Brain Cat!

Hello Everybody!

I'm sorry for the delay -again- but that's just the way it goes. Sometimes I have a hard time finding time to get to the Torture Chambers, which means that the painting progresses even more slowly and I don't really feel like writing something, if I have nothing to say...

But now I have a bit of news!

Look out! It's a jumping brain!

I've painted a cat!
Well, not so much a cat, as a brain. It's a Mind Eater from Reaper Miniatures and I think it is probably the best sculpt of this monster, eventhough it has been made more insectoid, than the D&D monster, it's obviously based off. For this kitten I've tried to get a kind of organic black on the legs, by painting in dark greys and then washing with different mixes of red, purple and black inks. I'm not sure how visible these shades are to you guys, but in my eyes the washes give this critter a much more vibrant and diverse color, compared to just drab grey. The base is done in much the same way, only with green and blue inks and a bit lighter colour scheme...

Miav!

Here's the picture of an Intellect Devourer from the AD&D Monstrous Manual, the kitten who Reaper's sculptor Patrick Keith is obviously inspired by. Eventhough I like the cat's paws version better than the more arachnid version, this is still a fun miniature to paint and the brain part is appropriately gross. I might get some more of them at some point, just because they have a great gross-out factor!
I'm planing on using this cat as the warhound for a future Frostgrave band, made from Cthul-oids. But first Tor Gaming has to get their Kickstarter set in production. I can't wait!


But enough about felines!

As I've stated before, I have an easier time focusing on the work, when I have a kind of project to do. Single minis can be fun, but I work better, when I can plan a bunch of painting, such as a Frostgrave Warband or some such thing. And now, I've thrown my love at a gaggle of barbarians from Rackham's Confrontation game. Or is it a murder of barbarians? No matter; here they are, so far:

From left to right: Man-at-arms, Treasure Hunter, Wizard, Barbarian, Man-at-arms.

These are Kelt Sessairs from Aarklash, the world in which the Confrontation game takes place. Confrontation minis are -hands down- my favorite miniatures of all time, no matter if we're talking orcs, barbarians, mutant zombies, giant dragons or whatever you can name! This small group is also in the works to become a Frostgrave band, but it will be expanded a bit, when I get a bunch of archers and one more Spasm Warrior from Johnny, over at Brains and Guts. He found a bunch of the Rackham minis in hi's stack and immediately contacted me, to see if I wanted them...

I'm also focused a bit more on getting some work done on my commision; it's going a bit too slow, even for my own taste, but it's just a little difficult for me, to focus solely on the massive task that it is. You can see the almost finished ghost ship in the background of the Kelt picture...

That's all for this time! Have a nice week!

Slow Week...

This has been a slow, lazy week; at work we have been doing stuff by routine, but for some reason, I just didn't have any energy to go to the Torture Chamber yesterday. That's my basement; I have the whole basement to myself and therefore I have a hobby room the size of our living room. So I shouldn't complain...
Friday evening we went to see a Danish comedian/folk singer, who did an excellent job of it; he's from the rural parts of Denmark and very down-to-earth in his' observations. And he is seventy years old and still trucking! He has a way of writing very funny lyrics, but singing them in a quite melancholy way, that can quite fool anyone not paying attention to the words. It was a blast!

That's enough of rambling; on to the painting!

I chose to go further with the Rackham wraith and I think this guy will take some time, since I'm trying out some different new techniques on him. First of all, I have to say:

Whoever invented black primer is an idiot! 

Well, not really; many painters use this to great effect, especially for getting a quick tabletop standard and it does make it more forgivable if you find some hard-to-get-to places on the mini. But for me, the black primer is a serious inconvenience; the paint have to come on in a much thicker layer, which means that I have to paint eight or nine layers, instead of the usual two to four. But I only have two other minis in my collection that are black primed, so I think I'll live through.

Rackham Kelt Drune Wraith

I have done some work on him already: Most places have gotten the basecoat and initial shading and the metal works have been highlighted.

The new thing I'm trying is to start with a rather light basecolour and then taking it from there. Everything, except for the metal, is based with Vallejo Model Colour and shaded with The Army Painter Quickshade Inks. The cloak is based in Grey Green, the skirt and boots in Khaki, the ropes are Buff and the skin is Medium Grey. If you look at these, you will see that they are very light colours, and quite desaturated, all of them. That was my point in choosing them; I wanted to see how I could drag them in different directions, using mostly shading.
The Khaki areas and the ropes started of with a liberal coat of TAP Soft Tone and the skirt got a few extra coats in the deeper recesses. The cloak got three coats of a mix: 2 parts Soft Tone and three parts Green Tone. The first coat was only put in the sharp recesses, the second coat was in both the sharp recesses and the wide, but deep recesses and the third coat was  watered down a bit and then washed all over the cloak. So far, so good...

