Man with a bear and a hurdy gurdy

What more could anyone ask than a musician figure with a bear as a pet and playing his own little hurdy gurdy?

This model first came out two years ago and I loved it so much I had to buy it then. Unfortunetly I got distracted and failed to paint him for some time. Now he has a little paint on him I have fell in love all over again...

 ...and what is not to love? The bear is very cute and paints up very nice.

The only real problem areas were on the guy. The cheeks were too raised for my painting style and I found the bandaged hand was a little clumisly modeled. When I looked on line all the hurdy gurdys I could find had a nice black and white checkered edge so I added one to this model.

I quite like the basket on the chaps back, but the spare drumstick looked a little too much like a loaf of bread.

Lore of Life wizard

Way back at the dawn of time; OK the mid nineties, when Games workshop still experimented with alternative game systems. GW had a go at a game called Warhammer quest. This was a box set with a whole load of miniatures and a set of cardboard tiles to represent a dungeon floor plan. As was their practise at the time, they followed this up with a good selection of add on sets.

 The legacy of this is that there are a few very nice plastic figures out there available for use in GWs current game selection. I have managed to collect a selection of the plastic wizards. Now whilst some are quite badly damaged (I think one has been chewed by a dog!), they are some gems in amongst them. This druid is one such model, and best of all I got him unpainted and un-primed.

I have painted him up as a life wizard, because lets face facts, that is exactly what he is. I have kept the paint scheme as simple as possible to retain the simplicity of the figure.

I am very very happy with how he has come out, I hope you are too.

Nordland Empire swordsmen

Every Empire army needs its fair quota of swordsmen, and mine is no exception. In my last post I carried out a small conversion on some 6th edition spearmen to make them swordsmen. I have rummaged through my unpainted pile and have grabbed some more figures and painted what I can.

Please forgive the standard of the photos today,I have been playing with the settings and have got myself a little lost!

In the picture above you have two spearmen conversions and a crusty old figure from the 1988 catalogue.

Here we have more of the same, together with a modern chap (second from left). I use the same shields to tie them all together into a united force.

Hope you enjoy. Now I am off to set how I set white balance on my camera. Wish me luck!

Empire: Swordsmen conversion

Nice simple conversion going on here...

I recently managed to get my hands on some 6th edition empire sprues. These are the ones where they combined the spearmen with handgunners on a single sprue. All very nice figures, but not to put too fine a point on it, I have more than enough of both. My current need is for some more swordsmen.

The conversion, is just a straight hand swap.The swordhands come from my stock of empire spares, whilst the left hands are cut from any spare left hands I could find with closed fists. I assumed that I would get away without too great a job with the left hands since they would be hidden behind a shield.

I pinned all the hands and arms; not because they need to be, but rather because it is just so easy to that I figured "why not". Hopefully they will paint up OK.

Empire war machine crew

In recent weeks I have based two cannons and a Helblaster volley gun, so I guess it is now time to give them some nice new crew.

I have added one crew member to the base of each war machine. This is because the crew figures are really only there to indicate how many casualties remain. If you loose the last figure the machine dies too. For this reason,I only need an extra two figures per war machine.

I love the older style metal figures and have been fortunate enough to be able to lay my hands on a few. They had quite a thick layer of paint on them so I had to do a certain amount of work on them. After soaking in brake fluid and scrubbing they were starting to look a little cleaner....

I have painted all my chaps in the colour scheme of my Nordland army. This is a blue and cream combination.. The advantage of these figures is that you can go to town a bit with the colouring of the fabric to maximise the blue cream contrast.

I hope you enjoy....

Empire Cannons and crew

The last time I posted, I had just completed a helblaster volleygun for my Nordland force. Since then I have had a combination of events that have set my hobbting into the background for a week or two. My laptop decided to fry its hard-disc, loosing all myu stored information, I read through the hunger games trillogy of books and I temporarily fell out of love with the local gaming community. No worries, it is time to come back and what better than to hit the blog with pictures of two cannons I completed recently.

 

These are old cannons I already had, but they were painted as plain timber, were unbased and had some very old crew. in a recent post I assembled the bases and here they are painted with crew.

  

I have elected to paint the woodwork on the cannon in a Nordland theme blue colour. This helps it fit into the army colour scheme and was really done because I liked the effect when I have seen it on Napolionic artillery.

 

Hope you enjoy

Empire Nordland Helblaster volley gun

 
In a recent post, I started basing my war-machines, the first of these to finish is the Helblaster volley gun. In the current version of the army book this chap is just plain awesome, so long as you throw in a Master Engineer.

The gun itself, I have had painted for some time, but I think the addition of the base just finishes it off.I have tried to colour match the boxes of spare shot. Hopefully they all match..

Enjoy.

Basing Empire war-machines

When I attended my first serious tournament, Polish sausage, it became clear that the convention was to base war-machines. So I have grabbed the opportunity to  have a go at building some bases.
 

The base shown above is one I have put together for a Helblaster volley gun. I have included the chap carrying the shot tray and a couple of barrels and boxes for extra shot. The war-machine crew only purpose is to indicate the number of remaining crew. Therefore it seams appropriate to include one crew member on the base, since once he is gone the machine is dead anyway..

I have also put together two bases for cannons. Each base was made by combining two cavalry bases. I believe that this gives enough room to show off the bases whilst retaining a nice compact look.

Demigryph knights: Finished at last..

Two and a bit weeks ago; on the day they were released I started constructing and painting a trio of Demigryph knights. At long last I have completed the mini-unit....

 It has taken some time, and to be honest I am not happy with the flags, but at last they are presentable enough to place them on the battlefield. I suspect that I will leave it some time and then return to the flags.The models follow the general Nordland theme of my Empire army. This means a blue and cream combination.

 I am content with the look of the unit. The colour scheme looks OK and the GW figures are some of the nicest that GW have made for the empire.

 Hope you enjoy...

Demigryphs: STILL on the painting table, mounts complete

Today marks a week since the Demigryphs were released and my attempt at painting them has stalled a little. I have (at last) completed the mounts, and I'm loving the cheeky look on their faces...

I have elected to keep with my Nordland colour scheme, so have painted the barding in a blue and cream combination. I am liking how they look, but they do remindme a little of some pottery my mother used to display in her display cabinet years ago.

 Having painted the barding,the animals fur and feathers looked a little dark so I had to lighten the colour with more Kommando Kharki and Bleached bone.

I am quite pleased with the finished look, but next time I will fix the feet to the base at the same time as I glue to the legs. The reason for this is that the alignment of some of the feet means that other legs don't quite touch the ground.

I hope you enjoy, now to return to the riders....

Demigryph; off the workbench and onto the painting table

Yesterday I had managed to assemble the Demigryph miniatures and had flocked the bases.

The weather was kind and I was able to undercoat the figures and place some basic colours down. The Demigryphs still need a lighter highlight and everything else needs painting properly but at least I have made a start.

I am maintaining the Nordland theme with these guys so the barding will be painted a combination of blue and cream. The Gryphs have been built from Charadon Granite to Graveyard Earth to Bleached bone and then washed with various brown - red washes.

 I was able to make more progress with the bases, which are effectively finished.

Which is more than be said for the knights, who have had almost no work...

More progress shots as progress is made.....