Yeah, 45-60 minutes first thing every day really makes a difference. I have a couple of ideas for themed projects I want to try in 2016 that should bring the numbers up quickly, as well. I'm either going to power through some of the Kickstarters I've never finished (like Sedition Wars or Paulson's Mecha Front), or else focus on one KoW army /Deadzone faction per month.

Sounds like a plan, and I'm looking forward to lurking and watching it develop

I'll get back to making similar plans when the little one is a bit bigger and more self-sustaining.

 GrimDork wrote:
Sounds like a plan, and I'm looking forward to lurking and watching it develop

I'll get back to making similar plans when the little one is a bit bigger and more self-sustaining.

Quoted for truth. Speaking of children, my six year-old may have had an epiphany yesterday. He wanted to play with the DS guys along with the MYTH heroes I painted last year, so we set up a big scrum. I overwhelmed him with little bugs, and then we talked about how rules work to differentiate heroes from thugs. I think we'll try DS after we get back from the US.

Hah cool. Mine is still too little for such discussions but I look forward to them should they arise.

 JoshInJapan wrote:

 GrimDork wrote:
Sounds like a plan, and I'm looking forward to lurking and watching it develop

I'll get back to making similar plans when the little one is a bit bigger and more self-sustaining.

Quoted for truth. Speaking of children, my six year-old may have had an epiphany yesterday. He wanted to play with the DS guys along with the MYTH heroes I painted last year, so we set up a big scrum. I overwhelmed him with little bugs, and then we talked about how rules work to differentiate heroes from thugs. I think we'll try DS after we get back from the US.

Staying out west I assume?

Valete,

JohnS

Yeah, we'll be in Oregon.

The DS heroes are looking good.

EDC

It appears that everyone is doing an introspective year-end post, so I guess I should do one as well. First, my model count for the year (as tracked in my signature) is:

383 models, 3 chariots, 3 sets of Mars Attacks buildings plus one set of accessories and also a tiny little shrine, a Casket of Souls, six bases of snot/orclings, a ramen stand, a skeletal dragon, and an undead war elephant, a very old dragon, two giants and also a river.

A little unwieldy, I admit, but reasonably accurate. That's a lot-- more than one man-sized model per day, even without the monsters and terrain-- so I feel reasonably satisfied.

That said, I don't really feel like I finished much of anything. The Mars Attacks! and MYTH starter boxes are done, but I don't have a full army of samurai, orcs, or goblins. I have more than enough minis to play Deadzone (if I ever actually get to play), but not really enough terrain for an interesting 2'x2' board. Worst of all, I am shocked at how many models I have acquired in the last two years. The yen was really strong against the dollar a couple of years ago, and I got stupid over kickstarter over that time as well. I still have three major KS rewards (MYTH Journeyman, DZ2 and Warpath) coming this year, and not place to put all of it. With my son about to enter elementary school, I'm a more than a little shocked at my spending, and I feel a need to rectify the situation. So, my modelling pledges for 2016:

1) Keep painting for 45-60minutes every morning, like I have been doing.
2) Finish off some as many projects as I can. These include Dreadfleet, Sedition Wars, Mecha Front and MYTH, as well as my ongoing projects from 2015.
3) No more Kickstarters. Any models I buy this year will be at retail, and in small enough batches that I can keep up with.
4) Comment more on the P&M blogs I follow.

To those (very few) of you who have read and commented on this blog: thank you. I wouldn't have gotten as far as I did without your feedback.

That's a pretty cool outcome, Josh. I just finished writing up my own year-end post, and it was an interesting exercise in introspection as I saw myself start off painting many units, and finish painting random models. I think you've done amazingly well - and any increase in painted miniatures is a good thing. I've certainly enjoyed following your blog here, so please do keep up your daily painting so I can continue to look at your toy soldiers!

Lot of stuff done, /impressed. Good luck avoiding kickstarters, they keep getting me though I'm starting to get over it.

 JoshInJapan wrote:
With only about 45 minutes a day for hobby work, I try to have several projects going at once. That way, I don't waste time waiting for washes to dry or whatever. I started this at the same time as the orcs I posted last week:




This is, of course, Mantic's Orc war drum. I picked it up in the pledge manager for KoW2. As usual, I went with my basecoat-wash technique, with a little more highlighting that usual on the drum itself. I like the model, but I'm not sure I need to get another one-- I can probably build at least two more using Mantic orcs along with musician bitz I have lying around from the GW orc sets I got to add variety to my Space Orks back when I still played 40K.

I'm counting this as three models in my running total for 2015.

Not usually a huge fan of Orks but I like these a lot.

I agree. I like the feral look to some of the mantic orcs, and your paintwork and colors are good.

Wow, lots of lovely stuff in the last few pages. I really like your Mantic Undead - the clean look on them has come off really nice.

I also like your Dungeon Saga heroes - the lighter, cleaner style shows them up at their best here, too. I was too rushed/lazy to do detailing as you've done here, but maybe you'll inspire me to go back to them

Looking forward to seeing what pops up this year - this blog always has something interesting to gawk at!

 JoshInJapan wrote:


Worst of all, I am shocked at how many models I have acquired in the last two years. The yen was really strong against the dollar a couple of years ago, and I got stupid over kickstarter over that time as well. I still have three major KS rewards (MYTH Journeyman, DZ2 and Warpath) coming this year, and not place to put all of it. With my son about to enter elementary school, I'm a more than a little shocked at my spending, and I feel a need to rectify the situation. So, my modelling pledges for 2016:

1) Keep painting for 45-60minutes every morning, like I have been doing.
2) Finish off some as many projects as I can. These include Dreadfleet, Sedition Wars, Mecha Front and MYTH, as well as my ongoing projects from 2015.
3) No more Kickstarters. Any models I buy this year will be at retail, and in small enough batches that I can keep up with.
4) Comment more on the P&M blogs I follow

I thought we'd agreed that you could send any extra models/armies you couldn't house to me? In that spirit, I'd like to suggest an additional modeling pledge for 2016:

5) Send any and all extra models to John

BTW, KoW has me excited about massed fantasy gaming again. I have a metric ton of Skaven that I'm planning on getting fieldable... I could really use you and Bruce going on a skiing trip!

Valete,

JohnS

War drum looks great! Keep up the good work!

Here are a couple of models that I started before going back to the US for the holidays. First up: Mortibris.



I decided to keep him in muted greys befitting a necromancer, with ivory-to-white for his skin. I wanted to stole to provided just a touch of color, and went with green because that's the color I used back when I was officiating weddings. Also, green is the color of evil magic in my mind (blue is good). I tried some OSL for the hole from which the skeleton is rising, to show that he is in the middle of reanimating it. Does it work?



And this is the banshee. I used the same technique as with the Dream Warriors, but without painting anything to appear physical. Banshees are 100% spectral,right?

Both of these models would probably have been better served by metal or resin. As it is, they'll look fine at arm's length, but won't win any awards. That said, it's been fun working on this set, and I expect to have a bunch more done by the end of the week.

Nice necromancer and banshee. I think the choice of colours is great for the necromancer, I agree that green is definitely the colour of 'evil' magic.

EDC

I like the limited palette on the necromancer. Kind of highlights the price he's paid for his powers. The OSL looks good. And yes, I would agree, green is the color of evil magic.

Valete,

JohnS

The OSL is effective at achieving the effect you were looking for.

Though obviously, Necromancy is a sort of purple colour, not green

It's nice to see a completely ghostly Banshee - will you go for the same effect on the ghost miniatures? I really like the DS ghosts - simple figures but they really are spooky.

Good job. Skele osl works well.

Yeah, nice work on the DS models - particularly the OSL. I always find it really tricky to do.

Thanks. Sometimes the OSL works, more often it doesn't. The secret seems to be "be sloppy," although there are probably better painters with much better techniques than mine.

Over the last week or so, I cranked out some more Dungeon Saga models. First up, skeletons:




There are four of each model, but I having given them all identical paint jobs, I didn't feel the need to photograph them all individually. I went with a simple basecoat-brush dip on them. In retrospect, they probably would have benefited from having more effort put into them, but I have so many skeletons (painted and unpainted) that I didn't feel it necessary. If I change my mind, I have plenty of Bones skeletons to replace them with. Next up, the zombie troll shaman:



This guy is also basecoat-brush dipped, but he has a lot more interesting details. The skin is AP Monster Brown, with wounds painted GW Wild Rider Red washed in my homemade crimson glaze. I made his clothes grey to sort of time him in visually with Mortibris. I get a kick out of the missing lower jaw with the tongue hanging out-- much like the grue scene in the American remake of The Grudge. Finally, here's a group shot:

Hadn't really seen the zombie trolls painted before. Very nice! The skellies look good. As you say, there's gonna be a lot of 'em. As long as they look good in masses, you're golden. And those'll fit the bill nicely!

Valete,

JohnS

Nice work on these, and especially the Shaman - who is the obvious standout from this lot. Mantic did a good job on all of these figures, though.

Great stuff, thanks for sharing

Great job on those mate.

Nice work! 4 skeletons instead of 3 makes for a much more impressive horde!

More Dungeon Saga models finished. First up, zombies.



Unlike the skeletons from last update, these guys were pretty twisty. The weird poses kind of remind me of Romero zombies, so I mostly left them the way they were. I did them the same way as the Mantic zombies I did over the summer, but instead of Army Painter urethane, I used a cheap water-based stain I got a the ￥100 yen store. Looking at them now, I probably should have cleaned them up a little more before the dip dried, but I have enough zombies that I opted not to bother.



More zombies, including one who is dancing toward his next meal. Not much else to add about these guys.



And finally, ghosts. I wasn't originally planning on doing OSL on these guys, but they were to boring without it.

And lastly, a group shot of this batch:

Cool. I really like the skeletons with ragged clothes, I think it makes them more threatening somehow...

EDC

Nice work on the DS batch. You got away with making use of the warped posing on those zombies! The OSL really works well on the ghosts as well.

Nice OSL on the ghosts. I think that was the right call. They'd've been too blah without it.

Valete,

JohnS

Thanks for the kind words. The ghosts are nifty little models, but they were really boring before I decided to do the lighting effect inside the robes.

Next up: armored zombies and dwarf revenants.

I'm still plugging away at the Dungeon Saga base game. This time, I have some armored zombies to share:



They are all identical, so I set them up as a sort of low-tech 360 view. They are obviously supposed to be Basilean men-at-arms, so I painted them in the studio scheme, minus the blue triangle accents, followed by my homebrew brown and/or Payne's Grey glazes. One thing I like about Mantic is that they aim for internal consistency. The helmets on these guys and on the MaA models can also be found on Mantic's plastic skeletons, which makes them feel like they're from the same world a way that you don't get with, say GW skeletons and Empire troops.



Here are some dwarf revenants. I was thinking of doing them in green and gold, but figured that iron worked better for them. I painted their shields according the the studio scheme, but forgot to do any sort of weathering before I took this photo. Also, the green turned out a lot more vivid than I thought it would.

Here is this batch all together:


I'm nearly at the end of the models-- only the Dwarf revenant king and the zombie trolls left. Then all the furniture and doors. Then the expansions. So, not really near the end at all.

Coming along nicely, Josh. They look great. I've finished 7 barrels and 2 wells so far, so you're a hell of a long way ahead of me!

 Azazelx wrote:
Coming along nicely, Josh. They look great. I've finished 7 barrels and 2 wells so far, so you're a hell of a long way ahead of me!

That's probably because I didn't start with the barrels and wells. Expect a big slowdown when I get to those.

I did not especially enjoy the banding on the four barrels I've done. It wasn't bad, and I used a simple scheme, but some of the other stuff was less obnoxious to paint.

Nice zombies and revenants

Love the Revenants, the green cloaks are going to make them stand out really nicely on the tabletop.

I've been interspersing the furniture and doors amongst my troopers to stop it getting too soul destroying. Seems to be working okay so far - gonna spray the last of the furniture today, and hopefully the doors tomorrow.

As I close in on the final stages of the Dungeon Saga project, I am finding these final models to require more time and attention that the other bad guys. Here's Grund, the dwarf revenant king:


I wanted this guy to look a little more regal than the other dwarfs from this set. Who could be more regal than Thorin, the King Under the Mountain? I opened up The Hobbit, but the only description Tolkien gave us is his cloak (sky blue with a silver tassel). Since no one has ever made a lave action Hobbit movie, I went to the only true visual source-- the 1977 animated version by Rankin-Bass. All of the dwarfs were pretty drab, but I figured that if it was good enough for Thorin, it was good enough for Grund-- thus the olive drab/dark blue-grey combination. I kept the metallics pretty dark, more like tarnished iron rather than gold. And since he has eyes (as opposed to empty eye sockets), I did them in glowy green to match the rest of this set. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how he turned out.

