I think the wash would be too light on the Reaper ghosts. You might have to go for something darker. Unless perhaps you wanted to go for the "inner glow" look, rather than darkness in the folds - in which case it might actually work.
Anyway, here's some more scenery:
I started (and finished) these a few weeks ago, though the weather was bad and my mood was poor, so I didn't take any "finished" pictures of them at the time, and the WIP ones just sat on my camera. As part of an eBay purchase, I noticed that the seller was selling a little container of resin Citadel land mines for a few bucks, so I grabbed them. Since they looked nice and simple, they only sat around for a few weeks or a month before I decided to have a go turning them into "fast scenery".
The signs are something I came up with after finishing the actual mines. Just made from the same kinds of Proxie bases with putty over the top. I made the actual signage out of some plastrust I-beam and some tile-textured plasticard (so I could get them the same size!) Found some WW2-era German "Minen!" signs, chose an appropriate one, multiplied it and printed them out. I figure that if you're going to have signposted mine fields, the verbiage really should be written in German. Also added some odds and bods from the bits box to add "interest" and make them fit in better with the 40k-flavoured ones. I'll use these in anything from WW2 gaming such as Bolt Action, etc - right up to 40k and cohorts
Here's the montage of how they went together. Cue "Rocky" theme. Or perhaps "Montage" from that episode of South Park. You know the one. Fun fact: I didn't take any pictures of the signs being made, even though the process is probably marginally more interesting.
Yeah, they spread out quite nicely to cover quite a chunk of table top, if you so wish. Even more with the signs, which also work well to give a "hard edge" to the perimeter. There's actually six signs that I made - I could only fit five nicely in the pic, though.
You know, I'm not entirely sure. I think they could well be from the mid-2000s when they started pushing out all those resin basing kits and the like (that seemed to mostly be made up of bits of the skeleton and other plastic sprues cast in resin...)
Anyway, on Monday Marouda and I took my Mum to the Melbourne Museum. We all still refer to it as the "new" Museum, even though the new facility was opened back in 2000. The old Museum, located in what is now entirely the State Library of Victoria was a lot better, as they had much more of their collection on permanent exhibition, while the "new" Museum only has things like Arms and Armour on display when there's a "thematic reason" to include them in some other form of exhibit. So, basically, never. (Yes, seriously).
Still, it was still a decent day - seeing dinosaur bones again, even cast ones is always good. But since this isn't Facebook or Twitter to be filled with meaningless babble, there's a point to all of this. After the visit, we took a look through the gift shop, not really planning to purchase anything. We've gotten some fossils from there before, but this time, I spotted various Orthoceras for sale, including these little polished ones with the same footprint as a coin. I decided that they would make just about the coolest objective markers ever - after all, they're actual bloody fossils!
So I bought some.
Orthoceras for Objective Markers. Elf for scale.
Undead and Elves pretend to contest the fossilised Orthoceras objective in simulated game photograph.
I'm sure I'll also sometimes use specific modelled objective markers for thematic reasons, but regardless, these are incredibly cool, and work well on a number of levels.
Speaking of cool, I also spotted these: Agate Slices - available in a variety of colours - $15 each, sure. But that's still probably cheaper than whatever crappy plastic summoning portals or vortex templates that GW or PP et al are selling. My first thought was actually Dark Eldar, but they'll work for anything as far as I can see.
The Mouth of Sauron summons bad things from the Pink Agate portal. And provides scale.
Now summoning from the Blue Agate portal!
And finally, from the Purple Agate portal!
These Agates played havoc with the auto-white balance on the cheap digital camera that I use, as you can plainly see (check the desert sand mat!). Regardless, and despite the slight tonal shift and the fact that you're not getting the 100% true colour of these Agates, the point is that they look bloody amazing, and despite the fact that I'll likely use them rarely, they'll also double as a nice little bit of deco for the War Room - and when I need a magical or psychic portal for a wargame or RPG, I'll have the most kick-arse ones you've ever seen. They're beautiful, have depth and layers, and incredibly deep colours. Oh, and as you can see - they look the part amazingly! It might be worth giving them a coat of clear acrylic to protect them, which I'll look into later on.
edit - had the wrong image link for the pink one - now fixed!
Continuing the drive I've been on in knocking over fast-ish scenery projects recently, here's a couple more things I've completed in the past week or so.
