Perp Walk

As I'm meandering through the backlog, there's a constant internal debate about how I can best use models. This means considering elements such as equipment, aesthetics, scale and need.

In the case of these three models, everything pointed to them joining the gangs on the mean streets of Mega City One.

Obviously, they are armed with none specific guns, which immediately points to something futuristic, with the heightened eighties vibe suggesting the heyday of 2000AD.

Meanwhile, thier slightly taller scale (without being too chunky) works okay with the Warlord Games models, and finally, already having Judge Dredd join the two Judges that came in the starter box meant that the gang members are currently woefully outgunned and reinforcements would be necessary.

These three models are all from the Grenadier Miniatures Future Wars range that I had a habit of picking up with my pocket money as a youth.

I see this extremely stylish lady as potentially being the queen bee of the street gang, a bit like Ma-Ma in the Dredd movie, but played by Grace Jones.

I've owned this model for 30+ years and only realised today that she didn't have sleeves.

This next guy screams anime bodyguard, with the over the top hair and sharp suits.

I kept things simple with the suit as I was going for something like the look of the Crazy 88 in Kill Bill.

I opted to go with blonde hair to offer some colour contrast, and lean into to the vibrant colours of anime.

This feeling was added to by the the symbol in his back that is sculpted on. I've no idea if this actually means anything, but I went with red and white to again evoke something Japanese.

The final gang member looks like he's played by Bruce Campbell, a very squared jawed fellow.

As such I went for a colour palette that suggested redneck hunter.

He also has a symbol on his back, but his had no design sculpted on it. I went for the number seven, partly because background characters in Judge Dredd often have details that make no real sense, but mainly because it was an easy number to freehand.

With Warlord Games ending the production of Judge Dredd: I Am The Law, I don't think this project will every go very far. However, at least I've ebened the odds and increased the chance that I'll be able to use all of my judges at once.

Acquired: -119

Painted: 476

Lead Mountain: 246

Channel Hopping

Do you ever have that feeling when you can't decide what to watch? You end up jumping about from channel to channel, never really focusing on anything.

Do you ever have that feeling with miniature painting projects? This blog is clear evidence that I do.

Do you ever have that feeling with regard to miniature painting projects related to TV and film for 7TV? Well...

I woke thim morning with no real focus for my painting and so decided to turn my attention to a variety of individual models related (in different ways) to 7TV, if not necessarily related to each other.

First up are a cheerleader and road sign I got as stretch goals for hacking the Night Terrors feature pack campaign. I've not really paid much attention to this so far as I'm still trying to source a cheap train and track for the second scenario of Vlad's Army.

The cheerleader is a typically clean sculpt from Crooked Dice as really easy to paint. The trickiest part was trying to pick out the raised lettering on her jersey, although this is because it's small as the words are actually really well defined, especially given that it's a metal model.

I liked painting the sign (I got a similar one with 7TV: Pulp) although I did have to mend it as the supports were snapped. Fortunately, as it's 3d printed in resin, super glue does the job really quickly. However, it's quite fragile, so I'll have to be careful with it.

This model was also a freebie with a Kickstarter campaign, but this time for the 80s supplement - this explaining the outfit.

The model is very clearly based off of Kelly Lebrock in Weird Science, although I forgot that she was meant to be wearing leggings and so, amazingly, I've managed to objectify her more than the film did.

I have absolutely no idea what I would use this model got, but as I've based her on asphalt (she's holding a basketball, grass would have made no sense) she might find herself in zombie or superhero scenarios as a bizarrely scantily clad civilian.

Yet another Kickstarter freebie (I think this one was with the launch of 3rd edition) is this director, that might possibly be meant to be Steven Spielberg.

Despite really liking this miniature and enjoying painting him, I genuinely have no idea how I would use him.

Crooked Dice have a habit of producing characters and macguffun tokens that are linked to film and TV production and in theory I could build a group of miniatures that could sit off to the side of games of 7TV.

It would be quite meta.

The final miniature is the Irma Kraangdroid from the 2012 version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, in which April O'Neil's school friend is revealed to be a alien inside an impossibly large robotic disguise.

This is clearly a riff on the appearance of Kraang in the classic 1980s cartoon, even though the 2012 series went a very different route in the portrayal of the Kraang as an invading force rather than an individual character.

The model is a Heroclix sculpt I've had for a long time. I opted to just tidy up the existing paint work rather than do a full repaint mainly because the glasses are much better than it could ever manage myself.

