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Happy New Year howie. Those pikemen are looking great! You're absolutely right, the dark earth does complement the yellow quite well. Are all of the minis in your last photo casts?

Thanks very much for the kind words! I'm glad I made the right choice, the lighter brown didn't throw up enough contrast for my liking.

They're all casts. There's two different models, made up of the legs, torso and arms. Then I put on different heads. At the moment I'm using a mix of different companies including GW and Maxmini, there's a third but I can't remember off the top of my head at the moment.

I'll be creating a new mold soon to get some great hammers and and replacement arms. Hopefully it'll come out better my last mold, I'll be using a different rubber mold as my original stuff was kept outside the house and I believe it's caused some problems while it's cured.

Thanks for looking and the kinds words again. =D

Wow, it's really hard to believe those are casts, they look great to me. I agree with your choice and what zahnib said the yellow on your pikemen is really popping, the dark earth color was a good choice.

Those are some good looking casts! Well done

@Syro cheers. The casts are good from afar, but far from good. There was a lot of clean up work to be done after casting which I hope to minimise with my new mould.

@Zahnib, thank you much appreciated. They'll get better given time I hope.

As always my scattergun approach to this blog continues. I've recently been to a Warhammer tournament where you got points for having a fully painted army including bases and movement trays so that prompted me to finish my undead project or at least get a little closer to the finish line. With that in mind I did a bit of free hand on a banner as well as tidy up the army.

Then when I got back from the tournament receiving an absolute kicking I thought it's time to revisit my ogres. For this I wanted to try and make them look like mercenaries for my empire army. I had a pin badge from years ago which I made a press mould from to make some Karl Franz inspired shields from. I think the result was good.

Any thoughts?

Good evening all,

No update on painting. But I have spent the last two evenings putting together some new models. 25 of the MOM peasant spearmen and a unit of 3fimir and a noble. This leaves me with another 75 spearmen to put together and 6fimir. Having fun putting them together so will trudge along with that.

I really wish MOM made a matching unit of bowmen in the spearmen style. Oh well till then I'll just persevere with all the other companies out there.

Wow that's a lot of units. It's fun to see fimir again. I haven't seen them since classic Hero Quest

Cheers Syro, in total I I have 170 of those MOM models. 50 painted, 120 bought in the black Friday sale when they made there already cheap miniatures cheaper.

I've never seen anyone use fimir in 8th edition Warhammer, so I've decided to blow a hole in that and get a unit of 10. I'll be painting them really dark and suitably gritty. I'll be going for either a dark blue/ turquoise for the skin or a dirty green.

Oooh, definitely looking forward to seeing those fimir!

Thanks ChaoticMind,

I've hit a stumbling block with the fimir currently. I'm not massively happy the skin colour I've got with and how it's coming out. I don't know yet, think I'll finish Basing the first one before inplow ahead with any others.

On the other hand I have been getting to grips with my next "Tournament" Army. I usually take some random army that the meta or other players think I'm mad for using. But this time I agree that I'm mad for the army and unit choice.

It is obviously the peasants. Going to be using them as Halberdiers. Currently just got the base coat on them and hoping to do skins, straps and washes tonight, probably get them based as well.

Good evening folks.

I've been getting on with the first 20 of the halberdiers. They've been washed with inks and some brown contrasts. I still need to go over and pick out the satchels and straps, the buckles and most importantly the skin as I nearly forgot about that.

I like to get ahead of myself as always and I've started the shields, they'll be similar in style to my spearmen. I promise they'll look good at the end, well to my usual style.

Looking good howie, I like the variety of shield designs you've got

Where are those peasants from?

I like the shields, the consistent color ties them together but the various designs give them some history or texture.

Cheers guys,

@zahnib, yeah I had good fun trying to use my airbrush again. I don't think I've used it in a fair old while. These where just easy designs I could think of. I've got another 80 shields to do, so I'd there are any other designs which would suit I'm all ears.

