Archipelago of Dread

Well, they're done, here they are:

All islands from the Dreadfleet set (the wreck of a Dwarf ship is missing, because I'll paint that alongside the Dwarf fleet itself).

Loot!

Still painting Dreadfleet terrain (at the current rate, I expect my next post to display all the painted islands), but to today a package arrived:

My Nilfgaard and Northern Kingdoms Gwent set!

And the contents. The same nice quality and lovely art that the previous release (Monsters and Scoia'Tael deck) had. A nice touch was the inclusion of the Cow/Bovine Defense Force cards. The only shame about it is that they didn't also include those to add to the previously released decks as well, or offered you the option of ordering them separately for them.

This latest delivery means I now have all four decks:

I can't wait to try them out against each other!


Anyway, that concludes this intermezzo, now it's back to painting Dreadfleet/Man O'War and binge watching Black Sails for me...

See you next time!

Lonely Island

The first island is done:

I decided not to do the castle in the dark, brooding Dreadfleet colours, as I would be using this for Man O'War as well. So it got nice whitewashed walls and blue-grey slate roofs.  (Sadly the colours on the walls got washed out a bit, causing them to look a bit flat in the pictures.) The massive skulls in the rocks still kind of bug me, but not enough to want to go through the hassle of removing them.
I quite liked painting this particular island. Enough even to maybe consider buying a second one from Ebay or a bits-seller and to make an even more living, breathing castle of it: remove the Skullz from the island, flock the rocks with greenery and add some buildings and fields within the castle walls. Maybe even extend the sealevel parts of the castle into a pier or mooring dock. I like the idea, but at the moment, my money is better spent elsewhere.

I've also been experimenting with some Oyumaru, loaned to me by Johan (Thanks, mate! ) to make some custom 3D Wreck and Debris markers for my Dwarf fleet. But I forgot to take pictures of those... :( 
I'll be using (part of) these to experiment with water sculpting some more. My reasoning for this is that these markers will be on the table for a turn only, so it's not as big a loss if one of them is a little less than ideal.

See you next time!

On the rocks...

Today I finished the rock parts of the Dreadfleet terrain:

I also painted the basing testers/experimental Nautilus submerged markers:

At this point I think I'm preferring the greenstuff water and the cutout marker, but I'm not deciding until I can sleep on it, and maybe get some feedback. I tried to paint in the shadow of the Nautilus in the rectangular marking, but it just isn't showing up clearly.
I do think I have found my water recipe, though. Just needs gloss varnishing.

First half of the Pavesiers done.

So, here they are:

 Scruffy townsfolk behind bright colourful shields... Medieval working class warriors, of sorts.

Here's their banner:

The symbol on the blue streamer that forms the top of the flag is a crossed mash paddle and ladle, signifying that this unit of militia consists of members of the Brewers Guild. (Each guild in a medieval city, which my fantasy setting is heavily influenced by, was obliged to be able to arm their membership and so provide units of militia for the city's defence and policing and to fulfill military obligations to feudal lords that controlled the city. The units would be equipped according to the wealth and status of the guild in question.) The Brewers Guild, not being exceptionally wealthy or poor, but being a large guild (as beer was the main drink of the era), provides the pavisiers in my setting. As you can see the more well-off members have better gear and more important duties within the guild militia.

And here's the pavise of the bannerman:

The captain/guildmaster will get a similar shield, but with a canton (inset) bearing a golden tree on a black field.

About that heraldry: The shield designs aren't just chosen at random or for prettyness. There are some references in there I'd like to share.
The heraldry on the majority of pavises and the banner is the heraldry of Rivia, a sovereignty in the setting of the Witcher, from Andrzej Sapkowski's books and CD Project Red's Witcher game trilogy. My littly geeky tribute to books and games that I love.
Just this week I discovered, by accident, that this is also the heraldry of a historical Dutch family called Zael or Zael Utteneng. Who apparently held lands or office along a part of disputed territories between two Duchies in the Holy Roman Empire, one of which now forms my home province Brabant. Funny that. I just love it when such coincidences pop up!

The rest are nods to regional history:
The red three-towered castle on a white field is the medieval version of the arms of the Quarter of Oisterwijck, the 14th century administrative/feudal domain my home city was part of back then.
 The gold tree on a black field, that I will paint as a canton on the militia captain his shield, was the medieval version of the arms of the Mairie of 'S-Hertogenbosch, the larger feudal (sub)domain within the Duchy of Brabant that the Quarter of Oisterwijck fell under.

