Lower Fickleham In the Sun

Finally managed to squeeze in taking some pictures of the boards with the village and other terrain laid out on them. It ended up a lot sparser than I thought. I'm going to need more hedges and trees (can never have too many hedges or trees in the collection really) and also some more fields to fill it out.  

I just made a couple of additions to the boards since I last "finished" them. I wasn't real happy with the way the roads blended into the rest of the boards so I added some sand and paste as dirt in the gutters and along the edges. I also used some used and dried green tea leaves as leaves in spots of the gutters and added some patchy static grass on the edges.The cliff board also got some sandy texture and static grass around the rock faces.

Closer look at the improved roads.

I considered adding more grass but I think I want to keep the boards relatively simple and then make several flexible caulk pieces to go over them. These will be fields, rocky terrain, woods and such. I'm hoping it will give me more options overall. I'm still not real happy with the poor fit of the boards together and the unsightly join line. Hopefully the use of overlay pieces will disguise these as well. If I ever make more board sections I'll have to be more careful to get more exact edges but for now I at least have something to play a game on. 

Terrain Boards Finished

Finally the saga of the terrain boards comes to completion. I've been taking the opportunity to work bit by bit on them over the past couple of months. I started these quite sometime ago and then tried to get them complete in a four day rush last November. If you want to take a moment to look back you can follow this link to see the previous posts. Modular Boards

After the last coat of thinned down wood filler as a seal coat I also added some patches of other texture. This was done with a combination of scrubbing on some straight wood filler and using pumice gel I had lying around. ( I bought the pumice originally for basing miniatures but it didn't quite work the way I would have liked so it's getting used up here.)

Rock face after painting

I tried to put in a rough path winding up the hill as well.

Next up was painting. I actually pulled out some of my previous completed terrain pieces that would go with them to make sure things would match up.This is probably more important with the flocking later on though. The wood sides just got a straight coat of black gesso. As much as I would of liked to stain them I had to grind through several layers of the plywood to make the sides straighter and I expect the finish would have been awful.

Roads were kept dirtied up but with some cobbles showing for contrast. 

Last part was putting on the flocking. I used a first pass of mixed colors of flocking. I learned as I went along so the flocking on the first board with the crossroads is a bit rougher than the last. I decided to keep the flocking sparse in areas so that the painted parts show through underneath. If it turns out I don't like the effect once I start using them I figure I can always put another coat on.

All of the pictures were taken quickly with my cell phone. Unfortunately the boards don't fit in my lightbox so the pictures aren't the best. I'm hoping that I can take some better pictures soon with better natural light and with some of my terrain and figures on them.

Passing inspection

All four together. 

Possessed Civillian

This is one of the figures I didn't quite get done in time for the painting challenge now two months gone. I wanted to make a figure to show someone who got a bit too close to extra-dimensional powers and hasn't come out the better for it. He was sculpted up from a basic armature and then I just added a whole bunch of tentacles to him.

In progress shot, tentacles are just starting to grow. 

The nice thing about making your own figures is that you don't have to worry about casting limitations. In this case I was just able to add tentacles going all over with a lot of void space to give the impression of the figure being completely supported by the tentacular mass that he has for a head now.  

Side view

Sculpting is all done and he's prepped for painting.



Out and about menacing the neighbors. 

He painted up really fast as I went with a simple scheme. I tried to make the tentacles a similar color to the Shoggoths that I painted some time ago. Perhaps he's half transformed into one? The frock coat and pants are just a basic brown to contrast with the purply grey. For the skin tone for the hands I went with a pale sickly fleshtone.

  My plan is to fit him in with the Cabal, my evil faction. Maybe an experiment gone wrong or right?

 I might try to make a couple of my troopers as minders for him. I'd like to give them some sort of cattle prods or the like to direct him in the right direction.

"Who me,  Officer?" 

So it's been two months since my last post. The usual assortment of excuses I'm afraid mostly centered around several life changes. Hopefully I'll be able to get back in to regular posting schedule again as things have settled down somewhat. Finishing up my modular gaming boards are the next big project and I still have a couple of other figures that are leftover from the Painting Challenge as well.  

Sicktime Sculpting Projects

I suffered through a case of the man-flu this past weekend which threw my plans into disarray. I didn't get to submit my entry for the Hot bonus round and since I'll be on vacation next week it looks like I'll be missing the Comedy one as well. Disappointing but at least I should be able to submit the figure for the Hot round as a regular entry once I get around to taking some pictures.

18mm - The one on the left is going to be the first of my Great Victorian Writers Running in Terror series. On the right is almost done just the hard parts of face and hands to do.

I couldn't muster up the energy to do any painting this week but I did get started on a group of new sculpts in a variety of scales. I have vague ideas for uses for some of them but in general I'm just working on what I feel like right now.

Early stages of various pieces. 28mm on the left, a bust of indeterminate scale, and one scaled out to 1/35 as a trial run.

Armored British Infantry

I managed to finish up my squad of BEF infantry from All Quiet on the Martian Front. I had started three of them back in the fall but sidelined them to work on Painting Challenge entries. Now they and the other seven got their time on the painting table.

I had a debate with myself on how to paint them but finally went with basically the same as my regular infantry with the addition of grey/white for the helmets and breastplate. That way they will fit in in with the rest of my British ( all 6 of them HaHa) but still stand out on the battlefield from them.

