Ssendam's Blog

Been painting up some ships for Dreadfleeet for the local club, so attached is a gallery for a progress report.

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Had these fellas around for a few months now and done a significant amount of Ummming and Arrring concerning the paint job. Anyway I finally sat done and worked out a few colour schemes that were elusive and think I have a good result. I still have to finish off the bases and paint some muzzies, but that’s about it.

I used a two colour approach as these are for wargaming and as usual I like to pass on my colour pallet for those interested …

Undercoat: Black, GW spray can.

Skin: Games Workshop Tanned Flesh highlighted with games Workshop Dwarf Flesh.

Flannel Shirt: Vallejo Luftwaffe Uniform WWII 105 followed by a highlight of the same colour lightened with some Vallejo White 001.

Webbing and Helmet: Vallejo Khaki 115 highlighted with Vallejo Buff 120.

Trousers, Putties/Socks (and jackets, applicable to models in stage two): Vallejo Khaki Grey 113 highlighted with Vallejo German C. Beige 103.

Shoes: Vallejo Black

Wood for Rifle and Entrenching tool: Games Workshop Dark Flesh Highlighted with Games Workshop Vermin Brown.

Metal: On the Lee Enfield this was left black but anything else was touched up with a dab of thinned Vallejo Gunmetal Grey 179.

Note that my “highlight” is really the main colour.

This test piece is made from Hirst Arts castings from Fieldstone Wall Mold 70 and Flagstone Floor Tile Mold 260. I’ve added two off cuts of wood to the front of the model to act as bollards and fenders. The height of the model was such that it fits nicely next to 25mm thick Extruded Polystyrene board. A couple more photo’s are on the Pirates Gallery Page.

Just a teaser of my Pirate Ship … (made by my mum )

I’ve to add the ratlines, maybe a few lower gun ports and tidy up a few things but I think she looks fine.

I thought I’d take a punt at one of the many amazing designs on the Shapeways website. For those that don’t know Shapeways is a 3D printing company were users can create and upload designs for others to purchase and Shapeways to print.

I have to say I was very impressed with the quality and the model seemed to turn out ok.

I don’t really understand where the idea came from but … I needed to make a man-eating plant and figured that a walnut would make a nice head for my little creation. A bag of 50 Walnuts later and I knocked up a test piece thus:

Not massively impressive, but a start. I used milliput to create a few tenticles and moved it to a larger base:

Looking a bit better. Added a tongue for the next stage, but it never made it to the final model.

Finally, added some homemade leaves and a paint job …

Now to scare some characters …

Well finally I managed an Aeronef game with my heavily altered Aeronef rules … The result was a success albeit I noticed a couple of things that could be improved.

Before I head off into the Battle Report let’s just take a quick look at the rules changes. My objective was to add a little variety whilst keeping the game simple; a difficult task, but in the end the following general changes were made.

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Well, been making a big drive to finish off a few projects. Outrider is a nice easy little game for “Fast and Furious Vehicular Combat” available from dicefestgames.com

The game is one of those, download and build games; so far I’ve yet to play a game but as I have just finished the cars I think I’m ready to try it out.

The cars are old matchbox ones that my son had no use for which I have upgraded with a few parts from Stan Johansen Miniatures (http://www.stanjohansenminiatures.com/Road.htm) and a kind Gent on the Lead Adventurers Forum http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php

Enjoy!

I don’t know why I call this Necromunda as although the figures are Games Workshop and are House Van Saar I’m not yet convinced that Necromunda are the rules set I want to use.

I think it’s the whole You-Go-I-Go style of play that means the initiative gives you a huge advantage. I prefer a sort of action/reaction where you have to roll to see if a character behaves as expected. I’m toying with the idea of running a game using the Chain Reaction 3.0 / 5150 rules from Two Hour Wargames … but I just can get my head around how some of it would work in practice.

Anyway, here are the figures:

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Well, here’s my motley band of Pirates rolled out for recent club game.

I’m not going to go through a full colour chart of paints used on my motley crew as a lot of  you will have your own ideas about the detail. I do have a couple of main colour issues to highlight though.

Skin Tone: Confession, I’ve never done a black skin tone before, so this was an important test. I used a shade/base of GW Scorched brown and a main colour of GW Beastial Brown. My highlight option was  GW Vermin Brown, but I thought the figures looked good as they were and as there would be a few brown tones knocking about I decided against the highlight.

Muskets (Wood): The trick here was to get a brown that was sufficiently different to the skin tone. I went with a shade/base of GW Dark Flesh and a highlight of Vermin Brown, which I tried to paint in lines like wood grain. I wasn’t looking to an A+ wood grain effect, just the idea of it so to speak.

Bases: I used a new product for these figures; namely Litko 20mm x 20mm square 0.8mm think plywood with a Litko flexible magnet base of the same size stick to the underside. I wanted a sandy beach style of base for these fellas so after a tiny thin plastic (5mm x 3mm)  strip was superglued in the corner for putting the identification number on some PVA Glue and sand was used to give the base texture. This was followed by a watered down GW Graveyard Earth was used to provide the shadow, then a drybrushing of GW Desert Yellow and highlighted by a drybrush of GW Bleached Bone.

Look on the gallery pages for close up pictures of evey model.

Now to build a ship! …