The only remaining models (not counting doors and such) are the zombie trolls, which look like they'll take a long time. Lots of skin tears and exposed guts to pick out, on top of remarkably fine detailing for board game plastic. These will, I think, be the standout models from this set.

In between all the more army-focussed stuff I've been working on for the last few months, I've been chipping away at this guy:






The monster is, of course, Nyarlathotep the Crawling Chaos, photos of which I posted last summer (I think). At the time, he was on a plain, black base, waiting for inspiration to strike me. Then, it hit me: the model appears to be made of guts all strung out, which means they had to come from inside someone. I did a quick google search, and found this page (scroll down for the specific set). I ordered one, despite the painful exchange rate at the time, and settled back to wait. In the meantime, I had to figure out what to do with the base. I settled on a cracked earth scheme, and set about looking for an appropriate medium. LIquitex makes a crackle gel, and I even tried to order it, but for whatever reason Amazon wouldn't ship it from the US to Japan. When I went back in December, I found some crackle paste at an art supply store. The stuff ended up crackling radially from the center, and required some work by hand to widen the cracks a bit more. I'm not entirely sold on the material, but it was $16 and I have a whole bunch left to use before I think about finding something else.

When the Mayan sacrifice set arrived, I knew that I had made the right choice. The whole set is fantastic, if somewhat dated in style (note the guys oven mitt hands). I added some kneadatite tentacles coming from the cut in his belly--inspired by John Carpenter's The Thing, painted him up, and assembled everything. I'm glad to say that this model is finally finished.

Whoa! That is one awesomely freaky figure! Awesome, but freaky as hell. Is that from Cthulhu Wars, or elsewhere?

It's from RAFM's Call of Cthulhu line. I picked it up from their Indiegogo campaign a couple of years back, along with the Cthulhu cultists and Great Race model I posted a while back. The remainder of my rewards are slated to show up in the Tale of Many Gamer's probably around springtime.

Here are the final items in my January painting challenge:

Zombie trolls:


There are two more of these guys, but as they are all identical I decided to keep the photo less cluttered.

Doors:


These were less soul-crushing than I thought that they would be, but even so I won't mind not painting filigree for a while.

Furniture:


Have you noticed that all the browns are the same? If/when I do another set, I think I will add some variation. In preparation for the alchemist's cabinet, I read a few tutorials on painting liquids in bottles. Then I remembered that this is just set dressing for a board game, and opted to just do glazes over Mithril silver instead.

More furniture:


I kept with the same greys as the bases and doorframes (Ceramcoat dark charcoal and bridgeport grey). I mounted the lectern on a ￥1 coin for stability, then painted the coin like a little carpet. I may go back and pick out the exposed writing to make it more mystical, or I may just ignore it. Probably the latter.

Everything together:


Well, not quite everything, because one room doesn't really need that many doors. Not to bad for under 30 days work, I think. I plan to revisit Dungeon Saga in a couple of months after clearing out some other items that have been sitting around unpainted for years. The orcs and demons look pretty nifty. And finally, drawing inspiration from Grimdork, here are some action shots, hidden behind spoiler tags.

The heroes confront the Dwarf Revenant and his bodyguard:


Then, they confront the banshee Elshara and her spectral minions:


Next, it's time to take out Hoggar and his zombie trolls:


Finally, it's time to eliminate the necromancer, Mortibris. Assuming the heroes can get past his horde of undead servants!


Starting in February, I will be finishing off the Sedition Wars models that have been taking up space for all these years.


Finally

Great work on the dungeon saga stuff. Really like that 'crawling chaos ' beastie.

EDC

Great (and fast!) work on the DS

@drcheese: RAFM's Call of Cthulhu line, although old, has some pretty nifty models.

@slinky: fast but simple, which is perfectly adequate for a board game.

Love the tentacle headed dude "Go Chaos!"

Your dungeon saga guys look excellent as well, especially with that dungeon terrain.

Looking forward to seeing you tackle the Sedition wars figs.

Great stuff as always! You continue to amaze me with your impressive productivity. But keeping up that level of quality with that volume is outstanding.

Valete,

JohnS

Great stuff! Gonna be me back and ogle these on my pc so I can see all the fancy detail. I plan to use one color of wood per patch of furniture too.

John: quality is an illusion generated here by inks and drybrushing. But thanks for the compliments nonetheless.

See that's even better in my book. You can make stuff look good without breaking a sweat. Witchcraft!

 JoshInJapan wrote:
John: quality is an illusion generated here by inks and drybrushing. But thanks for the compliments nonetheless.

Painting is nothing but the art of creating an illusion with paint, inks, and technique...

Valete,

JohnS

They really do look great, Josh. The dungeon base works really well with them as well.

Although I have started on my SW models for February, I still have a couple of things left over from Dungeon Saga. First up, bone piles:

Like most of the models from this game, these acrylic pieces would have benefited from some touch-up on the sculpts before painting, but by this point "good enough" is, well, good enough. I only did seven out of twelve because I only had that many empty paint bottles to stick them to. Next up, resin traps:


These are all the fingerprinted traps. I used some [url＝http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%83%92%E3%83%8E%E3%83%87%E3%83%AF%E3%82%B7-%E3%83%97%E3%83%A9%E3%82%B9%E3%83%81%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF%E3%81%AD%E3%82%93%E3%81%A9-%E3%81%8A%E3%82%86%E3%81%BE%E3%82%8B1000-OO-1000-24%E5%80%8B%E5%85%A5/dp/B002P6PWMS]plastic clay[/url], which is InstaMold but much cheaper, to make a press mold of a dungeon base, then used the last of my kneadatite to add detail to the flat sides. When I get some more putty, I will probably patch up the edges a little bit.

The bone piles, while nothing to write home about, are perfectly acceptable game pieces. These traps, however, are pretty dismal. The trap sides aren't too badly done, but these flat faces are inexcusably bad. At least they'll be easy to paint...

Those bone piles came out looking great, and it's awesome to see your core set coming together too!

Have you got the expansions as well? I'd love to see your take on the abyssals.

I went pretty much all in on DS. I have a couple of project up ahead in the queue for Azazelx's paining challenge, but I'll get back to DS sometime in spring.

Sedition Wars: Battle for Alabaster was the second Kickstarter I ever backed (the first was KoW1). I was as excited as anyone for the project, and have never really been disappointed with the results. It appears that I was the only one who felt that way, however, and the game died a quite if undignified death. I still like the models a generic SF infantry, though, so the 2016 Painting Challenge makes for a good excuse to finally finish them off. First up, heroes.





This is Captain Kara Black. I painted her uniform in Army Painter army green, with a Tamiya NATO green wash. The armored bits are NATO green with a Strong Tone glaze. The box art shows here with a scar on her face, but I couldn't get it to look right. In space, no one asks if you've had plastic surgery.

Speaking of surgery:




Morgan Vade is a medic, as you can tell by all the pouches and stuff. I painted him in the same colors as Kara Black, as is appropriate for space army men. The browns are AP Oak Brown-> Leather Brown->Desert Yellow, with a Strong Tone wash. As a medic in a battle against space zombies, he would naturally follow universal precautions, which is why he has blue latex gloves. He should probably have rolled his sleeves down, as well.





Finally, we have Akosha Nama, a sniper. Her paint job was inspired by Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow, which is why everything is black and/or grey. All three of these models have shallow pits for eyes, which is why they look so terrible. On the troopers I just left the eye sockets dark from the wash, and it might have been best to do the same with these models.

Next, I have a dozen Vanguard troopers in the works. They have been cleaned (as much as I am willing to clean restic models), glued, and in some cases bent into place. A few need some gap filling, and I have one extra body with no arms that I need to figure out what to do with. I hope to have photos up by this time next week.

Nice work on the Sedition Wars stuff. I've got a few that need painting up as well. Really like your doctor figure.

Thanks. He is easily the most interesting of the three, as well as my favorite. He'll make a nice Rebs medic in Deadzone, if I ever play that game.

Great stuff! I like the blue gloves the most.

The medic is definitely the winner for me. But a very nice job on figures that most people have not been overly impressed with.

Valete,

JohnS

Thanks for the kind words. I find the SW models to be pretty good generally, but fell victim to the material, or more correctly to not being designed for the material. If they had been sculpted a little bigger and with more pronounced details, I think they'd have been much easier to work with.

I have that sedition wars stuff too, was excited but cleaning up the restic stuff took ages, killed all my enjoyment of it.

You've done a good job on those three. Aside from Kara, I didn't recognise either of the others, and you did a nice job on all three. I think the Medic is my favourite as well.

Those DS traps are disgusting. Did you get a refund for those?

@Jehan-reznor: Clean up is, indeed, a huge hassle, which is why I my standards are so much lower for restic models.

@Azazelx: The traps look usable on the trap side, and I figure a little work to make the flat side acceptable is less of a hassle than dealing with Mantic's post-KS customer service. Also, I didn't realize they were giving refunds.

Having finished those Sedition Wars characters, I decided to bite the bullet and work on the troopers:



These are the twelve troopers that came with the Biohazard add-on. I actually finished the base set within a month of receiving it, but I moved on to other projects before I got around to opening any other little baggies.



I got bored with cleaning these models pretty quickly, so there are a lot of mold lines left. The paint job is incredibly basic: Tamiya NATO green, dark brown glaze, NATO green and Army Painter Army green drybrush. The guns and flexible undersuit (at the knees, hips and elbows) are AP uniform grey with a Payne's Grey glaze. The visors are silver. The male troopers are serviceable enough, but the cocked-hip pose on the females still bothers me.



The guy on the left in this photo is from the latest batch; the guy on the right is from the first set. The newer models turned out significantly darker than their predecessors, but I'm not to worried about it. Overall, these models are pretty nice, and would probably benefit from an edge highlight on their armor, but given the size of my backlog I don't see that ever happening.

Next up, more Strain miniatures. Watch this space!

They look great. Nice job.

Good work. The uhh.. are they samaritans? Or is that their gun? Bah whatever, the troopers look pretty nice. The ladies definitely suffer from bizarre and terribly unrealistic sexual dimorphism as is too often the case... but what are ya gonna do?

Sedition wars stuff is looking really great!

Thanks for the kind words, all. The SW really are technically fine models for what they are, but I still can't get behind the design and posing of the female troopers. I can understand the constant clamoring for female soldiers who look like they can fight rather than just striking pin-up poses.

Really great work on the Sedition Wars stuff, I never had thought about the green until you painted the first up last month. Too bad that you killed the game .http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/570/509493.page#8442455. Long time for it to die, but it finally has.

Huh. I guess I'm not surprised. My first reaction was "I wonder if I can still get the boxed set for cheap." And then I remembered that I don't want any more of these models. Although the newer gribblies and non-human models look pretty good on the SMV site...

I'll be glad when they stop popping up for peanuts... i'm a sucker for a sale.

Shipping costs pretty much eat up any savings, so that acts as a buffer for me.

I started these at about the same time as the Vanguard troops:



These guys are pretty heavily textured, so I went with blocks of color and then a glaze-- in this case, walnut varnish from the ￥100 store. The metallic parts are Army Painted gunmetal with a wash of Payne's grey. The torn skin is AP chaotic red, the skin is a Ral Partha flesh (which I had to revive with some matte medium), and the pants are all different colors.

Some close-up shots:





Finally, a comparison shot:


The guy on the left is from the first batch I painted oh-so-long ago. As you can see, the older ones are darker, and I did their blade-like extrusions as metal rather than bone. Otherwise they look pretty much the same to me.

I have started on the wave 2 heroes, but they don't look like they'll be much fun to paint...

The Sedition Wars stuff looks great.

EDC

Those actually look pretty bloody good. Not sure if good enough to make me get my own ones out yet, but every time I see them done as nicely as this it moves me a little closer to getting them out and batch-painting a load of them as Zombies for Nurgle 40k and KoW undeads....

Apart from issues caused by the materials, the Wave 1 models really are pretty nice. Even the sexy female troopers are technically well-made. The upcoming Wave 2 stuff, however, is a little disappointing. I'll give my impressions later this week when I post the next batch.