The skin is what I find the most interesting: This is clearly an undead! Hence I wanted him to look at the same time long dead, but still "living", meaning that eventhough he is dead, he is still ambulatory and I want it to be clear that he has been alive before, i.e. not a golem or some such thing. So I started with Medium Grey, which is a light grey with a small hint of brown in it. This gave him a dissicated look, sort of how I picture a mummy, and that was not what I was going for. So here come the vibrant washes!
 I started by giving his' sores a coat of TAP Red Tone. Then the very deepest parts of his' skin got some Purple Tone. After that I mixed the to two inks in equal parts and watered that down with again an equal amount of water(1 part red, 1 part purple, 2 parts water). This was used all over the skin, but not splashed on: I was carefull not to cover the outermost parts, like fingers, the chin, knee caps; basically; I paint the shadows in, rather than letting gravity and surface tensions do the work. I will try putting in some brown inks next, to tone down the colours a bit, before putting on some highlights...

Well, that's gonna be it for this week; I hope to have something more next week!

And we reach conclusion...

And my first warband is done!

Archer, Wizard, Barbarian, Apprentice

Thug, Knight, Warhound, Man-at-arms, Thug

I am not the fastest painter, so I knew, this was going to take a while, but we are finally at play! And I actually have more painted minis ready, if I want to try out different line-ups: More HeroQuest orcs for thugs, more Ruglud's Armoured Orcs for knights or Men-at-arms. But this is the first warband I'm going to try with. Now just to find someone to play against...

The last mini I painted was the Wizard's Apprentice:

I found him a bit more challenging that the others, since he had so much bare skin on him, which needed more attention, to be less boring to look at. So I tried with some reds in the shadows and I think it worked. They came out very subtle, but I think they have to, not to make him look strange...

 He got a bunch of blue jewels, this guy, to make him stick out a bit, from the generally more red-based group he is a part of, but mostly I like that he has all this bone jewellery, instead of beads and bracelets. He really seems like some crazy, magic addicted fuck-up. I tried to make hes skin less brightly green that the archer, but still more brightly green than the Wizards skin. The point is, that he is not as old as the Wizard, but still more worldly than the archer. The rest of the doesn't have this kind of history to them , but I might invent one, at some point...

He got a bunch of blue jewels, this guy, to make him stick out a bit, from the generally more red-based group he is a part of, but mostly I like that he has all this bone jewellery, instead of beads and bracelets. He really seems like some crazy, magic addicted fuck-up. I tried to make hi's skin less brightly green that the archer, but still more brightly green than the Wizards skin. The point is, that he is not as old as the Wizard, but still more worldly than the archer. The rest of the warband doesn't have this kind of history to them , but I might invent one, at some point...

So, what to do now?

Well, I've got the Dreadfleet game, that I'm working on, but I need another project, to keep me going, so I'm considering the following three:

A Science Fiction group of adventurers, composed of these four guys. I'm thinking along the line of Shadowrun, or the like...

Next is a small group of Rackham undeads, three wraiths(pictured), some kind of wraith leader, whose actual name I forgot and a pretty neat ghost guy.

The third is to begin painting up my mind-shattering group. These two are the first, but they will be accompanied by Illithid, bathalian and the coming range of C'thu-miniatures(from Tor Gaming)

But, as I said, I dont excactly know what the future will bring, so check in for updates...

Thanks for reading and have a nice week!

Death Metal and Demos!

So we are at it again. This time with a slight delay in publication, but since I'm the only one making the deadlines, I'll allow it.

The reason for the delay is that my wife and I have been  a bit busy going to concerts.
We went to Esbjerg(at the westernmost border of Denmark) to see Cattle Decapitation and Suffocation. The next day we went to Copenhagen(at the easternmost border of Denmark) to see them again. In Copenhagen we met up with Lodsiwoc of Brains and guts-fame and we had a blast! And heard some blast beats.
One of the support bands, Exuviated, I had never heard of before, but as it turned out, they were completely awesome. I had a chat with their singer at the merchandise stand and he was a terrific guy, who was just happy to actually be on tour with such genre giants as Cat. Decap. and Suffocation.
In all: A great time and two great show with some great people!

Exuviated, Belgian death metal, Esbjerg.

The kings of death metal, Cattle Decapitation, Copenhagen.

But lets get to the point!


I've been doing a bit different things, for the past weeks which is also a bit responsible for my delay. I've taken on a commision, to paint the Dreadfleet game for a friend. It has taken alot of time, but hopefully, it'll come out well.

But for the Frostgrave warband, I finally have this guy:

"Lets me shoot you wit dis arrow Is don't have!"

