All Steamed up

So I'm back in the saddle after a good while. I went over to Bury St Edmunds two weekends ago to be at the opening of Apocalypse Miniature Wargaming. A great shop that I really hope the local Wargamers will support Jon and Bev in their endeavour as the Shop comes as a welcome relief after the local drought created by Runik's untimely end.
I entered four of my Warmachine ladies into the opening day Painting contest. I was up against some stiff competition from EldarVeteran's Demon of Wrath and Nick's Ork Stompa, but my girls prevailed in the end, Yaaah!!!!
I chose a new Helljack plastic kit and the Mk II Merc's gaming Deck as my prize. Many thanks to Jon and Bev for the opportunity and prize, and the Cameron for his help in the judging (Your money transfer will go through this week, teehee)
So I have gotten back into the figurines, finishing off some incomplete models first before venturing on. I had a Trencher UA and Blister plus Capt. Finn to finish off in my 'cold' Cygnar colours. They all got done this weekend and I will post pics here and on the PP forum as soon as the bases are complete.
The Bury Wargamers are having their birthday weekend on the 25th September, so I will be entering the Battle Scarred painting contest with the very model on the header. My heavily converted Talon, :)
And so I will venture on into Warmachine MkII and see how it all goes. A thrashing is in the waiting I believe. They still look good as they die tho'
G

Changing Gears

Hi all,
I'll be changing tack soon over here. I haven't been doing much figurine modelling latley, concentrating on military models instead. I'm busy with a SAS willy's jeep used in Normandy (Caen) before and during the D-Day landing time period. Include a resin radio-set, a BMW R12 motorbike and sidecar. Three SAS 'Commando's', and a couple of Maquis French resistance fighters and we have a scene set.



















I'll let you know what happens next,
Cheers
G

Car-less Painting

Well it's almost a month since I last updated, and I'm not very much further along with the paintwork. The weather has improved greatly, and warranted a bit of gardening. I'm no closer to finishing Haley yet, just staring at her...there's so little left to do but I'll have to mix up about 8 different paints just to complete her, Meh!
Ashlynn, on the other hand, is coming along nicely.

I have completed the base piece. Built up with plasticard to form two steps and then covered with Std Milliput and sculpted into cobbled stones.


I plan to add a Khadoran flag draped over the steps, with Ashlynn's foot on top of it. The 'blank' piece of steps is where I know the flag will cover, so I didn't bother sculpting there. Symbolic and also for the vast colour shift to make her little self pop a bit more on the Battlefield. I didn't want to go with a huge base-piece like I've seen some people use.i.e. it still fits the 30mm edge, but buggers off vertically for about an Inch. I went right up to the edge of the base at the 'back' of the piece so that I could steal an extra 7mm of footspace for Miss d'Elyse. This gave me a whole lot more room to 'move' when it comes to laying down the flag and positioning her on the base. It will all have to be planned rather carefully as her skirt comes down rather low at the back.

I've tried to keep her armour looking utalitarian, and so I added in varying degrees of grey into the metallic steel that I was layering onto her armour. It's left it with a sheen and a silver highlight, but it's not bright.

I changed up her Stack, by adding the spiked tip of the Hunter's Axe (Light 'jack). I cut it down and hollowed it out. It looks more like her art from Matt Wilson now. The horsehair plume is a sculpt, using a thick wire 'arm' glued into her helmet and then adding thin sausages of GS and sculpting them gently into strands with a silicon tipped 'paint shaper'. I'm very happy with the plume as it's my first attempt at a major change to a figurine. The helmet is a Steelhead, reversed and with the face smoothed over with GS.

I am also working on another piece that I can't really show off with yet, or post any info on for a few reasons. I've it some time and it'll be up here soon.
See ya
G

Steelhead Ashlynn

So here I begin with Ashlynn d'Elyse and a Blister of Steelheads. I would have been into them earlier, but was missing some parts in the blister pack. I had received an extra torso, but no right arm with Halberd, so I had to contact PP eurodesk and get them to send me the missing bits, only took six days, and I'm majorly impressed with them.
So...it was obvious that her poppet head had to go, and the saw made short work of that. I was able to get the head off intact and may use it at a later stage, but in the process I cut through her steam-stack at an angle and sheared off the top of the stack. I rebuilt it more like the painting that Matt Wilson did in NQ #19. I used the spiked tip off the Hunter Warjack's axe, which I cut off and then pinned and mounted on her stack. I then cut away (and saved) the tip of the spike and drilled the new hole in the top. Her Steelhead head had to be filed for a better fit from underneath, and I refined the edges to be narrower thus making the helmet look a little smaller. It's still early in the process, but she's coming together very nicely. All the mold lines are gone now, and it's just pinning and gluing left really. I will be sculpting a horse-hair plume for her helmet, this will help her to stand out more, and add a sense of movement to the figure that is mirrored by her arms and the folding of her 'skirt'.