Yeah, I chopped most of my W2 models up for a refund. The W1 ones are in a box somewhere, mostly out of disgust in what was promised vs what was delivered. I spent a ridiculous amount on SW because I believed McVey would deliver what he promised. I'm still bitter about it. If I'd picked the sets up for $30 or $15 a pop, I'd be happy as Larry.

Thankfully, the yen was really strong against the US dollar at that time, so paying full KS prices wasn't that painful. I agree, though, that the final product doesn't live up to the promises.

Yeah, the AU was as well, but even with that I spent more than I probably have on any other. Well, SW, KoW1 and Dreamforge were the three big early ones. /lessons learned

I like the fact that you're painting to a solid tabletop standard, and crushing it through the closet of shame. Great work!

--Brian

Thanks everyone for the kind words. Here are some more SW minis, this time from Wave 2 :


First up, Morgan Vade in his Biohazard suit. I painted him pretty much identically to the previous version (AP army green and leather brown, with my homebrew dark brown glaze). He has fewer pouches to break up the lines, and gloves that look heavier than the latex gloves I gave him last time, and also a hand flamer. His visor is Mithril silver with a Gryphonne Sepia wash. He looks good enough on his own, but is significantly smaller than the previous version.





I don't remember this guy's name, and he 's not listed on the SW campaign page. He has bulkier armor than a standard vanguard trooper, and his longish hair and vandyke reminded me of Kris Kristofferson, which is why I went with gray. His trenchcoat (which would fit like a tent if he wasn't wearing that carapace armor) is a lot less splotchy in person.



This is Cyber Akosha. Remember that sniper from the last batch? Apparently she is a terminator. Like Vade, this version is teeny-tiny compared to the original. As you can see, I kind of rushed through her paint job.



Finally, the worst model in the whole set (in my opinion), Jada "Iron" Lily. There are a lot of things that I simply don't like about her. What are those horizontal strap things on her jacket and inner thighs? Is she supposed to be wearing chaps? I ended up painting them gold and then trying to forget about them. Why is she wearing a bolero jacket and a corset? If she calls herself Iron Lily, wouldn't she opt for a tougher look? Even ignoring the aesthetic mismatch, she is completely out of place in the setting. The enemy is a nanotech virus that infects and mutates the human troops into monsters, so the cleavage-and-bare-midriff look is jarring at a minimum, and extremely dangerous for her teammates as well.

Speaking of skin, I felt a little skeevy paining her boobs and belly. I'm no prude, nor am I a Social Justice Warrior, but I don't really want or need cheesecake in my battle gaming. That's essentially why I don't buy Malifaux or Brother Vinnie models, and also why I detest GW's Dark Elves/Dark Eldar. I'll be glad to put this one in the case and leave her in the closet.

Also, in the photos she looks a lot like Courtney Love.

Here's a group shot:


I should have six more big gribblies done by the end of the week. Watch this space!

Rather nice work on those. Keep up the good work.

Good work despite your dislike of them.

I really like Vade. Nice realistic look to him. Agree on the women. Not the best sculpts. Even compared to their peers. Sill nice job getting them "table ready".

I think you're selling at least a big chunk of the Malifaux range short if you're not looking at Wyrd's miniatures due to not wanting cheesecake. Yes, there are some eggregious models there but there's huge parts of the line that have not a whif of it.

Valete,

JohnS

I won't deny that Wyrd makes nice, if highly stylized, models, but so many of the female minis that come up on GIS are so boobalicious that I can't really bring myself to explore much further. Not wanting to start investing in another game that I won't play is a part of that, as well.

These guys are coming along nicely. The Morgan Vade is my pick of that particular bunch.

I agree-- Vade is probably the best model in this set. Of course, he's almost identical to The Survivor from DZ, meaning I have three painted versions of him, with one more metal version waiting for when I tackle DZ again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
After those not particularly fun hero models from the last update, I decided I needed to cleanse my palate with some monsters:


These guys are Quasimodos, stage 2 Strain monsters. I used the exact same techniques as on the Stage 1s I posted earlier: barbarian flesh with a walnut stain, gunmetal with Payne's grey. I have two more of these from the first set I did, but they are both too top heavy and leaning too far forward to stand up on the 25mm bases they came with. I put these guys on 32mm bases that I have had lying around forever. They still fall over, but not as badly as the others.


These are Stage 3 strain models called Bladewitches. They don't actually have blades so much as spikes, but we can let that slide. I figure that for stage 3 and above, all the skin will have sloughed off, so the non-metallic parts are AP Chaotic Red, drybrushed with Chaotic Red/Barbarian flesh mix. Despite the hassle of cleaning, these models are probably best in restic, since those long spikes on their hands would snap off if they were metal, resin, or HIPS.


These are called Brimstones, the other Stage 3 strain. I painted them just like the Bladewitches. The 50mm base makes them too big to fit in the carrying case with the rest of my SW models, and now that I have four of them, I'm running out of space in my little display cabinet.


Here's this latest batch all together. I took these photos with my camera rather than my phone, so they came out a little darker than normal. I need to figure out the settings, I guess.

I'm near the end of this project. All I have left are:
1 Grendlr, 1 Cthonian (Phase 4 and Phase 5, respectively), Kara in Gnosis Armor, Barker Zosa in what looks like a power loader, 3 THI suits, 6 bone crabs, 1 AI drone with 6 mini drones. With only nine days left in February, I'm thinking I might not get all of these done,and may have to push the robotics into March, as part of my challenge for that month.

Following up on the Phase 2 and 3 Strain modelsfrom last week, I managed to crank out the final models in that set:



This is Phase 4, the Grendlr. It's essentially a giant walking mouth. There is supposed to be a flesh-hook-like thing on either side of its maw, and I even spent some time cleaning and attaching the stupid things, only to have them snap off while painting them. I seem to recall that the same thing happened to the first one I painted oh-so-long ago. Nothing really new to say about the technique, although in retrospect I should have painted the belly before gluing it to the base.



This is Phase 5, the Chtonian. The fluff says it's a squid-like thing inside an armored suit. There is a lot more armor than squid on the model, so I painted a lot of the tubing as guts rather than metal.



Finally, bonecrabs. I remember being really excited when these came up as a stretch goal, and then somewhat disappointed when they arrived. The tongues and tails are a little too spindly for the material, and I gave up on cleaning mold lines when I saw how many of them ran right over the admittedly-interesting details. By this time and the project, my painting standards had fallen to "good enough," a feeling which I suspect McVey himself shared by this point in the production process. If I had another set, I might try to put a little more effort into them. Sadly, I don't.

Last up, a group shot:


I'm in the home stretch with about a week left in the month. I may end up finishing it all.

Looking nice still have to work on mine, my rage level increases too much when i work on restic.

My deadzone stuff still sits in a box due to me not yet being ready to put up with restics bs. (Putting together some restic enforcers was enough. So maximum respect for getting these built and painted. They look great despite the msterial

Well the material usually doesn't *look* bad, it's just getting it cleaned up without losing your temper and rage quitting

I have reached a sort of detente with restic. I pretty much ignore all but the most egregious mold lines, and simply pretend that the lesser ones don't exist. The material doesn't lend itself to Golden Daemon/Crystal Brush-level work, so I'm not too bothered by it, and I get a lot more minis finished.

Kudos for you for all the Restic work you've done. I'm (probably?) past flying into a rage when I look at the Sedition Wars models, and I have to say that yours look great and make me almost want to get them out and knock some out. It's just that when I could work on either those or some nice HIPS or metal models... well, the restic doesn't ever seem to win that battle.

Well, if it weren't for your painting challenge, I probably would never have finished these models. Once they are done, they'll probably go into the Reaper case with all the rest, the comedically-oversized SW box will go in the recycling, and I'll very rarely think about them. Of course, I already have hundreds of models that I don't ever unpack, much less think about...

Really like your collection of monsters.

EDC

And here are the final models in this set:

Captain Kara Black in her Gnosis armor:




I'm pretty burned out on this project, so I went fully minimalist on this model. Not much to say, really.

Barker Zosa in the Aphid Loader:





I think this guy is supposed to be a civilian construction worker or something, so I did his power loader in Tonka Truck yellow. It was pretty bland, so I added some spot color on the wires. I did another version of this guy as a counts-as Grogan for Deadzone, as well, but he doesn't get counted for this year:

AI turrets:


These were just too boring to not do something with the lenses.

Three THI suits:


I assembled and primed these guys last night, and cranked out in about one hour this morning. I am sick to death of Sedition Wars, and I think it shows in the lack of attention I gave these models.

Finally, here's everything for February:




I'm going to take a day off of painting before I start my March Challenge, but I need help deciding what to do: robots or Dreadfleet. Which do you want to see first?

Robots!

So it looks like I'll be working on robots this month. I cleaned, filed, and washed the Oathsworn bots this morning, and I will start assembling them tomorrow. I'm a little sad that no one voted for Dreadfleet, so if I finish the oathsworn stuff early enough, I may start working on the remaining ships as a palate cleanser.

Sweet! As you appear to be in Japan, you should have a homefield advantage on robots

I'm way out in the sticks where we grow monsters rather than a robots.

By "popular" demand, the theme for my March painting challenge is robots. Here is the first set:



These are Warbots from Oathsworn miniatures. I backed the Kickstarter on impulse, and the models have been sitting, unopened, in the closet for about a year or so. For such a simple paint job, they took a long time to finish. The shoulders and hips are ball joints (the master sculpt uses ball bearings), but I couldn't get them to set with just superglue. I ended up using super-strong metal epoxy, meaning I had to wait overnight for the bond to set. That's one night for the legs, one for the arms, and then one more for the kneadatite I used to cover the ugly joints. I also tried some sponge weathering and some decals scavenged from a 1/35 tank kit I had lying around to make the grey a little less boring. The bases are supposed to be cracked asphalt.



These little drones came with the robots. I did a little weathering on them as well, but they are too small for decals. Here they are all together:


I had a lot of time to kill while waiting for epoxy to set, so I cranked out these guys as well:



That last guy has an Arcane Armorial transfer on his shield:


And, of course, a group shot:


I'm slowly but surely updating my Chaos minis, possibly in anticipation of playing them as Varangur in KoW. I'm having a hard time finding thematically-similar Norsemen/barbarians, so I may have to keep them as allies for a Herd force for the time being.

I was planning to paint up the Mecha Front micro-armor scale models I got in Paulson's Kickstarter, but I will have to push that project back until I can get some magnets for the weapons. In the meantime, I dug out some very very old robot/mecha models to work on in the meantime. They shouldn't take nearly as long as this set did, so I hope to have another update within a week.

Liking the Oathsworn bots! I have built mine, and thought they superglued ok. I think they are in my basecoated box so might be interesting to see if they are still stuck when I start painting.

pretty cool looking robots. plus Chaos guys strike that nostalgia spot nicely.

My next entry for the March challenge is ready to show:



These guys are Talos units from Kryomek. They have been sitting in a box of mixed SF models for probably two decades. They are nice models, if somewhat dated. They came with integral bases which I had to saw off to put on these rounds. Thankfully, they are mostly lead so they were easy to cut. The highlights are a little harsh up close, but they look good enough at arm's length that I'm not to bothered. Here they are together:


I also cranked out these two while waiting for paints/washes to dry on the 'bots:


I'm getting close to having a full, legal regiment for Chaos Warriors for KoW. I have another set of Chaos Thugs soaking in alcohol, so I have something to work on concurrently with the next entry in this month's challenge.

Continuing this month's theme of robots, I present:





This is a Gladiator Storm Rider, from Scotia Grendel's Kryomek line. It's been sitting in a box (along with the Talos units I posted last time) for at least twenty years, which is long enough for me to have forgotten what it was until I started researching assembly guides for the Talos units. The legs and feet are lead, the body is resin. It originally had two stubby, auto-cannon-looking chin guns, but I could only locate one. I ended up scavenging a pair of machine guns from a couple of tank kits I had lying around. I tried a weathering technique I found on YouTube-- did it work?

I had a lot of waiting to do for washes and superglue to dry, so I cranked out this guy, as well:


This is yet another pre-RoC model, in this case a Chaos Sorcerer. I was planning to paint him as a wraith for my KoW undead army, but decided to keep him with the Chaos/Varangur army instead. I like to think of him having a combination of stunted legs and levitation for his mutations. Here's a scale shot of these two models together:


As you can see, the Goliath is pretty darn big. I'm not entirely sure how he will be used on the table top, but it will tower over just about anything else.

