Stupid weather...

I've been saying that for about a week now.  Rainy season, it seems.  That means spraying isn't possible.

The weather finally cooperated this morning and I got all my painted 15mm varnished.  I'm going to let them set up until tomorrow and then I can actually put them on bases!  My very first ones.  That will make room on the paint table for the next set but also brings up the question of army storage.

Also, I got most of the dungeon crawl minis cleaned, based and primed.  I still have to finish the ones that require assembly and in the hectic world that is Reaper boneyard shopping not everything was correct.  So I'll be sending an email to them so I can get the last ones ready.

I have a lot of painting to do and the dungeon crawl takes priority over the 15mm.  Sadly.  But it has to be done.  Luckily they just need to be tabletop quality and it looks like I'm going to have more free evenings than I had planned for.

Finally I bought a plastic storage container/shelves that should hold all my paint and a fair amount of my commonly used basing supplies.  Since my paints don't need to be portable any more I wanted to take them out of the plastic shoe boxes and put them into something more suitable for my paint area.  And it turns out they will still be portable since this particular item has separate plastic bins instead of drawers.  Of course the space where I want to put it is about 1/2 inch too short so I need to move the storage units out just a little bit.  Go figure.

15mm Napoleonics - Continued

Now that I'm more involved with painting these things and how they're based (Thanks John!) I'm sorting out the sticks so that I know just what I have to do.

The regiments have 4 stands each:

1. 4 grenadiers and 4 fusiliers with green poms


2. 4 fusiliers with blue poms and 4 fusiliers with orange poms


3. Command stand  - 1 mounted commander (2 spaces), standard bearer, drummer, 4 fusiliers with red poms


4. 4 voltiguers and 4 fusiliers with purple poms

Turns out the way I have them set up to be painted will work for painting parts of regiments at a time.  I'm a big fan of painting the same kind of minis in batches.  The only difference in the fusiliers is the color of the pom so I can paint 32 at a time (8 regiments of 4) at a time and then paint the poms to make a base.

I was going back and forth about mixing up the marching poses on the stands and decided on keeping the same pose per regiment.  With one exception - advancing fusiliers.

I have enough advancing fusiliers to make up 2 regiments with them in the front of the line.  That makes the configuration slightly different but not much.  Again, pom color makes the difference.

So here's the sticks of fusiliers.  This is 5 regiments of fusiliers, as listed above.



Command figures - line commanders, drummers and fusiliers.  The standard bearers are carefully tucked away so they can get converted to holding their standards.

3 regiments of fusiliers are also on this flat.



Finally the skirmishers, grenadiers and voltigeurs.



I have stands left over from my original counts and prepping.  But I think that had a lot to do with me not completely understanding the way the game works.

You can see that some of these actually have paint on them.  The way I'm working I should have 6 of stand 1 (see above) ready to be based in the somewhat near future.  The other 2 need the advancing fusiliers that haven't been painted.

Regardless with some work I can actually have MINIS ON BASES.  Yes, that's an accomplishment.

My friend Brian gave me some great hints on how to do the basing but I need to get some flock first.  I do plan on getting the flock in the next day or five but I also have to finish painting the minis (damn straps) and then varnish them before basing.  So I have time.

I'll post Brian's basing method on the main website once I figure it out and get pictures of all the steps of the process.

It's an addiction..

I swear I just can't help myself.  When I see a nifty porcelain palette I must have one.  I must.  Obviously if it's one I can't or won't use then I can resist but if there's even a chance that I'll use it I must have it.  Since they're functional items and I don't get the ones I can't use it's not all bad, is it?  Is it?

Anyway.  I have 3 new palettes on their way to my stash, err, home.

I saw someone using this fabu traveling palette when I was at ReaperCon.  He ordered it from Amazon and then I ordered all that were in stock.  No, I'm not going to hoard them.  They were simply too cool not to share and already I have 3 of the 4 "extras" sold to fellow club members.  And the last one will go quickly to someone who doesn't follow our forum.

