The Future is Now . . .

Kit Bashing a Rare Mordheim Carnival of Chaos Plague Bearer 1 - PART 2

Last week I tried to replicate the rare Mordheim Chaos Carnival Plague Bearer 1.  Once the kit bashing was done, it was time for painting.  Here's the final product:

I added a wee nurgling to the base for extra effect:

Here he is with a Brute and the Carnival Master, for scale:

I think he matches up pretty well, for being based off a random non-gaming mini.  Thanks for stopping by!

The Littlest Space Marine

I was prepping some of the Epic 30k forces I painted up a while back, figuring out how to play a simple game with them, and came across a tiny metal space marine among the extra, leftover stuff.  The rest of the space marines were all plastic, so he stood out a bit:

He's not heavy, he's my brother.

As I looked him over, I realized the metal guy was a much more detailed sculpt than the plastic lot.  I felt he needed to be honored, and so I painted him up as a one-off Blood Angel, giving him way more attention than the rest of the troops got.  Here's the results, as best as I could capture in photos, given the tiny size of the dude:

No ideal how I managed to get the eyes to look halfway decent, but somehow they look like two eyes instead of one glob.

The pauldron has about as simple a Blood Angels logo as one could have. 

I love the old style backpack.

I applied about four layers of red to orange highlights.  Not sure you can tell, or not, but it's there.  Trust me!

It still amazes me just how small this thing is!  I can't imagine how the heck they sculpted this. 

Its really a shame GW killed the Epic line, as there's lots of fun to be had at such a small scale.  Thanks for stopping by!

Kit Bashing a Rare Mordheim Carnival Plague Bearer 1

So, I've got a nice little collection of the Mordheim Carnival of Chaos.  But, I don't have any of the really rare pieces.  In particular, the guy below, on the left:

To Be or . . . wait, is that a maggot on my lunch?

I used to have a bit of a love/hate relationship with William Shakespeare (long story), so the Hamlet-esque sculpt really appeals to me.  However, I'm not shelling out mad cash for an ounce of old pewter:

WTF. 

So, what's a cheapo hobbyist like me to do?  Make one!

After a few days of searching eBay, I came across this Shakespeare keychain, which appeared to be roughly the correct size and selling at a price far, far less than any Mordheim mini you'll find on eBay.

The bard himself.

I'd estimate he's about 35mm scale, a hair larger than "heroic" scale.  If he were to remain human, he'd be too big to fit in with the local villagers.  But Nurgle knows no scale! So, off with his head!

Reminds me of Nearly Headless Nick.

At first, I thought of using a '90s era metal Plague Bearer, to match the other Mordheim guys, but I didn't have the patience to go eBay fishing again, and I just happened to have a few spare modern-era Plague Bearer bits laying around.

Labor Day Terrain Fest - Part Deux

So, having a long weekend allowed me to not only complete a longstanding goal of basing some terrain, but also allowed me to engage in an entirely new endeavor.

I bring you, the Inquisitorial Dark Column of Grimness:

This is a column, as it doesn't support a roof.  If it did, it would be a pillar.  But how did this awesome artifact come to be?

Labor Day Weekend Terrain Fest

So, here in the states, we have something called "Labor Day", in which we celebrate the organized labor movement by not working.  Ironic, no?

In any event, it also signals the unofficial end of Summer, so it's always a bittersweet affair.  This weekend, I committed to start AND finish a long-standing terrain project, AND start and finish a completely new one.

First up, basing and painting a set of the older 40k ruins!

I bought 6 corners of the old 40k gothic ruins off eBay some time back.  I also got six small MDF boards from the Michael's craft store.  I cut a bunch of one-inch cardboard squares and two-inch poster board squares and glued them down as walkways and tiles.   Added some small bricks - made of pink insulation foam - and cork bits, as well as sand.

Placesetting of six. 

Rogue Trader Heresy - Chaplain for Death Guard

So, while planning my next steps for the Rogue Trader -Era Death Guard Pre-Heresey army, I decided to paint up this laddie:

Chaplain, vintage 1988!  I think the green banner works to add some color, and let me cheat with not doing much work on the shoulder pads.

He appears in the top right.  Actually, a pretty poor painting job in this catalog pic, so I figured I'd have a shooting chance to match the quality!

I love the one red handed look in the advert, so copied it.  Note sure if he was a Crimson Fists chappy, but what-evs. 

"Death is Honor".  Special thanks to the Mircon .05.

Check the very faint three dots on the lower right hand side of the banner.  Something seems off about this guy, doesn't it?

Thanks for stopping by!

Family Painting Night

So, quite a few of the folks in my blogging circles have recently jumped into fatherhood (see, e.g., this guy).  Congrats to all of them!  That's had me thinking a bit about the long journey of raising kids in a complicated world.

My first experience painting minis was in my late teens, as a camp counselor, helping run a "quiet time" activity for kids on hot days.  Of course, it was the days before iPhones and iPads and everything, so the idea of picking up a small metal figure and painting it for an hour didn't seem as discordant with the times as it does now.  But the idea of using the focus of painting a tiny object to induce a Zen-like state of relaxation stayed with me.

Well, last night was one of those magical times when I spent a quiet evening with the kids, enjoying the geeky things in life, in group "painting therapy".  My wife was sounds asleep, still recovering from her recent illness, and the kids were bugging me to "do something."  So . . .

Attention to detail . . . 

My little lady painted up Eowyn from GW's Lord of the Rings range.  This is a beautiful sculpt, maybe the finest of the entire LotR range.  I think she's doing justice to it so far, if I may say so myself!

