Once more into the Frozen City!

The zombies were choice I know. I had a handful of zombie halflings from the max mini random box last year. I thought they have more character than the human size zombies I had planned. Maybe there’s a story there where a group of halflings in the city were attacked recently and near where the current scenario is. I went with lots of browns and greens with these guys.

Base coat – ghoul grey colourforge
Speed paint – crusader skin
Speed paint – dark wood
Speed paint 50/50 malignant flesh
Dry brush  – leather pouch brown
Speed paint – Orc green
Wounds effect – glistening blood

The skeleton archers are from the oathmark skeleton set. They are lovely miniatures, love thr bronze age axes and helmets. I needed some archers for a scenario. These were great to paint. Really enjoyed it. A little brittle when I was too firm drybrushing the once and reglued it.

Base coat – ghoul grey colourforge
Speed paint – pallid bone
Speed paint – hard leather
Speed paint – brazen copper
Dry brush  – bleached bone
Dry brush – leather pouch brown
Dry brush – ancient bronze
Metal wash – watered down raging ocean

The skeleton warriors I’d bought the original mantic skeleton boxes years ago with the intention of doing an undead army that never happened. Frostgrave came out and I saw a need for them again. These are such great minis and so full of character. These minis hold up for me definitely.

Base coat – ghoul grey colourforge
Speed paint – pallid bone
Speed paint – hard leather
Speed paint – broadsword silver
Speed paint – magic blue
Dry brush  – bleached bone
Dry brush – leather pouch brown
Dry brush – shining silver

The armoured skeleton warriors i had mantic plastic revenant skeletons. I wanted to help myself and make it much easier to signify if they were the standard skelly or armoured skelly. I knw they’d have more armour and and weapons but purple  instead of blue distinguishes them to my eye.

Base coat – ghoul grey colourforge
Base coat – heavy violet
Speed paint – pallid bone
Speed paint – hard leather
Speed paint – broadsword silver
Dry brush  – bleached bone
Dry brush – leather pouch brown
Dry brush – shining silver

The vampire is one of my old strigoi miniatures from warhammer 6th. I loved the concept of the strigoi as soon as they were released in 6th and bought 2 of the 3 miniatures. My only issue is I didn’t like the metal ghouls then as I’ve said before. But liked how the strigoi story has gone through the editions all the way to the flesh eater courts. But actually loved getting paint on this guy, went with the light grey and am sl happy with how hes turned out. Only been a concept in my head for 25 years lol

Base coat – ghoul grey colourforge
Speed paint – ashen grey
Speed paint – pallid bone
Dry brush  –  fortress grey
Teeth, claws & bone details – warpaint desert bone
Hand feet wffect – glistening blood
Eyes – basecoat white dots

The spider are a mix from the mantic critters old box and a fancy looking “female” from max minis. I wanted to stick with the flagstone bases as they looked great and I thought would be easy to paint up. It was harder to find inspiration and colours creme than it was to actually paint them. They look spot on in my head canon.

Base coat – ghoul grey colourforge
Speed paint- magic blue
Speed paint – Beowulf Blue
Dry brush  – shieldwall blue
Teeth and eyes detail – Vallejo Colour Black

The rats are also from the mantic critters box from way back when. These were absolutley so easy to paint up, its got me thinking, ratkin? God I don’t need another project lol. Yep so nice and look great.

Base coat – ghoul grey colourforge
Speed paint- dark wood
Speed paint – crusader skin
Dry brush  – leather pouch brown
Wash – strong tone

NIce toad number 2, is also a frog lol. Got this guy in my random box of max mini miniatures last year and really liked the idea of him. Also the bestiary list needed a 2 toad option so went with this guy.
The Furs are a great choice on the miniature too. None of the names im thinking of roll of the tongue, hes one of the adolescent aberration shinobi frogs named Van Gogh. See doesn’t roll of the tongue, needs a bit of work! Lovely to paint again!

Base coat – ghoul grey colourforge
Speed paint- magic blue
Speed paint – beowulf blue
Speed paint – ashen grey
Speed paint – hardened leather
Dry brush – leather pouch brown
Dry brush – fortress grey
bones detail – warpaint desert bone
Eyes and spots – vallejo colour black

The white ape is something i picked up from the old wotc d&d chainmail line quite a few years ago as I really liked the look of it. I always look at the minis on Ebay, I like that aesthetic. He was nice to paint up, actually get paint on him. A good Dry brush really helped that fur pop!

