lgkade

Marvel Crisis Protocol: Shuri

I am slowly working my way through the backlog of MCP figs that have been growing in number since the pandemic began. I was also a little nervous about painting the Wakandan figures, since it’s easy to make a ton of mistakes with darker skin tones that end up making a mockery of your subject.

Shuri also has some facial markings that took a very steady hand and a super tiny brush, but the end results are exactly what I was hoping for!

So many more minis to show off, I’ll have more from Wakanda this weekend!

Miniatures, Workbench

Marvel Crisis Protocol: Hawkeye

One of my favorite story arcs ever has to be Matt Fraction‘s fantastic run on Hawkeye a few years back, and I am so happy that Atomic Mass Games went with this version of the archer for MCP.

Clint looks pretty capable, and the Hydra logo on the rubble tells me everything I want to know about this encounter!

I’m thinking of putting together a team of street-level heroes for my next game, with Hawkeye, Winter Soldier, Black Widow, and Suri to round things out. Probably get my butt handed to me, but it will be fun!

Miniatures, Workbench

Marvel Crisis Protocol: Vision

Just finished up Vision yesterday as part of my “oh, hell, Atomic Mass Games is about to drop a million cool minis and I only have half of my MCP painted” reaction.

This version of Vision is from the incredible Vision comics that Tom King put out a while back. It’s a pretty grim, yet fantastic bit of writing!

I love that Vision is phasing through this smashed up bit of wall, too. Very nice touch!

Miniatures, Workbench

Marvel Crisis Protocol: Valkyrie

I just realized today that I haven’t actually posted pics of most of the Marvel Crisis Protocol miniatures that I have painted up, so I’m going to have to make a change to that!

Valkyrie, though, is a newer mini that I finished up this week. The box art shows her in her classic comics version, all Nordic and blonde. Nope. I’m a big fan of Tessa Thompson’s portrayal in the Marvel movies, so I opted for a darker skin tone and black hair.

I kept everything else pretty straightforward from Valkyrie’s classic comic look, with the purples and vibrant blues.

Miniatures

Town Guards, Part One

My quest to find the perfect town guards came to an end this month. The awesome sculptor that runs Tytan Troll Miniatures on Patreon has been knocking out some amazing sculpts to print this month. They remind me a lot of the guard in the Diskworld books, so I really didn’t have a choice.

The first batch of four printed up in under 4 hours, cleaned up beautifully, and were a blast to slap a quick paint job onto!

I plan on using them to replace the villagers in my first Rangers of Shadow Deep game, with my Rangers investigating an eerily quiet barracks instead of a village.

Terrain, Workbench

Scratch-Built Fantasy Village, Part 6

The first building is finally finished, and I could’nt be happier with how it turned out!

After the flock and shrubbery was secure, I added a couple of plastic railroad trees that I was able to twist in extremely twisty ways by soaking them in boiling water.

The rest of the piece was just a matter of concealing joins and gaps with shrubs.

After all of the flock was set, I poured clear resin into the moat for a water effect.

It’s a really fun piece, and will make for a thematic center-point for my games!

Terrain, Workbench

Scratch-Built Fantasy Village, Part 5

Things start to come together quick at this point in a project! Now that the base is dry, I brushed on a solid coat of cheap brown acrylic craft paint. This is about the only thing that I use cheap craft paint on– it’s perfect for this kind of job!

Now that the base color is down, a couple of dry-brush passes bring the base closer to what I’m looking for. I also paint in a layer of green for the moat, which will get filled with clear resin later. The stone work that I carved in earlier gets a coat of grey paint, which will get some highlights and shading later.

Color blocking is done, so now it’s time for flock. I use a couple of different colors of flocking, and will use some tufts, too. Foliage is never a uniform color or height, right?

I took some ground up dried leaves and stuck them to the bottom of the moat with watered down white glue. Shrubbery is the last step here, which has to be glued down using super glue.

Next up, it’s time to fill that moat and glue down the building!

Uncategorized

First Warband for ‘Rangers of Shadow Deep’

It took some time management to wrangle this project to completion! I have about a dozen projects in progress right now, and the part of me that launches that many projects kind of hates to see one get crossed off. But Lila Moonshadow, my intrepid half-ranger, finally has her company assembled!

As per my own rules for my Rangers of Shadow Deep campaign, each of the models will need to be printed at home and painted before they see play. I will make a few exceptions where needed, but the Company of the Moonshadow were all printed on my Elegoo Mars and a dream to paint.

Erdwyn Ghost-Step and Morlaine DeShayne are the newest members of the party. Erdwyn is your classic rogue, choosing a life in the shadows over renown and glory. Morlain has been traveling the countryside, looking for a cause to swear her sword to. In Rangers of Shadow Deep Morlaine would be a Swordsman, but I’m changing the class to Sworn Sword.

Lila’s oldest companions came with her when she set out on her quest. The Dwarfen Barbarian Gino Stonefist has known Lila since she was an apprentice, when he was tasked to guide her through the Crimsonthorn wilds. They became fast friends, and were eventually joined by Bromwyd Stoutshield, Gino’s impetuous nephew. Browmwyd is a man-at-arms, while Gino, of course, is a barbarian.

Now that the party is done. I need to finish up the rest of the monsters for the first encounter, get some buildings put together, and finish up the design on my stat cards!

Terrain, Workbench

Scratch-Build Fantasy Village, Part 4

The bulk of the first building is done, but it was looking kind of sad on its own. This here project was in pretty dire need of some elevation. Lucky me, there is quite a bit of MDF just hanging out in the garage looking for a project connection!

First things first, I cut some blocks of blue insulation foam with my trusty Proxon foam cutter. Then I cut a deep recess into one of those blocks, and cut up the recess to make some narrow stairs. I used a ballpoint pen to carve in some stone detail.

I place used the building to make sure that the separate blocks were far enough apart, and glued them down to the MDF. Then it was time to use some Celluclay to bulk out the base to make the whole thing look like mounds of earth.

Next, I shaped the MDF with a saw and a small detail sander. Once I got the shape down, it was time to build up some more earthen mounds around the stairs leading to the tower.

Now to wait for everything to dry, and then get some paint down on this!

Miniatures, Workbench

‘Gloomhaven’ Paint Project, Part One

My friend (and Geekshow MVP) Rebecca Frost was talking about Gloomhaven one day, and I kind of lost my mind. I had to paint them. Why? Well, I had never seen them before. Here was a game set in the fantasy genre that I had never seen, let alone painted.

Luckily, Rebecca didn’t call the police, and I was able to get started on the first batch of six figs. I don’t know what they are, who they are, or why they are, but they are a lot of fun to paint!

First up, a badass lady with a couple of axes. She reminds me of a classic orc, but I think her skin is made of stone or bark!

Next up is a bard, but I think she might also be a plant person:

I know a Rogue when I see one!

I think the next two are druid/ranger types. I might also be waaaay off here, but they both fit a nature theme:

The last one in the first batch looks like a Paladin. We’ll have to see!

I have another five of Rebecca’s figs, and I need to get them done soon, too. There are a TON of Gloomhaven minis, so this project should keep me busy a while.

It’s interesting painting board-game miniatures. They still have a lot of detail, but the need to keep the poses static to keep production costs down makes a mini that’s a lot easier to paint. For the simple joy of putting paint to plastic, this has been a pretty fun project!