Work In Progress.....April 2023

In which I look back at my painting, gaming and modeling exploits of the last month and write a small amount.

I've finished a number of models I've been working on for a while, and very varied they are too. When I played regularly I would make and paint units ready for the next week, or even a big game in 2-3 weeks time, and getting them on the table to use next time out was my motivation for painting and modelling.  Fast forward and I am playing no games whatsoever at the moment, but have picked up an interest in modelling and painting once more.  My motivation for getting figures done is now very much about how much fun I'll have actually doing the task rather than getting to use them.  This means I'm picking some seemingly very random bits to paint!  I've also discovered a need to paint in bright colours, something I avoided due to a lack of skills when I was gaming regularly.  This has had a distinct influence on how bright everything I'm painting is.

And so with no more addo let me introduce you to this month's creations:

2 Orcs

1 Black Coach

6 blue men (more on those in a later post)

1 water carrying supply train piece

A hen house

2 chickens (same base)

And a badger.

The skull markers I did last month but look nice.

Working on currently is this nice ECW piece which I've had for a number of years but never made.  Currently trying to get the base colours right before going to the wash stage.

Little Blue Men

A while back I bought some zulus from a bring and buy, and hidden in the back of the box was two large bases, each with three....pygmies on them.  The sculpting was....questionable.  And the paint job on them was....hmm.  If you have read Astrix & Obelix and you recall the way Africans are portrayed then you'll get the idea. Absolutely not something that I would ever be using on any table.

I debated selling them, or even just throwing them away, for a long time, amd then one day recently looked at them and thought "I wonder if they'd look acceptable in blue". 

I stripped the pain off them, rebased them individually and tried a blue and orange theme, partly inspired by the Nac Mc Feegle from Terry Pratchets books, and partly by the thought that they could be mystical pixies/spirits and tag onto my undead.  I enjoyed the painting, it was very different in colour scheme to the undead I'd been working on, and overall I think they look good.

Don't get me wrong, I can't hide the sculpting, but I think they should be ok to use.  For now they are going into my undead box and I'll see if I can wheel them out next time I've a game and get sone feedback from the opposition.

The Black Coach With The White Horses

And the purple curtains. When I originally painted my Black Coach c.2001 it was very traditional. Black. Red curtains. Black wraith. Flames in braziers. Skeleton horses. Job done.  It was also on a ridiculously large base that made its footprint huge and made it an easy target in games.  The rebasing I covered in a previous post, and I'm pleased with the new trim base.

The 2023 Black Coach has come at a time of colour, and so the horses (proper horses, no skeletons) are white - inspired by Binky (if you know, you know), and after tinkering with purple gor the wraith i went for the same white effect. The curtains are a lovely deep purple, and the flames are blue and magical. Even the wheels are....interesting. The undercoat was my preferred brown.

Overall I'm a fan, although if I did it again I'd base coat the horses grey and build up.  The overall image is a physical coach and coffin, drawn by ghostly horses and coachman.

The Rise of The Vampire

The first warhammer figure I bought; purchased from GW Warrington years and years ago, he was the start of my undead army, and nearly invincible once he avoided my brothers treeman.

Years and years later and he needed a makeover. What he got was a huge base; with his daft sized cloak and sword ranking him up with the skellies was a nightmare. A new 40mm square bases means he can be counted as a vampire AND 3 skeletons, and fit in and look impressive. I hope.

The paint scheme is daring; pink followed by red and purple replaced thr traditional black. His squashed nose (a legacy of not looking after my models) spoiled a decent job on the face. A wash failure did not help - with the main colours on I went for an all-over strong tone wash, only to put it in the same paint mix space as a copper which wasn't dry, and he turned darker and a bit glittery. It didn't do too much damage however.

I finished off with a matt varnish painted on. It could probably do with a bit more watering down but came out OK. Overall I'd say 6.5 out of 10 - not as good as I might have hoped for, but not too shabby.

Great Chariots of Bone

This week I have been mostly working on chariots. I've two skeleton charriots which I've had for....many years, mostly unpainted and in poor condition. But spurred on by my daughter wanting to paint (in her case a dragon) I've put brush to paint and finally given them a dusting of colour. In case your wondering 10 minutes of mostly green and she left the dragon for another time.

The chariots had already been fixed and tidied up and based, and given a nifty brown undercoat (army painter for those with an interest).



The bone effect I did some YouTube research and settled on a white paint coat, followed by an army painter strong tone wash, before a drybrush/highlight of GW bleached bone, with extra bleached bone for good measure. 

I went for a burn red for the leather and wood, and a lovely bronze for the metals.

The bases were a red brown vallejo coat, followed by a dry brush of army painter monster brown, and a light iraqi sand drybrush to follow. I'm liking the effect, I'm just sad that the rest of my skeleton infantry still need rebasing so they will have to wait. Green is the flick of choice, and I'm still debating which colour to do the edge of the bases.

Napoleonic French Artillery - In Progress

I've slowed down alot this month, far too much happening and too little hobby time or enthusiasm available. But in what time I did manage I've been putting together some Napoleonic French artillery.

It's a Victrix set which I've had for a good year plus (possibly last year, or the year before Christmas present), and it's very nice looking.  My creativity seems to have taken a hammering I the last few years so I've struggled a bit with picking arms and poses but overall I'm happy. I've made two cannon and crew and here they are stuck to plasticard ready for (spray) painting.  The third artillery piece from the box I'm doing as a howitzer and I've yet to make the crew.

The Black Coach - An Undead Relic

In a land before time, back in the early 2000s, I purchased a Black Coach.  It was painted...well Black obviously, no self respecting vampire is ever going to be seen in anything else.  I didn't want to hide the vampire in his coffin so left his coffin and it's lid loose so he could pop in and out of the back, and with the addition of a couple of skeleton horses, a whacking huge MDF base and a very early 2000 paint job it was done.  It even travelled to university with me, spending a couple of years on the mantlepiece of a fireplace in my room.  

In the follow years it saw much use, scaring the forces of good across the land, and with this it became a little tatty.  It was a time before I'd worked out varnish coating, and there was plenty of scratching on the metal.  It was in need of a revamp; the base in particular annoyed me because it made the model an easy target, and also look very 'meh'.

Stage one of the revamp saw me tear the model from the base, something which the horse still took badly, and still haven't recovered from.  That wasn't something I worried about however as I planned to give it a spookier vibe with some 'real' horses rather than skeleton cartoon ones. Painted black of course.

The model then lay in a box all but forgotten for a while. Days stretched into months, and months into years, and one day I decided that while fixing up the Skelton chariots the coaches time had come.  Stage two appeared, with the cleaning of the paint from the metal, then plenty of green stuff helped me put it back together on a custom made base (customer made by me out of plasticard).  The coffin lid was glued shut, and the coffin itself glued into the back of the coach.  A little bit of bending of the traces saw the new horses 🐎 fit it nicely, even if one of the tails was a bit long.

Overall I'm very pleased how it looks on its new base with new horses, although I am getting nervous about making a decent job of the Black.  The next stage will be sand on the base, then a base coat (most likely brown) before I see if my painting kills are up to the task.  If it comes out similar to my black robed wraith I'll be happy.

Old black.