My DIY painting rack

Hello all!

Had some fun last week figuring out how to make a painting rack and finishing the project.
I was getting tired of having brushes, paints and half painted minis all over the place and wanted a rack that could hold the paints I use most frequently along with the odd brushes and so on.
It should also look nice (uncluttered and "presentable") while fitting inside my "gaming" closet.

So after a lot of thinking, drawing and measuring I decided on what type I wanted and began.

The material used is masonite (a pleasure working with and the carpenter working in the kitchen above ours left me a big bag of the stuff, so the entire rack was essential free..) which was cut to size, holes drilled and then glued. Nothing to it actually, after the calculations were done.

The finished result; brushes to the left, water in the middle, room for 23 pots of paint/glue in the middle. A small shelve for current painting projects while the back is for larger stuff such as glue and mixingplate.

Oh and thats my son, Frej, who took great interest in the project.

The best laid plans of men and mice...

Almost done...

First paintjob of a billion (four), shows the shelves that the paint stands on.

Inside the closet, nice fit - with room for extracting it.

All in all I think I used three evenings (1,5 hours each) on the project, with the most timeconsuming part being painting and waiting for the paint to dry. The cost was minimal, mainly the paint, which I was using for our doors and other woodwork inside and used less than a centimeter.
I'm very pleased with it and cant wait to "use" it for the first time - been a while since I got any minis painted.

Blood and Heroes

Well - as written earlier life seems to make painting minis and terrain impossible at the moment. Luckily there are other options :-).
At a recent fleamarket I managed to buy a copy of the old game Heroquest. I played this 15 years or something ago in the gaming club I attended back then (memory-flashback!) and remembered it fondly.
So it was with great joy I found a copy lying among used toys and clothes and managed to get the price haggled down to 1.5£ for the entire box. That's about 30-40 minis (of surprisingly quality for old plastic minis) and the board as well as all the cardboard stuff. Only thing missing is one of the attackdice but we will manage.

Once we got home my son (aged five) was all worked up and we had a quick game (the rules are simple and intuitive enough to get us started within five minutes) and he had a blast - he was enjoying it immensely and has since been pestering me for another go at it. It did help that he won easily (i might have tweeked the rules a bit .-)) and never knew how much he was learning while playing - it is actually great for counting and getting to think about what consequences his actions have. Actually we both had a brilliant hour with the game and my wife has decided to try it as well so this friday we're going to have a gamenight in the family. Wuhuu!
An added bonus is that my son has been asking to try and paint some minis and now he can paint these and even game with them - the perfect combination, and all for under 2£.

Apart from that I bought a new computer game recently; a remake of that old and superb boardgame Bloodbowl, made by a french company called Cyanide.

The game is a faithful remake - all the rules are in and most of the races as well and it feels very much like the boardgame which I always enjoyed playing. I'm about thirty mathces into the campaing with my Chaos team and they are great fun - most having mutations and are well skilled by now.
Last game saw my Mino (str6, block and claw - nasty) injure four trolls (one twice as he was apothecaried and the other was the starplayer Ripper who got a broken back in the first block of the game), the fun of the game is so bloody great I look forward to each game immensely.
The only downside is that the AI is incredibly stupid - truly horrendous to see a troll try and dodge while skinks try to form ballcages. This might be annoying (I have lost only one game so far - bloody woodelves) but the game is so enjoyable that I forgive the AI and just laugh at it when it tries something stupid.
And the thing I always liked best about the game was the campaign part of getting skilled players and designing them for specific roles and this game is perfect for this - all the games you wish for and the models are instantly recognizable with their mutations and the like showing up when they get them.
Most enjoyable and highly recommended - there is a massive online part where one can play everyone else but I have not tried that yet as my gaming time is very sporadic at the moment.

Bugged down...

Greetings - just a quick note to explain why this blog might be silent for a while. I'm in the middle of moving all our stuff into a new apartment and the painting (of walls and not minis unfortunately) et al that goes with this is what my evenings are spent on. Last night I removed 800+ nails from our kitchen floor - just to give an example of the weird stuff I use my spare time on. The rest of my days are spent trying to finish a chapter of my ph.d.-dissertation which is slow going as well. So unfortunately no painted dinosaurs in the near future - merde!
Hope you all enjoy the psots that are here already.
Best regards,
Kasper.

More Dinosaurs....

Alright I admit it - this is getting silly but we (my son and I) found some more small scale dinosaurs and I painted yet another one of them... Enjoy, and if anyone knows of a good ruleset for dinosaurs in roughly 10mm scale, please let me know so they might see some action :-).
For this I was very much in doubt as to how the huge eyes should be painted - I opted to ignore most of the space and paint a fake eye on the surface. Worked alright but it does look a wee bit like the small cartoon dog "Droopy" - but judge for yourself.
The before shot (and this might actually be a chameleon and not a dino):

And after the beauty treatment - spot the treeclimbing beast:



And the next two in line for a repaint:

Ebay acquisitions

Hi all - I bought some more minis at Ebay:
60 Gothic Infantry from Magister Militium
60 Early Saxon Infantry from Magister Militum
30 Late Roman Infantry from Pendraken
21 foot and 13 mounted command figures teutonic from Kallistra
16 Mounted Teutonic knights from Kalliostra.
Retail: 35,2£ - Ebay: 22,91£ (with Shipping) - Saving: 12,29£
That's pretty neat - I needed more "primitive" infantry for my warband contingents and with the right colours I am not concerned if their shields might be the wrong size for a given era - its 10mm!
The Teutonics I might keep or pass on to Uffe (who insists on using them, even though we all now they are "broken" in their current armylist... :-)).

So that's at least five new infantry units for 16£ averaging around 3£ each - not the greatest savings ever, but all right for my taste.

Pictural evidence:

Kallistra Teutonic Knights
Kallistra Teutonic Foot Command
Teutonic Mounted Command
Magister Militum; think these are the early saxons? The detailing is actually quite good (better than it looks on this picture) and they look like a "fun" paintjob - which is the most important factor for me. there are some nice command models as well.
Pendraken - not my taste (the face of number two is horrid as are some of the detailing on the others).


Now to get painting.....
K