Category Archives: Miniatures

Dwarvember 2023 Windup

November draws to a close, and with it, my first Dwarvember painting challenge. It was a modest field of participants this year, but some really great submissions, so I certainly can’t complain. For my own efforts, I fell a bit short (Ha! See what I did there?). I planned on painting 3 dwarfs, but only managed 2. Considering they’re the only 2 miniatures I painted all month, I’ll take it as a win.

First, some old-school lead, courtesy of Ral Partha and Bob Olley, circa 1990. This dwarf has some character! Outside of Tolkien, you just don’t see too many dwarfs armed with broadswords; it’s usually hammers or axes or (God forbid) double-bladed axes. Know what I think of ridiculous double-bladed axes?

This look says it all.

Next, a Reaper miniature sculpted by Werner Klocke: Hagar, Dwarven Hero (77482). This one is Bones plastic. He’s also about twice the size of the older Ral Partha sculpt above.

I usually don’t have a hard time with eyes, but painting the eyes on this miniature was pretty challenging. Maybe it’s the shape of the face itself. I just couldn’t get it to look right, so after about six tries, I just said the hell with it. The helmet provides enough overhang that his sockets would be shadowed, anyway.

But what of the others who picked up brush and paint (and in Dave’s case, sculpting medium!) and joined me in this challenge? You remember them, don’t you? What have they done?

  • Snapfit, from Da Green Horde; (submission pending)
  • Mike, a.k.a. Sasquatch, from the @sasquatchminis Instagram account; painted two versions of GW’s iconic White Dwarf himself, one is the original sculpt from the late 70’s, early 80’s; the other is the 30th anniversary edition! (I had that miniature once, but I sold it. Dumb!)
  • Comrade, from Comrade’s Wargames; (submission pending)
  • Dave Stone, from Wargames Terrain Workshop; not only painted a dwarf, he sculpted it first, in true Dave fashion…and it’s none other than ME!!!! Well, not really me, but a great likeness of my avatar, the red-bearded dwarf piper. (In real life, I look nothing like my avatar.) Dave even got the highland bagpipes right, which (believe me) doesn’t always happen among sculptors in our hobby.

Be sure to visit these sites and check out the work of these folks yourself. You won’t be disappointed. I will post the remaining submissions once I get word of them!

Maybe I’ll get to that third dwarf in December…

Two Out of Nine Ain’t Bad

Orctober comes to an end and what do I have to show for it? Two orcs.

If you recall, I was intending to paint this entire classic Grenadier Orcs’ Lair set last month. Sadly, I ran out of gas about halfway through and couldn’t get back into gear. The wheels fell off this project of mine, and my motivation engine stalled. I could maybe come up with more vehicular metaphors, but basically I lost interest and gave up.

I did manage to complete two, however: this Orc Captain and the Standard Bearer. If you count the standard (it takes up its own slot in the box), then I painted three.

The problem was the skin tone. I didn’t want to go green; I was looking for a more “Tolkien-esque” orc; so I YouTubed a few videos on how to paint orc skin for the GW LOTR game. I found a few good tutorials that utilize Camoshade, Sepia or Agrax Earthshade washes over an Ivory base, and I used them. The problem is, in the end they all kind of look the same no matter which wash is used. There’s not much variety.

Since orcs aren’t known for being snappy dressers, most of their kit is dull colors as well. This just looks terrible with the pale skin tone I chose, and I couldn’t see past how the models looked in the moment to what they might look like at the end. I got bored and moved on to other things, none of them paint-related.

The remaining seven orcs in the box have all been based and base-coated, and they’re presently sitting on my desk in the side-pile, so maybe I’ll clean them up in December, my traditional side-pile month. Or maybe not.

Anyway, Dwarvember kicks off today, and it’s looking to be a somewhat subdued challenge. I’ll post the official participant list in a few days, just in case more folks want to throw in. If interested, let me know in the comments or email me at angrypiper@angrypiper.com.

Dwarvember is coming!

Next month I am hosting a new painting challenge, featuring my favorite fantasy race of all time, Dwarfs!!!! This intentionally coincides with Movember, the annual men’s health awareness month during which men (and women, I suppose) grow our moustaches to draw attention to men’s health issues, such as prostate and testicular cancer, both of which are really shitty things to have; as well as mental health issues, such as depression and suicide, also not fun.

I cannot grow a moustache. I mean, I can; but I won’t. I hate facial hair and I can’t abide growing mine for more than a week before I start to itch abominably. I grew it out for a month once and had dreams of burning it off my face with a blowtorch. These dreams were not nightmares. Dwarves, on the other hand, love facial hair; and I love Dwarves, almost to a disturbing degree. Although I can’t (meaning won’t) grow facial hair, I can definitely paint a dwarf. And so can you!

