Checking back, I last posted on here on 25th October… a very poor showing on my part.
So, in an endeavour to actually do something hobby-related and justify finishing off some half-completed projects, I have decided to take part in Dave Stone’s Paint What You’ve Got challenge, which runs from 26th December up until 28th of February.
I decided to start big – with a terrain piece that has been staring down at me from a high shelf in disapproval – namely my Ghostbusters firehouse.
When we last saw it, it looked like this:
Assembled and undercoated in white spray paint. Realising that the majority of the exterior was red brick and that I didn’t have a paint in the right shade AND that there was a lot to paint, I trotted off to B&Q, as I realised that a 50ml tester pot would be cheaper than hobby paint.
I plumped for a colour called ‘Fulham,’ which seemed the closest to what I wanted. This was duly applied to all the red brick parts of the firehouse, giving good coverage and pretty much the colour I wanted. The dressed stone was painted using a Revell acrylic beige/tan. It probably has a proper name, but they only put a number on the dropper bottles, so it could be called anything.
Yes, that is a HUGE Ghostbusters picture on my wall and yes, the framed picture lying beside the firehouse IS a photo of the actual firehouse in New York, which I was using for reference purposes and looks like this…
Some grinning fool got in the way, but what can you do…
The above picture was taken before I had completely made my mind up whether the lowest floor was going to be painted entirely cream, like the actual firehouse, or if I was going to go with how the model has been built, with three sides red brick. I decided to go red brick, so have repainted the side to match the rest of it.
Since the pictures were taken, the pavement has been given an initial coat of grey, the stair well has also been painted brick red, and both the roof of the firehouse and the flat and angled parts of the stairwell have been stippled black, to try and suggest this is covered in roofing felt.
Whilst it doesn’t appear to be a big inroad, as it’s a fairly big model and the window frames are a little bit intricate, I’m happy with my progress.
I have also benched the Blackadder and Doctor Who projects for the time being, as I do really need to finish off this little lot;
The Santa Wars factions, supplementary figures, original Ghostbusters, Louis and Dana and, skulking off to the left just outside the picture, the Gingerbread Dragon and the rest of the Action Man project.
Some of the are very close to being complete, so hopefully this current challenge will get me motivated to finish them off.
The main problem with wargaming is not which rules system to use, your pile of unpainted miniatures or the many, many, many projects you’ve started and not quite finished, but space.
And when I say space, I’m not talking about outer space, but storage space.
True, most miniatures individually don’t take up a lot of room and you can buy storage cases to store and protect your miniatures, which can generally be stacked up, so these are not as much of a problem.
Scenery is another matter.
You may be fortunate enough to have your own dedicated hobby room/basement/shed and an understanding partner who just rolls their eyes when you spend far too long contemplating the Christmas village display in you local big box store, but not everyone in blessed with these things.
So, for those of us with limited storage space, what is the solution?
Modular scenery.
By modular, I mean stuff that can be disassembled into smaller components and therefore stored in a smaller space.
Obviously, you can go the route of wargaming mats in whatever shade you require, but these remain two-dimensional, no matter what the artwork depicts.
As anyone who has followed this blog will know, I’m a big fan of the HeroScape tile system and now that Renegade Games have reissued the game, you don’t have to hunt for additional tiles on secondary online marketplaces and get scalped on prices.
And whilst I’m not overly concerned about the reissued game (although the upcoming G.I. Joe base set has got me tempted), Renegade are releasing sets that are just the tiles.
They may have a rule sheet to explain how particular tile types work in the game, but you can buy a set of tiles representing the standard terrain types of grass, sand, stone and water, but also other terrain types, such as swamp and swamp water, snow and ice, volcanic land and molten lava, and cobbled streets – all backwards compatible with any tiles you may own from the original release.
And as the tiles lock together and stack, you can have a stable battlefield with different elevations that packs away neatly into a box.
