HAWKS

Norman Dean

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Buck

Here are pictures of the few figures I managed to get painted. Much of the week was spent assembling, priming, and basing some Victrix Vikings.

Most of the beaches are open in Florida except for particularly hard-hit counties. Tom is allowed to travel up to 100 miles from Ft. Rucker, so we are going to meet him for a little beach time. It will be the first time we’ve all been together since Christmas.

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Chris Palmer

      This past week I painted the “Dark Elf Queen on Throne” from the Bones 4 Darkreach Expansion, in my continuing effort to concentrate on working my way through that expansion.
     I prepped the figure in the usual way, soaking the parts in a dish of water with a couple drops of dish-soap added, then giving them a light scrub with a soft toothbrush, and then rinsing and drying them.
    I wanted to make the queen removable so I could use the throne both as a simple terrain piece and also with the queen in place if needed.  I decided to use a pair of rare earth magnets to facilitate this.  So, to begin with, I sliced the tab where the queen is supposed to be mounted off the throne’s seat, and then drilled a hole in both the throne’s seat, and the underside of the queen to fit the magnets.  It was handy to have the site where the tab was on the throne, and the pre-existing hole in the queen, to help align the magnet placement correctly. 

     I then used Gorilla superglue gel to glue the magnets in place, being careful to get the polarity correct.

     I then stuck the queen’s magnet onto an alligator clip in preparation for painting.

   For the throne, I used the superglue gel to glue a fender washer into the recess under the seat to help provide a base that would stick to my magnetic sheet lined storage boxes.   I then glued the back piece to the throne using the superglue gel.  When dry, I glued the completed throne to the top of a pill bottle with a couple drops of Elmers white glue.

      I began by painting the queen with Ceramcoat “Black”.  When dry, I drybrushed the armor with Folk Art Color Shift “Black Flash”.   When the “Black Flash” was dry,  I went over it again with a drybrush of  “Folk Art "Pure Gold”.  After that I painted the face, legs, and hands with Reaper MSP “Dark Elf Skin”.

     Next, I repainted her cape with Folk Art Color Shift “Purple Flash”, and then painted her boots with Reaper MSP “Coal Black”.  I than painted the edges of her cape with the “Black”, and then went over it again with the edges “Pure Gold”.
     After that, I let everything dry for a while, and then gave the entire figure a coat of Citadel “Nuln Oil” wash.   Then, when the wash was dry, I painted the eyes, then highlighted the face, chest, legs and hands with the base “Dark Elf Skin”, and some Reaper MSP “Dark Elf Highlight”.

     I then began work on the throne, which I decided to paint to look like black marble.  I started by painting all the stone parts with the “Black”.   When that was dry,  I used a stiff bristled brush, running my finger across it, to spatter white paint on the throne.  I let it dry some more, and then gave it a coat of the “Nuln Oil” wash.

         Next, I again used a stiff bristled brush, running my finger across it, to spatter white paint on the throne.  I also painted some thin lines to make striations.  After that, I tried to do some highlighting with the “Frosty Blue”. 
     I had deliberated on how to paint the cloth running down the seat of the throne, and had decided to try and paint it as an old ragged repurposed tapestry.  So, I looked on Google for images of tapestries, and decided on this one:

     I felt I could easily adapt it to depict a Dark Elf queen executing a prisoner.  Suitable intimidation for anyone coming before the throne…   
     So, continuing on, I painted the cloth with Americana “Antique White” to resemble an old tapestry base material. I then penciled in the design.  This was going to be quite a challenge.  Luckily, the Queen, when seated would obscure part of it. 🙂

     I then attempted to paint in the design.   I’m not a good artist when it comes to realistic painting,  particularly people, but I made my best effort to get a rough blocked in image.   my fingers were crossed that weathering would help make up for my lack of skill.

      I let the throne dry for a while, and then I gave the tapestry a coat of Citadel “Agrax Earthshade” wash.  I then painted the spider motif on the back of the throne behind the queen’s head, as well as the mounts the throne gems were in, with  Folk Art Brushed Metal “Brushed Bronze”.  After that, I painted the gems with Ceramcoat “Opaque Red”, and painted the crystals on the throne’s base with the “Snow White”.

     I’m very pleased with how this turned out.  It’s a little gaudy and “busy” looking, but I don’t think thats terribly out of place in a Dark Elf setting.  I think the tapestry turned out well; not great, but good enough.  All in all a pretty nice piece I think.

via All Bones About It http://allbonesabout.blogspot.com/2020/06/dark-elf-queen-on-throne-bones-4.html
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Buck

This weekend I ran a social-distancing Wars of Ozz game to celebrate the launch of our Kickstarter. That chewed up most of Saturday between setup, executing the game, and then cleaning up. Saturday afternoon I worked off some items the honey-do list. I did have time to get some painting done, however.

