Cosmonauts On The Moon

Yesterday was my 26th birthday. I ate Batman Cake with my son, and, before he returned home from school, I finished the following figures:

 

Two Ground Zero Games' spacemen from their Stargrunt range, specifically CR-3A and CR-3B Crewmen in Heavy EVA Suits with Tool Pack and Plasma Cutter. Painted for my son and heavily gloss varnished. He still managed to snap the 2p off the red spaceman! But they were a hit; he took one to school today.

 And Mehmet Brokenose, a Lord of the Rings Corsair to go with my Haradrim force, the Al-Bakr tribe of Far Harad. Incidentally, doing his base and then putting him next to the Haradrim showed me this:

The bases are completely different. The Haradrim were all based at the same time - many years ago, around the time that Games Workshop's White Dwarf published a set of skirmish campaign rules for their Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game set - and the particular mix of flock and paint has long since gone west.  So, I had a bit of a think, and, as I finished this figure...

This figure is an out of production Viridian Sergeant from Urban Mammoth's Urban War range. I am using her as an officer in the Paradisan Imperial Guard (Paradiso being a matriarchy), but - see the base? That flat green? That's because not only do I have no idea what actual force she'll end up in, but I have decided that from now on I will base my armies all in one go, once they are finished, in order to prevent them looking like they have stood on a patchwork quilt. Plus it makes them all a lot more unified regardless of colour schemes.

That figure is also notable for being the testbed for a new way of painting leather - highlighted very dark blue and chipped with grey, then washed with blue and black inks. It all ended up very shiny even after a coat of matt varnish, although it may actually have been a semi-gloss varnish. Hm. I wasn't massively impressed but I do like the finished figure. Incentive, perhaps, to put together that Paradisan force I've been hankering after for years, using figures as diverse as the Urban War Viridians, Shadowforge's Marines, and Hasslefree's female SF troopers.


And finally - a birthday present!

A full regiment of Molgravians for The War Game - in this case IR1, the Liebgarde zu Fuss. I shall clean them up tomorrow and undercoat them white (which, in fact, will be them mostly done)!

Olley Painting Points:
This Week: 4
October Total: 4
2012 Total: 45

The Last Words-Only Post, If I Have Anything To Say About It

I just wanted to make a little post detailing my current wargaming plans for the remainder of this year.

Currently, my wargames stuff is spread between my parents' house and mine. I don't have anything like the storage space that I want for it all, so what I'm aiming to do is rationalise what I have, gather it all together in one place, and organise it properly. Off the top of my head, I have the following armies, either started or half-way complete. I don't really have any 'complete' armies because I'm a classic Wargaming Butterfly...

1:whatever:
Battlefleet Gothic: Imperial Navy and Chaos fleets

6mm:
Epic Imperial Guard, Orks and Space Marines plus Titans and flyers
Battletech

15mm:
AK-47 Republic armies (Dictatorship, Popular Front, Super-power Backed, and White Supremacist)
Vietnam War US infantry company (1 figure = 1 man) with support

20mm:
WWII 1940 British
Russian Civil War Bolsheviks
Vietnam War US Infantry platoon

25-30mm:
Historical: Pirates! Just one crew, though
Historical: Chinese Warlord army
(A)historical: VBCW - BUF, reds, Skye Battalion
Moderns: Mogadishu
Moderns: Congo Simba Revolt
SF: Foxglove's Fighting Band - desert-based mechanised mercenaries (company)
SF: Force Generica (platoon)
SF: Women's Battalion of Death
SF: EuroFed Police and Rioters
SF: Viridians and a Triad gang for Urban War
SF: Gangs of Mega-City One gangs
40K: Imperial Guard (lots), Space Marines (three kinds), Chaos (LatD and Marines), Inquisition, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks (lots), Tau, Necrons, Tyranids.
Gorkamorka: Grots, Gorkers and Morkers
Necromunda: Escher, Goliath, Orlock and Ratskins, plus Hired Guns galore
Mordheim: Vampires, Skaven and Mercenaries
WFB: Empire (Wissenland), Empire (Solland), Vampire Counts, Bretonnians, Dwarfs, Dark Elves, Wood Elves
LotR: Haradrim, Gondor (Last Alliance) and those ghosties that are bad.

1:35 and 54mm:
Inquisitor warbands (two)
Operation Squad: Germans, with Russians on the way

Which is a conservative estimate. That's a minimum of about 64 armies, not counting all the 1-5 model starts for some armies (like my Savage Orc Shaman, Skaven Grey Seer, or Nova Castellan command squad) or any of the random crap I have like my 1:48 figures or the two 1:200 US carrier aircraft.

Even if we just narrow it down to rules sets, I have:
Ak47 Republic, Operation Squad, Stargrunt II, DropWing, LotR: Return of the King, WFB 6th Edition, 40K 4th edition (and 2nd), Necromunda, Gorkamorka, Battlefleet Gothic, Epic 40K, and a good few others.

So what I am aiming to do is sell off the stuff I don't need or want. A shortlist of that includes, but is not limited to:

Some of my Imperial Guard,
My 15mm Vietnam stuff,
My BattleTech,
My Pirates,
Some of my Inquisitor 54mm stuff.

More will probably go on the 'sell' pile as and when I find it. I am aiming to stop being a butterfly by the end of the year, and instead stick firmly to my PLAN-PURCHASE-PAINT concept developed earlier on this blog. As part of that, from now on I will not post any updates unless I have pictures of stuff I've painted to show you.

Limited Palettes

Today I have just under 30 minutes of painting time, split into two 15 minute blocks. This is typical for Fridays, as the weekly departmental lunch is something of a sacred cow.

However, it does mean that I'll come tantalisingly close to finishing off Kalee (b), in large part thanks to the extremely limited palette I'm using (and will continue to use throughout my WFB Chaos army). This technique of limiting the number of colours used provides an instant thematic bond between all the models, regardless of size or manufacturer. Not only that, but it enables you to mass-paint units and characters quickly and to a high standard. So what is my palette?

Black and white, with red, gold, and silver as the principal detail colours. Other colours - purples, pinks, blues etc - do make an appearance, but only for very specific details or where required. This extends to skin tones as well; with black and white being very much in vogue in this particular Chaos Horde. It has the effect of making the army leap out from the table, ties together all the disparate units, and enables me to paint each model differently without worrying about any impact on painting time.

As always, pictures up at some point next Monday.