Merry Christmas PLUS a teaser AND a podcast interview : )

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas, and thank you all for checking out the many meandering posts for 2015. I hope to see you all back again during 2016 (although I think I still have a couple of posts left in me for this year).

I've been slaving away on a few more tables for a client, tables that will end up gracing the pages of an updated rulebook. Pretty cool, eh?

I've been able to use excellent pieces of terrain from a variety of companies (along with scratch-built and hand-sculpted pieces) that include: Ironheart Artisans, Burn In Designs, Impudent Mortal, Secret Weapon Miniatures, and Mantic. On these containers (Ironheart above and Burn In below) I've used Sci-Fi Lettering decals from Fallout Hobbies. The decals themselves are nice and sturdy without being too thick, and the white printing is great, perfectly opaque. They worked out wonderfully for this project.

Speaking of Fallout Hobbies, Ron has just started up a hobby-focused podcast in which he'll be interviewing prolific hobbyists and geeking out about cool techniques and so on. I was fortunate enough to be on his first episode, which is now up on Soundcloud. I'm looking forward to listening to the upcoming guests (apparently Ron already has a wishlist of 20 guests he is keen on talking to).

You can, if you are interested, check it out HERE : )

Cheers
Dave

WARLORD - Video 3 is now up on YouTube : )

I'm very excited. The next video is complete and up on YouTube. I'm starting to get the hang of a few things. Hopefully you are feeling a bit of an improvement overall with these videos. Certainly an interesting medium to work in.

In this video you can also see the sandbag walls I'll be using on the base of my Warlord. They're the ones I sculpted for Secret Weapon Miniatures, released earlier this year. I highly recommend you go and check them out : )

And think about supporting my Patreon campaign, too ; )

Cheers
Dave

I finally finished one!

It's still all noses to the grindstones here at Dave Taylor Miniatures, with lots of work for March in the queue. I'm quite happy about that : )

I did carve out some time, however, to finish up this guy, who has been sitting on my desk for a few weeks (thanks to a generous James). He's an early cast of the Quaker robot from the Infamy: Welcome to the Big Smoke game. You can check out my other posts about it here.

He's a nifty little, almost-hound-like cleaning robot with a big lightning gun on his back. Very cool. I went for a simple, Tesla-just-finished-building-this-prototype-in-his-workshop look, with dark cast iron, shinier steel, and some solid brass machined parts.

The base is from Secret Weapon Miniatures' Town Square range.

I hope you like it : )

And here's a size comparison with a FW Thallax.

Cheers

Dave

A quick tease, and Kickstarters arrive!

I have a few other things on deck at the moment, but I thought I'd show you two WIPs for my Death Guard. The one on the right is my second Contemptor (who will be wielding a multi-melta and a power fist), and the guy on the left needs a couple of plasma pistols ; )

Anyway, on to the next thing. Three Kickstarters that I've backed over the last 18 months all delivered this month. Mars Attacks from Mantic and Games & Gears' brush sets were the first two to arrive (more on these later). Today, it was these two snazzy boxes from the Secret Weapon Tablescapes Kickstarter. Of course I haven't had the chance to get any paint on them yet, but my daughter was able to help me out by designing the layout you see below. The compression clips were easy to snap into the tiles, and held them together really well.

It's always a great feeling when you know you've been able to help a great company afford to create such a cool product : )

Cheers
Dave

The Infamous Mr Hyde

Over the last couple of weeks I've been chatting with James Griffiths, the man behind the curtain at Infamy Miniatures. During this time I've plucked up the courage to start working on this beast of a man, Frank Hyde. I'll provide this link HERE to give you some more background on Hyde in the world of Infamy.

Chemically enhanced/distorted musculature is obviously the key feature of Frank, and I've enjoyed trying out a few new (for me) approaches which are leading me to a more "painterly"feel. I hope it translates through the rest of the model.

Frank sits atop a display plinth from Secret Weapon Miniatures, and the Infamy Kickstarter begins in just three weeks - July 10 to be precise : )

I hope you enjoy the progress.

Cheers
Dave

Horus Heresy - Death Guard Killzone team

Here they are, my (initial) take on a Killzone team for the Death Guard. I know I'll need to paint up some more models, as some of these no longer fit with my plans (or quite fit into the currently constantly updating rules). Amusingly enough, my friend who has been working on a set of rules has actually been working with Big Jim of Galaxy In Flames. Big Jim put up the latest set of rules on his blog on Sunday. Why don't you head on over and check them out.

