Newly Painted Terrain

 You can see it in my most recent after-action report, but I spent all of last week working on another 3D printed building from Corvus Games Terrain, printed for me by my friend Dave. As the sign (oddly over the back door instead of the main entrance) says, it's a bank, which I got as part of a bundle of STLs from Corvus.

 It's printed in five parts - a ground floor, a second story, the roof and two drop-in floors to make the interiors playable. I primed the walls and roof black and then oversprayed them with Montana Gold "Sand" spray paint. Once I was happy with that I picked out some individual bricks at random in three different shades of brown and tan and one of gray, and did the cement ornamentation on the front with gray craft paint. 

Then, I washed the whole exterior with a homemade wash - made from black and raw sienna liquitex inks, some water, matte medium and a little bit of Dawn dish soap to break cohesion. The first batch was a little pigment-light, but I added some extra ink and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. 

By volume, the equivalent of 16 bottles of GW Agrax Earthshade

 Once the wash had dried, I went over the cement with a lighter gray and drybrushed the entire exterior lightly with a dusty tan craft paint. Finally I blacked in the windows with black craft paints and did all the window and door frames with a gold paint pen, which worked a treat and FAST! Better coverage than I would have gotten with a brush, less touch-ups on the black and I think I finished them all in about 10 minutes. 

Then it was on to the interiors. I gave all of the internal walls a few coats of off-white craft paint, while the floors I was initially doing in blue and white but ended up not liking; I reprimed them gray and drybrushed the tiles; the drybrushing doesn't show up that well. Alas. The interior windows were gone over with black, though I left the frames unpainted. Too much of a pain trying to get in there with the paint pen. 

Then, on to furniture! I pulled some desks, a vending machine and an ATM from Oshiro Models out of my stash, primed them, painted them in mostly-neutral office colors, and started gluing them into place - the desks and vending machine on the second floor, the ATM next to the front door. Hard to tell from these photos but I added a "glass" front to the vending machine with some UV resin. 

 I'm not done with the interiors, however; I've got a 3D printed photocopier that might go up on the second floor, and I want to do a teller's counter on the ground floor. I haven't found a premade option for that anywhere; the places I've seen selling "bank furnishings" in 28mm are all big circular vault doors and piles of gold bullion instead of more useful things like a teller's counter. So I'll probably try making one out of balsa wood, card and coffee stirrers and see what I can come up with. 

 

Miniatures Acquired: 246

Miniatures Painted: 252

Terrain Acquired: 9

Terrain Painted: 11

Scatter Acquired: 21

Scatter Painted: 24

 

Oh! Too Many Ninjas!

 So I'd initially planned on waiting to post about this until all of the figures came in, but a significant chunk seem to be sitting with Royal Mail awaiting shipment out of the UK and have been for a week, which is frustrating to say the least.

Anyways, onwards and upwards.

My beloved local game convention, Running GAGG, which I've been attending for 20 years now, has announced a theme of "Pirates Vs. Ninjas" for the upcoming 2027 show. I don't have any pirates but I've got some ninjas, and I decided that I'd put on a ninja-themed game. I workshopped some ideas - a samurai-vs-ninjas game using Osprey's Ronin, for example - but ultimately decided to cram as many modern pop culture ninjas as I can into Osprey's "A Fistful of Kung Fu" for a martial arts free for all, and my wife encouraged me to splash out a bit to make it happen.

 So here's what's come in first - some "Corporate Ninjas" with silenced pistols from Pontoonier Miniatures, a Lab Mutant from Reaper (to be converted into Blanka from the Street Fighter franchise), some soldiers in berets from The Assault Group and some Copplestone "Girls With Guns." I'd hoped to find a figure I could convert into the character Cammy White as she appeared in the 1994 Street Fighter movie (which I unironically love), since I've got a Street Fighter Van Damme already. However, I'm no sculptor and my Green Stuff was well past the point where it should have been thrown out so I made an absolute hash of that conversion. At least I managed to get some hair on to Blanka. 

