This last two days has been busy! I finished off those base coats on those roman fighters and they're ready for inking and finishing now. I really enjoyed them in the end even though they took a while to get the motivation up for them. Usually when there's a bit of free hand involoved (bottom of capes, some shirts etc) then can be put off for a while, but once you get started it always becomes more fun and flows. 

I bought myself some of the astounding harry potter sculpts (they're massive to) and assembled them ready for painting and hopefully my first proper planned re sales on etsy or ebay. I figured it's a nice way to implement my income while not straining myself creatively if i've got a few single figures up here and there. Sadly the base tabs on these have to be some of the worse "slot in" situations (for how well they blend, or in this case don't) and i had to some filling on the bases. For miniatures that cost about £10.00 each i'm honestly shocked at this. Truly. 

Thre return of angmar! The remaining Angmar pieces turned up and i got to work drilling, pinning and filling these trolls and warg. They're funny these old trolls, they are SO HEAVY which is so odd since they're rather small for "big" models. I had to fill over the paint work of the painted troll and i'm under the impression my client wants it touched up but not painted, i may ask if he's comfortable with me doing a re paint, as i don't imagine he will blend that well with the style i'm currently working this angmar stuff in. 

Basing these romans has been a fun challenge so far. I sat down the other night with a few old kung fu movies and removed the base tabs with clippers. I considered going completely tab less as with the test model but i realised that some of the models wouldn't work that way (thin legs) so i have had to compromise the style a bit to get a uniform (ish) look to the cobble across the board. 
​

I kneeded some putty and squeezed it onto the base wity my fingers. i found that the less i thought about it the better a job i did, which then i could clean up with a tool afterwards. 
After doing the first base i decided to go out and get a better sculpting tool from the craft shop. 

The main issue i met with these "multi bases" is the thickness of the putty. If i was to compeltely match it to the fighter i think it'd have looked odd. However in trying to do something a bit different for the multi bases i worry i've strayed to far. This took a fairly long time to get done and i'm happy with the result. Luckilly my clients seem to trust me and usually follow my judgement on orders. I realise looking at this that i could totally add other bits now that it's dry. I also do believe on these bigger bases there will be more brown leaves and tufts. 

Just four more mob characters left to do then i'm gonna get on matching those fighter bases to the test model as i feel it's more pertinent to do so with them. That will take a lot longer than expected.