Two More Knights and a Lot of Men at Arms

 Well, it's nearly the new year, so I guess this is probably going to be my final post of 2025. I know it's customary to do a yearly round-up of the things I've made, and from a purely painting point of view it's been a very good year, but I can't really be bothered right now. So instead, here are some more Bretonnians. For some reason, I associate knights with Christmas. I think it's because King Arthur met his knights then, as seen in the very weird recently film of The Green Knight. 

First up, two more plastic knights from the Battlemasters game. Pretty!

I bought a few more men at arms to round off my unit, including some musicians from the 1996 army book. One model, a halberdier, had a broken weapon that was going to be difficult to mend. I carefully cut away what was left of it and replaced it with a pole, made from the ramrod of an Empire cannon crew. It has a nice bobble at one end.

I'm not really a fan of paper banners. They seem to look very tatty very quickly, and I prefer the sculpted plastic ones that you get with modern boxed sets. So I made this guy a banner out of plasticard and green stuff. It's rather small, but I reckon that (a) men at arms aren't important to get big banners; (ii) this guy is tired out and is holding it lower down instead of waving it around; and (3) I want to be able to fit him into my miniatures case.

I also painted some friends for him, including a drummer. They take up the front row of the picture below. And that's the unit finished, painted in the colours of Les Hommes de Renault from White Dwarf 137 all those years ago (May 1991, to be precise). They're a bit grottier-looking than I'd first intended, and I'll need to get a movement tray for them, but overall I'm really pleased with the results.

On to the next models, and the next year! Happy New Year everyone!

A Load of Conversions

 It's nearly Christmas Day, and what could be more festive than some random models I've made out of various sprues? The answer is "almost anything", but that's not going to stop me.

First up, a couple of jolly fellows from the merry land of Blognia. On the left is a peasant girl, made from the ever-reliable Perry Miniatures Afghan sprue. To make her smaller, and turn the model's coat/shirt into a skirt, I cut the feet off above the ankles (as high as possible), and cut off the bottom of the model's baggy trousers. I then drilled two small holes and glued the legs back into them. Her gun is from the Afghans and her head is from Frostgrave with green stuff hair and a shawl-type thing on her waist. 

The satyr is simply a Frostgrave demon. The demons aren't my favourite Frostgrave models, to be honest. They're a too bulky to mix well with other plastics, and they feel a bit cartoony. I get that Frostgrave isn't a horrific game, but they still look rather goofy to me. Anyhow, he's a satyr.

Then, moving to space, we've got a maniac and a sniper. The maniac is a Wargames Atlantic Chinese Boxer soldier body with Frostgrave Cultists 2 head and arms. The Cultists 2 sprue is great, by the way. The sniper has a Bolt Action USMC body, a Stargrave head, and Perry Afghan arms. 

These next two are female soldiers from the Stargrave Mercenaries 2 frame, with arms from the Bolt Action USMC sprue. I really like how they've come out, especially on the random authority figure on the right.

Here are two noir-style private eyes, who I have named Laura Norder and Polly Sofficer. The bodies are Wargames Atlantic Gorgnards, with GW arms. I think the hats came from a Civil War sprue.

And finally, we've got a mystic leader for a Stargrave crew. This guy is an old metal Gates of Antares miniature, with a Stargrave Scavenger head. While Antares never seemed to take off, and the models weren't very exciting, a few of them are really nice. 

And that's it for now! I hope you have a very Merry Christmas, and get all the models you hoped for. Thanks for reading and see you soon!

A (Konflikt 47) Walker for House Escher

Here's a model that I've had lying around for ages. I think I got it in a sale. It's a Warlord Games Coyote walker from their Konflikt 47 game. Oddly, when I bought it, Warlord sent me an entire resin kit and then a spare pair of arms and legs which were exactly the same, but metal. This miniature has the resin torso and metal limbs, for what it's worth.

