Shake dem bones

The Imperial Assault league that I partake in, has been shut down for the holidays. This has allowed me to work on some other miniatures (it's always nice to take a break from painting one genre of miniatures) that I hope to use in a fantasy skirmish game called Frostgrave. Frostgrave is a miniature neutral game. Meaning that you can use whatever miniatures you want to represent the miniatures in their game. AE Bounty (made by Blackball Games) produces a similar style of game but in a sci-fi setting. Anyways, I've decided to go with a skeleton army. Which, I admit, can be boring to look at. I wont bother showing off any normal skeletons. But I've selected a handful that look unique. I actually have quite a few unique skeletons to finish....six plus one very large skeleton.

Skeletons are one of my favorite fantasy creatures/monsters. Dating all the way back to Jason and the Argonauts with the scene lovingly crafted by Ray Harryhausen, that I saw as a child. Their haunting eye sockets, their hissing voice, their shambling walk...they are a reminder of what we will all become. Kind of. You know, with less shambling and hissing I imagine.

 

I've had these skeletons for the longest time. Probably about six or so years. They came in a set of three from Privateer Press's Warmachine line (they're pewter). The third skeleton I had painted ages ago. I think I waited on painting these guys because I thought they looked cool and that I should have some skills before painting them. It's a pretty silly thought. There are so many amazing miniatures out there, that one would never paint anything with that attitude. 

  

I think my favorite of these two would be the more fully clothed one on the right. I really like the sculpt and his bent over pose. As if he's just trying to get his feet back after laying in the earth for years.

 

These four skeletons are among the 20 or so Reaper Bones miniature skeletons that I possess. They are also the most exciting looking, and most fully clothed among them. I'm not 100% sold on the Bones line, but given that I've heavily backed two of their three kickstarters, I'll be painting Bones miniatures for quite some time. Although, the quality has improved quite a bit from the first kickstarter to the second. So I imagine that the third kickstarter would have the miniatures in an even better state.

There are a few mold lines that I either didn't notice, or didn't clean up as well as I could have. Also, the blue skeletons sword is pretty curved. No matter how many times I tried to set it, it just wouldn't stay. I'm not sure which of these guys I like the best. They each have a little something that I enjoy.

For the two on the left, I painted their clothes using washes. Just to try something different. I think they turned out well and will probably try using that technique again in the future. Any time I see a skeleton wearing purple, I think of Skeletor. Not the movie version, but the cartoon version. I probably didn't need to clarify, as I'm sure no one things about movie Skeletor.

I came across these three bad ass skeletons when I was looking for Dwarf mini's on Cool Mini or Not's website. While I was excited for the fleshy Dwarf minis (the sculpts are fantastic), I may have been more excited for these guys. They are resin cast and surprisingly had very little flash or mold lines to remove. The guy in the middle did suffer from a broken sword however. I love the detail that you can see from a resin sculpt, but they are much more dainty than pewter miniatures.

These guys were mostly painting using washes and I'm quite happy with how they all turned out. I think my favorite is the red bearded one in the middle. He looks as though he's letting out a hiss of a war cry, before he charges headlong into combat.

As I mentioned before, I have a handful of skeletons left to paint and I'm hoping to paint them before my Imperial Assault miniatures arrive. Despite the ones remaining having great scluplts, I'm feeling a little skeletoned out. I may have to paint a few snow troopers (and a Wampa!) before finishing off the remains of my skeleton army.

To anyone who is reading this: Have a happy New Year!

Rebel Rebel

A while back I had played around with a jedi themed team. While it eventually morphed into a Rebel Spy team, I did finish some of the miniatures (Obi Wan still sits partially painted, missing his lightsaber and has a drop of flesh on the top of his head. Making him look like Friar Tuck).

Stop! In the name of love...

I'm not 100% happy with how Diala and her bent (no matter how hard I tried to fix it using the usual methods, I could not get it to stay in position) lightsaber turned out. I need a little more practice with the lightsaber glow on clothing.

