Lucius, the full group and a pedestal

I'm back in the land of the living, and the Malifaux crew are finished!  Still messing about with this photography malarkey, the first picture is the result of using a .NEF file (RAW apparently, I still need to read up on this) rather than jpeg to mess about with.  The resulting photo is quite nice, it's just a shame I can't seem to get them to come out right for the rest of the shots.

As you'll know if you've read this blog over the last couple of weeks, Lucius was the last of my small crew to paint.  He's pretty much followed the standard paint scheme, the only difference really being the jacket, where I went for a richer red, rather than the dirty red of the other figures.

I used a Mechrite Red base, applied in several coats to ensure I had a solid block of colour, which was then washed with Devlan Mud.  I used Mechrite Red as the first highlight, then gradually mixed in Red Gore, and finally some Squig Orange.

I'm really pleased with the way these guys have come out, and I reckon they're some of my best stuff so far. Yep they're quite dark, but intentionally so, and I think the sewer bases really help with that look.

Moving on...

I've been talking to the rest of the Ancible team recently about terrain and buildings and the best way to create them.  I've been looking at not just terrain pieces but display aids/background pieces for my miniature cabinets and photos.  For a few years I've looked at Hirst Arts (not to be confused with Damien Hirst Art, which would just be weird...) moulds and wondered what they would be like to use.  The team already have several moulds and had cast up plenty of bits already, so I nabbed a few bits, to see what they were like to put together.  

Jez had used some artists plaster with some additives - the pieces are quite heavy but seem durable.  The bits glue together nicely, and the PVA glue helps fill in any gaps, with some liquid Green Stuff to finish off.  It all sands down easily enough (one of my main concerns), and you can get a nice smooth finish

As a test to see how it paints up, I created a little pedestal for miniatures to be photographed/displayed upon.  Two bottom sections for a column were glued together, filled, sanded and then sprayed with matt grey primer.  The material seems to accept the primer well, but for larger pieces I'll be tempted to go to B&Q and get some exterior wall paint as recommended by the Hirst Arts site.  The piece was washed liberally with Badab Black, then dry-brushed with Codex Grey, a 1:1 mix of the grey and Dheneb Stone (to give it a slightly more natural stone feel), then a 2:1 mix of the grey-stone and white.  I think it looks really good and "stone-like" - on further attempts I'll add some creepers/ivy/moss for a bit more variation.

The top of the piece is 30mm in diameter, so the round lipped bases work really nicely sat on top of it.  I think the praying knight from a previous post makes a nice example.

So I've borrowed some moulds from Kenny, and pinched some plaster from Jez, so next weekend will be my first foray into casting some building blocks.  All things going well I'll be ordering some moulds of my own, the good news being that Hirst Arts is based in Sedalia where the in-laws live, so Trans-Atlantic shipping may become a little cheaper.  I think the fieldstone range will work for a number of games:  WFB, anything Barbarian based, WarmaHordes, and the Gothic range will do for WH40K, anything steam-punk/Victoriana, etc.  I'm even considering casting up a whole tile-set for Advanced HeroQuest, but that may be a while off yet...

Still a few more ongoing projects to finish up, and then I need to decide what to do next.  I've got the Freebooter Assassins starter boxed set on the way (I hope), and they'll be too tempting to resist.

As always, comments and criticism welcome!