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Spine guy! :-) my favorite!

That spine.. ugh. grisly stuff. Good job.

Thanks everyone! These guys were actually a really fun and easy unit to paint.

@EDC - it's a nice touch the way Mantic added those parts to the sprue. Very much gives the opportunity to add some extra character and humour to the models.

@weety - thanks. I wanted the OVs to be clearly the same as the normal WoMT but a bit different, and add some visual ties to the rangers as well. And yeah, the dismembered parts add a nice "bulking out" ability to the sprue.

@Josh - I'm happy with the way they came out, and it was surprisingly easy to do. A lack of complex clothing - skin, loincloths and viscera is a pretty easy combination. I'm trying to work on some Mantic Skeletons and finding it to be a real chore/ordeal since the detail is both really fine and really shallow. The Zombies are much, much nicer to work on.

@AOV - I'm assembling another dozen of them now, and the plan is to use a couple of different base skin tones to this next batch (and I guess later batches as well) so they're varied without being too unrealistic. I haven't even looked at my sci-fi ones since boxing them up when they arrived. I suppose I should keep some sprues of these ones clear so I can combine them with the sci-fi ones.

@Theo - no problem mate, my own productivity is doing well - the drawback I'm finding is that I run out of time to work on anything but Gondor or Undead models, due to the personal goals I set up for myself. Round 2 (July-December) will be a bit looser for me, I think. 1x Gondor to get me to finish all of those models, and 1x "a unit from anywhere else." So I can complete other things and keep myself interested. As for painting at work, I don't paint "while working" - I get 2 breaks during the day - a tea break for 15mins which works out to be about 7 mins once I've gone potty and got to the break room, so it's a fast coffee and sitting down for about 3-4 minutes; and a 30min lunch break, which once again works out to about 25mins if I'm lucky, so I just go to a quiet room that's unused during lunchtimes and paint for about 20mins (if I'm lucky.)

@Ian - That's always the problem - so much to do so it's a real balance issue to go back and redo the old stuff. I've got DR, though I haven't played it yet, I've read through some of the rules. We've started trying to work out SAGA lately - that's the biggest obstacle - being the guy who has to read the rules, understand them and then teach everyone else in the group....

@nerdy and ckig - it's a great little touch, isn't it? Full credit to Mantic/Naismith for that one!

The Zombie/Ghoul ickiness looks spectacular. Will look fantastic shambling around the battelfield.

On the Blood for the Blood God effect paint; how is it to work with? I have an idea for the Khorne Aligned 40k army I want to do and was wondering how it would look if I painted 60-80% of a model that had already been painted with it? You know to try and give the effect that they had been coated in a film of blood? Or would it be too much?

Excellent stuff Az, gruesome and cool at once. Having painted some 160 odd Mantic Zombies in my time I never thought that I would be happy to see them again but these look great.

The BFTBG is a bit thicker than regular paint. I feel like it would probably be a bit much, though a test model would always see if it gives the effect you're after. You can always add quite a lot to certain areas, and then go heavy on the old toothbrush flick, though...

160 Zombies? Holy crap, no wonder you never want to see one ever again!

I think there are other, more difficult, methods that would be superior for head-to-toe gore Archer. I feel bftbg really shines (literally, its quite glossy) on bloody accents such as claws and teeth, obvious wounds, and extremely fresh blood. It's quite thick but its interesting. It's not 'exactly' like thick normal paint, the consistency let's you pool it up for deep gloppy shiney chunky gore, and spread it thin and streaky for a different look all in the same application.

Azazelx, great stuff! Awesome zombies even if you did give 'the dip' some cheek. . Very pale and ghastly, I like that especially after doing so many of my own 'brown for some reason ' dudes.

I gets out the same downtime at work too. I just thought you might be some type of cubical worker where the bosses never come around to see what your up to .

Theophony wrote: Fellow DakkaDakka users,

Azazelx has asked me to stop in here to speak for him as he has been dealing with an unexpected family tragedy over the last week. For those who have been following for the past few months you may have read in his blog, or here about the ongoing health concerns of his father, but this event is not related to those occurrences and was a severe shock to him and his loved ones. He has returned back to work and has begun browsing the threads again, but is not ready to participate in discussions right now so it may be a short time until we see or hear from him. He will elaborate when he can but currently he just needs to get back to normal so he will not be updating his thread or the tale of 35 gamers thread for a short time.

He does not want to tie up his blog with well wishes or condolences from everyone, though he know that we as fellow DakkaDakka members are right behind him 100%. He also does not feel like elaborating at the moment as to what has transpired, or even to answer well meaning questions as he is trying to make sense of it himself currently.

Thank You everyone for your thoughts and prayers at this time. I'm sure Azazelx appreciates them. In his absence lets fill some pages of DakkaDakka threads with some great eye candy for him to view when he needs to take his mind off of his current situation.

Theophony

So the last couple of weeks has been exceedingly unpleasant, with one of the least pleasant aspects of life making a sudden and unwelcome appearance. I stopped painting for a little while, but wanting to get back to normal, I've started again. The first figures I painted haven't been varnished yet, so I'll show them in a week or so. In the meantime, my group got together a few days ago and gave Fortune and Glory, an Indiana Jones-styled boardgame set in the late 1930's a go. We just used the basic rules, since we were learning them.


(Nazi Zeppelin. Insert Hindenberg-related joke here.)

The basic rules don't actually use Villain characters - or more relevently to this post - the Nazi Zeppelin or the Aztec-styled pyramids. However, when we were packing up after midnight - after having the win stolen from me by Marouda, and then from her by Orez - I noticed that some of the little model-tokens would paint up exceedingly easily. So I made that a mini-project to knock over quickly.


(Reverse shot of the Zep. Now add your Page/Plant jokes.)

