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Yeah, so I haven’t been blogging for awhile now. It happens around this time of year – from September to the start of December work really heats up. This year, I’ve pretty much been working every day at work, after work, on days off and on the weekends for the past few weeks – so I’m tired as <pick your profanity> right now.

What I did manage to do for the first month or so was keep on painting, if not blogging or taking many photos, or being active online. This is one of the things I managed to finish. The Reaper Bones pillars I worked on in October were in many ways a lead-in to this model, which I’ve painted for Tarmor, from the Dragons of Lancasm blog. At this point it’s actually been painted for… well, over a month. 6 weeks perhaps? I dunno. We don’t manage to catch up often due to work and conflicting schedules, and so hobby things tend to go between via some mutual friends, and with work the way it’s been I’ve seen less of them lately, and kept forgetting to pass it on when I have…




Almost every time I see this model, the above Simpsons quote pops into my head.



Dating from about 1985, This model is something of a rare breed these days – something I’ve painted for someone else, which is pretty much something I never do anymore. I just don’t have the time these days, and I have way too many models of my own – and I certainly don’t need the money that I used to get for commissions back in the 90’s anymore.



When I first saw the model, my initial thoughts were to do it in what I guess is a pretty “traditional” manner – painting the spine in bone, and firey red-orange bodies and tentacles crawling around the red eye. After a bit of quick reflection, I visualised pretty much the exact scheme I’ve actually painted it in. The spine and ribs sculpted out of a dark green marble, while ethereal spirits writhe around the eye of Sauron, which sucks the light from the creatures around it – providing a nice contrast, and an ersatz eye socket effect.



As the ethereals and the throne itself create a rather cold feel, the warm colours of the eye – the redness of the iris and the yellowed eyeball – create a nice contrast that makes The Eye of Sauron really stand out.



While basing is an important thing to consider, there was a kind of dichotomy at play here. I used a rolled-edge base as I wanted the throne to be raised up a little to represent its importance and also to protect the model – old lead chips easily. At the same time, I wanted the floor to be rather understated and generic – both so the model can be used in different settings and also so the actual throne remains the complete focus to the eye. To this end, I went with a simple texture on a rather dull grey. It will fit into dungeons and the like, or also outside if needed, with only a slight greenish tinge/glow to where the floor meets the edges of the ethereals.

Now I just need to get the thing across town to him…

Great to see you back!

That green marble effect looks wonderful

I feel you with regards to how busy these last months of the year are, happy to see you've made a return, no matter how small it may be.

Welcome back. That's a pretty wild model.

Thanks guys! Hopefully I'll manage to get a lot more posts up now, and get through the bits of stuff I've painted in the interim as well. Here’s a model I apparently completed last year. I figured this out because I just found the photos dated 4th July, 2015 in my “Orcs” folder.



I purchased this model back in the 1990’s, left it to sit in a box for a decade or so, and then started it – only to leave it in that part-painted limbo for a few further years. Given that it was completed last year in May-June, it would have been one of the initial models that led me to my “finish things off” push of the second half of 2015. Back int he day it was a Heartbreaker model, from the people who brought you WarZone 1st and 2nd edition. These days the model is owned or licenced by Ral Partha Europe, who prefer to be called RPE since they now have little to nothing to do with the original Ral Partha. Thankfully, we can safely ignore the convoluted backstory and still simply and easily just buy the model if we’re interested, along with its brethren. And no, I’m not affiliated or reimbursed by RPE – or anyone else for that matter!



The yellow and black dag pattern is something that dates the model as well. I probably wouldn’t do the same these days, I’d keep the copper/bronze scales, but the patterned trim would probably just be done in a quick and simple cadmium red-brown. Similarly, the skulls would probably be done in a metal – either copper or steel – rather than as carved bone. I’ve moved away from painting every skull or bone I see on armour as bone. Regardless, it’s a great armoured orc figure, and I feel that it still stands up well today. The default sculpt looks quite 2D, but simply bend-rotating the axe head forward helps that aspect out a lot.

I’ve been doing some rebasing of “leader”-type and larger figures onto 32mm bases of late. I’ll have to have a proper look and decide if this guy is an appropriate candidate…

That is a lovely Orc sculpt, just so much character. I like the dag pattern a lot, definitely a throwback to the 90's when they were all over Orcs and Orks but just too much work for me. I am of the strong opinion that almost everything looks better on 32mm bases, it just amuses me given the kerfuffle that surrounded the topic when they were released with the new BA Tactical kit.

Nice work on the throne, really 'eye catching'

Ork is cool, I really like the black/yellow dagger pattern.

EDC

I love the throne. Looks like something out of an Elric story.

I have been away too long... those dwarfs on the last page are awesome.