I decided to use it as a support unit for my Escher gang. In new Necromunda, gangs can take robots called Ambots to support them. I'm not sure what they are or do, but I thought that this model might make a good equivalent.

The Coyote is a pretty nice model and a lot bigger than I'd anticipated. It also has a lot of blank space that you can use for interesting colours. I decided to paint mine to reflect the rest of my Escher crew, and used the tank from the 1990s film of Tank Girl as a basis. Much jollier than the standard olive green! The only modification was the addition of a little aerial to the top. I left off the guns, as I don't think that ambots carry them.

He's a happy little (big) guy!

The (Grail) Pilgrim's Progress

 It's time for a quick update on the Bretonnian project. I've reached the first milestone, in that I've painted ten soldiers from each of the main groups.

There will be three principal infantry units: archers, foot knights and men at arms. I'm expecting to end up with about 20 archers, 15 knights and 20 men at arms, which should provide some solid and nice-looking blocks of troops. I'm also hoping to do some squires (which I plan to paint green, in a homage to the old Bowmen of Bergerac unit from the Stillman codex) and maybe even some mounted yeomen, but that remains very much to be seen. 

Anyway, for now I've made 10 of each of the main groups. My main thought is how good these ancient metal models are. I think they were sculpted by the Perry twins, and they're full of excellent details. I think the men at arms are particularly varied and dramatic, with loads of good poses and as much of a sense of movement that old models in a packed-in unit could be expected to provide.

So, here are the men at arms:

And here are the knights:

And, finally, here are the archers:

To be honest, I don't think these photos do them all that much justice, but you get the idea. We're slowly getting there. I really like them as units.

Also, as a bonus, here is the first model that I have sculpted from scratch. He started off as an alien egg, but at the last minute I turned him into a Ghibli-type creature. Sculpting is difficult!

Ogryn Bodyguard for Necromunda (or Stargrave)

A tedious bit of real-world stuff: this hasn't been the easiest year, in terms of my job and my writing "career", and while nothing terrible has happened, I've found that I'm getting more entertainment out of painting models than usual. When it's difficult to get much satisfaction from my work or the world of publishing, it's good to be able to look at a finished model and think "I did a decent job of that".

I've also realised that, while repainting the Bretonnians is fun, a lot of what I enjoy in this hobby is altering and converting models, which I'm not going to do with my knights (although some repairs might be required). So, this week I've done a conversion that I've been thinking about for ages.

Years ago I bought the ogre Blood Bowl team. It's not bad, as you get four ogres (much better miniatures than the usual fantasy ones) and a lot of gnoblars in funny poses (again, much better models than the fantasy versions). I thought it would be cool to turn one of the ogres into a Necromunda hired gun. 

This was one of those conversions that got bigger and bigger as it went on. I decided to replace the belly-plate on the ogre with sculpted trousers and a belt (the buckle comes from the side of the plate). Then I decided to give him a vest, and then a sleeveless jacket, and before long I was rebuilding a lot of his upper body. Well, it's all good practice in sculpting.

What else is there to say? Hmm, well, his shoulder pads are plasticard, and he's got a lot of bits and bobs that looked suitably technical and futuristic. The odd bobbles on top of his left (our right) shoulderpad were inspired by the jackets in the Cyberpunk 2077 computer game. His pistol is an Imperial Guard grenade launcher and his cigar is a bit of wire. The box on the ground by his feet was from a plastic Van Saar ganger. I have no idea what the objects in it are supposed to be. Ammo? Cans of baked beans?

Anyhow, here's the finished version. I think he's come out quite well - the sculpted bits don't look too blobby, which is always the risk when I attempt anything with green stuff. 

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I've also been painting a few more minions for the Bretonnian army. At present, the Peasant Progress looks like this:

Archers: 10

Foot knights: 6

Men at arms: 10

That's about a third of the way through the foot troops. I'll post more pictures once I've got a few more done. I'd forgotten just how many guys you need for a Warhammer army.

Horsies!

