as it's May...

as it's the start of May, I figured I'd quickly get this finished... it's been a thought for a while and is a simple enough quick bit of scenery...

the Maypole itself is one of my Woodland Scenics trees which I decided to sacrifce as finding a straight and sturdy twig was not going well... the branches were removed and a bit of g/s added to give the stump look, not that you can see them well in the pic, there are also wedges at the base were the pole was stuck in the ground... the upper garland was an old Citadel plastic shield with the main shield removed leaving just the rim, wire keeps it hanging down from the top and loads of g/s was smothered over the shield rim to get a nice irregular shape... this was then covered in a mix of leaves and purple flower bits... I had tried several different ways of doing ribbons, using thin plasticard, g/s and paper but nothing looked right... the lower garland started life as a way of having some decorative ribbons against the pole... then I discovered something very strange... they didn't have ribbons - they are a Victorian invention, as are most of the dances, and even more oddly, an invention attributed to John Ruskin, the reknowned artist (and alleged paedo) that my former university and current employer is actually named after... turns out he thought it was good healthy fun and when he was training teachers, he taught them the dances and they went to schools all over the country and took it with them - so that really annoying attempt at synchronised dancing in primary school is his fault... on the plus side I didn't need to worry about bloody ribbons...

so, just an interesting piece that any good puritan witchfinder could take great objection to...

and as you may have noticed, the flowers from Salute have made a showing, I need to restrain myself...

the swimmer WIP

a bit of silliness really, but I had the armoured pikeman on the sprue and was wondering what I could do with him... historically, witches of course would be swam, this entailed more than just chucking them in the river as you needed to get them out again so the witches were usually tied by rope to men on either bank or in boats...  if they floated, they would be hauled out and prosecuted for witchcraft - which would I assume depend on how much slack the swimmers on either bank gave the rope... anyway, with this image in my noggin, I fancied trying something different with some wire I have kicking about and figured that in a gaming situation, the swimmer would need to catch the witch in the first place... the fact that he's wearing plate armour so he can get close to the target just screamed do it... so there you go, no idea if he'll get finished or even have a practical role in a game, but he's there...

Salute 2012

well... up until last week, I'd not really planned on going, but I'm glad I did (thanks Ben and Akkie for the peer pressure)...

quick edited highlight of the sights... Akkie's sudden obsessive compulsion disorder evolved from not really getting involved this year to doing a massive fantasy WW1 game between German Goblins and British Hobbits and Russian Dwarves... the table was great work, but it actually required the creation of two new ranges of figures just so the Hasslefree Kindred had someone to fight against...

Frothers had 4 tables this year, the above FWW1 game, a fleet scale Babylon 5 game, Frothy Races with bonkers chariots and Shadow Over Froth Street - a Cthulhu fest over Rev Nice's black and white printed scenery which went on to win Most Innovative Game, which was 2 years running for Frothers and that award... sadly, I have no decent pictures of any of them, not being tied to a table this year I really took my time wandering about and missed the home-side stuff... ooops

Crooked Dice had a couple of tables this year, a big game of On Her Majesty's Crooked Service...

inside the lair...

and they also had some small quick play games, this one was Fiddlers Green and was just a really nice, simple and good looking little board... love it...


always a highlight to look at was the Oshiro Terrain table... stunning Japanese eye candy which my photos don't do justice to... if I had the space and the money...

the Warlords put on a Captain Scarlet road game, using various diecast cars and figures from Crooked Dice...

various other games included a historical WW1 game where shelling caused a river to burst it's banks and reduce the battlefield to a floodplain... I'd never seen anything like it before from a gaming point of view and thought it was a great idea... aside from historical accuracy, it just looked good...

I quite liked the look for the massive Sevastapol game...

a Doctor Who game using the Character Building figures (essentially not-Lego)...

a really nice table for some Roman bashing action... the celtic village was nicely done and the terrain as a whol was something I'd love for my Folk Horror stuff... again, space and money...

and as far as we could work out down the pub after the show, this won best game this year, but have no idea what it was all about... used a lot of Ainsty terrain though...

there were a great many things to see - a couple of Oriental Fantasy games with some nice boards, a quite impressive Napoleonic land and sea game and more than a couple VSF games...

managed to pick up some goodies - the much needed extra heads and some not-Federation Security troops from Crooked Dice, a really nice resin stone circle that was cheaper than if I'd have built it myself, some Warlord ECW clubmen (annoyingly they'd sold out of the dead animals), some flower tufts for bases and a new 4ground release - strictly speaking a medieval hovel, but it will work as an older building...

release the hounds WIP

some shockingly poor photos, but it's a gloomy day today... conversion of the Warlord ECW command sprue musician (again oddly - strange that I find that the most workable of the 3) to be in charge of the hunting dogs that any witch hunt needs...