As are the minis on this page. Damn that chair is creepy. Hang in there, keep at it, low it off for another month or three, whatever best promotes your own mental well-being.

The throne is super creepy. Would be a fine addition to a dungeons and dragons set up.

Really like the ork. Could easily fit into a sci fi or fantasy setting quite easily.

I like heartbreaker minis - especially their goblins!

That chair is so cool! and your paint job certainly brings it to life (so to speak, it's a chair after all)

That throne is nicely creepy and weird. Good call with the colors.

It's interesting how the Citadel "house style" for orcs and Orks really influenced, and was influenced, by so many other ranges of the time. That mini, or the Black Tree Design orcs, work better with GW's 90s models than GW's current models!

Great work as always!

Thanks guys, finally finished work for the year and starting to try and find time to catch up on things now. I've still got to get that chair back to its owner, hopefully in the next week or two now. It's no wonder that a lot of the Heartbreaker orcs (and others) work so well with GW's 90's orcs - they're sculpted by the same guy. Kev Adams did a ton of work for other companies once he left GW, and he's still pretty much sculpting the same stuff now - for Foundry's new line.

And on that very me topic, I have a couple more orcs to share today. These were started god-only-knows how long ago (seriously, I have NO idea) and finished during the long period recently where I was too busy and burnt out by work to post much – but still doing what I could to get some painting in.



The smaller one is from 1993, so the early days of WHFB 4th edition. He’s definitely a variant sculpt to the commander to the 1992 Rock Lobber. I’ll have to find, build and paint it. I may have even painted the other crew in the past few years, so that should theoretically be an easy unit to reunite and complete. Anyway, he’s listed in the Black Catalogue 4 (1994 filled with 1993 models) as “Orc with Sword 4”.



The larger orc is found in the same catalogue. Called “Orc Big’Un with Mace”, this pair is clearly from the period where the interesting names of 3rd edition and before had been dropped to be replaced with upfront descriptions. I actually rebased him recently onto the 32mm, as there was quite a lot of overhand on the 25mm round I had him on. I plan to continue to drop large orc models onto the 32mm bases.

Both will eventually find use in various games including Kings of War, though I’m not sure what as exactly for the big guy. Their orc list is lacking pretty severely in decent analogues. When I recently read that KoW plans to add more units to the Orc and Goblin armies, I suggested to some members of the RC that they add something to represent the archetypes of “bigger meaner orcs” and “barbarian/berserker orcs” I was brushed off since they were clearly analogues to Big’Uns/Black Orcs and Savage Orcs, while they want to go in a more original direction. This from the people who started out by bringing us a range of alternative WHFB models for Orcs, Dwarfs, Elves, Chaos Dwarfs and followed up with the highly original Space Orx, Space Skaven, Forge Fathers (Space Dwarfs/Squats), and the Uncharted Empires book filled with rules for not-WHFB armies. I mean, I really do appreciate the rules, but don’t even pretend that there’s a precedent of being particularly original. I don’t actually begrudge Mantic their "not-" origins, nor do I begrudge any good attempts to make something new or turn an old “joke” concept into a new, interesting thing. The space skaven concept is ok, but the name "Veer'Myn"... it's right up there with "Mon'Keigh for primary-school level idiot humour.

To be fair, we’ve seen the old “Codex: Fishmen” joke work out well with both Tau (GW) and Naiads (Mantic). But instead of orc berserkers or badass huge orcs, giving us the pun-tastic "flying pigs" as their "original" alternative...

Hope you enjoyed my models and my Christmas Eve Mantic Rant!

Nice work on the orcs, as usual. I love the Gobbo Green skin, and envy the sculpted shields.

As far as the Mantic Orc army list, I'm pretty happy with it as it stands. Of course, my orcs are all Mantic models, the vast majority of which are from the KoW1 Kickstarter, so I don't really have anything that isn't represented. That said, couldn't you simulate savage orcs and Big 'Uns using magic items?

They are soooooo cool dude! I'm now going to go and see if I've got any

I miss the days when orcs looked like this.

Classic Orcs are awesome. Something about them was just fun and made a game which ostensibly violent and brutal just that little bit amusing and lighthearted.

Looking great! Ruglud's armoured orcs were my favourite orcs from around that time, sadly sold mine in the wilderness years for beer money

Thanks guys - I have a few more classic orcs on the way, but they got shoved to the side as I've kept starting up new models in the last few weeks. Also, at this point in time I'd like to wish you all and your families a Merry Christmas!

Josh - I might look into that, but it's a bit of a weak workaround that the RC keeps throwing up. Back when they were playtesting UC, I suggested a few variants for Werewolves since I have a pile of the Confrontation plastics, which can be armed with spears, or dual wielding, or other stuff. They agreed with me, but said that they probably wouldn't get around to it and so their suggestion was to use Magic Items. Which doesn't work so well when you have large armies (you know, KoW's whole thing) and more than 1 unit of that given type due to the 1x limit on magic items (especially with bloody werewolves being units of 3-6). They're also flat priced, rather than properly priced and balanced in the way that units of different sizes are.