So, with this in mind and as I have a fair few of these tiles already, could I create the necessary arena for a game of Santa Wars? Not quite.
Whilst I have black tiles that represent asphalt, so could do a central road and a handful of pine trees for cover, I sold my snow tiles many years ago when I was financially unstable.
But as I am now fortunate enough to have some disposable income, I can get this;
This set is named ‘The Snow Fields of Valhalla’ and comes with 2x 24 hex, 5x 7 hex, 2x 3 hex, 2x 2 hex and 2x 1 hex snow tiles and 20x 1 hex an 3 3 hex ice tiles (which are not as thick), as well as two snow covered evergreen trees. Recommended retail price in the UK is £59.99, but shopping around can get it cheaper.
Setting just the tiles from this set gives you this;
Which gives a fair bit of coverage, bearing in mind that each hex is approximately 1 1/2 inches flat to flat.
And it looks pretty good from an aesthetic point of view, although as the ice tiles are partially transparent, it’s probably best to lay some white paper underneath for a more “realistic” look.
But, even with this much coverage, as you can see from the size of the miniatures, I may need another couple of sets.
Will still need some suburban dwellings, but we’re getting closer.
Now, whilst Heroscape tiles are pretty good for non-urban landscapes due to their hex design, they don’t work as well for city streets, in my opinion.
So, modular option number 2 are these;
Non-branded building block road plates. Each plate is 10 inches square and you get 10 plates in the pack, which I picked up in Smyths toy store… for £9.99. Bargain!
You get 4x straight roads, 4x curved roads and one each of a crossroads and t-junction, which you can then set up like so;
If you’re prepared to ignore the studs (which as this is a non-branded product are blank), there are a couple of minor issues with these, which are easily rectified.
Firstly, unless locked together, the tiles will slide apart. However, a single building block plate placed at the corners, of whichever brand you have available, will lock the plates together. Problem solved.
Secondly, this pack only comes with road plates, so if you want an area that is not road, for placing buildings, etc. they will have to have a big enough footprint to cover the road on the plate or you’re going to have to live with the fact that they’ll be bits of road sticking out from underneath it. However, I did see a pack on the shelf that has non-road plates of exactly the same dimensions, but only one of the five plates was grey, the others being red, blue, green and a sandy colour. So, utilising the green, grey and sand tiles, you could have a 30″ x 30″ board, with waste ground (sand) and a park (green) in two of the corners, and a concrete area (grey) in one of the others, using 5 of the road tiles to create a crossroads and whichever tile you wanted in the other corner.
For total outlay of £17.99…
But does it work with 28mm figures and buildings, I hear you cry?
See for yourself.
I’d say that was a big fat Yes.
Obviously, I’ll now have to go back and get the other set, but as you can pay upwards of £40 for a similar sized printed urban mat that can only be rotated to provide a slightly different layout, rather than laying down the plates in the configuration you want, I’d say if you can get past the evident studs, this is a really good option.
Plus who does like mucking about with Lego, given the chance?
Now, as you’ve probably gathered, no real progress has been made painting wise, as October being the month of my birth, I tend to indulge myself in frivolous activities.
Or post videos on my YouTube channel…
So, if you want a small slice of seasonal silliness, follow the link below;
Thankfully, Prince Edmund took Baldrick’s suggestion (although he claimed the idea as his own), otherwise we’d be using this emoji – 🍆 – to refer to a cunning bastard, rather than what it supposedly means now…
Which is my introduction to the latest batch of historical “personalities” from the forgotten (i.e. expunged) reign of King Richard IV.
First up we have Baldrick, then Prince Edmund, Duke of Edinburgh and finally Percy, Duke of Northumberland. These three figures are from the Black Prince & Aidespack from Hayland Terrain.
And then we have King Richard IV and the Witchsmeller Pursuivant. The king is from Rogue Miniatures and the Witchsmeller also from Hayland Terrain, as part of their Medieval Mayhem range.
