ByronM - Kings of War Wraith Regiment

 This month I got a lot in progress, but not a lot done...  Hopefully that means more to show next month, but you never know.  My biggest issue currently is getting everything together and prepped for the annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge which starts Dec 21st each year, and allows you to get models assembled, cleaned, and primed before it starts.  Having enough prepared before the challenge starts is a huge part of being able to complete a lot over the winter, so a lot of effort is going into that this year as I ran short of models last year.

Anyway, on with the show and tell for October!  This month I have a whole regiment of Wraiths for our Kings of War in 10mm project that a few of us are doing locally.  We are doing KoW in 10mm, but keeping all the 28mm base sizes so that the game plays no differently, and so that I can use the KoW bases I cut found here: Northern Lights Terrain KOW Bases.

These models are all 3d prints from the excellent range by Forest Dragon.  I can not recommend his stuff enough, it is amazing quality for 10mm models and prints without issues.  

I wanted these Wraiths to have an eerie green glow to them, and I think they came out ok, however I should have thought of the basing before painting these, as the green looses a ton against the green flock.  In retrospect I should have gone with a blue or black instead of green on the wraiths, or gone with brown or grey basing for this faction.  Oh, well, they are done and not much I can do about it now.

ByronM - MiniHammer / Mini Kings of War and Hagglethorn Hollow Wizards Tower

 It's been a while since my last post as it has been a while since I got anything painted (due to summer and being outside more) but with the end of the month looming it was time to get something finished.  This is a test piece for a project I have been thinking of for at least the last year or two (maybe more), that is doing Kings of War (or Warhammer Fantasy Battle) in a smaller scale to get the right look and feel of massed troop combat. 

Sorry for the slightly glossy nature of the building, I ran out of dullcote clear cote so had to use a satin until I get more dull and it shows a bit glossy on flat surfaces.  I will go over it again later to dull it down!

I wanted to do a smaller scale as I always hated WFB due to having to take models off, and like KOW because you don't have to, but felt both lack a little in the looks department as they are meant to represent mass combat but at 28mm scale you really do not get that look with 20 guys in a unit.  I always felt it would look better in a smaller scale.

This then is the first test unit for doing just that, taking KOW down to 10mm scale where I plan on using the same size bases as 28mm KOW but using smaller figures.  I am still working out if I want to actually use the same size bases and just scale down the terrain but still play on a 6x4 table or potentially going to 1/2 size bases and playing on a 3x2 table, but this will help give me an idea of how it will look.

The first army I am doing is the Undead, featuring skeletons, vampires, ghouls, ghosts, hounds, and more...  But I am likely to do a second army as well over the winter as I like having 2 factions for every game I play so that I can sucker in additional victims to my hobby teach friends how to play!

Another huge upside for going to a smaller figure size is painting time!  Painting even a 20 man unit is 28mm scale is at least a weeks work (probably a couple hours every night for a total of 12-30 hours total), where as I painted both the unit and the tower in less than 3 hours.  Painting small figures is more about the impression of the whole unit rather than each figure having to be well done.  In fact, these were printed yesterday during the day, then primed and painted last night!  Because, you know I don't have enough unpainted figures already, I have to print more...

Also both the unit and the terrain is 3d printed!  The figures are from The Forest Dragon and printed out amazingly well and once you own the files cost less than $0.50 per stand of 6 guys to print!  The building is a scaled down building from a kickstarter that I backed called Hagglethorn Hollow that had an amazing set of buildings meant to print at larger scale but that work amazing printed smaller.

Now to convince Mike and Steve and others to join in on the fun and get some additional armies done up locally!  I already have my friend Curt convinced to join in from Regina and you can follow his blog Analogue Hobbies for his posts there.

6mm Mechs from Quartermaster3D - ByronM

 Here are some test prints of some modular mechs that my friend Scott is designing over at Quartermaster 3D. 

I of course had to paint them up in a classic Gundam paint scheme, tested with some Scale 75 contrast paints.  They give a quick basic paint job, with shading built into how they work.  I then touched up some edges with some extra highlight and then based them up.

Analogue Hobbies Painting challenge 2020 - Entry 1

Once again winter is here, and with it, my friend Curt's annual painting challenge! 

The first figure I painted this year was something I picked up from a patreon that I immediately fell in love with and had to have.  It is from Great Grimoire and supplies monthly fairy tale themed STL files for 3d printing at home, and this was from a few months ago and I have been itching to get to work on it.

I painted this up with what is in real life a brighter green glow (but it kept getting washed out in the images) to show as an eerie eldritch magic allowing the hands to come through the cabinet.

While I had planned on having the green glow reflect onto the floor and the girls back, the figure is for my wife, and she didn't want it "ruined", so I left it out.

The girl was very tiny when printed the first time (as was the cabinet) with the base being less than 40mm.  At that scale it was correct for 28mm, but just seemed too small, so I reprinted it scaled up to a 55mm base, so the girl is actually 30mm tall just to get enough size to deal with the details that were there, since it is not for any game, and just for a display piece, scaling up really didn't affect anything.

It is amazing how many great Patreons and Kickstarters there have been for STL files over the last year, so this is the first of many 3d prints that I will be painting up this year.

Byron