I finally got around to buying magnets, so I will finally be able to show the 6mm Mecha Front models that were supposed to be my painting goal for March. Stay tuned!

Great stuff, Josh. I haven't been on much the last fortnight so it's a bit catch-up today. I like the robots, but I love the old Chaos guys. God damn, I need to finish up with Gondor so I can start Chaos or something more fun and interesting. Your stuff makes me want to dig out my chaos models soooo badly.

Thanks for the kind words. Robots are fun, but I keep drifting back to fantasy stuff. Those old Chaos minis have aged better than almost anything else from that era.

Stuff looks good!

Cool robots mate. I remember the Kryomec stuff at the game store I worked at back when I was a teenager. None of us ever got into it back then, but I was always tempting to look at.

Kryomek the game never really took off,but they made a lot of nice models.

That was the one with the Not-Giger Not-Aliens, right?

That's right-- the big ones had spikes on their heads, so they were an homage rather than a rip-off. The Colonial Marines were pretty good for the era, as well.

I always liked the conscript guys. Forgot the name they had, but the sculpts were really nice.

Good to see the old-school Kryomek stuff, though. Liked that walker back in the day, but hadn't thought about it in years...

Valets,

JohnS

 cygnnus wrote:
I always liked the conscript guys. Forgot the name they had, but the sculpts were really nice.

Good to see the old-school Kryomek stuff, though. Liked that walker back in the day, but hadn't thought about it in years...

Valets,

JohnS

You had a lot of the Kryomek models, didn't you? What ever happened to them?

Love the little flying bots.


The Kryomek walker looks ace, as well.

Thanks. The little flyers took about five minutes each, not counting drying time. If I ever actually play Deadzone, they'll make good spotters for the Rebs.

 JoshInJapan wrote:

 cygnnus wrote:
I always liked the conscript guys. Forgot the name they had, but the sculpts were really nice.

Good to see the old-school Kryomek stuff, though. Liked that walker back in the day, but hadn't thought about it in years...

Valets,

JohnS

You had a lot of the Kryomek models, didn't you? What ever happened to them?

Yeah, I had a whole bunch of the not-Tyranids as well as some of the conscripts. Treated all of them off years ago though. They were never enough variety of the different conscripts to make an army out of them, and the Kryomek themselves never really grew on me enough. I never figure out a paint scheme that I liked for them.

Valete,

JohnS

Just about two years ago, I backed the Mecha Front Kickstarter, anticipating some stompy robot goodness. There have been some problems and delays with fulfillment, but what has been produced is fantastic:



This is the Neo-Bloc Goshawk Alpha. It carried twin machine guns, I think.



This is the Goshawk Beta, with missles as well as machine guns.



And here is the Gamma, with a missle pod and rail gun.

The KS rewards included extra weapon packs, so I put off painting these guys while I waited for magnets. I had enough trouble centering the magnets, and then in getting the holes exactly the right depth, and even now the guns pop off a little too easily for gaming use, I think. For the next batch, I plan to just glue the guns straight on. I went with a sort of desert tan rather than green or grey, as I have been doing with all the other 'bots this month. I feel like they need an emblem or something, but I don't trust my freehand skills that much. I may change my mind before the end of the month.

I have another set of 3 light mechs assembled and waiting for basing, and then two medium mechs after that. Spring break started today, so I may be able to finish them all before the end of March.

Finally, a group shot
:

Cool stuff. Nice work on the Chaos dudes, the mech stuff is very nice too.

EDC

They look really good. Are those the 15mm or the 6mm versions? I've been wanting to get a Goshawk myself, but I haven't been able to pull the trigger on one yet.

 Barzam wrote:
They look really good. Are those the 15mm or the 6mm versions? I've been wanting to get a Goshawk myself, but I haven't been able to pull the trigger on one yet.

These are 6mm. I have a few of the 15mm versions, and they are nice (and easier to work with), but these itty-bitty ones have been mocking me for too long, so they get done first.

Those walkers look pretty cool. You could always keep an eye out for different/unique decals. Hasslefree do things like greek letters and Warlord do a variety of symbols. Battlefront have various ones for their 15mm models based on various nations' iconography.

That's not a bad idea. These are 6mm-scale, though, so any transfers would have to be pretty tiny-- something like Company B makes for 28mm infantry. Once I finish the next batch, I might just try re-scaling and printing them on inkjet transfer paper. It's not like I don't have more than I can ever use.

Wow, has it been two years for those. I have one of the 15mm walkers that he did before the KS. I didn't have funds for the KS, were the rules good or rubbishy

I honestly have no idea, I only backed for the models. The beta rules should still be available on the Mecha Front site, though.

And now for the last part of my Painting Challenge for March:


These are Nor-Am Raptors ((L-R: Beta, Gamma, Alpha) from Paulson Games. I went with a blue-grey on these, to distinguish them from the tan I did on the last batch, and also because I'm sick of army green. After all the trouble I had magnetizing the Goshawks from the last update, I decided to just glue the weapons on. They were much easier to work with.



These two are Nor-Am Lynxes. I was going to do one with missile pods, but when I opened the package, there were two left pods and no right. Of course, I noticed this after I glued on the secondary guns. Not wanting to knock everything apart, I added the dual machine guns, giving me an upgunned Beta to go with the Gamma. As with everything from Paulson Games, these models are crisp and nearly devoid of mold lines. I kind of which I had the full set I backed for in the Kickstarter. After two years of delays, I don't have much hope that I will ever get them. Ah, well, it's not like I don't have enough to paint. Here's a group shot of everything I painted for the March Challenge:


As always, I did a lot of washes on these 'bots, so I had a lot of drying time to kill. I did these guys while waiting:












These are, of course, Chaos Thugs from 1986 or so. They all predate Slaves to Darkness. Back when I first started collecting, pretty much every model that Citadel made was a unique sculpt, and it was possible to build an army with almost no repeated models. They started producing more uniform regiments pretty quickly, and I rather prefer those for things like Elves, but for Chaos these guys are still the ideal for me.

Finally, something that has been mocking me for years:



This is the Flaming Scimitar, from the much-reviled Dreadfleet. I ordered a copy of the game from The Warstore back when the Yen was really, really strong (also, I may have been a little drunk at the time), and even now I don't regret it. The little ships are fun to build and paint, and everything is so different from the models I normally work on. This particular ship has been sitting in my painting station for a long, long time. Along the way, the elementals broke off, and I managed to spill brush cleaner or something all over the ship itself, requiring a strip-down and repaint. Once I got started, it only took about three days to finish. As of now, I have three more ships and then all the limited edition skull rocks to finish.

I have a few odds and ends in the painting queue that need to be finished before I start on my April challenge. At this point, I'm not sure what I want to do next: Samurai, Lovecraftian monsters and investigators, Orc/Goblins, or Ogres. I suppose Dungeon Saga should be in there as well. Deadzone needs some loving, but after a month of robots I want to do something besides SF for a while. What should I choose? Take the poll and help me decide!

The Dreadfleet ship looks great, but you know I really love what you've done with those thugs. Sadly I never got more than a handful of them at best (much more limited funds in those days) and I concentrated on the champions and some of the warriors. Damn I'm jealous of those guys, and you've applied a classic paintjob to them as well.

Thanks. These thugs were pretty easy to paint, as they are essentially half-naked bodybuilders with some fetish gear. I have some other, weirder ones waiting for repainting, but they will have to wait for downtime during my April challenge.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Samurai are clearly in the lead for April. I have started prepping some ashigaru to finish off a couple of under-strength units. In the meantime, here are a couple of things that have been sitting in the queue for a while:






This is Reaper's Jabberwock, which I picked up in the Bones I Kickstarter. For what I paid for it, it was a good deal, but the material is so soft and the limbs so spindly that I can't get it to stand up straight. Also, I opted not to bother cleaning mold lines. I had planned to use it as a Winged Slasher for either KoW Orc or Goblins, but when I finally assembled it, it was too sinuous to take a mount. I may add a handler model sometime in the future. It can also work as a monster in a Varangur/Chaos army, so it will probably see some use.




And this is the Shadewraith from Dreadfleet. I had clipped this one off the frame and then left it in the box. After finishing the Flaming Scimitar earlier in the week, I remembered that I had this one waiting and cranked it out over a couple of mornings. It's a pretty basic base-wash-drybrush job, but it works well enough, I think. Only two more ships left, then all the terrain. I may actually have a playable game by summertime.

Nice work on those Dreadfleet ships. My local store has the box on discount, and I always pause when I walk past it. You're not helping!

The Jabberwock is a lovely shade of green that really fits with the weird and contorted body it's got going on. Like a mutant basilisk!

I have no real idea how Dreadfleet plays, but the tiny ships are fun to paint, and the seascape cloth is pretty nice. It was something of an impulse purchase, but I don't really regret it.

The green on the Jabberwock just sort of came together. I had a hard time deciding what colors to use, and the internet wasn't particularly helpful in that regard.

Dreadfleet looked neat....too bad we got hyped up that it was "Man-O-War" revised and then the scale was off.....and the price. My local store still has one on the shelf, they didn't send it back when they could because they thought it might one day be a collectors item

Edit: Voted, I also want to see more Samurai.

 Theophony wrote:
Dreadfleet looked neat....too bad we got hyped up that it was "Man-O-War" revised and then the scale was off.....and the price. My local store still has one on the shelf, they didn't send it back when they could because they thought it might one day be a collectors item

Edit: Voted, I also want to see more Samurai.

I probably wouldn't have bought the game if the yen hadn't been so strong at the time. There are still a couple of boxes floating around the shops I order from, and I suspect that there will be for some time.

I have a dozen ashigaru (eight spearmen and 4 arquebusiers) based and primed. I hope to be able to show them mid-week. Thanks to everyone who voted.

Much like the Republican majority in the Senate, I feel that the voters should have a say in how this pblog is run. Unlike said Senators, I will actually do my job. April will be dedicated to samurai, specifically the models I got in the first and second Kickstarter projects from Steel Fist Miniatures. This first batch are ashigaru:




These are, of course, spearmen. Technically, they aren't finished because I haven't added static grass or sheet magnet to their bases. The static grass is not entirely necessary, but the magnet is, as all of these guys are both top-heavy and leaning forward far enough that they fall over if I even look at them funny. I plan to combine them with eight spearmen from Kingsford and turn them into a legal regiment for KoW. I have another four very old, very ugly ashigaru from Dixon to fill out the back rank until I can get around to the remaining for Kingsfor guys whose spears don't really fit.


I also picked up a pack of arquebisiers (sp?) to fill out a couple of incomplete troops for Kings of War. Two of these guys have slots to insert sashimono, but there weren't any in the set. I have a whole bunch lying around, but none that match the ones the Kingsford guys are wearing, so I may just leave them off. I'm still short four models, so I want to find a couple of leader-types and a couple of ammo bearers to fill out the units.

The paint jobs on these guys are pretty rough, although they don't look as bad in person as they do in these photos. The models themselves are nice enough, but knowing that they will be stuck inside blocks of 10 and/or 20, I felt disinclined to lavish much attention on them. The next batch are much more interesting, though, so I'll spend more time on them.

Speaking of which, I suddenly have a lot less time for painting/modelling. My son started elementary school this month, and my wife (bless her heart) is getting up 30 minutes earlier to make his lunch while I focus on getting him ready. I find myself with about 30 minutes in the morning on school days (less if I decide to check forums or whatnot), which isn't leaving much time to find my groove every day. I still hope to average 1 model a day for the year, but it will be tight.

1 model a day eh? An ambitious target! Good luck!

Nice work on the spearmen and rifle dudes btw.

EDC

 evildrcheese wrote:
1 model a day eh? An ambitious target! Good luck!

Nice work on the spearmen and rifle dudes btw.

EDC

One a day= 365+ in a year. I pulled that off more than 400 last year with some marathon painting over summer break.

I'm not 100% satisfied with them, but they'll work well enough ranked up, I think.

They are excellent and you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. Plus 365+ is huge, I need to crank out some more to get back to that goal.

Thanks for the kind words. I'm still less than pleased with the spearmen, but they will disappear into a block of similar troops, so I won't lose too much sleep over them. I'm putting a lot more effort into this week's models, though.

In retrospect, one-a-day wasn't that difficult, if only because sixty of them were Mantic zombies done with Quickshade. That still counts, though.

