Miners Report! (Part 1)

 This is the final unit of painted dwarfs from the collection I bought last summer. The models in the collection were all from the Battle for Skull Pass WFB 7th ed starter box and they were all painted.  And painted kind of strangely.  Clearly their original owner was a big fan of metallic paints as all of these models were coated in them. But this unit of Miners is probably the strangest unit as they're painted in a metallic purple color. 

Miners painted by an unknown person. 

I doubt there is any part of these models I won't paint over.  In fact I am looking forward to doing away with that attempt at blood that has been painted onto their pick-axes. At least, I think that is what it's supposed to be...?

Pickaxe for the Blood God!

While I was prepping those models for their inevitable revamp, I picked up a box of the current TOW edition of the miners and built most of the box in about a day.  This was because I was stuck in a hotel room and assembling these guys was a fine way to pass the time. That was back in the Spring, and now at the start of Fall, I tinkered with them again, finishing them off with extra bits such as backpacks, blasting charges, and additional equipment. Those guys are now primed and waiting for me to get started on their paint jobs. 

Lighting the way, like a champion. 

I had the idea to make a marker to indicate whether or not I have purchased blasting charges for a unit of Miners. This is represented by a wheelbarrow loaded up with TNT and a stack of blasting charges. I think I will make a few more of these for the Miner units I will likely end up with. 

The runes translate to 'acme'.

Then came time to construct the mine markers (as described in the Dwarf Mountin Hold Arcane Journal).  This first one was made from the current miners kit. 

It's tall and loaded with details. 

Contrasting that we have the markers from the Blood Pass 7th ed starter which  work nicely as well. 

This last one I made from  bits left over from the dwarf cannons I built recently. 

I also bought this 3-D printed terrain piece to go with these guys. It's a mine entrance. I thought it was perfectly suited and will look good when painted up and set up on the table. When it's paint job is done that is.

A shaft to protect. 

This thread will chroncile my work on these dwarf miners over time. Hopefully not a long time, but we'll see. 

Battlemasters Tower (Part 4)

Gotta love a lion! 

Continuing on from last time,  we have arrived to the finale stage: the banner.  Way back in Part 1 of this thread I discussed why I chose to keep the original sticker and the steps I went through to preserve it. Now, many many moons later, it is finally time to remove the Artists Tape mask from that old sticker. ..

Artist tape mask over OG sticker. 

And I was thrilled to see that, even after being on since 2019, the sticker was indeed protected by the Artist Tape mask and nor was it damaged by it during removal. 

Mask removed, old sticker revealed.

Finding a perfect color match for a 32 year old printed glossy sticker was going to be a challenge, but I turned to my trusty old range Citadel paints for the answer. I decided to give Ruby Red a go. And I must say, it's a damn close match! I'm just glad it's not the yellow I was trying to match, that would've been a hard challenge for sure! 

Ruby Red added. 

Next, I used a modern GW paint, Retributor Armour, the tassels and trimming accents of the banner.  When took this pic I was unsure about that top bit, but clearly it needs to be gold also.

Retributor Gold applied. 

Having fixed that oversight, I went ahead with the final highlight on the gold using a Citadel Dry paint called Sigmarite. I feel like this turned out as well a I had hoped. 

Finished. 

With that last step, this is done. And here it is zoomed out a bit. The next few pics will give a kind of 360° view of the whole tower. 

And here it is, occupied by it's new dwarf masters. Clearly some noble lost this property in a grudge restitution settlement. And that pretty red lion flag is about to become a table cloth in the drinking hall. Does anyone out there have the stones to try to take it from them? 

Anyone?

Under new management. 

Battlemasters Tower (Part 3)

 Continuing from Part Two, I finally made progress on this thing by painting the doors. 

Adorable huh?

These doors were left in their original black primer for a few years now. The idea was that I would simply dry brush them in a gray and call it done. Only that once I got around to doing it I found that the gray of door kind of clashed withe the surrounding gray bricks. 

The gray on black doors. 

Well, I wasn't having that. So a wash of Agrax Earthshade mostly did the trick. I did find that the cracks between the individual door planks needed a kick in the contrast department, and more Agrax Earthshade wasn't going to do it, I needed to bring out something more potent. And that turned out to be Brown Ink from the Citadel Inks set from the '80s. The inks from that time still hold up and they were, and I'm not understanding this, very intense hues. I just used a thin blush and ran the Brown Ink down the joins and along the door edges. 2

Brown Ink in the joins. 

Gray over black. 

The hinges and door latches were all painted with the old Tin Bitz paint, then randomly painted with an old Copper craft paint. 

The studs on the doors were painted in a copper cplor as well then highlighted with Leadbelcher. I used Leadbelcher as a highlight on the hinges and latches also. 

All-in-all, I think these doors turned out pretty good. They really have an archaic vibe to them which is totally what I was going for.  But this mighty little tower isn't done yet. In part tfour I am going to paint the banner that is draped over the front crenalations. Well not the whole banner. -You'll see! 

Anyone know where I can find 25mm-28mm empty milk bottles?

Battlemasters Tower (Part 2)

Current progress level.

In Part-1 I got as far as priming this thing black. I have made considerable progress since then and, as I typically enjoy doing, I took some stage-by-stage pics of the progress.

After thoroughly priming the model in Chaos Black, I basecoated the model using Graphite craft paint.

Graphite basecoat.

I used a big brush for this stage, not only to coat it quicker but because I wanted to see the brush strokes. The brush stokes create a kind of texture that creates an illusion of fading.

