Goblin

Another Car Wars car ready for mayhem. Retributor Armor is great for ammo belts. 
 

Slipstream

Another Car Wars roadster, armed to the teeth for autoduelling mayhem. Once again we see slight improvement of my contrast paint application technique. 
 

Boomerang

And now we come to the Car Wars paint job that pleases me most, Boomerang. I managed to blend some colours, the windows look good, the guns feel authentic...
 

Superflash! Ahhh-Ahhh!

Speedster of the universe! 

Scarab

I painted Scarab mostly with contrast paints, and I think my application on Scarab improved a little by this point. I'm trying to be very conscious of Jeff's advice to apply very thin coats, and Sean and Scott's advice not to let the paint form pools. The rockets seem to look best, with the paint applied quite evenly and little evidence of brush strokes. 

One of the blue contrast paints worked quite well on windows, so I used it for several of the cars in my Car Wars collection. 

There are better models ahead. 

Butcher

Here's another Car Wars vehicle, the only truck in the set. I'm pretty happy with my paint job here, which includes some rust, grime, and fuel stain effects that the photos don't really capture that well.

Goat's Head

What profane occult rituals has this goat's head witnessed? 
 

Oilcan Jerry

I painted a railway dude holding an oilcan, one of the more esoteric figures from Pulp Figures. The miracle of zoom photography reveals I didn't see that Oilcan Jerry is smoking a pipe. If I can find a drybrush small enough, I'll paint the pipe black or brown. 
 

Bank Robber

I painted this bank robber. He's on the run and armed and dangerous. Watch out! 
 

Brazier and Fireball

A few months back, my Monster Scenery Ice Wilds terrain arrived. Most of the terrain is beautifully painted, but a few bonus pieces came unpainted. This roaring brazier is an Earl special, and I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out. 

If your adventuring party includes a spellcaster, the fire in the brazier can be removed to represent the fireball spell, flying through the air to doom your foes. 

Relaxing Adventurers

A while back, I picked up some very affordable miniatures cast in seated positions. Here's the first pair I've painted. A little rough, I'm afraid. 
 

Jungle Kid

Thanks to my over-application of flesh-toned ink wash, this jungle kid looks like he's been wallowing in quicksand. And his shorts are too monotone. I'll have to revisit this guy. 
 

Cat Lady

Here's a woman holding her pet cat, another miniature from the Pulp Figures line. I should have tried to dry brush some colour onto the shoe ribbons, but they're so very, very tiny . . . 
 

The Aristocrats

I had the bright idea to paint one of my Car Wars cars uniformly silver. Not so good. 
 

I added a sepia-toned ink wash. I think this is better; you can certainly pick out the details more easily. Still my least favourite of these cars so far, though. 

Avalanche

At first I thought this looked pretty good, but now I think it needs a few more touches--some Nuln Oil on the guns, I think. 
 

Pilot Sans Plane

Thanks to Pulp Figures, I have two free old-timey pilot miniatures cast to fit inside the cockpits of 28-mm scale planes. I've painted the first, and he looks all right. Now I need an airplane to put him in. 
 

Brimstone

This Car Wars coupe is described as shooting clouds of smoke to obscure the field of battle, so I created some soot effects to dirty up the exhaust pipes. Plus, my drybrushing was a little better this time. 
 

Stiletto

Another murdermobile for Car Wars. This time around I tried drybrushing a lighter shade of purple over my original dark purple basecoat to provide a little more realism, but unfortunately I once again failed to get enough ink off my drybrush to properly execute the effect. However, it looks good enough for the table. 
 

Jackal

"That looks like the Batmobile," Sean said when he saw this photo. That wasn't my intent, but I can see what he means. This paint job still has flaws, but I think I'm getting some of my mojo back. 
 

Car Wars Episode I: Streets of Blaster Fire

Here's the first set of miniatures for Car Wars, fully painted and weathered to look like they've survived a few battles. 

