Ben's Bits n Bobs

[Ben_S]

Ok, back home so I've finally been able to make a little progress. I began working on the Poundland giant. I broke him down into separate pieces, for ease, removed mold lines and filled some gaps. Then I decided to add a bit more detail by sticking an Ogre gutplate and pouch on, like this:

However, I hit a problem with his arms and hands. I removed one of the original hands, having checked that it was similar in size to GW giant hands, but only then did I realise that this is not going to work as simply as I'd hoped:

The toy has much thicker wrists, so if I simply attach the giant hand then it will be coming out of too large a forearm.

Not sure what to do about this. Are there other hand/arm options out there? The only likely candidate that I could think of his the Beastman Ghorgon/Cygor, but those hands would set me back a few quid and I don't know whether they would be any better...

 

[spafe]

Could you continue the banadages from his wrist further up his arm (to almost the elbow), that way its hard to guess the actual size of the arm so when the bandages end at the wrist the smaller hand wont look obvious. might mean also tapering the bandages out a little over the hand to smooth the transition maybe too?

Dunno if it'd work or not but might be worth considering

 

[Ben_S]

Thanks for the suggestion. No progress to report on the giant. I have several things on the go right now, so that's one that kind of stalled. Speaking of things on the go though, some actual painting happened. First, a start on four Dark Elf thieves that I showed earlier:

And, since I'm basically making two warbands, three more thieves, but Skaven this time:

Work in progress, so not the most exciting update, but it's been a while since I painted anything, so I wanted to show that this really is a modelling and painting blog rather than just a shopping blog...

 

[Ben_S]

And now the Thieves are finished, apart from varnishing when I get chance, giving me seven more Frostgrave henchmen.

I think this gives me:
7 Thieves
4 Thugs (a couple of whom could perhaps pass for something else)
3 Archers
1 Treasure Hunter
1 Man at Arms
2 Hounds

This is just about enough to run two warbands using only 'purpose built' Frostgrave stuff (and I have more options if I scrounge from my WFB collection).

 

[Ben_S]

Another pound store purchase... I picked up a bag of safari animals a week or two ago. They were actually in some kind of January sale, so it only cost 69p for about a dozen animals, most of which I have no real use for, but I thought these three might be passable:

Tiger, leopard, and wolf, pictured here with one of my Tomb Guard for a sense of scale. Here's another shot, showing what the leopard looks like on a cavalry (25x50mm) base:

They're obviously not the best sculpts, nor a perfect match size-wise, but for the price I think they're good options to pad out my bestiary.

 

[Ben_S]

I was at a bit of a loose end, not really sure what to work on, so I decided to pick up a couple of Chaos Spawn that I'd made a while back and get them painted. I'm going to keep them fairly simply, but here's the first work-in-progress.

Not really sure what I'll use them for, but at least if I get them painted they'll be off the queue.

 

[trollmeat]

Awww, he's so cute! :-D Could always be an Ogre or some kind of Melee Hired Goon, or a monster in Necro(it came from the sump style)

 

[Ben_S]

I'm glad you share my idea of cute. For some reason, my girlfriend wasn't so appreciative.

Anyway, I said I was working on a couple, so here's the other (also still WIP):

I'm sure I'll find some use for them. I'd been thinking of trying Dragon Rampant rules, which as I understand it allows for generic warbeasts.

 

[Ben_S]

I've been reasonably good at plugging away on stuff, but not so good on updating the plog, since there's not usually that much progress on any given day.

First of all, I finished the two Spawn. Not a lot done since I last showed them really, but here's the final shot:

Second, I painted some Ungor archers to bulk out my Frostgrave warbands. I made these before Christmas and undercoated them before realising I'd forgotten to add quivers. Annoyingly, they'd sat on the side of my table for a while then I, when I was looking for something to paint, I decided to do these before realising again that I'd still forgotten the quivers. Oh well, they'll do:

Third, that pound shop wolf, along with a random Skink for scale:

Finally, here's another Familiar to go with the earlier ones. I made it at the same time but hadn't got round to painting it until now - prompted largely by a desire to have 12 for Dragon Rampant (should I get round to playing it). It's a baby Chimera, based on a Bretonnian dog and parts from various High Elf decorations:

Thankfully, I was able to get all this undercoated this morning, before it started raining.

