Claudia and Adler

 Recently my wife Gina asked me to paint a figure for her; not for use in a game or anything like that, just something she could have on her desk at work to make her think of me. I'd received a box of figures from Dunkeldorf Miniatures and we went through it together; she decided she really liked "Claudia 'Schwartz' Hinkel," a crossbow-armed member of a criminal syndicate, as well as "Adler, Dieter's Cat." Dunkeldorf has consistently sent me a little baggie of extras with every order I've placed with them, and this time that included a resin base with a flagstone pattern. It was the work of a few moments to clip Claudia's metal tab off and glue her to the resin base.

Talking with Gina, the only specific requests she had for color was she wanted Adler to be an orange cat with white socks, and she wanted Claudia to have purple hair; she also asked for a little flocking to be added to the base. The rest of the color scheme was left up to me; I went with a deep red for her shirt and black pants, because those are colors Gina wears a lot. 

I really pushed myself harder to give this the best paint job I could give it; it's not going to win any big competitions, but those are the best eyes I've ever painted and overall I'm thoroughly pleased with the job I did here. The purple I used for her hair came out glossier than I'd like, but hopefully once she's varnished that will tone down some. Her base reads "With All My Love" and once she's varnished, she'll be glued down inside an acrylic display case to keep her dust free and safe from our own cat's attention.

Orcs & Goblins: Boar Boyz Completed

 In 2021, I took part in the Old World Army Challenge, building an army of orcs and goblins for 3rd edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles. I tried continuing the army the following year, in 2022, but petered out halfway through, and opted out of participating in this year's challenge. Even getting re-energized this past December and again in May, I still have a lot of orcs awaiting paint. In June, I started painting a unit of Orc Boar Riders from Knightmare Miniatures; I'd converted some of them with weapon swaps and turning one into a standard bearer back in 2021, and they'd been sitting primed and waiting their turn ever since.

I completed the first rank, including the command, in June 2023, but the second rank remained unfinished. Until now. I was sick of having a half-finished unit looking at me and making me feel guilty, so I committed myself to finishing them; today, I can call the regiment complete.

Here's the finished second rank:

And here's the regiment as a whole: 

It's not Oldhammer if the banner isn't impractically large, right?

Citadel F2 Fighters: Proof of Concept Paintjobs

I've decided to give the Old World Army Challenge another shot next year, with a fresh army - a 3rd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles Empire army, with a Halfling Allied Contingent. The premise being that these are the defenders of a small, obscure village on the outskirts of the Province of Averland, there's only going to be a handful of regular army troops and a much larger number of irregular militia types. Wargames Foundry has been kind enough to reissue a couple packs of classic Citadel F2 Fighters and F4 Mercenaries, which will make up the bulk of this militia; I grabbed a few original F2 Fighters off eBay a while back to bulk that regiment out further if need be, but decided I'd paint two of them up as proof of concept.

F2 Altdorf Sergeant

These are painted with some GW Contrast paints in conjunction with regular acrylics from Reaper and Vallejo. I wanted to see if I could produce results that I was happy with, faster than I would with regular acrylics alone. And overall, the answer is yes; I painted these guys over the span of three short painting sessions, maybe 3 1/2 hours total from start to finish, including basing. 

F2 Imperial Foot Soldier

I did a bit of work here that I probably won't do on the army itself, like taking the time to paint eyes. But striped leggings, dirty leather armor (GW Snakebite Leather contrast, washed with Agrax Earthshade, then highlighted with Vallejo Plague Brown), gin-blossomed noses all feel very on brand, especially for the militia. I'm imagining they've been recruited straight from the tavern, too drunk to realize they've accepted the "Elector Count's shilling" until it's too late.