THE “RULES”: What is Dwarvember? Why, it’s the month you paint Dwarfs (or Dwarves), of course. Any Dwarf will do, he or she doesn’t have to be strictly a fantasy miniature, either. Sci-fi Dwarfs are welcome! So grab your Grymn or Squats or Forge Fathers if you want. Come to think of it, drop by Wargames Terrain Workshop and pick up some Cowboy Dwarfs if you like. They’re cool too! Dwarfs may be any scale and from any manufacturer. I will link to your stuff throughout the month, and (if it’s not there already) add your blog/website/social media to the blogroll on the side! If you don’t have a site of your own and still want to participate, I’ll happily host your pictures here and ensure you get proper attribution!

How many Dwarfs you paint is up to you. The minimum is one, of course; but feel free to do as many as you like. The only caveat is that they get painted sometime in November.

I’m gonna hit the pile of shame and see what I can find…I know I’ve quite a few of the short fellows around here somewhere. Hoping to do at least 3, but may end up doing more than that. Who knows?

As for Orctober, I’ve stalled a bit. Only two of the Grenadier set completed so far, with seven more to go. Will I finish by the end of October? Maybe, maybe not.

If you want to participate in Dwarvember, drop me a line here in the comments!

Orctober 2023 and a NEW challenge on the horizon…

I’ve never really participated in the yearly “Orctober” challenge before, wherein one paints orcs during the month of October. This year I figured I’d give it a shot. I have no idea who is hosting this challenge (I assume there is more than one person), so this isn’t a formal thing for me. I just feel like painting some orcs.

Contrary to what 90% of participants choose to paint, I will not be painting any orcs made by Games Workshop. Although I have a veritable assload of 40K Orks in metal and in plastic (still on the sprue, in most cases), I am choosing to indulge myself in some old-school lead once again.

Behold! One of the first miniature sets I ever purchased, back when I was a wee lad just learning to play Red Box D&D. I painted these guys before, way back in the 80’s, using my tried (and failed) Testor’s enamel paints, which of course looked hideous. I stripped them about 15 years ago, intending to paint them again someday. That someday has arrived.

Pretty sure the date on the bottom is 1981; which fits with the classic gold-box era of Grenadier. No idea who sculpted these, but my money is on Andrew Chernak. Oddly enough, orcs in D&D back then were depicted as the classic, pig-faced variety; but these are more simian in appearance, kind of like the flying monkeys of Oz. Anyway, I like them.

Although, 40+ years later I still have a full set, this fellow lost his axe-head at some point. I gave him a new one from the bitz box.

I figured if I actually posted about my painting goal this month, it might motivate me to, you know, actually DO it. Here’s hoping I break out of this slump!

Also: I’m hoping to host another painting challenge next month in honor of Movember, the month where men everywhere grow their facial hair to support men’s health. Well, men other than me, anyway. I hate facial hair. I cannot grow a beard for longer than two weeks without wanting to claw it off my face. BUT…I do love Dwarfs, and dwarfs love facial hair. Sooooooo…

DWARVEMBER, anyone?

Septemb-ogre

Another month gone, and little to show for it, hobby-wise. My attention has been focused elsewhere lately, which is why you have not seen hide nor hair of me here or on other blogs this month. I’m hoping to get back into rotation soon and maybe even resume some paint -hangs on the Discord server.

This month, a select few elites (including myself) in the hobby community got early access to a bespoke ogre miniature sculpted by Dave Stone over at Wargames Terrain Workshop, created specifically for September’s painting challenge, where we’re all painting the same miniature. Although I’m kidding about the “elites” thing, I am happy to have been part of this challenge, and as the month passed, I realized I’d best get off my ass and start painting. Don’t want to disappoint Dave, after all…

Here is the miniature in question, and man is he lovely (for an ogre). Dave really pulled out the stops on this guy. I like the tusk epaulette and the shields the ogre has used as armor, likely taken from foolish knights who tried to slay him.

I added a few embellishments of my own, using some GW zombie bits, and I took a page out of Roger’s book when I added some bloodstains to the stone axe.

With so much bare skin, some tattoos were in order. I hate free-handing anything because I generally suck at it, so I kept the designs simple. Just a skull on his shoulder, the dags around his navel, and the coloring around the eye.

My iPhone shows all, including the little spot of white that shouldn’t be there. Curses!

If you missed out on this miniature so far, fret not: Dave will be selling him to the rest of the world after this month. Be sure to check out his webstore for this and many other cool miniatures!

Season of Scenery: The Dragon’s Graveyard

The 4-7 of you who visit this blog regularly may have been wondering what has become of me, as I haven’t been posting very much. Two things have contributed to my absence. At the end of July, I went on vacation and returned with Covid. The less said about the actual vacation the better, as it wasn’t one I wanted to go on in the first place, and one on which I thoroughly expected to get Covid. Guess what? I got it.

