Averaigne royal family

Every kingdom has a royal family. In the case of my campaign setting of Averaigne, it's a fairly young kingdom but they are still on their eleventh king in the 250 or so years since the joining of the crowns.

Perhaps not that easy to read, but I now have nine generations of the direct line of Averaignian royalty safely included in my Family Echo account. There's death in childbirth, infertility, plague, a shipwreck, a loyal uncle during a minority regency, and a rebellion so far. I need to squeeze in at least one death in battle or jousting accident, and develop a bloodline that will have a reasonable claim on the throne to spice things up, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with having fleshed it out thus far.

Amazing what can be achieved while a bunch of fifteen year olds are doing a test!

Workbench Rampant

After a few months in which I've been using my desk for non-gaming creativity, I've has a burst of mojo. Geeking hasn't been abandoned in the interim, however, and my two sons and I are nearly half way through a 2-teams-each Bloodbowl league.

Fortunately I can fit two pitches side by side so the little Rablings can fluke their way to victory over me simultaneously... I am actually a little miffed that I've taught the older one to play skaven so effectively!

D&D party - WIP 2

Those of you who lie awake at night, worrying over my ability to finish painting any figures to completion need fret no longer. At the end of week three of 2018 I have finished three figures, and am probably only one session away from finishing three more. I've amazed even myself!

Here are the current three WIP figures (two Ral Partha, and I think the dog is one of Farmer Maggot's hounds from GW's film tie-in range). I'll save showing the finished miniatures until the whole adventuring party is complete and, if I'm feeling brave, varnished.

These figures represent Dumnorix (cleric of Alathea and righteous smiter), dog (who hasn't appeared in our adventures yet; he's one of the two additional pieces that got lifted from the shelf of shame to join this project), and Nausicaa (elf of great diplomacy, great hair, and great boots).

D&D party - WIP 1

I'm enjoying painting up these Ral Partha figures for the current characters in my Averaigne campaign which we're playing using the BFRPG rules for a retro-D&D experience. All are WIP, and just snapped with my phone - proper photographs will happen when I finish a batch of them. There are eight characters in total, and two extra pieces if I get round to it. The plan is to complete them all by the end of February.

Gwen Smoll
A tough little fighter who will, when the situation demands, "just whack it with [her] axe".

Oiseau Nouriture
Lights his sword on fire to receive divine guidance.

The man with no name
The next character that Ed O will doubtless get killed in highly characterful but entertainingly idiotic ways.

A little more progress

My wife had some of her friends round last night, so I escaped to my painting desk in the cellar and splashed a bit more paint around.

Beeeeef!

I've been slowly getting my painting mojo back, and decided to get out my wet-palette and the matt-medium to have a go with thinner paints and intermediate tones. I use mostly Foundry triads, but the step between the shades on some colours (especially flesh) is too stark for my taste, so a little blending is needed alongside a touch more boldness with the brush, perhaps.

Anyway, this in-progress minotaur is the result of that fiddling about to date:

I think he's coming along nicely so far. One thing that surprised me with this sculpt was finding that he's wearing gloves,which I guess I'll paint black or very dark blue with the leather studded armour in black. Opinions are very welcome! The mechanical left hoof will get some classic black'n'white checks and some plain steel.

Let me know what you think,
Rab