Paint Table Saturday 230 - I wish I were done. (Bretonnians)

Hi All,

Somehow the week has gotten away from me and I am perilously close to using my Mulligan for the month of March.

I got a little farther than this picture last night, highlights on all the red, white, blue, black and yellow. As you can see I still need to paint random flesh, pouches, legs, shirts and base all the horses and canon.

It will be a tall order

One of the other coaches had a family emergency, so I am filling her role of making sure the kids are ready for events at the meet. 8AM - 4PM today. Doesn't leave a lot of time for painting.

Good luck on all of your projects.

How I made my Photo Gallery page

Hi All,

One of the things that you may have noticed is that I've been working on a photo gallery to display all the figures I've painted over the last year. I knew there were many ways to do it and I tried a few that were hit and miss.

First I tried this one from Georgia Lou Studios seemed interesting, but all the code had been removed and the easier method didn't seem to work anymore either.

Then I tried this one from Xommise.com. It had a few problems. The {box-sizing} tag appeared to effect the boxes around the page tabs. If you follow the instructions and put the CSS inside your <skin> for your blog, it will effect the entire thing. You can put the CSS just into the post or page and it will just effect that, not the whole thing globally.

It also had a problem with portrait images breaking the whole format of the gallery. Same if you have a long caption to display. All of a sudden things no longer stack correctly and it looks like garbage.

After that I tried this one using tables:

It does work and her code to do it is here. There is one caveat though. For whatever reason, it doesn't seem to work to just plug in the image link <img src=" "> directly yourself. I may have made the mistake of switching between Compose Mode and HTML Mode, but I don't think so. For me this method of using the Insert Image from Blog would have meant scrolling through the hundreds of photos I've posted in 7 years to find what I want. Not really an optimal use of my time. So because of this I didn't use it.

What I did learn from this, in an almost throw away remark, was that you should never switch back to Compose Mode after you have been coding your gallery in HTML mode. I learned the hard way that it completely breaks what you were doing and copying and pasting the code into a new HTML window will not save it. I had to do it a second time from scratch.

What I ended up using was a Dynamic Drive gallery from here.

I'll try to show you step by step what I did in pictures and then, if I have time, follow it up with a short video.

Terrain Tuesday 4 - Still Coaching Inn

Hi All,

Not a whole lot done this week. Somehow I am doing a lot of fiddling but it doesn't seem like a lot of progress is being made.

Here's what we have so far.

In this photo I'm trying to show you how I'm taking care of the valleys in the roof.

Here are the strips I put on to true up the first row of tiles.

Closeup of the valley tiles. I just cut some relatively square tiles on the diagonal and scored it and folded it slightly before gluing.

Mostly done with the roof. I stopped here because I almost forgot about the chimney.

In other news, I've been working on a photo gallery for finished projects. It took me awhile to find a good script for the html and css to get the look I wanted. I almost finished it this morning and then switched to Compose mode from HTML to check on how to code a header tag in blogger and it totally ruined it. Going back and copying and pasting the HTML into a new page could not save it. I have only found one reference to this problem, but not why it happens or how to fix it. So you'll have to wait for the gallery and the how to post.

Thanks for looking.

Paint Table Saturday 229 - What else? Bretonnians.

Hi All,

 Ok, not a lot of progress this week. I'm not really sure where all the time went. A few more colors slapped on the Bretonnians, but I need to get my rear in gear.

The Knights in the background are there to remind me of color scheme and what I had already done so that I don't accidentally repeat myself. Still those other random finished and unfinished figures lying around.

I've also been adding tiles to the roof of the coaching inn while I watch tv with the family.

Getting there. Still a lot more tiles to go. It also just occurred to me that I need to remember to put on the chimney. Oops.

The last thing I've been working on is the blog itself. I've added the link to some fellow hobbyists to the right, go check them out. I'm also try to make a gallery of finished projects but the various ways I've found all have some issues and have eaten up valuable painting time. I'll let you know how I did it when I finally get it done, but it looks like it's not going to be a quick fix. Then there's the banner to update etc.

Anyway, happy painting.

