DIY 28mm Wasteland Reavers / Chaos Cultists / Generic Baddies

Now I wanted some opponents my Oldmarines can slay. Fortunately there are plenty of tutorials out there to show how to make Chaos cultists and such from pink foam and tissue paper, and while I did not follow them to the letter, I came up with a quick and inventive way that won't reduce one's pocket money as much as, say, buying used plastic models.

Here's how to do it:

1. Cut a block of 4mm balsa to roughly human shape
2. Cover it with tissue paper soaked in PVA, creating folds and such
3. Make a Green Stuff mask (or make their cowls really low and just paint the recess black)
4. Add some weapons
5. Paint it

One figure on the above image is a Chaos Lieutenant, a JARMY toy figure from Tesco, with shortened legs and a GS breather added. The rest were made using the method described above. Three have bamboo stick firearms and the fourth a cardstock shield and a spare Frostgrave crewman's sword arm. 

I plan to make more of them in different colours so they can fight each other. 

Guardhouse and Livestock

I wanted to put some scratchbuilding advancements I learned to practice on a larger building, so I completed this 28mm scale two-storey one, the bottom tier built of stone and the top from wattle and daub. The first floor and the roof come off and figures can be housed inside. The building itself is suitable for a variety of periods, so I sincerely hope it will be of use.

The stone fence is an experiment in a more solid type of corkboard, I think it came out nicely so I'll be producing more.

There is also a Bloody Miniatures fig for scale, and some Warlord plastic animals I gave a simple paintjob to, scored during their previous sprue sale.

Orcs and Goblins

Another batch of Reaper figs, two large resin Orcs and four metal gobbos, escorted by a pair of um, *converted* GW space Orks who left their firearms behind and turned to plain old looting.

The resin weapons were FUBAR when they arrived, so the sword Orc got a plastic weapon from the same batch as their two brethren, and for the other I fancied a spear from a paperclip and some greenstuff. The sculpts are nice and they painted up really well. One is based on a piece of MDF and the other on foamboard.

The goblins are mostly there to be kicked around by other factions, but the sculpts are cool.

(I might snap a separate pic of the plastic Orks later, but the one I made for this post turned out to be very blurry.)
 

Some Hasslefree Characters

I think Hasslefree sculpts are among the best available, so I regularly buy a few during their sales. Here's a small collection of them which were, I think, not showcased yet on the blog. The majority are female characters, something most 28mm boxed sets lack.

 

Sir Guillaume the Brave

Next up from the batch of 28mm painted figures is a dismounted knight and two servants. His device is the princely beaver, his colours are red and green.

I've really come to like the Perry HYW figures, as they easily pass as generic fantasy bods to fight orcs and other things. Lots of versatility too, especially if you combine the different boxes.

 

Northern Barbarians

 

Continuing with the influx of 28mm figures, this time I present you some GB Dark Age Warriors and a pair of ladies made by Hasslefree. The former are leftovers from a bunch I gave away, and the latter were actually shown some time before, I just gave them a better paint job and a layer of varnish. 

Pimp My Dinosaur

 

A while ago I had the idea of fielding large reptiles along my fantasy-esque 1/72 armies, mainly built of figures bought from Aliexpress. Of course, these reptiles would be suitable for 28mm games as well, such as the Stegodon-like thing presented here.

It is from the higher end of 'Made in PRC' toys, as its neck, jaw and other appendices were posable to some degree. This, unfortunately, meant leaving huge gaps around the joints, which I filled with greenstuff, then textured. Improved the look a lot, just as overpainting the crappy paint job did. I think the hues are really cool, and I even painted the eyes.

Now let's root for the creature because the hungry Orcs would be arriving at its part of the jungle soon...

Reaper Monstas

I wished to include my significant other in some games, and it turned out she prefers skirmishes with larger figures, so I sort of went and stocked up on 28mm ones, which is rater unusual for me, being a 1/72 (or smaller scale) enthusiast.

Here's the first lot, four bods, made by Reaper and ordered from Fantasywelten: a pair of weeping angels, a wraith thingy and the (so be it) Yeti. They all painted up nicely and will be useful for our games.

The angels were the easiest to paint, I placed them on washers and after some inks and grey drybrushes they just looked the part. No issue with the paint sticking to the resin.

The wraith I coated in a glossy varnish to protect the resin from UV rays.

The Yeti is a fun sculpt, it also has an integral base that I painted up to look like snow. I would usually use baking soda for the snow, but there was none to be found, so I used some decorative white sand instead.

Undead Knight

This is a fantasy-ish Perry conversion. I took a foot knight of their English(?) HYW set, and modified it a little. I drilled out the eyeholes and made a dent on the helmet. I took a skeleton arm from a spare skeleton, he's not gonna miss it, and added a GB plastic round shield, making it look a bit battered by, again, carving and drilling through it. The upper part of the surcoat was modelled with green stuff, and the same was done to the joint of the left arm and the body. I also scraped the bottom of the surcoat with a scalpel to make it look torn.