So, I know have the full casts from The Black Adder, Blackadder II, Blackadder the Third and Blackadder Goes Forth in miniature form. All I’m missing is a Victorian Baldrick, a modern Blackadder and the Roman versions of both characters. I have figures in mind for the Victorian and Roman versions, but a modern Blackadder is proving elusive. And I am tempted to see if I can find a suitable figure to represent Robin Hood, who is apparently a distant ancestor of a certain Lord Flashheart…
And as I was already ordering from Hayland Terrain, I got this too.
The sledgehammer-wielding Santa Claus portrayed by David Harbour in Violent Night. Which, if you haven’t seen it, you should. Think ‘Die Hard’ crossed with ‘Home Alone’, but the protagonist is a tired, grumpy, jaded Santa Claus, who’s about to meet some very naughty people…
Join me next time when I’ll be slinging paint around and hopefully getting some of the figures I’ve started actually finished.
I mean, I set myself a year-long project – Santa Wars – and have made a good dent into accumulating and painting the figures, started typing up the rules, etc. and what happens next? I go online, throw a bunch of cash at various online retailers and end up with a box full of lead and wood, all of which is demanding that I DO something with it.
And I’m usually the person who’s a little more frugal and advising people not to hit ‘add to basket’ before checking their archived figures.
I recently sat down and made a list of every ‘Project’ that I’ve started, listing every figure I “needed” to complete them, ticking off those I had already got and then making a separate list of the figures I hadn’t yet got.
Whilst this highlighted that some of these projects actually ARE pretty much complete, in respect of figure count, the separate list sat on my bookcase, whispering to me…
I picked it up, looked at it and then made the fatal error of saying “well, one or two orders won’t hurt…”
You mad, impetuous fool!
Anyway, posts will be more frequent as figures get based, painted and (hopefully) finished.
I will continue with the Santa Wars project, but expect forays into both the Ghostbusters and Blackadder projects, as well as a return to my Action Man/Action Force project, as Atomic Man and Bullet Man are joined by additional heroes and the Intruder gains a few more villainous accomplices, hence the title of this post.
Turns out I’m not a crow after all… I’m a fucking magpie. *sigh*
Having thrown off my funk, the whole bank holiday weekend to myself and no one to tell me to clear away my shit, out came the paints.
Now, it may appear that there hasn’t been a massive amount of progress, but nearly every figure has had some attention and I may not have just been painting…
Doc Kringle and his Sky Boys;
Big Nick and crew;
St. Nicholas and companions;
Jolnír and his Nisse;
The main thing I’ve done is give everyone a wash of whatever GW call their dark flesh colour. It’s a sort of dark pink-y colour, which works well as a wash on top of the standard flesh paint I use, and saves faffing about with multiple highlights or layers. Other than that, I’ve just picked out some odd details here and there, , so there was less white basecoat showing.
I also progressed these three;
Krampus (who was a uniform grey when we last saw him), the Hogfather (flesh wash and beard re-whitened) and a bloody huge turkey, because… well, why not?
Whether the Hogfather will actually make an appearance in the game, I’m not sure, but both Krampus and the turkey will, probably act as random hindrances to each faction completing their deliveries.
Talking of deliveries, I also built this;
A suitably rustic sleigh for ol’ porkmas himself, lovingly crafted from a bunch of twigs from my garden and that old staple of hobbying, the McDonalds coffee stirrer. I mean, if they didn’t want you to take them, they wouldn’t leave a whole pot of them out, now would they?
I also created the beams for the Sleight traces, cook’s matches with the fire end cut off, two tiny holes drilled and cut down dressmakers pins for the bolts.
Then I splashed a bit of paint about, so currently the whole thing looks like this;
The sleigh is not yet attached to the base, as this should make painting the boars easier. I also need to make a suitably lumpy sack of gifts to add to the sleigh.
Unfortunately, although I did attend Salute last weekend, I didn’t manage to get the scenic items I wanted for this project whilst there, as the company had only brought a limited range of their wares.
