From the workbench of the esteemed Horati0nosebl0wer

So, as I posted to the WAYPN thread I got my hands on some old figures from a gaming friend of mine. He’s been into D&D for decades but not so much into the painting. Since I’ve done so much work for him on commission he decided to turn over some of his collection to me.

I’m happy to bring life and color to these lumps of lead (yes, that old material) and pewter. Seeing a history of change in the skill level makes a great comparison to what we get to play with today.

I hope that everyone not old enough to know what the past looked like can appreciate the development of our hobby with glance over the forthcoming work.

Embracing minimalism deeper is a frightening thing for me right now. I’m cutting out more things from my life that I thought I have grown attached to. It is not by desire but by necessity as I am once again on the move from where I call home. I am forced to call into question what I really desire/appreciate regularly outside of merely saying I have an object as a posession. Things come and go in life and this ever shifting tide of ebb and flow is not new. It still not comfortable either.

Material possessions are a mark of worldly success and show how important someone must be. I question myself and am questioned by others as to where my own place in the world is by the things I have. Perhaps it is better to gain a new perspective with stoicism and zen philosophy as I look at the changing world around me. I will keep my minis as they are useful to be painted on and then gifted if they aren’t kept for display. They give me comfort in practice of an art. They also provide me a connection to this great community I have come to hold dear.

The only other collections of size are my movies and books. My movies do nothing as I do not watch them like I used to. That is a sad thought but it cannot be helped. I love my books but do not pore over them like I used to either. I might sell them but the pain of looking back at the last time I did that still haunts me.  Aside from those things there are others that amused me but no longer do so. I might be best served in finding them new homes. Considering the world around me it might be a very good time to relieve myself of some things before any craziness ensues in the future.

In all this do we gamers and mini painters need all the stuff that we get? I think that the miniature agnostic systems like Frostgrave might well be looked at for the future and the small skirmish games to keep our hobby alive.  Army games are great for the sheer size and visual mass, case in point the Armageddon weekend event, and make for a delight look upon but then you need to lug all the crap out to play and home again. The trouble with dealing with all the material stuff we collect is how much real estate it takes up.

I guess taking better care that the amount of stuff I keep is what needs to be done.

So I received my order from Brother Vinni today after moving and I’m pleased to have the Lying Bunny figure from the Girls range he has on offer. After supporting his Kickstarter for a couple of the original line of bunny girls for a campy campaign with 007-Spy vs. Spy elements I’ve looked in occasionally to see what’s new. With this I was immediately taken with the display idea of placing the lady on a bearskin rug with a serving platter laden with a bottle and a pair of snifters. My order was fulfilled but the upheld left hand was missing from the figure so I’ve reached out to the manufacturer to try and get a replacement.

For the meantime I’ve managed to track down a relatively translucent set of bottles from the Wizard’s Room set Wizkids put out in their Deep Cuts line. I’ll be sure to mask off the area I want to remain clear as I spray it slightly with an amber hue to give it a good look of fine spirits. This I’ll go over later with a gloss coat for a shiny bottle amd add a matt label with regular brushed on paint. The problem of the snifters and the platter remain but I believe its going to be easily taken care of considering the work put out by so many artists on places like Shapeways. If I can find a creator who thinks it would be worth their while to sculpt I will definitely make the purchases.

In making use of the downtime I’ve also set about to sculpting the display base of stone floor, wood paneling and bearskin rug. The biggest hurdle seems to be finishing the top of the head but doesn’t seem too different from the wolf cloak that I did for Deenah a while back. Now its just a matter of finishing off the bear, getting the parts for the base and painting it all. I love painting but not as much as building sometimes.

Getting work done for the 2019 pledge and I am glad for it. I wasn’t originally keen on the purple bases when I bought the consignment from my FLGS but it works in the final piece. The Tamiya tape for curves really came in handy for covering the edges of the base during priming and all other spray applications. This came out better than I thought it might as I was pretty much ambivalent. There was little work, other than resculpting some hair/the jaw on the Poltergeist, so it was all just getting around to painting.

I’ll be putting this group up for sale/trade as I don’t play Neverborn and I’ll be happy to have more space for other pieces.

So I’ve gotten a little burned out with painting. I’ve gone a little further than I should’ve in order to maintain a good pace for hobby work and I’ve had to take a breather and build. normally this just takes the form of puttering about with bases but this time I felt that there was more work needed on the warboss. Since building the bosspole was fun I revisited it and threw caution to the wind. I’ve got more detail work to do but here’s the WIP after playing with bits of stuff I’ve ordered from retailers on eBay. I’m pretty sad, however, to find there is a marked difference in scale between the warboss and regular orks. Bosses be bigger than your average greasy green slobbering nob. That being said I’ll have to improvise with sculpting bodies for future kitbash projects as stress relief.