Some months ago, I bought some Flintstone happy meal toys in flea market form Chris Palmer. My original intent was to use them to make a miniature golf course for my town of Granville I use in my pulp games. I saw a post on the Internet of someone who had repainted these buildings to replace the ice cream colors to stone colors. Since the Winkies live in caves in the Wars of Ozz rules, I decided to repaint them to be a village in Wars of Ozz games.

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Buck

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Mark A. Morin

Last weekend I had a lot of fun being on the Imperial Rebel Ork podcast.  It was a lot of fun, and I really appreciated the opportunity.  Though the Imperial Rebel Ork himself (aka IRO) apologized for the audio quality – I thought it was fine.  Hell, we had to have our chat over quite a few miles:

All 10,463 of them.

The podcast is fun (and NOT just because I was lucky enough to be on it).  Here is the link where you can access the podcast on Apple – though it’s on other platforms as well:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/imperial-rebel-ork/id1508066553

And of course IRO has an excellent blog that is well-worth following – he’s amazingly creative.

If you listen to the podcast (and YOU SHOULD ), it’s clear that there are some background details of our discussion that might be of some interest to you.  Basically, it’s about how I got into the hobby back in 1982 or 1983, and how I got back into it in 2015, plus where I’m at now.  So, I will share some anecdotes, pics, and links that many of you may not have seen before.

I described how I was a traditional board game wargamer – I really got my first wargame – Avalon Hill’s Afrika Korps – probably when I was 10 or 11.  Others followed, like Waterloo, and War at Sea.  Finding opponents was not easy – most of my friends and family thought these games to be uninteresting at best.  Later, at West Point, fate got me as a roommate the irrepressible Dave Wood – who was a wargamer as well!  We spent hundreds of hours playing the aforementioned games, but also especially Victory in the Pacific and Panzer Leader.

A major influence on my hobby was to come through Dave – and that was an introduction to Buck Surdu, who was at West Point in the class behind me and Dave.  Buck had already written and had published his own sets (sets – not a set) of rules for different wargames.  My first meeting with Buck was when Dave brought me up to a session that Buck had set up in the Department of Foreign Languages classroom – it was a giant fantasy miniature battlefield covered with old 25mm Ral Partha, Grenadier, Minifig, and other miniatures.  This was set up on desks put together and covered with old US Army OD blankets as mats.  I had never seen anything like this before – and I was stunned – and hooked.  Buck had written the rules for the game as well.  Before long, both Dave and Buck were lending me figures to paint for them as I wanted to try that too.

The first units I painted for them still exist!  One was a group of Minifig halflings that Dave had that he let me paint for him.  I did not really know anything about painting with highlights, washes, or dry brushing back then.  Kindly, Dave gave them to me a few of years ago that I described here.  I flocked their bases and varnished them, but left them unchanged otherwise.

A second unit was one I painted for Buck – a group of pig-faced Orcs that I think were from Minifig.  I decided to give them a pretty gaudy paint job – with a Captain America theme.  They were the “All-American Orcs”.  Buck still has them and took a couple shots to show them to you in all their ancient “glory”:

Mind you, these were painted before my class graduation in May 1984, but I used no varnish back then so there are chips, and no flocking (washers were enough for me then) – but I’m happy to see them again, and humbled that Buck has kept them around.

Another unit (that I don’t have pictures of but Dave has somewhere) was a punk/new wave blue, red, and green mohawk-wearing group that I called “Paddy’s New Wave Bar and Grill Conscript Militia”.  Yup, that was a thing back then.

Also, I, Buck, Dave, Doug Morris (’85), and another ’84 classmate Ken Thrasher also had Sunday night campaigns of Tunnels and Trolls (a role-playing game that competed with Dungeons & Dragons back in the day).  The campaign I ran focused on a Balrog wizard who had dimensionally transported himself to the US in the 1960’s – and used LSD and other drugs – and then returned to rule a mountain lair replete with monsters, traps and puzzles with a 1960’s theme.  The Balrog’s name?  Why Purple Haze of course…

After graduation, I still puttered around with painting my own figures, as well as casting some in Price August molds using – of all things – fishing lead weights.  I was deployed to Germany, and got to host Buck and a friend of his in 1987 for a couple of gaming weekends and a side trips to Paris via Verdun.  They were stationed in Italy.  Buck recently shared this blast from the past with me – a big game using Buck’s Fantasy Miniature rules with some edits that I made.  You cannot see a lot, but I made the game analogous to a Bastogne 1944 scenario – with sprites, dwarves, halflings, orcs and more.  We used stuff like lichen and Styrofoam as terrain.

