Right at the ragged end of the year, one last blog update!
Been getting a bunch of painting done this month, including the hatted bug guy seen in the last post. There’s also some Footsore Trolls mostly done and a scattering of other stuff on the painting bench!
The workbench at the very end of 2024. A small crew of WIP science fiction figures, three lovely Footsore trolls mostly finished, a whole batch of 3d printed barrels, and a scattering of other random stuff being gradually worked on.
They’re not great pictures, but here’s a couple of closeups of the most recent finished-except-for-the-base figure. This is some sort of Games Workshop Chaos Beastperson minotaur, I think, snagged earlier in 2024 as GW’s free in-store figure of the month. They had a silly spiked club/mace thing that I chopped off and converted into a big choppy sword, but are otherwise stock.
Captain Spacecow front view.Captain Spacecow rear view.
I’m trying to push my highlighting and edges more than I usually do, and have also been trying to add texture with paint more. It’s most obvious on Captain Spacecow’s horns and the blue piece of cloth/armour/whatever on their back, but there’s also fur texture on the torso and lower legs that isn’t really obvious in either of these photos.
The painted fur texture was directly inspired by this video from Vince Venturella. His entire YouTube channel is worth a look, he’s got loads of great videos that I’ve been watching a bunch of the last month or two.
Happy New Year and Happy Holidays. Hope 2025 is good for you and yours!
A while ago our local GW store was giving away a single Tyranid bug-warrior figure for free. Of course I snagged one, who doesn’t want free stuff? I’m never going to bother playing 40k, but a random free figure? Sure!
I glued the critter together (GW makes some… interesting engineering choices in how their figures fit together, some of the parts are weird AF…) and then it lurked on the corner of my painting bench for months and months.
Then I realized that in Corey’s in-development Under Alien Suns rules you could run damn near anything as a crew, so I kitbashed together half a dozen figures a couple months ago and decided, for the hell of it, to grab a hat with big feathers on it from my 17th Century plastic stash and glued it to bug-guy’s head.
Then in the doldrums of the year I finally primered the whole motley crew and starting painting them. Bug-guy caught my attention and he got finished today, right from primer to done (barring some cleanup on the base) just today.
Not-a-Tyranid. That’s Specialist Ghar under a dashing hat (they never explain the hat) loping through the scruffy weird universe of Under Alien Suns, or whatever other oddball SF skirmish we get up to!
I went purple for the exoskeletal bits, dark red/black for the flesh bits, and bright green for the rifle that may or may not be grown right out of bug-guy. I’m really pleased with the highlighting, especially of the purple and the gun.
Specialist Ghar’s other side. Click, as usual, for larger.
I’ll be getting paint on the rest of his crewmates in the next few days; I don’t go back to work until Jan 6 of 2025 so probably have time to finish all of them!
PaintRack is an Android & iOS phone/tablet app I discovered a few years ago ago, used a little bit, then during a reorganization of my chaotic painting bench remembered the existence of. This little review has sat in my Drafts folder for a couple of years, but it’s worth hitting publish on because the app continues to be really solid and useful!
The core of PaintRack is a paint library/inventory system to help you track which paints you own. It comes pre-loaded with a huge library from dozens of manufacturers, and can use your device’s onboard camera to scan the barcodes on your paint bottles to make creating your inventory as painless as possible. The free version will only scan one bottle at a time, but the paid version has a feature called RapidScan that lets you do a whole batch of scanning then update your inventory all at once. The paid version is only a few bucks, I highly recommend the purchase!
My inventory screen, with Reaper selected as that’s my main paint supplier.The RapidScan barcode scanner in action.Sets – the painting notes utility. Mostly used for WW1/WW2 stuff that has to be vaguely uniform in my case, apparently…Color Tools, figuring out which random Vallejo colour I don’t own is close to something I do own.Part of the Setting page – the app has a “backup to our website” option just in case you bork your phone. Have used that at least once…
PaintRack is actively working with various paint manufacturers to get their lines into the app, so if you’re Kickstarting the latest celebrity painter’s private line of paints the app probably already has their stuff available.
It isn’t just wargaming or model paints like Vallejo, GW, or Reaper in the onboard inventory, there’s art supply companies like Windsor & Newton and craft paints like Deco and Apple Barrel listed too, which means it can be useful for scenery painting or for those of us who branch out beyond just the game store paints.
There’s a Sets tool that’s basically a notepad for painting schemes that links into your inventory, and a set of Color Tools for developing colour schemes and picking paints for your inventory that are close matches to paints you don’t own (very useful for trying to follow other people’s painting tutorials!).
PaintRack also has a Wishlist shopping list feature, potentially very useful if you’re standing in front of a massive wall of paint at your favourite local hobby store trying desperately to remember which weirdly named colour it was you were missing at home! I think it’ll also tie into your Amazon account for online purchases, but I don’t give Noted Sociopath Jeff Bezos money if at all possible so I haven’t explored that part of the app.
