Raggy's Gaming Adventures

So the other day I was tempted into picking up a shiny new minis case. I really don't NEED more.... but at the same time - there is no such thing as too much storage. This particular case is a monster, 6 layers of 80 minis - a total of 480 figures stored in protective foam. I decided it would be nice to load all my Blood Bowl minis into a single case as they have been spread across 3 cases for a while meaning I'm guaranteed to have to look in three different places to find any given figure I'm looking for. So what does 480ish Blood Bowl minis in a big box look like? Well I'm glad you asked: Of course, this isn't every team. I am still working on that... but it's some good progress. Now all I have to do is get all the blighters painted! ... and buy the rest. - Raggy, signing out

Test of Honour has really grabbed my attention and enthusiasm recently. I still haven't gotten a game in, but it has caused me to get back to painting the mountain of plastic Ashigaru and Samurai I had. As I am the only person I know with the game, I am trying to paint two factions but in a way that they can also be used as a single faction or a single army for another game system if I want. My solution to this is slightly distinctive samurai and 'unit' Sashimono (back banners) all this is somewhat historically accurate (if you squint and turn your head sideways and wish really hard). This allows all the troops to be in uniform green armor and still be identified. As a reward for making a solid start on the Ashigaru, I painted up Tadashi, the Ronin hero character. I am pretty pleased with the result. He needs a little more highlight and shade in the hair but it is a tabletop figure so good enough. The rightmost dude was from my first fifteen speed painted guys. T...

It never ceases to amaze me how photographs are actually MORE forgiving of my painting efforts than real life. The reality is that this is rather more Impressionist than the picture indicates. I will come back with some glazing to try and address this. So how did I get here? Well the first coat of paint left me with something like a Son'a (Star Trek: Insurrection reference folks!): I then followed (rather timidly) the Miniature Monthly video, using my highlighting and shading to get a pretty reasonable finish: And this is where I got to off the back of the Male Face Painting videos. I got some great feedback from Aaron and Liz (push the highlights and play with some other colours in the mix)... and then... then I won an hour 1:1 lesson with Aaron! He took me through some amazing tips using photoshop showing me exactly what to do on my model and explaining the reasoning, how light plays across the skin, what happens below the skin (hair growth and blood flow) impact t...

Well that pesky thing 'real life' has been seriously interfering with my painting recently. In combination with my A.D.D. with these guys, there's been slow progress. Fortunately last week, I got the base colors on so they can be fielded, the rest of it is grinding through a ton of Non-Metallic Metal... I'm still not super happy with my NMM skills at the moment, silver is going ok but gold is a real struggle. I think the tough part is getting the color transition in wide spectrum in a small space. Luckily I won an hour painting tutorial with Aaron Lovejoy! I am going to ask him for some more advice on getting those transitions smoother. If you want a chance to win an hour session with Aaron (or Liz Beckley) then you should sign up for Miniature Monthly ... actually you should sign up anyway. The videos are excellent and there are some great prizes to be had. $10/month is well worth it for the content they have. - Raggy, signing out

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while, will know that I have more Samurai figures than I know what to do with... I went a little gaga over the old Wargames Factory figures back when they were still available. I don't really know why as nobody I knew ever expressed interest in a mass combat Samurai game. A while ago I decided to use them as an experimentation of army speed painting. That effort was rather abortive as I got distracted by the next Blood Bowl team and moved on. Recently a new game was announced by Warlord Games and it turns out the Wargames Factory miniatures form the basis of the new figures! Using some new head sculpts to change things up a little... well it's given me some motivation to get back to my Samurai and painting them up: I am going to try some lighter green zenithal for these guys as a bit of an experiment in speed highlighting. The contents of my preorder arrived while this post has been sitting in draft so I thought I woul...