Building a Dwarf Army pt.2

In my last 'army building' post, I ran through the models I'd bought, some conversions I'd done, and basically just cleaned everything up to get it ready to paint.

I also mentioned that I wasn't 100% sure how I was going to split them up into smaller batches (i.e. whether I should paint a unit at a time, or split them up into smaller points value forces, and so on) - but in the end I thought I'd probably get them done quicker if I did all the dwarves with the same beard colour at the same time (as I plan on having 3 or 4 different colors).

As such, I decided to do all the blond(ish) guys first, and picked out several models from each unit to get the ball rolling...

 ...and spent pretty much all of Monday evening priming them (I used a brush on primer), and getting their base coats down.

Tuesday night was spent adding some washes (a flesh wash on the skin & beards, and 'sonic tonic' over everything else...

 ...and, as you can see, I also got the shields glued on as well (these where painted and washed separately, and had their backs drilled out where they needed to fit over a 'nub' or a hand) - plus, I also got the next batch primed while waiting for the washes to dry.

On Wednesday I spent a couple of hours tidying/highlighting with the original colours (as washes tend to darken everything down and/or leave tidemarks in some places) - and since I squirted out a bit too much silver paint (well a lot too much really), I also got the silver done on batch 2. 

Now, I did (briefly) consider doing a few more highlight layers to make them look a bit better - but I quickly talked myself out of that... as I am supposed to painting this army quickly after all :)

Anyway, on Thursday evening it was just a matter of varnishing them (again, I'm using brush-on varnish), gluing on the basing material, and then sealing in the basing material with some watered down PVA.

And, as you can probably guess, this did mean that there was a certain amount of drying time between each of these steps... so I also splashed on a few more colours on batch 2 (the ones that are going to have grey beards).

Now, as you can see in the following picture...

...they're not going to win any awards - but I think they look more than good enough considering they're just regular troops in a 'regiments' style of game... and I'm pretty happy with how they've turned out.

However, they've still took a bit longer to finish than I would like - but the second batch should be quicker... since I've already got some paint on them. That being said, I don't think I'm going to have as much time to paint next week... so we'll have to see how it goes :)

Playing catch-up… again!

I’ve been neglecting the blog of late (as you might have noticed)… so here’s a quick round up of what’s been going on in my own little hobby world (and some ‘behind the scenes’ commentary ;) ).

VIDEO CATCH-UP

First up is the truck that I talked about in my last post…

...the video went live back in May – but didn’t do very well compared to my other videos (which is fine – that’s just how it goes sometimes).

Next was the hedgerows (which I also mentioned last time)…

...and that episode performed about as well as my usual stuff (which is always nice to see for a pretty niche video).

Some time after that came another of my ‘dungeon in a box’ style of videos…

…and, as I had hoped, this video did rather well (which was also a bit of a relief – as I spent a lot of time on this one – essentially all of June… and then some :) ).

And finally, yesterday saw the release of some more 2D dungeon tiles…

...which isn’t doing terrible.. but it is on the lower side of average.

So, as you can see, quite a mixed bag in terms of content and performance – and while I don’t usually stress too much about the latter (as it’s largely out of my control, and I prefer to make stuff I’m excited about, rather than what I think might be popular/trending), I thought I’d include the briefest of overviews for anyone that might be interested in that kind of thing.

MINIATURES CATCH-UP

Most of the stuff I’ve been painting recently has been skaven related (you’ll see why later)… but this has involved a mix of sorting through some old models…

…painting some that I’d already got assembled (and, of course, buying and assembling a few more)...

...then splashing some paint on the new models too.

 

Now, there was a bit of a challenge here, as I’ve been trying to match the colours I painted my old skaven (with my original Army Painter paint) to my new Vallejo paint range – but I think I’ve got them pretty close.

GAMING CATCH-UP

I haven’t done much in-person gaming this year – but I did get to run a ShadowDark one-shot the other day (note that the chocolates box actually contains a bunch of scatter terrain).

And, of course, I forgot to take pictures during the game (though it was mostly a dry erase layout with some of my terrain pieces scatted here and there to liven it up a bit) – but I think it went OK (despite making a few mistakes).

It was also my first time running (or indeed playing) ShadowDark (and this particular game was a sort of funnel/gauntlet scenario that I’d written – but for a bunch of level 1 characters rather than zero level) – and, like I say I think it went down well*

*I’m also planning on running it for my online group as well – so here’s hoping they like it too.

Another game I’ve been messing around with is the old classic Advanced HeroQuest.

And, as you might have guessed, this is one of the reasons for all the skaven miniatures I’ve been trying to get finished.

It’s also more than a little responsible for me wanting the make more 2D dungeon tiles – as well as providing the incentive I needed to finish off the random dungeon cards (and tokens) that I started working on a while back.

And, since I just mentioned the cards and tokens, there does seem to be some interest in me sharing those – so I think I’m gonna go ahead and make that my next video.

Though please be aware that it’s a fairly simple idea – it only really generates the layout of the dungeon – you’ll need to make the random tables/charts yourself (which will vary depending upon the system you’re running, and the type of adventure you want to have).

Anyway, this has been a rather long post, so I think I’ll leave it there for now.

As always, thanks for reading, watching, and all that – and (with any luck) I’ll try to not leave it quite so long between updates going forward!


EDIT: I almost forgot - I also went on a solo adventure to the UK Games Expo this year...

 

...and came back with a bunch of loot :)