Looking over filters for the spray booth after some time doing airbrush work and caking the most recent one with overspray I got to thinking about how well it actually works. Thankfully I have been able to pick the brain of an associate at work who does HVAC work and learned about filtration more so than just looking at the Internet.

I picked up a 3M 1200 filter (rated at MERV 11) that measured 16″ x 25″ x 1″ cheap from a local box store and took a pair of metal shears I’ve kept for larger sheets of brass to cut the interior wire mesh. This is a significant upgrade from the refill filters (rated about MERV 5) that you see advertised for use with the spray booth on sites like Amazon or specific hobby sites. I’ve used the cardboard sections at either end to retain the support integrity but I was left with the interior that lacked it. I turned to my 5 minute epoxy and some balsa strip I generally use for base building and light terrain pieces to create supports.

Generally I’d say that might be overkill but if you do work indoors and might not be able to vent out its a help to air quality. I don’t know how much the draw of the fan will be affected but I’ll see soon enough. I might invest in building a spray booth using a fan motor with squirrel cage and plywood. Seeing the upgrade from my plastic portable unit, like many other people have, it would be easier than shelling out the $330 (approx) for a Benchvent BV300S-D.

I was rooting around in my collection of minis and pulled out the second Ork Warboss with Big Choppa I had intended to paint for Orktober. I had bought it through eBay and cleaned it up from the dismal primer work it was caked in. The bosspole was missing which wasn’t a problem as it has allowed me to get into some kitbashing. I’m always interested in how to make the figure more interesting. Normally this falls to the basing aspects since I don’t play large army games and I try to limit the amount of figures I pick up for different games. I say normally and admit freely that Malifaux is one that I find myself purchasing figures of factions I don’t play.

Here I cut a length of rod slightly longer than that of the regular pole as I figured what I wanted to build would end up as a larger emblem than the ones for the missing section. I subdivided a second in order to build the “arms” to the sides and fixed them with JB Weld (an industrial epoxy) as I’ve gotten rid of my old soldering iron due to moving. I then took a rotary tool and gouged out the remnants of the pole on the pack and set the pole in with more JB Weld. The mechanical for that needed to hold was done and it was time for artistic fun to begin.

I drew out a rough sketch of an ork face before  adding a second layer to it after the deciding it was too boring and needed some depth. The rivets on it also came from this observation. The crux of the pole looked piss poor in detail as compared to what was taking shape so I added a riveted join to make it look purposeful. I’ve got a number of resin skulls lying about in my bits bin so I thought that might be cool as trophies for a warboss. Also looking in the bits collection I had spiked chains from Reaper minis that I had not used from a purchase I meant for a pirate themed display. Onto the pole they went to include some of the flash.

There is more work to be done on the pole in general but this is a WIP while playing around on a painting break.

With all that done and looking back to the first warboss the urge to make a good base was obvious. With plasticard odds and ends I modeled the forms and glued bits together. I slapped down textured plastic/brass scrap and used a file to add scratches to bring out later in paint. Yet again more rivets were added because orks need rivets. I had spare wire I picked up from the side of the road and added a length to act as cable. With that all done I put down a layer of Golden Coarse Pumice aggregate to give the texture of gravel/soil.There’s a small pipe that comes out of the base that I actually drilled into the resin to make appear deeper which will be in later installments.

Overall this is how I break up my painting lulls. Paint like a madman, kitbash like a fool.. It keeps me motivated to show off to everyone like you.

After finishing out Orktober I had my next project box set up for this witch. Overall I am quite happy to put another figure in my display case and even more so to show off to everybody here my skills and get feedback.

I have a setup for things to work on put aside in Chessex dice cases to keep parts together and keep an assembly line of sorts for projects. I had already decided on this as I had the figure and I had just lucked into finding a random Sack O’ Skulls at a gaming store while on a visit an hour from my home.

Going through the painting wasn’t bad until I got to the last leg of painting and messed the face up terribly (by my standards). I stripped the face with a toothbrush after masking the rest of the body with tape (leading to a great pun on the weekender thread) and revisiting the area with brush on primer.

With all this I have ended work on another piece and look forward now to the namesake piece next which will become my avatar.