Another ruin rework

Hello and welcome back,

Apologies for the delays in posting, life has been frantic for some time now. Both blogging and hobby time has been limited. Between work, our Silver Wedding Anniversary and planning my Wife’s 50th birthday there hasn’t been enough time.

I have had a bee in my bonnet about updating my old models. I have a thing for overgrown ruins right now. Apologies, I haven’t managed to get some proper on table pictures.

This thing started out as a standard foamboard model for future war gaming painted in the usual Wargames table urban grey that I built years ago. At another point I decided to make it a little more suited to my post apocalyptic table. The corner was cut away to make it look more ruined. Some graffiti and posters was added. Sadly I forgot to take a picture of it before. 

I carefully peeled the old posters away and gave the exterior of the model a coat of Vallejo concrete textured paint. After a heavy white dry brush the model got a few brown washes. The lower levels then got a earth dry brush with a thicker coat towards the bottom. 

In one corner of a room I added a skeleton. You have to give the scavengers something to rummage about in. More brown washes and runs was added to the outside and interior of of the building. The floors got some washes. The first floor and roof had flock, plants and rubble added. 

Later I gave the model a thin green wash to give it the old algae covered ruin. The posters where reattached with many of them put inside. The graffiti was kept to a minimum. 

Finally the model got green flock and lots of green plant matting added to the outer walls. To finish up lots of plant tufts were added all over the model. 

Hopefully I can some more models up on the blog soon. 

Thanks for reading. 

Take care out there.

Mini painting help.

Hello, 

My blog has been a little quite of late. I am still alive and beavering away doing bits and bobs hobby wise. Work has been messing me about for the last couple of months regarding a job change which will hopefully provide a better work life balance. This has kept me a little distracted and not in the mood to hobby. 

Stargrave and 5 Parsecs from home has kept the hobby inspiration flowing. Plus I have been reworking some old ruins models. I just need to get organised to take pictures.

So the other day I cracked open the painting station for the first time in over a month. Five minutes into colouring in a miniature and this happened. 

And then when I got rid of him....shift change

Dixie and Toffee took it in turns to “help” me paint for the rest of the afternoon. So I only managed to get half done. Once I put the paint station away, the pair of them vanished until feeding time! Cats! 

Thanks for reading, hopefully I will have some hobby stuff to share soon.

Take care out there.

The lost fortress wall.

Hello and welcome back.

Nearly 10 years back I decided to build my fortress walls. See this post for details of the original build.

A few months back I was doing a bit of tidying and discovered one of the wall sections of the fortress had fallen behind a bookcase. There it sat all white, unprimed and unloved staring sadly at it’s painted unforgotten brethren. So a couple of weeks back I decided to finish it. 

This bit of wall was intended to look like the concrete slabs had been salvaged from a building. I thought his section would not have a walkway. I hope to make a scrap bridge to reach across this bit of wall. I added some details, primed it and gave it a couple of coats of textured paint. It then got a coat of light grey, which I then dry brushed white. 

The metal got a few shades of brown & orange added, A few brown washes and orange streaks did the weathering. 

A few bits of graffiti and some plant tufts to finish. 

Now it sits happily with it’s brethren on the shelf.

Thanks for looking and stay safe out there. 

New wastelanders from MEP miniatures

Hello and welcome back,

Back into the Wastelands of Mattblackgod’s world. Some new additions to my post apocalyptic collection from MEP miniatures. 

The water weirdo: 

This character wanders around the Last City muttering about the sea and smelling of fish. Which is strange as the Last City is no where near the sea. He grabs anyone who will listen and bores them with tales of the distant sea. That is until the overwhelming smell of rotting fish makes them run away. It is a mystery just how the Water Weirdo (as the residents of the Last City call him) got to the Last City or what he is doing there. Asking  questions often lead back to him babbling about the sea. He carries a trident which he likes to use on those who aren’t too polite about his fishy tales. Although a wild eyed loner the Water Weirdo will often join groups looking for salvage or adventure in the wastelands. 

The Hill People:

Once or twice a year the mutants living in the distant hill make the perilous five day trek to the Last City to trade salvage, grown and foraged foods and (not always) animal skins for non perishable foods, ammunition and medicines. 

These mutated savages are not to be messed with out in the wilds. They are strong and won’t hesitate to launch an attack. 

Some of them have weird nasty growths....

The Followers of the Special Child. 

Coming from a distant land this cult follow this “special” child across the wastelands protecting him and doing his bidding. Generally it is not known what is so special about the child but his acolytes worship him. They wear keys as symbols of the lost bunker he lead them to in a dead forest. He opened the bunker with a key he found on a skeleton (they still call it a miracle). They also found the weapons they carry in this bunker. The followers wear masks made from tree bark (collected in the same dead forest) which Mr Cuddles (the Special Child’s teddy bear) told them to wear (in the special child’s voice, strangely) to keep the out evil spirits and temptations of the post apocalyptic world. 

The Water Weirdo referees a rumble between the cult of the special child and the Hill People.

Thanks for looking

Take care out there. 

Spaceships for Stargrave

Hello and welcome back,

As one of the scenarios for the upcoming Stargrave takes place in a hangar I decided I needed to get some space ships for the scenario. 

Mooching around Amazon I found a deal for 3 Star Wars ships for £40. It seemed too good a deal to miss. The deal had 2 A wing fighters and a Y wing. All come with electronics which lights bits up and makes noises. I have yet to disable them. All three kits are snap together and went together quite quickly.

The A wings look a little to big for 28mm (judging by the size of the pilots) but hey this is Sci Fi so a little bigger works. Both cockpits open and undercarriage retracts. Handy for those parked up and needs attention look I want from the space craft.

