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.