Beachhead 2026 - Steven

 It took me a couple of weeks to get sorted, but here a few photos from Beachhead 2026. I did four participation games, although each one was short and sweet. Didn’t buy so much this time as I have plenty in my backlog already. There is still Salute and Partizan of course. Had an interesting chat with the person manning the Model Army Ltd, who now own Baueda, stand about options for Jack Frost’s house (I need a HOTT stronghold for the Evil Christmas army I got for Christmas). Didn’t buy anything but I did promise to send him a photo of the Baueda prehistoric hut for their Facebook page. I sent that today as well, so will see if it does up on their page.

Figure 1 View of the main hall with traders and demo and participation games

Figure 2 A fun board game based around giant monsters (Kaiju) fighting over Tokyo.

Figure 3  Participation game re-enacted an aerial riad on an Italian naval base in WW2. I think it was Taranto? Would that make sense?

Figure 4 Native American buffalo hunt

Figure 5 I got three buffalo. Not too bad.

Figure 6 I manged to fit in four participation games. The final one was a demo of using some rules to build a world. I actually bought the rules for myself. The map in the photo shows the world I made using them. The rest of my haul is also shown.

Statuesque Miniatures cloth animals by Steven.

'Hi Dad,

I have painted the cloth animals by Statuesque Miniatures you sent me. They were painted, by my standards, quite quickly. About 90% of the painting of the miniatures themselves was done by stippling the paint on using the sponge backing from blister packs.

I continue trying to improve my photography:

·       I have discovered a new setting (telephoto) on my phone which works better,

·      Set the camera to a 5-second timer to reduce camera shake,

·      Supported my hands more with cushions (a proper tripod would probably be even better),

·     Directed light from my painting lamp into the light box, so light is shining on the miniature from all angles.

    I think it is better now (still not perfect). I have also included a photo of a caveman taken under the new conditions to provide direct comparison with earlier photography attempts.'

Tanks everywhere

Latest update from Steven...

'Quick update. Decided to get some intensive practice with the air brush by doing the colour modulation on my German tanks... all 77 of them. Even though they are a long way from finished, they are still quite a sight. I like how the Maus' turret is larger than some of the smaller tanks in their entirety.'

Steven's prehistoric project complete...

 'Hi Dad,

It has been ages since my last update, again. However, I have ‘finished’ the prehistoric project, at least for now (yes, there are still some things unpainted, and some things I would like but don’t yet have). However, my WW2 Germans are calling for attention again.

Since my last update I painted some cavemen ( Figure 1 ), hunting dogs ( Figure 2 ) and flame-bearers   ( Figure 3 ) by Irregular Miniatures. The latter only came in a single pose (a surprise coming from Irregular), so I did a few minor conversions adding furs, beards etc, and even made one of them into a female ( Figure 4 ). To go with them, I made some flame markers from cotton wool and painted them using the airbrush ( Figure 5 ). The flame markers have more general use, of course.

I spent a lot of time on some essentially scratch-built models. Firstly, I did a jub-jub bird (from a scenario in the Palaeo Diet rules) based on a 25mm Pendraken duck modified and painted to look a bit like a golden pheasant ( Figure 6 ).

I also scratch-built a pair of huts using the modelling putty you gave me, following a very usefulguide online, here. It was also fun putting a few extra details on the bases such as the firepit and a pile of mammoth tusks. I based the (previously posted) Baueda orc house too whilst I was at it ( Figure 7 ).

As an army review ( Figure 8 ) of sorts, I think it all comes to:

 18 cavemen (Khurasan) 

 Six converted Libyan archers (Khurasan)

 10 hominids (Khurasan)

 10 cavemen (Irregular)

 Seven flame-bearers (Irregular)

 Eight hunting dogs (Irregular)

 10 flame markers (scratch-built)

 Three large herbivores: mammoth, rhinoceros and hippo (toys, possibly Mojo)

 Three sabretooth tigers (Khurasan)

 One cave bear (Khurasan)

 10 small herbivores each of: horses, deer and goats (Pendraken)

 Three rabbits (Pendraken)

 Twelve 10mm wolves (Copplestone)

 Two 15mm giant wolves (Demonworld)

 Three animal lairs (Copplestone)

 One stone circle (Copplestone)

 One jub-jub bird (Pendraken)

 One hut (Baueda)

 Two huts (scratch-built)

So that is a total of 131 items. Given this was supposed to be a little side project, I may have gotten sucked in a bit too much.

Figure 1 Irregular Miniatures cavemen.

Figure 2 Hunting dogs. I tried to paint some of them as sort of transitional from wolf to dog.

Figure 3 Flame-bearers. The original is third from left; the rest have had some sort of conversion. I painted a reddish glow from the flame on their face and chest area, although it isn’t very clear in the photos.

Figure 4 The converted female. In addition to the obvious, I trimmed slivers off her limbs and body to try and give her a more feminine body type.

Figure 5 Fire markers made from cotton wool, airbrushed with white, then yellow, orange, red, and finally black to hopefully give a reasonable fire effect.

