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Are those mantic mummies? Your stuff looks good and you seem to be making quick progress

Undead are looking great

I also like your almost glowy blue aesterians, I tried something like that with dark eldar back in the day but it didn't pan out.

Carlos: Yeah, I should have mentioned that. Everything in that post is from the Kings of War Kickstarter.

GrimDork: Thanks for the kind words. I wish I could say the result was intentional, but the glowy look is mostly an artifact of the paint being so thin...

Great stuff as always Josh! And, as always, your production is putting my meagre output to shame! I hope you get a chance to get some games in at some point with all those lovelies!

Valete,

JohnS

Nice stuff here. Love seeing so many mantic blogs. I especially like the trolls. I have a box of my own that I haven't painted up yet. Yours might have just inspired me!

I haven't updated this blog in three weeks, but I have actually been quite busy. Shortly after I posted all those photos of undead, I received (almost) all of the stuff I pledged for in the MYTH kickstarter. While I have yet to play (of course), I have been enjoying the models. First up: heroes.







Unlike pretty much everything else in this blog, I took my time with these, and used more layering/highlighting than just washes. The heroes are nifty little models, very characterful and easy to paint, plus since they'll be on the tabletop for the entire game, I wanted them to look a little better than "acceptable tabletop." The standouts for me were the Acolyte and the Brigand, while the Archer probably could have used a little more touch-up work on the original sculpt.

Next: Orcs.




For all of the monsters and captains, I am sticking with the base-color-then-wash technique, and doing them all the same. I painted the little guys in about three hours spread over as many days, and the captains took about two hours each, including drying time. They came out pretty well, I think, especially considering how quickly they will die in the game.

Last: Arachnids.




These were even simpler than the Orcs, because I'm treating them as giant, monotone bugs. I prettied-up the venom sacks on the Spitters (or whatever they are called), but otherwise they are just brown. Specifically, Army Painter Monster brown on the carapace, ivory on the bellies, then hit with a homemade glaze of Floquil Burnt Umber and Black in a solution of Painting Medium.

I have the bosses for each faction sitting on my painting station, freshly washed and slowly, slowly drying. After those are finished, I'll crank out another 16 of each minion and 3 of each captain and be ready to play!

I should mention: the bases are unfinished because I'm not sure what to do with them. The tiles in the game represent a variety of settings, and I don't want the bases to clash. I will most likely transfer them to clear acrylic bases, but that won't happen until after the new year, for financial reasons.

The third shipment for Deadzone arrived last week, adding another 6.4 kg of unpainted minis to the collection. I'm trying to focus on getting Mars Attacks playable, but I wanted to at least try one of the new plastic Enforcers. I decided to do one plastic and one restic side-by-side for comparison. Here they are assembled. I'll post again to show the final results.




The new plastics are bulkier than the old restic versions, but I found this first one a little more difficult to assemble. I matched right leg A, left leg A, and torso A, and holding them in place long enough for the cement to weld the parts was just a little challenging. The arms were more challenging, as there is no easy way to tell which arms fit together. I think I got it right, but the shoulders are rolled a little to far forward, in my opinion.

The restic version was easier to put together, mostly because I've already done 40 other ones. I cut the integrated base off to put him on a PDC plastic base. I dipped the waist in hot water before fitting the torso, so I didn't have to shave any material off. Instead of pinning the shoulders, I glued the left arm on the the gun, then did the hot water thing to fit the arms to the shoulder sockets. As I write this, the Gesso (which I prime everything with after reading the dakka article) is drying. I'll put the basecoat and wash on later this morning.

Looking forward to it. So you are liking the Gesso? Can you use the white? I usually prime in batches and it seems like using gesso would slow that down.. but i've heard good things.

I use both black and white Gesso, depending on what base color I'll be using. Just like regular primers, I suppose. I'm prejudiced against spray primers mostly due to my negative experiences with Ral Partha spray primer back when that was a thing. The gesso brushes on easily and sticks to anything, and it goes on thin enough that I don't worry about clumping or obscuring details. Of course, bushing takes longer than spraying, so if you want to get a lot done in a short time, it's probably not the best.

