Hasbro Millennium Falcon

Shortly before Christmas I picked up a Hasbro Millennium Falcon from Argos. Pictures below

2014 Review, 2015 Preview

That time of the year again, where I ruminate over past events and cogitate about future ones...

Scale Calculator Version 5

Just finished a small update to my Scale Calculator app, details below.

Claymore 2014

I attended the Claymore show yesterday, during which I managed to exchange lots of bits of paper for bits of metal, plastic and resin.

Scale Creep

I was playing a dungeon exploration game the other weekend and noticed just how much figures have crept up in size over the decades. Pictures below...

2013 Review, 2014 Preview

So, the Earth's plodded around the Sun for another year (doesn't it ever get bored) and it's time to look back at what I've done this year and to take a sneak peek at next year's plans.

Claymore 2013

I attended Claymore 2013 yesterday, so these are just my thoughts, impressions and a list of the items that have been added to the lead mountain, resin foothills and plastic lake.

Wappinshaw 2013

My brother-in-law and I attended Wappinshaw yesterday, so I thought I'd post some of my thoughts on the event, along with the (shorter than) usual list of stuff that I bought.

Carronade 2013

I attended Carronade yesterday, so this is just a mixture of my thoughts on the event, stuff I bought and stuff I didn't manage to buy...

2012 Review, 2013 Preview

Usual end of year ramblings, looking back on what I managed to do and forward to what I hope to do...

Claymore 2012

I was at Claymore 2012 yesterday and I think I may have spent a bit more than was healthy...

Carronade 2012

I'm just back from Carronade 2012, so thought it would be a good opportunity to describe my purchases and my general impressions of the show.

Finecast Saga

After reading about the various problems following Citadel's introduction of Finecast, I decided to wait several months before buying anything.

My opportunity came recently, when I decided my few metal Beastmen could do with a warband leader. I decided on Malagor the Dark Omen and handed over my cash.

2011 Review, 2012 Preview

Happy New Year :-)

First post of 2012 (and 50th blog post), so time to reflect on what worked - and what didn't - in 2011, and look forward to 2012.

Santa Claus 2

This is the second part of my recently completed Santa figures - part one is here.

The bases on these figures were more involved than last week's, and one worked better than the other...

Santa Claus 1

Just before the pictures, a small cause for celebration: this blog has been going for a whole year, so happy bloggaversary to it :-)

Anyway, some new figures this week. I made the mistake of going down the "proper painting" route again, so these have taken a long time (a fact made worse by doing fancy bases, some of which worked better than others). One day I will learn...

Forge World Venator Saga

I have mentioned in previous posts that I was planning to buy a ForgeWorld Elysian Tauros Venator. I ordered one last week, and sat back to await its delivery.

I ordered it on Thursday, and it arrived on Monday - pretty good service. I opened it and thought "that doesn't look like a vehicle to me" - those 30+ years of modelling experience kicking in Ninja-like.

Progress to September 2011

Three quarters through the year, the equinox a distant memory and the shops starting to fill up with Christmas stuff - must be October. That means it's time for another status report.

Figures completed since last report

The last report was in July. Since then I have finished the Dad's Army diorama. My Mum's birthday was last week, so it's now sitting in my parents' display cabinet, alongside the Blackbeard figure I painted for my Dad last year.

I'm just about finished basing a bunch of Pig Iron Heavy Infantry figures: the command group, wardroids and heavy weapons teams, so I should have photos of them next week. Other than that, the only other completed figures since last time are the first unit of Mantic Skeletons for my undead army.

Painting

Continuing my quest to complete the fewest figures in the longest possible time (I can't help but feel there's something not quite right with that goal), and having learned nothing from the grief of painting a number of unrelated figures at the same time, I am currently painting four semi-related and two random figures - to (hopefully) display standard.

The related figures are four Santa figures: Citadel Dwarf Santa, Citadel Space Santa, Foundry Plague Santa and Foundry Skeleton Santa. The two random figures are a Citadel Dwarf Big Game Hunter and a Citadel Dwarf Samurai. All the Citadel figures are very much from "back in the day".

