Harry The Hammer!

Harry The Hammer is done!

Truth be told there wasn't a whole lot to him.  He's armoured up about as much as a tank so he's predominantly metal.

Having said that when looking at the figure from behind his cloak has some nice detail and the bare arms and legs are a nice touch.

So far so good, Threshold investigators here I come!

-Jay

Hobby Grab Bag - Year End

I've got 4 days left in the year and 4 small projects I want to get done before the ball drops.

First up; Harry The Hammer.  Harry was done as a special edition for the 25th anniversary of Warhammer.  I like the model but don't play a Chaos army for Warhammer so he's sat unpainted in a box for 6-7 years.  I've got an idea I might need some big evil-looking warriors for in the new year so it seemed like it was time for Harry to finally get some paint.

Next up; some replacement investigators for Strange Aeons.  I've played a lot of games of Strange Aeons this past year and I really like the investigator figures I've been using but they are very middle-eastern themed, so I'd like some domestic versions of those exact same characters.  Rick O' Connell and Nigel Bottomtooth should be my first 2 replacements.

I recently picked up the new/current Blood Angels Codex and I would like to make a few changes and upgrades to my existing force to introduce some of the newer elements.  I definitely want some grav weapons because I've been primarily fighting Chaos Marines and I know there are some big Tyranid models coming up against me in the future.  These guys will be the new sergeants for my 2 existing Tactical Squads.

...that leaves my current 2 sergeants out in the cold.  I've decided they will join Captain Fails-a-lot to form the basis of my first Death Company unit.  They will be going through some minor repaints and then I will need to add at least 2 other marines to form a minimum sized unit.

Hopefully you'll see an update a day for the next 4 days!

-Jay

  

Steam punk robots and the return of an old friend

For the second session of my D&D game I will need a fantasy steam punk robot.  Awhile back I purchased the C. Hoffman crew for Malifaux with the intention of painting the robots up to use with a Leviticus crew.  Instead it looks like the Guardian will finally be making it's debut in a D&D game.

The Guardian is an 8'-9' tall robot designed for basic combat and defence operations in Malifaux.  It will be something slightly different in my D&D game but we'll come back to that in a few weeks...

While I had the Guardian out I also decided to paint the Watcher which is a flying construct for the same crew.  To be honest I'm not sure if I'll ever use the Watcher in a game but it's a unique piece so I like having it in the collection.

I also need a wizard-looking figure and I decided to pull out the Vahn Oberen that I had painted when I was planning on playing through the Witchfire trilogy and touched it up a bit for what I need.

That's feels like a lot for one day.  I've got a few odds and ends that will probably end up getting touched up between now and New Years...stay tuned.

-Jay

Assault Marines make their debut!

After waiting forever to finish my first 5 Assault Marines I finally got them done yesterday AND they made their first appearance in a game last night.  I am still planning on going back and re-doing their squad markings as I feel they turned out fairly sloppy and inconsistent.

Trying out both the new edition of 40K and the New Blood Angels Codex for the first time I played a 1000 point game against Stan's forces of Chaos.

Since our last game I have added my Dreadnought and Assault Marines and Stan has added some sort of new tentacle-faced space pony......always with the Space Ponies.....

We played a very tight back-and-forth game but in the end I was able to squeak out a victory 5-to-4.  It was a fun game and the Assault Marines we're actually the deciding factor in the win, taking an objective and killing both the hated Space Pony and a squad of Chaos Marines.

I've got to say for anybody out there who plays 40K and hasn't tried playing Maelstrom Of War with the Tactical Objectives you are really missing out.  Moving from place to place and having both our goals changing constantly created a really fluid and fun game.

-Jay

Up On A Soap Box - Who are you playing games with anyway?

It's funny how some times the trolls on the internet will get all up in arms about something in gaming and it takes awhile to realize that it isn't the first time you're hearing a point being argued by a group of people who get all up in arms about feeling like someone is telling them what to do.