Which was a bit annoying.
I may have to scratch build what I need for this, so watch this space.
With the current (slow) house sale and moving to another property, along with an ongoing sojourn into the Mists of Ravenloft, I have been somewhat distracted from my Santa Wars project, so as I had yesterday afternoon free, with no responsibilities or tasks assigned, I retrieved the Tray of Shame and buckled down to some painting.
As all factions are now complete, I thought it was about bloody time I slapped some paint on them. Rather than go into individual colour schemes, I thought I’d just show each faction and how far I have got with them.
First up, St. Nicholas and chums;
Having rediscovered my copy of Sprites, Fairies, Gnomes and Goblins: An Encyclopedia of Little People by Carol Rose whilst sorting my loft, I can now give the correct names for each character.
From left to right, we have Pere Fouettard, whose name means ‘Father Spanker.’ Why he’s armed with a meat cleaver, I don’t know. I could only find black and white images of this character in this specific costume, so I’m going for a sort of Puritan look to him. Next is St. Nicholas himself. Various images exist of this character and he has several different colour schemes, so I went with the one I liked the best. His robe is actually a cream colour (the paint bottle states this is ‘Linen’) but it doesn’t show up very well in the above picture. Third along is Knecht Ruprecht, which means ‘servant Rupert.’ He’s coming along nicley, so will probably be the first of this faction to be completed. Finally, we have Pelsnickel (note that it’s spelt with a P), which means ‘Furry Nick.’ This one will probably take some time, as I think I need to pick out the individual patches in slightly different colours, otherwise what’s the point in having them on there?
Next, Doc Kringle and his Skyboys;
I finally decided to just go with the grapple rope supplied, so this was glued to the base and attached to the grapple gun, then the figure undercoated and give his green jacket and first coat of brown on his trousers. So, faction now complete, just need finishing off.
Big Nick and his biker crew;
The Britains pig was initially painted with GW Tentacle Pink, but this was too much of a cartoony pig pink, so out came the Flesh paint and it was repainted. As this particular paint has gone blobby, I scooped out a lump and watered it down until I had a consistency I could use. As this resulted in more paint than I needed and the previous coats I used on all the other character’s exposed skin was a little thin, I gave them ALL another coat, which is why they are all looking a little healthier than last time.
Jolnir, the Julebocken and the Nisse.
I was a little concerned, given the size of the Nisse, that painting them would be a bit of a pain, but as they are 15mm figures, there isn’t enough room to add too many fussy details, so they are pretty straight-forward. I’ve gone with the standard red pointed hats and blue outfits that you see on Norwegian gnomes, so should be relatively quick to paint. And you may be thinking they’re quite cute, but if you saw a horde of these screaming down the road towards you, waving tiny but extremely sharp axes, I think you might change your mind.
Especially if they’re being followed by a freakingly huge goat…
Final faction – the Snow Queen and her Snowmen.
Other than adding snow powder to the base of the Snowmen, these guys are complete. I will give a quick rundown of how these were painted. Initial base coat of white, generous wash of GW Enchanted Blue, boulder ‘hands’ painted with Dark Grey, complete drybrush of white, then lighter drybrush of Mithril Silver. Eyes painted in Cherry Red, for contrast.
The Snow Queen herself had the Flesh paint I’d mixed up earlier mixed with white and a touch of Mithril Silver, to give a sort of luminescent flesh colour, which looks better in person than in the picture above.
Five factions, five pictures… but there’s more.
Finally found a decent and more appropriate colour for my Gingerbread Dragon, so it got some loving too.
And finally, the Hogfather and sleigh (WIP)…
The Hogafather is coming along nicely and should be pretty straightforward (and fun) to finish off. I decided to make a start on painting the boars for his sleigh, as I thought it might be easier to do before I attached the traces. Obviously, I still need to build the actual sleigh, but that is in hand.
