Work Bench January post.

Hello World, it is I Noel here with another Blog post.......
Well it has been a while, and I have not had much me time to play, but I have squeezed some in or the past two weeks. I have been working on my 28mm Fantasy stuff for SBH, and here are 4 beast-men I have painted up. I ran out of my normal flesh colour paint and tried a new brand, of flesh. It is a not anything close to my old colour. I do like it for the beasts. You will see them side by side in the last two photos. As all ways click for a larger view. Now I know in the photos they look like I spent hours on them, but no! I have been loving the dip method, and the prof is in the minis. These are simple quick paint jobs, no shading or inks, some light dry brushing. I dipped them in polyshades, then sprayed with dull coat. Now the one on the right in the photo just below is one I painted a long time ago, and not part of this bunch of 4. I am very happy with them, and look forward to finishing the bases.

The Ratz are complete!

Well over the last two weeks I have been picking at the last 4 Ratz for my warband. Well they are now done!!!!! This is now my first completely painted SBH warband. Now I still have 3 more to paint.
I started this warband years ago for Mordhiem, but could not get me head around the color scheme for Ratz. I took the plunge and just started painting my 10 year old Ratz. I think they came out great using the block, and dip method, and that may have been my problem painting them. See I have been out of 28mm painting for so many years, and did not go back to my old ways. So getting this warband done has helped me start my next warband, the Hunters of Evil.

So here is the hole warband, in an old Modrhiem building, not the best lighting on the photos.

I started this based on a Mordhiem skaven warband, and they were mostly slingers, and the minis I had for the slings were very old GW skaven. So with SBH, the slings did not satat out that well, so I am going with throwers (daggers, stars, and the like). I have one sling thrower, and 3 dagger throwers. That mixed with the brawlers, and my leader I think this is a great warband.

I have put this warband to the test VS my Hunters, and they kicked but.......

Noel 

Ratz........

Well it has been over a month without a post from me, so here is what I have been doing. About three weeks ago I switched gears (as I often do) and picked up my SBH stuff again. If you do not know SBH is Song Of Blades and Heroes a fast play Skirmish game. I have replaced Mordhiem with SBH. So in making this switch I have moved back to my 28mm miniatures, and started to paint them. I have 4 war bands, and decided to work on my Ratz. Now I had a war band all picked out, and minis for each member, but I did not like my sling throwers, as they were very old GW plastic, I am talking late 80s, early 90s static posed ratz. Remembering I still had a few un-assembled Mordhiem Ratz to build, I decided to replace the old ones with new ones. Last weekend I got started with rebuilding my Ratz Warband. My Old War band had four sling throwers, and I replaced three of them with throwing weapon Ratz, shorter range but a bit higher combat stat.

Now that I had it on paper, I started on completing the minis. I put the missing minis together, and primed them up. Yesterday I set to painting them, and completed 4, plus finished the leader.

Before I finished the bases.

Do not ask how I made this motion gif, as Picasa did it for me with out me even knowing.

So here is 5 of my nine Doom Ratz, the last four are half painted. I have switched to faster painting method, as I have given up on making show stopper paint jobs. I want my minis for play, and they just need to be play ready. So I paint them in a simple block painting with very little highlight, and no shading, or inks. Then I dip them. I am very happy with how they have come out , and with the dip method. I know it is hard to see in the photos, but for the rusted armor look I have mixed sliver with a touch of bronze, but I did not mix it well. By leaving it unmixed it painted on blotchy, and this gave me the rusted armor look, quickly.

I hope you like them.

Noel.

Noel's Log 7-30-12

First let me say that I am sorry for the layout, and template change. The template I was using got messed up, and I was not able to fix it. I spent about two hours Friday working on it, with out success. I have seen others with the same problem, and all solutions have not worked for me.

I hate Blogger!!!!!!!!.

Well this is it, I am not going to play with it any more, you can change the lay out in the upper left and see it how you would like it. Remember the comment section is at the bottom of each post.

On to the good stuff now

Miniatures:
I spent time working on my stuff this weekend but just got distracted, by a new PC game. I did base my new Trench 2114 troopers on pennies. They are ready for putty, and prime. I was wrong in the count of them last week, there was an extra leader type, so I got a total of 21 miniatures. I also realized I ran out of primer last weekend.

This week I want to pick up some primer, Hide glue, and look at some ground cloth in a craft store I read about.

Photos:
I was setting up my large light bucket(light box) in my garage to take some photos of my Dwarfs, and Lizardmen when my daughter asked if she could help. So we setup the bucket, and I let her arrange the miniatures in it. She needed a bet of help as she is a kidder like me, and I would find all sorts of stuff in the bucket next to the minis.

Here she is helping.

Here they are.

 

I have to go back and do some work on the lizardmen. I did not have many when I got them so I only put 4 to a base. I have now gotten a few more, and will add an extra figure to each 4 figure base.

PC Game:

Q: Well what PC game could take me away from miniatures?

