Forge Fathers Heavy Armour & Bikes

The final pieces for my Forge Fathers are finally complete adding in an APC, two tanks (with all turret options), three Half-Tracks (again with both turret options) and a squad of bikes.

I've been working on the Forge Fathers for literally years now so it's great to get them finished off and game ready.

More Forge Fathers

As usual it's been some time but I've been back on the painting wagon and added more to my Forge Father forces; some named characters, heavy support, elites and some more core troopers (this time the modern plastics).

Forge Fathers Heavy Support

As I continue to make my way through my Forge Fathers collection I've finished off some more heavy support options, another Doomstorm Pattern Iron Ancestor and two Jotunn Weapons Platforms with the old school resin Super Heavy Magma Cannons.

Next up I'm going to working on all the modern plastic kits!

Forge Fathers Reinforcements

I've been slowly making my way through some more old school Forge Father minis, this time the full metal minis which came out after the metal upgrade kit for the original plastics came out (which make up one half of this kit).

I really like the feel of these, proper chonky boys with a nice bit of weight when you hold them and they look the part to.

I actually painted up four squads of the Steel Warriors and there are ten Rekkhyrs in total so this is a sizeable addition to the army with just a few more additions to come from my old school collection before I shift over to the newer plastic kits.

Steel Warriors

Rekkhyrs

Thorgarim

Forge Fathers Huscarls

Here we have the final two miniatures of phase one of the Forge Father army, the last of the original miniatures picked up many years ago and it feels good to have them painted up now.

Though the paint scheme is the same and mainly to the same tabletop standard I did do some quick highlighting on them due to being characters as it makes them pop just a little more than the rank and file.

To finish off we have a photo of everything completed so far for the Forge Fathers though I am planning on getting more built and painted for them soon.

Forge Fathers Doomstorm Iron Ancestor

No army is complete without a (small) giant walking armour suit, so here we have the Doomstorm Pattern Iron Ancestor.

As the wee lad only has short legs I decided against giving it the close assault weapon and instead made it into mobile amoured gun platform, much more fitting in my opinion.

With this now done I'm only two character miniatures away from completing phase one of the Forge Father army.

Forge Fathers Jotunn Weapon Platforms

Time for some big guns to add some heavy support to the Forge Father army.

Exactly the same paint scheme as before but this time as these don't have bases I had to figure away to get that colour pop on these.  I was almost certain the basing material had red pigment in it so I used it as you would a weathering powder on the tracks and I think it worked out quite well.

Next up is some more armoured support, this time of the walking variety!

Forge Fathers Stormrage Veterans

Time for some of the Forge Father elite, the Stormrage Veterans are here to add some much needed heavy firepower to the army.

These are the original PVC miniatures from the initial release and though they are somewhat smaller than the militia miniatures (I'm guessing due to shrinkage when manufacturing PVC minis, this was back in the day when this type of material "Restic" was brand new and companies didn't take this in to account), they still look pretty decent when painted up and placed with the other miniatures.

For the paint scheme I stuck to the same palette as before and just kept it to basic tabletop standard as I've a small mountain of these fellas to get through but I must say I'm really enjoying working my way through these.

All twenty lined up on the painting table, ready for action

Forge Father Steel Warriors/Militia

New Year, new project or in this case a very old project that has been long left at the wayside.  The creative urge to finally put some paint on these original Forge Father miniatures finally grabbed me and I've had a blast putting some paint on them.

They're only painting to tabletop standard as I have more than a few of these blighters to get through but they look decent when grouped together and they're in a paint scheme I've not done before with some basing I picked up thinking it would come in handy at some point.  It all works out in the end.

I originally picked these up on their initial release at one of the first Mantic open days and over the years picked up the metal conversion pieces they released to make them a touch more sci-fi (though I made up five as the original plastics).

These minis are the original Steel Warriors however with the release of the newer hard plastic kits they have now shifted to being the Militia but either way I still like their aesthetic and I'm looking forward to diving into more of them.

Below are some W.I.P. shots from box to finished.

The finished Steel Warriors/Milita

Hellboy: The Board Game Expansions Completed

With the delivery of the last Hellboy Kickstarter I vowed to get the miniatures painting as soon as possible so once I finished the last miniature I was working on I got to priming them straight away.

As per the last batch of Hellboy miniatures I zenithal primed them with spray cans as I would be painting them with Army Painter Speedpaints.  This would be my first time using them and was a bit of a trial by fire.  I really like how you don't get any (or very little) coffee staining over large flat areas and the contrast between the darker and lighter areas is more pronounced however they do tend to run more than Contrast paints and can end up in areas you don't want them to be if they find a channel to run through (creases in fabric/skin etc.). 

The second issue I ran into was when I applied the matte varnish.  I was aware that if you apply a paint or water (especially water) on top of a Speedpaint it will reactivate the paint and in the case of water will basically wash the paint off.  However what I didn't realise is that this would also happen when I applied the spray matte varnish.  Luckily it only happened on a couple of miniatures and I was able to salvage the paint jobs.  The issue was when the varnish built up just a little too much, allowing the Speedpaint to flow again, so I started spraying the finest mist of varnish on the miniatures initially before applying a second 'normal' layer on once that had fully dried.

Now that I've gotten used to the quirks of the paint I'd quite happily continue on using them on further projects (I'm looking at you Batman) along with the Contrast paints as they compliment each other very well.

One thing I did want to point out about the miniatures is how improved the casts are.  The initial miniatures were fine and I had no complaints with them but this new wave are a little more firm and hold a lot more detail, which really helps the style of painting I use on them.

This wave also included some of my favourite Hellboy/BPRD characters (Ted Howards being number one) so I really enjoyed getting to paint them up.  I also took the opportunity to build and paint up the resin Giant Robot Hellboy which I've had sitting patiently in a box as a while.

With the paint jobs I tried to emulate the colours from the comics as much as possible while transferring them on to a 3D object.  Naturally I had to take some liberties with the colour choices, especially when a character is shown with just one colour, but they should still fit the feel of the souce material.

Next up we have a vast array of evil minions and characters from the end of days along with the ever creepy Crooked Man, who's miniature manages to be nearly as disturbing as the artwork.

 

And if you've made it this far we have at last, but certainly not least, Nimue the Dragon.  This wee beasty only just fit in my photo space and was a bit of a challenge to paint with Speedpaints due to the large areas, I had to make sure I didn't put too much paint down and let the zenithal prime do a lot of the heavy shade work.

She turned out quite well and was a fitting final miniature for this project.