It's been a busy week/month!

 So the month of June has seen a lot more work going on than the previous month, which is good. Figures are getting not only painted, but sealed and completed and by tenths my massive pile of shame is going down...but then the Bones VI KS is only 10 mos. away from starting to ship and well....gaaahhh....

So what have I been up to since the last update.

Well, after adding the latest figures, (see more on that further down), to Display Case #2, that cases figure count currently already sits at 209. Those large D&D beasties take up a lot of room.

So here's some of what I have finished up so far....

What was on the table but is now in the case...

I've been working more heavily on some of my fantasy figures, but a few pirates slipped in, and I see more pirates and gangsters coming up in the queue. 

(click on photos for larger photo)

(Taking a break before I even got started...what the heck!? But alas, tis a project I must complete...)

It's amazing how food ends up on my table, and I find myself interrupted by yet another John Wayne movie, or "The Star Trek Channel"....

But then it was back to painting and finishing figures....

NOTE: None of the figures are actually "glossy". This is a result of the lighting in the room, and the crappy I8 phone camera. 

(Bob the Troll...He's had a hard day. Waiting under a bridge all day long, and then these three goats come along...Plus he's supposed to have riddles for travelers...)

(A Reaper Warrior Figure. Painted for one of AD&D players.)

(An old Ral Partha Dungeon Monsters Boxed Set soft plastic Minoatur. He painted up really well for his and the lower quality material used in creating him.

Next up was a Water Weird/Elemental type. This was produced in blue transparent plastic, and so it really wasn't a hard piece to paint. A quick wash of Tamaiya clear blue, and some white highlights, and that was about it, (as well as the greys for the floor and the fountain itself).

(A Reaper Medusa figure. I've finally learned the tricky process of making bowstrings...)

Meanwhile, if you were a "Saturday Morning TV Cartoon Show Watcher", of the late 1970's, then you probably saw these guys at one time or another.

And right now, you are probably humming or singing the theme song....

(Oh no! Not these guys!)

(An easy figure to paint, the glittering tunic that he wears was done by using a Reaper Orange Paint, and then a very thin wash of Vallejo Old Gold over it.)

(Some more towns folks. I swear that the dude in the center reminds me of Lou Costello...)

After this group, I switched over and painted up a couple of other genres.

Here we have an RAFM Call of Cthulhu figure, an elderly lady holding her sweet, and precious Persian cat, while reading from an ancient book of forbidden knowledge...

And then it was time for MORE Pirates!

And finally wrapping up the "piratey stuff", was the completion of my Old OG "Voodoo Zombies".

These guys had given a bunch of players hell over 20 years ago in my infamous pirate adventure.

It was time for them to get the good paint job they deserved, and so I buckled down to it, and now they are ready to drag more screaming victims back into the jungle to the clutches of THE ZOMBIE MASTER!!!!

After all of this, I needed a break from the figures, so I sat down and looked at some old drawn out plans for a gangster/pulp city, and decided to work on a building, (combination brownstone, and attached Italian Ristorante.

(Five floors of mayhem with pasta and cannoli's' next door. What more could you ask for?...)

This is going to be slow going as I haven't built a scratch building in a while, so once more it's a (re)Learning Process.

And now....FOOD!!!!

So recently I've been experiment with some different dishes and recipes.

I decided to do a "Cajun Rice Scramble with a side bowl of Black Eyed Peas".

(Andouille Sausage, sliced white onion, sliced tomatoes, sliced red and yellow peppers, and sliced (as well as) chopped, wild green onions.)

(Adding all of this into an oiled skillet and cook until brown. Add paprika, black pepper, Tony's Creole Spice, Lemon Pepper, Garlic Powder, Cajun Seasoning, Cajun Black Searing Spice, and a pinch of Mesquite Spice for an amazing mix of flavor...)

(The finished product on a bed of cilantro rice, and the bowl of BEP's on the side with a sprinkling of the green onions on it.)

(The finished product up close. The cilantro rice is excellent and makes a good support for the contents of the skillet. )

How's the paint desk looking?

So it's been a while since I took any pics of the work area. 

Right now this is pretty much how it's looking.

(Cleaner than it usually is...)

(Groundwork and Glues. A count today showed that I had 16 different types of glues, epoxies, and adhesives as well as "A LOT" of different types of groundwork!)

(The "Tools and Extra Paint Shelf". Keeping stuff in semi order to keep it from being lost...)

So currently that is pretty much what is going on in the painting and gaming area. 

More is sure to come, so stay on the lookout!

Thanks for reading!

"The Great Display Case Migration"....

 And some close up pics!

Sooooo...

