CXIII. New Growths in the Garden

I've been neglecting the blog for too long... A new year is upon us and I have big plans for it. I'll briefly go through them, shall I.

• I am to convert and paint a Zoraida crew for Malifaux in time for Agram Arena Summer in July, complete with a display base and all necessary markers and tokens. In the meantime I'll be taking part in a campaign, gradually adding painted models as the Crew develops from the starting 35 Stones. The image above is a 30mm Scheme Marker, first of about a dozen I aim to produce. It's a way to push myself to paint things other than miniatures. I need more practice making artwork.
• A few of my clubmates and I are preparing to get into Frostgrave in the foreseeable future, so I'll be making a warband and some monsters for that. And custom gaming aids, of course.
• I wish to make at least one display piece this year. I remember how much I enjoyed last year's attempts.

So the blog will expand in the subject matter it covers since I'll be documenting and publishing all those things here (and possibly more). The main worldbuilding project will be pushed into the background, but the plus is there might finally be some battle reports featured in my posts. And all of it will be aesthetically close to what I've shown so far.  

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I've already started working towards my goals. My first offering:

 CONDITION TOKENS for Malifaux

I've been plaing the game for years, yet I've never had gaming aids for keeping track of conditions on models. Making some was a fine opportunity to get creative. After some thought and several design ideas I opted for round, 25mm or smaller, two-sided and hand-painted. I set off to make twelve Poisoned tokens (1/2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8), three Defensive1/Defensive2, two Focused1/Focused2, three Paralyzed/Reactivate and four Slow/Fast. That should do for now. 

The tokens started as coins, with a thin layer of Milliput to cover the embossing. I like the weight of the coins.

When this cured I painted the faces of the tokens black. This was followed by some filing to clean up the metal edges and then a tidy-up of the black.

Doing the freehand writing was the most tedious part of the process.

The final step is applying Vallejo Still Water. It works as very thick gloss varnish in this case.

Poison tokens have an image instead of words. They were actually faster and easier to make, though before I started I expected it would be the other way round.

 Condition Token CONTAINER

Because I really like boxes, I painted one to carry my fancy new tokens.

The little box came unpainted, so first I glazed the light wood with diluted acrylic dark browns. I painted the interior black and covered some of the surfaces with black felt. This will make the tokens more comfortable inside.

I wanted to decorate the lid with some freehand. I masked off an area for that purpose.

Neat.

After sketching the design with a pencil I moved on to colouring it in. It's the same paints I use for miniatures.

 

 

 

Done. It looks too clean, though. Time for some Agrax Earthshade and Typhus Corrosion.

This is it. A couple coats of varnish to keep it protected and the box is done.

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Finished tokens and container.

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Just a small update for the end: the textured board I commissioned in mid-2016 finally arrived around Christmas. I took a shot of the Wilderness scenery on it. A big improvement, in my humble opinion.