Happy Close to New Years!

 In retrospect, it has not been an active blogging year. Could be due to a lot of things. I think one of the contributing reasons is that I wanted to focus my blogging efforts in posting after action reports instead of constant works in progress. Oh well. It is what it is.

A few end of the year odds and ends

Before I left for what might be our last annual Christmas trip to Chicago, I painted up these Eureka Miniatures orcs. I may have mentioned Eureka and a post long ago when they first came out with their line of 18mm fantasy. They seem to be first company to go gung-ho on the 18mm size. Early reviews said they were more like 20mm and didn't mix at all with other lines, so I never bothered to order any. Recently, there was a posting on the Facebook 15mm fantasy group that showed some of their orcs so I gave them a try. 

Here is a comparison shot of various manufacturers of orcs:

Left to right: 15mm dice, two Eureka orcs, Ral Partha
Europe (Demonworld), two Splintered Light Miniatures.

All seem to be compatible. The Demonworld orc has a cartoony head with a big lower jaw that looks like a throwback to Citadel orcs. 

Finally, the painted up version of the gunboat I showed in my previous post. 

Trip to Chicagoland

This year, my son joined my daughter and I to roam around downtown Windy City. It was a pretty warm day. Like last time, we had to visit the expensive stores on North Michigan Avenue, and we did stop at the three-story Starbucks for coffee (just what the world needs, right?). 

First we paid homage to the Bean in Millennial Park. It has an official title, but like many other structures in Chicago, the locals name things what they want. 

Afterwards, the kiddos were hungry for some lunch. Last year, my daughter and I went to have deep dish pizza, but we had that the night before. We ended up eating at a way overpriced Korean corndog place. They were good, but not $50 for the whole meal good. 

Massive $12 cheese pull

Me along the Chicago River standing next to a bust of the first non-native permanent settler, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Boy, do I look short and fat!

My kids, part 1. Behind them is the Wrigley Building. Corporate headquarters of the Wrigley Company, currently is still the largest maker of chewing gum in the world. Across the street from it is the Tribune Towers that was also built in the early 1290s. Interesting side, embedded into the lower facade of the Tribune Towers are famous bricks and stones from around the world. For example, there is a chunk of stone from the Great Pyramid in Giza, and one from the Great Wall of China. 

My kids, part 2. Here they are standing in front of the Marina towers, formerly known as Marina City. It was built in the mid-60s as a combination luxury apartments and offices. I got to go up there once as a kid. My parents had some friends that lived there. I remember listening to a Beatles album while my parents and friends drank Manhattans. 

Christmas market. In Chicago, its held every year in the plaza in front of city hall. Another famous large work of art is the Picasso Sculpture that is located on the plaza. It doesn't have an official name. Built in 1967, it was the subject to a lot of ridicule as people did not know what it was and found it too weird. But times have changed and its one of the iconic structures of the city. 

 My kids part 3. The Christmas Market is not very big and it was very crowded, considering it was December 23. But we got in, looked around, and had our dinner (brats and deep fried cheese curds...I snuck in a beer), which was much cheaper than lunch. I almost bought a cool beer stein but decided not to.

More Barbarians to Rage With

 A new line of fantasy barbarians came out from Mace Face Miniatures. It is their Hornblower shield maidens. I am not sure why they are called hornblower. You do get a lot of horn blowers in the command pack. 

This is a sample from the mixed weapons, archers, and command packs

I suppose that shield maidens is a good description. They have a nordic vibe to them as they are dress for cold weather. They appear to be ever so slightly smaller than Copplestone's barbarians. They are very well sculpted with a lot of detail. I have no idea who sculpted them, but they do resemble the style of the Copplestone barbarians. My only issue with them is they have a lot of flash or the little bits and squiggles of metal attached to them. I spent a hour or so last night cleaning up some of the figures. 

Other news

Ion of Archduke Piccolo put out some neat, easy to use rules for WWII naval battles. Ion's rules and the ships that he made triggered a major sense of nostalgia. Back in my high school days, my best friend Mark and I would have these epic naval battles using slightly modified rules from Avalon Hill's Midway game. Mark even built fleets of very simple but effective ship models out of mostly balsa wood and cardboard. Using the various paper ships that I have made, I might have me a battle using these rules. I may even get back into the ship building business. 

Finally

A picture of an imperial knight from Ral Partha Europe (DemonWorld)

More Test Shots

I did some more test shots using my light ring on 15mm fantasy figures. They are better lit, but still look like crap in close up. They seem to loose their depth and three-dimensionality and look like they are poorly painted pictures. 

