I've watched the video for ABBA's new single "I Still Have Faith in You" dozens of times now, but only today did I notice that at about 3:07 in the video there's a ticket stub for ABBA's 1979 concert at Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton. Thanks to Sean for providing the link above to a cool CBC story about the concert. 

And here's the music video itself. 

 

Interceptor Clean and Dirty

I painted this 28mm-scale Mad Max-style Interceptor in shades of blue and silver. The shading is more subtle than I might have liked, but it doesn't really matter because...

...I wanted it to look battle-hardened anyway. I think I went too far, though. As you can see, I added rust, sand, and mud to make it look as though this vehicle has journeyed far without a wash. Which version do you prefer? Clean or dirty? 

Woods Fargo

Here is a 28mm-scale Wells Fargo--I mean, Woods Fargo--office for skirmish and roleplaying games set in the mythical Old West. 

While the storefront is a vivid red to attract attention, the rear of the building is painted in shades of brown. Weathering effects make it clear this is not a new office. 

It's not the cleanest build or paint job, but it'll do on the gaming table. Much more immersive than a 2D drawing, anyway. 

Oh--the custom Woods Fargo sign is just something I threw together in Photoshop, printed, then glued to the model. 

Batter Up!

Here's a whimsical objective for Fallout: Wasteland Warfare--the baseball collection, complete with a bat, a baseball grenade, mines for the bases, a footlocker, and what I'm only just realizing is a glove, which I've painted bronze instead of brown. Oy! Well, I'll have to fix that. 
 

Objectively Speaking

Here's another objective token for Fallout: Wasteland Warfare. I'm okay with how the Eat-a-Tronic food dispenser turned out, but the rest of it is a bit "meh." Too many shades of blue, not enough variety, some missed spots. I might have to revisit this one. 
 

Packing Pistols

It's a two-fisted Spaniard bounty hunter! 
 

The Artist

I painted an artist! Probably a better artist than me. As if I could claim that title. But still, down with metanarrative! 

Blooming Bunker

Some time ago, I painted this 3D-printed bunker and adorned it with faux vegetation. I think it's a little much. At the very least, I think the vegetation should have been uniform. 

Darn It, Durnan

Messy, incoherent, no depth or authenticity, bah. 
 

Robobrains

Here's a pair of fearsome Robobrains. These guys are quite creepy in the Fallout computer games, and almost equally creepy in three dimensions.
 

Purple Ship

I painted a boat some time ago, adding plenty of weathering effect to make it look long-abandoned. 

Three Spanish Minis

I don't have much to say about these guys except that I'm generally happy with how they turned out. I like the colours I chose, I like that there's not a huge amount of spillage. It helps that the original sculpts are so nice. These guys will play a variety of roles on that happy day when I can hang out with the guys for in-person roleplaying games again. 
 

Jimmy Blood Blades

I showed Sean this guy and Sean immediately dubbed him "Jimmy Blood Blades." I like it and I'm keeping it. I certainly wouldn't mess with this guy. 
 

Random Bond Thought

Roger Moore: 7
Sean Connery: 6
Daniel Craig: 5
Pierce Brosnan: 4
Timothy Dalton: 2
George Lazenby: 1

I find myself irrationally annoyed that there is not yet an actor who has played James Bond in precisely three EON Productions James Bond movies. I hereby predict that the next actor to so so will appear in three films to create the desired numerical sequence. It's also possible that the next Bond actor will appear in eight EON productions, then the one after that actor will appear in three. 

Also, here is a 28mm-scale Aston Martin I painted a couple of nights ago. 

 

The Plague Doctor

It seems almost too on-the-nose to paint a miniature with a plague theme during this long COVID-19 era, but here we are, complete with some vomit and bile puddled at the gentleman's feet. 
 

A Dashing Rake

Or maybe he's an ill-mannered thug. Who knows? 
 

Purple Dragon

A few days ago I painted my first dragon. I haven't yet seen a purple dragon in popular culture, so that's the colour I chose for this gal. I added gold highlights to certain scales to give her some extra definition and majesty. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how she turned out. 

A Blue Building

Here is the second 28-32mm scale NYC apartment building I've painted. This time, I painted a lot of pieces while they were still on their sprues, which really helped me control my tendency to paint "outside the lines;" I haven't figured out what else to call it when you paint a wall when you wanted to paint a window, for example. 

I chose blue as the prominent colour this time, but I also chose to add some weathering effects to make this version of the kit grimier, like it's located in a rougher neighbourhood than my first apartment. 

