I’m going to have a Bar Room Brawl this Christmas!

Ok, so first impressions.  Under £30 for a limited release item this set is amazing, a bit of clean-up needed on the minis, a warped base (solved by dunking in hot water) a slightly bent brazier (hot water should fix that but may leave it).  Anyone new to Mantic and the quality of the minis this is a great intro to what they can achieve (I have a 1000 pt resin/metal/plastic Firefight army – see the project – https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/1776060/) and also to their Terrain Crates which I had never seen in person.  It puts me in mind of the Vinyl sampler albums that record companies used to put out, a mixed bag of stuff they had available but around a common theme and at a greatly reduced price.

My week in general, work, eat, sleep and yesterday I took advantage of the clear skies to take a (cold) trip to Liverpool.  Sent off a Christmas present to a friend, Loke Battlemats Calendar.  Wrapping and postage cost more than the present!  Bought myself some Monument paint primer, Black and White (2 bottles not all in one I already had grey and they don’t do striped), some Speedball Pink Soap brush cleaner and a Winsor and Newton Series 7 No 1 brush (Cass Art £20 rather than £29 but always out of stock on-line so you need to visit a store).  They also do a reasonably priced set of self branded Kolinsky brushes at a decent price.  Resisted the temptation to buy myself more paint, a box of Votan Brôkhyr Iron-master to add to my Christmas Battle box and a Hellblazer Graphic Novel.  As a further aside apparently there is a shortage of Manga, the main US publishers are having supply issues.

On the painting front I managed to get some paint on minis but not as much as I hoped, I worked an extra shift Monday night so only had a few hours sleep and also had 3 baskets of veg fall on my right shoulder, only a glancing blow but giving me occasional pain.  Simple grey prime and white zenithal on all the models with a Xpress color Wasteland Brown on the wooden items, it’s a yellowish brown with good coverage and the coffee staining that occurs when painting flat areas does help with the realism, most bars I have seen in the rougher bars have an uneven look to the surface finish and I even used this to my advantage to add some glass ring staining from spilt drinks on the bar surface.  I may add a black oil wash to the bench.  I started painting the female character but my initial thoughts of slapping on a bit of contrast/speed paint/Xpress Color went out the window they are just too nice not to spend at least a bit of effort on them so I didn’t get this finished in one sitting, I hope to get some more done today but as I start work at 10pm and I woke at 7 am I may need a bit of a kip this afternoon.

Note – I will add some WIP pictures later but at the moment my son is staying with me and asleep in my hobby room so I  can’t get at the mins.

Until next time, take it easy and don’t let Christmas stress you out. Oh and Happy Hanukkah to our Jewish friends, if you have the Bar Room Brawl calendar you can open 3 windows a day over the 8 nights!

Pictures now attached, noticed there is a bit of paint missing from the tip of elf’s nose so need to touch this up, otherwise quite pleased even though painting the presents after the figure was a nightmare.

No need for a picture today, It’s another brazier.  These must play some role in the game, guess we’ll find out in 16 days.

Hi def macro photos on your computer show all your mistakes, looks like my female hero had the paint rubbed off from the tip of her nose (need to fix this) and from some angles she looks like a clown!  I have so much respect for the painters who can do eyes but I will persevere.  In reality on the table top I think she looks great especially for around 4 hours work, but that nose has kept me awake all night (good job really as I was at work).

For anyone who is following along it would be good to hear from you, criticism accepted (be kind), advice, tell me you love what I am doing, tell me a bad joke or just say hello.  Remember if I disagree with you and we meet in a bar we may brawl (Whetherspoons at UKGE 2024, I’ll bring the game).

I have heard of scatter terrain but this takes things to a new level.  Better not sneeze when painting these items!

It’s time for the 3rd mini and this time it is the Bar Keep.  I feel there should be some joke here about him being the token dwarf in the set but I can’t think of one.

Clever one this, in the set of tiny  terrain pieces we got a fire, now we have a hearth to place it in.  My mind quickly went to OSL for the painting but we’ll see how that goes!

This is why we call them tabletop games.  Wonder if day 13 will be a little copy of Bar Room Brawl.  Halfway there so time to get some more paint on plastic.

Another mini, that’s 4 down and 2 to go with 11 days left.  It looks like Mantic were keen for us to have these painted in time for Christmas Day which is excellent.  I love the look of this one, very elegant but that candy cane is going to be a pain to paint.

Managed a good session yesterday, everything so far painted and varnished, took about 7 hours including breaks for drying, more details tomorrow in the weekly update.

Oh and don’t tell Ronnie but someone slipped me an extra base!

And let’s see what’s through the Oblong Window (ask your mum!) it’s a Round Table.