About two weeks ago decent quality preview images of the new Blood Angels tactical squad starting appearing on the net.  People could have talked about the terrific paint jobs, or the evocative imagery, or the fact that it was practically a bitz box you could use to customise dozens of generic marine kits you already had....but no....the main "discussion" was about the new 32mm round bases they were standing on.
Within seconds (literally) forums exploded with "they can't make me re-base all my old figures" and "I can't believe I have to re-base all my old figures", it was an unbelievably negative reaction to a minor product change.
Years ago I had collected Void and Warzone miniatures, and when Void got re-packaged and re-released as Urban War it transitioned from 25mm bases to 30mm Warmachine style bases, same thing for Warzone when it re-emerged this year.  My reaction was to carry on basing my models on 25mm bases to keep a consistent look with my existing painted models.  Other people (I'm sure) chose to go back and re-base their models to match the new look, either decision is fine....but it's YOUR decision.

Around the same time this tempest-in-a-teacup went off I was also spending a lot of my time on line getting ready for my D&D game.  As an aside I decided to re-watch a bunch of episodes of I Hit It With My Axe.  The thing I thought was funny was that in the comments section under one of the videos was a series of questions (polite mind you) about why the figures were based inconsistently to which the GM replied that he honestly didn't care about bases and he just used whatever was at hand.

I've also noticed a trend among "serious" Warmachine players to mark out their facings on their bases, not really an issue but seriously; can you and your opponent not agree which direction a model with eyes is facing?

So my question (it seems like it's always my question on these things) is; who are you playing games with that debates about base size being advantageous or facings being off by a mm or two inform your decision about how you enjoy your toys?

It's YOUR stuff, do what you will with it and your only real goal should be to enjoy what you do with it.  There is no "they" or "them" coming over to your house to police how you build, paint and collect models so do what works for you.  And if your opponents aren't cool with that find new people to play against.

Next year I'll be working on those new Robotech models, I'm sure they'll make an appearance in a Battletech game on their round bases at some point, hopefully that doesn't fry anybody's brain.

-Jay

Thatchertown - The Hall House In The Woods

The party's first expedition to Thatchertown and it's surrounding areas has been successful so far.

After being hired by Red Sheila the group made up of; Wrack (Human Fighter), Varek (Half-Elf Rogue) and Eternity (Tiefling Wizard) made their way through the forest to her ancestral home to rid it of any woodland creatures who had assumed occupancy.

Along the way they happened upon a fallen warrior who was in the process of losing a fight to an Owlbear.  They were too late to save the brave adventurer but they defeated the Owlbear and recovered a magical sword for their efforts.

Once they arrived at the former home of Philos The Red they found it had been overtaken by an unholy alliance of cultists and gnolls for an unknown purpose.

After defeating the evil cult leader they recovered the key to a magical lock that led them to a portal to either a land/world/or dimension of snow and ice....

We ended our adventure as our players stepped through the portal into the area beyond!

I had a great time running my first D&D Next adventure and GMing my first game on Roll20.net and want to send a big thanks out to my players; Darren, Darcy & Stan for rolling some dice and slaying some monsters with me.

The second instalment of The Hall House In The Woods should happen the last week of this year or the first week of next year.

-Jay

Housekeeping - another Cleric

Hi all,

I've been abstaining from posting a lot of what I've been working on lately to keep some surprises from my D&D players this Saturday.  In the meantime I thought I'd start finishing off some odds and ends that have been languishing on my painting desk.

My last blog entry was the Otherworld Cleric I painted for my Dungeon Crawl Classics session.  But before I decided on that figure I had started an entirely different Cleric model with the intention of using it.

I had chosen this model because he had a war hammer and no shield which was my character's basic equipment but when I got him about half-way done I started to get really hung up on the fact that he was way too heavily armoured and physically massive to represent a character wearing chain mail and having a strength of 10.

None-the-less I decided to finish him off this morning to keep him from become yet another half finished project.

I do still have to finish 2 figs for my game on Saturday but time permitting I will get my Blood Angels assault squad that's been "almost done" for 6ish months up here this weekend.

-Jay

A new cleric in an old style

Tonight I got to try Dungeon Crawl Classics (the game system, not the OGL modules) for the first time and I have to say I was super impressed.

