Dumas Distractions

 So instead of getting on and painting the Temu skeletons I have been distracted by a colleague and friend new 3D resin printer and some strange little garden buddy things he had printed.  We got to talking and he mentioned the site he had got them from (Cults3D.com) and that's when I headed down the rabbit hole.

 

   

Little weird garden creatures

We have, from time to time, been playing a home brew ruleset TTRPG as 17th Century King's Musketeers in the service of King Louis XIII.  It is very much in the style of Alexandre Dumas The Three Musketeers and The Flashing Blades and great fun.  But I thought it would be nice to have some minis to represent our gallant heroes.  I had seen some available on Etsy, but at over £8 a pop I wasn't going to be buying them ay time soon.  Now as it happens the same sculpts were available on Cults3D for just 99p for each STL!  And so a deal was struck where I bought the STLs and paid for the resin and I would magically get some minis through the post.

A box of delights

The sculpts are generally exceptional and the printing a real revelation, though a couple have scaled a little differently than the main group so may need to be revisited.

All for one, and one for all!

The odd couple

 

Then I couldn't resist hitting them with a quick zenithal prime (a bit heavy handed on the white, but I want them quite brightly coloured)  whilst I research French Blue pain and the correct colours for the musketeer cassocks.

The Bureau is getting to be a busy place once again with quite a queue building up....

Temu Skeletons - Part 1

 So I decided to finally weaken and order some stuff from Temu for some gaming, but to make the order up to the whatever amount I added on 3 skeleton minis as they looked ok

A bit of a Teeth of The Hydra feel about them.

They are 3D printed and the sculpts are ok, just a few of the usual 3d print lines around the curve of the skull.  I was a bit unsure   which direction o take them with regards priming, so one has had black base and the other two grey, followed by a heavy zenithal white spray from above.

Black front, grey rear.

I was a bit unsure that the grey was altogether too pale and didn't give sufficient contrast for when the speed paints came out.  Only time will tell.

I've not painted a skeleton for what must be 40 years, and that was Citadels painted in Humbrol enamels - proper old school.  The style of painting has come a long way since those days and I would hope my own brush skills along with it (despite several long lay off periods) so I am hoping that these will prove a much better job.

So a quick splash of The Army Painters Pallid Bone Speed Paint and they are looking more Ray Harryhausen by the brush stroke.

Some dry brush highlights using a mix of pure white (GreenStuff), Pallid Bone (TAP SP) and Filthy Cloak (TAP)  and I think they are ready for clothes, armour and details like that.

    

NEWS JUST IN.......

Hoarder still has his skeletons from 40 yeas ago.

My how painting has come along, how MY painting has come along!

Reopening The Bureau

Well it's certainly been a while and the dust lays thick enough on the bureau to write your name,  with cobwebs a plenty.  But something has stirred within me and the brushes are out once more and a fresh stock of paints purchased with new projects in mind.

If I'm honest the past didn't have a whole lot of painting going on but a lot of digging out stuff from my childhood that had made a couple of house moves with me over the years.  Well I think this time it might be different, thanks to reconnecting with old friends for a bit of TTRPG and the new friends I have made through boardgaming and the small painting circle we have established.  Also the amount of content available for hints and tips and tutorials (and maybe having a bit more disposable income).

So, as I'm sure many of you know there are many modern boardgames that come with some superb minis that are just crying out for a coat of paint, and some of these may well have landed in my collection - but mainly SubTerra II and Zombicide Black Plague.  Add to this the age of speed/contrast paints and my return has been sealed.  Brush has been dipped and paint applied to plastic/resin/metal.

So welcome back and here are some things to look forward to appearing in the bureau.

Temu Skeletons

Sub Terra II Upgrade Box

Zombicide Black Plague - Zombies and Heroes

Zombicide Black Plague - Wulfsburg

Dwarf Rangers

A Nice Little Extra - Part 3

Well I can't believe where the time has gone with no real progress.  But I have returned to messing about with paints and sand and wotnot and made some much needed progress on the 3D printed goodies my colleague created for me.  In fact so much time has passed between me starting this article and actually getting to the point of posting that I have only gone and actually finished it!

So...
Not happy with a lack of depth with my first coats of colour I decided a bit of a wash of burnt umber might help, so much so I slapped it about a bit on the other buildings in the project.