The Zeppelin actually has those little swastikas sculpted into the tail fins. Not that I'm squeamish about that sort of thing, as I play historical games, do a bit of historical study and have a pretty clear understanding on who the "bad guys" were. One day I'll actually get some Bolt Action Germans painted up as well. The Zep isn't an amazing model - it's very much a boardgame piece. I had a little bit of a play with the base and flying stem to give an impression of terrain and sky, but I'm not going to knock myself out turning out a piece of art. Likewise with the highlighting and shading on the Aztec temples.



The Mesoamerican/Aztec-style Pyramids got painted in a sandstone-ish style. Not necessarily entirely accurate, though in some photos on Google Image Search they can indeed look like this - but mainly because a bit of colour looks better for game pieces.



(A promotional still from Fortune and Glory - The Colourised Adventures.)

And here is how they might look when being played. I've given them a solid coat of gloss varnish, followed up by matte. There's a bunch of Nazi and Mobster models as well. I'll probably paint the Nazis as brownshirts rather than as DAK, and the mobsters in simple black "mobster suits". I imagine that both would be pretty simple to do, but I'll get to them later. Probably.

Looks really neat, I think we have a native blimp lover around here somewhere .

And welcome back

Hey Az, nice to see you back after a rough time mate :-( a little bit of normality in painting can be cathartic and I hope you're doing o.k.

Painting the board game models makes them that much nicer. The board looks great.

Welcome back

They look fantastic on the board surface. Makes it that much more immersive. I have lost count of the number of board games I have played. But it has never occurred to me actually paint any of them.

Welcome back, hope "real life" things improve soon :(

Those tiny swastikas are very neatly done

Hey man, glad to see you back, some cracking stuff as usual

It is nice to have some painting to lean on whilst "real-life" things are proving difficult. Just do what you have to and we will be here waiting Az.

Awesome dirigible and pyramids . Sorry to hear about the RL stuff :(

Thanks for the kind words, all. The F&G models are really nothing special, but that sort of thing just helps to make simple things like a boardgame pop a little more. Hopefully I can get some varnishing done tonight so I can show some of the other things I've been working on soon.

Even as Gandalf and Pippin ran forward, they heard from within the house of the dead the voice of Denethor crying : 'Haste, haste! Do as I have bidden! Slay me this renegade! Or must I do so myself?' Thereupon the door which Beregond held shut with his left hand was wrenched open, and there behind him stood the Lord of the City, tall and fell; a light like flame was in his eyes, and he held a drawn sword.


This model is of course a likeness of John Noble as Denethor, Steward of Gondor. Sculpted by one of the Perrys from memory, this figure was released shortly after Return of the King was released, and is now sadly discontinued. It's quite a good likeness, especially given the truescale nature of the model.


As Denethor is a rather understated model despite being fairly important in the story of LotR, I wanted to make him stand out in some way - even if he's far from a must-have combat machine like his sons. I attempted to do so by mounting him on a back-to-base-ix resin base to raise his stature a little above the rank and file of Gondor. I painted the base as stained white stone - perhaps some of the ruins of Osgilliath? A little bit of ivy and a couple of tufts add the little colour to what is otherwise a very monochromatic model.


I started painting Denethor sometime years ago, but never really got far beyond the black. Last year, I started working on him and got his cloak to a point where I was quite happy with it. I then gave it a black wash to bring it back down and unify it, which just fething wrecked the whole thing. You know when you hear about people having a bad mistake happen to a model and then throwing it in the bin? That kind of thing. More recently, I worked on him a little again, this time stalling out due to still being frustrated by the wash wrecking it last time, but it's been sitting on my painting desk, and is one of the models I had specifically in mind when starting this challenge. Given the month that it's been, I decided to work on Denethor this last weekend so I'd have something "legal" finished for the painting challenge in the Gondor category..



I've tried to replicate Noble's 5 o'clock shadow and also distinguish the shades of black/grey/white between his cloak, the fur lining and his hair. Noble can look quite pale and gaunt in colour in some stills from the film, though in others his face is much closer to normal. I tried replicating that, but I felt that he was already monochrome enough, so I added a subtle amount of colour back into his face.

Aside from obvious scenario-based uses in LotR games, Denethor can also make an appearance with my Army of Gondor on the Kings of War battlefield. Possibly as a "Wizard", where the Fireball spell could represent Denethor directing artillery fire onto his chosen target, Bane-Chant representing his oratory driving his troops to greater valour on the field of battle, and so forth...

That is awesome Azazel. The paint job makes him look very much like John Noble in the ROTK movie.

Sorry to double post, but superb job and as someone who has made that "black wash error" I know the pain, but don't think my recovery was anywhere near as good as this. Be proud. Well done.

Great stuff, you can definitely see the scratchy beard-shadow.

Denethor looks good, and I like your idea for giving the model a battlefield presence.

Oh wow, looking at him compared to the picture you nailed it! he even has the stubble as well!

Nice work on Denethor, he looks brill.

EDC

Thanks! That's one of the things I really like about KoW's level of abstraction - ideas like the one above for Denethor can pass the "hm, seems legit" test and work in practice and stay in context for both the character and the army.

You certainly nailed Denethor. Whomever the actor is nailed the part in the film, it was my favourite performance in the LOTR trilogy. He was great in Sleepy Hollow ( the TV series) as well and you have captured him perfectly... mentally imbalanced and delusional.

Splendid work on what I reckon is actually one of the nicest and most understated LotR character models. The scowl, the hunched pose and bunched cloak really do give the sculpt an air of menace that your painting had definitely brought out!

Nicely painted! you have succeeded in your goal Az, looks like the pic, stubble looks like the pic, robes look like the pic...... i'd say it's the 'pic' of the bunch :-)