New Arrivals: Foundry Hydra

Here's a thing that arrived today: snake-bodied Hydra from Foundry's Tribes of Legend -range. I instantly liked this figure the first time I saw it, and when I noticed it was available at Foundry's eBay outlet, FlyteofFantasy, and with postage paid, there was no excuse not getting it. I have in the past postponed some purchases, only to find out that the models have been discontinued, the store closed etc. (Red Box Helsvakt, I'm looking at you...), and I was not going to let it happen on this model.

As can be seen from the image, it's going to require a lot of pinning and filling to get the parts fit, but that was expected. Besides, having seven necks in only three parts is not that bad. And from the production point of view, having the two types of head separately makes perfect sense. Besides, there are 5 open-mouthed heads, and 5 closed ones in the kit, so one could mix and match, or even model the figure with some off-cut heads, and some necks where two heads have sprouted from the cuts. Only thing I'm bit iffy is the fact that the tail of the creature is two-forked, (which of course does not show on the image...) I think that I'll cut the other tailtip away.

The size of the figure is pretty much what I expected. It's big compared to a human-sized model, but not overtly so, and most importantly it can be built robust enough to properly function as a game piece. It will fit comfortably on a 40x40mm base, or a round equivalent. The fit of the joints is not the best, and there's quite a bit of flash on the studs, so simply gluing it together probably would not work.

Overall, the purchase went smoothly (well, I've never had any trouble with any eBay transaction yet), and was delivered promptly. And they were nice enough to include some skeleton figures in the order, as well. Probably some miscasts from their skeleton ranges, as one of the figures was cut from the middle and had a misshapen hand. But hey, freebies! Besides, the day you don't have uses for skeleton bits is the day you're tired of the whole hobby.

Plaster mixing ratio: a note

Just a quick reminder for myself: For Occlumedanit, one portion of plaster (fills approximately one mold) mix 80g plaster with 0,35 dl of lukewarm water.

City in Ruins - Ruined Houses pt. II

I have slowly been building some ruined buildings, using pieces I had already cast since somehow I'm in no mood of casting any new blocks. Fortunately I managed to build the houses I intended, although the broken corner of the house with a full-story basement is a direct result of not having enough arch-pieces for an intact level. But that's a boon of making ruins: such shortcomings are easily accommodated into the designs.

The basic structure of the buildings is thus in place. Next steps involve using latex filler to texturize the foamboard and to fill any gaps between the windows and the doorframes, then spraypainting the interiors to a matte black, assembling some rubble outside the buildings as well as texturing the bases all over, and constructing the floors using balsa wood. After that, it's just the task of painting the buildings, and perhaps if the inspiration strikes, some superdetailing as appropriate. Especially the recessed arches on the basement level scream for something. Coat-of-arms, perhaps.

To be honest, I still need a couple of corner pieces, and also some small bricks for the well, so I guess I'll have to do some casting eventually before I can go forward with the construction. But at the moment, what with weather being so uncharacteristically fine, I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Some Hasslefree goodness

HFH057 Ferrus and HFH065 Veda-Ann

Here's a couple of Hasslefree minis that arrived into my mailbox recently. I just could not put them in a drawer, to wait for a better time, but had to assemble and base them right away. Pinning Veda-Ann's sword arm was especially nice: it's always a special kind of thrill drilling a 1mm diameter hole into a 2mm piece of metal. I also had to do some 'stock removal' on Ferrus's axe and Wolf's sword to fit them to my taste, although the latter is still by no means dainty. There are still some mold lines to tackle with, and some gaps to GS, and then I can perhaps leave these to wait for their proper turn. Well, maybe basecoat them first...

That's pretty much the rest of the Personalities I need for the Wulfheimer warband. Finding the regular troopers might prove trickier, though...

HFH046 Wolf and HFH068 Boudi

New painting - Elder Vampire

Heresy Miniatures: UNDEAD004: Vampire in Manbat form

Time to get some Heresy on board, as well!

This figure had lain on my figure drawer on a semi-finished stage for a while. I had originally based it on my regular humanoid base, which is about 21mm across, but although it did fit nicely, the pose of the figure was so front-heavy that it was constantly on the brink of toppling forward.

Then, as I was fiddling with the Ruins & Ratmen statistics for the Vampire Duellist, Valerie Dupuis, and thought that she would need a worthy opponent to hunt for in the ruined city. Thus was born the concept of Nemeses, arch-enemies of the Independent figures, that have a chance to spawn to the game if and when Independent models are fielded.

Now that I had an incentive to finish the miniature, it happened quickly. I knew I had to alter the pose a bit, and took an easy way out as I saw a suitably sized barrel in the bit box. With a bit of bending the figure accepted the new pose, and all I had to do was to paint the barrel and add some highlights to the figure.

