A very little update

Put some more tufts of grass on the base and put most of the figures on needles for painting. Yeah, I know, one of them already look painted, but he's not going to be a US Cavalry trooper any more so I will repaint his jacket and trousers at least. Maybe the hat too. Still think I'm going to call this Wimoweh, even though none of the lions are asleep. :-D

More Mithril

Dug a little in the cellar and found some elves from Prince August's Mithril range. First! Why are they green? Are they seasick? Yes! No, at the time there was paint called fantasy-paint, just the same as Humbrol acrylics, but with names instead of numbers. So these elves are painted with a colour called "elf skin", the humbrol number I don't remember. Orcs are painted with the colour "orc skin" which is the same as Humbrol 5030.

First a couple of elves on a raft in the Mirkwood (not Lothlorien! These are from the Hobbit-range, I think at least).

Then Glorfindel. An elf I would have liked to see in Bakshi's Lord of the Rings-movie back in the late 70s and I was very disapointed when they had Legolas instead. So here he is, Glorfindel! :-D

Elrond, reading from a book. Not very comfortable way to read a book. I would recommend a cozy chair!

And, last, but not least, a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS from the Great Goblin.

Riddles in the dark

I said on Pascal's (Sam's Mini World) blog that I would try to show my hobbits from Prince August's Mithril range. Here are two of them, Bilbo and Gollum.

Painted mid 80s with Humbrol's matt enamel and with a sharpened tooth-pick (didn't use a brush at the time).

And here are two more hobbits in an even less safe situation, Merry and Pippin.

And here is a lute-player. All of them is in scale 28mm. (Hmm, on the homepage they say 32mm).

Somewhere I have Sam, Frodo and Shelob and all of the brotherhood. But I don't have the time to look for them right now so this will have to do. Can really recommend Prince August's Mithril range. And you can buy fantasy moulds to cast your own figures too. :-D Some moulds are 25mm they say, but they are NOT 1/72.

http://www.mithril.ie/

http://www.princeaugust.ie/

But VERY VERY VERY expensive!!! Didn't cost so much when I bought them! Pity. :-(

Big game hunters

These two figures I planned to use with that antelope. No Airfix-antelope anymore, at least not in my plans. Ordered some Preiser-animals instead. Here the hunters are with a dead cheese-doodle.

Me and Valter

Thanks to our dear friend Alex Valter and me are now in scale 1/72 too. :-D

And this is how tired Valter became after being copied. :-D

Last stand!

Finished my wild west diorama at last. Figures used are Waterloo1815, Imex, Airfix, Italeri, ESCI.

And Valter is NOT in scale. At least not on this pic.

New warpaint!

Painted over the old warpaint yesterday.

You can also see the base for my next project. Managed to make some new warpaint on them and this will have to do.

Started to do a little on the next project. Couldn't find that Airfix-antelope, though. Only some sheep and pigs from Airfix and they will not fit in this little dio.

New investment

Managed to find corks. :-D In the wine-store! :-D Pretty cheap too. :-D Going to need them for my next project. Think I have that Airfix-antelope lying around somewhere in the collection and I don't dare glue it on a bottlecap.

Warpaint on

Put warpaint on. Happy with the faces not so happy with the bodies. Found some pics on the net, but forgot where so painted from memory. Also, only two horses and six figures to glue on the base. :-D

Started to collect corks. Shared a bottle of wine Saturday and saved the cork. Already have plenty of needles.

Wash and go

Repainted the feathered headgear (name in English, please) and quite satisfied. :-D Some warpaint on, unfortunately invisible. :-(  Re-do! Also started to glue some figures on the base, so it's going forward and maybe I'll finish this year. :-)

Some progress

Painting the riders. Not satisfied with the chief. Going to do a little research on his headgear. Going slow, but forward.

Cut off the bases and finished all the figures that had a base. Right now it looks like after the battle, but it will look better when I'm finished. :-D

A very early preview on my riders

Started with the riders.

Yes, I'm painting them with GW Dwarf Flesh. I think that GW Tanned Flesh is too massive brown. I've found some pictures of Sioux with bodypaint and these will get some. So some progress, slowly, but forwards :-D.

A little (well, not so little) update.

At first I was going to call this "Horses for courses II", but this title is better. Saturday I painted a little more on my Indian horses. Waterloo1815 are really a great joy to paint and I felt very happy with what i had done. I thought I could see a finished dio somewhere in the future and really was happy. Here is a pic taken Saturday morning.

And I thought next step would be blankets and then paint a little more next weekend. Saturday night a neighbour had a party (we wasn't there, we are just neighbours). Valter slept all night, the missus managed to fall asleep when the party ended at four Sunday morning. I didn't get any sleep at all so I finished my horses. Next step is to remove the bases and do some more work on the riders.