When I finally paint these Mulfins they will each count as one too, so yes padding the numbers is a time honored tradition

After finishing those (rather disappointing) spearmen last week, I have a reasonable number of troops for a KoW army. That said, I am still lacking in heroes. This weeks painting aims to address this issue:





This is an ashigaru battle standard bearer, one of two which came with Ii Naomasa. Like most support units, standard bearers were chosen from the ranks of ashigaru, leaving the higher-ranked samurai free to gain glory in battle. Nonetheless, carrying one of the lord's banners was a prestigious job, and I made this guy a little more colorful to reflect this fact. I didn't paint his eyes because he doesn't have any, just little slits. He is, however, rocking a killer sideburns-and-moustache combination. I'm honestly not sure what the standard topper is supposed to be, so I painted it grey.





This is the other standard bearer from the set. He's wearing a sort of scale mail, rather then the more typical lamellar armor. The standard he carries is a little easier to figure out than the other one. Here they are together:


The standards are brass wire and resin. The models are top-heavy and forward leaning, so they fall over all the time-- a problem I've had with every army standard I've ever painted. I have two more standard bearers waiting for me to finish their flags, and then four high-rank cavalry heroes. I was hoping to get more done this month, but them's the breaks.

He's showing off the trophy banner that they took from that Lorax fellow


Your Samurai army looks fabulous, I am just a silly Gaijen, but I love watching hollywood samurai movies and I get a real feel for these guys.

Cool banners. Although at first I thought the guy with the epic sideburns had a weird balloon.

EDC

 evildrcheese wrote:
Cool banners. Although at first I thought the guy with the epic sideburns had a weird balloon.

EDC

That's as good a guess as any.

Theo: Samurai are one of the most aesthetically interesting armies to build. They look like something from some fantasy setting, but were in fact real, so you can find tons of real-life examples for painting and organization. I love working on these models, despite all my complaining.

And now, without further ado, are two more banner bearers:





I finished the guys at the same time as the other two I posted previously, but I had to wait for a clear day to finish the transfers I made of the Nanbu family crest. The banners themselves are etched brass, and they were more difficult to work with than I thought. I think I need to get a smaller pair of pliers. Also, I can't decide if the tall one is too plain or not. I found images of a real Nanbu banner, and that's what I painted it as, but there is so much white left. I wonder if I shouldn't add an inscription.

Anyway, now I have four battle standards for KoW, with at least another four that came with the Toyotomi Hideyoshi I got from Steel Fist a couple months ago. But first, I need to finish a few cavalry models.

Your samurai - and especially the banners are looking great. I'm looking forward to the group shot for this month!

Awesome stuff! Those banners are quite impressive.

Great job on those. What Banner is the most recent?

Thanks, everyone. Despite my reservations, I think these will look nifty on the tabletop. Assuming I ever actually play...

carlos13th: The guys were painted at the same time, but the flags with the mon were finished about a week after the other two.

Sorry what I mean is who's mon is being displayed on the flags?

That's the mon for the Nanbu clan, who used to rule the area where I currently live.

Having only 30-40 minutes a day to paint has forced me to be more focused in order to maintain my productivity. I have managed to knock out a few cavalry models:



This elite samurai is wearing a nio do with a yaro kabuto. Google gave me a photo of a set of armor almost exactly like this model, except that the lacing and lacquer wee faded with age. I went with brighter colors to reflect the pride and status this guy would probably have had.



This guy is wearing a nanban-do. "Nanban" comes from a Chinese word meaning "the (non-Han Chinese) southern barbarians." In Japan, this was how they referred to Portuguese and Dutch traders and missionaries. Apparently, helmets and breastplates were prized among the samurai, but invariably underwent modification to make them more Japanese. I tried to paint dapples on this guy's horse, but it didn't turn out so well.



This is Ii Naomasa, one of Tokugawa Ieyasu's generals at Sekigahara. He equipped every soldier in his armies with red-lacquered army for the psychological effect. Both he and his army were called "Red Devils." It's hard to tell, but I did the lacing on his armor in black rather than yellow,.



Finally we have Ishida Mitsunari, the samurai lord who opposed (and lost to) Tokugawa Ieyasu at Sekigahara. He was supposed to have been an able general and shrewd politician, but lost to Tokugawa's ability to form coalitiona and alliances.

Here are a couple of group shots:



And that's it for April. I really enjoyed painting these models, and I will probably keep with the Samurai theme for May, as well.

These all look great. I love how you take the time to make them representatives of actual historical people. I may be joining your Asian coalition next month, I have a bastardized collection of samurai and Asian troops that I have been contemplating making a second KOW army with.

Great stuff, Josh. I have to agree with Theo - it's great to see that detail of differentiation and representation in your models.

Nice work on the cavalry, I really like the red one.

EDC

Thanks guys. The Steel Fist samurai are pretty easy to individualize because they are all individuals, the unlike the WGF kits, for example. I plan to crank out some movement trays this weekend, but after that I will start some more samurai, I think.

I'm still a couple of days from having anything new to share, but my son insisted that I show this photo:



Today is Green Day (みどりの日）, a national holiday in Japan, so everyone in the house has the day off. About an hour ago, my son decided he wanted to "play" a "miniature game." Rather than the usual high-low roll off we usually do, he opted to unload both the samurai and orc cabinets and set up this diorama, which he then photographed about 100 times. This is the best shot we got of the whole battlefield at once. The two armies are both bigger and smaller than I thought. I guess I need to paint some more...

Always good to see an armies on parade, looks excellent.

How old is your son?

Very cool. Sometimes nothing beats getting all your painted toys out and admiring your hard work.

EDC

Theo: He's six. Just started elementary school.

EDC: It is nice. Someday I hope to actually game with them.

Nice work on the samurai, and nice models. I've got some Assault Group samurai (Gempei era) that I really need to get around to painting on of these days.

That's a great age, my three are 13 and twin 11 year olds, only recently (due to zombicide) have they even bothered playing anything.

I'm about to begin my Asian themed army, what colors do you use for flesh tones on your figs.

Groundh0g: Thanks. I didn't know about those TAG models. If I didn't have so many already I would probably pick up a few.

Theo: I paint the flesh tones on the samurai just like I do all light skinned models-- AP Barbarian flesh, AP soft tone ink, followed by a Barbarian flesh highlight. I want to avoid the horrible orange-yellow Shang Chi effect, and anyway at this scale there really isn't much difference.

Not quite one year ago, I painted these guys:


They are, of course, Clan War samurai. They are nice enough models, but ten isn't really enough for a Kings of War unit. After finishing the hero/elite types at the end of April, I decided it was time to finish off this unit. First up, two mre samurai that I actually painted before I came to Japan in 2002:


I did these guys before Google Image Search was a thing, which is why they have silver armor rather than historically accurate black. The violet lacing probably should have been darker, as well. Note that I painted their eyes, in contrast to these two:


I did these probably five or six years ago, when I first discovered Citadel washes. I did their lacing in blocks, which I then washed with Badab Black. The wash worked pretty well, but I then ruined the effect by using a solvent-based, brush-on sealer, which stripped the paint off the sharp edges. These will be relegated to the center/back of the unit.

Finally, some new models:




I went with traditional colors on the lacing for these three. I also opted against painting their eyes, as they are supposed to be rank-and-file troops and their eyes would be invisible anyway.




My son has recently been fascinated by all things samurai, and we have been watching NHK's latest Taiga drama, Sanada Maru. Two of the main characters spend a lot of time in armor, and I decided to base these last two on that. One has black lacing over black lamela, the other has brown lacing.

Finally, one more very old model:


This is one of the hero models that came in the Clan War starter box. His paint job is at least ten years old, and if I had it to do over I would have spent more time on the lacing. But he's finished, and he'll work well enough to act as leader and bring the unit up to 20 strong:

Those Samurai are looking gorgeous. Can't wait to see what's coming next.

Nice trip through time. Your painting have definitely come along.

EDC

Definite improvement in both skill and knowledge of the armor over the years. I love the ornateness of the almost rainbow colors on the suits.

Man I miss L5R, but I think FFG bought all the rights to the game last year so we might see a new version come out (hopefully plastic) in the ne t year. We will at least see a newer version of the RPG coming out.

After cranking out a bunch of identical models last week, I wanted to work on something more unique. Thankfully, I had these models from the second Steel Fist kickstarter campaign waiting for me:



This guy is wearing katanugi-do, simulating the wearer removing one sleeve in preparation for violent action. I chose a red/brown color for the armor plates. His standard is from the cavalry set I painted last month. I'm planning to give that unit horo instead, leaving this one free.



This guy's armor is pretty standard. His helmet is modeled on a crab, which was a symbol of strength. The armored skirt on his helmet sticks out too far to give him a back banner.



I screwed up the white balance when I saved this photo, but it doesn't make much difference. He's wearing a sort of scale armor, and the helmet looks weird to me, although it's supposed to be based on a real, historical example.



This guy is wearing a tengu-mask with his helmet. I painted his armor as fur rather than feathers as the sculptor suggests. His back banner also came from the cavalry set. I'm not sure what it is supposed to be, so I painted it white.



This guy is wearing nio-do, modeled after the emaciated torso of a Buddhist ascetic. I chose this head to complete the look. The plates of his armor are gold, but the photo makes them look yellow.



Here's a group shot. I plan to add four of them to the other eight from this series to complete a Kings of War regiment of foot guard, with one guy left over to act as a hero. I'm a little burnt out on samurai for now, so I plan to work on Ogres for the rest of the month.

Lovely figures there Joshin. I particularly like the way you have thought about your colours based on the history of the armour etc. Can't wait to see more

Those look excellent
Will the ogres be "Oni"?????

It's pretty easy to do historically accurate models because Japanese arms and armor are so exhaustively documented and preserved.

The ogres are from Mantic, but I paint them with a blue/grey skin tone, not wholly unlike oni.

Great looking Samurai, Josh. It'd be easy enough to re-black the armour on the first two to get rid of the silver, and the finished unit looks great. The dual-army show takes the cake, though. They look fantastic.

You sure know lots about japanese armour and stuff. It's very impressive! Love how unique they all are. Favourite is the furry samurai

 ckig wrote:
You sure know lots about japanese armour and stuff. It's very impressive! Love how unique they all are. Favourite is the furry samurai

Almost everything I know comes from Osprey books. And I like the furry guy too-- he was the most characterful model in this set, I think.

Nice new crop of samurai

Azazelx: It would probably be a simple job to black over the silver, but given my backlog of models with no paint on them whatsoever, probably not worth it. I'll just stick 'em in the middle of the third rank where they'll be invisible.

Grimdork: Thanks, they were fun to paint.

C'mon! It'll take you 5 minutes! Or less.

Just do it when you've got the black out for something else.

 Azazelx wrote:
C'mon! It'll take you 5 minutes! Or less.

Just do it when you've got the black out for something else.

Maybe once I start my summer painting marathon.

After all the samurai I've painted in the last six weeks, I decided I needed a palate cleanser. However, I wanted to keep to my theme for May. So, I decided to do some more ogres who I can count as oni allies for the samurai. First up, some ogres with great weapons:


I did these guys using the same techniques for all my other ogres: Vallejo sombre grey for the skin, AP gunmetal for the armor, various browns for everything else, with Payne's Grey or homebrew dark brown glazes over all. You can't see it from the front, but there is a gap at the shoulder of the two guys with swords. I did some hot water bending when I was prepping the models, but apparently I didn't overcorrect enough. I think I have three more of these guys, so I can put these in the front rank so no one ever sees my shameful mistake. Also, the guy weilding the axe has a terribly-executed joint on one of his wrists. I patched it as best I could with Tamiya putty, but it's still pretty ugly. Thankfully, you can't see it unless you pick up the model and turn it upside down.

I also did this guy at the same time:


This is, of course, Mantic's ogre warlock. He's a lot less busy than the regular Mantic ogres, without all the straps and studs and armor plates and whatnot. I painted his simple tunic thing in very basic browns, as if he were an ascetic hermit or something. I found a tutorial for fire that I tried to follow for his fireballs, with a little OSL on his hands. I think I need to practice both some more.

Next up, I have six ogre berserkers that I got off a guy from the Mantic trading facebook group.

Love the Ogre/Oni, the different skin tone really suits them in my opinion (only one that counts ).

Nice work on these ogres, I know what you mean about small flaws - they always bother the crap out of me. However, from the other side of the coin - an observer - they look great!

Thanks, guys. I really do like these Mantic ogres, despite the material and their skinny little legs.

I'm late to this party but the Samurai look great, a lots of thought has clearly gone into them.

The ogres are looking great too, I like the fire dude.