He is more brightly green than any other orc, I've ever painted, but I though long and hard about it, and decided to try. And I am actually quite happy with the result! Here you can really see, how the Harlequin orcs are more similar to each other, than the old GW-ones. Compare this to my wizard and youll see they have almost the exact same facial build and expression. And most of them are like that, but when mixed with other orcs, you don't really notice it. And off course the paintjob also help to camouflage that similarity.

I also got to finish up my treasure trove with now a total of eleven treasure markers. That'll get me a ways... This is another thing with this game; it has got me totally motivated to actually go digging through my bits boxes and find uses for all sorts of Sh-tuff, that I had no plans for. Motivation, here we go!

Another project, was to do a demo of a new thing I got. This is to be viewed as an independent amateur showing how well it works using the Quickshade Ink from The Army Painter. I used an old HeroQuest Orc and just gave him a basic paintjob; only basecolours.
After that, I simply dunked him in a tin of Strong Tone Quickshade Ink and actually dropped him. The scratches on his sword arm are from my trying to pick him out of the tin with a pair of pliers. Let him sit for five minutes and shake him well. Really well! And then just wait for him to dry. For at least 48 hours. I gave him a poke after only 21 hours and left irremovable fingerprints in the paint, so KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF!!!!
Before the last step I had to redo some green on his' head, where a big glob of ink had settled, but it was only two small lines, to pick out his eyebrow wrinkles.
And the last step was a coat of Anti Shine, again from The Army Painter, although any matt varnish should do the trick.

Far left: Basecoat; middle: Dipped in Quickshade; far right: finished model.

So to simplify: Basecoats. Dip in TAP Quickshade Ink Strong Tone. Matt Varnish.

In my review of this technique, I must emphasize three things:
1: Remove excess ink after dipping, with a brush. If there are any flat areas, on the mini, ink will pool there, which will give you an ekstra step before you're finished.
2: Let it dry completely before handling! If the ink is not dry, very, very little pressure will leave marks, that you can't cover in the paintjob.
3: Use matt varnish after the ink. Eventhough the ink also works as a solid varnish, the matt coat is essential. The middle picture is with the Quickshade Ink completely dry and that stuff is reflective!

My conclusion here is that dipping with Quickshade Ink is a very good technique, if you need to make lots of minis fast. I spent a total of 40 minutes on this orc, bar the drying time, and I am very pleased with the result. If I had prepped my 30-odd clan rats I could probably have them all ready for play within a week(which, if you follow this blog, you know is an extremely short paint time! ... For me...). The finished model has not been highlighted, which really shows how well the Ink finds the right places to go! I will tough him up a bit, though; highlight the ground under him and pick out his eyeballs, but after that, he will go to his' place in the cabinet.

That's all for this time! Thanks for reading and feel free to comment and criticize!

Next up: Wizard Apprentice!

As the dog barks...

I keep on rolling!

This week my main concern has been this little doggie:

 You saw him in my last post, where he only had his' base- colours on, but now he's all finished up and ready for battle!
He is a Chaos Hound from GameZone Miniatures, that I did a little bit of conversion on; he had some devilish spikes on his' back and they were removed and the cut was modelled over with greenstuff.
The paint scheme is made for him to look as if he's a creature of the same ilk as the orcs with whom he's going to go questing; the green bristles on his' back fit with the gren skin of orcs, although they have a markedly different nuance, than the orcan skin.

And here we have some critters that I painted up, while waiting for washes to dry. Actually, I'm only talking about the small wolves, since the other beasts were painted earlier, but seing as this is all the animals I have for Frostgrave so far, I grouped them together:

The Spiders and small wolves are from a pack from Reaper, in which I also got some great cats, that I'm planning on painting up for Snow Leopards. The big wolf is actually a werewolf miniature from Ral Partha, that I got more than 15 years ago, but didn't paint until now. He's pretty cool and I'm happy that I can find some of these really old lead lumps in my stash and still find a use for them!

These two are Barbarian Orc Archers from Harlequin/Icon miniatures. I seriously love these sculpts, as they are simple and old school, but still very characterful. They don't have tons of detail, but enough to not be boring.

I put this picture up, to show the difference between a basecoat and a single wash of Quickshade Ink from The Army Painter. It's marvellous to see how the wash finds the correct places to land, something I never managed to achieve with Games Workshop's washes. I really can't stress enough, how awesome these inks are; easy to work with, yet awesomely effective!


Lastly is a picture of my next target; the archer for my warband:

He is missing any real armour, but the rules give archers leather armour, as standard, and I think that can be well represented by the animal fur, he is wearing. The inside of the fur is just the rough leather skin of whatever creature he got the fur from.





That's all for this week! I hope you enjoyed this little read and will follow this painting trip with me, as I (hopefully) progress as a painter and writer.

Two in one week???

And so I am at it again!

