"There was a ship.."

 

 Early on in the Enemy Within campaign the adventurers travel on a river barge and most of the third leg takes place on the Reik. Therefore, I made a boat. The first of three in fact. Partly as a proof of concept, hopefully getting all the mistakes and learning out of the way, before tackling a larger vessel and a patrol boat.

  As frustrating as the rigging was to tie, I am pleased with the results. The shadows of the sails, stays and ratlines should bring joy to the heart of any 28mm sailor. Same goes for the shine off the water in this picture. Water is a sheet of light fixtures diffuser painted (on the crinkly side/bottom) with shades of blue, blue-green, and grey spay paint.

  Plenty of room on the deck for cargo, floggings, and shooting albatross. Future boats will have a shorter, less boxy cabin.

 The sail was actually fun to make. I used coffee stained printer paper and followed a couple of tutorials I found on youtube. There is an insane amount of detail that can be added, but I chose to stop just before adding reef-points. Adding dozens of tiny strings hanging off the sail would've neither contributed to the beauty of the model, nor left me with time to blog about it!
 Since a sail is more or less a blank canvas, I felt a big ol' John Blanche style Evil Sun would be rather handsome. I painted it by building up layers of washes, so the colors would be somewhat subdued. That said, the red was a bit of an adventure. I slowly built up the shading with a transparent orange and a woodgrain ink, before covering it all with a glaze mixed from transparent orange and flat red. I wasn't 100% sure the glaze would work, so there was some shivering of timbers at the end.
 Any guesses what the sail on the next boat will feature?

WFRP- On the Road

 The main reason for this blog is to have a place to share miniatures and terrain for my WFRP campaign without spoiling it for my players.
 Since rolling up stats, backgrounds, and careers for the PCs will take up at least half of the first session, I thought a short introductory encounter would be the best way to start. I'm going to use Graeme Davis's "A Friend in Need" from "On the Road."
 The plot has the party sheltering in a ruined shrine to Taal. As this will be the first session, the party members will be coming across the ruin one by one, weary travelers seeking to get out of the rain.

 The ruin was made from old Warzone ruined walls, some wood bits, cereal box for the shingles, Tiny Furniture made the bedrolls and logs, Zealot Miniatures made the wooden totem, and the fire pit is Renedra with the tail from a Reaper dire wolf (who became a werewolf, which don't have tails, and  waste not, want not).
 Whichever party member is the most "outdoorsy" will be the one who sets up camp and starts a cozy fire. There's a Halfling Coachwoman in the group, so I'm guessing the smell of Brandenberry Coddle is what will attract the other adventurers.

 Allowing time for introductions, before encountering the ghost of a murdered traveling merchant. The call to action, and hopefully some compassion, will have the adventurers collecting his scattered bones for proper burial.
 The ghost is also from Reaper, the bones are from Toad King Castings (who also supplied the bones and mushrooms for my photo background).
 Bringing the bones to the next town and giving them to a priest of Morr, should result in a rather handsome benefit to set up the adventurers for the long journey ahead.

 I used an old Chaos Sorcerer as my priest of Morr, as the figure lacks any overt chaos trappings, symbols, etc. and for sheer Blanchitsu appeal.

 I figure this particular priest of Morr has made a vow of extreme asceticism, hence the tatty robes and rusty armor. As for the spiky bits coming out of his hood? You try hanging out in a spooky cemetery.. er.. ah.. Garden of Morr all day and night with no one to talk to but the dead, and we'll see if you too don't get a bit.. weird.
 Speaking of weird, does the rust paint job count as NMM? 

Dare You Face the Dragon's Challenge?

 Perhaps the most often played game in my collection is Dungeonquest. So, I figured it was time to add something extra.
 This poor chap started his career as a garage sale plastic boardgame dragon, before finding his hoard of gold at the center of T'Siraman's castle. I tried to go for the up-lit, orangy-yellow, from the box art (which BTW, has a lot going on. The dragon appears to have too many tails and not enough arms). Started with a black primer, followed by a nadiral spray of white. I'm still learning what my new airbrush can do, but I think I got the color fades fairly even. Then just a quick drybrush to make the scales pop, painting the tongue, teeth, and eyes, then a couple washes to add some definition. Now that he's painted, I wish I had spent a bit more time cleaning up the mold lines.
 The base was inspired by Spooktalker's excellent Heroes for Dungeonquest. The bright yellow matches the color on most of the dungeon tiles in the game. Then a flocking with gold glitter.
 Now we have a centerpiece to remind us that the dragon will only sleep for so long...