Chris’ Spring Clean 2025

When I cleared out all my old hobby stuff from my mother’s garage in the spring of 2021, this was sitting in a plastic bag all by itself. It’s a vignette made from the ‘Gothic Horrors’ line of Citadel Miniatures depicting a recent murder that a pair of detectives are investigating, while a suspicious character hides behind the nearby statue (a Knight, I think of the Blazing Sun, pinned to a body shop shampoo lid which in turn was glued to a yogurt pot). 

It was broken and battered: the yogurt pit statue plinth has completely come away from the base, the paint from which had begun to flake away revealing the polystyrene underneath, and  all of the standing figures had come away from their pins. 

It has stayed in that bag for another 4 years, tucked away in the bottom drawer next to my hobby desk, where I’ll get it out about once a year when I can’t remember what’s in there. 

It’s a perfect Spring Clean Challenge project. 

Having a look at the paint job on models, unusually I think that I could probably do a better job now than teenage me. So into the paint Biostrip they go. 

All except the suspect / gumshoe. I think that’s pretty good and can be reused. 

After about a week in the biostrip I fished out the minitatures, which involved latex gloves and some kitchen roll.

After a scrub under the cold tap with an old tooth brush the metal minis where as good as new.

PinkThe glue holding the plastic horse together had also succumbed to the biostrip and it had come apart. The head and two sides of the body were easy enough to find, but I couldn’t feel the tail anywhere. For about another week (as I got on with painting ‘Sherlock’, see my next post) I considered my options. Sculpt a tail out of green stuff? Beyond my skills. Pop to the local Aladdin’s cave of used minis to hunt one out? It seemed like a wild goose chase. Use a werewolf tail from the Wargames Atlantic sprue I got on the front of a magazine? Too furry.

No, I knew the tail was in the biostrip somewhere, so I’d have to find it. This meant waiting until my wife was having her Sunday morning lie in: giving me enough time to pour the biostrip through the sieve into a mixing bowl, wash and tidy up before she was any the wiser.

Remarkably this worked. Plus I found the knight’s shield, that I hadn’t realised was missing!

A while ago I was helping my mother clear out her garage, and taking away my old toys that had been packed away years ago. In amongst them was my old 1980s “Dark Tower” board game.
Today, a grey Sunday, in the afternoon I decided to see if it still worked. It didn’t : the lights flashed when you tuned it on but it seemed dead.
However a quick google suggested that I could try cleaning the brushes on the motor…

Amazingly that did the trick.

So I set up the game and started to have a game (single player as everyone else in the house was engaged in their own persuits).
The weird beeping from the ganme soon got my kids attention and the 10 year old wanted to join in.

In the space of about half an hour we had traveled through the hostile territories of Durnin, Brynthia and Arisilon and returned to out homeland of Zenon. Alnog the way we had batted a dragon, got lost, suffered from plague but we had returned stronger and with the three keys that granted us entry to the Dark Tower.

The final battle was hard fought, but we emerged triumphant.

He said that he enjoyed himself and that he’d play again, so that’s a victory too.

Let’s get down to painting. 

Brush on primer as frankly I can’t be arsed with a rattle can and I don’t have the space to use an airbrush. I wanted to start with grey, which I don’t have, so I mixed my white and black primers until I got the shade that seemed appropriate. 

I will probably end up using some speed or contrast paints (I don’t think I’ve ever planned that out fully in advance), so I decided to dry brush white: Pro Acryl Bold Titanium White. When I bought this bottle two years ago it was already very thick, now it’s a paste, so I scooped a little out add a touch of water before I drybrush. 

I tend to start with skin, and work up. These were all based with Tourmaline Skin and highlighted with Leopard Stone Skin, both from Army Painter. 

Sherlock’s trousers where based with Pro Akryl Transparent purple, into which I mixed Vallejo Bonewhite to highlight. His coat and hat are Vallejo Dark Green, again with Bonewhite mixed in to highlight. 

