Workbench: A New Crew and More Elves!

I've continued working on my Runewars elves this week and I am enjoying painting these minis.  There is a good depth to the details and they are at least 32mm which is a great combination for painting.  Makes it a little challenging to mix them in with other minis, but I have enough floating around to field at least 750 points for Erehwon and whole lot more in SoBH so this shouldn't be an issue.

Beyond the two army boxes that I've picked up (at less than $25 for 22 minis, how can you go wrong?), I've also added a box of swordsmen and the command attachment to my collection.  There are still a couple more of the leaders that I'm considering adding but even without these extras, I have enough options available to me with just these figures to field a well rounded army.  Standard for the Runewars line is a variety of poses as well.  Within the infantry units there are four distinct poses, while cavalry and large critters have two poses, letting you avoid the carbon copy appearance that you usually find with cheap miniatures... which these normally aren't.  Unit boxes MSRP for $25 but since FFG dropped the line, the surplus has been lurking on Amazon for over a year now for some great discount prices.  As I've mentioned before, they are a bit larger than your typical minis (kind of the Legion minis compare to the old Imperial Assault minis) but for the price they really are hard to beat.

And speaking of that other line that was abandoned by FFG, I haven't just been focusing on the fantasy side either.  I've been searching around for some sci-fi 28mm minis to put together my own crew for Core Space.  There are a good number of cyberpunk style prints on Etsy that I'm looking at picking up, but I also have my figures from Imperial Assault that have been sitting around gathering dust (like I I tied that all together there?).  I'm not going to try to stat them up accordingly, I'm just looking at the aesthetics of the figures and then I'll make them as my own characters using the Core Space rules.  Their stories have already been told elsewhere so it's time to hear about someone else, such as the crew of the trader vessel, the Avadora.

First up is Captain Delany Peirson (aka Jyn Odan).

I've always liked this figure though I'd though about staying away from it since she is crouched down.  I usually try to stay away from minis like that as it feels a bit like I'm gaming the system by having a figure with less of a profile for LoS.  I like the gunslinger feel that she has though so I decided she is a must have to lead my crew.

To lend a hand in the role of the heavy is Korbin Donham (aka Biv Bodhrik).

I'd already painted him to go into my GoA privateer list as support trooper with a micro-x launcher so he is the perfect to lend some firepower to the crew.

Next up is Ekaf Noran (aka one of the rebel saboteurs) as the tech.

Originally I was going to use Saska Teft as the tech for the crew, but then I saw this guy when I was pulling out Biv's mini.  This is another mini that I've always liked and for some reason the blue skin tone just makes me happy.  With all his additional kit, he is the perfect fit for the role of the tech as well.

Finally I'm going to round out the crew with Fasrak Pas'deral (aka Mak Eshka'rey).

He is another last mini substitution as I was planning on using Hera Syndulla as the pilot for the ship, but Mak is already finished and this is another mini that I like so it only makes sense to use him to round out the crew.

I want to work up some backstories for them all, but that will be for another day.  For now, I glad to have them all painted up and (almost) ready to go.  Plant life might not be the best match for a game that is set primarily on space ships and stations, but it's gonna work for my guys.  They are just taking being green to a whole new level!  Until next time...

Workbench: Core, Paint, Elves, and Acrylic... So Much At Once!

Man was last week a helluva week!  Nothing life shattering, and in fact more eye opening in some regards, but it did put the blog onto the back burner for a bit.  Life happens, ya know?  Thankfully I've still been able to get a fair amount of hobby in though, so I figure it's time to hit the highlights!

It all started last weekend when my new paints came in!  I knew that I ordered a bunch but actually seeing them was something else.

The top row of nine are the replacements, but the other 27 are all new.  So many options now!  And since I have all this paint now, it only made sense to get a better way to store them as well.

This is 6 shelf acrylic tray that I picked up from Amazon.  I've seen these before at nail salons and the like, but it never occurred to me to pick one up for myself until a friend on mine on Instagram posted pictures of his hobby space.  This makes things so much easier as most of my collection is right there at a glance, though I still have more that don't have homes yet.  Looks like I'm going to need to pick up another one of these in the near future!

I've also been making headway with my Core Space minis.  In fact, the crew of the Ion Hope are now done!

I'm happy with how these turned out, and I really feel like I'm starting to push myself further with them as well.  For example, I used to mostly rely on GW shades to give my paint schemes some depth, but now I'm mixing and blending colors more to create these transitions.  I've also started using a larger brush more, even for the finer details.  It seems counterintuitive but the reasoning actually makes sense.  With a larger brush, the bristles have a larger belly which means it will hold more liquid.  This keeps the paint flowing better than on a smaller size brush, and as long as there is a good tip then it works fairly well.  I feel like I've been getting better control with this approach as well.

I also started working on the crew of the Black Moria as well though I've only started to scrape the surface with this crew.

Then again, if you don't have a captain, how can you have the crew?  I'll start working on them soon but I've also started working on another little project again.  Over a year ago I'd picked up a number of Runewars minis for a crazy discount.  My thought had been to use them for a Warlords of Erehwon but then Covid happened and that project was set aside for a time.  Just this past week, I started to get the itch to get some Song of Blades and Heroes to the table so I broke out more of these Runewars minis and started painting up some of the elves.

This archer is the furthest along, but his buddies are close behind...

