'Water Feature' from DavidB: Fisherman's Guild

I seriously considered omitting this bunch from the bonus round, but I finished them today. They are a gift for my oldest daughter, Valerie. She does paint miniatures and has been in AHPC before, but she was really intimidated by these models. They are from Steamforge games Guild Ball line and are the Fisherman's Guild. I was thinking of water as I painted them and thoughts today drifted towards my tribal gods and spirits. Michabo the trickster, shapeshifter who taught the Potawatomi to fish; the Nambiza (a dangerous cougar snake<dragon> that lives in the water), the Mnito(a huge water snake that hunts people on the water) and the Nikanabe(merfolk who are villainous or friendly).

I chose blue for water on sunny days, grey for the storms and driftwood, brown for the sediment heavy water, and green for the algae and water weeds. The bases are molded clay on happyseppuko bogmire mold. I added some features in the casts and gave them a floodplain/ tidal flat look. I used the GW technical paint Soulstone Blue to shine up the draining water and puddles and coated the octopus in the same to make him glisten.

Kraken is the Maori type heavy hitter for the team. I wanted to tattoo him up, but Val doesn't want him with tattoos.

His harpoon is wonderfully detailed and he is coated with fishing spoons and piercings including one hook hanging from his peck!

Greyscales is the old-man-of- the-sea, I like his dynamic pose and all the fisherman gear he has.

Even the netting attached to his coat, I still call him Ahab when gaming.

Shark came with the starter trio and fast and deadly, his shoulder pad is made from a fish head and shark jaw.

Yes, he has a fish for a bracer on his wrist.

Angel is quite petite and has a wonderfully innocent pose .

Her leggings are scale mail painted gold and shaded with a green wash.

Siren is a whirling dervish. She can entice and hypnotise opponents and is the Storm. I like how both girls on the team cover aspects of the fairer sex in polar opposite ways 

There is so much nice details on this figure with her fabric and netting skirts, the leather armour and hooded cloak. they even got an undercut on her flowing hair and kept her overall seductive, but demure. 

I altered her base to make it seem as though her spinning is drawing the water to her.

Tentacles is one of the teams mascots and can occupy a slot for active players. He has a lot of the team colours on him, but I added some purple as Valerie loves that colour most.

Salt is the other mascot and barely bigger that the team ball. I painted him more on the common otter than the white the official scheme uses.

Valerie really likes them and plans to dominate me when she takes them against the brewers or masons. She will probably do so even with my best efforts.I rather like how well the basing came out on them and that she likes them quite a lot! Guild Ball is a token heavy game and play is fast and brutal especially for dads trying to get a tactical plan while a daughter pulls out combos and wiz-bangs skipping my turns and decimating my team no matter which I play.

perhaps she'll be along sometime soon to show off work on her teams, but she seems to think I've always painted this well(not well at all but definitely better than I was in the 70's!)

She is busy for now with basketball and school being her senior year with plans for learning criminal justice and social work to help children in bad ways. She might be busy for a few years to come! ;)

'Monstrous' from DavidB: Elder God Mage and Werewolves

Back in early November/December, and when I found out the theme, I decided to delve my "mountain of neglect" for all the vile, wicked, terrible monsters I could find.  As the challenge and life progressed I was reminded that not all monsters are wicked, and some lurk very close by.

My initial thought for the final round and Curt-geld  was one of a pair of werewolves I got in the swagbag at Adepticon. My son didn't like that idea and he selected this Mind Flayer ( illithid) from our FLHS instead.

I rather like his pose as instead of idly twirling a mustache, he has tenticles.

Although he is anot apparent mage, he can easily slide into a nefarious agent of the elder gods like above. The hapless not-Indiana( Games workshop archaeologist from talisman) is about to get his cliffhanger!

Still he( maybe she- nice red shoe) is also capable of confronting warrior types in a dungeon crawl. 

But he could also use the tanks as stout minions vs the rogue hero.

I did complete both the Curt-geld and one of the backup alternates. As I stated earlier, life has a funny way of resurrecting memories of family and pearls of wisdom. In Potawatomi, Algonquin, and really all AmerIndian culture shapeshifters or skin walkers are very common. The Trickster is also very common, but unlike the Norse Loki, he usually helps the unfortunate and punishes the wicked. The wolf is a powerful protector of the people and also a bane. 

