Monthly Archives: March 2015

From the Painting Desk #10 – How Should I Base this Brass Bull?

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Not a “proper” update, but something I’m interested in feedback on from you guys

Taking a break from Goblins, I’m going to use this Reaper Bones II Brass (or is it Bronze?) Bull as another opportunity to teach Marouda some basic painting techniques. I’m in two minds on whether to cut it off its Bones base – I probably will remove it as it’s slightly warped, since boiling and then ice watering them doesn’t have a brilliant success rate. If I do that, I’ll replace it with a slate outcrop at a slight angle, as though he’s glaring from (or over) the edge.

Bones Brass Bull on 50x50mm Base

Bones Brass Bull on 50x75mm Base

So anyway – do I base it on the 50x50mm base, or the 50x75mm base? It looks like a 60-65mm base would be ideal, but it’s not on the cards. What it’ll be used for in games will be related to how the basing goes in the end, so I’ll worry about that a little later. The previous Bronze Bull we did from Wargames Foundry went nicely onto a 40x40mm base, but this fellow is a fair bit larger. The 50mm base could be problematic when he makes it into combat with other models, as he hangs over the base on it – could be a problem with pikes and spears!

So… thoughts?

 

Scotia Grendel Ruined Keep & Ruined Gothic Archway

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No figures to show off today. The painting’s been going well, but I’ve got to get out and take some more photos soon. In lieu of anything new, here’s some scenery that I painted a long, long time ago and photographed last year.

Scotia Grendel Ruined Gothic Archway

I bought both of the sets mentioned up top around the same time, but I vastly preferred this entranceway “Ruined Gothic Archway” to the “proper” one that came with the set, so this is the one that I ended up painting up to go with the walls. Much more “Gothic” and since the main game this stuff was used for over the years was 40k…

Rear View of Ruined Gothic Cathedral

Imagine my surprise and pleasure at seeing that the rear of the arch piece was void of all detail whatsoever – just a smooth resin piece from a one-piece pour mold. The base was fine, but I decided that I had to do something about the lack of detail on the upper. I scraped out the stonework with a hobby knife, and did my best to weather and stress the stonework using the tools I had at my disposal in the mid-1990’s. So probably the end of a file and a hammer, by the look of things.

Scotia Grendel Ruined Keep wall sections

As can be expected, these walls from the Ruined Keep have seen a lot of action over the years in no end of configurations. Another of the unpleasant surprises from the Grendel Kit once I opened it was the fact that all of those windows were sealed. As in cast-solid. It took my pin vice, a hobby knife and no small amount of time to cut them all out.

Scotia Grendel Ruined Keep ruined towers

As you can imagine, these “ruined towers” have seen a lot less action. Mostly due to being shorter than a Space Marine in height, so not exactly much of a ruined tower in any of their cases. Three or four steps hardly makes a tower, after all…

Scotia Grendel Ruined Keep with Gothic Archway – “Closed” layout.

Here’s the typical “closed” layout I’ve used in games for the entire set. It really could use some more wall sections to look a bit more reasonable.

Scotia Grendel Ruined Keep with Gothic Archway – “Open” layout.

And here’s the “Open” layout that gets used much more often, as it allows models to move through the ruins while taking cover from their enemies. Now that I’ve been gathering and painting a lot more scenery in the last couple of years, I could do a lot more interesting things with these. For example combining them with the WHFB Gothic Graveyard kit, as well as other things I’ve picked up and painted, like those Confrontation brick walls. I need to get some Hirst Arts molds as well, the Graveyard scenery kit looks promising.