It's a viking thing

Hat's off to you if you got the "joke" title. If you didn't, not to worry, it wasn't very funny - thing is an old Norse word for assembly or meeting. Told you it wasn't very funny. Anyway, here's my vikings assembled together. This is my collection as it stands today, though the archers are missing from this shot, they are not really free men and hence barred from the meeting.

It's been quite a long journey to get to this point. When I first started collecting vikings the figures available in the market were quite mediocre. In recent years that has changed quite markedly and there are now several options if you prefer good quality figures. I have previously blogged about my preferred options in this post.

I am slowly getting my vikings organised. Some are painted fully, some need a little more work, some need shield and base replacements. Some are still in the box. There's a fair bit of work to do, but it helps me to get them all out and arrange them like this so I can see what I am working towards.

There are five different manufacturers in this photo, though one is a proxy. The bulk are the excellent V&V miniatures, my absolute favourites though expensive resin pieces. Next most numerous are victrix, highly affordable plastics, and finally there is a smattering of Drabant metal figures. At the back you can see a Mierce Miniatures character glugging on some ale, encouraging the troops. And finally the leader is Thor! Yeah, he's the red herring, from CMON Blood Rage box game, until I get my V&V command group together. More on the vikings soon.....

Marine

The recent announcement on a new boxset for 40k had me pondering if I should take a new direction. I have hit a bit of a wall in motivation recently and I figured that a complete change might fire up the muse again. So I dug out a set of primaris marines and set to work on painting them in a desert scheme.

After a couple of changes, the scheme ended looking like this. My idea is to find/design a gryphon transfer for the shoulder pad, preferably in red to match the markings. The right knee pad would vary from marine to marine, a kind of personal heraldry, while the left kneepad would have some kind of campaign marking maybe. Anyway, after finding that even a simple marine like this takes a bit of time, I am not really encouraged to go further. It just seems so bland. I quite like the bolter though, that's really easy and could be re-used in the future.

Dwarf

It's high time we had a dwarf on the blog. And what a fine specimen, another one of the sculpts formerly Statuesque Miniatures, now offered by Crooked Dice. I would say this is probably my favourite of the bunch, no surprises there. The wizard can be found here.

I was on much more familiar territory painting this figure and enjoyed it immensely. I am trying out some GW paints at the moment and was pretty happy with the leather and flesh tones I achieved here. I am a bit unsure on the greens, it seems a bit lurid perhaps?

Last couple of days

It is the last couple of days before the birthday prize draw. I know I have probably spammed this a bit too much over social media in the last week, but here we go one last time....

Go visit this video, it contains many of my painting methods, so might actually be worth watching. Even if you get bored just leave a comment in the comments section (surprisingly enough). I will draw a name from the comments left, some time at the end of the week. The winner will receive this figure as a birthday present.

Of course, I am hoping that you will be so amazed that you will immediately subscribe and tell all your hobby friends about this wonderful new painting channel. Or not. You decide.

Goblin Boss

This is a very old figure I painted for my brother as a birthday gift, so many years ago I cannot remember when it was. It was one of a small range of metal hero figures, which have become quite collectible in recent times. They just don't make them like this now, which is a shame.

I painted it for display and so mounted it on a scenic base. I think if I was painting it today I would put some more colour on the base, those mushrooms would look good in spotty red or glowing green. Other than that, I think the paint job stands up well (metals aside).

Happy birthday little brother, sorry I didn't paint a new one for this year.