Here are the Enforcers after 1)a basecoat of Tamiya NATO green, 2)devlan mud wash, 3)drybrush of NATO green, then NATO green/bleached bone (70:30). then NATO green/bleached bone (50:50). The guns are a Vallejo medium grey, with a wash of Army Painter dark tone.




Strangely, the restic Enforcer has sharper details than the plastic version. On the tabletop, it shouldn't make much difference, but up close it's quite striking. Also, I like the more angular restic guns better than the rounded plastic version.

I think the original design is superior in several ways but I like the knees and weapon style for the new ones. They're also a a fair bit easier to clean up and magnetize. Gonna eventually have a bunch of both though

Thanks for sharing, they look good.

I have decided to change the focus of this pblog to non-army specific miniatures, since I'm doing so much with board game plastic and I don't want to start a whole new thread.

Today's update: Myth!

I actually did a lot of painting over the winter, but haven't gotten around to photographing anything until now. Back in November, I had an intellectual breakthrough after reading the Myth v1 rulebook about twenty times, and I became convinced that there is a pretty fun game hidden in the rules. My enthusiasm prompted me to cranks out the following minis in November/December:



Here we have the alternate-gender Bandit and Archer. The rat-guy was fun/easy to paint, but I the human bandit is just as good, I think. The female archer is posed really weird, but the male is pretty non-descript.



These are the alternate-gender Acolyte and Apprentice. I am making an effort to do more non-Caucasian skin tones where possible to keep mysef from getting bored. The OSL on this version of the Apprentice turned out pretty well, I think. The secret seems to be: Go Big.



Orcenas, Master of Masters! This guy will do double duty as a giant for my KoW Orcs and Goblins army.



The Terror With 1,000 Legs! A nice Lovecraftian beastie. It doesn't really show in the photos, but the grubs are gloss-coated to make it seem like they just burrowed out of the big beastie's body.



The Razorfiend! The face turned out pretty derpy, but that matches the concept art pretty well. In fact, this sculpt is more faithful to the original concept than pretty much any other mini in my collection. Kudos the the sculptor, I guess.



Yardu! This guy makes a nice ogre-sized undead monster. He was fun to paint.

You will no doubt have noticed that I haven't done anything with the bases. That's because I'm not sure what to do abou the atrocious gaps some of the minis with narrow stances end up with. Clear acrylic? Kneadatite? Just ignore them? The jury is still out...

CLEAR ACRYLIC

Sorry, biased.

Stuff looks great! Some of the monsters are a bit cartoony for my taste, but the painting on everything looks quite good. The purple guy doesn't look so much derpy to me, kind of terrifying actually. The eyes creep me out. I just hope he runs slow with those teeny legs

Interesting. He does look purple in the photos. He's blue-grey in person.

I suppose the Razorfiend is a little scary, in a slope-brow, slack-jaw, lazy-eye way. He must be from some cannibal hillbilly monster tribe.

The Myth stuff I posted previously was from the end of 2014. I took a break over the New Year's holiday, and then finally broke open my Mars Attacks! box. Here are the results:



The human soldiers are nice enough for their size and material. I figured they'll be dying in droves, so I just went with a basecoat/wash technique, with some token camouflage. After finishing them, I began to regret not getting more of them. Ah, well, there is no shortage of modern army minis out there, and some variety will be nice.



Ashely and Phil. Ashley was supposed to be at prom, so I gave her a white tuxedo jacket that she borrowed from her date. Note that the piping matches her dress. Not much to say about Phil, except that the glasses don't really work. I filled in the lenses with white glue, but it dried clear. Maybe another layer?



Deke and Edwyn. Deke was one of the first heroes that I painted from this set, so I put a little more effort into him. He has the same basic uniform as the soldiers, but with some mismatched accessories, probably from the army surplus shop. Edwyn was one of the last from this set, so I kind of half-a$$ed him. I straightened his sword before priming, but it went right back. Oh, well.



Eva and Troy. I painted Eva like a Pima County Sherrif's Deputy, rather than the standard blue. Troy's black-and-greym ensemble was too boring, so I gave him green hair and red shoes to make him more interesting visually.



Buddy and Brandi. Buddy's long sleeves seemed inconsistent with a Hawaiian shirt, so I made it flannel instead. Brandi has a leather skirt, and teeny-tiny eyes that were too hard to pick out.



