2017

Hell-o Everybody!
Once again, I have been forced to leave well alone and focus on everything but this blog. But now we have a new year and I would like to begin again, but perhaps set the bar a bit lower: Instead of trying to post every week, I will try to post once a month(at least). We will see how it goes.

So, 2016 is over and I must say, it has been a good year for my hobby: I have broken my PYFM for 2015 and as an addition I have made a ton of scenery. PYFM is short for Paint Your Fucking Models and it is simply the number of models you finish in a year. If it's a larger model, it can count two or three points, at your own discretion.
For 2014, I had a PYFM of 7, for 2015 I raised it to 11 and for 2016 I have an astonishing finishing rate of 19 models and twenty or so pieces of scratch build terrain, not including 6 smaller trees on decorative bases and a full gameboard(shown in earlier post).

Here is a picture of the last three minis I finished, the last of which saw the shelf in the beginning of december:

They are the first three soldiers of a band of tundra barbarians and they are, of course, from the awesome line of Rackham's Confrontation Miniatures.


And just to show the kind of terrain I make, here are pictures of the last three pieces I finished:

A Stonehengy thing-a-ma-jig:

A burial mound that has seen a bit too much of the rain. This is a bit large; the square room in the middle is four inches to a side, so the overall piece is maybe 8 inches wide and 12 inches long:

And finally a stone setting, that can be used both as a large obstacle and three lesser obstacles:

As you can see, they are rather detailed and I am really trying to make these as varied and interesting as possible, using a lot of different flock, static grass, foliage and shrubbery. I really enjoy building and painting these, but it takes a lot of time, which invariably takes time away form actual miniature painting. But what can you do...


That will be all for this time. I less than a week I'm off to visit Florida with my wife, and as soon as I get home, I am starting at a new job. After ten years at the same company, I am moving on to become the warehouse manager in a new company. The biggest plus to this change might be that I have two hours of transportation less, EVERY DAY, so maybe, just maybe, I will get some more time in the basement, from now on...

Happy new year, have a nice January and check in next month, for an update!

Game Board Pictures!

As of promised yesterday, here is a bunch of pictures of the finished game board. Well, I say finished, but I actually still need to paint the edges of the board, on some of the sides and I need to do that, before I can seal the static grass on the last plate...

But without further ado:

A bit closer:

And with a spattering of terrain pieces:

And one pic, in which you can see the textures a bit better(accompanied by my favorite orc troupe):

And just because I don't like to stay on one subject, here is the barbarian, I am currently working on. He is to be the first finished model of my first human warband and, actually, if this goes according to plan, he will be the first human miniature, I have ever finished!
I think I'm about halfway done with him; there's a lot of highlighting still to be done, especially on the sword and hairy bits. I have grown fond of the natural colours on him; the miniature didn't turn out nearly as drab, as I'd thought. Of course, the bright green of the crystals help, but even if I had stuck to painting them metal, or something, I still don't think it would have been boring.

Last week I had a visit from Johnny and his lovely fiancé Lone, who just wanted to pay a visit. We had a great time; they are both easy going people, with much of the same dispostition as my wife and I, so we hit it off. And for once, Johnny and I didn't just lapse into nerdism right away, but actually had real conversations, in which both our partners could join!
The only nerdy thing that happened, was that Johnny had brought me a bag of minis: three Kelt Sessairs archers and one more Spasm Warrior(and much, so much, more, but that's for later...). So now I have enough Kelt Sessairs to create a Frostgrave Warband: For wizards I'll use two Spasm Warriors and for the soldiers, I now have a choice of two guys with sword and shield, two guys with a two handed sword, one giant barbarian, wielding two swords, three warriors, each carrying two small axes and three archers.
With a bit of care, I can turn this into just about any of the soldier types available, exept for the ones carrying metal armour. But I think I can manage anyway...




Once again, it became a lot of words, and not many miniatures, but at least I got two posts out in two days! Go me!

Sorry for the delay!

Hi everybody!
Again, I must apologize for the instability of my postings, but such is my world.
The company in which I work has begun it's high season, which is the reason(this time) for the delay in posting. But now I've had vacation for a week'n'a'bit and my stress levels are finally down to my actually being fit for writing anything and even doing some basement stuff!

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I have a room the size of our living room, in the basement of my house. The ground floor is for normal living, for my wife, our parrots and me, but the basement is almost solely mine. But alas, I've been struggling with space, for a while, so come this vacation, I had planned to do some rearranging down there...

It's a bit hard to make out exactly, but this is how my hobby room looked before. The entire room is approximately 11,5 x 16,5 feet and, as seen here, I had chosen to split it down the middle with a book case. My miniaturing took place on the side shown here, and on the other side of the case, I had my guitars, amps and general music stuff. Not seen in this picture is the second bookcase, which went perpendicularly to the shown one, creating a kind of passageway, making the two parts seem much more like separate rooms.

