Batoche battle site

I had a chance to stop at the Batoche settlement and battle site while I was on vacation this summer. Batoche is located about an hour’s drive northwest of Saskatoon.

The site is quite large with a few preserved buildings, including the church where Louis Riel proclaimed his second provisional government and a nearby rectory (with bullet holes from a gatling gun).

There are also a number of recreated rifle pits, a farm house that was burned and rebuilt, a cemetary. You can also walk to the site of the Canadian field camp and the view over the South Saskatchewan river is lovely.

There is an interpretative centre with artefacts. We opted to stay outside due to the pandemic so missed whatever content was here. Overall, a pretty visit with nice interpreters.

Last Night on Earth Part 2

This is the second set of going figures from Last Night on Earth. They are about 28mm tall but are thinner than most sculpts.

First up, we have Dr. Yamato the chemical engineer, Angela the cheerleader, Bear the biker, and Maria the bookworm. Dr. Yamato is one of only two non-white figures of the 35 that I painted up. I'm not sure what to make of that. Perhaps people of colour are generally too smart to try to fight zombies?

Next up is Nikki the bush pilot, Sam the diner cook, Kenney the boxboy (throwing cans of soup--maybe the funniest and best conceived pose of the lot), and Detective Winters.

Then we have Jake the drifter (a repeated character), Ed the lumber jack (I tried my best with the flannel), Amanda the prom queen, and Sally, a generic survivor and possible repeated character from an earlier set (why is she wearing pumps?).

The last of the humans are Sister Ophella, Alice the waitress, Sheriff Anderson (repeated character) and Agent Carter.

There was also a dog in the set (no name or card) so I painted it up like a basset hound (visually more interesting than other kinds of hounds) and stuck a tree on the base to give it some visual heft to match the others.

Overall, a fun set of character to paint. Now I need to get back to my to-paint pile for the Crimea.

Last night on Earth, Part 1

A friend gave me a bunch of figures from the boardgames Last Night on Earth to paint up. This is the first batch. I base the paint jobs on the game cards but the crds show portraits so I had to guess a bit the rest of each outfit. I see some of the bases need tidying before I return them. 

Above we have Billy (the sheriff's son with a flare gun and gas can), Becky the nurse (I may have mixed this figure up with a waitress--it was very hard to tell), Sally the high school sweetheart, and Jenny the farm girl,

Then Father Joseph, Deputy Taylor, Doc Brody, and Mr Hyde, the shop teacher with dynamite and a can of butane to light it with (great figure).

There is Johnny the quarterback, Jake Cartwright the drifter (one of a small number of duplicated figures, I assume from expansion pack), Jeb the mechanic (super happy with how his understated paint job came out), and Sheriff Anderson (another duplicated figure).

Finally, we have Stacy the TV reporter, Mr Goddard the chemistry teacher (hilariously carrying a fire extinguisher), Victor the escaped con and Jade the school outsider (again, happy with her paint job--dark but not too dark). Next week, I'll have the second batch of these fellow.

Circus figures

I'm painting some board gaming pieces for a friend. These circus performers look to be from the same company that did Last Night on Earth (maybe an expansion?). The figures are quite tall (or elongated) compared to the usually 28mm fare.

The character cards give you a profile picture to work from but the rest of the outfit one just has to imagine. First up was Cassidy the trickshooter and Angelica the bearded lady.

Then Carl the strongman and Hannah the firebreather. I was particularly happy with the glassy look I got on Hannah's bottle.

Then R.J. Flanagan the ringmaster and JoJo the dancing bear. Not sure why JoJo looks like she is wearing sunglasses. Just the lighting in the shot, I think.

And finally Lucretia the contortionist and Archibald the human cannonball. Basing as per requested.

Up next: A bunch of figures from Last Night on Earth.

Fury of Dracula

A friend asked me to paint his Fury of Dracula figures to match their cards, with a cobblestone base.

I used washes to try and lighten the figures (who are very dark in the illustrations) and try to pop the details. The plastic is a soft gaming plastic but with some good details.

The cobblestone I just freehanded using a wet blend technique. The figures are about 25mm tall.

Alas, I could not get a decent picture of Dracula (who has crypt flagstones instead of cobbles on his base)!