And werewolves are still pretty cool. I suffered the Twilight movies because I have daughters, wolves are even cool there as they aren't sparkling emos! ;)

My grandfather is the one who told me of an old proverb first. In each of us dwells two wolves. One feeds on fear, hate, greed, sadness, misery; the other thrives on love, generosity, kindness. The one you feed the most is the more powerful one and determines who you will be.

Because a lot of people feed the dark wolf, I've been really busy with both military and work which has put me in spots where WiFi hates blogger...or more accurately, work and government does not like me to visit any website with "game" in it! ;)

If people would feed the light wolf, I would've had more time to comment and visit each entry instead of just enjoying the emails...and able to spend more time painting too! 

So the alternate and Curt-geld for the final theme round this season. Perhaps the skin walkers and the illithid are the good guys who feed their white wolf while the pulp hero feeds his black wolf and plunders and murders his way through the world. ;)

Gerry Rafferty

Right down the line

Special thanks to my wife for posting these photos up for me as she not only found the described models, but also took the photos and started this post...at least the woods are pretty and not too cold! ;)

'Childhood' from DavidB: Youth in SciFi

Many moons ago we had a decent snowstorm that stretched all the way to southern states where people were mostly "Why izit so cold, Coy? What in tarnation is this white stuff?"

It was 1978 and that November I received a snowsuit as 4X4 fever had swept the land and I was always either having 10 year old adventures in the woods of Northern Indiana, with my dad and his lifted Jeep Cherokee, or both. Unfortunately, The massive snow fall made drifts way too big for a small 10 year old boy. The only adventures I had was getting in trouble for jumping out of 2nd story windows into snowdrifts and tunnelling back to house via a side door. Apparently being told to stay in the house meant not only not going outside, but definitely not doing cannonballs into nearly 20ft drifts. Said snow and drifts would probably be greeted with an "AH, Tis Tuesday" by the Snowlord.

Christmas was very memorable as I got an electric train set, a massive set of dominoes, and 5 boxes of matchbox WW2 figures. The troops were HO/OO scale much like the Napoleonics I liberated briefly back from my son for the above picture.

I spent the bad cold days with GIs and Tommies defending that diesel train from best of the Wehrmact and Afrika Korps. The dominoes were forts and ruins and many a battle swept across the train and lumber yards with snipers duelling for the prestige spot on the water tower.

Now, I use rulers and dice to move troops. They fight over tables with cardstock, resin, and plastic terrain. (not the stool though as the battles would be too quick even in 15mm!)

I didn't get much for this Christmas, but I did have a couple of Matchbox vehicles left in my stocking. This Sahara racer is repainted and is the first vehicle and unit for my low tech horde army in 15mm.

The driver was in the same box as the pirate, Miracle Max, and his Witch, er Wife!

It is a Dark Future driver who after many years finally has his own whip!

This MATV pickup was also made by Matchbox and has lost it's factory brick red paint for a more traditional black and white. The 15mm police force I painted several challenges back now has their very own support vehicle with respectful armor, lot's of lights and even a winch.

This particular truck has no weapon systems, but it does have a pair of fuzzy missiles which can be launched at criminals from the back.

This APC is from Khurasan Miniatures. The 28mm model was in the challenge a year or two past, but this is the original 15mm one.

I think it goes without saying what movie inspired it!

I had only painted this a few tones of grey and it sat for a few years till I found it beneath some ork models. I decided I'd paint it up in Polish Armor camouflage and gave it a polish flag near the right bumper till I find some proper decals.

This is a ten man squad of Hi-tech infantry also from Khurasan Miniatures. I was going to paint them as Scottish scifi infantry with tartan plaid, but i thought that would be too difficult. Polish pea-dot in 15mm would be a breeze!

I'm not quite convinced, but there is yellow, orange, and green blotches over a chocolate base. A heavy wash of sepia helped blend it in and away from eyesore realms.

I gave them all a polish flag on the right shoulder to finish them up.

The Khurasan Miniatures Hi-tech battlesuits were done in the more pleasing(and easy) Polish armor scheme. These fellows are walking tanks anyways.