But not anymore!
Six huge garbage bags and a trip to the recycling plant  later, I am almost done!
This is much better:

Instead of having about a foot and a half to walk between the game board and working tables, I now have 2,5 feet on each side of the game board. And about 4 x 6 feet of free space in the working area and the same in the other end of the room! It is so much more free, open and breathable now and I can only shake my head, when trying to figure out WHY I did it the other way before. Now I only need to install some proper lighting, but that is already in the works.


Now, since last I wrote, I've not been painting much, mostly because of stress, which makes it hard for me to concentrate on the detailed work of painting. But I can still do a hobby stuff, and here comes the game board! Now, I already had some boards with a grass mat on them, to use for gaming(never used, not even once), but I wanted something more extravagant! So I build this. Actually(as you can see in the pictures above), It is even bigger now, and I might make a photo series, showing it off better, but this gives you the gist of it.
It is made from grit, expanded polystyrene, wet room spackel and static grass annd PVA glue, and that's it. I am so looking forward to playing around with all of this!

That's all for now; I'll try to enjoy the summer here and go again to my dark hole, which is now a lot less claustophobic and get to work on some more fun stuff to show off!

Have a nice summer, out there!

You've got mail!

Hell-o everybody!

This week I received a package from a guy in California, Aron, who sold me some new miniatures. They have been under way for a while, and because of the Danish customs services, they even got delayed further. And became more than twice as expensive as they were, including shipping! But that's Denmark for you: Everything is much more expensive than it's supposed to be. On the other hand we get free education and medical aid, so I don't think I should complain about an extra fee on toys.
But I digress...

When I said "new miniatures", I was actually lying: They are quite old. All of them were marked with "GW 1985" on the slot, so they are as old as myself! But they are in great shape and only the axe guy(bottom, middle) had a severe mould line across his' left arm. So cleaning them up and making them ready was a soon overcome chore, which left me with the basing. Cork is my friend, as you can see...

I also did a little green stuffing. I have tried out a bit of modelling before, but I almost only use modelling putty to fill out gaps and do
small repairs, but seing as the two crossboworcs looked too much alike, I wanted to give the hooded guy some extra individualism.
Again; I am not much of a sculptor, but I tried giving him a chain mail shirt and I think it went okay: The only tools used were my finger and a pencil, and with about ten minutes of work, I am quite happy with the result. We'll see how it turns out, when the paint goes on. This is one of the great things about orcs: It isn't weird if an orc has his' upper body clad in heavy armour, but his' lower body only protected by a loin cloth. It's an orc! Screw appropriateness!

Three days prior to getting this little bundle of joy, I got another package, that time from England. It was the rulebook for Confrontation, which I have never played(I've played to miniatures games ever: HeroQuest and Dungner Derby), but would like to try, not least because of the outstanding miniatures! But the book is beautiful, filled with pictures of minis, paintings of characters and concept art for the game! Annd it turns out that it's a skirmish game, a fact I was unaware of, which means I already have a painted team to play with, by sheer coincidence! I like skirmish games more than battle games, because of the relatively low number of miniatures needed for playing...

Staying on the topic of Confrontation, here is the progress of the guy I started painting right after the last post: A Kelt Sessairs Warrior. After writing the last blog I saw the Jason Momoa version of Conan the Barbarian and it inspired me to get going on this guy. The movie is quite good, although it lacks a lot of the charm of the 1982 film with Arnold Schwarzenegger. I really like the genral world that Robert E. Howard created; it's based on ancient Europe, but then twisted into a magical world, so foreign that it doesn't fell like one of those stupid crossover fantasy worlds, where people travel from our world to the magical world and back again. You can probably imagine my feelings on Narnia and Harry Potter. Give me Hyboria, Faerûn or Aarklash any day of the week!
Back to the painting: I had a hell of a time deciding which colours I wanted for this bloke, as he has a lot of natural materials on him; Leather, metal, skin, fur, bones, and not much fabricated clothes and that sort of things. In the end I decided to just try something and then, if it looks boring in the end, I will use washes to make him more interesting. There are six base colours on him: Skin, grey, light brown, medium brown, reddish brown, dark brown and green. At the moment of photography, he has been washed with The Army Painter's Soft Tone Ink for the skin and light brown, and Strong Tone for the leather. The sword and leg brace has had to shadings, first a 1:1 mix of Vallejo Model Colors Neutral Grey and VMC Dark Grey and then pure VMC Dark Grey. There are going to be two more shadings and then the highlighting begins...
I really like this mini: although it looks a bit strange with the receding hairline, this guy looks freaking bad ass, with his determined jaw and simply the stance in which he has been modeled... I am really looking forwards to getting the entire band done and fitted onto a scenic display board!

But I'm not finished!

I had my ten years anniversary at The Company and got a cake and a gift card from them. Well, it wasn't really a gift card, it was a letter saying that I could spend a specific amount of money and bring the receipt, and then the company will reimburse me. As it turns out, the local pusher had a sale of up to 70% off, ending this Saturday, so I went and went amok: All of the pictured thing will end up costing me NOTHING AT ALL!

Now I'm finished!
Have a nice weekend, everybody and enjoy the onslaught of summer, by staying indoors and painting little lead soldiers!

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!