Finally, Joe. I like this guy. His Goober Pyle cap, the tool belt, the overalls, the giant pipe wrench. Everything about his is delightful.

All in all, I like working with boardgame plastic. Restic or metal gives better detail, but BG plastic is harder and easier to clean up than restic.

Next up: Martians!

Great work I especially like your work on Ashley and Buddy/Brandi.

The check shirt is very impressive. Good job, sir.

How did you do the check mate?

I followed this tutorial, substituting green for the blue.

Thanks mate

Yesterday, I posted photos of the human soldiers and heroes from Mars Attacks. Now it's time to show the martians:




Twenty Martian grunts. I followed this tutorial , except that I didn't bother highlighting anything. The only missing item from MA was the helmets that were supposed to come with the starter box. I had these guys sitting in the case with bare heads for almost two months, and I thought they looked fine like that. When I put their helmets on, I changed my mind. The little domes really make the models.




The two Martian heroes got essentially the same treatment as the grunts, with just a little more detailing. I put a lot more work into the gold guy than I did for the silver guy, but it's hard to tell from arm's length.



In addition to the minis, I also cranked out three MA "battlezones" and one accessory sprues-worth of scenery. I used the Talk Wargaming technique, substituting Mr. Color's Russet because I can get it locally. MA scenery has one big advantage over DZ Battlezones: they come de-sprued. I have two giant boxes full of battlezones on sprue taking up space in the closet and causing marital strife.





These are just some close up shots. I have one more set of buildings to assemble and paint, including the chain-link fence and the stuff that attaches to the sides of the buildings, and I think three of the Antocenti sets as well. Those will have to wait until I get a little further along on the samurai , though.

Very nice work. Inspiration to get me to finish my own set.

As I mentioned in my other blog, I had a handful of minis sitting, staring at me, preventing me from starting a new unit of Samurai. I finished them yesterday.



The alternate-gender Soldier from Myth. This is a really boring mini that I just couldn't make myself pick up and paint. It doesn't help that it's a furry wet-dream. Why didn't they just make a woman wearing armor carrying a sword?



The minotaur mini-boss, also from Myth. A nice enough model, I suppose. A little busy, and I have a bunch of classic Citadel minotaurs that I like more, which helped kill my motivation. It looks pretty good finished up, though.



And a pair of Asterians. Identical to all the other ones I have, which made them quick to paint once I finally got started.

having knoccked them out, I can get back to working on the samurai, linked in my blog below.

Colours work very well on the Asterians. The dark blue looks sinister.

Yep definitely still liking the Asterians. The cat person and minotaur are both nice too, though I could see why they may not be your favorites

Two Christmases ago, I picked up two Mantic Crazy Boxes. I got some neat stuff, but also some things I would never have a use for, including a couple of Loka miniatures. One is a wizard/druid-looking guy, the other is an angel of some sort. Digging through the boxes, it occured to me I could use the latter as a piece of terrain:





The statue was painted with Vallejo Old Gold, then given a heavy wash made from turquoise pastel chalk and water, followed by a slightly drier wash of light green chalk. I followed up with a drybrush of Old Gold. The base is a green marble effect that I found somewhere on Youtube. This will make a nifty piece of scatter terrain for just about any system, and it gets one completely random miniature used.

And here's a fun little bonus piece: an Ultramarine, painted by my 5-year old son (with some touch-ups by me):




I have little-to-no interest in playing 40K ever again, but I still have piles and piles of 40K minis. The boy can practice on these relatively simple miniatures and build up his own little army without spend anything. It's kind of fun to watch him stage little adventures for the minis he paints.

Statue works well, good job.

The space marine looks good too, probably better than my first marines and I was a wee bit older than 5

 GrimDork wrote:
Statue works well, good job.

The space marine looks good too, probably better than my first marines and I was a wee bit older than 5

Thanks. I'm happy with how the statue turned out. I probably have dozens of older metal models in stiff poses that I can turn into terrain in a similar fashion.

The marine took a lot of touching up, but even before that it was better than his first efforts over a year ago. It's interesting to see how his fine motor control develops over time.

Ahh yeah, I imagine. Mine is still 2, but not for long. I've got some really old models for her to murderize.. i mean paint.

Did you back either Bones KS? There are lots of disposable minis in the first one, at least.