My hobby by Little Joe

[Little Joe]

Thanks, yes it does, and I only had to glue a head from my bitz box to the base and sculpt a bit of neck. Reminds me to check with Urgat on progress with the rivers he was working on.

[juicytomatoes]

Oo a dead cow in the lake! Very eerie... love the concept!

[Solun Decius]

Whoa! That pond piece is really really nice. Extra realistic, you can almost smell it

[Little Joe]

Oo a dead cow in the lake! Very eerie... love the concept!

Thanks, the dweller or the general cause of the blood was left out on perpose. It makes the beholder ask questions or use his imagination.

Whoa! That pond piece is really really nice. Extra realistic, you can almost smell it

I sure hope not! Thanks.

I have not done much in the last week because I was mostly not at home. Expect some updates this weekend but probably nothing finished.

[GomezAddams]

Hey bud, any chance you could show us how your doing the bases for the vaettir?

[Little Joe]

Yes I can, I've got another bunch of them of which I will just keep the two Huntawalus. Here you go:

The idea was to make the Vaettir look as if they are part of the base, most have rocky feet. So the slots have to go, pinning helps with small feet.

The basic material is cork, this was bought as a stand for pans on your table (1cm thick for about 1€). You can cut this in about appropriate sizes and store it in a jar, random cuts are better because it will make your bases more diverse.



For smaller models you cut the sides and break it in half, this will leave you with a dipped and a topped half if you did not cut through. The larger ones were just cut at one side. With some small pliers you twist the pieces away you do not want and crop it to fit the base. Give this a few tries first to get a feel for the ripping you will get and keep any parts you get.



Superglue will stick them to your base fast, but to model the base to your liking you should use PVA. The dentist tool you see in the next picture (any thick needle will do) is great for applying cork pieces to the glue and shifting them around. I prefer to use the lip of the base to squeeze a large piece into place and add some smaller ones later on. You can always twist your left over pieces apart if you want a certain sized lump of cork.
Cork was also added to the top to gain more height or to include the feet better. Some bases still have higher flat spaces for variation. Those will get some sand glued on as well.



As you can see the base looks a lot more filled now and the slopes are mostly done. Green stuff will take care of any gaps and those spots you want changed.
*I switched models here*
After that has dried PVA glue was applied to any even surface and sand added.



I keep my basing sand in a jar and put the base in the lid. This way I can poor sand all over it without messing up my table. This way I can also push the sand on with my fingers without getting them messy. This is repeated two or three times depending on the size of the surface. This makes it uneven, remember to spread out the glue and not use drops, those will leave plates of sand and not a flowing surface.



This is another one before basecoating, the floating rock is just a few layers pinned with wire (the hand reminded me off Darth Vadar throwing bulkheads at Luke, I know the model does not do magic, just some fun) . I will turn this into a proper tutorial for the tale, so let me know if anything is unclear while I can redo pictures.

[Little Joe]

Here are some size comparisson pictures for some smaller rocks I am working upon to get a better feel of how to finish the big one:





It already shows how the surface will look later on, the paper glued on also makes the surface very resilient and is great for dry brushing.

[Little Joe]

I am sorry for the irregular updates here, work is slow at the moment. Mainly due to preparing for the Tale of Skirmish Game Painters, for which I put these Vaettir together:









I have done a bit of work for the Tale of Terrain Builders as well and here is a floating rock sammple almost done:

[juicytomatoes]

The floating rock is a cool concept! The model itself is looking great too. Keep 'em coming!

[Little Joe]

And here they come (finished but for a few flowers):





Water pouring from floating rocks is explained by Maaj (magic).




I am building a few vampires from bits and hope to get a full unit of five blood knights. My second giant squig for my mangler is comming along quite well too. I hope to post an update tomorrow.

[EmperorNorton]

Now that is some really innovative terrain and very well executed.
Great stuff!

[HereBeDragons]

Wow! That waterfall is fantastic!! Great terrain, Im very impressed!

[Little Joe]

Thanks, it was great to do something different for a change. I contacted the maker of Relics on his forum with a question about how his world should look like and promptly got a sketch posted with an answer. Apart from a Relics terrain set I am making some sketches for an ant farm for the Quar, based on a picture from that world:



It will need quite some tweeks and I will most likely go for the winged insects the crusader cook is carrying around rather than ants but is very inspirational.

Now for something actually done: while I do like the official models for blood knights, aside from the €, they are a bit too bland for me. By that I mean the vision I have had from that unit for a long time. Probably no longer official canon, but they used to ride out and find the best champions to battle them and if worthy offer them to join. This would take them all around the world and gear gets used and replaced.
So when these warriors gather again at the blood keep once in a while they would no longer have a uniform look. Armour and horses from all over, a warrior can only be as good as his equipment, so when around I would take along the best I could find.
So lately I had all the bits I needed and decided to get started, Using all the metal blood dragons I had this is what it looks like right now:




It needs a lot of detailing again, but you can see where it will go.


This is the second giant squig for my first mangler. Should take a week to finish, but then I will finaly have something to paint.

Now I am off to work for the Tale of Skirmish Game painters, because I actually planned to get something done during easter for that.

[juicytomatoes]

love the waterfall! That was very well executed!

The idea for the blood keep knights is great! The variation will make the unit look interesting and I love the fact that each miniature will tell the story behind each individual.

[Little Joe]

@juicytomatoes: Thanks, like most of my current project it got started and is now slowly being finished. I did start some other vampire conversions for which I might have some pictures later on.

Now I wanted to show what I have finished for the Tale of Skirmish Game Painters so far. First up some Vaettir Varbres, painting darkness is not easy and I might have overdone it with the orange:


And a new basing experiment with some Quar pigs, a flowery meadow:

[bluewolf74727]

there is some really nice stuff in hear keep up the good work looking forward to seeing more

[Little Joe]

@bluewolf74727: Thanks, finally some stars, but I do not think I post regularly enough for five of them. But still thank you very much!

On the problem of not posting enough, I read my own thread and was amazed at the amount of painted models for this year. It seems that I doubled my heap with this months models for the Tale of Skirmish Game Painters (not counting the chase since it is part of a terrain piece). The shame .
To remedy this at once I started the next models for that tale and hope to finish them in time as well. A Death kiwi from Warploque miniatures and two Vstonin:



By the way WarplockMonkey has a new "cast em up project" with Halflings. Pre-Order some if you like them and want to support a young company.

I also started more conversions for my vampire counts:



These will not be painted soon and need some green stuff, I am building them to have some choice for the next Tale of Fantasy Painters.

EDIT: For some reason I could just not strip this one properly. I can get most models as new but this one eluded me for some unknown reason. But it will be no problem when repainting it.

[bluewolf74727]

I don't go by how regularly people post it is what I see if I think what you do is good enough for five stars then in my eyes your worth five stars and anyway you post more regularly than I do an i still have four stars

[Little Joe]

@bluewolf74727: I said I do not update regularly, much appreciated anyway. Thanks.

Here are some pictures from a Warploque Miniatures Death Kiwi (50mm base), I made some new pictures of to show real colours for a change:







I enjoyed painting it and the swamp base came out great. This is the first miniature for my Bayourks.

EDIT: I need a light box.

[Little Joe]

I think I finished painting the Vstonin, hope you like them (bases are not done):





The timing looks good to finish three Varriers for the painting contest at Tor Gaming. Not that the contest is important, I already preordered the price. But it gets things done and I need to speed up.

First I need to go and finish a forest now, the deadline for the Tale of Terrain Builders is closer and I want something done for last month.