28mm Reaper Miniatures - Beggar from Townsfolk II

 This guy I'm including in my Revolting Peasants project. The strumpet and blacksmith that came with him won't have the mud bases, so I'll paint them up with the other medieval/fantasy civilians. 

He stands taller than the Old Glory Revolting peasants next to him, BUT if you look where his feet are, he's about exactly in line with them. His mud pile is just a little bit taller. 

He came out pretty good - and I painted him in the same method I did for these peasants, making him stylistically part of the mob. Those are a new batch of Old Glory peasants in the background coming soon.

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

Diabolical Terrain Dreadroad Ambush and Brite Minis Trees

 My arbitrary commitment to myself is to finish these revolting peasants, allowing only terrain items to interfere with this challenge. I picked all of this up at Historicon this year - the three standing trees, I think, at the Trainwreck 3D booth. 

First up are two scales of the same tree, simply labled "Tree" from Brite Minis. They come in a pale orange, but paint up nicely. 

They are probably supposed to be flocked, but I'm always looking for scary tree models

This mix below is from Diabolical Terrain and is from a nice box set called "Encounter Box 6: Dreadroad Ambush." It also comes with a (horseless) medieval wagon and a low flat bridge, which I will get to anon. 

The fallen trees are intended to block a road. They can be used anywhere, of course. I guess the rocks hide ambushers. And of course they can be used wherever.

This is by no means a layout - I just want to see it amongst other terrain items. Renedra outbuilding and a Perry Medieval Cottage in the background.

I sprinkled in some of the fallen/dead tree items from Monster Fight Club for comparison. There's plenty of cover for any skirmish-sized game. Again, I would never set it up so unnaturally for a real game.

Part of what makes a scary forest scary is a deep dark canopy and undergrowth that hides whatever monstrosity your imagination can conjure up. While each of these pieces is sinister by itself, they lose what makes them frightening in big groups like this. I have enough to do a small cluttery table with dead, fallen trees and stumps, but I'm going to transition to more thickets of impassable but obscuring terrain. Still, having a large variety of scatter options is always useful. 

And 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 Mujja's Forge - Wooden Fence Set

 

I found these (unpainted) on Etsy for $6. Not awful, though these particular prints had a lot of spider webbery material. 

6 with shipping is probably too much for them, but I got some other odds and ends at the same time. 

They are a smidge smaller than I was hoping, however. 

Some Silver Bayonet figures for scale comparisons. I spose one could trip over them, but they aren't really substantial enough to hide behind (unless you're the goblin). They might be better to fence off a small grave instead.

Cute little things I guess - this is the pic they sold me on

All in all, they are fine: 10 inches of dilapidated fencing for a lonesome country road. It took very little time to paint and base.

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

28mm Renedra Medieval - Wattle & Daub Outbuildings

Two more buildings from Renedra. I've got to get more medieval buildings in play, but I've not decided yet on what I need. Pretty sure it will be 3D prints of some kind as I've not been thrilled with the resin or laser-cut wood ones. I've liked the Gripping Beast ones but they are out of stock. 

These are outbuildings, not dwellings, so they'll be on the table somewhere, but not centrally. 

 

These are Old Glory 25mm peasants for scale comparisons

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

25/28mm Northern Crusades Miniatures: Medieval Ruined House

 I picked this up at an HMGS con last year, I think. It was not from the manufacturer, as this particular one had all kinds of printed buildings in a jumble. 

Still, serviceable little thing, useful almost anywhere, though drybrushing really brings out the print lines. I notice I was also charged $6, when the manufacturer charges $5.

Warlord French infantry with Wargames Atlantic zombie heads for scale. 

It took just an hour or so over the course of a couple of days, picking out individual stones, drybrushing, and finishing with some speed paints. 

I'm still working on the Warlord O'er the Hills and Far Away, British, but needed something small to do in between all the details and flippin' straps. I've also boosted the box contents by an extra sprue, swelling it up a bit. This has taken many, many sessions, as I'm, even with AP Fanatic, having to go over and do the two thin coats virtually everywhere. I really want a solid foundation as I've never done British Napoleonics in 25/28mm before. There are easier and faster ways I know, but I'm doing my traditional layering approach. 

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

28mm Black Orc Games - Hundred Kingdoms - Kingdom of Avalon - Friar

Many were excited about Hundred Kingdoms - a miniature agnostic, faction-based miniature game from Black Orc Games. They were going to have, literally, a hundred different factions to pit against one another. I think they only did ten before packing it in. 

This is one of two Friars - the one sculpted by Drew Williams, not Gene Van Horne. 

This is another I painted up and photographed in the early 2000's. 

He'd be a good combatant in the Peninsula War, or even in medieval games too, I reckon. 

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

28mm Reaper Miniatures - Maria Roseblade

Little blurry, but you get the idea. I found the pictures, not the miniature itself, in a file called "Reaper" all by themselves. These photos were taken in December of 2005, when I was more focused on this kind of thing. 