I've quite enjoyed painting a few random bits, and this little collection has reminded me how much I enjoy painting Crooked Dice sculpts, and I probably need to restock my supply at some point.

Acquired: -124

Painted: 473

Lead Mountain: 244

Back in the Saddle

Printing and painting Castle Grayskull has promoted me to return to the remaining Masters of the Universe miniatures I still hadn't got around to.

Namely these are Skeletor on Panthor and She-Ra on Swiftwind, both from Archon Studios.

These are promo game pieces released in advance of both the Fields of Eternia and Masters of the Universe: Battlegrounds games.

Although, I was grateful to be able to pick up these two characters at a reasonable price (they're not exactly things you can proxy), the arrival of official games just as I was completing my collection of Masters of the Universe miniatures did knock my duck off for some time.

Skeletor was one of the first models I painted in this project and I've already had a version of Panthor knocking around with him, made from a Mantic Basilean big cat. However, ever since I got my hands on a mounted version of He-Man, I was keen to have a counterpart model for Skeletor.

Although being a dynamic sculpt and relatively easy to paint, the models are made of a softer plastic. This means that the inevitable rougher areas of the sculpt and moukd lines are harder to clean up.

What's more, being cast in one piece makes it hard to get to the brush to some areas, and so I adopted an approach of if I couldn't get my brush to an area, it was more than likely that nobody would be able to see that but.

This issue was more pronounced on the She-Ra model, especially around her waist. However, I am pleased that with a bit of patience I was able to ensure that there are no obviously unpainted events visible.

Another issue was that the soft plastic sword blade snapped whilst I was dry brushing Swiftwind. Fortunately, I had some spare swords in the same scale left over from the multi part Eternia Palace Guards. It's not exactly right but it's close enough and looks better than a broken sword.

This model makes me smile. Partly this is because every part of the design screams of 80s marketing execs trying to sell a product to little girls.

"What if we had Barbie in a mini-skirt and tiara riding a unicorn which flies on rainbow wings?"

However, I am mainly smiling about the characterisation of Swiftwind in Netflix's She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. He is granted the ability to talk by She-Ra and immediately uses this newfound ability to start agitating for better treatment of horses in the kingdom - and he never lets this drop across several seasons.

I have no idea if I am going to add to my Masters of the Universe collection, but I am tempted to see what stls I can find to bring some of the vehicles to life.

Acquired: -124

Painted: 468

Lead Mountain: 249

Fun Guys

I had a bit of a super glue issue over last couple of days. I used a rather large amount of it securely sticking together a rather chunky miniature that's in the pipeline and I ran out.

This, and the fact that not one but two gaming stores had also run out forced me, at least for a day or two, to turn my attention to something that did not require sticking together.

Which all led to these chaps...

These are three Reaper Bones Mushroom Men that I bought a few years ago to be part of a 7TV: Fantasy cast for an event.

I ended up changing my mind about the cast and taking He-Man and chums instead, but not before I had base coated them and slathered all three in Agrax Earthshade.

I suspect that this might have been the cause of the change of heart as the Agrax Earthshade had dried shiny and dulled the colours.

Therefore, my first order of business was to sort that out by giving the models a coat of matt varnish, dry brushing the bodies and redoing the red on the caps. I also used some Snakebite Leather contrast paint to pick out the fungal growths on their backs.

Can fungus grow on fungus?

The leader, a Mushroom King apparently, took a bit more work, mainly because he's bigger.

However, I did need to pick out moss on his cap, along with vibes and other fungal growths on his staff.

I suppose I could have been a bit more varied and imaginative with the colours I used for this, but as I'm not really painting these chaps for any real reason, I didn't feel the need to go to town on him.

Personally, I think he's turned out fine for whatever I end up using him for.

The original plan was to add these three as stars and co-stars to the Mushroom-Folk I'd painted as a proxy Halfling Blood Bowl team (the Mushington Redcaps) and use them as a 7TV cast, and in fact I took the opportunity to brighten up the rest of the models.

I could still use them as a Blood Bowl team, with the new models as a wiizard and couple of cheerleaders. Alternatively, they could easily feature in a game of Five Leagues from the Borderlands, or they might come in handy if I ever DM some D&D again.

Whatever happens, you'll be delighted to hear that I now have more super glue.

Acquired: -124

Painted: 466

Lead Mountain: 251

Old Frenemies

Having worked my way through my 35 year old Dwarf collection, I decided to turn my attention to some Elves of a similar vintage.