EDC

Between my son's first track meet at elementary school on Saturday and a community clean-up project on Sunday, I found essentially no time to paint over the weekend, meaning that this is all I was able to finish in May:


I have six ogre berserkers on my painting tray, but the models are so darn busy that I just can't seem to get motivated to finish them. It looks like June will be Deadzone month, as my DZ:I stuff arrived a couple of weeks ago, increasing the already ludicrous amount of unpainted DZ stuff in the closet. I will start, I think, with pathfinders...

Looking good! Looking forward to seeing your DZ stuff

Thanks. Painting some futuristic stuff will make a nice change.

I think I'm in the same boat its needing a change of things to paint. That or I just need to do some scratch building.....

The samurai are all so interesting, I love watching you crank these out because I've never seen banners like these in the movies or anywhere else.

Nice work, Josh. I'm also in agreement in feeling I need to paint something different. 6 months is a long time to concentrate on one kind of thing, and does start to wear on you after awhile.

Regardless, the stuff you've got there looks excellent!

Theo: I can't really take credit for most of the samurai stuff that I've done. There are hundreds if not thousands of suits of armor, and heraldry is exhaustively documented. All I do is copy whatever looks interesting.

Az: burnout is a real thing. Thankfully, I have enough models from various Kickstarters lying around that I can jump around a bit while staying true to my pledge.

Having focused so heavily on samurai for the last couple of months, I wanted to do something different, something SF-related. Thankfully, Mantic sent me my DZ2 pledge right about the time I was debating what to do next. First up, Forward Observer N7-117:


This was a pretty simple model to paint. The armor is Tamiya NATO green (the same color that I use for all my Enforcers), washed with Devlan Mud, then drybrushed back up to the base color. I'm not really a fan of the full-face visor--I prefer the standard Enforcer helmet-- but it painted up pretty easily (Mithril Silver with a heavy Gryphonne Sepia wash). I added unit and rank insignias with transfers from Company B.

I also cranked out a sprue of Pathfinders:






The armor plating is the same as N7-117 up there. Their guns are AP armor grey with a heavy Payne's Grey glaze. In general these models are pretty good, although the mold quality is a little primitive. From the front and back the detail is good enough, but lateral details are lacking, if not non-existent. Also, check out the delts on the guy that final photo. Back in my 20's, I was into bodybuilding (until I realized that I couldn't afford all the supplements and didn't want to live at the gym), and I would have killed for that level of definition. All of the arms on the sprue are like that. I suppose I could have painted them in flesh tones, but instead I opted to make them bionic. After all, regular Enforcers must be cyborgs (how else could they fit inside that armor), so pathfinders must be unfinished Enforcers, kind of like Space Marine scouts are Marines that haven't been fitted with The Emperor's Shield. That would also explain the MC Hammer parachute pants these guys were-- their legs are also bionic, ready to be fitted with armor plates.

Finally, a group shot:


Next up: five more pathfinders, along with their DOGs.

Nice work here, Josh. The pathfinders have come up well. How do you think they'd mix with Marine Scout parts?

 Azazelx wrote:
Nice work here, Josh. The pathfinders have come up well. How do you think they'd mix with Marine Scout parts?

After a quick glance at some sniper scouts on sprue, I'd say not very well at all. The pathfinder parts are pretty much in scale with regular enforcers, so the limbs would look pretty spindly on a scout torso, while scout heads would look monstrous on pathfinder bodies. I'll try to do a Blu-tac mockup in the next day or two to make sure.

So chaos scouts is what your saying then

Huh. Now I see your painted pathfinders I really wanna put mine together and paint them up. Mine are kind of silly space soldier colors though (white and black, but not specifically storm trooper motif) but I really like your more realistic and down to earth green/etc.

I think pathfinders are not only *not* baby enforcers yet to get their power armor, but they're slightly more elite than average. Like special forces in an army that's already all special forces. They just don't wear the full armor kit for stealth purposes (I guess). They sneak around and do all the commando shutting down the defense grid painting the targets kinda stuff. Their rifles tag their targets so bigger strike teams can come liquidate them, etc. But fluffwise, not n00bs like the space marine equivalent.

More like older edition space marine scouts who had the same skills (and were an elite choice!) but not the strength or save from the power armor etc.

Anyhooo... lovely work, and those samurai up the page as well!

That's a fine interpretation, and I can get behind it. I'm mostly trying to justify the massive guns both the male and female pathfinders have, as well as the teeny-tiny helmets on the regulars. Don't get me wrong,though-- I love everything Enforcer, and I still consider them the best models Mantic has ever released.

Nice work on the DZ stuff.

That red circle in the May Samurai confused me, I was staring at it and thinking what has he circled...then I realised it's the banner.

EDC

 evildrcheese wrote:
Nice work on the DZ stuff.

That red circle in the May Samurai confused me, I was staring at it and thinking what has he circled...then I realised it's the banner.

EDC

That made me smile

I'm not wholly certain what that banner is supposed to be, so I just went old-school 'Eavy Metal and painted it red.

 JoshInJapan wrote:

 evildrcheese wrote:
Nice work on the DZ stuff.

That red circle in the May Samurai confused me, I was staring at it and thinking what has he circled...then I realised it's the banner.

EDC

That made me smile

I'm not wholly certain what that banner is supposed to be, so I just went old-school 'Eavy Metal and painted it red.

That has been known to make 'em go fasta!

Valete,

JohnS

 cygnnus wrote:

 JoshInJapan wrote:

 evildrcheese wrote:
Nice work on the DZ stuff.

That red circle in the May Samurai confused me, I was staring at it and thinking what has he circled...then I realised it's the banner.

EDC

That made me smile

I'm not wholly certain what that banner is supposed to be, so I just went old-school 'Eavy Metal and painted it red.

That has been known to make 'em go fasta!

Valete,

JohnS

That's some old school humour there!

Next up-- more Pathfinders!






I don't have much to say about this lot. I painted them using the exact same techniques as the five I posted last time. I will say that I had a little trouble getting their wrists to line up. I probably should have used a thicker, slower-drying plastic cement. Ah, well, so it goes.




Each sprue of pathfinders comes with a Deployable Offensive Gun. Two sprues means two DOGs. I'm really, really glad they redesigned these rather than using the original ammo-box-on-legs design. I added a couple of transfers to break up the vast fields of green. The unit insignia works well enough, but the stencils on the sides were too big and too clean. I tried dirtying them up, but I'm not sure it worked. If it really bugs me I'll go back and paint over them.

Overall, I'm pleased with these models. Some of the lateral details fade into nothing, but you don't really see it once they are assembled, painted, and then viewed at arm's length. Between these ten and the restic pathfinders that came with DZ1, I think I have as many as I will ever need. Speaking of which, here are all my pathfinders to date:

Very nice work, making me want to get at mine. I think I just have the ten myself, and maybe two of the character from DZ1. Oh and the on/off bike pathfinder lady. Green is really effective on these guys.

Thanks. The design of the enforcers really lends itself to more traditional military colors rather than the bright heraldic designs of Space Marines, IMO.

Nice work, Josh. Your and Grim's work on the Mantic enforcer models keeps tempting me to do something with some of mine.

Cool Enforcers Josh

Thanks, guys. I really enjoyed working on these models. Very simple, very fast. Not so with the Asterians I'm working on now, though...

Continuing with the Deadzone theme, here are some Asterians:





I used the same paint scheme as for all the other asterians I've done to date: GW Necron Abyss basecoat,Vallejo Andrea Blue edge highlight, Vallejo Stormy Blue glaze. I tried for a little OSL on the eyes, I'll let you decide if it worked. I still really like Asterians (which is fortunate as I'm getting an army of them from the Warpath KS), but they get pretty samey after a while. Here's a shot of them all together:


Next up: plague zombies and the Abomination.

Asterians look great , they would be excellent night fighters with that dark camouflage.

Interested to see what you have coming up with your zombies.

 Theophony wrote:
Asterians look great , they would be excellent night fighters with that dark camouflage.

That's how I envision them. I seem to recall that Asterians cloak their ships when they attack a Deadzone, so it didn't seem much of a stretch that they would do the same to their cyphers.

 Theophony wrote:
Interested to see what you have coming up with your zombies.

Well, don't get your hopes up too high-- they're just DZ zombies, and I have too many of them to make them all masterpieces...

They are looking nice Josh, and thats coming from someone who isn't a fan of mantics Eld...I mean Asterians

Continuing with the Deadzone theme for the month, here are some new Plague units. First, the Abomination:





I know, I should have filled in the gap in his neck. It doesn't show as much in person. I painted him pretty much identically to the Stage 1A-- AP Chaotic red, highlighted up to AP barbarian flesh, and Delta Ceramcoat highlighted up to AP Skelton bone for the bony parts. The base is from Escenorama, part of my reward from their disastrous Indiegogo campaign.

Next, zombies:





There are two different body types on the sprue, planetary militia/GCPS troops, and damaged containment suits. These models are, in general, disappointing. The shoulder joints are spacious and V-shaped, not unlike the Shieldwolf moutain orcs. which provides ample options for posing but give the models weird proportions. Just like the Pathfinders, the lateral detailing is minimal-to-non existent. For most of these models, the arms can be placed to compensate, but that doesn't work with the gut-munching guy-- the jaws, neck, and guts are all one solid, flat surface, making the model difficult to read from the side. There are extra heads on the sprue, so I won't have to build any more of this guy.

Despite my reservations, these guys painted up pretty quickly, and the basecoat/brush dip gives adequate results, which will be important if/when I get around to cranking out the other 70 that I have packed away upstairs...


Finally, plague swarms. I wasn't planning on painting these models, but the one on the right has been staring at me accusingly ever since I stripped it after a false start two or three years ago. Somewhere along the line, I lost of of the centipede heads, and replaced it with a leftover Mantic Ghoul head. I probably should have done either the rats or the centipedes in grey rather than brown, but I don't to go back and do these models again. Maybe if the rats, slugs and bugs had come separately they would have been more fun to paint. In fact, I may dig through my Bones 1 Vampire box for vermin and see if I can't make a better one by myself. Not today, though.

Finally, a group shot:


The Abomination is really, really big. At arm's length or further, everything works well enough. There are three painting days left in June, so I hope to have one more set of models to share by the end of the week. Stay tuned!

Nice work! I like the zombies. Not perfect but fairly cheap especially the rate they were going for during the KS. Somewhere in there with bones minis but hard plastic. Lot of fun with other kits too. The dude hunched over nomming is a bit of a static thing .

I see soldiers and bio suits but you didn't see any civilians in the mix? I admit I used a few fantasy zombies to make dresses but I've got a couple guys with jeans and shirts out of my pile. Maybe the odd shoulder pad but hey, maybe they're back in style

 GrimDork wrote:
Nice work! I like the zombies. Not perfect but fairly cheap especially the rate they were going for during the KS. Somewhere in there with bones minis but hard plastic. Lot of fun with other kits too. The dude hunched over nomming is a bit of a static thing .

I see soldiers and bio suits but you didn't see any civilians in the mix? I admit I used a few fantasy zombies to make dresses but I've got a couple guys with jeans and shirts out of my pile. Maybe the odd shoulder pad but hey, maybe they're back in style

All of the male torsos have armor. The only non-armored one is female in a tank top, so not many civilians in the mix, I'm afraid. May some WGF zombies could add some variety, but I already have 80 of these plus my SW strain zombies, so I can't seem to make myself want to get any more.

you need to get into zombicide , that abomination looks great

I've thought about it, but the miniature count and buy-in cost are both high enough to result in divorce . Best to wait a while I think...

Nice.great work on the zombies. Really nice work.

EDC

 JoshInJapan wrote:
I've thought about it, but the miniature count and buy-in cost are both high enough to result in divorce . Best to wait a while I think...

The longer you wait the more vested you are in the marriage. It's better to get into zombicide now before you get too invested in the marriage. That way when the Zpocalypse does happen (and it will), your not held down with baggage like wives and kids.

One final unit for June-- Forge Guard from Deadzone:




I got one set of these guys with my FF stuff from DZ1. I actually assembled the leader right after they arrived, but then couldn't decide how to paint them up. Green and gold? Blue and gold? Steel? In the end, I opted to copy the studio paint scheme. I went with AP monster brown, with a couple of drybrushings of monster brown/skeleton bone mix, followed by my homebrew dark brown glaze. The black parts are Delta Ceramcoat charcoal grey with an edge highlight of AP armor grey, the metal is AP gunmetal, all glazed with Payne's Grey. I painted the eyes, but they are so teeny-tiny that you can't really tell. I feel like they need some spot color like rank or unit markings, but they work well enough as is, and come in on time for the June deadline in the Very Many Painters' Challenge.

