My hobby by Little Joe

[Little Joe]

Well a shameful silence, but those night goblins had some kind of force field keeping me away from my paint desk. I have them almost finished now, another hour I think.

The water splashing effect for my Boglin had some setbacks as well. I had to try a few things but I think I have it right this time. It is currently curing and I will judge it in the morning. I also started some new bases for the Bayourks for the same faction and want to make a basing tutorial out of it for swamp bases. These are the models with the only Orc (free 40k one with WD) I have painted, as you can see they dwarf him:



And I did an inventory of my Goblin bits and assorted conversion bits and compared this against my wants. For some reason I have all the bits (minus a few upper bodies, but those I can green stuff) needed and have started to clean and assemble them (two units of fifty). So here are the first five, two champions, two heroes and a banner:





I will not convert all, but most will be converted monkey rats also known as 6th edition Skaven. The Bretonian Goblin has his weapon not yet glued on because I first need to make the one next to him with the coconuts and position accordingly. To his right will be Gubbinz for encouragement. The banner bearer is from Ruglud's Orcs.

EDIT: And yes I ruined a very nice dwarf model I had double with the "false beard/dwarf Gobbo).

[Little Joe]

Some things finished last month this time. For the Tale of terrain builders to finish a tower being build and successfully finished the Tale one day before the final deadline:













Busy enough base but otherwise nice and clean, easy to update if needed. It only spend about five years to get some work done on it last time. I think it needs a blue face when I have painted my blue skull goblins.

And here is my group shot of this Tale of Terrain Builders:



And for the Tale of Skirmish Game Painters two Britanan snipers for Relics by Tor Gaming finally finished:

[Little Joe]

And of course the Boglin with the catfish from Warploque Miniatures properly based:











THE BASE
The most important lesson learnt was that less is better. At first I tried to get too much of it on the base and was not happy with the result, after some reduction in dry fits it looked a lot better.
I have followed the tutorial posted by Hastings75 for the droplets. Though I did not have a dog at hand some other source for hairs was needed. I started with the thin hair and super glue but it was not what I wanted, so I used the clear "window color" I was going to use on the base anyhow. Problem with first trials was the strength of thin fibres, the mass was too great and they bend.
I had better results with a rather thick fishing line kind of thread. This also meant I was able to properly pin them onto the model and the base The "window color" is quite thick and is easy to model some droplets. Make more then you need to have shapes (thick ending, thick bottom, thick in the middle and combinations thereof) to choose from, I made nine and used five of them. Three were used at the fin to get a decent splash, here I pinned them into place and then build up a wave in between with the "window color". One was used as water falling down and creating circles on the fin held up on the other side. It was pinned to the base and cut to fit, then I used "window color to properly fix it and get extra waves in circles at the base. The last one used was cut in two and ended up on the tail to give a sense of multiple directions of water flying off.
Of course it got a blue and green wash and some paint when it was done.

I re-enlisted for the Tale of Terrain Builders to build a table and for the first time will participate in the Tale of Fantasy Painters as a man with Vampire Counts. And I will continue in the Tale of Skirmish Game Painters because it really tickles my creativity.

I made a mock up of my table plans for the Tale of Terrain builders and bought some plastic terrain:



Basically it is a box with two lids. The lids are the gaming tables, both measure 90x90cm or ~3'x3'. Add some wheels and a few handles and you have a good transport and storage system, completely dust free. It will also allow me to make the tables 3D with a lot of detail. The aim is one per half year, so that would be one per tale. but since I plan to do them side by side at least until sanded it might get done a bit faster.
This is mainly because I will buy the wood necessary in one go, precut at once gives a better fit. There are still many points unknown that I will tackle along the way. To save some time I got a few plastic terrain sets and will order a Tabletop World Cottage soon. The first table will be a cemetery/bog I have wanted to do for a long time.

[Solun Decius]

Nice updates man!
You've got a very coherent set of good terrain there after the tale and the table/box idea looks great. I think if you scale it to 90x90 you won't have to have it as deep as you've made the mock up though.

[Little Joe]

Very true, the PUR foam is 6cm thick two layers allow for 12cm diffrence in height and with a tree it is about 20cm per side. So it will be thick, but not as thick as in the mock up. I am scavanging some paper to start a (bird view) design in 1:1 scale as I have found a 9x9cm box on image software lacking.

To not go without images I quickly finished some NG. A "fanatic" unit filler and my first mangler squig. Also a size comparison with the other larger squigs from the current range and Gobbla still is the largest as he should be.











The mangler base still needs a few mushrooms and a chain added, but I very happy with the result so far.

EDIT: I just noted I need to fix the tongue to a nice purple.

[Little Joe]

Long time no update, last month I have mainly prepared for the Tale of Fantasy Painters, just cleaning and building models. Not much to show.

