Hasslefree Ratling Pilot

Greetings folks, it's been one of those quiet "hobby rut" type of phases for me, so I needed something to kick me out of my rut. Casting around for what I could do that would be fast and fun, I landed on my perennial distraction: Inq28 and a gorgeous, gorgeous sculpt from Hasslefree:

That is Kev White's HFP002 Sola, rather confusingly filed under "fantasy pirates" on the Hasslefree website. First time I saw her I knew I needed that model as it was one of those rare miniatures that seemed to "work" from every angle. Most have at least one angle where they look a bit clumsy, not this one. I'd already decided I wanted a second Inq28 warband and this wee lass was perfect as a gunslinging ratling pilot for the group.

 It's quite rare for me to emphasise just how tiny these things are but in this case it really needs emphasis to show just what an incredible job Kev did in getting all these tiny details to work on the model. Behind her is the extremely durable picture of Her Madge that all of us Brits carry in the form of a 2p piece (about the size of an American quarter dollar). So... very, verrrry small.

 I'd decided I wanted a former punk street kid vibe to the character. A little older and more restrained than the wild youth but with just that touch of tough, rebellious character. After all, this is a tiny ratling girl willing to leave the homeworld and adventure in a universe full of things at least twice as big as she is. The most obvious "punk-ey" element is the magenta streak in her hair (look way more subtle in the photos than in real life) which I'd toyed with a lot. I didn't want her to look frivolous - which I thought a complete dye job would have done - and the wrong colour would have leapt out from the hair too much. Waaay too much thought went in to that hair dye.

 Her gear I wanted very understated and pragmatic. Lots of blacks and brown leather with a splash of subdued colour in the dark turquoise top. The goggles I was chuffed with, I wanted that amber-brown aviator shades look and think I managed it. As usual I went with a couple of different browns for the leather to be able to differentiate the various "bits" of leather. I'd love to be able to give you the recipes but it was more of a "suck it and see" mixing session rather than thinking "tutorial". 

Basing for this warband will all be on some lovely paved resin bases I picked up from Firestorm made by "Model Display Products". A quick length of pinning wire and the models sit lovely on them. Once I've got them all painted I'll do my usual "story of the warband" article over on Beard Bunker but for now. I'll just concentrate on the pretties.

That's it for today folks, more shinies soon, I promise!

TTFN

Pointy Ballistic Death!

"Bat Tree! On moi command.... TWANG! Wait fer it you orrible little Gobbo!"

Yes folks the little hand is once again pointing to goblin o'clock here at PVP! For too long I've been internally grumbling about how Rhagat's horde is all the huge but isn't quite killy enough. There wasn't enough specials. To that end I am putting aside my other projects for the moment and trying to finish off Da Bitter Moons before the GoblinKeen wears off again. Today's project? Three bolt throwers forming Da Pointy Stick Bat-Tree.

Those of you familiar with the old goblin bolt thrower might be scratching your heads a bit at what these models are. I shan't leave you in suspense. They're Warlord Games' Roman Scorpion battery with some modifications to make them more goblin-ified. This consisted of roughing up the woodwork to make it more rough-hewn than precision sawn; adding some roughed up black plasticard gork teef shields; and through a piece of bizarre scale creep, an old skeleton arrow from the tomb kings skeleton archer box which made a perfect ballista bolt. All 28mm scale allegedly. Go figure.

sorry for the filthy cutting mat backdrop but if your wargaming workhorse mat isn't filthy you aren't trying hard enough!

Speaking of figure... see what I did there? I needed some crew models. I'm doing my normal Bitter Moons thing and swapping common for night goblin crew. To this end I bought a box of night goblin troops and set about converting them. Most are simple enough swaps to be holding a big arrow or to be pulling a lever. But I wanted the bosses to be a bit different. So having made one with a flappy flag (just paper soaked in PVA) and one with a telescope (a shaved down space marine gun sight) I wanted something just a bit more... goblin for the last one. I thought, right, we've got the boss that identifies the targets... the boss who waves the flag to say "shoot"... we need a weather-gobbo watching the wind speed and direction. We need a goblin with a sock on a stick. So some ProCreate and an odd sculpting job later, one wind sock.

There really isn't much to talk about painting-wise, the gobbos are all painted the way the tutorial says. The bolt thrower is just lightly wood grained brown and some rusty metal and the basing is my usual goblin parched stony ground with little bushes as the bases are bigger than normal. So I'll leave it there. Oh, just one more thing, this is just the start of the goblin reinforcements. I've got a nice big unit of squigs (the deep road toads) and another couple of things I'm scratch building. What could I need a massive troll holding a rough hewn length of wood for I wonder?

This time, you're getting left in suspense. 

TTFN