Working on my "children's" story

Been busy at work, so I hadn't had a chance to start painting figures. But then my vacation week started a couple days ago, but I've been practicing watercolor by making my own little "children's" story.

There's a reason I have "children's" in quotes.

If you don't mind a bit of irreverent humor and at your own peril, visit "Bear Brown Goes to the Corner Shop" at my private blog. The story is only five little pages; I think that's all it needs, and that's all I had planned, anyway. There's space in the storyline to continue.

But I also have figures to paint.

Varp Krigarr arrived

Here is one of the Varp Krigarrs from Red Box Games. Red Box has three or four poses, two of which are totally nude. I prefer the nude versions if only to make some of my D&D mates a touch uncomfortable around my figures.

This particular Krigar was originally sculpted as if on level ground. I simply bent the front foot down a touch to make the figure easily fit into this stepping-up-on-a-stone position. I did this originally to give him some clearance for an axe, but in the last minute, I switched to a sword (when I play D&D, I prefer two-handed swords because my D10s roll better than my D12s.)

I also wanted to do a sword, because I enjoy hammering on the little anvil. It took me two tries to get the sized blade I wanted. The other blade is going into the parts box.

I finally get all the figures together for this current batch I want to work on, and I'm out of primer. Ugh. Oh well, an excuse to go for a nice long walk to Hobby Lobby.

Blog Update: So a few folks like the white and some like the black. For the time being, I'm trying a minor compromise: The background is no longer pure black, but a dark gray. And to help with legibility, I've raised the font size in my posts by one point. It's not much, but see how you all like it.

I'm still not against going for the white background, though I agree with some that all that white glare does hurt the eyes a bit sometimes (I'm a touch sensitive to light myself.) Perhaps black text on light gray background?

I'll keep playing around with the colors, and reading what folks think about white vs. black.

Black text over white?

So reading a thread over at TMP about white/light text over black backgrounds on blogs, I was thinking about why I made the choice to have a black background for my blog (knowing it was the poorer design choice.) Essentially, I was going to treat my blog as sort of a shadowbox with photos of my figures, wip and finished, and the black background helped me achieve this effect.

But I have written some longer pieces of text, and dark text over a white background is not a bad thing. Perhaps it's time for me to make this update? What are my readers' views on the subject? Does the light text over black bother you? Is it any more difficult to read? Would you prefer a lighter background?
Pros and cons of either?

The great thing about Blogger is it's just a couple button clicks away, so if white or light background doesn't seem to work for us, then it's easy enough to change back. Let me know how you all feel about it; I may change it over to white for a test period anyway to see how I feel about it, since the final say is mine. But I have to say, looking at my little test screen here, I'm kind likin' it.

Also- My Varp Krigarr arrived!! I'll post tonight with a couple pics; he's pretty neato.

Still waitin'

I'm still waiting for my Varp Krigarr from Red Box (it's not delayed or anything- I'm just waiting for it) so that I can prime it along with a small batch of figures I've cleaned and readied. Among those figures are the rest of the box set (The New Dungeon by Ral Partha, 1989) as well as a the two Reaper goblins I came across in one of my flgs's.

They're Reaper No.s 1329 and 1330. I wish I had a little more info (mostly a year) to attach to these just for a little historical posterity. They're certainly not the oldest figures I've painted, but they still retain a little of that old-school look I am starting to prefer these days. I'll probably paint them yellow-green to add to my friend Jeff's small collection of old school stuff. The New Dungeon Box was actually given to me by Jeff, but I'm painting it up slowly but surely and giving the box set back to him (along with the few random goblins and other old-school trinkets he's piled on my table.)

Art while you wait

I've ordered a Varp Krigarr from Red Box Games to try to jumpstart my painting. It's essentially a but-naked barbarian. He should be a fun and easy figure to paint. Not sure if I'll do him up simple, or add some war tattoos. I'll worry about that when he arrives.

In the mean time, I've been keeping myself busy with my watercolor sketches. A couple months ago, I picked up a Pentel Pocket brush pen as well as a watercolor brush that holds its own water supply. The end result is that it makes it easy to pop these two tools and a compact watercolor box into my pockets and head out to draw and paint.

Anyway, here's some random art for perusal. The roller derby girl and the "parade" I actually did at work during some down time. The bridge was down on the spot (we had a random 80-degree fall day here in Iowa.) These were all done with brush pen and water brush.

