LotR: Dwarf Archers

Finishing off the bases on the last few figures I've just finished, these Lord of the Rings dwarves catch me right up to date

As with the recent Moria drum set, I picked these metal figures up cheap off of eBay. They were already painted but I stripped them back to the metal & started again with them. I tried using acetone first, something I have had good success with in the past, but that didn't shift anything. In the end I bought some Tetrion paint stripper from a local DIY establishment. A soak over night and a quick going over with an old toothbrush did the trick

click picture to enlarge

Here's the photo of the same figures as I bought them. Shows that underneath any paintjob a decent figure can still lurk

I do seem to be jumping about with random things as usual but these are things that have been sitting on the painting table waiting to be done for a while

Dark Age: Saint Mary

I probably count myself more of a painter than a gamer, I just like painting figures. Yes, I even do it to relax, which might sound a bit strange ..

I quite often buy odd miniatures from systems, I'm very unlikely to game, just to paint them. Dark Age is one of those games I'm unlikely to do much with but will happily pick up figures to paint. They are really nice with plenty of detail & character

Despite the name, it's a futuristic based setting where human factions and aliens battle on a long forgotten distant planet. This one is from a religious group called the Forsaken, a sort of futuristic crusade gone wrong. There are various characters called saints with plenty of cannon fodder lesser troops. This figure is one of the character types and is called Saint Mary

click picture to enlarge

Here are a couple of other figures I've painted previously from the Dark Age range, both from the Skarrd faction

Zombie Plague Characters

Last year I went a bit mad on Kickstarter projects and ended up backing way too many

So far, I've received most of the Mantic Dreadball items that I chose, the only outstanding things being the season 3 characters that are forthcoming. They are roughly on schedule with their releases and seem to be one of the few that are

I also backed the Soda Pop Relic Knights game but when they announced there would be at least a further 6 months delay, only just prior to original date, I wasn't too impressed. Very little communications didn't help either so I asked for a refund and got that in due course. I might get into the game when/if it's released but it's left a rather sour taste for me

Still, amongst these issues there are one or two gems. Zombie Plague by R Squared Studios is one of these. I knew of the boardgame back when Fortress Figures produced quirky figures for it and had even downloaded the files and played it a few times. Now it's been re-released with nicely sculpted figures I thought I would chip in for a copy of the comic book/rules and a set of the characters. They all arrived in April, only a month or so after the original date which was pretty good going for a small concern

I worked on these figures whilst recovering from appendix surgery, they took a little longer than usually would but that was down to time I could paint for

Here are the four characters next to the original illustrations that I used for colour references whilst painting them. I did replace the original square plastic bases with some nice resin Fenris ones I had to hand

Lovely figures all of them, I will have to get the zombie ones when they come out. The photos are a bit dark, unfortunately the British summer is it's usual gloomy self ..


As usual, click all images to enlarge them

Paint Has Been Spilled Again

I finally felt well enough this week to start painting again after my post-op appendectomy recovery. The main problem was the keyhole surgery across my abdomen preventing me from sitting upright for extended periods of time :(

I do have several figures fully painted but just have to varnish them and finish the bases off. Hopefully I'll get this sorted over the weekend and have something to post early next week

Appendicitis

Once again things seem to have turned against me doing any painting or gaming, just when I thought I was getting back into the swing

Last weekend I had what I thought was a side strain after doing some gardening and didn't think much of it. Tuesday night I was in agony, sharp stabbing pains and awake all night. I went immediately to the doctor's Wednesday morning and by lunchtime I was in hospital

Thursday my body said goodbye to it's appendix as they were surgically separated from one another, yep it was an acute appendicitis

Well, I'm now home but thanks to three keyhole openings in my abdomen sitting is rather painful so I'm not sure when I'll be wielding a brush anytime soon <sigh>

Still, it has to be better than a burst appendix at least  

LotR: Drums in the Deep

As I've mentioned before, I have a shed load of Lord of the Rings figures both painted & unpainted. We went through a period of playing the strategy battle game at Wells but the person who ran the games left due to college so the games fizzled out unfortunately

However, I still love the figures and every now and again I have to paint something to deal with that 'itch'

This set is one of those things I knew I wanted when it came out but never got around to getting. When I read that it was being replaced by a finecast version I hit eBay and picked up a metal set for next to nothing. They kept being pushed around the painting table for months on end whilst others took priority, however now their time has come :)

click picture to enlarge

I really should try and concentrate on one project but at the moment I'm flitting about. Still, at least I am painting again!