WIP Talisman and Friends-of-Talisman Minis

Here's a view into the painting process for my Talisman figures, and preview of some to come. Although I have enough Talisman figures to keep me busy for awhile, I couldn't help but adding some other figures to the Talisman family, as some just call to me as being the same kind of archetype.

Talisman WIP: Front row L-R: Itenerant Scholar, Witch Doctor, Sorceress, Pilgrim, Barbarian; Middle row: Sea Captain, Halfling, Ninja, Falconer, Saytr; Back row: Sprite, Dwarf, Gladiator, Rogue

Sprite, Swashbuckler, Witch Doctor, Druid

Thief, Ghoul, Dwarf, Scout

Archeologist, Alt Elf, Gipsy, Prophetess, Footpad or Alt Assassin

 The Priest, by Aly Morrison, with embellished hat

The Amazon, by Aly Morrisson

The Spy, by Aly Morrison, telescope replaced with aluminum tube

The Itinerant Barber/Scholar, by Aly Morrison, Citadel Miniatures Fighters range

Falconer, by Aly Morrison, Marauder Miniatures, either a Noble or a follower who competes for his lord or lady

Alt Assassin, by Aly Morrison, though I think I will call him the Footpad

 The Hunter, by Alan or Michael Perry, Citadel Miniatures, one of my favorite figures

 

The Sea Captain, by Michael Immig, Metal Magic

The Warlock, by Bob Murch, RAFM

The Landsknecht, by Werner Klocke, Das Scharze Auge

Size comparison showing Citadel fighter, Metal Magic Watchman by Michael Immig, Das Schwartze Auge Landsknecht, Foundry Perry Landschnecht

Hundred Years War on the Workbench

So far my focus here has been fantasy and sci-fi. As I was looking for a place to to share my historical projects it was a hard to decision whether to do it here as I was a apprehensive about diluting the focus. But I have energy enough for just one blog, and so everything goes in this one place.

Here are my early, or Crecy War, Hundred Years War figures.I bought this collection a few years ago in several stages, and here at my (fairly) new home, with enough space to spread out with a project like this, starting in January 2017 I decided to really go for it, and I managed some strong sprints through March, when  other projects started to creep in, especially Dungeonquest and Talisman in the first half of 2017, and then D&D (campaign prep more than miniatures) in the second half. All told I've spent 133 hours on this project so far.

The figures are Old Glory, Foundry, Black Tree, Front Rank, and a few Claymore Castings, which are hands down the best early HYW figs there are. The Black Tree, Front Rank, Foundry and Claymore all mix well. The Old Glory are slimmer and smaller, and mix ok with the Foundry but look small next to the others. I'm managing to relax in my old age, though, and not let this bother me. The Old Glory figures have some things I love about them, and some things that exasperate me, but over all, I wouldn't trade them.

Dismounted Men-at-arms, Crossbowmen and Billmen (which I am painting along with the others as I own them but won't be taking part in the Crecy War)

They are based on magnetic bases from Shogun Miniatures, which I recommend. I glue them with crappy new formula Liquid Nails, which is a disgrace to the Liquid Nails legacy and not worthy at all of the name, but at least if I ever decide to get with the hip kids and do unit bases I can get them off easily! I then texture them and cover the integral base with my favorite material, Pre-Mixed Concrete Patch (watered down and shaped with a sculpting tool and/or damp brush).

Wonderful, characterful Foundry Peasants by the Perry Brothers

Men-at-arms, longbowmen, pavisiers, crossbowmen

Mounted men-at-arms and mounted archers (sharing a tray with some primed 16th century stradiots and 15th century men-at-arms)

Longbowmen and cavalry

Horses—what a chore to clean all these but they're done

Old Glory Dismounted Men-at-Arms

Old Glory Dismounted Men-at-Arms

Foundry Peasants

Front Rank Dismounted Men-at-Arms

Foundry Billmen

Peasants and Men-at-Arms

The To-Varnish Tray

I'm always working on many things. Here is a motley assortment of figures I painted in recent months, waiting here for a coat of varnish. Along with some other figs that belong in other trays. See anything you like?

Some of these have long languished in WIP trays. I think I got about 85% done with the  Necromunda rats back in 2004, give or take a year. The Scavvy conversions were done around the same time, though they sat unpainted for some years. The Mordheim undead gang was started a year or two later.

Many were done fairly quickly, start to finish this year, however. All the rest except for the Swiss are in this category. The Swiss were all-but-done in 2014 and I just had to decide whether to make their gun barrels bronze or iron (went with bronze, having multiple believable period reference pics to go on).

Blogroll Adds

I added 30+ blogs to the blogroll, something I've been meaning to do for awhile. Please have a look! And if I missed yours please let me know.

Talisman Ghoul, Thief and Dwarf

 Here are the ghoul, thief and dwarf:

 

 

 

 

Three wonderful figures from the base Talisman set. Gary Chalk and Aly Morrison, you guys rock. The thief and the ghoul have similar red and purple color schemes and I will probably use this on other figures. I did the golds on the dwarf dark to light and then glazed with color, as opposed to the bright method I did on the barbarian, in fitting with the differences in the illustrations. The ghoul and thief have significant black lining which may only be visible in the full-size versions of the pics, for example, in the lines of the cloth, face, and the muscles and veins of the ghoul. I also tried an illustration-like black ink shading method on the dwarf axe that I think was successful. I chose to make the ghoul's eyes face forward as I prefer more generic, neutral poses in figures so they can interact more naturally with one another in a game. The thief's flesh is particularly jaundiced to match the illustration, using P3 Thrall Flesh as the made tone.