Note the very nifty lid which can double as a quick wet palette if you carry a few pieces of baking parchment.  Handy, isn't it?  It measures about 3 x 4 inches so it's quite portable.  With the addition of a rubber band, I think.

Next on the block is the big one for when I'm working with lots of colors.  I don't know if this one will travel or not.  I do need something that stays on my paint table more regularly.

This sucker has, count them, 28 wells and a large area for washes or a teeny wet palette if you're into that kind of thing.  It's more of a beast at 7 1/2" by 6" so I think it's going to become my at-home palette.

Then, because I saw them and couldn't resist (addition, remember?) I got these nifty little suckers.

I honestly don't know how useful they will be.  They're 3 3/4" in diameter and stack up to about 4 1/2" including the lid.  The height of the stack makes them a little iffy to transport but again they might turn out to be very useful for army painting or other things that need a lot of paint in few colors.  Rubber band for these as well.

To round out the order I picked up some more brushes.  I've been meaning to order another Size 1 and kept forgetting so I got that and a few different brands of Size 2, just to see what I like.  I did that with Size 0 only to find they're too small to really compare.  So I splurged.  Then added another brush to get a discount.  I think it ended up as a wash cost-wise but if you think about it I got a free brush.  Makes my head hurt too.

The big palettes are on back order so I don't know when that order will show up.  The covered palettes should be here sometime soon and I'm looking forward to trying it out.  It may end up as a permanent part of my travel kit.  Right now I have a regular 12 well palette that I take with me but occasionally pull out for my paint table.  And to clean.

Oh, um.  I forgot that I got one of these too.

It's a bit large at 9" but I can see using it for some of the minis I paint with lots of dabs of color and for terrain when I need more paint on the palette.  Yes, those are complete justifications for buying yet another palette.

So now you know.  I'm a palette junkie.  If you know of any other cool palettes please put the links in the comments so I can spend more of my hard earned money on them.

FYI - everything except that first covered palette is from Cheap Joe's Art Stuff if you're interested in what else they have to offer.

Dungeon Bash Layout

I took a lot of pictures while running the game but haven't cleaned them up.  As a tease, here's what one of the large layouts ended up as.

The last of the room floors and better shots of the others

OK - the last of the room floors are done.  I still need to varnish them but they're painted and DONE!  That leaves 2 door frames and if my friend doesn't paint them this week I will.  He said he wanted to paint them but we just haven't hooked up so he can.  If he doesn't come over this week then I'll just paint them and the entire dungeon will be complete.

Enough talk.  Pics!



Yes, I could have just painted the tiles plain or followed the grid but where's the fun in that?



The real problem for me with these highly detailed designs is finding a color pattern that accents it without being too busy.  It would be so easy to make this look cluttered.

Here's some better pictures of the ones from the last post.

Insomnia + OCD + Deadline

I had one of my infrequent bouts of insomnia last night and around 2am I decided that I wasn't going to sleep so I might as well do something that would be relaxing and possibly soothe me to sleep.   I chose putting the Celtic knotwork design on my small floor.  Yeah, I know.



I think it turned out OK and should be a nice addition to the dungeon.  Yes, seriously.  I painted this at 2:0oam.  The red and white floor tiles were already painted and only needed a little touch up work to finish the piece.

Some more room floors

I've been terrible about getting pictures of the layout but I have my reasons.  They're not good reasons but they're reasons.  The pieces are all painted.  They're also neatly packed away.  So to take layout pics I need to unpack them, lay them into a pleasing pattern, take pictures, then pack them again.  And I'm trying to get the minis painted for the game so I have to budget my time.

But I did get a couple more of the room floors painted up.  I took these pictures at night and I can never get the white balance correct when I do this.  But you can see the general painting.



It's rough to get a nice repeating pattern when you've got odd-by-even tile counts.  I try.



I did a little freehand painting in the center.  It isn't perfect but I think it gives a nice effect.