Can't see the axe murderer through the trees

 

    Started out with pizza wedge shapes, then moved to more circular bases, which I prefer more. These foam boards might need some hard MDF glued to their back so they don't curl so much, as extra glue doesn't seem to help. Planning to purchase a 3' X 3' game mat soon, these might turn into play mats for my daughter if I can't figure out a solution.

Focus on the cute toddler, not my super warped boards

    Last year, I flocked a large amount of cheap Christmas tree from Micheal's, which like most terrain projects, got shelved immediately after I finished half of it. I find that I am super pumped by the project while creating terrain, but the mess and clean up makes it tough for me to get started. It's much easier to paint miniatures at a desk.

    That said, Season of Scenery has now ended and I find myself wanting to continue working on terrain. Spooky season is coming up soon and I want to start playing the second edition of Don't Look Back. I already have Coyote Manor and a camp site painted, would be nice to have some fences and one of the plots ( the scenarios in DLB) has a well as it's main focus. With these trees, as they would primarily be used for DLB, I was thinking of making their bases a bit more spooky, with body parts or skeletal remains. For now they are just normal forest trees.

Painted: -20 (10 small terrain)

Purchased: -43

Total: -23

Next on the Hobby Desk!

    Wow that total looks great! I am almost in striking distance of being positive for my painting. Oh wait no, I might have picked something big up....

Skirmish boards

 I picked up some smaller mdf boards for skirmish games. Easy to paint up and I was able to involve my daughter, she is 3, as well.

The urban board was created using the terrain tutor's guide. In his video, he is more efficient, building 4 boards at once. Easy enough to expand upon in the future though. Down the road I'll create a green space insert for the large grey area. The other idea I had was using the back for a grass area, but not sure how it would hold up if it was always being played on the opposite side. I had the intension of using this board for Super Mission Force, a super hero skirmish game, but Songs of Blades and Heroes and 100 point Ronin game or Fistful of Kung Fu could work if I went with more of a Big Trouble in Little China feel to the game.

    The next two pictures are 2 x 2 board that are double sided that my three year old daughter assisted with, she had a creative vision that I wasn't quite picking up on. Fishing 28, a non-combat skirmish game, is what I plan to play on the water board, but add in some docks and it could fit any genre.

Water side

   

    Full thrust, a space combat game, would fit on this board, but Super Mission Force could also make an appearance too! Could start a grand story of supers fighting in outer space then land on earth only to be pulled into the water! Oooo guess I could start painting up heroclix miniatures with space/scuba suits on.

SPPPAAACCEE!

Painted: 8 (Two large terrain)

Purchased: -63

Total: -55

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Seeing as it's the Season of Scenery, I have finished my Haradrim for Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game Battle Companies. Seriously though, I will have some terrain coming soon...

Gipsy Danger - Mech Attack

       This is a bit silly, but I was gifted this battle damaged Gipsy Danger for Christmas last year. I didn't want to display it like most figures I have, so I went with basing it for Mech Attack!

Craft paint for scale

    Crimson Typhoon was damaged in a one sided fight with my energetic orange cat, it will be getting similar treatment. I have definitely been looking at Aliexpress for some kaiju for these two to fight, because one scale of Pacific Rim miniatures isn't enough for me!

Painted: 2 (small terrain?)

Purchased: -99

Total: -87

Next on the Hobby Desk

    I finished painting all the wolves in Zombicide Wulfsburg, they will be getting shown off soon!

Season of Scenery 2023

     Alright, recall the search parties, and take my picture off the milk carton. I was always here, just a bit busy with childcare and working. Though I did manage to get a few terrain pieces done for Season of Scenery this year. 

    I picked up some MDF modern house terrain from cardboard dungeon two years ago or so. These kits are pretty cheap at $20 CND or sometimes less, so one of the reasons I hadn't had the energy to tackle the two houses I had picked up is due to the lack of detail. Coyote Manor doesn't have detail on the exterior. I started cutting out cardboard to look like vinyl siding, this I didn't finish as my mind thought other things to add. Wires? meters? A basement... somehow? The Grey Harbour house C that I painted, at least had laser cut details on the walls.

    You'll notice that the windows on each floor look different, that's because I made my own on the top floor when I couldn't find the ones that came with the kit. I tried to remove the bottom ones, this made the carboard rip or remove the paint. I might come back to it later, but for now, I am fine with it.

