Banana! Sculpting a minion

Another year another hobby challenge to craft a gift for my wife's birthday.  This year the choice was a minion from Despicable Me.  You've probably seen the Banana song doing the rounds recently...

So the question was how to make the little fella.  The sage advice my brother gave me for sculpting was to find or make something to sculpt over, so I got myself a kinder egg...

The story continues after the jump...

Hasslefree Adventurers

A quick post this week, lots of projects on but nothing finished yet I can share.  Instead I've got some great Hasslefree figures I painted last year as part of my Inquisitor army that I didn't get around to taking shots of.

The other reason I thought of these this week is that local game designer Taran will be using them at his Infected Dead launch event in a few weeks time - check out the link and come face the zombies if you can make it!  My own legions of zombies from a little while ago are going to join in the carnage, as well as the lady troopers from way back.

https://www.facebook.com/BlackRoninRolePlayingGames

Taran is also responsible for the splendid new banner at the top of the blog, many thanks!

Taken from their wide range of adventurers and other ranges, these figures are destined to be members of my henchmen squads.  Where the troopers I have from Heresy and Hasslfree are somewhat regimented, this figures are a more rag tag bunch, deliberately so as they are going to be on more dangerous missions, whether embarked in a flyer or acting as melee troops.

This first lady is, I believe a reference to Seline in Underworld, played by Kate Beckinsale.  Regardless, she's a tough looking one in a trenchcoat, bodyglove and packing 2 pistols.

Arguably this character is the same reference, but I am wondering if its more Kate in Von Helsing.  On this figure there's a great sense of movement in the swinging sword arm.

The huge bloke (no size reference I know, but trust me he's marine scale) is I think a Ghost in the Shell reference to Batou.  Wearing a bomber jacket and a t-shirt he's clearly not scared of anything - tiny gun too!

This gun toting teen is I think Buffy - I chose to give her a pulse rifle as I like the pose but there's no doubt she can handle herself at close range I like to think!

Lastly here's Hasslefree's own character Libby (who is I think is inspired by Sally White) in the Leia/Jedi cross over style.  A great figure and frankly with a light sabre a terror on the tabletop.

Where these characters had shiny leather elements on them, I've used some clear gloss finish acrylic to make them look the part, I think it works well and I've made sure I have a pot handy now for anything I do - although I have to paint it after varnishing as I use anti-shine spray!

This is only the first 5 I've completed, I have a bunch more ready to go at some point and Hasslefree have released a whole load more characters since my last order who are great as well!

Twisted Allegiances : Malifaux Tournament

Last weekend I ran my second Mailfaux Tournament - another multiplayer extravaganza!

After the first event earlier this year the feedback was generally "more of the same" so I looked into what I could do.  Some lessons learnt from the first time round was to be more prepared and to remind people to turn up promptly!

With this in mind I worked with Rob, the shop manager to ensure we had all the schemes and strategies printed out and protected to give out to all the players as packs as they arrived.  I had registration sorted out using the store PC and I made sure I took photos of all the crews entering the painting this time around.

I arranged a few votes to determine some of the details of the event and one of the changes this time was to try out a few story encounters.  These took a fair bit of play testing and while the first encounter seemed reasonably well rounded, the second was problematic and on the day proved tough make much progress with in the short space of time we had available.  The details of the full event pack are here.

Anyway on to the eye candy.  Here's all the crews that entered the painted competition.  A huge thanks here to the sheer number of new players and crews that turned up as well as the longer in the tooth players (and their crews) who constantly support these events and games we arrange.

Molly's crew by Si - I love Molly and the crooligans here especially

Von Schill's crew by Big Simon, bought and painted in the last couple of months - the Orian mere hours since the paint dried!

Jacob's crew by Emily, painted in what I am calling a canvas style,
really interesting and striking effect, even more so in person

Jacob's crew by Steve, my old mate.  Recently returned to gaming and painting,
he's adding more detail to these as he gets chance

Zoraida's crew by Jason - its all frogs here with a really nice shared  palette
and great bases to bring the models together

Nicodeem by Matthew, an interesting mix of book 1 and 4 models
overshadowed by the huge and grim Killjoy

Perdita's crew by Andy - the selection grows as Andy leaves no
corner of the guild unexplored for recruits
(he married the proxy into the family in one game)

Finally we have our winner, Rob's Leviticus crew.
We have a rule at 7th Heaven - you can keep entering a crew  until you win -
Rob was narrowly pipped last event, but now he'll have to paint something new!

One thing I did forget to do was take shots of all the tables, I had spent a fair bit of time constructing a pile of terraclips buildings to help on the day.  Before the event started Rob, Steve and I built 5 tables in readiness, you can see hints of them in the crew shots above and there's a few shots I've stolen from Matt below of some games in progress.

Battle at the farm!  The noobies take on Rob - Rob suffers!

Its Jacob and Jacob vs Lucius and Mei Feng - my Oogie Boogie guest starring here.

A streets of Malifaux table - very pleased with this board.   The Tazos are markers!

So the day went really well, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, although once again time was the enemy. I'll have to consider how the sort this out for the next event, we'll certainly be doing more before Malifaux 2.0 hits officially.

The overall placings then were:

Best Painting: Rob
Best Sportsman: Jason
3rd Place: Jen (very narrowly pipping Ian on a technicality)
2nd Place: Matthew - for the second time just missing the top spot and...

1st Place: Big Simon - a stunning first place with a clear 2 point lead.  Newly into the game Simon is crushing his foes with the combination of Hulk Hogan moustache and giant leaping Iron Man suit.