First up are some stone walls from the Confrontation starter set - which is also the place that the recent Hill Ruins came from. This time, I remembered to add a figure for scale. I like these walls a lot. They're just the thing (along with the hill) that whoever owns the current rights to should be churning out en masse as cheap and great-looking scenery in hard plastic.
Because I've got two starter sets, I've ended up with 4 of each piece (the set comes with 2 of each piece, plus the hill, figures, dice, tape measure, rules, etc. Just the usual as far as painting goes on these - base coat, drybrush, wash, drybrush again, weathering powders.
When I first showed off this Italieri fountain, awhile back, I got asked quite a reasonable question about scale. So this time I'm showing the figure to demonstrate both the scale, and also how well these ruined wall sections fit in with other scenery to create a space that could fit in anywhere from a Fantasy world to WWII to the 41st Millennium. Take away the fountain and the walls will work just as perfectly in an Ancients setting.
Confrontation walls combine nicely to make a ruined building. Call Time Team!
I also started and finished a second batch of 6 Dragon's Teeth/Tank Traps from DUST Tactics sets. I started with 6 of them, from various starter sets and so forth, painted them at least a year ago, then they sat around. In the last year or so, I've discovered another 6 of them, gleaned from various DUST expansion sets, and so the lot of them sat around taking up space in my painting area, until last week when I finally pulled my fist out and painted the new ones. Which predictably took just a couple of hours in a day that I was also busy doing all sorts of other things in. So - probably not worth the delay in getting 'round to them, then.
Nothing amazing. Painted with a base of Woodland Scenics' Concrete, then some washes, drybrushing and Tamiya weathering stuff. They look decent and suitably grubby with a realistic enough look on the table top.
With 12 of them now finished, there's enough of them to provide a fair bit of Area Denial to enemy armour. Again, suitable for battlefields anywhere from WWII through to the far future. Though I have admittedly just realised that there's no scale shot with a vehicle for size context. I'll get that sorted shortly.
I do still paint a lot of stuff in a bluish-grey (like those walls) but even those have a plan for the future - I plan to do some staining of a fair bit of my bluish-grey stuff in the future as seen here at Sho3box' Blog. The added colour adds a real interest to the models, to me it's a little reminiscent of World of Warcraft. The stuff that's more historically-oriented will have less colour added, so it doesn't become distracting, while the more Fantasy-strong pieces will be a bit more stained..
Either way, I'm starting to add weathering powders to the scenic pieces that I'm working on and it's adding a bit more visual interest.
Just had a look at your 2 P&M blog links - you've got some nice work there - but it looks like you haven't updated for awhile.
Well, I finished my first official Bolt Action models - a platoon of three Soviet T-34/85s. It took a little longer than I'd originally planned/hoped, since I wanted to get the markings more-or-less right, while still making the models look good. I found some information that the red star was used sparingly, (and that a white star was even used at times) and that individual unit markings were often left up to the company commanders, so after a fair bit of looking around, I decided that the red star added an attractive bit of spot colour to the models, as did the Guards Tank badge. I also added some freehand slogans, which was a lot of fun.
Now, quite a few pics. Lots more on the Wordpress blog for those interested.
Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85
T-32/34 321 "Crush the Fascists!"
The commander is removable, he's blu-taced into the hatch for a bit of variety, and for use in games where the "lead" tank might matter - to keep it obvious for the players.
Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85
T-32/34 322 "For Moscow!"
One thing that really got me going with these tanks was their simple assembly. I often find myself getting distracted when working on models that have overly-complex assembly, as my favourite part of the hobby is really painting - and specifically completing painting - the detail work. Followed by gaming (which I don't get to do nearly as often as I'd like). Modelling and assembly can be fun, but as much as I love multi-part HIPs figures and so forth, I'd be just as happy to have almost all figures come pre-assembled so I can just get to the painting. These really are very simple kits, so the assembly for all three was done in a day so I could get onto the fun of painting them.
Warlord Games Bolt Action T-34/85
T-32/34 322 "For the Motherland!"
These kits aren't super-detailed, and won't win any prizes in any modelling shows - nor will this paint work - but for the purposes of gaming they're just fine. I found I enjoyed painting these up with their military greens, rough damage and weathering more than I've enjoyed painting any 40k tanks ever as well.
The T-34/85 platoon shows off their freehand slogans.
I chose to use freehand for the slogans because I wanted to have something a little more unique than the decals provided, and because I really enjoy doing things like that. I also freehanded the ID numbers on the obverse side of the turrets (but not the diamonds). I did those in freehand because I've seen many images where they were clearly painted on by the crew as well. I felt making them deliberately a little wonky also works well for what they are. I can paint more uniform than that - though not nearly as perfect as a stencil, obviously!
