More Catching Up

 Back again!

Looking back through my blog posts and my painting diary, I came to realize that I totally missed 2022 as well!

One thing that I had been wanting/needing to do for a long time was to repaint one of my gnolls.

Originally these were painted back in.... I'll say 2000?? I had just moved to Arizona at the time, had been way out of the hobby for many years, and had limited paint supplies and space. I got the pair and painted them up pretty well considering. I only had a few minis at that time and kept them out on a sort of mantle in the TV room. It wasn't really a mantle like over a fire place or anything, it was really just a big shelf under a tall window to the back yard. Under the shelf was the TV and video game set up. 

Well the story goes, my wife at the time decided to paint the living room and didn't bother to move anything on the shelf or cover the shelf. "I'll be real careful. I don't spill paint." Riiiight...😏

There were small splatters and drips on some of the books that were up there and one really big blob of white paint right on my axe wielding gnoll! All down the right side of his face and totally obliterating any detail on his shoulder, arm, hand; thick white interior wall paint. He remained that way for about 20 years until I finally came across my round tuit and decided to fix him. My main reason for waiting was I was not sure if I could duplicate the colors to match his brother or if I was going to have to repaint both.

I have no idea what the original colors were so it was all mixing with what I had. Also I was trying to duplicate the painting style I had then if you want to call it that - base, wash, drybrush. I put a little more blending and highlighting in now than I used to. Could have had better lighting in the photos but....

Unfortunately I don't have a "before" picture but as it turned out:

And here he is compared to his brother painted 20 years earlier.

I call it a success!

In the meantime I also had another gnoll archer waiting for about 10 of those years to be painted. He is much bigger and bulker than these two. I wanted to go for a more hyena look for him....

And here's how he turned out:

Not too bad.

All the way back from July 2022.

I noted something about a happy little accident when painting his teeth but I've forgotten what that was in the past 30 months. 

I also finished up a second unit of the Eisenkern troopers:

801st 

That's all I have for 2022. I still have a lot of 2023 to post up. I also need to take some more pictures. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Catch-up 2023

 Been gone a long time. It's been quite a year of life events, not that the past three years haven't been.

This post is going to be a photo dump to catch up on some of the things that I've completed over the past year. 

I got a bad case of "oooh! Shiny!" this year and went on some printing sprees with my new 3D printer from Christmas last year. 

First up is Agamemnon

He came with my order of Amazon elites. That's how long he's been hanging around.

Second I have some 3d print minis from Christmas 2020.

Finally got them painted up. They are heroic scale. I thought all the support contacts had been cleaned up until I got into printing the details. But once they are painted up and on the table no one can tell.

On the subject of 3d printed minis.....

This was my first "Shiny!" moment:

Found a Donkey Kong along with rules for Wings of War (Glory) so I had to do this and play some Donkey Kong vs. biplanes games!

I thought I had some pics of the actual game. They have to be somewhere, maybe still on my phone. We'll play another game to get pics if I have to. These are before I put the DK on his tie so we'll see more pictures of him in a later post. 

Also a minor distraction was I needed some figures for a D&D adventure. So I found what I was looking for and actually printed out specific minis for a specific game. Kinda cool and the biggest reason I wanted the 3D printer.

Mindflayer and his minions. The boss guy got away but it didn't go so well for all the rest of his minions. I grossly underestimated the party.

Looks like 2024 blog posting was a total bust!

This post has been sitting in drafts since January 17, 2024.

It's now January 21, 2025!

Let's try this again.

More Stuff From Last Year

 Hello again!

Still working on new stuff but the blog needs to get caught up with stuff I've already completed.

So here we go with some stuff completed in December 2021.

First is my Amazon commander to go with the phalanx.

Blending turned out pretty good. Fits in well with the rest.

Also I was able to complete a Versingetorix:

I needed a good picture without the shield before all that detail got covered up.

I worked really hard on that plaid.

Also in my mountain of lead I had a big cat that needed some attention.

And lastly...

Mrs. Claus with a bit too much eye liner. oops.

I did actually get a Christmas mini done before Christmas to add to the cheer of the season.

That's all I have for now. 

Stay tuned for more of 2022 stuff.

Merry Christmas!

And thanks for stopping by! 😊

What happened last year?

 Last year started off rough with covid followed quickly by an ice storm knocking out power for six days. 

That really put a damper on the whole thing killing a lot of my motivation. Never really did feel like doing anything on the computer.

I did do some modelling and painting!!!    Let's take a look at some of the things I did. 

Well the next thing in my painting journal is actually a 40k Space Marines Rhino/Razorback.

   BUT NO PICTURES  ???? So you don't get to see that just yet.

That's okay because my next thing is a project like my F4 Phantom vs. Mig 17. 

I present....The Gruesome Twosome:

This kit actually has some really nice details. Good panel lies too.

As always with 1/72 models there were no pilots so I had to go get my own and these are pretty good.

And as always I spent a ton of time on the cockpits when no one is going to see them other than on this blogspot. 

Since these are going to be flying models there was a modification or two that needed to be made. The tail wheel doors are molded open so those needed to be closed.

I also had to do something with the props.

Going to try a bit of a new technique (for me at least) on these.

First cut out the circles and try to make them as circly as I can.

Locate the center and then tape the actual prop to the back to use as a guide.

Then airbrush those bad boys!

After assembling the rest of the planes it was time to paint.

For one I just masked off the entire cockpit without the canopy because I'm not real confident in how I masked the canopy on the other. I went for the safe move on one and got a little aggressive on the other.

After watching and reading stuff about bare metal painting techniques I decided to go with a black base coat and do some pre-shading on the tails.

There were decals for the yellow stripes and red bits at the wing tips but went with paint instead. I figured it would look more uniform with the pre-shading and wouldn't be such a stark bright yellow contrast. I definitely didn't want that.

I also had to go back and add yellow to the props.

Here's photos of some real life P51s I'm trying to emulate:

I didn't want to even attempt the cowling. Those stripes are just too fine detail to get right. Decals did the trick for this.

The model I bought was a Lee Archer kit so I had to hand correct the "73" and "Alice-Jo" for Wendell Pruitt's plane. I was so stressed I would mess it up and fixing wouldn't be easy but it turned out pretty good.

Once they're hung it'll be fine. I actually finished these by November 2021.

This is part 1 of the project much like my F4 Phantom vs. Mig 17. I built the good guys first this time.

Now I have to build the bad guys.

Hope you enjoyed this.

Hope I can get more updates in without the huge gap again.

Thanks for stopping by.