Every underdog has its day part 1

27 Tuesday Apr 2021

Posted by Alex in Conan

Greetings Terrans, I hope this finds you well. I have a bit of a ‘nowt special’ post for you today – as in the painted minis included are nothing spectacular… However, they are useful…

Most of the games that I like to play these days require a good Bestiary, and one staple of most bestiaries is the classic ‘Savage/Primitive’ type… Orcs, Goblins, Gnolls, Tribals, Troglodytes, Savages, Primatives, the Welsh… It’s a long old list, but basically we’re talking about all your bog-standard cannon fodder underdog… the living, breathing equivalent of skellies & zombies…. ‘not-undead mooks’ if you like… Most games need ‘em, but unless you are actually making a characterful force of these general purpose bad guys, they are usually waaaay down low down the painting queue.

Now, a couple of months back my eldest Son, (now a fully signed-up member of the Guild of Obnoxious Teenagers), briefly exited cyberspace & asked me to show him some painting techniques. I grabbed something quick, cheap and simple – a Pict from the Conan boardgame (by Monolith). We went for a crimson skin tone just for some visual interest – a bit Uruk-hai perhaps, or maybe it’s body paint, or perhaps they he’s a bit demonic? The main thing is that he stands out from the norm in much the same way as the green skin of Orcs make them clearly ‘other’. I think the axe handle is supposed to be bone & the axe heads stone, but I went for wood and bronze respectively:

It was a quick & easy paint – the figure is somewhere between a mini and a boardgame piece & so the quality is very basic, but it’s not too bad for the pennies it cost me. Since then the poor wee fella has been lurking around the painting desk, looking lonely & sad… (well, actually, he looked like he wanted some pals to out fighting with, but you know what I mean). I had some time weekend before last, so I fished out all the Picts from the Conan box & got them undercoated & textured up the bases. In total there are 25 identical models like the one above, plus 5 identical models with bows and 5 more with big hammers. I took some time out last weekend & just powered through the lot of ‘em… here are examples of the latter two types:

While I was rummaging around in the Conan box I also found this weird looking creature – a forest demon apparently, but I thought the skull adornment & general vibe was a nice fit with the Picts… I don’t know why, but to me it makes sense that they would hang out with a creature like this:

So here is the entire group together – all painted to a similarly basic level, mostly with Contrast paints, but with some additional highlights on the flesh & bone. The overall effect is quite nice I think – the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts:

It’s a tragic group really – doomed to die a hundred different ways as the speedbump mook-tier baddies in a dozen different game systems over the next x decades… and I kinda like them more because of it 😊

Ghost Archipelago: Dire Straits part 3

19 Monday Apr 2021

Posted by Alex in Ghost Archipelago

≈ 41 Comments

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? Last post I promised you something massive… well, everyone knows Jungle is massive!

These are quick and easy pieces – just cheapy aquarium plants glued to 50mm steel washers with a bit of polyfiller & texture on the base… simples! Here are some more pics with my scurvy crew:

Wait a sec, what’s that stomping through the jungle?

Ok, so THIS is the massive thing I hinted at last week – look at the fecking size of it! This is obviously a 3D print of the Ray Harryhausen Talos from Jason and the Argonauts, (big shout out to my pal Mark for the 3D print job – he’s a real-life Hephaestus!). I am delighted with this not-so-mini – Talos, and JatA is probably where my love of fantasy (and models) first started… I still remember being a wee boy glued to a tiny tv set to watch it over and over again… It was one of the few films we had taped onto VHS, and I watched this film to death. That moment when Talos first animates still rocks my world today, and this model is absolutely a pressie to 5-year-old me:

Assembly was great fun – there are 4 inch screws holding it to the base, and connecting the torso to the legs… the hands and sword were also separate & required some serious pinning. I did consider using pins and magnets to allow me to disassemble the piece, but decided against that for aesthetic reasons – basically, I didn’t want to see the joins, so I used Greenstuff to fill any gaps & make good on a few areas of the print.

Painting this beast was great fun – black spray, bronze basecoat, shitloads of green & brown wash, Verdigris, more wash, polish with a paper towel, etc. It was really rough & ready work, and the tell-tale lines from the printing process really add to the overall effect. To be honest, the base took more effort, with a few nice touches to give the whole thing a sense of scale.

Anyhoo, that’s all for this post – more Ghost Archipelago to follow, plus I’m feeling the lure of a certain controversial Cursed City…

Ghost Archipelago: Dire Straits part 2

15 Thursday Apr 2021

Posted by Alex in Ghost Archipelago

≈ 21 Comments

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? I have a fun little update for you today – I’ve taken a break from my GA crew & started working on terrain items, objectives, and painting up monsters – all very much with a Ray Harryhausen vibe! First up, I’m absolutely over the moon to share this wee objective marker with you all:

You may be thinking ‘that’s all very nice mate, but what’s the big deal?’ Well… this marker was originally sculpted by me, and was sent to Ramshackle Games to be cast up & included on the Ramshackle webstore, so this is my first commercially available ‘hobby fing wot I made!’ You can pick one up here if you like – I got a handful cast as my payment so I don’t make any money off the sale, but my mate Curtis would be grateful for the business I’m sure. Here’s a few more angles to consider:

Next up, I felt the need to have an appropriate guardian for my Goldie Looking Fleece – there really is only one way to go here, and luckily, I had a Hydra waiting for a paint job thanks to the Mythic Battles: Pantheon set that I’m working through with my youngest son. He designed the colour scheme & put down the base layers, but I got stuck in with the more fiddly details:

I’m really pleased with how this came out – it’s almost entirely painted with Contrast paints & washes with a bit of drybrushing to bring out the detail… This seems to be a combination that works particularly well on models like this. I really like the bone colouring on the heads – my son chose these as a nod to the Skull Crawlers from the King Kong movies, and I think it works really nicely! Here are a few more angles & a little diorama for scale: