First Celtos figures painted

Brigand's Miniatures has finally worked out being the problems with Fantization Miniatures on being the U.S. supplier of Celtos figures. So I ordered my first war-band from them which contains eight figures. A few have big eyes, especially the girl, I think it is really war-paint. Since the Irish really didn't wear tartan kilts (my painting isn't good enough), I used a single color and each war-band will have different color kilts.

Roth mac Lyr (far right) and Manannan's war-band.

Painted Barbarians 28mm

Here's the barbarians I just finished painting. Okay eyes suck, and not happy with the changes I made on skin tone color. I tried a different color and it went to light (sword raised). Notice that the archers on the right are to be the same size as the rest of the war-band, but they were sculpted bigger and one figure (far right) wasn't very well sculpted. Tried my hand at painting lines but didn't do to well. Perhaps next batch will be better.

Barbarian archers at right aren't the same 28mm scale.

How to: Make a garden

I got this idea from "The Man Cave" blog, so this isn't something I thought up, but works quite well I thought, and very simple.

Materials:

• MDF board (any size needed).
• Scrape brown corrugated card-board (any size needed).
• Paint: dark brown, tan, dark & light green.
• Elmer's Glue (PVA white glue).
• Xacto knife.
• Wax paper.

Step 1: glue the card board to the MDF board. Mistake I made was putting to much glue on the card-board and when it dried it warped the MDF board. Size of card-board and MDF board is according to your needs.

Step 2: Peel the top side of the card-board off to expose the baffle that exists between both sides. To help assist in this peeling, I placed a damp paper towel to soften the card board paper.

Peel off the top side of card-board that is glued to MDF board.

Step 3: I began painting using dark green for some crops growing but after an inch it didn't look right. Next I went down each mound top and laid down the white glue. Then I liberally sprinkled saw-dust over the entire board and let it dry (over night). To get lots of saw-dust I went to a national home improvement store that cuts lumber (lumber yard would also work) called Home Depot in the USA. I got for free two shopping bags of saw-dust.

Place white glue along each mound top and liberally sprinkle saw-dust.

Step 4: Shaking the saw-dust off after it had dried left saw-dust on top of the mounds which I then painted a dark green and later spotted the tops with bright green. Using dark brown I ran the brush between each row so it looked like the plot was watered, but I didn't like the look, so I used a small brush and ran it down the middle of the dark brown a tan line which happened to match the brown of the card-board. This looked better to me. Some areas didn't take to the saw-dust or was very thin and this helped make the garden plot more realistic. Those areas I left bare.

Painted garden plot.

Step 5: The edges of the plot was not finished, and to do so I placed the board on wax paper and ran white glue along the edges letting it drip down onto the wax paper and liberally sprinkled saw-dust and let dry for several hours. The glue did not stick to the wax paper. I then turned the board upside down to get rid of the saw-dust and washed the edges in dark brown, then later washed it with tan.

Finish off the edges with saw-dust washed dark brown, then tan.

Step 6: Spray the board with diluted white glue (1:1) and let dry.

Now the final step will be finding a figure that is hoeing to work in the garden!

Card-board can also be used as corrugated tin sides & roofing too for more modern scenes.