Off with the Old and On with the New: Fantasy Adventures

Yet another of my repaint projects in the works.  This one is from the pre-slota base era with some Fantasy Adventures.  These two lads are FA-24 Anti Paladin and FA-22 Evil Cleric.  I seem to recall that these may have been Citadel miniatures manufactured and distributed by Ral Partha in the US under their imports brand.  I have a few more in the range that I'm sure will meet the same fate as these.  Here they are in my pre-teen paint jobs.

 Not as bad as I would have thought, clearly I have moved from the Testors enables to acrylic paints but no real detail work like shading or highlighting.  Now naked lead, remarkable they came out very clean

Primed up and apex painted.  I'm beginning to like the results that I'm getting using this technique and much thinner paint and ink coats.

 

I haven't decided on color palette yet, on one hand I actually like the red/black/yellow scheme but I might want to try something new.  I'll have to play around with some different looks to figure out how to proceed.  More WIP soon.

Off with the Old and On with the New: Iron Claw Chucker

 As I was filling the new IKEA display cabinet with miniatures I realized that my old Iron Claw goblin chucker was in poor shape.  Not sure when but at some point in time it appears that I lost the catapult arm.  Clearly I was aware of this because as I dug through a bits bin I found an extra one!  My memory of the whole event is very sketchy but I'm glad that I was smart enough at the time to order a replacement one from the old Bitz Service that Citadel/Games Workshop used to run.  For those that lack the requisite amount of grey in their beard, you used to be able to buy any part of any metal model that they made.  This was an incredible service that lead to unlimited opportunities for conversions!  I dont always say this but in this case I do miss the good old days.

I digress, back to the project.  Clearly this was a bit of a later era paint for me as the quality is better than some of the other OwtO projects I have in the queue.  Here are a few of the Old pictures

My biggest concern was trying to match up the wood colors to the new arm so I just decided it was time for a re paint.  Here we are stripped down to naked lead

And here they are queued up for painting

Let the painting begin!  Base coat on everything and in some cases a 1st highlight

Next WIP soon.

General WIP Update-Actual Painting!

Inspiration and motivation have been slow to come to me lately and 2020 was a disaster.  2021 hasn't been much better but I did finally manage to get a project finished with a Stargrave crew from Reaper's Chronoscope line.  In an effort to speed things up and try to keep some inspiration flowing I've taken a cue from Jean-Baptiste Garidel over at Leadplague and tried a different direction with my painting.  JBG uses a muted palette with a couple of key pieces of vibrant color over an apex spray of dark then light.  I thought I would give his style a try and to be honest I'm pleased with the results.  This is my first attempt and I don't feel like I'm even close to mastering the technique, especially selecting the color and spotting of that color.

With that said I really like the first attempt and the better news is that it seems to be a bit quicker for me!  I have a few more started and will post when done.  Thank you JBG for the inspiration!

I also managed to wrap up the truck for Car Wars/Dark Future/Gaslands.  Started looking like this:

and now looks like this.

These are magnetized turrets that go on top, I embedded the magnets on the inside of the trailer in two spots.  They can also be used on a small box van.  They are made from round bases and a variety of Iron Wind mech weapons.  They always have a booth at the Origins convention with boxes of loose lead at ridiculous prices.  I had always intended to do Car Wars 3up someday and Gaslands just pushed that work to the front of the queue. 

 

Here are some WIP on a wasteland/apocalyptic truck.  Still figuring out the wheels and how they attach.  Not sure I have it worked out yet but getting closer.

As well as getting some work done on the "Off with the old/On with the new" troll project. A quick before reminder, here it is stripped down.  I'll do a proper before and after once I have it wrapped up.

And now a few updated pictures.

These pictures don't quite do it justice since I'm not much of a photographer.  These are older pics, here are a couple of more recent ones with a new phone.

 

I will need to wrap up the base and maybe a bit more detail to work out then I'll call it done.  Next up for the Off with The Old project, FTS!

General WIP Update-Incoming 3

Incoming Round 3-Okay now I can see I'm just bragging!  Got a chance to stop by a few HPB stores awhile back and hit the jackpot with finding three of the Horus Heresy novels I still needed!

That was about a month ago and I've already read two of them.  Looking forward to the third one soon.  I also received a parcel the other day that turned out to be my Kickstarter from Diehard Games.