So, a fair bit of progress on all the figures, so I will need to start thinking seriously about the scenery. However, as Salute 52 is two weeks away and I am actually going this year, I may be able to pick up some suitable MDF buildings there.
Anyone who is also going, keep your eyes peeled, as I will be sporing my Jurassic Park-inspired Carrion Crow t-shirt, so if you spot me, come and say hello.
Until next time, may all your Christmases be white.
It’s been over a month since my last post, so all those claims that THIS project wouldn’t peter out like previous ones seemed to be just so much hogwash.
Well, it’s not like I haven’t been doing hobby stuff, it’s just that I haven’t been doing it on here.
Whilst clearing out my loft for the upcoming move, I came across all my old Ravenloft stuff…
Next thing I know, the Mists had risen and I was back in the Domains of Dread.
Ravenloft is a seductive mistress, but rather than drain my blood, she sucks my… time.
However, as my bloody Gnomes FINALLY made it across the Pond (I’m assuming the little buggers walked), it was time to return to Santa Wars!
Now, as the Splintered Light Gnomes I intend on using as Nisse for Jolnír’s faction are 15mm/18mm scale, basing them individually on 25mm circular bases seemed a bit excessive. However, basing them in groups would also cause issues, as I base first, then paint, so getting to every part of the figure would be a pain.
I did have a handful of 20mm slots bases, which for some reason the Star Shlock Kickstarter I backed supplied rather than 25mm bases (still not sure why), but as I wasn’t sure where they were or how many I had, I resorted to cash…
Or to be more accurate, the humble 1 pence piece. Roger clued me in to the use of legal tender for basing, as the British two pence piece just happens to be 25mm in diameter. The advantages of using these are threefold – 1. With figures with integral bases, the thickness of the coin is less than the thickness of a 25mm slotted base, so you don’t get extra tall figures. 2. If you’re rebasing Heroclix or basing plastic figures, this gives the figure a bit of heft. 3. It’s cheaper than using the equivalent sized washers.
Anyway, as most UK vending machines won’t take copper coins, I have quite a few and one pence pieces are – surprise, surprise – 20mm in diameter.
So, the fifteen Gnomes were individually based, as which point I realised I then had to finish of ALL fifteen bases with Milliput..
Cue much gnashing of teeth and several choice expletives.
As there was other basing I needed to do, I mixed up a big old lump of Milliput and went to work.
And here are the tardy little sods, ready to be painted;
You may be wondering how these scale in with a standard 25mm figure, so Jolnír was retrieved from the Tray of Shame to provide a comparison;
As they’re supposed to be tiny gnome-like beings, I think they work quite well, although painting them will be an interesting challenge. If anyone wanted to do garden Gnomes versus…well, anything, they would work for that too. I’m envisaging German paratroops dropping into a sleepy English village, only to find that Angela Lansbury has mobilised every lawn ornament to take them out…
Anyway, the title of this post has bugger all to do with Gnomes, so where’s the pigs?
Here;
The Britains piglet, which I worked out is older than my son (who turns 30 this year), got a base of its own. As all the figures I’m using for the Santa Wars project will be on snowy bases, I’ve been using a scrap of sandpaper to texture the bases, as it does give a nice pseudo snow effect.
As detailed in previous posts, a related side project was converting a figure into Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather. When I told Mark Dixon of Checkpoint Miniatures that’s what I was using the figure for (as there was a bit of a mixup and he sent the wrong figure initially), he loved the idea and asked me to send some photos once done.
But you can’t have the Hogfather without his sleigh. And you therefore need to have four wild boars – Gouger, Rooter, Tusker and Snouter – to pull it.
After much searching, I found some suitable boars from Kallistra here in the UK. However, they came as part of a pygmy boar rider pack. Having dealt with Kallistra before and found them open to non-standard requests, I asked if they were two-part castings and, if so, could I just buy the boars? They replied that there were two-part castings, but as they had bridles, they wouldn’t be suitable as wild boars. I explained what I was going to use them for and they then offered to cast me up the four boars I needed for £7.50, the same price as buying a three pack of boar riders. Result!
