Destroyed Ford F-30 LRDG with Bofors 37mm (UK, WW2)

 3D printed destroyed vehicle for WW2 games in 28mm. Plant based gray elegoo resin.

Sprayed camo tan Krylon paint and primer combo. Washed with Secret Weapon (SW) Dark Sepia brushed up and touch ups SW light Dust. Weathering with Forge World (FW) weathering powder Black Soot. Edge highlights for damages SW Engine Metal. Ground cover Army Painter (AP) Highland Tufts and Lowland Shrubs.

A few other projects on the desk. Notably a WW2 german Sd.Kfz.9 from the same file collection. Its really illustrative in terms of how massive that vehicle really was compared to other vehicles in its class. 

Also appearing are a couple of “nearly dones” from the Junkfort, some fishing boats and a small ship for use with Blood and Plunder and general Roleplaying games.

Back to the grind!

Joan of Arc terrain WiP

 For my first go at painting since the big move I decided to work on the Joan of Arc Board game.

This is a game that could only exist because of the great golden age of board-gaming that was brought about by the confluence of Kickstarter and the explosion of 3D miniature design and printing.  Its a very ambitious project that combines elements of RPGs/Tabletop Miniature  Wargames/Dungeon-crawlers.  Its already in a 1.5 Kickstarter to re-balance and expand the tabletop elements... I'm a bit obsessed.

 With the proliferation of board-games containing high quality "Designed for painters" components its no surprise that a few have ended up on my painting desk. Previously I've tackled the Dark Souls: The Board Game core set and The Order of Vampire Hunters Core set. Still in my queue are Fallout(The Board Game),  Chronicle X, Gloom Haven, and the inevitable... and seemingly endless, Kingdom Death: Monster.

 One of the things that interests me with these games, in addition to the really great sculpts, is the very well defined scope of each project.  Traditionally tabletop wargames and RPGs are essentially open ended endeavors so the sense of closure is pretty cool with the board games.

Many of the games like Joan of Arc (JoA) have made use of colored material and I've attempted to leverage that color base here basically shading, highlighting, and weathering using the existing color as a base. 

 Paint adhesion can be an issue but on hard plastics (as these are) its not a big problem and it occurred to me, somewhat belatedly, that I could spray with a clear primer... after all I've done it before... notably when mistaking the clear primer as a clear-coat sealer...  Let me tell ya its not the same! ... but it does let the original color show strongly and would work well for this sort of thing

JoA comes with a nice selection of 15mm buildings and the minis are very nice too... one of the fabulous things about 15mm is the ease of achieving the visual effect of mass troops, huddled villages, and massive monsters.  JoA does all of these superbly!

To the left you'll notice a pair of Japanese houses.  These are repairs that I snuck into the task list.  They are resin and were originally painted in the '70s in a sort of pygmy true 25mm scale. I've forgotten the manufacturer but they have the feel of the JR style about them.

While mixing up a green color I missed my mark in a big way so... base-coated the skin of a GW Ork and Goblin army from the Battle at Skull Pass... This chariot has a copyright date of 1993 on it so ... I guess its about time it got tinkered with!

Next time should have the JoA core set scenery wrapped up along with the surprise Night Gobbos and maybe some Forward Base underway.

Until then.

Shiveryah SF version, Canoness Veridyan, and a SF Werewolf

 Shiveryah glided across the tiny village square her feet floating conveniently above the grime and mud of the slaughter.
Looking intently for a trace of her prize the Sorceress of the Blood Rain almost missed the faint stench of piety... almost too late she was upon the wounded warrior sister.  The shredded armored habit bore the sigils and colors of the Sisters of Eternal Mercy... probably the Order of the Poisoned Cup... the Poisoned Cup specialized in the collection and study of corruption rather than the indiscriminate cleansing of it.  Their presence here piqued Shiveryah's interest... 
the cloak Siveryah wore, the gruesomely aspected Cloak of Innocent Blood, was not only a prized relic of her house but a potent artifact in it own right.  It quickly enveloped her in a light bending shroud... she was invisible to all but the most arcane of sensors... most magic obfuscation are weak to strong Faith wielders but this one was specifically constructed with only the most incorruptible materials making it impervious to Faith based sight.  Its materials were uncomfortable for Shiveryah to wear but her tolerance for discomfort was... notable, even among the Void Elves of her Kabal who were famed for their excess.

Withdrawing a short distance she located both the embattled Sister's adversary and the target of her own mission.  Things were about to get interesting.

 Hopping back on the Raging Heroes train I managed to spend some time with they awesome Shiveryah SF version.  She becomes the First Sorceress of the Blood Rain Kabal.

I had a moment of panic when undercoating her I mistaken used a gloss finish paint/primer combo.  Surprisingly this covered really well and took paint with no trouble... whew!