More Skeletons in the Closet

This time real ones, a bunch of used GW(?) skeletons I've got from ebay a long time ago. They are sort of my first and only figure painting project this year.

The photo was made to test my new cell phone camera - it looks OK, but I got blinded by the sunlight, so the focus is kinda off. Nevertheless, a lot better than the previous one.

Two Hasslefree girls

These two were purchased during the extended Black Friday sale, thinking they could be useful for some fantasy or Dark Ages games. Hasslefree figures are very nice, especially compared to the Gripping Beast guys I was painting, which was reason enough in itself to buy them. As with most 28mm figures, it took me a lot of time to complete both.

Their basing is rather different, too. The slotted bases allow a nice flat surface, and I felt that the basing should suit the figures' attire a bit, so Henn of Gar's on the left has some baking powder fake snow, and Boudi's on the right some tea leaves for a mossy or woodland terrain effect.

6mm Ancients(?)

About 250 Baccus figures in this lot: 1 set of Hittite infanry (I think), 1 of peltasts, 1 archers, 3 chariots. The infantry boxes contain 96, the archers 48, the chariots 4. This was sort of an impulse buy two or three months ago and the painted figures had been lying around waiting to be based for quite a long time, and when I started completing the process I figured out some enhancement on the paintjobs was needed too...

I think the theme requires a little explanation as I have, in the grand scheme, about 0 Ancients figures. I'm running a Mythical RPG (it's been stalling for a while) using Swords&Wizardry. We created the world with Dawn of Worlds and in my games we focus on the human Riverland cultures and the Nomads of the Steppe. It is a shameless act for writing material. Once everything is fleshed out I will translate the rough 'script' to a novel and for this end we record every session. The characters started at level 5 and avoided real harm (even performed greatly when they were fighting the sole boss they come through so far) for a while now. 

The figures are for two armies. The kingdoms of the Riverland are at war with the invading city state of Hatti, the ones in the white/light grey are the good guys (e.g. the players are allied with them).

Caesar Adventurers

This magnificent set travelled the world from Taiwan to me. It has 18 1/72 figures and some diabolical monster which I did not paint. I have painted 15, excluding a dupe of the female ranger and two sword-swinging Bronan the Barbarians, these latter are kind of half naked so I want to add some greenstuff magic to them.

Inter Arma 'The Valley' campaign concludes

Part 1 is here; Part 2 is here.

Most of the bandits defeated in the area (or so they thought), our adventurers sat down around a campfire and began thinking about further matters. 

The end of this convent was that they would attack the BBEG in the northern mountains and deal with him/her/it forever. 

The room was too dark and most of my homemade equipment is shown below on the photos. We played two WW2 games and a quick course of SDS (Sharpe's got beaten after shooting 4 Frenchmen, nothing to be seen) but then I dropped the camera and the memory card fell out, so no pictures to be found. Shame. The use of the camera flash, on the other hand, gives these photos a good old-fashioned look.

Arriving at the lair, a pack of cultists was beaten easily, the boss not so much. Sadly, in the moments of action, I missed the photos of the big bird. Because, well, he was the mastermind of all this robbing and thieving and murder. As I said there.

A level 6 Magic user has a lot of tricks, especially when he can fly too. The Boss Bird knocked the melee fighters back, exchanged bolts of magical energy with the party's mage, Disoriented the Paladin, then wounded two party members in one turn... Then he took a fatal hit and fell. A short but sweaty fight.

However, a magic automatism, as soon as the Boss Bird died, blew the horns up the mountains and a large group of cultists, bandits and dentists launched their final attack on the Valley. 

Here's a welcome to Mike Reynolds a.k.a. The Dark Templar, many awesome things going on his blog.

70 followers, another nice number, and so close to 20,000 hits too, sometimes I believe I achieved things. 

Grey Cloud

After some heretic scales such as 28mm and 15mm (the horror!) I am back to 1/72s. At the middle of March in some post I explained how I could still not acquire the Zvezda Medieval Peasant Army and how I had bought a second box of Vikings instead.

I wanted to do something new with them, first to make them look different, second, to have a fitting role in the 'World in Chaos' universe. And then, as the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge had featured some really beautiful minis painted grayscale, I decided to go with this solution.

The Grey Cloud was on the listing for the forces of the Dead Mountain, but originally I wanted the Revell Anglo-Saxons or Normans for that specific role. 

The Dead Mountain is a grim place in the heart of the Deepwood, where the servants of the Dark Lord (a fallen god - sort of a figure who is up to evil deeds and such) raise an army of dead  and half-dead. Some men of Vyrk, for power and recognition, join these forces voluntarily. They are past some tortures and stretching the limits of their will to live when they finally join the van-guard of the Army of the Dead Mountain, the elite Grey Cloud.

This unit features two closed formations, both of 12 men, command and three groups of skirmishers. (The enlarged pictures are a little bit crappy but now the deed is done.)

