Getting ready for some Animal Adventures!

After years (holy crap, has it really been years?) of saying we're going to play a full-on D&D game Zoe and I are actually doing it.

With the release of the Animal Adventures lines from Steamforged Games along with some free published adventures on Steamforged's website we're almost ready to rock. 

Zoe has painted her first character.  I'm painting the baddies as well as the other 3 featured player character models in the first adventure.  I've also printed the module and am mounting the encounter maps on foam-core to use with miniatures once we get rolling.

First up I finally finished painting Cerysse the Cleric.

Cerysse was one of the miniatures from the first Dungeons & Doggies set that launched this universe.  I really liked this St Bernard model and I think one of the things about it that really appealed to me is that Cerysse wouldn't look out of place in a non-animal based game as a pack animal for a more conventional group of adventurers.

Zoe painted Cornelius the Wizard.

Cornelius is basically the poster-dog for the Dungeons & Doggies line and features prominently in a ton of the line's art.  Zoe seemed drawn to the cool hat and friendly face.

While we were getting some painting in Zoe also knocked out a wolf that we've had sitting around primed for a while.

Can't remember if this is a Reaper or WizKids model (it was already based and primed) but I'm sure it was part of a familiar pack.

I've got 2 more dogs to do as well as some villainous animal characters and then we're off to adventure!

-Jay

These models as well as the their villainous opponents and loyal friends are available from your Friendly Local Game Store.

Zoe's World - Skeleton

After another brief sabbatical from the hobby Zoe asked me about painting some more figures from out of the blue last week.  At the conclusion of her last batch of painting I had her pick out another group of models so I could prep them ahead of time and this worked out great!  It meant as soon as she felt like painting I already had 5 models based and primed and ready for her her to go.

Zoe's painting options were; Human Female War Cleric, Griff-hound, Medusa, Orc or Skeleton.  She chose to start with the Skeleton but she did manage to make a bit of progress on the Medusa as well.

The skeleton is a Reaper Bones model and I have to say for a small very inexpensive figure it was really good.  All the depth of detail was fully realised and in spite of multiple small-narrow points on the model there was virtually no bending out of the package.

Although the Skeleton is a far simpler more basic model than a lot of what Zoe has painted in the past painting it actually show a tremendous amount of growth and learning on her part.  She drybrushed the Skeleton proper and for her first time did not go overly heavy on the paint during a drybrush.  She also chose a light pink colour for the shield which required multiple (four or five, I can't remember) thin layers of paint to get a consistent colour.  Compared to her previous pastel coloured Unicorn you can really see improvement in her technique which yielded a smoother crisper result.

She's going to have quite the eclectic model collection if she ever decides to jump in and start playing miniature games.

-Jay
 

Zoe's World - The Adventure Begins!

After a year-ish of doing some painting and occasionally talking about trying an actual game Zoe and I did our first dry run today to see if she could wrap her head around basic D20 mechanics and had an interest in playing a full game.  It went pretty well, she enjoyed herself even more than I actually hoped and her first 'full' adventure will be this coming Monday!

We had been talking about trying the game for a while and I think I was holding us up more than she was.  I kept trying to settle on complicated campaign, character and rules details and ultimately just decided to forget it and play like a kid discovering the game for the first time.

I basically threw open Zoe's model collection and asked her what she wanted to use and she actually picked 3 of the models she painted the last time she painted.  As it turns out those 3 figure were all from the Legend Of Drizzt board game so I grabbed out a couple of tiles, the stat cards a D20 and we just ran through a quick combat encounter.

I used my new Rolf Rolfsson model with Wulfgar's stat card and gave Zoe 2 'waves' of her chosen miniatures to keep Rolf from reaching the throne at the end of tile 2.

Having to do simple math to calculate hits the first turn was a bit new and strange to Zoe but by turn 3 she had it down pat.

The game was a study in the law of averages as Rolf decimated her creatures on the first tile, and then failed to score a single hit against the second wave on the second tile.  Sadly Rolf was ripped apart by a panther a mere 25 feet (5 squares) from his throne :(

I'm going to spend some quick time tomorrow night knocking together a single session adventure for Zoe's chosen party on Monday.  I will definitely have to give some thought to balancing play as she has chosen to build an adventuring party that isn't exactly Player's Handbook friendly.
Her first idea for a group is:
-Cyber Ape with minigun
-Unicorn
-Panther
So.....I'm going to have to think about this.
Time permitting over the next few nights she is considering these alternatives though:
-Medusa
-Skeleton
-Gryph-hound
Not quite your classic Fellowship Of The Ring style adventuring party :)

You might see some more painted stuff this weekend and definitely a game summary on Monday.

-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

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

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

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

Zoe's World: Miss Kitty

After two more daddy-daughter painting session Zoe has produced her next masterpiece; Miss Kitty.

Miss Kitty is a Black Scorpion miniature from their line for old west gaming.  She looks like she would also be a good fit for Malifaux or possibly for a character in any Gothic or Victorian setting.

Miss Kitty was based using Zoe's favourite model paint Citadel Xereus Purple, which is the same colour that was used on the cape of her previous fey princess.  Again I provided very little help just doing a few touch-ups on the dress in the area around the bows.

Thanks to everybody who either here or on Facebook made suggestions for games and/or miniatures for Zoe.  She's actually staying away from the cartoony stuff (for now anyway) so I ended up ordering her a couple of the Reaper Bones figures to work on and she's got a super heroine primed up on my painting desk now.

-Jay

Zoe's World: Faerie Princess

Last night's daddy-daughter painting session was a huge success! 

My 7 year old daughter Zoe got her first model completely painted in just about an hour and had such a great time doing it that as soon as it was done she asked me when she could do her next one.  I am super-impressed because as any of you with kids or who work with kids may know at 7 sometimes patience and focus are not where they need to be to do something like this.  First up lets take a look at Zoe's model.  She will be using this figure to play in a stripped down D20 game because she also mentioned she wanted to try one of daddy's games.

So let me start by answering the obvious question which is; how much did I help/do?  I got the paint on the neck, I touched up a few spots where the purple got onto the red and the red got onto the purple, I painted the dagger...and that's it, the rest is all her. 

This all got started because Zoe wants to participate in some of the things I do with my leisure time and she loves little figures (she has a ton of my surplus Heroclix on her dresser).  I'm also really excited to using gaming to help her with her basic math skills and sneak in a little teaching on the side.

Here's a question for me to throw back out to the rest of you; can you recommend figures that meet the following criteria to help grow and build Zoe's collection?
-female
-plastic
-no overly fine pieces that stick out
-"appropriate" for a 7 year old
-any genre

That does it for me for right now, but painting with her I was able to get another one of my projects done so that will shoe up here later today.

-Jay