Update May 25

I promise I'm actually working on stuff. It's just coming along slowly. I had the flu for ten days, and I'm still fantastically tired and fighting off some wicked-evil headaches.
I've started painting my friend's minotaur (a Reaper Warlord figure I think.) I'm also still rebasing my Foundry Sea Dogs. I haven't started painting any of those yet (at least those that will need repainting.)
I'll try to get something posted this week.

Sick

Ugh, sick. I've had a fever for 5 days now. But this should be a godsend to me as a painter; I have a great excuse to stay in and paint this week (in fact, I'm supposed to stay in, eat, drink clear fluids, and rest). It's just a matter of carrying my tired butt to the painting table and starting.
We'll see how fevered painting looks, then.
I have a minotaur on deck, and then finally my flagstone re-basing project (yep, it's that week already.) I actually already got a start on that project. I'll try to get photos of what I've done so far...again, it's just a matter of getting a little energy built up to walk across the room.

Reaper: 3294 Tobias Winterthorn

This was a difficult figure in both painting and construction. Construction: Even though the extended foot had a plug and the base of riding vines had a socket, it wasn't enough for a secure connection -- perhaps, if this was to be a display piece-- but this figure is to be used in D&D games.
My solution was to drill and pin the heel of the same foot to the vine, so I would have two points of contact. I got lucky with the placement of the pin placed in the foot and the hole drilled in the vine- the fit worked out so well that when I first test fitted the figure, the foot almost snapped into place.

Painting wasn't too difficult, I guess, just seemed like there was a lot of different things going on with the figure, so it was difficult to focus on certain parts of the figure at a time.

ON the beaten path: Making flagstone bases. CLICK on photo to get full size image

Off the beaten path: Painting dice

I recently picked up some Gamescience dice (through Gamestation.net) and they are beautiful. These are the hard/sharp-edged dice from days past, and, yes, you still have to paint in the numbers yourself (though you can pay a few dollars extra for prepainted die.)
But if you want some classic dice and would like to paint in the numbers, here's an easy way to do it:
1. Gamescience dice are molded on a sprue, just like plastic model kits, so they will have a bur on on the edge of one face. You can get rid of this bur by either carefully cutting it with a sharp blade, or by sanding it off with some fine-grade sand paper (as is shown in Step 1.)
2. Get some paint (whatever color you like!) and cover the engraved number with the paint. Be sure to get the whole number filled in.
3. And while the paint is still wet, use your finger to rub off all the excess.
4. You may have seom streaks left over. These can be rubbed off with your finger, or gently scraped off with your finger nail.
5. That's it! Beautiful dice. And I like the idea, now, that I have to prepare my dice. If I've dedicated some of my time to the dice, perhaps the dice gods will give me a few more 20s.

Note: This particular color is not "available," per se. I chose Gamescienc's Fire Garnet, but the color was out of stock. When the new dice were molded to fill my order, I got an e-mail that an off-color had come out instead. I was offered the off-color or to wait for some proper fire garnet-colored dice. I kept the off-color because I wanted something fairly unique. I'm glad I stuck with this new color. They are gorgeous! The best I can describe the color is that of a deep rose wine.
And I know I probably won't be able to get any more, sigh.

Vacation time- time for a project?

So I have a vacation coming in the middle of May. I recently picked up a PDF copy of Two Hour Wargames Chain Reaction/Swordplay rules (available FREE!) And I have some old Foundry Swashbucklers I'd like to use. But I forgot how ugly the basing was. My tentative plan is to rebase the 20 or so figures I have (see pictures for some of them); they'll be switched from flocked coin bases to flagstone display bases (just like the drummer shown.) I'd like to use them for urban street fighting/skirmishes.

Of course, this may change. I change my mind a lot when deciding on what to paint. That's why I don't do a lot of reigments or large groups of figures anymore. In fact, if I get in the mood to do regiments, I already have an Empire army that needs repainting (you can see that many-year project began with these crossbowmen and gunners).

I do have some Swashbucklers I've already began repainting and rebasing for adventures in the New World; I'll leave these alone. Though some that were primed and ready to become New World adventurers now will become swashbuckling street fighters.

Creative block and a few random thoughts

Well, I've painted a couple things, and now I'm having creative block; anyone have any suggestions of what they would like to see next on the blog? Another figure painted? Specific genre of figure to be painted? Small piece of terrain? Sculpey project?

I do have another mini I need to paint: Tobias Winterthorn, half-elf druid (from Reaper.) I'll post it when it's finished, of course, I'm just looking for something else.