I've already started work on a lot of these, with everything at least based and primed. 

Also, last night I picked up the last piece of terrain I needed for my current When Nightmares Come campaign - a 3D printed bank building from Corvus Games terrain printed for me by my buddy Dave. This is going to make an appearance in Game 5, assuming I get enough clear days to prime and base coat it between now and then! 

 The interior is playable but I don't expect to have it furnished any time soon - I haven't found any "bank" scatter terrain I've liked. Everyone who offers any just offers a vault door, some gold bars, maybe some security cameras. Where's the tellers' counter? 

Anyway, that's what I'm up to currently. I should have some stuff coming off the painting desk in the next few days to keep me in the green on my tracker.

 

Miniatures Acquired: 230

Miniatures Painted: 238

Terrain Acquired: 8

Terrain Painted: 10

Scatter Acquired: 15

Scatter Painted: 24

 

More Devils, Rats and Scatter

The plan is to begin my "When Nightmares Come" campaign on October 2nd (I've got the day off work), so I'm bustling to get as much painted as I can before I start, so that there's less pressure on me between games.

I do have all six games plotted out using the generator tables in the rulebook, so I know what games I need extra "Alpha" Dark Spawn models for and more or less what terrain is going to be on the table during each game, which helps quite a bit. I had a lot of things very close to done at the time of my last blog post, and now they're all finished and ready to be shown.

 First things first, I finished my final five succubi; these are a mix of Heresy and Reaper Miniatures, and will be "Terrors," the most dangerous of the three tiers of Dark Spawn minions. 

 These followed the same color scheme I used previously - base coat of VGC "Gory Red," washed with GW "Carroburg Crimson," highlighted with Reaper "Fire Red" and "Regulator's Scarlet". The membranes of the wings follow the first two steps, but are then only re-highlighted with the "Gory Red."

I'm a very big fan of the chubby succubus from Reaper, she was a delight to paint and I'm looking forward to putting her on the table.  

For those keeping track at home, here's all my devils together:

 Next up, I needed an "Alpha" Dark Spawn for game 3, which is the last game featuring the lowest level of Dark Spawn, which for this campaign are Rat Swarms. These "Alphas" appear as bonus threats with certain rolls on the tables for generating a case file, and are slightly tougher versions of their normal tier. In this case, I dug around in my backlog and found some Reaper Giant Rats I bought ages ago. I glued one to a base and gave it a pretty straightforward paint job. 

 

Base coat in black, drybrush with "Stormy Gray" and "Cloudy Gray," then glaze with GW "Bloodletter" over the areas where the sores are visible. These were then picked out with Reaper "Moldy Skin" to give them a properly pus-filled appearance. The tail is "Tanned Shadow" washed with GW "Reikland Fleshshade" and drybrushed with "Tanned Skin." 

The narrative I've built around game 3's dice rolls is that the Webster Street Irregulars will be investigating mysterious disappearances against the backdrop of a sanitation workers' strike, which means I needed some piles of garbage! These are 3D prints bought from a licensed seller on Etsy, with the STLs designed by "Tiny Furniture" on MyMiniFactory. 

 I kept them fairly simple, without worrying too much about excessive shading or highlighting. They went pretty quickly and were a lot of fun to paint. 

Looking slightly further ahead, I got a package in the mail today with my terrain for game 6.

 These are, as you can see, from Warbases, and are very nice looking little kits. They're going to be customized into summer camp cabins, and despite their small size will have detailed interiors if everything goes right over the next few weeks. I got a couple sheets of laser-cut roof shingles as well, so I will be gluing those over the plain MDF of the roofs. Because why make it easy on myself when I can make it look better instead? 

So let's update that tracker:

 

Miniatures Acquired: 214

Miniatures Painted: 231

Terrain Acquired: 7

Terrain Painted: 10

Scatter Acquired: 15

Scatter Painted: 24

 

From the Files of Police Squad!

