You'll find a little of everything here. Genres covered in this blog include (so far) prehistorics, fantasy, old west, swashbucklers, pulp, Blood Bowl, Ghostbusters, gladiators, nautical, science fiction and samurai in 6mm, 15mm, 28mm, 40mm, 42mm and 54mm sizes. You'll also find terrain, scenery, basing, gaming, modeling, tutorials, repaints, conversions, art and thoughts in general about the hobby.


Monday, December 7, 2015

Birds of a feather

I've started painting my Tail Feathers figures, starting with the birds. They are fun to paint -- easy and fast but still with a nice result.

Just a plain, old crow.
The largest bird has a wingspan of about 5 inches, and the smallest is around 3 3/4 inches. The game lists the birds as crows and starlings (and a blue jay,) but I thought those were to boring. So I'm painting mine as more colorful birds.

I stuck with one bird as a crow, simply because, yeah, a crow should be in there. But instead of having a second crow, I painted the bird to look roughly like an Eastern Kingbird.

Eastern Kingbird (sort of,) but he looks much nicer than that crow.
Before I primed these, I masked the connector sockets off with masking tape. I primed with Army Painter Matte Black Primer, then followed that up with a couple layers of black craft paint (Delta Ceramcoat.) Then I painted as usual, removing the masking tape only after everything was done. The little bit of excess masking tape also provided a little extra hand-hold.

The other birds will come in time; I have other stuff on my plate (on and off the painting table.) But they will all have some color: I have planned the Blue Jay (which is actually what it is in the game,) a Baltimore Oriole and an Eastern Meadowlark.

Oh yeah, I also ordered another copy of the game so I can paint some more birds :)
It will also be nice to have extras of the components, as well as another box in which I can put in some custom battlefoam to carry everything.

6 comments:

  1. To bad, you cant order them all by them self.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I bet in the future -- and this game is perfectly set up for it -- that Plaid Hat Games will release expansion packs which might include simply a bird and a rider or two each (much like the packs for Wings of Glory or X-Wing.)
      I'll be buying those, too :)

      And at least once, they did offer just the figures for the Mice and Mystics game, so maybe they'll do the same here? I wouldn't mind trying some conversions if I had extra birds.

      Delete
    2. I am thinking they would be perfect for making up a Dragons rampart warband. And for getting the nieces introduced to RPGs when they get a little bit older

      Delete
  2. may i ask how do you get that greenish and purplish sheen on the crow....is it a glaze or do you use some medium to achieve that effect. TIA

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's actually pretty easy: I paint the crow black as normal. I gave it a light drybrushing of dark gray, so as to pull out the highlights a little.
      Then I VERY lightly drybrushed some green on a few areas, and purple on other areas. Keep the drybrushing light so you can build the color up to the level you prefer. That's all!
      I think a glaze would also work, but I prefer the drybrushing because there's no drying time and I can adjust color on the fly.

      Delete
    2. Thanks....will definitely try that on my copy

      Delete