Old Children's Sculpts

I’m working on two terrain pieces assembled from old sculpts my children made more than 5 years ago. I feel a bit like an archaeologist.

Pikachu? 

Terror Bird

I’m currently painting a Kinder Surprise Egg bird from the Natoons series. 

I’m a bit stuck with the project. The miniature doesn’t have sculpted feathers, so I decided to paint feathers which takes much more time than I originally thought.

While I’m confident that I can finish painting this bird soon, my original plan was to paint six terror birds to use them as a unit of lesser war beasts in Dragon Rampant or for other games.

By the speed I’m going this might take all year …

2 Hoplite Shields

I'm working on two hoplite shields.

Have a nice weekend!

12 Bamboo Men

This is a picture of my desk.

I didn't have too much time to paint miniatures lately but hope to finish painting this little scratch built bamboo forest now.

Have a great weekend!

Mould Lines

I'm working on six Surprise Egg terror birds at the moment.

After undercoating them I noticed that they had thick mould lines which I couldn't remove with a scalpel because the terror birds are partly made out of soft plastic.

I covered the mould lines with green stuff which was fun but took a bit longer than planned ...

A T Rex out of a Kinder Surprise Egg

A dinosaur from the movie Ice Age that came out of a Kinder Surprise Egg.

I put him/her/it on a 40 mm base. The beast is ready for painting now. (Ok. I still need to remove some mold lines.)

Joaquín's Fimo Troll

My son made a troll out of polymer clay.

I modified it slightly with green stuff. It can stand now. I also added fingernails and toenails. I would like to paint the troll, hopefully soon. I think it will be a great monster for an orc & goblin warband.

Things on my Desk

I have started to paint three scratch-built bamboo men and put two Kinder Surprise Egg toys on bases.

Have a nice weekend!

Karl

Things on my Desk

I'm currently varnishing three palm trees and undercoating three bamboo men.

Hope you are well!

Karl

Things on my Desk

Another mud hut.

An unfinished palm tree.

Sixteen hoplites and five mercenary commanders from Foundry’s World of the Greeks range, which is my favourite miniature range, and Gladius, an old Citadel miniature.

Nine Unfinished Projects

This is a picture of my desk.

I’m currently working on some terrain pieces, chess figures, palm trees and I’m painting a little skeleton man, my son made out of polymer clay. Some of these projects I started many years ago.

I remember my father always kept several piles of documents on his desk and next to it, and although he worked a lot (too much probably), when he died 20 years ago, he left his study in such a state, that only recently I dared to enter it to go through his things.

A hobby is a luxury, of course, especially if you have three young children and in the midst of a pandemic, so time might be a problem, although I consider painting miniatures or gaming with friends time well spent.

I have a list with nine items, old projects, I need to finish before I can start something new.

Now, that I wrote this last sentence, I already have a lot of doubts about it.

First of all: are there only nine items on my list?

Like many people playing games with miniatures, I enjoy starting new projects all the time. I have a friend who can open a cupboard filled with unpainted miniatures if you mention any wargaming related subject and another friend who buys a plastic bag full of dwarves each time he goes to a gaming convention and I’m not much different.

It’s probably healthy to limit the number of unfinished projects on your table. On the other hand, why should I not paint the dinosaur my daughter made out of Fimo or the giant crocodile my other son sculpted, thus expanding my list to ten or eleven items? Or why shouldn’t I paint some orcs or dark age archers for our fantasy campaign? Or conquistadores? They would be more useful now than three palm trees. And then, why should I do any of these things? Instead I could paint the wall of our garage or some chairs and tables to invite friends over for a barbecue in our garden. Or just spend more time working to gain money?

My father’s hobby or obsession was to visit archeological sites and collect books about it. He was also very much focussed on his work and had a complicated family situation since my brother was severely handicapped. I assume he would have liked to spend more time in museums or read more history books, but just couldn’t. So to release some pressure he bought more and more books.

My father read a lot and he could remember most of the things he read, but when I looked at his books for the first time after he died I noticed that many of them had never been touched. He bought books to put them in shelves or on piles next to shelves, so they would gather dust. I used to have the romantic idea that he wanted to tell me something through his collection of books, because he rarely spoke to me. I feel some kind of sorrow looking at his books. Maybe my father imagined to have more time to read them all.