Base coat – ghoul grey colourforge
Speed paint- ashen grey
Speed paint – Broadsword Silver
Dry brush  – fortress grey/Base white
Dry brush – Base white
Speed paint mouth – poppy red
Speed paint face – crusader flesh
Teeth detail – warpaint desert bones

The large construct is the large golem from reaper miniatures. This one is a reaper bones mini i bought early frostgrave but new i wanted to add a dwarves type beard to him. I pictured my first enchanter warband being an lotr dwarf with lotr dwarf soldiers and then the constructs resembling dwarves. So id green stuff altogether long beard on this guys that looked like he could do thr job. Turned out really well, really pleased with him.

Base coat – ghoul grey colourforge
Speed paint- gravelord grey
Speed paint – Orc green
Dry brush  – fortress grey
Speed paint meyal parts- copper
Vallejo – ancient bronze 

• The only official miniature in this entry the werewolf is a lovely miniature. I do really like it its got that exaggerated hands and feet to make it look more unnatural. Love how hes come out. Im well happy with this boy.Base coat – ghoul grey colourforge
  Speed paint- dark wood
  Speed paint – burnished red
  Dry brush  – leather pouch brown
  Teeth and claw detail – warpaint desert bone
  Speed paint mouth – slaughter red

Just a handful of things done in the last few days. And some of them aren’t on the list, one I could have sworn was on the list, but I was mistaken lol.

I’d put together a few plastic pieces to make a “treasure” base themed for the genie scenario. It came out great and definitely, unsubtley gives that malevolent spirit trapped in a bottle vibe. The “genie” was a bit trickier, I hadn’t seen a genie miniature i liked for this but i did like the efreet from kings of war. Now I struggled with the fire, im not going to lie, and am not 100% on it. This is something I’ll look into and see if I can learn a way to paint fire and be happy about it.

Base coat – ghoul grey colourforge
Speed paint- poppy red
Speed paint – slaughter red in areas
Dry brush  – Base red
Horns & bones detail – warpaint desert bone
Speed paint book – burnished red
Speed paint phial – broadsword silver

The ghouls were something that I really enjoyed painting. I bought these crypto ghouls when they first came out with the 7th/8th ed WFB vampire counts book. I liked these guys over the old metals. But again didn’t do anything with them for years. Frostgrave came out and I glued them all to round bases, they had a purpose. Then they went into storage. Now they’ve come out into the light of day I couldn’t decide on a colress our scheme for them.
I pestered the missus with a load of colour schemes and she picked near what I’ve come.pleted below.

Base coat – ghoul grey colourforge
Speed paint – ashen grey/malignant flesh
Speed paint – burnished red
Dry brush  – malignant flesh/ fortress grey
Teeth & bone details – warpaint desert bone
Hand feet wffect – glistening blood
Eyes – basecoat white dots

This is one of the oldest if not oldest miniature ive used for this project and frostgrave. I’ve had this miniature since the realms of Chaos book came out for 4th ed WFB. First miniature I had experience with pinning back in the day. Its such a cool and evocative miniature that demanded detail and time. He reminds me of timber curry’s devil in legend, sardo numspa from golden child and the dreadlords from warcraft. Really happy with him and the depth of shade over his body.

Base coat – matt black colourforge
Speed paint – slaughter red
Speed paint – poppy red
Dry brush  – Base red
Teeth & horns details – warpaint desert bone With Speed paint.
Claw – raging sea Speed paint
Sword – broadsword silver Speed paint
Speed paint – copper
Strong tone all over 

Had a few very productive few days so I have definitely chugged along.

The wolves are oathmark ones as they are a nice big intimidating wolf i liked for my version of felstad. I wanted to represent actual coats and did a bit of a deep dive and found 3 totally different coat challenges for myself. 1 in a dark grey coat, 1 in a tan brown coat and 1 in that sort of timber wolf grey with touches of brown. I’m really happy with how they came out. Alot of the detail pops for me.

Base coat – white acrylic colourforge
Speed paint – ashen grey/shadowless grey/leather brown
Dry brush – fortress grey/dark grey/leather satchel
Details
Dry brush & teeth and eye details – warpaint desert bone
Strong tone – to give it a living feeling and went stronger in parts too.

