Stripping with Simple Green

I have been painting miniatures for about eight years now, but have never yet delved into the realm of stripping. I'm lucky to be putting paint on figures, let alone having the time to take it off! But on a stop at the Target the other day I picked up a bottle of Simple Green all purpose cleaner. I filled up a pickle jar halfway, dumped in a handful of miniatures I painted at the very start of my painting career (photos withheld by author), and lo and behold, a couple days later, I have a pile of about 20 Reaper figures sitting here ready to be painted. If only my Germans and Romans weren't calling....

Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian...

...black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.

(One without all the flash...much more sullen.)

From the depths of the Teutoburg

Here are some pictures of what I have been doing with most of my miniature-themed efforts recently: a warband of ancient Germans. The figures in these pictures are all Foundry figs, which I picked up on the super cheap at Historicon 2009 in Wally's Basement, as rule #113 of my hobby handbook states, "One should never pay full price for Foundry's top-class miniatures, especially when one has mouths to feed, unless absolutely necessary."

As of this point, I have painted up a whole other unit of infantry (Old Glory) and a cavalry unit, which I should have pictures up of in the very near future.

Enjoy!

Here are a few of my bowmen, of which there are more which are not pictured.

Have some huscarls...

Here are some pics of some Old Glory huscarls I did up last year to oppose my Normans.

(click to enlarge)





Cheers!

Some conversions for SOBH a.k.a. fun with Sculpey and cheap minis

If you've ever been to EM4 Miniatures website, you have probably explored their cheap 28mm hard plastic miniatures. When I say 'cheap,' I mean it--like $0.35 cheap. There are orcs and dwarves, in three seperate poses per range. And when you open the parcel when your order, you realize, as is so very often the case in the world of miniatures, you get what you pay for:

(click to enlarge)



Well, being a firm believer that one must make the best out of what one has, I proceeded to imagine ways in which I might make these guys a bit more interesting, (though the craptacular face isn't going anywhere).

First I had to do some testing. Testing, you say? Yes, testing. Does the hard plastic that EM4 uses have the capacity to withstand a 260 degree oven? The answer: a resounding yes.

Why, oh why would that little fact need to be ascertained? Because I was going to use Super Sculpey to do some modifications, and it has to cure in the oven. I also did some cutting and gluing, and it turns out that with a little imagination, it's easy to turn these cheap-o plastics into something with a little variety. Here are the results:






These guys are only a 2/3 of the varieties I created. So, if you have a tolerance for cleaning flash (and strange knobular pieces of plastic on the backs of figures (??)) and a little time to do some modification, EM4 offers orcs at an unbeatable price. These guys are bound for Grolltak's Marauders, one of my Song of Blades and Heroes (published by the visionary folks at Ganesha Games) warbands. I hope to put some of my other SOBH figures up here as well, which include some figs that I painted LONG ago when I first started hobbying.

I also turned a pig, similar to this:




into a dire boar!:

Long time away...

Wow. It's been almost a year since I posted here last, and I blame it all on Historicon. I purchased so much lead (and plastic!) there, that I could not get up from the work table to post about it. Then, of course, things like school intervened, and when that intervenes, there's no fighting it.

So, needless to say now, Historicon was awesome. It really was quite an experience, and The Wife and I are returning this year as well. It's a joke around our place that we spend our anniversary at Historicon. You could do much worse, in my opinion.

So, what does my renewed presence mean for you, O faceless mass of the Interwebs? Be prepared for a torrent of posts and pictures, possibly followed by a drought. I will try to post when I finish (or am working on) something that might be of any interest.

To those of you back for the sequel to last summer, enjoy!