Painting Update...and dick jokes...

A look into what I've been working on lately. 

The most recent addition to the group is the fellow on the left (the dude with a torch). He is a Transylvanian Villager from Westwind's Vampire Wars line. As with all Westwind models, I kept the detailing extremely simple and didn't bother attempting any blending (not that you could see it from the photo as I don't have my "proper" photography area set up at the moment). Didn't bother dotting his eyes or or adding any additional shading...very simple Foundry styled paintjob. The only thing I put any real extra effort into was the flame on the torch...although that's mainly due to me having a couple of GW models with flaming braziers on the bench. He's based on a plastic Wargames Factory base and thus far I am really loving those...the thickness and style of the base blend in with the prepainted D&D models.

In addition to painting Vampire Wars dude and Surly the Undead Pirate, I've been going through my collection and slowly rebasing all the models I've painted for D&D/Mordheim/Fantasy Heroes/etc. The skeleton you see there was from 2004. I painted a batch of models for Gen Con d20 demo for White Wolf...although I can't remember what d20 line we were demoing with minis. These were after my big Exalted painting gig (never will I paint more than 20+ in two months).

The next model I work on will more than likely be another Westwind model...although I have no idea what line...possibly Berlin or Bust as I need some more historical stuff for when I relaunch my site and commissions page.

Freebasing....er uh Rebasing

After basing my Vampire Wars Transylvanian guy on a flat plastic base from Wargames Factory, I decided to start rebasing a lot of my D&D/RPG models with these types of bases.

I have to admit....I really like these bases. I'd always had a soft spot for metal washer bases and still use them for about 90% of my Historicals basing (I paint...I don't play...so it's cool).

I've actually been thinking about basing my 40k Chaos guys on these....just to shake things up a bit.

Meh...anyway...not a real post but more of a thought and random babbling.

Why oh why am I painting Old Glory?

Long, long, long ago in a miniature store off of Beaver Ruin Road, I picked up a big bag of Old Glory Undead Pirates. I want to say this was after the whole Pirates of the Caribbean thing took off…any way, I wanted to field a regiment of undead pirates for my Vampire Counts army. This was before GW made any models for Sartosa and the Vampire Coast…so if you wanted to have something unique on the battlefield…you were on your own.

For those of you who have never purchased or painted Old Glory (or Westwind) miniatures, it isn't like painting models from Reaper or Foundry. The detailing isn't as nice, the anatomy can get quite questionable at times (6 fingered hands are not that uncommon), and the casting can sometimes mash the faces. HOWEVER, if you are a gamer on a budget and you want to fill out a regiment for whatever game you like…Old Glory is fantastic. And to be honest, there are some models in the big bags that are actually pretty nice…you just have to look.

I've been working on this Undead Pirate Captain an hour or two a night for the last week or so. My main goals were to go back to using my quasi-Foundy painting style for brands such as Old Glory, Foundry, Westwind, and Black Tree Design…and to take the model as far as I could (or as much as I realistically thought would benefit the model).  No idea what I'll do with him once he's done other than photograph and put him in the cabinet with all the others.

All things considered…I'm liking him. I kept his color scheme bright and mainly used layering techniques on him. I managed to find one of his crew that I kept after the great miniature purge of 08…so I'll be working on next (or a Werewolf Hunter from Westwind).