The sculpted shields fit well with their belt buckles/stomach guard that has stylised suns/ogre face on them, which is why they both got them. I tried using the gemstone paint for the red on the shields to give them a richer, laquered look. The tragedies of youth, eh, Slinky? I sold off my entire, multi-platoon Imperial Army/Imperial Guard army made of 1e IA metals, 1.5e IG metals with plastic arms, original sentinels, a couple of squads of supporting squats, mole mortars and tarantulas... I bought my first Amiga secondhand with the funds off my sister's then-husband. Nothing like family to look after you and rip you off a little when you're young, eh?

Nice lookin' Orcs.

This is what I’d planned for my Spooky Halloween post! Zombies! Yes, I finished these that long ago. Instead, it’s my Boxing Day post, because… Zombies?

Now that I have some time off work, I’ll be able to take photos more frequently, and so once the small backlog of painted stuff is gotten rid of, I’ll be much more up to date. I’ve got a couple of mat reviews I’m keen to get onto as well, but it won’t be for a few more days that I get a chance to go out to the War Room and start cleaning it up (which it needs, bigtime!)

So anyway, these guys were started right on the heels of the second dozen zombies I painted for KoW, back around May. While the plan originally called for a fourth set to follow these – making either 4 regiments or 2 hordes in KoW terms, my Zombienthusiasm is pretty much completely sapped now, as opposed to fired up after finishing the first dozen Zombies. The Mantic figures are nice ones, but there are so few interesting combinations, even with Mantic’s Ghoul parts thrown into the mix.



As you can see, I went even further afield for kitbash parts on these guys. The additional parts beyond the Mantic Ghouls this time came from Mantic’s Sci-Fi zombie sprue, the new(ish) Citadel Ghouls, and two crawlers drawn from Wargames Factory’s Zombie Vixen set who can be seen at either extreme of the crawlers above. I wanted a little bit of gender representation, and the closest I could really find were the WGF set, which is, well, a little average. The figures are a little bit too sexualised overall, but more importantly are verrry spindly compared to even the Mantic models, so the only ones that really were able to fit in were a couple of crawlers. As you can see above, I finally found that errant model that went missing from the very first dozen, and so he got finished as well alongside these guys – next to his twin. I guess the next batch will only need to be 11 zombies, then. My favourite amongst these 5 has to be the one reaching for the sky. I rotated the “base” and added a bloodied femur out front this time to give a different “sitting down” look rather than just going with the usual crawler setup as I did with the wonder twins next to him.



The second rank has what are probably two of my favourite zombies of all the ones I’ve painted. The gruesome fellow dragging along half of a well-chewed corpse, and one I call “go home zombie, you’re drunk!”. The stein comes from a plastic GW dwarf kit while the arm-with-meal comes from the current GW zombie kit, as does the ruined face which fits zombies much more than ghouls for me at least. The legs on the two leftmost models both come from Mantic’s sci-fi zombies kit, but they’re generic enough to fit in here. I’ve continued to simply use dark grey/black rags for my zombies rather than a more realistic option of mixed clothing for equal parts “night horror” and “army colours” reasons.



Finally, we have the rear rank. An overly-hunched over female sci-fi zombie torso and head, another dismembered pair of legs (because I am nothing if not economical with my model parts!), another sci-fi zombie torso mounted on fantasy legs and super-dynamic zombie. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the camera low enough to really capture the details of all their heads and faces. The sci-fi model chewing on …something is an odd duck, with poorly-defined details, so you’re not quite sure if he has a gigantic mutant mouth or has a normal one and is simply pulling the sinewy muscle up from his hands. I just covered the whole mess in blood in the end and stopped worrying about it.



And now we finish up in the usual manner. Group shot and unit shots. Once I get at least another dozen zombies done, I’ll take another big group shot of the two hordes. After doing a fourth dozen Mantic zombies, I’ll probably do some Citadel zombies and see how a couple dozen of that very different style of model turns out.

Very nice zombies. I particularly like the slight variations in skin tones. It gives a hint of individuality that zombies don't usually have. I have to agree with you on the gut-munching Dz zombie. From the front, he's obviously eating someone, but it's impossible to make out any detail from the side. It's the same complaint I've had about all the HIPS models I've worked on this year--two part molds have to sacrifice lateral details that metal or restic can keep.

You, Theo and Thraxas are delving into some pretty hefty zombie obsessions... Such heresy must be dealt with!

Great stuff, Azazel. Say what you will about Mantic, but their Zombies are fantastic.

