Woody's now selling Games Workshop products

If you play Warhammer Fantasy or 40K and live in the Mid-Sussex area (or just fancy a trip to Burgess Hill), then you'll pleased to know that Woody's in Burgess Hill, are now selling this range.

Woody's is an independent retailer situated in the Martletts Shopping Centre in Burgess Hill, Sussex, UK. The Martletts is 2 minutes walk from the railway station, and also has lots of car parking. the owner is a guy called Peter Woodhams. He is very friendly, and will give you all the help and advice you need for whatever hobby you enjoy.

Mention my name or "petesminiatures", and Woody's will give you a 10% discount.

A Little Milestone

OK. So it's not a Golden Demon entry. But this cute Foundry Ork is precious to me. He is the first thing I've painted using my new detail spectacles and after having a little bit of treatment on my eyes. Two weeks back, I couldn't even see the end of my paint brush.

The optician said start off with simple bright contrasting colours to begin with, and then progress at whatever pace I am comfortable with. As we have 2 long weekends coming up (Easter and a royal wedding/May day), I think I'll be starting on all my WW2 stuff. By that I mean falsmegger Fulscumugger Falchemeegs Falshimeggger German Paratroops.

Skink Time

 

 I have a job lot of metal Skinks for sale on Ebay. There is also a command group for sale. A link will appear top left of this page while the auction is still active.

Macro photography

I got a new camera. Its an Olympus SLR E420. Not leading edge, but certainly beyond my photographic talents and a step up from point and click digital cameras. Having said that, I got bored reading the instruction manual, and decided to do some point and click close-ups.

What I've learned is:

• I still have a lot to learn about photography
• macro photography can give great detail - which can be quite unforgiving to basic paint jobs

Be warned, some of the pictures below are very close-up for 28mm.

Stegadon for sale

I have a fair few Lizardmen items to sell over the coming weeks. Most of them classic or special e.g. Limited edition Standard bearers from old Army box sets. The first batch are up on ebay now (links on top left of this web page while auction is active). Included is a classic Stegadon like the one above, but new/unpainted in its box. If you love painting and inking scales and horns, then this is the best miniature you'll ever paint (although the word "miniature" is not really appropriate in this case!).

Lots more to come including job lots of classic skinks and Sauruses Saurus' Sauruss Saurii? more than one Saurus. (All new taken from army and starter game box sets).

Goblin Therapy

The reason I've not posted anything lately is that I've not been able to paint. This was due to me sustaining some damage to my eyes from a recent illness. Most of my sight has returned except for some slight damage to my short range vision, but this literally means I couldn't see miniatures I was holding with one hand, or where the paintbrush was in the other hand.

Thanks to some great people (GP, A&E staff, junior doctors, HCA's, local nurses and even very benevolent complete strangers), I'm well on the road to recovery. I'll need to wear glasses, and after some tests over the last week, I will have these next Wednesday - in time to paint something over Easter. (I'll also be able to read WD and other magazines that have been stacking up!). In the mean time, the optician suggested I try reading or painting with a magnifying glass for short periods only. I had a go with some Skulls Pass Night Goblins (cheap and cheerful on Ebay). I've struggled with some bits like spotting belts/chains if the whole model is base coated a dark colour. I kept missing teeth - but this is due to the magnifying glass mis-leading me into thinking the brush was still miles away - and then bang - a gobo gets a mouthful of white paint.

All in all, I'm happy. My confidence is boosted as a few weeks back everything was a blur. Also, the magnifying glass is a stop-gap. It is nowhere near as good as the lenses I'm having made up. So thanks to everybody who helped me out. I know this sounds ungrateful, but I really think the NHS should pay for the Night Goblins and paints on prescription as part of my sight rehabilitation.

Rare Confrontation model on Ebay

I've just put a rare Confrontation/Cadwallon miniature up on Ebay. It is the Misan the Clairvoyant model, and it is very detailed. I still can't figure out why Rackham have stopped producing these, and then destroyed the moulds/tooling.

I've also put some classic Skaven Gutter runners up for auction. I think GW have modelled them on the ravening hordes of little hooded vermin that pour out of the local schools at 4pm each day. These are only rare in the sense that they are not medium or well done. Having said that they are about 10 years old. So get bidding for Xmas.

Links to my auction listings will appear in the left hand column while the auctions are active.

Quickshade Soft tone versus Dark tone

I decided to have a dabble with the Army Painter Quickshade products. I chose "Soft Tone" and "Dark Tone" (at £18 for each!). After checking various websites for examples of miniatures painted using Quickshade, I came to the conclusion that the Soft tone would not be effective on dark colours. So I painted up 4 Empire Pike men in very bright colours as test models. Basically this went something like:

• White undercoat.
  
• yellow & green for the tunic/pants.
• brown for the pike shaft, boots, straps.
• Chain mail for the breastplate, helmets, pike point.
• Elf flesh for skin.

I used very bright Bilious Green and 2 slightly different yellows (John Inman Lemon and Freddy Mercury Sunburst I think). After this I applied Dark tone to 2 of the models and Soft tone to the other 2. I used a brush to apply the QuickShade (I'll post another article about the "dipping" method). I'll let others judge the results from the above pictures. What I learned was:

• Apply good coats of base colour as the quick shade will show up weak coverage.
• Quickshade darkens everything, so use brighter/lighter colours.
• You need to brush away excessive pools of Quickshade that form on the model.
  
• Thin Quickshade with turps or white spirit - NOT Water.

Overall I think the Dark Tone is the better shade, although the Soft Tone will take the edge off flat areas of bright colour. Dark Tone exaggerates recessed detail - not a bad thing for miniatures (especially for cartoon/Manga stuff). QuickShade is definitely good for painting up large lots of rank and file troops to gaming table standard.

Voland's Venators

I've just put a rare Dogs of War set of 8 voland's Venators on Ebay. These are new and have been sealed since purchase many years ago. There are 8 different models including Voland, musician and Standard bearer, with extra lances if an all-lance regiment is desired.

Further details on the auction: click here

Dark Elf sale

I have 25 listings on Ebay right now for GW Dark Elf models. I say GW, but a lot of them are the old Marauder models GW sold a couple of versions of Dark Elves ago. There are even some rare 1990 scouts!

You can see the top 5 listings in the left margin of this blog, or look at at the full 25 listings on this link:
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/pavillios/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=

All money made goes towards medical bills for my pet mouse Gerald, who was recently injured in a Scalextric crash.

Dogs of War for sale...

These are a few extra photos for an item I have up for one of my Ebay Auctions
Click the pics for a larger version.

The Empire strikes back

I don't actually have or play a WHFB Empire army, but I painted these 4 gunners for use in Mordheim and skirmish games. Being part of a mercenary warband also gave me the option of painting them in any colours I fancied trying (I'm not a bad painter - just a lazy and non-disciplined one!).

Due to a) words having a different meaning these days, b) I live too near to Brighton, and c) I am terrified of saying something politically non-correct.....I would describe these colours as "bright and merry". My next paint job will be something a bit more butch like storm troopers or space marines (i.e. no long boots, no panteloons, no blousons, no feathered hats etc).