 It's time to go back to the Bretonnian project for a bit. If reading about knights isn't your thing, skip the next chunk of text (or possibly this whole post).

There have been three Bretonnian army books, if you count the recent one for The Old World (and why wouldn't you, really?). The first was released in 1996, and was written by Nigel Stillman. Stillman doesn't get much mention these days, but he was a fairly big figure in the old days of White Dwarf. The second, by Anthony Reynolds, came out in 2003. I've got both, and I think the Stillman Codex (which sounds like the title of a Dan Brown novel) is the better of the two.

The Stillman book actually makes Bretonnia look like fun. In fact, it seems to be a cartoon medieval kingdom, where jolly peasants quaff wine and brightly-coloured knights fall off their horses a lot. There are references to stuffing cheese in your ears to avoid annoying minstrels, and to something called "the Great Flapping Monster of Chateau Mal" (as slain by Bertrand le Brigand, who in no way resembles Errol Flynn's Robin Hood). It actually sounds like a place you might want to visit. It also gave the Bretonnians an Arthurian feel, introducing the Lady of the Lake and the Green Knight, and provided rules for special formations and divine protection. These did a lot to move Bretonnia away from the "Empire without the fun stuff" feel that had dogged it in the past.

And that's the time that I'm looking to recreate with my army.

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After all that, I've painted my first unit of knights for about 30 years. These guys aren't even Bretonnians, technically: they're from a game called Battlemasters, which Games Workshop released with MB Games back in 1992. I remember looking at the pictures of the knights in White Dwarf with my friend Jim when we were at school.

Obviously, they're all the same sculpt, which isn't brilliant but isn't bad either, especially for a board game about 30 years old. I've used these as a bit of a test unit, trying out a variety of colours and block patterns for later units. The early Bretonnian knights had a wider range of colours and less ornate detail than the current miniatures, and I don't think they suffered for it.

After painting harlequins and Escher gangers, I was expecting these to be very fiddly. In fact, the main challenge is keeping the different sections looking cleanly defined and shading the big sheets of cloth without having an airbrush. It wasn't easy. The overall effect reminds me of those 1950s films about Camelot (it is a silly place) shot in Glorious Technicolor: very bright and slightly hallucinatory. I like them. I might even paint some official Bretonnians soon.

Tank Girl and Friends

Here's one of those slightly irritating "How it started/how it's going" posts you see on social media. This week, I have been repainting one of my last Escher gangers. This model is a juve with a stub gun and a pick. I've mentioned before that the Eschers seem to have been influenced by Tank Girl, and this one really looks as much like her as GW could manage. She's even got the slightly pigeon-toed stance that Jamie Hewlett often used to depict her.

This model is particularly interesting to me, as I first painted it about 15 years ago, and thought at the time that I had done a really good job. It was always one of my best-painted models and I was somewhat reluctant to strip it and start again. So, here is the old paint job:

And here is the new one:

I definitely think I've improved, and I'm surprised at how much better the second one looks to me. Sometimes it's quite hard to tell that your painting - or maybe any artistic work? - has got better until you stop to actually make the comparison.

Here are a couple of other Eschers, both of whom use the same not-Tank-Girl colour scheme (and unusual boob armour). There's less room to personalise these models than there is on the Eldar harlequins, as a lot of the Eschers is either leggings or bare skin. I've tried to vary skin colours to provide some extra variety, which I think has worked quite well. We've got a heavy with a massive heavy stubber that looks as if it was first used at the Siege of Stalingrad, and a ganger with a shotgun and pistol who is definitely showing off. As ever, the sculpting and details are superb.

Also, I made a few more horrid little lowlifes for the Scavvy horde. The advantage with making inbred, filthy lunatics who live in a rubbish tip is that you can mix and match pretty much anything to construct them. The guy with the musket has a zombie body, and medieval arms. His friend has a WW2 body, and arms and an axe from the Frostgrave cultist sprue. Both have cultist heads. Weirdly, the musketeer's shirt ends just above nipple-height. Perhaps he ate the rest of it.