Terrain Tuesday 3 - Coaching Inn and Stables

Hi All,

This last week I've been working on the Coaching Inn and Stables from White Dwarf 143. Since I still can't seem to locate my physical White Dwarf magazines I was able to find the terrain articles and a repository of a magazines in pdf form out in the wilds of the internet. Let your conscience be your guide.

I had built the majority of this model back around the same time as the Barn and gotten slightly farther in that I had managed to glue the base roof pieces on top. As you can see my angles don't quite line up.

After doing the tall roof section I realized that it, and the Barn roof, have an issue with the first course of tiles. So I've decided to cut a thin, 1 - 2 mm strip, to put along the bottom edge to get the tiles to look right. The other challenge with this roof is the valleys. I looked at some pictures of actual flat tiled roofs and I think I understand how to do it.

I want to say that in the past I used Super Sculpy to make the rock for the chimneys on the Cottages. The article says to use DAS and I actually have some, so I will be giving that a whirl. One thing I may try is making a tealight forge. I saw an example in one of Tony Harwood's guides. "Models for Wargamers: Dampfpanzerwagon Guide No. 3" A link to Tony's blog here.

I need to have a think about how I'm going to do it. I want to do things a little differently than as shown. Probably stupid. I t wouldn't be the first time.

I'm also intending to deviate from the original build article and use some of this active mesh to simulate window leading.

Lastly, since I am focused on my Bretonnians at the moment, I thought I would give the Inn a French name. I scoured the internet for fantasy Inn names and came up with a short list. The one that seemed the most fun, without having to cringe if ladies or small children were present, was The Clumsy Troubadour. So Le Troubadour Maladroit it is.

On a final note. I finally reopened my Mighty Fortress. I'll be working on that semi simultaneously. I've been having trouble finding info on how it was done in the past, I did find a few interesting articles on what people did a few years ago with some old sets. I'll share that in a future post.

Thanks for looking.

Paint Table Saturday 228 - Brets, Random Fantasy and Coaching Inn

Hi All,

I know, it's Sunday, but I was busy with track and Corn Beef eating yesterday.

Important note. This photo was taken on my phone and edited on my phone with Snapseed. Airbornegrove recommended it and so far I like it a lot. I haven't done any of the tutorials, just started playing with it and I did this photo and the silly one of me licking the Warhammer Siege book with it. You can get it on the Play Store for Android and I believe there is an Iphone App as well.

The table is a flurry of activity. I'm tried to ride the manic wave before the ultimate depressive crash hits.

We have here the Bretonnian Knights lead by their Lord, The Ordonnance plus two laborers whom may be added to a baggage train next month, or included this month with no points value. Dahn Alt Rump is there because I was trying to remind myself of the paint scheme to use on those Foundry RT figures that are off table. I have since retconned him. I said he was part of the Anarcho Squad, but now they are Team Terra: Galactic Police! Sung to the tune of the Team America theme song, of course.

I also have a Reaper Blacksmith and an Alternative Armies Halfling Cook in bare metal there. Plus I found old Gunther there with his flesh done and decided to try and get him finished. I proceeded to slop some paint on his flesh, so will see if I can remember how I did it. I think it was a flesh tone with some green mixed in. A half orc recipe if you will.

To the left in back are some Necromunda figures I bought from a guy in Germany. The paint jobs are actually pretty nice, co I may just base them and maybe add a wash. I try not to strip and repaint figures if I like the way they were painted. Those have been few and far between though. I also refuse to repaint the majority of my 1990's painted figures. I think it's important to see where you came from and, if I'm honest, my painting is so slow I can't afford to be repainting models.

I also started tiling the roof to the Coaching Inn. I'm flailing about trying to finish things for Monday, and so may not finish anything. One thing I've noticed on this is that the tiles sit funny on that very first run. I will be adding a thin strip to the edge to give them the same tilt as the rest of the roof.

Any way, that's it for now.

Happy Hobbying.

