Khorne Warhammer 40k Army
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Company of Heroes Board Game - Painted Bunkers
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Company of Heroes Board Game - Painted Battlefield Defences
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Company of Heroes Board Game Cathedral and Emplacements Painted
For the emplacements I spent a bit more time and picked out details and drybrushed and washed everything. The weapons themselves (I painted all 30) were a quick coat of green (charadan granite), a light green drybrush and a black wash. I don't intend to put any of this in a displace case so I tried to keep to an evening paint job.
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Company of Heroes Board Game Buildings Painted
I did the base coat with my airbrush and some wych flesh but discovered that my airbrush head was SUPER clogged. It took two hours to realize this, clean everything and get the painting done; but at least it's a smooth coat. Brushing that on would take forever. I also didn't go overboard on detail, I just did a single coat for the bricks and windows (red and browns) and didn't bother with any shading. I just didn't care that much. For the roofs though, I did to a coat of bestial brown, some spots of khorne red and then dry brushed blazing orange. It's just enough for visual interest but not so much that I had to spend more than an evening getting the terrain done. These aren't intended to be display quality so it's "good enough" without driving me bonkers.
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Quoridor Game - Woodworking
I'm never sure how many clamps to use, so I settled for all of them. Once that was glued up and trimmed back down to 'square' I added some mitred edges to hide the plywood and to frame it. I also added some mitred keys on the corners to look pretty using some scrap oak.
For the playing pieces, I cut up a bunch of walnut to match the frame and 4 player pieces out of the four types of wood I had lying around; walnut, oak, maple and something red - maybe cherry? I got it for free so not sure what it is. It's lighter when cut is all I know for certain.
I thought the first iteration of the player pieces looked a bit bland so I added a little dado around the top to make them look more like castle towers. Super easy.
And finally the best part, applying the finish. I used linseed oil on it and like any finish, it really pops after. You can see how the player pieces (4 colours) contrast heavily between the before and after.
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Shotgun Refinishing (stock and bluing)
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For the metal parts, mostly because it was in terrible shape and not worth anything, I started with sand paper but gave up quickly when the results weren't fast enough. I moved over to a wire brush on a drill which took the old finish off and the rust real quick. I buffed it with some finer grit sandpaper and then went through the relatively simple process of cold bluing it. There's a simple kit you can buy to do this and it took about an hour. To do it well probably takes practice but the instructions basically say if you mess up, just add more coats, which will darken the metal more and 'hide' some of the issues. I like the dark colouration anyway so that was no hard choice! I used this stuff if anyone is interested. I have no idea how long lasting it is but it was really easy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNYIJPwqbdA
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Cribbage Board - Woodworking
I wanted to try out something new (wavy patterns) so I decided to try it on some crib boards; which would basically just be a cutting board with holes in it. To start, I cut and planed a walnut plank down to size and then used a bandsaw to cut a wavy pattern in the board. I then glued a thin piece of wood between the boards and glued it up. After it dried, I did this two more times using maple and walnut (darker) than the board itself for some subtle transition.
I find most things are worth making multiples since the time is in the setup and measuring so cutting a 2nd is always quick. Once the boards were dry, I planed them flat again and then added a chamfer around the outside.
Adding the cribbage holes was a pain and not enjoyable. Hundreds of holes... I scaled a template down to fit on the boards (not the other way around) and then started drilling. Sadly because it was scaled down, a few of the holes moved due to either grain pattern or the laminated wood and then merged with a neighbouring hole. This only happened a couple times, and all on the first one I made. The nicer one was given as a gift. Once that was done I drilled some holes for the skunk and double skunk lines. I pushed a thin dowel in and then sanded that flush.
Then the best part, after the sanding, the finish! These basically are just fancy cutting boards so I added rubber feet too.
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Leather Shotgun Boot Buttstock Ammo Holder
I wanted to make an ammo holder for an over-under .22/.410 for a while and figured now was a good time to try making something a bit more complex with leather. I picked up some 4-5 oz leather after reading a chart that suggested that would be a good weight. After holding it, I does seem to have the rigidity I wanted. I'm not sure how quickly it increases but I don't think I'd want it too much stiffer.