His shoes are a couple of coats of Aggoros Dunes contrast paint (isn’t it always important to wear brown in town?) and then finish up his shirt with some white (Liquitex Titanium white to thin down the pasty Pro Acryl) then washed with Battleship Grey Speed paint. 

Finally some grey for the little hair showing under the hat.

I started The Victim with black trousers and a brown jacket, in an attempt to make him seem “workman like”, but it didn’t look right so I painted over the brown with black too, using the same Black Templar contrast paint as the trousers. To be honest this seems a little thick to be a contrast (maybe mine has dried out a bit), so it’s more like a traditional acrylic paint, so I highlighted with a little of the Vallejo Bonewhite again. 

The skin, white shirt and handkerchief, use the same colours as Sherlock. His hair is some Vallejo leather brown with a little Vallejo Sun Yellow mixed in. The blood on his shirt is a dab of Blood Red Speed Paint. 

Dr Watson also uses the same skin tones and white for his shirt mentioned before. His suit is Pro Acryl Red Grey (a lovely colour that I try to use as often as possible), highlights again were Bonewhite mixed in. Elbow pads are the leather brown used for the victims hair as it was still on my wet palette. For his tie, I decided he was a member of the MCC, so Sun Yellow then some Vallejo Bloody Red stripes. 

He’s holding a parchment that’s Pallid Bone Speed paint, his magnifying glass frame is an attempt at non metallic metal using Vallejo Stonewall Grey with Pro Acryl Bold Titanium white gradually mixed in. Some of this grey is also used on his hair. The lens started white and I wet blended some Vallejo Ultramarine Blue to attempt to suggest glass. A couple of dots of white to add a reflection. 

Tracking down a plinth or pedestal for the statue turned out to be trickier than I was imagining. I looked through my favourite indie manufacturer and FLG websites but couldn’t find anything that looked correct. Eventually, and somewhat reluctantly,  I opted for a 3D print from Esty. When it arrived I was disappointed with the quality and the visible layer lines, but I decided that it’ll be a damn site better than a yogurt pot stuck with it. 

It’s first layer of paint was some Citadel Runelord Brass, as it caught my 8 year olds eye and who am I to refuse.

Once she was finished with it I gave it a couple of coats of black GSW Matt Surface Primer. On top of this I dry brushed a mix of Pro Acryl Transparent Blue and Army Painter Filthy Cape. 

Onto the statue. 

I glued all the bits together with super glue, using the same holes I drilled when I made it originally. I ignored the gap between his torso and waist : who is going to be clocking that? As I was priming this (brushing on the same GSW primer) the hooves of the horse that I had pinned disintegrated.

I glued the bits that I could find back in place and bulked up the rest with sprue. No more pinning here, so I’ll have to rely on glue alone. To that end I decided to that the front of the horse needed some support. A root around my bit box yielded a section of gravestones (all from Fenris Games) which would have worked, but the one with the arcane Cthulhu symbol on it. This was glued to the plinth, and then the statue itself was added. I then finished priming everything, carefully as I really should’ve done that before I glued it to the plinth. 

Then the Runelord Brass came out again and I dry brushed this onto the statue. Once that was dry I broke out the Dirty Down Verdigris. I’ve never really used this in anger before, but I knew it had to be warmed and shaken properly. I daubed on a couple of coats, and then used a wet cotton bud to remove it from the raised areas. As it’s water soluble you can go back as many times as you like to make a more subtle effect. 

I briefly entertained the idea of making the base by recycling the small pieces of plasticard that I had used originally, but cutting them into even smaller bits. I remembered that I have limited hobby time and opted for an off the shelf solution. This meant a trip to Fenris games website and having a poke around. I eventually found a rectangular ‘Flagstone tile’ that was ideal.

After it arrived I gave it a quick wash in warm soapy water and attacked it with various washes made from watered down green and blue speed paints. Job done. 