I'm glad I found use for this figure. It's quite good-looking (Marcus from the Underworld series comes to mind), but unfortunately the wings make it a bit awkward as a game piece. With the elevated pose, that problem is somewhat alleviated, and the figure looks more imposing, to boot.

New painting - Divine Champion

Reaper: Dark Heaven: 03364: Isabeau Laroche, Female Paladin

Here's another Reaper/Werner Klocke collaboration. A two-part figure, I had a bit of problem with the separate shield arm. Not because of bad fit or anything, but rather no matter how I tried to attach it, it did not look natural. Oh well, in the end I selected a pose that showed the shield the best.

Initielly, I was going to do some freehand on the shield, but after a try or two I gave up, and went the old school way, that is to say I printed the image on a BW laser printer, and glued it on the shield. All went well, although I was a bit surprised how thick a regular 80g/m2 office paper would look on a miniature. Fortunately, a bit of Green Stuff did the job of blending the paper. Maybe next time I'll try this technique I'll try to sandpaper the paper edges somewhat thinner.

New painting - Slavonian Huntress

Freebooter Miniatures: SOL 002 Female Hunter

Most of my Werner Klocke -figures are from Reaper lines, but this one is from his own Freebooter Miniatures -range. Although I like his Reaper sculpts very much, I generally find his own range of figures a bit too busy for my tastes, and they are for the most part multi-part figures, as well.

There are a couple I've set my eyes on, however, and this huntress was one of the first that caught my eye. It's wonderfully anachronistic figure, actually more suitable for a post-apoc game than anything else. For me, that was no deal breaker. Tho bodice might have been, but hey, if one would collect female figures with only sensible outfits, the collection would be small indeed. At least she's not wearing bare metal against her skin... Actually, my biggest complain about the figure is that as she's supposed to be a hunter, her spear shows an alarming lack of lugs.

Oh well, in Ruins & Ratmen she's going to get a role as a professional hunter of Were-creatures.

New painting - Mercenary Witch

Reaper Miniatures: Warlord: 14330 Gars Necka, Mercenaries Mage

Another recently finished Reaper miniature, this time from the Warlord range.

Once again, the pose sold this figure for me, simple yet effective. As a rule (actually, it's more of a guideline..) I like my figures as a one piece casts. Not because I don't like pinning or assembling, I probably would not do any conversions if I did not like that. It's more like I often see multi-part figures as 'needlessly complicated', something that could have perhaps been avoided with a slight change in a pose.  And I also see the ability to design the figure in such a way that it has both a dynamic pose and single-piece castability as an art form in itself.

New painting - Elven Swordmaster

Hasslefree Miniatures: HFE007 Ceril

Here's another one of the recently finished miniatures. As soon as I saw this figure, I knew he had to have white hair, and the rest of the colour scheme came from that. I've dubbed him Eanur Gloamblade.

Lots of flat armour surface, just crying out for some freehand decoration like silver inlay on steel, sadly I was not up to that yet. But I am glad about the hair and the face, they came out pretty much as I had imagined. I'm also glad that the figure sports no visible pointy ears, it look really elven enough as is.

I also like the pose of the figure very much; It's quite dynamic, much better than a plain posing one, and not over-the-top action-y either. Just calm, self-assured, menacing, even. Dang, now I feel like doing another version of this figure, with completly different colour scheme...

New painting - Vampire Duellist

Reaper: Dark Heaven 02981 Lonnia, Female Duellist

Finally managed to get some figures finished, so the following couple of posts will showcase those. The Hammer Sisters are also on the way, once I get rid of  the fear of doing faces.

I'm first to admit that I'm no masterclass painter, I simply lack the patience to smooth and blend, and something like a good 'gaming standard' is the best I can aspire to. 

I also have finally gotten comfortable with my camera, and finally the figures look pretty much like they do in 'reality'. I even discovered a 'manual focus' -setting, so no more sharp sword-tips, and blurry faces, yay! This of course has it's downsides, as the camera is quite merciless, and somehow just looking at a shot I tend to notice omissions, errors and plain old mistakes that I managed to gloss over while actually painting the figure. Most of the time this results in do-overs, and these days I usually varnish my figures only after I've photographed them.

This figure is actually a repaint. It was originally painted as a blonde human in blues and yellows, but I was not very happy with it, and when I was looking for a 'Marianna Chevaux' -proxy, this figure came instantly to my mind. And after the repaint, she looks dramatic enough for the part, as well. She could perhaps use a lighter skin tone, but then it might be difficult to differentiate that from the colour of her pants, so perhaps she's just fed recently. Or more likely, she's a Dhampir, still retaining her human skin tone.

