After eight years my old riser is looking a bit worse for wear.  Me too, riser, me too. It got me thinking about making some new risers to improve my shelving capacity.  It would be smarter and more practical than making a sprawling scifi wargaming table, after all. Okay then, so... say I did make some new display risers, what would they look like? My first thought is I want to do something like Colin Dixon's box dioramas. Something that has a detachable back wall for a painting, and each level of the riser is like a little biome. From a practical standpoint, the new risers ..read more

When I was a teenager, I picked up my first issue of White Dwarf in my local newsagent and inside was the launch of this new thing called Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader. Yeah, I timed that pretty fucking well, didn't I? Anyway, the thing about the game back then was we played it with scenery made from yoghurt pots and hover tanks made from deodorant sticks.  It was much more 2000 ad magazine future shock and space opera and much less rusty catholic church with pipes up the ass. So I wanted to have a really vibrant psychadelic space opera game table, filled with cool aliens, Chris Foss ..read more

John Dennet blessed us with this cunning looking Purple Worm from Grenadier.  I have had this mini for many years, and it just sat on the shelf with a grey primer coat looking miserable.  It was time to do it justice. The metal cracked earth base is under the augmented one I made using bits of broken dried putty and crackle paint. I painted a faux gloss effect on the model by trailing little specular highlights down the body, catching the ridges.  These become more purple as they reach the head, giving an opalescent chitin feel. God I love this mini. It looks like it is happy ..read more

Limited Edition Fimir.  Small, stylish and, unfortunately, very, very rapey.  The back story for Fimir makes me never want to be within 500 yards of Graeme Davis. That said, the creature designs are very cool, and I really enjoyed painting this one. One day, if I can get another, it's tail is coming off and will be used in a John Blanche Minotaur tribute ..read more

You cannot be an old school mini painter and not have painted troll dicks. There are a disturbing amount of troll dicks in the early Citadel Miniatures releases.  It really was troll dicks and torture porn for the first few years. These are both early works in progress, as I have to stop and go wash my hands and my eyeballs out every few minutes. Actually the first official citadel mini is free swinging too. It was a weird time ..read more

One of my favourite minis of all time, The Grenadier Demogorgon by John Dennett has gained a wider audience after it appears in the TV show Stranger Things in the kids' Dungeons and Dragons game. In this version I went with simple and bold colors, with the goal of getting the entire thing done in one sitting. I have two others, one of which is joining my From The Pitt style red demon army of Dennett demons, and the other is getting ray guns for some future skirmish action. I may grab a few more next time I swing by Mirliton because I keep thinking of cool conversion ideas. Brilliant ..read more

It's a bit of a joke amongst my fans and romantic partners that I am constantly rebasing miniatures.  But it is actually quite a stressful thing for me, as I battle between a neurodivergent need to have my bases all consistent, and the realities of there not being a single perfect basing system. So I am rebasing again, by the way... but for a good reason.  I keep damaging my minis. The new mini style has 3mm thick bases, either with flat sides or a minimal bevel.  This allows me to pick them up by the base.  I have upsized my bases to protect any overhanging parts as bes ..read more

Ground Zero Games (GZG) have never been great at the whole 'selling us stuff from a website" thing.  Mostly the lack of photos on their last couple of efforts has been infuriating, as there are some wonderful true 25mm minis in there. When I have all mine done I will get decent photographs done for their site ..read more

This Jes Goodwin Chaos Ogre is a work in progress, as I want to replace the poker chip bases I used to use with a decent sized MDF base. Once I have rebased it I can focus on the little glazes that will make it pop. The one major change I have done lately in my style is pushing up the values and contrast.  I was finding my early stuff is now murky and unreadable at a distance.  So from here on in I will be turning up the volume. This ogre is rarer than the others in the range, as all the spikes caused the moulds to tear when the minis where being pulled out.  You can see a ..read more

This Ral Partha Ettin is by Dennis Mize, and has evolved extra long arms in order to snap off enough times to make 80s kids learn how to pin limbs properly ..read more