I glued some miniature posters from another kit to the wall. And rather than use the packaged Stark Industries poster meant for the billboard, I marred it with grime and scrawled "RESIST" on it. 

Here's a glimpse of the heavily rusted water tower. 

I used leftover parts from the first kit to create a rear entrance for Josie's bar. 

Some very rickety fire escape ladders and rusty utility access. You can also see the back of the very dilapidated billboard. 

A closer look at the rear corner. 

A closer look at the utility meters and fire escape. 

Here's a closeup of the first floor. Windows are a challenge; I've taken to painting them black, then dry brushing silver or gold highlights to suggest light coming from within. I suppose a truly talented painter would paint an interior scene with depth and lighting and all the rest, but I am not that painter. 

Here's a look at the rusted-out roof. Speaking of the roof itself, I used astrogranite texture paint to give it the feel of asphalt, then added a coat of  black for the look. It doesn't show up well in this photo, but the roof is pleasantly rough to the touch. 

Finally, a closer look at the back door. 

A Dangerous Stash

Here's another objective marker for Fallout: Wasteland Warfare. This time, it's a stash of ammunition, with a pistol and a pair of grenades on top of the footlocker.

There's also a mini-nuke next to the container, and you can just barely see the stock of a laser rifle propped up on the right side. 

 

Blood-Spattered Zetan

This is a Zetan, an alien from one of the expansions to Fallout 3. As you can see, my drybrushing was a bit sloppy here, but in this case I didn't try to fix it because it looks a bit like the alien just blew someone apart with his blaster and he's been spattered with some of his victim's blood. Works for me. 
 

A Flawed Dejah Thoris

It took me forever to paint this mini, and even with all that work I'm unhappy with the final result. As you can see, I messed up the skirt, couldn't figure out where skin began and clothing ended, and I'm not happy with the skin tone. Sure, she's supposed to have red skin per the novels, but this red? I was hoping for something more like the Michael Whelan art of the 1970s editions of the books--more red-tinged than literally red. Oy, me. 
 

A Humble Hut

At Sean's suggestion, I tried a new technique on this humble hut: I painted one coat, then added ink wash, then drybrushed another coat over the ink wash to restore the piece's vibrancy without sacrificing the ink's ability to define the shadows. 
 

Invisible Menace

Here's the third and final Courser in my Fallout: Wasteland Warfare collection. As with the first two, I left the translucent figure unpainted the better to allow his "invisibility" to be displayed while painting the base like a small chunk of urban wasteland. I added a couple of pieces of foam rubble, too. 
 

Glowing Ones

These Fallout miniatures were cast in translucent green resin to represent the radioactive glow they emanate, for these are Glowing Ones, horrible ghouls that stalk the wasteland. I tried to give the bases the look and feel of some kind of chemical spill while leaving the figures themselves unpainted except for a violet wash to give the details better definition and to suggest they were covered in some kind of putrid slime. 
 

Death Toilet and Nuka-Cola Cooler

Here are two more objective markers for Fallout: Wasteland Warfare. On the left we have the sad diorama of a doomed, depressed victim of the nuclear war that wiped out civilization in 2077. Note the drugs littered around the toilet and the skull with party hat in the toilet tank. Macabre. On the right, a Nuka-Cola cooler and a toy Nuka-Cola truck. 

Quite happy with how these turned out. I think I'm getting better at this. 
 

The Sword of Silandra

I'm more comfortable painting terrain than miniatures, because terrain is more forgiving; a mistake could simply be interpreted as a scratch on a tree or a leaf turning yellow and so on. Errors are more easily spotted with a mini; for example, there's some silver on Silandra's right shoulder where it should be the brown of her skin. The armor plate above her shoulder is silver, which is correct; obviously, I slipped. 

Even so, I'm mostly happy with my paint job here. I like the simple colour scheme of her costume, the metallic paint on the shield and sword turned out well, and the base looks like rocky terrain. And the wash helped make her facial features quite distinct. 
 

Faux Fusion Cores

I thought this objective marker for Fallout: Wasteland Warfare was supposed to represent a pile of bullets, but after I painted it and zoomed in on this photograph, I realize it's actually a pile of fusion cores, which are much more difficult to paint at this scale. Hopefully players won't notice the difference, because I'm going to treat these as large rifle bullets. 
 

Lady Vengeance

Here's Lady Vengeance, a pulp heroine right out of the 1970s. Too bad I didn't have this miniature around during our Spirit of '77 days. 

Here she is from behind. Looks like I should touch up her shirt a bit.