Been doing gaming fairly regularly, had a good weekend at Trumpter Salute 2024 in Vancouver early in March, but apparently haven’t managed to blog a thing in ages.
Here, have a chill painting video in lieu of original content.
Bunch of stuff in progress including a gloriously over the top Gaslands war-bus based on a city busy chassis, which I have been taking a bunch of progress photos of and will try to assemble into a gallery here to show off sometime soon.
Speaking of Gaslands, and somewhat time-sensitive as the Kickstarter closes in 3 days, Fogou Models are running a KS for various Gaslands-scale scenery items. These aren’t STLs but actually physical cast resin pieces. Rad Trax Toy Car Scale Terrain on Kickstarter. The items will likely be available on Fogou’s webstore post-KS, useful for those of us who (say) just had to cough up a home insurance deductible after a plumbing leak and are a bit short on cash…
A quick look at the workbench right at the ragged end of the year! After not really painting anything for most of the second half of 2023 I rediscovered painting energy in November and have been plowing through a whole bunch of stuff.
The workbench at the end of 2023. Click for larger.
The anklyosaur person is from Fenris Games and is massive – that’s a 60mm base and they hang over every edge. The baggage ogre and little robot are Reaper, as are most of the random humans over on the back left. The sea serpent and big frog are Footsore Miniatures.
Overhead closeup of the current entertainment. Click for larger.
I’ve shown off some WIP photos of the anklyo-person over on BlueSky but they were early, no weapons mounted and painting not quite finished. I’ve got a whole bunch of WIP photos of this figure and will also be taking some good closeups after I finish painting and basing, because I’m really, really pleased with how they’re turning out!
The baggage ogre is just a fun figure, much more interesting than yet another horse and wagon if you need a baggage element for a fantasy game!
Rear view of the anklyo and ogre. Really, really pleased with how the shell of the anklyo turned out! Click for larger.
Hope everyone had good holiday season, and an excellent 2024 as we roll into the New Year!
We played a lot of Gaslands in 2020/2021 when COVID restrictions meant we couldn’t game in person, because Gaslands is fairly simple to organize overwebcam, and we kind of burned out on it.
Then we took Gaslands to Trumpeter Salute 2023 back in April, because it’s also really easy to set up pickup games for, and our pair of great chaotic games re-ignited our interest!
I’ve cranked through a trio of new cars since Salute, and then moved onto a new set of three cars. Two of the first set had been partially converted back in 2020/2021 and then neglected (and apparently I took no photos of them…) and the ’34 Ford hotrod was a new purchase while we were in Vancouver for Trumpeter.
’34 Ford hotrod being Gaslanded.Spikes!Yellow basecoat – paint was Reaper’s Hearth Fire with FW Acrylic Ink Indian Yellow over that.Weathering – mostly FW Acrylic Ink Sepia.Rad symbol wet transfer on the door, just for fun.The right hand side of the critter.’34 Ford conversion.
The second trio of cars include another sports car all spiked up, a rally car up-armoured, and a Jaguar D-type converted into a monster truck. The Jag was the most complex conversion I’ve done for Gaslands yet, and started with a set of 3d printed monster truck wheels.
Conversion finished on the rocket rally car and spiked sports car.Underside of the Jag D Type monster truck.Monster truck suspension under the D Type.The D Type in progress.Assembled, just missing the armoured panels on the sides.Paint started!The second batch – spiked sports car, rocket rally car, and the Monster D-type.
The basecoats are coming along nicely. The Jag is starting as British Racing Green, the spiked sports car is a gloriously weird yellow/green that Reaper calls Dungeon Slime, and the rocket rally car seems to have gotten trans pride colours, because why the hell not? Lots of weathering to do still, of course!
These three done will give me eight or so cars, a buggy, and three bikes for Gaslands just in my own collection. I have ideas for a heavy truck conversion starting with mashing together two big American 60s/70s Yank tanks, but I think I’ll switch gears slightly after this trio is done.
I’ve got the week between Christmas and New Years off entirely this year, so there’s been a bit of painting going on. Mostly I’ve been working on the 3d printed WW2 ships from Antics, as well as a few fantasy bits just for fun.
The workbench this holiday week. Naval stuff on the right, random Reaper fantasy stuff on the left!
The ships are coming along nicely, although the larger ones are slow going – so many details to paint around! The four U-boats in the foreground are basically done, unless I decide to do a bit of pin washes to pop the few details a bit more.
The larger vessels are all at least basecoated, although several are going to need a second pass as I realize I missed bits on the first pass. The two Royal Naval vessels (a Hunt DE foreground and “O” Class Destroyer behind) will get some sort of camo paint and the German KM T13-class torpedoboat might also get some, although it’s unclear to me if the Kreigsmarine ever actually did anything other than plain grey on most of their torpedoboats and destroyers.