The Y wing looks more suited to 15mm and has a twin seat cockpit. However it would work for a small race in 28mm. It will also see some action in my 15mm games. 

The plastic kits looked too clean. So I painted some bits silver (engine parts) and then dry brushed silver or grey on the guns and gubbins. I then added silver wear to various parts of the spaceships. The ships then got a black wash to make some details ping and make them look grubby. 

I may at a later date do a little more work on these. Maybe get some grey weathering around the panels?  But for now they will do the job. 

Thanks for looking 

Stay safe out there. 

Painting branding scars?

 Hello and welcome back.

I had an idea to add branding scars to some figures. It seems to be a fair chance certain post apocalyptic groups may use it to mark some as property (see Mad Max Fury Road) or as some sort of tribal markings. 

Having done a Google search on branding scars, I didn’t realise just how popular it is as body art. Not my cup of tea I must say. However looking at the scars they go from a very pinky - red (fresh) to pink and the older scars a lighter skin colour. To be honest they don’t look much different to other scars. 

I attacked this old figure as a test piece. As I want a healed branding I went with leather brown with a bone white highlight. I did try a scar pink colour as a highlight but it looked wrong. 

I am not entirely happy with it. What are your thoughts? Ideas to make it look more realistic are welcome. 

Thanks for looking

Stay Safe Out There!

Pyro

Hello and welcome back. 

Isn’t it typical? You wait about for a post for weeks and then three come along at once! The horde of Immortan Ork has a new warboy - Pyro. 

Pyro got his name because of his fascination with fire. He built his own custom flame thrower and chainsaw combi weapon. Thrust into the front ranks of the warboys Pyro has proven himself the flamethrower torching mutant swarms, charging crazies and dealing with vehicles with ease. 

Pryo is a Pious Vorne figure from the Blackstone Fortress set. I trimmed the spikey bits off the figure and slapped a bit of putty over the shoulder pad. There was a gap in it. 

The Warboy horde so far. I didn’t realise it had gotten that big. 

Thanks for looking. WITNESS! 

Stargrave Pirates or Star B**tards??

Hello out there! 

Back in the midsts of time, in the year 2018 there was a group project on the Oldhammer forum to create “Star Bastards”. The aim was to create a rag rag groups of Space Marines that had spent their entire lives caught up on the front line. As front line units they should have mismatched, patched up armour and equipment. The plan was to have them ready for Bring Your Own Lead 18 where a mass battle was planned as they invaded Helsreach for some RnR. 

As I like to use all my figures for my Post Apocalyptic setting Mattblackgod’s world I was going to rebrand them as the “Bunker Bustards” and have them as a team of bunker raiders, hence all the cool kit they sport. They will still see action on Mattblackgod’s world in this function.

Assembly begun but sadly I couldn’t get them finished in time for BOYL 18. They sat languishing in a box until last year when I finished assembly and conversion. There was a deep bits box raid grabbing heads and parts from many 3rd party bits suppliers. I even managed to get them primed.  

This figure was a metal beakie marine. I carefully shaved the mask off and trimmed a Iron Pig head to fit into the hole. I hated the pose of the original figure (a Rhino rider) so I lopped the offending arm off and replaced it with a spare plastic arm. 

Early this year I begun to see blog posts by about the forthcoming Stargrave game. I realised these guys would make great Space Pirates for Stargrave. I ditched the military colours and rust pain scheme I had planned and went for something more (40K) Space Mariney. As these guys are pirates I went for a mismatched colour scheme with a fair bit of owner customisation & graffiti. The shoulder pads have a stylised skull and crossbones painted on them. 

The guy on the left has a later Space Wolves head and a set of mechanical legs intended for a Ork. I can’t recall the manufacturer. The guy on the right has a aftermarket head and a wolf pelt from the space wolves. 

The figures are all classic Space Marines that I have converted. Mainly plastics with a metal figure thrown in. 

The dude with the skull face mask is a old favourite of mine, painted back in the midsts of time (c1988) with the old update over the decades. He is intended as the gang’s leader. 

Thanks for reading and stay safe out there. 

Xenomorphs! Aliens!

Hello and welcome back, 

As you may have read earlier this year I bought some Aliens/Xenomorphs by Galeforce 9. I fancied they would create some interesting problems for the inhabitants of Mattblackgod’s world (as if they didn’t have enough problems). It has also occurred to me that these critters maybe useful for the game “Stargrave”. 

The Queen went together easily. The warriors was a bit more challenging especially for my fat sausage fingers. Their tails where particularly fiddly, needing time for the glue to set. I ended up using piles of coins to rest the figures on. 

Paint wise I decided just to touch up the details, as the figures are gloss black and Xenomorph aliens tend to be gloss black. 

Thanks for looking and nuke the site from orbit.

Take care out there.

Still alive and kicking

Picture from Metro Exodus game.

Hello, out there.

Just a quick post to say that I am still alive. February already, where does the time go? Winter hasn’t yet gone away but hopefully spring isn’t too far away. 

Life has been insanely busy juggling work and  running my wife’s daily treatments. Work isn’t helping too much especially as it is now one man doing the work of three, trying to catch up on 12 months backlog of work. Sadly there is no sign of any help on the horizon. Despite all this you will be glad to know that I have managed to get some hobby time in. 

Mainly working on odds and ends for the forthcoming Stargrave game which I am looking forward to. I am also working on assorted figures from MEP miniatures for my Post Apocalyptic setting. 

As soon as I get some figures & models finished I will be posting them up. 

Stay safe and take care out there.