But on to the models. Most of these were painted last time you saw them, but I was still a bit iffy on the final basing. After consulting with a few friends, and taking some good advice from a multi-Sword winner, I've gone with this basing approach. A dark/mid grey, washed with a variety of colors (including purple), followed by some mid/light grey drybrushing, and then a dusting of Terracotta Earth powder from Secret Weapon Miniatures. I hope you like it

Until next time, happy painting!

Cheers
Dave

More Mechanicum Menials

What a busy week. I haven't had as much time to blog as I would have liked, but most nights I've been crashing on the couch as soon as the girls are in bed. So, expect a few more posts over the next week (if I can stay awake).

First up are three more Mechanicum menials. Two are converted from Forgeworld
Vraksian priests, the third is a Night Goblin conversion I did back with the others, but somehow misplaced on my incredibly clean painting table ; )

There were some fairly extensive conversions done to the guy on the left, extra cables added, resin cables replaced, a cool "Tentacle Maker" arm (including a connector to interface with communications arrays), and other elemtns from an Imperial Guard voxcaster. The guy on the right is almost completely untouched, just a few areas where some bubbles needed to be filled. The little guy in the middle was built much like these were.

I'll be putting them on Dragon Forge Tech Deck bases as soon as my package arrives tomorrow : )

Also on my painting table is this brute - Frank Hyde. I've had him for a little while now, but was never sure what to do with him. When I saw the cool new plinths from Secret Weapon Miniatures I new I finally had a setting for him. I'm going to be trying out a few new techniques (for me at least) on Frank, so don't expect to see him finished anytime soon. If you are interested in seeing Frank with an excellent paintjob, head to the Infamy Miniatures website and check out all the goodness there.

Cheers
Dave

No, I'm not addicted. I can stop anytime I like.

A quick promo for two Kickstarter projects that friends of mine are involved in.

The first is Incursion (from Grindhouse Games). I'm really keen to see how far this can go, and if it'll lead to Jim and John tackling more theaters in their Weird War Two "dungeon crawl" (I guess). The artwork and personality for the game is right up my alley, and you can read all about painting up the original Incursion models for charity here.

Get on it!

The second one is Angry Sheep (from Iron Box Games - a "division" of Secret Weapon Miniatures). Justin McCoy has put together a very cool little beer and pretzels game (or maybe just the beer OR the pretzels), but with a delivery date of December 2014 on a very simple product, I'm thinking this'll make a great Christmas gift (so, I'll be pledging at the $45 level and grabbing two).

So, check out these two projects. I hope you like the ideas behind them as much as I do.

They also have kick-ass videos!

Cheers
Dave

Public Service Announcement #1

My friend, Justin McCoy (of Secret Weapon Miniatures), is just about to wrap up his company's first Kickstarter campaign, Tablescapes. I've mentioned it before, but as there are now less than 48 hours to get your pledges in, I felt it was important to mention it again.

Since I last talked about it, several more themes have been unlocked, and all manner of additional announcements and partnerships have been made.

Soooooooo...   Head on over to the Kickstarter page HERE and take another look through the excellence that is Tablescapes!

Cheers
Dave

Expect to see a few more plugs for different things over the coming days.

Building Better Worlds.

Well, my friend at Secret Weapon Miniatures continues to surprise and delight! If you haven't seen their Tablescapes Kickstarter yet, then head on over now. I'll wait until you get back : )

Misterjustin and the crew at Secret Weapon put out a load of great, top-quality products, and this one promises to be no different.

I've pledged for the 4'x8' set, and was only seconds off getting the early bird deal. That'll teach me to pledge to a project before an hour has elapsed.

"Crowdfunding" is a very interesting thing, and I had told myself that I wouldn't pledge to anther one before anything arrived from the other three I have pledged to arrived. One of them will hopefully be on time (Dream-Forge wave three next month), one is slightly delayed (Free Mars) and one has seen considerable delays, but is now hopefully arriving in a month or so (Massive Voodoo artbook).

This opportunity though, to help out a friend and perhaps get some more gaming in, was too good to resist, and now I'm hoping the Trenchworks board funds....

Cheers
Dave

The bases are here! The bases are here!

And now I can start showing them all together!

I am very happy! On Wednesday the first part of my base order from Dragon Forge Design arrrived. I was so excited, in fact, that all my other paint jobs were pushed to the side so I could get a chunk of the bases painted up and finally see my recent Mechanicum stuff added to them : )  In all I'll be getting over 100 bases from this very cool range - the Tech Deck series, found here!

As you can see on the two samples above, I've gone for a fairly dark scheme, in keeping with the brooding feeling of the rest of the models. Lots of steel (in various stages of decay), some exposed brass trim (with verde gris), some green cabling, and the ubiquitous hazard striping.

