Right place, right time

That's right, Caslon Antique and a skull!

I was pootling online earlier today (prepping for a new term, honest) when the fab pencil sketch above appeared on the Oldhammer Community FB page with the challenge to turn it into a header image for the group for a while. Well, it was either that or double check my lesson plans for tomorrow, so I fired up Photoshop and quickly slapped some Caslon Antique lettering on. Sometimes getting there first is more important than being actually artistic, and simple can be best! It now graces the top of the page, which was a nice little geeky fillip at the end of the holiday.

Happy birthday to me

Ok, three days late, but that's still under 1% of the way to the next one so I'm going to claim it anyway. I had a lot of fun, was the subject of much generosity, and generally felt feted, feasted and well-loved. Nice!

There was even a rare outburst of gaming giftage from my parents who got me the first hit of a new drug starter set of the Star Wars: X-Wing miniatures game. It. Is. Totally. Awesome! Seriously, I love it, and so do the two boys, despite them never having watched the films (the younger one isn't ready yet but it would cause more strife than it's worth to show it just to the elder). They picked it up quickly (the mechanics are simple) and even pulled off a frankly excellent feint and pounce manoeuvre between them in a pair of x-wings through an asteroid field that allowed them both to double-team and evaporate my lead TIE while remaining out of any return fire arcs. Curses!

The only downside to the game I have found so far is the delicacy of the laser cannons on the x-wings. I had a real scare when one of them got stuck on its peg and when it came off I'd knocked a cannon skew. Cannon duly fixed, I decided to "improve" the stands...

First, fleet and tools assembled - clippers, scalpel, superglue, and 2mm pin-vise.

LAF resurrection project (gladiators) - 4

Another one, this time the iconic retiarius. These lightly armoured gladiators didn't even get a helmet but did have that unique weapon combination of a net and trident. With equipment like that, it's not surprising that they were considered to be the fisherman striving against the sea as represented by the murmillo. Attacking from beyond sword-stab distance, and relying on skill and cunning to disarm or entrap their opponent in the net before finishing them off, set them apart from other gladiators and they seem to have been considered at a slight unfair advantage or even effeminate in their behaviour!

As far as this project is concerned, though, I now have three gladiators from which I can from two historical pairings (murmillo vs thraex, and murmillo vs retiarius), leaving me one more to do from my initial pledge (a secutor) who fought against the retiarius and probably the other two as well to take me up to five pairings. His arm needs redrilling and filling to get the forearm to attach properly which has been the cause of the delay.

Enough waffle, here he is:

Given that I always seem to struggle with painting (human) skin, I quite like how this chap turned out. I did a few really-really-really-watered-down glazes of mid-tone flesh (Foundry, 5B) mixed with Army Painter Soft Tone ink and that tied it all together nicely.

Now back to sorting out greenskins...

Rab

Orc boss, now with shield

My elaborate intentions for a checked border around the face were abandoned very early on yesterday evening when I thought I really should finish this fellow off, so I've gone for just a face instead. I think it's more textured in its highlighting than the previous shields I've done, giving it a hint of Bob Olley, which is never a bad thing!

Two slightly different views especially for you:

I have another couple of orcs WIP, a few goblins I need to rebase from hex to 20mm square (sorry Gaz!), and a few teeny tiny "coblynau" snotlings that need some greenery on their bases. Then I really should take a group shot of my slowly growing greenskin horde.

TTFN,
Rab

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away

Click play to hear Epica's soundtrack for this post...

 

As Molesworth and any other fule kno, space is really big. So big that any light we see from distant stars has been travelling a very long time. So when you look at the night sky and spy a cluster of stars, you're seeing a galaxy far, far away as it was a long time ago. And we all know what that means - lasers, spaceships, jedi, evil empires, pewpewpewpew!