To be perfectly honest I'm not generally a big fan of "retro" game systems because along with the nostalgia I can remember all the headaches with old school game mechanics.  But having said that Dungeon Crawl Classics does a great job of using a current modern framework for their game but just dropping a lot of extraneous nonsense that bogs the game down.

For tonight's game I was playing a cleric and I had the perfect figure from Otherworld miniatures to fit the mood of the game.  The figure has a retro aesthetic but is sculpted and cast to the standards we expect from our miniatures today.

Zenithar had a very bi-polar night.  He made a few important rolls and came through on a couple of big occasions for the party but he also bombed quite a few easy checks and had severely incurred the displeasure of his Deity before the session was over.

Lots of fun and I think I'd really like to play again!

-Jay

Zoe's World - Medusa

Zoe's back with another superheroine.

This is a great figure for her because it looks like it could be all kinds of different things; a sneaky ninja, a spider-girl type, or someone just starting to fly.  We've  got one more figure to paint and then Zoe will be ready for her first game of Supersystem!

This is another re-purposed Heroclix model.  At the time I got this figure she probably would have been considered a B-lister that I could count on people not to recognise but with the direction the Marvel Universe is going in she is now a fairly prominent character; Medusa Queen Of The Inhumans.  The funny thing is without knowing who the character was Zoe ended up almost painting her in Medusa's actual colour scheme.

-Jay

An Owlbear for all seasons

As I mentioned the last time I painted an Owlbear miniature; I really like Owlbear miniatures.  It's one of those classic D&D monsters I feel like I could always paint another one of but it seems unlikely I'd ever need a bunch of them for an encounter.

Painting my Ice Gamin (and another fig still on my painting table) got me thinking about doing a few more winter themed models for fantasy gaming in general.  So thinking along those lines I decided to paint a Polar Owlbear.

This is another Reaper Bones model and I have to say in this case the Bones material held a high level of detail and was super easy to paint.  My only complaint about the model, and this would also be true of the original pewter version, is that I really don't like the pose.  It's very dynamic which is good but something about the way it's posed makes me frequently confuse which limbs are which.

I figure there are Snowy Owls and Polar Bears so why not a winter take on the classic Owlbear?

-Jay

Thatchertown - The Campaign Begins!

I'll be kicking off both my first D&D Next game and taking my first stab at actually running a game on Roll20.net in just a couple of weeks now.

I'm planning on using this game (and another I'm running) to create and develop a campaign area that can be dropped into any (hopefully any) fantasy RPG world.  Eventually all of this information will be collected together into a PDF but I thought I'd put the first piece of setting information up here and see what everyone thinks of it.

-Jay

                        Thatchertown – The adventure begins!

Thatchertown is a small settlement set deep into a nameless valley in the north lands.  The town of approximately 4500 is divided into quarters, it is bisected north-south by the old trade road and west-east by the ‘Five Points River’ which feeds into an underground lake located somewhere in the nearby mountain range.

The town was originally founded 15 years ago by Niles Thatcher and ‘The Company Of The Star’ upon their retirement from full-time adventuring.

The culture of the town is routed heavily in trade and barter is accepted as readily as coin for most purchases.  The average home in Thatchertown is two-storeys frequently with the ground floor functioning as some sort of business endeavour while the family living in the house lives on the second floor.

Thatchertown is very much a frontier town without any formal ties to nearby law and order and the domain in which it lies may or may not even be aware of it’s presence.  The town is none the less policed by a private militia in the employ of Niles Thatcher, who nominally report to the mayor of the town.

Upon first arrival in town there are three locations most adventurers will take immediate note of:

The Nightstar

The Nightstar is the local Inn and Public House.  It is owned and operated by Red Sheila the daughter of former Company Of The Star member Philos The Red.  The Nightstar is a three storey structure with the ground-floor being a tap-room/common area, the second floor houses 12 rooms for rent, and the third floor is the offices and private quarters of Red Sheila herself.

Chapel Of The Ancient Oak

The Chapel Of The Ancient Oak is less a proper name and more a description of the centre of all religious activity in town.  Elias Greenleaf (another member of the Company Of The Star) runs open religious services for all who wish to attend in the hollow yet somehow still living trunk of an impossibly ancient oak.   Elias is a Druid by profession but offers services and healing to all regardless of religious denomination.