Horses for courses!

Started painting the indians horses. Feels like they're going to be good. :-D No pics yet though. The riders? Haven't decided yet. Think I'll finish the horses first, finish the dio and THEN paint the riders. That way I will get somewhere with this.

Welcome Pascal from Sam's Minis World.

How to paint indians

Well, I have no idea. And I want a cheap, quick and lazy method so I chosed some of the indians I'm not going to use in my dio to test some variants.

From left to right: GW Tanned Flesh/GW Baal Red Wash, GW Dwarf Flesh/GW Baal Red Wash, Humbrol 5061/GW Baal Red Wash

From left to right: GW Tanned Flesh/GW Ogryn Flesh Wash, GW Dwarf Flesh/GW Ogryn Flesh Wash, Humbrol 5061/GW Ogryn Flesh Wash.

Don't know which method I will use, but I think I'm going to use one of them. And this is the reason I started this blog! To show what I am working on. But then the homelife seemed to collapse and I needed a window to let out some steam. In the future I maybe write the history about the band here. I have written it on paper, but it is eleven or twelve chapters so we'll see what will happen here.

Anybody wanna buy a bad back cheap??? Not yet lumbago, but can get there. Very cheap!!!

13 followers. I think there was 11 last time I looked. Sorry, I can't see who you are, but a very big welcome and a little warning, almost anything can happen here and not everything happy. But you are welcome to write comments. Bought a book yesterday, will probably start reading it in a month or so, Little Big Man by Thomas Berger. Thanks for the tip mekelnborg.

A bit more crowded

Worked a little more on my dio. When it's finished it will look something like this. The officer is NOT shooting the fleeing Airfix-trooper.

Still waiting for my indians. When I add them it will be even more crowded. :-D

Theme from an imaginary western

Nah, just a good title. Been playing a little with my wild west dio. This is in no way finished. Just some pics on a work in progress. I'll put them up at Benno's too. I'm going to add more grass and also put some washes on the figures. So there's a lot of work left to do. And haven't got my indians yet either.

Positive update with pics

As usual when I rant I can update with pics on some progress. Pretty frustrating, but that is the way it is. Over to the pics! Managed to give them beards and hair yesterday. Not as good at this that I was 20 years ago, but when the dio is finished you won't see them this close. :-D All they need now is washes and boot colour. I'm also on good way with the bases (both the secret and Wildwest).

Rant

Sorry about this. I try to not write to much about bad things now, but this time was too much. Yesterday's quote from the missus: "People our age don't have hobbies." And when I asked what age people did have hobbies she didn't know she didn't come from that background. But her mother has gardening as a hobby, her brother's interested in sports, her sister and father were interested in writing. She do come from that background, but she can't see that. And people at any age have hobbies, cars, sports, learning something new, etc, etc. It is good and relaxing to have a hobby. But if you have to fight to do your hobby it don't get relaxing it become a stress and that's where I am right now. Don't know if I'm going to finish anything right now. Again, sorry about the rant, but now you know why you probably won't see any updates soon. Or you will. Who knows, she is very good at changing her mind so I almost don't know what's up or down. :-(

Update without photos :-(

Did a little more than picking even more mushrooms. Managed to paint two bases, one to the Wild West dio and one to my VERY secret project. And they look almost the same at the moment, that's the reason I won't take any photos of them yet. The secret project should be finished this year (I work very fast don't I? ;-D) and the Wild West dio some time after. Talked with the missus about my missing indians and she said it was much better to order new ones, so I did. Hopefully Harfield's still got them. And also ordered the Waterloo 1815 sioux and some Vikings from Emhar, Gallic Charriot with Warrior Queen from Hat and Vlad Tzepes from Lucky Toys.

A little progress on my boys in blue

Some progress on my boys in blue (and my secret project is almost finished :-D). But my IMEX Sioux seems to have gone back to the reservation, 'cause I can't find them anywhere. If I still can't find them when my blue boys are finished I'll have to buy new and maybe add some Sioux warriors from Waterloo1815 too.

Here we have two of them (one looks like an ESCI Zulu) on an old picture.

At work again

Been playing a little with a little US Cavalry scene I'm going to make. Lots of work left to do and I can't reach my native americans (Imex Sioux) at the moment (two meters up and ther's no room for a ladder on the floor) so they must have to wait a little. And somewhere outside the pic is a secret project! :-D

This guy is almost finished.

But there was other things done during this weekend. We visited the missus cousin and went out in the forest and found some mushrooms. :-D

These chanterelles were picked by the missus brother, but he gave them to us. He's got better forest than we do where he lives so he can pick more.

And this is how tired Valter was after running in the forest with a boxer pal (the missus brother has a white boxer).