On the Workbench

I haven’t been my usual blog posting fool lately. I haven’t been playing any games lately to report on as I’m taking a break from running a regular weekly game night in favour of getting a bit of painting done. I haven’t posted any pics of things being complete as… well… I haven’t really FINISHED anything lately!? This is in large part due to the fact that I have too many things on my workbench that I’m working on.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


I HAVE finished assembling the BTR-50 and have started assembling another T-72. I haven’t painted the BTR-50 as I thought I’d get all the armour assembled and then paint them all at the same time.

I’ve also been motivated to start modeling again – the most recent Historical Miniature Gamer magazine has a really excellent article on sculpting and I have been following a couple of excellent blogs on sculpting miniatures too; Minden Miniatures and Making Miniatures. The combination of the three has inspired me to start in on the SYW figures I was planning on making this year and try out some new ideas/techniques presented in the article/blogs.

First I thought I’d have a go at using an armature. Now I thing I actually OWN a soldering iron – inherited from my grandfather – but I really have no idea how to use it properly or if it even works or if I even have any flux or solder…. So I first tried twisting wires together and gooping with thick cyanoacrylate glue.


This didn’t work so well. The torsos were all far too long.


Next I tried just holding the wires together and wrapping them with some Green Stuff. This seeme to have worked a bit better… we shall see. I think these ones might be a touch long in the torso too, but they’re pretty quick and easy to make so I’ll try making some shorter ones later.


Then I tried mounting on onto a block of wood so I actually have something to hold onto while sculpting – other than the figure itself.

I think I’ll try an document the whole sculpting process as I work on these new masters. Seems to be a pretty popular thing to do these days….

I’ve also been splashing a bit of paint, here and there on a few things:


I prepped and primed and started painting a battalion of highlanders for my Quebec 1759 project.

I painted one as a test/sample. I had originally thought I’d try to do a Fraser tartan as the 78th at Quebec were “Fraser’s”. This of dubious historical certainty but I thought it would add some colour to my highland battalions (or rather what will be my future highland battalionS – as this is the first I am painting!?). The Fraser tartan turned out to be a tad difficult to reproduce on the smallish Rafm figures – so I abandoned the idea and instead went with the tried and true Government Tartan.


I also prepped and primed some French cavalry and some rangers and started painting the French horses..


I’ve also been working on some stuff for my friend John in Calgary – this is part of a Orc/Goblin Blood Bowl team he had me convert into a Mordhiem warband. Most were done years ago and he had bee kicking ass with them ever since – there were a few I found still kicking around and I thought it’s about time I finished them up… One figure is a little more recent – I think it’s a Mage Knight (?) figure? Maybe? Anyway it looked like a good coach or trainer or something so I picked it up for his team as well….


Oh and then there’s a few other odds and sod I’ve somehow allowed to pollute my workbench and distract me from moving ahead with any ONE thing….

I think I'll have to have a little workbench clean-up tonight and remove all distractions so I can power ahead on the soviet armour front.... It's needed in four weeks... the other stuff a year from now...