As I've been moving away from a one project at a time approach to a little bit of everything approach over the past 6-8 months I figure single project threads like my previous ones ( http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,18100.0.html and http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,18188.0.html) don't really work as well so wanted to create a single thread to post about ongoing projects.

My original title for this thread was Matthew's Marvelous Miscellany but alas that fell afoul of the apostrophe bug!

The following posts will cover some of what I've been up to the past while. Not photographed are the 200 or so crusaders that I've painted recently and have only just received the bases for, so that will be coming in future when I can paint up a few command figures and face the basing marathon and flag making required!

As we've had some good weather I was able to get a lot of my backlog varnished and was able to photograph them all, so will be posting here over the next while.

Enjoy!

Matthew

Look damn fine, Matthew ! 

Cheers - Phil

First up some new command elements for my Crusaders and Saracen forces. I have an idea on using these guys for a campaign so you'll be seeing them again in future complete with names and backgrounds when the Barony of Nusquam and the Emirate of Lamakan come to blows in the far reaches of the middle east.

Figures are a mix of Pendraken and Irregular I believe.

The Crusaders:











The Saracens:









And as a bonus a few marker units to represent spears/lances/heroes:

Bright and cheerful lot.

Next up filling the major gap in the forces of Islam is a whole lot of light cavalry and hordes of horse archers.

Those really are the bee's knees, Matthew !
Big 'pat on the back'......Love 'em ! 

Cheers - Phil

Around Christmas last year I went on a bit of a rare fantasy binge after watching too much Critical Role and playing a few fantasy games like 4 Against Darkness. Plan to use these for Sellwords and Spellslingers if the fantasy urge comes round again. Or is it Spellslingers and Sellswords.

Had a lot of fun with the Pendraken fantasy range and used it to experiment with different techniques for painting and basing, for instance airbrushing, different use of dry brushing and highlights as well lighting and metallics. Was a nice change of pace from batch painting large armies.

First up some undead:









The necromancer I spent a fair bit of time experimenting with, especially the glowing eyes on his staff and the light and shadow effects from that.

And now the good guys:































And given the time of year I was painting these added a bit of festive cheer:

Thanks Alexander and Phil!

More to come later when we visit the Crimea and Mexico...

Very nice work there! 

Cracking stuff 

Nice to see Phil getting out for some fresh air 



(Just in front/right of the grub!) 

Is he doing the Time Walk?





Very fond of the Time Walk is our Phil.

Doesn't get out to the shows much ... not now his legs can't take the stockings.

He can still manage the jumps to the left and the jumps to the right, but the pelvic thrusts ... strong men have been known to faint 

Nah...That's not a selfie.

Hair's too short.

Pelvic thrusts ?..With MY back ?

Belting work, again, Matthew. 

Cheers - Phil

What a great thread!

I love the title too, and I don't think it will disappoint from what we have seen, and what is being foreshadowed.

The necromancer is great, you don't often see lighting effects done in 10mm.
A small suggestion, if I may, the bases of his undead could do with a little something more. One thing I have done on similar bases is to paint in lines to represent flagstones, or similar stone floor. If you use a dark and a light colour you can get a bit of 3D effect pretty easily.

The crusades project promises to be epic - looking to see all of these forces together.

The banjo playing samurai ape is certainly unique!

Thanks for the kind words everyone. Glad you're enjoying it.

Quote from: O Dinas Powys on 30 May 2020, 05:10:59 PM

Nice to see Phil getting out for some fresh air 

 

Quote from: fred. on 30 May 2020, 06:03:10 PM

The necromancer is great, you don't often see lighting effects done in 10mm.

Thanks, it was something I'd wanted to play around with to make him stand out a bit more. I'd originally included a second light source behind him as well but didn't like the look so went back to having the rest dark to make the staff pop out more.

Quote
A small suggestion, if I may, the bases of his undead could do with a little something more. One thing I have done on similar bases is to paint in lines to represent flagstones, or similar stone floor. If you use a dark and a light colour you can get a bit of 3D effect pretty easily.