I don't have many Elves in my backlog for reasons rooted in my many attempts to build different armies for Warhammer Fantasy Battles.

My Wood Elves, as regular readers will be aware, have been one of my go to armies since 6th edition. They were built from a variety of plastic boxes with a smattering of metal miniatures. Pretty much every miniature I could put into the army has been.

I've never owned many Dark Elves, although I did make moves towards an army at one point, painting up a small unit of Witch Elves and starting on some crossbowmen. However, this project never got off the ground and the last of them were sold last year.

I did actually have an army of High Elves (half of it painted), based around the contents of the 4th edition boxed set. Tyrion and Teclis led an army of archers and spearmen supported by small units of Dragon Princes and Phoenix Guard, with a Tiranoc Chariot and a Reaper Bolt Thrower along for the ride. But these also were all sold before I got back into the game after leaving university.

These four miniatures were bought to be part of that army many years ago. I stumbled across them in my local model shop and bought them to use as a squad of Shadow Warriors. However, I never found a suitable leader for them and so weren't with the rest of the army when it was sold.

I had recently intended to sell these as well, but when I was researching what the actual models were (I had never seen them in any other context) I discovered that there were actually Deep Elves (Noldor) from the Citadel Middle Earth range from 1985, and this was enough to finally pique my interest enough to paint them.

They are oddly posed miniatures and there are places where the casting was a little rough, I think they represent an early attempt by Citadel to manufacture miniatures that you could rank up easily.

Painting was simple as they are encased in metal. I've given them black hair to fit with Tolkien's description of the Noldor (except the House of Finarfin), and the dark blue shields felt right for the children of the stars.

The leader model isn't from the same range. In fact he's technically not even from the same manufacturer. He's a Marauder Miniatures High Elf from 1989. Marauder were a splinter company that were eventually reabsorbed back into Games Workshop later.

I think my holy grail of miniature projects would be getting my hands on either a Marauder Dark Elf of Dwarf army as advertised in the pages of White Dwarf. I so wanted to take advantage of the deals offered for buying a whole army at once.

This chap came to me via a friend but seems appropriate to lead this little unit, even though he's significantly less well armoured.

Again, I've leaned into the dark blue for his tunic and shield, and the design on the shield is a Space Marines transfer that reminds me a little if the Star of Feanor.

I've no idea what I'll use these for, as I have nothing much to add to them to form even a skirmish force. However, they may show up as a patrol in games of Five Leagues from the Borderlands or 7TV.

The final addition in this post is another plastic Dwarf from the Fantasy Regiments box.

I had two spare bodies and was delighted to find another head when I was looking for the Elves. As one of the bodies had a crossbow welded to its back and one had no axe head, I chopped them up to make a single useable model.

He was painted up just like the others, with a shield on his back to hide some damage to the model, and adds another body to my tiny force.

As well as getting these six painted (as well as disposing of what was left of the mangled Dwarf body), this puts marks some significant progress as I've been selling more than a few miniatures again.

I was pushed into action by the unexpected appearance of a bunch of British Napoleonics in my backlog. Therefore I took the opportunity to clear out some models I'd never get round to: a number of WizKids D&D Miniatures, a box of Fireforge medieval cavalry, the remains of several Wargames Factory Zombie and Survivor kits.

Importantly, this takes me below 300 models left to paint, and given the progress I've made this year, raises the very real prospect of me finally achieving my long term goal of painting everything I own.

Acquired: -124

Painted: 463

Lead Mountain: 254

The Secrets of Castle Grayskull

In these febrile times, a child of the 80s like myself has always been able to cling to a number of unassailable certainties in life when trouble comes knocking: Auto-bots will roll out; the Teenage Mutant 'Hero' Turtles are the world's most fearsome fighting team; and He-Man will defend the secrets of Castle Grayskull.

Unfortunately, it turns out that we can no longer hold on to these truths:

 - every time the Auto-bots roll out, the next movie is even worse;

 - any close analysis shows that the Turtles get their asses handed to them regularly;

 - the major secret of Castle Grayskull turns out to be that it's 3d printed.

I stumbled across this model whilst messing around on the Bambu Handy app. It's made by a creator who designs pieces to put in reptile terrariums. This explains why the model is in ruins as it allows the given reptile to move about more.

Seeing this, I ignore the ruined state of the Castle as I have been after a piece of He-Man themed terrain (specifically Castle Grayskull) for some time, and all it needs to do is set off the concept that a generic fantasy table is in Eternia.

