Little Metal Men

Still Alive

2010-05-04T16:39:00.002-04:00

Trying to work on some new stuff for the web site and to get back into painting, all while trying to clean up the place and start packing for an eventual move. The more packing I do now, the less I have to do when the time comes. Trying to save a good bit of my gaming stuff to be packed last so I won't go insane from boredom around here, but I need to go ahead and pack some of it. D&D 3.5 stuff is already boxed up and those poor rulesets from West Wind Productions will probably go into a box very soon.

On the painting front, I'm going to attempt to finish up the 15mm Teutonic Order stuff first and then move on to some unfinished Fantasy stuff. Hoping I can be painting again by sometime next week.

Privateer Press DVD Teaser

2009-06-14T07:47:00.003-04:00

This DVD looks like it may be worth buying. I wish I'd had this 20+ years ago when I started painting!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jizaUcrXY8

Long time, no update.

2009-06-12T09:07:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since I updated this page. Nothing new to report on the web site or painting front. No motivation.

I did finally get in a game of DBA a few weeks back. The Middle Imperial Romans finally made their debut. It was the Battle of the Teutoberger Wald all over again. Not pretty.

Might try to get some painting in this weekend if I get the time.

Making progress!

2008-11-22T18:56:00.004-05:00

OK, I've spent some time today working on the gallery for LittleMetalMen.com. Functionality seems to be working, more or less, but I'll probably still need to do some tweaking of the CSS once I start getting some decent photos of models.

I'm also trying to determine standard dimensions for the photos. That will be entertaining when adding photos of larger models.

Anyhoo, the site is that much closer to being back online!

A method for Goblin flesh I'm finally happy with!

2008-11-02T13:46:00.001-05:00

Reaper Master Series Olive triad finished off with Citadel's Thraka Green wash!

PERFECT!

Working on the site again

2008-11-01T14:18:00.002-04:00

OK,

Months have gone by and I've not really been motivated to work on LittleMetalMen.com, but I'm feeling like a wild man this weekend and actually doing some code. Maybe the site will be back up sometime in 2009. lol

Other than that, I haven't really been motivated to paint for a while, so my 2008 painting challenge kinda fell by the wayside. Maybe that also will pick up in 2009.

New Citadel inks

2008-07-26T14:45:00.002-04:00

OK. I gave in and picked up a set of the new Citadel inks... oops.. washes today. I've heard a lot of good things about them. Hoping it's not just GW fanboy drool. If they really do dry flat, I'm going to be very happy.

I also picked up a couple of bottles of the foundation paints to give them a try... orcish colors after last nights discovery of even more greenskin models. I'm guessing I've probably got close to 5,000 points, or more, of orcs and goblins; a good number of the goblins are mid-1980's - early-1990's era Citadel METAL, too!

Also picked up the latest Orc & Goblin army book and the new Daemons of Chaos book. It's too humid to prime today and weather is supposed to be bad tomorrow, so maybe I can get some stuff painted once I get laundry, etc. done...

Got the urge...

2008-07-24T03:39:00.002-04:00

...but wasn't really motivated to jump back into the 15mm Early Franks, so got back to work on some long neglected 25/28mm Dacians and plastic Citadel Orc Archers. The Dacians are also archers, so instead of wasting paint, I went ahead and got out a few of the orc models I'd primed ages ago and started painting the bows on those as well.

I'm going to do a little experiment and see if working on several different projects at once will help my motivation by breaking up the monotony.

Looks like rain this weekend, so I'll have a good excuse to paint!

Wow! No post in three months!

2008-07-21T17:44:00.003-04:00

OK, I've been really busy with work and other side projects, so I haven't really had a chance to work on the site in a while.

On the actual painting front, I've been priming up as many single piece miniatures as I can. I hope this will get me going on the road to actually getting more stuff done in the near future.I've started priming prior to cleaning the mold lines and flash as it makes them much easier to see, especially in my poorly lit condo. I do occasionally work on the code that I will eventually be able to stick into the site, but I just haven't had time to incorporate it.

The Early Franks I started on a while back haven't really moved along apart from the three stands of Bow and the one Psiloi stand. Those are finished and it is only about eight or nine Warband stands left to do.... plus the optional General cav stand.