Yeah you may be right, I was experimenting a bit with using airbrushing and dry brush over for those bases but don't think I'd enough of a texture in the modelling paste base to pick it up. I still have a stack more undead to play with in the future so may try other basing then.

Quote
The crusades project promises to be epic - looking to see all of these forces together.

For sure, be good to get them all done. Still have a couple more packs of knights I want to paint up and decide if I want to rebase some of the original ones I did on larger bases but I'm pretty close to being able to do some of the bigger battles in the period. Dorylaeum and Arsuf are two I've been planning scenarios for. And just have to finish off a few tents and buildings and I'll be able to start my mini holy war campaign.

Quote
The banjo playing samurai ape is certainly unique!

It certainly is, I felt it needed a suitably epic base. All that's missing is the lightning storm backdrop! Some really fun figures in the fantasy range. Props to Phil as I think he was the sculptor for them? Have a few more of the fantasy figures based and primed for when I fancy a "palate cleanser".

I'll get the rest of the pictures up later tonight or tomorrow hopefully. And maybe lay out some of my plans for the next little while (whether I end up sticking to them is another matter...)

Quote from: mmcv on 30 May 2020, 07:23:16 PM
Some really fun figures in the fantasy range. Props to Phil as I think he was the sculptor for them? Have a few more of the fantasy figures based and primed for when I fancy a "palate cleanser".
I'll get the rest of the pictures up later tonight or tomorrow hopefully. And maybe lay out some of my plans for the next little while (whether I end up sticking to them is another matter...)

To be fair....As far as the current fantasy ranges are concerned....... I, at least, 'prettied up' and converted every single figure....Though I did make a good few newies/new bits for each of the ranges.

The only 'army' that was virtually all my own work was the dragonmen.

Very pleased that you're enjoying the ranges !....I had a lot of fun doing them.

Looking forward to the next batch of photo's.

Cheers - Phil

Next up we're taking a bit of a diversion into another scale and looking at my 2mm forces for the British and some Turkish allies in the Crimean War. I'm fairly sure I've another 10 or 15 bases of these in a box with the start of the French army but there's enough here to get the gist. I also have around 50 bases of Russians to prime and paint at some point and the French to assemble. All in all, should have enough to cover most of the BBB Crimean War scenarios.



Infantry commanders:


Light infantry/skirmishers:


The single line is for veterans, the double line standard infantry:


The Turks in the back:


Artillery, cavalry and general:

And finally we travel to Mexico for some of the glorious Aztec range. These models are beautifully sculpted and a joy to paint given the detail and opportunity for colour. I fear I don't do them justice.

In the one's below I've picked a colour theme for each group but I have some more awaiting finishing touches that are a riot of colour and will be adding even more units soon.



Skirmishers:




Eagle and Jaguar Warriors:




The atlatl thrower on the small base is a shock missile marker.

City infantry with attached hero marker:




Some "wargamers eye view" shots:









Close-ups of the markers, some of these came out a little darker than I'd hoped but the heroes have face paint and tattoos:









And these poor sods who were mangled in the name of casualty markers:

That's all the pictures I have so far, other than this:



"What is that?" I hear you cry in disgust.

On another thread recently I was discussing different ways to make a battle board with an embedded grid. This is experiment 1. Someone suggested the clever idea of using tile spacers, so I've made a small grid using them and will add some paint and flock soon to see how it looks. It'll obviously be a little warped on the thin card but that's fine for the experiment. I did use a fairly lightweight filler here which may not work as well but will see once fully set.

So I'll be tracking any progress on that here as well as future updates on the existing projects, such as the large crusades expansion, more adventures in Mexico, those 2mm Russians and French and some new projects that might join the queue as I recently got the seeds of as Early Imperial China project and a Trojan War project. I've also some ideas and figures based around a 20th-century alt-history project, a 15mm Japanese myth HOTT army or two, plus a load of 32mm zombies. So quite a few different bits to play around with!

Och, it's the dreaded porridge monster the noo! Man the sporrans and load the usquabaugh! All cabers on deck!