I've read a few articles on object source lighting, but haven't had time to put it much into practice. In terms of her character card/abilities/command card go, I like her. She can discard a command card to remove an opponents defense die, which can allow her to drop characters in one hit with the right roll. Coupled with Leia's ability to put cards back into your command deck and it's a lot of fun.

Davith made the cut (partially because he's a spy) and is on my current Rebel Spy team. He is also a lot of fun. He starts the game hidden (which makes him harder to hit) and can cause a lot of chaos. He has a good amount of health for his card cost and his command card prevents him from being hit until his next activation. I was able to use him and his command card strategically in a tournament a while back. Dropping him right into enemy territory and contesting control of precious object controlled victory points.

I changed his paint scheme from the card art. Mostly because I didn't want to paint a mostly dark figure so shortly after painting those ISB Agents. I also wanted to give him more of a Clone Wars vibe. Hence the clone trooper like colored armor plates.

I also cut off his lightsaber and drilled a pin in there (this is happening to the unfinished Obi-Wan as well). I'm much happier with this result. Although, I've learned to be a little more careful about it. I almost wrecked his tiny hand trying to pin his lightsaber. I'll have to make sure to check in the future that the pin and drill are both smaller than the hand before I cut off the weapon.

I think that I got the lightsaber glow better on him than Diala. Although, to be fair, there was less needed here. Looking at him now, like the Royal Guard Champion, I'll bet I could put him on some ice skates and he would look rad. Long strides get you that extra speed and distance...

I'ma shoot and shank ya!

Despite being a spy, Verena never made the cut to the big leagues. It's not that I didn't want her. She has good health, decent attack die, and some nasty abilities. Unfortunately, her cost is a little higher than I would like for just the one unit (or figure). I would have had to cut one to two units to get her on the team. I couldn't figure out who to drop for her. So she got dropped. She's got a wicked sculpt though.

I'm really happy with how Verena turned out. Especially her duster and the snow (I think I used white glue, white acyrlic paint, and baking soda). I'll have to put her in a team just so I can show her off.

Halt! Halt! Halt!

I had been toying with the idea of playing a Rebel Trooper list, but it didn't excite me. I did however paint up these Rebel Troopers.

They turned out alright. I did some damage to their helmets and bases. Similar to the Stormtroopers that I had painted way back. The two larger bases were actually made from a cast I took of other bases that I had. I had some Fimo and figured why no? I'm not to concerned if a group of lowly Rebel Troopers (sorry guys) have bases that are less than stellar. I'll save the good bases for the unique characters or at least units that I like and use my poorly replicated ones for units like this.

There wont be any Imperial Assault Skirmish events where I play for December. Which is good. Because I'm in the middle of painting a LOT of skeletons. I'll post them when I finish painting them. I'll also try to post the members of my Rebel Spy team that have been painted. But that's an entry for another day.

Agent Blaise and the ISB Agents

A little while ago, my friend James and I decided that we should try out Frostgrave. It's a fantasy based skirmish game that is brand-free. So you can use any miniatures that you want. You get a Wizard, an apprentice, and then you hire units to your cause. Then I guess, attack the opposing Wizard in hopes of getting his treasure (and maybe his spell book?) I haven't read the rules, so I don't really know all that much.

Anyways, it sounds like a fun game. But we've both been way too busy to do anything more than talk smack to each other (that being said, I did start painting miniatures that I plan to use for my army). I mention this because I made some terrain for James as a part of his birthday gift.

These rock pieces were made from Femo (Fimo?) that I've had traveling with me for about ten years. I had a mold that I was able to make a cast from. Then quickly painted them up.

 

These pieces were made from some foamcore scraps that I got for free from a local art store. The styrofoam came from some packaging (go-go reuse!) . Plus the obvious basing materials. I think that they look pretty good for what they are. I don't really have place to store terrain, nor do I usually play games that require it. So I'll probably never make enough that my stuff looks amazing. But it gets the job done.

