Welcome to this weeks Miniatures & Musings!
—000—
A return to Reaper this week and another of their fantastic wizards, this one goes by the name of Oman Ruul and is from the Dark Heaven Legends range.
I wanted to try something different on this little chap, an idea I got from an image I had seen somewhere, Pinterest I suspect. From the front he is just a regular paint job but on the back I have tried to create a moon and galaxy look. I love the idea and am going to have another crack at it at some point. For a first attempt I was pretty happy with the outcome but it is a different type of freehand and needs working on.
—000—
Well It Made Me Laugh …
—000—
Interesting Site?
This site will have limited appeal to most of you I think but I will throw it out there anyway. Like most sites it rather depends what you are interested in. I like my little dioramas and occasionally enjoy adding a building or two into the mix. Detail is high on my list as I strive to make whatever I am doing as authentic as possible.
It was when I started doing a WW2 diorama, Operation Overlord, that I decided my buildings needed to be fitted out internally and to add to the realism I needed wallpaper. My google search led me to Jennifers Printables. a site I have used a few times now. All simple stuff but effective.
—000—
Playing it Safe
For the first time in four months I met up with my mate John for a couple of pints at the village pub, The Blacksmiths Arms. The nice thing about being retired is you can go to the pub at any time and unsurprisingly at three in the afternoon it was empty. Social distancing was therefore not a problem and it made a nice change to get out. The only downside was the reintroduction of alcohol to my system after four months being teetotal. It hit me hard and so I vowed to put in more practice.
Unfortunatley there is talk of a second wave of Covid-19 hitting the UK. Hardly surprising as it hasn’t gone away. Will it be worse second time around? Will we return to full lockdown? Will the economy survive? Will people survive? The list of questions goes on. All I know is I can only control my own movements and encourage those nearest and dearest to me to do the same. With that in mind I have no wish to get caught out again either so I recently placed and order for a shed load of figures, paints and other materials to keep me going. Just to be on the safe side you understand.
—000—
This week TIM has been listening to …
“Gimme All Your Lovin'” by ZZ Top. I love the music intro to this track but it’s not often I get to turn the volume up without a member of the family moaning but with everyone out I had a blast.
—000—
This week TIM has been watching…
“Unsolved Mysteries” on Netflix. There has been a little bit of hype around this series so I decided it would make good background fodder while I was painting. I was wrong. It was OK I guess but I was expecting more to be honest. In my mind there is a difference between mysteries and unsolved cases and so I wasn’t blown away. Yes each case was odd for sure but overall I was left underwhelmed.
—000—
Remember…
If you put an electric fence around your house don’t be surprised if your neighbour is dead against it.
—000—
TIM
OO! mate that does look interesting, I do like the effect you have achieved!
As you would know from Young IRO posts we are locked down again but one thing that has surprised is the effect it has had here in regards to our hobby. I have been going to one local shop run by a fellow from your country since I got back into it in 2013 and so It was interesting to see the changes his store has gone through ,back then it was busy and then slowly less so until about a year ago when it was pretty quite, plenty of stock, few other customers if any !
I went there two weeks ago when we were allowed and the place was empty of stock ,he had never been busier in his twenty five years over here running his model shop.
Maybe people are coming back to good old fashion hobby fun! so it will be interesting to see the changes that come about in the future. Keep safe, I’m bloody envious of you making it to the pub!
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks Pat, glad you like the little chap. Yes, lockdown has had a major impact on all hobbies I think here in the UK. Modelling certainly has been very, very popular and stuf got sold out very quickly. For a long time I had trouble trying to get paints and brushes from some suppliers. Fortunately I had plenty of figures to do! I’ve started to stock up again now for fear of the second wave, just to be oh the safe side you understand. 😉
LikeLiked by 2 people
You are right Dave , it was the old Humbrol and Revell paints that I the Fossil thought was the only one using nowadays , maybe there are older fossils than I getting back into modelling, they were all gone , quite amazing ! It’s lucky I remember the tricks of mixing the few paint you could afford when one was young and inventive!👩🏻🌾
LikeLiked by 2 people
That wizard is brilliant! 🙂 And I am a big ZZ Top fan, so a good music choice!
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks John, I managed to strike gold this week! 😉
LikeLiked by 3 people
Nice wizard.
Cheers,
Pete.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks Pete.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That hat is excellent though I did expect to see a giant D on it 😉
LikeLiked by 3 people
Haha, maybe next time I might add one. 😉
LikeLiked by 3 people
terrific range of colours chosen dave, the back is amazing too, your painting is seriously good..