The Santas are giving me a lot of trouble at the moment: red splashing onto white, black onto red and white etc., and they're taking a ridiculous amount of time for what are essentially going to be Christmas ornaments. I'm not quite sure I've broken the back of them yet, but hopefully another week or two and they'll be finished. I have the flesh on the Big Game Hunter and Samurai, but nothing else yet. The hunter will be in khaki, but I may try coloured metallics (using acrylic inks) on the Samurai. I think I was meant to experiment more this year, so that will definitely count.

I have finally decided on bases for the Reaper Marine and Lt. Kara Black. I had cut out a plasticard wall piece for the Marine, but realised it would be supported by 1mm along its bottom edge, so thought better of it. Instead, both he and Lt. Black will be on VoodooWorx Alien Temple bases. October should finally see them finished, only six months or so after I started them.

Modelling

I learned a lot from the Dad's Army Diorama project, even though I abandoned it in the end. Even small lessons, such as only using one pin when positioning the figure, will prove useful in future projects.

The current Santa figures will all require some sort of scenic bases, and while I'm not planning to go overboard, hopefully I can do something a bit more adventurous than usual. Similarly, I have plans for the hunter and Samurai figures...

General

I mentioned last time that I was in a bit of a funk about painting. I'm happy to say that has passed and I'm puttering along again.

I didn't sign up for the Open University this year (plenty of chances next year, one of the things I like about the OU), so the long dark nights should see me painting, and lamenting my lack of progress, on a regular basis.

I swithered for a while, but finally bought Dreadfleet from Games Workshop, although I won't be picking it up for a few days. I'm hopeful that it can used with other ships, e.g. those from Langton, to give a more traditional Piratey feel to things. White Dwarf, when it eventually turned up, (GW have changed delivery from the last Thursday of the month to the first Saturday (which means it finally falls through the letterbox on the Wednesday following the first Saturday)) stated that the vessels were about four inches long. At 1:1200 scale, that would mean 480 feet (about 146 metres), which seems rather large for the time. I guess I'll find out soon enough, but even if they can't be used together, the mat and scenery will still be useful for both.

There are some ideas for islands bubbling in the back of my mind, and I've ordered some Irregular 2mm scenery pieces in anticipation...

Bonus Pictures

A few shots of the figures I'm currently painting. Nothing too exciting, but I'll hopefully have some new stuff finished in the coming weeks, so proper pictures then

The Samurai and Big Game Hunter, flesh only so far

Claymore 2011

I was at  Claymore yesterday, where I spent the morning and a chunk of the afternoon wandering around the show with my brother-in-law.

My to-buy list before the show consisted of a few paints and a hope that figures would leap out at me. Four hours later, I had spent pretty much all my money, and had a number of things that I'll be keeping an eye on as potential future projects.

As usual, no photos, as there will be plenty of those about from other sources. This post is about things I bought, and some of the ideas that have started bubbling around in my mind because of the show.

Paints

Seeing as this was my main reason for going to the show, I shall start with them.

I added some more to my Vallejo collection - gloss and satin varnishes and some light greys.

Foundry continued the white/light grey theme with the Austrian White (67) set. I have the Andrea Miniatures White set, but it's more of a warm (cloth) white, and I was looking for a cold white.

I also picked up some Coat D'Arms from Fighting 15s (eventually - people were buying a lot from the stand so I gave up and went back later). I bought chestnut brown, dwarf flesh and their dark brown "Super Shader". It looks like another dip, so it should come in useful for my skeletons and other figures where I don't need/want to spend hours shading.