As I was dry fitting the miniatures there seemed to be a bit too much redundant space, which I decided to fill. The first thing I added was a Bobby from the same Gothic Horror range that I bought from one of the Facebook Oldhammer groups a year or so ago. He was painted with the same flesh colours that I’ve already mentioned (as they were on my wet palette) and then a mix of Grim Black and Beowulf Blue speed paints for his uniform. I added a few dots of citadel Leadbelcher for his buttons and some Runelord brass for his helmet strap. 

Next I took a Fenris sewer cover  and added a few tentacles that I made from a Green Stuff World ‘tubes, tentacles and wires’ tool. I gave the tentacles some extra texture by rotating the top plate by 90 degrees after the initial pass. I painted the tentacles a mixture of Purple Swarm and Familiar Pink, giving them a gloss varnish when they were dry to give them a slimy look. The sewer cover was primed black, drybrushed with leadbelcher and then added some Dirty Down rust. 

I bought this Regiment of Renown Mengil Manhides Dark Elf company back in the 1980s and managed to paint one of the witch elf troopers back then. Since I returned to the hobby 4 years ago I’ve slowly painted the rest of the box. I even bought the standard bearer when I was more active on the facebook oldhammer groups (in case you weren’t aware, this iteration of Regiments of Renown were ‘blind buys’ in terms of the command figures : you got 8 troopers and 1 command figure per box). However, I never knew what to put on the shields, so I left them off. 

Today I’m going to finish them.

I started by getting 10 round shields from bits box. Most are modern ones from Old School miniatures (I think), there’s also a couple of original Citadel plastics, a 3D printed one from etsy and one from a viking kickstarter. 

I blue tacked all the shields to a piece of wood, and primed them with black, brush on primer. Then I painted the rim of the shields with citadel leadbelcher.

At this point I still wasn’t sure what I was going to put on the shields. I know I haven’t got  enough matching transfers (decals) and my free hand is terrible, although I could manage a half and half or even quartered pattern. I decided to do one more google search for inspiration and found an 11 year old forum post that had textured shields that “look like stretched skin” according to the poster. I had a quick search for something similar, with no luck, but then remembered a recent video by Peachy  wherein he used masking tape to make cloaks. These miniatures have cloaks made from flayed humans, so why not add another flayed enemy to the shield? 

I started by fixing a length of masking tape to my cutting mat. I cut a strip from this, about a centimeter wide, rotated that by 90 degrees and cut that in half. Next I cut out an arc from each long side to make a hour glass shape. Then I cut out a V from the top to make the ‘arms’ of the man hide. I attached these to the shields with tweezers and crumpled them a little to add some texture. Generally the masking tape glue was strong enough, but I did add a drop of super glue here and there where it looked like the tape would come away.  I painted these with a mix of 4 drops Crusader Skin to one drop Warrior skin speed paints. 

Here’s the final regiment, unless I get around to hunting the Champion and the musician, in front of the obligatory John Hodgson backdrop.

Before I started glueing everything to the base, I added some Green Stuff World ‘True Blood’ effect paint to the paving stones under the victim, being careful to add rivulets running through the cracks, rather than a large pool.

Next I added Dr Watson, Sherlock and the Bobby. I had the plinth and status dry fitted perpendicular to the base edges, and was toying where to add the tentacles (creeping towards Dr Watson or heading for the gum shoe) when my eight year old wanted to get involved again.

When I explained my quandary, the very first thing she did was rotate the plinth to offset it with the edges of the base. I really liked that idea and decided to use it. So the statue was next, with the gum shoe hiding behind it. Finally the sewer lid with tentacles was added. 

I’m really happy with how this turned out. Of course it could be improved, and maybe I will return to it, but not for another 35 years. Now, where was that plastic bag it was stored in? Only joking : onto a shelf for this now. 

Really, if anyone can tell me how to delete this I will.

… and I can’t work out how to delete the duplicates.