Week In Review: Heros Clicking With Trolls!

With Christmas falling on the end of the week, this was a short week for hobby but I'm happy with what I managed to crank out.  So what the heck was it?  Let's find out!

Trollbloods of Erehwon

Slow but steady, I managed to get a little bit more done to move my Trollbloods towards the finish line!  Another stone scribe joins the unit, leaving just two more to go!

I like these models but... yeah, I'll be honest, the whole two poses that they come in makes it a challenge.  Just kind of gets to be "Oh look, it's another copy of the same miniature."  Yeah, it's only five minis for the whole units but still it feels like it's a bit of a grind.  That said, I've been making sure to mix up the colors for the clothing.  This is a minor touch but I feel like it breaks up the continuity some which is good.  This is just a base unit so it comes in at 117 points.  Feels pricey for a unit with no armor but I'm hoping that them being stubborn psychopaths works to my advantage.

Next is my impaler with his whelp "crew".

Yeah, I've already shown this one a couple of times but think this is the first time to have the finished unit together.  I love how this unit looks, especially the contrast between the massive impaler and the tiny whelps!  This unit is a whopping 111 points and I was thinking this would be a unit I would expand to include later, but it's just too fun not to have in the army!

And last but not least (so far anyway...) is my chief and his bodyguards.  Again, it's not Borka (yet...) but Madrak is still a pretty cool mini with that giant axe.

For this unit, I've kicked them up to big axes and stubborn which brings them in at 127 points.  I'm really tempted to give the chief either wound 2 or tough 2 but I want to give them a try as is first.

So all of this gives me 355 points (once I finish those last two scribes) which isn't a bad start... but it still needs more which they will get in the form of a unit of scatter gunners!

Yeah, more work to do on this one as well but there is progress!  Once completed, they will add another 110 points to the army, taking the total point value up to 465.  I still want to add more troops to force (namely some regular troops to bulk out the ranks) but this is a solid start.

Random Heroclix Repaint

I also decided to get some paint onto one of the Heroclix that I'd picked up.  She's been sitting on the painting table for a while but I finally decided on a paint scheme and got to work on her.

Yeah, she's mainly dressed in red which is kind of predictable but I like how she turned out.  Rather than just start with a dark red, I actually did a base coat of bloodstone before bringing the color up with a dark then regular red.  I like the depth this seemed to give her kimono.  For contrast, I just went with a basic white but again I used a different color for a base, in this case Menoth white which is more of a cream or tan.  After that, I used white to pick out the raised portions on the neckline of her kimono, the torso, and her head band.  I might go back a try to freehand some flowers or something similar but... I don't know.  It's good to push yourself to improve but I'm pretty happy with how she looks.

She fits in nicely with the other repaints that I did for our Betrayal Legacy game for the male and female companions you can meet in the game.

This also gives me a good comparison point since I did red for both of the female characters.  I feel that the folds on the kimono are more distinct than on the skirt.  I might try a quick repaint on the woman's skirt, plus I have several shades of yellow so I might try hitting her sweater with that.  I think that would help add a bit more definition to some of the details on the sweater that are pretty muted right now.

And that's about it for now.  I did also do some work on stating up my new crew for Core Space, and I've got another couple of ideas for my campaign reboot but these are still in progress.  More on that soon!  Until next time...

Week In Review: More Frosty Core And Murder Hobos!

And another week is in the books!  The question is what did I manage to get done this time?  I'll admit that it feels like less than last week but this is also my 5e week which does take up part of my schedule.  Even so, I'm feeling pretty happy about the progress I made so let's take a look!

BrushFu For Core Space

Two more for the horde.. of random civilians!

Picture is a bit washed out but hopefully you get the idea

These last two are a corporate and a kid.  Only logical for a cyberpunk style game, right?  You've gotta have a corporate in the mix somewhere for things to be truly cyberpunk, and the kid just seemed like a fun addition.  This model is also available on a hoverboard which could be an interesting twist as well.

And that takes me up to nine civilians... or workers?  Since I have Black Star Rising, I can throw that little twist into the game as well, which I think will add an interesting depth to the game.  And as for the miniatures, I really like them.  These are printed by BrushFu Studios, but the sculpts themselves are from Papsikels. I love the variety of the sculpts that they offer, and I've really enjoyed painting up the minis that I've purchased.  I can't help but notice that the first batch I'd received seem to be larger than the second batch.  I kind of wonder if they might have been 32mm instead of 28mm but either way works for me.  If anything it gives them a mix.  After all, we aren't all the same size, right?

That said, it felt like the details were easier to pick out on the larger figures which makes sense in the most basic way, but it seemed like the sculpts are probably designed to be printed at 32mm height.  The 28mm still look good, things just seem to get a bit cramped on them which makes sense.  Think of a river running between two mountains.  At one height, it is clearly there but if you move higher up the detail of the river starts to fade until it becomes a meaningless line between the two ridges of the mountains.  Now translate that analogy to a fold between pieces of clothing and hopefully you can see what I'm getting at.

