Showing posts with label Miniatures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miniatures. Show all posts

Saturday, November 23, 2019

The Keep - Rough Cuts

I decided to work on my Keep tonight. Of course, I will do floor plan maps, but tonight, I want to work on the model itself. I'm starting with the crenelation. You'll probably notice that this is bad form, I am making a model with no paper plans, then making a floor plan from an unscaled model. Hmmm... It could work.

To create the crenelations, I "measured" out the walls. I came up with 2 different numbers. 3 inches and 3 1/4 inches. Not bad considering the source of my Styrofoam was upcycled packing material. It wasn't going to be square no matter what I did.

I divided the wall section into five parts, a classic looking crenelation. 3 parts will be empty, 2 parts filled and then the 4 corners of unmeasured sizes. That works out to be about 9 1/16ths for the 3 inch sections and 10 1/16ths for the 3 1/4 walls. Small enough not to matter.

I put an x on the parts that would be cut away. One of the issues with this method is, I have no scale in mind. My brain defaults to 1 inch equals 6 feet, so a cut out of 10 1/16ths is going to be 3.75 feet. So this is 25 mm. This is pretty good, as most of my figures are 28mm. Oh... My brain is so broken.

Anyway, forget scale. I want this to look nice rather than be a particular size.
Although the Keep will not have a scale,
the cat is as close to 1:1 scale as it could get it.
Your cat may vary. 

Let's get cutting. I'm using scraper handled razor. I want to push down on the line. It turns out this cutter was bad for what I was doing and I switched it up with a boxing razor.

The straight down cut allows me to work in two angled cuts. Again, I am not working for a "scale", so I didn't measure how deep I went. I'm guessing that it's also about 3.75 feet in scale.

Let me give you two tips when cutting. First, unless you have a cutting table, work on a finished surface like a table. Wipe it down with a wet rag and do not it dry. The water will make the base of the Keep stick and all of the bits of Styrofoam will also stay in place.. This makes clean up easy. Dry, unfinished wood will also stick to Styrofoam, so that is an option, too.

These look like teeth. The blade is semi flexible, so I can force it into the soft Styrofoam, and end up with a straight cut and a flat surface on the bottom.

As you can see from the pictures, I have some basal wood pushed into the Styrofoam as a floor. I need to plan my details before the next step, which is going to force me to pick a scale. Judging by the size, this Keep will be nothing like a real world Keep. It is all out of proportion.

But I am happy with my results as of now. More tomorrow, I think.



Tuesday, October 15, 2019

How about a Crusader Castle?

Dad is a busy guy. How about a tour of a Crusader Castle today?

Mom and Dad live down south so I don't get to see them much. We do talk via email and Facebook. You can follow him over there and get your own, more immediate updates rather than just the castles I like.

 I've never seen this castle in person, but from the details I guess that it's 25 mm.
It's impressive from an angle. 
And the side. I suspect this is fairly small, perhaps a little less than 3 feet by a little over 4 feet. 
Dad works in Styrofoam, but then adds details of plastic and wood. He skims the structures in plaster to get that texture.  
As you can see, he uses a simple dry brush style. 
Note the difference from the stonework on the bottom of the walls vs. the plastered look of the top. 
One of the painting tricks I picked up from my Dad was an item will look realistic if it repeats the colors from the surrounding terrain. 
You can see the castle shares the same colors as the rock it sits on. 
This building is obviously worn, another technique that makes an item look authentic. 
This angle shows the details of the stairs and such. Funny, this model is made for figures on bases, so their tiny feet can never reach the stairs. 
I'm going to leave the last couple of images comment-less, but check out Classical Hack on the web or over on DriveThruRPG




Monday, October 14, 2019

A walk down memory lane... thru a Motte and Bailey Castle.

The Shell Keep
Overview of the keep
Ah, memories.

My dad has been a gamer since he was a child. His collection of books, resources and material is unsurpassed. When I was in high school, I needed to write a report on the Middle Ages. Obviously, he wanted to help. What I didn't expect was, he told me to bring my whole class.

A horde of kids came in to our house for a lesson on the Middle Ages. Hand on, armor, swords, models, books, and history. On whim.
Gate and decking work.

He was always like that. When I was a toddler, I recall a massive Motte and Bailey castle in our living room. And some times part of the dining room and kitchen. It was a huge undertaking.

I have no idea where that castle went, perhaps it was broken in our many moves from the projects in Lockport to the Eastside of Buffalo and finally to Tonawanda.

It wasn't the only castle he had, it was one of dozens.
Side view
These pictures are of a castle in the classic motte and bailey design that I loved so much. I'm not sure when dad started building this, perhaps Dad doesn't know when he started building this, but here it is. Sometime in 2018 or 2019, perhaps.

