Moonstone…finally
Recommendations: 665
About the Project
I put the minis together last March during the early days of lockdown. Now that I’m caught up on Crisis Protocol it’s time to get some color on them.
Related Game: Moonstone
Related Company: Goblin King Games
Related Genre: Fantasy
This Project is Completed
Firespitter
…and this concludes my Moonstone backlog. Overall they were really neat sculpts and most were good castings. I will say that resin is not my favorite material. The detail is exceptional but…well I’m sure you all know the downsides.
So good on you Goblin King Games! Nice product. Now to get these to the table though that’ll have to wait a good long while.
Shabaroom!
Nearly finished with my Moonstone backlog. Still not quite sure if Shabaroom is just wearing the mushrooms or if they’re growing out of his back but he’s impressive(Loy insane) either way.
Grub
I like Grub a lot. At first glance I thought him dull but after painting him up he’s both creepy and a bit charming.
Seasick Stu
Stu was fun–though I might have called him Sleepy instead of Seasick.
Boom Boom McBoom
And yes, that is his actual name.
I suspect he was supposed to come with a pipe sticking out of his mouth. It’s in the art for him in the rule book and there was a little stub on the right side of his mouth. Not sure if it broke off before shipping, during shipping, or wether I did the deed myself during assembly or while he was kicking around on my paint table. In the end, I think he looks fine without it and I just trimmed off the stub and made it part of his beard.
Going for a bit a a washed out, desaturated look for all the goblins, with little accents of color. In the lore, they seem to be almost feral, living out in the wilderness so I figured a bit of a faded look (along with their green hued skin) would help set them apart from the gnomes.
Vicious Midget and Beaky Bobby
Two more goblins down. Five to go.
Vicious midget (left) was a pretty rough casting as you can see. Not sure what the story is with the hand strapped to his waist but maybe I just haven’t read deeply into the fluff.
Beaky Bobby was a nice clean cast and is probably my favorite of the goblins.
Overall, some fun sculpts.
Doug the Flatulent
Doug and his pug. I went with a pretty uniform green hued color scheme for all of the goblin skin. Did my usual of painting up the skin on the whole faction which is why I’ve been silent for a good bit. Well, that and life interfering with hobbying as it is wont to do from time to time.
The pug here was fun to paint and I tried out a more weathered wood effect for his lance.
Lloyd & Gerry Shots
Thanks for the button gents!
In honor of that, let me present you with two pics: one a Lloyd shot I forgot to take earlier. The other is a Gerry shot as the requested payment (in lieu of credit) for this project’s existence.
Scale/Size
There were some questions about scale on these minis. Goblin King says they’re 32mm but that’s not entirely true or useful given the wide range in sizes between the different minis/races.
So here’s a shot that will hopefully give you some context. Quack, one of the tallest hoomans, is a tad shorter than Cap who is pretty representative for Crisis Protocol (supposedly also 32mm). Quack is taller than one of the more diminutive Infinity models (28mm) but Mama Gimble, pretty representative for a gnome and many of the goblins, is a good bit shorter.
This exercise has highlighted to me how wide a range/imprecise scales in mm are. And yes, I know that I’ve been imprecise as there are qualifiers like “heroic” etc. but I figured a pic would be worth a few words.
Quack
Quack is definitely my favorite of the hoomans. In part that’s because I didn’t have to play “find the detail” like I did with the others, particularly on the face. (BTW, little known fact: playing “find the detail” isn’t nearly as much fun as playing “hide the sausage”). In part it’s because he’s just a really unique and quirky sculpt. I’ve decided to name his pet skull “Bob”.
Next up, a quick pause to paint some objective tokens for Infinity and Crisis Protocol. Then full speed into the goblins!
Edit: it was pointed out to me that there may be some resemblance between Quack and Getafix from Asterix & Obelix. I hadn’t made the connection but now that I have (though it’s certainly more an homage than a direct likeness) I like Quack even more.
Playing with a background
So here’s the setup currently. As mentioned, I still have the front/side lights to add. I threw in some Battle Systems terrain as a backdrop (again, inspired by @Soapdodger, praise be).
As to settings, this was taken with my macro lens, Aperture Priority, f10. For any who don’t know, the aperture has a large impact on depth of field. A smaller aperture, a smaller depth of field. The reason I wasn’t able to get the whole mini in focus, as I mentioned in the last post, was that I was using too low of an aperture (apparently a complicated combination of f-stop and shutter speed). If I set the aperture to 22 even the full background is in focus. Set it really low (the lowest this lens goes is 2.8) and the whole mini isn’t in focus.
I’ve settled currently at around f10. It does require a reasonably long shutter speed so hand-held is not feasible at that level.
Overall, I’m pretty pleased with the results.
Edit: just realized I “tagged” Soapdodger here with a # instead of the proper @. Fixed it.
Photo Comparison
Here’s an initial comparison. The Before is just with my iPhone and an tablelamp. The After is with an old but reasonably high end (for me) digital camera and a ring light overhead. I have some more lights coming. We’ll see what difference those make.
I have a telephoto, a fisheye, and a macro lens for the camera as well as the pancake lens it cam with. The After here was taken with the pancake. So far it looks like the depth of field on the macro is so narrow that I can’t get the full mini in focus and I’ll have to play around with the telephoto (45-200) and see if there’s anything interesting I can do with it.
Long and short, if you have any tips/tricks on lenses or the Panasonic Lumix GF2 for taking pics of minis, or if you have any thoughts on this comparison please let me know.
Agatha Tavernfrau
This isn’t my complete photo setup yet but it’s a start. Agatha was fairly unremarkable to paint. Or maybe that should be unobjectionable. I could have given her a bit more pizazz with her feather and/or flower.
Father Flavius
The father is my least favorite of the hoomans. His sculpt really doesn’t look like his card art and he’s just not that interesting. His mail is nice though.
Flintlock
Particularly pleased with the quilted pattern on his left arm. (And yes, I know the pics are a bit dodgy. As I said in an earlier post I’m hoping I have a fix coming.)
Eric the Squire
I’m pleased with the wood grain texture I was able to get into his shield. He is a fun sculpt once you focus in on him.
The Baron part deux
So this is my second run at Baron von Fancyhat. The first one I sent off as a gift.
Though I can’t quite pin down why, I’m pretty sure I did a better job the first time around. Not my best work. Also not my worst.
A side note: I’m hoping my photos will see a marked improvement soon. Soapdodger’s recent foray into photographic excellence has served as a kick in the jaxie for me to stop taking pics with my iPhone 6 and finally up my game. I’m awaiting some lights and a tripod and then I’ll spend the next few months making a right hash of it and irritating all of you with my crappy but effortful photos.
Fritz
So I abandoned my “I’m going to paint all of a given color” strategy. It was both unsatisfying (no nice little gobbets of accomplishment as I finish a mini) and possibly counterproductive (as I paint up in successive layers—skin, then whatever is closest to the skin, etc.—as that means most mistakes I make will be covered over by the next layer up and I don’t have to be so careful).
Quite pleased with Fritz. He’s probably my second favorite hooman.