Next I want to mix things up a bit and grab some aliens.  There's a collection called Novus Landing which has got a great mix of civilians, bounty hunters, merchants... I think it'll add an interesting dynamic to the whole collection.  The store that I'm looking at for these, Resonating Prints, lists all of these minis as being 32mm so I want to see how they compare with my current collection.  Plus I'll be honest, I'm just having fun painting up all of these civilians and populating an imaginary world.  How can you have a fight in a bar without their being anyone else around?  Or in a market?  It just doesn't feel right so adding these characters just feels right, even if they just stay in the background.

Devastators for Core Space

Back in the beginning of the year, I put paint onto my Purge for Core Space.  I'd painted up the harvesters and devastators in the same color thinking that they would be easy to tell apart.  After playing a few games... yeah, not so much.  Instead, I decided to fall back to the original color scheme (at least partially anyway) and I repainted my devastators red.

And man are they red!  The Menoth white that I'd painted them with was a perfect base.  I'd thought that between the off white color and the shade that was on it that the red would be darker but this definitely works.  I did consider painting the heads white but I like the way these pop.  Really need to get this game to the table again soon, especially with all the new minis.  Really need to make some stat cards made up for them soon, or at least rework the ones that I've done.  The captain seems to be about right, but I think some of the crew need to be toned down a bit.  Might work on that this weekend.

Auril the Frostmaiden for D&D

I also wrapped up painting the three forms of Auril this week as I got paint onto her third form, known as the Winter's Womb.

Compared to the other two minis, this one felt like the details weren't quite crisp enough.  They are still there, but no where near as pronounced as the ice shards on the Maiden or the fur on the Crone.  This is also the smallest of the minis which is saying something as the other minis already seemed kind of small.  Even so, they were fun to paint and interesting change of pace for me.  Plus, they led to me picking up another trio of minis but I don't want to post about those yet.  I don't think that my friend even knows about my blog, but I don't want to spoil the surprise in case he does.

The 5e Waterdeep Murder Hobos

Last but not least, we had our biweekly 5e session and man did it get dark!  We've really been trying to stay clear of the law but this week... yeah, it's gonna be rough.  There was a gang fight that quickly escalated ("What do you mean we are doing non-lethal attacks?") followed by a visit to a shopkeeper.  My connection lagged out when we went to his shop, and when I got the connection back a couple of minutes later we were killing him.  Ummm... okay?  I guess?  Thankfully we have several players that can heal.  As long as he didn't take enough damage for an instant kill, we should be able to salvage the situation... maybe...

And that about sums it up for this week.  As I mentioned, I want to work on stating up some of the Core Space characters so I can get that to the table again next week.  Plus I have some terrain that I need to put together for my next Five Parsecs scenario...  really feel like I need some canals for this one... so we'll have to see what I can get together.  Until next time...

Random Updates: So... That Was A Week...

So I got back out to the field, and started painting like crazy.  The BrushFu minis had come in, then Black Star, plus a friend asked me to paint his Auril the Frostmaiden minis...  I'd even put together a post with pics of the stuff that I'd painted but... yeah.  Just wasn't happy with them.  Very flat and just blah, ya know?  Really uninspired so I just set the blog aside for a bit to think about things.

I realized that I was pushing to get the painting done so I could post pictures of what I'd painted, but they were just meh.  Honestly I thought about just putting the blog on hold for December while I figured things out.  Once I stopped focusing on the blog and just painted... well, it seemed to go better.  So for a while, I'm just going to switch to posting on the weekends and do more of a recap.  Just feels like it will be a better fit, so let's look at what happened this week!

BrushFu For Core Space

At the beginning of the week, my BrushFu minis came in.  Huzzah!!!  With the first order, some of them came with bases as part of the print but this time they were all loose.  I kind of wondered if that might be the case so I ordered ten cyberpunk bases so I could keep that basing scheme going through these minis.  Not only did I get the ten that I ordered, but they also included enough extra bases for the minis that bought with this order, which I thought was very cool!

As for the prints themselves, they all looked very clean and crisp again.  I was a little worried because one of the minis didn't have a head, but then I found it in a ziplock by itself.  With that panic sorted, I grabbed the glue and got to basing.

The first two minis that I painted were the droid waitress and the techie.  The initial paint scheme... yeah, they just didn't work.

The color combo on the techie wasn't bad but she just needed more, and I wasn't sure where to go with it.  The droid on the other hand... yeah, she was a failed experiment.  My initial thought was to go for a tarnished and worn look for her since she's a droid out on the frontier.  Maybe she wasn't serviced as often as she should be?  Maybe it's a lack of supplies?  Either way, she was just way too dark.

It was pretty disappointing because I thought that things were flowing better and these were just... well, crap to be honest.  I set them aside and decided to come back to them later in the week.  As I thought about it, part of the challenge that I was facing was the details are almost too fine.  Might be time to grab some magnifiers but for now I just decided to pull up the images from Etsy and enlarge them.  Man, did that make a difference!  This helped me identify some of the details that just wasn't seeing, and I decided to hit them for round two.

