Jeff recently commissioned me to punch-up some Pan Oceana miniatures he has. He already did some really solid color work, which made layering in the shading and highlights a lot of fun.
Category: Workbench
I intentionally saved the most fun part of Chris’s project for last: the Airspeeder has been one of my favorite Star Wars vehicles since I first saw it in a long-since-demolished theatre in 1980. I took a little extra time on the weathering to get that “beat to hell but still flying” look just right!
Here’s Chris’s last squad of Rebels, another AT-RT, and one hell of a speeder!
Anthony recently hired me to paint up some of his Aleph miniatures for Infinity! The first batch of the project was total paint work from start to finish:
Sadly, I failed to take good pics of most of the first batch, but I did get these two bots to hold still a minute:
Next up were some detail punch-ups on some figs Anthony already had. I’ve faced Ajax before, so it was nice doing something with this model that didn’t involve me wincing as it wiped out my troops! First up is the big man himself, followed by Achilles:
Chris asked me to paint up the Rebels he had picked up for the Star Wars Legion game that Fantasy Flight Games just released. The figures themselves are 32mm scale, and are a lot of fun to put together and paint. For the first two squads of troops I drew some inspiration from the Art of Rogue One book:
I mirrored the colors on the second squad for the AT-RT:
And for Luke, Chris wanted something a little different, so I painted Luke up in black tones for his fatigues:
Chris wanted to do the basing himself, and the final figures really look great!
My FLGS has a big Infinity event coming up in May, and I have been part of a team putting together a Yu-Jing based board for the tournament. It’s been a fun project, but I want to put a table together featuring alien terrain.
I picked up a big sheet of blue insulation foam, and started carving it up with a knife. Lots of shaping later I ended up with this:
That’s a pretty cool chunk of rock, and I sealed it in a couple of coats of Mod Podga and black paint.
Next up, I started layering in bright, alien colors, aiming for a classic Star Trek look. I also ordered a big bag of plastic aquarium plants, which really added to the overall cool factor:
Now I need to work up enough of this stuff to cover a 4′ by 4′ table by May 10th!
Here’s a few more shots of Aaron’s Caledonian commission:
The first set of Frostgrave minis I picked up was the multi-piece plastic kit from Northstar Miniatures. I have always been a sucker for multi part miniatures, and for $35 you get 20 little beasties to build and paint. That’s a really good value, and you get a lot of hobby time for the money!
My first gnolls just weren’t cutting it for me, though. You can see the paint job on the banner at the top of the page. They look fine, but something was missing. I was watching Planet Earth last week, and it dawned on me; these guys are hyena peeps, and hyenas have masks. I broke out the paints, and after a couple of hours of work and a few washes, this is how my gnolls look:
Now that’s more freaking like it! The big bruiser with the shield and spear is one of those AD&D cheapo pre-paints, but I like the fig and it can be painted up Real Purdy in very little time. The other 5 pups are from the Northstar kit. I have 15 more doggos to paint, but I’m going to get some color variation in there to break up the band visually.
The Frostgrave gnolls can be ordered at just about any FLGS, or you can contact the awesome peeps at my favorite store, Shiv Games here in Salt Lake City.
This next piece took about four hours to put together, I think it might have taken a little less time but the PDF instructions were on the other end of a dead link…
This is the Xiguan Office Building from Warsenal, and it’s a beast of a model. I taped the insides together to hold everything in place, and then let the adventure build itself.
First off, it’s BIG. It’s also two models, since it comes with a set of stairs that you can put pretty much anywhere you want. There are some really neat details, too, from the window shutters down to the food kiosk out front.
Oh, lordy. These stairs go right through the building, which means there is a lot of cover for models, and some cool strategic elements come into play, too. The molding above the roof is a really nice touch!
Here you can see the top of the previous staircase, coming out on the back of the building. The narrow set of stairs goes to the top floor…
… which is completely accessible by removing the roof. I think I see a nice spot for my Sin Eater to hang out when this is finished!
The Xiguan Office Building is one of the pricier kits Warsenal has, clocking in at $65 US. It’s a serious bit of kit, though, and I really think you’ll get plenty of return on your investment.
More pics to come as the model progresses!
My friend Matt asked if I would take on a pretty big terrain project for a tournament at our favorite shop, Shiv Games. The project includes a whole bunch of MDF buildings from Warsenal, a company out of Florida that makes some of the nicest laser-cut projects I have ever set my eyes on.
I have finished two of the pieces so far, but there are some challenges to MDF terrain that put me on a pretty steep learning curve: first, you really shouldn’t paint the model after it’s been glued together, and you really can’t hold it together for painting without glue.
Today I put together this little shop, and realized that I could tape the insides of the building together to hold the whole thing together, which will help me not only prime the model, but take parts of it together when I don’t want to spend a lot of extra time masking off all the nooks and crannies. It’s a pretty sweet little building, and I’ll post progress shots of it as I work on it.
Here’s a magical artifact I created for Frostgrave, feel free to use it in your games. The card is sized for a standard sports-card sized sleeve. If you have any requests for magic items or character cards, hit me up!
Amulet of Wepwawet (Cost 400 gold)
This amulet surfaced a century ago, found around the neck of the mummified remains of a caravan leader. The cadaver was riddled with arrows, with a ring of assumed assailants littered several paces away from the body. The amulet itself is crudely crafted out of dull gold, and prominently features a leering hyena on its face. Scholars researching the artifact reported feeling anxious when they were around it, with one researcher noting that he had observed his peers becoming immobilized with fits of manic laughter. The amulet was reported missing from the Minesterium Obscura a decade ago, its current whereabouts unknown.
This magical amulet is infused with the spiritual essence of Wepwawet, the trickster god of the gnolls tribes. The wearer of the Amulet of Wepwawet gives off an aura of anxiety, and those that oppose the bearer’s goals may find themselves wracked with waves of spastic, manic laughter. Any opposing figure that moves within 4″ of the bearer will need to pass a Willpower check or they are immobilized with spasms of nervous laughter. The victim can defend themselves if attacked, but their turn is otherwise over. The Amulet of Wepwawet does not appear to affect the undead.
Grimmleigh's Lab 