I've also stripped a good number of minis. None of these had ever been finished. They were models I had started on and had screwed up terribly on or had just lost motivation and forgotten the colors I'd used. They now have another chance at life... eventually.

Anyhoo, that's all for now.

2008-04-29T17:32:00.002-04:00

OK. Haven't painted since early March. Too much else to do now that I'm working again, plus I'm actually trying to get back into RPGs with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I'll probably get back to painting soon, though.

On a somber note, Kenneth Keith Kallenbach from the old Howard Stern TV show passed away due to pneumonia caused by Cystic Fibrosis. I can honestly say that guy made me crack up, whether trying to blow smoke through his eyes or cutting off and eating his hair.

You were a one-of-a-kind, Kenneth. RIP.

Completion list - 2008

2008-03-16T03:43:00.000-04:00

OK. New Year's Resolution... I'm going to paint this year!

I'll start keeping the list here of miniatures I've completed this year.

As of 16 March, 2008:

1. Middle Imperial Roman Light Horse (15mm) - 2 figures
2. Middle Imperial Roman Knights (15mm) - 3 figures
3. Middle Imperial Roman Command (15mm) - 3 figures
4. Early Frank (Alammani) Psiloi (15mm) - 2 figures
5. Epic Scale Nurgling bases (Epic 6mm) - 2 figures
4. Early Frank (Alammani) Archers (15mm) - 9 figures

Alamanni Striptease!

2008-02-23T13:55:00.002-05:00

After finishing the Psiloi stand last night, I had a long, hard look at the rest of the army I had started painting a couple of years back. It was obvious I wasn't very interested at the time, plus I was just starting to experiment with the Vallejo paints, so the basecoats were pretty poor... and I forgot which colors I used. :)

Anyhoo, all the archers and the majority of the warband minis have taken a bath in Super Clean. They look fresh out of the package and are ready for a fresh start... so here I goooooooo!

Web Site Update

2008-02-18T06:13:00.003-05:00

I'm slowly, but surely, adding more bits and pieces to the web site. It's mostly a matter of motivation right now (still!). The "Galleries" section is still going to be the biggest pain to build, but I'm making notes as I have ideas on how to set it up.

I'm still not sure how much longer it's going to be before I actually re-launch, but I'm getting closer.

Painting My Early Franks (Alamanni)

2008-02-17T02:32:00.003-05:00

So I still haven't finished painting Bergo, but that was really only a temporary break from painting 15's.

Speaking of 15's, I'm now back to work on the Alamanni army I started painting approximately three - four years ago. The worst part, as usual, is deciding on colors for the clothing. In the long run the shields are going to be the problem, but I've pretty much decided to save those for last.

One thing I've gotten somewhat done on the majority of the models so far is the flesh. I've had to go back over most of what I started a while back. I apparently wasn't really interested in painting again at the time and the flesh looked a little foul. Now the flesh on all the prepped models has been given a nice, fresh coat of Vallejo Model Color Flat Flesh (955) . Once dry, this was given a wash of Winsor & Newton Nut Brown ink thinned slightly with Magic Wash.

I'm about to start a new job, so I'm trying to get as much of this army knocked out within the next week as I can so I can try and get in some gaming in the near future.

Stay tuned for details.

Bergo Ironbelly, Halfling Pirate (Reaper) - Work In Progress

2008-02-08T14:07:00.000-05:00

Picked up this little guy last week and actually started working on him the day I got him. In 20+ years of painting miniatures that's a first!

Here's a pic of said dreaded seadog in progress:

Updates

2008-01-26T06:56:00.000-05:00

Latest news on the relaunch of the web site...

I'm in the process of rebuilding the maintenance app. It was a rush job when I converted it from ASP about 5 years ago, so I'm cleaning up the PHP code and spicing it up a bit with AJAX. This is really going to streamline the processes by which I add and maintain site content. It really makes sense that I get the maint app mostly working before getting back to the web site itself, so it might be a few more weeks/months before I have the site to where I'm really ready to put it back online, but it will be back.

Painting update...

I'm actually working on finishing up the Cryx Battlegroup for Warmachine. I started painting it about three years ago and got 3/5 of the actual painting done. The bonejacks were completely painted, but the bases needed to be done, so I'm doing that, as well. I had gotten the Slayer Helljack mostly done, so I'm finishing up the actual painting and basing. I hadn't even started on Warwitch Deneghra, apart from a black undercoat, but I'll move on to her once I'm finished with the Slayer.