Ruins & Ratmen Cards: Necromantic Warbands

Yeah, I cheated with this card -
the pose just did not fit on the regular imageframe.

After a bit of tinkering with the numbers and abilities, - and having a moment of dread as I made some upgrades to my Open Office spreadsheet and managed to make it buggy at the same time, namely it showed no values for some of the Special Rules - here are the finalized versions of the initial Necromantic Warband Troopers and Personalities.


The models themselves are a mixed bag: Zombies, Skeletons and Human Thralls are old Citadel minis, as is the Wight, although somewhat modded. (I have been drooling after the Otherworld armoured skellies, but as of now these will have to do.) All the Ghouls and the Necromancer are from Reaper, the Terror Wolf - really great model - is from Gamezone, the Dread Wolf is one of my own sculpts, and the Vampires are from Foundry's High Elf Nobles range. Elves, yeah. Who do they think they're fooling?

Alright, now they need some opposition, and next on the menu will be the Zealot warbands, with Battle Clerics, Undead Hunters, Paladins, Holy Sisters and Flagellants. Although I need to get the Sisters painted first. And to find - or sculpt - a flintlock musket for one of the Hunters...

I Intended to have each image here individually, but apparently that's not possible

City in Ruins - Ruined Houses Basement

As an addendum to the yesterday's post, here's an alternative basement level with the height of one full story.

City in Ruins - Ruined houses

When I first started making ruined buildings I went for more or less intact ones, with a wall or two collapsed, and partially roofed. Now I want to make some more heavily damaged ones, using the same recipe. I have based my buildings on HirstArts blocks, but actually building whole series of houses using the bricks would mean way too much casting - and would make the buildings much heavier than I would like. Therefore, I usually use the blocks for foundations and detailing, but use foamboard, cardboard and balsa wood for the other stuff. For walls, I usually use 3mm Foamboard. It is sturdy enough, and the thickness is close to 1/8 of an inch that meshes well with the HirstArts blocks.

The plan here is for a simple house with a small amount of the second story left. The 5"x3" refers to the  size of the foundation, so the walls themselves are 1/2" shorter. There's no windows or doors marked on the wall plans, but on the foundation I did leave out the width of my separately cast door piece.

The corner stonework is made from a modified 1/2"x1/4"x1/4" brick, from which the thickness of the foamboard has been filed away. I suppose one could file all the pieces by hand, but for me it was evident I would need a lot of these, and making a custom mold for these was the sensible option. There are great tutorials at the HirstArts site for moldmaking, if one's interested.

Sisters of the Hammer

Here's a trio that has been WIP for a while. Reaper Miniatures' Battle Nuns, with some customized weaponry. My original intention was to have The Sisterhood as a faction of its own in Ruins & Ratmen, but at the moment I think I stick them together with the Zealots, as an Undead-fighting wing. Partly because I don't see the Sisters as varied enough to be a faction of their own, and also it has proven difficult to find figures with similar look. I could make shielded variants of this lot, and they do have the Matriarch figure, but that's about it. Besides, the Zealot colour scheme suits them quite well.

Figure Display Cabinet

Here's a quickie about a figure cabinet I recently made, recycling material from an old drawer that was dismantled. Only trouble is, I could use another one! (Actually, I'm working on a bigger one with scenic backgrounds...)

Ruins & Ratmen - Necromantic Warbands

Here's a quick draft for the Necromantic warband Troop types. I think it's mostly there, but some scores and abilities may yet need some juggling. And of course, since this is the first warband, there may come the need to skew the numbers one way or another. It's all a balancing act, trying to keep any models from becoming overpowering, or useless.

The Reasons Why:
I like my Zombies slow, pondering, and easily avoided, but hitting quite hard. Skeletons, on the other hand, represent reliable veteran warriors, but with damaged equipment, hence the low C score. Ghouls are a little less distracted than Zombies, and I think the Greedy rule was written for them. I'm still debating whether Ghouls are actually Undead, and should they be Evil.

Dread and Terror Wolves Might change a great deal, I might actually give the Ghouls the Long Move and make these more akin to Zombies. Wights are essentially just Skeleton Personalities, and the Ghoul Mage is just that. Initially I thought of it as a Necromancer, but the idea of a ranged Poison spell was too good to give up.

The three Vampire varieties are distinctive enough, and although their Q is not as good as I would have liked, I tried to keep them under PV 100. I'm still on the fence whether the Ghoul Brute should be Personality (perhaps with Leader) or are there enough of them as it is. Human Thralls might seem useless, but should work with the Vampire Witch at least. The Necromancer is a bit bland at the moment (I might give him Drain as Close Combat ability), and I'm wondering if I should include a Bat Swarm to the list, although I have at the moment only one such model.

