A change of gears.

I've done a bit of painting on the Warhammer Quest display backdrop, but a combination of the size and extent of the paintjob on it, as well as some real life worries had me lose steam for a bit, hobbywise. As a result the backdrop project just became this massive beast, staring me in the face, making me lose heart.
So I decided to change gears for a bit, and just pick up a random project on a whim. Clear the palate as it were. I wanted to do something none-fantasy, but not grimdark (I felt like I had enough doom and gloom on my plate already...). Something small and easily finished.
I had a look over my stacks of mini's ready to paint and WIP (I have an archival drawer cabinet with minis from various projects that are either WIP, primered or ready for primer. I tend to switch gears a lot usually, and this is my way of accomodating my hobby-butterfly tendencies).
My eye fell on my partly painted Appleseed Landmate conversion from a couple of years ago...

At the time painting on it had stalled out, because, well, painting that much white neatly was an absolute bugbear. Luckily, this time I knew what I was in for (and had nearly half a decade more painting experience under my belt). The trick to painting white is accepting it will take a bazillion layers...

Anyway, here is the result:

And the anterior:

In the end, it turned out a little lighter/brighter than his buddy I painted years ago:

(Old one on the left, new paint in the centre, and Special Ops Landmate on the right.)

Here's a pic of the whole gang as it stands now:

The SWAT team in the background isn't formally part of the Appleseed project (they're painted in the colours and markings of the Arrestatieteam, the Dutch equivalent of SWAT), but as they're carrying futuristic gear anyway, they might as well be co-opted.

With him, all my law enforcement Landmates are painted. On the to-paint tray are still 3 opposing force Landmates and 9 Bubblegum Crisis "Boomer" miniatures that need converting into combat cyborgs. When I'll do those minis? I don't know.
I had intended this mini to be a single painting project, to reboot the mojo, but I've finally watched Appleseed Alpha ("for research") and am currently rereading the manga, and it's drawing me in again. So this project may just have a longer breath than I had planned.
I also discovered that the particular Infinity models I used for these conversions are being replaced with a newer sculpt that isn't compatible with the looks of these (It's a nice sculpt, but there's just not enough of the classic Guges in it). So I kinda, sorta, somewhat quickly ordered an extra one, to convert into a support Landmate with an Anti-Landmate Sniper rifle.

There's still plenty on the wish list for this project, with the top picks being; a Landmate for Briareos, suitable clean sci-fi terrain, and most importantly, a ruleset that does what I want from Appleseed style gaming.
After that it's just tasties: more (varied) opposing force, some vehicles, civillians...
But there's not much of a priority on that, because as far as I know I don't have anyone to actually game this with... It's mainly just a modelling project and homage to Appleseed. But who knows, if I get enough finished I may just draw someone in?

See you next time!

Blacked out...

Sunday I spent making the extra detailing for the display unit; Sconces for torches, some candles for the niches in the lower corridor, the doors and trapdoor and a set of iron rings to go into a wall somewhere.

Which means that I had everything ready for primer!
The little bits will be sprayed, I just have to wait until the rain lets up long enough.
Because the corridors are mainly made from various forms of foam, I couldn't spray them, so they got handpainted with a PVA/black paint mix, slightly diluted down. Here is the result, still drying as I type:

Now that it's finally all a single colour, it's great to see how all the different materials give a nice variety of textures and surfaces. I'm well pleased so far!

Now just to leave this to dry for a couple of days and then find the time to paint this behemoth...
As an extension of this, I'm also thinking about dungeon terrain again, I've got lots to think about on that subject. If I can, I'll write something up about it.

See you soon!

Flooring it!

I had the house to myself today, so I decided to make a mess... :D

After a gentle nudge from Harry over on Warseer, I had to agree it was high time to continue work on the display backdrop for my wifes Warhammer Quest set. If I am to finish painting it, I'll need both a boost to motivation and room to put the finished minis, as the allotted shelf is slowly filling up. Warhammer Quest is a big set!

I still needed to do part of the flooring on the dungeon corridors. (In fact, the entire centre level of the display needed its flooring done!) So, that's what I did today:

More photos and words after the break.

Happy New Year! (And a quick look back)

Well, it's begun, let's hope it's a good one! :)

It's only fitting that I start the new year with what I ended the old one with:
Toads!

They are, of course, the new toad sculpts coming out of Toad King Castings "Warts and Wings" Kickstarter. (I didn't get the stirges, nor did I get the largest of the toads, due to budgetary reasons. But looking at how much fun these are to paint, I'll certainly be getting the largest toad once he hits retail!) While I didn't get these as scarily realistic as the previous one (these are after all clearly fantasy creatures, and their extremely warty skins hids my attempt at mottled patterns somewhat), I'm still well chuffed with them.
Especially as they're another one-day paint, and painted while still recovering from New Years Eve, to boot!

Here's looking at you...

Looking back over the past year hobbywise, it's been a pretty good year for me. (real-life wise, 2015 wasn't one worth remembering...)
I've painted 73 miniatures, which, although isn't heyday productivity, it is one of the most productive years since acquiring child and mortgage and such.
It's also been a remarkably focussed year, with all minis painted, bar 13, being for the Fantasy/Dungeoneering project. I've built a few models for other projects in the past year, but none them have actually passed through the painting queue.
I didn't build the dungeon terrain I had planned to build this year, but oh, well, there's always 2016. ;D It'll get built eventually. I'd rather not rush such a big terrain project and there's no deadline for it to be finished.
I've also played several games this year, thanks to Johan/Gunbird and Frostgrave. Which also puts this year far above previous ones, where the average number of games was roughly 0.
All in all, I'm pretty pleased with 2015 as far as gaming goes.

See you next time, and have a nice year!