Northy in painted stuff SHOCKER!

That's about as much tabloid enthusiasm as I can stand, so back to my usual acerbic (lack of) wit.

January 30th to March 28th. That's a bloody long time to go without posting anything, isn't it? Ah well, fear not, I've made great use of my time to get some things done. Mostly not painting, admittedly, but I have completed a couple prototype pieces for some armies (Erseta and/or Greyhawk based) with a few more "on the way". Learned a few things about the painting of 15mm stuff, and considering these are the first ever finished (and based) 15mm chappies I've done, I'm still fairly happy with how they turned out.  Actually, I finished some of these a good week ago, but I'm truly terrible at taking pictures and even worse at uploading things in a timely manner. Still, pictures!

Do the clicking voodoo doodoo to embigggen the view!

First off, back and front pictures of the (18mm not 15mm) Dwarfs I painted quite some time ago. Finally based, this is actually the battlefield look if/when I get the other bases ready for a battlefield confrontation of some variety.

Next up, we have a base of spearmen. Ostensibly they're Vostlander town militia, but they'll do well enough as pretty much any moderately trained spear types in a fetching red and black motif.  This base is the one that I learned the most from. Primarily, the learning focused on the need for layers rather than a panacea one-hit ink wash.  The inking I used here is far, far too weak for the final result, and it doesn't make the detail hit nearly as well as the figures actually deserve.  Sure, they're "good enough" for the battlefield, but I'm certainly going to be doing things slightly differently for the next batch (which might just lead me to revisiting this base to make them match up a tad better to their comrades, we'll see).

 Lastly, a stack of stakes to hide the masses of troops that I have (yet to paint) behind. Based in the FoG 15mm style, I bought some thin rigid dowel (roughly the size of matches, only round) and went to down cutting them to length with cutters then whittling the tips to points and bases to a flat angle. I found that applying some green stuff to the metal bases helps seat the stakes more solidly and also gives a better looking surface rather than the oddly two-dimensional look of plain metal. Still, let me tell you, these bastards work VERY well as caltrops versus my feet.


Next most likely to be finished is the prototype heavy gun base that's 90% done, or, muse permitting, possibly a 28mm D&D figure of my darling wife's superstrong fighter, or even a Wehrmacht-themed Ogre Mk.III.

Swamp prototype, with pics!

Finally, the first (of hopefully, many!) swamp terrain piece I've done is complete.  It's not perfect, and I'd surely like to add more 'depth' to it, but I fudged somewhat to allow it to scale reasonably well across Ogre, Battletech and even stretch to 15mm 'Armies of Greyhawk' scale.

Considering the compromises, I think it's turned out quite well. I've also learned a LOT about the process, and think the next few pieces will only look better and better with each iteration.  With the swamps done, then I'm left considering whether it's lakes and river features next, or more trees. Whatever I choose, terrain wise, I'm just glad that my table is gradually getting populated. That being said, I DO have a number of rather sexy looking terrain pieces I picked up at Dexcon that need basing and painting... Then there's the half-built wreckage markers I'm putting together for Ogre minis... Or I could finally get to painting a few more Canopian 'mechs... Or finishing off the Marik colour testbeds for my wife's 'mechs... Or the character sketch of my newest AD&D character...

...

*twitch*


Anyway. Enjoy the picture of the swamp prototype and glamour shots of Caroline the Fencer and some Pan-Euro forces modeling the latest in red "swamp camo".

Trees, a talentless hack's guide.

In the spirit of Christmas (and the beautiful blizzard of frozen doom that it brought the poor residents of New Jersey) I thought I'd post up a few snapshots and a brief how-to guide of just how I go about making bases and bases of little trees for the eventual prettification of vast hordes of 15mm Greyhawkesque soldiery. As always, it's accompanied by pictures. Do the clicking thing to embiggen!

Stuff wot I uses:
Woodland Scenics Fine Turf (yellow grass).
Woodland Scenics Coarse Turf (yellow grass).
Woodland Scenics Soft Flake Snow.
Woodland Scenics PVA (they call it is "Scenic") Glue.
GaleForce Nine Clump Foliage.
Foamboard. Any thickness works but I prefer 4-6mm for stability.
Trees. I forget the brand, but I picked up a buttload of them for about $20 that required assembly.
Old, Coarse Brush (I use an ox hair brush for glue duties).
Acrylic primer and paints.
Excel craft knife.

Step One!
Starting with some ordinary foamboard, I cut rounded shapes of varying sizes to act as bases. Aim to have them big enough for anywhere between three and five trees to fit comfortably.  I them trim the sides to have them slope.  It can help to draw outlines first, but I only very roughly follow the lines I draw anyway.  Once you have some smaller shapes, cut some larger ones to act as bases for two, three or four of the smaller bases, this handily allows you to remove a few of the tree stands to allow units to be better positioned 'inside' the woods while still marking out the shape of the woodlands with the larger base underneath.