On some bases I've painted some of the cabling with hazard striping too, just for that extra pop of detailing. The rusty/dusty look on the bases is from a final dusting of Rust Red and Rust Orange weathering powders from Secret Weapon Miniatures.

Here's my current WIP for the Mechanicum, and the base he'll end up on.

And finally, I'll leave you with a clearer shot of the rebased (or freshly based) models so far.

I hope you like them : )

Cheers
Dave

Brass Snakes

 

Another Mechanicum Adept/Magos is completed!

This guy was quite popular when I posted the construction photo of him. I hope he hasn't lost any of his charm now that he's painted. I finally remembered to throw a little patina onto the brass sections of the model (using the Secret Weapon Miniatures' Storm Cloud Wash).

These models continue to roll out at a reasonably slow pace, but once my ACW painting is out of the way I hope to ramp up production : )

Cheers
Dave

Mechanicum Firepower

And with a little break in the construction of my Mechanicum... well... errr... constucts, I've been able to finish the painting on my large quad autocannon servitor. I've broken up the large areas of red a little with some chipping damage and some weathering powder (Clay Brown from Secret Weapon Miniatures).

Here he is from a variety of angles : )

The other models on my painting table now are these two Magos models. For me these two typify the variation found amongst the upper echelons of the Mechanicum. They certainly break the idea that the devotees of the Omnissiah all look the same.

Off to Cold Wars in Lancaster, PA, this weekend, so not much time for painting, but thankfully I get to look at toy soldiers all day ; )

Cheers
Dave

A mixed bag...

After getting back from our family vacation in Australia, it certainly has been a busy week getting back in the swing of things. I have a bunch of projects on my table (at least four I think), so we'll get to those as they all near completion. Above is one of my Mechanicum pieces about a third of the way through. I'm looking forward to getting more paint on him soon : )

One advantage of going away for two weeks is that you can end up with a few packages waiting for you when you get back. I was excited to see the Badger Renegade Krome airbrush I ordered from Secret Weapon Miniatures was delivered. Time to put some yellow on my Lamenters Storm Raven, I think!

I was also surprised to find this cool package. Seems a few friends at Outlaw Miniatures sent me a little teaser package for their new game, Wild West Exodus. Above is issue #1 of the "comic of the game" (or is the game "the game of the comic"?), and I must say the story and art are very cool. Below is a "pre-production" test shot of one of the minion models for the game, and Animated Brute from The Enlightened faction. Like a lot of the models being released now by folks like Wyrd and Dream-Forge, this cool zombie is all plastic and wonderfully detailed. He should be a hoot to paint up, and is currently standing on a wooden plank base from FullBorer Miniatures.

I urge you all to head on over to the Outlaw Miniatures' Kickstarter campaign and see if it's something you're interested in. I'm really keen on the blend of Wild West, Steampunk, Sci-fi, and mystical zealotry.

Finally, here's a teaser of something I've been working on here and there. I think you'll see some more of him over the coming months : )

Cheers
Dave

Cold snap!

And now I have completed the Malifaux crew for my friend Thomas. I don't pretend to understand the game, but he told me the other night that all the models I had painted for him were those with the Cold Heart ability/special rule/connection, sounds suitably chilly for this cold snap we're having.

When we talked through the scheme at the start of the project we agreed on a palette composed primarily of pale blue, purple, and bone. It was a lot of fun to try and restrict everything to these colors, as well as taking cues where possible from the original "studio paintjobs". As a refresher, here are the first batch of beasties.

This Ice Golem (on the left) was interesting to paint, and by interesting I mean it took me four times as long to finish as I thought it would. lots of layers over the entire model, and even the there could have been more.

Here's the whole crew assembled. I hope you like them : )

The cool bases are from Dragon Forge Design. The clumps of snow on the bases are from Secret Weapon Miniatures crushed glass kit.

The list of paints I used for the project are as follows (in manufacturer groupings):

GW Seraphim Sepia

GW Thunderhawk Blue

GW Averland Sun

GW Boltgun Metal

GW Mithril Silver

GW Rhinox Hide

GW Nuln Oil

P3 Morrow White

SWM Amethyst

SWM Storm Cloud

VGC Black

VGC Hammered Copper

VGC Glorious Gold

VGC Hexed Lichen

VGC Turquoise

VGC Tan 

VGC Dwarf Skin

VMC Pale Sand
VMC Deep Sky Blue
VMC Beige Brown
VMC German Grey

Perhaps you'll seethem on the Malifaux tables at Adepticon : )

Cheers
Dave