One of My Men Became Restless: December 2024

Tuesday, December 31, 2024

25mm Ral Partha (Iron Wind Metals) - Scarecrows

Shoot, I just realized I have at least two others from this former Ral Partha set of Scarecrows, These two came in an Iron Wind Metals blister pack and I hadn't connected that they were from the original RP range. Had I known, I would have done them all at the same time.

Instead, these were painted at the same time I did the Wargames Foundry Animated Scarecrows. A misapplied zenithal highlight nearly ruined these too but I corrected as best I could from the slap chop debacle that ensued.

Everyone know Khaby Lame? He's the TikToker who effortlessly simplifies those over complicated life hack videos from other creators. Anyway, I think he'd appreciate my glowy eyes attempt here. Simply a bright red cavity, followed by a smaller orange dot in the middle finalized by a yellow pin point. I've watched all these air brush guys put in glows and reflected light for OSL techniques, but sometimes a simple three layer sequence works out just fine. The black, hollow eyes were bugging me and needed some dark magic.

Formally, this is the "Scarecrow with Hooked Polearm" at left and of course, "Scarecrow with Scythe Raised" on the right. Both sculpted by Dave Summers.

These will be sub-bosses of some kind for the more rank and file scarecrow figures.

As always, thanks for looking - questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged! I'm doing more and more on Facebook so follow my page there too! https://www.facebook.com/One-of-My-Men-Became-Restless-100659928063858

25mm Wargames Foundry - Animated Scarecrows

That's right, Wargames Foundry. I own a bunch of this stuff for my Sleepy Hollow and witch hunting stuff. Hard to believe what was once state-of-the-art are now simply, quaint. Anyway, painted up, they are perfectly serviceable.

The minions of the Pumpkin King, or the Headless Horsmean (or whoever), are divided along two styles: first, all the pumpkin headed things from the Wars of Ozz range, Reaper, West Wind, and other odds and ends. I still have the Headless Horseman - several different models, and the mounted pumpkin heads. The latter are the animated Scarecrows: I've not yet decided what effects or abilities they will have, or even if they will differ appreciably, but this is the second tranche of scarecrows with some from West Wind comprising the third.

Followers of this blog, know I make a ton of mistakes and then try to fix them without redoing the whole thing. Sometimes this works, other times, my ministrations are marginal.Here I was trying out a zenithal prime for a slap-chop and left way too much black on the front of the models. Some additional dry brushing helped but again, I have to paint over speed paints because the results just looks terrible.

Here's the result:

I spent some time and energy this year punching out leaves in construction paper from Green Stuff Games and was relatively happy with them. Bur when applied, I find some of them, in particular the yellow and orange are so candy colored that they stood out in very unrealistic ways.

So I glue down a patch of real leaf material - the material has no actual leaf shapes in it but are cut, or crumbled, from real dried leaves of some kind. On top of these I glue down the distinctive leaf shaped parts. But as you can see they appear to be standing in bowls of Fruity Pebbles. Delicious, but quite inappropriate.

The fix is to apply Citadel Contrast Ratling Grime over the colored ones to help them blend in, which has been done above.

Group shot! These were all painted at the same time - the second tranche of scarecrow minis: the six Foundry, two from Ral Partha, and a Reaper, (Fellclaw, the Scarecrow Guardian, posted here.) The first tranche were the Harvesters from the Wars of Ozz range seen here.

1/72 Pegasus Hobbies - Russian Farm Houses

Along with the Hovels and the Old Glory Russian buildings I also have some from Pegasus Hobbies, the two model kits seen here as well as the pre-painted Russian and Ukranian houses. They're a tad small but perfectly representative. These had been mostly finished for a few years now but doing the recent Rendra Timvbered Outbuildings made me want to revisit the thatched roof which was quite dark and lighten them up to be more in accord with the Renedra ones. After futzing with that, it was a small step to finish the chimneys, doors, windows and some weathering and la! Complete.

A very angry Perry Peasant seen here for scale. The life of a serf is hard enough, but especially so with these one room dwellings you have to stoop to enter!

Front or back door?

Sometime my "Hey Squirrel" approach can pay off. As I said, these were 80% done, and had been for many years, so just needed a little push to take them over the line. Had I to start them from assembly I likely wouldn't have bothered in 2024. Like this one, I have countless projects in varying levels of completion for when my motivation is something less than peak, I can reap the benefit of finishing a project without having to also start it in the same session. I'm sure I'm not alone here.

The Renedra ones are in the same shape as these were a few weeks ago so it'll be nice to do the apertures, roofs, and chimneys and be done with them. For 2025!

25mm Old Glory - Russian Storage Shed

More battlefield litter in the shape of outbuildings for the 1812 campaign. This one is part of the "Early Russian Buildings" range, but appears to have a metal roof which seems unlikely until maybe a WW2 setting. In any event, this was a quick and satisfying project.

The roof was some done via wet blending with a dark gray and rust to give it a nice weathered patina. Then I spotted on some unmodified silver to show the roof was beautiful metal at one point. The touches that make it really come alive to me is some thinned down Algae Green Speedpaint in the crevasses, then thinned Brownish Decay Speedpaint along the foundations and in other spots here and there.

A very angry Perry Peasant (for scale) rushes out to meet the invaders.

Here it is betwixt the two Renedra Timbered Outbuildings bringing the uninhabitable structures up to three.

Wednesday, December 18, 2024

28mm Renedra - Timber Outbuilding (Updated 12/31/24)

A quick idea, that actually was relatively quick! I borrowed some techniques from YouTuber's Sword & Brushes for this one.

I started from a different spot as this was primed in dark brown. I just painted the wood in a cream color followed by Speedpaint Gravelord Gray. Highlights were just drybrushed grays.

I then used Speedpaint, a diluted Algae Green to suggest light mossy patches in the likely spots. Then I darkened the bottom edges with thinned down Speedpaint Brownish Decay.

For the roof - I basecoated in another cream color followed by Speedpaint Pallid Bone. To define the tiered structure I thinned down Army Painter Bootstrap Brown and dabbed that between each later. In the deeper spots I used thinned down Army Painter Brigadine Brown- just enough to stain some of the straw patches. Then the entire roof was drybrushed with Army Painter Ancient Stone. A final highlight of Army Painter Ice Yellow was drybrushed over the edges and ends.

All in all, it came out nicely. It doesn't really match my other wooden structures for Russia but it is an "outbuilding." It could also be used for Medieval/Fantasy stuff on its own though it is a little bit small. Still, lovely piece.

12/31/24 Edit - I found the other one, then assembled, primed and painted it to join it's companion.

Erm, assembly could have gone better, but one will likely never notice the gap here. In any event, I wanted to capture the base coats - this was over a black prime.

I employed the same techniques as above. The outcomes were so close, even I can't tell them apart!

At the same time I did an Old Glory Russian Storage Shed in the center. That's two Russian Farm Buildings from Pegasus Hobbies in the background.