 

[Deleted member 10658]

Lots of neat stuff here, those beastmen and chaos spawn in particular.

What was the paint recipe for the beastmen's skin?

 

[Ben_S]

What was the paint recipe for the beastmen's skin?

First of all, they were undercoated black and then drybrushed with a light grey craft paint, though I'm not sure it had any noticeable effect on the final product.

The skin was nothing complicated: two coats of GW Bronzed Flesh and then a fairly liberal wash (pretty sure it was Seraphim Sepia all over, though it just might have been either Agrax or Reikland Flesh).

I think they did turn out pretty well given how relatively quick and easy they were.

 

[Ben_S]

I wasn't sure what miniatures to work on, so decided to switch my attention to some scenery, specifically these pillars from GW's Mines of Moria (LOTR) set:

The two halves fit together with pegs but, despite doing my best to fit them neatly together, and then to fill gaps with putty, and then sanding over the top, the joins still show

Any bright ideas, beyond another round of filler and sanding?

 

[Azzabat]

Fill, sand, fill again, sand again, rinse and repeat. It's the only way I'm afraid. It's just the same with bodywork, foam or wood. No short-cuts to success as Dad used to say.

 

[Ben_S]

*Sigh* That's what I feared. Still, my real concern was whether this would work. So long as it's the right thing to do, I don't mind keeping at it.

The good news is that the spray primer turned out pretty well for something from Poundland. I don't mind having to use a few coats of that.

 

[ClockworkOrange]

Are the joins supposed to be cracks?

 

[Deleted member 10658]

Or you could just glue a square piece of plastic card on the top of every column.

 

[Ben_S]

Are the joins supposed to be cracks?

No. You can see some cracks on the sides (probably clearest on the right hand pillar in the second photo), but I'm talking about the straight corner to corner lines across the top. Unfortunately, they don't look like cracks.

Or you could just glue a square piece of plastic card on the top of every column.

I did wonder about something like that - or even just some sort of tape or something. I wish GW had made them 3-piece models (two sides and a top), because it surely would have been easy to avoid this.

As it is, here's one after a second round of filling and sanding:

The problem is that the sanding seems hardly to hit the problematic join. I'm rather disappointed with these, given that I bought two lots of this Moria scenery, largely for these pillars.

On the plus side, I've started painted the rest of the scenery from one set. Most of it is probably not that useful as scenery (for cover/LOS blocking) but it should add a bit of character and some of these items might even double as useful markers/counters for various in-game effects.

 

[Azzabat]

Why not cut a square of plasticard slightly smaller than the top of the piller, and glue it on?

marble_column_cap_guangxi_strong_style_color_b82220_white_strong_marble_pillar_cap_china_carrara_marble_cap_column_top.jpg

 

[Ben_S]

Why not cut a square of plasticard slightly smaller than the top of the piller, and glue it on?

That's a nice idea. I'd thought of something like that, but rejected the idea because I didn't think I'd be able to make it blend in, but I could make it a deliberately raised plinth, like in your link.

Not made any progress yet (still pondering), but I do have a substantive update (next post).

 

[Ben_S]

While unsure what else to do, I decided to go for some 'easy wins' with this Treeman:

A green base, because he's most likely to see service in Blood Bowl, not that I have particular plans for him.

I also made him a couple of friends, most likely daemons or possibly alien or mutant things:

If you're wondering what models they are, they're all based on Gormiti toys. I picked up two bundles of them on eBay with the intention of repurposing some of their scenery, but I figured I might as well do something with the figures too (they seem to sell for peanuts these days). So, here are the 'before' shots:

As you can see, there's a 4th model in the 'before' shots, but I haven't worked out what to do with him yet.