Dodging Dragons and Grabbing Loot

Fantasy miniatures painted over the summer.

Most of these are from Reaper's vast range, some in metal and some in Bones soft plastic. The treasure chest may be from an early 1980s box by TSR or another of the figures manufacturers from that bygone era. Edit (15 Aug) Turns out the treasure chest is from Grenadier Models, early 1980s. I thought it looked to solid for a TSR miniature.

Reaper's Bones range is great for large figures and for adding groups of monsters to your horde at a decent price, but the soft plastic does lose some of the finer detail on individual heroic types.

Paints used come from Humbrol (enamel and acrylic), Tamiya, Vallejo and GW.

The Axe Knight

 Metal figure, enamel paint for the armour, hence the strong shine. This mustachioed hero will undoubtedly be found in the thick of the fray shouting such helpful rallying cries as "Come on me, what ho!". I do wonder why a knight whose heraldic device is crossed swords is playing with an axe, though.

Paladin of Clementine

This one's a plastic figure, hence the softer facial detail. She was painted to be the first paladin from the church of Clementine in a D&D game. Colours were specified as black and yellow with a rose device (shield) and entwined thorn vines (tabbard). Alas, the poor lady died in battle before her figure was ready.

Dragoborn Warrior

Another plastic. The beautiful gloss shine on the armour was created with a thin coat of Liquitex general purpose high gloss artist's varnish. I found these acrylic varnishes in the local arts and crafts store and have fallen in lurv with them.

Dwarf Hunter and Dogs

Metal figures, all. Eddy only has two dogs in the D&D game, but he's adopted a third just for these portraits.

Half Dragon/Dragonborn

Another metal figure. No particular character in mind, but this would be a dragonborn who is approaching herodom, given that he towers over normal figures.

Barbarian Warrior

Metal. The lines caused by mismatched mold parts are not so obvious to the eye, especially at a couple of feet distance with 48-year-old Mark 1s. Reaper call her "barbarian warrior" or some such. I prefer to think of her as "Not-Red-Sonja".

Peacock Warrior

 This one is plastic, so the detail is soft around the head. An Elf with expensive armour and a big peacock on his shield. He may look a bit of a ponce, but he's probably quite good with that sword, what with being several hundred years old.


Scalpel

A henchman of dubious background. Small, not very bright, loyal, stealthy and expert at putting his dagger into unsuspecting kidneys. Sadly, after an unfortunate but briefly exciting encounter with an ancient blue dragon, he has devoted the rest of his life to holy contemplation. Another of the Bones figures.

And lastly, what would a good fantasy RPG session be without loot?

I had to add a washer to stop the chest tipping over. That might be a rug under the chest, or it might be arcane wardings.

Summer Fun

So, what with all the usual summertime fun, painting has been a bit, well, random. I've taken to grabbing odds and ends and partially-done pieces and finishing them, just for fun. On top of that, I've rediscovered the joys of painting fantasy figures in completely-made-up-no-historical-uniforms colours.

So, here we go...

First up, we have a 1/100th scale Matilda II from Zvezda. These little plastic Zvezda kits pop together in a few minutes and don't really need glue, although I use said stuff because the solvent smells good and the join lines don't start to gap apart over time.

The Tilda with the commander is a Battlefront offering. Both models were painted with Xtracolour's trio of Caunter scheme paints, albeit with a gap of several years. As you can see, the BF model has more detail sculpted on and comes with the option of having a commander sticking his head and shoulders out of an open hatch. The Zvezda model is otherwise a decent mix-n-match prospect.

And then we have three French Somua S.35 tanks from Old Glory. These were supposed to have been Char B1bis tanks but the package was mislabelled and I think the Somuas are neat tanks, so I kept them. Pretty much all the paint on these comes from my collection of (mostly ancient) Humbrol enamels. They're painted following a drawing gleaned from teh interwebz for the 18th dragoons of the 1st DLM.

French tanks look pretty in these schemes. I may end up branching out into a May 1940 French tank list for Flames. One day.

Changing scales and manufacturers, next up is a small band of uruk-hai from GW's Lord of the Rings range. These came in a bag full of assorted orcs purchased from someone who was selling off excess minis (horrible thought, eh?). Paints are Humbrol, Tamiya and Xtracolour's "Dark Flesh". The models looked very dark and drab when painted, which is entirely appropriate for them, as they're part of the sable-clad army that issued from the Morgul Vale, but did make them too dull, so I decided to give them a "minwax treatment". The pikeorcs got a dip in a water-based stain and the crossboworcs in a dark walnut solvent-based stain. Group A ended up lighter and redder, group B turned very dark, but have more depth. I'm still not sure which I prefer.

