First models of the new year!

I love New Year's Day. You don't have to buy gifts for anyone. You don't have to decorate. You don't have to go anywhere.

I usually like to spend New Year's Day hanging out at home painting! This year was great because it was a 4-day weekend.

So I used it to get a start on some projects...

Here is my first mini of the new year. He is the alternate Magua sculpt from Warlord/Conquest. He is probably meant by the sculptor to be shouting something at the British, but I imagine him yelling at me defiantly, telling me that I need to keep painting French & Indian War troops!

I definitely got sidetracked with Fantasy models in the second half of the year! Part of the reason was that I was behind on my painting goals and Reaper Bones fantasy models are quicker to paint than 18th century troops... But part of the reason was also that I got totally excited about Frostgrave. 

Here's the other model I painted this weekend... A "Grick," to be used in the Worms scenario for Frostgrave. His twin was painted last year... 3 down, 3 to go! The 3 I have left are all bigger and more imposing...

Those are the only minis I got done, because I also spent a lot of time on terrain. I bought a bunch of these cast foam terrain pieces at a convention a few months ago. I figured they would be easy to get on the table because they did not require any assembly and they are not super detailed like the intimidating TableTop World pieces I love to collect. 

That didn't stop me from putting them on the back burner for a while, but a few months from purchase to table ready is actually lightning fast for me!

Here they were in their original state when I bought them:

One of them primed gray, one brown, and one with a simple pre-paint job. 

You can see from the Pathfinder 28mm fighter that they are nice big pieces! My original plan when I bought them was to use them for Frostgrave ruins and cover them in snow. I've been playing the game so far using Mordheim and random Fantasy terrain pieces, but I really wanted to do a dedicated Frostgrave snow board at some point.

However, I chickened out at the last minute. I worked on them for a while and got them to the point where I was ready to cover them in snow, but couldn't decide on a method. I looked into paint, spackle, grout, baking soda, flock, and even resin filled with glass microbubbles! But I wasn't too sure about any of them, and wanted to get the pieces done by the end of the weekend. So... out came the old tried n' true Woodland Scenics flock bags!

I also tried something new - I had seen a lot of pictures of people using rubberised horsehair for bushes on other sites. I couldn't find a good source to buy it though - so I used some sisal fiber to add weeds and creeping vines. It could use some refining, but I think it might work!

So here they are... first minis of the new year, on one of the first terrain pieces of the new year!