Skeleton Kettle Drummer.

Another bizarre miniature from the talented hands of Andrew Chernak. I've had this since the mid eighties but it was long overdue a new paint job, having previously been painted rather garishly with Pelikan Plaka.

I thought this was it for Grenadier Skeletons but I have found a few more lurking at the backs of various drawers.

The two with horned helmets came with the War Rhino Captive Carrier ( which will also get a freshen up at some point), the standard bearer came in the same blister pack as the kettle drummer above & the bolt thrower should have a loader figure with it which I have based up singly as part of an earlier project.

Blog 100. Grenadier Miniatures Skeleton Horseman.

I've been holding this final miniature from the Skeletons: Raiders of the Undead boxed set back for a rainy day & that day finally came on Sunday, courtesy of an increasingly rare day off work.

Rather a great miniature for my 100th post on this blog, featuring the eclectic equipment so characteristic of Andrew Chernak's skeletons. Interesting to note that this miniature consists of two castings, rider & steed. Compare this to the 4 or 5 parts required to assemble the skeletons in the Barrowmaze boxed set I tackled earlier in the year for not a lot of extra detail & a definite lack of robustness for gaming use.

A Barrow Wight from The Barrowmaze.

The final miniature from my Barrowmaze order courtesy of Otherworld Miniatures:

Great figures but a bit fiddly to put together, it won't deter me from ordering more in future though.

Barrowmaze Boxed Set Completed.

Celebrated the solstice last night by finishing off the last ossified creatures from the Barrowmaze set. These chaps have become covered in calciferous deposits during their long incarceration in the Barrowmaze & are consequently tougher than your average skeleton.

Thats it. Barrowmaze Boxed Set complete. Uncertain what the next project will be painting wise. Watch this space.

More Skeletal Goodness.

Another skeleton this week courtesy of The Barrowmaze boxed set.

Another cool sculpt, but again really fiddly to assemble with separate arms & a separate shield. I've only got two miniatures left to paint out of this boxed set, the intriguingly titled Fossil Skeletons. These will follow in due course when my horrible eye infection has cleared up.

Bitten by the Writing Bug.

It had to happen sooner or later, after a year of not doing anything vaguely concrete following up on a one off game of D&D 5th I finally had an idea worth expanding upon. It is amazing where the mind can drift off to whilst digging holes ( one of the worlds most mind numbing tasks), this time I was pondering on early archaeology in Chinese Central Asia when it occurred to me that an Oasis town on a trade route would make a suitable environment for a range of different roleplaying scenarios. What has developed over the last couple of weeks is  Lop Nor ( not an original name I know, but it sounds right ) a sandbox setting that I'm starting to fill out in a little more detail; here's a taster of progress so far:

A rough outline of the setting, excuse the hammy intro at the top.

The Stench Gate, downwind of the shambles district it lives up to its name.

The more salubrious Grass Gate.

 I have it in mind to run this setting using Craig Cartmells Deadsimple RPG rules, to which end I have put together a suitable character sheet:

This is still very much a work in progress but I do have a small group of players interested in giving it a go once the long winter evenings set in. At the moment I don't intend to mess around with any 'story arcs' malarkey, I'll just drop the players in & see where they run with it.

More Otherworld Miniatures. The Crypt Knight.

Not being familiar with the Labyrinth Lord set of rules I'm not sure how the Crypt Knight would be represented in old money; another very nice miniature though:

Being as how he represents a knight I have tried to represent some faded splendour; the shield has come out alright, but the once yellow cloak does more closely resemble hessian sacking, but then I expect crypts are pretty hard on clothing. 

Most of the undead I paint are finished with Vallejo Panzer Colour acrylics, I find the wide variety of woody & earthy tones work well with the subject, better than trying to muddy down brighter colours & a lot less effort to boot.