In other areas of the hobby, I ust finished a session of D&D; had fun, My goliath barbarian did a rage strike armed only with a broom handle - and rolled a crit. So it was a good start for my new mini :)
I also will be using that mini for playing Red Sand, Blue Sky by Two Hour Wargames, my favorite gladiator game. I enjoy Two Hour Wargame's games because you can play them solo. Sometimes, friends are just busy, or it's the middle of the week, and I need to make some puppets dance! On the THW Yahoo group, they've announced a free version of some basic swordplay rules will be released next week. I urge everyone to try the rules out!

For my (40mm) Old West fans, I'd like to direct you to Knuckleduster's new blog at knuckleduster40mm.blogspot.com/. Forrest shows off some of his sculpts there and offers thoughts about his work. Good stuff.

I've seen some EXCELLENT dinosaur greens over at the Dazed Miniatures Yahoo Group. You'll have to join to see them ( I think.) Bob over at RLBPS has something special with Dazed Minatures. I think this will become the premier range of 28mm prehistoric and modern animals (at least after HLBS sells off the rest of its fantastic animals- I hope all those sculpts get bought up by others; HLBS's animals deserve better in the future than just another image at Stuff of Legends.) But go take a look at what Dazed has already done over at RLBPS. And maybe HLBS has some animals left over yet. If not, check out their 40mm catalogue of fun!

And finally, for those of you looking for something new to paint, try Copplestone's Glory of the Sun range. I can't imagine what I would need an army of these for, but I'd certainly enjoy painting one or two of these; As I've mentioned early in this blog, Copplestone sculpts are some of the most painter-friendly I've ever painted.

And no, none of these folks sponsor me; I'm not shilling for them on purpose. These are just companies, blogs and games I like, personally. So, until I can get something new on this blog, go check these others out for the time being.

Nothing you haven't seen already

Just a quick post for linking to other forums I frequent for showing off :) Carry on.

Goliaths (Boris Mk 2s by Heresy)

Here's them Goliaths all finished up! They look all right, I reckon'. I wasn't looking for a great paint job; I did these more for the practice with conversion work as well as for new characters in our D&D game. For you D&Ders, the figure to the right is to be a Goliath warden; and the figure to the left (my character) is a Goliath Barbarian (and former gladiator, hence the hodge podge of armor ((and only one greave)).)
I should have set a 28mm mini next to these for comaprison: These figures stand 40mm tall -- perfect as goliaths at 28mm scale.

Painting Goliaths: First sitting

I finally started painting the goliaths. I'm content with the painting. The goliath to the right in the final picture is covered in tally marks. You'll see the rest of the marks all over his body when I post final pics.
The photography isn't up to par, mostly because I took the shots sitting at the work table. The glossiness of the Foundry paints didn't help either. Maybe this is why I stopped doing other step-by-steps? I may just take pics of these goliaths when they are finished rather than more step-by-steps.
Would folks still prefer step-by-step photos, or would you prefer what I've been doing: Pics of the finished product with a post-mortem description of what I've done? I would prefer the latter; most of the techniques I use are well-known already; I'm not showing anything new (with the painting anyway; I'm still proud of my greenstuff and sculpey conversions and creations.)

It's not all about minis

I was sick this weekend, so I didn't get to any of the painting I had planned. Today, I still didn't have the bug, but I still needed to get my art on. So I went to the horse farms over at Iowa State University and did some sketches. My supplies were a brush, a pen, some water and about an hour of time. This is three pages of stuff; I had one more page of "notes," really rough gestural sketches and such.
I think miniature painters -- or any artist -- should have one or two other media to partake in. It helps to rest the mind, I think. It doesn't have to be painting or drawing; it could be music or writing. Even reading is an excellent way to relax the brain.

Goliaths assembled

Not my best effort, but it will do. The one to the left is the gladiator version. The shoulder armor has some engraving, but it came out a little too deep and "brain"-ish looking (at least in the photo.) I've since filed and sanded that engraving down; it's still there, but not as obvious.
I also added a leg greave, but it flares out a little in the middle. I should have fixed it when I could; I'll just say this poor fellow got defective/warped armor.
The belts/straps are first-tries; I'll definitely have another go at those when the next project calls for'em.
About the only thing that turned out exactly as I planned was the axe, a double bladed axe cut down into a bearded axe.
I'll try to get painting started this weekend.

UPDATE: I've torn the greave off; I'm gonna have another go at it. Luckily I didn't get too far- just gotta re-prime a little bit.