But I also finished my forest troll for the Tale of Skirmish Game Painters:









And a shot of the base where there is a hole where the rock could have been ripped from already filling with water (swamp theme):



And some WIP for that same tale for this month, next up are the next three Varrier and an Evocatour, then I will do all the bases in one go.

[Little Joe]

Talk about irregular updates...

Sorry for that but it will most likely be monthlies from me because I decided to just show major updates and painted stuff from now on here. Starting with a late compilation of this months tales, here are the skirmish games miniatures from the last month of the second edition with a finishing shot:

Finally I finished my first Quar, standard crusader uniform squirrel Quar (radio):





And some reinforcements for the Vaettir, and Evocatour with his mobile Maaj supply in the shape of some Elvspon.







A group shot of this tale:



I almost doubled my output and am working hard on cleaning, building and basing for the next tale.

For the Terrain Builders I have started with the table(s), the first lid has the basics done:



Still a lot to do, but I reserved half a year to get this done, so still about five months to go.

The Tale of Fantasy painters saw a low model count start, I still had some building that needed to be done:







Sorry for the slow down in stuff for a while but I need all the time I can get to jostle these three tales.

[Little Joe]

Another month gone and another update, these tales keep me busy. But probably in the next post I have something not Tale related as well.
Also trying out my new light box, I need to improve and learn a lot here.

Tale of Fantasy Painters: 25 Crypt Ghouls with a champion upgrade.








Comparison shot done the old way:



Champion close up try out:



The Tale of Terrain Builders, just a small update:





A wall build from little foam bricks a basement done and a lot of areas started upon. Still two months building time left here.

[Little Joe]

For Relics I collect one full unit of each for now (or each sculpt), since the max unit size for Docgas is 3 I had one left. I had already chopped up the bodies of the second pair in hind quarters and front to do some swapping for unique posing. After contemplating to give it away I decided to turn it into its cousin: a Spatga.
I cut up those parts again and a head as well after removing all the spikes. This was done with a simple small iron saw. To get the shape right I used a wooden clothes peg, mainly because I did not want to cut the angles. Part of the leftovers was used to fill out the chest and shoulders. When I was satisfied, I glued the head back on with two 3mm plasticard spacers and the largest spike as a tail. To get the posing right I made two incisions into the hind legs at the knee. Here I glued two wedges in between to get them into a new position.



First I filled up the body to make it a bulky Dogca. At the head I just added some green stuff to have something to model on in the next steps.
Then I gave it a belly, man boobs and a fat behind:



Next session was the front legs and the head. Then the base and the front legs and in the two last sessions the detail on the back and some drool for the mouth.
This is the end result for a drooling Spatga for which I have to figure out how to make the hole on the base “sizzle”:



Hope you like it. Still a bit of touching up to do, but almost done. When I have finished building and basing the Relics stuff I will post an update on that.

[Solun Decius]

Wow! That green stuffing is really nice. That's basically a complete new model.
Great way to use the deatil of the original but bulk it up to something completely different.

[Little Joe]

@Solun Decius: Thanks, I think this is my current skill level. I have tried a few miniatures from scratch but failed. Upgrading or doing extensive repairs are no problem though and there is much room for improvement.

Here a picture of the Relics stuff ready for base coat:



And the unfinished stuff:



Due to a rule change for the Tale of Skirmish Gamers or rather going back to the roots most of these will not be painted for that tale. I do not mind as the goal of painting a miniature to the best standard you are able to is an very interesting challenge. Instead I signed these up for a painting project at Tor Gaming (Paint along with Gav).

So much stuff that needs done and always shifting priorities keep me turning my head all the time.

[EmperorNorton]

So much stuff that needs done and always shifting priorities keep me turning my head all the time.

I wonder whar that's like.

Whatever you end up doing, I'm looking forward to it. Especially the terrain.

[aku-chan]

Leaving those naked Nuem guy's until last I see, not surprised, those little fellas are a fairly terrifying assembly project.

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

Wow, just discovered this thread - great work the whole way through! Somehow even after following your updates through two Tales of skirmish painters I never found your log here.

That's quite a Relics collection you've built up at this point, guess I'll have to keep an eye out here for updates on them from now on. The paint-along with Gav should be good motivation, though.

[Little Joe]

I wonder whar that's like.

Whatever you end up doing, I'm looking forward to it. Especially the terrain.