Talisman Prophetess

Ah, the prophetess. She's arguably the most powerful of the characters in the base game and was a favorite choice in my games back in the day.  I'd call her the easy button today. She always has a spell and draws an extra card on any space she lands on and discards one she doesn't want. Especially in the early game this means she can avoid most would-be setbacks such as encountering a dragon before one is ready, while getting double the chances of pulling a great boon like the fountain of wisdom.

I love the sculpt Ally Morrison did here, but the mold line runs right down her center looking straight on, and sculptors should know that a figure loses 25% of the mass along that axis between sculpt and casting. Here it may have been even more; she looked pretty squashed. I used greenstuff to take get her back to normal, adding mass to her cheeks, giving them the flush of health (and some work on the eyes was required too), and her bustle, giving her hips back, and her ball. For this last one I sliced it almost-but-not-quite in twain using an x-acto blade, rocking it back and forth, back and forth. Then with same blade I pried it open so there was a large empty wedge atop, and then I filled that back in with greenstuff. Thus, round again. She also had what I thought was too much hair flowing over the top of her gold band. It just didn't make sense to me and I couldn't get over it. She might pull a lock out as a fashion choice but there is no way either accidentally or intentionally that half her hair would be hanging outside the band. So I carved away and resculpted the hair and band on that side.

This is a good example of the difference between pleasing the judges and pleasing oneself. In some ways painting old figures has freed me up and I'm looser, not as picky about certain things I would spend more time on if it was a commission or for a contest. On the other hand, there are things like this lock of hair that if I was painting if for someone else I would not think twice about, but when it's my figure I'll go all out no matter the cost. With no before-and-after shots, who would know I did it if I didn't tell you? Perhaps only me, but in the end I'm still the hardest to please.

On the painting side I also had a tough standard I wanted to achieve on the blue robes. I don't know why, but I've never seen a cold blue or cold purple in a miniatures paint. The closest I have is Vellejo Ultramarine, but it's a far cry from a tube ultramarine. So I broke out the tube paint. From there I can't recall the steps exactly, but there were some blue and purplish washes and back-and-forth to get the final result.

The gold was done in my new style of underpainting strong yellow and then painting my brightest, gold over, P3 Solid Gold (stirred well, not shaken). Then darker golds shading, brown ink washes and yellow glazes, and finally a few Mithril Silver highlights  (I seem to recall for this particular figure I just liked the gold result early on, though, and there wasn't too much beyond a basic shading and highlighting). The ball was Mithril silver over white and I decided to just go with that way.

The flesh is mostly P3, I think, mostly Midlund Flesh over a bit darker base, then Rynn Flesh highlights, and then old Citadel Elf Flesh or Bleached Bone (can't remember which but it's way lighter than the later incarnations of these).

As I put up the pics here I see one thing I think I will go back and add, some black lining on the eye on her breast and a few other places on the gold dress lining.

Grenadier Fire Elemental

Today I have an oldy for you, and proof I haven't forgotten about the project that inspired this blog, painting my old school D&D figures.

This is a Grenadier Fire Elemental from the Wizzards and Lizzards W32 Elementals blister pack, from before 1977.

It one languished for four years or more unfinished close beside the vampire and Nurgle herald shown recently. The reason is I did something stupid priming it, and under-primed it dark gray before lightly priming it white. In order to make flame successful like this it has to be white, white white all the way through. I knew this, and had plenty of experience painting flames. I must have been thinking I wouldn't do the more contemporary and convincing way to paint flames shown here, with the lightest on the inside and the darkest reds at the tips of the flames, but I would do it old school. But when I went to paint it I decided to do it this way after all, and by the time I realized I needed to have primed it white with several more coats I was already well into it. It cost me literally hours of frustration to go back and try to get the crevices white enough after the midtones were already done. I eventually solved it with thick modeling paste made of marble dust and binder, which is super opaque white. But had I just primed it white it probably wouldn't have taken more than two or three hours total. D&D figures were supposed to be the free and easy ones I painted to relax with!


Painting flames is really satisfying in the end, and fun during too if I make sure to prime fully white. Flames can be a crowd-pleaser too.

One thing I really like about this figure are the tiny little flames I made from green stuff (actually, brown stuff) that blend the figure into the environment. That was time well-spent at least.

For those interested in my D&D figures, an update here that I am in this enormous years-spanning project where I focus on one task like basing, mold lines, assembly, etc, for weeks at a time, and I over the past few years I've primed several hundred D&D figures waiting to be painted, and there are several hundred more in earlier prep stages. Meanwhile, though, on the assembly line these days is mostly Oldhammer and historical figures. It's hard to even find the time to post just the finished ones, but I might start posting some of my workbench stuff to help motivate myself, maybe more on a Twitter feed than here. Does anyone here have a twitter feed they use for posting miniatures, especially WIP shots?