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.

Dwarf bagpiper painted

Finally worked on the dwarf bagpiper I got from Reaper. I enjoyed the sculpting but the drag is it is way bigger then the 28mm that I'm painting. I wanted to draft him into my Celtos warband for the Gaels/Irish don't have a piper, and why is a big oversight for the Gaels three instruments are the bodhran (small hand drum), harp, and the bagpipe.
     In the future my plans are to make Clare's Regiment (Wild Geese) in the Service of France. This infamous company had three generations of the O'Brien family as its commanders. A big problem is cannibalizing some figures to make a piper, for the Irish Brigade went into battle under the skirl of the bagpipes.
     My biggest problem in painting are the eyes. I just can't do the eyes yet. Read on one blog about using an artist mechanical pen to make the eyes. There isn't an art or drafting store nearby so I got an extra fine at Staples. Although one can make a small dot the blogger didn't mention the problems some figures might have with sunken eyes so the pen hits above & below the eye socket.
As for this figure, it shall just sit on my desktop computer tower.

Well my painting is getting better! Several visitors tipped the following:

• to dilute the paint.
• Layer with washes starting with darkest color and going lighter each wash. (Tried this and it worked very well, but . . . I don't have a wide variety of paint colors and this limits things. Yes I've tried using black and white to dilute the colors, and just not having a good experience with this.)
• Dry brushing is getting better, SOMETIMES, such as with the piper's cape & hair.

Painted the bagpipe to look like mine, where the white is bagpipes used to use ivory. Today, such as mine, imitation ivory plastic is used since to use and have ivory now is illegal. Those who are really good piper's, have sterling silver replacing the ivory. Just noticed a small glitch which I shall correct. Forgot to paint black holes a top the pipe's. (The poor piper is going to huff & puff with no sound [although some would appreciate this lack of musical sound].)

Celtos type of new game

     One of the tribes in my Gaelic/Celtos game that I'm creating are the Dwarves. In the original Celtos game the Dwarves are called "Vanir" out of Norse myth. The reason I'm not using the Celtos figures is 1) the cost, and 2) the difficulty is getting them. In the U.S. they do have a distributor but the California company has a problem with supply; they order a $30 restocking order and are charged $100 shipping with DHL. I could go to the makers and suppliers in England, but the cost of shipping and currency change for me is costly too. So I'm going with the basic idea of Celtos of various tribes warring for control of an imaginary island. Celtos' tribes are Humans/Gaels, Dwarves/Vanir, Elves/Sidhe, Undead-skeletons/Firbolgs, Beastmen/Fomorians. My new son-in-law, Alex, is a big time gamer and is writing the play rules, I'm providing the history. Included in the storyline will be encounters with the top ten scary things relating to Ireland: Banshees, ghosts, spirits, beheaded horseman, pookas/goblins, and vampires, etc. Also will have a story on the inauguration of the Gael king/chief, an enchanted forest, dolmens and standing stones. Each tribe will have a wizard/shaman/druid, as well as mounted troops of which the Gaels will have war-chariots, the Elves ride eagles and Goblins ride wolves. 
     This of course will be a skirmish game, and I'm making it an adult family game for my three grown kids and their spouses.
     So I need the game accessories  to be moveable, being played on the floor for nobody has a table big enough. Each of the tribes is having a home base: Gaels have a ring-fort, Sidhe (Gaelic for fairy/elves) I'm making tree houses, Dwarves have a mountain type mine, the barbarians have Aframe huts, and the goblins will have roundish huts, and the Skeletons earth mounds. This is what I have so far.

Mountain mine: home base for Dwarves.

      Making the Dwarf home base wasn't hard. I found in the garbage at my wife's work a styrofoam packing end for printer toner cartridge. All I did was cut an entrance and paste with Elmer's Glue varies broken pieces of styrofoam, The only carving I did was making a stair case. Then painted by washing with gray paint and then outlinning the pieces in charcol gray. Still need to do a lot of touchup on white spots. The enterance for me is reminescent of in the first "Lord of the Kings" movie when the band entered the mountain of moria. Would be nice to paint runes on pillars. Top is suppose to be a ruined outpost.
      I've painted so far the Gaels, Dwarves, and Barbarians. Saving now for the Elves. I searched a database of the Dark Heaven figures made by Reaper for I find their figures really nice. But when I matched one that I ordered with my Dwarf figures by Red Box, I found a great discrepancy in size. I'm working my game to be in the 28mm range and the Reaper figures are in the 32-35mm range; way to big as one can see in the accompanying photo. Many of the Reaper figures where great to have a female war-band for each tribe making it possible for couples to have a tribe together. Now I'm having to rethink the scenarios for Red Box doesn't have enough female models to make up a war-band of twelve (ten warriors, a standard-bearer, and musician). Going through Reaper, there were enough female figures to have a female war-band of Dwarves, Elves, and Humans.

(left) Red Box dwarf : (right) Reaper Dark Heaven dwarf.

Red Box Dwarves. Waiting on three that are backordered.

I'm converted to become a gamer

Okay, I give-up!! Decided to become a gamer. Viewing all of your blogs and seeing the fun and joy you all have in the hobby has persuaded me. I found a game that interests me called Celtos by Brigade Models. It seems that this game has a small following and has been around for sometime, yet I love the premise of the game. It is loosely based on the invasions of the Emerald Isle and incorporates a lot of Irish mythology and some Norse. And they are 28mm, as small as I want to paint (even here I hope my eyes will still like me).

Some of the figures or characters have real names in Celtic/Gaelic history. There is Nuada Silver Hand, Mananna (Celtic God of the Sea for whom the Isle of Man is named), Morrgian, Cernunnos, Herne, Balor, Freyja, Mordred, and Culann (Cuhullian?).


It takes place in the land of Goria where five groups fight each other for control of the land.

 

  The first group is the Sidhe (Gaelic for fairy/elf, who were actually called the Tuath de Dannan, later to become the Sidhe or "We People"), lead by Nuada Silver Hand (left); the Vanir are from Norse mythology, here they are a dwarf people from the land of ice that include valkyries (right).

The third group are the Fomorians (a real tribe that was displaced by the Firbolgs in Irish history) are blood revers, goblins, & orcs, their leader is Balor (a real Celtic God) (left).

Next are the Firbolgs, who are flesh eaters, zombies & skeletons (in history it is said they were a very cave-like people, very backward, displaced by the Tuath de Dannan [Sidhe]), lead by Cerannous a real Celtic God too, only spelled Cernunnos (right).

 

Last are the Gaels who displaced the Sidhe in history, they are full humans.

Some the the figures play the bagpipes and the Gaels and others wear kilts (I love it!). One Gael figure even rides the Celtic chariot. I'm waiting on acceptance to the Celtos forum where I shall post a lot of questions before jumping in though.

 
 Yea, I know,  I have not found anyone where I live near or far who play this game. The closest I've found is Chicago, about 1300 miles away. So this shall be only a family game, hopefully each of my children and their spouses will find a character from each group to be interested in. I do have a son-in-law who is into D&D and one other game, so he can explain this all to me. What I'm looking forward to is painting the figures. But...this will take some time, a few months of saving. The figures aren't to expensive, but need to come from England, so the postage is going to really cost.

Morrigan, Priestess of the Horned God

Shaman and familiar, Fomorian