Alright. Now on to some sexy Star Wars miniatures. We had a tournament last week and I finished second via a coin toss (I was tied for first. It was a fun event and I don't really care how I place. So it was all good in my books.)! It was a Rebel Spy team. I'm sure I'll get to showing it one day. But the poorly taken pictures that I have to show you today, were not a part of my team. They pretty cool though. For a while I was trying out an Imperial Spy team (before I switched to a Jedi team which then morphed into a Rebel Spy team) and these units were the guys that made the team fly...

Look at me!

The ISB Agents were....I guess not all that fun to paint. I think they had more color in the box art. But my agents were pretty dark in tone. It was a while ago, but I think I painted them black and then did a lot of layering with greys to lighten them up. I wanted them to be black, but with a little bit of light reflecting. I probably could have highlighted more. But, as with most of my stuff, I kept it subtle.

No, look at me!

They are an interesting unit to play. You need to keep the group within line of sight of each other as they have an ability that lets the other interrupt to preform an attack. So you need to be aggressive enough to get their abilities to trigger. But safe enough to keep both units alive.

Agent Blaise is one of my favorite Imperial Assault miniature sculpts. I don't care what anyone says. His pose is unique and there is a ton of fun to be had, if want to spend the time to give his pose context. But I figured that since he looked like a scout trooper, I would go with the speeder bike theme.

And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!

Years ago, Knight Models had the rights to make Star Wars miniatures. They were glorious, but expensive (it was a British company. I probably could have dealt with the currency conversion, but the shipping? Killer.). I found out about them shortly before they lost their license. So most of the sculpts that I wanted were no longer available. I do however, have a few. One of them being a scout trooper on his speeder bike. Sadly there were no instructions to put the bike together and there were more than a few pieces. So I never finished putting it together and painting it.

Get back here and fix my bike!

I could have just chopped off the bike pieces that I wanted, but that seemed wasteful. So instead I made a mold of the nose and then made a cast from that. I used a pin for the broken shaft. When painting the bike nose, I tried to make it look dirty...although it does kind of look like how I make things look rusty. Eh, I still think that it looks cool. I think my scratching technique needs some work though.

I had a lot of fun painting Blaise, probably because he was in the scout armor, which at least breaks up all of white that you would normally see in stormtrooper armor (which I disike painting). I made him a little older looking with some white streaks in his hair. His visible age coupled with the five o' clock shadow, lends itself to the grumpy old man that I was aiming to create. I could have easily put him on grass with a sign saying 'keep off of lawn'. Agent Blaise is probably one of my favorite painted miniatures.

...and don't you ever come back! Wait, I didn't mean it. Come back!

Everyday I'm smuggling...

I've always been a big fan of smugglers in Star Wars. The idea of going to strange locations, getting mixed up in unexpected trouble and....barely making ends meet? Um...okay, maybe that last one isn't very exciting. I'm kind of a conservative introvert, so I'm not sure that I would be up for that kind of thing in real life. But I'd like to think that if space ships and aliens were involved, I'd be in like Flynn.

Needless to say, I was pretty excited to paint up these two Rebel Smugglers: Jyn and...Alliance Smuggler (seriously? Lame. We can do better. In fact, we will. From this day forward, Alliance Smuggler will be known as Baldr Dash. Ha.). I can't attest to how well they play in the campaign mode. But they are both fun characters to run in Skirmish mode. You just need to be sneaky with them, as they don't have a lot of life and can go down quickly if you're not careful.

Jyn and Baldr Dash

Normally I'm not too concerned if the miniatures that I paint match what they look like on the card art. But I'm a big fan of orange, so I decided to paint Jyn pretty close to the card art. I tried to make her orange jacket pop a little more than I normally might. Usually I do a few highlights, but it still tends to come out subtle. So I decided to do more and brighter highlights. It actually comes out a little yellow in some spots. I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

Look at that brown stripe!

