Overdue Minis!

My productivity when it comes to figures swings massively. I'm generally always up for kitbashing, as I find it by far the most entertaining, rewarding, and therapeutic part of the hobby. Painting? Not so much. I'm not a great painter, and while I like my style for the tabletop, it never seems to do justice to (what I reckon) are good conversions!

Anyway, here are a couple of overdue minis that I painted recently...

A really simple conversion, this is a Frostgrave cultist body with Frostgrave soldier head and arms. I simply cut away the two-handed axe originally being held, and replaced it with a length of brass rod that I happened to find knocking around the bottom of my tool box. Twenty seconds of drilling, and voila! One monk for D&D or Frostgrave adventuring.

Annoyingly, while I went for a ridiculously simple paint-job, the spray varnish I used gave it all a light white misting. I fixed a lot of it, but it's still spoiled the figure for me a little. Still, this actually represents the first model I've made using the official Frostgrave plastics - something long overdue!

Next up is a more involved conversion, and one I'm really pleased with...

I'm a big fan of Tre Manor's Red Box miniatures, especially the Aenglish - I love how each figure is a character, regardless of whether they're a knight or a foot soldier, and each one looks properly equipped for a campaign or an adventure, with bedrolls, backpacks, spare equipment etc. This chap, then, is my homage to that. He started off as a vague concept for a D&D cleric, and kind of evolved from there.

I knew I wanted the pseudo-Medieval look of the Red Box stuff, and had settled upon a mace (natch) and shield combo early on. First stop was the Bretonnian Men-at-Arms box, which has served me so well in the past. I wanted slightly more clerical legs, though, so nabbed some of the trench-coated legs from the Cadian command sprue. Removing the legs from the torso, and filing down the top of the Cadian legs, I ended up with something that seemed proportionate, and then went to town with polystyrene cement, filling the gap and covering it over with baggage (Flagellant hammer, Frostgrave backpack as a belt-tied knapsack, and my favourite trick - a de-headed Fireforge helmet). His head is a Frostgrave cultist with the pointy hood filed down to something a little less dramatic (I almost used the same head as for the monk above, but I loved the haughtiness of this guy's expression).

I painted the guy up to match the knight I did a while back - coming from the same range, the costumes complement each other nicely, and I'm definitely putting the pair up in my 'favourite kitbashes' list, so it makes sense. They can be a dishonoured Knight of the Vale and his squire, and will also be gracing my Frostgrave warband.

Unfortunately, the knapsack turned out very brown. I mean, I painted it brown, but post-varnish it blends into the robes a lot more than I would have liked. It's not a huge bugbear, but I was so happy with the model that the paint-job does annoy me a little... Ho hum.

I enjoyed this pair so much I've recently completed a third member of their little crew, and will be painting him in due course. Chap No.3 was produced while waiting for the glue to dry on the opening shots in a project I've been meaning to get around to for a while...

UK Games Expo Haul

UK Games Expo at the NEC last weekend (3-5 June) was a great show, and everyone on the Osprey stand put in a shift and a half! As a buying show, though, it was relatively quiet for me - I had no big plans or objectives, and so limited myself to cool little impulse buys.

First up, for a forthcoming project, this little doozy from Cosy Dice, who were right opposite our stand (talk about fortuitous!). A really nice dice bag from a couple of lovely people. I heartily recommend the company, especially if you have a custom job in mind.

This Kraken bag can be found here.

The best thing I found at the show, however, was something that had slipped under my radar - the anthropomorphic animal models from Oathsworn Miniatures. I found them on the Friday (I think - time stopped meaning much after the first couple of hours!), and picked up the rulebook for their game, Burrows & Badgers. It's essentially Redwall: The Wargame, and is great stuff! Badger mercenaries, dormouse sneak thieves, drunken weasels, fox crimelords... I read over the setting and the rules and fell in love with it.

Of course, having a nice range of models helps, and I went back on the Saturday to pick up a couple of choice figures... then sent a mate over on the Sunday to grab one more! They're adorable figures, and I'm looking to nab a load more once these are painted. Clearly, I need a badger to support the pug, weasel, and fox I have at the moment. And an otter. And probably a wildcat. And there's a brilliant bat necromancer...

Finally, and not miniatures-related in any way, is this t-shirt featuring the greatest Pokemon of all time: Gengar. Picked up from the very nice people at www.gametee.co.uk (and coming with a free art print of the image too!). I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for more of their stuff.