From the front, U-boats times four, the RN Hunt DE and KM T13 torpedoboat, “O” Class RN destroyer, T2 tanker.The back half of the naval dockyard. O Class DE forward, T2 tanker again, Ehrenfals freighter, Lake class freighter (armed), and finally the Athenia passenger liner at the back.
On the non-naval side, I’ve got little group of Reaper fantasy figures. An armed ghast/ghost/haunt, a pack rat, and a pair of treasure markers. Not much to see here yet, but for those of you not into ships, here you go!
Various Reaper figures, very early stages yet. Two treasure markers, a ghast/ghost/haunt thing, and a pack rat who’s both a travelling merchant and his own pack animal. Reaper has a gloriously broad range of fantasy figures, if you’re not familiar with their offerings!
Happy Holidays, everyone, and hope the tail end of 2022 and the start of 2023 are good to you and yours.
It’s been a bit of an odd year for gaming, I’ve been having fairly regular games but not painting or building things on a consistent basis.
Obviously I’ve been very lax about updating the old blog but I have gotten a few bits and pieces done since the last update here at the end of February!
Gaslands buggy and dirtbike, from the plastic Implements of Carnage II set.
Sometime earlier this year I assembled and painted up this pair of little Gaslands vehicles, both from the North Star Implements of Carnage II plastic sprues. Both very cool Hot Wheels-scaled (20mm, nominally) little vehicles of a type that (unlike normal cars) you can’t easily get commercially.
Buggy and bike heading the other way.
By way of a mini review, I’d say buy Implements of Carnage II if you’ve already gotten into Gaslands, want the specific two vehicles on it, and probably already have the Implements of Carnage I set, which has lots of regular weapons, armour plates, and other bits that are more useful for converting Hot Wheels/Matchbox cars than what comes on the 2nd set!
There’s no instructions included with the sprues. The dirtbike is three pieces and goes together easily; the buggy is a bit more complicated but some test fitting should show you how it assembles. There’s two pieces of armour plate designed to go on either side that I’ve left off mine – they cover the sides of the roll cage either side of the driver.
More soon as I sort photos and try to get back into the swing of active gaming and blog posting!
These dead might be able to take themselves out, actually.
Basing still to be determined but painting finished on my first fifteen figures of 2022. These are North Star’s Oathmark skeletons; the other half of the pack is in Corey’s hands for painting and part of the reason the basing is unfinished is I’m waiting to see if we’re going to coordinate basing or just do our own thing individually.
Fifteen Oathmark skeletons, with some additions from other companies. Click for larger.
The big skull on their unit banner, and the bird and goat-ish skulls on two of the skeletons, are from GW’s Skulls pack, which is probably the most purely GW product GW has ever, it its long and illustrious history, produced. It’s also damn useful for kitbashing and scenery building and to date, the only GW product I’ve ever bought retail that wasn’t paint!
The painting was deliberately quick and simple. Grey primer with a white zenithal overspray, Reaper Stained Ivory mixed 1:1 with glaze medium for the base coat, Coal Black and Clotted Red for all the cloth and equipment, Intense Brown for leather strapping, Tarnished Steel or GW Dwarf Bronze for metal bits. After that was all dry, a fairly heavy coat of GW Seraphim Sepia over the whole figure, and then a quick highlight of the bone bits with Stained Ivory again.
This gave me a good looking hoard of dead folk to throw onto the table when we next face a necromancer in Sellswords or other games, and I have some good skeleton bits to throw into the kitbashing bits bin!
Personally and hobbywise, it’s not been a terrible year, although it’s been a bit low on the number of blog posts, overall. But for the rest… yeesh. Good bye and good riddance, 2021!
A bit of year end figure painting, with the faithful feline assistant in the foreground making things warmer but more awkward! Wargames Atlantic plastic skeletons for our fantasy skirmish stuff, whenever current circumstances allow us to resume in person gaming! Click, as usual, for larger.
With the surge in Omicron cases locally we’ve stopped in-person gaming again, out of an abundance of caution. We will probably resume sometime in January, but it’ll be back to webcam Gaslands for a bit in the first couple weeks of 2022.
A quick count shows 22 blog entries here in 2021, far more in the first half of the year than as the year wore on. Not bad, but I would like to get a bit more momentum going through 2022!
To that end, I’ve joined the PaintSlam community and their Discord channel; like a lot of wargaming social media it’s heavily GW-focussed but by no means exclusive to GW in any way. I’m “Vemundr” on most Discord channels, due to having started on Discord for Society for Creative Anachronism reasons, so if you’re on the PaintSlam Discord discussion group feel free to say hi!
Here’s to an improved 2022 for everyone over 2021! Stay safe, get your booster when you can, and try to get some gaming in!
