End of July Update, and Onto August!

So the month of July is finally done.

Wow.

August is here and is determined to give us one last month of "Bake you until you die of heat stroke" weather, so it seems.  I will admit though that while the heat hasn't been as bad as it has been in the previous years, (we've been in the mid-upper 80's most of the summer), it's the humidity that is making it miserable.

Step outside and you are in natures sauna. It's horrible.

So I spent a good portion of this month doing figures, and other stuff. 

(Warning this entry is photo intensive. Get a drink and relax while it loads.)

(Click on the photos for a larger version.)

So let's begin shall we?

Some of the figures....

My new plan seems to be working pretty well. June saw me clear off my work table of projects, (scenery, terrain, and non-people figures), and July saw me focus back onto figures again. Although I didn't get a chance to finish everything I wanted to do, (The SYW British Gun Crews still need to be finished), I did manage to get 50 figures painted up and flocked. Now all I need a good day with low humidity to be able to seal them.

Here's a few of them: 

These are WIP pics taken before they were completed. Trust me, they do look a lot better now.

(Guards for the Governor's Residence....)

(Some young lad looking for adventure, or wondering what he's gotten himself into???)

(A pirate raider!)

(A pirate in stripey pants!)

(An old sea dog and a gentleman with a shotgun...two different classes of people...obviously....)

(WIP: "The Old Sea Dog...")

(WIP: Workers and Field Hands...)

(WIP: 19th Century Politician....needing YOUR vote!)

(WIP: "Every 18th Century port of intrigue needs a Spanish Contessa lurking about in the background with lots of plans and schemes....")

So I was able to crank out approx. 50 figures and 1 piece of scenic.

Not bad. 

Not the total number I wanted but overall it's 50 more figures painted.

Now to just wait for the humidity to drop.

(The total for this month. Not a bad take....)

And for the second month in a row, my work table is cleared of "Stuff to do."

(This is starting to get creepy...)

"What's in the box????"....

I'm going to admit, I have a lot of figures.

For the most part I have them organized in containers according to genre/period, etc.

And yet sometimes I forget what I have, and need to go back and look.

And then I have a good cry,

Case in point, Container Box #9: Pirates.

It has been a while since I looked in here. 

(So let's see what's in the old box here, shall we?...)

(Oh dear....that's...um...quite a lot...)

(Packs o' pirates!)

(Some Old Eureka Long Nines...)

Along the way I had some issues with one of my brushes.

(Ugh....alas...t'was bound to happen.)

And then my wonderful wife and I had a movie night.

And for the first time in my life, I tried this: 

(All you kids with your newfangled microwave popcorn....fiddly foo!)

(Ahhhh...Jiffy Pop popcorn goodness!)

(And the movie.... "Dead Man's Chest...")

(And we had DOTS too!)

GENCON:

As I write this, Gen Con is ending in Indy, and wrapping up for the year. 

Numbers will be about 78K if all goes right, since all badges were sold out and they had to cap attendance at 79K.

I didn't attend but paid a lot of attention to peoples posts, and reports on it. 

There was some good and bad.

As normal there was the cattle stampede when the vendor hall opened.

(Been there, done that, have no need to do it again....)

Perhaps the biggest complaints I saw were the following:

1: Cost of True Dungeon was more than it was worth.

2: Overall cost of convention badge AND ticket prices.

3: Backpack issues.

4: Event staff smugness.

5: Hotel reliability issues.

I think the last one was the most common, although I did see a few reports discussing the attitude and mindset of some of the Gen Con staff personnel, (not the actual volunteers, but the actual corporate staff), and many of the hotels has mechanical issues. One hotel was telling people that they had to cancel their rooms as on Thursday right before the convention it was reported that the management and entire staff of one hotel just up and walked out.

Now, let us take a quick break away from gaming stuff, and before we delve back into August projects, lets talk about "FOOD!"

FOOD!

Every month my local masonic lodge puts on a community breakfast. For $6.00 it's an all you can eat, and they give you plentiful.