Greenstuff Adventures 5. - Of trolls and peasants

This post's material is still made for the Inter Arma campaign session I am planning to do the next weekend. These above are two bridge trolls that hide under bridges and scare people. The youger troll mocks travellers and when it's in trouble calls for Troll Momma who then wrecks everything. Such is the life as a troll.

They have some moss on their backs too, the disadvantage of living under bridges. Of course there are many more types of trolls:

"The Trolls. Well, yes. These grotesque creatures see hatred as their main motivation, and of hatred, in ancient Prannonia there's aplenty. So much that trolls become dangerously fat on it. Not as dangerously as Geri the Barbarian, more like the Dangerously, little brother of the Black Plague, which, the dear Readers might or might have not figured out, was a disease, its smyptoms being discolored toenails, then a sudden escalation to a bad sore throat and the urge of rubbing kittens to one's nipples. 

This medical history aside, trolls, evidently, do not like people or each other. Many types of trolls roam the world, for the evolution (invented by Doravinus, one contemporary Breton scientist of Geri the Barbarian, during the examination of little apes) made them cunning and agressive in a thousand potentional ways. There are, for instance, bridge trolls, tax trolls, mediatrolls (this one originates from Greece), but oh there are volcano trolls, magnet trolls, and, as we know from now on, ghost-trolls as well."

Nolisium high command

  

Three figures from the Italeri HYW French set. I found these rather interesting so used them as characters, two representing the Golden Prince of Nolisium (fighting on foot / on horse) and his, yet unnamed, female paladin sidekick. They were lovely to paint but very different from the Zvezda medievals. With these it is six figs painted this weekend, which is one of the lowest so far, to my excuse I was playing a lot of Mount&Blade and studying :( 

First thing I've noticed after completing them is I could finally paint metal parts well. 

City Guard, an Award and five dozen followers.

First the important news. Ion, also known as Archduke Piccolo kindly nominated my Random&Creative to the sort-of-viral Liebster Blog Award. A quick 'thanks' again before going on thinking which blogs I should pass it further...

The rules:

- Copy and paste the award on your blog linking it to the blogger who has given it to you.
- Pass the award to your top 5 favourite blogs with less than 200 followers by leaving a comment on one of their posts to notify them that they have won the award and listing them on your own blog.

- Sit back and bask in that warm fuzzy feeling that comes with knowing that you have just made someone's day!

- There is no obligation to pass this on to anyone else but it is nice if you do.

My nominations in no particular order: 

Caliban-somewhen, mostly for featuring those interesting battle reports.

Revolutionaries, a very informative blog showcasing very well painted Ancient figs.

Back to the minis, all sorts of periods and a unique humor.

Michigentile's MicroWorld, an awesome diorama builder and great inspiration. Well, this one's just been listed by Sam on Sam's Minis World but I stick to the original plan :)

Ender's Games, top quality painting on various subjects.

I read many blogs and I learn a lot from you, even if I do not comment enough. Honestly, I'd just nominate every single blog I follow, lel.

Secondly, the blog has hit 60 followers with the kind cooperation of many, the 60th (not counting self) being no one else than Bear... I like bears now even more. Sadly I can't find your blog, Bear, so let me know to link back.

Then, painting-wise, 21 foot figs for the City Guard of Nolisium based and ready for action.

Witch hunt

The local lord heard rumors about a witch who dwelt in a hut in the woods. He gathered up a few men and went on to capture or kill her. 

A simple Inter Arma game to test my new sculpts and the magic elements of the rules.

Lord - Armored, Commander/Hero

Level 3 Melee - Striking, Level 3 Leadership

8 foot soldiers, 1 crossbowman

vs.

Witch - Unarmored, Commander/Hero

Level 5 Offensive Magic, Level 5 Golemist

The Witch's Pal - Unarmored, Elite

Level 5 Quiver Draw

WIP - Nolisium City Guard + News

Just two shots from the finished (painting-wise) Zvezda HYW French foot figs made to be guardsmen of the Nolisium City Guard. They are fixed on coins and sand/painting/grass will be added when I get back to them. 

Another angle. Not quite sure how well the purple/white is visible, once they are complete I will include more shots with better lighting and will show the shields they wear too. 

These two posts are all I've had for this week, as I had to work about 5 hours in the weekend for an assignment then started studying for another class, this weekend I hope I'll be more productive (always the excuses). Sadly I'm in a pike&shot painting mood right now (do things like that even exist?) after playing some 17th century sessions with Cossacks, but I'd have to strip some musketeers before starting and no drain cleaner left to do that. Time to sculpt something up, perhaps.

The plastic pile is, fortunately, somehow very well reduced, only two non-complete sets remaining unpainted, and this one half above to be based plus one being painted right now, you can spot them in the right corner of the lower pic (they are the remaining 24 figs from the Zvezda Nap. Russian box). I'll soon need more boxes/containers to store my ever-expanding armies.