This one is 4 by 3 feet. It's tiny compared to some of the work he has done.
Inner gate detail. 
This is my favorite view of the Keep. Dad always painted details on his gates, in classic blue, yellow and red. I am not sure of the historical details of those colors, but these remind me of Dad.
Inner ward
This shell keep has 3 inner buildings, with multiple floors. Since this is used for a wargame, the rooves, floors and ceilings come off.
Opposite side view.
This is a work in progress, so the exterior details are missing. There will be trees, stones, grass and perhaps water features in the finished work.
Rooves
Again, the windows and doors have those colors.
Rooves and floors removed.
The interior is incredible. 
Second floor in place. 
In this view, you can see the doorways leading to the interior spaces. When he builds these things, he scales them 15 or 25 mm. I suspect this one is 25 mm.
Other buildings, rooves removed. 
The scale is important because wargamers use a particular basing for the figures. He needs to be able to fit those bases inside the structures.
Possibly a kitchen area.
Not every part of the keep is for military purposes. This is a cooking area.
Main gate, roof removed. 
I love the way he plans areas to be removed for the game action. This is the main gate.
Walkway of the parapet removed. Latrine area. 
And bathrooms in the walls. Waste would fall into the moat, for an extra deterrent. 
The Bailey. 
The exterior area has a couple of buildings, with thatched and wooden rooves.
Interior with rooves. 
The Keep has stone or tile rooves, not show in this image. The smaller building have blue slate. That is my favorite color. 
The Keep
I love the circular pattern of the keep's ward.
Bailey gate. 
And finally, our journey ends at the outer gate.
If you want to see more like this be sure to check out my dad on Facebook and on the web.

Classical Hack on Facebook

Classical Hack on the web







Sunday, February 3, 2019

Miniature Mayhem

My dad calls his rec room, "The War Room". Ah, dad.

Let's rewind for a funny true story. Before my dad wrote his Classical Hack or Knight Hack rules, he played WRG. One convention took place in Hamilton, Ontario so he packed me, all of his figures up and drove. I think we lived in Lockport, NY at the time. It was a supposed to be a short hop, a nice day trip for the boys. 

You know what makes a short hop really long? Tell the border agents that you are going to "a war game in Hamilton, ON". They couldn't find any guns or ammo, but they kept coming across all these little figures.

That was back in the 1970s. Have a look at his "War Room", circa 2016 on Youtube.

Monday, April 17, 2017

Space Marines (Continued)

I found a few Space Marines weeks ago. I keep finding just enough parts to build a couple more. These three are mostly painted. I thought I would try a little red highlight on the figures to switch it up.

(Obvious, I have never played Warhammer 40K.)

Monday, April 10, 2017

Amarillo Design Bureau's Starfleet Battles Freighters #MiniatureMonday

(Updated based on the ADB Facebook page. Go ahead and like them.)

Amarillo Design Bureau does several series of ships for Starfleet Battles, 2400 and 2500 series. The major difference between the two series is scale, however general ships like these freighters are the same size between these two series. Backward compatible if you like. :)

Once or twice a year ADB packages up all of the ships with defects or flaws that makes them generally unsalable and sells them by the pound.

I didn't mean to post about the scrapyard ships, but why not? Its a cool and cheap way to get into kitbashing and SFB.

These two ships were painted with Vallejo paints. The white piece holding the ship is a piece of soapstone with an arc cut into it to cradle the ships for painting.



In my next post, I will show a couple of freighters that I modified. 

Monday, February 13, 2017

New Paints, New Figures



A few weeks ago, I began paint figures for the first time in perhaps 7 to 10 years. My first problem was that I was out of practice. The second problem was my paints, a wonderful set of Windsor & Newton Designer Acrylics. The were wonderful before every other container dried out. Obvious, keeping paints in the basement, then the garage is not a great storage method. It is only natural that they dry out.

In looking for a new set of paints, I checked out some of my favorite painters and modelers. There is a lot of variety and style for modelers, but one name kept coming up: Vajello paints



The set pictured to the right is the Medieval pallet. The 16 colors are great for a variety of styles and models, not just the Middle Ages. Each bottle is 17 ml, a little more than 1/2 an ounce. The bottles all have a dropper style cap which is handy for mixing.

I have tried them out on a variety of subjects, from robots to animals and like them a lot. However, each of these tests were on previously painted figures that needed repairs.

In the next post, I will be working on three unpainted figures. Right now, I have them based on 1 inch wooden nickles and they are primed in flesh tone.

Thursday, January 19, 2017

A not so #miniaturemonday post - Figures with Flair - January 18th, 2017

I missed #miniaturemonday, but I do have some figures to show off. Please excuse the blur as I haven't had time to get out the nice camera.

First, two D&D figures.

This rogue is one of my favorites. He is based off of Jubal in the Thieves World series of books. He has a bit of grey hair and a multi-colored outfit. He holds a dark colored staff.

I wish I could remember the manufacturer of this figure. This figure is pretty old, and the base shows signs of age. I will likely rebase this figure and give him a new coat of gloss coat.

I especially liked doing the mismatched green and red. for his sleeves. It's a hint of flair for an otherwise normal rogue.

From about the same time period, I have a simple bard with lute. He was my character in several AD&D adventures.

When my friends and I played AD&D, we rotated turns as DM and had a shared world. It was rather interesting as your "main" would become an NPC. One of our rules was to have NPC acquire wealth and experience, but never any magical items.

As a result of this rule, we had many game breaking characters and magic items. The main issue was not power creep as you would expect, but a combination of unique magic items and the courtesy of returning favors. The end result was a bunch of characters with very non-standard gear in large amounts as six DM's doling out goodies was a little too much.

The last item is a cool "unseen" mecha from Battletech. As you can see, he has taken a lot of damage. Before painting this figure, I took a Dremel to the nose and wing. I then washed a propane torch over the entire figure to give it a bubbled and softened look, as if it had walked through fire.

The figure rippled a little too much under the torch, but I still liked the effect.

I would imagine that the pilot was lucky to be alive as the cockpit was very nearly holed. I like figures with character that hint at a little background and story.