A wargamer’s journal….
Fantasy
Dwarf Warrior Unit
Aug 12th
This weekend I have been working on Dwarves. I have done my BSB, a unit standard, and a test job of one of the warriors. The BSB is straight from the Skull Pass set. I am using him as the BSB because he is different and he is cheap!
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Hmmm, I seem to have only taken a single shot of this one, how awkward! I’ll just add two shots of the dwarf warrior from the Skull Pass set. |
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The unit standard is from the Dwarf Battalion box set. I chose to use a simple flag with the rune that stands for “W”. I’ll use the “I” and “L” for the Ironbreakers and Longbeards. I’ve color coded the units and the common color between them will be the GW foundation color.
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Here’s a group shot.
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Bolt Thrower Engineer
Jul 18th
Now finished… the Bolt Thrower with crew! I finished the engineer last night and took a group photo this morning!
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Dwarf Cannon
Jul 17th
Last night I finished my cannon crew with the exception of two figures – the gunner for this cannon and the Engineer for my Bolt Thrower – I hope to finish them tonight. I have finished the CD In the Shadow of the Hegemon and have started In the Shadow of the Giant. Both have so far been interesting materials for keeping me painting.
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I placed these on magnetic bases so they would travel easier. Since I had some room on the cannon base, I added the optical surveying device and the shells. Although the crewmen are probably pretty interchangeable between the Cannon and Organ Gun, I figured they’d look better crewing this piece.
Bolt Thrower Crew
Jul 15th
Over the past couple of days I have had my painting mojo flowing again. I was listening to Orson Scott Card’s books on tape and maybe that helped. I now have my Bolt Thrower and crew ready for deployment.
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I am relatively pleased with my camera and lighting setup. The only thing I *don’t* like is the poor depth of field I am getting. This kind of photography requires long exposure times and large f-stops and I can’t seem to get it set up on my Nikon. Back to the manual, I guess!
More dwarves … er … dwarf
Jul 13th
This next figure is a West Wind Dwarf I just finished up this AM. I have not used any Dullcote on it to dull the protective sheen, but I figured I’d do that when I had more to do at once.
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This gentleman will be the champion for my unit of Longbeards which the general will accompany, thus the gold and green to match the general shown below. I like the West Wind dwarves, 10 metal figures in a box, *every* pose is different!
Better Pictures
Jul 11th
I switched back to the fine setting on my camera so I got (what I consider to be) better pictures of the dwarf.
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The Dwarven Horde of Karak Kanan
Jul 10th
As most who know me realize, I tend to have a number of projects going a one time. My latest, and thankfully, smallest, is my dwarf army for WHFB. The groups I play in don’t care what miniatures you use for your armies. If you think it’s cool and it is recognizable for what it is, then more power to you. I have just finished my Dwarf King today.
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This is a Reaper miniature sculpted by Werner Klocke … aka “The Man”. I like his sculpting and what he does. I have three other characters in the army and two of them will come from the Warlord line. The other will be a GW plastic figure as I need a Battle Standard Bearer. One dwarf warrior unit will be Dwarf Wars figures by West Wind. The others likely a mix of Reaper grunts, Heartbreaker (now that’s an old line….) and GW. The army will be 2250 so that I can use it in Indy tournaments and I hope to have it finished by the Lonewolf in August.
Reaper Miniature Exchange Pt 4
May 6th
Huzzah! The figure is finished! I took today while I was editing and saving some videos to finish off what I had left. I think I psyched myself out with how difficult it was going to be to do the face and horns, but once I got started, all went smoothly. Quit a surprise, actually, as anyone who has ever done this understands. No paint spills, no sticky spots, no inks running, just easy painting. This picture is the best one I have of the face. I took some time to try and highlight the face with several different layers. The eyes were outlined in black, then had the whites put in using … uh… grey, and then I dotted the eye with black paint. I had to redo the left eye as it wasn’t looking the same way as the right!
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The second photo above shows another view of the eyes and a better view of the facial features. You can also see the serpent’s features better.
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The photos above were taken with different camera settings. I used a higher resolution and did not modify the pictures other than to crop them. If you have any comments on which set looks better, I’d like to hear them….
Tournament Terrain 2
Apr 28th
Here’s another couple of pieces I built recently. Both come from a resin terrain kit I purchased 6 or so years ago from Crusader29 (now out of business). This kit has a number of single and double story wall sections that can be combined in a number of ways to create complete or destroyed buildings. I have assembled five buildings from the kit and am showing two here (the other three are sitting on the painting table.)
The first is a two story ruin mounted on Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF). I generally try to put all of my terrain pieces on MDF as it makes them more sturdy and customizable. The floor on the first story is cut up cardboard square, the second is styrene sheeting gridded in 1/4 inch squares available from the hobby shop.
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The second piece uses sections that were initially twelve inches long and as high as shown in the picture. I broke the segments up so they would fit on a smaller base. This is roughly nine by six inches. The floor is parakeet gravel available from discount stores.
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Tournament Terrain
Apr 26th
We are holding a WHFB tournament here this weekend and I have spent a lot of free time on terrain to be given as prizes.
First up is a ruin made with Hirst Arts’ fieldstone molds. I decided to paint this one brown with tan highlights as I have never painted one this color before. I think it turned out nicely…
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The next piece comes from the cavern mold set. I just received this a few weeks ago and have not had time to play with it yet. I decided to use it for an outdoor picec and cast it in resin.
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This final piece is from dental plaster and one that Bruce has plans for on his site. It is *not* an easy piece to build as it uses a number of smooth blocks that need to be sanded. It is *huge* once you get it together and can dominate a setting. It’s heavy so if you irritate your opponent too badly you’d better duck!
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