The Archer, the Skeleton, and the Mystic Basin!

A few more pieces for my dungeon crawler. The skeleton and the kneeling archer are both Reaper figures while the basin is from one of the Mantic terrain kits. 

As you can see on the skeleton, I accidently hacked off some toes while getting him off his integral base. Then I learned a neat trick. If you soak the feet of bones figures in boiling water for about 20 seconds, the material becomes much softer. Doing this, I was able to easily slice the archer of his base, despite a much thicker connection.

I also got a new can of 'Colour Forge Matt Varnish' to try out, and made my first test on the archer. I've got to say, I'm very happy with the results. The can had a more powerful spray than any I've used before and gives a very pleasing finish. I'll need a few more tests, but I might have found my new go-to varnish! 

I am awaiting delivery of some Hirst Arts molds to start making my dungeon tiles. I sold off my original molds long ago - which I regret. I'll do another post going into why I've decided to go that route for dungeon building when I get them.

Guardians of the Icon

I had a good weekend of painting, moving ahead with my 'Dungeon Crawler' project. First up, I painted two skeletons from Reaper. These were part of one of their Bones Kickstarters, though I bought them from a reseller. In the past, I have been somewhat critical of the harder Reaper Bones material, but these painted up really well. Although, there seem to be so many different varieties of the Bones material now, it's hard to keep them straight. Anyway, the challenging part was cutting them off their integral bases and gluing them to GW style bases. I think these look a lot better in the dungeon with their uniformity and the way they sit perfectly in a square. I used the Army Painter 'Pallid Bone' speed paint for the bones, because honestly it does a better job than I could. The rest is painted with more traditional layers and washes. 

The little shrine was something I threw into my order not knowing what I would do with it. At first I thought it would be a tombstone, but I thought that would just look too plain. So, I decided to see if I could paint it like a medieval icon, an artform I've always been attracted to. I tried to copy a depiction of St. Nicholas that I found online. While I'm no great freehand painter, I think it came out really well. It'll make a striking little piece in the dungeon... and who knows what special properties it might have! 

Dungeon Base

The above figure is a plastic boardgame piece from one of the Cthulhu: Death May Die sets, and the paint job I gave it is nothing special. In fact, I was less interested in the figure itself as I was the base. I wanted to experiment with painting a 'dungeon' base. You know, a base that looks like the irregular flagstones of some forgotten underground corridor.  It's a technique that Kev Dallimore uses in the work he's done for the Frostgrave photography, though he usually goes with more regular looking stones. Obviously, my work isn't up to his, but I think it came out pretty well for a first attempt. I even added a few little blood splatters for colour! 

The doorway is also a bit of an experiment. It's from the modern HeroQuest game. I painted up a bunch of these figures last summer... unfortunately, most of them became 'sticky'. Some of you will know what I mean. Essentially, there is some combination of plastic (usually of the cheaper, bendy boardgame type), primer, and varnish, that sometimes causes figures to 'sweat'. This can make them very sticky and unpleasant to use. I tried hitting them with another layer or two of varnish, but it was only semi-successful. It actually killed my enthusiasm for the game. However, over the weekend, I pulled out an unpainted doorway. I used brush-on primer (a first for me!), gave it a quick paint job, and then used brush-on varnish. Hopefully, this will keep it from getting sticky - though it may be a few months before I really know for sure.

Anyway, as you might be gathering, I'm thinking about constructing my own dungeon crawler set - just for my own hobby amusement - it is not part of a professional project, though that distinction can grown blurry at times!

Hairfoot Jousting!

It exists! Osprey sent me an advance copy of my new game, Hairfoot Jousting. The first game I have written that could probably be called 'cute'. I believe it will be available in late May! And yes, you need 4d6 to play the game. More information coming soon!