The Forest - Paint Progress

My local hardware store is out of 3mm MDF so besides purchasing some more hairspray, the terrain building is on hold.  I need 3 sets of terrain:

Ruined towns on the outskirts of The Forest (mysteriously missing townsfolk, or all turned to zombies, or mass graves found - you know the drill). Kinda have this already.

Forest terrain - with some ruins a la Amon Hen whence to access the deeper dark ruins buried beneath. Pending - when the local Bunnings learns to restock its shelves.

Dungeon/ruins/underworld level - where the best and most powerful, malignant relics are to be found. This was a recent project and it's super easy to whip up more.

 

These Fireforge undead peasants were a fantastic addition to my collection and will do duty for fantasy/medieval into the Napoleonic period. They are very versatile sculpts and have lots of leftovers for me to kitbash... I now have about 60-70 various generic undead (skellies, ghouls, zombies, vampires etc) which is a pretty good 'base' for the project. Now I can just get random stuff that catches my fancy. 

I have had success with a $10 botle of premade water/resin stuff on the bases for puddles so I will be adding some muddy pools and swamp areas to my forest floor. Still not 100% sure if I'm going to attach trees directly onto a big scenic base (where they will be removable) or individually base the trees (so they are freestanding atop a scenic base). I've got a bucketload of pines and model railroad trees from a decade ago; they were abandoned when they "shed" too much green flecks but my daughter offered her hairspray which apparently is a good way to fix Christmas trees. (My Christmas is about 35 decrees Celsius so I wouldn't know). 

 

I had some Dire Wolves 3D printed as 5 for $20 is better than 9 for $82...  Especially if you only need 5. These serve as generic corrupted monsters but also can do double duty in a Mordheim-esque warband.
 

Some vampires and necromancers who also serve a dual role - as an "encounter" in The Forest or as warband leaders and heroes. I have now painted all my recent purchases. 395 + this week's 30 = 425 minis painted in 2026 since I started counting. 

Miniature Hunt. I am also trying to create enemies for each biome.  I'm keeping an eye out at the local toy store for animals that can be based/repainted/kitbashed. I'm free to make up my own stuff. The twisted energies of the wyrdstone relics in the Forest as well as radiation zones corruption make a looooot of mutants (I'm channelling a fair bit of STALKER: Pripyat meets Mordheim in my ideas). So some toy dollar-store leopard may sprout the odd tentacle...

I'd welcome any suggestions for cheap or cool forest enemies. I see Wargames Atlantic has a farmyard kit to give your vikings something to Pillage (pun intended), but I may have to get some 3D printed stuff. I need a bear/Bjorn anyway...  ...I'm pretty sure the local K Mart has some animal packs of animals and insects - a human-sized praying mantis would be an epic Forest predator...

 

 

The spiders are tiny plastic toys I found in the bottom of a terrain tub, now based to be a "swarm."  I've just watched The Hobbit so I've decided the spiders are all mildly sentient and will be a major part of the fauna of the Forest. I think the wraith is a 3D print freebie and the bats (maybe from a West Wind kit?) will serve in Middle Earth as well, after being discovered during another shed clean. 

 

Basing. I use very generic bases to allow myself to swap-and-choose among projects - usually a generic light brown and a generic grey/stone.  This is because I was trapped a bit by having lots of those Warmachine lipped 30mm bases - having 200+ of these meant I decided to base my Confrontation OOP minis like them...  and which has left my multi-role pulp minis on a bit of a limb in 30mm as well, not to mention many 30m-base monsters/zombies etc which would be fine vs historicals which I always base on the standard 25mm slotta. Then the Western minis also got 30mm - as I of course prefer Weird West and they fit pretty well with many of the more modern C3/WM models but they technically more akin to my 25mm based stuff... Agh.

 

New Arrivals. My Excel spreadsheet (which is referenced for compatibility) says a few sprues of female Frostgrave soldiers/barbarians etc to pad out my church/witch hunter/crusader/not-sisters-of-sigmar faction/s. Hopefully the heads will match my WA Guards/Conquistadors as I don't plan on getting a female version of anything in plate armour. Then maybe some WA demons to serve as darksouls and I will have pretty complete Mordheim undead and chaos warbands. Also they will make good ghostly suits of armour for the Forest. I'm eyeing some GW beastmen vs WA satyrs who can also double in my Greek mythological project (a long time in the future - I hate painting flesh or white). 

 

Dinosaurs Everywhere! I'm currently basing a lot of K-Mart toy dinos. They are painted with cheap poster paint. The bits of flocking and stuff I add plus the 50mm+ base will probably be the most expensive part of the mini. 

 

Yes, it's chaos at the moment, but currently my work table is fully extended (it folds up against the wall). I fold away a half and shut up my desk depending on how my wife's patience lasts. The whole lot folds up innocuously against the wall...  She tends to tolerate it if my painting output is high.

 

Anyway, the dinosaurs do double duty as well. They serve as mounts for my Perry psychic dino-knights (a longbow is quite effective vs a velociraptor) but will populate the world of the French Indian Dino Wars. Yep, the forest terrain (when I finally get it sorted) will also work out for my Dino Wars in the Age of Reason.  Inspired by the ambush scene from Last of the Mohicans, but with the thought "What if it was lizardmen, not Indians, and they were accompanied by dinosaurs they could mind-control?"

 

As a bonus, the Wargames Atlantic lizardmen (which should be winging on their way) will have spare heads, for my Forest cultists. I already have a spider cult with extra arms (I knew I kept those 2nd ed genestealer bitz for a reason!) so I reckon some lizard-headed cultist mutants will make for some fun rivals in the hunt for relics.....