I look a picture of Baron Henri of Emoree awhile ago, but I thought I'd add a few more. For entertainment purposes, the barony of Emoree is a large county in the kingdom of Zarnagol. After the king of Zarnagol was killed in a final climatic battle, Zarnagol was plunged into civil war as many of the lords of the land did not recognize the king's infant bastard son as the legitimate heir to the throne. They were more against the child's mother, a powerful sorceress, who declared herself the royal regent. Conflict has died down over the years with little resolution as to who is to be king. Those who opposed the illegitimate heir pretty much do what they wanted and pay little, if any, lip service to the regent. The child is now 16, and with is mother's urging is trying to unite those loyal to him and make him the true king. Baron Henri fully supports the young heir, but many of his neighbors to the east, oppose him.

Baron Henri and his entourage. All are
Demonworld minis expect the knight on
the baron's right who is a Khurasan mini.

His household men-at-arms.

Slightly different angle.

The Baron's court wizard Zandu. Flanking him
are the Baron's battle champions. 

I threw up a brown background for the fourth picture. It seemed to have darkened them a little without hiding parts of the figures in shadows, which is what often happens without a light on them.

 

Test Shots With New Phone Light

 In one of my many endless quests for perfection, I recently purchased a ring light for my phone. My photos of figures always look like crap, and its often due to poor lighting. It was all of about $9 at Walmart, so I though why not take a chance. There are my results:

The first test shot. This was done using the light and natural daylight. 

 In the evening, I did two comparison shots. First shot is my normal way which is to adjust my Ott light to light up the figures. The second is Ott light + phone ring light.

Typical workbench light

With the phone ring light attached

I sent the pictures to a friend of mine and asked which he thought was better. He preferred the one with the ring light attached. He thought the other looked more garish. Of course, he didn't have the actual minis in front of him, which could bias his opinion. Also, I didn't tell him which was which in terms of the lighting used. He did say that the mounted elf and the orcs where I used the ring light were very shiny looking and wondered if I had used gloss paints. For the elf, yes; I had not sprayed it flat yet and a lot of washes dry glossy. For the orcs, I had already deglossed them. They seemed shinier than the elf especially the banner.

The quest will continue. 

A Better Photograph?

 Just after posting the last one, I thought that at least lighting issues are due to the white table fooling the light meter. These camera phone have nowhere near the sophistication that even an old, film SLR camera did...at least that is my opinion. The only thing handy was the back of a paper pad. It seems like the Battlesystem Dwarf is still pretty dark. Its hard to say if its really any better, but at least it is a comparison of the three manufacturers.

L to R: Battle Valor, Ral Partha Battlesystem, and Demonworld

Fruits of My Labors: Dwarves

 After taking those awful pictures in my last post, I decided to give my office a try. It seems that for some reason, even though I have neon lighting, I seem to get better pictures here in my office. This time around are Dwarves. They are a combination of Ral Partha Europe (formerly Demonworld),  Battle Valor Games, and even an old, original Ral Partha Battlesystem figure. 

Dwarf guards (Demonworld)

Dwarf heavy infantry (Battle Valor and RP Battlesystem)

Battle Valor on left, Ral Partha Battlesystem on right

Ruger Ironblade

The photos still aren't that great, but they are better than the ones I took of the Orcs. I guess I am not much of a miniatures photographer but I don't have the time or money to buy fancy equipment to take better pictures. 

Comparing the three manufacturers, they really are not different in size. For some reason, my mind keeps thinking that the Battle Valor are taller. They just seem a little more portly than the other two. They just have to lay off the beer and sausages. Again, this is the results of continuing to  paint down the lead pile, and all of these are mounted singly so that I can theoretically game with my son.

The Saga of the Minotaur

I'm still clearing off the table of 15mm fantasy to get moving on my 3 & 6mm figures. Don't worry, I will be back working on them soon! I've got a SA-2 missile site I'm working on in 3mm. The missiles and their radar systems are done, but I am working on the site itself. On to my story:

I got this very nice minotaur from Splintered Light Miniatures called Giant Minotaur Warrior.

http://www.splinteredlightminis.com/gimiwa.html

He has a lot of really nice detail on him and I thought he'd add one more extra punch to my bad-guy barbarian army.

I was really proud of my initial paint job, until this happened:

The wash I used turned it into a uniformly brown, goopy mess! It obscured most of the highlights that I added especially on the hair & fur. The culprit:

I am not really sure why it turned out so bad. I've been mixing my own washes since the late 90s. My standard mix is Future liquid acrylic floor wax (or whatever its called now), with ink/another wash/paint/etc. I don't have a standard ratio as each pigment medium has different properties. I mix the two together, run the mixture across the ridges of a bottle cap with a brush, and if I like what I see, I use it; if not, I adjust either floor wax or the pigment. Inks have very fine pigments but are very intense. I thought I had made the right ratio. In addition to being too intense, the floor wax started solidifying very quickly. Again, I've worked with this stuff forever and I know how long I have to work with it before it solidifies.

