Ghost Archipelago: Dire Straits part 4

08 Tuesday Mar 2022

Posted by Alex in 215th Praetorian, Ghost Archipelago

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? I’ve been really under the pump these last weeks & so I don’t have much hobby to show, but I did manage to achieve 2 things:

1: I finished my Ghost Archipelago warband – just about a year after starting the bugger! You can remind yourselves of the inspiration behind the warband here (go on, I’ll wait…)

2: I’ve booked flights to Dublin at the end of the month for the event itself – frickin’ awesome! It’ll be my first flight since late 2019, so I hope I can remember how it all works :-)

Anyway, let’s take a look at the latest warband members shall we?

From left to right we have a Pearl Diver, a Tomb Robber, a Herbalist, and a Warhound.

I also wanted to add some range to my warband, (anyone who has played Frostgrave or GA knows how deadly combat is, so being able to stand off & shoot is a smart move!):

Counts-as Crossbows

Counts-as Bows

Guide (staff & bow)

Here’s the whole group together – a motley crew to pick from and no mistake!!

I have one final model to show – I’m hugely grateful and touched that Azazel sent this amazing Coral Golem to me all the way over from Australia… just because I liked it so much!

What a superb and generous human bean Azazel is – thanks a million mate! I certainly didn’t want to mess with this paint job, but I did a few touch-ups here and there, and re-did the base to tie it in with the rest of the warband. I’ll be sure to share pics of this marvellous creature wrecking shit up in the Ghost Archipelago in Dublin in a few weeks :-)

That’s all folks, catch you from the Emerald Isles!

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: