Onwards to 2017!

Happy New Years all, i had got an early night after watching some Guardians of the Galaxy, but ended up seeing midnight as the fireworks from next door woke us up haha!


This last year has been the busiest yet, i've managed to paint up 1040 models, smashing the highest previous recorded by nearly 200... looking back i don't think i've painted that much even when i was a mad ork player back in the day. The vast majority of these have been commissions which is great but also leaves very little time for my own projects so over the last few months i've begun to sell off more old forces and unstarted stuff.

This year im sticking to one commission a month, and making time for my own projects along the way as i don't want a mountain of unpainted, unbuilt or untouched toys sat about. With this in mind im intending to not start any new games... can it be done, we shall see, but that's the plan.

Over the next few months i have two new projects that i want to make headway into: Disciples of Tzeentch for AoS and Mechanicum for 30K, Neither force will be ridiculously big but having sold all existing AoS forces im relishing the change of style and Forgeworlds Mechanicum are some beautiful models, the club is running campaigns for both games so i look forward to playing them, along with more Guildball and also some Kings of War.



In last years resolutions i planned the following:

1) Fully painted Warmachine & Hordes
2) Fully painted Darklands
3) Fully painted Abyssal Dwarves for KoW

1) Nearly, had 6 models to go but have quit the game and sold up all my remaining models.
2) Nope, not touched them all year d'oh!
3) Yep, and sold the force on to make way for a new one


This year im going for:

1) Fully painted Mechanicum 30K army
2) Fully painted Disciples of Tzeentch army
3) Play more Guildball!

Spotlight: CaesarMagnus Miniatures by Fanplastic Little Men

Yes you read that right... Little men from Fanplastic Little Men!

Over the last few years i have slowly begun the process of creating my own line of miniatures from scratch. Now i am no sculptor or Artist so i knew i was going to require some outside help to turn my flight of fantasy into a reality.

Luckily for me i am in a fortunate position where i could employ some of the best in the business to put my initial ideas into something workable. When i began in 2012 i asked for some advice from Gavin Moorcroft from Tor Gaming on concept artists and he readily recommended Christian Schwager who produces the mad designs for Relics.

After some discussion back and forth we had a number of concepts ready, and below is the one i have chosen to begin the miniature making process with:

In the fluff that surrounds this line, Trajan Hesk is an Eradicator-Cleric, a high ranking field operative for The Order, a sort of Knights Templar meets Equilibrium!


The process of finding a sculptor was extensive but i feel worth it as the end results speak for themselves. Ben Calvert-Lee of Mastercrafted Minis has been great to work with and has produced some amazing mins, some such as the Masons Guildball team can be seen elsewhere on this blog too.


1) First up is some initial work to create a human figure with clothing that can be worked on further:

2) The digital sculpt is nearly complete, just some fine detailing required now:

3) The digital sculpt is complete and looks amazing!

4)The finished sculpt was then sent to be 3D printed. Here Ben's work can be seen in detail and it really shows how great a sculptor he is!

Hot of the press today is the first cast of Trajan Hesk:

So there we have it, the first of my range from my brain via an Artist in New Zealand to a Sculptor on the south coast haha, truly a global endeavor and one i feel fortunate to be able to undertake.

Trajan Hesk and more from the CaesarMagnus line will be available via Mastercrafted Minis and Cymbeline Games in the near future. 

Gatormans: Moar Solos and 400 posts!

Two more solos today with a Croak Hunter and Victor Pendrake down:

 

 

 

 

 

This is the second Victor Pendrake I own, another was painted in October last year for my Farrow army... I wanted one for each force so I would never be without hehe.

 

 

This is the first of three Croak Hunters I have, they are pretty handy with several of them on the go and if I ever decide to run Rask's theme force I could buy another three of them for a proper frog attack! 

 

 

This is also my 400th post on the blog which is kind of a big milestone for me, who'd have thought that 4 years later after those first dodgy Farrow and Drune pics went up i'd still be playing and painting minions!



An Early Happy New Years!

Im going to get this in early doors today as I doubt i'll be seeing in the new years haha, the missus and I are knackered from decorating all day and have been up since 3.30am with gitish children!

So I wish all my friends, clients, fellow bloggers and casual readers a happy new year and may your dice roll 6's and the paint flow freely hehe.

This year I have painted a grand total of 862 models, well over 500 for clients which has made me really proud... the total is higher than the last two years combined on both counts.




My vows for 2014 were as follows:

1) Fully paint my Drunes for Darklands
2) Fully paint a new force for Warmachine
3) Fully paint my Amazons & Wendigo for Wargods
4) Fully paint my Banebrood for Godslayer
5) Only start 2 new games this year... Darklands and Wargods



1) Completed up to date
2) Searforge and Thornfall fully painted
3) Not arrived from Crocodile Games yet :-(
4) Completed and then sold on
5) Success haha


Pretty good I think, so how about for 2015?