The ice toad is actually a frog, a fair bretonnian frog, but one that I’ve had for years and thought would be perfect for frostgrave. I like the blue coloured frogs so yeh, was a nice easy choice.

Base coat – white acrylic colourforge
Speed paint – Magic blue
Dry brush paint – viking blue
Lighter Dry brush – shieldwall blue
eye details – warpaint desert bone

The second lot of imps, including another fairy from an old wood Elf set and 2 imps from kings of war succubus set. All 3 have loads of character for such tiny miniatures and they are great!

Base coat – white acrylic colourforge
Speed paint – fire giant orange/slaughter red
Dry brush – bright orange / basic red
Warpaint details – black
Strong tone – to pick out the details

With the Phase cats i liked the official paint job so I tried the dark grey and slight purple and I think they came out alright. Tried my hand at the stars on the rump aswell lol. The blood waves are interesting as they are a bottle and a bottle with blood coming out, so they felt pretty straight forward.

Base coat – white acrylic colourforge
Speed paint – darklord grey
Speed paint – Orc green / slaughter red
Dry brush – dark grey
Dry brush dark grey/heavy violet
Dry brush & teeth and eye details – warpaint desert bone
Dry brush – olive green / basic red
Strong tone – to give it a living feeling and went stronger in parts too.

The Key masters of the red king are amazing looking miniatures and I really liked the official paint job of these aswell and so i wanted to attempt that.
I am really happy with how they came out and they still show that dreamscape menace they have about them. I really like these miniatures.

Base coat – white acrylic colourforge
Speed paint – poppy red
Speed paint – slaughter red for darker red cloaks
Speed paint – brazen copper
Horns and hooves – dark grey
Dry brush – Base red
Vallejo – dwarves bronze
Dry brush – chainmail silver
Dry brush details – fortress grey

Strong tone – to bring it all together.

With the worm i wanted this to feel like a Shai Hulud that had absorbed magic through the earth, the city was so magical right? To feel big and bright, almost shimmer with magic. I asked the wife’s opinion after the first coat of raging sea over the purple and she said it was too dark. Her suggestion was to make it more Teal and so the light blue went in with raging sea and I turned that into a dry brush over the worm. It gave it that almost Neon shimmer. The missus was right thats for sure, so much better for it. And I couldn’t help myself by braking my naming convention for entry’s for this blog post.

Base coat – ghoul grey colourforge
Base coat – dark violet
Speed paint – raging sea
Dry brush  – raging sea/ shieldwall blue
Teeth details – warpaint desert bone
Maw – Slaughter red

This week I’ve come back to picking up the brush. Last week felt like it got away from me and i didn’t manage to douching  painting at all last week.
On the weekend though I felt very enthused after a lovely day out with the family. On saturday we went to the Glastonbury Medieval Fayre down in the abbey grounds. Such a lovely place and the weather was really on our side. We did a little shopping and talking to reenactors in their tents. But the main events for us were watching a jester/fire eater/sword swallower (all one person) the jousting and Viking reenactors in a melee. And what was great was how they interacted with the kids. Reenactors showing the kids the armour, the weapons, the food and the dress. I dont know how many photos me and the misses took of the kids holding swords lol. Was very inspiring ive got to behonest, all very interesting. If I’d had finished some of the minis they could have come with me for some photos out, disappointing when it was such a lovely back drop.

After being enthused i started back on the painting back log. Making sure I had a copy of my list to hand i got on with it. But also may have finished painting some supplement miniatures.

First was a pair small constructs. Granted I only needed one, I had a pair and well it’ll always come in handy if my wizard makes one at the same time. It’s a reaper bones leech I bought years ago. I fancied painting it up metallic like as it reminded me of the old zoids worm. I had that one. Remember zoids, definitely showing my age there.

Base coat – white acrylic colourforge
Speed paint – broadsword silver
Dry brush – chainmail silver
Strong tone – to darken it slightly.

Next was some imps, i have more to come thats for sure. These are spare left overs from wood elves from years ago and a gribbly daemon from a red corsair character. All were nice little victires to paint.

Base coat – white acrylic colourforge
Speed paint – poppy red (1 sprite and daemon)
Speed paint – lich purple (sprite)
Dry brush – plain red
Dry brush – heavy violet
Teeth and eye details – warpaint desert bone
Strong tone – for definition

The wild dogs i came from at a different angle as i wanted them to be quite dark. A neighbour used to have a Irish wolf hound/lurcher and always thought it looked cool. So when I saw these on northstar I grabbed them.

