TOYHAMMER - THE BADDIES

 I've recently been painting some Toyhammer figures as a palette cleanser. They are great for picking up and splashing paint on when I have a few minutes here and there ( usually about 3.30am). So far I'd only painted good guys, so it was about time to do some opposition.

Some skellies, summoned by a bone faced necromancer.

Thuggish evil knights.

Some infernal demons.

More heavy infantry.

and more.

Some light archers. The late 80s saw some truly dreadful figures, but they were fun to paint.

I had so much fun block painting over a white undercoat I am seriously thinking about doing more figures in this style. With these cheap plastic figures above it doesn't seem so sacrilegious, but on valuable old lead I have been thinking twice about it.

THE EVIL BRAIN EATERS

 Here's a little force of gribbly aliens I knocked up to fight my youngest son's Space Marines...The Evil Brain Eaters. All Reaper Bones minis with some minor conversion. Unfortunately they have gone all tacky after varnishing.. presumably a reaction of the varnish with the soft plastic these figures are made of.

The hive masters

The soldiers

The drones

Good fun to paint. Wash of contrast paints over white undercoat and finished. The hives are old flower arranging items I've had in my bits box for decades.....

A COLLOSAL COLLECTION FOR SALE

 or rather the remains of it. Another post without any of my stuff in it I'm afraid, but here's what I've been doing over the last couple of weeks.

On 1st October, I became custodian of the remains of Joe Dever's miniature collection, tasked with selling them to raise funds for Cancer Research UK.

With 2 good friends Geoff and Harry, we travelled up to Nottingham to collect the figures which are currently residing in my garage and on sale on ebay.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/malplaquet_miniatures/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=

Pop over to my selling page and take a look. All items with JD in the title are from Joe's collection and are selling well. Here's a few pics of what is or has been on offer.

An enormous Flintloque army. This is for sale privately if anyone is interested drop me a comment below.

Anti Paladin.

Ral Partha Wind Lord

Citadel archers

Citadel rogues

Mixed dwarves

Essex knights

Essex Poles

Citadel archers

Front rank HYW (rather poignantly, Joe never finished the bases on these).

Minifigs Parthians (I was tempted to buy these myself but resisted). There are 3 units of these.

More Poles

Essex hobilars

Foundry ribaulds

Needless to say I'm thrilled an honoured to be looking after these sales and am hoping we can raise a goodly sum for such a great charity. I've tried to pitch the prices sensibly so they will sell but also generate funds. 

I have to declare that my actions aren't entirely altruistic, and I have acquired some of Joe's very early figures for my own collection, including many from the Thistlewood scenario I'm always banging on about, which I'll show in the near future.

GROND, HAMMER OF THE UNDERWORLD

 The 1984 Minas Tirith project has been bubbling along, but I stalled as I started to paint 60 orcs.... wondering just how I was going to do them. I'm following in the footsteps of Joe Dever, who unfortunately painted his orcs various shades of green, and I really don't like green orcs. Also I was waiting for the Hinchliffe orc moulds to be ready as I thought I might use them rather than Ral Partha figures.

Another factor was the original article shows an amazing model of Grond, the huge battering ram used by the army of Mordor to smash the gates of Minas Tirith... 

Was I going to try and reproduce this model? 20 years ago I'd had a go at replicating it in 15mm

I didn't think that nowadays I had the time or patience to attempt it on a larger scale. The original model didn't seem to be in Joe's collection that was being sold off although I did manage to pick up the beast train that drew it.

So I decided to try and contact Joe's son, Ben. Without much hope admittedly. Happily I managed to make contact with him immediately, and in the course of an email conversation, I asked " do you happen to know what happened to that great big battering ram your Dad made?" He replied "yes, it's in a cupboard in my house.... Would you like it?"!

Needless to say I bit his hand off , and after a 265 mile round trip, I'm now the dazed and very proud owner of this piece of Warhammer history.

Considering this model is probably nearly 40 years old, it's in remarkably good condition. Only a little bit of creasing on the roof tiles and some of the arrow fletchings have come off, which I'll have a go at replacing. 

The wolf head looks slightly fox like, and I have heard tell that it started life as a walking stick handle.

As well as this stunning model, Ben kindly gave me a splendid wizards tower, which needs a bit of repair work, and then produced a box of his dad's figures and asked me to take any I wanted! I'll be showcasing these in a future post.

I'd just like to thank Ben again for generously handing over this model which must have been kicking around his life since he was born and taking time out of his busy schedule to meet up with a slightly fanatical admirer if his father's games and models.

Thanks also to Geoff and Solly Solomon-Sims of Oakbound Studios for company and navigating on the quest to get Grond.

WHAT'S AFOOT?

 Sorry about the hiatus in posts.... So much going on at the moment. Youngest lad starting secondary school, purchase and testing of a campervan, my other hobby of metal detecting kicking in because it's harvest time, and sundry other excuses. Here follow some hasty shots of what's going on in Broadsword Towers.

First off, I have taken delivery of 10kg of preliminary Hinchliffe fantasy castings courtesy of Oakbound Studios... thanks Geoff, that must have taken some time to spin. I now need to check through them to make sure the moulds are behaving.

I've also started painting one of each Hinchliffe Fantasy figure for display and advertising purposes. I'm doing my best and trying to create a mid 80s Oldhammer look. Probably a bit darker than I'd do them for my own collection.

 Over the past few weeks I've also been trying to get some terrain finished for my Robin of Sherwood figures. Something I've been meaning to do for ages. I bought some excellent trees from The Last Valley, and managed to get a grubby early mediaeval village finished. I'll do a proper set up shot soon, but just to prove I've done it...

As a palette cleanser, I also cracked open the Toyhammer box, and prepared some baddies for painting. Here they are underway.... I so enjoy block painting over a white undercoat.

There is more Toyhammer goodness coming in the form of a lovely Wooden castle my Dad made back in the early 60s. Just right for these fellows to attack.

Next post will hopefully be very soon.

THE HORROR OF LEAD ROT

 I've complained about the dreaded rot before, but when the rot sets in on Joe Dever originals, it's a declaration of war.

 Some time ago I bought a nice unit of Ral Partha tree shepherds from Joe's estate and they were showing the odd sign of rot when they arrived. All ten figures were affected, some worse than others. I suspect that these and possibly the rest of the collection have been languishing in a n airtight and possibly wooden container which will have been a major contributing factor to the problem.

You can make out the rot in the armpit and on the beard. Interestingly all figures were exhibiting signs in the same areas.

I carved out the worst of the affected metal and then applied an alchemical mixture of mineral oil and white turpentine. This was then sealed in with a coat of black enamel.

You can see how much crumbling lead I removed from the armpit of this unfortunate ent.

The picture above shows the patients after surgery, and awaiting cosmetic reconstruction with green stuff.

 

Here are the tree shepherds ( centre left) in happier times defending their woodland. Probably about 1981.

Hopefully this will at least slow the process of disintegration down. Happily I've got another 10 ents that are so far unaffected and awaiting the paintbrush.

T