Mortal Gods - Athenian Hoplites

More stuff I got painted up for Mortal Gods.  Just like the mercenary support miniatures, these were completed several months ago but I only recently got the basing material to finally finish them off.  I enjoy these sculpts much more and used a more traditional layering painting approach.  Fairly happy with how they turned out, aside from the skin seeming a little greyish.

Heavy Hoplites

Medium/Light Hoplites.

Paints used:

• Cloth:  RMS Breonne Blue, highlighted up with the triad
• Skin:  RMS Olive Skin, highlighted up with the triad
• Leather:  RMS Blackened Brown, highlighted up with the triad
• Off Whites:  Vallejo Panzer Aces Light Rubber (base), RMS White (edge highlight)
• Metal (Bronze):  AP Weapon Bronze (base), 4:1 AP Weapon Bronze:AP Plate Mail Metal (highlight)
• Metal (Steel):  AP Gun Metal (base), AP Shinning Silver (highlight)
• Entire models received a diluted wash of AP Strong Tone 
• Basing material is Luke's APS Mediterranean Soil

All said, a good chunk of Greeks done.  Although it still feels like a I have a ton left.  Ideally would like about 4 more each of Heavy and Medium/Light Athenian Hoplites.  Then there are all the solos I need/want/have.  Oh and Athenian Marines.  And then Spartans.  And then whatever the Mythic expansion brings.  Speaking of which, where is the Mythic expansion!?

Mortal Gods - Mercenaries/Support

Trying to get a bit caught up on posting up what all I have painted this year.  I was (and still isn't) terribly thrilled by these particular Victrix sculpts, but that represented an excellent opportunity for an extended experiment of GW's contrast paints.  The paints were brand new at the time.  Yes, that means I painted them almost 6 months ago.  After the initial painting they sat for a long while as I tried to get a hold of the basing material that I used.  Then further delays for the shield transfers.  All in all though for the time invested, I'm pretty happy with them.

I will say I think the GW contrast paints were oversold.  Definitely not news now or even then, but they take a decent amount of skill to use effectively.  I don't think I've come close to mastering them and I don't really care for the method.  That being said, they will get some use when faced with models I just want to knock out quick. 

Anyway, on to the Greeks!

Given these are just GW contrast paints (except for the metals), I'm not going to bother digging out what each color used was.  It should be simple enough to back out.  A couple of notes though:

• All the contrast paints were diluted 1:1 with the contrast medium.  Applied twice.
• Entire models received a diluted wash of AP Strong Tone (I was hoping it would dull the colors a little, maybe should have gone with a stronger/multiple application)
• Basing material is Luke's APS Mediterranean Soil
• Shield transfers were from Little Big Men Studios.  Important to note, the Victrix specific transfers are only available direct from Victrix.

Great to knock out some fodder for Mortal Gods.  I've got some Hoplites to show off soon.

DreadTober - Konflikt 47 Allied Grizzly Walker (Finished)

Got the last coat of varnish on with pretty much just a day to spare!  Really enjoyed this project and following everyone else's progress for DreadTober.  Since this follows how I paint up my WW2 American vehicles, I really should post that up.  There were some steps I had almost forgotten.  Hopefully soon.

DreadTober - Konflikt 47 Allied Grizzly Walker (Update 4)

The end is near.  I wasn't able to work on this guy a lot this week, but I'm still hitting the home stretch.  Mostly just varnishing and weathering powders left.  Hopefully I can wrap it up over the weekend.  Can't wait to hit it with a dull coat.

DreadTober - Konflikt 47 Allied Grizzly Walker (Update 3)

The semi-gloss has gone on to support weathering.  Pin wash applied and streaking has begun.  So much streaking left to do.  I'd be more confident it was coming together if it wasn't so shiny from the semi-gloss. 

DreadTober - Konflikt 47 Allied Grizzly Walker (Update 2)

So, second week into DreadTober and I've gotten the color modulation and chipping done on the entire walker.

Pretty happy with it so far.  The chipping is maybe a little to heavy on parts of the torso, but I had to "erase" some issues with my poor color modulation application.  Next up is to seal it, paint some of the non armor parts and begin pin wash, streaking, and weathering powders.

DreadTober - Konflikt 47 Allied Grizzly Walker (Update 1)

If you'd like to know more about what DreadTober is, who all is participating, and/or their progress/prjects, follow this link:  DreadTober.

As anything "big and stompy" is appropriate for DreadTober, I decided to brush the dust off an project that was abandoned in the early stages and would need to started over from scratch.  That project would be my Allied Grizzly Walker for K47. 

Seriously, what kind of sense does it make to stop at
this stage of painting?  Where did I leave off at, what was I thinking.
Why does only half the torso have green on it?

Given this guy has sat around for a least a year in this state, I was pretty sure whatever subtractive chipping method I was planning to use was now OBE.  So time to start over.  I threw some rocks made of cork on the base to add some elevation/variety to the final base, hit those with some primer, and the rest of the model with the same brown you see above. 

After that, I tackled the just the legs (the way I have it assembled, the torso can be removed or rotated).  I took this approach for two reasons, the first being less of the figure would be in the way of the spray pattern of my airbrush and the second reason is it let me break the work in smaller chunks that I could accomplish in a night, hopefully.  In any case, below is where I ended up for the first (partial) week of DreadTober.  I'm pretty happy so far with the mini.

More next time.

Half Year Recap (Painting)

So continuing the previous post, here is a brief update on what all I've been painting the past few months.  These are no particular order since my memory is a little fuzzy.  Mostly I had concentrated on Outlaws for Wild West Exodus, with a couple of distractions/breaks along the way.