Her "Cloak of Innocent Blood" came about because I painted the first coat.. to two?... with "Glistening Blood" from Army Painter which I had picked up with a batch of basic colors to get me through until the main hobby supplies arrive... It turns out to be sort of a technical, or effect, paint and had some interesting color and texture things going on.  It looks like it will be awesome for pools and rivulets of blood but isn't a good choice for smooth coverage of large ares because of its, completely intentional, texture.

 Next up is "The Beast" from Anvil Industries.  Its a nice Sci-Fi werewolf.  I like all the tech gizmos embedded in it and am going to call it Subject #7.

It is a lot smaller than the Raging Heroes werewolves, as are most other werewolf models out there, so I'm thinking of using it as a prototype experimental "Super Soldier"... escaped and looking for a place to be.

It was a fun model to paint, relatively clean casting and the resin is a nice mix that has sharp detail, is not overly brittle, and takes paint easily.

 Canoness Veridyan is a classic GW pose based on the art of Blanche... She's in finecast here and it behaved the way it usually does.

I really got to play around with a new water effect here, and on The Beast.  Vallejo Super Heavy Gel.  The stuff is pretty awesome so far.  almost sculpt-able it gave good running water effects on both these bases.  On Veridyan's base i have included a lot of random debris, grass clippings etc... all painted like necroplis debris and buried in the gel.  it has a choppy surface and has dried realtively hard and without the sticky surface that is an issue with some other water effects... like the GW Water Effect.  It'll take a few more experiments to see how reliable it is but I'm optimistic.

A size comparison between the Raging Heroes and Games Workshop models.

Veridyan comes with a 32mm base while Shiveryah is set on a 25mm base but I think the larger base is intended to indicate that Veridyan is equipped with Power Armour while Shiveryah is a lightly armored Space Elf.  Shiveryah is also floating above the base so seems a bit taller than Veridyan.

Fast Panda Sci-Fi Food Truck ready to serve!

 I've finally rolled out the Fast Panda Sci-Fi Food Truck.  Its an Atenociti"s Workshop Kickstarter project and was worked up from a paper model.

Although its "Designed for Infinity" I've included GW's Canoness Veridyan (WiP) for scale... and its primary intended use is as part of the vehicle train for my force of Jailbirds from Raging Heroes...

 The model can be assembled with, or without, the covered dining area... which I've just noticed I left a bit off !! DoH! ... but the model is intended to be one or the other and not to swap between awning and awning free...

I've made some adjustments and the model is convertible enough for my purposes!

 I love the great decals that come with the kit... this has always been one of Atenociti's Workshops long suites.  The Fast Panda  set does not disappoint!

The more mainstream Sci-Fi styling is a departure from the Grim Dark of most of my collection but I picture the Jailbirds are more like Battlestar Galactica nomads than Underhive Gangers so their vehicle set reflects that.

As the vehicle has no weapons... I'll mostly use it as a scenic objective and, of course, to tie my themes together... The Lulus have food, now they need some kind of rolling Schoolhouse and a Barracks vehicle...

I saw an amazing vehicle at the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart.  It was a Rolling Post Office and also provided telephone service via built in booths... I wonder if I can find a model of that thing or if I'm going to have to scratch build it....

I learned a lot from this kit.  I did the test fits a few weeks before final assembly and would have benefited from a refresher dry run. I ended up disassembling large potions of the model twice... real rookie errors... and actually could stand one more parts swap.

 I  got to work with a lot of the new weathering set from Secret Weapon and also a few technical paints from Army Painters Warpaints Line.

I was very impressed with the rust effects a and the "heat" line.

The "heat colors" are kind of like a more viscous, more adhesive, wash in blue, purple, and orange.. as well as a color called old oil which is not "heat" tagged but has a similar consistency.

Secret Weapon rusts had good color while the Army Painter "Old Rust" had some texture to it.  I did a base of Old Rust (AP), a shade of Orange Rust (SW), and a glaze of Flesh Wash (SW). There is also a spot of Brown Rust (SW) here and there in the larger patches.

The Secret Weapon Tire Black, Rubber, and Rubber highlight were also very nice to use and gave a convincing effect.

  Its paper model heritage is apparent in several unexpected ways.  Mostly in that it has a lot of interdependent structures that must be painted, largely un-assembled, and then assembled simultaneously. The main fuselage requires four parts to be aligned and glued in the final step.

 

Canoness Veridyan has located the drink dispenser! Will she choose Zolt!, Code RED, or ZAP! ZAP!?

Reaper Fire Giants

 When I first started thinking about getting back into tabletop roleplaying I realized that, for many years, I had been so focused on tabletop wargaming that my collection was stored in such a way or lacked the depth of minis Id like to have for RPGs .