I haven't decided what to work on once I've finished the Cryx battlegroup. I'll either work on some more Cryx stuff (Bile Thralls, maybe?), or I'll go back to the 15's for a bit and paint up some Frankish opposition for my Middle Imperial Romans.

That's all for now.

Middle Imperial Romans... FINISHED!

2008-01-21T17:59:00.000-05:00

I finally finished painting and basing my Middle Imperial Romans for DBA. It took a little longer than I thought it would with the General. I realized just how out of practice I was when trying to paint his cape.

The only thing really left to do with them is to order decals for the shields. Will probably do that this week.

Middle Imperial Romans - Last Element!

2008-01-19T08:31:00.000-05:00

Working on the General element of the Middle Imperial Romans. Once his stand is done, the army will be pretty much done. Just the matter of basing the cav stands and then getting some shield decals for the Legionaries and Auxilia troops.

Here are the General's "bodyguard" models in progress:

Here is a bad photo of the army in full, except for the General element:

I should hopefully be done with the General stand and all the basing by tonight. Taking a little more time on painting this stand to make it stand out a bit. Looking forward to finishing my first DBA army!

Next Project

2008-01-10T09:26:00.000-05:00

I'm almost finished with these Middle Imperial Romans. I think I'm going to take a break from 15mm and work on some of my Warmachine stuff before moving on to the 15mm Frankish opponents for the Romans... We'll see...

Tuareg Blue

2008-01-07T00:45:00.000-05:00

Experimenting.... Arabic/North African style Light Horse for my Middle Imperial Romans...

Sort of the Dallimore/Foundry three color style...

Base/Shade - Citadel Nightworld Blue from the OLD Epic Scale Paint set
Highlight I/Main color - Vallejo Model Color 930 Dark Blue
Highlight II - Golden Fluid Acrylic Titanium White.

This turned out fairly decent for a gaming standard 15mm piece. For command/character pieces, though, I probably won't start with the Nightworld Blue basecoat.

Cool article about clothing colors

2007-12-31T23:37:00.000-05:00

Coloured Clothes in Medieval Scandinavian Literature and Archaeology

Web Site Relaunch Update

2007-12-21T09:27:00.000-05:00

I've been testing the site on the new server for a couple of days. I seem to have gotten most of the major issues resolved, but I'm still in the process of checking for any minor goofiness that might result from the switch.

The problem is that on the old server pretty much everything was wide open in the configuration, so it allowed me to be lazy in my coding. That's turned out not to be a good thing.

Also, I was having some weird issues that seemed to be related to database stuff, but I'm almost 100% sure that was the fault of the new host and not something related directly to the site's code.

I'm hoping to have LMM back online in the very near future.

Colorado Miniatures VMC Combos

2007-12-19T14:58:00.000-05:00

Colorado Miniatures VMC Combos

MIR Cav

2007-12-15T20:52:00.001-05:00

I'm finally getting around to painting the remainder of my Middle Imperial Roman cavalry. I'm not sure when I started painting these damned things, but it's been a while back. I finally just got sick of seeing them sitting on my paint table gathering dust!

Painting Horses With Vallejo Model Color

2007-12-15T16:12:00.000-05:00

Check out this post

Cool Vampire Flesh article

2007-12-11T02:27:00.000-05:00

http://amazingmodeler.com/tipsarch.htm

Freak Flex paints

2007-12-09T10:07:00.000-05:00

Has anybody tried these paints produced by Badger? I've contemplated trying them for quite a while, but have never been able to find them in any local stores. Would like to test a couple out before adding a ton to my already overflowing collection of paints.

Temporary Home

2007-12-08T15:59:00.000-05:00

As stated in my previous post, I have lost my free hosting after eight years. I have now acquired a new host and will have the site back online ASAP. Until then I will use this blog as a sort of temporary site.

LMM going down

2007-12-03T23:40:00.000-05:00

After about eight years my free web site hosting is going away. The plan is for the server to go offline by the end of this week, so LittleMetalMen.com will be offline until I get setup on a new server and get the site rebuilt.

I'm not sure how long the site will be down, but the domain is still registered until 2011, so I have a little time to get it back up and running.

Keep checking back here for updates.