It's Time For a Holiday In Iberia

 As implied and mentioned in previous posts, I'm back to painting my Ancient Spanish ~ Iberians to be exact. If you're anything like me, I get excited about a new project. I do a bunch of research and I look up the various figures available. I look at rules and army lists and work out what I want. Then I place an order and I wait for the figures to arrive and then I go on a painting blitz and try to get the whole lot painted and ready for the table.

This is what I've finished up to date:

However, this time around my regular method got stymied by The Plague and my order got stuck in customs and ended up taking over three months to arrive, by which time my enthusiasm waned and wandered off into other directions. Unfortunately this meant that I've been slow to paint this army.

But I started getting back into them and this is what I've recently finished:

Light Cavalry: I intend to make at least another two stands of these if not another four. I think light horse should make up the bulk of the cavalry. It seems right.

Noble Scutarii: Just one stand of these. They are the cream of the infantry and could really be considered the general's bodyguard. I have a few of these figures left over and these will be mounted on single bases so I can use them as "Heroes" or markers, etc...

Balearic Slingers: Just one stand of these for the time being. I could add another stand, I suppose. I have a few left over & I think I have a few standard Hellenic slinger figures sitting in a box that could help make up a base.

I've now have enough of these chaps done to call them an allied contingent for whoever needs them but I have enough figures still waiting to make an entire army. The shields are a pain in the arse to paint and they slow me down considerably. I wish I'd decided on decals but it's too late for that now.

Also...

Just to show that I haven't entirely moved away from fantasy: Here's a giant bug.

I've had this for a while and if I recall correctly it's from Khurasan Miniatures from their 15mm Sci-Fi range. The body is a single piece of resin & the legs and lower mandible of the jaw are metal. For a 15mm creature it still measures up as a pretty formidable foe for a 28mm Barbarian. Although from the angle below, it looks a bit more like a crab than a bug.

What is Best in Life?

 To paint your miniatures,

to see them finished before you,

and to hear the lamentations of the lead pile.

I've painted a lot of barbarians in the past year or so but I hadn't painted a "certain" barbarian with a square-cut black mane and a smoldering volcanic gaze... But I saw this figure hanging on a hook at a local gaming store and I thought: "Why not?"

I did some conversion on the figure because when I got it out of its blister-pack I found that the sword was a bit too chunky and it was bent too. I didn't have any decent swords to replace it with in my bits box so I decided on a spear. I also added a bow and quiver on his back. The spear (and half an arm) came from the Frostgrave Barbarians box. So did the quiver. The bow came from the Oathmark Dwarves boxed set.

The original figure is Reaper Black Bones. It's a decent figure but metal would have been better. Then again... I only really bought it because it was cheap.

He came out okay overall, and he'll make a good character for something some time in the future.

During the same shopping trip I also picked up this little beauty. This is another Reaper figure (metal this time) and I think it's supposed to be a female elf ranger. Whatever it is it's a nice figure. I initially wanted to paint her using only various shades of greens and browns. But I then decided to go for a bit of a Robin Hood effect and added the red fringe on her armour.

It has a nice dynamic pose and has some really nice detail that isn't over-done. I'm not a fan of figures that are overly busy with detail. I know many of those busy sculpts look really good when you see them on websites but I find them to be confusing and difficult in the flesh. Half the time I can't even make out what some parts of the figures are supposed to be. This figure had just the right balance of detail.

These next things are pretty boring. The crocodile skull is a Malifaux piece and I don't know what it's supposed to be other than a skull. The cart/wagon and the chrystal ball are both from WizKids. Nice little pieces. I'm going to make a draft horse for the cart.

And that's it for now.

Thanks for reading.

And... "To Hell wid choo!"

A Bit of This and a Bit of That

The year moves onward and we all hurtle inevitably towards our destined demise. So I just keep painting figures for the simple pleasure of painting them. I have no real goal in mind at the moment. I'm pretty much painting whatever miniatures I dig up out of my reserves or a figure might attract me if I see it hanging from a hook in a shop or, occasionally there might be a purpose.

Whatever the reason: I keep painting.

So, what have I got today? 

This one is a metal elf lord from the Oathmark Elf Light Infantry Command Set. It's an interesting figure but I would have preferred his shield in his hand rather than on his back. His empty left hand looks odd and so does the shield on his back. It looks like he's wishing that he had his shield in his hand. Other than that, it's quite a nice figure and it painted up very easily. I like that the Oathmark metal figures. They are simple & not too busy and don't have a whole lot of useless detail. A nice clean sculpt.

I used the same homemade decal that I used on

the other elf light infantry figures I did last year.

This is one of the "Adventurer" figures from the Mantic Terrain Crate. It's not a bad figure but I think it's the best of a pretty dull group. They are so dull that I can't remember what the other figures are. The figure is nicely detailed and it stands the correct height but it's a bit small and dainty. I also needed to do some greenstuff work on the front armour due to poor moulding. It came out okay but my crappy photography doesn't capture the various shades of red I used on different areas of the figure.

Giant Leaches ~ These are from Reaper Bones. I was looking for pair of snakes but these will have to substitute. They were cheap and they look nasty and they'll do. They're also generic enough that they can stand in for various other crawly creatures where and when needed. The 25mm bases are integral to the figure and I would have preferred a larger base. But they would have been really difficult to cut off so they had to stay.

More pieces from the Terrain Crate: This is a dwarf kings throne. It's a nice little piece. I decided to paint it really simply but I could have added some nice detail (gems on the rear/back). But I chose not to. Also some basic dungeon doors. Nothing special about them but they look good.

These are a bit of a mix of Mantic and WizKids pieces. All of the larger pieces at the back are mantic.  I can't remember what is what with the rest. They'll look good on the table to liven up a scene.

And that's it for my most recent bunch of stuff. I might paint more fantasy in the next few days and then move on to getting my ancient 15mm Iberians done. A friend Pete has got me interested in doing ancients again so maybe the time has come to move away from fantasy for the time being.

Cupboards and Creatures (and Nuns)

Cupboards & Creatures &Nuns... Is this the name of a new RPG? It could be or it just might be a description of what I've painted in the last few days?

I'll leave it up to you, dear reader, to decide.

I'll start with the nuns:

These figures are the Frostgrave Sigilist set (wizard and apprentice). The wizard is an interesting sculpt and not what I'd really expect. I think both figures would actually work better as a Thaumaturge & apprentice. Despite what I think I like both figures. The wizard has a very unique look.

Next up are these dark and evil looking creatures. These are Shadows from WizKids. They come in a pack of two and they are actually transparent. I guess some people might like to use them as invisible ghosts or whatever. I decided to make them black/grey and I guess they can be used for various evil creatures. They are pretty chunky for your typical WizKids figures. 

Some more Frostgrave Snakemen. This lot gives me 10 figures. I might make another pair of them armed with bows and that should pretty much do it. I don't think I'll need more than a dozen of them.

And some furniture: Cupboards and book cases from the Mantic Terrain Crate. I still have plenty of little bits to paint from the crate. It does, after all have a ton of stuff in it. These are pretty roughly painted. I can't see the point of doing them in great detail because they're really just background things.

These can be set as a corner unit or as individual pieces. There's enough of them to fill out a good sized room. The furniture in my previous posts goes well with them and they'd make a nice looking study for a wizard or they'd look good in a pulp game.

And just for scale here's Sister Mary Elephant

checking out one of the dusty tomes.

And that's it. There is a chance that some of these cupboards might have monsters hidden inside them, or within the pages of a musty book or mouldering scroll. If that happens to be true, we'll deal with them as we find them. In the meantime, thank you for reading.