The Longhouse

In the centre of town sits on of the town’s few one-storey buildings; The Longhouse.  The Longhouse is a massive building which serves as a combination town-hall/courthouse/mayor’s residence.  The current mayor of Thatchertown is Logar Whiteplume.

Is it snowing yet?

Back in the day when I first started playing D&D and reading Fighting Fantasy novels one of the things I really enjoyed was the 'newness' of the monsters.  Although there were orcs and goblins and skeletons and so forth it seemed like every adventure there would be a new creature I'd never heard of that really helped fire the imagination.  As I get set for D&D Next I wanted to add in some creatures that my players won't feel like they've already seen a thousand times.

For our first adventure I wanted some cold weather themed baddies and the Rasputina crew for Malifaux had some models that fit the bill.

These are the Ice Gamin.  Basically artificial magical ice constructs in Malifaux, they will be getting some re-purposing and a slightly new background for our D&D game.  I'm looking forward to listing the rules I'm creating for these after my players have played their way through the encounter.

I also decided to paint the Ice Golem while I was at it (similar colour scheme) so I have it when I circle back to Malifaux but I have no intention of it appearing in a D&D game.

Next up; a little background on the area our campaign will be kicking off in!

-Jay

Zoe's World - Beastborg

Zoe stayed home from school today and had to be off her feet so she had a chance to wrap up another painting project.

Zoe decided to paint the Reaper Bones robo-gorilla (sorry, I don't know the actual name).  Originally she was intending for this to be her first painting contest entry but she lost the painting bug before the contest and didn't really get it back until today.

"Beastborg" was one of those great examples of when someone tells you they have a plan and even though you can't see it while it's taking shape it turns out EXACTLY the way the hobbyist intended when it's all done.  While at a local comic store Zoe spotted GWs Moot Green paint and asked me if we could buy it for her gorilla, obviously we started off by discussing the fact that gorillas aren't green, then I mentioned that I already have 10-15 other shades of green but she was really insistent that she wanted this particular green for her gorilla.
Lately Zoe and I have been watching the Teen Titans animated series together and when she started painting Beastborg she asked me if I thought the green she picked was a good match for Beastboy's skin colour on the show.  As soon as she asked me that I realised she knew exactly what she wanted to do over 2 months ago when we first saw that paint in the shop.

Also, as per the artist's request please find below "The Zoe Collection" as it sits so far this year.

Wish I was as on-top of my creative process as she is......


-Jay

Strange Aeons: Threshold vs Serpent-Men!

My painting has been pretty varied over the past year but over the last couple of months the only game I have played with any consistency is Strange Aeons.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game Strange Aeons is basically a Cthulhu skirmish miniatures game where one player controls, grows an develops a team of investigators known as Threshold Agents, the other player plays an ever changing roster of monsters and horrors from beyond time and space.

For today's game my team of Threshold Agents was raiding a tomb wherein a cult of Serpent-men were holding a dark ritual and concealing an ancient spellbook.

My team snuck up to the inner chamber of the crypt and with a few lucky rolls were able to almost immediately neutralise the high-priest of the serpent-men.

Everything seemed to be going my way until reinforcements began pouring in.  A surprise attack took out Diana Skully before she even realised what was happening as she was struck down by a magical bolt from one of the newly arrived cultists.  Nigel Bottomtooth was next to fall to a Serpent-man in close combat.  The agents intrepid leader Rick O'Connell held out on his own for two more turns and even took out another Serpent-man on his own before the weakness brought on by serpent poison made him easy prey for a final attack.

The Threshold Agents will return to fight another day!

-Jay

Something sinister in a small package

Today's figure is from the Reaper Bones line and it will be one of the baddies in my upcoming D&D Next game.

For such a small figure it really has a lot going on and that's one of the things that really drew me to it.  For starters the figure is a bit on the small side, about the same size as a Reaper Halfling or Gnome.  In addition the figure clearly has fleshy hands but either has a skull-face or is wearing some sort of skull-mask.  Finally the robe lends it a somewhat cultish or mystical look.  All-in-all a really characterful figure that should make a great encounter in my upcoming game.

