Irony, MT - Part 1

For my wife's birthday this year, I somehow hit upon the idea of giving her a set of miniatures and rules for western role play. 

Rules were easy, as I went for a hard copy of Go Fer Yer Gun, printed by Lulu. I also managed to get a PDF or the rule book when it was a free item from Drive through Games. This system is based on D&D, and should be pretty easy to pick up.

For miniatures, I went with Foundry figures, sculpted by Copplestone (OW9/2, OW11/8, and DA1/6). At $15 a pack, the Foundry figures were a pretty good deal, although the flat rate shipping was a little harsh, particularly considering that it took longer than expected for them to get to me.  I was pleased with the sculpts, but there were more mold lines that I was expecting, some of which were too difficult to remove.  I also painted a random Artisan figure, which had character, but was less technically accomplished than the Copplestones (particularly in the hands).

I painted the figures predominantly at work during my lunch hour, and had pretty good success with that.  My office gets fairly good light, so it is not too bad for painting. I did run into some technical issues, mostly having to do with the Citadel screw top paints having dried up.  My flesh wash was a solid mass, and the propellant from my DullCote had long since vanished, necessitating a trip to the hobby store to procure more.  I experimented with some new techniques whilst painting these up, including using a sponge for some of the weathering on the clothes, painting reflections on a bottle, and I used the Perry Miniatures article on Painting Dark African Skin by Steven May to inform my painting of this first fellow.

For basing, I tried out grass tufts for the first time, and was somewhat pleased with them.  It seems like the particular set of tufts I had were more irregular than clumped, but I think that the overall effect is good (and quick, which its own sort of good).

Enough words, here are the first four of the miniatures (out of 13)

  Clearly I need to work on photography, since they are much better "in the hand" than they are showing here.  Limited in this case by taking pictures at night with a cellphone.  More to come, including a map of Irony City, Montana Territory.