Sunday, May 18, 2025

Guards of Traitors Toll

 Finished up the box set for guards of traitors toll.  I figured that it would be helpful for folks to see what you can do with the kit and the variety of pieces that are available to make individual characters.  I did add some parts from other kits and I will identify them as they come up.  I am posting the models by pose so you can see the variation in parts.

From L to R.  Guard with a sword, guard with a mace, lady with a fish (either offering or getting ready to slap someone with), lady with a bottle, lady with a huge hand (the only oversized hand on the sprue) and lady with a owl.  There are no parts from other kits in this batch.  

From L to R.  Guard with a sword and shield, guard with a sword, lady with a ladle, lady with a harp and a cat, lady with a gemstone, and a lady with a milk pail and a sack.  The harp and the cat are the only parts from other kits in this batch.
From L to R.  Guard with a hailberd, guard with a sword and lantern, man with a book, man with a pigeon and a coin, man with a pipe and cane and a man with a money bag. 
Guard with a mace and chain, guard with a hailberd and keys, ruffian with a knife, man with a sickle, ruffian with a bit of wood with a nail in it, beggar with a staff and a coin.  The only part that was added was the coin in the beggars hand.  Punched that out of a bit of card. 
Guard with a crossbow, guard with a bow, man with a sickle, man with a pick ax, man with an ax, man with a staff carrying a sack.  The only part added on these was a bit of cotton for the bow string. 

Captain with a great sword, captain with a sword, woman with a fan, upset woman with a dagger, woman with a flute and a woman with a wand, mask and burning skull.  There were no parts from other kits on this one but I did green stuff the flames on the skull. 

The old Crone from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Hayland Miniatures), two geese from the soldiers sprue. 

Group shot of the villagers.
Group shot of the guards

Extra heads and arms that were not used. 


All and all I do not have many complaints about this kit.  It has a huge amount of bits to work with and enough parts to make every model an individual. 






Monday, May 12, 2025

Been on a painting tear.

 Anyone that knows me will tell you that I hate to paint models.  I love making and building terrain and playing the games but I find models tedious.  Generally I will paint two or three models that I really like rather than whole units of models. 

This latest batch of painting started with me picking up the Guards of Traitors Toll.  It has 24 civilians and 12 guards in the box so I knew that I would have to sit down and force myself to do some work.  

The first nineteen models here are the civilians.  Eighteen are from the guards box and the other one is a studio miniature from their not Monty Python line.  

The Sprue is pretty good as it give you three men and three women and lots of options.  The only complaint that I have is with the women.  There are fewer head options and one pose is walking at what appears to be a fast pace.  

The next six are guards.  

I have no complaints about the sprue on this one.  Very nice models all around.  

Next are some models that I painted in between the above as a bit of a pallet cleanser so I did not get bored.

Firs some scarecrow men from Warbases. 


 Then some Spaceballs.  From an Etsy seller

Lastly is a parcel delivery robot from Alternative armies. 


Working on finishing up the last eight models for the Guards of Traitors Toll and then I will probibly be done painting miniatures for the next year or so.  

Hope you like.



 

  




Friday, May 2, 2025

Finished Westfalia and some Mamoth Miniatures.

 Hiya. 

I have finally pulled out my box of tufts and finished off the models from Westfalia.  




I have also finished off some Mammoth Miniatures armored skeletons.  I picked them up becasue they have some real character and will add some needed variety to my current armored skeletons. 



Hope you like.


Monday, April 21, 2025

Westfalia Miniatures. A first for me.

 Normally I won't justify the shipping from North America becasue it is usually extortionate.  That is why it was a nice surprise to see that North Star were carrying some of the Westfalia range.  However, it looks like they sold out so the listing is already gone.  I am quite happy with how these turned out.  

First some possessed toys that I will use as small constructs for Frostgrave.  A word of warning if you pick these up.  They are tiny.  These are mounted on 1p coins so you can get an idea of scale. 

A nice ghost or spirit.  I removed the crows that it originally had on the tombstone.
All three still need to be sealed up and have tufts added. 

Hope you like.

Thursday, April 17, 2025

Observatory Post 2

 Observatory  Post 2

After dropping small parts, tools, knives, open plastic cement, open superglue and putty multiple times, I have decided to finish up here tonight.  When gravity works against me, it usually does not stop working against me so it is better to quit before I get injured or damage what I am working on.  

The telescope itself is done bar some minor gap filling.  Added some metal rings at each point where the segments meet to create a bit of a seam, and puttied where the tubing connects to create a better seam.   Added a lens to the front, and dolled it up with some runes.  All that is left is to putty the bottom of the front by the lens to clean that up. I also added some mounting points for the adjustable lenses.  It is here that I discovered that my first bottle of plastic cement, and the supoerglue refused to work as advertised.  I opened the Plastiweld as that will melt anything and managed to spill it all over one of my cutting mats and managed to melt the painted grid off the surface.  It worked so well that a lighter that was sat on the mat started leaking out butane.  After a quick cleanup, I have some photos. 






Monday, April 14, 2025

A new project

 My builds usually start with a simple idea and I work from there.  This one started with a telescope.  I built the body of the telescope out of regular plastic tubing.  I added half of a resin cast gear that will be used as part of the mechanical control.  The next two pieces are filter lenses that will be added on after all of the painting is done.  Next I will start to figure out the mechanical controls and the support structure.

Off to the photos. 


Sunday, April 13, 2025

A new statue for my city.

 This project started as I had picked up the Undead Barrow King from Mammoth Miniatures to make into a statue as he was listed at 50mm high.  I decided that I would try put him up on a pillar to give a bit more height and so it did not take up quite as much floor space on the game board.  The plinth is constructed out of layers of foamex.  After the pillar was constructed it had string set in superglue added to the corners to simulate some decorative stone work.  I decided to try adding some textures to the surface.  I used a gold shaping cup to press the round details into the surface and it simulated pebbles set in concrete pretty well.  Next I used two different punches to set detail into some stencil board.  This was cut to size and made into metal plates for added details.  The base was detailed out with some plastic skulls, resin, plaster and 3d printed jars and plates.  Lastly some tube candles, coins were punched out of stencil card and I used some mustard seeds to simulate limes.  

Hope you like. 




Details 






Thursday, March 20, 2025

BSC post 11

 I will be adding a few more small stowage but I have managed to zenith prime so you can see some details. Minus some details, it is ready to be painted. 





Saturday, March 15, 2025

BSC 2025 Post 10

 I have not had much time due to real life obligations.  Tonight I had a bit of time to work on my build. 

The back end looked odd hanging out in space without any support and I needed some way for people to access the torso interior.  I decided on building a set of stairs and put a unicycle wheel on a swivel mount behind it. 




Saturday, March 8, 2025

Picked up some new toys.

 I was perusing Etsy looking at things that have nothing to do with my hobbies, as you do, and found a couple of interesting finds that might work for terrain.  

First are a couple of stamp punches.  They are for metal working and only put me out about seven pounds a piece.  Initially I thought about using them on Foamex. 

Some photos. 

First, I tried it on Foamex.  

As you can see they did not come out so well so I think it will need to be used on either Fimo or some other putty.  

The second thing I picked up is a shot plate.  They are used to make small pieces out of gold/silver for jewelry.  If you are looking to pick one up they will run about twenty pounds for a single item and about ten pounds for each detail past that. 

In this instance I used some green stuff though I could use some lead fishing weights.  Using some vasiline to keep the green stuff from sticking to the mold I just pressed some into the details.  Here are some photos.