Cadet and Merc

A seemingly random pair painted up, but less so if given context. 

Halo*Star is due to make another visit soon for another game of Judge Dredd. There had been some interest mentioned at trying some sort of campaign, and having read through the rules it would seem most statisfying to have Judges who moved through the ranks. He'd also gifted my the Judge Cadet pack, so the standing figure obviously needed to be painted. I haven't done any Lawmaster builds yet from this pack (or Anderson or Joe himself) but they'll come at some point...

The Mercenary is from the latest Die Hard Miniatures Kickstarter from sculpting veteran Tim Prow. I had pledged for a group of 5 Bounty Hunter Robots and a Kev White Sculpted hover biker, but this figure was from the free add ons. She's a good bit bulkier than the 2 Stargrave figures in the previous post so I decided that some red skin to suggest a different race would fun. I'm about half-way through painting up the robots so they should be in a post soon enough.

Stargrave Specialists

After all those quick paint Orcs it was a delight to get back to painting individuals with a bit of detail again. These are two Stargrave figures, a tech and a medic, by North Star that have been sitting around since the original NickStarter for the ruleset.

I was wanting to do a dark skin tone for the Tech but my lack of experience at doing this, especially with my paints, left the skin much lighter than I was wanting once the highlights had gone on. Something I want to work on! I do love the jacket colour though.

Orcs Assemble

After my previous Orcs post I looked out all my GW Lord Of The Rings Orcs\Uruk Hai from the project box and assembled two 12 model units. Nominally Light Infantry and  Heavy Infantry in Dragon Rampant terms. Whilst it has taken me longer to finish them than expected this was due to lack of sitting down at the paint desk rather than slow painting rate.

[Judge Dredd] Entering the Big Meg

Small corner of MC-1. A work in progress

My Brother, Halo*Star, had suggested doing some occasional gaming to get him out of the house and to get me some game time. As he'd gifted me a load of excellently painted JD figures (which I should really showcase in a post as there were more than the Judges already shown) it seemed obviously to start playing some Judge Dredd.

Stop!......Hammerstein!

 

An old Wargames Foundry Hammerstein. Unfortunately I don't have any of the other ABC Warrior figures from this range. One of those classic - "One day I'll order" cases until they go OOP.

Mostly a quick paint with GW Contrast paints to keep him nice and bright, which is the effect I was looking for here. Really happy at how he's come out - there'll be no missing him of the table.

The Trouble with Orcs (Part 9)

 

So Slapchop v2 was dished out on a variety of different figures from my proposed Lord Of The Rings Orc army (notionally for Dragon Rampant).

A few negatives here in that I'd forgotten about the detail casting (or lack of) on these plastics, something I'm sure I've moaned about in the past.

Also, as far as my new found skin formula goes, the amount of skin on display in this army is minimal, so no great revelations there.

To be honest I'm pretty underwhelmed by the results here. The palette is very subdued and samey with no real eye catching detail. They do fit the feel of them in the movie though and are also only going to be used en- masse and not as individuals, which as a saving grace. They are also super fast to paint up with this method!

I think I'll paint up a unit (12 figures) of at least one type and see how they look and how long they take.

The Trouble with Orcs (Part 8)

I've been seeing a load of Youtube videos on the latest fast painting trend going under the name "Slapchop" or more specifically "Slapchop v2" as demonstrated by Ninjon. Basically prime black, grey zenithal and heavy white dry brush before using translucent (or in most cases Contrast) paints.

We are THE LAW

 

My Street Judges are finally finished, comprising of Judges Dredd and Anderson, the starter box Judge and Rookie and 2 boxes of Street Judges.

Oh Bollards!

 

OK, not really bollards, "Oh Arrest Points" doesn't have the same ring to it.

I've been a bit quite here as I've been making a bit of a push on my Sci-Fi City for Judge Dredd (and other games of course) and the buildings are a bit difficult to document. But here as a bit of street furniture I have 3D printed some arrest points (from Hayland Terrain here.) that were on a Humble Bundle I purchased a while ago. 