I'll be running this game on Roll20.net so I'm hoping once the adventure has concluded I can share all the resources used (stats, maps, images, etc) here in case any of the rest of you find them useful.

Off to paint some more figs!

-Jay
 

Cry Havoc and let slip the Raccoon of war!

I'll be devoting myself full-stop to producing miniatures for a D&D Next game I'll be running in December but before I kick that off I wanted to show off  a Heroclix re-paint that I'm not sure I really need for anything but I'm still incredibly excited to have...Rocket Raccoon!

I enjoyed a few movies that came out this year but Guardians Of The Galaxy stood head and shoulders above the rest.  Great action, great comedy and memorable characters.  I wanted to get the full team to actually play Heroclix with, and I have (minus Groot...not a single Groot model in all my packs) and I lucked into a few extras that will be great for other gaming as well.

Rocket is great to have because in addition to superhero gaming he should also work well when I circle back around to Gamma World early next year.

Starting tomorrow....back to where it all started for me 30 years ago....Dungeons & Dragons!

-Jay

Dogmeat

Miss me?

Wow, I definitely think 6 weeks is the longest I've gone without a blog entry since I started this.  I have been travelling a bit for work lately but for the most part I just lost my hobby drive for a while there.  I won't bore everyone with the details but after a somewhat draining and somewhat distracting spell in the real world I am back on the hobby-train.

My first baby-step back is to show the fig that I had already been planning on doing 6 weeks ago and honestly took my all of an hour to do once I sat back down to my desk; Dogmeat!  For fans of Fallout 3 Dogmeat is the Lone Wanderers loyal canine companion.  The figure also works great as Max Rockatansky's unnamed dog from The Road Warrior.

This is another Reaper Bones mini that came as part of an animal/familiar pack along with a few other animals who might be showing up here in the next few weeks.

The next batch of blog entries will (hopefully) focus on mine and Zoe's planned entries in Strategies Games & Hobbies big annual painting competition.  Zoe is breaking with tradition and painting a cybernetically-enhanced-super-gorilla for the large model category and we are both doing some female zombies.

Good to be back!

-Jay

Why look at him! He's just a raggedy man!

I wanted to take a break from things I "need" to paint and just do something for the sake of doing it.  I went digging through the box of Reaper Bones miniatures my friend Mark had given me and I came up with a pretty cool near-future/post-apocalyptic dude.

'Rex-Dark Future Hero' is pretty clearly intended to be Mad Max Rockatansky but he would also make a good Lone Wanderer figure or be a reasonable hero for any post apocalyptic game.  This is another figure that showcases what the Bones line does really well.  His clothes are all pretty basic and there's no detail missing but he isn't covered in lots of fiddly detail that doesn't cast well in vinyl.

Now if only I could come up with a dog and a car for Max in this scale I'd be set.......

-Jay

Zoe's World - Chloe The Robot

A few weeks ago after I painted Scrap Bot I mentioned there would be more coming down the pipe in that vein.  As I've been working on Zoe's first Pathfinder adventure I wanted to put together a group to accompany her character so it feels more like a traditional fantasy story but we're playing a single player game and I didn't want to layer on a whack or random NPCs that would potentially drive some of the direction things go in.

After watching an episode of Wolverine And The X-Men which featured a Sentinel named Rover who has befriended Marrow and joins her against the other Sentinels Zoe asked if I had a robot she could paint.  Out came the Grind Jacks and Zoe and I picked out some stuff (she really liked the claw) to make her robot companion for our game.

Chloe The Robot has a very similar colour palette to Isabeau the last figure Zoe painted so they should look good together on the tabletop.

The next (and final) step for assembling Zoe's companions will probably be an animal familiar of some sort to accompany her.

Another couple of weeks and there should actually be a game to report on as well!

-Jay

The Iron Pilgrim

After taking a detour from 40K for a while to get my new Malifaux force in fighting shape I wanted to circle back and finish the addition I desperately needed to my army.  The Iron Pilgrim is my Multi-Melta armed Dreadnought (thanks again Dave!) for dealing with tanks and space ponies.

