Gaslight

Some time back a fellow by the name of Lacerto posted photos of a couple of models he had put together that included light-up lamp posts. So when I saw that the Batman minis game included lamp posts as objectives, I decided to get some to light up.

These were actually the fastest light-up models I've ever put together; that's largely because the model and LED are already done so all I needed to do was the base, and partly because I've done enough bases in this style that it doesn't take me as long anymore.

I sculpted the bases to try to match the Knight Models minis I've been putting together recently came on, although on the second lamp post I experimented with a slightly more complex herringbone pattern; I think it looks much better than the first and better captures the "urban ruins" look I was going for.

The lamp posts had to be black, and I decided to just leave them in flat black for simplicity and because I didn't think I could make them look any better if I tried to shade and highlight them; I think lamp posts tend to look pretty flat in real life after all. I'm using a warm brown colour scheme for my bases as I'm expecting to use lots of cool colours for the models.

The lamp post models look good, but I after assembling the second one I discovered that the little cross-bars are quite flimsy; I snapped one off almost without noticing and had to replace it with a pinhead. It wasn't an exact match, but I figured it was good enough and I couldn't be bothered to try to fabricate anything more complex.

I'm happy with the lamps; I think that despite being very simple they give a lot of atmosphere. Here they are with some ninjas that I speed-painted. Taking "dark" photos is hard, I'm afraid these two are the best that I managed:

I really love the poses on these minis, really the most dynamic Ninja miniatures I've seen. However, the models aren't exactly covered in detail; that's not a complaint or anything, the level of detail looks completely appropriate and adding more details just for the sake of would probably have made them look stupid.

The point is that I didn't feel like it was worth putting too much effort into this bunch since they are just henchmen and the models are a little plain, so I basically just basecoated the cloth with Codex Grey, the armour with Vallejo Model Colour "Black Grey", drybrushed them both with Vallejo Model Colour "White Grey", then washed both with Badab Black. The skin was painted with Elf Flesh then washed with Ogryn Flesh. I think the wood was Skrag Brown with wood grain painted on in in Bleached Bone, then washed with Devlan Mud or Ogryn Flesh - I don't really remember to be honest. The ground was Doombull Brown drybrushed with Blazing Orange then washed with Devlan Mud.

Thanks to their lack of detail and my super-simple paint scheme, they took far less time per model than is usual for me. The cloth and armour are closer in final colour than I expected considering how different the base colours were, but overall the models look good enough for tabletop-quality Ninja henchmen in my opinion.

Their names are, from left to right:
- Ninja 01
- Ninja 02
- Ninja 03
- Lars Andersen

If you don't know who Lars Andersen is, look him up on Youtube. He is somewhat unusual in that he shoots from the outside of the bow, hence my naming the archer Ninja after him.