Update: There is nothing to report

Well, it sounds like the Bones figures won't be coming until spring. I didn't order any, but my friend Jeff did, and I'll be painting a bunch. For some reason, I had thought they would be coming in late October.

Anyway, I'll try to get one or two random figures off the lead mountain to finish up and post here. Though, it sounds like my Dread Ball figures will actually be arriving sooner than later (I just hope I'm not on ((a planned)) vacation when they arrive.) There won't be a lot of Dread Ball figures, but there'll be enough. I'm looking forward to it.

On a minor note, I'm going to see if the Dread Ball hex bases are the same size as the Proxie Models hex bases. If they are, then I'm going to see which old Blood Bowl teams of mine will be joining the Dread Ball leagues.

Alphabeast reminder

This is just a friendly reminder that the Alphabeast Soup Kickstarter (for which I have a handy picture-link at the top left of this blog) ends in a week. It started fast but has slowed down and will need lots of help.

If you are the parents of crazy children, have been "committed" to the asylum, or simply enjoy whimsical children's art drawn by a crazy, blind, mute hobo-priest who lives alone under a tarp in the mountains of Nepal, then this is the book for you!

Here's that link again: Buy! Buy! Buy!

Gladiator Helmet: Step-by-step

Here's my promised step-by-step guide on how I sculpted my gladiator helmet.

1: I started off sculpting this basic shape out of one piece of green stuff. I carefully pinched at the bottom to draw out the neck guard, from which, after the gs had cured some, I cut the notch in the middle where the two halves of the face plate came together. The eye holes were made with a pointed clay pusher tool, and the seem in the middle was etched with a needle, all while the gs was still fresh. (Not, if you want eye holes with clean, sharp edges, you can wait until the gs cures, and then drill out the holes with a pen vise.

2: To make the front half of the brim, I laid down a small roll of gs across the top of the mask.

3: First I blended the top half of the newly laid roll into the crown of the helmet ...

4: ... Then, using my fingers (wetted with a bit of water), I gently pinched the middle and bottom half of the roll into the brim's shape, while trying to keep it even around the front. Note- You do NOT need to actually "pull" the gs into the brim shape; the act of pinching it will provide enough "pull" to get the shape you need.
At this point, you can keep the brim level around the front, or you can pull down the sides a bit for a curved or other-shaped helmet.

5: Once the front half of the brim has cured, do the same with the back half. Lay down a roll of gs ...

6: ... Blend it into the top of the helmet ...

7: ... Then pinch it into a brim shape, making necessary adjustments here and there to keep the brim even all the way around.

8: I cut the crest out of a piece of cured gs and glued it to the helmet (dry-fit it first). If you have a gap where the helmet and the crest meet, you can use a touch of gs to fill it in.

This should be all the helmet you need, but you can go further, adding a horse hair crest (I'll add one on this helmet once I've put the helmet on a body), or some engraving around the helmet. There's a couple ways you might try the engraving (that I have yet to try); You can lay a thin layer of gs over the areas to be engraved and then either use the press-mold technique or grab a need;e and actually draw whatever images or designs you want on your helmet.

Sculpting a gladiator helmet

Well, as you can see, I've already finished sculpting a gladiator helmet. I would call this one a smashing success (especially since this is my first try at a proper helmet.) It's rough all around, but that's easy to explain away: It's a battle-worn helmet. (Or, I was lazy.) Both of these helmets are roughly 54mm scale.

I only realized halfway through the process that I should have been taking photos. That's why I started a second helmet (shown on the right in the above photo.) The first step on my first helmet was to apply a thin layer of green stuff over a head-ish shaped piece of already-cured green stuff (the core). With my second helmet, I've bypassed the core and sculpted the, head mass, face mask and neck guard all with one piece of green stuff. It's a little more difficult to keep things clean, but it was worth it to skip at least that first step.

The next step on the first helmet was adding the front of the brim. After that cured, I added the back half of the rim, and then the crest whose shape I cut out of a piece of cure green stuff. Later, I added the extra plate on the front of the helmet and some extra green stuff around the crest, which I could then engrave a little bit. Excess from the crest was pulled down to fill in the gaps where the crest and crown of the helmet met.

I'll try to show later, as I complete my second helmet, a little more detail in how I did each of the steps I just described.