For the Want of a Dashcam

Earlier today, Sylvia and I headed to Leduc to help Mom with some gardening and return her leaf blower. To avoid construction on the southwest leg of Anthony Henday Drive, we drove north instead, figuring it would be faster to drive all the way around the city than wait for the inevitable backlog through the construction zone. 

That choice could have gone very badly for us. Just a few minutes into the drive, we rounded a gentle curve and discovered an upside-down kayak was blocking the entire middle lane--the one we were using. I barely had time to shoulder check and maneuver into the left lane to dodge the obstacle. 

Fortunately, the kayak was bright green-yellow and I spotted it instantly. Had we hit it, at the very least the kayak would have ruined our front end and undercarriage; at worst, I might have lost control of the vehicle. 

Our car was the first to nearly collide with the kayak; while all this was happening, I caught sight of a man getting out of a pickup truck and getting out his cell phone, presumably to call emergency services. Several vehicles behind us had to swerve clear of the kayak as well, and as I lost sight of the man with the cell phone, I hoped we wouldn't get himself killed trying to drag the kayak to the shoulder. 

Everything happened in just a couple of seconds. It was a good reminder to stay alert when you're driving. 

Conestoga

Another Car Wars model, the Conestoga. You can see that my paint application was still flawed, but I fixed it up a bit by repainting with acrylic overtop of the contrast paints. 
 

Kodiak

Here's another Car Wars vehicle. This one is Kodiak, a burly-looking, brawny beast, and perhaps my favourite of the five I've painted so far. This time around I took some advice from Jeff and Scott and added some weathering effects, partially to hide my paint errors and partially to make the vehicle look well-used. 
 

Fuzion

I have finally painted a non-wrecked vehicle for Car Wars. I started with contrast paints, but I really didn't like the result, so I painted over with light coats of acrylic. It was an improvement, but the final model looks quite grimy to my eyes. I guess that's okay, considering the post-apocalyptic setting of the game; these cars aren't supposed to look pristine. 

Even so, I want to do better. Luckily, I have 19 more models in this range. 
 

Mole Rats

Here's a trio of mole rats for Fallout: Wasteland Warfare. I was a little concerned I wouldn't be able to replicate the pale pinkish colour of these creatures as rendered in the video cames, so I tried three different combinations of paints and washes. The fidelity isn't quite 100%, but nature is full of variation, so overall I'm satisfied. The bases turned out better than I hoped, too. 
 

Primed for Car Wars

Sean and I Kickstarted the sixth edition of Car Wars, the tabletop game of vehicular carnage. Our giant boxes arrived a few months ago, but only now have I finally primed the included vehicles. One step closer to actually playing the game! 
 

Desert Trio

Here we have a cacti, a manhole, and a telescope. What do these three items have in common? They are, of course, physical objects. And I painted them! 
 

The Incredible Iron Jeff

I brought a mobile phone camera ring light to Gaming and Guinness, and Jeff, in a moment of genius, stuffed it under his shirt while lit to make it look like he was sporting an arc reactor. I loved it. 
 

Lonely Baby Yoda

I've been away at Gaming & Guinness XVII, and poor Baby Yoda seems to miss me. 
 

The Best Bush Pilot in the Outer Rim?

Throughout Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977), Luke Skywalker is implied or outright stated to be a superb pilot. Biggs Darklighter calls Luke "the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim territories" in a deleted scene; we see that Luke seems confident in the briefing room scene before the attack on the Death Star; and of course, Luke survives the battle and fires the torpedo that destroyed the station. When I saw the movie for the first time, I remember thinking that there would probably be more Star Wars movies and we'd get to see Luke in more space battles. 

And sure enough, in The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980), Luke flies a snowspeeder into battle and seems a pretty deft hand at the task. On the other hand, he also crashes his X-wing later in the film. And Luke doesn't engage in any kind of dogfight in Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand, 1983). 

So after all the buildup of Luke as the greatest pilot ever in the first film, we only get to see him pilot the iconic X-wing into battle once. That just seems weird to me now, almost 50 years later.