If you don’t ask, you don’t get…
Bring on the pigs!
They were EXACTLY what I needed, but I then realised a slight flaw in my cunning plan. Where the fuck was I going to get a base big enough for the boars AND the sleigh?!
Well, all it took was a bit of Carrion Crow ingenuity…
A post on my previous non-Wordpress blog detailed how you could use empty plastic bottles (shampoo, Conditioner, fizzy drink, etc.) to make 3D ‘Area of Effect’ markers, by basically cutting a ring out of the bottle, then cutting the top to represent whatever ‘effect’ was in place. I think I had a fog cloud cut from a white conditioner bottle and a ring of fire, from (naturally) a red plastic bottle. Obviously, you’re restricted by the diameter of the bottle, but I felt it was better than a cardboard disk – and looked cooler.
So, having just used the last of the shower gel, Rather than tossing the bottle away, I measured it. Then removed the sticky labels, gave it a thorough wash and cut it open. As it was one of those ones that’s roughly rectangular in cross-section, both sides front and back yielded a 2mm thick piece of plastic. No extra expense and recycling something you’d normally chuck in the bin. Single use plastic? I think not…
So, the flash was removed from the boars, bases filed flat and then glued in place. Then came the tedious task of covering the rest of the plastic base with Milliput. Which is why I’d mixed a big lump of it.
If you look closely, you’ll see I used the end of a paintbrush to create the sleigh tracks on the back of the base. I have some thin twigs from the garden which have been drying out in the airing cupboard, for building the rustic sleigh and a thin chain from an old necklace that was being thrown away, which will be used for the traces(?) connecting the boars to the sleigh.
Of course, I’d mixed a little too much Milliput, but that wasn’t an issue, because the Hogfather needed the fur trim on his hood and his beard;
Can’t wait to get some paint on him now, because he’s going to look fucking awesome!
And remember, if on the first day of Christmas, your true love gives you a partridge in a pear tree, get them sectioned.
As mentioned in my last post, the gnomes I’d ordered to bolster Jolnír’s forces as Nisse had not yet arrived, so I reached out to the vendor to ask why.
Whilst the figures were cast (in the U.S.) and dispatched by Splintered Light last Tuesday for some reason best known to the US Postal Service, my Gnomes made a tour of several locations in the US between leaving Georgia and actually being put on a plane.
Possibly this was some kind of farewell tour, saying their final goodbyes to friends and family, before being forced in battle alongside a giant goat…
But this was not the only postal mishap impacting on my Santa Wars project.
I’d ordered Little John with Hood Up from Checkpoint Miniatures, as below:
However, the figure which turned up was Little John, as below:
Whilst still a cool figure, as I was using it for my Hogfather conversion, the hood up version meant less conversion work for me.
So I got in touch with Checkpoint and received an almost immediate response. Mark apologised for sending the wrong figure and, whilst I’d offered to return the wrong one, advised me to keep it and he’d send a replacement straight away.
When I explained why I’d ordered that particular figure, he asked me to send him some photos once I’d completed it, as he loved the idea.
So, kudos to Mark Dixon of Checkpoint Miniatures, for exceptional customer service.
And this is where you get to see what I’ve done so far.
Milliput was duly mixed to base the figure and, once again, I mixed too much. The remaining amount however, once stretched out, was roughly the right size to add the Hogfather’s cape, so this was attached at the base of the hood, then blended in around the shoulders. I then used my “texturing tool” (which is actually just a scrap of fine sandpaper) to try and give the impression of fur on the exterior part of the cape.
As this required a bit of pressure, I then had to carefully tease the cape back out, as it was pressed a bit too far against the contours of his back.
I initially thought that this looked a bit too tatty, but as the Hogfather is a pretty rough and ready character, the fact that his fur cape is a bit lumpy and has a few tears in it actually adds to his appearance.
