1/72 Uruk-Hai Project kicks off

Lord of the Rings. The name is a testament to fantasy and all manner stereotypes. Seminal. Myths from the English countryside Tolkien grew up in woven with his vibrant imagination. And war. Both surrounding him and within. Addiction, the coming darkness, loss, love, friendship. Nature. Lots of nature. And fire. There are books about Christian experience within the Lord of the Rings. Military tomes. Psychological perspectives. Screw Shakespeare...

Thus some moons ago I discovered a drive to do armies for Kings of War when it first came out with the first available set of fantasy, the Orcs. Total disaster. Moving on, six or so years later (maybe more?) there's a swathe more fantasy lines so why not give it another shot?

I did a fair bit of research and there are three main companies I have focused on, being the primary manufacturers of 20mm plastic kits: Dark Alliance (RedBox imprint) and Caesar. Having bought one each of all their codes plus a special deal on multiples, I came before the box of plastic goodness seen in a previous post.

Here are some pictures of the infantry and cavalry from that set with more detailed writing on each project to follow - at the moment I seem to be in a "get them done 3-colour block painting" mode though it does get a little harder from time to time to not get stuck in and put more detail on them.......however experience tells me that's a path to the "wanna/gunna/shoulda" pile so I'm staying focused!

Thanks for reading and look forward to sharing more of this journey soon.

Be well!

1/72 Italeri Church

Weila, buongiorno!

Years ago in Italy I was part of a cadre of gamers associated with the wonderful Massimo Torriani and the  development of the Alzo Zero system released in collaboration with Italeri. Urban legends and one of the most wonderful gaming chapters of my career aside, fast forward to late 2015 I find myself building another model of the Italeri church released back then..........Condottieri!!!!!!!!!!!!

This time around though I'm a little older, wiser, better looking....and generally humble and better experienced with model building (one of the previous only is true of course....pick the one?)

Thus I reinforced the church a little in the roof, sides, added a removable floor, and converted the outside area into a garden so it can be used with a little more variety. Also added a sniper post and yes, the church steeple roof comes off for those unmistakably cheesy SPR re-enaction shots!

Anyway that was good fun, onto painting some troops to use it with!

Thanks for stopping by, may your dice roll high.....and have fun in your miniature adventures, I know it gives me much respite from...well....my own HEAD mostly...

LOL!

Ciao e grazie, un salutone e un abbraccio to my helpful assistant, Susi

:)

1/72 Italeri Church.......or 2 week update and a new phone!

Hello fellow miniature enthusiasts
today I'm posting a round up of the last couple of weeks in no specific order....
My phone battery was damaged and I had to replace the whole phone, thus many WIP pictures are gone...oh well, little harm.....luckily as you may have seen I have a few figures to paint over the coming months before heading overseas....then of course it all goes into storage as Melbourne's 5yr production did (come think of it there's loads of miniatures in Milan and London, too....maybe I should consolidate my collections one day....one day....lol!)

First off I got myself some textures from this site. While there are plenty others out there, this is my go-to site atm....

First off I recently went to a friend's house and we caught up for a game. Between bouts he showed me through his wife's studio and collection of art - even got to take a few piccies!

Shame we weren't playing ancients!

Ok, onto miniatures I say.............................
Some 1/72 Polish soldiers getting prepped with fantasy dwarves in the background

Today I also smashed out the Italeri 1/72 church which arrived in the mail

 Will mine ever look anything like the pictures?

Measuring the required real estate to insert a second floor (windows are there...why not use them?!)

Roof can do with a little backing to improve durability...

 I wonder if I can't keep this side detached....maybe a garden?

 "I see youuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Undercoating round one

My lovely assistant in my "office" (ie penthouse overlooking the ocean....because life is hard for a wargamer these days...)

 The church basecoated and primed (black undercoat, grey for brick, orange for rooves, white highlights, black insides).....

Bought some self-adhesive paper to print flags, facades and in this case textures for second floor and gardens...oh and had some spare space so printed some 25x17mm posters for the Eastern Front....

 Garden landscaping miniature-style

The outpost completed..............

Little ledge for an overlooking sniper, wasn't worth inserting a whole floor as there's one window only accessible in the superstructure....

 Having textured the floor, a small hole for the stairs is followed by gluing on a small religious statue that doubles as a means to lift the roof safely

 So that's this fortnight's gaming....
(not really, I just lost all the photos so you'll miss the WIP......soon though I'll be making a post of my second game and starting both blackpowder and a dungeon projects bringing the total concurrent projects to:

• 1/72 Lord of the Rings
• 1/72 Warhammer
• 1/72 WWII Chain of Command
• 1/300 Age of Sail
• 1/300 sci-fi Space Combat
• Generic terrain making
• 1/144 fantasy War of Kings boardgame figures