Necromunda 2.0

Morning All,
                    As I explained in my last post I am going to crack on with the new GW Necromunda, now after opening the box I have to admit that you get plenty for the money (no always the case with GW). The figures and Terrain are nice hard plastic although the figures seem unnecessarily complex to put together. This is some thing I noticed last Xmas when putting the new Bloodbowl figures together. I put this down to the figures being designed on computers and not sculpted.

anyway with it being that odd period between Xmas and New year I knuckled down for some work, I stuck the House Goliath gang in the morning and have to say that GW have made it tough for you to mix these new figures with any old ones you may have tucked away from the 90's these guys are HUGE forget heroic 28mm these guys are almost 40mm but you get some very nice scenic base's

By the afternoon I moved up to the hobby room to start on the House Escher but got a bit distracted while the first girl dried and ended up constructing all the terrain bits.

So this is where I sit today I have all the big guys and terrain done and four of the girls, I have a family meal today but should have time to complete the Escher gang and then its primer time.

  While gaming has been a rare occurrence for me one of my other hobbies has been going great, most Saturdays I am found on the sidelines of my local sports clubs trying to capture stunning action shots, its something I enjoy and has kept me from trying to play sport (while always ended in injury for me). I have an instagram account where I share my sports and a few gaming images.

I also provide images for the local newspapers sport pages and love seeing my work popping up and promoting the local teams. Other that that my life revolves around my lovly wife and daughter plus our Scottie dogs (plus our daughters Schnauzer cross)

Till next time Peace James

Happy new year, and bluring the lines

First post of the year so can I wish all readers a happy new year may 2017 bring you plenty of hobby time. For me I plan to get back gaming in 2017 and push my painting skills. To which end I wanted to talk about how I see my hobby and the painting involved.
As I see it as a painting wargamer (e.g I paint more than game) Military Modelling and wargames are either end of the same hobby. For wargames you want plenty of well painted miniatures but these are to be viewed from arms length on a table top. But military modelling is all about making the figures look lifelike and the top painters in this field can make figures look alive. This is a very time heavy way of painting figures can take weeks to complete with the top painters spending hours on maybe a single blend. I have tried this style and find it very tough to be spending as long on one figure as I would spend painting a whole unit of even and army of wargames figures. Its not that I do not like to spend that amount of time, just that hobby time is finite and I still love to play wargames (or new era board games) and want/ need  to paint figures for them
check out the top models on Cool Mini or not for 2016
And a few of my own attempts at Military Modelling style painting

I am at heart a wargames painter I excel in this style of work I have a method of painting that while effective is quick enough that painting an army will not take me years. My style for wargames is a simple one best summed up as Face's and Base's. You put extra effort into painting the flesh this gives the figures a great focal point, the rest of the figure can be done is basic colour with minimal highlights you then put extra effort into making the base work as stunning as you can. For me this is the best pay off between getting the army onto the table top and making the figures look great the base is visible form all angles and gives a great first impression and when the figures are looking at closer the well painted flesh will draw the viewers eye and give a impression of higher detail than you have actually put on the model. Below are my latest figures for the Sudan wars which show my face's and base's style (these would be add to a Sabot for the full base effect)

But in the last few years (maybe decade) the biggest growth in wargames has been in skirmish games. games that may only involve a few figures or a squad on each side. For me this is a chance to blur the lines between the two end of my hobby, I still want figures to play with but if I only need to paint a dozen of more figure to get a playable force I can put a few more hours into each figure to make them a bit more of a display piece. To this end I have a few projects that I will be giving this extra level of detail to namely my 40mm Napoleonic figures to play Sharp Practise my newest era Modern Special forces playing the Spectre rules set and maybe some WW2 SAS below are the first figures form my 40mm Napoleonic and my Modern stuff.

Personal Challenge "Par"

Curt has asked each of us to look are into our souls and set a target for this 3 month challenge, those who have had a look through my blog will spot I can put out a crazy amount of figures when I am in the mood so do not think me totally mad when you look below:

I have looked at what I want to do over the 3 months as a minimum and got a bit of a shock

84x SYW Cav
30x ECW Cav
70x FIW figures
110x SYW French Line Inf
24x Zulu War Brit
26x WW1 Brits
100 ish 10mm Sudan
150 ish 10mm Hussite army

 

This all totals up as 2540 points so I will aim a bit higher 3000 will be my Par mark

Greek Hoplites WIP 1

I am having to do these guys different from my usual wargames minis because I usually make the most of the faces as a focal piont of the figure, with these you see very little of the face. I plan to make the shield the new focal point, by using the decals provided and some well placed battle damage the shield should draw your eye very well.

I started with a base coat of tanned flesh followed by a wash of devlan mud. Dwarf flesh was used then with elf flesh as the highlight, not too sure how well I have done till I fill in more of the colour. I have 150 of these to paint so will do each batch with the same colours and then mix them up when I base them.

If anyone sees and glaring mistakes just let me know somtimes you are too close to the figure to spot all the mistakes.

Peace James

Warlord Roman

Painted up this nice Warlord Games Roman Officer, went back to my old foundry style just nice to do a quick easy paint job. Will base him up and take him along to the Sheffield Imp on the 31st.

Peace James