 The two police cars are finished:

 I kept things pretty simple decal-wise; the word "Police" on both front doors, and "911" on the rear next to the gas cap. I had to buy two sets of decals to get enough black-letter "Police" for both cars; I may get some more Crown Vics at some point and paint some as Highway Patrol or County Sheriff vehicles. 

In other news, the MDF buildings I alluded to the other day arrived, along with a box of resin accessory bits - air conditioners, filing cabinets, vending machines, etc - from Oshiro Models. 

 I've never built a TTCombat kit before; I picked this one up because it's got a very different footprint from the other buildings I've got, plus I liked that it had a fire-escape. Should give me plenty of opportunity for customization as well.

On the right in the ziploc bags are two kits from Atomic Lasercut Designs; one is a two-story building from their "Mean Streets" line, with a commercial space at ground level and apartments above. The other is a rooftop access point, which I'm going to glue to the roof of the building to add more height and make it a little bit different from the similar two-story building I've already done. The rooftop access has a removable roof as well, and the interior could offer some fun customizing opportunities. 

I'm hopeful to get these both done before winter, along with the two Atomic Lasercut kits I've currently got on my workbench. I feel like my modern urban terrain collection (and figures!) are replacing the Oldhammer Orcs as my "Hobby Home" - the thing I can always take out and putter away at in between other projects or when I'm not feeling inspired for something. At this point I'm fairly certain I could cover my entire dining room table (which is 3' x 5'10", which let me tell you, is annoying for trying to get a mat to cover it!) with terrain and have some left over, but it's just so relaxing to paint and assemble. 

 The two buildings and the cars are already factored into my finished tally, but I think I should count the electrical transformer substation I got from Oshiro as scatter. Let's update the tracker:

 

Miniatures Acquired: 212

Miniatures Painted: 215

Terrain Acquired: 5

Terrain Painted: 9

Scatter Acquired: 9

Scatter Painted: 15

 

The Webster Street Irregulars

 

Back when Osprey's "When Nightmares Come" first released, I was definitely interested - modern setting, occult enemies, ordinary people pushing back against the things that go bump in the night? That's 100% my jam. North Star offered a bundle deal, if I'm remembering right, offering the rulebook and your choice of a pack of "Apex Investigators" made by Fenris Games, to use as your monster hunters. 

 While I was at it, I ordered myself some 3D printed bases with urban detailing from Etsy. Once the figures arrived, I cut the tabs off their feet and glued them to the urban bases, feeling pretty pleased with myself. 

And then, as so often happens, they sat, unattended to. "When Nightmares Come" didn't grab me by the ears and demand I play it when I first read through it, so I shrugged and put it on the shelf with the other Blue Books, figuring I could borrow elements from it to enrich other games later on.

Recently, I read some play-reports for When Nightmares Come over on the Lead Adventure Forum, and felt my interest rekindle. And reading other people's play-throughs helped me through some of the things I wasn't understanding (I feel like the 64-page Blue Book format might have hindered this one a little bit!). 

So I've decided I'm going to make playing a full six-game campaign of When Nightmares Come my goal for October - ideally, playing the final game on Halloween. This is going to entail some painting through the month of September to get myself ready; first up, the hunters themselves, finally primed and painted and ready for action.

 While I will be giving everyone individual names and backstories, for now they're presented largely without comment:

First up is my "Weaver," in the game's parlance, a minor spellcaster with the knowledge and training to push back against the supernatural. I went with gray hair, envisioning her as an aging witch who has pulled the team together. The eyepatch, combat boots and arm bands show she's no frail fortuneteller. This is a woman who has kicked a werewolf in the nards and lived to tell the tale. 

Next up are my two "Wardens." These are characters who know their way around weapons and violence; while anybody in the game can use a gun or a knife, these guys are the best at it. According to Ian over at Fenris, the one guy is sculpted to look like celebrity chef Guy Fieri, so my bleach-blonde paint job is accurate. I'm imagining the gray-haired guy with the flashlight is a retired cop who assumes he should be leading the team. 

 Finally, my "Wrights" - these are techies, tinkerers, and modern-day alchemists creating tools from scratch - monster repellents, lures, potions of speed and healing, etc. I really like the gal with the fluffy boots and the palm pilot and had to give her some raver colors.