Back in the day, scavvy gangs could take mutants, who had pretty daft, cartoony miniatures. One of the options was to have a big claw. I found an old Mantic zombie body and added a claw from a plastic daemonette and a Stargrave head. The whole thing was a good opportunity to try some shading with glazes, which I enjoyed. I like the results and might use this technique more often. Here is the nasty little creature:

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I've also decided to keep a tally of how my efforts to paint the Bretonnian footsoldiers is going. I'm not going to post my progress until I've finished a load, but I'll provide a weekly update (hopefully). The plan is to do three guys every week. So far, I'm ahead of the curve!

Peasant Progress:

Archers: 10

Foot knights: 6

Men at arms: 6

Bretonnia Redux: The Army Starts Here

 I mentioned a while ago that I wanted to repaint my very old Bretonnian army. These date back to 1991, and were some of the first miniatures that I ever saw. I was somewhat intimidated by the prospect of redoing these models, but I stripped them and started to give them a new lease of life this week.

We've got three main units of infantry, painted in colours roughly following the original army featured in White Dwarf 137: knights, men at arms and archers. I've done five models for each unit - not exactly a mighty army, but probably a legal one under the rules of 5th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle. 

Here are the men at arms, painted in the colours of Les Hommes de Renault.

Here are some knights, in slightly simplified colours of the Baron D'Angon:

And here are five bowmen in the livery of the Archers du Brest:

I've done with a slightly grimy but still quite bright look for all of them. The knights have cleaner weapons and armour (I left off the brown undercoat), since their gear is newer and better. 

I also tidied up an old model from a game called Dungeonquest, about which I know nothing. She's an elf wizard called Serelia of Zimmendell, but I think she'd work well as a Bretonnian wizard. I painted her scrying orb to look a bit like the palantir from the Lord of the Rings films.

And that's where we are for the moment. I'll slow down a little on the painting, but I'll keep chipping away at these guys. And then we can do the knights on horseback!

Even More Orks

 More orks! I find that projects blur into each other these days, which probably means that I get distracted too easily. (There are still a few Eschers to go...) Still, orks are fun to paint, and I will put the remaining ones to the side for a little while now. Maybe.

First up, we've got another mek from the 2nd Edition, as seen in the blue Citadel catalogue. This guy has a kustom weapon in his right hand, which is superbly sculpted and has loads of cool details. I wanted to give him another big gun - he's the unit's inevitable crazed shooter - held up in a fairly similar manner but in a slightly less "flat" posture. I cut and repositioned an old plastic arm, which was much harder than I'd expected it to be. I ended up adding a damaged marine shoulderpad to hold the whole thing together.

His new gun was made from a damaged old ork bolta, with a new bigger magazine and a barrel built from - of all things - an ork axe. It has big bolts and a spiky bit. 

Painting him was easy and enjoyable. There were loads of interesting bits and bobs on the model, but it wasn't excessive and there was enough space to add stripes and other marks, including some bluing on the kustom gun's barrel. His eyes are a bit crazy, but then he's probably seen some things. I'm really pleased with this guy.

Then we've got two models that almost nobody seems to have any nostalgia for. They're plastic boys (or perhaps "yoofs") from the old game Gorkamorka, which was a sort of Necromunda with orks in a Mad Max-type setting. It was very short-lived and marks the point where the ork models moved from the goofiness of 2nd Edition 40k and Paul Bonner's pictures to the over-muscled, mantrap-faced creatures we have today. 

These definitely aren't the best ork models in either variety (in fact, they seem to sit uncomfortably between the two styles). They've got very small heads and, despite their high shoulders, fairly human proportions. You could mistake them for Goliath gangers. Anyhow, they're not the greatest miniatures, but they'd do as a couple of minor hangers-on for a warband. I don't really enjoy painting fur very much, but otherwise they were alright to paint.