The castle printed in just just three pieces: the front facade, the top turret and roof, and the side wall, and took the best part of a full day to print.

Painting was done quickly and with spray paints. A full undercoat of black, a zenithal highlight of a military green and then an all over wash of Biel-Tan Green (which actually used less of the pot than I was expecting).

I finished it all off by sticking some lichen into corners and up walls to simultaneously capture the idea that the ruins are overgrown, whilst also covering the visible joins and uglier parts of the print. Finally I scattered some debris on surfaces where it might have gathered.

All in all, I am really pleased with the outcome as I was aiming at something reminiscent of the toy one I never owned. Although small for an actual castle the scale ratio between this castle and the 32mm miniatures I own is similar enough to that of the original toyline.

I've not done much with my Masters of the Universe project for a while. I had done all the important characters and the release of an official line of miniatures at exactly that point really irritated me. However, 3d printing does open up the opportunity of adding some vehicles to the project, and I do still have a couple of models to paint.

Acquired: -76

Painted: 457

Lead Mountain: 308

Space Force

You won't be surprised to learn that I have almost no idea what I'll be working on from one post to the next, so you, dear reader have absolutely no chance of keeping up with where my goldfishlike attention span will take me.

So, after a distinctly fantasy feel to the last few posts, I thought let's take a trip into the future and do some space cops.

I've had this little collection of miniatures for some years. I got the troopers from Leon with an intention to use them a S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in my Marvel project. The officer is one of those 30 year old models that I've never found a use for until now.

These models are Reaper Miniatures, labelled as Nova Corps. There is a whole range of different poses and weapons, so I might pick up a few more, as I enjoyed painting these.

One of things I liked about them are the fact that there are subtle differences despite the similarities in the armour. Not all of them have sidearms, the stances are all different and one is clearly a woman, without being sexualised (although for some reason, she doesn't have a badge).

In terms of painting, I did a coat of Leviadon Blue contrast paint over a grey undercoat and dry brushed a light highlight of pale blue. Guns, buckle and mask were painted in Leadbelcher and washed with Nuln Oil. It was then a case of picking out details in black, grey white, gold and Ice Blue.

I went with the white shoulders to stop them from looking like a SWAT team. It also has the side effect of making them evocative of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents (drawing for several different sources) allowing me to use them for my original intended purpose.

The officer is from the Grenadier Miniatures Future Warriors range. I had a habit of picking up blister packs from this range with my pocket money and I always thought this guy would possibly end up as a Commissar in an Imperial Guard army that never got past a single Sentinel and a Lieutenant on a Jetbike (no, I don't know where they are now).

However, just last week I spotted that his coat was almost exactly the same as that on the model I'd used as Captain Dash Halcyon in my Five Parsecs From Home campaign.

As Dash is an ex-milirary man, I figured that this model would work as a former colleague turned arch-nemesis, intent on bringing the deserter to justice. The Javert to his Valjean, if you will.

Therefore I copied the colours across to highlight the similar background but made the boots black and shiny to indicate that he's still on active duty.

I've been toying with getting back to my Fortune's Fool campaign, and this guy (who has yet to be named) might very well make an appearance with his squad of elite enforcers, however I can also see them equally turning up in games of 7TV.

Acquired: -43

Painted: 456

Lead Mountain: 342

Shipshape & Bristol Fashion

I mentioned in a previous post that I'd bought a boat whilst at the Partizan show.

I have now built and painted said boat.

It's a simple thing from Coritani Magnetic Displays (in their Trevor Howard range) and it wasn't very expensive.

The boat came with a mast and a few resin bits to add feature to the deck: a mast stand, an anchor and chains and a stowed sail.

The sculpt is fairly rough, but given the price and the fact that this is likely a weather-beaten fishing vessel, I think it's fine.

Painting was simple. Contrast paints with a fair amount of dry brushing and washing did the trick.

I'm not too bothered about the fact it doesn't have a sail as it's primary use will be as a docked vessel in games of Carnevale, and I think it's going to work excellently just as terrain.

However, it's so generic that it will work on a whole variety of settings, so I suspect it will get plenty of table time in the coming years.

Acquired: -44

Painted: 450

Lead Mountain: 349

To me, Eorlingas!

Having let a veritable army of new miniatures through my defences at the weekend, I needed to mount a robust defence against being overwhelmed.

Who better to look to in my hour of need than the elite of Rohan, defenders of Helm's Deep and heroes of the Pelennor Fields, the Royal Guard of King Theoden.