Return to Caraz-Lumbar

Hi All,

Remember the sample scenario in the back of Warhammer Siege? The Defense of Caraz-Lumbar? I think I only ever cursorily glanced at it as I longed to play out sieges in my Mighty Empires campaign. You know the one that never really went anywhere.

I brought out the book to taunt Airbornegrove over not having a copy and it caught my son's eye. After studying it for awhile he asked to play a siege game. How could I say no? Do I have the necessary parts? Let's see.

Mighty Fortress? Check. Although it needs to be built.

Orcs to attack? Most definitely I have enough to assemble the 34 Orcs, 62 goblins and, I'd need to paint it, one Giant.

Dwarves to defend? Not really. I have some plastic Fantasy Regiments dwarves and a few random figures and cannons, but not the required forces. But I do probably have enough painted Bretonnians.

Do I have enough of the special equipment for a siege? Not sure. I got some as payment for my one and only commission, but I'll have to dig it up and see what I've got. We'll discuss the various accoutrements in a later post.

Here's the Dwarf list:

So let's take a look at the points value as a basis of converting. I could just straight replace, figure for figure with Bretonnians, but let's take a look anyway.

Dwarf 10th Level Hero 88, Shield 1, Heavy Armor 3, Crossbow 3 = 95 points

Halfling 10th Level Hero 39, Short Bow 1 = 40 points

5 Imperial Dwarves 14 points each incl. Heavy Armor and Shield = 70 points

8 Dwarf Warriors 10 points each incl Light Armor = 80 points

8 Dwarf Crossbows 11 points each incl the Crossbow but -2 each for no Light Armor = 88 points

Total 373 points

Now let's take a look at how Bretonnians might compare points wise.

Human 15th Level Hero 80, Shield 1, Heavy Armor 3, Crossbow 3 = 87 points

Halfling 10th Level Hero 39, Short Bow 1 = 40 points

7 Foot Knights 9 incl Heavy Armor, Shield 1 = 70 points

10 Retainers 5, Light Armor 2, Spear 1 = 80 points

10 Retainers 5, Crossbow 3, Light Armor 2 = 100 points

Total  377 points

What are your thoughts?

Terrain Tuesday 2 - Finished Barn and build log

Hi All,

Well in the first installment I showed you some river sections and the Wargames Terrain book. I then promptly finished building this barn from a White Dwarf article.

I had started building this back sometime around 1990 and had carried it around with me between 4 states and several house/ apartment moves. I'm not sure where my White Dwarf issues are but I found a copy of the Barn article here. According to DJK's Fantasy World, the barn was in Issue 140. He also lists other projects, but seems to be missing the cottage and Inn and stables issues.

Anyway on to the build.

So here we go. A project started in the early 90's. Why I stopped here and never finished it I can't really be certain.

Printed copy of the original article. I wanted to refresh my memory on the construction of the roof and see what colors were used to paint it. On thing that became immediately obvious was that the print out of the template was smaller than my actual building. I vaguely remember something about enlarging the templates from the Cottage article, but I could find no evidence for that in this article.

So I measured the actual model and brought out my era bag of scrap terrain materials. In addition to carting around the models, I had also carted around a garbage bag filled with foam core, construction paper, mat board and balsa wood.

I briefly equivocated about making the interior playable, but decided this building had been left unbuilt for too long and had not been put together for interior play.

Again from memory I seemed to recall using wood glue to put it together. This was a more recent purchase. The set time was not fast enough and I couldn't figure out a way to weigh down the roof bits so they would stick correctly.

Hot glue gun to the rescue. It was a little tricky, and I did eventually have to carve out some overage with an exacto knife.

I found, before I glued it down, that my lean to roof was a tad too large. So I excised 5mm.

Roof substructure on!

My cellphone decided not to rotate this picture, but I cut out a chunk of card and made 1cm wide lines on it. I then cut the strips with a snap blade box cutter and left a couple of 2cm wide strips for the roof crown. The article gives different widths. I forget what they are, but I didn't like them.

I then started hand cutting shingles with said box cutter. You can use the strips with notches cut in them to represent tiles or you can cut individual tiles. They did the latter in the article and I had done it previously on the cottage.

