A place for an observatory

I'm going for a rather quick job today. I could say it was a work of opportunity. As an introduction, I'll tell you that I built this observatory vault some time ago, thinking of placing it somewhere on my Qala Debdou board.

This is way simpler than it looks

It's just a bottle cap. I replaced the straw with a scratchbuilt telescope:

Sorry I didn't build the interior

The thing is that I never found the right place for this. I tried it on a different number of buildings and towers and it never felt right. Well, then I stored it, hoping that I'll eventually find the right place for it.

Opportunities present themselves if you are looking for them (Dammit, that sounded like a coaching book or something!)

But anyway. More life advice: you don't have to go mad everytime the kids break something.

Trust me, sometimes it's an opportunity

You see, this plastic tub experienced some... issues. But you also know that we are totally pro recycling at home! Oh, well, I know. For most of you that expression means I take this stuff to the proper container. Right. We also do that, right. But recycling also means this...

Oh, you can't say you didn't see this coming!

 You can see I took the easiest approach, just glued a few random bits here and there, but I really didn't think I needed to overdo it, so I kept it relatively clear. After that I just white primed it and added the basic colours, in the usual way of my other buildings:

Terrible simple, yet functional

 It feels almost embarrassing, but I have to say that this is almost everything. From this point on I just have to get it as dirty and weathered as I can:

You call this dirty?

OK, better, but not there yet...

 Once I got it really battered, just had to add the dome:

A modest observatory

Maintenance crew is not doing quite an outstanding job here

They all come top of the hill to spot the stars

 It was a fun thing to do, pretty quick work, but I think that the building didn't really ask for much more. I think it fits well with my other buildings of the like, and in fact I do have quite some now! I should put up a board some day only with these.

In the meantime, I'm working on more projects, so I hope I'll be able to bring more stuff soon!

To Infinity... one more time

 Here I am again with more Infinity stuff! My pal, who got me into this madness in the first place, has been expanding his Code One stuff, so here we are again!

I insist, these are some of the finest sculpts in the hobby, and painting them is one of those exercises that somehow manages to be both deeply frustrating and deeply rewarding at the same time, if you know what I mean. But let's go to the pics.

I haven't followed the original paint schemes 100%, but I believe I've been faithful to the patterns. That gives me some visual coherence with the previous batch.

Here we have the Booster Pack Alpha:

I have no snowy fields, this is as much winter as I can get

 I feared I couldn't get the mix of blue I used for the first time, but fortunately it worked at the first try, so it contributed to my mental peace. The minimal bits were scary too, but I managed to glue them all in place and didn't mix bits from different packs. Phew!

Here you have... ehrm. How to put it. Booster Pack Beta.

Seriously, guys, you have to work on those commercial names

 Both packs are reasonably similar, yet different. I had to paint some pieces before attaching them, so for some days my bench has been quite a messy place 😅.

Now a couple of special characters. I'm afraid I don't know their names, I'm not that deep into Panoceania lore, but they both look cool.

The hammer guy is part of a special mission/scenario box

 These two are the Dronbots, and they deserve a special mention. I've magnetised the weapon options on both of them, so my pal can swap loadouts depending on the mission. It's the kind of small practical detail that takes a bit of extra work but makes them look cooler. I hope.

These may be my favourites from all the batch

 And then there's this fella. The Jotum. A TAG (that's basically a giant walking weapons platform) and quite the centrepiece of a force. Painting it is a genuinely different experience from the infantry, mostly because you actually have enough surface area to work with. The white panels on this one were the main challenge; white is always white, and it always judges you.

Not a guy to mess with

Here you have them all, quite a force on their own:

Disappointing lack of snow on the board, I know

I wonder how these look along the previous guys I painted, but I bet it's quite an imposing force.

Now I have to paint their Yu Jing counterparts, but before I start that I have some other stuff that has been demanding my attention for a while. All in due time!

On medieval matters

 Hi everyone! A brief update on my most recent works. I've been struck by the Bretonnian vein, but have managed to only paint a couple of characters. I started with a Grail Knight on foot.

The good thing about Bretonnia is that you don't really have to care for actual heraldry (which is in fact way more strict and complex than one could imagine at first). You can mix whatever colours you fancy and it will be ok! (In fact I'm surprised that no one has ever painted Bretonnian Knights in Space Marines colours and heraldry, but that's another story...)

For this one I made this up:

Because orange & white look cool. Yup, that's my reasoning

Then you have to paint the big cup thing

Say what you want, that's not a carpenter's cup

 The fun starts when you have to replicate the stripes on the clothes of the little man. After some time I got this:

Looks like a permanent warning sign. Which is suitable for a guy with a hammer, I guess

Ready to discuss about cups. Cups are his passion

 Apart from the Grail knight,  I thought it was a good opportunity to paint the Sorceress. If I had gone for a warm palette for the warrior, I opted for a cold one for the lady:

I was happy with the colour, but it looked too dull and generic

So I thought of adding some trimming and embroidery

I even tried to make silver threads in the center of the lighter lines, but it really didn't work. The glow killed the effect and made a mere mass of unreadable shapes. Anyway, the final effect, as you'll see in the next pic, added some depth and made it look like an ornate and appropiate dress for a lady.

You can see that I made exactly the same for the mounted Sorceress:

Those dresses wer on sale at the store, you know

They are not exact replicas, but they are close enough, so I'm using these as mounted and standing version of the same character, just in case.

Well, my Bretonnian army was lacking characters, so I have tried to solve it to some extent. Here you can see how they face the enemies of the Realm:

I believe this has quite a Warhammer Quest vibe

 BONUS!

Apart from my Warhammer mumblings, we’ve managed a quick family getaway over the Easter break and headed off to Burgos, which is pretty feasible from home, and it's been quite fitting for this medieval mood!

You know I quite fancy doing this sort of drawings. I keep on taking the risk of going straight in with ink, one day I'm gonna mess it up...

This is supposed to be the Abbey of Las Huelgas

A late 12th-early 13th Century Abbey, conceived to serve as royal mausoleum and center of political/religious power. I won't bother you with thousands of pics, but please indulge me if I cannot resist to show you the burial of Alfonso VIII of Castile and his wife Eleanor of England (daughter of Henry II and Elaenor of Aquitaine, sister of Richard the Lionheart):

Just a nod for you, my dear British fellas

Alfonso VIII led the battle of Navas de Tolosa, and in the Abbey is kept since then what is believed to be the banner of the Almohad Caliph Al-Nasir:

 

This thing is huge. 3'2 x 2'2 meters

The Town Museum keeps the sword Tizona, which is traditionally identified as El Cid's weapon (sorry, no pic!), and the Museum of Human Evolution focuses on the archaeological site of Atapuerca, which is quite impressive indeed. No pics allowed on the actual fossiles, but we are talking about 28 separate individuals of Homo heidelbergensis, early Neanderthals, which is like a huge discovery.

The following shots (last ones, I promise) were taken on the town castle, built on the top of the hill and currently under a daring project of renovation works, as a metallic grid is being put in place to show how the original structure was.

The entrance. Tiny Suberlings for scale reference purposes

The grid, showing he bulk of the original construction

A better view of the grid

 Well, I'm restraining myself of flooding you with more pics, as I also don't want to distract you from the minis! I hope you enjoy all my mumblings, I'll be bringing more stuff anytime soon!