And so it begins...

I think my elves are beginning to wonder why they are always the next thing I'm going to paint instead of the thing I'm actually painting.

This morning I finished my first 12 (I need 48 eventually) Moria Goblins for Lord Of The Rings.  As anticipated they were pretty quick and easy to paint so I should hopefully be able to crank out another 12 or so at some point this week.

If all goes according to plan (does it ever?)  I should also finish my last 12 Wood Elf warriors tonight.

-Jay

This old house

I've been bouncing from project to project lately but one of the things I've realised I need some more of is fairly generic fantasy scenery.

I have a fair bit of undead and horror themed scenery but I need some good solid regular buildings and woods.

The set pictured below is one of two Osgiliath Ruins sets I painted up this week.  This set is specifically for Games Workshop's Lord Of The Rings game but I feel it will work well for any fantasy game setting.

My only regret (you were right Stan) is that I should have bought a third set.

-Jay

Bane!

I decided to take a quick side-step tonight and do a re-paint on an old Heroclix figure I've been coveting for a long time that a friend of mine recently sent to me (thanks Mark!); Bane.

Bane has been one of my favourite Batman villains since the Knightfall series and although I did enjoy his new depiction in the Christopher Nolan movies "classic" Bane is still the version that will appear in my DC Adventures game if I ever get around to it.  He's also yet another member of my favourite super-team The Secret Six.

I'd also like to point out that one of the factors that influenced me to get Bane finished is that I have settled on a game system for Zoe and I to play some games with so I need to get started on some new superhero figs this week.  After weighing my options I've decided to use some of the Goalsystem games starting with SuperSystem.  I've already rounded up three heroines for Zoe to paint and play some games with and then after that we will be taking her two previously painted models and trying out Chaos In Carpathia.

Guess that means I've pushed my sci-fi reveal back a few days....

-Jay

Oh captain my captain!

I didn't have a lot of time to paint today so rather than struggle my way through some portion of a sprue of Moria Goblins I decided to take on the reasonably unique looking metal models and do him up as a captain.

In largely unrelated news it looks like I've figured out which 25-30mm sci-fi skirmish game I'm going to start the year off with and it won't be Warzone or 40K, more on this this weekend!

-Jay

I have the attention span of the dog from Up.....SQUIRREL!

.....I feel like I should be standing up in front of a group called "Miniatures Anonymous" admitting I don't know why I keep passing out and waking up in piles of hobby projects.....

So the other day I was playing a very enjoyable game of Lord Of The Rings (which continues to be my all time favourite GW game), with my work-in-progress Elves facing off against a force of dwarves.  It was good fun and reminded me that I should play more Lord Of The Rings this year instead of constantly hoping from fantasy skirmish system to fantasy skirmish system.
...but...
and this is how my troubles always start...
My opponent mentioned early on during our game that he had collected his dwarf force with the intention of gaming his way through the Shadow And Flame scenario pack but had never found a goblin player to play against.  I immediately said "if you don't mind me using goblins from The Hobbit instead of Moria goblins I'm sure I can make the bad guy force".
...but...
and this is how my troubles always start...
A few minutes later I realised 'oh, but I don't have a Cave Troll', luckily my friend had an unpainted Cave Troll he was willing to give me.
A few more minutes go by and I realise 'oh, the goblins from The Hobbit don't have bows or shields', that's okay he's got 5 sprues of Moria Goblins I can have too.

So somehow I had gone from a plan to paint 48 miniatures I already owned and could get out of my backlog to getting 60 new miniatures I was going to paint to play 4 games.  I realise the only real hitch was I was still going to need Durburz, Goblin Shamen and a Goblin Drum.  I had also offered to give my friend any unpainted LOTR dwarves I had in return so when I got home I opened a figure case I had with 'LOTR Dwarves' written on it and this is what I found inside....

So I guess the point of my story is; my name is Jay and I think I may have a problem.

-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

Thunderwicket and the new Technical Paints

I finished up my antiquated, poorly-maintained Warjack last night and while I was at it I experimented with two of the new Citadel Technical Paints.

First up Thunderwicket itself.  If I end up needing it in my game Thunderwicket is an old out-of-date and poorly kept up Warjack that has been retrieved from an unsavoury part of the city of Corvis.  I started off by painting Thunderwicket in basic Cygnar colours and then went back over it to weather and distress it.

So let me give you my two-cents on the two Citadel Technical paints I tried out while painting this model:
NIHILAKH OXIDE; I liked the effect I got from the Oxide paint but to be perfectly honest I was still a little underwhelmed.  Years ago while doing a big table for Games Day I got an almost identical effect from watering down Hawk Turquoise.  So even  though it works fairly well  I just didn't find it really represented anything 'new' under the sun.  I would also recommend anyone using it dilute it before applying because I found it a bit thick for what I wanted, though to be fair that could just be me.
TYPHUS CORROSION; My experience with this was the exact opposite to the oxide paint.  WOW!  This stuff is absolutely fantastic, my only failure with this model is that I used too much, but that's a learning for me not a short-coming with the product.  The colour and density is great and the grit in the paint/wash really gives the model a terrific corroded texture as opposed to just looking dirty.  I can't recommend this paint highly enough!

-Jay