A wonderful scuplt, painting WIP.  Wonder if we'll ever see anything this sublime from GW again.

On the other side of the Tiny Basement workshop, my older boy set about painting up 5 Reaper Bones sci-fi army-guy figures, using an assembly-line painting style.  I find the Bones series a mixed bag - larger figures are a good value, smaller ones aren't anything special, though.  They're not all bad, but the faces are particularly poorly formed.

My boy spent a long time deciding on a color scheme for these guys.  He almost went with an Aliens Space Marine green style, but opted for a more Space Navy style of Grey and Blue with some Green trim.  We'll likely use them in our homebrew super-light FPS arena game.

Stand up fight or Bug Hunt?  Ready for either!

Someday, these kids will be too busy, or too embarassed, to hang with their old dad painting up minis, so I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

For those of you with newborns, have a bit of patience, they won't be ready for painting minis for quite a while.  I made the mistake when they were young of handing them GW minis, a fine detail brush and a $4 paint pot and expected that they'd not (a) drop the mini while it was dripping in wet paint, (b) destroy the brush and (c) pour the entire pot of paint onto themselves.  And they would, and then I'd hover over them like a worried mother hen.  There's a reason the boxes say "This is NOT a Toy!"

But you can dress them up in beat up-clothes, spread out lots of newspaper, and just give them some wooden trucks or boats or anything, and some crappy brushes and cheap craft paint, and let them paint by your side.  And when they're ready, they can help with basecoating minis, or let them paint cheap-o little green men soldiers.

If I had to do it again, I'd just have stayed out of their way and let them enjoy themselves!

Of course, Dads should also take care to not wear nice things whilst painting.  One of my favorite shirts just went from "office work shirt" to "house work shirt" thanks to an ink wash incident!

Thanks for stopping by!

More Rogue Trader Death Guard

So, having finally painted the base colors for my heretical Rogue Trader-Era Death Guard minis, I finally got around to doing a nasty, dirty, rusty wash over these guys.

They've got no idea what's about to hit them!

In all their nasty, rusty glory!

Who would ever suspect this guy is anything other than a loyal Astartes?

I got stripes, stripes around my flamer . . .

If this isn't rusty, dirty and nasty, I don't know what is.

The wash is a mix of about 1/6th matte medium, 1/6th Raw Sienna acrylic from Delta Ceramcoat, 2/3rds (or 4/6th if you prefer!) distilled water, and a drop or two of black ink to darken it up.

Next, I'll do another round of thinned Raw Sienna on the bases, lay down some highlighting and (re)do the red eyes.  Happy so far with the infantry side of things!

Thanks for stopping by!

Death Guard RTB01

Life has dealt us a curve ball or two, as of late.  But to keep things moving, I've managed to make some progress on my RTB01 Death Guard project:

 
Silver trim and dust effects are coming next!

One Year Anniversary and New Years Resolution Checkpoint!

This week, there's a confluence of milestones to celebrate.  First, the Tiny Basement Wars blog turned one year old!  And, from my first post a year ago to this one, there have been over 100 posts and nearly 20,000 page hits.   To everyone who follows this blog, or has me in their G+ circles or "friended" me on Facebook, thank you for all the kind words, encouragement and inspiration!

My first logo, before sprucing it up!

I started the blog in an attempt to help me organize and focus my gaming projects, as well as interact with the growing chorus of gaming blogs I'd been reading for years.  Mission accomplished!

Its also half-way through the year and so time to assess my 2015 New Years Resolutions.

Sister I'm a Poet

My final addition to the Sisters of Sigmar, an acolyte with an outsized hammer.  I don't know how a lowly acolyte scores a sweet weapon like this, while the more senior sisters get stuck with stolen goblin weapons, but I sense big things ahead for this one.

My favorite part of painting these minis was doing their hair.  Is that wrong?

I also enjoyed painting the red capes and tunics.  The off-white dresses?  Not so much - my white needs much work.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sister El Cinco

Maybe that should be Hermana La Cinca?  Anyways, my fifth (and personal favorite) entry in the Sisters warband is this femme fatale:

Do you think that ring will leave a mark when she slugs you in the face?

She's an acolyte, but since I'm "lyte" on sisters, I may just run her as a regular sister.  Ooh, I'm rebellious like that.

Many of the Mordheim minis are quite 2-dimensional, or flat, having been cast in metal as one piece. While that usually results in rather static poses, I think the sculptor did a great job in giving an action-oriented pose for this one.  Which reminds me, I need to dig into who sculpted these minis!

Thanks for stopping by!

Sister No. 4

Coming in next is another Sister of Sigmar, this one with a rather unusual weapon.  Her mace is . . . you guessed it!  From the Night Goblins set, but I think it looks more appropriate than her sister's spear.

The shield is from . . . not sure actually, but I like the fact the flour-de-lis ties her into the Sisters of Battle that would follow in her footsteps some 38,000 years later.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sister at the the Pointy End

Here's a plain old Sister, but note the unusual weaponry:

She's sporting a spear stolen from some Night Goblins, like her sister did her shield.

I like this one's Sigmar shield, wish there were more of them in my set.

Thanks for stoping by!

Sisters Act II

No, not the Whoopie Goldgerg assault on humanity, but rather the second entry in my Sisters of Sigmar warband:

Another Sister Superior.  The shield is from the Night Goblins kit, with a plasticard circle glued in the middle to finish it off.

Thanks for stopping by!