The designs contain an arrest post and a block of shackle points, all containing activation lights. As designed they are actually a bit bigger than I printed them, but all the pictures I think of from 2000AD have the perps sitting on the ground with their hands bound at an awkward height, so this size seemed to fit the bill.

D&D Rogue Repaint

 

I've been making extremely slow roads into setting up a campaign of "Five Leagues to the Borderlands". I have created my starting group of adventurers and so launched into my collection (painted and unpainted) to find appropriate figures. An archer a rangers cloak was called for. This Old D&D pre-paint seemed to fit the bill but obviously needed a bit of TLC. Glad to find there was a nice figure behind the original paint. There must have been a sculptor somewhere weeping at what became of his work!

Shadowrun Assassins

 

Painted within a year of purchase - result! This Shadowrun Assassins group has been one of those packs that has sit at the side of the table and had paint randomly blobbed on them until I decided to knuckle down and finish the job.

One main notes from this group is the long jacket on the half ogre. Being a sci-fi figure I wanted to try and force myself to go a bit brighter with the long jacket. I liked the subtle red check but this was the 3rd attempted to try and get it to look OK. The other is the painting of bottle held by the sneaky green coated assassin. It's obvious what it is at least but the glass isn't quite right.

A different group to add to the future cast though...

Dwarf Specialists

 

A couple of more specialist figures now, both from the Ganesha Games ranges (produced by Alternative Armies). Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes has a specific "ball and chain" weapon rule giving an extended attack radius, which the left hand figure perfectly represents. The other figure is obviously a thief, and a great looking figure he is too!

Two More Dwarf Troops

 Two more standard troops. One may be a guard, actually. He's certainly leaning on his spear enough to have been standing watch for a few hours! An old Harlequin figure.

I really should have done something with the mould line on the right hand figure, but oh well, maybe next time.

The Trouble with Orcs (Part 7)

 A Grenadier Orc with Halberd. As I hinted at in the previous orc I gave this one an intermediate angled prime of grey between the black and white zenithal. It seems to have worked to a certain extent, the large amount of chain mail on this lad maybe lessens the impact. One thing I've taken from this figure however is that I'm going back to doing normal eyes, not just red fill. I much prefer it.

VSF Power Armour

A Eureka Miniatures Power armoured British soldier.

Not managed much painting recently for a multitude of reasons, but this weekend unexpectedly found myself giving this fellow a repaint. A ready painted Ebay purchase many moons ago, he was painted in  what I'd call "British Racing Green", so quite dark. Decided to lighten things up a bit with a Khaki colour scheme. The pauldron was crying out for some insignia, so I braved an attempt at a Union Jack. It'll not pass the RSMs inspection, but recognisable on the table so that'll do. My favourite part of the sculpt has to be that the leg armour is clearly modelled on cricket pads!

Chocks Away!

 

To celebrate my Dwarven horde reaching 20 strong I thought I'd do something different from the pile - an old 80's Dwarf  'Copter.

The Trouble with Orcs (Part 6)

 

I've just started stocking these Orcs in the shop ( Here ) - Ral Partha Gargantuan Orcs. Big, gnarly and savage looking. I really like them. When they came in I thought I'd quickly paint one up to show. So a black prime and a white zenithal highlight like all the cool kids are doing now before using Games Workshop Fyreslayer Flesh Contrast. It's resulted in a mean, dark finish which I like, but I may try a similar but different priming method to compare with on my next Orc.

The Trouble with Orcs (Part 5)

 

My Orc painting project came to a sudden halt with this lad, A Standard Miniatures Mon-Oger Archer. Ironically I was trying to follow a suggestion and use just washes. "Nice and quick" I though, but I just couldn't get it to look good and eventually lost the impetus.

Well after a 19 months (how time flies!) of ignoring him later, actually finished he's finished! The skin, which was the point of the project, formula is long forgotten, but at least I feel I can move on again...