Recently I've been painting more and more and yet even more 28mm figures than I have 15's. Indeed it is sad to say that my 15's have all but been forgotten and have languished in forgotten obscurity of the storage closet, waiting patiently for "someday"....

So as the 28's get finished, I have been adding them to the upper four shelves of Display Case #1: (which actually has four shelves and a bottom piece, making essentially five shelves), but I have run into three problems.

Problem #1: The display case shelves are horribly crowded. These upper shelves are holding almost 700 figures total.

Problem #2: With the amount of figures on the shelves, it has essentially blocked the majority of the light from the lighting system to shine down on the lower shelves, essentially encasing the lower shelves into light starved dimness.

Problem #3: There is no room for "LARGE" size/scaled figures.

On my paint table right now are numerous figures (mostly 28mm fantasy); some of which are larger than normal, and I have the 28mm Reaper "Gauth" Dragon, that I need to work on as well, which will all need more space than is currently available in Case #1.

Now the argument could be simply. "Why don't you just buy extra shelves to use on the bottom half of the case?"  And this is indeed a good argument, and here is the answer to your question.

A: Because I am too cheap.

B: It would not solve the issue with lighting. 

I say the "too cheap" thing because the place that I have ordered extra shelves from in the past has gotten absurdly expensive. Even on sale their glass shelves cut to the size for my display case is approximately USD $121.00 a piece.  That would be almost 500 dollars for four shelves for the bottom half of the display case. And then I would still need to fix the lighting issue.

So with all of that being said for right now, I realized that the current "quick and easy fix" is to simply "Anschluss" the upper half of Display Case #2.  So I began the task of removing the upper two shelves of 15mm Bongolesia stuff from Display Case #3, and then transferring my 15mm ACW stuff to those shelves. Once the area of Display Case #2 was cleared, I then began moving some of the 28's over. In this case, I have pretty much given it to be the haven for a lot of my 28mm fantasy Dungeon Beasties and Monsters as well as some NPC's and stuff.

Here's the current setup. (CLICK ON PICS FOR LARGER PIC)

(After the move. I can already see this thing starting to fill up quickly also...)

(Another view showing the general layout.)

(Close up showing various dungeon monsters, including fire and water elementals, spiders, giant rats, fungi, a Naga, a mimic, a gelatinous cube, and more!)

(The Undead shelf, featuring all sorts of late night Saturday night movie horrors and creature features! Vampires, ghosts, zombies, mummies, ghouls, and soooooo much more...)

So that's it for right now.

Sadly enough I am either going to have to break down and buy more shelves, or get another display case, (hopefully a larger one).

Currently I am finding better deals and prices for another case than spending money on 1-2 new glass shelves.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned as there is more to come!

So I made, (and then broke) a record!

 So the month of June is slowly slipping by and I am busy working on some projects, including painting up some fantasy beasties, and working on some scenery for my gangster/pulp/"Chicago Way" games.

During the year of 2023, I have refrained from buying any figures. Purchasing more figs would only add yet more to my mountain o' shame, and I already have waaaay more than enough to paint.

So for the first six months of 2023, Jan 1 - June 1, I was "miniature purchase free"...

And then I stopped by the LGS in Lafayette...

Sigh.

I stopped to get some paints, only to be able to get a couple of the Citadels I needed, and found out that their supplier no longer carries Vallejo, (which sucks as I need some replacement colors very soon), and it was while I was perusing the stuff there, that I ended up purchasing my first figure for the year.

(I liked the figure and needed another human fighter and...and....gaaaahhhh....)

So that's the first mark to subtract from my total painting pledge this year so far.

Meanwhile in case you are interested, this is what Eighteen Dollars ($18.00) looks like in Citadel paints.

Let's just hope I don't have to buy anymore for a while....

More to come!

An April and May update

 Game wise that is...

The month of March has roared in and out with the majority of the damage from the tornado taken care of, life is kind of getting back to normal in our small Indiana town, (which is quickly growing).

As a result of all of this, my painting and gaming for the month of April came to a stop, and then for the most part May kind of did the same thing. Some figures got painted but not enough to my liking.

I did do a few things however, gaming wise and "other wise" (aka "Real life")...

Let's get to that first.

Soooooo....My wife was absolutely thrilled and then overwhelmed with anxiety when her BFF from high school and life in general announced that she was coming to visit us (all the way from Colorado no less!), and thus "we needed to get the house in order".

My wife decided that "We needed an actual coffee table".

Now I'll be honest. We haven't had one in the living room. 

So me in good old typical husband tradition, went scouring and found a table, that she approved of, brought it home and all was good. 

