An Update on Life from your boy Blue

Howdy all,

I apologize for the lack of posts over the last couple of weeks....its been a hectic time for old Blue.  This Spring/early Summer has just been a whirlwind in VT.  My work schedule has been insane...I've been traveling for work and a brief holiday in Ohio with my parents...followed by a intensive field school for the museum.  In the midst of all this I was frantically trying to keep up with my painting "obligations" for the LPL and other painting challenges....and just barely keeping my head above water...

...and then...just to top things off...On the 8th of June I fell stumbled down the steps carrying my 2yo son and landed on my ankle sideways....fracturing 3 bones in there.  (my son was fine...)  this put me flat on back for a week...followed by surgery...They used a metal plate and no less than 7 Screws to reattached the most displaced bones...

Thats right.....I'm bionic now!

I don't know whose foot that it is but it looks NASTY!

....surgery, of course, led to more time flat on my back...but at least I had pain killers to help pass the time.

It has now been two solid weeks since the injury....and I'm slowly emerging from the opiate induced haze I've been  living in and starting to reengage with life.  Thanks to a TON of support from my wife, kids, and friends I've survived this far and now just need to wait for the damn thing to heal up.  I'll be in a non-weight bearing cast for a least a month more...and then a walking brace for another couple of weeks...but things are on the mend....finally.

As you can imagine this is meant that not a lot of painting has been accomplished. By sheer force of will I managed to get a team painted for Round 10 LPL.  I had to experiment with some speed painting techniques...and the team still looked rough and got slaughtered at the polls but it was a new team....and that was important for me.  As I find I can spend a bit more time each day in an upright position I have been trying to tackle some of the small lingering tasks from my to-do list.  Namely finishing off the basing and details on various teams from the LPL that I had to turn in without completely finishing by the deadline...as well as getting some photography done....So I'll have a few posts for you all over the next few days just documenting those aspects of what I've been up to.

I hope to be able to spend some quality time behind a paintbrush in the next week or two.

Cheers for now!

Blue

LPL Round 8: Remember the Alamo!

So...For Round 8 of the LPL I was forced to recycle a team....this was a tough decision...this was the first rerun team I've had to use in the last 3 LPLs...sigh.  There was no avoiding it.

In order to try and freshen it up a bit...I finished the bases and took some new "studio" photos.  Once again just wonderful miniatures...please check out the Boot Hill website it is full of wonderful minis.

Cheers,

Blue

LPL Rounds 6 and 7: Return of the Brets

Hey guys...."real life" has really gotten the best of me in the last few weeks...sorry for the lack of postings.  But no need to waste your time grumbling...

For Rounds 6 and 7 I dipped back into the batch painting of the Bretonnians that I've been working on this year.  For these rounds I submitted two teams of Darkenwald Scouts...these are the 5th edition "Squires with Bows" which I envision and the foresters and scouts in my Fluff.  With the completeion of these two teams this unit is all but done...I need to paint the banner and find one more figure...another copy of the guy standing and firing with the hood on....and I'll have a solid unit of 18.

...anyway...here are the pics....Group pic coming soon!

The pictures aren't the greatest as they were taken in a hotel room with less than great lights....also I obviously forgot to bring my basing supplies with me on this trip so those will be finished up later.

Cheers for now!

Blue

Unboxing Goblin King's Battle Chariot...A brief LPL Respite.

This week I thought I would give you all a break from the endless stream of LPL entries....particularly as the next two I have to post are virtually identical anyway...and show off a little something that arrived at my home while I was away on business.  I carried out a trade with Abear over on Bartertown ...I sent him some classic Marauder and Citadel dwarfs and he sent me some 4th ed Savage Orc Boar riders and the classic Citadel Goblin King's Battle Chariot. 

I felt we achieved a very fair trade and didn't give it another thought...until I returned home after being gone for two weeks and found a sizable box on my desk....it seemed too large for the trade that we had arranged...when I opened it I found out why...

...the Chariot came in its original box!  Abear had not mentioned this fact in our discussions so it was a VERY exciting bonus to this trade.  I'm not one to get too caught up in opening blisters or collecting old figure boxes...but I have to admit there was a wave of nostalgia that hit when I held that box in my hands.

...So I thought I'd share the experience with you.

Here is the front of the box...a little beat but still full of charm...

 I love the border on this box...I see where Zhu gets his inspiration!

Here is the back with the Stats and Fluff...

Click for a larger version

Here are all the components in the original Styrofoam tray...The Chariot body and Boar have been assembled already but the other pieces are still loose and untouched.

Here is a close-up of the boar....a very nice model and the right balance of pig and fantasy...very modest in size compared to the boars of later editions.

...And here he his with the cart attached...