I had to go light given my recent uncheck spending on several expensive Kickstarter projects.  I went with a nice collection of bounty hunters, an intergalactic lawman and his faithful cyberdog, and a space snakeman.  Not sure what the heck I'm going to do with them but I am looking forward to painting them up!  I did go through them and start the clean up process.  Most were in great shape but a couple of them must have been at the end of the mold life and had some nasty mold lines.  I really don't mind taking care of this until that damn mold line runs right through some important detail.

I also picked up some new bases.  These are Star Wars Legion bases for Fantasy Flight Games war game.  They come in a standard grey and could honestly be used right out of the package.

The above picture actually shows them already painted with a base coat of matte black, I just stuck them back in the package for storage.  I then highlighted them up to a medium grey with some weathering and miscellaneous spots and stains.

I bought these for the likes of the previously mentioned Diehard miniatures and a handful of other sci fi figures.  I don't think that I'll put Diego's Knightmare Games Space Raiders on them, some of his figures are huge and wont even come close to fitting on these bases which are 27mm.  FFG only has a few larger sized bases and they have some odd notching to them which I really don't care for.  I'll probably just stick with my hex bases for those beasts.

General WIP Update-Incoming 2

Incoming Round 2-So I didn't want to brag too much with a long post on acquisitions so I broke it up.  Maybe that is worse?  Oh well on with it then.  I have unfortunately been bitten by the damn Kickstarter bug far too many times lately but it is hard to resist with all the great work by people like Tim with Diehard Miniatures or Diego with Knightmare Games or in this case Mantic Games with their Hellboy board game.

It was too good to pass up especially since I'm always looking for Hellboy miniatures for WWW2 scenarios or just to have Hellboy miniatures!

Oh so many miniatures! I'll have to break out a few of the henchmen and have my hand at painting them.  I'm not sure how they will take paint as they seem to be a hard polystyrene.  Not sure if they will need a primer or if I can just slap paint on directly. I just got the announcement from Mantic yesterday and the second wave of this Kickstarter is due in a few months with a shit ton more miniatures!  At my painting rate I should get them painted up by, oh say 2025 maybe 2026.

General WIP Update-Incoming

Haven't posted much in a while so a quick update with a few more to follow.  Some news to report on the Acquisition/Collecting front!  I recently picked one more of the fabled C23 Ogres by the incredible Jes Goodwin!  I really struggle when someone asks me who my favorite sculptor is.  On one hand it has to be Kevin "Goblinmaster" Adams who's work influenced me to get into Citadel and Warhammer.  On the other hand it has to be Jes Goodwin, producer of some of my favorite Realm of Chaos miniatures as well as these C23 Ogres which are the standard that all others are compared to!

I picked up the executioner model #14.  This fellow gets me to 11 of the 16 from the above catalogue page.

Despite my rather snail pace I did get some basic paint on him and number 12 who I picked up a month or two ago.

I also received my latest Game Envy Hobby Holder Kickstarter order.  An extra large stability bar and the ergo grip holder.  I really liked the first version and was excited for the extra large version to  use on the guys above.

As you can see from the pic below it gives you more clearance for the larger models.

I also like the Ergo Grip (large red on the bottom) which has come in handy.  Not sure if I like the rig better with our without it but it is different, and very easy to switch out mins.

More updates to come.

Hello, my name is...........

Hello my name is Warlord Kcam, and I'm an addict.  Lead addict that is.  I simply cannot help myself, I have to buy more lead miniatures, I need to buy more miniatures.  Yes, sure I'll get them painted someday.  Soon, I promise!

Does that sound like you if your reading this?  I was motivated to share my addiction after doing some work this weekend.  As I mentioned in the previous post, I decided to put together my Knightmare Games Feral Goblins unit to paint up for Orctober.  I totally missed that target date but that is now water under the bridge.  I received the new additional troops along with some Bugbears.  I really don't have a plan for the larger fellows, I just thought that they were cool.  To get the unit ready I dug out the box with all the Knightmare figures to get the original Greenskin Wars Kickstarter goblins out as well.  I was surprised how heavy it was.  Then I became embarrassed at how many unpainted miniatures I had to dig through to find the other Feral Goblins.  Wow, at the rate I'm painting it will take me at least a year just to get all of Diego's stuff done.

That doesn't doesn't include all the lead that is sitting in these tubs!

 Or these drawers!

Or the boxes in the storage area!