Step Two!
Affix a number of trees to your small base. You can do this either with standard superglue or use the PVA. I used PVA as it's slower setting and gives a solid bond to the foamboard. Depending on the trees you use, you may have to drill holes into the foamboard, mine came with bases ready to affix, so I took the easy route and simply glued them right on top.  Once they're in place, apply a liberal primer coat to the whole base, sides and all. I use grey primer for this, simply because white would be too frustrating to keep track of on top of already white foamboard. You can use brown, grey, even black if you prefer. Any neutral colour will work, just try to pick one that won't ruin the topcoat colour you plan to finish with.

Step Three!

Once everything's dry, apply a base coat of the general colour your bases will end up. Deserty bases will be yellow-brown, general grassy bases green, ash wastes grey, etc. Go with your instincts and stick to mid-tones and less bright and vivid colours and you probably won't go too far wrong. Even if you do, then don't worry, just let it dry and drop the tone or outright change it with another colour if you prefer.



Step Four!
Here's where the glue and the enormous messes come into play. It's my personal favorite part of making terrain, too. FLOCK! Take your painted bases and place them on a sheet of flexible card or heavy paper then apply a liberal coat of 50/50 watered down PVA glue. With the entire base (and sides) covered, scatter on flock directly on top of the board. At this point, it's OK to smother the whole base, let a mountain of flock build up, and try to ensure every last inch is utterly covered and entirely buried. Don't worry about it getting in the trees or all over everything else, that's why the paper was there! Put the whole thing aside and let it dry for two to four hours at minimum. Personally, I prefer to leave it overnight.










Step Five! 
Dig out your flocked base and tap the excess flock clear! Blow it a couple times if you have a clear area, but be prepared to have to vaccum afterwards. Tip the flock from the paper back into your containers, card or paper is easy to bend to funnel back nice and neatly, too. A good mantra to keep in mind when using flock is this:  "Apply more than you'll ever need, then whatever's still stuck down after a year will stay for life."  It's true, too - expect to lose flock as you handle them even long after they were done. You can apparently avoid this by applying a layer of spray adhesive after you're done, but I admit I've never tried it myself, so I cannot vouch for it's effectiveness or it's effect on flock and other scenic bits and bobs. If you have used it, please do let me know in the comments! 

Now, if the one coat of flock is good enough for you, then you can quite easily leave your newly finished tree stands to live happily ever after like that. I, however, had other plans!

By repeating step four, I built up different coloured, textured layers of grasses, then affixed some undergrowth using some scenic clump foliage. This gave me a pleasingly interesting base with some details going on between the trees. But still that wasn't enough for me. This is terrain being built specifically to go alongside my Snow/Ice/Frost barbarians from the Armies of Greyhawk project...  "Why should I leave it without any snow?" I thought. Thus came another step four, only this time I also applied glue to the trees and bushes beneath using downward strokes of the brush, trying to hit only the upper facings. Another being buried in flock (this time a beautiful white) and voila! We are finished.



(BOOT NOTE: I'm not sure if many Americans even know what PVA glue is. The two hobby shops I tried gave me blank looks, but the Woodland Scenics "Scenic Glue" that I decided to experiment with is actually PVA-based adhesive. Use it, because it's great. No, I don't work for Woodland Scenics, but their terrain stuff is dirt cheap and kicks ass. I've never used Elmer's Glue, but I've been told that it will probably function in much the same way. If you do know any other glues that are PVA-based, or work the same, put them in the comments!)

Chain mail and dice.

 I find it heartening that, in the seven or so weeks since I posted last on this here blogamajig I haven't had a single person ask me "how come you don't post?". This is a good thing, because it means my insulting mannerisms are clearly working at an acceptable running capacity!


So just what the hell have I been up to in all that time? Making chain mail dice bags, mostly. I've also been cleaning up and priming some more 15(18)mm Dwarves, stealing some of my wife's 15mm Normans for a diorama and priming up a half-dozen bases of Saxons Frost Barbarians for the not-very-top-secret Armies of Greyhawk thing I probably mentioned and linked before.

First, I finished off the dice bag I had been meaning to make for myself for ages and ages. Finally my played-with polyhedral collection grew too large for my little wooden dice chest, so I finally had motivation.  I put together a pretty decent little bag out of stainless steel, pics enclosed.  The thing can handily hold six complete sets of standard sized polyhedral dice, and probably a metric assload (which is 2.2 old imperial assloads) of standard wargaming d6ers. I finished it off with some leather thong. Explaining what I wanted by leather thong in a store, however, created a whole world of amusing embarrassment. Ah, the joys of cultural misunderstandings when trying to speak English to a New Jersey native!

Three pictures there, one of the 'start', mostly for a curious friend who knits and was all intrigued by how it's done. The second is of the finished, empty dice bag and the third is a happily stuffed bag ready to go out gaming. Probably with other loose dice bags that play first edition, because I'm getting suspicious that my dice bag is a bit of a hussy. During the last session I was at three different people took dice out of it! What a tart.

On the theme of dice bags, I also made one for my good friend Mjolnir as a form of weregild for missing his convention-run Pendragon game at the last minute. The others at our table seemed suitably interested in it, and if anyone that happens to be reading this wants one then either let me cross you somehow and therefore have to make one in repayment of my disastrous failing or buy one from me!  *hint hint*  Yes, yes, shamelessly commercial of me I know, but the more people want my bags the more awesome a massage gift I can get my wife for her birthday... And she really does deserve awesome, as she will certainly tell you.