Jesse James and Friends

Not really a fan of the longhorn skulls these have, so opted
out and have some decals to add instead.

Love these bikes and after shaving off all the Lawman stars,
they are ready for duty as Outlaws (or even Lawmen).

Never could get glow effects to work out with these guys,
so I backed out of that completely.

Some local people wanted to do an true old west game using Dead Man's Hand, so I dusted off some old Black Scorpion minis I had (unpainted of course) and knocked these guys out.  It was a nice break in the middle of the WWX stuff above.  About the time I was adding the last highlights to these, I caught Pale Rider on TV.  I was a little dumbfounded when Stockburn's Deputies showed up in the movie.  Maybe that image was buried deep in the back of my mind guiding me.

I almost went back and repainted the color of my hats...

And for my last distraction from pulling together 1500 pts of Outlaws in time for Adepticon, I decided to go back and finally finish off my Company of Iron force that I was supposed to have ready in time for the previous Adepticon.  lol.

I should really ditch the rest of my Menoth figures.  I really don't
want to paint anymore of these guys.

Anyway, I've got some other stuff in progress.  Some 40k Space Marines for Kill Team and some Lawmen for WWX (so I can have a demo force).  I've also been assembling a ton of Greeks for Mortal Gods.  And even threw some Fallout super mutants together to have ready as a distraction.

My first attempt at the color scheme I wanted.  Seemed to
much like Dark Angels.  Kinda wished I had kept it though.

Second attempt and what I'm working with now.  I "think" it
will come together the way I want.  The other would have been
lower risk though.

Just getting base coats blocked in.

Oh dear, that's a bunch and I'm not even showing you the
archers, slingers, and javelin guys...  Or the Spartans...

These should be fun.

Anyway, that mostly gets me caught up with the first half of this year.  Maybe I can get back to at least posting up monthly recaps.

Half Year Recap (Games Played)

My, almost the end of May and I have yet to post anything this year.  Obviously, things have been extremely busy.  I've gotten a fair number of games in and a respectful amount of figures painted.

Games Played:
Our group managed to play through about 75% of the Western Desert campaign for Bolt Action.  I missed a game here and there but got several in before the demise.  All in all, Western Desert offered some very interesting scenario but overall I found it extremely frustrating.  Many of the scenarios placed the allies at significant numerical disadvantage.  This was somewhat by asymmetrical win conditions/scoring, however it was often not apparent you could be winning until the very end of the game so it left me with the feeling of pushing water uphill throughout the game.  To the point of frustration at times.  Anyway, a couple of random pics:

Hold the line boys!

After those of us playing threw in the towel on Western Desert, we were all a little burned out on Bolt Action.  Interest transitioned to a Old West campaign using the Dead Man's Hand system.  We just wrapped that campaign up last week.  It was a lot of fun but the game system is not particular great.  I should expand on that in the future by adding a review of it.  The final games of the campaign were pretty fun as things turned a little "weird" in the Old West.  One table had players fending of an Alien invasion, while the other table was trying to stop a T-Rex from rampaging through the town.  Anyway, couple of game shots from various points:

Oh no, Mad Dog is bout to get hanged!

Aliens vs Cowboys?

Finally rounding all this goodness out, I attended Adepticon.  And finally after many years of effort, I managed to pull my buddy John from 40k Hobby Blog along.  Derek, Mike, and many others from our weekly virtual hobby hangout.  It was a great time and John and I finally got a chance to play a game of Bolt Action.  John provided the materials, so we played at his preferred scale of 20mm (1/72) and I have to say it is a really great scale for the game.  It just really feels right for a 6x4 board, vehicles, and what not.  We even played with John employing true hidden deployment.  All in all, it was truly great to get in a game with him.  And just as great to hang out with him and everyone else.  Some pictures of our game:

A long ways to go.  Hope we don't get ambushed!

Contact with enemy armor, call in the Shermans. 

Well, just trying to get caught up.  I'll try to post up soon a Recap of all my completed painting so far.  After that, I'll need to get a few more posts out to capture some of those paint schemes/colors.  Then I'll try to get back to posting at least a monthly update.

November/December Recap

Finished up the year fairly strong with games played and a bit of a slow down on models painted, although there was a good bit of assembly.  Between November and December, I continued on in the new Bolt Action escalation league playing about 8 games.  The recent games in the league have been a bit brutal as the Allied players (myself included) faced 3 straight weeks of superior Axis forces (1.5x, 2x and 2x respectively) as we play through the scenarios in Western Desert.

Allies prepare for the Italian assault.

In addition to the Bolt Action games, I also actually got two games of Konflikt 47 in at 1000 pts.  Both were fun games.

Uh Joe, we gotta a serious problem over here.

Sadly with the chaos of the holidays in full affect, I still haven't gotten a game of Guild Ball with the new Season 4 rules.  Maybe soon.  

Painting was primarily limited to getting a Sherman and a light anti-tank gun painted for the escalation league, along with model assembly for what I had planned out for the rest of the league.  I managed a little work on Wild West Exodus attack and gun dogs, but haven't managed to wrap them up yet.  Then on the very last day of the year, to make sure I could count them in my totals with a clear conscience, I finished the last bit on my Chaffee and Greyhound Bolt Action vehicles (which was just dust, mud and varnishes).

In any case, a pretty good year for painting and playing even if it has been heavily focused on Bolt Action.  Not a such good year for my hobby budget allegedly...  More on that when I work up the nerve for my 2018 retrospective.