Now, my second question is: Is it bad, an unhealthy waste of resources, to hoard things and not use them? Books you don’t read, miniatures you don’t paint or play with? Shoes you don’t wear?

Do I really need to finish old projects before I start something new?

I can spend a lot of time sculpting or painting a single miniature, but it’s so much fun imagining playing a game with fifty miniatures on each side or more. This creates a tension and to release it I often start buying new miniatures, before my mind wanders off and imagines playing with yet another army.

Is this bad? A vicious cycle? I don’t know. What do you think?

Mud Huts

I’m currently working on 5 mud huts. Inspired by the classic 40K scenario 'Seize Ground' where you have to roll for D3+2 objectives, I want to use them as objectives for Dragon Rampant. I think this will be fun.

Progress on the mud huts has been a bit slow, partly because the house I live in doesn’t have a roof at moment. This causes several "real life" problems.

I have to deal with metal objects falling onto our balcony every other day and my "Arbeitszimmer", ähh … how do you call that in English? My study has already been flooded three times.

Never mind. I hope to finish the mud huts soon.

Foam Board Hexagons

I'm currently working on something quite boring. I have two boxes, filled with 150 hexagons cut out of foam board.

They are large enough to put several 28 mm miniatures on them. I want to use the hexagons to play Commands & Colors and to make my own strategy game.

Therefore I'm glueing colored paper onto them. This is a complicated technique which takes a lot of time.

The other day I told Krüger: "Krüger, I started to work on the hexagons again." He said: "After a couple of years, some projects come to a point where you just need to give up."

Here in Berlin, where I live, late autumn is cold and dark and many of my friends become gloomy and loose their energy.

Two Bamboo Men and a Palm Tree

2 bamboo men

and a palm tree

Problems Making Papier Mâché Wargaming Hills

I enjoy making objects out of papier mâché. Masks, hexagons, walls, hills. I made these two hills about 6 years ago. I like the way they look but unfortunately they don’t work well as hills in a wargame. They are 3,50 cm high and have a smooth surface. Figures slide down or fall off.

Now I’m working on a hill that’s much flatter. It’s 1,50 cm high. I can’t make it flatter, I think. Then it wouldn’t look like a hill any more. It would look like a piece of area terrain.

Making a hill from papier mâché might not be the best idea, but as I said I like the material. It’s my favorite material. It’s my intention to make a hill that lies flat on the tabletop board. Unfortunately, each time I apply a layer of paper to a papier mâché object with wallpaper paste, the object changes its form while the paper dries. So it takes a long time to make a papier mâché hill that lies flat on the floor, possibly forever if you want a perfect hill.

I started to make this hill 2 or 3 years ago. In January I said to myself: Ok, two years are a long time to make a papier mâché hill. I have to finish this project now. I have to change my technique.

So I thought about ways to stabilize the object and applied a layer of Milliput, a self-hardening modeling clay which can be carved and sanded. This works a bit better but the hill still changes its form when it dries.

Maybe you think: Whatever. These are hobby problems. Not really important in a time when our environment is changing rapidly, reminding some of us of the big changes that happened 65 million years ago and lead to the extinction of dinosaurs.

Or you experienced problems making papier mâché hills yourself and can offer some advice on solving them?

I hope I can finish the hill soon. And start three more.

What I'm Working On

A palm tree.

Area terrain.

Chessmen.

A hill.

Stones.

What I'm Working on

A green creature.

A hill.

Hexagons.

What I'm Working on

5 green creatures.

6 pieces of area terrain.

What I'm Working on

5 green creatures.

6 pieces of area terrain. (Marsh and rough.)

A checkerboard.

To Do List

I tend to get distracted and start new things all the time, so Marjorie, my wife, convinced me to use 'to do lists' to organize my life. Buy storage boxes. Buy a kitchen knife. Go to the dentist. Paint a chair.

On the back of my regular 'to do list' I have a 'to do list' for hobby related stuff.

It says:

Paint 5 green creatures.

Sculpt 2 bamboo men.

Sculpt 2 horses.

Make a hill.

I don't think this is what Marjorie had on her mind when she talked to me about 'to do lists'.