Well, that’s my excuse anyway…
Front view, showing the hang of his cape.
Right hand side.
And left hand side.
Whilst Milliput is good for larger areas and coarse detail, I will be using Green Stuff for the fur around the edge of his hood and his beard. For his moustache and eyebrows I think I’ll just rely on multiple layers of paint, as my sculpting skills are not that refined yet and I’d rather not spend ages getting the rest of it right only to fuck it up by obscuring the rest of his face.
And we can’t have the Hogfather without his sleigh, so I have some skinny twigs gathered from my garden drying out in the airing cupboard.
And I have found some ideal boars to pull the sleigh, but these come as part of a three figure pack of 28mm pygmy boar riders. I don’t need the pygmies, only the boars, and I only need four, so I contacted the company to see if they would be willing to sell me four of the boars separately. As the boars are identical, I’m guessing the pygmy riders are separate castings, so hopefully they’ll say yes.
WordPress has just reminded me that I registered and put up my first post on this blog on 6th February 2015, which means I’ve been entertaining you all (hopefully) for 10 years.
Which is quite an achievement and also quite mad.
Which puts me in mind of this quote;
“We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
So, you’re in good (and appropriate) company here. Check you sanity in at the door and get your freak on.
Talking of ‘mad’ projects, let’s see what’s been happening in regards to Santa Wars…
Faction 1 – Jolnír
Jolnír has been given a more ruddy robe, which is actually a darker red than is shown in the above picture. The Julbocken was given an undercoat of white, followed by an initial coat of GW Unspecified Brown (label’s fallen off and no idea what this was originally called). Because it’s an old pot, the contents pretty much look like they’ve come out the back end of the Julbocken, but this results in a thin wash of brown, which gives the above effect.
The Nisse (gnomes) have still failed to arrive, so I may have to give the seller a nudge. As they are the UK distributor for Splintered Light miniatures, this may be a U.S. problem. If so, I blame Trump…
Faction 2 – Doc Kringle
As mentioned in a previous post, I’d decided the jackets were too dark and hadn’t full decided on the trouser colour. The jackets were repainted with GW Woodland Green and Doc himself was given a matching vest in the same colour. Trousers are GW Spearstaff Brown, the darker one on the right having had an additional coat.
I still haven’t sorted out the grapple gun Airboy, but at least I know what colour he’ll be.
Faction 3 – Big Nick
Kandi, Chestnut and Lil’ Drummer Boy have been undercoated, fleshed and a few colours added.
And yes, I found me a pig!
As I will be moving soon, I’m in the process of going through all my stuff to see what’s actually there and getting rid of the things I no longer want/need (this is due to downsizing – for Reasons).
The above pig is actually a Britain’s plastic piglet, which is pretty much spot on scale wise as a 28mm pig. It will need the mold line removed, be based, but it does mean I’ve finally got my hog.
Faction 4 – St. Nicholas and chums.
No movement on this faction, so nothing to show.
However, it does bring us on to the new fifth faction – the Snow Queen…
The Snow Queen herself is a metal Mage Knight Mending Priestess, bought from Ral Partha a while ago, but now no longer available. The blue monstrosity at the back is the Chillfire Destroyer I mentioned in a previous post. The remaining three figures are Pummelroot Elementals from the Arena of the Planeswalkers boxed game, which I have repurposed as the Snow Queen’s ‘snowmen.’
To achieve this, I initially gave them a decent wash, as for some reason the plastic figures from this set seem reluctant to take paint straight out the box, then they got an undercoat of white.
This didn’t give me the effect I wanted, so I mixed a touch of GW Mithril Silver with a lot of white, to get a pearlescent off-white, that gave a better snow/ice look. This was also applied to the Snow Queen herself and the base of the Chillfire Destroyer.
The latter will now just need some snow on his base and he’s done.
That’s almost all for this time, but my sorting DID uncover another model that fits into this project.
You can’t catch him.