Out of interest, I've painted ork skin in two different ways. One is to work from a fairly bright mid-tone green, washing it with dark green and (very thin) purple, and then highlighting with yellow (and pink for lips). The other is to start with a drab military green, and then proceed as before. I suppose that the lighter orks might be younger, but I don't mind having a variety of different skin tones in the ork horde: for one thing, you get a variety of tones in human skin, and for another, the repeated colours and styles in the clothing ties them all together. I doubt the orks care very much, so I won't.

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And now for something completely different. I have a Bretonnian army to paint! I have stripped all of my old metal and plastic foot-soldiers, which comes to about 40 models. I plan to paint three main units, in roughly the same colours as the GW studio army featured in White Dwarfs 136 and 137. 

There will be three main units: foor knights (yellow tunics), archers (blue and white) and men at arms (green and white). I don't want this to end up as a chore, and I'd prefer to avoid painting in bulk. So, I thought I'd try painting one of each type, then a different model, and then more Bretonnians. I don't know if this will work, but I think it could make it a more entertaining process.

The Obligatory Orktober Post

 October is a funny month. Here in the UK, it's when the clocks go back (or forward? I can't remember) and it marks the start of five or six months of cold, snowless slush. It's also Orange Plastic Tat Month, or Halloween as it is also known, and model-makers everywhere are plundering the shops for useful terrain. And it contains several Oldhammer events, the greatest of which is surely Orktober, where everyone paints some kind of orc. There's also the less-snappily-named Zomtober, when people paint zombies, but I did that a couple of posts ago. And apparently there's Dreadtober, where you paint a dreadnought, although I think that would sound better as Dreadcember.

Anyhow, not wishing to miss out, I painted two orks.

 The guy on the left is a medic that I've had lying around for a while. He's very obviously an alternative sculpt on another body (basically, an alternative head) and while he's not a terribly exciting model, he was quite pleasant to paint. I reckon these metal ork specialists must have been quite popular models, as there always seem to be a lot of them knocking around on ebay.

The model on the right is slightly odder. He's actually a looter from the Deathskull clan, and was released after Rogue Trader and the blue Citadel Catalogue, but before the major change in style in the orks that happened around 1998 or so. Nonetheless, he's slightly different: his face is longer and slightly less cartoony, and his proportions are more humanoid (I actually wondered if he was a converted Delaque ganger from Necromunda). He originally came with a massive heavy weapon, but I got him without arms and so added some classic ork ones.

He was actually quite a pain to paint. Sometimes a model just won't look right, no matter what you do. Eventually, I got him to look fairly piratical. I'm starting to wonder if I'm collecting an Oldhammer ork army. After all, I've got about 20 men, a dreadnought and a vehicle, which is about enough for 2nd edition!

Even more Scavvies, and an alligator with a blunderbuss

 When I was younger, I used to hate preparing miniatures - which is why a lot of my earlier models have huge mold lines, odd little spikes where I snipped them off the frame and very dodgy basing. These days, I'm the opposite. I find something quite satisfying in doing the boring preparatory work, making the models look ready and smoothing the bases down with clay so that you can't see the slots.

Anyhow, this week I've been doing some more on the Eschers - they are turning into a horde, rather than a gang - but that's for later. I also did some more filthy maniacs for the scavvies.

The guy on the far left is an old official scavvy leader. Like the beastmaster on the far right, his left arm feels a bit wrong and overlong, although in fairness it's easy for arms to look too short or too long when they're clothed and flailing about. I wasn't sure that I liked the model until I got going on it, and now it's come out alright. There's lots of interesting detail, but it's not too excessive.

The two in the middle are based on Civil War models. The standing guy is an English Civil War soldier, with a medieval musket and Frost/Stargrave bits and bobs. The kneeling guy is an American Civil War model with a Frostgrave head and arms. Really, the historical bodies are just there to provide a basis on which to hang the crazy scavvy stuff. 