This month I went with my neighbor and we pigged out. Truth be told, I only had one plate, but what a plate it was.

Eggs, Sausage links and patties, pancakes, biscuits and gravy.

(Not a bad spread...)

(Put on by our local chapter, or should I say "order"?...)

One of the other things that I do is "grocery shop at Menards".

For those of you that don't know, Menards is a DIY store, like Loews, or Home Depot. 

Our local one (down the road from me), also carries a selection of grocery items. I call it "single guy/divorced guy grocery shopping". The food items are made for those guys that don't have cooking skills, (canned items, box dinners, frozen stuff, etc.), so a guy can get his lumber, hardware, and groceries all in one run.

One of the things I have learned that they have and that I like is their bacon selection.

They have four different types of bacony goodness.

(Bacon goodness...)

And now, back to gaming stuff...

And here comes August and the projects....

Now that July is out of the way, August is here, and with it, I once more switch back over from figures to "Terrain/Scenery/Non-Human figures."

I've got a lot on my plate this month.

First off:

Buildings:

One of my overall goals and long running projects is to build a fort for my 18th Century Caribbean Island of intrigue. This is going to be a long running "here and there" thing. 

But first to get things going, I decided to start with a building.

The first building is going to be a barracks for the island garrison.

Not happy with what I have been able to find on the internet thingy, I decided to use some scrap stuff and will scratch build one.

 The "core" of the building is nothing more than a carboard packing insert. Due to it's size, I've determined that this should be a 2-3 story barracks building.

The outside will either be foamboard or Plasticstruct siding. I haven't made that decision yet.

(The basic shape...)

(Another view...)

(Showing the dimensions... I am still undecided about whether I should put it on a base or not.)

(The core has some damage, but this will be covered with an outside exterior...)

And after that it is SHIPS!!!!

SAIL HO!!!!!!

So for the first time ever, I decided to sit down and get out all of my ships, (Actually most of them), and get them on the table to see what I have.

I was agog.

I counted 22 ships on the table, with one being in a mold, two being unbuilt, and one in it's huge box, making a total of 26. I am not sure that that is all of them either. These ships have been packed up, moved around, hauled around, etc, for 20+  years and the damage to them shows. All of them need some work on them, (some more more than others), and I think between the building and the ships, most of my August project time is going to be taken up here.

(Most of the fleet assembled...for the first time....)

(Galleons, merchantmen, warships, barques, brigs, schooners...etc...)

(Four galleons I got from a TMP purchase years ago. These things are huge...)

(More ships showing the work needed to get them...um..."shipshape....")

(The front three are from Hobby Lobby and can be easily converted. I took one of them and made a 15mm coastal boat for my AK47 games...)

(The resin ships in front are from the old "Pirates!" game by the defunct Flagship Games. I got these back in the late 90's.)

(Aye...that's a lot o' boats in the waters....)

Other projects....

I also have decided to get more "stuff" painted.

I finally got around to opening up the Wiz Kids Adventurers Camp set, to paint up, as well as some TAG cattle, cats, and dogs.

(Other items for the brush...)

But of course I needed to have some Sunday morning breakfast.

In this case, it was a cinnamon raisin bagel with raspberry fruit spread, and coffee with hazelnut creamer.

(Yum...)

And I asked Alexa to play some music for me while I worked and painted.

Me: “Alexa, open Spotify.”

Alexa: “Opening Spotify.”

Spotify opens.

Alexa: “What would you like to hear?”

Me: “Play me something nice, easy, soft, and tropical. Something gentle on the ears and my mind. Something to soothe my soul.”

Alexa: “Based on your musical preferences and listening habits, now playing….”

What the h…?!?!?

Sigh….

(This wasn't exactly what I had in mind....)

And my month of projects goes on.

Let's see how far and how much I get done.

That's it for now, stay tuned for more. 

More to come!

Thanks for reading!

Comments are appreciated!

BTW: The fridge has been restocked with tasty drinks!

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!!!