Prehistoric creatures, etc

Latest pictures from Steven, including his water horse that has already been covered... Note that the pictures don't do justice to the actual figures, they are way better than the pictures suggest!

Hi Dad,

It has been months since I gave a proper update, so thought it was about time. First up, the water-horse-dragon thing you gave me a while back:

Figure 1 Toy water-dragon-horse, mainly use as a test piece for airbrushing and glazing

I also painted three Crooked Dice miniatures that obviously represent characters from the video game franchise Mortal Kombat. I apparently forgot to take photo of the thunder god Raiden, but here are a couple of other miniatures. I do like Crooked Dice and look forward to getting to some other video-game inspired miniatures of theirs which are still in my backlog.

Figure 2 Goro, Shokan Warrior

Figure 3 Scorpion, Netherrealm Demon and Salute Painting Competition also ran

I have also painted a couple of 15mm Samurai buildings from Oshiro Models to go with the Sengoku figures I painted some time ago. Spent some time trying to get realistic texture effects, especially on the wood.

Figure 4 Samurai house. Hopefully the wood looks like wood, rather than ‘something that been painted brown’

Figure 5 Shrine. The walls have too much contrast (aesthetic choice) to be realistic, but I hope the doors and beams are reminiscent of wood that has been painted white but is now a bit weathered

Finally, my major project of recent weeks: the first half of a 15mm prehistoric project. I have painted the grazers but need to get some predators and cavemen next (birthday hint). The horses are 10mm Pendraken Miniatures zebras painted as Przwalski’s wild horses (which is how the horse in the Lascaux cave paintings look), the goats, deer and rabbits are all 15mm Pendraken Miniatures. The mammoth, rhino and hippo are toys you gave me, but they have painted up pretty well, even thought they literally have ‘Made in China’ stamped on the underbelly. (And cost about 30p-50p each! - Dad) It was interesting putting much more effort into the bases. I bought a variety of grassy tufts and flowers at Salute and have put them to good use here. A lot of the rocks are carved up lumps of cork from a wine bottle.

Figure 6 I think they look quite good all together, although the rhino and hippo are probably a bit over-sized. I'm really looking forward to adding some predators and cavemen to the mix.