Well, I am not the worst around here. On the other hand I do enjoy getting packages, so sue me. And the next month has a few orders planned as gifts to myself as well, bring on that Christmas pay check! I have an excel file with all the money spend and what for, with miniature numbers (thanks to yo) and corresponding calculations. It tells me only ~25% of it is due to a metal rush since finecast, which par one delivery on the way is finished. I have all the models I definitely wanted for my GW dwarfs/O&G/vampires that were in metal, done, finito, for ever. So next year I hope to reduce funds for once. Like you I curse crowd funding for making me spend too much.
The terrain project is very interesting to me, because this time cost is not a factor. I still prefer home made, and over the time I have amassed a heap of left overs. But I want this to be a big show off of what I can do currently with terrain The real costs come at the end when all the grasses and bushes will be added anyhow. I will use a few Tabletop World buildings as well, because I could not even start to contend that quality measured in materials and time.
I find it a pleasing experience so far to have many bits and bobs that need doing to choose from. And I am already very happy as it goes.

Leaving those naked Nuem guy's until last I see, not surprised, those little fellas are a fairly terrifying assembly project.

The real reason to leave them bagged up is space. With their chains I want them to go wild and the assigned shelf already is unable to fit the current Relics miniatures. While I will admit building some was not the easiest metal building I have done so far, it was very interesting.The only ones in need of pinning were the Britanan! Over the years I think I learned a lot, I have the right tools these days, and using green stuff I regard as training sessions.
What I do like a lot about the range is that is is quite easy to swap parts and create conversions to get full units. It is nice to get metals with bits.

Wow, just discovered this thread - great work the whole way through! Somehow even after following your updates through two Tales of skirmish painters I never found your log here.

That's quite a Relics collection you've built up at this point, guess I'll have to keep an eye out here for updates on them from now on. The paint-along with Gav should be good motivation, though.

So why do I drag that signature around? Well to be honest I usually update in those Tales and do monthly updates and reports of everything else here. But Relics will be mostly here and on the Tor Gaming forum. I need more time to paint, I do not think I have ever been this productive before.

[Grain Weevil]

Really nice Plog, great terrain pieces and giant Squigs

[Purplebeard]

I love the shocking glowing blue eyes on those Wraiths

The goblin conversions are very charming too - especially the 'dwarf goblin'.

Great stuff.

[Little Joe]

Really nice Plog, great terrain pieces and giant Squigs

Thanks, a lot of work but well worth it.

I love the shocking glowing blue eyes on those Wraiths

The goblin conversions are very charming too - especially the 'dwarf goblin'.

Great stuff.

Thanks, the eyes look like that in real life, but impossible to get a picture without flash like that. I have a lot to learn.
As much as I like converting gobbos, they are only the icing should I finish the planned units for the Tale of Fantasy Painters early. December has a lot of extra time, but February will be a joker month most likely. I still need to build the 120 Zombies and while doing that I hope to get these 100 done as well (build not painted). Then I could do a boyish second entry of Goblins.
I would so love to have at least the Goblin part of my collection fully done before next year the AoW order is incoming and puts dwarfs back on the menu. Not very likely though, but that should also be my last big in numbers army update for a while, it is time to tackle the boxes the miniatures I have are so conveniently space saving stored away in. Space is the biggest of my worries.

Because I am off today to do some training of the next generation of miniature painters I do not have any noteworthy updates to show. I do however have two available projects I would like to share with the crowd here:

First off, Warploque Monkey is trying to get his Bayourks and a barbarian funded. He has added this years limited Christmas special to any order for this pre order as well, the catch is that it only lasts until tomorrow. Here some pictures of the pre order and the special extra:







Both the Bayourks ad Krunk come with extra bits.
Gibbs looks like a monkey sculpted by a look in the mirror, because by God I have seen that facial expression before.

The second project I currently support is on Indiegogo and of course miniature related as well, but this time it is a nice book full of pictures. Selfish as I am, I want those extra 20 pages so follow this link and make it happen! While I am quite sure the target will be reached, I for one would like more books like these:



The extra 90 pages booklet from the perks with tutorials is maybe even sweeter to me.

[EmperorNorton]

To be honest, I don't see the appeal of such a book at all and I am flabbergasted at the amount of money thrown at that project.

[Little Joe]

To be honest, I don't see the appeal of such a book at all and I am flabbergasted at the amount of money thrown at that project.

The main book is just pictures, but the extras is what I really like. Of course I get a lot of those extras (and pictures) for free here at Warseer. That is one reason why I like Warseer so much.
My hopes are for the book to add some professional images of miniatures in stunning detail with interesting text to accompany it.
Combine this with me liking to read/have books in general, I think that is why it appeals to me.

I think it is so successful, because it is the first, well the first I have seen. The book itself would just cost $20 for the hardback version, which actually is cheap providing the professionalism of the images is up to it. The cover looks good.

I tend to look at the number of backers or rather how many pledged a certain level and I think the number of books sold is indeed higher than expected by me. But I do not know much of publishing books, so that is irrelevant.