Thanks guys - I like to vary the skin tones in an attempt to keep myself a bit more interested. It helps to break up the monotony of painting essentially the same things over and over - it's the same reason I keep delving into the bits boxes to find alternative heads and arms and such for them.

I agree AoV - I think their zombies are probably their best models. Certainly right up there, as I haven't yet seen the newest Warpath stuff, nor painted the last KoW stuff, but I'd put them above the Lesser Abyssals and the Lizardmen for sure (and both of those are decent kits). I just wish they had more options!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hm, I just looked up my painting "numbers" for this year and last year.

Last year I got 388 done.
This year so far I have 367 done - so over the "base" target of 365, but 20 short of beating 2015. Unless I can get a lot more done in the next 5 days...

Loving the Willem Dafoe zombie.

Thanks. I'd like to say that he was built with Platoon in mind, but it was just a lucky coincidence (and I noticed it once he was built, too! )

Next up is something a little different to the norm. A bloke at work, who I’ll call “Cannon” and I accidently found out that we both collect and paint toy soldiers last year, when I happened to be carrying a few LotR models past him at work and he was “hey, what are those?” and then to my shock recognised them as LotR models. Sometime earlier this year, he gave me a pile of spare Vikings, in what I think was at least partly an attempt to get me to paint something non-fantasy. There were some nice figures in there, and they’re a mixture of Eureka, Foundry, Crusader, Gripping Beast and possibly others. I’m really not sure of all of their origins, so I’ll have to ask him to let me know which are which so I can properly tag them.

So without any further ado, here’s the start of my SAGA Viking force (and also my KoW Historical Viking force)



A lot of the more subtle highlighting on these guys just hasn’t come out in the photographs, particularly on the shields here. The guy on our left is a Eureka Miniatures model, but I’m not sure about his blurry-faced friendo. Shields are both freehand, and in retrospect I probably should have done something fancier on the red-and-white since he’s got a real leader feel to him, but he was the figure I painted first, so I wasn’t yet confident in freehanding Viking shield designs.



While there’s plenty out there regarding Viking shield designs, you’d think that figuring out realistic Viking clothing colours would be a reasonably easy task, but it was much, much harder than I expected. I noticed initially that Foundry et al have their models painted in much the same way as their Celts – all stripey trousers and colourful patterns. I wasn’t so sure, so in doing some research online, I found quite a bit of contradictory stuff. The TV show “Vikings” had at least one full-time researcher, but then, it’s a TV show. Of course, some random guy on the internet decided to “big man” himself when I dared in a forum to suggest the show as one potential source of painting inspiration and bothered to lecture me on how everything in it was wrong. I guess he must have been there in the 10th century.



In the end, I decided to avoid the whole “stripey trousers” look entirely. I’ve got Celts to paint down the line and so they can have the plaid and stripes. I’ve kept the Vikings to solid colour for the most part, with a mixture of bright colours (especially on shields) and more muted, earthy tones.



I’ve got a pile of plastics to paint later, so I’ve decided to go richer overall in tone with the metal models. These models are where I’ll draw my Warlords, heartguard and other elites from, and so these guys are much more the professional Viking “soldier” and more likely to have visited Albion on “shopping sprees” as well as travelled the Mediterranean or even served as Varangian Guard. Based on these loose ideas, the metal models are much more likely to be wealthy and so afford more colourful clothing, as well as richer shades of colour. The two blokes below really fit that ethos to a tee.



The Foundry models are in the typical chunky style, but have a lot of character to them. There’s a bit of Brian Blessed (in a ginger wig) to the right guy, and they’re both the sort of figures that Space Wolves seem to want to channel. I’ve got a couple of half-painted Wolves squads I should finish one day as well… and some more actual Wolves half-assembled.



I enjoyed the freehand designs on these guys. I’m especially proud of the raven. The cross designs look a little wonky, but the photos are of course blown up to quite a few times their actual size, so look much straighter in person. I decided that I might well use transfers on a lot of the Viking models, but all of the metal models would get freehand shields. Even when doing “red” cloaks, I’m trying to avoid the bright reds of my fantasy models in favour of darker, slightly earthier reds – while maintaining the richness of colour.



The group shot. These guys could comprise of half a KoW regiment, but more importantly, Warlord, hearthguard and a spare model) in SAGA. These initial six were finished back in October and so are a belated Tale of Gamers Paint challenge photo entry. I’ve got another batch of five just waiting on their last man before I show them, and a few more now on the paint desk.

Those look really cool buddy Nice job!

Love the bird design on the ginger guy's shield.

Looking good!

I think you do need to tart up the warlord's shield - his underlings will never respect him otherwise

Nice and clean, with a good amount of contrast in there to make them pop without looking like an eyesore.