When painting Baldr, I didn't remember what his card art looked like, and didn't really care. If you listen to the Hutts, smugglers are a dime a dozen...a credit a dozen? So why should they all look alike? I knew that I wanted white, grey and green in the color scheme (I also sneaked some orange in there as well).

There must be some real kick to that blaster, that Baldr looks like he's falling back. I am happy how these two turned out. But after taking some pictures, there are still some things that I can improve on. Cleaning the mold lines better (it always looks like I've got it all before I start to paint. I guess I'll need to up my quality control), cleaning up some lines and putting more highlights and other added touches to really make things stand out.

I also need to work on taking better pictures. That or hassle James again. I noticed that some of my earlier pictures turned out really grainy. Shame Mark, shame. At least with these pictures you can see a little bit of my techno colored workstation.

I'll have a few more Imperial units to show you shortly and then an army full of Rebels. Currently I've been playing around with Rebel spy teams with mostly unique characters. I get a lot of activations, but quite a few of the characters are soft. Plus there is some other stuff that I've been working on, that I would like to show. Until next time.

Have blaster. Will travel.

Hello and happy Thanksgiving (to those who live in Canada)! I'm excited to report that I'll be starting to paint miniatures again soon. I took a break to transfer my paints that were in pots to droppers. That task is now complete and my work station has been cleaned up so that I might actually get some work done in that area. Woot!

Today we're going to look at some mercenaries that I painted (relatively) recently. Rodians are one of my favorite species in Star Wars (They're probably tied with Trandoshans for top billing in my book.) I knew before purchasing them, that the Hired Guns (featured below) were not going to be great for the purpose of using in Imperial Assault Skirmish. The poor mercenary faction just wasn't getting the love that they needed (although that is changing). They are costed cheaply, but go down easily. Regardless, I was super excited to paint them. Especially since there was no word when Greedo would appear for me to paint.

Blue thing.

Red thing.

I wanted to keep them looking like a working crew of two, who shop at the same mercenary outfitters. So to distinguish between them, I gave them different bases (of course I did) and gave them each a different colored shoulder plate stripe. I'm really happy with how their faces turned out. Since painting these guys, Greedo has come out. I'm excited to paint him, but he is stuck in the queue. Who knows, maybe he'll trick someone into changing numbers with him...

The Ugnaught workers came from the Bespin's Gambit set. Where the Mercenary faction finally started to get some love. I haven't had a chance to use them yet. But they also get a junk droid that they can use to cause some havoc. Apparently the droid can occupy the same space as a figure, so they didn't get a miniature (only a square card cutout). However, I have a few small droids from other miniature lines. So I'll probably paint one of those up and use it when I can. Just because miniatures are more fun than card cut outs.

One of these days I'll set up a better way to take pictures (or just ask James for his help again). I think the first picture turned out better, but those pesky shadows got in the way. Oh well.

Have you been drinking on the job?

No man, this arm I'm carrying is just really heavy...

I like how the Ugnaught's turned out. I think the one on the left is my favorite. I tried to style him after Hulk Hogan. There was no particular reason behind it. That's just what I went with. Unfortunately the base I put him on ended up making him look like he was about to fall over. I guess I need to pay a little more attention when I'm basing my figures. I dig those junk bases. If you look close enough, you can see an Iron Man arm on the Blonde Ugnaughts base.

The Wing Guard were a nice addition to the game. Mostly because it finally gave the Mercenary faction Troopers. Both Imperial and Rebel factions have had Troopers for quite a while. I guess when people think of Mercenaries, they think of cool bounty hunters. Not the low level foot soldiers.

While I was happy that the Mercenary faction finally had troopers, I wasn't so excited to paint six identical Wing Guards. They deploy in groups of three, so I wanted to make each of them look unique. Either through figure modification, skin tone and hair color, or bases, since they're all wearing the same uniform.

Don't shoot me!