Here's a group shot:


And here's all the stuff I painted in June (minus the Plague Swarms, which I forgot to unpack for this photo):


For round two of the Too Many Painters' Challenge, I plan to finally paint all the Oldhammer Melniboneans I've been hanging on to for all these years, but first I have to clear off some half-finished stuff cluttering up my painting space. Watch this space for updates.

No few work on the FF. The solid color is very minimalistic and I think suits true armored warriors. No crazy papers waxed onto the armor or capes.

Yeah the forge guard look good, solid simple scheme like Theo said.

Thanks, guys, that makes me feel better. I was beginning to think that they were too plain, since no one was commenting

I may still go back and add insignias or something if I can find something suitable.

I'm considering doing the 'basic brown' that the studio has going on, but it's a fallback in case what I'd like to do falls through. So in other words, it's quite possible

The FF background leads me to believe that all of the models should look professional rather than decorative-- Brokkrs should be dressed like a road crew, steel warriors in military colors-- so a limited, muted palate works best, IMO.

Yeah. Plus usually easier to do in bulk and boy did I end up with bulk. Gonna try stone grey a certain way first but I may very well end up with the functional brown backup.

Really great stuff josh

Like the forge father scheme so much that I'm tempted to go back on my steal warriors and re do the armour......

Great stuff, Josh. I've just been catching up on your stuff as I slog through the Tale of Gamers June update and add as many links as I can. Your plague look especially awesome/disgusting.

Thanks, Az. I actually like the Plague stuff that came in DZ1, and their being gribbly makes it easier to just ignore all the restic mold lines during the prep stage. Speaking of which...

I usually try to avoid postin WIP photos, as my unfinished stuff is just too sloppy for me to want to share. I'm a little stuck on these guys, though:


I have three archers and three spearmen all at this stage. Working from my (possibly faulty) memory of Melniboneans wearing yellow armor, I went with bronze for the armor plates, using this tutorial. The green wash stage doesn't really show up, so I might just leave it off for the rest. I'm having a hard time deciding on what to do with the undersuits. My first inclination is white, working up from either grey or ivory, or both in the case of the archers' loincloth thing. However, I'm not sure if that's really the direction I want to go. So, I put it to the three or four loyal readers of this P&M blog-- what colors should I use under the armor?

Gah no idea. I kinda like them how they are now really, bronze and dark. May look good with white too though, elves always managed to pull it off.

I had considered doing black and/or dark grey, but rejected it for some reason. I'll add it back to the list, I guess.

Not sure on the color, what army are they going with? And what other colors are in that army. My first inclination would be purple though.

I really like 'em as is. The brass/gold is lush. Maybe just add some brighter highlights to the chainmail of the guy on the right and the cloth of the guy on the left as they get a little lost in the darkness.

 Januine wrote:
I really like 'em as is. The brass/gold is lush. Maybe just add some brighter highlights to the chainmail of the guy on the right and the cloth of the guy on the left as they get a little lost in the darkness.

Apart from flesh and armor, everything is still just black gesso, so there is nothing but darkness so far.

So far, black seems to be the consensus, but I'll do the chainmail and fur today and wait for a few more replies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Theophony wrote:
Not sure on the color, what army are they going with? And what other colors are in that army. My first inclination would be purple though.

They're not for any specific army right now. I have a lot of OOP Citadel elves that I can merge them with eventually, but those were all painted 20+ years ago and I'd be embarrassed to field them now. So, these guys are a blank slate.

I'm really not sure on the undersuits. Black works, as Melniboneans should probably look vaguely sinister at best anyway. A dark crimson would go well with the gold, but might be too rich in colour for what you're after? I can definitely see the green on them, though - and it's supposed to be subtle after all.

Hm. I'm not sure crimson body suits would work, but every model has a scarf tied around his thigh like David Lee Roth, so that might be a good place for spot color...

Well, I meant something like really dark "Wine" or "Mahogony" as seen in this pic. Much more then the crimson in the pic. Sinister rather than bright.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
In fact - imagining these colours on a model, I'd go with "Mahogony or a shade or two darker in fact - for the "reddish" suggestion, anyway.

I also like black - as a desaturated colour (ok, shade) option - the gold would remain the focus either way, but using any shade of red woud make the model much "richer" while the black would make them much colder.

Hm. I'll throw a couple of test models together and see which looks best.

I quite like both the purple and red ideas, though I think you'd want to keep to a dark finish with either colour.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. The first six have about one more day's worth of brush time to finish them off. I threw together these two to see which color works better for the under suit:


They both look good IMO, and they are both roughly as easy to paint. What do you all think?

Reckon the left fella. Both look grand but Mr'. Leftie pips it

I like the left as well, could just be because he is helmet less though.

I like the black undersuit with reddish towel.

Thanks to everyone for your feedback and advice. After some trial and error, I have managed to finish the first set of Melniboneans:



First, some virtually identical spearmen. This was pretty much par for the course when these models were new, of course, and the helmets add just enough variety that I think these guys would work as a ranked unit as well as part of a skirmish warband. The bronze armor is Vallejo Tinny Tin-> AP strong tone ->50/50 Tinny Tin and Glorious Gold-> Glorious Gold, all followed by a very thin green wash. The chainmail is AP gunmetal with a Payne's Grey glaze, and the furs are various browns or greys. These guys were pretty easy to paint, not the least because all of Jes Goodwin's older sculpts quite exaggerated enough-- no subtle transitions here!

The shields were something of a challenge. One of the defining traits of Melnibone is the use of dragons, and I wanted that to be reflected in their heraldry. Arcane Armorials let me down, as did the BOLS space marine transfers project, so I ended up freehanding a modified Mortal Combat dragon. I'm not sure how well it worked, but at least they are done, and I didn't have to spend any money shields from a Bitz retailer.




I cranked out these three archers at the same time, using the same techniques. I seem to recall that Melnibonean archers used bones made of either bone or horn, which is why I went with the ivory here. The guy on the left with the open helmet originally had a raised visor, but somewhere along the line it got cut off and filed down. These guys, along with all of the other 50 or so models I have from this line, traded hands in my old gaming group several times. Some where painted to the standards of 20-something me, others were primed with the terrible white spray primer that Ral Partha used to make, and all of them spent some time soaking in acetone-based nail polish remover before painting.

Finally, a group shot:


I have eight more archers primed with their bases sanded. Now that I have the paint scheme figured out, they should be a snap to finish. Watch this space.

These guys look amazing, Josh. I'm jealous!

Really nice work, I always love seeing old miniatures painted in a modern style and these look great. I really like the muted red. Amazing given modern sculpting how some miniatures just still have the "It" factor 30 years odd since they were sculpted. I suppose Mr Goodwin being so good at what he does helps.

Those are really good josh, love the colour palette on them.

Great job Josh - they've come out gorgeously

Thanks, everyone. Having finished this set, I think I can paint the next set more efficiently. I hope to have them ready to show by the end of the week.

Lookin good to me sir.

Continuing with the Melnibonean theme, here are some more archers:

Why would an archer wear a helmet that restricts his vision this badly? They must have a lot confidence in their own marksmanship.


This guy, at least, had the sense to raise his visor. I painted another of this model in the first set I posted last week, but someone somewhere cut off the visor part. I prefer the intact version, I think.


These guys have giant, Kirbyesque headgear. I wonder how they keep them from falling off? I briefly considered painted the studs on their facegear as gemstones, but that seemed a little too ostentatious for line troops. Also, I gave one guy brown hair because even as insular a society as Melnibone should have at least a little phenotypic variation.


Finally, two more guys with bare heads. These guys have little diadems, which only the most powerful warriors would have the stones to wear in battle. Despite my enduring love of these models, they are technically crude even compared to other Jes Goodwin sculpts of the same era. It really shows in their faces-- the left and right sides apppear to have been sculpted separately, so they don't quite line up when seen straight on. Also, there was some pretty bad mold slip on a couple of these guys. Ah, well, you can't see it at arm's length, and they'll be fine for a SoBaH or LOTR:SBG warband.

Finally, here's a shot of all the archers together:

There are only eleven in this shot because the 12th guy was hiding in a different box, and I didn't find him until last night. He's soaking in alcohol right now, waiting for an open slot later in the month.

Next up: more spearmen.

I think these guys look great, and they work very nicely as a unit as well. Do you have a hero in store for them?

Really liking your wooden work on the bows, the skin looks damned good as well. Very nice stuff JIJ. I am hoping for a hero too.

Thanks,guys. I have a vary vague memory of Melnibonean bows being made of either bone or horn, which is why I went with the ivory. I have a couple of Elric models (one on foot and one mounted) that I will work on after the spears are done. I thought I had more, but have yet to locate then.

I really like the Melnibonean minis Josh. Can't wait for more

Well, I have a lot more to paint. I expect to post the next batch on Saturday or Sunday.

Melnibonean spearmen:

I think of this as the default style because of the full helmet. I used the exact same techniques as before, with one fewer highlight on the armor. That saved about 30 minutes (or one full painting session), allowing me to finish this set a little faster. I'm torn as to whether or not the results are good enough to justify the shortcut. The crescent shield on the middle guy was a bear to paint, what with the relatively huge shield boss.


Three more, this time with Kirby headgear. Look at how long their faces are! These guys are obviously not human.


One problem with having as large and old a collection as mine is that these older, lead-based models have a tendency to break while they are waiting to be painted. The guy on the left will probably get a replacement speartip someday, but the guy on the right is going to be a standard bearer. There is an article about making interchangeable banners that I will try to follow. probably next week.


And a group shot of all eleven spearmen. I have one more archer and spearman soaking in alcohol, and once they are done I'll have an even dozen of each, allowing me to field two regiments of seaguard in KOW or just a bunch of elves in SoBaH or LOTR. Amazingly, I'm not burnt out on these guys, so I'll follow up next week with some sword-and-shield troops next.

Very cool stuff, Josh! I love seeing these old models brought out and resurrected for today.

Thanks, Az. It's been fun working on them. For some, this is their third paint job, so finally having a paint scheme I'm satisfied with is, er, satisfying.

After cranking out almost two dozen nearly-identical models, I was ready for a leader. It turns out that I only had one left from the Eternal Champion boxed set, having traded off the rest years ago.





This is Elric of Imrryr, wearing his black armor with the dragon helm. He also has a shield, but no runes on his sword, so I guess this is the equipment he was wearing in the big naval battle at the beginning of the first book. It just didn't seem right to give him a regular steel sword, though, so we'll all have to pretend that he is actually wielding Stormbringer. Note also that his face isn't the milky white of Moorcock's descriptions of Whelan's paintings. In my very limited experience (i.e., that one little kid at the kindergarten I used to go to twice a year), albino skin isn't pure white, but rather translucent, allowing the underlying tissue to show through. Accordingly, I went with a paler flesh as basecoat and lighter highlights than on the other Melniboneans. Also note that the golds are not really that ugly in real life. I have to remember to not use Dakka's auto adjust feature-- it never turns out well.

Finally, a shot of all the Melniboneans I have finished to date:


I have really enjoyed this project so far, in part because it has given me an excuse to go back and read some of those old Elric stories. They seem a little angsty and melodramatic to me now, but they felt so real when I was in high school. Elric really resonated with teenage me-- I have never been particularly athletic, so his weakness and lethargy was a delightful contrast to all those musclebound, oiled up barbarians. Of course, none of my peers understood me in the same way that Elric was a mystery to the other Melniboneans, in my own mind at least. Naturally, I had long flowing hair (unlike now) and a slight build (very much unlike middle-aged me). I would have loved to have been as tragic as Elric, but of course my life was pretty easy and free or drama. I'm sure all three of the Dakkites who read this blog have a similar story from their youths as well...

Barring a sudden weekday off, this will be my last update for July. Watch this space for more stuff as I gear up for my Summer Painting Marathon.

So cool seeing the Melnibonians again. I never realized how all the elf armies up to today are basically that same design.

Am the only who thinks Elirc is due a major revival soon?

I've been thinking the same thing. I have a fairly extensive collection of Jes Goodwin elves from this era, and they share a lot of the same design elements. Not counting the mohawks, which the Melniboneans weren't punk enough to have.

By revival, do you mean in print or on film? Because I'm not certain Elric would survive the translation to celluloid.