1) Fully painted Farrow for Warmachine
2) Fully painted Gators for Warmachine
3) Fully painted Pulp City
4) Fully painted Darklands


Those are my vows, hopefully I can achieve them again :-D

Better late than never... again!

The summer was a very busy period for the family with getting married, missus starting a new job and the holiday to Clacton (woohoo!) so the june update was kind of forgotten :-(


Since April ive painted nearly 400 models, about 50/50 for myself and clients so im eating through my own lead mountain finally haha. I have two more commissions booked in for the year; a blood bowl team to start after the Pigz are painted, then a rather large AvP resin horde when that KS delivers to the client.


Speaking of KS's, ive backed a few over the last few months; Infamy, Darklands, Relics and now Bascus... Most of next years toys will be from kickstarters paid this year so im hoping it will be a cheap year!


Another report and best wishes at the end of 2014 Brush Brethren!

Three months down!

Better late than never!

Its been a good year so far in brush life, I've undertaken three commissions already this year and have quite a few more booked in... so much so that I don't think I will get my own 160 odd models painted by the end of the year haha.

The count for the year is already at a staggering 384 models, far far more than this time last year, and of those only 60 have been my own minis. I have a wood elf blood bowl team on the paint table as I type, this should be ready to show in the next few days, and I pick up a massive dark elf army job later next week... that's another 200 right there!


Another quick recap in June Brush Brethren

Happy New Year 2014

Happy New Years boys and girls!

Hope you all had a good night, we had friends over with their kids but us adults were getting tired so we changed the clocks at 1030 and celebrated at 11pm haha

2013 was a great year in my life, not just for painting; I changed jobs and we got the girls to sleep till 5.30am... believe me that's a lie in in our house!


On the painting front I achieved my goals in ending the year paintless, I moved my Darklands Drunes and my Silvermoons to 2014 as that's when the majority of the models comes out. A massive haul of over 500 models painted makes me proud, and it looks like it will be another big one this year with commissions and my own kickstarter goodies coming in too.

On our club forum I made the following resolutions:

1) Fully paint my Drunes for Darklands
2) Fully paint a new force for Warmachine
3) Fully paint my Amazons & Wendigo for Wargods
4) Fully paint my Banebrood for Godslayer
5) Only start 2 new games this year... Darklands and Wargods


Should be another great year, im getting married in August to my beautiful fiancé Emma and I cant wait!

Changes to the site

Over the next week or so the pages bar will be come filled with a selection articles on some of my favourite manufacturers and hobby companies.

These will be companies that i've either done work for, such as demoing/testing or painting, or im a massive fan of the miniatures range.

These pages will be updated regularly with the latest releases and news!

Six months in

The year has flown by! My girls are 14 months old, I'm in a new job and my fiancé is starting up her own admin assistance business called Earlybirdy!

As I mentioned in a previous update, I started the year with 139 models left over from 2012... its now down to 12 haha, just 12 Daikinee then ive cleared the lead mountain and i'll be right on track to end the year paint free.

These last 6 months ive added a lot of goodies to my Nuem army, painted up 4 factions for Bushido, developed a new way to paint my farrow (planning to repaint the older lot next year) and ive begun to do some really nice single models to put in a display cabinet at home,

Ive painted 189 models, 69 less than last year and we are only half way through! I wont be reaching the dizzy heights of days of yore when I completed such tasks as 250 KoW Undead in 3 days, or my 500 strong Ork 40k army over a year, but I think I can get close to the 300 mark.

An update on targets, I have sold on my KoW Undead, Covenant DW, Rense Navy FA and Thaniras Elves US fleets. They were enjoyable projects but I wanted some new challenges, especially for KoW as my Undead were undefeated for 3yrs haha. I will return to that game in the future but im waiting for a force to catch my eye. Im planning on taking up the Australian fleet or the French land force for DW, the club will be rocking a campaign later in the year so they can wait for a while.

The Convergeance will be appearing in the near future so im "gearing" up for them by getting as many toys painted before hand as I can. I have all the initial release toys on order so am allocating 2 months to get them done. The chaps at GW Bluewater were very helpful in advice for colours on a brass scheme for them as I haven't done much in that tone before.

All in all its been a productive year for us, more plans are in the works and I shall expand upon them as they come to fruition, but its going to be an exciting back run for 2013!

Next step... the world!

Big changes are afoot at Fanplastic Little Men, we are expanding our from paint sales and magic card sales in a big way! More will be revealed soon but its going to be an epic year thats for sure :-D

First up however is our new logo, kindly created by my good friend Darren of Flare Miniature Painting fame:

 

 

 

 

 

Darren is a talented artist and this logo is badass, and captures exactly what Fanplastic Little Men is all about!