As you can clearly see, the second Wing Guard from the left looks like he is flinching. Clearly he is the rookie of the group. I gave two of them ground terrain, since the game does feature that terrain in some of their maps. The other two, I tried to make their bases look like steel plates (also featured in various maps). I've seen it done to great effect. But...I'm pretty sure those bases had been airbrushed. Mine...not so much. However, I recently acquired an airbrush and will hopefully have some time in the near future to accomplish that look.

'But wait,' you say, 'that was only four figures. You said that there were six Wing guards.' Yup. I thought I would have some fun and Lethal Weapon things up. So for the last two Wing Guards I tried to make Danny Glover and Mel Gibson unofficial Wing Guards. Ha. I think I'm funny. Naturally they received nice bases for their contributions to cinema.

I'm getting too old for this...

Droid Bar

Hey, hey, hey, it's Mark DesLauriers! And have I got some miniatures to share with you!

Okay, Fat Albert rip off intro aside. I do have some miniatures to share with you and it's a good thing that we allow their kind in here. I painted these droids all around the same time.

Lets go to the Droid bar, Droid bar, Droid bar!

I was super excited to get C-3P0 and R2-D2 painted up. Sadly, I don't like how 3P0's paint job turned out. The gold color isn't quite right. Maybe I'll go back and re-paint him one day. Maybe Force Awakens him up a bit and give him a red arm. He's a fun figure to use in Imperial Assault Skirmish as well. He's slow, but can give allies a boost and if adjacent can complicate things for enemy attackers.

R2 was a lot of fun to paint. He had lots of little details to paint and I don't think I've quite gotten over painting white yet. I made his 'feet' pretty dirty. I figure that no matter how many times he gets an oil bath, those are the first things to get dirty. R2 is also fun to use in skirmish, although not for fighting. Usually I just set him up next to a terminal and use his ability to draw extra command cards.

Blam! Murdered you.

IG-88 was a pretty easy miniature to paint. He's mostly all the same metal color. I think I made his blaster rifle darker, to give it some contrast from the rest of him. You can clearly tell that I was having a good time making feet dirty. As IG-88 also looks like he was stomping around in a muddy puddle. He's a pretty tough bounty hunter in Imperial Assault Skirmish as well. I have a friend who likes to use him to great effect. He has a higher cost, which I guess is the trade off.

I tried to play around when painting the Medical Droid. I think I painted him a metallic color and then gave him a green glaze. Then proceeded to throw washes at him followed by some dry brushing. I think it turned out alright. Saska, unfortunately is the result of being tired and done with painting for the day. I had tried to wet blend her jumper, but was left frustrated with the results. So then I just threw some green at her and then gave it a wash and more or less called it a day. Her face also turned out poorly, in my opinion. She isn't likely to be a figure that I use in Imperial Assault, so I doubt that I'll ever come back to her. But maybe. For the bases, I tried to give them an air brushed look. Or at least to make it look like they were standing on metal decking. I may or may not go back and re-base them.

In older miniature news:

We're nothing but trouble!

...getting a shot of their 'good' side.

The man eating tile on the left was a gift from my girlfriend. Despite being mostly stone, it was fun to paint. Probably because it is eating someone. I guess when roaming in a dungeon, it pays to carry a ten foot pole around with you.

The goblin like creature in the middle, is a GW mini. It came in a set of four. They are supposed to be hunters. The other miniatures in the pack are equally cool (although I haven't gotten around to painting them yet). I like how his nose turned out. I believe I achieved it through wet blending (it was one of my first attempts at the process).

The terrifying chest on the right is a mimic from the Reaper Miniatures line. Both it and the stone tile were pewter. The goblin in the middle was a resin figure. Anyways, this was my second attempt at a non metal metallic paint job (the gold trim). I think it turned out alright for what it was. I love how non metal metallics look when done right. But the time involved is a lot greater than just using metallic paint (at least for me and my skill level). I made the dungeon tile base that it is on, using green stuff. I was pretty proud of the result, although you don't actually see too much of it.