Books

I actually picked up a few books this time:

• Fighting Men of WW2: Axis forces. I have plenty of books of British uniforms, but not really any of German ones. I have some 20mm WW2 Germans to paint at some point, so this should come in useful
• Pirates: Predators of the Seas. Yet another Pirate book, but looks interesting
• Battle for Malta - the attacks on the island during WW2
• Langton Miniatures' Guide to assembling, painting and rigging their 1:1200 Dutch Wars ships. Naval warfare doesn't really do much for me, but the ships of this period are from the Golden Age of Piracy, which does interest me. I have always fancied painting a couple of these ships for display, and I've looked at them in past shows, but never done anything about it. The guy at the stand pretty much talked me out of the idea (the combinations and parts of Langton models looks quite daunting), but I'm going to do some research and order them online
• Chaos in Carpathia. This is a set of Victorian Vampire hunting rules from BlueMoon. I have plenty of Vampires of that period, but my hunters are all modern. I hope that the rules will be flexible enough to cope (after all, a wooden stake hasn't changed much in 100 years), but I may use this as an excuse to buy and paint some appropriate Victorian figures

Figures

Purchased figures covered a wide range:

• Pig Iron command squad. Having already got the troopers, heavy weapons and war droids, it was only a matter of time before I completed the set
• Lead Adventure Jesters. These will join my zombie clown troupe, although the figures aren't sold as zombies
• Lead Adventure Deep Dive Night 2. This is a deep sea diver and a figure with a large spanner. I didn't buy the figure when I first saw it, as I couldn't think of a use for it. However, at another stand (whose name I forget), they had various sea demons. An image of these guys fighting the deep sea diver immediately popped into my mind, so I picked up the demons and went back and bought the diver. It's a diorama idea, so whether it will ever manifest itself remains to be seen...
• Some Cthulu Cultists from the same sea demon place, along with a bloated zombie
• A Gremlin from the same manufacturer. What I really wanted was the base the miniature was on. However, it came with a blank base, and when I asked, I was told the base was from Fenris Games. I've tracked it down, but as they're an ebay store, and I don't have/want an ebay account, I don't think I'll be buying them
• Urban Mammoth Venom Drake. This was half price, and looks like it'll be suitable for my Demon Apocalypse, so it's in the lead pile
• Laughing Monk - Bearer of the Light. Bought this from Fighting 15s as I liked the look of the figure. Having looked at it in the cold light of home, however, I'm not so sure...
• Copplestone Terminators Robots. I had two of them already, so this will add some reinforcements. I have plenty of painted near future figures, so if I ever decide to have a Terminator style game, at least I'll have the figures
• Warhammer Vampire Counts Necromancer. This is the latest plastic release from GW. I think it's just me, but £8.00 for a single plastic figure seems to be a step too far. For metal or resin it doesn't seem too bad (although still expensive), but for one plastic sprue with no "extras", it just seems wrong. I got it at 10% off, but if it hadn't been at a show, I'm not sure I would have bothered. It's a shame, as it's a nice figure, and quite a few of the others in the range are nice as well. At the moment, however, it's a price point that's going to take me some time to get used to

Things I didn't get

One of the few specific things I went for was Dixon Miniature's "pianist with piano and female singer" set. I need a piano for the Dad's Army diorama and this one looked ideal.

Unfortunately, he brought the entire saloon set, but not the individual packs. It seemed silly to buy the whole lot for one item, so I ordered it online when I got home (not without incident, as clicking the "Add to Shopping Cart" button in Firefox 5 caused it to go into an infinite loop. I eventually managed to buy it using Chrome)

Inspiration for future projects

6mm ancients from Baccus.

I have a couple of painted 6mm armies from Irregular miniatures (Dwarf and some evil type army). I also have two unpainted armies from the same manufacturer (Orc and skeleton).

The main reason they're unpainted is that the casting quality isn't great, and it's sometimes difficult to tell where the flash ends and the figure starts.

The Baccus ones, however, look much cleaner, and I was nearly tempted into buying a 6mm Macedonian army pack. The things that saved me were:

• the old eyesight is not what it once was
• I'd have nobody to fight against, so I'd end up having to buy the Persians or Indians as well

Still, this is an area I may revisit, as the idea of a 6mm phalanx on the table is very appealing.

