Tag: Miniature painting

Christmas Special 2022 – The Christmas Broo!

I know it’s nearly Easter, and that I should have posted this in early January, but life got in the way. I can’t help myself and wait until next Christmas, so I thought I might as well release this now 😊 .

In the past couple of years, whenever time allowed it, I made customised gifts for my loved ones: doll houses for my nieces, a vignette for my brother, and this time it was a surprise for my gaming friend. Since he is a long-time fan of Runequest and his favourite monsters are the broos, the choice was obvious.

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Space Pirates – The Birth of a Fleet

Painting a fleet of spaceships has been on my to-do list for a long time, but the complexity of a fleet and the sheer variety of ships I saw in most ranges were baffling. Luckily, GZG’s Ravagers seem to be a manageable challenge: there’s a Light Carrier, a Cruiser, two types of Raiders and an Attacker (these are approximately the equivalent of destroyers and frigates or torpedo boats) and that’s all. Experienced players might find this range of ships insufficient, but for me, it seems to be the perfect starting set.

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Canvas Eagles – Triplanes and Aces

Our WWI aerial combat game did take off. After half a dozen sessions, we had several memorable moments with tense dogfights, unbelievable luck and unluck, smoke and fireballs in the sky… In the current stage of the campaign, Fokker Dr.I became my favourite. This distinct looking aircraft has a good range of manoeuvres, it’s armed with twin machine guns and it’s fairly reliable and durable. Apparently, I needed more of these 1:144 triplanes, so I ordered five of them from Decapod Models on Shapeways.

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All About That Base

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been fairly busy in the last few months and one of the reasons for this, has been a massive hobby project: painting a customised base for my 15mm minis. I have a whole platoon of infantry with a matching battlemat and the next logical step was adding a set of buildings to my collection. There are many options available on the market and it was difficult to pick one, but in the end, I decided to buy the research station set from Brigade.

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A Favourite Reborn

My blog has been pretty quiet lately, because the last few months have been exceptionally busy on all fronts: work, life, painting and playing, but now I have much to share.

The Spider Drones of Ground Zero Games have been a long time favourite of mine: I have plenty of them waiting for me in different stages of unfinishedness. A six-legged spider-like drone with a rotary gun – yes, that’s exactly what I’m thinking about when I imagine a sci-fi battleground. When I ordered a few more of them recently, Jon was kind enough to ask if I wanted the new version. Is it possible to say no to this?

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Canvas Eagles – The First Five Aircraft

How did I end up painting 1/144 scale aircraft? The answer is simple: my friend surprised me with a box of 3D printed WWI fighters, and two 28mm figures that he designed in Heroforge, which had not been painted. He’s been painting minis for a WWI aerial combat game for a while, and by now he has an impressive fleet with more than 100 fighters. He was keen to see how I would paint the same minis.

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Blue Max, Red Baron

After watching the classic “The Blue Max” movie – which I can only recommend if you haven’t seen it yet – two things became obvious: I had to add an ace pilot to the German starfighter squadron that I had painted earlier this year and this fighter had to be red, just like the Red Baron’s fighter.

The stout design of Brigade’s Galland Attack Fighter, which somehow reminds me of the fighters of The Great War and its characteristics, made it the obvious choice for this role.

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German Fighters in the Space

Playing a tactical starfighter game has been on my list for a while, so painting a set of them was long overdue. I chose Brigade’s 1/300 starfighters that can be used for Squadron Commander – but I’m sure that dozens of other options are available too. My squadron has six Hornisse Interceptors, four Galland Attack Fighters and four Kondor Strikeboats.

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The Heavy Weapons Have Arrived

I took my first steps in the world of 15mm wargaming a year ago, when I painted the first squads of my OutRim Coalition army. I collected and painted several assault troops and support weapons (plasma guns, missile launchers, snipers) since then, so it was time to add the heavy weapons as well.

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Weathering with Enamels and Pigments

When I started painting minis and when model paints finally became available, the most commonly used option was enamel. It wasn’t the most friendly material: it was smelly, it dried slowly, it could re-activate the layers under and correcting mistakes with it was also difficult. Some of the more experienced miniature painters had used oil paints, but that seemed to be even more challenging, so I have never considered oil paints as an option. Acrylic paints made everything a lot easier, and when they appeared, I was convinced that enamels were gone for good.

Apparently, I was wrong: I have seen more and more articles recently, where enamels and oil paints were used, tutorials where pigments were applied, and I also found a growing range of these products, but they still seemed to be over my league. When I bought the “Painting Wargame Tanks” book of Ammo by Mig Jimenez, I was shocked to see that they recommend these techniques for wargaming tanks. Since the book explained everything in detail, and it made this method look so easy, I soon ended up with a set of pigments and enamels. When I gathered my courage and applied it on my Valentine Mk IX, I was pleased with the result and decided that I would write more about this topic.

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