Then my hobby activities slowed to a crawl.  I was a divorced single parent, then remarried, then divorced, then remarried…in the Army, then out…in many parts of the US, then more this and that…fast forward to 2015…

I had always saved all my miniatures and paints.  I knew I would eventually get back to the hobby, but when?  Well, a chimney fire required us to move a lot in the cellar during a rebuild, and my wife was moving my minis – and I said, “I’ll take care of them”.  Next thing I know I’m painting again, gaming again, and blogging about it starting back in 2015.  My first project was “The Nightmare Legion”, which only took more than three decades to complete – and was the subject of my first blog post in March of 2015,

On the podcast, IRO discussed a few aspects of my hobbying that you may not have seen before if you are a relative newcomer to the blog.  So, here are a few links if you want to take a gander if you’d like some context:

Casting

Duck Wader and the Star Duck Platoon

Aphids

Mark 1 Sphere Tank

Aztecs

WWII tanks using poster tack

I hope you enjoyed this romp down memory lane in conjunction with the podcast – if you have similar memories, or completely different ones – feel free to comment.

Oh yeah, if I follow or comment on your blogs, or you on mine, you all inspire me. 

Thank you!

from Mark A. Morin https://markamorin.com/2020/06/26/my-hobby-origins-and-wow-im-on-the-imperial-rebel-ork-podcast/
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Chris Palmer
     "Wars of Ozz" is a 28mm Mass Fantasy Battle Game inspired by the ‘Oz’ series of books written by L. Frank Baum between 1900 and 1920. The inspirational literature has been greatly expanded by Russ Dunaway, to form a unique new fantasy gaming world to battle over, populated with Munchkins, Quadlings, Winkies and Gillikins combined with Witches, Wizards, Pumpkin Men, animated Scarecows and Tinmen, Giants, Trolls, Skeletons and much, much more.
The miniatures range has been designed, sculpted and manufactured by Old Glory and when fully released will include 60 packs of miniatures.

     The ‘Wars of Oz’ rules are written by Buck Surdu, author of Gaslight and Combat Patrol among many more published works. The game is a mass battle rather than a skirmish game. Infantry units are 20 strong, mounted 4 to a base. Two or more units of Infantry, Cavalry or Artillery are formed into a Brigade and an Army is comprised of one or more Brigades. The game is designed to be played on a standard 6’ x 4’ wargames table, with a typical game reaching its conclusion in two to three hours. The rulebook covers the background and history of Ozz, army building, movement, melee, ranged combat, magic and morale together with points lists for tournament play, scenarios, maps, campaign and painting guides.

Check it out here: “Wars of Ozz” on Kickstarter  , and don’t miss the kick-off on Saturdayt!

via One More Gaming Project http://onemoregamingproject.blogspot.com/2020/06/wars-of-ozz-kickstarter-launches-this.html
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Mark A. Morin

Dorothy, this definitely ain’t Kansas…

This looks to be an exciting new game!  My buddy Buck Surdu has teamed up with Old Glory and Sally 4th on this project – the link is here.  It launches on June 27th, 2020.

There’s a great description at Beasts of War here’s a snippet from that page:

Wars Of Ozz Kickstarter Coming Soon

The idea is that the rules here take Baum’s world and give it a little bit of a post-apocalyptic Earth twist. Things then get even more quirky with the addition of the “Madness Bomb” which got dropped into the mix during the “Last Great War” where survivors were mutated and chaos reigned until the Wizard finally arrived.

This then all distills down into a new mass battle game with miniatures sculpted and cast by the team at Old Glory. All of the miniatures are cast in lead/tin and are you’ll be able to buy armies to build up your mass of troops as well as characters to lead them into battle.

There is more there to check out, and the miniatures look amazing.  Here’s a shot of the Pumpkin Men:

I love the Tin Men:

And whatever these are – they look cool!

Just to be clear, I have no financial stake in this whatsoever, though I will likely be diving in to get some of this stuff, as well as the rules.

Thought my followers would enjoy checking this out, what do you think?

from Mark A. Morin https://markamorin.com/2020/06/25/wars-of-ozz-game-and-kickstarter-coming-june-27-2020/
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Buck

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Buck

I actually finished these on Monday, but I have been too busy to post anything this week about the hobby. Here are some figures that I painted that were part of the Star Hat Miniatures duck Kickstarter.

I am working on a few more odds and ends, like some Bad Squiddo WWII children and some Pulp Figures “Dangerous Dames.”

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