I haven't decided on a head yet, but will be adding several heads to my head bag this weekend at Salute - am currently thinking the not-Colonel Tigh from Crooked Dice... the base is a normal cavalry slotta with ends replaced with bits from a 25mm slotta... originally it was just the front I did like that to allow the other hounds (on their own 25mm slottas) to cluster together more easily for a pack feel when they are all on the leash, the end of the cavalry base was about level with the back of the handler, but the sword projected too much and was getting twanged and bent, so I added one that end as well to take the pressure off the plastic sword... the g/s hides lots of bracing above and below and it's quite sturdy... I tried to replicate the pose from the Warlord Ancient Briton pack handler, so cut off one leg and repositioned it and it's ankle... little bit of g/s to move hands, arms and what have you...



of course, it does occur to me that I may now need to do one without the dog, so will need another command sprue... sigh...

Blood on Satan's Claw

a curious thing happened when I was watching Blood on Satan's Claw the other day... I'd always intended to do the demon to join Angel and had long identified a suitable figure in a Fishman from the Strange Aeons range... I'd always assumed I'd just be adding the hood to the figure as that is how it's seen for most of the film, but I figured I rewatch the end and really have a good look at it's face... as the finale rolled, I got sketching what I was seeing and was very bemused... this is one of my favourite films, I've seen it hundreds of times and continue to enjoy it, but had never noticed before that the demon is a horseshoe bat... now I've seen it, it's blindingly obvious, I had always assumed it was a mis-shapen face based on early demonic images... especially as they show a great example in the film and the glimpses you get throughout the film just add to that twisted face image...


but, a horseshoe bat it is... believe it or not... anyway, back to the figure... the Strange Aeons fishman was perfect, wrapped up in a tattered cloak, with a single hand visible, even if it is a hand rather than a claw, but you can't have everything... it was even the correct hand (oddly you do see one of the coven has given up their left hand to the demon, but you never see it's left hand, nor a right hand missing within the cult)... I decided to skip the hood and try for the full head, the wide head of the fishman was not a million miles away from what I wanted - I closed the mouth slightly, added the nose and ears with g/s and then added some fur to the head, neck and hand... it's not an exact match for the demon or a horseshoe bat, but I like it and it has the strange mis-shapen human nose in profile that is quite visible in a lot of the promotional material...


colours, of course, had to be black and black... and now Angel Blake has her demon...


and before anyone says it, it's not a vampire - there is no vampire folklore in England from that time as far as I'm aware and none will be appearing in my little world - but the fact that it is a horseshoe bat just adds to the feeling of darkness and corruption in bright sunlight that gives the film it's atmosphere...

ghouls, ghouls, ghouls...

finally got around to getting some paint on my ghouls...

annoyingly, what stalled me was what colours to paint them - I'm fine with uniforms and Timelords and what have you, but as soon as I need to decide on a colour, I really do ponder too much... in the end I just picked out the earthy tones from paints, and slapped it on... so it's kind of a slap dash job to an extent as I didn't want to be thinking about the colours too much... it kind of worked - a nice surprise was the WW2 German Uniform green... will use that more for this project I think...

these three are basic Mantic ghouls (although not sure what the camera was focusing on as the faces are a bit blurry)... some minor g/s on the back for the joins...

next were four Mantic ghouls that were heavily g/s'd for the 17th century vibe... quite chuffed with the frilly shirt on the red chap...

finally, a mix and match with Mantic bits added to Warlord plastic ECW figures... the female ghoul is converted from a Redoubt Enterprises ECW villager (with buckets on a yoke thing)...


went with a green grey for the basic skin colour, highlighted up with white and washed with mainly purple, but the odd splosh of green for a unhealthy shade... not a huge fan of lashings of blood and gore and I suspect others may have gone a bit paler, but I quite like the inhuman greyness... similarly I like the all white eyes, but may try some small pupils with a rotring pen or something... gums are also purple if you can manage to see them... I also added a fallen gravestone to one of the bases to go with the priest...