Coming up next - dodge the dragon and grab the loot!

Clearing Some Odds and Ends

An assortment of 15mm vehicles have been lurking in the corners of my work area, sporting varying degrees of undercoat, so I decided to finish a few.

First batch is a field car and a pair of halftracked tractors for use by an 88mm flak battery.

For many years I have used Tamiya paints through an airbrush for German vehicles in the later war colours. This time I decided to brush paint and to only use the base dark yellow colour. I pulled out some old Humbrol paints and went to work. The Humbrol version of "dunkelgelb" is a bit paler, more washed-out than the Tamiya version, so these three vehicles received a second coat, this time of Tamiya paint, as they have to match other vehicles and the 88s themselves.

The next mini-project was a pair of Hornisse. The first two Hornisse I painted had olive green camouflage applied over the base yellow; these two have been left unadorned. Again, I used the Humbrol version of dark yellow, not being concerned about a little variety in shade. Interestingly, the Humbrol paint has darkened after being coated with one layer each of gloss varnish (helps decals and washes settle properly) and matt varnish (these things did not receive regular wax and shine attention).

Brush painting without multiple colours of camouflage was quite enjoyable.

Harlequins

Remember the GW Harlequins that went through a Simple Green bath? A couple of them have just been given new uniforms, acting as test pieces for colour schemes.

One trouper has red and white checks and blue tertiary colours against black. These colours were pretty much bound to work.

The second trouper started off with a dark green "bland" colour, offsetting pink and pale green motley with purple-violet highlights. Sadly, there was not enough contrast between the colours, so it was back to the wardrobe department. The dark green was replaced with black, the pale green was brightened, the purple was replaced by stronger magenta tones and now we have a striking uniform.

Now all I have to do is decide which motley the entire masque will wear.

Odds and Ends in Dunkelgelb

A few German vehicles, finally finished after a long period of inactivity.

A pair of Plastic Soldier Company Panther Gs in late-1944 "ambush camo". Base coat was airbrushed on Tamiya; red-brown and green were brush-painted, Humbrol's acrylic range. First time using the Humbrol paints - they're very easy to work with and cover well.

And a pair of Hornisse from Battlefront, airbrushed Tamiya paints:

I feel the need for something bigger, so it's off to the Reaper collection for a few figures in bright colours with no uniformity.

Yellow, Brown and Green Means...

...more German vehicles.

Some StuGs and some flak tracks.

These are all BF models, finished for a friend. He had undercoated them with the rattle can German Armour paint that BF sold, so I just needed to add the disruptive patterns and details.

As protection from those pesky American Jabos, my Germans gain three Flakpanzer 38(t)s:

And finally, breaking from all the yellow and green, I finished a platoon of LW Guards infantry, to have them ready for a tournament. They've only been waiting for paint for three years. Me, slow? Nah.

The Russians are Coming!

When BF released their plastic T-34 box, I bought one just to see what it was like. BF have a winner here. The models practically fall together, detail is excellent. decals and magnets are included and all for $9 per model. The assorted gun barrels are much sturdier than the Plastic Soldier Company equivalents, which is a good thing - perfect to-scale modeling is all well and good but these are toys for table top gaming, not static display models, so they need to take some handling.

I used White Ensign Model's "WW2 Russian Green" to airbrush these models, over a mid-grey primer. I had an urge to experiment with shades, so I made up a batch that was lightened with a sandy yellow and sprayed this over the models first, then went back over them with straight-up Russian Green, leaving the lightened colour on all the raised areas - hull and turret edges, and so on.

I was surprised at how pale this paint shade turns out to be. Some internetz reading tells me that current opinion is in favour of this much paler green for WW2 Russian tanks and that the darker green we used to associate with said tankovy was an error, a later colour, an expedient variation because of paint shortages in late '41 or early '42 (the famous "use the tractor paint, comrade" approach), or a combination thereof. Whatevs, as my teenage son says.

The models looked to light and bright, so they received all-over washes with GW Devlan Mud and Badab Black into the engine grills. After that was drying, I looked at the decal sheet, couldn't make up my mind (too many options!) and then justified a lack of action by saying "decals should have gone on before the washes".

The last couple of batches of vehicles, assorted things in German Gey, were weathered with airbrushed browns on the undersides, chassis, and lower areas to simulate earth and dirt. The T-34s weren't, because the wash was pretty dirty already.

And yes, the 76mm turret with commander figure does not sit on the hulls because I managed to get the magnet reversed, despite multiple precautions. Oh well.