I was in a Discord talking with a beginner about airbrushing. They had done their research and were closing in on making that purchase. I shared what advise I could with them. It made me think that I bet there are a number of people out there that could use some advise regarding their first airbrush.
While we were randomly shopping at one of our local game stores, Noble Knight, we wandered over to the MDF terrain section and looked through the kits on hand. I always love looking through the various kits, looking for ideas. Some times, I end up walking away with a kit or two. That’s when I picked up the TTCombat Subway Entrance Terrain Kit.
TTCombat has been producing quality MDF kits at amazingly affordable prices for a long time. For modern city street war games I haven’t found a company that produces a wider range of options at the price point. For around 10 dollars US, the TTCombat Subway Entrance Terrain Kit is another of these great values.
Assembled Subway Entrance Courtesy of TTCombat
Assembly
Assembly was a breeze. Well, ok, my wife assembled it so not much work on my side. That said, it’s honestly not a hard kit to assemble. TTCombat provides a PDF that you can download from their website for the assembly instructions. The one thing I would caution is that you dry fit everything before gluing together. Gluing together the kit should be done with PVA (Elmer’s Glue All is what we used). Assembly was relatively quick and painless if you follow the instructions.
It’s been a busy and hectic couple of weeks, but when it’s busy you just have to keep that paint brush working. That means I have a few projects finished to share. Most of the work I have been doing is really focused on super heroes for the Batman Miniature Game by Knight Models and Marvel: Crisis Protocol by Atomic Mass Games.
Harley Quinn was the most recent project. She’s one of the most dynamic posed models I have for the Batman Miniature Game. I love the scenic base and I feel it adds so much character to the model. I didn’t have much direction when I started this model. I focused initially on the bottom elements of the figure and worked my way slowly up the model filling in colors and slowly working up the highlights. As I finished the model I wanted the eye to have two focal points. The first, and primary, was going to be Harley’s hair and face. I think this area of bright color on what is otherwise a darker shaded model really makes this an instant place your eye is drawn. As the eye works it’s way down the model the second focal point comes into play with the stone clown face having just enough color and lighter shading to stand out on the base.
In my original Getting Started: Hobby Tools article I wanted to discuss what I felt were the necessary tools to handle assembly of miniatures that any new hobbyist would need in their collection. That isn’t all of the tools that I use regularly though and as a follow up, I wanted to touch on other tools that I use quite often and why.
Other Commonly Used Tools
Curved Tip Tweezers
One of my most used tools is a is a curved tip tweezers. There are a ton of these out there as tweezers is something that most people have at least a basic tweezers in their bathroom for grooming. However, the curved tip I find is very useful for grabbing small bits, dipping in glue, and then using to attach to a model where my fingers would just be in the way. Maybe it’s just that I am getting older, or maybe I am just getting smarter but I rarely assemble anything that has smaller bits these days without reaching for my tweezers.
I have been busy over the past couple of weeks. I was able to finish a fairly nice selection of models though. The important piece is that you need to make time to put some paint on a model each day if you can. Even if that’s just 10-15 minutes. That time really makes a difference. I certainly don’t get that time every day, but I am able to achieve that more often then not.
For Marvel: Crisis Protocol I finished up Killmonger. I am really pleased with how his flesh tones turned out. He really looks like he can lay a solid beat down on any super hero in the game.
For the Batman Miniature Game I was able to finish several models and add to my ever growing collection. First, I was able to finish another version of Poison Ivy. This model is their multiverse model so you can also use it in their DC Universe game. She was frustrating at first as the greens just struggled to go down, but once I got past this she really came together. I wanted darker tones for the greens and flowers as I wanted to have her flesh tone a very light, pale tone. I think it worked out really well and the eye draws to her head, upper body and then works down the model.
Next I finished the Thugs that came with the Back to Gotham box. Thug 1 is a tiny little guy with his dagger while Thug 5 is standing tall and upright with his two pistols ready to gun down anyone. Of course, I think he’s more likely to be taken down with his goofy way he’s holding his guns. Clearly their is inexperience there. To round out models from the Back to Gotham box I included the pre-order limited edition Joe Chill model. He painted up pretty quickly and I am really happy how the killer of Bruce Wayne’s parents looks on the table.
Final model I painted in this period is Scarecrow from the Batman Begins movie. He’s an older model that’s no longer available from Knight Models. I went out of my way to make sure I owned every model that they produced that was based on characters from the movies. He turned out better than I was expecting and really glad I took the time to finish that model.
I guess with 6 more models painted there’s been good progress over the past two weeks. I hope to be able to continue the steady progress and work over the coming weeks. Particularly I would like to continue to grow my Crisis Protocol collection so that the games I am playing at home against my wife will have more options to both of us. With 179 painted Batman Miniature Game models now I have a huge collection with a lot of selection. Still, with near 200 models painted I have a new milestone to unlock!