Graphite basecoat on top level.

Next up was a layer of Apple Barrel Pewter Grey. This was applied to the raised bricks leaving the Graphite exposed in the recesses.

Pewter Grey level.

And the final stage on this three-stage process was a rather randomly applied lop coat of another craft paint by Apple Barrel called Country Grey.

Country Grey layer.

Along the defined edges and corners of the tower, I added a thicker layer of Country Grey to more firmly accentuate the model.

Country Grey edging.

After this I went and randomly applied a thinned Agrax Earthshade to a few few stones on each face of the tower.

One side with the random Agrax Earthshade.

Here is a view of the same face but with a better view of the stone landing at the top of the lower staircase.

From a different angle.

With that done, the next steps will be the details which are really just the door and the banner. See you here when that happens!

Battle Masters Tower (Part 1)

Greetings!

Recently the notorious Bob and I have been chatting about getting together for another WFB game. Last year we played, and although we had a lot of fun, it was obvious that our local game store is a bit lacking in fantasy themed scenery. I wanted to get a few things for this next encounter (whenever it may occur) so I scoured Ebay for some cheap (-ish) options. As luck would have it I found a guy selling a bunch of parted out Battle Masters stuff, and with that selection was a small tower fort that looks like a little keep. I have always loved that game and everything that came with it, and decided that this would make a fine addition for our Fantasy gaming.

The Battle Masters Tower.

As you can see, the thing is a simple 5 piece model, and since Battle Masters was designed to be disassembled and put back into the box once the game was finished (a novel concept, huh GW?) the tower is easily snapped and unsnapped together.  And, due to storage space reasons, I think I will keep it this way.

You might also notice from that top pic that there is a sticker for the banner. All the pieces in Battle Masters came with brightly colored banner stickers for identification during the game. In fact, when that came out (1992) GW was starting to get into a banner craze where damn near every other model in both WFB and 40K had to have at least one banner per unit. Whoever was behind that vision must have had their dream come true with this game!

Masking the banner. 

I decided to keep the sticker and attempt to paint he rest of the modelled banner to match it. Removing it would a messy, joyless task, so that also influenced my decision to keep it. To preserve the sticker I had to place artist tape over it to mask it prior to applying the primer.

 Before the prime...

Next I took it outside and sprayed on Chaos Black to prime the model.

 ...Not sure if that was a twin-photo worthy event, but I was so thrilled to have a morning without rain that I did it anyway!

...after the prime.

While that paint is curing I figure I should plot out to you readers what my intention is with this paint scheme. I plan on having it match the scheme I used on Death Castle (yes, I know I need to finish it).  But for a minute there I was tempted to try to go for a lighter limestone or flintstone look, just to be different. But I settled on a cold grey granite look instead, considering how this thing is that color already it may have imprinted on my mind over the past 25+ years that it should be grey. So, grey it shall be!

Hopefully I can get it knocked out before the month is over...

Death Castle (Part 12)

DEATH CASTLE PART 12

As Da Masta Chief  has recently (and kindly-ish) pointed out to me, and the followers on our Facebook Group,  I'm over due for an update on this project.

Death Castle in the present.

Last winter (2018) I set about painting the stone work on the walls of Death Castle. it was coming along decently. I got most of it finished over the course of about three Sundays. It started out with an Appel Barrel Graphite base coat over the entire thing. Thankfully Walmart sells that stuff in really big bottles so I have more than enough for this task and just about anything else that I use that color for.

Graphite basecoat. 

I slightly mismatched the highlight color with the tower, but I should be able to correct that decently with some touch-ups at some point. Overall, I like how it turned out. However it makes the upper quarter, the solid styrofoam sections, really stand out in an awkward way. And I was stumped on what to do about it. I brainstormed and discussed it with a few friends, but the answers I came up with didn't appeal to me. After many months of being stalled out on this thing, I came up with two workable solutions.

I swear that corner doesn't look that weird in real life!

Solution 1: Sheet styrene brick sections. Cut them to the pattern needed and glue them on. It worked out great on the roof top for this tower and I have made plans in the past to make other things using that stuff. I decided that this would be, due to the crude nature of this thing, expensive, time consuming, frustrating and likely to have crappy results.

Solution 2: Take a soldering iron to it and burn out some grooves. At first, I loved the idea. Then I thought about it and realized just how unforgiving any mistakes could be. One wrong move and I could really mess things up -badly!

After pondering on it for even longer, I have resigned myself to take my chances and go for it using Solution 2.  However, to avoid a house full of styrofoam fumes I will have to do it outdoors, so I likely won't do this until it warms up outside. So Spring/Summer is my penciled in expectation for the next time I will likely work on this thing.

It has been a long and strange trip for this thing so far, but the ride isn't over yet!

Days of Rust (Part 2)

In Days of Rust Part 1 I talked about The Doctor's initial work on this project as well as our playing of the Necromunda starter scenario. Excited and rejuvenated by this experience Dr TSG returned to his man cave, with airbrush in hand, and has made considerable progress on his Zone Mortalis tiles.

"These are the paints I used, over an automotive primer."

"I layed down the purple over the primer, then came in with the raven black and dark rust mixture. Then, I added the red earth mixed with a little purple and raven black. Then highlighted with red earth." -Dr. TSG.

What follows is essentially a photo dump of his progress so far. He told me that this is the results of about 3.5 hours of work. Enjoy!

So far, so... grimdark!