Late November Update

So it's been a bit of a busy month from October to November so far this year at our house. We recently celebrated our one year anniversary in it, and then the anniversary of my wife and myself, (Big #9), and then my birthday a week later. I've landed an extended contract gig that is a remote, so starting in December I will be back to 40+ hours a week behind a keyboard, so in knowledge of that, I decided to get some more painting done.

I did a variety of fantasy and historical figures, and have found out that if I "mix it up" a little, instead of binging on one genre, that I don't get "burnt out too quickly", (hmmm...paint 5 fantasy, 5 pirates, 5 cowboys, 2 small animals or scenic items, and 3 miscellaneous vs painting up 20 pirates or cowboys, or...), plus it keeps me adding to each group of figures instead of one group getting a batch of painted ones, and the others woefully waiting.

So starting up, I decided to try my hand at something "A little large and different", and that would be a Gelatinous Cube.

This is kit from Wiz-Kids. the cube comes essentially in three pieces. A round base, an "interior goo" of digesting unfortunates, and non-digestible items such as swords and magic wands, and the clear exterior cube.

The first thing you need to do is to clearly and thoroughly wash these and let them dry. Due to their construction there is the possibility of a lot of mold release agent used.

Although Wiz-Kids says that you can paint their figures "right out of the box", I have found that while this is true, the paint has issues with the figures, so a thorough washing and drying of Wiz-kids figures is recommended before painting.

Assembly was relatively easy: Glue the digestive ring of inner goo to the base and you are done. 

After that it was painting. For the inside bones I used an off white/ivory white, and then normal colors of metal for swords, etc. Around the bones I did a very light brushing of Vallejo Fluorescent Green, and then the rest of it got Tamaiya Transparent Green.

For the cube itself, I used the teachings of a Youtube video. Using the Tamaiya Transparent Green, I did each side the same, by painting approx. 1/3 with a stripe of color and them running a large drybrush over and across it moving the green across the cube and giving it color but not overwhelming it. The green color also gave an impressive edging on all the angles of the cube.

And voila! Finished.

So allow me to present to you "Jelly, the Gelatinous Cube".... 

(Every dungeon needs it's own vacuum cleaner...)

(This is what happens to those nasty, invasive, murder-hobos that call themselves "adventurers" when they come to loot and plunder your beloved treasures from your dungeon...)

After this is was off to do a quick paint up of some undead.

Every October, (Halloween, some of the fantasy figures I try to paint up are always "undead/spooky/Halloween based, and this year was no different. 

This year I decided to crank out a few, and in doing so decided to try my hand with some of the translucent/clear Reaper Bones figures, as well as some of the RVE stuff that learned earlier in this year.

The first figure was Reapers Grave Wraith. This was a quick paint job using GW's Nihilakh Oxide as a light base coat, and a wash using GW's Coelia Greenshade, and a very light touch of white for highlighting.

I'm quite happy with the way things turned out!

(You can see the translucent appearance here.)

(A close up view)...

(Final view showing the color scheme)...

My next project was Reapers Medium Fire Elemental.

This was my first time painting "fire", and I used the Tamaiya Clear Red as a coating over the entire model as the base coat. I then used the instructions on "how to paint fire" that were recently included in Wargames Illustrated.

I think she turned out pretty good.

After that, it was a color comparison of  two Reaper "Strumpets". 

I went with one a blonde and one a redhead, and wanted to experiement with different color matches, and with the exception of cleaning up the base on the blonde, was happy at how they turned out.

(Double Trouble....)

("Step just a little closer....")

After that, the next one was a Reaper Dark Heaven Witch figure.

I played around with satins and clear colors on this one a lot and wanted to give the base a "frosty glaze" look to essentially show the magic of the circle that she is in.

Then I decided to work on some Reaper Townsfolk. In this case, a very tired, and disheveled mother with two children. I wanted her to show the weathering and hardships she was going through. The poor girl actually "looks" tired.

Of particular interest to this set is that the figure of the little boy has no nose! I did a little paint work to try to make one, but there's not enough there to work with, so I went with what I had, while a part of me was wondering if I was actually painting a young Voldemort!

(All she needs is a little break...and some clean clothes....and a hot bath....and a six hour nap....and....)

I also got around to painting some historical figures and finished up this Foundry pirate figure.

What's on the table???

Here's a recent pic of my painting table with some of the figures on it before completion and some more to be completed. My homemade "wet pallet" is the box to the left with the closed lid. And yes I know I need to change out the pink paint water!