So, I ended up stripping the whole thing with a combination of oven cleaner and Simple Green. I repainted it, but I feel it is just not as good as my original:

Left: Battle Valor Games, Center: Splintered Light, Right: Ral Partha Europe (Demonworld)

I did use a wash, but very sparingly. It was a mixture of the floor wax and black acrylic paint. No problems this time. I haven't condemned the Vallejo ink to the back of the drawer. I might try it again to see if I get better results on a different figure. Also, I use a Windsor & Newton sepia ink on my 3mm armies, so I might try the Vallejo and see what I get on those.

Dragon Knight

I painted this guy up during an effort to reduce my pile of 15 mm fantasy lead. He's a Demonworld miniature now sold at Ral Partha Europe. I think he's supposed to be a bad guy, but I'm not sure. I experimented with making his armor metallic green by mixing green ink with silver paint, but it looks more blue. My shield painting skills are not what they used to be, it isn't awful.

My son wanted me to post this character here. Fully armed Spider-Spawn. You would think a superhero wouldn't need all the fire power, but I guess better safe than sorry.

More Fantasy 15s

My postings on this blog have really tanked. Its not that I haven't done anything hobby related, its more a matter that I have not had the time to post things.

I've been cramming, so to speak, to finish up my 15mm fantasy barbarian project. It is never going to be really finished, but I want to get to the point of, "enough with the painting!" I am at the burn out point with painting fantasy figures, and I want to get back to 6mm and 3mm gaming (emphasis on GAMING). I think I am close to that goal. Here are my recent pieces:

Barbarian Chief on Beastman Chariot

I combined a Demonworld barbarian riding on a Khurasan beastman chariot. I've been looking for some sort of fantasy chariot for the barbarian to ride and this fit the bill.

The Scarlet Sorcerer and His Minions
These I painted up for my son. With the exception of the velociraptors, which are from Khurasan miniatures, these are all a hodgepodge of figures sitting around in my storages boxes.

Scarlet Sorcerer

His hentchmen

Mounted guards

Red Ninjas

Palace guards

Pet Velociraptors

Standard of the High King

Demonworld Thain standard of the High King. Now produced by Ral Partha Europe.

Rangers of the North Part 3

I have not painted the entire pile of rangers, but enough to get an idea of how I want them to look like when painted and based. Pardon the obvious flash photography.  Its hit or miss with my phone camera in terms of getting the minis in focus. Flash guarantees it but the colors seem a little off and you get shadows in the background. After a lot of back and forth, I decided to base them two to a stand. Everyone was more or less compatible size-wise except for the Demonworld figures.

Demonworld minis

Left : Chariot Right: Peter Pig 

Left: Splintered Light, Right: Rank and File

More Rank and File

Splintered Light

I put the last two Splintered  Light rangers on separate stands. They seemed somewhat unique  compared to the others. They guy on the left looked like an old veteran, hence the grey beard. The guy on the right I call "The Dude." I gave him a grey cloak rather than a green or brown one. The lower part of The Dude's bow didn't  seem to be completely cast. But he's  cool with that; it is what it is.

Rangers of the North Part 2

I've had a little free time in the evenings this past week, so I got some hobbying in. I was planning to work on my rivers, but I can't decide what materials to use to make the banks. Its coming down to plaster, or caulk. So, while I pondered this issue, I cracked open the paint bottles and painted up a few more rangers.

First up, a Splintered Light Miniatures figure from their Warriors of Nature range:

I should have stuck a ruler behind all these figurines, so you can compare sizes. They are a little small, about the size of the Chariot Miniatures rangers, and more slender. Not overly complicated, but very nicely sculpted.

Next is a different Demonworld Miniatures ranger from the one I showed in Rangers, Part 1:

He's got a Robin Hood thing going on. Maybe I should have added a mustachio a la Errol Flynn. The Demonworld figurines are bigger than the other lines, and this guy really seems to reflect that.

Finally, there are these rangers from a company that I now found out, thanks to the Google+ 15mm Fantasy community called Rank & File Miniatures.

They were produced by Ral Partha and came out at about the same time (as I recall) as their Battlesystem 15s. Apparently, their molds were destroyed along with the Battlesystem 15s...thank you Wizards of the Coast....not!!!

Rangers seem to in a variety of poses. Few of them actually fire their bows. They tend to be causal about things as seen above. Maybe that's part of the ranger mystique. What's with the whole mask thing? I am not sure why they need to hide their identities. Again, the ranger mystique?

Here is a group shot to compare sizes:

I will probably finish up this series with the remaining Splintered Lights left to paint, some Peter Pig wood elves that seem more ranger-like than elf like, and then the results of how I decide to base them.