Blog discription

What will you find here? Ramblings from an aging gamer-miniature painter. When I first started out in this hobby computers were in their infancy and finding other gamers could only be done by going to conventions or as in my case bumping into somebody who happened to see me reading "Panzer Leader" on the school bus. Look how far we have come! The internet has allowed our small community to be able to connect on a level I never dreamed of when I was but a small lad. What I do hope you will find here is something interesting from one wargamer/miniature painter to another. I paint miniatures somewhat decently, so I will be posting some pictures of my work, and perhaps a review or two of games and/or miniatures. Most of all this is just about having fun and anything I post here is meant to be for that reason.

Sunday, March 7, 2021

Rangers of Shadow Deep, my Ranger

 Well I haven't been blogging lately, no excuse, just saying. I've been working hard on trying to kick some Genestealers out the door for a Space Hulk commission. I hate them so bad I took a break a couple of weeks ago and painted up my Ranger for Rangers of Shadow Deep. 

The Ranger is suppose to represent me on the table top and of course I had to pick a cool mini that looks exactly like I do..... at least in my dreams;) Anyways here he is along with one of his companions that will go on adventures with him, his loyal Dire Wolf. I'll have to come up with stats for him, but it's a pretty cool mini.

The miniatures are from Dark Swords Game of Thrones line. 






As always thanks for looking.

Cheers
Kevin


Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Director Orson Krennic

 God do I hate doing faces. I am not happy with how the face came out on this one, but being a 3D print I wasn't about to attempt stripping it and starting over again. Holding it at arms length it looks good and gives me the impression I want to present on the gaming table. Now I only have to paint up six Death Troopers for him. 

What a great opening scene in the movie Rouge One, right off the bat I liked this guy. His ambitions are high but unfortunately for him he has the Tom Brady of the Universe to compete against (Darth Vader). 

I love the the sculpt of this figure. Too bad I am not a higher level painter to bring out what's in my head to my hand, as this figure deserves it.


Above the scene that set the tone for the entire movie for me.


Below my best at the moment. To infinity and beyond for my next attempt at doing faces.




As always thanks for stopping by.

Cheers
Kevin


Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Rangers of Shadowdeep

 Two posts in one day! Miracles will never cease to happen in the land that is my hobby miniature toy soldiers!

Okay so since the great plague has us all, I am sure, finding and discovering new ways to enjoy their hobbies. It's had me on a journey to discover rule sets that not only provide Solo play mechanics, but also to be able to play cooperatively and/or go head to head. I have found several rulesets that do this, and good ones to boot. Two of my favorite right now are "Core Space" (scifi), and "Rangers of Shadowdeep" (fantasy).

Rangers of Shadowdeep has you taking a Ranger (which represents you) and a few companions on a perilous quest to fight your way past monsters, find treasure, but ultimately to discover why the darkness is spreading across the land.

I am almost finished painting my Ranger up, but a friend of mind shared a youtube video of how to paint fur. One of my Rangers Companions is his loyal Dire Wolf. So I was like okay I'll have a watch. The color theory the gentlemen shows had me open up my eyes to a different way to paint. Where I layer paint dark to light, he shows a way to go light to dark. I was like man I have to try this. So I did, and I hope you like my results.

I present my Dire Wolf from Game of Thrones line that "Dark Sword" makes, and they are awesome.





As always thanks for looking.

Cheers
Kevin


Carthaginians 28mm

Saga (a set of rules to play various periods at skirmish level throughout pre gunpowder era) has come out with a new set called "Age of Hannibal". I ask you, what little boy who ever was interested in military history has not heard of this man's name and fantasized about being this Great Captain of history? Well me for one, and to this day it still stirs something within me when I see books, figures, etc. covering this period of ancient times.

Of course I selected Carthage to paint up as my army, I leave the Barbarians, Greeks, and Romans to my friend to collect. I'm sticking to the studs of the period (okay in the end Carthage was conquered etc etc etc, but hey). 

I've chosen Victrix plastics to start off with because they are pretty good and cover everything you need for the period. As usual I glued my fingers together more than once and I broke like three spears and a sword which had me swearing about why they had to make these items so bloody thin. Come on man make them thicker or put some miracle ingredient (as long as it doesn't cause cancer) in them to keep them from breaking so easily. After all I have to push them around the game table and have them survive being handled. 

There are so many cool things to paint, it was what do I paint first! I decided to hold off on the Elephants, the Numidian cavalry, and other assorted goodies until I painted some of the Carthaginian veterans themselves. 

So up first are 16 veterans from Hannibal's campaigns. My pipe dream is to use Saga as a gateway to eventually have enough to use for Command & Colors Ancients. I have a 6 foot by 4 foot mat with five inch hexes on it and it's a quality mouse pad type. Very excited about having it. Not excited about painting 400 troops (cause I have to do both sides). 

Anyways enjoy the pictures. 

 



Cheers

Kevin

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

The Iron Throne

 There is only one thing certain in our quest for power and that is death.



:)


Sunday, January 17, 2021

Core Space: Crew of the ""Ion Hope"

 Greetings fellow Bloggers!

I painted up a Core Space crew for a friend this past week. Someone who I had told I would paint something else up a long time ago and never did. So this is kind of a make up. This is why I don't paint for people. My interests change faster than rabbits had babies on the Ark. That is just too much to keep interest in painting for someone else. Heck I can't keep up painting things for my own self. In fact during our "Great Isolation" it's becoming clear to me that while I enjoy painting, it's more like I enjoy painting a model. No quota's, no armies. Just paint a few models while I read a book about the period, or a story, and that I find inspiring. It's my way of immersing myself a little deeper into the subject by transporting myself into that time through the painting. Touching the model, seeing it in the real. Like I was there kind of thing. 

My hobby is a mish mash of several hobbies all together that feed off each other. I love to read, I love to board game, I love to miniature game. If one of these inspires me, then I use the others as props. Painting jumps into this. 

That said, it doesn't mean I have never hunkered down and painted an army of this or that to game with. But lately painting a figure/model gives me all the satisfaction I need. If that leads me to paint more on the subject... great! If not.... then on to the next subject.

That's just me. But enough rambling, here are the photos of the Ion Hope.

[Captain Arianna of the Ion Hope]



[Gak Arianna's gun man... brute]



[Roykirk the old man, soft spoken and wise]



[Tirgarde a youngster in it for himself but highly skilled and intelligent]


As always thanks for looking.

Cheers

Kevin

Monday, December 28, 2020

Space Hulk: Librarian finished

 Well I sat down to paint some Carthaginians and then felt the uneasy stare of my uncompleted Librarian upon me. Talk about the three ghost thingy over Christmas. Well I am not one to disturb the spirits so I grab the little bugger and finished him. 

Let's see that gives me 3 Marines, and 23 Genestealers left to do.

.............................................

.............................................

Sigh, I'll get there one day.

In the meantime here is the Librarian for the Blood Angel Chapter for the Games Workshop game Space Hulk.






I probably won't post before New Years so if I don't..... I hope the new year brings us all a better one.

Cheers
Kevin