I quickly used up my first batch of tiles. By the way, gluing them on is a great project for sitting and watching tv with the family. You know, so they don't think you're trying to avoid them.

We're not going to run out of tiles this time.

Breaking out the paper cutter for full production mode. My cuts aren't quite as accurate, but it goes way faster.

Et viola! Remember to leave a couple of double wide strips. I got over zealous and only left myself one.

I also tried my tin snips to cut the individual tiles. Works a treat. Much faster and I didn't have any problem with tearing like I did on occasion with the box cutter.

Always remember the old adage, "measure twice, cut once." My barn door was a hair too small.

Roof on, door still too small.

My collection of aged balsa. I save everything.

Fixed Barn door with planks etched in and cross planks. I just used a sculpting tool I had handy to gouge some lines in the balsa sheet. I should also add that I used Aileen's Tacky glue to put the doors on. It lives up to it's name and just sticks things in place better from the get go. I did have to use a toothpick to clean up some overage though.

The lean to door. I should have used card or thinner balsa for the cross bracing. Oh well. You can also see the ground work I added. On to paint.

Black base coat. I brushed it on and had some trouble working the paint into all the nooks and crannies.

Paints used for the body of the barn. The original article said to dry brush with Bestial Brown, Elf Grey, and Skull White. I don't think I have any of those colors left so I had to improvise. I used Nutmeg for Bestial Brown, Rain Grey for Elf Grey (which was later changed to Codex Grey? I couldn't seem to find an example on the internet.) And Drizzle Grey for Skull White. I tend to use a very light grey in place of white.

For the roof you were supposed to do a dry brush of Moody Blue followed by an Enchanted Blue highlight. I did successive dry brushes of Midnight, Navy Blue and Blue Heaven

For the ground work my normal Earth Brown, Territorial Beige, Desert Sand combo.

I then added flock and static grass after varnishing the whole thing. Done.

I hope this inspires you to pull out an old abandoned project or maybe try your hand at one of these classic designs.

Happy building and painting!

Paint Table Saturday 227 - Knights and a barn.

Hi All,

I was having a conversation the other day about finding more sets/ pieces of the original foam Mighty Fortress and the idea of painting what you have before buying more of the same came up. There was also a side discussion about buying versus building and what materials make the best terrain. Those are sides to the main idea here.

I broke out some unfinished models that I had started 1990ish before I got bogged down in college and drifted away from the hobby.

First up though, lets look at the figures for this week.

Not as far along as I'd like but I got the knights cleaned and assembled. I also primed two of the cannon crew and the two laborers. The gunner needs a little bit of putty to fix a nasty mold line in his helmet. As I told you previously, he seemed to have a mismatched mold half or something. There was a significant mold line and a difference of about a millimeter in height on some parts.

I also brought out some Foundry Rogue Trader models and even some plastic Blood Bowl Orcs (not pictured).

But then I got a tad distracted by terrain.

The barn from a White Dwarf Article. I've carted it around in a box between four states for the last 28 years or so.

I finally started putting a roof on it this week. I did start to equivocate about making playable interiors but then decided I had been putting things off for too long. So I'm gittin er dun!

I'll be posting a build log at some point.

Happy painting.

Terrain Tuesday 1 - My old terrain

Hi All,

I've been meaning to start a terrain segment almost since I started this blog. So today is finally that day.

Remember the White Dwarf article on making rivers? Here it is in the Wargames Terrain book I found awhile back.

Here are a couple of the straight sections I started back in 1990.

My mail order Mighty Fortress. I can't for the life of me remember how much I paid for it. You can buy individual sections for stupid amounts on eBay right now.

My only two finished buildings, I've shown them before. The roofs are off and the thatch was a failed experiment.

The Inn.

Barn.

Blacksmith and stable.

I can't remember why I didn't finish these. It was probably because I moved out West and started college and my unintentional 20+ year hiatus from the hobby began.

I want to knock these out, but I'm seriously considering trying to open them up and make the interiors playable. I really liked Airborne's playable buildings and it's something I've always wanted to do.

We'll see what comes about.

Thanks for looking.