I’d managed to avoid Covid thus far, and I am fully vaccinated and boosted; but there are some things you can’t avoid, especially when you are surrounded by people who think Covid is “all done” and it’s time to party like it’s 1999. (I’ve avoided getting bitten by a lion so far, too; but I never actually put my hand in a lion’s mouth, and if I did, I would hardly be surprised if I got bit.) I take some comfort in the fact that this isn’t the Covid of two years ago, so I never felt in any danger of dying. But let me tell you, Covid fucking sucks. I haven’t been right in a month, and I still feel like shit. Hence, not much in the way of hobbying (or anything else, really).

The other reason is I’ve been playing Ghost of Tsushima. As weak and lethargic as I am in real life, I am still fully able to hold a PS5 controller in my hand, which means I am still fully capable of drawing my katana and slicing a bandit in half, all in one motion, and then watching his friends run away like the honorless dogs they are. It never gets old. I know this because I have literally killed hundreds of bandits in this manner, then casually flicked the blood off my sword before returning it to its sheath. I’m not bored yet.

BUT…it’s the Season of Scenery, and the god of scenery, Dave Stone, must be appeased. Covid is not an excuse that will fly with Dave. He’s already calling my house in the middle of the night. There are unmarked helicopters circling my home. If I don’t get something done, I’m doomed.

Behold: The Dragon’s Graveyard! A resin piece by Dave himself, available through Wargames Terrain Workshop. I picked it up along with the model Dave sculpted for next month’s challenge. I painted the ground with a mix of Craftsmart Brown and Black before highlighting it with some GW Mournfang Brown and XV-88 before finally giving it a drybrush of Ivory. The bones were painted with the Reaper Bone Triad, and the rocks were painted with Reaper Dusky Skin Shadow and highlighted with GW Dawnstone and Administratum Grey. I added some tufts and that’s about it. It was a nice day yesterday, so I painted this piece outside, even though I usually enjoy sunlight about as much as your average vampire.

“OK, guys…get ready. That dragon’s lair is around here somewhere. Soon we’ll be swimming in gold…awww, shit.”

That’s probably all I’m doing for the Season of Scenery this year, although who knows? Looking forward to next month’s challenge!

Season of Scenery 2023: Assets and Hazards

Dave Stone’s Season of Scenery started July 1st, and I’m determined to do SOMETHING this year after sitting out 2022. A while back, I purchased these “Assets and Hazards” objectives from Gale Force 9, for their Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps board game that I still have yet to play (much like almost all the board games I purchased during the pandemic). They’ve been sitting in the box on the sprue ever since, even though I painted all the marine and xenomorph miniatures almost 2 full years ago!

Well, now they’re done. The box contains 16 Weyland-Yutani supply crates, 6 MU-TH-ER computer terminals, 8 alien eggs, 2 sentry guns and 2 face-huggers. Now everything is painted and I have no excuse whatsoever not to play this game. Just need some friends, is all…

One major quibble with this set: there are only 2 face-huggers, and they are fucking fragile as hell, because whoever sculpted them decided standing them on their tail would be a good idea. This is a weak point of contact and is easily prone to breakage. I know because 50% of my face-huggers broke and needed to be repaired. They have 8 fucking legs and run around like spiders. Why not sculpt them like that? That way they won’t break!!!! It’s simple physics, GF9!!!! (mutter mumble grumble).

I plan on completing another project in August, but I just wanted to get this one in the books. Not the most exciting terrain to paint, but it was a quick and easy job and I’m glad it’s done.

Forgotten Heroes Redux: The Hypno-Hustler

Last year, one of my submissions for Forgotten Heroes was the Disco Superfly himself, The Hypno-Hustler. He’s been sitting in my display case since last June, and every time I looked at him, I wasn’t happy. Although I think I did a pretty decent job of converting a Booster Gold miniature into the Hustler, two things in particular bothered me: his base and his bass.

I sculpted his bass guitar from green stuff, and like most things I sculpt, it looks mediocre at best. I searched for a suitable guitar bit first, but the best one I could find came from a British company called Zealot miniatures, and it didn’t make sense to buy it just to pay twice as much shipping it to me. Now, though, through my shadowy network of global operatives, I’ve been able to procure one at last! (OK, it was through the kindness of Dave Stone, a shadowy, international man of mystery if ever there was one.)

With that out of the way, I set about fixing the Hustler. The other thing that bothered me was his base. I wasn’t going to put the Hustler on regular ground, so I attempted to make it look like a spotlight on stage. It didn’t really do the trick. So, I added another base and repainted it a simple white, so he looks like he’s on a 1970’s disco round.

Because this base obviously looks like shit, I will remove the Hustler and use spray paint instead to cover up the brush strokes. Then I will re-mount him. I didn’t have time to do this before the end of the month, but rest assured, it will happen. And that’s about it. By giving him a new bass and a new base, I think he’s now done for real, and a fitting end to Forgotten Heroes this year.