    I only did the exterior as the interior would need a lot of detail work, stairs for the second floor, wallpaper, furniture, etc. Design wise it also doesn't really led itself to a real home structure. I can't see stairs, kitchen and a living room being in that small space. Upstairs could easily fit a bathroom and a bedroom with stairs going down.

    I also finished some 3D printed doors, six of them to be exact. These are to be used in Resident Evil 2 board game. 

    I also played a solo game of Don't Look Back, a co-op survival game that emulates 80's slasher flicks. Some interesting mechanics, hopefully I can run a group through a game or two during October. 

    Black Magic Craft does have a video on how to transformer these Christmas Trees from Michaels into regular looking tree, so I am working on getting them done soon.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Finishing up some of the adventuring party challenge, some have been finished for awhile and haven't had the motivation to post on here. Five are done... and it's basically October.. I gotta get moving on them if I want 7 more before the end of the year.

Season of Scenery 2022 Part 2

     So as with the last SoS post, let's start with what new shiny has distracted me in.... ONE MONTH! I might have a wee problem... let's call a dragon's horde of opportunity as a result of my habits. Lately, painting up Dark Eldar for Space Hulk (mostly) has peaked my interest. Someone was selling all his army, so I picked out a Talos, a squad of 5 Scourges and a squad of 5 Mandrakes. In my head, the Talos could be used as boss in Space Hulk. There are fan made rules for a Dreadnaught so why not try fitting a Talos, clearly a less bulky cousin. Harlequin have rules, which would probably play similar to Dark Eldar.

    The other pick ups are for Cities of Sigmar, Black Arc Corsairs was a box sitting at my FLGS that was pre-pandemic priced. I always liked the look of them, with their Cthulhu inspired armour and PIRATES! YAR! And a random Battletech mech for.... fun! Wee! The other Cities miniatures, are Great Swords, Demigryph Knights (recast), a metal Battlemage and Free guild pistoliers (recast). I am not one to buy recasts new as they are usually on some Chinese site, but these were local. That should be enough to give me some options for a warband!

    I start a terrain challenge only to be drawn back to miniatures. After painting up the Lucky Gods terrain, I wanted to continue with the samurai themed miniatures. The Reaper miniatures kickstarter Daimyo set has several dinosaurs kitted out in ancient Japanese wear. Nice little break between terrain, I would have done some more, but realized I was just procrastinating on the terrain.

Parasaurolophus Kyudo

Samurai T-Rex

Ninja Dactyle

    Typical Jon, I get a bit stalled out on terrain sometime, especial ones that I am making myself. I get about half way through a piece and doubt my process. That's too big, I need less of that, why did I do that? Yadda ya all these pieces! Yadda, yadda. You know, hobby hang ups. This time I took a different angle, what if I don't make clean terrain? Lets get dirty with it!

First up, multi-use tree, cave people for scale, I wanted to allow movement underneath the tree. The tree is ancient, life always seems to cling to it despite almost looking deceased . Generations of tribes tell of an evil that lurks beneath this undying sentinel, one that has pushed the earth and uprooted life. Nature keeps this darkness at bay... for now.

    I also did a few objective markers for PrimEvo, resources to find or fight over, some bones for weapons and shelter and flint for warmth. Make a few more for food and hides too. This piece of terrain turned out fairly heavy with the plaster of paris on the tree. I probably could have just painted up the cloth mache that was over my wire frame. I picked up some winter trees at Michael's on my last visit, these would be good for a winter board for PrimEVO, but could be used for Super Mission Force or Don't Look Back as well.

    

    My first thoughts on this 3D Space Hulk piece was to throw on everything but the kitchen sink and grime it all up. BUT what if the ship had lower decks that some cults were worshipping chaos gods? With a peak into my bits box, I didn't really have the right stuff for an ritual alter. However, maybe it wasn't Chaos, but Dark Eldar having a bit of fun with their victims.

    Filleted flesh pinned to the wall, a massacred Salamander Space Marine left as a warning to those that would enter into their territory. I made a flesh sack of body parts from multiple victims too, but didn't find a good spot on it for this walkway with out impeding functionality. Which is to accommodate 40mm Terminator bases and visible squares to actually play the game. I left the back of the harddrive mount open for now, mostly didn't know what material to use for closing it off. I don't have much for sculpting tools, something which should get fixed in the future.

Sector Mechanicus Forgeshrine is up next, corrosion on the sides adds a nice lived in feel to the board. But is it enough? My inner nurgle player side says I didn't go far enough, coat the whole model in decay! If I did that, what's the point of spending my Jon bucks on featureless blobs of entropy? To please Papa nurgle of course!