My favorite out of this group is the Coil Gunner. I wish all of them had the same look. There is just something about the heavy armor, and the massive gun and backpack that just really speaks to me. I might try to make more of my own version of these troops based on his design.

For my purposes they are guys are going to be the specialist troops for the British Empire tasked to fight the various weird occurrences happening both at home and around the globe.

The squad getting down to work!

Dagon and his Spawn

When I went to finish up the rest of the Khurasan deepones for the Painting Challenge I was in for a bit of a surprise.  There were two extra minis than I expected. The pack came with 12 deepones in 6 different poses not 10 as I remembered. I also found this Reaper bones fishman I had purchased some time ago to go along with them and thought he would work great as Dagon, lord of the Deepones. Or at least some sort of titanic fishman leviathan.

This is as close to a beach as my scenery gets.



I painted them up pretty much the same as the first three but with some variations in shades for the skin. The big guy also got his armor plates painted up in a pale greeny bone color to emphasize them. I like the way he looks like the prehistoric armored fish the Dunkleosteus. Actually the local museum here has a nice set of the fossilized remains on display and I always enjoy taking a look at them.   

Time to add that Innsmouth look to this town!

I also paid some extra attention to his eye. If I've learned anything from watching Godzilla movies its that the eye is a great focal point for giant monsters.



All 12 of the Deep Ones and Dagon

I tried to do the bases up as sort beach like this time. I included some pool like areas on a few of them and some simple water effect with some gloss varnish. I suppose I need to do a beach or waterfront board at some point for them but I need to finish my regular ones first.


If you add in the Shoggoths I painted earlier its a pretty sizable force.

I also need to stat these guys up and try to find some more fish cultists or miniatures to use as hybrids to round the force out.

Bonus Round Entry 2: Mount and Riders

 

It took me quite some time to figure out what I wanted to do with this one. I trolled through my lead pile but came up with a disappointing selection of cavalry models. None of which sparked much interest in me. As much fun as the diversion of the first round was I wanted to get back to my main projects as well.

Union Land Ironclads are marked by both a production number and bear the Union shield.

Inspiration struck while going through my 15mm stuff as I had socked away a few models to form the core of my steampunk Union army. So I ended up working on a unit of dismounting Horseless Cavalry.

 

C Troop of the 9th Cavalry dismount on the edge of the poisoned zone.

The vehicle is actually a steam-tankette for 28mm from RAFM. When I first saw it I though it would scale much better as 15mm vehicle. I ended up extending the under chassis with some plasticard as it looked a little sliced off and awkward. I also added some extra bits to it including a new hatch on top and some towing attachments to the rear. Thus was born the Adams class stern-wheeler land ironclad.

As a frontier unit the 9th still hasn't received its full supply of new Prussian Green uniforms. Some still wear the older Calvary Blues.

I'm guessing that this is an older 3D printer model. It has some heavy layers from print layers on them. I kinda wished I filled them in a little better as the contrast between it and the flat plasticard on the bottom is rather stark. I did put some Mr. Surfacer on it in an attempt to blend it together but I guess I needed a couple more coats.

 

In progress shot to better see the extended chassis. I thought it gave it a bit more bulk for the scale. Would of liked to put all of those little rivets on it though ...

The Adams class Land Ironclad has become the workhorse of the plains fleet and central to the development of horseless cavalry units. This unarmed version is usually referred to the John Adams while the turreted one is the Sam Adams.

For the riders I'm using some of the US armored infantry from All Quiet on the Martian front. I figured these guys wouldn't want to walk around in all that heavy armor and might want to ride in on a vehicle like the Russian tankodesantniki from WW2.

The newly issued "Stevenson's Iron Lung" breathing equipment is vital for operation in the poisoned air of the Disputed Territories.

I converted a couple of the models so they could still be riding on top and one hanging on to the side as he is dismounting. Most were painted up in the Union's new Prussian Green uniform* but I also painted a few up in the older blues of the army.

* I just made that one up, but since my version of the Union is hostile to the British Empire I figured closer ties to Prussia might occur and the adoption of British styled khaki would be frowned upon. Plus I want my Confederates in khaki if I ever get to doing some.

Current Army doctrine is for Horseless Cavalry to dismount from towed carriages and advance into battle on foot, in practice most troopers have taken to riding directly on the ironclads.   

Don't forget to check out all of the great entries for the second round over at the Painting Challenge Blog.



Will the troopers discover the reason this homestead was abandoned?

Deepones

 

I was kind of sent scrambling this past week looking for things to paint. Nothing that I had ready to go was really grabbing me and I spent a bit of time working on my second theme round. I finally decided I needed to get going on something so grabbed some of my random 15mm stuff to paint up.

 

The only things I managed to get complete were the three fishmen I already had primed. These are from Khurasan miniatures and as usual were a pleasure to paint. I didn't really try anything fancy on them keeping to a simple green scheme with purple fins. I still have 7 or so more to do as well and hopefully will get them done later in the challenge.

I also prepped a few more 15mm guys to hopefully get to this week as well. I'll have to see how it goes as the day off for Christmas might give me more time to work or it might just suck up all of my free time. It's always hard to tell with family holidays.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas this year!