The next chap is an old Necromunda wyrd beastmaster, a psychic dude who can control the various horrible animals that dwell in the city. He's technically a hireling rather than a gang member, but he looks like the sort of villainous nutjob who would at home in the scavvy ranks. I didn't actually like this model all this much, but once I got going it worked out okay.

And I also made another Scaly. This one has the much-feared scatter cannon, a sort of huge blunderbuss that functioned much like a grenade launcher.

This model was made from the body of a Privateer Press trollblood soldier (the head went missing many years ago) with the head of a GW lizardman. I rather like him.

To an extent, the scaly is a bit of a test model. I've got a few really old trollblood models, and it occurs to me that they might make a nice unit. I think they could be quite good. But that's for another time...

The Scavvy Horde Grows, and Acquires an Alligator

 Hello again! I've been making some more scavvies for the horde. Here are four more scumbags, made out of all sorts of stuff.

By and large, they're Frostgrave Cultists 2 and Stargrave Scavenger bits. The two on the left have WW2 bodies - I've forgotten where they come from. I've also added a few Games Workshop odds and ends. 

Back in the day, scavvy gangs could use some of the underhive's other nasty inhabitants - which was lucky, as scavvies are pretty weak on their own. They had the option of taking one or two "scalies", which were lizard-like mutants who were very tough and strong, and carried heavy weapons. 

I'm not sure if this was GW riffing on the old urban myths about alligators living in sewers, but I decided that my chaps would have a literal alligator to help them out. I used the "Bloody Barnabas" model from Privateer Press' Hordes game (which currently seems to be somewhat defunct). Here he is.

I'm quite pleased with his coat.

And here is the whole gang together. They'll be getting some more reinforcements soon - they need it!

More Fun With Zombies and Scavvies

 Now that normal service has been restored, I have more pictures for both of you who read this blog. This week, I've been working on some of Necromunda's less flamboyant inhabitants: the rancid, low-living scavvies and their plague zombie friends.

The second batch of plague zombies included some damaged models. It seems that, many years ago, I converted them to introduce some variety, with mixed results. I took the opportunity to do some repairs before painting them.

I ordered a sprue of Frostgrave female cultists (sold under the name Frostgrave Cultists 2). These are really good models, with a ragged, crazy look. The cultists wear masks and bandages, and carry nasty-looking weapons. Some of the arms have a groping pose that works well for zombies.

And here is the second bunch, painted up. As with the first lot, I used a limited range of colours for the clothing, all of them drab and grubby. I kept with three shades of skin: bloodless blue, rotting green and recently-dead yellow. They work as individuals but there's enough overlap to make them seem like a unified mob.

Not too shabby! Actually, very shabby. But still.

I also started work on a batch of scavvies. Scavvies are filthy and inbred, but they are still live humans, so these guys would be looking more lively. There are official GW scavvy models from the 90s, but I'm not too keen on them: they've got that unexciting, slightly cartoony quality that was common in GW at the time, and they're nowhere near as well-sculpted as the Escher ganger. 

I wanted them to look crazed and feral, and the Frostgrave cultists worked perfectly for this. Some of them were given left-over Stargrave arms, using the most basic-looking rifles. It's easy to make nice, dynamic poses with the plastics.

In painting them, I used fairly drab, earthy colours to suggest dirt, rust and worn-out gear. I also gave them bits of red clothing, to suggest danger. They're at least partly inspired by the Reavers from the film Serenity.

They look charming. I do enjoy making these weird models out of bits and bobs: there will be more scavvy soldiers to follow. After the neatness and bright colours of the Eschers, it's interesting to paint these filthy maniacs.

A Strange Thing That Happened On This Blog

In the past, most of the posts on this blog have got between 50-100 views. I don't write this blog as anything other than a record of what I've been doing and, while I appreciate the comments that I get, I've never really planned or wanted for it to "get big" at all.

On 19 August, I posted a post about painting an old ork weirdboy miniature. That post suddenly got a (for me) huge amount of views: about 500. The next five posts got between 600 and 1300 views. 