Not the proper/historical way this heraldry would be used, but hey, I'm playing a fantasy game here... ;)

See you next time!

Pavises in Progress

Today, I spent some time at the painting table, here are the results:

What's left to do on these? Just some highlights on the red parts of the heraldry, the addition of symbols of the Brewers Guild (crossed mash paddle and ladle) to the blue portion of the banner, and some clean-up/minor detail (including doing the eyes on them and dirt on the lower edge of the pavises).
Then I've only got the other half of this Urban Militia to paint, and their commander/guildmaster.  But those may have to take a temporary back seat due to my sudden, inexplicable Man O'War craze...

See you next time!

I am sailing... (a.k.a. "Welp, that was unexpected!")

Well, as I said in an earlier post, I was working on a unit of Pavesiers for my Fantasy/Dungeoneering games. But last week Johan gave me the last missing component for my Man O'War Dwarf fleet. My original intention was to simply strip the paint off, and store it with my Man O'War stash until I could get around to it one day.
The Muse, apparently refreshed from her prolonged absence, thought otherwise...
Before I knew it, I had cleaned and assembled all the Dreadfleet terrain (yeah, I fell for the Man O'War nostalgia buy :/ ) , and was well underway assembling my Dwarf fleet:

The Dreadfleet Dwarf ship snuck into the assembly line as well. Might as well paint all the Dwarves in one go. And he may just be useful as a sorf of superheavy battleship? Missing from this picture is the second squadron of Monitors, and the other two Ironclads. I also have a second set of 3 Nautilii, but these can wait a bit, I fear 6 Nautilii may be a bit overkill...

Speaking of Nautilii, I want to do a bit more for the submerged option than just plonking down a "submerged" counter next to the model. I'd like to build proper submerged models and have been thinking/experimenting on how to best go about it:

From left to right:
    -A. My original idea of making a Natilus profile as a "submerged" marker.
    -B. A based, non-submerged Nautilus.
    -C. My second idea, of making an empty base, to serve as the "submerged" marker.
    -D. A still-unbased Nautilus, for comparison.
My intention is for both option A and C to have the chimney and banner still sticking out of the water. On option A I tried one of the ideas for doing water on the bases:

While I like the effect, I fear that doing all my fleets this way will simply take too much time/greenstuff. I will paint this one up, and try another one with acrylic gel, to see which I like best.

After that, insanity struck...

The Cake is a lie...

As I said in my previous post, I've been painting a couple of portals for a friend.
Normally I don't show stuff I paint for others online before the new owner receives it as a matter of courtesy, but Johan gave the go-ahead to show these off early. Per request the portals were painted in blue and yellow, in reference to a certain PC game that deceives you with regards to baked goods. ;)
The stonework was left more subdued.

So, thank you Johan, for letting me paint these and show them off early, I'll get them to you soon! :)

A quick sign of life

Sooo, as you may have noticed, I've not been doing much hobby stuff lately...
My muse has apparently been on an extended holiday. I've been fairly unfocussed as well, leading me to pull out a project, stare at it for a few days before putting it away again, rinse, repeat...

I did paint a set of Age of Sigmar portals for a mate (finished them this weekend) but I'm not showing those on the interwebs until they've been delivered to him.
This cleared the painting table (if I ignore the small gang of WIPs...) to start on my medievalesque/fantasy Urban Militia. Here's how they stand now:

The men are from the old Harlequin/Black Tree Design range, I'm not sure if they're from the Hundred Years War or Fantasy range. The Pavises are from Mirliton.
The plan is to give them a quick basic paintjob, nothing fancy. I intend to keep the men themselves fairly subdued, to give them a contrast with the bright white and red shields they'll carry.
This is only half of the unit, but I didn't feel like slogging through the entire 15 at once. Especially as this is mainly meant to get me back in the flow again before some of the WIP figures that deserve my A game. (Like my long-awaited Escher Gang, that has been languishing half painted for far too long!)
Or alternatively, this may rekindle my lost, but much appreciated long haul focus on Fantasy. I hadn't been focussed for that long a time (a year+) on a single project/theme and I kind of miss it. But at this point, just to get painting again, on anything really, is a step forward. Mojo first, plans later.

See you next time!