Not only am I posting two entries in this blog in the same week, I have also finished two miniatures this week! And that is not something that happens often. My usual modus operandi is to start painting three or seven or twenty(well, that was only once) miniatures at the same time and then branch of a bit. Paint the basecolours on all of them, then start shading a few of them and then probably start a new batch, going back to a single miniature, starting all over again on a new one and then start building some terrain... You can see where this is going!

But right now I am working rather focused on my Frostgrave warband: I had to paint up five miniatures, to have a working band, the rest of them were already good to go on the shelf. Barbarian(you saw it in the last post), Wizard, Apprentice, Archer and Warhound. I had some of the paint on the barbarian, so he was my first choice. I had to wait for the three soldiers to come in the mail, so while I waited I converted a Gamezone Chaos Hound, by cutting of his' spikes and plugging out his' sores with greenstuff. Then when the minis arrived(from Black Tree Designs) I started basing them and basecolouring them all, so they would all be ready for the paint, as soon as the last mini was finished.

The Wizard; what type is he?

So, tuesday I finished the barbarian. Wednesday morning I started on the wizard. And today he was finished!
I keep having doubts about the bases: I paint them for frostgrave, which should warrant frosty or snowy bases, but I kind of feel that it would be better, if I keep the bases a bit more generic. So the bases might look a bit too hot for Frostgrave, but it is a distinct choice, not lazyness or indifference.
I can't figure out which type of wizard he should be. I like the idea of Chronomancer, but the imagery on this guy doesn't really give any pointers. Many people seem to think that Orcs should be witches(shamans), but I don't truck with that kind of racial prejudice! I think he will end up being either a Chronomancer or an Elementalist, spewing out lightning bolts, left and right.

My Warhound: isn't he a cutie?

Next up is my Warhound! He looks like this so far, but he has only got basecolours and a single wash for shades, so he's not that interesting yet...
I want him to appear as if he has brown fur on most of the body, but then with green bristles down the back. Actually, I think this mini looks more like a mutated lion, than  a hound, but he is an orc dog, so that's not really a problem. I'm really looking forwards to seing the end result! The musculature is great(Duh! It's from Gamezone!), but I really haven't had that much experience with this level of detail before. We will just have to see!

Treasures for the Frozen City!

While waiting for washes and other things to dry, I off course couldn't help myself, so here's a few treasure markers for the game. They are quick and easy to make and the paintjob will be really fast and simple.


 My wife saw my work room and said I should put this picture in the blog, too. It's just the left side of my working table, with all its' clutter. I am currently at one stage or another in planing, preppeing or painting all of these miniatures, so I will probably be finished soon. In 2096!

How many companies can you spot?

Well, that's all I have for now! I am back at work tomorrow, so there will probably not be the same progress for next weekend, but I will find something to write about anyway. I hope I'm not too wordy, but if I am, that will most likely go away over time. I tend to do go on and on...

Have a great week!

It's been a while...

... It sure has!

When I started this blog many, many years ago, I thought I would be putting down my thoughts about everything every week or at least once per month. As it turns out, I've not even made one post for every year, I've had it. I'll try harder! And I will try keeping this blog about my miniatures, instead of about(as the title says) random thoughts I feel like writing about.

SO!

I've begun painting with a goal. Instead of mostly painting arbitrary miniatures that I thought looked cool, I've started painting up for a Frostgrave warband. What compels me to go for this system is the relatively few miniatures I need to have, to be able to field a complete warband. At a maximum of ten miniatures pr. player, it's pretty easy, even for me, to paint all of them.

So, after buying the rulebook and reading it through a couple of times, I got started. I started building a bunch of terrain for this specific game; it's just ruins, so it was pretty straight-forward.
Here are some of the ruins. It's just expanded styrofoam, covered in spachel. It couldn't be much simpler!

These are a little bit smaller, but the general principle is the same. The well water is just paint covered over with gloss varnish and the green floor tiles are simply bits of old cereal box.

This is a Wizards Tower, for a scenario from the core rulebook. Again; spachel and styofoam is your friend!
The doors here a giving me a bit of a headache; the circumference of the tower is very small, so I have to round the lintels, which is kind of difficult to do with my usual tecnique of cutting up popsicle sticks and coffee stirrers. But I'll figure it out in the end!

And this is my warband. From the top we have Archer(unfinished), Apprentice(unfinished), Wizard(unfinished), Knight, Man-at-arms, Warhound(unfinished), Thug, Barbarian, Thug. I'm doing the entire warband out of old school models. I just love the style of these old boys and recently I just can't get enough of them!

Lastly is a close-up of my barbarian. This is an Ogre Champion from the late Harlequin miniatures. I fits so perfectly with these old orcs, that one would think, he's just their older brother.

That'll be all for this time. I hope the next post will be less wordy and more picturey, but we'll see about that. And hopefully it won't be five years more, before the next post is up!

Thanks for reading!