Quick Update on My Elves

I've got the elves primed and I've made a very small start to the painting job.

I'm aiming to keep my colour palette pretty simple - 3 colours (with washes and highlights) for the troops and maybe an extra colour of two for the captain. I know I want blue with a silver/white look, so maybe with a splash of orange somewhere on each figure.

Hopefully I'll be able to make some solid progress tonight and have some exciting pictures for tomorrow!

Triangle Bit for Mantic Elves

When I was putting together the Mantic elves, there was one pieces I couldn't work out. This little triangle thing.

There are 6 or 8 of them on the sprue, but I couldn't see anything similar modelled on any of the "special" bodies - the one without any arms and the one with the cloak, and I also couldn't spot the piece in any of the photos on the building instructions.

I wondered if it was a faceplate for the helms, but it seems to big. It also didn't seem to fit right as a shoulder pad.

Building Mantic Elves

I have a bit of time at home to myself this week, so I thought I'd tackle something a little ambitious. With all the talk of Warhammer flying around the modelling parts of the internet that I frequent, I've been getting the urge to play with something fantasy based. So I figured it was about time I broke out the Mantic Elves I picked up earlier in the year.

The box has 10 multi-part elves on a single sprue. I was hoping to get them all clipped, assembled and primed on Monday night, but I ended up only getting everything clipped. Last night I cleaned the parts up and assembled all the models, so first thing this evening I'll prime them, and hopefully be able to start painting tonight!

Finally, Some Photos!

I mentioned before that I'd improved my Angels of Redemption painting technique, but failed to actually post any images of it. Well, I've finally gotten around to it now!

This was taken after I was happy with the base coats, but before I'd added the black lining.

I still really like the extreme contrast that the black lining gives the armour, so despite it being a bit of a pain to do, I'm going to stick with it. You'll also (hopefully) notice that spent a bit more time on the faces.

I spent some time trying to get the hairy guy's skin to not look like his hair. I'm still not happy with how his eyes look, but I decided to stop trying. I was much happier with the bald guy's head.

It's a Smallworld After All

A few months ago I got a copy of Smallworld by Days of Wonder. Probably as a result of having wiped the floor with them both in whatever we played that weekend, both K and M forbid me from even reading the rules until we all had a chance to sit down and try it together.

Finally, such a chance came around on Friday night. So after dinner, we cleared the table and lifted the lid. I was a bit amused by K and M asking was each component was for and what we were meant to do while I was still trying to set up the board - if they'd let me read the rules before hand I could have answered all their questions!

It took us a little bit to get started, but we got into the flow of things pretty well. We all agreed that K had the pointiest ears, so she got to start and chose the Heroic Elves. M went for the Skeletons with a power I don't remember, and I started with Wealth Skaven Ratmen. K quickly took one side of the board, and M took the other leaving me to squeeze in between them both.

The skeletons proved to be quite effective at claiming territory - mostly mine. So after about 4 turns I was the first to opt to go into decline and grabbed myself the Spirit Hobbits Halflings. Since the Hobbits can start the game anywhere, I popped up in the middle of the skeleton lands and started to clear out the undead infestation.

Shortly after, M decided to go into decline as well, and grabbed herself some Mounted Giants. Unfortunately, I don't think she quite realised that if you have a civilization in decline you can still get victory points for them, because she came into the board on some skeletons, and in her efforts to attack me wiped out a few more skeleton lands.

Meanwhile, K was mostly leaving us to fight amongst ourselves, but eventually decided she'd expanded as far as she could. So she picked up the Sorcerers (again, I forget their special power). She quickly started stomping all over the giants and my hobbits, so I decided to go into decline again.

I emerged as Commando Dwarves ("so they're not wearing any undies?" quipped K), and in the last two turns frantically tried to claim as many mountains as I could while watching my hobbits continue to be hunted down by K, who ended up winning comfortably.

I really enjoyed the game, and can see there's a fair bit of depth to be explored. I think we all held onto our civilizations too long - I should have gone into decline a lot earlier, especially since I didn't get anywhere near close enough to take advantage of the Spirit part of my hobbits. I'm also looking forward to seeing how the game goes in two-player mode.

Improving my Angels of Redemption Painting

In between playing Torchlight and the family and life stuff we had happening over the weekend, I managed to fit in a bit of hobby time. I pulled my landspeeder bits out again with the aim of getting the two crew members painted up.

While I've been pretty happy with my Angels of Redemption colour scheme, it's far to time consuming - I've spent hours and hours and turned out 5 almost complete models and a bunch of half-done ones. So I decided to try streamlining it a bit more.

I primed the two crew with white gesso rather than black - previously having to build up the white half from black took ages, and I was hopeful that it would make getting the green a bit easier too. I then put down a layer of gnarloc green on the green half, followed by dark angels green.

I should have tried just straight dark angels green on the white gesso, because the result was still too dark. I tried a quick coat of clover green, but it looked messy and the wrong colour. So I did a 1:1 mix of dark angels green and clover green, thinned it down a fair bit and slapped it on. I was pretty happy with the results.

I hit the white half with skull white, and then all but the deepest recesses with a slightly lighter skull white. The second coat didn't really change the colour very much, and it was still far to yellow. So I then hit it all with an almost 2:1 bright white/skull white mix, which came out much better.

Trying to paint the Aquilas gold over white failed, so I went over them with black before going the gold again. Since I had the black going, I also touched up the soft areas of the knees, elbows and necks (as well as tidied up some of the sloppy areas.

I took to the faces with light brown, then 1:1 light brown and flesh. I then hit the raised areas with flesh and the top of the bald head with skull white. I was pretty pleased with the initial result. I then hit the eyes with black, which worked nicely on the bald head, but caused me more problems with the hairy head.

All up, I probably spent about 2-3 hours. I'd estimate there's probably another hour in highlighting, black lining and other detailing. If I fix a few of the mistake I made this time, I should be able to knock that paint time down even more.

The biggest issue I had was I wish I had left the arms and maybe the heads off until after I'd painted the torsos. I also have issues with the white in hard to reach parts - if it was black, then you just wouldn't notice. All lessons for next time!

Currently Playing: Torchlight

A little while ago I decided to sit down and start playing Torchlight again. I was feeling in the mood for bashing some monsters, and it's pretty perfect for that. As others have said, it's like they took Diablo and took out all the boring bits.

This time around I decided to roll up a Destroyer, having previously played a Vanquisher. And then I proceeded to run down through the levels of the dungeon, splattering anything that crossed my path. I was initially making really good progress, but then I realised that I'd missed killing a monster on one of the earlier levels. I tried to backtrack, but after working my way up a level I discovered I couldn't get back through a locked gate. So I had to return to the very start of the mine, fight my way back down again, kill the monster in question and then continue on my way.

On the plus side, re-fighting a few levels was pretty easy as a higher level character, and the extra XP was very nice.

I've also rediscovered my other big love in Diablo and Torchlight - gems. Turns out, I have the soul of a dwarf. I have this obsession with hording every gem I come across and trying to turn them into the next highest level. Thanks to the shared stash, I had access to all the gems from my previous character as well. So all my gold goes towards buying more gems, and all my magical items get transmuted into gems. I don't want to actually put the gems into any equipment until I have the very best quality ones. So really they're just something pretty to look at. My preciouses...

I've managed to push deeper into the dungeon then I did last time, and I think I'm nearing the end. Which really just means getting closer to rolling up another character!