This time, I'm a lot happier with the results.  On the techie, I painted some of the base colors on her skin, top, and coveralls to add a bit more depth.  I'd initially only done the base followed by a shade, but I think that the extra base helped pull out the details more.  Looking at the enlarged pictures, I noticed the trim and belt on the overalls so I painted these up as well and I really think this helped.  No, it's not display quality but I feel like its perfect for gaming.

For the waitress, I tried to pick out her body panels with a bright gold that I have, but it seemed to thin to give good coverage, kind of like you usually find with yellow paint.  I could have built it up but decided to grab the cold steel instead since that has better color density.  A short time later, I had the raised and more shapely panels painted up and I like how they contrasted with the recessed spaces.  Her calves and feet are far more industrial in appearance, so I left those the original color.  Overall, I'm much happier with how these two ended up, and I think that stepping away for a day really helped clear my head and refocus.

Trollbloods Of Erehwon

In between the other projects this week, I also grabbed by impaler to get some more work on him.  Initially, I wasn't too pleased with him but then I started to pick out some of the contrasting colors and it really helped bring him to life!

There is still more to do with him (the bases, the tree trucks aka spears) but just adding the touches of the cloth wraps and the bronze trim add so much life to the figure.  I also love the two chickens hanging from his belt!  Just an example of the fun little details that the Trollbloods have.  This guy is gonna look great on the board with his two "crewmates" and I might have to paint up the other one just because!

Auril the Frostmaiden for D&D

A friend of mine is running the Rime of the Frostmaiden adventure for one of his many D&D groups, and he asked me if I could paint up his Auril minis for him.  "Sure!" I said, and then realized that I had no idea what I'd agreed to.  Thank God for the internet, right?

It took a few weeks for us to actually exchange the minis but he was finally able to get them to me last weekend.  I'd hoped to be able to get through all three this week, but the cyberpunk bump that I had really through things off.  Even so, I was able to rally and push through two of the three forms.

Her first form is known as the Cold Crone.  This was an interesting one to paint because of all of the rich details that are sculpted into it.  The ridges in the horns, the texture to the fur, the drape of the robe... all of these are very pronounced details so they just came screaming out of the mini when I painted it.  Love it when they make things easy like that!  The fur was done with three different shades which let me keep around the eyes darker so they could really pop when I painted them.  I do still need to give the claws a touch of black but overall I'm really happy with it.

The second form is the Brittle Maiden.  Again, the details on this mini are nice and crisp so washes and drybrushing were my friends.  I ended this with a thinned white that I painted onto the ends of the crystals to make the edges pops.  I like how the figure ended up but I've got to admit that I'm not that big a fan of the sculpt.  I get what they were going for but... I guess it just seems really clunky.  Not that I could have done better, it's just that compared to some of the other collector series minis GF9 has released, this one seems to be on the lower end of the quality scale.

I still have yet to tackle the third form, the Winter's Womb, but since it's the smallest of the three I will be able to knock it out this week.  Heck, I could have done it today if my supplies weren't down south but I really don't want to get into hauling all of my painting stuff back and forth every week.

And there we have it, the week in review!  Think I'll start calling this segment that in the future but I'll stick with Random Updates for this one.  There might be the odd post that I throw up during the week, but for now I am going to shift my focus and just be posting on the weekends.  Until next time...

Trollkin of Erehwon: More For The Kriel!

Edit: Huzzah!  I was going to post this yesterday but Blogger wouldn't let me upload the pictures for some reason.  Apparently things are working normally now so on with the Kriel!

Yeah, so I was a bit of a slacker this week.  Well, not really but one of the things that I was working on I can't post yet.  I did make some time to work on my Trollkin though and I've got to admit that I'd forgotten how much fun they are to paint!  Of course I didn't have time to break out my light box for the photos, but still think these give an idea how they are coming along.

First up is my chieftain with his bodyguard.

I'd originally planned on using Borka as my chieftain but I had Madrak done so he will do for a stand in.  The two bodyguards are champions that I'm using for now.  I might switch them out for Warders eventually, but for now these guys will work perfectly.

Next are my stone scribes.

Yeah, still only two of them are painted but I added some finishing touches to them.  I was going to wait on these ones in favor of filling out the basic kriel warriors but I think these guys will be amusing to play so I think I'm going to but them up in the cue.

And last but not least is the first of my two impalers.

Just the base drybrushing done on him but now his two buddies are by his side to give an idea how the unit will look.  The whelps are just a riot and remind me a lot of the snotlings of old, though I think that a whelp would probably kick a snotling's butt!

Next week, my BrushFu order should arrive so I'll be digging into those minis ASAP.  On top of that, Black Star Rising is supposed to arrive on Wednesday so even more goodness to get into!  Plus, a friend of mine just gave me some minis to paint up for his D&D game so even more for me to paint on top of wanting to keep pushing on with my Trollkin!  Definitely looking forward to see what I can knock out this week.  Until next time...

Hmmm... Having A Momentary Disruption At The Moment...

So I was throwing together a quick post but... yeah, I can't add any pictures.  Not sure what is going on with Blogger at the moment, but I've been up since 4am so I'll check again in the morning.