 Together, I'm calling them the Webster Street Irregulars; Webster Street being one of the local streets I look to for inspiration with my terrain collection. It's a lot of small shops and restaurants with apartments above, and buildings like that are going to be my next priority in terrain-building so that I can add more height to my tables. I already have one, in the form of the Nickel City Smoke Shop, and a couple more are on the way. 

I've also gotten some work done today on a few more pieces of scatter terrain - a pair of Crown Victoria police interceptors from Miniature Tanks Co. These are mostly just done in cheap craft paint, other than the lights. All that's left to do is putting some decals on them. 

 I did have to order a few more figures for When Nightmares Come, but I'm really pleased at how much I was able to pull out of my leadpile and designate towards the game. 

 

Miniatures Acquired: 212

Miniatures Painted: 215

Terrain Acquired: 5

Terrain Painted: 9

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 15

 

The Road to More Terrain

 A couple of packages arrived today, both furthering my goals to play more samurai games. 

First, a resin house, a well, and some accessory odds and ends picked up from Oshiro Model Terrain. I did a lot of thinking and weighing options for Feudal Japanese terrain, and I decided that, at least for smaller buildings, I like the Oshiro Japanese houses best, plus they've got the best line of accessory bits. 

 The roof comes off the house and it has a plain, though accessible, interior. I'll be adding a base to it, much like I did with the MDF temple kit. The plan, such as it is, is to ultimately add a few more of these houses to my collection over time so I can put a small village, or at least the outskirts of one, on the table. 

The other thing that arrived today is a 3D print of Itto Ogami and his son Daigoro, the titular characters of the "Lone Wolf and Cub" franchise. Lone Wolf and Cub ran as a manga series from 1970 to 1976, and has been adapted to television, film and even the stage, the story following Itto, the shogun's official executioner, as he is framed and disgraced, forced to become an assassin with his young son in tow, and ultimately strives for vengeance (consistently described as "The Road to Hell" in the manga) on those who framed him. More recently, Disney's "The Mandalorian" is basically a retread of this with a Star Wars gloss applied. 

 The print came from a vendor I found on eBay, and came in three pieces - Itto Ogami himself, the baby cart, and little Daigoro. I've had a lot of disappointment from 3D prints this year to the point where I'd basically written off the entire medium, but I took a chance on this and was really pleasantly surprised. It's a really nice, crisp print, it was delivered to me almost totally free of any supports or excess bits of material, and without any odor. This last one's been a big deal for me! Almost every other 3D printed figure I've gotten this year has been inproperly cured, resulting in a powerful resin stink and in some cases the figure still being sticky. 

 Scale-wise, it's about on par with my Bad Squiddo samurai for size, and a little smaller than my Clan Wars figures. Once painted and on the table I don't think it'll be too noticeable.  

 The resin house has already been accounted for in my tracker, but I'll add the Lone Wolf and Cub, counting them and the baby carriage as three figures.

 

Miniatures Acquired: 207

Miniatures Painted: 210

Terrain Acquired: 3

Terrain Painted: 9

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 12

 

Two More Monsters for Majestic 13

 Completed two more monsters for my stable of boojums for Majestic 13 this morning, and well pleased with both of them.

First up is a "Mother-in-Law Abomination" from the board game "Zombicide: Invader," which - I have no idea why it's called that. Some of them - "Stomper Abomination," "Shadow Abomination" more or less make sense and tell you something about how it operates. Is this one going to nag me about not having a good enough job to support my wife? 

 I mostly followed the board game art for this one, though I added a bit more red glazing to the carapace and I changed the tongue color to a vibrant, alien green. 

 This was mostly done with Army Painter speed paints over a white primer coat; two coats of "Ancient Honey" for the yellow armor, and a coat of "Goddess Glow" for the pinkish flesh in between. The red glazing was my trusty old pot of GW "Bloodletter" glaze. The tongue was Reaper "Dungeon Slime" glazed with GW "Waywatcher Green," and the little teeth and the two claws on the tail are Reaper "Yellowed Bone."