And this is my current figure queue lineup for now. Figures that need to be painted/finished, etc. 

What's in the case???

So the other night, I did a silly thing, (yes...that seems common around here).

I decided to try to get an accurate count of my figures.

So the current figure count is: 617 figures painted and in this case (Case #1). Of these 617, 608 of them were painted by me.

YIKES! I need more shelves!

Okay that is it for this horribly late entry. 

More to come!

September and October Update: So much to write about!!!

 

The month of September got away from me as things moved quickly about Casa Del Murph here. And before I even knew what was going on, it's already the week of Halloween! 

Egad! Where did the time go?

So I am going to try to figure out what to be posting on this entry. Please be patient as this will probably be a long, long, post and picture intensive.

FIRST OFF....RASPERRIES!!!!

So the other day I was wandering around the property. On the backside of our garage is a gaggle of wild plants. And imagine my surprise when I found this.

(Ooooooh.... *hastily gobbles it up*)

I quickly looked around and saw a few vines bearing some more berries.

Once today's rain goes away I shall go out and pick them.

NEXT UP....OUR D&D CAMPAIGN!!!

So we got back into the swing at Saltmarsh.

The party got down to the lower caves and were held up by a pair of Gnoll fighters.

It wasn't a pretty battle but the Gnolls were defeated.

Moving through the caves, the party ended up meeting the evil wizard and his band of smugglers.

One smuggler was killed and the wizard was wounded but the party was too banged up to do any more, and so a "deal" was made. The smugglers and wounded wizard were "allowed' to escape, which they did. 

For the first time in all of my GM'ing Saltmarsh, I've never had this happen.

So now, the smugglers operation has been compromised, BUT they were allowed to leave. So does this mean that the party will see them again? Who knows?

We are currently on hold due to half of our members being out of state and in real life situations until our next game on Dec. 4th.

The Game Room is ready for play!

(All ready...)

(Snacks and refreshments....check....)

(DM's Station with module, dice, minis, books, and coffee?....check....)

(Pizza Skull ready to go?....check....)

(How the session started. Three skeletons with three more behind them)

(Meeting the second group of skellies and the Dwarf fighter goes down like a bad Ponzi scheme....)

(The Smugglers are discovered!!!)

(With one smuggler dispatched and a standoff ensuing, a deal is made and the smugglers with the wounded evil wizard, leave in the small boat....Perhaps to meet again one day....)

(But clues are found!!!)

(What can it mean???...)

PAINTING FIGURES!

Oddly enough, my wonderful wife (Gawd bless her!), and me, did a back to back movie watching of POTC (the first two), and it got me the gumption to get back to painting, and I dove into the mess of pirates that I had quietly gathering dust on my work table.

I think one of the issues I have with painting is that I have so many of each type of figure that when I paint the same genre for a while I get burnt out. So I am conducting an experiment, in which I shall go with painting 1-2 different genres a week. (Week 1: Fantasy and Pirates. Week 2: Fantasy and Cowboys. Week 3: Pulp and Horror  Week 4: Victorian/Colonials, and Scenics, etc.). Each of these can be mixed and matched and I will end up with painted figures from each genre, (although thanks to my Bones IV and V KS, I think my fantasy stuff outweigh all other genres.).

For Halloween, I always try to do a couple of spooky things, and this year I painted up a Reaper Bones Banshee and Shadow...

First up is the Banshee.

She's made of clear green transparent Bones resin.

The idea was to keep her semi-transparent at least, so a minimum of colors were used.

In this case, it was Vallejo Transparent Green, GW Coelia Greenshade, Tamaiya Clear Green, and a dry-brush over the high points with GW Ceramite White.

I wanted to go for the wispy, in motion, swirling, look of the banshee as well as the wide eyes of an insane spirit, maddened with grief. I think I caught it pretty well.

And now a single pic of the Reaper Bones "Shadow".

For some reason I keep calling this thing a "Spectre". I know it's wrong, but I couldn't get a decent "shadow" paint look to it. I decided to go minimal again, and went with GW Druchi Violet shade, Reaper Imperial Purple, Vallejo Purple, and once again a drybrush touch of GW Ceramite White.

Keeping it minimal made it look even better and spookier.

(What's that coming down the hallway?....GAAAAAH!)

And then I went to work on the pirates....

Click on the smaller pics to get larger pics! Arrrrr!

 

And I also painted up some townsfolk....

Whew! That's a lot of figures!

Okay I have more to post, but I think this one has gone on long enough. So thank you for reading and yes, there is indeed MORE to come!