Forgotten Heroes: Whisper

For my second Forgotten Hero of 2023, I present another First Comics character: Steven Grant’s Whisper. Along with Nexus and Badger, Whisper actually started out in Capital Comics before being published by First after Capital’s demise. Whisper last showed up in a one-shot in 2006. I own exactly one Whisper comic, and it’s not even an issue of her own series. It’s this Crossroads comic, featuring a team-up between Whisper and Jon Sable, Freelance. Despite having a cool cover, it’s bad.

As a result, I knew next to nothing about Whisper before I decided to make this conversion, so I looked up her story. She’s Alexis Devin, an American, but trained in ninjutsu by her Japanese Yakuza stepfather. As a child she had polio and this training helped her overcome it. Alexis was working as an architect and wanted nothing to do with ninjas when she was drawn back into the conflicts of the Yakuza against her will. I guess there’s more to the story, but that’s the gist of it. She’s a ninja, and it was the 80’s. The world was ninja crazy back then.

To make Whisper, I started with these two Heroclix miniatures: The Punisher and Elektra. I’ve always hated this Elektra miniature because it looks stupid, and like many Heroclix, the factory paint job is abysmal. The Punisher sculpt is pretty bad-ass. Unfortunately, I needed that wall he’s standing on, because I have no ability to sculpt one myself. (The Punisher plays no further role in this tale.)

I started by cutting the spear apart and repositioning her arms. I removed the sashes from the spear, but kept some of the handle for each hand. Then I chopped off her hair and her skirt and filled the gaps left behind.

I spent a lot of time filing down her head. Like many conversions, this one looked horrible during the process. I couldn’t get the image of Elektra with a massive head bandage out of my mind. I reattached the sashes as a belt and some flowing wrist wraps. I shaved down the spear shafts to look more like swords.

I wasn’t about to keep that stupid pose, so here’s where I used the wall. Now she’s leaping from a high ledge, ninja-style.

Once primed black, she immediately looked better.

Turns out Whisper doesn’t have flowing wrist wraps, but I like the look of it as it gives the character an illusion of motion. I didn’t do much to the wall other than weather it a little and give it a slight highlight.

And there she is: Whisper. Overall, I think she looks pretty good. She looks a lot better than that Elektra miniature, anyway…

Forgotten Heroes: Dreadstar

For my first Forgotten Heroes post of 2023, I decided to do Jim Starlin’s iconic hero: Vanth Dreadstar.

Dreadstar started out in Marvel’s Epic Illustrated, before getting his own Epic Comics series that lasted for 26 issues. Then Starlin took it to First Comics, where it was published until they went out of business in 1991. Dreadstar briefly returned for a limited series published by Malibu in 1995. As far as I know, that was the last appearance of Dreadstar in comics, although there is supposedly a TV series in the works. Guess time will tell.

I have a confession to make: despite having almost all the Dreadstar comics, I could never get into the character. Maybe I should try again. Still, I was a huge fan of First Comics, who published some really groundbreaking stuff back in the 80’s; including my favorite comic of all time, Grimjack. First Comics heroes have been my go-to for Forgotten Heroes challenges in the past. I’ve done Badger, Nexus and Jon Sable, Freelance in previous years, and if all goes well, I’l be doing another First Comics hero by the end of the month.

But on to Dreadstar. To make this miniature, I used two old Heroclix models: Captain America, from the original Marvel Infinity Challenge set, and Aquaman, from the original DC Hypertime set. I removed Cap’s shield (cool objective marker!) and his head, and also beheaded Aquaman. Then I chopped off some of Aquaman’s hair and swapped the heads. Finally, I repositioned Cap’s arm. The end result was this:

I’m saying something really important!

I made his sword from a toothpick and green stuff, and I sculpted his belt and hood. As anyone with eyes can see, I’m a shitty sculptor. Sadly, I forgot to take any pictures of this miniature covered in green stuff, It was too depressing. Anyway, here he is.

I added an old Space Marine bolt pistol to his hip.

Up close, you can see how shitty my sculpting is. Try as I might, I can’t make that green stuff behave.

Dreadstar’s history is long and convoluted, and like i said, I could never get into it. According to the Fandom page, most of his powers are derived from his sword. It can be absorbed and extruded from his body at will (gross), allows him to speak and understand any language, acts as a shield, and gives Dreadstar enhanced reflexes, rapid healing and the strength of twenty men. It’s also a sword, so I guess it can cut stuff, too.

Despite the sculpting flaws, I’m happy with how he turned out. Like I said, I’m hoping to get another First Comics character done by the end of the month. It’s a very obscure character. Want to know who it is? I’ll Whisper it to you….