A Call to Arms: Star Fleet and future projects.

Mongoose publishing and Amarillo Design Beauru have combined forces to make a Star Fleet Universe based starship combat game.  The rules look great and I am looking forward to getting my federation fleet in the mail sometime soon.   But to whet my appetite a bit, while finishing up the Dreadfleet commission I was able to work in a bit of time between colors to paint the starter box of Klingon ships for a friend.  They were very simple to paint and took really well to some basic drybrushing and washes.

The full fleet box.  Clocking in at about 900 points or so, this force is actually all you might need to jump into this game.  Also, as an interesting side note, because of the lend-lease type program the Klingons and Romulans had going, this fleet box can double as a Romulan fleet as well.

C7 Heavy Battlecruiser

D8 Dreadnought

F5 Frigate

D7 Battlecruiser

The classic D6 Cruiser

Now that Im done with my first commission Ill be getting back to some of my own personal projects.  Next up on the desk is my Angmar Battle Company for the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game.  A game that Ive been enjoying the heck out of so far.

Angmar is an odd faction, with a healthy amount of varied troops.  The company so far includes an orc shaman, some orc warriors, a pair of wild wargs, a ghostly warrior, and a Warg Chief (Sergent)

After the company I have a Lothlorian army all ready to be painted that I need to try out some test models for.  Also, ill be working on how to actually take some better quality photographs.  There are specific techniques for photographing miniatures well and I want to do some research into that.  The shots I took mostly look good but because of the flash a lot of the detail gets washed out.  I aim to alleviate that.

Until Next Time!

Dreadfleet Commission-- Complete

Here it is at long last.  The completed Dreadfleet commission ready to ship out the door.  For a first commission, I certainly know how to pick them.  This commission challenged me to do some things differently in terms of painting.  some of the ships were great to paint and I am extremely pleased with the end result of all the pieces.  I hope the buyer likes playing with it as much as i enjoyed painting it.

Yarr indeed!

The counters, turning arcs, wind guage, and measuring rod.

Dreadfleet Commission-- Update 3

Well with the holidays and and active job search going its been a while since my last update.  However, Ive by no means been idle.  I finished the other 5 ships from dread fleet and am closing in on finishing up my first commission.  I played around with some water effects for the bases and they turned out great.  After I get all the bits and extra playing pieces done Ill do a nice photo shoot to keep some photos for posterity.  In the meantime enjoy:

The Swordfysh.  I was actually looking forward to painting this one the least but as it turns out this was my favorite to paint.  Black and silver turned out really well and I am very happy with the way the molded details on the sails came out.

The Skavrus.  A huge sea creature reanimated through necromancy.  This turned out exactly how I hoped.  It looks absolutely foul.  Plus I even got the chance to paint some viscera and other fluids leaking out of it into the waves.  This mini was really cool and I might try and get one off of ebay just to paint and collect.

The Ironbreaker.  A classic looking dwarf ironclad style ship, the colors worked really well next to each other.  Plus the interior details were fairly easy to paint.  I particularly liked the dirigible and it turned out well.

The Black Kraken.  This one was easy to paint with lots of smooth panels and washes but turned out well.  I particularly like the contrast of the very blue water against the dark, corroded metal look of the hull. 

And Last but not least the Curse of Xandri.  The tomb king ship provides an interesting contrast from the rest of the "Evil" side of the game as it has a fair number of bright colors.  Plus its got a style all its own and really stands out.

 That is about it for now but keep your eyes peeled here for the full photoshoot in the next few days.

Dreadfleet Comission-Part 2

Had a fairly productive weekend on the commission and wanted to post up the ships that are completed and nearing completion.  These models are pretty fantastically detailed and have been taking a lot more time than I thought they would.  I think the results look good though.  Each ship is basically a separate character and once you get some color on there it really starts to show.

This weekend also gave my wife a chance to flex her paintbrush again and she took to it like riding a bike.  She helped to paint the terrain and did a great job on it.  Please excuse the pictures.  Im still getting used to photographing models.  Look for more updates after christmas.

The Ships Currently Finished or almost finished as well as the terrain that my lovely wife helped to paint.

The Seadrake.  This is still a WIP but other than some more highlighting is almost done.

The Flaming Scimitar.  So far this has been my favorite ship to paint.  The Djinn and Genies look great contrasted against the deep colors on the hull.

The Shadewraith in all its ghostly glory.

The Bloody Reaver.  I'm glad I painted this one first because this was a crazy model.

The Heldenhammer.  The red and gold look great next to each other.

The completed large pieces of terrain.

The Volcanic Mountain

The Castle.  The black and turquoise actually came out really well.  It looks a bit washed out here because of the flash from the camera but in person is a very rich deep color.

Commission Work -- Dreadfleet Part 1

I have always wanted to try my hand doing some commission work and a few days ago I received my first commission in the mail.  This one is Dreadfleet: Pirate Battles on the Warhammer High Seas.  This game looked impressive online and the minis dont disappoint.  There are some great bits of detail and character on these ships.  They look good even just primed and fitted together.

I had some time in the last few days so I managed to get through the prepping and cleaning stage very quickly.  This is the most difficult part of miniature painting for me at least.  I love doing conversion work but trimming mold lines off of models tends to get tedious.  Necessary but tedious.  Here is a shot of how they look now.  Ill be starting on the first ship soon and will post some work in progress pictures as I go along.  Stay Tuned.

I believe here is an appropriate place for a Yarr!

 

The Ships, Ready to Go.

The Sea Monsters and Warpstone Tokens