He’s much too fast.
He’s the… Gingerbread Maniac!
I’m going to need a REALLY big glass if milk to sort him out.
Whilst I have been accruing and basing figures for my Santa Wars project, I thought it was about time I started painting the bloody things, so as last weekend was pretty much free of anything I really needed to do AND I had the house to myself, out came the paints.
All Chrimbo figures (and the original Ghostbusters) were given an obligatory undercoat of white, which served to highlight that I’d missed some flash on a couple of the figures, so this needed to be trimmed before the actual painting began.
First up, St. Nicholas, Pere Fouettard, Knecht Ruprecht and Belsnickel.
Having looked at numerous images of each character online, which varied massively, I ended up picking the colours I thought best suited the figure, taking into account that the more dour trio needed to be easily distinguishable from one another.
Next, Jolnír and the Julbocken.
A little extra paint on Jolnír, but as the Julbocken is a cheap Chinese toy, this required trimming of mold lines.
Furthermore, as the head and chest appear to be a separate piece to the main body, there was a noticeable groove between the two pieces, which was filled with Milliput and then hair sculpted. Currently this still requires an undercoat, but once this is done, it shouldn’t be as obvious as it is now.
Still no sign of my Nisse (gnomes), but I think these are cast to order, so might be a while before they turn up.
Next, Doc Kringle and three of the four Airboys.
The one armed with a grapple gun has yet to have the rope attached, so is not yet ready to be painted.
The Airboy’s jackets are too dark, so these will change to a lighter green, with the current shade being used for a wash. I have also not yet decided on trouser colour, so this may change as well.
Big Nick, Kandi, Chestnut and Lil’ Drummer Boy.
The other three human members of the faction arrived and were based up, but this was after the first round of painting.
Still need some muscle for this faction, but not sure what it will be yet. Might have to see I can find some kind of mechanical golem that looks like it was constructed out of motorcycle parts or something…
I also gave the Krampus a first lick of paint.
As most depictions of the hairy-assed version of Krampus show him with very dark brown/black fur, I thought I’d start with a base coat of grey and work from there. Whether he’ll end up as a faction leader or just someone who shows up to annoy everyone, I haven’t decided yet.
And I’ve assembled the Gingerbread Dragon…
The superglue worked, but I ended up with noticeable gaps between the parts, so Milliput was used to fill the gaps. May need to gently file this down for a smoother finish.
And a second picture to give a sense of how big it is.
This was the 75mm tall one which was £9.60, which I think is big enough to be a threat, but not too big to dominate the table. Smallest you can get is 50mm tall, and the largest is listed as “Gargantuan” for £50, but the listing doesn’t specify the actual height. However, for about £20 you can get one 114mm tall. I guess it depends on just how much dragon you want.
One thing I didn’t notice in the pics online is that the dragon has two holes in its wings, near the top. I’m assuming that this is so you could hang it from your tree as a decoration, should you so wish, but I’d suggest getting one of the smaller ones for that purpose.
Now, I mentioned a couple of posts ago about possibly writing up a faction for the Snow Queen and her ice/snow golems. I initially was thinking along the lines of Elsa from Frozen and her Ice Golem, both of which I know where to source figures for. However, I then remembered that I have the below metal Mage Knight Mending Priestess, bought from Ral Partha Europe a while ago;
Not my paint job, I have to state, as this figure is now OOP, so had to hunt for a suitable image online.
I also have at least one figure I can use as a suitable minion for her, which is this;
This is a Chillfire Destroyer, from the D&D plastic figures range which I’ve had since 2015 and has appeared on this blog a couple of times since then. Added bonus is that as it’s pre-painted, all I need to do is ‘snow’ the base.
And as the obscure Marvel character Dr. Tannenbaum is a Christmas-themed villain, I may have a candidate for this year’s Forgotten Heroes.
Like an avalanche, this project started slowly, but is gathering momentum to consume all in its path.
Carrion Crow's Buffet 