 

The second one is a 3D print I got from Etsy - the figure is called an "Adolescent Dark Young," and I got it from TranscendantalPrints, who I've ordered from before. He changed the resin he's using for his prints, however, and I was less happy with what I got in this batch than I was with previous orders, and the figures in that order required some extra curing and cleaning compared to previous figures I'd gotten from him. 

 

The Dark Young is a monster from the Cthulhu Mythos, a waddling, tree-shaped creature on hoofed legs capable of grabbing and crushing multiple people at once in its tentacles. I had this one printed at 50mm tall, and largely painted it based on how the monster's traditionally depicted in game art.

 

Over a white primer coat I painted Army Painter "Dark Wood" speed paint over the entire figure, and once dry I drybrushed with Reaper "Desert Stone." Over that, I gave it an all over wash of GW "Athonian Camoshade." I added another drybrushing of "Desert Stone" over the body and legs, leaving the crown of tentacles untouched, and then glazed the tentacles with GW "Waywatcher Green."

 

After that, I painted the interior of the mouth with Reaper "Dungeon Slime" and applied some "Waywatcher Green" to emphasize the interior texture before picking out the teeth in Reaper "Yellowed Bone." I like how the interior of the mouth almost seems to glow.  

I've got three more prints left to paint from this order, and they're designs I'm really excited for; I'll probably give them one more once-over with isopropyl alcohol and a UV light to be absolutely certain they're totally cured, however, before I try painting them. Getting sent uncured resin has been a recurring problem for me with ordering 3D printed figures; these weren't the most egregiously bad (I ordered a set of printed scenic bases that went straight in the trash because they were so soft I was leaving fingerprints in them) but it's been happening so frequently that I expect these are going to be the last 3D printed figures I buy.  

 

Miniatures Acquired: 184

Miniatures Painted: 144

Terrain Acquired: 1

Terrain Painted: 7

Scatter Acquired: 8

Scatter Painted: 10

 

Hitting the Open Road

 One of the things I'll need if I want to start playing Zombie RV (besides zombies) is... an RV! Fortunately, I had one in my backlog - a clever 3D-printed kit from Miniature Tanks here in the US. I got a bunch of vehicles from them for Christmas this past year, and I decided it was time to get this one assembled and painted. Assembly was pretty easy, though I did need to use a pair of tweezers to glue on the railings at the top and the silver bits on the side - weight supports when parked, I'm guessing? 

 

Because it's a 1970s Ford F-150,  I started looking up 1970s paint jobs, and found a pretty sharp-looking black, red-orange and silver example. I decided to change the red-orange to just plain red, and got to work. Except for the headlights and taillights, everything here is just done with cheap craft paint instead of expensive hobby paint. 

 I painted the license plate yellow with blue lettering to match the color plates on my own car, and carefully freehanded "ZRV" in lieu of trying to squeeze on an authentic plate number. 

It's not going to win any awards but it's a solid addition to my scatter collection, and I'm looking forward to seeing it on the table. 

The Last Liners are never far from hand so obliged for a scale shot.

 

Miniatures Acquired: 178

Miniatures Painted: 129

Terrain Acquired: 4

Terrain Painted: 7

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 10

 

Living On This Island Earth

On June 10th, 1955, a humble little scifi B-movie hit theaters called THIS ISLAND EARTH. It starred Rex Reason and Faith Domergue as atomic scientists kidnapped by Exeter, a mysterious yet seemingly kindly man with white hair and a large forehead, and taken to his home planet of Metaluna. Metaluna was under attack by the forces of the planet Zagon, and Metaluna needed the earth scientists' aid to synthesize enough uranium to fuel their defensive screens long enough to evacuate Metaluna's population to Earth. While Exeter argues for a peaceful coexistence with Earth, the leader of Metaluna instead suggests a future where earthlings would be subservient to the "superior" Metalunans. The question is moot, however, as it's too late; Exeter and the earthlings narrowly escape as Metaluna, under heavy bombardment, transforms into a new star. However, a Mutant (or Mu-TANT, given the enunciation in the film), a synthetic species of humanoid insects used as slave labor on Metaluna, has stowed away on the flying saucer and attacks, delivering a fatal wound to Exeter before being destroyed itself. 

