2018.....Hobby Thoughts...

At this time of year many wargaming bloggers post some reflections on the past year & perhaps some thoughts on what they would like to achieve in the New. Here's some thoughts from me:

Yes, that's me, about 18 months ago - beard is a bit longer now.

Painting - I have painted a lot of figures this year, mostly commissions, plus some for my own collection. Being a creative person, I enjoy the painting. Finished Dark Age & Middle Earth figures for myself.

Collecting - picked up some more Dark Age figures & sold a few that I'd painted, in order to fund future purchases. Bought some Dwarves & Goblins to grow my tiny Middle Earth collection. Picked up some AB 20mm Brits that were are bargain price.

Terrain - managed to get some more Dark Age buildings done, plus trees, animals, cart, fenced garden, & wayside cross.

Gaming - basically zilch.

I passed on my collection of 20mm Colonials to a fine chap in Ireland - mostly unpainted.
Also sent off a bunch of mostly unpainted plastic fantasy figures to a mate in the US.

I hope I can get rid of some more stuff this year, either sell or give away to someone who will actually use it. I must be realistic, hoarding heaps of stuff I will never use is futile.

 Finding local wargamers, who share my interests, that I can regularly connect with, play games & generally enthuse over the hobby with, is just not happening for me. I have become much more of a painter & collector these days.

For 2018 I would like to be able to keep on painting for myself + commissions. I am seeing a physio for nasty pain in my left shoulder/arm - he is saying it looks like a "frozen shoulder" - I can only hope it doesn't impact my painting too much.

I want to focus my personal painting on Dark Ages & Middle Earth - which have some handy crossovers.

I'm still hanging onto my 20mm WW2 collection, but it's hard to get motivated to paint more of it without the prospect of any games...

I don't want to buy more figures until I make a significant dent in my unpainted pile - by either painting them up or passing them on to others.

All the best,

John.

Middle Earth...Another One of my Favourite Things

I have enjoyed the works of JRR Tolkien since I was in my early teens, and have found that it dovetails nicely with my interest in the Dark Ages.
My son has a goodly sized collection of GW Middle Earth figures based off the Jackson movies - which I quite liked but never jumped fully into. I have some converted GW Rohan figures in my Dark Ages collection, and have a number of Anglo-Saxons with rather Rohirrim looking shield designs. A number of years ago I purchased a box of plastic Rangers  but never finished painting them & consigned them to a drawer. For some time I have wanted to do a Dark Age/Middle Earth "mash up", for want of a better phrase.
My interest flourished as I re-read Tolkien's works and discovered that North Star were releasing some very Middle Earth inspired Dwarves & Goblins. These figures fitted my idea of how these characters looked, better in most cases than the films. Coupled with this, I discovered the excellent metal Dwarves from Conqueror Models, sculpted by the very talented Colin Patten.
Fast forward to today, and a box of the brand new Oathmark plastic goblins have arrived in the post from North Star (along with a free metal figure). In addition I have a unit of 32 metal Dwarves from Conqueror Models, which I have started painting, plus 6 Oathmark metal Dwarven Command figures. All this purchased with birthday loot I received in October.
While waiting for these figures to arrive I decided to finish & rebase the Middle Earth Rangers which had long been neglected:

Here is my first Conqueror Models Dwarf, a test figure, with hand-painted shield design.

Here is the Dwarf alongside a GW plastic Ranger for comparison:

Alongside a Saxon Miniatures Anglo-Saxon figure (also sculpted by Colin Patten):

Alongside a Dark Age figure from Eureka Miniatures:

Hopefully there will be more Middle Earth shenanigans in later blogposts. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing what North Star & Conqueror Models release in the future.

A Viking Project Part III

The final instalment of the Viking project. This was great fun to paint & base, such lovely miniatures.

Here are all of the Viking personality figures produced by Saxon Miniatures (now sold by Warlord Games). As before, most of the weapons have been left out at the request of my client. I have printed the name of each character on the underside of the MDF bases. Shield decals are from LBMS and tufts from Leadbear's Tufts.

Lastly, a group shot of all the miniatures that were painted & based for this project - too many for my backdrop as you can see :-)

I hope you've enjoyed seeing the pictures.

All the best,
John.

Civilians, Warriors, Conversions, Freehand & Ulf

"Civilians, Warriors, Conversions, Freehand & Ulf"
Bit of a mouthful that title. Today's post is a real assortment of Dark Age figures painted for my own collection.
First up are some civilians - 28mm metal miniatures from Black Tree Designs. There are three local farmer types, and one who could work as a merchant with sack over his shoulder & a pouch for his coin. I have used a quite subdued palette for these characters, as they are essentially wearing their working clothes.

Next up are a couple of Gripping Beast miniatures that I originally painted up several years back as part of my "Arthurian" collection. I have since parted with most of my figures for this era, and wanted to see if I could re-purpose these for slightly later centuries. I stripped off my original paintwork then cut, filed & carved off the cast on oval shaped shields that they carried. The figures were then given round shields & repainted. I painted freehand designs on both shields, taking inspiration from Rohan designs - as seen in the movies. I think they can now pass as either Middle Anglo-Saxons or warriors from one of the Welsh Kingdoms.

Here are a couple of casualty figures I painted up - the kneeling figure is from Gripping Beast, I think the other is from BTD. Have been slowly building up a few casualty figures for my collection - ideally it would be great to replace every fallen warrior with something like this in a game.

These three stalwart fellows are from Eureka Miniatures small but splendid Dark Ages range. I did some slight conversion work on the figure with the green shield (left). He was sold as a Visigoth and had a rather pointed helm, I wanted a more generic look & so filed down the helm & added some reinforcing bars with greenstuff. The shield decals are Celtic designs from LBMS.

This wild hairy warrior is "Ulf the quarrelsome" from Footsore Miniatures, sculpted by Bill Thornhill. A fun figure to paint, he has a very cool Celtic design from LBMS on the shield.

The figures are all on 25mm round bases, either plastic from Renedra or MDF from Warbases. The tufts are from Leadbear's Tufts here in Australia - great value & excellent product.

All the best,

John.