These are very nice models with lots of detail and i did have to glue them together. they were a little fiddly but not to difficult. They had weapon options, but I just gave them the biggest guns in the pack.

There is a bit of a lumbering look to them which I like, and they outclass the footslogger with the squad support weapon.

This is a Rebel Miniature VTOL, but it looks more like a drop craft with Hind characteristics. It'll serve as transport for the battlesuit squad.

It has a chin mounted cannon and twin linked machine guns on either side of the cockpit. It also has four underwing missile pods. it came with six missile pods with a weapon mount on top the wings, but I didn't like the look when dry fitting ...four missile pods it is!

a little chunky in comparison to khurasan, but i do like it's silhouette

I gave it a polish flag as well and it'll wait for some polish aviation decals.

I'm thinking of using them as the beginning of a NATO in space force. The polish troops will be the elite SpecOps of the group. 15mm is very sparse in my area, but I've also been looking at the Neo-Sov stuff available on the Internet, so the Poles may be operating solo for awhile.

Maybe a long while as 15mm is out of my comfort zone.

'Music/Musician' from DavidB: Barnacle Bill

Who's that knocking at my door?

  Who's that knocking at my door?

Who's that knocking at my door? said the fair young maiden.

<ahem>

WEEEEELLLLLLL, Open the door you< censored> <censored>, said Barnacle Bill the sailor.....

Ummm, How about

What can you do with a drunken sailor....yeah...we will skip that one too.

The figures are from Games Workshop that I got in a Christmas mystery box from Games Workshop years ago. The sorceress and necromancer remind me a lot of Miracle Max and his witch, er wife, from the Prince's Bride. Said movie my wife never seen till we were dating and it is now her favourite movie.The whole Miracle Max shtick is her favourite scene. I still feel the necromancer's fancy hat is a touch reminiscent of the quirky hat Billy Crystal donned.

The Tavern is from Forgeworld and purchased at the very first Gamesday in Chicago. I was going to buy a lot Forgeworld Imperial tanks, but the tavern, blacksmith shop, stables, well...It seemed that together they would make a wonderful set terrain piece. I never did get the rest and all are no longer in production.

But by did I catch some serious grief from my witch, er, I mean wife! She wasn't too happy when I told her how much this gem cost. She has been less than pleased that it was providing a solid support to my mountain of neglected miniatures as well!

Although I have yet to finish the Gorkamorka gangs of Muties,diggas, and gobbos she gifted me; I proudly shown her the Gorkas and Morkas and trucks I did finish.

Her reply was" When are you going to paint that <censored>, <censored>, <censored> building you bought!"

Earlier in the week I thought this bonus round would give the proper urgency to complete it.

It is really a beautiful model and few components, the cracks and pits exposing the wattle. makeshift repairs. there is a lot of pretty details in this building.

It is designed for troops to be placed inside. I will be using it for fantasy, Scifi, and even historical battles. It doesn't seem to be too far fetched for GI's to seek shelter from German Panzer Grenadiers inside the voluminous tavern.

Yeah, I painted the inside too. It seems the sculptor ran out of steam or maybe if the inside was as detailed it would've cost more!:)

I painted up the stone floor with all the colors I used for the tavern except for the blue of tiles and windows.

I have no Idea who made the barrels.

Barrels are good for medicinal supplies, flour, hooch, nails, rum, gunpowder....did I say booze?

This is a good start to some scatter terrain too.

So one honking huge tavern, three 28mm minis, and a score of whiskey barrels....

Hopefully I'll make the cut as I'm currently watching my daughters and their friends(including boys) who went to a dance. It is snowing pretty good outside and I don't want the boys to drive home in this weather.

They were less than amused when I drove the gang to the dance while wearing my LBV with knifes  and all the other neat recon stuff.(the boys noted the knifes and none of them guessed the right number I was wearing!) My wife wouldn't let me take my mossberg, and she won't let me clean it right now either...The boys are sleeping in the spare bedroom by my mancave as I type! ;)

A parting shot courtesy of my wife.

Theory of a Deadman is one of my favourite contemporary groups and I was listening to the new album she bought me today as I was finishing this piece up. She told me she likes track #1 and thought of me. Since she is smarter than I, perhaps a hidden warning ? ;)

Artist: Theory(aka Theory of a Deadman)

song: Staightjacket