Here are the crew member and the Goblin King himself...pretty similar to the one from the new Hobbit Movie right...:) ?!

Here they are in position on their new ride!

Fitting the driver is a little fiddly...but I figured it out eventually...

And an Overview shot of the whole model...

This is really a wonderful model...its a pretty puny chariot in comparison to others from this time period like the High Elf Chariot.  Goblin King's Battle "Cart" might have been a better name for this peice...but it oozes character and charm like most models of this era....and having the original box to go with it is a real joy.



Cheers for now!


Blue

LPL Round 5: "They Just Keep Coming!!!"

Hello everyone!  Just a quick post today to keep you all up to date on my 2013 LPL Run.  This week marked the middle point of this years contest....and the pressure is already starting to get to me....well the pressure and my schedule! 

Anyway...more on that later....back to the shiny bits. 

Besides being the mid-point of the contest, Week 5 also ushered in another of the themed rounds...this time the topic was: Civil War.  When this topic was announced I immediately starting thinking about teams....and I came to the conclusion that I didn't have any figures that could fit this theme.  So that my mind quickly turned to thinking about what historical figures I've seen in the past that I've been itching to paint... and that fit the theme...I quickly settled on the Boot Hill Miniatures Alamo defenders and their excellent Mexican Army figures. 

....a brief digression...
"Was the Texas Revolution a 'Civil War'" you ask? well... that's a question for another time...but I would argue yes...uprisings that succeed are called "Revolutions" but hey still represent a country divided and in open conflict with itself...just like a "Civil War"  Anyway....the kind judges at the LPL agreed that it fit the bill so off I went!

....and now back to you regular programming...

I had really enjoyed seeing the greens of these figures posted by Malamute over on the LPL more than a year ago...here was the perfect excuse to buy and paint a couple of packs.  So off to the the interwebs I went...and soon 4 packs of minis were winging their way across the Atlantic to me (thanks Nick!).

Once in hand the figures did not fail to impress.  Both the fantastic Tennesseans and the Mexican troops are extremely clean sculpts and castings with tons of character, I could tell they were going to be a joy to paint.  Both packs are a perfect mix of historical accuracy and a little Hollywood thrown in for good measure. 

This being a themed round I had at least 10 figures to paint so I prompt cleaned, primed, and got to work! 

Work and life obligations kept painting time to a minimum all week... so I was up till at least 3am on Friday getting thing to a point where I could take a picture and get it sent in....as you can see I didn't quite get the bases done....sigh.  For now I'll just post up my submissionn picture....but you can expect more detailed photos of each figure when I have a chance to get them properly based and re-photographed.

I really enjoyed painting all of these...and though this is not an era I'm really interested in gaming...I see more of these finding their way to my collection and my painting table....

...maybe a diorama...?!

Cheers for now!

Blue

LPL Round 4: Mounted Squires

Its time for my weekly LPL update.  For round 4 I continued to plug away at portions of my Bretonnian themed warband...but this time I moved away from the ever present archers and opted to do a team of Mounted Squires.  Like the rest of the range these guys show the Perry brothers sculpting at their best.  I had originally planned to field a team of 7 including a leader and an standard bearer...but I just couldn't get the standard painted in time...because the F#$%ing horses took forever to paint...so I went with a group of 6 for the contest.  Once the LPL wraps up I'll finish up the standard...and hopefully some more rank and file....if I can find some.

Anyway...here is my entry photo

These figure are armed with a boar spear and have a long bow strapped to their backs so they will make great light cavalry for my Bret force.

The Mounted squire sculpts also feed into my weakness as a collector because there are no less than 18 unique sculpts to hunt down.  At this point I've managed to find 10 of them...3 just arrived today...but I've been beating the bushes trying to find the rest.   If you have any spares please drop me a note!

Here are the ones I'm still looking for:

Thanks for looking!

Cheers,

Blue

LPL Round 3: Last of the Bret Archers

Here is the final group of Bretonnian Archers that I have been working thru.  These just finished competing in the third round of the Lead Painters League over on the Lead Adventure Forum.  Here is the shot I used for the competition:

So I finally have this entire unit of 18 archers in the bag!  Its been a long haul but I very happy with the results...other than the banner which does not live up to the rest of the unit and will need to be reworked before I can completely put this unit in the "win" column.  But until that time here is what they will look like on the table top.

They look great ranked up next to the spear unit I completed for the Bugman's contest...but I will spare you an "army shot" until I get the rest of the troops sorted out.  The Scouts (Squires with bows) are nearly there and you will be seeing some Mounted Squires when they are done competing next weekend.  The halberds are still in primer and will remain that way for awhile...as will the unit of knights that I'm still assembling.... there just isn't enough time in a week!

Cheers,

Blue