Not really sure that has helped.

Well I don't think it really had the effect I was hoping for, especially on the ruins, so I started to layer and dry bush over the top, which included another trip to Wilko for more tester pots in lighter shades.  This time I think I got the effect I was after, tired white.

Ruins all redone including dirty tiles.

Starting to look more like it.  You can just make out the tiled floor inside.

The it was a matter of picking out the brickwork to give it a bit more depth and break up the white.

The bases were then given a liberal dose of fine sand and left to dry off.

Re-sanding the bases for a more natural look.

The door and shutters from the 3D printing weren't all that great in my opinion so a bit of scratch building with coffee stirrers, a scalpel and some brown ink has given me something I'm pretty happy with.

        

I could have left it at that, but I wanted those little details to draw the eye so put some crumbled plaster at the base of the wall where the brickwork has been exposed.  I think it looks well.

A good coat of matt varnish in the spray booth followed by some strategically placed tufts and job done.  Do you think it needs more tufts?

Just need to finish off the ruins now with piles of rubble and burnt beams where it has all collapses inwards.

10K !!!!

MASSIVE GIVEAWAY

(if you're only 1 inch tall)

I am absolutely astounded that I have reached the blogging milestone of 10,000 page visits, though without the weird Russian thing a while back I think I'd only really be at about 9k but I'm going to take it.  

The numbers were slowly building despite my efforts to take many months between posts but there has been a real rush of late all thanks to your love of Pound shops, this has been my most popular post by a very long way with more than double the number of visits compared to anything else I've done, and it's nearly hit a thousand views on its own.

By way of celebrating this achievement and as a thank you I've decided to do a little give away.  You to could be the owner of a golden Buddha statue from the pound shop.  "Ooooooo" I hear you all cry.  All you need to do is comment on this post with something complimentary, or even constructive criticism, by midnight (GMT) on Saturday September 30th and I will randomly pick from the comments and then be in touch with the lucky winner to arrange getting it to you.

This could be yours, or one very like it anyway

Good Luck & Thanks for stopping by

Opening Tins of Gold

Well not actual tins of gold, but Golden Virginia tins which contain (hopefully) much plastic soldier goodness.

It has been pointed out to me that whilst there was some interesting stuff in GR III - The Final Shelf of Discovery - Part 2 there wasn't very much about the little guys themselves.  So, in an effort to redress that oversight, let's have a delve in to the tins and boxes of my childhood obsession with 1:72/1:76/HO/OO toy soldiers, or fine scale military miniatures as we now like to call them.

Boxing Clever

So let's start with the original boxes, at least we have an idea what's going to be in them.

The Hills Are Alive

Not a singing nun in sight, but maybe the odd bit of edelweiss.  I think this might be classed as 'mint in box' as it is all in perfect condition as if you had just brought it home from the toy shop military miniature emporium.  More details of this set can be found here.

Green Devils

Fallschirmjager on the sprue and with less flash than the ones reviewed here by PSR. Another MIB set which may have been worth something before Airfix reissued lots of sets.

Comrades

 

I didn't have any recollection of these but I must have bought them some time in the early 1980s.  Nice sculpting but some odd poses and quite a few of each.  The maxims a really nice.  More details from our friends at PSR here.

Our Friends Across The Channel

   

PSR don't rate this very highly for it's accuracy but WWII French troops are pretty thin on the ground, in fact these were pretty much it until recently.  More details here.

Yankee Doodle Dandy

A bit of a mixed bag here, all US troops but a mix of Matchbox Infantry and Airfix Marines.  Here's what PSR has to say about the two sets here and here.

G'Day Ya Pommy B@$*#&*

The first tin of gold and a display of my childhood lack of knowledge of actual military organisation, they all had machine guns ok so that made them a machine gun platoon in my naive eyes.  No a mix of Airfix and Matchbox once again, but not a huge number either.  Lets hope the rest of the tins hold more than this otherwise I'm going to be more than a little disappointed.

PSR's thoughts here and here.

By jingo somebody has had a bash at painting these Aussie bad boys

So that's enough excitement for one post, keep your eyes open for the next gripping instalment of plastic soldier goodness as I open more boxes and tins to see what we have in this garage time capsule.

* Thanks to the guys at PlasticSoldierReview.com for all their great work keeping us up to date with everything tiny plastic men related.