A trip to Ikea

Back on the blog after spending a bit of holiday in the UK, during which I got myself signed up to host a Wolsung demo game at PolderCon on the first of May. 

For those who don't know, PolderCon is a wargaming event in Utrecht, in the Netherlands. This year there'll be 20+ different games to play, all hosted by volunteering wargaming enthousiasts. 

The day is divided into 4 time slots of 90 minutes, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. For each time slot players can book a spot to participate in one of the demo games. How many spots there are at the table differs from game to game, but is usually something between one and four. This makes the demo's quite 'up close and personal', without the distractions/interruptions of others who're just passing by.

The clubs I'll be using for the game will be the Ash & Oak, Inventors and Triad of the Lotus Dragon. Selection of miniatures is based on the contents of the various starter boxes, so there'll be 2 Heroes a side plus 2-3 henchmen. All the mini's are already painted (some of my older work, pics will follow), as is the bulk of the terrain. That means there's plenty of time to 'waste' on small details 😀

First up is the appartment building, which could use some furniture. The downstairs is going to be a shop, with the upstairs being the living area. All the bits are from one of Mantic Games' Terrain-Crate kickstarters. 

Painting was kept simple, with washes and Army Painter Speedpaint to help creating a little depth. I'm very pleased with the look 'Hardened Leather' gives to the wooden furniture on the first floor. Just one coat was enough. 

The blue chairs where done with 'Highlord Blue', which worked well despite the many flat surfaces on the chairs. I think it did a better job than 'Ultramarines Blue' would have done. One thing that did put a spanner in the works is that I was to quick with trying to do some touch ups with the blue paint: apparently the first layer hadn't dried properly yet and was reactivated by the new layer. This is why the darker chair turned out more blotchy in places - we'll just pretend it gets too much attention from cats 😸.

Here's a close up of the wooden furniture, plus some street furniture and markers for parcels and packages. Next up is more stuff to put out on the street

 

A trip to the dark side of town

After a covid outbreak in the house and distractions from numerous other sources, here's another update.

I got seriously distracted from the Inventors that were mentioned in my previous post. At first more Scylla figures caught my attention, which will be ready some time next week. Also there were those Shanty Town hovels that were lying around primed and ready to be painted (many thanks to my friend Stefan, who very kindly passed his hovels on to me). 

Before priming, all hdf was sealed by applying shellac (https://www.rustins.ltd/rustins/our-products/indoor/shellac-sanding-sealer). I learned about shellac in a video from OnTableTop's  'Gerry can ...' series in which Gerry shows you how you can seal your mdf/hdf. The reason for sealing is that by doing so, you stop the mdf from absorbing all your paint, which makes it much easier to get good coverage. 

I must say I think shellac works great! Applying it is quick and easy (I use foam from a blister pack to do this), it dries fast and isn't overly smelly/messy. Once dry, I only needed one coat of grey primer from a spray can to get perfect coverage. A downside of shellac is that it's a bit expensive, but I recon the bottle I got will last me for several years. I'll probably will also save plenty of time, effort, money, exposure to fumes and complaints from my neighbours as I'll need far fewer cans of spraypaint to get decent coverage, 

After applying a medium grey primer, I applied different browns and a dusting of copper and green to the various roofs. Walls, doors and windows were painted using mainly artist en masonry paints. Coverage of these colours wasn't that important, because I was aiming for a weathered, stripy look.

Weathering was done using some washes, drybrushing (with a very big brush) and 'Streaking Grime' from AK Interactive. To add more character, I added advertising posters which can be found here: 

https://1drv.ms/b/s!AgCNwicNek7bjWhzQu3RQOH_5nK7?e=9W0GAe

(the link on the Wolsung webpage isn't working, so I made a scan of the original print that comes with Micro Arts' Wolsung Advertising Columns) 

Below you can see some pictures of the finished result, plus two shots of one of the locals you can encounter in this part of town.