overall with only zinfandel the bow elf uninjured. 3 of the four crossbowmen are dead and the group has only killed 22pts of orks and goblins. Better luck next time.

We roll up a replacement hero and get a beast of a man who I have called Lieutenant Merlot. He has a massive sword, is brave, strong, skilled and stupid. Should be ideal so long as we don't find any complex puzzles.

Loot was divided out amongst the 3 survivors - 200g each! pretty good going. So I got them some armour and training to increase survivability. Our random event was a henchman pledging his sword to us. Nice. I give him a day tops.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Part 2.

The heros ventured forth into a part of the sewer as yet unexplored. After much searching of empty chambers they discovered the lair of the chaos champion! He was guarded by a warrior and he had time to rouse a rabble of goblins before Lnt. Merlot cleaved him in two with his greatsword. The heros basked briefly in glory and discovered a treasure map. Unfortunately in the subsequent clearup operation Shiraz was killed by an orc champion. RIP shiraz you will always be remembered. Of the original elven posse only zinfandel remains, due no doubt to her habit of standing back and shooting stuff.

At the end of all that the three survivors have 400 gold each to spend. I think they need training.

Overall impression of the game is that life is short. What you might call 'selection pressure' may eventually give me a better quality of hero. Maybe its time for a dwarf?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and the henchman died... at least I don't have to pay him.

Life in the middle ages: Nasty, brutal, and short.



Nice report, did you have fun playing the game?

lol Go Zinfandel. Sounds like a fun time was had.

and congratulations on page 200!

hmm that seemed to take longer than the first hundred. Yeah I had fun playing the game and so did the GM who was utterly heartless in singling out weak heros. If I'd been playing on my own I'd have been tempted to re-roll.

Next up on my painting list is a batch of 15 skeletons (some of them really old). Should give us some fodder for an undead crypt mission.

200 pages!!!! damn that went by fast! :-) well done weets, here's to another 200.

Great looking old-skool guys there Particulary like the goblins, although I'm very fond of that chaos champ sculpt.

Sounds like you're having a great time with Heroquest - actually using your minis, who'd a thunk it?

Grats on 200! Need a massive old-skool colour-fest to celebrate.......

I have got to get some better lights, its hard getting clear pics especially this time of year when the sun is no help. Anyway skeletons! Really old ones. They needed a lot of rescuing as they were all broken. If anyone has any broken 1980s plastic skeltons in need of a rescue then I will accept them in trade.



Next up some metal ones:

Nice work on the skeletons.

I can see the one on the right saying "why do I get the scythe, I wanted one of those shields"

Yeah I've been scrounging those coffin shields especially so I could have a regiments worth. They are so perfectly morbid. I might have a go at painting a thorny rose on the next one (if there is a next, better pop over to ebay and see if I won more skeletons).


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Damn, outbidded at the last minute! I must struggle on in life without more skeletons.

Skellies are great, nice work on the shields!

Word up dakkanaughts.

'Member this?



And this?



Going to be a skelington horde.

Also this



And finally my favourite topic of the day "what can I do with a box of militia to pass the time"



My beautiful gang of villianous cutthroats. Ragged vagabonds, brigands, highwaymen and outlaws takes shape

If only I had more militia, nothing left but arms and heads now. Hmmm maybe should learn to make torsos and legs from putty. Hmmmmm.

Oh lordy... I remember those skellybobs... ack, the feeling of being old has set in again. Thanks Wheets...

I remember those Skeletons, they made up the bulk of my first Fantasy army. Very fond memories indeed that army got me to Games Day and won me a trophy.

I remember building a small horde of skellies, then later on going back and ripping most of their heads off because I needed skulls for various things

I’ve got a block or two of those skellies lined up on the undead shelf. Spindly buggers, but they were what we had to work with at the time.

Good memories, nice to see someone else using them! You have any of the chariots from that era?

Nice work, Weety. Liking the outlaws.

Look forward to more skeleton action.

Two hundred pages. This is going to take some clicking to get up to date from my last read

Haha I knew that would get nostalgia flowing amongst the elders. Yes they made them skinnier back then, but they are very good for something from the 80s. One of the first proper multipart kits. I think I actually prefer them skinny, they look more like they could actually fit inside my human models.

I'd love to find one of those really old chariots Nevelon. Its hard to tell as they look very much like the newer ones. Anyway I don't really have the space to start collecting chariots! Priorities and real life...

Linsay40k I'm glad you think its worth it. To be honest the first 100 pages are old hat now. You can always look in 'blog view' don't forget and it will compress it to like 5 pages

Old school Marines, cool!

Yes, somewhere in the first half of this 200 page blog there were old school marines, although it feels like a lifetime ago. Glad you liked them!

 weetyskemian44 wrote:
Haha I knew that would get nostalgia flowing amongst the elders. Yes they made them skinnier back then, but they are very good for something from the 80s. One of the first proper multipart kits. I think I actually prefer them skinny, they look more like they could actually fit inside my human models.