40k Apocalypse "Big Cap Battle"

Last weekend I posted that I was preparing for a large 40k game.  Turns out it wasn't large, it was colossal!  I had a great time with the Big Cap gamers and we're already planning what we might do next.  I hope you enjoy the pictures and the ramblings that follow, there's a lot of pictures so this might freeze your browser a bit!

Chaos Reaver.  'Nuff said?

The Big Cap gamers are (left to right) "Slash" Ben, "Viking" Tristan , Ross "Whitehorn", Wiggy the Gnome and Rasta Dave.  You are fortunate I wasn't in the shot :)

Loads more after the jump

Riptide and Imperial Knight

For the last few weeks (or is it months?) I've had a background task of getting a number of big robots ready for a big fun game of Apocalypse 40k that my brother is organising.

He and some of his engineering genius friends have a huge collection (both in number and size) of models for the larger game of 40k and they were keen to have a big landmark battle.  The Beer and Pretzels event @ Spirit Games in Burton is hosting this event so I've been working towards this deadline for a while (as have several others!).  You can see various bits of progress by my brother and others on MyWargame.com.

I'm taking a bunch of dreads and some other bits but wanted to have a couple of larger toys to contribute.  Ben, the genius behind the Imperial Knight above (and seen in many other places including one of Beasts of Wars' podcasts), helped me acquire and build my own Knight and with the recent Tau releases, a Riptide was my second slot easily chosen.

So what have I managed?  Find out after the jump.

Back to bases

Another week gone by and more hobby goings on to report.  I'm currently planning for my next Malifaux tournament  so if you can make that you'd be more than welcome.

I've been working on basing (or re-basing in some cases) my miniatures in better ways since taking up small scale skirmish games.  For Malifaux in particular I am picking up minis from the various factions and its an opportunity to use different themes.

This lady is a gunslinger from the Iron Kingdoms range that Privateer Press supports alongside its RPG.  A couple of months ago I took part in a short campaign and this was my character.  Long term she's going to appear as a Gunsmith in Malifaux which means she's an Arcanist.  I had an idea in my head that I wanted really steampunk bases for any Arcanist figures I get, so I was looking for something special.

Fortunately I found Foundations of War on ebay and they had a range of resin bases that matched what I had in mind.  Using pieces of clockwork watches they've made some great looking bases.  Hopefully you can see from these varied shots how great the detail has come through.

 In case anyone is counting, that's 4 guns shes got :)

This next chappy is the Arcane Effigy from Malifaux.  I've used him in my Zoraida crew (as is her want) to boost the amount of cards and spells the hag gets - especially useful if you are planning to 'Avatar up' during a game.

This little chap is attached to his based by a pole of metal and it looked a bit naff frankly.  This clockwork base was perfect to re-base him onto with the raised central shaft from the cog.  I still have 3 more bases from the set, one is already painted and I have a figure in mind to mount on it, so in time that will appear on here.

These tiny chaps (sorry they are a bit blurry - its because they are so small!) are Malifaux piglets but I am using them collectively as the Lost Love(s) for my Kirai crew.  As I have used a Spirited Away theme for that crew, following the film's story her parents have been enchanted and turned into pigs.  So while not physically lost, they are spiritually.  I've swirled up a bit of wood filler on this base and painted it as mud - seems to fit them nicely.

Finally a bit of a WIP on my Gatormen posse.  I painted the minis a while ago, but my Minion army for Warma-Hordes still isn't based properly.  I picked up some woodland path bases from Fenris Games of various sizes and am working my way through the army.  This one has a nice little stream sculpted into it which I've added water effect too.

Yin the Penangalan - weekend painting challenge

Quick post this weekend.  On passing through my game shop on Friday I couldn't resist picking up Yin, the Penangalan for my Kirai crew (Malifaux again!).  I've been working on a lot of hobby projects that trickle on for weeks if not months, so I thought I would buy a fresh mini and get it finished in a weekend as a challenge.

Here's the box artwork - Yin's an unpleasant looking character and I thought would be a fun mini to paint.  Lets see how the art translated to figure.

 

Here's the completed figure.  I must confess after undercoating I was worried I'd lost a lot of the detail, I didn't look at the figure too closely before spraying and things looked very smooth while the paint was wet!  I think it dried largely alright, however I have noticed that the Malifaux plastic miniatures in general have very light/fine detail so I may have to be more careful in undercoating in future, one of my wastrels has a very vague face at the moment!

Yin is based on an Asian folklore monster, a sort of vampire.  Essentially the head and organs of the creature are mobile and the body is left behind.  This means painting all manner of gore, organs and mucus - a lot of fun experimenting here!  I've used some water effect to make drippy bits of gore hang off the model, gloss paint to make areas shiny and a lot of different ink mixes to get assorted shades of blood.  My favourite combination here was using the old GW Dwarf flesh with a red wash over it to get the wormy body colour with muscle tone - very simple and I think very striking.

Oddly I went for a completely new base style on Yin.  I had the idea that the trail of gore she'd leave behind would really have an impact on a more conventionally setting.  The black and white tiles of a traditional kitchen for some reason jumped into my head so that was my challenge.  Using some plasti-card I got very carried away making little tiles.  I even broke one just because.  Once neatly painted and with Yin in position, I had to carefully apply pools of gore where I felt they may have splattered - above you can see a small pool growing the from the drip on one of her coils.  There's also a large amount of gore where she slithered into position, much like a worm trail.