All of these guys add up to just over 200 points.  Pair these off against some of my human warriors that are already painted and I'm looking at a nice little conflict to push around so I can get back into the swing of things.  I'm even thinking about introducing my daughter to the game since she is on Spring break!  We've played things like Frostgrave before but time always seems to be a limiting factor nowadays.  Hopefully the quick nature of SoBH will help up get past that and have some fun trying to slaughter each other!

Well, that about sums it up for now but it's great to be moving forward with my hobby again!  Can't wait to push around SoBH again, and I might even try to post a battle report as well!  Just pure craziness, let me tell you!  Until next time...

Core Space: Send In The Civies!

Time for more Core Space goodness!  Once I finished my Purge models, I was looking forward to painting up some more of the minis and decided that the next batch would be the civilians.

I'd already done most of the work on one of them, so knocking out the other two was an easy task... but taking the pictures, not so much which is why this post has taken so long to be done.  They are not the best pictures but hopefully they at least give an idea what I was going for.  As for the lighting situation for photos, I think that will be the next thing for my hobby space that I address but for now let's look at the minis.

First up, is Kaori.

I'll admit that of the three, this was the one that I was looking forward to painting the least.  The edges of detail were pretty soft, especially the wraps around her calves.  I also didn't realize she had a pair of belts on the shorts until I after I had painted them and was trying to layer up the yellow to get a little more depth. She also seems to lean at a strange angle.  I'd tried to use the hot water method to straighten her but the next day she was leaning again.  Then again, she does have the ability to leap down and over terrain, so maybe she is in the middle of doing some crazy parkour?

In the end, I like how she turned out.  The art work and studio shots have her in bright clothes so I decided to follow suit.  Picking out the wraps enough to give some definition was pretty iffy but I was able to add enough highlight to at least give the impression of depth.  Since I'm only going for table top quality so this will work for me.

Next is Butler.

In contrast, Butler has some good depth to the details which was really nice.  A drybrush of grey over the black primer popped out the panels and quilting on his jacket immediately.  In fact, I went back over this with a lighter drybrush to get the panels closer to the shade I was looking for.  For the quilting, I hit those spots with a few coats of Druchii violet which turned out quite nice.  Then I decided to push myself further and started actually painting the panels on his jacket.  Why did I do this to myself?  Because pain is good I guess?  Again, the depth of the details thankfully made this easier and I quite like how it turned out.

And last but not least, Gaa'neek.

Of the civilians, this is one that I was really excited to paint and I actually did that while I was painting my harvesters.  Initially I was going to follow the artwork for his paint scheme but I decided to vary slightly and made his vest red instead of orange.  I know, quite the "rebel", but I liked most of the colors on him already so I decided I might as well use it as a guide.

As with Butler, Gaa'neek has enough depth on his details that he took the shades well.  I'd briefly considered painting the diamond pattern on his vest a different color than black, but I'm okay with how he turned out and don't really feel the need to go back over them right now.  Again, my goal is table top quality.  I'm definitely not trying to win any awards here.

Now with the civilians out of the way, it's time to start working on the traders themselves.  I was thinking about just making up my own color schemes as I went along but I'm actually enjoying trying to replicate something similar to the studio schemes.  Nothing too exact but similar concepts at least.  I will be making some custom crews in the future, so that will give me a chance to experiment more with colors.  Until next time...

Random Update: Now That's A Lotta Paint!

For years now, I've been using P3 Paints.  I've just always enjoyed using them more than any others that I've tried, even Citadel.  Except the shades of course.  The GW shades are amazing!  The regular paints?  I don't know, I've tried using several colors but they just don't work as well for me as the P3 paints.  The problem with this is that getting P3 paints usually ain't that easy.  Heck, for a while I thought Privateer Press had discontinued the line but thankfully that isn't the case.

Since then I heard a rumor that the reason they seem to disappear for bit is because of how they produce their paints.  My understanding is they will produce a batch of colors and then wait until a majority of the colors are running out before ordering another batch.  Unfortunately this means the common colors like white, black, and red sell out fast, but the less popular colors will sit for a while and create these dry spells where it seems like they have discontinued the paints.  I don't know how true this is but it does fit with what I've seen on the shelves so I'm inclined to think there is a grain of truth to this.

This weekend I happened to hop onto Miniature Market to look what they might have to P3 in stock.  Lo and behold, it looked like they had most of the P3 line in stock so I went a little crazy and placed an order.  Nine of them are replacements for old ones that I have that are getting low or the lids have broken.  The other 27 of them?  All brand new ones in a bunch of brighter colors and shades than I normally use.

To be honest, this might not seem like a lot to some out there, but this actually the most paints that I've bought at one time in over thirty years of dabbling with miniatures (and now I feel old...).  I'm really excited to dig into these once they arrive and see what I can do with them.

As for the hobby streak, it keeps on going!  There was a minor hiccup of one night since my daughter needed to record a drama project, but other than that I have been painting everyday and it's been great!  I feel like I've been slowly pushing myself further as well, trying to get a little more detail or depth to my colors each time.  This does mean that I've completed fewer models than last week since I'm putting in more time with them but I'm okay with it.  The more I think about it and move forward with the streak, the more I have been enjoying on each figure.  I was able to finish all of the civilians for Core Space though, and pictures of them will be coming up soon.  Until next time...