I'll be honest, while it's got its charm it's not an amazing film, and these days might be best known for being included in "Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie," which I used to have on VHS back in the day. I certainly tend to think of some of the jokes made by Mike and the Bots in that when I think of this film. 

The Mu-TANT, however, has achieved a degree of iconicness; because the film was produced and distributed by Universal Studios, it does get included with the Universal Monsters in some tie-in media (action figure licenses, etc), and coming just a year after the Creature From The Black Lagoon, I applaud the inclusion. Modernized version have also appeared in the films MEN IN BLACK 3 and LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION in scenes paying tribute to the sci-fi boom of the 1950s. 

Which is a long, roundabout way to explain who these guys are. BigMrTong did a limited release of metal figures inspired by the Metaluna Mu-TANT, and I picked up three of them. They're now available as an STL file through his patreon, but I got three of the metal release, bending the arms slightly to create some variation between them. They'd been sitting primed on my desk for a while, but on the 10th I saw a notice on one of the B-movie pages I follow on social media stating it was the film's anniversary, so I got my rear in gear and started painting. 

 

Nothing too fancy, and I avoided trying to paint the sculpted veins on the arms - I just don't have a fine enough brush and enough trust in the steadiness of my own hands not to bodge it up repeatedly.  

 While I was at it, I knocked out another bit of scatter terrain for my modern tables - a hot dog cart, ready to be parked on a street corner dishing out delicious street meat to hungry pedestrians. 

 This is a 3D print I got from Miniature Building Authority, given a simple metallic drybrush for that stainless steel look, and the hot dog and soda logos picked out in full color. 

"This kid's been back four times today... he's an eating machine!"

 

So let's get that tracker updated:

 

Miniatures Acquired: 149

Miniatures Painted: 129

Terrain Acquired: 4

Terrain Painted: 6

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 9

 

Another Monster and Some Terrain Faffing

 I had had every intention of starting work on some samurai terrain. And then a buddy started enthusing about the game "Five Parsecs From Home" and the next thing I knew, I had a bunch of 3D printed scifi terrain that I'd bought years ago and, at best, hit with a coat of pale blue-gray spray paint, sitting on my work bench. The rulebook for Five Parsecs From Home should be here Friday. It definitely does seem like something up my alley, and I'm trying to treat it as something I can use figures and terrain I already own for so it's not really a new project. 

We'll see how that goes.

But I did finish painting another monster for my Majestic 13 stable. This is another one of the Zombicide: Invader "Abominations" I bought off a friend, this one the "Stomper Abomination." I have no idea what any of it means in Zombicide, but it's a nifty sculpt that painted up well. I used the "Coconut Crab" painting technique across it's shell and I think it turned out really well, and was a surprisingly fast and easy process - I think I did most of the painting in a single evening.

 And I painted four pieces of scifi scatter terrain to my satisfaction. These are some scifi cargo containers, printed from STLs by "WArLayer" that I ordered off Etsy back in 2019 and have been sitting unpainted since then. I hit them with a coat of gunmetal gray spray paint, gave them an oily-looking wash, then drybrushed with silver craft paint before adding some striping and detailing the screens.

 While I had the silver craft paint out, I finished a bit of detailing on my 3D printed video store that my friend Dave printed for me last year. I'd painted the exterior before Wargames Among the Warplanes last year but hadn't gotten around to the interior until about a month or two ago. All that was left was painting the window frames on the inside and gluing some signage to the interior walls, so I got that taken care of last night.

Two of my favorite 80s B-grade horror movies!

 

I am still waiting on some furniture (a counter and some video shelves) to fully furnish it, and Dave has had the STLs for that for printing for a bit. I hadn't realized he only fires up his resin printer once every few months when he has a bunch of things he can print all at once. 