20mm modern British from Britannia

I have some 28mm moderns, although none of them are painted. These ones, however, looked amazing, and again, I was sorely tempted to purchase some. 20mm has the advantage that a lot of plastic kits are available in that scale and I already have some scenery (granted, it's WW2, but a bombed out building looks pretty much the same in every time period)

28mm, however, is more flexible, as I can use the figures with my zombies and other near-future figures (e.g. terminators). This means I won't be investing in 20mm moderns any time soon.

That's the end of my wargame shows for this year. There are still a couple in Scotland, but they're up north, so I don't bother with them.

Now I just have to wait patiently until next May :-)

Storing Unpainted Figures

Storage cabinets

I keep most of my unpainted figures in storage cabinets - the sort normally used to hold nuts and bolts. Boxed sets remain in their boxes, but individual figures are tidied away into the small drawers. I find this approach means the lead pile doesn't look quite so daunting, and when I look through the drawers, I invariably find things I'd forgotten I'd bought.

The figures are spread across three storage units, and have started to outgrow even them - it's possible this signifies something, but probably not :-)

I do have a fourth unit (bright orange), but it has had a long and troubled history. After spending many years in various lofts, I finally reclaimed it a few years ago. However, it was really smelly, so smelly that I didn't want to put anything in it. I spent an afternoon washing the unit and each of the drawers in disinfectant, but it still didn't smell fresh.

With the pile spreading, and Claymore approaching (where it's just possible I may buy one or two figures), I decided it was time to either start using, or replace, the old orange unit. The unit has a dent in the bottom, so doesn't sit quite level, and this, coupled with the lingering smell, meant that the replacement option won.

However, I struggled to find an appropriate cabinet. They don't seem to be in fashion at the moment, but I finally tracked one down on Amazon. It has one more row than the unit its replacing, so should last for a while (famous last words).

It didn't come with any spacers - small plastic rectangles used to divide the drawers into two or three sections. The ones I found on Amazon cost nearly as much as the unit itself, and got some very strange reviews, so I have made my own from 1mm plasticard.

The next step was to reorganise the wardrobe to make room for the new unit. The old orange unit was sitting on top of a set of cardboard drawers which currently hold 20mm WW2, some old GW Epic models and some other odds and ends. As the orange unit was empty and didn't weigh too much, this wasn't really a concern. When the new one is loaded, however, it will be far too heavy, so something had to change.

The reorganisation was completed without incident, and the old unit's heading out to the recycling bin. The lead pile can continue to grow faster than I paint - nope, definitely doesn't signify anything.

New painting light

For more years than I care to remember, my painting area has been illuminated with a single 60W desk lamp. It's an excellent lamp and I've never had any problems with it. Unfortunately, with the EU directive to purge all incandescent bulbs from the pages of history, its days are numbered. I did try to fit a compact fluorescent bulb into it, but there wasn't enough room.

Given that, I have been trying for a while, off and on, to find a replacement lamp. I'm not a fan of fluorescent bulbs, as I find they don't provide as much light as they claim, but until cheap LED bulbs come out, it's all that's out there.

I picked one up this week, again from Amazon, and it has not been too bad so far (only used it for a few sessions, but there has been no eye strain, so that's a good sign). It did flicker something rotten the first time I switched it on, but once it warmed up, it was fine. The lamp has a daylight bulb in it, as opposed to the non-daylight incandescent bulb, so it'll be interesting to see if I notice a difference to the colours when I'm painting.

The lamp came with both a table base and a clamp. The clamp is nice and light, but the base weighs a lot - one review suggests eight or nine pounds, and they're probably correct. It just about did my knees in, as I had to balance it on them on the train journey to get the lamp home. Hopefully, the painting Gods will recognise and honour my sacrifice and suffering, and grant unto me the ability to blend colours properly and paint both quickly and accurately :-)

No photos this week, as I had various house activities to do that took up my usual photography time-slot. There's nothing much to report on anyway, just plodding through the Dad's Army civilians.