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Hello there. I'm new here and have decided to start up a Blog.

I've been in the hobby, on and off, for quite a long time now and over the years have been fortunate enough to have provided some modest commission work in the realm of the smaller scales. I am currently working on some 6mm Napoleonics, but my real passion is for 10mm Fantasy and (if I ever get around to it) Epic 40k. Since the purchase in store of a Dwarf Army Boxed set I was bitten by the Warmaster bug, but would you believe that in 15 years I've never actually painted a single unit..... not a single unit!

Instead, like some kind of lead loving magpie, I gradually built up what those in the business refer to as a collection. After the tragic demise of Specialist Games I began looking elsewhere for alternatives and, when located, these would also be added to the collection and it is with these more recent purchases that I would like to begin.

Might I just quickly add, primarily I paint for the love of painting. I find it a deeply relaxing pastime that has an almost meditative nature..... all that not thinking and simply being kind of thing. Calming enjoyable stuff. However, I find that I really want to start getting these models painted and am hoping that this blog will encourage me to actually finish some projects.

Thanks for bearing with me, here are some 10mm Pikemen that I'm painting up for the germ of an idea of a Dogs of War mercenary army, under the command of a ruthless and fickle mercenary general nicknamed Filthy Luca! They still need a fair bit of work but you get the idea.





Now, I'm not the fastest painter so please bear with me in terms of updates. My painting priorities are currently:

Empire/Dogs of War Army
Steppe Goblin Army
Vampire Counts Army
Dwarf Army
Also the odd Kislev, Araby and Chaos Units
Throw is assorted 6mm Napoleonics, Dystopian Wars and Epic 40k
.
And there you have an idea of my backlog, so please stay tuned if your interested. Oh, and comments and conversations will be very much appreciated.

That's looking like a good start so far.

@GiraffeX - Thanks for the morale boost, my issue tends to be alot of starting and not much finishing, hence this project log.

Right, a little more from my painting table! A selection of items of varying stages:

A little more on the good old Pikemen, although I'm still in denial about having to do a banner. At least their plate looks nice and polished now, just need to make that yellow and blue pop a little more.



Some British Napoleonic Heavy Horse in bicorns, gotta love a bicorn. Lots to do on these chaps.



Some primed Polar Fox Steppe Goblin infantry with some Pikemen to give an idea of size. Now they look a bit big chunky for goblins, but hey, it's fantasy right! Nice variety of sculpts on the strips with loads of character, also there is room for chopping up the bases so you can mix the order up a bit and I think they give a great feeling of a disorganised horde.



Thanks for looking and once again, comments welcome.

Pikeman are looking good.

I like the horses but they are all the same colour, that would drive me mad.

The Goblins look like they will be a nice distraction unit to paint as well

I must confess, I hate painting horses. I get the impression from some customers that they like the Heavy Dragoon horses to be a particular uniform colour (that said, others want at least two colours), but al least they're only 6mm and don't take too long so I can soon get down to having fun with the uniforms! I was also fiddling around with a couple of new brown shades but they ended up looking horrible so I admitted defeat and painted over them.

And yes more distraction, just what I need. To be honest I didn't actually realise quite how detailed they are so getting them primed was clearly a brilliant idea. At least the Landsknechte have the decency to wear some kind of uniform..... with bright colours...... instead of fur...... oh no..... not more brown!

Back from a little break, as I've mentioned I am somewhat sporadic in my hobby-time and I've been fiddling about with something rather different.

I recently obtained some Battlefleet Gothic miniatures (and am keen to get my hands on some more!) and am excited at the scratchbuilding/converting possibilities. I've always had a fondness for the pre-Forgeworld epic aircraft and fancied some of these in (inaccurate) BFG scale - I justify the scale issue with the fact that pretty much nothing in BFG is proportional to a set scale, after all the centre of the flight stand represents the actual craft!

Here are my efforts and I'm gradually press moulding them in green stuff, please let me know what you think.

It's been kind of forever but here are some of my latest pieces and some work in progress, they are Dystopian Wars Australians who are going to be the core of my mercenary fleet. Hope you enjoy! There will be much more going on here in the coming year...... last year was a bit of a write-off sadly.





Thanks for looking.

Looks good!

Here's a small update on the other 3 Frigates, just some base layers and a wash so there is still a fair bit to do. Also just received the Frostgrave rulebook and am assembling a Rackham Dwarf Armourer to be an Enchanter! Exciting times!



Thanks for looking

A Happy New Year to all!

So, I mentioned my Frostgrave excitement and I've started on the Dwarf Armourer >ahem< Enchanter (hey, he's got an anvil on his back for, erm, enchanting things with). I've spent a few evenings working on this chap and he's still quite a bit of a work in progress, I am however really enjoying painting at the huge scale of 28mm - there's simply so much model to play with!



Anyways, progress will be documented - all the rivets need metallics for a start, highlights, more shading, blah, blah. Hope you approve.

Thanks for looking.

P.S. Apologies for the massive picture links.... need to work on that.

A little bit more work done on this fellow:

Here we are then, one finished Dwarf Enchanter! First finished model that I've painted for myself in quite some time and it's a great feeling, I've got a whole war and left to paint and need to get cracking.



Thanks for looking.

Love the dwarf. Rackham's exaggerated style worked without looking off balance (once they got a consistent theme).

I love the pinky on his right hand, the anvil on his back, and just the pose. One thing you could try is going for more reddish knuckles for a bit of additional visual interest (it worked for the nose). The colours are really nice and subdued without being too aggressive (also: the yellow/gold combo works for some reason).

Thanks for the compliment! You're dead right about the knuckles, they look a bit delicate compared to his rather ruddy face, I'll definitely try to roughen them up a bit.

Always loved the Rackham miniatures, especially the dwarves and goblins since the rather large heads gave the sculptors lots of opportunity to create some really expressive faces.

Yup, the goblins towards the end of their metal days were great. They had a degree of stylization that worked for them without looking ridiculous. Somewhere I have these two blisters packed away:
http://s914.photobucket.com/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/Goblins%20of%20No-Dan-Kar/GoblinBshi.jpg.html
http://s914.photobucket.com/user/RackhamMiniatures/media/Goblins%20of%20No-Dan-Kar/Goblinspearmen2.jpg.html

They are even compatible so if you have these you could switch the heads (if you, for example, wanted spear goblins with the hats). I think they were also compatible with the Samurats and ninjas who had the same style and were also released before they switched to the pre-painted plastic stuff. I really love the DIY fork-spear and it's quite funny while still fitting the style.

If you ever need a nostalgia trip down Rackham street this site offers images of most of their metal stuff: http://rackhamminiatures.yolasite.com/

Thanks for all those lovely links Mario.

The randomness of my projects continues as I begin a new collection...... yes, another one.

My latest obsession is the surprisingly varied (and economical) world of 15mm science fiction. My initial purchases did not disappoint and I've painted up my first diminutive figure, a Female Legion Officer from Ion Age. She'll be one of the main baddies in the evil crime syndicate for a number of narrative games that I'm cooking up.

Hope you like what you see.



Thanks for looking.

New figure painted, this time a khurasan post apocalypse gang member. Lovely sculpt, and fun to paint to boot! Great model for general space piracy with a hipster twist - the gun kind of goes with the 80s hair.