On 1 October, I posted a post about painting plastic dinosaurs. This post got 16 views. 

So what happened? Why did this blog suddenly get so many views, and why did they suddenly stop?

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My suspicion is that they weren't from real people. I think that, for some reason, the post on the 19th triggered something that attracted a load of bots. (It didn't trigger a lot of extra comments, which feels suspicious.)

I might repost the 19 August post, to see if it triggers more views again. If I do, I haven't gone crazy: I'm just trying to work out what occurred. After that, I'll probably delete the test post (and maybe this one).

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Strange. If you've any idea what happened, do let me know!

Escher Leader and the Start of a Necromunda Skavvy Horde

 While not painting inexpensive dinosaurs with egg yolk, I've also continued to work on the old Necromunda Escher gangers. These two are a leader, who has a boltgun and a laspistol, and another ganger with a lasgun. I've already got one copy of this model, so I tried to paint this version as differently as possible. One of the things I liked about Necromunda was that the weapons weren't just better or worse than one another, and it was often easier to equip your men with low-powered lasguns than fancy stuff. Anyway, here they are.

Whilst rooting about for more Necromunda bits and pieces, I remembered that I had bought a few scavvy plague zombies many years ago. The scavvies were a gang introduced in the Outlanders book, which was an add-on for the basic game. Outlanders included a few gangs, some monsters and some new (complex) rules about being outlawed and subsisting in the wasteland.

The scavvies were the lowest of the low: filthy and often mutated dregs of society, who lived in the rubbish of the undercity and were equipped with battered weapons that often broke down. They included mutants of various sorts, and even had special rules allowing them to eat each other to avoid having to pay for food.

One option the scavvies had was to attract plague zombies to the battlefield: unfortunates who had shuffled off this mortal coil and then shuffled back again, looking for brains to eat. For 10 credits, d.6 zombies would show up. While they weren't good fighters, they were a handy nuisance and could perhaps turn the enemy into other zombies, which was certain to make you popular with your friends. 

Anyhow, I was surprised to find that I'd bought 12 of these guys at some point. Some of the zombies would need repairs, but I was able to paint up one of each of the standard metal miniatures. They are very small models (maybe the plague shrinks you?) and are clearly sculpted on three basic bodies. Not brilliant miniatures, but likeable enough.

Braaaiiins...

I painted the zombies in a range of nasty flesh tones. They look a bit cartoony - I think it would be more realistic to paint them in the usual way and give them a blue or purple wash. But I like the variety and the rather drab "outfits". They certainly make a change from the jolly colours of House Escher. Perhaps I should do a gang from both of them.

£6 Plastic Dinosaur Paint Set Challenge!

 A few weeks ago, I went to Tring Museum of Natural History with my friend Ruth. This inevitably involved a look around the gift shop. Later, Ruth presented me with this item:

Yes, it's a paint set, complete with brushes and two plastic model dinosaurs! And all that for £6! 

I thought it would be a fun challenge to try to paint the dinosaurs, using only the paints provided (and a white undercoat). The brushes were so awful that they were hardly worthy of the name, so I threw them out and used my own. I stuck the dinosaurs to two bits of plastic and got to work.

The models were surprisingly detailed (and reasonably accurate, as far as I can tell). Given the undercoat and the quality of the paints, I used washes for the main body of the models. Some of the paints were better than others: the blue and green were pretty decent, all things considered, although the yellow was terrible and I might as well have tried to paint the miniatures with an egg yolk.

I had to mix brown for the horns and claws, which was a new experience. I found it easy to make some sort of brown (a mixture of yellow, red and blue) but making it more leathery was really hard. 

Anyhow, here are the results:

Tyrannosaurus:

Triceratops:

And of course here they are locked in mortal combat and ready to be banged against each other! To quote Firefly, "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"

Not too shabby, all things considered! This was a fun break from the usual models and just goes to show that anything is a canvas if you're brave enough and get away before the police arrive.