I think I painted this at the request of a friend of mine who wanted her player character for D&D on the tabletop. Occasionally, I come across the question in forums about how much one has improved their painting over the years. This one suggests I may be worsening! Looks pretty good to me! Probably Polly-S paints too. 

Further, I didn't start this blog until 2010, and I was pretty active in the early 2000s, painting for our group. Some have been posted here already, others I stumbled across quite by accident, as I did this one. There'll be more from that era in between current projects as I find them. 

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

28mm North Star Military Figures - Oathmark Heavy Dwarves - Unit 2 and Heroes

 Ok, the black armor came out better than the former unit, so THIS is the Black Metal Heavy Dwarves unit. 

Most of the faces were visible here, allowing for the corpse white faces, the blackened eye sockets, and blackened lips. The GW/Tolkein take on Dwarves is that they are vaguely Scottish, but another strong theme copies a Viking sensibility. So starting there, but trying a more paganistic angle, I aped the look of black and death metal bands. I'm more of a Thrash guy, but I have some fondness for the early progenitors of the genres that took off in Gothenburg and Norway.  The metal armor here is black, so the only real color is denim sleeves and the surcoat, where it peeks out here and there, all with silver studs - a basic look for metalheads. The flag itself is a giveaway as to inspiration here - more on that below. 

At least for the Dwarves, the "Hero" pack is the most armored of them all, so these are included below as well. The "Champions" seem to fit in with the regular Dwarf Infantry, and the Dwarf King, Wizard & Musician, I'll do when I get to the Light Infantry. 

Easy to do the Black Metal face on the, er face. I probably should have done her hair black too, but I don't see that in musicians of this genre; they tend to wear their hair in natural colors. I have some small regrets about doing her ears in white. I think it's mostly just the face that is painted. Ah well. 

As with the hammer gal, I have one regret - I left the ears flesh colored, but I did his bald head all white too. I also see my brush tips are too blinkered to do fine scratches on the hammer head. 

Armor on everyone was done with ProAcryl Dark Silver, this was highlighted with Army Painter Plate Metal, THEN it was given a layer of Armor Wash from P3. For the first unit of heavy dwarves, I used the armor wash before all the highlighting. All gold was Glittering Gold from Two Thin coats. That is a magic paint, I tell you, very finely ground and just lovely in one coat. It's nice, bright, and punchy against all the darker colors here. 

This is the intended officer - a plastic mini, whereas the Heroes are metal.

There are three swordsmen among the rank and file, and I love the idea of swords being super bright which is more evident in real life than in this pic, but I gotta sing the praises of Vallejo Model Air - Silver. It is the brightest, smoothest silver I've ever used; I'll be using it wherever I can for final highlights on white metals. These particular swords had small mould lines along their lengths that I neglected to eliminate, marring the overall effect, but still: satisfactory. 

If you don't know, the Little Big Men Studios, Shield and Banner set is not intended to work with the Heavy Dwarf set. Yes, the smaller gray banner fits on this flag pole, but the better one (the black one) is twice the height! Too bad, it really would have been perfect for this unit. Where did this flag come from? Google found me the goat on a black field, Google Gemini provided the "dwarfish runes, border and symbols." In Excel, I made three cells with a blue background, then pasted two flags side by side within the blue borders and printed, then cut it out and touched up the edges. Easy peasy! 

This is many times more effective than the Excel flag I made for the Perry Linebreakers in this picture. I really need to go back and redo that. I have transfers and stuff that can make this infinitely better. 

For this flag, here's what I started with. One prompt later:

I wouldn't say these are Chaos dwarves, but they could also just be evil dwarves. Oathmark allows for strange allyships with the way the campaign map works, so these could easily be in alignment with an Undead Oathbreaker faction, or go against other dwarves in a civil war-type scenario. OR they could just be the strange toughs in an otherwise traditional Dwarf army.

Here are all the heavies mopping up a unit of orc archers. Heh, behind those mountainous facades are the assembled, but unprimed knights from Wargames Atlantic I need to get to. 

Building plastic kits, or cleaning up models and priming them up, is fun and rewarding in and of itself. However, I have locked myself in with primed models everywhere, on this table, my former "main" painting table, on shelves, everywhere I look. So instead of not buying anything til I paint up something, I'm not going to build or prime anything new until I get some of this stuff completed and out of here. I've had a good run in 15mm last year and cleared off a lot of old projects, but it's time to get some of this 25/28mm stuff completed. 

Anyone else read Bernard Corwell's Sharpe novels? I've read all but the two latest ones, but just completed Sharpe's Assassin, which has me itching to get some of this Peninsular War stuff into play. Yes, I've tended to focus on Russia, but I plan to do a comparable project for Napoleon's western front in Spain and Portugal. New Perry releases are also contributing to this mania with the brilliant Skirmish in a Box and now a new set of Guerrillas coming out as I type this.

I've daringly invested in more medievals, too. This is a project I never had much love for, but that early side that the Barons Wars era covers has got me in its clutches! I would love to assemble all this stuff from Victrix too, but I'd be forced to carry them around in my hands, having no surface on which to put them down! I need to build the rest of the orcs and dwarves too!

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