And now onto other things....

So we had company....

My wife's BFF and her husband were on a long road trip across the US, and made the return trip here back to us. To give my wife and her friend some "alone girls time", I took her husband to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where we delved into "All things racing".

IMS has an amazing museum. In all of my years, this is probably perhaps the third time I have ever been here, and each time it is amazing. The cars they have on display, the history of the track and the races, everything. It's been well done and very easy to take in.

Some pics of the cars in the museum, along with some very famous names on them. (Click on photos for a larger version).

And of course, the trophy.

Odd Indy 500 Trivia fact....

Whenever a driver wins the Indy 500, he has a mask cast made of his face which is then reproduced in silver and added to the Borg-Warner Trophy here. This is the actual winners trophy, which is never awarded. The winning driver gets a silver replica of this for themselves. 

We also had a chance to play around on the simulators and my friend hit the wall at 234 mph, which would have been a spectacular fireball and sure to make the evening news.

And now....FOOD!!!!

A friend of mine says that "It wouldn't be a good post about minis and gaming, if I didn't include some "food" pics on it. So I often wonder "Just how many people come to read my posts and focus more on the food than the minis and gaming?" If you are a reader out there, please let me know in the comments.

Robbers Steak

So I decided to try out a recipe from a site based on the Robber Steak as written by Jonathan Harker in Dracula.  So with recipe and ingredients in hand, I went to it.

I had to use the oven version as my grill is not yet ready for summer cooking.

(Skewers full of meat going in the oven...)

(Looks good so far...)

(And on the plate...)

They were actually very good, and tbh, I can't wait to try them out on the grill.

I also had a chance to fix dinner for everyone and made my famous jambalaya, (complete with Cajun spices).

(Dinner is served!)

(A close up of dinner....)

And of course, dessert!

In this case, it was sugar sprinkled strawberries with bananas and vanilla bean ice cream.

After our friends left and went back home, I was also able to introduce my wife to this little delicacy.

Just a simple small whiff from the jar and it sent my mind reeling to "Back in the day" in South Korea.

(Oh yeah...)

(It's "an acquired taste" for us Americans...)

But it wasn't all "fun, games, and good times..."

So one day in early April I drove to Lafayette to do some business, and when I came out, "this" greeted me...

Ouch!

So my passenger side mirror got tagged and broken. Instead of filing an insurance claim, I hit up my friendly body part shop, who found one the same style and size in a junkyard for less money. A few days later, it's fixed and good to go.

And now I guess it's to the gaming and minis stuff....

What's on the table???

Knowing that I want to run a game for Little Wars next year, I decided to take out my Western buildings and do an experimental town setup.

Now the tables I use for gaming makes for an 8' x 4' setup, Each table being 8' x 2' plus I usually have an end table for me. with that being said, I wanted to get an idea of what "a small town setup" would look like. This will give me an idea of just "how big" this town could grow and become.  This would also give me an idea of what I need to build as well as to finish. 

(Click on the pics to get larger views).

(A test layout for my Western Town of Rimfire (Arizona, Territory). This setup is less than half of the table length.)

(An oblique shot of the town. I've noticed that I still need to build a corral for the livery stable, some hitching posts, a few more residences, and here I can see that I need to finish a roof for one of the shops.)

(Here we can see the unfinished jail... Man I gotta get off my duff and finished that thing.)

(Looking from the sheriff's office/jail down the main street.  So much more to build.)

(Looking from the cemetery. It looks to be getting pretty crowded in there.)

(Looking down Main Street from the Sheriff's office and the unfinished jail...)

(Looking from the filling up fast cemetery....)

(Good old Wun Hung Lo's Chinese Laundry...)

(A shot of Main Street...)

(Looking across the opposite site of the street.)

So the Western town is coming along nicely, but as always there is so much else to build:

Church

Gunshop

1-2 more saloons

Dance Hall

Corral for the Livery Stable

Hotel(s)

Bordello (s)

Grocers

And the list goes on and on and on and on....

And I also found out that I ran out of color, (Apple Barrel Craft Paints), and only then discovered that it is no longer made...(sigh)

(Anyone have a spare container of this, let me know...)

Other than that, I just did some building plan drawing on some foamcore. Getting some ideas to build a 28mm Brownstone and an adjoining cafe for some gangster gaming.

(Some plans for da "urban redevelopment dat da boss has in mind...")

So that's about it for now. 

Right now it is June and I am busy working on some dungeon monsters. I'll finish those up, and jump back either onto pirates or some pulp/gangster figures and who knows? I might even get the design for this building cut and assembled.

Keep your eyes peeled for more to come!

Thanks!