@Kid_kyoto, They're from MOM miniatures. Really affordable miniatures. I got 120 of them with bases for under £100 with postage in a black Friday sale. The quality isn't the greatest, a fair few mould slippages, but I'm very content with them.

A minor update. After work I managed to paint the rim of the shields. Nothing to spectacular I know but I think it shows they're better already.

Good evening!

Just need to do the skin now on these then I'll call them battle worthy.

In pretty happy with how these have come together, when the next 30 are done I think they'll fit in really well and look like a great uniformed unit which will fit in great with the rest of the army.

Hope you like!

Unit is looking great, the shields really give them character. They'll look fantastic when they are all arrayed on the tabletop

Looking good Howie
How big does that bring your force up to?

Sorry for the slow reply.

Real life getting in the way of toy soldiers.

@Zahnib, Thanks i was fairly happy with the shields. I think they came out to a decent standard. I think the spearmen shields are better, but I'll just have to get a bit more confidence and patience when using the airbrush again.

@Syro, Simple answer too big. However, the armies are going to be broken down in to their various factions.

The Estalians, just because of how slow they are to make and paint are currently on hiatus.

The Peasant Army from Stirland however is growing monumentally. There's 70 infantry painted so far, started on another 25 this weekend so they have been basecoated and washed.

This will be an army I'm taking to a local friendly tournament, where i plan to pull out all the stops and make it look awesome. To that end, I've spoken to the tournament organiser about Demigryphs as they just don't fit in with my peasant horde. So I'm going to proxy and convert appropriately a unit of 6 Albion giants to use as them. Hold fast for them.

Thanks for looking in!

Good luck at the tournament Howie, I hope you have a good time at it.

Thanks Syro,

The tournament isn't till April and I've had a change of heart with my army. For although I'm loving the look of it. I can't stay within the comp limit I've set myself and have a decent army.

So on that note.

The ogres are back in town and they've brought there heavy hitters. Rhinox and plenty of them. The forges of Howie have been busy. I'll be using them as mournfang till I go to a tournament which allows the use of Grimhorn Rhinox riders.

I've started painting three while I await eBay supplies and restock.

I'll have a painting update tomorrow. Thanks for looking!

Two more Rhinox, a Sabretusk and a hunter. The horde grows by the day.

A little more progress on the next few minis.

Got there base colours down. Just a bit of highlighting to be getting on with and finding some bases for the two Rhinox.

In front you might be able to see the shields I'm using for the ogres.

I really dig the new ogre hero model, I think he's meant to be a tyrant or a bruiser. But he looks very Hunterish to me. Using a chaos warhound as sabretusk, as eBay hasn't been fruitful for finding a single cheap tusk.

Hope you're enjoying the ogre addition to my forces.

Evening folks,

The Hunter is probably 98% finished. Just want to pick out a few textures to make it pop a bit more than add some snow to the bases.

I've made a movement tray for the pair of these pals. Which will be the same style as there base. I also need to to add snow to there bases to finish them off.

Not much movement being done on the ogre project. But I am getting them based with matching movement trays.

Nice work howie. That's an impressive bitz box/jar you have in the background!

Thanks Zahnib.

To many bits not enough full models any more.

Today's update from the hobby desk 21 halberd wielding undead skeleton warriors.

I can't remember if there were rules for these in 6th or 8th edition, I don't know what I'll be using them as but hey ho.

They'll be having coffin shields. Which I've also added some pics of, these where made my making a press mould of the metal shields GW made back in the day.

What a difference a few days make.

I've got a few things to do to complete them, maybe I'll do that or more probably I'll go off on a tangent and start on something else.

Hope you like them

They look great! Those shields came out really nice, what material did you use to cast them? And where are the skellies from?

Thanks Zahnib,

I enjoyed the shields, I'll be making a handful more. Just resin. made the push mould out of blue stuff from coolminiornot. I'm not usually a fan of it but it turned out pretty well this time i think.

The skellies are 6th edition Gamesworkshop I think? They're certainly GW. They used to come 3 to a pack.

I'll get some photos later of the blue stuff, Resin and results.