Bretonnian Questing Knight

whilst i have been busy making the core set for Warhammer Quest, in true 'me' fashion, i cannot help but do something extra. this is maybe linked to my loathing of working on units and the monotonous rinsing of the same things over and over. however it is nice to break this up with some variety. and having the option to use more warrior options when i do finally complete the base set isn't a bad option to have at all. so i have a trollslayer up and ready to go. i also have a witch hunter floating around for the next monotony breaking opportunity too.

but this guy i completed a few weeks back and i am not too happy with him in all honesty,  main reason for this being that i had to buy some new army painter anti shine...and well....its kinda shiny!
shit huh?

first up i tried the spray can i had left around which was kicking out white speckles. the can had clearly had its day and was no longer of any use.
and then i had to use a firm stippling brush to try and scrape the white flecks off the model without damaging the paint job too much. and the brush on anti shine i attempted to use to fix this wasnt much cop either. so when you have painted a model and it ends up getting ruined at the end you can either get it as best a possible. or strip it all and start again. obviously going with the first option here, it wasnt all doom and gloom.

i wanted to remove the idea of a quintessential questing knight, choosing instead to go for a more of a struggling jobber of a knight.
slightly unshaven, slightly damaged armour and such making him a perfect up and coming of age knight as opposed to a classic knight in shining armour.

however my anti shine had slightly different ideas on that! haha

another thing i want to do different with all of my warriors for this game..i want to show their faces. whilst i am fully aware warriors will die left right and centre. i don't want them to die as faceless heroes.

so this guy is made from reaper miniatures Baran Blacktree, whom seemed to fit the mould perfectly for what i wanted to achieve. All i have done here that is different is that I sculpted a a plume to his helmet to give that more bretonnian look.

also opting for a similar colour scheme to the original. you have to excuse the freehand on the shield. this is another one of the reasons i wasnt too happy how this guy turned out.
along witht he fact i should of painted him without his shield arm. because no matter how hard i tried. i couldnt get any good direct contact with my paint brush onto the left of his face.

that lame anti shine really shows up on the cloak of this guy. maybe one day they will change the formula back to actual matt finish and i can fix him?

regardless. something cool for me to sink my teeth into. and i'm cooking up loads of ideas on what i want to do for the warriors already
i have a very distinct and different idea for the pit fighter
and i am pretty confident the witch hunter is also going to turn out good.
i want to replace the wizard with a new one and have seen plenty of options floating around.
same goes for the elf and dwarf, of which being the only man in the house. i may well have to be making some female options to boot.

any way hoping you liked sir shiny shine outcast of antishine land :)

RATS IN THE CELLAR!

classic level 1 fodder in anything fantasy based. a game simply wouldn't be a game without the mundane need to go and clear out a room full of rats.
but these babies bite back!

finally repainting the bases i decided to give the paint jobs a bit of a spruce up too. previously i just slapped on some base coats and threw some agrax earthshade over them but this time i decided to add a little more detail. vary some of the washes on the furs and generally just add a little more detail.
also another perfect reason to show off the dungeon with its ever growing list of denizens

i also wanted to share what i have had in the works along with this

i'll leave the discovering to you guys, but things are really starting to take shape nicely and i get to tick off another from my to do list.
go me!

12 snotlings and a new camera

well i posted these a while back but as part of my warhammer quest construction. these guys got counted out and a slight repaint. being a nice and easy to tick off the list.

i decided to mute the colours a bit from previously done and i feel they look much better for it.
along with this i decided to treat myself today to a brand new camera. my existing one was starting to develop damaged pixels and has served me well for the last 10 years or so that ive had it so it was time to get myself a slight upgrade along with it.
ive been toying around and so far have managed to get appealing enough pictures taken. but no doubt it will take a bit more practice to truly nail it down.

Along with this i decided to also give a run out of the dungeon tiles and doors that have been newly created, just laying out a mocked up dungeon here using exclusively tiles created by the fantastic sebastian stuart over at eastern empire. having a nice set up with varied colours and depths would be a good run out for the new camera.

This little guy i have a very fond connection with. he came in a blister pack of 18 bloodbowl snotlings for the grand old price of 1.99 and this was the first ever blister pack i had ever bought, i remember my mother saying how expensive they were (this was maybe 1988/89) and the only way i could convince her to buy me something was by the claim "but this one has 18 in it!!" it worked obviously and this seems to be the only critter that survived. and still going strong today having a good old dig up his nose 30 years later

I'm really happy how all of this is turning out. which is rare for me. and i hope you will agree with me...this aint a bad setup! :)

next up ill have some photos of my twist on the bretonnian questing knight to add to the collection and hopefully some progress on my spider prototyping.

cya

venture through the door....

so with my relatively new problem arising regarding doors falling over constantly. i swiftly cracked on from my previous post, getting these new bases painted up and in place to see how they worked.

i ran a couple of test dungeons plotting out the layout and clipping the doors in as i went. these worked pretty well. some gripped a little too tightly, but was easily fixed just by flexing them a little.
pinning them was definately a good choice to make as it mean that the superglue could crack up a little and they were still held in place by the pins, thus making the clips more flexible and not damaging my new floor tiles

and they held together nicely. i ran a dungeon that literally filled up my entire 4ft x 4ft table, snaking around the edges meant i had to shift its position quite frequently, but it all held together relatively weel with only 1 door clip being a little looser than the others.
so not to bad of an effort, and now i can get back on track.

even mixed with all the extra addons...a hell of a lot of corridors seem to crop up!

well thats that problem solved. next i need to get some monsters painted up!

The Quest continues

Rather than me vanish for long periods of time i figured i would post up more progressional blogposts to keep myself on track and share what ive been doing.

so having created my floorpans and such i realised 1 massive design flaw that i had overlooked which was part of the original game...doorclips!!
my tiral dungeon runs so far involved all of my doors rocking precariously but more than often..just falling over. i knew i needed to fix it so put everything else on hold to get something in place.
and luckily....they worked!

1. using 1mm thick plasticard i constructed a base/clip which was 30 in depth and as wide as my doors, the section inbetween which operates as the clip im made sure was as close to 0.1mm thinner than the overall floortiles, and additionally i pinned these clips to allow some flex upon gripping the tiles so not to damage them
2. checked they fit nice and snugly then repeated this process 13 times to cover the 12 doors and a portcullis
3. putting them all to one side i then worked on only one as my prototype, and sculpted some greenstuff flagstone to ensure the doors would fit nicely into the recess.
4. using Bluestuff i created a singular mold from my prototype
5. and then using my new mold proceeded to complete all of the others

next job is to get these bases painted up and get those doors glued on.

additionally to this i thought i would share my spider prototype.

It doesnt look like much just yet, but wanted to show my intentions. and what i have planned

so this guy is pretty small. infact his legspan is probably about 32mm maximum.

And the reason for the pose is deliberate too. it isnt posed at all, and if you look carefully you can see i have put some semi sturdy wireframe through him.

the plan here once i have finished his sculpt is to replicate 12 of these using a bluestuff mold and put wires through each one. then i will 'hopefully' be able to pose each one uniquely...its a bold move i think. and one i hope pays off.

and finally. i wanted to share a new way i develop my bases

you know all of those scrap bits of putty or greenstuff you have left over from mixing too much?

i made them into flagstones on an old piece of plasticard, made a bluestuff mold and et voila

this save me a shed tonne of time too. and any extra greenstuff i have left over..gets sculpted into more flagstones.

so the next week will compromise of me painting up these new door bases so i can get that little speed bump put to bed. and next wekk i will be able to show them all being put to use.

anyways hope this prove helpful for someone out there :)