Base coat – black acrylic colourforge
Speed paint – graveyard grey
Dry brush – dark grey
Dry brush- fortress grey
Very light Dry brush – fortress grey/white
Teeth and eye details – black with dark grey highlighting 

Right, here’s where I’ve deviated slightly(alot). I get the Medieval thing for boars, i get it lol. But never really liked any boar miniatures, I used to play beastmen alot so I have boars from the chariots, but yeh just don’t like them. But I had bought this reaper bones basilisk and liked it for the Boar, it feels slightly more magical. I’ve affectionately called mine Joanna, for self explanatory reasons.

Base coat – white acrylic colourforge
Speed paint – raging sea
Dry Brush – heavy violet/viking blue
Dry brush – heavy violet/viking blue/white
Claws, teeth and eye details – warpaint desert bone

Some entries that aren’t on the list below, from one of the supplements, mushroom men. These were a nice easy paint that wanted to stay as natural as possible until the light caps.

Base coat – white acrylic colourforge
Speed paint – pallid bone, two coats in some places
Speed paint – poppy red
War paint – heavy violet
Dry brush & teeth and eye details – warpaint desert bone
Strong tone – to give it a living feeling and went stronger in parts too.

All bases are Dark grey, dry brushed with fortress grey. The snow is 4grounds powder snow, yeh may be a little old tbf.

Now I’ve found all my stashed away boxes of miniatures and feel like im happy I can fulfill the bestiary tick list I’ll move on to the next step.

To be fair there aren’t many to undercoat but yes I do need to assemble and base coated some of the minis. I’ve also started painting some of the minis at my desk and need to finish them off with the bases. I think with these I’ll do the monsters with my das putty to build up thr bases, then sand, paint that gray and drybrush it and then clump some snow on the top. Ill try to keep them consistent. I have been eyeing up kraut covers mountain pass snow to do the bases, but I’ve come to decision that I should stay consistent and I could use the kraut cover on new warbands that I’ll make in the future. Maybe come the summer when all the bestiary creatures are complete.

A boy can dream.

Over the bank holiday weekend we had some nice weather and had a quiet day on the monday while the missus was in work and my boys played. I had chance to go out to my shed and pull out a box or 2 I knew was up there with the oldest miniatures in my frostgrave collection.

Going through the miniatures in the box alot are already undercoated which is a great help. I think alot of my issue was time was wanting to have all these miniatures ready to paint but never actually having that time to paint.

I organised what I wanted out of the box and what was unneeded for now, including putting ghost archipelago stuff back. God I love ghost archipelago too lol.

I know there is atleast another box of fantasy/frostgrave/ghost archipelago somewhere. Maybe I should organise the GA stuff altogether as well, so thats all in one place and the frostgrave is all in one place.

I started to list what I got and took a photo of the wandering monster table to have a basic list to hunt down things and tick them off.

Right let’s start at the beginning. A long time ago, when first edition came out, I really liked the idea of the game. Long time Elder scrolls player, the idea played into my love of skyrim. When the second expansion for frostgrave, into the breeding pits came out and I saw the beast crafter and all the gnolls i was absolutely Sold on the range. I bought in straight away! The gnolls plastic box was my first frostgrave plastics. Well I just kept up with the expansion books and miniature ranges where I could, buying, undercoating and then going in the pile of opportunity. I’d not only buy northstars miniatures, but miniatures from other ranges that played into my image of that Creature.
Second edition came out and I slowed down a bit. Other things were starting to draw my attention. Dreadball, burrows and Badgers and dead mans hand! Frostgrave went on the back burner and I’d grab a book when they came out read it and it would just go in my book case.
Spring clean seems like a good chance to pull out the boxes, its turns out many, of miniatures and terrain to go through and breath new life into. I’m thawing out the miniatures if you will ;).

My objective is to paint miniatures to atleast fill out the bestiary from the second edition rulebook. Army painter speed Paints will be a big help here i’m sure. But I want magic and whimsy where I can help it, in an already magical Felstad!

Next thing to do will actually pull out the boxes assign miniatures to a paint list made up of the bestiary/random creature from the 2nd Ed Rulebook. Maybe the basic requirements for each scenario also.

If I feel like im doing well I may keep going with other miniatures for other supplements of frostgrave or a new warband or 2 if I get totally caught up with the Project.