I started by folding the piece over the gun stock and etching an approximate outline that I wanted and cut it out.
Then I placed some eyelets along the side to get the spacing I wanted and marked those spots with an awl. I used a leather belt hole punch and then affixed the grommets.
I took a strip of the remaining leather and sewed it on. I've never done this before so I'm sure there are way better, more accurate and aesthetic ways to do this but I used an awl to poke holes for some waxed thread and then stitched the leather strap on. Then with a .410 shell, I snugged the leather strap up and approximated where it needed to be for a tight fit. Then made it a little tighter, and again used an awl to mark/enlarge the holes and stitched the strap down.
I kept going...
Once I had enough ammo holders I measured the pouch I wanted and started by sewing the 'lid' on. I held the whole thing on the gun stock to mark this so it was level first.
Once the top was on, I added an 'almost' rectangle on top. The top of the rectangle was slightly wider so it would 'bow' out when stitched on 'square'. This gave it just enough room to hold some .22 shells snuggly.
I messed up the snap on the top and it wasn't closing well so I had to remove it, and reattach it in a different hole. So now there's a slight hole visible under the snap.
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That said, I've never worked with leather before and this is just going out on grouse hunts and likely will get dirty/banged up. I'm not too concerned. I'm much happier using handmade leather than the bulky nylon one I had before. I think the 'pros' burnish the edges and stuff but I wasn't too sure I cared enough to buy an edging tool and honestly didn't figure that out until I was done!
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Tak Game Board #2 - Woodworking
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World's smallest cutting board - Woodworking
When I was making the glue up for my tak board capstones, as I was slicing the wood to make the checkboard, I took this photo. Just a joke post but that's a little blueberry and some cheese. The board's about 1" wide. It ended up used for the next glue up but maybe I should have kept it for a doll house!
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Tak Game Board #3 - Woodworking
The base is 1/4" plywood with walls made of walnut, as are the dividers. I glued some green felt inside the trays. I drilled the divots out by clamping each wall (before glue up) to a sacrificial piece.
Inside, I made the pieces out of walnut and maple. They're broken up into 3 trays each, which allows the correct amount of pieces to be taken whether playing 6x6 or 5x5 sized games.
To make the capstone pieces, I used the same walnut and maple wood, and made little cutting boards essentially, in two glue ups, so I ended up with a checkboard pattern. The 2nd wood used on each capstone is a reddish wood I had. I'm not sure what it is, it was given to me. Perhaps it's paduk? I then used a sander to round these and make them look somewhat like pawns.
For the game board, I'm really not sure what the light coloured wood is, as it was also given to me. When I was cutting it, it was quite light and I thought it was maple but not sure after finishing. Anyway, putting it together was similar to a cutting board. I backed it with plywood for rigidity and then mitred a walnut trim followed by another layer of the reddish wood (paduk?) I used to make the capstones and on the mitred splines on the box. Then at each intersection of wood, I drilled a hole, squared the edges with a chisel and glued in a square of the red wood to match. Sand a bunch and then I used tried and true linseed oil. A few coats of that on all of the pieces as well and it's done! Much better than my first box.
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Magnetic Dice Tower and Dice Vaults - Woodworking
I was looking for a woodworking project to do and really liked the wyrmwood stuff and wanted to try my hand at it. They actually had plans online for the dice vaults so I followed those as close as I could. For the tower, I didn't have their plans and actually set out with enough wood to make two of these. Through trial and error and many mistakes, I believe I screwed up somehow at each stage of the project, I whittled my wood and pieces down from sufficient to make two of these, to barely enough to make one. The dice tower is magnetic and comes apart fully to go in the dice tray (picture at end). During the process I even glued the magnetic in on one piece with the wrong polarity and had to drill them out. It was a stressful project.
Here's a video of the magnetic tower setup
What I really want to show is the sketchy jig I made for routering out the dice tray. I used a bunch of scrap wood to hold the pieces and ran the router over top with a crappy little stop. The pieces sometimes would actually sometimes be pulled up toward the router so I had to hold them down with a pencil while running the router; definitely not the best idea but it worked.