I did order a few more figures for Majestic 13 as well, so let's update the tracker:

 

Miniatures Acquired: 137

Miniatures Painted: 113

Terrain Acquired: 4

Terrain Painted: 5

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 8

 

Taking Out the Trash - And Painting More Orcs

 A little bit of scatter terrain that's been sitting primed on my bench for too long got finished the other day - some 3D printed wheeled garbage and recycling cans, printed for me by my friend Dave from STLs from Tiny Furniture. He printed two of each design, closed and slightly overflowing, so I paired them on some 40mm round bases.

These are actually painted to match the ones sitting outside my house right now, with the brown lid on the recycling bin. Not sure how standardized those are to other areas. The recycling symbol is just free-handed with some white paint. These will make some nice scatter on modern tables.

And having received more orcs for the Oldhammer Orc Project, I figured it was a sign I should paint some! I had primed a batch of 15 6th edition metal Savage Orcs about six months ago to accompany a shaman I painted a couple years back now. And since I received some more of those same Savage Orcs, I decided to start in on the primed ones. These have had their skin done, and tomorrow or this weekend I'll start in on the assorted skins and hides they're draped in. 

These were sculpted circa 2000 by Brian Nelson, and while Kev Adams is very much "the Goblinmaster," the more Brian Nelson orcs I paint, the more I appreciate his take on greenskins. They're bigger and more muscular than Kev Adams' orcs, but that musculature and the textures of the faces paint up a dream with the washes and drybrushing I favor. I'm looking forward to having some fun with the various furs and reptile skins they're wearing, and then going in and applying tattoos with a fine-tipped micron pen. 

Miniatures Acquired: 71

Miniatures Painted: 86

Terrain Acquired: 0

Terrain Painted: 2

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 4

Two More Majestic 13 Monsters

 Not much to show volume-wise this week; I've painted two additional monsters for my roster of Majestic 13 enemies. As usual, these are 3D prints purchased from TableTopTradesman on Etsy.

First up we have a tall, gangly humanoid with long arms ending in tentacles, and an eyeless (?) face made up of squirming tentacles. All very Cthulhu-y, I built up the main body color via a base coat of Reaper "Cloudy Gray," followed by a wash with thinned down "Nighthaunt Gloom" from Games Workshop. Once that was dry, a heavy drybrush of Reaper "Aircraft Gray" (a very pale blue-gray), and a final drybrush of 70:30 White/Aircraft Gray. The hands were gone over with GW "Baal Red" Contrast paint, then drybrushed with Vallejo "Fire Orange" before getting a red glaze that I ran further up the arms than the Baal Red. I hope I've successfully conveyed "the pigment on the creature's arms fades from red to gray" versus "this guy's wrist-deep in gore."

The next figure was marketed as a "Dire Bat" but those sure ain't bat wings! The frills running down the arms looked more like fish fins to me, and that design choice was why I bought it; if it had been a standard issue giant bat, I probably would have skipped over it while shopping for M13 boogums. I took inspiration from the kaiju Gyaos, a batlike monster as well, from the 1995 movie "Gamera, Guardian of the Universe," and went with a reddish brown palette.

The inside of the mouth was undetailed, and I painted it with a yellow-orange glow to suggest a breath-weapon ability. 

Overall, these were fast, easy paint jobs that only took a few minutes at  time to work on. I've got maybe two more of these 3D printed figures to tackle at some point, and I've received the "Zombicide: Invader" monsters I'd bought off a friend on BlueSky:

These guys have so many nooks and crannies that they're absolutely going to need to wait and get spray-primed on a warmer day. I do have them assigned to profiles in Majestic 13, however, so if need be I might talk to a buddy of mine with an airbrush and see if he'll airbrush some primer on to these for me. These figures are already accounted for on my tracker, but it's time to updated the painted side:

Miniatures Acquired: 52

Miniatures Painted: 74

Terrain Acquired: 0

Terrain Painted: 1

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 0