Now, before we get carried away, I haven't painted all of the models in the picture above in the space of 24 hours.

Long term readers of the blog (both of you) with remember that Theoden, Gamling and a couple of Royal Guard have previously featured in posts and battle reports (I like to use Royal Guard as Captains of Rohan).

I have, however, painted three of them in 24 hours, which I feel is pretty good going.

All three models were bought as a gift a few years ago and have been staring at me accusingly since then.

Despite the somewhat samey pose, these models, like their sword-armed compatriots, have poseable arms, offering a degree of individuality which I think work better with spears than swords.

They found their way onto my desk when I was undercoating the Dwarfs in the previous post. I was going for a silver base to speed things up as the Dwarfs had a lot of armour on show.

This is something that was arguably more true about the Royal Guards, and so I got them done at the same time.

Once dry, I hit the whole model with a wash of Nuln Oil.

I then proceeded to match a paint scheme from several years ago, which is made easier by the fact that I have a blog detailing the process I use, I never change the paints I use and I'm quite lazy in my approach.

Flesh, beards, leather, wood, green cloaks, red shirts and gold details were picked out and then hit with a wash of Agrax Earthshade and the plumes were done with Black Templar contrast paint.

Job done.

Admittedly, three of them doesn't stem the tide of new purchases, but it's a start.

Acquired: -44

Painted: 449

Lead Mountain: 350

Show & Tell

Due to.a range of differing circumstances, I haven't been able to attend any wargames shows this year, and so when Matt suggested going to Partizan in Newark this weekend, I jumped at the chance.

I didn't go with any particular intentions to buy anything, but I was more interested in seeing what I could grab for a bargain and look at some intimidatingly detailed demo games.

For example, this one...

This massive game was by Shrewsbury Wargamers (I think) and is themed around the battle of Rourke's Drift, but using Warhammer 40k Praetorians as the British and Orks in place of Zulus 

Interestingly, the chap I was talking to wasn't aware of the Bloodbath at Orc's Drift campaign from the very early days of Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

One of the things I like about wargames shows is that they remind me that I'm also a historical gamer, something that is easy to forget in an online space that is dominated by the grim darkness of the far future.

For example, this eastern front game in a ruined city reminded me just how long it has been since I played a game of Bolt Action.

It's also a reminder that I should probably build more terrain as good looking boards make a massive difference, as is clear from this Vietnam game. However, I'm always stumped by the question about where I would store it all.

It's aldo good to see what else is out there. This really involved, multi-level board reminded me that Burrows & Badgers is the sort of silly thing that has the potential to garner my interest.

I've previously resisted due to other games demanding my attention, but I'm nearing the end of several projects and so since might open up for some anthropomorphic shenanigans.

Mind you, there are other projects I haven't looked at in some time that I could easily return to, such as VBCW, something for which I do have a few bits and pieces still to put together, and I still need to return to Vlad's Army for 7TV, which covers a lot of the same ground in terms of terrain and miniatures.

Speaking of 7TV, although this board was using homebrew rules, it definitely had the same vibe as 7TV as Martians attempted to stop the world's billionaires colonising their home planet.

In the centre of the picture you can see Jeff Bezos and his delivery drone, whilst Donald Trump is just visible on the platform behind the rocket discussing the most wonderful plans that anyone has ever seen (everyone has been telling him they love this big, beautiful plan) with an unseen Elon Musk, who is dressed as Homelander from The Boyz, naturally.

And so we get to the part where I reveal what I picked up:

1. The show miniature is a Polish paratrooper, which I'm not sure I gave a use for, which is a shame.

2. I bought a boat because I've decided that I do want to work towards a proper board for Carnevale, and making it a dock should reduce the amount of streets I'll need to build.

3. My Blood Angels will be getting reinforcements in the form of a single Terminator and a very old Vindicator, which needs some TLC.

4. I grabbed Pirates of Lunar City, a feature pack for 7TV that I don't already own. I want to get back to the game and I find the feature pack provide good motivation.

5. Finally, and providing the biggest hit to my running totals, I bought 33 Napoleonic British from a very persuasive member of the RAF on their charity stall. These will allow me to build a second Sharp Practice army for the War of 1812.

I genuinely enjoyed this show as I think I've been so focused on clearing my backlog for a while, that I haven't thought about other things I'd like to work on. After today, I think I have a few different and exciting projects to look forward to.

Acquired: -42

Painted: 447

Lead Mountain: 356