Crazy Cat Lady; Freebooter's Fate Challenge, Day 4

Day 4, and I continue to slowly chip away at the challenge. After finishing off the Oncas earlier this morning, this evening I got stuck into the first two proper Amazons, a chicomeh, and Tecuani, the Onca cat lady, and not a model I particularly like, I must admit.

Not a lot to say about them really, they're both WIP still, but I don't want to spend too much time on them, so probably won't mess around with already done parts, despite not being overly happy with them so far :/ Let me know if you have any suggestions or ideas for how to improve them.

So yeah, that's all for now, stay tuned for tomorrow's post.
One final note, all this painting is really helping me brush (oh no, accidental pun) up on my history, having finished podcast series on both the Byzantines and Sicilians, and now getting stuck into a long series covering Russian history. I'm finding it helps keep the motivation to paint going, since when one episode finishes, I want to keep painting long enough to listen to another...

~ Alex/Magos

I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat; Freebooter's Fate Challenge Day 3

Ooops, I may have got distracted last night playing Medieval II Total War... that game is the devil when it comes to productivity.

But better a few hours late than never, here is day 3's update.

Not much progress to show for it unfortunately, but I did finish another three models, albeit fairly simple ones. The Oncas are big cats one of the Amazons specialist can include in your force. I kept them simple, since they're only cats. No one likes cats, right?

So yeah, not my best work, but they'll do for gameplay. I'm now 7 down out of 18, after 3 of 7 days... someone do the maths on whether that is ahead or behind, too many awkward numbers for my head. Hopefully tonight I can get a few more Amazons finished.

In hindsight, I totally should have painted one as grumpy cat...

~ Alex/Magos

Shivs and Stilts; Freebooter's Fate Challenge, day 2

Update! Day two of the Freebooter's Fate Challenge, and the 4 models from yesterday are done. I was hoping to get started on another batch as well, but fussing around with these models all evening prevented that. Tomorrow I'll have the whole day to paint though, so hopefully will have more progress.

I promised yesterday that today I'd talk some more about the models. As I mentioned, they're sculpted by the very talented Werner Klocke, and are quite nice models, especially the females. One of my absolute favourite things about this range is the pewter base inserts. As you've probably noticed, basing is not my strong point, and while I'm working on improving that, these inserts are a great idea, simultaneously providing character bases, and extremely solid anchoring points for the models (each insert has slots for the models feet, which have pegs). They also give the assembled models nice weight and stability, particularly valuable on top heavy sculpts like Miedo a Morir.

So then, onto the finished pics!

Male coscritti:

Female coscritti:

Battitore (Stop, what time is it? That's right, hammertime):

Miedo a Morir:

Sorry some of the photos are a little blurry, my terrible photography skills strike again I suppose. Feel free to let me know what you think, feedback is really appreciated, especially on the OSL and NMM, since I'm unpracticed at both.

~ Alex/Magos

Silent Footsteps in the Dark; Freebooter's Fate challenge, day 1

Day 1 of my 'paint all my Freebooter's Fate in a week' challenge!

Yes, Freebooter's Fate, the small fantasy pirate skirmish game with a lovely range of models sculpted by Werner Klocke. If you don't know who Werner is, you need to expand your model knowledge. He's one of the best known miniature sculptors, and has models in a number of ranges, most notably Reaper's catalogue, and his charming female miniatures are sometimes referred to as 'Klockenbooty'.

I'd known of FF for a while, but the relatively high cost kept me from getting into it, however a few months back I picked up all the rules, cards and two sizeable factions, all BNIB, for a steal. I'm keen to give the game a go, and if I enjoy it might look at expanding my factions, but for the moment I'm happy with the two I have, Amazons and Brotherhood, conveniently my two favourite ranges of minis.

I'll ramble some more about the models tomorrow maybe, but I'm fairly exhausted tonight and have to work tomorrow morning, so I'll keep this fairly brief and get to the pics.

Inevitably, after a week of balmy weather, winter returned today with rain and wind, meaning I had to wait until late afternoon to get a chance to prime. I have 18 minis all up to finish, and I'm planning to break them into batches to hopefully make it more manageable. First up, the Brotherhood, a cult of nefarious assassins. Their models are a mix of nobles in masquerade finery, and common cut-throats, wearing ragged outfits. I've started with the commoners, keeping the colours suitably motley and muted, while the nobles will be far more riotous. 

I didn't manage to get them finished tonight, but they're about two thirds done I guess. Skin, some cloth, details and weapons are not close to done yet, plus there's the OSL from Miedo a Morir's lanterns. I'm only aiming for a nice tabletop standard with these guys, with 18 models to do, I can't afford to be too finicky. If I can achieve my goal of a week to have the whole collection finished, that will be reward in itself.

Ok, pics, finally.

Cheers, thanks for looking, comments always appreciated :)

~ Alex/Magos