Friday 28 September 2012

Impact Miniatures Kickstarter !!

now im not normally one to get all misty eyed over something, but this had me bloody close



look, a Dungeons and Dragons ride.....








now come on, who doesnt want these ???????? sounds like they have venger and uni in the works, and a diminutive little guy is already done...




sculpted by the talented Andrew May too !!

Tuesday 11 September 2012

Terrain Geek Base Inserts - A Review !

Well this is a first for my humble little blog, i get to review some nice resin base inserts from

http://www.terraingeek.com/



First thing i need to say before any of my usual rambling is how grateful i am to Stuart at Terrain Geek for dropping me some free samples in the post to review !


Unfortunately having missed the postman, i had to go tromping to the local post depot to collect them ! (to be fair thats a blatant lie its only 5 minutes away from work !!!)

In my nice package i was surprised at the amount id been sent, i was expecting maybe 1 or 2 base inserts but got a nice surprise on opening to find all these beauties !







So what i ended up with are (in no particular order !): 3x packs of Broken Road Base Inserts (suitable for 30mm, 40mm and 50mm lipped bases), 2x packs of Ice Shard/Cracked Earth Base Inserts (suitable for 30mm and 40mm lipped bases) and 2x packs of Overgrown Industrial base Inserts (suitable for 40mm and 50mm lipped bases), also a nice little note mentioning the other types soon to be available, in total there will be Broken Road, ice Shard/Cracked Earth, Overgrown Industrial, Scattered Stone and Woodland - so a good selection for all kinds of minis !

The inserts also match up nicely to the existing line of round and round lipped bases Terrain Geek sell for very reasonable prices.

The inserts themselves come in various sizes as you might be able to tell from my little ramble above !! and something i found nice and helpful was that each label has a lipped base size it will fit and also a normal slottabase size it will fit on top of


The resin itself is a tough white resin, and after having a good close inspection i couldnt see any bubbles or miscast errors etc, so was quite happy to start with, now white doesnt take too good photos so i gave them a wash (causing no end of hassle off the wife for using up the last of the washing up liquid !!), then once these had dried i gave each base a Sepia wash so the details can be better seen, so onto the pictures !

first up we'll have a look at the Overgrown Industrial bases, 2 packs of these and i ended up with 3x 40mm inserts and 2x 50mm inserts






Now as you can see the white doesnt take too good a pic so lets have a look at some Sepia washed ones:






Firstly with these you can see they do have a heavy industrial look to them, broken pipes, sheets of metal and a sort of sandy texture which can be painted up as dirt/gravel/rubble whatever really, my first thought was these would look pretty good on 40k bases (well duh !!), but then looking again they wouldnt be too out of place for Warmachine jacks or even some of the other sci fi games such as Dark Age or Infinity, looking at these at first i wasnt overly keen, but the wash really brings out the textures and the detailing on the armour plates etc lying around

Next up we'll have a look at the Ice Shard/Cracked Earth Inserts, now these i got a different set of sizes compared to the Industrial ones - 5x 30mm base inserts and 3x 40mm base inserts, again lets have the obligatory useless white photos !



And the after wash photos:



One of the first things i thought whilst looking these over was that realy they dont have to be used as ice, it could quite easily be substituted for broken paving slabs or even sheets of metal etc, allowing you to mix them in with other bases like the Overgrown Industrial ones above, again these have a sandy texture on them too so you could paint as snow/gravel/rubble/dirt etc etc, so these could be used for both SciFi or Fantasy bases, and i think for a themed army something like this with the obvious variety of styles will really make a difference on a force whether a large scale or skirmishy game !

Finally we get onto the last of the Inserts i was sent - Broken Road, now i got 3 separate packs of these containing 5x 30mm inserts, 3x 40mm inserts and 2x 50mm inserts, again lets have some pre and post Benidorm shots !






No those arent ginger nuts !

I think these are probably my favourites out of the ones ive been sent, ive been looking for something to base my Relics minis on and think ive found just what i need !!, again like the Ice Shard and Overgrown Industrial you have some sculpted detail, in this case broken stones etc and again some sand like texture around them, just like the others though theres more than 1 use for them, i think these would work well as cracked earth with a lava effect on them in the cracks.

Overal thoughts then ?

well im very impressed with these, very nice casts, no errors i can see, no bubbles etc, and very reasonable prices too, there was another note in my package with the other sizes soon to be available and also giving the prices, but it did say 99% certain so may or may not change !

22mm (fits 30mm round lipped/25mm round) - 5 for £1.99
31mm (fits 40mm round lipped) - 3 for £1.99
41mm (fits 50mm round lipped) - 2 for £1.99
35mm (fits 40mm round) - 3 for £1.99
60mm (fits 60/65mm round) - 2 for £2.49
108mm (fits 1200 round lipped ) - 1 for £3.99
115 x 87mm Oval (fits GW oval flier base) - 1 for £3.99

I think ill be getting several of these for myself, especially at those prices, will look really nice on my Relics Brittanan and Nuem forces, just need to make my mind up on which to choose !

Saturday 8 September 2012

Yes its that time again - Bushido !!!!

well almost completed the haul of Bushido minis i had ! some with and without flash photos, should remember to change the camera settings next time !!
















and ive done some work on the next 2 Oni, some conversions here that have turned out pretty good !









looks like Ogre Kingdoms hands and weapons fit pretty well on Oni !


Sunday 12 August 2012

Saturday Night Fun !!!

well Saturday seems to definitely be my day of doing stuff. Managed to get the wash done one the Bakemono after my comparison post this afternoon







Then i decided to work on a conversion id discussed with my mate who the Bushido Minis belong to, he took part in the Indiegogo campaign and got another Savage Wave starter along with another Waka, but we had a chat and he asked me to make them different so with that in mind....








we now have Waka wielding a nice big mallet, Balemono included for an idea of scale !! Mallets not been glued in yet so i may have him holding it more toward the other end

Saturday 11 August 2012

Devlan Mud vs. Army Painter Strong Tone vs. Coat d'Arms Super Shader Dark Brown

So after running almost to the end of my last bit of Devlan Mud i needed to find an alternative to use, at Salute i picked up some Army Painter Washes and some Coat d'Arms super shader to try out

not wanting to ruin any painted figures and after some comparisons of the same effects i rounded up a triplet of useless bodies from my bits box, painted each one Khemri Brown as i find that always looked good after a Devlan Mud wash and tried each out to see if any were close !

so here we go with subjects A, B and C







First off, who was washed with what ?

Subject A  was washed with Devlan Mud
Subject B was washed with Army Painter Strong Tone
Subject C was washed with Coat d'Arms Super Shader Dark Brown

one of the first things i noticed was how similair the Army Painter wash was to Devlan Mud, but hte Coat d'Arms was quite thick looking, looked a little like melted chocolate in the pot, but was quite thin and more ink like when i got some out

all 3 of the subjects dried at around the same time, A and B to a  matt finish, but C has a glossy finish to him.

both A and B have no surface "pooling" on them, but C does unfortunately

looking at the pics above im sure you can see theres almost no difference between subjects A and B, whereas subject C has a definite glossy brown finish to him !

so it looks like the Army Painter Strong Tone is a good substitute for Devlan Mud, whereas the Coat d'Arms is more like a dip, now i can see this still being useful, but not for how i use the washes

ive also found whilst looking around that Coat d'Arms have a product called a "Super Wash" which claims to be a good replacement for the GW washes that were available before a change in their paint range, so ill be trying to pick one up and do a comparison to see whether it is or not, but for now it looks like Army Painter is winning so far (plus it comes in an 18ml bottle too for less the price of a GW Wash !!)