Since I had the tools set up and measured I figured I'd make a bunch of them. I made six of them with my wife; they're full of various kingdom death dice sets now. I started by lining them with foam but ended up removing that and getting some leather scraps to put inside. Might nicer since the foam actually was getting scratched easily and looked bad.
The dice vaults all fold up with the magnetic dice tower inside a convenient carry box. I didn't have plans from wyrmwood for the tower but they do make nice stuff and it inspired me so here's a link there if you want to have a look. https://wyrmwoodgaming.com/products/the-magnetic-dice-tower/
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Wood Serving Tray with handles - Weave Pattern - Woodworking
I started by cutting a bunch of thin strips and then gluing together 3 'cutting boards'.
Once those were dry, I used some double sided tape to attach the smaller boards to the larger one and cut a wave on a bandsaw. This video is a really good tutorial on that if you're interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1bVVpAxF7k
After many glue ups, and placing a thin piece of maple inside, I was ready to plane it down. I kept putting it through the planer until it was about 1/4" thick so the weight would be down and I figured it would warp less.
The sides I made from walnut and cut a dado so the base/bottom could float. I finger jointed the corners and cut a 45 degree chamfer on all of the edges. I cut a 'depression' into the long sides and then attached some drawer pulls that matched the curve. I made sure that the holes for the drawer pulls were 'oversized' so that any movement of the base wouldn't be restricted by the mounting screws.
Added some feet, finished with a few coats of linseed oil and it was all ready to get wrecked in the kitchen.
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Walnut Hexagonal Pencil - Woodworking
I wanted to upgrade my pencils for Kingdom Death and assumed that all mechanical pencils were thin lead that breaks easy so I grabbed this kit as a test. It's thicker lead and intended for a workshop markup pencil, so it's harder to keep a point but hasn't been a major problem. I don't have a lathe so I tried to cut it hexagonal to match the hardware. I cut up 4 blanks before I could mentally figure out how to use a jig I'd made to actually make the shape. The first few times I ended up with a 5 sided polygon that looked like a school zone sign. But eventually I got it! Finished with linseed oil.
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Kingdom Death - Scout of Death Male
After a long hiatus (about a year and a half) I've opened up my Gambler's Chest Expansion for Kingdom Death and started to paint the models. I was eager to paint up the scout, from my understanding this might end up being a very important model used in almost every game/campaign for the foreseeable future so it was high on the list. On the left you can see the terrain tile that replaces the scout when he's hiding. I painted up the cloak with the same scheme as the bases and used muted browns and blacks for all the trim. It's supposed to be sneaky camouflage so I didn't want it to look like it was eye catching. The undergarments are simply the blue/white that I used for all my starting survivors; this guy won't be likely equipped with anything fancy or I'd use a different model anyway. I did try out adding some grass to the cloak and it looked silly so I took it off. More to come!
I'm assuming he's masked up because the pack stinks?
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Kingdom Death Smog Singer Armour / Bard - Painted
Next up I painted a Smog Singer Armour Bard. I wasn't overly interested in painting multiple of these, and I think so long as we have an instrument I'm not overly concerned which is represented on the model. The mandolin looked the most 'traditional' instead of the saxe with an axe blade or the symbols so I went with that. I really thought the outfit looked like Dandelion from the Witcher 3 so I based my colour scheme off of him (see below). I did like the male model rocking out but I couldn't easily get the hat to fit with the shoulder strap on the mandolin so I scrapped that model.
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Wooden Laptop Stand (Mountain Peaks)
I wanted more space on my desk, and it seemed my laptop was getting hot, so I made a wood stand so it could be placed vertically. I wanted something simple and that looked like mountains so I found some scrap walnut pieces with both heartwood and sapwood on it that I could position to give the impression of white peaks. It doesn't hold any real weight so glue was sufficient to joint everything.
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Purple Heart Chess Board, and Storage Solutions
It was probably inevitable that I made a chess board. I used the opportunity to try out a 'fancy' wood. I grabbed enough purple heart and walnut to make the board and spent a long time on the internet looking for board designed I liked. I went with a raised design (there's a dado around the edge) and a chamfer on the top and the bottom so it floats a bit. The inside is hollow and was designed with a dado to allow clips for wood movement; but I couldn't find any and made the bad choice to just glue the board on instead. 6 months later and it obviously had cracked on one edge. The worst part is I knew better but convinced myself after reading a few forum posts it would be fine. Don't take the risk!
