End of June Update

 So the month of June is here and now gone.

Next month is July, and all the stuff that comes with that.

I did do something different this month though. For the month of June, I focused on "Non-people figures, (animals, livestock, some monsters, etc), as well as terrain, scenery, and a lot of "scatter", (furniture, food, etc.) for buildings, and such, as well as some scratch-building. The break from painting figures was a welcome change, and I plan to keep alternating between "figures one month and "stuff" the next month". 

It's actually amazing how much I got painted.

I've already posted the buildings, docks, and barn, but haven't posted the rest, so lets get on to it.

But first....

A shocker....

Notice anything wrong????

A completely clean and bare painting table.

Yeps.

This was how my table looked last night when I finished, (FINISHED mind you), EVERYTHING I had put on my queue to do for the month of June. And I did a few pieces more also!

Everything. Completed.

When I finished the last item for the month, (a horse), I sat back and said "My word....What. Have. I. Done?"

To be honest, it was a but unsettling, and was creeping me out a little bit.

A miniature gamers paint table isn't supposed to be "This empty"....

But there it was.

However starting tomorrow, it's back to figures.

So take heed.

Take warning.

Lest you find your table looking like THIS!

😨

The Big Picture:

So at the end of June, I stepped back and took a photo of everything that I had done for the month, and I was a bit pleased, but also shocked at my output.

(That's a lot of stuff done...)

For the month I June, I realized that I had completed over 100 (approx. 108) items. This included the stuff on my "to do" list, and extra stuff I just grabbed to work on.

While most of it was scenery and terrain, and scatter, there were some figures there, as well as some scratch-builds.

I'm pretty proud of myself for being so productive.

As you can see, four buildings, (two scratchbuilts, a reworked toy barn, an an MDF building), two scratchbuilt piers, a scratchbuilt "Evil Snow White" fountain, (more on her in a later post), some terrain repair, basing trees and lots more trees, a Wiz Kid gibbets, and two containers of "stuff", as well as some animals, and monster figures.

"Stuff"...

Most of what you see in the following picture is the standard furnishings/scatter type of terrain scenics. A lot of it is from Knuckleduster while some is from WizKids, and Eureka.

(Thrones, couches, tables, a copper bathtub and lots of other stuff...)

Meanwhile this side contains mostly food, supplies, and some scenics. The streetlights are Lego style that I got at Little Wars, and the film camera is from Pulp Figures, while most of the food is from Knuckleduster, Tabletop World, and some from Foundry.

(A wide bevy of supplies there....)

Close ups of some of the foods.

Tabletop World really does some excellent work. I can't say enough good things about them.

Some close ups of the completed groceries and food supplies.

I then decided to do a little "photography" to set the food on a table and get an idea of what the setting would like with it.

(A nice selection of edibles...)

That's quite a selection of cut meats and sausages.

And then I finished up the rest for the month of June.

(Cheese, fruits, and veggies, wurst, hooks of meat, sides of venison, peppers, and bottles of drinkables...)

And pumpkins for the Fall season!

And yes there was barnyard fowl.
First up was the chickens.

(Insert chicken sounds here....)

And first up is "The Rooster"....

(Before alarm clocks were invented there was this guy....)

(Not a happy hen....)

(Protecting the eggs...)

Followed up by geese:

(Geese are nothing more than overgrown ducks with bad attitudes, foul manners, and loose bowels....")

The Gibbets and The Accused....

I got a chance to work on a Wiz Kids set that I had purchased earlier.
The gibbets set also has a poor thinned pirate in it, condemned to a slow, horrible, death.
This was an "interesting kit" as it allowed me to work with multiple parts, as well as inks, shades, washes, blends, and drybrushing.
I wanted the metal pieces to have the oxidation look to it, so a good touch up with Citadel Nihilakh Oxide did the trick.

(This is an easy one to work with...)

I also finished the Wiz Kids thrones and dais  set.

(Fit for royalty...)

And after that it was to some more animals and monsters.
Among them was this Reaper Lion that I got in one of the Bones Kickstarters.

("The Lion eats to-niiiiiiight....")

For such a simple figure, I was surprised at how much reference work I needed to get the colors of the lion correctly, and how all the colors blended into one another.

And then I moved onto the owlbear.

Owlbear

Another Reaper figure done with a variety of shades, blends, and washes. I really liked the way this one came out. 

And then I finished up a Reaper Giant Beetle. 

I need to go back and fix the missing groundwork on the stand, but essentially he is done.
I used a thin coat of Reaper Herald Green, and then a very, very light wash of Vallejo Gold to get try to the the green/gold look that beetles can have on their shell. I did then a light overcoat with Tamiya Clear Green, and it seemed to work. 

Yes, two nice little beasties to wipe out a nosey party of adventurers, I think.....

And then, now all I need to do is wait for "Evil Snow White's" modge podge to dry clear and I can then seal her up and she is ready.

(It's always amazing what you can do with a little imagination, and some common items lying around in your "stuff bin"....)

Okay I will close this out for now. I didn't want to make it too picture intensive, and I didn't include pics for the owl, or the horse, or the dogs. I think we will probably see those later...

Let me know what you think.

More to come and thanks for reading!!!

Mid (sort of) June update....

So it's been a busy couple of weeks for me so far. 

I decided to try a new "thing".

One month I paint figures. People figures, elves, orcs, dwarves, musketeers, pirates, cowboys, gangsters, whatever. Pretty much all "people" all the time. This helps get figures painted and keeps me from looking over at a piece of scenery and going "hmmmm..."

