Category Archives: General

Dungeon Saga: Some Small Scenics

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Like most people who backed the Kickstarter, I got my Mantic’s Dungeon Saga stuff a little while ago. While the models are (almost all) quite nicely sculpted, there’s some terribad warpage on many of them. Combined with the usual Mantic Kickstarter-quality packing (I’m still waiting on replacements for a bunch of broken and missing stuff), messed-up hardcover compendium and reviews that talk about how Jake Thornton clearly lost interest as he was writing co-op and campaign rules (apparently you can see his interest wane as you read through the Adventurer’s guide as he was really only interested in the HeroQuest-level rules) means the game’s extras got placed in a plastic tub and the game itself stacked on top to get back to one day (or not). Whatever. I’ve got Black Plague to scratch my boardgaming itch for the time being without any resentful rules being mixed in.

Mantic Games Dungeon Saga Scenery Benches

Benches!

The scenery items for Dungeon Saga on the other hand, are pretty damned good. The doors are made from a proper, hard plastic (ABS or HIPS, most likely) while the bookshelves, wells, barrels, and so forth are made from a softer PVC-type plastic. Both sets are actually pretty damned good – especially for stuff that comes in a boardgame – and I’ve got no hesitation in recommending them to anyone who is a wargamer. They obviously wouldn’t work so well in super-detailed dioramas, but that’s a separate category.

Mantic Games Dungeon Saga Scenery Barrels

Barrels!

So I decided to start painting up a few of these pieces. Now, a word of warning. I purchased several cans of Rust-O-Leum sparay paint awhile back, since the cans read that they were a primer and colour spray in one, and that they have some kind of special formulation that binds to plastic. Great! I sprayed a bunch of my PVC scenery with it, and the stuff simply never properly dried. Even after more than a week of Melbourne’s Summer Heat. This made my “quickly knock up some scenery quickly” task a lot more painful than I’d planned. The brown eventually mostly dried, but the black was still sticky and horrible, and so I threw them into some Simple Green a few days ago. I’ll get back to those, later. The point here being – DO NOT USE Rustoleum spray paint on miniatures. At least the formulation that they sell here in Australia. Never had a problem with other brands, and so I’m back to those. On reflection, though – it seems similar to problems that people have had with Reaper’s Bones PVC, so maybe it’s not the spray after all. I’ll have to do some tests on HIPS sprue and some resin offcuts….

Mantic Games Dungeon Saga Scenery Well

Desert Well!

As I have three wells in hand due to buying two of the sets + extras (I’m missing more scenery, too), I had an idea as I was taking them outside to undercoat. My first thought was to paint them all “dungeon grey”/bluestone but then as I was getting out the spray primer (damn Rustoleum) I had the thought to paint them differently. One to go with my desert mat, one to go with my green mat and one to go with the dungeon internals. So this one is sandstone.

Mantic Games Dungeon Saga Scenery Well

Field Well!

I added a bit of Vallejo realistic water at the bottom of each to make them look a little nicer than just leaving the shallow sculpted bottom (which, again is quite decent for a sculpted model.) I painted the second one here as field stone. I added a bit of variation between the stones, but that seems to have mostly disappeared after washes and highlighting. I finished it by adding some plant growth around the edges, and added a little more realistic water than the desert well.

Dungeon Saga Scenery Items.

And here’s the “group shot”. I’ll have to get onto the bookshelves next, since I didn’t spray those and therefore gunk them up at all. Sometime after that I’ll have to try and scrub that horrid Rustoleum off the other pieces. I’m not looking forward to that one bit.

Reaper Bones, 77249: Large Barrel Small Barrel, 77248: Crates (Large and Small)

Reaper Bones’ Barrels set and Crates set

As a very exciting separate bonus – here are the Barrels and Crates from Reaper’s Bones II line. I painted these last year and photographed them because I’m now trying to photograph everything I finish, but they weren’t exciting enough to even sneak into any updates until now. So here they are.

Raging Heroes: Iron Empire Mascot – Jinx (54mm)

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As noted back when I started painting this model, Raging Heroes‘ Jinx was a gift for someone. There’s a little story behind it, though – which I’ll share now. Back when the RH KS1 pledge manager was a thing, I asked a question in the chat box and was answered by Mirielle. Now at times I’ve been both a strong supporter and also a strong critic of RH (sometimes at the same time), and not been shy to take the piss, either – so this led to a couple of interesting and quite amicable chats over a couple of days.

In those conversations, we talked about what we do a bit, and in there I mentioned how I worked with a young lady with ASD who is also completely in love with cats, to the point where she writes a blog based around my own cat. Mirielle made a very kind gesture, and offered to send out a 54mm sculpt of Jinx as a gift for this young lady. Fast forward to roughly a year later and the last wave of RH KS stuff arrived, including Jinx.

There was a bit of mold slip, which I was (mostly) able to clean up on a fairly tight timeframe, as I was attempting to get it finished before the 4th of December, when the young lady finished up and moved on. Since work becomes an actual nightmare at that time of year – as I’ve referenced before – it didn’t get completed – cleaning the Trollcast resin just to get started was quite problematic, but I made arrangements with her parents to catch up with them and her over the start of the New Year. This gave me a chance to keep working on the model.

Raging Heroes 54mm Jinx, Iron Empire Mascot

Since Jinx is theoretically one of those hairless cats, there’s no fur texture. I decided not to worry about the “lore” but went instead for colours that would be acceptable in animation – something that would stand out – and so Jinx became a shorthair with purple fur. Highlighting and shading was going to be an issue with a model this big on a deadline, and I’m still far from confident with an airbrush, so I went with a very careful drybrush and wash combination, which seems to have come up quite nicely.

Raging Heroes 54mm Jinx, Iron Empire Mascot

With purple, gold/brass was an easy choice for a nice contrasting colour for Jinx’ jewellery. I’m sure gold jewellery could have had something to do with the choice of purple for Jinx’ fur, but at this point I can’t recall.

Raging Heroes 54mm Jinx, Iron Empire Mascot

The faint texture of the resin gives enough of an impression of very short fur, certainly on the 54mm Jinx. Basing was a bit of a quandry – I certainly wasn’t going to add sand and flock or tufts, since this is a shelf ornament rather than a wargame model. In the end I went for classic black. I did a little more touch-up after these photos were taken, and varnish was applied immediately afterwards. Gloss varnish on the gems, eyes, etc, yesterday morning.

Raging Heroes 54mm Jinx, Iron Empire Mascot

In the end, the large details were quite nice to paint, and not one of those painful models at all. I checked the RH webstore and it seems that the 54mm Jinx isn’t available at all. I think perhaps the 54mm Mascots were exclusives limited to the Kickstarter campaign/backers?

Raging Heroes 54mm Jinx, Iron Empire Mascot

Most importantly of all, when I presented the model to her yesterday she was absolutely delighted and it was immediately decided that Jinx is an Egyptian Cat. Her parents were also touched by the story behind it, so a warm thank you again to Mirielle and Raging Heroes from the young lady, her family as well as myself.