Another vintage Heritage mini done.

This guy has been primered for awhile, so I thought I would make it a Heritage weekend.

This is from the Heritage Good Wizard set. It's 1301b and I purchased it online a few months back.

I think I liked the pose because I could try an OSL on it. I have a few figures with lanterns that I have acquired which will work out better, so Mr. Good Wizard gets a regular paint job. 

I used Amsterdam ink Brilliant blue for the robe color and variations of whites, browns, yellows and grays for the remainder. A little difficulty with the eyes as the right eye kind of melds into an eyebrow(?). The older castings are just not as crisp as newer stuff, but there is no sense in fretting about it. I paint the parts as well as I can and sometimes its tough to win. 

I have a few more wizards on the shelf. They are from a partial box set of Grenadier Wizards and they need to be primered and base coated. I'm always indecisive about the colors for wizard minis. So far I have done the basics - black, gray, blue. Maybe the next one should be red. 

UPDATE:

I found the picture I took of this mini when I first got it before I stripped and primered it. It had your standard late '70's glossy enamel paint job.

Vintage D&D minis

I've hit some stumbling blocks on my desert game and the 15mm wargaming in general. I seem to be lacking some creativity these last few weeks, so I'm getting back to basics to see if that will generate some ideas. I decided I would just paint some figures.

These are all Heritage figs from Der Kriegspielers Fantastiques (which have some of the best names for miniatures ever!)

Starting from the left -

Evil Hideous Skeleton Men 1155b

In The Darkness Before The Dawn Avoid The Bad Hairy Nude Things 1158

Wood Trolls of Mirk 1016

The first two are from the 1100 series and the troll is from the 1000 series of the Fantastiques. Both the skeleton and the BHNT have base dates of 1977 and although undated I'm pretty sure the troll would be from the same year. While these lack a lot of the sharp detailing of modern minis they have decent detail and definitely invoke an old school feel. 

All of these were hand brush primered with vallejo white primer, then washed with diluted vallejo black.

I lined in the crevices with vallejo black (undiluted), then highlited with vallejo white.

I then painted with Amsterdam inks and varnish coat to finish. I like to mix colors but flesh is tough so I did buy a flesh colored ink. The color is good but it doesn't cover as well as the other inks so theres more bleed thru than I would like. Multiple coats would help. 

I have a few more minis from Der Kreigspieler - a Tasmanian devil that has been primed and a Krot that is still in his original Humbrol covering that I painted back in 1978. 

Crafting projects

The last couple of weeks have been disrupted by weather days at work so weekends have been cut short with work and chores and the game I had been planning to play is still set up on the table. I will attempt it next weekend.

 I've been focusing instead on some smaller projects that will lead to my Desert game. 

Buildings, excavation sites, and how to set up the terrain seem daunting, so I have just been doing them in smaller test projects to iron out any kinks. 

I found a decent way to strip the paper covering off of dollar store foam so I can have a ready supply of 1/4 inch foam. Easier for buildings, walls and small relief terrain than shaving down the 1/2 inch + pink board. I also bought some impression rollers for clay and they actually work pretty good on the dollar store foam. 

These are 3D printed texture rollers for clay. The detail edges are not exceptionally sharp so they do need some pressure to get an impression in foam. 

I got these on Etsy, about $10 each. They are a harder plastic than the standard 3D printed objects I've purchased in the past, but have only just started using them so will have to see how well they hold up. The figure is 15mm for size comparison. The cobble pattern left deeper impressions than the flagstone one. I tested the other 2 and they were about as deep as the flagstone. One other test I need to do is to sand down the skin of the foam and perhaps softer middle foam will lend itself to deeper impressions. All in all if they last for any length of time I think they are worth the money. I have air dry clay I can use too, but foam is faster, weighs less and is less messy.

I also tested some home made sculpt a mold using shredded TP and durhams water putty. I may try to fine tune the mix, but would rather get some plaster of paris to work with.

This is a test piece for covered excavation sites for the Desert terrain. I'm adopting a few standard sizes for them so they can be covered with a selection of either buildings, or simple terrain.