Thinking Outside the Box

Here's a quick post to finish off the month of August. I bought the Games Workshop "Garden of Morr" several years ago, with an eye to using it for games of Strange Aeons or possibly Empire of the Dead .  Some of these pieces even made an appearance in a game or two of Batman . A few months ago I had done most of the painting required on the fences, but more recently I added an extra set of all the walls from friend who had used parts for another scenery project. Some repair work had to be done on that set, as the spikes on all of the walls had been removed. I needed some patience but was able to glue appropriate pieces back in place. Some of them look like they've been bent down or replaced. Painting was accomplished largely through dry brushing using my standard colours for stone and dirt. I did use some P3 Cryx Bane Base to give it a bit of green before painting the foliage. I opted against painting all of the roses sculpted in, I thought it would look to...

I've been on a bit of a roll this week, getting a total of a dozen figures completely painted for the Batman Miniatures Game  by Knight Models.  Fast following the footsteps of my uniformed police I have completed the remaining Law Forces figures. The four SWAT officers and Branden started out with the same P3 Exile Blue as the uniformed officers. A light coat of black covered most of the rest of the figures. It was almost a wash, but perhaps a little thicker. I dry brushed this with GW Fortress Grey and then washed the whole lot with GW Asurmen Blue. After that I went back in and highlighted with Exile Blue and Fortress Grey. The blue got another highlight of a 1:1 mix of Exile Blue and Army Painter Shadow Grey. The detective in the back is essentially the same as the uniformed cops from last week, just with the trouser and shirt colours reversed. He and Branden got a basic five o'clock shadow with some GW Ogryn Flesh wash. The goggles and Gordon's glasses were p...

While I was working on my uniformed police for the Batman Miniatures Game  I also started to paint my Batwoman figure. Repainting a Batman Beyond figure from Heroclix  would be the perfect opportunity to test the colour techniques without potentially ruining a $22 figure from Knight Models . The sculpt for Batman Beyond is very good. He's almost perfectly in scale with the BMG figures and the paint only needed a bit of touching up. I covered the red of the cape with GW Mephiston Red and then a wash of GW Baal Red wash. That was followed by a liberal coat of the base colour, leaving some shadows in the recesses. For a highlight I mixed in some P3 Orange (probably about 1:1) and applied several, gradually smaller coats for a final highlight. It was difficult taking a good picture of this guy. Black is a colour that you could take forever painting, but I didn't have the desire to do much work on this so I went for a technique I've used in the past. P3 Coal Black dr...

After I had built and painted all the markers and 'furniture' it was at last time to start applying paint to some actual characters from the Knight Models  range for the Batman Miniatures Game . I had built and primed a lot of the KM figures already and wanted to paint some in a batch, so I chose the four uniformed police and Commissioner Loeb. Batwoman is on the table too but not yet complete. You can read a game recap of my first attempt using this 250 rep crew here. Apologies for the mediocre individual photos. Painting these figures didn't get off to a great start as I waffled around trying to settle on colours. The first blue I chose was too bright. Then I tried an all blue uniform with something a little darker...and didn't like that either. Taking a cue from the package imagery I settled on grey trousers and very light blue shirts under dark blue jackets. Loeb being in his dress uniform simply meant his trousers would match his jacket. Easy! After...

Pictured here are painted examples of the core set hero miniatures from Guardians Chronicles . These are not the replacement figures that backers received, but rather, the miniatures that anyone buying the game at retail will get (I think). These languished on my painting table for quite a while. In retrospect I'm not sure why I punished myself with the task. Quite simply, they're bloody awful. While I was able to make them look somewhat respectable, it just wasn't worth the effort. The replacement figures are miles better, although admittedly still a disappointment from what was promised during the Kickstarter campaign. I'm uncertain as to whether the better figures are now being included with copies of the game. If they are I've not heard anything about it. So, don't buy the game for the figures! However, I quite enjoy the game and would suggest it to anyone looking for a one-vs-many superhero adventure game. The rules are a bit of a task to surmount...

Ok minor rant time. I use Kickstarter a lot. I've supported many a project over the past few years, and today I happened upon something that, as a software designer, drove me absolutely insane. After over five minutes of searching, it's fucking impossible to submit feedback to Kickstarter. You might ask what the hell I'm talking about, so here's a little more detailed information. I was reading an update from the creator of one of my supported campaigns on my iPhone. It had some nice info and images in it, so I wanted to add a comment stating my appreciation. When I clicked on the "Leave a Comment" button, the page simply reloaded and I was right back where I started. Yes, I was logged in. Now, this is odd, so I went to the support section on the site. There's no way to submit a bug report or feedback. I can submit specific things about "My stuff" or "General Questions" like pledging and payments. But a simple "hey thi...

Hobby seemed to take a bit of a back seat through July. I split my time amongst five projects, which is a quite few more than I'd promised myself I would work on. Here's what happened in my hobby realms...with far fewer photos than I'd like! The first thing I recall finishing in July was actually painting my MDF DreadBall pitch from start to finish. You can read more about that by clicking here . Stuff built for Batman Miniatures Game : - Black Canary and Batgirl - Victor Zsasz and Arkham Inmates set (4) - Titan Bane - Blackgate Prisoners set I (4) - Blackgate Prisoners set II for BMG (4) When I bought my Terminator Genisys starter set I built them the same day. This month I put some basing material on them and got everything primed in black. Although not fully complete I've painted all the endoskeletons (15) who simply lack a few finishing touches. We even had a chance to play through a few games. I may or may not do some kind of game recap or review...