Fred's 2012 Painting Diary

[Leon]

Excellent, the 15's are coming up nice.  I think I might get some more poses/conversions done once I bring the range over to Minibits.

[fred.]

More poses for the 15mm lizardmen would be good, these 3 are very nice, and fit well as bigger cousins of the tribal lizardmen.

[fred.]

Photo Backgrounds

Inspired by some of the photos by fellow forumers with realistic backgrounds I've had a bit of a play this afternoon.


Lizardmen in the jungle


French Dragoons on a hill


French Dragoons in the woods

[fred.]

Photo Backgrounds

I had been thinking of making a little photo booth, and printing backgrounds. But I then realised that a different answer was staring me in the face - use an image on the computer screen. There are endless images available on google image search, the option to search by size allows you to easily find nice large images rather than just thumbnails. And lots of people have posted lots of landscape photos as desktop images.

With a little balancing of the figures to get the right height, then these are quick and easy to setup. I had an initial issue with focus, and realised that I was leaning on the corner of the desk, causing the figures to move slightly 

I need to make up a little terrain board to put the figures on, as I'm currently just using a bit of MDF.

[Kiwidave]

That's a dead clever idea Fred! It also avoids trying to merge in a background later with software. 

[Steve J]

A very nice idea and so easy to do (famous last words ).

[nikharwood]

Like it 

[fred.]

Dogs of War Birdmen


Finished off this unit today, added some blue to the clothing, dry brushed a golden brown on the wings, and flocked the bases. These are GW Empire figures with PD wings.
Photographed against some sky and trees.

WSS French Infantry


Based this unit, photographed against a different part of the same image as used for the Birdmen
This photo setup is really only good for a WM unit or so. Not sure how to set it up for the several units of French infantry that are just waiting for flags.

[fred.]

Ages since my last update.

Done more work on WSS French - they are nearly there now, the infantry have flags, the cavalry are based. Just need to do some finishing off.
Inspired by Matt's recent photos on the forum I've even had a go at cuff lace!!!!


Lizardmen
I got a fish tank plant off ebay, which turns out to be just right for jungle style leaves



Added various bits to the lizardmen bases - do they look jungle like or too cluttered?

[Hertsblue]

There are many things in the aquatic stores that can be used for wargames scenery. They tend to be expensive though. 

[fred.]

For this stuff I paid the princely sum of £2.36 inc postage. And for that there is a good 4' of plant (I know this as my smallest daughter joined all the pieces together and found they were longer than she is tall!)

[peterdong]

The fish plants look kind of shiny, so maybe you should turf the tops.
Otherwise it looks fine, not crowded at all. 

[fred.]

They need a spray of dull cote - which should tone things down. But a bit of flock stuck on the top of some of the branches could look good.

[fred.]

Again ages since the last update.

Weekend of 26-27 May - Big Warhammer Game

Spent a weekend away with my gaming group to play a high Warhammer game - Orcs vs Empire. I handn't played WHFB since 2nd Edition at school!



It certainly had a good look to it - but ultimately it was an advance for the Orcs while Empire cannons in the towers shot them up. Extra Orcs arrived in the landing craft on the left flank. In the end the Orc's numbers tipped the advantage. The Empire caused wasn't helped by the reserve cavalry ending up too close to their own board edge, then charged in the flank and pushed off the table!! Magic was hugely tedious - each magic phase took about 30 mins, and perhaps resulted in 1 spell being cast after dispels.

All in all I'd much rather play HC or WM - but it was still a great weekend away.

[fred.]

28mm War of the Roses
Bought a box of the new Perry 28mm Mounted MAA - which are really nice, lots of horse variants with different armour. Riders have lots of heads, right arms and weapon options - the only downside is the 4 rider poses are very similar, just in different armour.

These caused me to rummage in the "lead mountain"* and I made up most of the other 2 boxes of infantry I had, to make a pike unit, a couple of bow units, and 1 more of bills. I also rummaged through my old metal figures and made most of a bow unit and a couple of cross-bow units one already painted!. Now these are really coming together to make a playable army.

One of the other members of our gaming group has a similar army that isn't getting table time so we are planning a WotR game using Hail Caesar which will be novel for me to actually play HC with historical units.

*not sure if it can be a lead mountain if it is mainly plastic