I stuck with the basic paint scheme I've been going with with my Blood Angels and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

It definitely felt good to make another addition to my Blood Angels and even though there are a few other things I want to get done first I think this will be the push I needed to go back and finish my first 5 Assault Marines as well.

-Jay

Flesh Construct (my first or my third depending on your method of counting)

Dr McMourning's forces continue to grow with the addition of a new Flesh Construct.

I've always really liked the Flesh Constructs in terms of both the rules and the models so I painted both of the original metals and now this is my first of the new plastics.  There is a second variant available as well so I'm thinking I might have to pick that up after I get my initial box set done.

Due to my inability to count the other night (Canine Remains are 4 points, not 1) this means I now have 10 of the 15 points I need done for my first game in the Slaux Graux Malifaux league a week from tomorrow.  So one nurse from the box set should get me there!

-Jay

And now a Henchman!

My progress on my Slaux Graux Malifaux force continues (slowly as it were) and today I've got my Henchman who will be leading my initial force done; Sebastian!

Sebastian's a cool model who comes equipped with an over-the-top saw for dissecting cadavers as well as turning opponents into cadavers.

The weird part of my painting for this project so far is that even though I've painted 3 models I've effectively only painted 1 Soul Stone worth of models I'll be using in my first few games.  Next up will be either the Flesh Construct or the Nurses.

-Jay

My return through the breach

Tonight I played my first game of the now not so new Second Edition of Malifaux and I have to say it was really good.  The second edition of the game retains all the mechanics that made the original game so good but strips away a lot of redundant detail from the individual models leaving them with the abilities that actually get used in a game.

For my first run through I used a 15 Soul Stone force led by Sybelle with 2 Rotten Belles and 1 Necropunk.  It wasn't a bad force to learn with but it lacked real punch and by the end of the game I was in pretty bad shape.

One of my local game stores, Hobby Kingdom is hosting an event they call the Slaux Graux Malifaux league.  The idea is to encourage players to collect and paint new forces and learn the game as they build up.  My initial plan was to paint a new Rasputina crew but then I was informed that that's the only starter without a Henchman (sort of a junior leader) in it and that I would need a Henchman until my games topped 26 Soul Stones.  So I've decided to go ahead and paint the new McMourning models up and use that.  The one thing I mentioned to Jordan one of the guys I had been playing with is that I would definitely NOT be making an effort to do any painting this weekend because I have extra time to spend with my wife and daughter and I would wait to start painting until after July 2nd......so here are the first 2 models that I stayed up until 1 am painting tonight.......

I decided to do the dogs first because I thought they would be an easy start.  I still feel that element of my decision was correct but in hindsight my mistake was not really planning out what I was doing.  I might use the Canine Remains in my first few games but the Chihuahua won't be an option until I can field my Master.

I've still got some work to do on their bases but I pretty happy with how they turned out and it did give me a chance to experiment with the new Blood For The Blood God Technical Paint from Games Workshop which I have to say I was pretty impressed with.

So I guess the real question is tomorrow will I chill out or will I be sitting at my desk after midnight working on more figs?

-Jay

Critters!

I've been working a lot lately on developing a small series of adventures for use with the OGL and in the meantime I've started on some of the low level baddies I'm going to end up needing.

Today's contribution is a dozen Dire Rats.  These are once again from the Reaper Bones line and I have to say this seems like exactly what this line was developed for.  The figures are straightforward, simple and seem like they're going to be really resilient to damage.

My next challenge for this game (model-wise anyway) is that I need to either scratch build or re-purpose some small robots.  I'd like to have some steampunky robots for the group to fight but I want to stay away from Warmachine and Malifaux figures as they really are linked to their own IP.

-Jay

More fantasy steampunky goodness

One of the things I mentioned in an earlier post is that I was going to be painting alongside Zoe with figures that went along with or were similar to the figs she was painting.  During her last session while she was painting her armoured female paladin with blue robes I was painting an armoured female warcaster with blue robes.

I'm not entirely happy with how Ashlyn turned out.  I feel like the face ended up with too much primer on it and ended up losing some detail.  In any event it was really just an exercise in efficiency and from that point of view it went fairly well.  Ashlyn won't be winning any painting contest but she was sort of an "extra" figure I had lying around and I got her done in roughly 30 minutes.