City in Ruins: Public Wells

Here's a couple of plans for Public Wells, using HirstArts blocks. Features pieces from Gothic Dungeon Builder #45, Small Brick Mold #250, Dragon's Inn Mold #51 (the 'turret' of the well is made from four doorframe halves, with the wall parts sawn/filed away), and Flagstone Floor Tile Mold #260.

The floor tiles with the curb, both rounded and square, are custom tiles I've made to speed up the building of walkways. The roof is made from corrugated cardboard, found from a nearby arts&crafts store, and glued to place with small strips of regular cardboard placed under the front edge, to create the illusion of overlapping. The top is just a roud dowel. Bits and bobs have been added as appropriate, and the whole thing has been mounted on a fibreboard. Painted with acrylics (and the roof is reddish, no matter what the picture might indicate), with a lot of drybrushing.

I actually built the Well N:o 1 a while back, but as I now wanted a companion to it with similar style, it was easier to design the new one while comparing it to the already built one.

Z is for Zafira

Whew, I made it! To round up this series, here's Zafira, a feyblooded pirate heiress of an influential captain... ok, OK, a princess, shees. Yep, she's supposed to be standing partially on a stair, I just never got to drawing that. But hey, feet!

Y is for Yet Another Heroine

Not much to say about this one, except perhaps a bit odd choice of weaponry for someone fighting mainly undead. Well, maybe they were mostly the fleshy types.

X is for Cross of Providence

A depiction of a small pendant from Myrskynlintu - Stormcrow. Four arrow points converging.

W is for Wolfmaid

A vignette drawing made for a short story.

V is for Vampire couple

At the time I drew this, I was looking for some vampire miniatures, and all I could find were either tuxedo-and-cape traditionalists or fully armoured battle monsters if male, and scantily-clad seductresses/Dracula's brides, if female. I wanted something different. Something that would not straight away scream 'vampire', but blend in at least somewhat to the common populace, and drew these two before realizing that a right kind of paint job on an ordinary figure would probably be the most optimal choice.

Since then, I've found some decent, non-traditional fantasy vampire miniatures, so that part is covered, as well.

U is for Unnatural cravings

Part of the Myrskynlintu - Stromcrow -storyline, Deleana here has snuck away for a light midnight snack. No, she's not crazy, just a bit - um, pregnant.

Disclaimer: No rats were physically harmed in the production of this drawing.

T is for Tiger tattoo

Nothing fancy here, just a drawing of a tiger's head for a friend, to be used as a tattoo design.

S is for Saria and Ramir

Saria, the Stormcrow, you've met before. Here she is with Ramir, who until just a few moments ago was your ordinary, run-of-the-mill dashing young nobleman with far more sense of valor that was good for him. Now, having literally confronted his inner demons, he's a man changed - and not a bit happy about it.

R is for Rinliddi

Another illustration I did for Heroquest, the foreshortenings on this one still fill me with dread

Q is for Questing paladin

Last one of Iris, I swear! I only included this one, because I really like the suffering look of the warhorse. Iris never was the brightest candle in the bunch, And since her horse was a blessed being, he was probably way smarter than Iris.

Otherwise, there's a lot a bit off in this pic, both anatomically and gear-wise. If there's one drawing among these April ones that would benefit from a redraw, it would be this one.

P is for Phargentes

This one was a commission for Unspoken Word 'zine. I wonder if I knew much about the anatomy of swords at this point, but it seems that the sword could have a full tang with  a peened pommel. At least the Lunar rune is positioned right for that. Yay me.

Yeah, the legs. What did I say on the previous post? Well, at least they are cropped at mid-shin this time.

O is for Other shot of Iris

Other shot of Iris, the paladin. Her bastardsword was modeled after a Scottish claymore, although the quillons are straight. And a sword that size really should have a fuller.
I always intended her to have a sort of South-Italian/Sophia Loren vibe, and I think here her face conveys that quite nicely.

Oh, and a person should never be cropped at the joints. I guess here I was not planning ahead, and just ran out of paper. One of my cardinal sins.

N is for Neeb-neeb, the thrall

For once, there's not much story or game behind this pic. The main motivation was that while I had always liked the Skaven of Warhammer a lot, painted a lot of miniatures and even tried my hand at sculpting a Rat-ogre or two, at that time I had not yet tried to draw one. This one started out just as a doodle, and for that, turned out quite nicely. It's a bit too hairy, perhaps, but I got the pose and demeanor right.

M is for Musca Domestica

A T-shirt design from way back.

L is for Lily

One of the few pics that does not have a story behind it. Inspired by the Kate Bush song of the same name, this was more a technical exercise than anything else.

K is for Kara the raven

Okay, here's a redeemer for the yesterday's raven pic. Of course, this one's drawn from photographic references. I don't know why a part of me still considers that to be kind of cheating.