Good lord, I'm not sure that I'll ever have enough time to get them done.

Surely I'm not the only one who does this right?   Does anyone else have this collecting addiction?  As I started this confession I began to think about this and clearly I was destined for this from an early age.  My mom recently sold my childhood home and I helped her pack things up including much of the residue of my childhood.  By the way, I'm still pissed off I didn't find my original 1st edition Deities and Demigods as we started to clean out the house.
 

As I packed things up or unpacked things at my home I realized that my drive to collect started very early with things like rubber eraser animals, Lego's, comics, and various collecting cards.  Darn my nerdyness, I of course collected everything but athletic cards which is where the big money is at!  Well it was never a matter of collecting as an investment just for enjoyment.

Clearly I have what must be some genetic per-disposition to collecting, thankfully I have been able to keep it in check for the most part.  I occasionally catch the show American Pickers, for those unaware it is about a coupe of antique/re-sale guys that travel around the US "picking" other peoples junk and collections for hidden treasures or items that they can resell.  I always used to get a chuckle when they found something and made an offer on it and the person replies "No I just don't think I can let that go" mind you they say this while standing in a room, or house, or even a barn that is filled with 100's of other items just like the one they just cannot do without.  Please note that I said "used to chuckle", after digging though all the stuff that I have around the hobby room I realized that I might just be one of those "people" who is so obsessed with their stuff they simply cannot let it go!  Please share if you have any of the same issues!

A Little Old School Novel reading.

I recently completed the first two books of the Night Lords Trilogy by Aaron Dembski-Bowden: Soul Hunter and Blood Reaver.  I haven't been able to find the third, Void Stalker, as of yet.

I was desperate to find something to read and couldn't bring myself to start the Legend of Sigmar Omnibus so I perused the shelf and decided it had been awhile since I read the Gotrek and Felix novels so I grabbed the first book in the series, Trollslayer to give it a re-read.

I made a funny discovery while opening it up to get started.  The original receipt fell out of it and I was amazed to find out that I have had this for over 15 years!  I think it is certainly time for a re-read!  And in fact I think I will give the entire series a re-read.

I like King's writing style and enjoyed re-reading the first novel.  It is an interesting layout in that it is really seven short stories presented as a recount of Felix's adventures with Gotrek.  This keeps the interest level up and was a fun read.  Nothing like Felix's recounting of how they dispatched the agents of the chaos gods such as the abandon mutants in Geheimnisnacht, the warpstone amuleted troll in The Dark Beneath the World (damn those Skaven bastards), the tainted Fredericksburg noble in The Mark of Slaanesh, the beastmen and mighty female chaos warrior Justine in Blood and Darkness, or Felix's old classmate Albericht Kruger in the The Mutant Master.  As you can see their struggles against the spawn of chaos are a common thread throughout their many tales.

Well I'm off to start Skavenslayer and reacquaint myself with Grey Seer Thanquol!

WIP and miscellaneous ramblings

Not much content to this post, just a few WIP shots, a question, and some rambling.  I changed out the blog title from the Latin to English.  Not sure why just decided to do it.

First up are a few WIP shots of the green lads and the off/on troll.

I have blocked out a few color sections and have at least one skin tone highlight on these guys.

Here is an update on the Off with the Old and On with the New Troll.  Stripped down.

And primed up after a little file work.  Clearly my 12-14 year old self didn't do much clean up work back then.  There were a few mold lines to resolve.  He is beside the next of my Jes Goodwin C23 ogres to get paint.  I think I'm within 2-4 of the complete set!





















Here is the first round of color blocking.

Speaking of the troll, can anyone identify the logo stamp on is base?  maybe Asgard?  Which is weird given he is also claimed by Citadel.  Any help with this mystery would be appreciated.

Now for the rambling.  If you are a G+ user you know that the end is near which is a shame really.  I like the platform, it had a good amount of traffic but not overwhelming.  Let you include blogg posts like this automatically.  Was well organized.  Wasn't as big brotherish as Facebook not that I have a lot of data for them to harvest and sell!  MEWE looks to be similar but not identical.  One annoying feature, your group gets dropped from the directory if it doesn't get a new post every 7 days.  I created a Oldhammer group, thanks again to Zhu for the use of his Oldhammer logo.  I'm sure it's just me being grumpy since the change of platforms not by my choosing.  Lets how that it gets more traffic and people start to participate in the groups.  Back to painting!