Next on the Hobby Desk!

September is here! And with a month away from spooky month, what does a closet vampire work on between challenges? Why his skeletons challenges in his closet of course! Time to get back to the character of the month challenge and either actual skeletons or something to prepare to play Don't look Back in October.

Season of Scenery 2022 Part 1

    We reach the halfway point to the Season of Scenery. Summer is slow for painting for me, we have been camping in Kenosee with my family for a couple of days and trying out tenting with our 15 month old daughter at Echo lake. It was only one night, and it went well with our dark room tent that we purchased, hoping to use it regularly in the summers to come. 

    To start off the challenge. I actually made a purchase off of Thunder Games & Gifts. On Canada Day, they have a 15% off their Used and New GW produces. I focused on getting miniatures for Warcry, and Space Hulk. Warpfire Thrower and a Warplock Jezzrail to add some range to my rats. This will go nicely with the 40 some clanrats, a Clawlord and Warlock Engineer that I picked up a few months ago. I also picked up some Bestigors, mostly enjoy these models, and 10 of them would be a solid start for a warband. This is the same reason I picked up the Shadow Warrrors/ Sisters of the Watch, great models, good start for Warcry. I could also assemble it 5 of each unit. The Contorted Epitome can fit in with AOS or Warycry. A Chaplain and Grey Knight Terminator for Space Hulk, hope to use them as auxiliary units to Imperial Guard or Sisters of Battle squads. And finally, a piece of Cities of Death terrain. I originally wanted to dismantle it and use it for bits, now that I have my hands on it, I really like this terrain. Tight corridor on the bottom, nice walk way on top and of course loads of skulls!

    Alright, so that's what I bought, what did I actually paint? The first thing I painted was the 3D printed modular dungeon tiles I ordered from the library in October of last year. 

32 Cavern Tiles

Descent miniature to test scale

    The tiles work best with 25mm or smaller bases, the dead ends and hallways get a bit tricky to see which "square" the miniatures are in. I painted it up with underwater theme in mind, I would add more details to the tiles, but as you can see, space is pretty limited.

    I am a frequent patron of second hand stores, usually wandering down toy to find inspiration for terrain. On a recent journey, I found these two Japanese statuettes which seemed like they would fit in nicely as cover in a game of Ronin. Being the rash painter, I didn't actually snap some quick pictures before slapping paint on them. They were a pale white, one idea was to make them look like ancient stone, instead I went with a more worn red wood look. 

    I still need to spray some glue/ water mixture on the growth to keep it in place. Digging a bit deeper, I found out that they are two of the Seven Lucky Gods.

Hotei, the god of contentment and happiness

Bishamonten, God of Warriors

    After finishing this piece, I finished painting some Rising Sun's Koi Clan Bushi (Samurai) to show off the scale of the statues, formerly on the heap of abandonment. September might turn into a board game miniature painting month, just need to come up with a catchier title that will inspire me to start. I picked up Dragon Tides and Zpocalypse from Amazing Stories in June on their dinged and dented sale. Zpocalypse comes with a boat load of zombies and Dragon Tides has Bruce Lee and Brandon Lee figures.

    That's not all I have been working on, just what I have finished. I have a couple WIPs to show off too. 

    Using a computer hard drive mounting bracket as it's base, with several items that I have "saved" from the recycling bin, I have started on a Space Hulk passageway. Printing off a few of these Zone Mortalis style tiles, I have found that they all are different scales, and the two on here are the best size for 40mm bases. 

    The second piece of terrain I have in progress, is a tree I made with cloth mach back in 2018 when I made my homemade Feculent Gnarlmaw. This was the first time I dabbled with Plaster of Paris on a model, it looks fine, beside the fact that I wasn't sure on which way to orient my tree at the time. The plaster makes the tree quite top heavy, to the point that simply gluing it down might not hold it very well. Remembering I had some twine... somewhere, I thought it might be a cool idea to tie the tree down to the foam rocks. As if the tree was a site to hold some evil beneath the ground. Now to just find where the heck I placed that twine!

Next on the Hobby Desk

    I don't have a running theme with the terrain, but I do have a butt load of recycling to pick through for the next/ current projects. The pentium 3 that I dismantled also has a lot of fun pieces to use up. So probably more Sci-fi terrain? The Reaper Bones Kickstarter pledge I bought was Japanese inspired miniatures. Anyone up for dinosaur and undead samurai?