Welcome to the old school miniature wargaming/roleplay hobby blog of Geoff (AKA Fimm McCool) from Oakbound Studio. I hope you enjoy your visit.
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Monday 19 February 2024
Salute 2024... DEMO GAME BOARD PART 4-
Monday 12 February 2024
Cult of the Leering Lune months 6 and 7
Some more Goblin Hood and Harlequin figures filling out the unit. Not my favourite to paint as has already been said but there are some fun chappies in there. I particularly like the sneaky cloak and dagger chap and a drunk gobbo in a barrel is always fun.
Most of this unit are the more recent BTD Nightlings. On the Kickstarter for the production of these it says they were sculpted by Kev Adams and Kev White. Looking at the pictures on the BTD site I thought they looked very Kev Adams but as I was painting I have revised my view and now think they are mostly Kev White with just a couple of Kev Adams sculpts lurking in there. Never mind, their cheeky grins and big hoods give them a good aesthetic fit if they are a bit on the large side.
Can you spot the Goblinmaster head? I think out of these the only Kev Adams sculpt is the chap second from right. I'm not sure about the one on the right end as most of his head is covered by the spear but I don't think he is. The one on the very left is another possible but there's something in the proportion of cheekbones to chin that makes me think not.
The command group is genuine Night Goblins, except for the older gobbo who has donned his hood and joined the party. With the taller Nightlings surrounding him he gets away with it, just looking a little lanky. I've used my second swearing goblin as a standard bearer since he has such gravitas, and look! The other musician, finally tracked one down. :)
Of course, being a Night Goblin unit, there are Fanatics. This time some of the older grinning loons.
The snotlings are tasked with keeping the shaman's pet squig entertained... and placated. This is achieved through a mixture of insults, bonks on the head and the occasional meal of grot. On the other side is a late addition, a gobbo who has fallen or perhaps taken a dive to avoid being lunch. I have no idea what this figure is but saw it on a second hand stand at a show in December and thought I had to fit him on. Anyone know what it's actually supposed to be or is from?
For those who care: That's 175 points of mobs, 512 points of bosses (with the hydra) taking the total so far to 1443.5 points of mobs, 1262 points of characters and 86 points of war machines for a total of 2791.5 points. This 2 month's worth of submissions is 41.45 leaving me 15.75 surplus for use in coming months.
Friday 9 February 2024
Salute 2024... DEMO GAME BOARD PART 3- Groundworks
The majority of the grass is static grass mat from Noch, the closest I could find to match in with the original boards I made from the Citadel fabric mat (stupid boy!). These paper-backed grass mats are great at flowing over lumps and bumps (wet the paper thoroughly with PVA, apply more glue to the base board, let them sit for 5 minutes so the glue soaks in and goes tacky then smooth/stretch carefully over the contours) and covering big areas quickly with grass that won't come loose. However they are pretty uniform so don't look very natural by themselves. I like to overwork them with an assortment of scatter material that I can also blend into the tight areas I can't get matting into easily.
The bushes are important for creating places to hide without seriously reducing the amount of space to move around. I tried to place them in a way that could be used to make careful progress across the field. I've tried to be 'targeted' in my use of scatter materials so there are more dead leaves/mulch under the tree for example, bushes cling to rocks and the bank of the stream, there's a darker scatter directly below the bushes and rock faces to suggest shadow, the grass in the centre of the area is paler/browner to suggest it gets dried out by more sun and wind etc. Thinking about how the landscape forms and is affected by the elements is one of the keys to natural looking terrain. Of course, it helps to have a good library of scatter material to hand. I think I used seven different colours of sponge scatter, five different static grasses and four types of clump foliage on this board... and using such small amounts the materials last a good long time.
Friday 2 February 2024
Salute 2024... DEMO GAME BOARD PART 2- Painting
The rocks were a good opportunity to try out the new airbrush setup. I first sprayed everything matt black, paying careful attention to the cave mouth and deepest recesses. I oversprayed this with a patchy raw sienna mix and a general grey, not worrying much about colour but trying to give a good overall coverage and pick out some of the main forms. I was worried this was a bit too purple so when it came to drybrushing highlights over I mixed the light grey with some yellow. This has helped bring the colour more neutral. I did a vigorous drysbrush over the whole thing with a mid grey, then a more targeted, lighter drybrush with pure white and a tad of yellow. Only looking to generate contrast in my tones at this point, not overly bothered about colouration. I drybrushed the rock pillars closest to the shoreline more heavily as on the photo reference I have these are lighter in colour.