Demon Bad Guys 1

I'm still busy doing "proper" painting on my latest figures, which means they're going very slowly. I'm also in danger of interrupting my interruptions; I interrupted my 54mm crossbow build to work on shield patterns for my Mantic skeletons. This itself was interrupted to base and paint up (quick and dirty) some Bag O'Zombie plastics. Now that interruption's gone, the latest is to clean and prepare some figures for a diorama I'm planning. I should probably try for a queue, rather than a stack based approach to projects :-)

All that being said, there's not actually anything to show at the moment, as I forgot to take work in progress pictures of Studio McVey's Lt. Kara Black and the Bag O'Zombie figures. However, while forgetting to take those pictures, I did take some others.

In an earlier post I showed the Grey Knights (Citadel Cadian conversions) that I built for my demon apocalypse project. This week, I thought I'd show some of the Bad Guys. These are mostly a mix of Citadel, West Wind, Foundry and Urban Mammoth (as well as anything that looks suitably monsterly).

There are quite a few figures, although they tend to be more individuals or small groups of two or three, rather than being organised into gangs and factions. This is something I will have to look at, possibly bringing them up to a strength of ten or so per faction.

The Citadel figures are just ones from the Warhammer or 40k ranges that looked suitable. I bought Citadel's latest Dark Elf Wytches, and got the Hellions for my birthday. I'm still to paint them (still to unbox them if truth be told), but they'll make some useful demonic slavers when they're finished. Other likely candidates are the plastic demonettes (I have a couple of the older metal ones) and probably some bloodletters (again, I have a couple of the metal ones)

Anyway, enough words, onto the pictures :-) This first post covers some of the leader figures. A future post will look at the foot soldiers.

First up is a group of West Wind vampires

I need either to take shots from further away or do some tasteful blurring, as the painting on some of these figures is a lot worse than I remember.

Next are some Urban Mammoth figures, although I think they were still I-Kore when I bought them.

A Foundry Elf figure, if memory serves

and a female necromancer, whose manufacturer escapes me at present (I just paint figures I like, so I unbox them when I buy them and several months/years later I paint them - by which time their details have been forgotten)

I have a few photos of some of the lower order demons, so I'll post them up next time. Lt. Kara Black is also getting dangerously close to being finished, so hopefully some pictures of her soon - unless I decide to undo the camouflage on her trousers, which hasn't really worked :-(

Progress to April 2011

As we're just over three months into 2011, I thought I'd take a look at what I've done so far this year and see how my resolutions are coming along.

Figures completed this year

I've been painting a lot, but I haven't actually finished that much. I think this is partly due to trying to paint to a higher standard than tabletop and partly because my weekends have been spent on other modelling related projects.

Actually finished this year are:

• 9 Zombie hunters
• 10 Mantic skeletons (the painting's finished, but I've still to do their shields and bases)
• 20 Bag O'Zombie plastic zombies

which is rather light for twelve weeks of painting :-(

I'm currently working on some more display quality (I hope) painting, so I don't expect my figure total to increase dramatically any time soon. These figures are a bit of a mix, with Reaper, Studio McVey and Games Workshop represented.

With respect to the Bag O'Zombies plastics, I'm just doing a quick and dirty paint job on them. They help the total, but it's very much quantity over quality. I think I've finally worked out how to base them (a long and painful saga), and now that's done I can hopefully start to plough through them. My plan is to get ten done in a weekend, around other things.

Painting

I've been experimenting quite a bit, so that resolution is holding. The figures I'm painting at the moment will get a coloured wash as one of their flesh layers, which should be interesting :-) I just finished watching a Miniature Mentor video (passes the time while cycling on the spot), and the guy there shaded and highlighted in a different order than usual. I'm trying it out on the current bunch.

One of the current group should also see my first attempt at underpainting. This will involve painting the highlights and shadows in black and white, then putting translucent paint over the top. The idea is that the underpainting shades and tints the basecoat, saving shading and highlighting from the base colour. Watch this space...

I'm not doing so well on the "stay focused" resolution, but no big surprise there. The Bag O'Zombies figures have been the latest interruption and next week there will no doubt be another one.

Finally, I've been reading up on colour theory. Not sure how much it'll help, but I'm thinking more about colour schemes, so hopefully it's having an effect.

Modelling

On the sculpting front, I'm still working towards the 54mm modern vampire hunter. All my time on it so far has involved building his crossbow. This is completely scratchbuilt, which is a new aspect of the hobby for me. It's nearing completion, so hopefully I'll actually start on the figure this month.

As to conversions, there haven't really been any - unless you count chopping arms off the Bag O'Zombie figures :-)

General

I'm enjoying my painting at the moment. I actively look forward to it, and if I could find the time to match my enthusiasm the lead pile might actually start to shrink. However, I've recently bought quite a few minis, so the pile is still growing.

Regarding interruptions to current projects, the latest thought in my head is getting a clown car for my Tengu zombie clowns. I couldn't find one in the right scale, so may have to convert something. I was going off the idea after I found the price of 1:43 Volkswagen Beetles, but I picked up a couple of Siku cars the other week that look promising. I've also just added zombie clown reinforcements, as the Bag O'Zombie people also do zombie clowns; I now have an extra fifty of them. They're all in the same pose, but I'm sure I can work out something.

Photography wise, my pictures are still rubbish as I have the bad habit of just gamma correcting them before posting. I'm starting to correct them a bit more thoroughly, which will hopefully help. The other thing I want to do is to photograph figures in scenery, rather than just against a white background.

Wonder how things will look in another three months?

Bugman's Rangers

I was reading a blog entry at Subject to Stupidity about the old Bugman's Rangers the other week. While the figures on the blog were old, the group he showed was not in fact the first version of the regiment. I think it may have been the second, but I don't have any of those figures.

I do, however, have the originals, bought sometime in the early 80s (the date on the bottom of the figures is 1984). They were the original Regiment of Renown - with RR1 emblazoned proudly on the packaging.

My dwarf army is more or less made up of single figures, so I only ever painted up one of the Rangers and the command group. I used the command group for the phalanx (to be featured in a future post) and I think I may have used another copy of the command group in the main body of the army - I definitely remember painting up the standard bearer a couple of times.

A painted amd unpainted version of the original trooper is shown below

and the figures that comprised the command group

Finally, from the depths of my loft, the original figures from the Regiments of Renown. This is the original packaging, complete with a price tag. The original price had been covered over with a bit of card. I can't remember what I paid for them, but the price under the bit of card was £4.50, or 45p per figure. Not sure how much 45p gets you these days - possibly an arm if you're lucky :-(

At some point I should try and sell them, or auction them off for charity, but for the moment it's back to the loft for the little chaps.

Edit: 26 June 2011

There has been much chatter about these figures (not mine, but the Bugman's Rangers figures in general) over at the Lead Adventure Forum. The main outcome from my own point of view, other than not now being sure how many figures of each type were in the original box, was the (re)discovery of the champion figure. As it turns out, I had him, although just as another figure in the army. While not part of the original Regiment of Renown, he did come out around the same time.