Figure 6 Jub-jub bird. The base was scratch built - the tree stump was green stuff over a wire skeleton, and I added a few other bits to the base to make a mini diorama. Spot the rabbit and the cotton wool spider web.

Figure 7 Stone-age huts. The middle one is from the Baueda, the other two were scratch built from putty, as were the items around the huts. I tried to make the fire look like proper fire.

Figure 8 Everything all together. It does look quite good, I think.

'Even more prehistoric miniatures'

 'Hi Dad,

It has been a long while since an update so I thought I would share my progress again. A lot of these miniatures were Christmas presents from various people (including you and Mum, of course). These 15mm prehistorics are addictive. I do feel bad about my other currently abandoned projects.'

Figure 1 Slightly converted Libyan archers by KhurasanMiniatures. I cut the feathers off the heads (except the chief, who got to keep his, along with a flashy sabre-tooth tiger skin cloak) and added green stuff to make the clothing more like furs.

Figure 2 An Orc House from Baueda, but it works well as a prehistoric dwelling too. I may scratch build some more using the modelling putty you gave me. I found a good guide online to follow.

Figure 3 Stone Circle from Copplestone Castings

Figure 4 Animal Lair from Copplestone Castings

Figure 5 Another animal lair. It was interesting putting a lot of subtle colour variations on the rocks to make them look more realistic. Sensible people would dry brush them and be done in five minutes, but not me.

Figure 6 Animal lair number 3

Figure 7 A pack of grey wolves from Copplestone Castings. Most wolf miniatures are over-sized fantasy giant wolves. To get a more realistic size, I had to go down a scale to 10mm.

Figure 8 A close-up of one of the above.

Figure 9 I spent a lot of time looking at reference photos of wolves, and they are very varied in colour and pattern. For variety, I therefore did a second pack of brown wolves.

Figure 10 Another close-up. I also distinguished between the packs by giving the brown wolves more rocky bases, in contrast to the more vegetated, woody bases of the grey wolves.

Figure 11 The great white wolf. An actual 15mm miniature by Demonworld. This one is the pack leader of the brown wolves.

Figure 12 A giant black wolf, the pack leader of the grey wolf pack.

Figure 13 The two giant wolves together. Spent ages on their bases so this shows the other side of them.

Figure 14 I quite like this experimental overhead view of the giant wolves, and it shows some of the base details which are less clear in the earlier photos

Figure 15 Everything all together

Pacman ghosts - by Steven

 Most recent side project: three ghosts from Pacman. Figures are by Crooked Dice. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any miniatures of Pacman himself. 

After months of painting everything in muted, naturalistic colours, it was nice to break out the bright colours.These were also another go at using the airbrush, with some glazing and washes to refine the paint job. Essentially painted over a weekend, which is very fast for me!

Prehistoric creatures, etc

Latest pictures from Steven, including his water horse that has already been covered... Note that the pictures don't do justice to the actual figures, they are way better than the pictures suggest!

Hi Dad,

It has been months since I gave a proper update, so thought it was about time. First up, the water-horse-dragon thing you gave me a while back:

Figure 1 Toy water-dragon-horse, mainly use as a test piece for airbrushing and glazing

I also painted three Crooked Dice miniatures that obviously represent characters from the video game franchise Mortal Kombat. I apparently forgot to take photo of the thunder god Raiden, but here are a couple of other miniatures. I do like Crooked Dice and look forward to getting to some other video-game inspired miniatures of theirs which are still in my backlog.

Figure 2 Goro, Shokan Warrior

Figure 3 Scorpion, Netherrealm Demon and Salute Painting Competition also ran

I have also painted a couple of 15mm Samurai buildings from Oshiro Models to go with the Sengoku figures I painted some time ago. Spent some time trying to get realistic texture effects, especially on the wood.

Figure 4 Samurai house. Hopefully the wood looks like wood, rather than ‘something that been painted brown’

Figure 5 Shrine. The walls have too much contrast (aesthetic choice) to be realistic, but I hope the doors and beams are reminiscent of wood that has been painted white but is now a bit weathered

Finally, my major project of recent weeks: the first half of a 15mm prehistoric project. I have painted the grazers but need to get some predators and cavemen next (birthday hint). The horses are 10mm Pendraken Miniatures zebras painted as Przwalski’s wild horses (which is how the horse in the Lascaux cave paintings look), the goats, deer and rabbits are all 15mm Pendraken Miniatures. The mammoth, rhino and hippo are toys you gave me, but they have painted up pretty well, even thought they literally have ‘Made in China’ stamped on the underbelly. (And cost about 30p-50p each! - Dad) It was interesting putting much more effort into the bases. I bought a variety of grassy tufts and flowers at Salute and have put them to good use here. A lot of the rocks are carved up lumps of cork from a wine bottle.

Figure 6 I think they look quite good all together, although the rhino and hippo are probably a bit over-sized. I'm really looking forward to adding some predators and cavemen to the mix.