15mm Fantasy Adventurers - part 1

 

Sitting alongside my paint area I've had a few Alternative Armies 15mm adventurers. They've not been concentrated on until near completion, but whilst I've been waiting for paint to dry on the main projects I've been dabbing spare paint onto them to try and bring them forward. Well it must have worked as they are finished!

Now some of Alternative Armies sculpts have aged better than others, but what I really like about these guys is that hey are actual adventurer figures, with backpacks, extra weapons and gubbins on their backs just like they should be in the rpg world.

And yes I know the figure on the far right is actually a Demon World Elf....

Dwarf Champion and Soldier

 

A bit of old and new with a new era Ral Partha Dwarf soldier and a classic Citadel Dwarf Champion. The soldier is just a basic colour scheme so will mix with any force. The old Champion was great to paint with that iconic hand topped helm (which is metallic not as brown as the picture). I hate doing shield as I can never think of what to do within my skill levels, so I'm happy with my third attempt - a sort of weave design. A technique I'll try to remember for the future.

And that's the gang reached 20 strong now, so here is a group shot.

New Ral Partha Dungeoneer Dwarves

 

The new Dwarf Dungeoneers Kick Starter arriving at my door has meant that there has been a bit of Paint Queue jumping going on. These two are from this new line (obviously).

Desperate-ados

 

At the moment, along with a few new figures, I've started trying to finish off some of the miniatures that have been sitting about the paint table half done. This pairing fits into the second category, moping around for longer than I can think of. Definitely a table top "need to get these off the desk" quality but those big hats will hide many sins when on the playing surface (just couldn't get that Bandits beard right!) and will make a welcome addition to the pose options. 

Mystic Blades

 

A single figure to keep the run going, another Ral Partha Dwarf. 

More Dwarf Warriors

 

More foot soldier options, all with axes. I thought I'd do a painted helm as I'd seen it recently done in a forum\group somewhere and hadn't thought of it myself. Not sure if it's a bit grand for this level of soldier but no matter.

Far left figure is again an oldie that I still can't ID the manufacturer of, whilst the other two are from Ral Partha again. All keeping the green\white theme running.

[EDIT]

Thanks to Mort on the Lead adventure Forum  for identifying the "mystery" manufacturer as the old Harlequin \ Black Tree Design range.

Dwarven Ranged Options

 

A trio of ranged options now done. The 2 crossbowmen are from Ral Partha's newer range and a much older archer. With more material on show on these models than the other more armoured troops already done I've settled on a rough green and white quarters colour scheme. Keeping it a casual theme rather than a uniform will help keep them use of the models flexible.

Here Comes the King

 

Or at least a Lord? A couple of main personalities and a guard this time.

The Dark Judges

 

One of the glaring omissions in Warlords Judge Dredd miniatures game line is that they have only released Death out of the Dark Judges. Osprey have had a sale on where the Dark Judges set for 2000AD Helter Skelter was only £7.50 so I thought I'd take the risk and order a set up to fill the gap. The scale is close enough I'd say. And cast in a hard plastic as well, so no wobbly tridents!!

Latest Brief Distraction - Dwarves

 

A move away from the Demons now, inspired by this fellow I picked up from Heresy Miniatures - A Dwarven miner. He comes with a mining helmet head option but I felt it was a bit modern or my image of fantasy so I went for the bald scowling version. Simple and characterful.

Back to School - Old School!!

More demons for the depths, but this time they are all old sculpts.

Napoleonic French Space Farer

 

As my self bought pressie from Santa this year I bought a mystery box from North Star Miniatures but didn't open it until the big day itself. My box was pretty Frostgrave & Africa biased, which is fine as I can use these figures in my collection, but the one main outlier was a Napoleonic French Officer. I decided it would be a bit of fun to convert him for Sci-Fi use.

All going to Hell

 

Hobby time has been in very short supply over the last few months (as ever it seems!) so any prolonged projects have been shelved as I had only been picking up the paint brush about once every fortnight for an hour or so.