Anyways, there's work to be done. So I best get gone. Thanks for looking at my poorly painted miniatures!

Wookiee Mania!

It's looking to be a slow work day, so I figured why not post some poorly painted miniatures! It sure beats transferring my Citadel paint pots to eyedroppers. Why would I take on such a tedious task? I'm glad that you asked! So when I first got back into painting miniatures, I needed some paint. GW locations were nearby and they had been around for quite a while. So I figured that they were the way to go. Conveniently they were changing over the colors names and branding. So I picked up a carry case that could hold miniatures and contained all of the new colors and technical paints; at a decent price. Ps. There are a lot of colors and different technical paints.

The GW paints are pretty thick. Which I don't mind, because you can easily thin the paint. What I don't like is that their paint costs more, for less (compared to Reaper, Vallejo, Game Air. I can't say either way about the P3 line.). That being said, it is easier to find their paint than those other brands (P3 is probably the exception). However I did find a hobby store that carries the Vallejo and Game Air lines.

The major sticking point for me, in regards to the GW paint line. Is that the paints come in pots. So you need to drop your brush in there to get the paint out (they do have a little tray on the lid that holds some paint). Which is fine if you are only using one color. If you are pulling multiple colors onto your (wet) pallet, you are constantly having to clean your brush in between pulling colors. Worse, this is the case even with their airbrush paint line (which makes no sense to me, but I get that they already have the paint pots).

Reaper, Vallejo, Game Air, as well as some other paint lines come in eye droppers. You want color? Just drop a few drops and away you go. Much quicker in my opinion. So I decided to switch all of my Citadel paints from pots to droppers. I bought a bunch for super cheap on line and now...now I actually have to put some work into transferring them over. It will be worth it in the end, but it isn't something that I look forward to doing. So my work area is currently a mess. I suppose I should get that done sooner rather than later. I do have a bunch of miniatures that I want to paint. Anyways, on with the show!

Wookiee Madness!

At the last tournament event at one of our local gaming stores, I ran a team mostly comprised of Wookiees. Because why not? They're tough! Sadly, they're also a little slow and if your opponent can stun them and keep a little distance, they can't do a lot. I think I ran one elite unit and one regular unit, in addition to Chewbacca and some ranged units. Either the Rebel Saboteurs or the Echo Base Troopers.

Team Grey

Since I was running with two different Wookiee Warrior units, I decided to paint each group a different color with a different base set. That way I could easily distinguish between the two units.

Team Brown

I also gave them different colored arm bands. I'm happy with how their fur turned out. Lots of layering and lots of washes. I think their scratched up swords also look good. I'm not sure if you can tell or not, but with team Brown, one of the Wookiee's has a lighter blond fu manchu moustache. Ha. He's definitely ready to tear off his shirt and throw down!

Who are you and what have you done with Chewie?

I figured that I may as well paint all of my Wookiees. I'm disappointed with how Chewbacca turned out. I felt like their was a lot of pressure there, because everyone knows what Chewbacca looks like. It doesn't really look like him. He just looks like another Wookiee to me (speciesist, I know). I did like how the rust turned out on his base. I feel like I've gotten rust on a base (and probably weapons) down. I have some rust powder that I've been meaning to try out. Most likely on something large and filled with metal surfaces. Large miniatures kind of intimidate me at the moment. However, that might change once I get the hang of my airbrush.

Chop dem giant Kashyyyk vegetables!

He's definitely putting his weight into this swing

I like how both Gaarkhan and his base turned out. Stepping on that stone fit with his sculpt and really makes it look like he's coming down hard on someone with his vibro glaive. He's not someone that you want to mess with. I can't remember what he is like for Imperial Assault Skirmish. Chewbacca is fun to use, but too expensive for what you're getting. You get 40 points to build your army and he costs 15 points, I believe. He does tend to stick around, but that's a lot of points for one character.

As usual, the professional looking photo was provided by my good friend James. The poorly taken photos were provided by my handheld portable phone device.