The next month, I put the figures aside and concentrate on scenery, terrain, and non-people figures, (dogs, horses, farm animals, and livestock, lions, mules, etc.,), as well as buildings, furnishings, etc, for scenery and terrain. 

This helps in the fact that it keeps me from getting "figure painting burnout", and helps me finish many long uncompleted projects that have been sitting and collecting dust for deca....errrr.....years errr....I mean.. "awhile". 

So I went and am trying it for the month of June, focusing entirely on scenics, terrain, and non-people figures.

I'm impressed with what I have actually gotten completed.

Below are the items I have worked on and accomplished. I've added some before and after shots to get an idea of what can be done.

(CLICK ON PICTURE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Also, a lot of what I did here is proof that "You don't need to have an expensive kit, or expensive paints to make a nice piece of scenery."

You can use craft paints, and pieces of "stuff", or cheap toy items. 

Let your imagination roam!

Toy Barn Conversion.

Those of you that have been reading for a while, know that about 2 months ago, I picked up a plastic toy barn at our local Goodwill for about 3 bucks.

Like the previous Ertl conversion I did for my western town, I decided to also rework this into something more useful on the tabletop. 

(This is how it looked at the painting desk.)

First things first, give it a good cleaning and when dry, prime it black with a rattlecan. 

(Cleaned and primed. Ready for the next step.)

After that it was deciding "how" I wanted the barn to be.

I decided I wanted it to be "half wood/half stone".

So I dug around into my Plasti-struct stuff and found some stone block siding. 

A little cutting, and then adding some trimmed small coffee stir sticks and voila! Siding!

(Not exactly up to modern building codes, but it'll do...)

After that it was painting.

Base coast was craft paints "Burnt umber", followed by a little "Nutmeg brown".

Stone was painted "Charcoal gray", and then a light "taupe grey" and a lighter touch of White were dry-brushed on to show the wear and bleaching of the wood.

Here are two shots of the finished product: 

A couple of spray seals of matte clear varnish, and she's good to go!

Then it was onto the next project....another barn.

MDF Barn....

So the next project was the MDF barn that I picked up at the Little Wars Flea Market for 5 bucks.

The kit was plain MDF with a non shingle roof.

Some "Before" pics.

She's a "handyman special"....

Primed with black rattlecan.

Base coat of Burnt umber, with additional first coat of Nutmeg brown.

Roof slates done in Charcoal grey.

Bleaching wood done with Taupe Gray, and White drybrush.

Shingles from Plasti-struct.

Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade for weathering effects also.

Groundwork by Woodland Scenics.

Piers...(and not "Anthony"...)

So after the barn projects were done, I did a couple of scratchbuilt piers, made of wooden coffee stir sticks and heavy wooden dowel sticks.

Primed black, base color, Burnt umber, with Nutmeg brown, and then a drybrushing of Taupe gray, and some white as well as some Burnt Sienna.

Thatched roof shacks...

So after the piers, I wanted to try the process of making thatched roofs, and I needed a couple of low key, low class, cheap and easy cottages.

So with a wooden base, foamcore for walls, some wood coffee stir sticks. I made these two cottages.

The roof is made out of a double layer of heavy cardstock. with strips of an old bath-towel, cut and glued.. All was then painted with craft paints. 

The roof on the first one is removable. while the roof on the second one is not. 

It was also a time for some tree repair.

About 20 odd years ago when I was in Houston, I made some trees from a Woodland Scenic kit. 

They've mostly held up under four moves, but I needed to repair some of them and mount them on better mounts than they were. 

So I decided to make a few stands of tree groups, and used as bases some old Tex Mex Music CD's, that I found inside a CD case on the side of a road a few years back.

"With an Oink Oink here..."

28mm Pigs from TAG, (The Assault Group), that I picked up at Little Wars. Mounted on flat washers.

These were pretty easy to paint, and allowed me to play with some washes a little bit.

I didn't want "all pink" pigs, so I varied them.

Man, that's a lot of ham and bacon there....

Furnishings....

This month has given me the chance to work on some of my purchases from Little Wars and the purchases I made from Knuckleduster went straight to the painting table.

First up was some of the "General Store Furnishings".

These are cast resin pieces and after cleaning and priming, painted up really well. 

(A table of fancy fabric, as well as two large sectional shelves and drawers filled with nice goods for you to spend your hard earned bank robbery money on. And don't forget to get you a penny stick of candy from one of the cups by the cash register.)

And every fancy parlor needs fancy furniture.

These are made of metal.

And a grandfather clock.

This is a metal figure.

And some items from the Barbershop furniture by Knuckleduster.

(A nice collection of shaving mugs, and some lilac or rose water to help you smell so good!)

Father's Day...

So Father's Day rolled around, and my wonderful wife, (Gawd bless her!), made me a nice dinner.

You didn't think that there wasn't going to be any "FOOD!" involved in this entry did you?

She made an amazing pot roast with homemade beer bread, and a couple of slices of sharp cheddar. 

Dessert was sliced watermelon. Nice and cold, and tasty.

And later on that night, I fixed myself, "A Romulan Warbird" in my "shot" glass, (actually a tumbler)....

(Quite tasty...)

And that is it for this entry.

I am currently working on some grocery items, some animals, an a scratch-built "Evil Snow White" fountain.

Stayed tune for there is more to come!

Thanks for reading!