THE HEROES

so another long standing project that stems way back to mid last year where I set up my own challenge to create/sculpt the heroes that I wanted for heroquest. having used various proxy figs over the years, I basically wanted my own, in my view. and with that i first created a kit bashed barbarian
BARBARIAN

and then i set about sculpting my very first ever full miniature in the Dwarf
DWARF

and then proceeded with the others. next i finished up on the wizard
WIZARD

and very swiftly followed up by the elf
ELF

at this point i sent them off to be cast. with quite a few members of ye olde inn nabbing the limited run of these 3 brand new figures. i believe these can still be nabbed over at zealot miniatures for a very reasonable price
http://www.zealotminiatures.co.uk/

with that came 2015 where my hobby tie got stripped right back. having these sitting round for quite quite a few months with me unable to find the time to paint these up, sitting on my shelf waiting for the day i could finish them off. and showcase them all as a group as i am doing so here.

so anyways, now they are done. and im quite happy, my first project into full miniature sculpting as well as finally completing my own personal collection of Heroquest Heroes.
so heres a few more shots to showcase them a little.

i also gave my skellies an additional wash of seraphim sepia to give them a more of a old dirtier look

well there you have it..hope you enjoyed :)

SNOTLINGS EVERYWHERE

and I'm back in the house!! sort of...........

ok so its been a long long while since i posted anything up. but truth be told. ive simply had no hobby time what so ever. all the real things a husband and father has to do have been much more important for me to tend to throughout 2014. that being said. i do sometime get a smidgen of time to sit down and paint. and believe me im learning new things...paiting whilst a 20 month old little girl is trying to climb up your leg to see whats going on is no mean feat i can tell you. along with that and my hiatus for some reason i decided to pick the smallest frikken critters in the warhammer bestiary to tackle....i know right no sense in that whatsoever.

i did however discover a nice little way to get these painted up with relative ease.
so without much ado.

i had painted more than this but only realised after id taken the pictures that id left a couple on the shelf.
i painted these with a simple wash over base colours, due to me not painting much i felt my skill were somewhat lacking (even at the best of times) so wanted to take the shortcut approach with these.
the skin was simple basecoat with Ogryn Camo and then washed over with Biel-tan green. simple and very easy.
ive always viewed snotlings as the lightest of all the greenskins so this seemed to work a treat right here.

that snotling right there at the front picking his nose was actually from the first blister packet i ever bout way way back in the 80s. he came from a bloodbowl blister pack of 18..all for the grand price of £1.99........now it costs 6 times that for the rest of the snotlings you see above...
actually i paid 8 quid for mine from an ebay batch of amazing proportions (something like 80 figs for that price)

anyways i dont think they turned out too bad. my first project for a while that i had actually completed all of. so im happy. and happy to be able to finally post something on the blog again.

so there we have it. bunch load on snotlings. packed full over character and ready to bite you ankles.

a little more
.
whilst ive been toying with teh whole greenskin flesh tones. ive also been toying with the idea of using gnoblars instead of goblins (an idea i saw on this amazing thread over at warseer. HERE)
on that great little thread hes taken the same approach i like to take to dungeon fodder and the likes...and thats to give as much character as possible.
now ive not liked the look of goblins for a long time. not sure why, but to me they just lack character. Kev Adams is still the master of the goblin.
  so with that i needed new gobbos, ithink the 80s is stuck with me on this front. because I kind of get the vibe of David Bowies little buddies from the flick Labyrinth

these little twerps had character and would swipe a baby right from under your nose.
and Gnoblars kind of have that same feel about them. not quite as sinister looking as GW current goblins. but still have character and look kind of nasty in a "stab you in the back" sort of way.
i claim no ownership of this idea. Seb did it before me. and i wanted to do the same.
so below is a WIP on my new Seb inspired goblins using various greenskin bits and bobs.
gnoblar heads
goblin regiment bodies
night goblin arms
and various shields i have in my bits box

so far. im quite happy how number 1 is turning out (paint job not quite finished yet)

also im trialling some new skin tones. when i have finished them all . expect a much bigger update..

anyways that it for now. my first blogpost in a long long time.
hope you enjoyed :)

Dungeon furniture kickstarter - by zealot miniatures

every now and then i like to plug any of the cool stuff i see around, and this one goes without saying much really.
but you want some nice new dungeon furniture??
and dont wanna take the massively long winded route i do of trying to sculpt them all from scratch then check this KS out today!!!