A: Very few games could do this to me but one will all ways pull me away and that is Tribes. With new life in a game called Tribes Ascend!

Back in the day, 1998 there were some great FPS out there, but two of them were the masters. You had Half Life with its (Team Fortress mod), and you had Tribes. I was hooked on both but Tribes all ways won for me. I know over the many years HL, with its TF mod have reigned supreme, I loved the jet pack action of Tribes. I ran my own server for years, then Tribes II came out, and added a darker look and feel. I loved this as well. But I think this did not have the same following as the first one did. Next some half assed game Tribes revenge (sucked big time). 

Now I was poking around and found this game on a review site. Now I love the game play. but I do not like the pay for upgrades, or as some call it pay to win games. Now it is free to play, but advancements are very slow, and if you pick some this you do not like you are stuck with it.

Now playing if for some hours, I was able to rack up some kills with the basic weapons (two) you get to start. Now I like to play the defender, and base repair, so this is not a high kill class but I was getting 4 or five kill per round. 

So that makes me ask did they make this game easier to play or am I just playing like I did in the old days. I think that my skills did come in to play, but I also think the masters of old are not playing this game.

Will I keep playing, most likely no! The play for free games are only good for a while, then they get stupid, and people who do not pay die!!!!! 

May the Die Fall in Your Favor.

Noel

 

Noel's Log 7-23-2012

First I want to welcome a new author to the my blog, Welcome My self!!!
I will now be posting from two accounts. I have a large number of photos on my gmail account so I need to host the blog photos from another account. From now on I am using my second NoelVH account to host photos I am taking, and sharing of my minis.

Work Bench:
This weekend I spent time working on a gift for a friend of mine. This friend is leaving his current job for a new one, and I have been working with this geek for over three years now. I wanted to give him some thing, but I am not a person with lost of $$$, so I was thinking what can I give him. Now I was thinking of this while painting Saturday morning. Opened a storage area on my desk and found some 19/20mm Dwarfs I am not going to use, but are fantastic sculpts.

These Dwarfs are from Splintered Light games, and I got before knowing they were not 15mm. What a shame as these are great minis. So I set out to pant and base them as a desk topper. Some thing to keep the dork/geek in my friend at his new job.

I did not have the time to photo them correctly so please forgive.

So I took 4 of the base Dwarfs, and a Shaman. I think they came out great. I started work on the base, and the minis Saturday morning, and it took about 5 to 6 hours total. The base is layers of plastic card, with a magnetic bottom. I used old GW bases on the Dwarfs. I also got to try my new static grass flock out. I am having fun with that stuff.

OK so I worked on a gift for a friend, but I also finished up my mounted Saber tooth tigers.

I also worked on my cracked earth basing, but all my tests have failed. I did some research on this subject, and found another glue that creates the crackle effect. Hide glue, I guess this it the stuff from the old cartoons ware they sent the old horses off to. It is made from animal protein. Yuk!!!!! But I will try and pick some up this week, and have another go at it. No I did not get a chance to take any photos this week, but will make up for that later this week or my next log.

New Miniatures:
While working on this article I got a phone call from my son letting me know I got some minis in the mail. So I have stopped till I can check them out.

OK I have gotten my first minis from Trench 2114, and I will say I like them very much. I ordered two packs of the Panzer Troops over a month ago on a pre-order deal John posted. Let me say I have a hard time finding just what I want in 15mm. We all know I have no issue with Orcs and such, but for my SicFi troopers my mind is all way looing for what I loved in 28mm, and that was my Warzone collection. Now I was more or an Imp player than the Bahas player. But I had both armies. Well to get back to the 15mm Panzer Troops, John got them dead on for my taste in SciFi troopers.

I got 20 of them total and only opened on bag of 10. There are three poses in this bag. the mix is a bit off. There are three of the guy that look like leaders and I would rather see two of them. This way one bag would make two five man squads. With that said this is my ONLY complaint about these minis. Holding the minis in my hands they have a great feel to them, I see no flash and all most no mold lines. The mold lines I see are in the inner legs, and in areas you really do not see. So perp work will be next to nothing from me. The have good bases, not very thick so should mount very well. The one of the three stand 17.5mm to the eye, the other two are 16.5mm to the eye. They do not look out of sorts in any way to me. The arm, legs, body all look like the fit correctly. The have a high level of detail to them. The detail is heavy, and what I mean by this is it will not get lost in a coat of paint. Heavy in my mind means I can see it from a distance, after paint, and brings a great level or reality to the figure. (if I was a word smith this would be written better).

Over all some of the best 15mm SciFi I have ever owned, and I am looking for more of their stuff to make it to my mail box. John--- you hit a home run whit these miniatures!

Now for three crapy photos. Sorry I did not get a chance to take better photos.

 

Leader type.

 

May the Die Fall in Your Favor!
Noel

photo from Trench 2114 used with out permission, if this is not allowed please contact me directly for prompt removal noelvh AT gmail DOT com.