Enter Reaper Bones Kickstarter!

These represented and affordable way to get my collection of dedicated roleplaying minis up to speed.  The Bones II Kickstarter continued in the same vein and these are from that project.

This group represents King Skorg Ironskull, Queen Vanja, and a Body Guard.

I've based these using gravel chips, which makes the bases quite heavy, to keep in theme with the Fire Giants from the Bones I group I did earlier.  That group had yellow spot colors instead of the green I used here.  I like the green better and am imagining the difference to be due to this being a Royal group while the previous set was rank and file warriors.

 I really like the body Guard model.  It's simple but has enough little decorations to differentiate it from the regular warriors.

 King Skorg Ironskull cuts a huge, and angry, figure. 

The skin was worked up from Vallejo Rose Brown and a wash of Secret Weapon Ruby.

The Base was Painted with Americana Alizarin Crimson.  This is a very inexpensive craft paint and really useful for times like this since the tiny gravel really eats a lot of paint on the base coat.  This was then dry brushed with Reaper Fire Orange twice.  GW Blood for the Blood God was applied to make little valleys of deep red and then a final, light, dry-brush of Vallejo Sunny Skin Tone to tie it all together.

 The Greens were worked up from the Reaper Olive Triad, washed with Secret Weapon Baby Poop, and then highlighted with Vallejo German Camouflage Bright Green from the Flames of War line.

Yellow metals were Army Painter Gold, Secret Weapon Flesh Wash, Vallejo Model Color Gold and Fantasy Forest Rustungs Farbe... (read silver of some sort)

 Vanja, Fire Giant Queen was one of my favorite concept drawings from the Bones II Kickstarter and the sculpt was pretty good too!  I really love the massive pile of hair!

 Hair being Vallejo Scrofulous Brown, Reaper Buckskin Pale and Secret Weapon Ruby wash.  The same process was used for all three giants but you'll notice Vanja's hair is a bit darker... I accidentally hit her head with a brush load of glistening green that I was unable to remove completely so I use a little Reaper Yellow from the yellow Triad, redid the buckskin pale and rewashed the ruby.  I think it gave a little more depth having done the process twice so... a fortuitous accident in my book!

 White metals were Vallejo Gun Metal Grey, P3 Armor Wash and a light brush up with Rustungs Farbe.

 As befits a Queen she has a fair load of gems on her.  I mixed the colors with red, yellow and green gems.

... and I almost forgot!  Since these are giants it might be nice to see them alongside a regular sized model!  So Here is Yoko the Psycho, from the Raging Heroes Toughest Girls of the Galaxy, being eyed suspiciously by the Fire Giant Body Guard... Careful Yoko that flamer isn't gonna scare this guy!

Harry the Baby Hippo on steroids and A Tale of Two Ravens WiP

 Raging Heroes makes beautiful stuff!

Of course it is tiny... as a friend of mine recently said... "These things are smaller than your thumb!"

But that isn't always the case.

During the Toughest Girls in the Galaxy I (TGG1) Kickstarter several models, primarily the mascots and the freedom fighter, had larger versions available.

 Here is Harry the Baby Hippo!  Jailbirds mascot.

Shown here compared to Punky and to the Kurganova (KST) mascot Charlie.  Charlie is not intimidated... really!

 The model was pretty easy on cleaning, although that is not always the case with the larger models... I just think Harry is a forgiving sculpt in that regard.

The base was worked up with white pumice.  I think I prefer it to gray pumice because it seems to be more adhesive.  The gray stuff is difficult to place whereas the white was actually a bit sticky.

 In this scale the model really sings.  It already was cute and filled with a mischievous personality but now more details could be worked in... like the cans of ZoT!  in two sizes.. ZoT xxx and ZoT xXx Magnum!

In the small versions of Harry I saw these as beer cans being delivered but at this scale Harry seems to be collecting the cans for recycling... as they are all popped open...

In the field I think these are more likely to be energy drinks than beer so they are filled with a radioactive green color liquid!

 Harry is a favorite of the Lulus and can often be seen toting stuffed toys and colorful buttons or badges for their amusement.

In this scale the buttons have plenty of space for designs or even lettering.

 The base also sports an old pipe with some flowers growing out of it... the pipe being a bit of brass tube and the flowers from Army Painter Meadow Flowers.

 A fun bunch of buttons and toys and the ubiquitous ZoT xxx!

 Also in the larger scale, not the same larger scale, is Raven the Chainbreaker the Jailbirds Freedom Fighter.

I'm going to do these two at the same time in hope that the larger scale model will inspire me to do additional stuff with the regular size version.

More of that later!

Its going to be a busy couple of weeks so I'll see you sometime around the middle of the month!