Ebay Addiction: More Old Minitatures Citadel / Runequest (that-I-did-not-really-need-but-still-had-to-get)

Hello all,
Oh, that Ebay is an evil port. You go there just to look and suddenly you have even more unpainted lead. But these old beauties were so cheap...
So what did I get? This lot:

A pair of sweet old "Runequest Box 5: Dragonewts" - Runequest miniatures from ca. 1982

Newtling with Sling and Crested Dragonewt with Javelin- these guys are tiny!

This chap I've never seen before. Listed as a "Citadel 1980s C09 Dark Elf / Elves - Sorcerer / High Priest (A)". His correct, much shorter name, is C-0915 High Priest of the old solid base Dark Elves from ca. 1984. Quite an old chap. Will make an excellent sorcerer for my Slaaneshi warband :-).

These two weird minis I bought because I thought they were variants of the old "Runequest Box 4: Beast Men - Scorpion Man with Club". They were not and are two pretty crappy conversions - the club is gone, a shield has been added and each have received a new beastman head. I've been working on them with green stuff to hide the old conversion and have added a little something special to them to make them more Slaaneshi - I think they might turn out just fine :-).

Watch the stinger, please!
Stay tuned for the painted versions - the newtlings and scorpion men are almost done already :-).


All the best,
Kasper

Melty, the Nurgle Troll - TSR 1983 Troll B 5305 (updated)

Hello all,
Considering how much fun I've had testing out the new Foldio photo-setup-studio-gizmo, I figures I would repost about Melty, the Nurgle Troll, with some brand new pictures.

Finally finished the Nurgle Troll. Bought as a "Mud Golem", it turned out to be an old (1983) TSR sculpt of a Troll (Nicknamed B 5305). It is a rough sculpt - few details except from the face and the few that are there, are all very melted. Thus, with all the boils, wounds and what I interpret to be dissolving skin, I've decided that this is none other than Melty, the Nurgle Troll:

The face is brutal and I do love the un-dressed nature of this troll - doesn't seem likely that he would put on a pair of trousers before having his picture taken.

Might just be the largest nose I've ever seen on a mini :-). I guess he has been eternally cursed/blessed by the fickle Chaos Gods to pick up every last pit of his body odour...

The sculptor seems to have gone for some melted skin - I took this as recently flayed skin and applied some tamiya blood tot he wounds.

While the mini is a rather crude sculpt, this also meant it was a quick and fun paintjob - and now we have a dangerous, smelly, troll rampaging around our house :-).


All the best,
Kasper

Orc General on Sabretooth Tiger - Hear Me Roar!

Hello all,

You probably remember the old "Orc Boar Rider General" from 1988 that I recently painted (if not, you can read about him here). Now I really enjoyed painting him and giving him a brief biography describing how a vicious orc came to be in the service of Slaanesh.

When I went to the Oldhammer forum and posted images of him there, I was told that the orc was actually a "boar rider" - and what is a boar rider without a boar? A vicious, evil, angry orc. So to bring a bit of "happiness" to the life of our orc I've been searching for a suitable mount ever since. Well, I found one on Ebay the other day. And just look how the two of them suit each other:

 Never has a better mount been made available to an orc!

The two were brought together in a chance meeting in the woods. Our orc's first thoughts were along the lines of how much wargear he could buy with the huge teeth on the Sabretooth. But the beasts vicious growlings made him pause and a slow sense of respect - something entirely new for the orc - grew. The two are now inseparable, hunting the wilderness killing and maiming everything they find, be it animals or sentient beings. Never before has the Orc been so close to happiness and his confusion has been momentarily forgotten. But Slaanesh is a fickle being and grows tired of the pleasure gained through the orc's rampaging so life will probably bring new challenges for the warlord, and soon.

Please ignore the yellow-tack - still deciding on whether the orc need a saddle...

The beast is a Sabretooth from a set produced by Celtos called "Amanthas the Huntress with Sabretooth". I unfortunately did not get Amathas, but the big cat was just perfect for the orc so I was glad to get for less than a pound.
Here is  a few pictures of the Sabretooth before it met our orc:

 And of the orc before it met the Sabretooth.

More pictures soon - I've gone through the Heroquest figures and redone them using the new photo-setup so next week has been declared international Heroquest-week!

All the best,
Kasper

New Cheap Photo Studio - Foldio review, comparison shots and Arkward returns!

Hello all,

Like most of you miniature-loving, hobbiest out there I've struggled long and hard with getting pictures that actually look like the miniature. Light, colours etc is just such a hassle.

I've tried several set-ups, lamps etc but nothing has really done the job. Thus when I saw a kickstarter for a photo studio set-up that looked great and was not that expensive I jumped at the chance. The kickstarter was for a set-up named Foldio - becuase it folds, get it? :-). It is lit up by a strip of LED lights and was fairly cheap. 

Well, it was delivered this morning and I've been tampering with it ever since. And to be honest I'm satisfied, but only just.

The first thing I should show you is a comparison shot - this is Arkward, everyones favourite minotaur.

Arkward - before and after

On the left is a before shot - overexposed and yellowish due to the lamps used. On the right is the best I could tweak the Foldio to produce. If you expand the picture you can see that the colours are much more like they are in the real world (you can also see his nose has been chipped, Argh!!). Yet it is still a bit too dark (even after I've photo-shopped it).

All in all I do think that while the picture on the left is better to get ones attention due to the bright colours, the Foldio-shot is the best of the two as it is much closer to reality and actually shows highlights, blends etc.

So this is the tweaked version. What does that mean? Well the Foldio looks like this:

A sheet of high-quality plastic thingy that folds into a photo-box, or light box, and locks using magnets. The LED strip uses 9 volt battery and thats about it. It feels like ok quality all the way.
But I've found that a single LED strip is simply not enough. It gives dark pictures, even though it reflects well and there are no shadows.
So I tweaked it to look like this:

Ignore the miniature - it is a secret!

I've raised up the bottom to get more light from the top strip and have added a cheap strip from IKEA I had available. Together these two strips are almost enough. I think if I could find a better strip this setup would be hard to beat, I'll be trawling the Chinese LED shops for some time now :-).

So my verdict on the Foldio? Well it didn't solve all my problems in one delicious swoop, nor will it be the hasslefree experience I had hoped for, instead it will be something that needs setting up and adjusting, but not anymore than any other setup I've tried. The quality is good, but the LED are insufficient. I'll give it a 7 out of 10 - I'll use it for all photoes in the future, but I'll need to tweak it even further to be satisfied. But for 20$ I'm pretty satisfied and think it will stop me screaming at my camera and staring in disbelief at the pictures I have available to upload :-).

So, I guess this leaves just the new pictures of Arkward, the slightly confused Minotaur (read his history here) taken using the above setup - I would really appreciate your opinion as to whether this is better or worse than the previous efforts (can be seen here):

Thanks for visiting and any and all comments are appreciated!

All the best,
Kasper