There's a particularly beautiful swirl of stars that fall within what sailors and airmen in the northern hemisphere have often used for navigation called the "summer triangle" and looks like this when snapped by Hubble:

The brightest stars are between 16 and 35,000 light years away. I reckon 35,000 years counts as a long time ago. Perhaps if we all look really carefully....

Recouping the costs of gaming

I've got a sale of surplus lead and plastic going on at the moment over on the Lead Adventure Forum - do swing by and fund my purchase of other lead :)

Click -> here

Ah, go on, you know you want to...

Rab

The costs of gaming - April 2015

Jan 2015  -  £00.00 (0/0/0)
Feb 2015  -  £24.99 (5/5/0)
Mar 2015  -  £46.11 (20/7/-13)

April 2015

• BOUGHT - siege tower and ox cart via the FB group £21.40

• TRADED - 1 halfling (swapped for a troll, but I won't get him until August
• SOLD - a Great Unclean One £15

• TOTAL for April - £6.40   (2/12/10)

Total net. expenditure for 2015 to date     = £77.50

Remaining acceptable expenditure for 2015 = £72.50

In something similar to the LAF lead-hoarders vow, I'm also recording the number of figures purchased versus the number painted, which is what the numbers in brackets after each month's total represents - (net acquired/painted/net total for the month). So, here you go:

Net. figures acquired in 2015   = 27
Of which, painted to date        = 0
Total no. figures painted         = 24

Net. hoarding status = -3

Oh, so nearly green...
Rab

I've got a bad feeling about this...

The bad feeling? Not that there'll be another set of abominations like Episodes 1 to 3, because this looks absolutely, hysteria-inducingly, excellent. No, the "bad feeling" is like every penny in my wallet suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.

You see, as well as focussing my oldhammering on a few specific models (Got a C31 hill troll spare? Send it my way, there's a good fellow!) to round out warbands I've accrued the lead for already, I've been captured by the idea of the Star Wars: X-Wing game and will hopefully be getting it for my birthday in a few weeks time.

Tokens! Dice! Pre-painted ships! Star Wars!

Like a GW boxed set, however, there's only so much you can do with the included models (an x-wing and two ties) and I've been pricing up gaming mats, more fighters, the Falcon (of course - duh!), and possibly a larger ship or two. I blame two things for my fall into a new game, aside from that trailer above. First, my dad took me to see the whole trilogy as my first cinema trip, aged about five. Second, the amazing LucasArts fighter sims for the pc, X-Wing and Tie Fighter. What chance did I have in overcoming the Jedi mind tricks after that?

May the force be with you,
Rab

Shield quandary

Last night I got this fellow from "initial drybrush for metals" up to this stage, and fairly pleased I was too. Black and white checks, stripy trousers, and go-fasta-red all included for maximum orciness:

Stickas!

The sun is shining, the neighbourhood is quiet, my marking is all completed, as are all the DIY jobs I planned to do this fortnight. Life is good! The only downside is that I haven't been able to organise any gaming time due to (enjoyable) family commitments, but to make up for this I have been getting a good bit of painting done.

I posted last week about the "one hour challenge" and my enjoyment of the focus it inspired, along with my surprise at how well the figures turned out. I've tried to keep hold of some of that "just get on with it" mentality for my evening painting in front of a film or suchlike with my wife. I say some of that focus because, for me at least, getting a miniature finished in an hour took total concentration. Which isn't very sociable! Nevertheless, I've now painted all the goblin archers ("stickas" in WFB 3rd Armies nomenclature) that I own. They are all from Kev Adams sculpts from Crooked Claw and include the two that were part of their most recent crowdfunder (the two on the right in the picture below). When I've made a more significant dent in the heap of unpainted lead I've accumulated, I'll either wait for more archers from them, or expand the unit by picking up some of the other post-GW sculpts that Kev has done - I don't want any duplicate sculpts, that would just feel wrong for a horde of gobbos!

So, pictures...

I rather like the variation in size of the sculpts, a nice nod towards a Froudian mentality for goblins

 And then in close up...