I'd love to find one of those really old chariots Nevelon. Its hard to tell as they look very much like the newer ones. Anyway I don't really have the space to start collecting chariots! Priorities and real life...

Linsay40k I'm glad you think its worth it. To be honest the first 100 pages are old hat now. You can always look in 'blog view' don't forget and it will compress it to like 5 pages

I was thinking about the old, flat ribcage ones, not the “newer” ones. Should be reasonably east to tell the difference No idea when they stopped making them. I think the old skeletons were phased out at the end of 5th, with the breakup of the old “Undead” army into the TK and VC halves. I just remember that we undead players were lucky to have more then just one unit option available in plastic. Toss in a few characters, and you could go far with horsemen, foot troops, and chariots.

Yes no other army had that level of plastic. I remember seeing an army of them on display in the local toy store that the owner had made a diorama from, with paper mache towers, lichen for bushes and the whole gothic thing going on. Despite what I said I am bidding on a couple of these old chariots now! Who can resist skeletons.

Great stuff, Weety!

The militia box is loads of fun. You make such characterful ruffians with them. Of all of GW's sets, the militia box most reminds me of the innocent inhabitants of Ankh-Morpork.

I would wax poetic about the skellies too but then, someone would guess that I'm an elder.

Always been amused by the tails on those skeletal horses as horse tails are made of hair but excellent models none the less.

 Llamahead wrote:
Always been amused by the tails on those skeletal horses as horse tails are made of hair but excellent models none the less.

I think horses actually do have bones inside their tails. Perhaps not as long a skeleton-tail as GW models, but they have 'em.

Love the old undead models. Especially the metal ones from the 90's so keep them coming weetsky.

No problem Zywus there are more!

I agree on the tail having felt one back in my pony trekking days. There is a short section of tail bone that allows the horse to move its tail up out the way when it erm... unloads its horse apples. Apart from that GW tail bones are way to long as lamahead says, mostly hair!

Hey JB I suppose when they are in town to fence their stolen goods they would be most at home in the Shades. That's why they all have cloaks, so they can conceal their weapons getting past the night watch. Funnily enough I did think about the shades when making these.

So 200 pages aye?! I suppose I ought to do some kinda retrospective. So it was like 2010 and I'd started to have odd dreams about miniature people. Suddenly I decided that I should like to see a citadel miniature again. Thinking back to my dad's advanced heroquest games and stuff I saw at the toy shop etc and I thought, "why the hell not, why let gender stereotypes stop you" So I went over to ebay where I had been successfully selling books (buy em for 25p, read em and sell em for 99p, kinda like a library that scores you a profit, but you have to read fast or someone will buy it) and purchased this little fella, the first mini I could call my own.

I suppose I bought him because of how old and rare he is. Its always been a consideration when I'm buying models. I like to get ones with potential for resale just in case I suddenly need money. That's been less of a worry recently, but maybe as a retirement fund it has more potential than the prudential!

I don't know why I called the blog The Quest for Pefection. I wasn't a great painter when I started, but its been apt. I don't think I ever intended to be a pro at it, but it just has so many advantages on being a pro-potter! No kiln or clay required! Anyway this model I think marks a point when I really nailed it:


The final turing point I would like to mark is represented by this model from the 80s. The point where I realised that I love fantasy best and that Non-metallic metal isn't really that hard:



And I suppose my first commission pieces are pretty important! Thanks Gitsplitta! Not the best work I ever did but then they are only supposed to be tabletop standard level.



Anyway my quest for perfection continues. Many many painters can still claim to be better at this than me and I will not rest until they lie broken and defeated before me! MWwAHAHAHAHa!! Actually I probably will rest and other painters may continue to be better than me unmolested. But still I'm not done yet.

Well I for one have enjoyed the journey this far, but do expect greatness in the coming years...

Talking Old Skool though - if you haven't already, you should check this blog - lot's of inspiration and downright nostalgia to OD on..

http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.co.uk/

This article in particular is jaw dropingly awesome - a tour of Bryan Ansells miniature cabinets on an 'Oldhammer Weekend' (these cabinets are anything but miniature though...)
http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/oldhammer-weekend-2014-bryan-ansells.html

Amazing to see those models close up again. Just points out the terrific skills you have.

EPIC website Ruglud, thanks! That'll give me something to drool over later! I bet he has more oldhammer than me as well.

Cheers gitsplitta I will gracefully accept that compliment. I will admit to having a steady hand and microscopes for eyes (my optician is worried about my long range eyesight, but who needs it).

I'd better get back to real life, we are watching Jaws.

Happy 200th birthday young lady!

Young! Lol. Only really old people think I'm young. But thanks graven.

A bit of eye candy for your appreciation. The advanced heroquest guy scrubs up well, incidentally I loved what monkeytroll did to this chap recently, turning him into a chaos champion! And there's a nice bit of freehand on the militia guys shield I came up with after poring over the heraldry guide.



I'm having the urge to get some townsfolk/villagers for my amusement. Reaper bones look do-able. Need more though.