Demi-Humans, Part the First

This is the last of the Copplestone Heroes pack TM10.  Each guy has so much character, they really were a joy to paint.  Here are two different dwarf styles - one rugged outdoor type and a more urban armored stunty.  The dwarf in blue is now the only heavily armored figure in my arsenal, a fact which begs remedy.  Those purplish dots on the elven bow were made with a toothpick.

My one complaint on the Copplestone pack is that there were no ladies among them.  Frankly, there's a dearth of decent female figures in 10mm.  Pendraken has one plus a bunch of amazons that won't see this family man's table any time soon, and that's about it.  Some of the elves can serve, but it'd be nice to see a few more blatantly feminine figures.  My daughter isn't going to want to have to use a guy with a beard to represent her warrior knight-ess.

Warriors, Come Out and Play-ay!

Three fierce warriors for your approval.  Once again, these are Copplestone figures.  The big warriors of TM10 all look fairly wild and uncultured.  You might go so far as to call them barbarians, but the modern university sensibilities prefer that you use the term 'blood thirsty brutes with poor impulse control'.  Yes, even the ones with leopard skin shields and tiger skin thongs, like the one on the left.

I've found a marked tendency to want to paint every figure with a beard as an old guy.  My subconscious may be trying to tell me something.

A Short Update

Get it?  Because these are 100mm halfling figures.  It's a 'short' update!  Heh.

Hey, they can't all be winners, right?  For the record, the guy on the left is mis-cast.  He's missing his lower left arm.  On the table top you can't really tell.  It's only when you look at the bigger version of this picture that you can see that and all the teeny little places where I didn't get the paint.  So don't click on that picture, okay?

First Heroes

From the excellent Copplestone Castings line, this is TM10, Heroes and Halflings.

The flame wizard on the right is a bit of a conversion on my part.  He looks to be Copplestone's not-Faramir, or at least a bow wielding assassin.  Thing is, wizards are in short supply in this scale, and younger non-beardy wizards even more so.  To rememdy this, I straightened out this figure's bow and glued a small bead-slash-crystal onto the end of it.  Then I hacked his sword down into a small torch.  Red cloak with yellow trim, and you've got a fire themed boom-boom mage.

The others are straight paint jobs.

Stop the Presses

Remember that experiment where I'd try painting the first batch of figures in different ways to figure out which one works best?  Forget it.

Devlan Mud - ask for it by name.

Those look so sharp, and painted up so fast - one hour for the lot of them - that there's no need to risk wrecking the other figures.  All I've got to do to these guys is add some flocking to the bases, and they are ready for battle.

Hope you guys like shots of painted figures because I've got a big batch coming up over the next few days.

Shiny!

Remember two days ago when I said there was something off about the Tomb of the Tiny Pharoah?  I figure out what it was.  I wanted more contrast between the nice tile work and the dirty side halls, but couldn't quite figure out how to achieve that.  My wife was working on one of her crafts when it hit me.  The nice rooms should have bright polished floors.  Like this:

See how that back room reflects the bright summer sky?  That's the effect that this terrain needed.  Here's a shot of the full dungeon that really shows off the contrast.

 

That effect was done using a craft adhesive called Diamond glaze.  This stuff right here:

It worked so well on the floors that I couldn't pass up using it on the water portions of my outdoor tiles, too.

Now that's shiny in both the literal and Firefly senses of the word.

First Figures!

Copplestone Castings wins the big race.  I ordered figures from them, Irregular, and Pendraken all on the same day, and Copplestone got them to me first.  Being so remote, that's probably more a function of the post than the manufacturers, though.

I'm a pretty manly macho man, so I'm hardly the sort to squeal in excitement, but if I was, I totally would. Just look at these adorable little orcs.  

Don't you just want to squeeze their teeny tiny little cheeks?

These bad boys are cast in strips, but separating them is trivial if you have a sharp blade and steady hand.  This first batch of five based and primed orcs is an experiment.  I've got a bottle of liquid talent in the form of GW's Devlan Mud ink wash, but don't know how well it will treat these little guys.  I'm going to paint five with the wash and five with the standard three progressively lighter shades of drybrushing and see which looks best before diving head first into the bulk of the lot.  That way if one doesn't work well, I still have 25 orcs left over to get it right.