It could be anything, high end video game, anime, live action, or even just a new mini game.

It's too happy a property not to use in some way but I've not seen anything in years.

I'm not sure that "happy" is the descriptor I would have chosen. Moorcock is still alive and apparently still writing. Maybe he's like Alan Moore and doesn't want his work corrupted by Hollywood? I dunno.

Come now who doesn't enjoy a movie about character who regards torture as both a fine art and a performing art?

Well, when you put it that way...

The last time I posted, there were a few days left in July, and I had another batch of Melniboneans almost ready to show. I wasn't able to finish them off, though, because I had to take the class that I help manage on a team-building camping trip. I can't say that they were all PITAs, but enough of them were that I'm glad I won't have to see them again for another week. In the meantime, here are some more Melnibonean infantry:


Here we see four identical axemen. I used the exact same techniques on these guys as I have on all the others I've done so far. Normally, I would be pretty bored of painting essentially the same model thirty times in a row, but each type is has slightly different equipment. The archers had heavy fur capes, the spearmen had smaller, divided fur capelets, and these guys are wearing fur vests like some ridiculous metal band.


Interestingly, Melniboneans use either axes or maces when they carry shields. These being lead models, they bend and break pretty easily, which is why one guy is armed with a very short stick. I couldn't find the head of his mace anywhere, so I left him underarmed until I can decide what to arm him with instead.


Finally we have Dyvim Tvar, cousin to Elric and last keeper of the Dragon caves on Melnibone. This is the only model I have bought for this project, because for whatever reason I never managed to find him when I got all the others. I gave him essentially the same paint job as Elric, with slightly more normal skin tones. His sword doesn't have carved runes on the blade, but I painted it as Mournblade to match the faux-Stormbringer on the Elric model. If I ever decided to field these guys in LoTRSBG, I need one hero per twelve troops (I think), so I may need to hunt down some other models from this series or else repurpose some of the other elves I have lying around.

Finally, a group shot:


I have another dozen models about halfway finished as I type this. I hope to power through them tonight. Wish me luck!

Not one single comment on my last post? That's cold, guys...

As I mentioned in my previous post (which apparently no one has read), I cranked out another eleven Melniboneans, this time armed with twin swords. Here's half of them.


Once again, Melniboneans march to war in their tiaras. These guys are hard as nails. Note the guy on the far right with only one sword. All the models in this range are old enough to be full of lead, so there has been lots of bending and some breakage. This particular model is prone to having their swords snap off right at the crossguard. There were five broken guys, but only four swords. I pinned and glued the ones I had, and I guess this last guy will just have to punch the enemy in the face. Like I said, hard as nails.


And here's the other half. In all, there are four variant heads in the Melnibonean line: bare-headed, tiara, demon-faced, and what I assume is a stylized skull. For whatever reason, there are only the first three heads for this pose. Way back when I first started collecting these guys, I hated the demon face, so I cut off all their noses and dug out little holes to look like nasal cavities. I kind of regret doing that now, since it pretty much kills their resale value.

Finally, a group shot:

I should have an even dozen of each pose-- I have managed to find one each of the archers, spearmen, and macemen, but I have yet to find the last of these guys.

The last models in this collection are cavalry-- five troopers and another Elric. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I wonder if anyone will comment on this post...?

How many of these guys have you done now? Seems like an endless tide! Many more to do?

Cool to see that old lead getting much love! I think, at some point, a good chunk of those were in my collection. Loved those figures back in the day, but you're correct about them not entirely standing the test of time very well.

Still, it's great to see them painted! Great addition to your project!

Valete,

JohnS

@Januine: I have three stragglers with about one hour of work left, then a banner to paint, and as far as I know that's it.

@cygnnus: Yeah, these guys went back and fourth a couple of times, at least. I seem to recall a lot of stuff doing that back in the day. I know for a fact that you used to own the Skull Chukka I painted a while back, because it still had that grey primer you used to use.

Looking great. Always awesome to see old lead with new paint. I have always loved the decadent Melnibonean image as opposed to the typical "high elf" generic Tolkien knockoff. It also, ironically, meshes better with the fae folk of legend who were not particularly nice or human.

As to an Elric movie, it could be done well. Play up the spectacle of a dying Empire where the people are enthralled by entertainment and drugs and living in past glories. Elric's love for Cymoril and his rivalry with Yyrkoon play out in bloody fashion against a fantastic backdrop. Give it a nice Hollywood ending where he gets the girl. Then skewer it by following the source and wrap it up as a classic tragedy.

Thanks, jmurph. I agree that Melniboneans really capture the feel of an ancient, decadent non-human race that compliment Tolkien elves quite nicely-- Dark Elves without all the sexy, if you will.

My wife and son are away visiting Grandma this week, so I was able to spend the last four nights watching movies that I want to watch, eating foods that I want to eat, and cranking out miniatures. Here is the final batch of Melniboneans:




Five Melnibonean cavalry. Working on these guys, I remembered how much I dislike painting horses. I used all the exact same techniques as before. The guy in the bottom photo has a plastic spear, which a lot of elven cavalry models had at this time. The contact area is tiny, and the spears break off if you look at them funny. I kind of prefer lego hands for this reason.




Elric on horseback. From the waist up, he's the same as the one I painted in July, with cavalry legs instead. His shield is much uglier than the other one's, but that's probably a function of fatigue. Here are all the horsemen together.\:


The riders don't really sit on the horses very well, so rather than gluing them down I have them sitting on a chunk of Blutac. Note that I put them on 40mm bases. I thought about cutting off the tabs, but decided against it to maintain the resale value if I ever decided to get rid of these models.

That's not all, though. I came across these three guys in a box, and painted them up to finish off their respective units:


Remember that broken spearman? I turned him into a standard bearer:


The banner is an image I found on GIS, then printed out on inkjet paper for papercraft. The standard topper was in a grab bag of bits I got from Battlewagon Bitz many, many years ago. The standard pole is 1.6mm brass tube, soceted over .8mm brass wire, according to this article. The flag is pretty heavy, and even a little wad of Bluetac isn't quite enough to hold it in place. I'll have to think about a better way.

Finally, here are all the Melniboneans in my collection:


I'm glad to finally have these models painted, and equally glad to be finished with this project. I'm going to call my August painting done for the time being, and anything else I do this month with be bonus.

I was planning to take a break from painting, but I had the house to myself for one more night. So, this happened:


Elves, Wood Elves specifically, were my third WHFB army, and the one I played most regularly. In my gaming group, WHFB heroes, wizards, and magic were deemed to be gamebreaking, and we played with only troops for years. Undead were simply not viable, and chaos without magic just doesn't feel right, so I gravitated towards elves by default. All of them being Jes Goodwin sculpts made the decision even easier.

Recently, my son has been adding elves to our "miniatures games" (in which he unloads the entirety of one or more storage cases and then we play toy soldiers), and the sight of the almost-30-year old paintjobs makes me cringe. After I finished stripping the last Melniboneans, I popped some of those very old elves off their bases and started prepping them for repainting. Here are some close-up shots of these first six. I played around with an photo editing app on my phone, with questionable results:







I really, really enjoyed painting these models. It was partially nostalgia, I expect, but they are just neat models. I suppose there is a reason that Jes is, along with John Blanche, at the heart of GW's success.

Next up, more elves (probably)!

I started into GW with just the next generation of those Wardancers I think. Awesome stuff.

 Sgt. Oddball wrote:
I started into GW with just the next generation of those Wardancers I think. Awesome stuff.

That was a magical time to start collecting, at least to my aged eyes.

I love those Wardancer sculpts. Jes just has a gift when it comes to sculpting Elves. I do love the old 80's-90's vibe Gw figgies. Maybe it was just because that was when I got into it but....yeah oldhammer FTW.


Great touch up paint work and I'm glad they are getting a new lease on life and recycled by being used with your son to play 'wargames' I use to do that with the GF's grandkids when they where younger. Just set up some terrain bust out some old figgies and move them around and roll some dice and have a blast doing it.

Thanks for the kind words. These aren't touch ups, though. Everything has been stripped and repainted over bare metal. My primer/basecoating was more than a little too heavy back in the day...

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Thanks for the kind words. These aren't touch ups, though. Everything has been stripped and repainted over bare metal. My primer/basecoating was more than a little too heavy back in the day...

Even better, I really like the paint job you did on them. I just stripped a whole bunch of wild west figgies and a Harry the Hammer fig

Lots of good stuff coming out since I last visited this blog. All the dudes with axes and maces etc look great. Had a good chuckle about the mace guy with the 'short stick' - did you ever find the mace head?

EDC

Love to see the old models getting love! They may not quite stand up to modern sculpts, they still have a great look. Plus, of course, they have an immense nostalgia factor! Great looking jobs on that old lead.

Valete,

JohnS

Very cool to see Glam the Laughing Warrior leading some cool Oldhammer Wardancers, Josh.

The Melinboneans also look awesome (Cavalry as well?) - I've been (and still am) sick as a dog, so I'm going with that as a legit excuse for not having looked/seen/commented until now. I know how you feel though - after I showed off the entire Undead army.

Could I get you to do a combined, August-only pic at the end of the month for the ToG thread, which I can link to the individual units' posts.

 Azazelx wrote:
Could I get you to do a combined, August-only pic at the end of the month for the ToG thread, which I can link to the individual units' posts.

Reckon I can do that. Somehow I'm staying productive, even with my increased family time, so I'll be doing a final, August-only photo at the end of the month.

I hope you feel better soon.

Love all the vintage GW elves, especially the wardancers. Thanks for sharing.

Somehow, despite spending a lot of quality time with my wife and son, I have managed to stay productive:


These are, of course, very old Wood Elf archers. As I mentioned in my previous posting, wood elves were my main army for most of my WHFB career, and archers outnumbered pretty much everything else, despite not being all that good in the rules.


These two were from the Citadel Collector's series (I think. They came in the blue blister pack, anyway). These are not Jes Goodwin sculpts.


These two are from the Scarloc's Wood Elf Archers regiment box. They are essentially the same sculpt,with the only real difference being the hood.


Two more of Scarloc's archers. At one point, I had at least three full sets of these guys, but foolishly traded off a lot of the troopers. I still have the Scarloc models as well as the musicians, champions and standard bearers, though.

Before stripping, these were all painted in remarkably bright greens, blues, and browns. For the repaint, I went with darker shades as would befit woodland scouts. I probably need to lighten up on the shading for their faces.

Next up, some command models!

Those elves are great, love the classic war dancers

And now, some command models for the elves. First up, an elf captain:


This guy was in an unopened blister pack, along with a standard bearer. I went with the same dark green and grey that I used on the archers I posted a couple of days ago. I tried to paint his falcon naturally, but it's kind of hard to tell on a model this small.



And here's the standard bearer the captain was packaged with. There were three variations on this pose, all with sculpted banner tops and something in their right hand. This guy is carrying a wand or a rod or a chair leg or something. I based the banner top on a Devi painting I found on GIS. I probably won't add a banner to this model.



This is the wizard from the Elf Attack Chariot set (of which I have 1 1/2). He has a falcon and some magnificent, Jes Goodwin elf hair. Apparently I forgot to paint the edges of his base.

Finally, a group shot:

Very cool old-school wood elves. I has the Scarloc's set myself as a youth, but sold most of them off. Luckily I was able to get a set a year or two ago via eBay for a price that wasn't too painful, so paint up at some stage in the future for KoW.

If I wasn't in the middle of a power armour renaissance here, you'd have inspired me to go dig them out with all of these guys.

Thanks. I have been having a blast revisiting these models. I may continue with this theme in September as well.

I've been away too long, you've done a crap load of fancy elves, awesome!

 GrimDork wrote:
I've been away too long, you've done a crap load of fancy elves, awesome!

My productivity surprises me. School starts again tomorrow, though, so my numbers should fall back to normal.

Awesome, I love that Elven Captain!

EDC

 evildrcheese wrote:
Awesome, I love that Elven Captain!

EDC

Thanks. I have a variation on that same model and in the queue now.

How do you manage to be so productive at such a good standard and still have quality time with family?! You are a legend sir.

Well done on the minis.

My productivity comes from taking lots of shortcuts, primarily using glazes on pretty much every stage of a model. My time management is because of the family dogs. They wake up at the crack of dawn and pester me until I take them for a walk. They have conditioned me to wake up with no alarm by 4AM every day, leaving me 30 minutes or more every morning for hobby work.