Hmm, no other pictures, so you'll have to take my word for it that I've been occupied with stuff.  I'm starting to be distracted by video games quite a bit lately, which is sad because you never finish video games with something tangible in front of you like you do with chain mail or painting. Still, I must say that Fable 3 really, really is hilariously good fun, and worthy of being a distraction.  When I'm done with distractions though, I'm starting to get the wargaming terrain itch, so I think the next few projects after the Norman/Saxon diorama, and hopefully painting up a few Saxon bases, will be some hills, forests, maybe some rough terrain pieces for Field of Glory/Armies of Greyhawk type stuffs.

You may also notice that a common theme with me is thinking of a hundred things that would be really cool to do and then ultimately doing only about four of them. I require people getting on my back about doing stuff, clearly.

FINALLY!

After a week of feeling like crap, then losing my camera battery charger (and having a dead battery) I finally have something to show, and yet after all of the wait it's still only a small handful of miniatures. Still, I have to say that I'm really quite happy (and, dare I say it, proud?) of what I get to show off. 

First up, here's the first of the 15mm figures I've ever painted. It's a special gift piece I did for Joe, a good friend and DM of the AD&D campaign I play in (and steal inspiration from). Behold, Ranger Joe!





The others done to date are a base worth of 15mm heavy Dwarf Infantry, which will be based and possibly used under the FoG/modified FoG rules and are painted in colours appropriate for the armies of Greyhawk.They're finished, though they're not mounted on their appropriate base simply because I was mind-fartingly stupid and didn't think to get any with my order! As they stand, they'll sit on the cardboard I PVA'd them onto to paint them until I get bases. Besides, finishing basing them will give me another reason to post an update!

Next up on the painting table, aside from the Blood Bowl teams that are STILL not done, are a trio of Battletech mechs. A Warhammer, a Centurion and a Victor. While I'm still grumpy about various sounds coming out from Catalyst, the miniatures are certainly pretty.  In addition to those are a pair of 1:1200 scale age of sail Royal Navy ships (a First Rate, Royal Anne, and a Fifth Rate, Phoenix, which are likely not to be finished soon, damn rigging...) and a few more bases worth of Dwarfs.  Told you I have miniature ADD.

15mm...or not?

As promised, here's a comparison shot between some naked (oo-er!) metal Black Raven Foundry Rangers and Dwarves (columns two and four, respectively) alongside some Old Glory 15 Norman dismounted Milites and Saxon Hirdsmen (one and three).  The squares on the tile beneath are one inch, for scale.

As you can see (I'm sure you can click through or use some other intertubes wizardry to see the larger image) the Rangers are taller, and the Dwarves seem incredibly tall. Oh well. I like the Dwarves and the Rangers next to one another (and the test Dwarves are being painted up nicely, updates on those to come by the weekend, I hope). True, they don't mix perfectly with the historicals, but you'd be hard pressed to find a mini line that scales perfectly even with itself, so I'm not too terribly fussed.  Besides, when I'm looking top-down on them, I really don't see much of a difference, and that's what matters most to me when I'm gaming.


Additional content warning: Trees.  I've been spending a little time putting together some pine forests. Well, the trees for the frosty pine forests, anyway. Enjoy another fancy picture-ma-bob that also gives all you voyeur-types a peek at part of my desk (and reveals my adoring allegiance to Vallejo paints).  I have to chop up some stands for these, mount the trees, paint and flock bases then produce some foamboard bases for the little stands to play on. It should look pretty nifty when done. Rest assured, you'll have pictures.

It's ARRIVED... Well, sorta.

My consignment of Field of Glory books have arrived!  It's a good sign that, on first glance of them, the rules seem mostly clear and concise, and the companion books only want to make me get the rest of them. I'm looking forward to clumsily playing my way through the first handful of games with my Frost Barbarians Anglo-Saxons.

Also... Happy 15mm painting fun time! Well, soon at least. My miniatures have arrived and I'm sure I'll be spending large parts of Wednesday night going through them all in some obsessive-compulsive fit that has me sorting out each individual sculpt of miniature into a box with it's fellows so I can try to make the optimal balance of miniatures for each base.  Yeah, I really am obsessive compulsive enough to be worried about actually doing that.

No newly-painted miniatures to update this with, unless you want pictures of half a dozen primed Beastmen or a Minotaur (you can blame reading the FoG books and playing Elemental for that), but if people bitch at me enough I'll end up posting new pictures of old miniatures just to shut folks up who DEMAND CONTENT. You jerks. In the meantime, I'll leave you with an answer to a question a few people of late have asked me.  No, I'm not going to elaborate, but I will say yes, I have played it and, sad to say, with the way most people seem to approach 4e play I think contracting herpes from a brazen strumpet* would be more fun.  Are all you questioning chappies happy now?  Good.


*Bonus I <3 U points go to anyone recognising that particular reference.