Proxie Models Bases: Not too shabby

My small delivery of Proxie Models bases arrived today, and I think I'm going to be happy with them- enough to make them my go-to base for all my basing needs.

The base I'm showing here is a 30mm base - what I use for most of my figures. It's the same width (of course) as the standard lipped base but the lip is much less pronounced, allowing for more space on top of the base. There is still a slightly discernible lip around the top, giving me just enough of a border for when I want to drop in some green stuff to make a flagstone base or what not.

From left, 25mm standard slotta, 30mm Privateer Press lipped and 30mm Proxie Models round bases.

Though the bases are shallower than the usual lipped or basic slotta base -- and shallower is actually what a lot of people prefer -- the base is also solid. It's not hefty, but when you hold it, it feels like a solid, well-made base. The shallower aspect will also make for a more stable base. I'm also kind of partial to the bit of texturing on top of the base. All you need is to drybrush a couple layers of browns, drop on a couple grass tufts and you're good to go!

Another thing you should note is that these are NOT slotta bases- they have solid tops. So if you have slotta figures that you might want to base on a Proxie base, you'll have to clip the tab off the bottom of the figure and pin the figure to the base. This is not a problem with me; it's almost a standard procedure.

Another minor improvement these bases will add is when basing integral-based minis. The issue I have with putting an integral base mini on a a standard base is that once it's flocked/grassed (to hide the integral plate), the figure appears to be standing on a small mound. Having the extra area on top of the base should minimize this by providing a slightly longer, and thus smoother transition from the base tot he bottom of the figure's feet. Again, this is only a slight improvement, but an improvement nonetheless.

Another curious little thing is that a standard 25mm slotta base will fit nicely on top of a 30mm Proxie Models base. So you could easily use some Proxie Models bases as color-coded status markers.

Proxie Models seems to have all the standard base sizes: 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 and 60mm rounds, 20, 25 and 40mm squares, chariot bases, cavalry bases, GW style bike bases, DBX bases and even seom 30mm hex bases (which I plan to get to augment my Dreadball bases, which I believe are also 30mm. I'd use Proxie Model bases to rebase some old Blood Bowl figures for use in Dread Ball.) Update: Looks like Dread Ball bases are 25mm. I'll give Proxie some time; I bet they'll make some soon enough.

Lastly, the price is right! Every pack of bases is $4. Of course there are different numbers of bases in each pack. A few examples are 24x 30mm bases per pack, 32x the 25mm round or 30mm hex bases, and  8x to 12x for the much larger bases (Chariot, 50 and 60mm.)

Anyway, it's a small company, they don't sell much, but all of their bases seem to be perfect for the hobby. Here's there link one more time for you: Proxie Models

Frother's Cthluedo figure

I don't what this one is called, but this is one of the figures from the Frothers forum sculpting competition from last year; the theme was cthuhlu mythos figures for use in a Cluedo-type game.

This one was straight forward: I only used three triads (all Foundry paints) - Storm Blue, Yellow Ochre and Bay (?) Brown. I also inked the yellow to help better define the tentacles.

Other stuff: I discovered (through Kings Miniatures blogspot) Proxie Models bases. These look fairly interesting -- something a little different than the usual lipped and/or slotta bases. They seem to be a lipped base but with a much more shallow aspect topped with a little more area on the top to allow more space for scenery or for those wide-stanced figures.

I've ordered a couple packs of bases to check'em out. I'll let ya know.

54mm Apocalators: Light Fighter Varro

Here's my representation of the ill-fated Varro from the (Starz) Spartacus series. I've outfitted him similarly as he was during his fight with Spartacus, bareheaded with sword and shield, and high greaves on both legs. (A minor difference for those sticklers who might be reading is that my Varro has switched weapon and shield hands. I've also added more of a galerus ((shoulder guard)) than the engraved lion armor seen in the TV series.)

This is my favorite of the bunch; I like that he has enough elements to fit in with my Roman gladiators. In fact, the unorthodox shield design is the only non-classical element on this figure.

The shield was made using the paint pot lid method I posted earlier this week. You can see the nice lip on the inside of the shield on the photo; this came from the groove in the paint pot lid. The rivets and panel lines were inscribed with a needle when the green stuff was fresh.

Next time I get a group of generic figures from Bronze Age, I think I will try one or two classical Roman gladiators (Thraex and Murmillo.) Though, I still need to learn how to sculpt proper gladiator helmets.