Twisting Catacombs Kickstarter

having some mild association with zealot minis (where you can pick up my previously sculpted hero minis) id like to wish them the best of luck with this kickstarter. however luck im not sure is going to be needed, because this stuff really is awesome!!

i simply dont have enough page space to feature all of it. so if you like your dungeons to have that something extra. go check them out and throw a pledge their way :)

I AM STILL ALIVE

things have been quite in the dungeon for the last few months, but ill be back very soon. just digging out all of my gear ready to get painting and modelling and glueing and all other nick knacks i seem to do back together. hopefully ill be back in the game very shortly with some nice new shiny things to post about.
things have been pretty hectic for me this year. not really allowing for much hobby time. but with any luck that will be changing soon and the dungeon will be back alive :)

HEROCLIX- a trip to the loft

ok its clear from my last post that im on a little bit of a superhero kick at the moment. so today whilst i was putting all the Christmas decorations back up in the loft. i decided to grab my box of heroclix. dig out what i had started collecting way back in 2002 i think it was. i stopped though a few years back as the rules for this game just got a little bit out of hand. at first it was fun. me and the wife used to sit down and play against each other. i of course would always wipe the floor with her. but on the odd occasion she would catch me out and give me a whooping. by the time my eldest daughter was old enough though. this game had just gotten to way complicated. it was no longer a fun game. and the figures had become awful. there was some great hand sculpted figures in the sets. but they had become riddled with cg created nonsense. that once cast...were so so far behind on a quality level to how they were advertised. heres a little comparison picture i put together to show what i believe to be false advertising.

now i think that its pretty shocking that a company will show you the picture on the left...and when you buy it...you get that on the right. im not against cg sculpting at all. however it needs to be done right. and the nasty habit i see of people showing the digital sculpt as advertisement when in most cases if done wrong it will change drastically. just like the image above. i think this is an atrocity. when i first saw a figure like the left...and then bought a pack.......saw what i actually got...i stopped buying them.
scale was all over the place and they were clearly taking a cheaper route when prices were inflating with each and every set. the first booster pack i bought cost me about 3 or 4 quid. and over the years it just seemed to go higher and higher. its ashame because i know some great sculptors like james van shaick still sculpts and makes some amazing creations. sadly for me. these get lost in the tripe and dont really get the love they deserve once cast up in the poor soft plastic they now use. I'm not sure how wrong i may be here..but i think they sit somewhere around the 10-11 pound mark now....for worse quality. the 'collecter' side of us wants to carry on. but i bit the bullet and stopped. the game was no longer fun and i wasn't even playing it anymore. so it was nice to take a little nostalgia trip and take a look at what i had blown my money on over the years. and boy was i surprised how much of these i have got.

just a word of warning.......i had 2 boxes...and only emptied 1 of the boxes. this below collection is probably about 2/3rds of what i have lol

Where's Wally/Waldo?
(sadly i couldnt put this picture on blogspot at full size. so the below pictures detail it all..but in chunks.)

and ontop of this...i stopped collecting about 6-8 sets ago.........so there is a bucket load more. hehe. here's some up close pictures. keep your eyes open for a few 'unique' figures in there. if you are familiar with heroclix. then you may notice the odd 'unfamiliar' figure. i made a lot of custom figs back in the day (12 years ago eeek) of which i will post a seperate post when i get around to taking pictures of the customs i made.

would you believe me if i told you....im not much of a collector? haha.
no seriously....im not..................................
but there you go.. my first post of 2014. of note i dont post much. and as much as i want to have a new years resolution to post more. i just dont have the time to do so. but i will try to post lots of new goodness up throughout the year.


peace (dont worry ill come back to heroquest stuff soon :))