The other figure I got done while Zoe was painting was this generic pulp style robot from Reaper.  I figured he would blend in reasonably well with some of my other steampunk stuff and he has the added benefit that he doesn't look like he's just for Malifaux or just for Warmachine.

While painting the Junk-Bot (that's what I'm calling him anyway) I did get hit by an idea for another daddy-daughter project that should both be fun and something that might be incredibly useful in a couple of upcoming games....keep watching this space.....

-Jay

Zoe's World: Two-For-One

A week ahead of schedule Zoe decided to sit down and paint up a new miniature to play Pathfinder with.  However she was really dedicated to the idea that she HAD to finish the half-painted super-heroine figure she had started weeks ago.  So before moving on to Isabeau she finished up her first super-heroine for Supersystem.

I had a lot of funny moments while helping Zoe with this figure.  The first one was that after seeing some of my friends' miniatures she commented that my bases were "boring" and that she wanted something fancier for her figures.  This resulted in my chopping up some old wall sections to give her 3 super-heroines some textured bases to run around on.  She also wanted to go with a bright colour palette on this fig which ended up with something that should fit in well with any supers games we end up playing.

And at this point I have to ask my now obligatory obscure knowledge question; can anyone guess what B-list Marvel character this figure was before Zoe re-painted it?  This one is extra tricky because this character has been depicted in both animation and live-action but for some reason in both of those appearances the character's appearance was altered RADICALLY from their comics look.

Next up Isabeau.  This gives Zoe a classic (and statistically survivable) character to play her first Pathfinder game with.  A heavily armoured fighter with a sword and shield Isabeau should be a good first character choice.

This figure is one of the Reaper Bones figures and I have to say it did present some painting challenges for Zoe.  The Bones material is a soft vinyl which although I think is adequate at holding detail when you have a young or inexperienced painter who tends to put their paints on a bit thick you can lose detail very quickly.  Luckily Citadel Washes were up to the task of bringing most of the details back.  I expect the Bones figures will be fantastic for her to actually play with because they should be quite durable, we just need to slow down a bit (honestly not my forte either) when painting them.

Painting Isabeau from start to finish and painting her super-heroine's skin and hair took Zoe a total of about 2 hours and until we hit the washes it was with little to no interference from me.

-Jay

Hobby Grab Bag - Works In Progress

The last little while I've been splitting my time somewhat evenly between painting and playing Warhammer 40,000 and finally getting to actually play some Pathfinder.  This has meant that I've been a bit back and forth on projects and more than usual I've become one of those people who starts a lot more things than they actually finish.  With that in mind I thought I'd show off the next few things I'm working on in no particular order.

First up is my almost finished Assault Marine squad for my Blood Angels army.  These guys are about 90% done, basically I need to do their weapons and markings (and a few blingy bits for the sgt) and then I can call them done.  The only hold up is that I will need to free-hand the squad markings and to be honest I've never been completely enthusiastic about that......

Next up I'll be filling in the biggest gap in my Blood Angels army with this Dreadnought with Multi-Melta, generously donated to the cause by my friend Dave Switzer.  I've barely started this model but given that it's a single fig and none of the things that need to get painted are all that fussy I'm sure I can paint it in one solid session if I just get to it.

Isabeau Laroche isn't for me.  This will be Zoe's next figure.  Zoe was very interested in watching my recent Pathfinder adventure so she is excited again to get an appropriate figure painted so we can play a game.  Isabeau is a heavily armoured figure so I'm hoping that Zoe and I can get her done in an hour or two of painting.  Right now it looks like this might be something we do together on Father's Day.

Last up is Ashlyn D'Elise (I think that's her name?).  She is a mercenary warcaster for Warmachine, to be honest I don't have any use for her at all but Zoe seems to do better painting-wise when her and I are working on similar figures together at the same time and I didn't have a lot of other heavily armoured female fantasy figures on hand so she was the logical choice.

That looks like it for now, but I'm also considering some appropriate baddies for my first Pathfinder game with Zoe and will probably look at adding some Death Company to my Blood Angels when the Dread and Assault Marines are done.

-Jay