Unthemed Batch O Minis

01.28.2021

Another random batch of non-game affiliated minis. Like the Scooby Gang, this batch was also cast by Hasslefree Miniatures. I'd forgotten how much I like their casts. There's the right amount of detail, usually there's no too much in the way to get all of he (important) details painted.

A little more careful prep helped. I washed the metal minis before doing anything - one of those steps I skip 95% of the time. I primed on a humid day. It may have actually been drizzling outside, but the primer stuck well enough and didn't run. I mainly stuck to contrast paints on these, too. I think contrast paints work well with fabric, although dark streaks covering large areas (backs, mainly) are more prone than I care for.

This was also my best batch of eyeballs. I read a Facebook post of someone explaining how they paint eyes and I was already pretty close to that method. Since I normally prime everything white, starting at the whites of eyeballs should be a natural thing for me to do. After priming, paint the pupil. If the pupils don't line up, paint white over them and try again. If the pupil spills over - it's a little hard for me to type that with my eye phobia - just clean up the part(s) you don't want. I've gotten better at going over mistakes along the way, normally dabbing a little white at whatever color has gone beyond its line. Cleaning up pupils that way, instead of trying to add those dots to eyes close to the final step, sounds much more feasible. And, it turns out, it is!

I again veered away from making everyone white, which for some reason makes me a little nervous each time. Skin tones came through a little mottled, but that was for everyone. Skin was giving me a fit on this go around (again). Overall, it turned out to be a good batch. Outside of the prep work of washing and priming, it only took a day to paint everything. A day of PTO I was taking, and it was an enjoyable and relaxing day at that.

Here's a who's who:
Vince - Kind of a biker gang guy, with his sleeveless leather vest-jacket.
Sgt Spanner - Basically a Capt America knock off.
Kristen - I'm not sure what she's supposed to be doing. Maybe hiding a gun behind her hair?
Frank Cisco - It's really Dirty Harry. Punk.
General Sinclair - Always in need of another unarmed military looking guy. "General" seems ambitious though. He looks more like a colonel, or maybe a major, to me.
Gina - Hasslfree has 2 sculpts for Six from Battlestar Galactica. This is one. The other is still in my TBD pile.

Permalink gaming miniatures Hasslefree

Be Kind, Please Rewind

01.25.2021

The latest mall addition is a good old fashioned video store - Blockbuster!

When putting away the Scooby gang last time, I noticed my box for non-game specific minis is almost full. But fear not, I've got an empty box sitting at the ready.

Permalink 4ground-mall scenery

Those Meddling Kids

01.21.2021

For my first batch of painting for the year, I went for a group of minis which I don't really know how long I've had sitting on a shelf. Quite a while, at least. The Hasslefree version of the Scooby Doo gang. Each has a different name so as to not infringe on any copyrights, but the key there is that without the correct colors it's not Scoob and the gang. Although I learned, based on my color choices and reference pics to the cartoon, that just getting close to the right color combinations is good enough for people to recognize who it's supposed to be.

There was really nothing special about this batch, save for I think these are the best eyes I've managed. Brush-felt tipped pens, with ever the slightest of touches, while paying close attention with my magnifying headband glasses ended up being the right combination - this time around. I also ended up using those brushes, think of it as painting with ink, to touch up hair and some clothes parts.

The Mystery Machine in the last pic is a Jada 1:32 Die Cast toy I came across at Wal Mart. Normally 1:48 and maybe 1:42 will work with 28mm, so this is a big accessory. The van is just under 2 inches wide, which is what most vehicles in 28mm treat as 1 lane. For $10, it's close enough to work. There's a resin van and add-on decals you can get for the right scale, but again, for $10 this was a quick prop to add in.

Only I will really notice, but I'm not going to add my spreadsheet update any longer with each painted mini post. Any gains or losses are hard to notice unless you go back to the previous post, and I don't plan on getting done anytime soon. Maybe when a category of minis gets done I'll make a special note, but no more "0.3% more complete!" paragraphs :)

For next time, I'm still working on a Blockbuster Video store for the 4Ground mall. After that, I think I may work on a non-mall building while also finding another batch of minis to paint for when the mood strikes.

Permalink gaming miniatures Hasslefree

Rite Aid

01.09.2021

The latest addition to the Mall of Potham is a Rite Aid Pharmacy. For whatever reason, the idea of a raised pharmacist area was stuck in my head and I wanted to try and pull it off. In the end - eh. The narrow width of the layout didn't really work with the "open to the side" area that was in my head. But that's ok - it works for game purposes, which is one of those things that's important down the line.

Cutting the floor from a slightly larger piece of wood was my first use of my super cool Black Friday purchase - the Wondercutter. I got through my first use without a trip to the ER, something I was honestly a little fearful of. I learned an ultrasonic knife (a) makes no sounds, and (b) you can't see the blade vibrate. While all of that should seem obvious, it wasn't until putting knife to thing-to-cut that it clicked that the blade really was vibrating (ultrasonically fast).

Pay no attention to the minis in the pics below, they're only there for scale and usually live in a box to test paint colors/mixes/things I don't think will work. The zombies are from Star Trek color tests :)

Up next for the mall is a Blockbuster Video Store. Given my penchant for movies, the interior for this one should go pretty quick.

I've also primed a Scooby Doo gang for when the painting mood strikes.

Permalink 4ground-mall gaming miniatures

Can 2 Stores Make a Mall?

12.27.2020

October/Black Friday 2019 my big purchase was the 4Ground Mall. After a month or two I finally started putting the mall together, and by the middle of April the basic mall was built sans any content. I knew filling out the guts of the stores would be the big time consuming part of this project. That's ok though, I'm not in a hurry. This was intended to be a long term project. That was part of rationalizing the cost for this.

Now, after another 6+ months, I can claim 2 stores as complete (enough) to qualify as mall tenants.

1. Ammunation
You can tell I play too much Grand Theft Auto when the 1st mall store is named after a store in the video game. I didn't want to stick with the options printed up in the provided mall directions, I'm much too quirky for that. The Ammunation store was thought to be mostly done a few months ago, but after looking at what I how I had decorated the store, it just didn't feel right. The first change was the entrance sign. Although I like the Mod Podge Dimensional Magic to add depth to the sign, it looked like a cheap key fob. The Mod Podge was just me over-engineering what I wanted, so version... technically, 4... was just a piece of clear transparency film over the sign graphic printed on card stock. A lot more miscellaneous clutter was added in to help give the store a little life and personality. The room in the back will have some personality added later - right now it's just got gun-themed posters I would imagine gun-nut me would put up.

2. (Sara's) That's So Art
One of the top 3 coolest Christmas presents I ever received were the Hero Forge minis from Sara last year. Since last year, Sara has stood up her booming custom art business to the point where SHE HAD NO TIME TO TOP LAST YEARS PRESENT. I made sure to express my dissappointment and how I took the lack of notice and personal attention as a personal affront. Just to make her feel worse, I turned one of the mall stores into her art shop, complete with me and Tyler looking around.

Unfortunately, Sara didn't fall for my personal affrontedness and just commented on how cool it was.

Now I can claim a little hobby progress from the past few months. Not a lot, but some. Salesforce certification studying got in the way a lot more than I intended.

I've been working on a pharmacy for the mall, but I keep finding my ideas for setting up the interior aren't working well enough to follow through on. Another iteration is primed to try, literally. Maybe this one will work well enough to build upon.

Permalink 4ground-mall gaming miniatures scenery