I made a bade out of felt for it as well so I could store it without getting it scratched. All that protection and there's a crack... if it gets to the point where it's horribly large I'll probably try to break the 1/4" plywood bottom off and reassemble it properly.
On a more positive note, I made a finger jointed oak box and trays for the pieces I ordered online from The Chess Empire. They're wonderful pieces and the customer service was great so I will acknowledge them here.
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Kingdom Death Badar
Badar's sword is toxic so I used a green wash to give it a simple hue.
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Olivewood Tobacco Pipe
I was looking for a project to turn on the lathe and figured it would be a fun project to make a tobacco pipe. I ordered some Bethlehem olivewood online because I thought the grain pattern looked nice and for an infrequent smoke, it was apparently a good wood. ![]()
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I also used this opportunity to make a wooden box to hold the pipe and all of the accessories. Nothing fancy, just an oak box with rare earth magnets to hold the lid on. I had some soft shimmery blue fabric I used to wrap some foam I cut to shape.
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Once I got it, I did some research on diameters and how to drill them out and realized I could probably make two pipes out of the block of wood I had. I cut the blanks and then cut the various holes the pipe needs. To round out the bottom, I initially drilled it out with various regular drill bits and then used a bullnose router bit in my drill press to plunge the remainder out and round the bottom. Then it was on to the lathe. Then the accidents happened.
I'm not good on a lathe and probably should have made some other items before trying something as complicated as this. The olivewood is very hard, the cutting required some cross grain turning, and there were knots in it. For a variety of reasons, I had both of the blanks I made blow up. One cut my knuckle up which is why the photos are in the washroom as I was washing off a little blood.
I was disappointed at this point, both because my hand hurt and because I thought the wood was wasted. However, after some thinking, I was determined to salvage one of them which still had the stem intact. I cut the chamber down and decided no more lathe. I finished shaping it on a sander.
I was ultimately happy with how it turned out. If I knew I was going to shape it on a sander from the start, I would have put more of an angle on the stem but it does work this way. The grain pattern once I put some linseed oil on it was amazing. Unfortunately I think the trauma of the initial explosion on the lathe weakened the wood so there was a small crack on the outside. This doesn't appear to hinder the function though. Lots of lessens learned!
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Kingdom Death Atnas the Childeater
When it came time to paint the tentacles, I wasn't sure what colour to go with, but a friend suggested dark green so they tied in with the scheme and weren't overwhelming. I like how those ended up; especially since as a feature, I didn't actually like them on the model since they seemed a bit out of place. Painted more subtle they're much less out there and do give it a creepy look without looking pasted on as an afterthought.
After I was finished painting I realized what I painted as smoke is actually intended to be horn. they're symmetrical. I'm not sure how else I would have painted them though. Maybe they're just horn enveloped in smoke.
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Kingdom Death Smog Singers - Painted
I wasn't sure what the goop was (colostrum or something? not blood). Ultimately I went with a generic slime. For the smoke I drybrushed a bright gold on top to match a hit location. Unfortunately the smoke was brittle (didn't glue well with plastic weld since the parts were too thin) and a few fell off. No harm I guess, saves it from breaking in game.
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Kingdom Death - Crimson Crocodile - Painted
I started by airbrushing a skyblue from below, then wych flesh then red over top along the spine and chest.
This was my first foray into glazing. I bought some liquitex matte medium and used it to blend the sky blue belly into the white highlights. Definitely not a pro but it worked pretty well with these colours. I didn't mix colours much (maybe a 50:50) for the first blend but then everything else was just the base colour in a very transparent mix and applied multiple coats - basically started on one end and when I go to the other side, started over with the same mix and just went over it to 'dark' the applied colour.
The base, I painted red and then added an edge of white glue. Once dry, I added a couple layers of water effects. Once that dried I painted it with khorne blood. Once it was all sealed, I glazed the eyes to they'd look wet, and the tongue. After I took these pictures I did add more vegetation in a few different bush colours and some red flowers.
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Woodworking - Star Wars Death Star Box on Lathe
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