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The Leadheads of Darkness

This weeks painting ends with some of my oldest miniatures rebased and repair-painted. A wild mixture of mostly Essex and Copplestone miniatures I think. Right on time for Halloween.

 

Contrast Colors and a visit to a local Wargames Club

Some weeks ago a friend invited me to come over for a paint session. He introduced me to the (for me) new Contrast Colors from Games Workshop and so I tried them on some Reaper Miniatures.

Here are the (not completely ready) results. The lizards where primed and then simply painted with "Contrast Ork Flesh" and "Contrast Mantis Warriors Green". No washing, no shading. The giants leather jacket (can't find the name of the mini) was painted with "Contrast Snakebite Leather" and the nice leather effect came immediately. Again, no other paint, no further work step. The Troll was painted with another contrast color I can't remember and then washed with "Strong Tone" from Army Painter. Most of the painting was done in a few minutes, details came later.

I must say that these paints are an astonishing product. They may not be suitable for all kinds of miniatures and used too much may result in creating a very specific look, but chosen to paint some parts of minis can bring nice effects and speed things up. I am definitely going to try more of the contrast colors.


And while I was visiting him, I took a photo of his painting place. Like a lot of the younger generation he is all into the Kickstarter and 3D-Printing thing. Which will become (or is?) the biggest threat to the business model of Games Workshop and the like I think. When he started printing I was very skeptical but he has his 2nd printer now and the quality of the miniatures is really high.

  



On that Sunday we also visited the Club he is a member off. They reside in a large bunker and during the Covid crisis the club grew from about 30 members to around 100 members. At the moment they are in progress to double their space and furnish another floor of that building.

One of the three(!) playing areas.


Part of the building and painting area. They also have a special room for spray priming.

And it's Friday again, only some month later. Or: The other side of the hill.

Some tough months later, filled with suddenly appearing serious heart problems and different other health problems, a short stay in a hospital, a lot of meetings with doctors and an operation to repair a damage I (probably) received during that cancer treatment decades ago. And all that with the war, the energy crisis, the problem of rising cost of living looming in the background. As if I don't have enough to care about.

Maybe I should have blogged about it. That's what blogs once were created for. But I was not in the mood for anything. It's strange how much these things can hold you down. Even when your health problems don't really stop you physically the mental hurdles can become sky high. I am absolutely not the guy for depression but it killed the spirit and slowed me down.

But finally all seems to become better. My doctor was really amused when I walked into the examination room the day after the operation, saying that I am the only one walking in there like nothing had happened. In the time after it the wound from the operation healed extremely fast and two weeks later it did not hurt anymore.

And with the help of an incredible amount of medication my heart also seems to have recovered. So I had the opportunity to see something you may not see so often : a cardiologist who is really happy with the result of his work. In March of this year I was only weeks away from getting a defibrillator implanted and now he is talking about getting my heart back to normal performance. That was a relief.

It's of course not over by now, but I think I am on the other side of the hill.

(And if you are to polite to ask: no overweight, no smoking...)


 
The most stupid thing I did during this time happened on a day trip (exactly two days after my last post) to an old steel plant that is now open to the public and used as a recreation area. After climbing the stairs to the top of this blast furnace and arriving on the platform 70 meters above the ground my heart made a strange jump for a moment. Only one. That was before it had recovered and it gave me a little shock. But I am still not sure why this happened. Was it exhaustion - I made breaks going up there - or only the simple and completely irrational fear of height? At first I did not want to go because half the way up I felt a bit uncomfortable (and I was not the only one) but then I decided that I have to overcome it. I think I have to work on that.
 

The second furnace seen from the first one. An exact copy of the one I am standing on. The thing down there is a man on a bicycle. Funny, there were hundreds of visitors running around and I managed it to take a photo with only one person on it.


By the way, in August of this year they shot some scenes for the upcoming new Hunger Games movie "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" there.