LikeLiked by 4 people
Thanks Steve, much appreciated. Trust things are going well for you.
LikeLiked by 3 people
i must admit things are going really good, i have quite a bit painted but still no photos as yet. I am particularly happy with some ACW zouaves i did a few weeks ago while still doing 3 gardens. I must admit to not being in the wordpress mood atm and only pop in every so often, but i will get back on it as the weather cools somewhat, stay safe mate..
LikeLiked by 2 people
Keep up the painting, the blog will take care of itself in due course. 😊
LikeLiked by 2 people
i showed the postman my little bunch of armies the other day, he loved them and said he would tell his mate, and added don’t be surprised if he wants you to paint for him as he buys loads..
LikeLiked by 2 people
Excellent, here’s hoping he does! 🤗
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice. I like that your wizard’s beard matches ZZ Top’s beards. Incidentally, the one non-bearded band member is actually called Mr Beard.
LikeLiked by 4 people
I think somewhere along the line I have heard that before, you couldn’t make that up could you?!
LikeLiked by 3 people
Haha I really enjoyed this post mate. The joke at the end tickled me but I love the muppet picture and will use it on the fly on the wall podcast Instagram hehe. Good to see you back at the pub and exercising your pint lifting arm. We are in our second wave here but apparently it’s really the first wave. I love the wizard, the finger nails are a good touch and the purple is so vibrant and has a lot of depth. I really like the galaxy effect too and look forward to seeing more. Have you ever tried to do a grey scale painted mini. I think you’d be really good at it and I think it’d be cool to see some of your WW1 or WW2 minis painted that way. I did grey scale a while back and it was a lot of fun but I reckon you’d nail it more than I did.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Good fun- I the candy stripes on the hat are fun, and the dusting of stars on his back are ace. Did you build up the stars using stippling?
LikeLiked by 5 people
Yes, stippling but using a sponge rather than a brush.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Yes it was nice to have a couple of pints but how long it lasts remains to be seen as things appear to be building up again over here. Never tried grey scale but seen it done. Like you say I think it would look good on WW1 figures. Something to consider at some point for sure. Stay safe mate.
LikeLiked by 4 people
That wizard sculpt has a lot of character and charm and I really like the design on the back of the cape. It looks great! The older woman absolutely looked like a muppet when that photo was taken! It is pretty funny 🙂 Finally, when I was in elementary school, I was dressed up as a ZZ Top band member for Halloween because my parents were pretty big fans. Hearing their music sometimes makes me cringe as it brings back memories of that special day….
LikeLiked by 2 people
That wizard is magnificent, the galaxy effect on the cloak is great but now I’m taking a proper look at him there’s a lot of other nice details – the candy striped hat and the swirl on the crystal ball (tried that one myself once – can confirm it’s bloody hard to do!). Glad to hear you made it to the pub, strange times aren’t they? I was away for work this week, stayed a couple of nights in a hotel, and just being away from home and eating in the hotel dining room was a bit weird now, things that you wouldn’t have thought anything of a few months ago.
I’ve been watching Unsolved Mysteries with my partner. She grew up on the old series but I’d never seen it before. I know what you mean about it, we’ve been enjoying watching it together so we can sit there being amateur detectives, bouncing theories off each other, talking about who looks guilty and so on (the best mate in the first episode for instance is guilty as hell, if my friend had been murdered I wouldn’t have blocked the police from looking into things unless I had something to cover up). I don’t know that I’d be that into it if I was watching it by myself though.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Cheers mate, glad you like the little chap, he did provide a nice opportunity for some freehand. As you say the world has become more than a little weird and I fear it will be so for sometime to come. A pint at the pub was nice but it felt like we were sitting in the Worlds End (of Shaun of the Dead fame) and not the Blacksmiths Arms!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Wonderful freehand, obviously done pre-pub visit! The stippling on the cape is brilliant. So much depth of field. The hat is fantastic too. Saw this post on my email feed a couple of weeks ago, but truly glad I got to look closer at this on WordPress. Looks like you’ve conquered the app?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Mark. It was nice to try something different and for it to come out pretty well for first attempt. I had another go with the technique on a piece of card the other day and it was rubbish! Beginners luck!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Maybe it was magic?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice work on the Wiz here – the stripey hat and (lovely) celestial cloak give him the kind of feel of 70’s and 80’s fantasy art to me! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you. Not quite sure where I got the idea from, an image on some site or another, but it seemed a bit different and I thought it turned out OK for a first attempt. 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person