And now - some action shots!
The sun shines on our glorious boys as they heroically push back the opressors! За Родину!
A ruined building provides no obstacle for the Heroic Liberators!
So yeah, I had a little bit of fun here. It also shows off some of the terrain I finished recently to provide some sense of their scale with the Bolt Action armour.
I guess now I need to get hold of a platoon worth of German Armour, so these guys have someone to fight. Panthers? PzIV? Both? Hmm...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Thraxas Of Turai wrote: Such a simple thought process with the agate and objective markers but such great results, I am shocked you do not see more of this usage.
As for the other terrain your gaming set up must be chock-a-bloc by now. Am looking forward to seeing a little more Dust too.
You're not wrong - the terrain cabinet is pretty much overflowing. I've got a lot of stuff from 10+ years ago which is pretty good. I guess I have to decide if some of it needs touching up "modern style" with weathering powder, etc. But I definitely need more storage space for finished terrain soon. I've got some DUST Axis gorillas on the painting desk. They've been there since Feb though, and while I'd like to get them finished and out of the way, there always seems to be some other stuff with a higher priority. It would be good to get rid of them from the desk though...
Great work on the t-34s! They look spot on, the understated markings and the weathering just brings their work horse ethic to the front. They are not meant to be flashy, just efficient in killing facists for the motherland.
Azazelx wrote:Just had a look at your 2 P&M blog links - you've got some nice work there - but it looks like you haven't updated for awhile.
Thanks for looking! I've had couple of really busy years with moving and kids starting school that I haven't had too much spare time to give to painting and gaming. I've just started to get some painting done having finished some Skorne solos along with couple of Deadzone figs. Have to try to get a camera set up and take some new pics of the stuff that is finished. Looking at your thread along with some other great P&M blogs here at dakka makes me want to jump back in and do some posting of my work.
Nice work on the T-34s some of my favourite tanks. For German armour, I'd suggest a pair of Panther VIs or Tiger Vs, both of which look cool. Just don't go 1-for-1 with the Russian/German tanks, as if you get around to playing a game with them they should end very, very badly for the Commies!
I love the slogans on the T-34s. I freehand names and slogans onto my armoured vehicles as well; tankers will personalize their vehicles in a way that never looks factory-stenciled. I've never contemplated putting work onto a tank that looks like the crew reapplied a name or slogan over battlefield damage, have you?
Thanks for the feedback guys. Yeah, the lighting makes them look very different. I'd say the well-lit "studio" shots are the ones that look most true to life, though the more stark table shots is pretty much how they'll look "in the field" since they were taken on my games table.
Great to hear, Metsiri - and I'm flattered that I'm helping you in some small way get back "on the horse" again. I've got a little WMH stuff, but never painted any of it to date. I guess it's the need to learn yet another system and then having to teach it to my friends that makes it hard to get motivated (along with like 500 other projects, of course).
Para - I'll likely get a trio of PzIV, and probably a trio of Panthers. And of course, a Tiger. It'll depend to an extent on what's available in terms of not-overly-complex (or expensive) plastic 1:48 tanks. I'll have a few different BA armies to kit out, so there's a bit of scope there. Looking at the available kits, I might well have 8th Army and US M4 Shermans before I get to the German Armour...
I know there's a lot available in Metal & Resin, but I just don't know if I can be arsed with dealing with those materials for armoured vehicles. I guess I have the US M10 here that I bought a few years ago. Maybe I'll start with that and see how it goes...
DarkSoldier - never thought of that, but on the other hand, there's weathering both over and under these slogans, so.. maybe?
Thanks mate. I was hoping to get started on some troops shortly, but a new PS4 is now eating a lot of my painting time. Now that desk-backlog is going to take a lot longer to clear up...
Back in March, I found two out of the three figures from the Scotia Grendel Dungeon Crawlers kit that I picked up bout 15-20 years ago. (Damn that makes me feel old!) Because of the way that things seem to work in my life and on the painting desk, the frog-thing and millipede-thing have been MIA for a couple of months now (they might be in the shed, perhaps?) and I ended up finding the leech-thing, conveniently already glued to a 60mm base with some putty ’round the edges. Not wanting to tool around too much rebasing and agonising over the scheme – since that’s a great way to never get anything finished – I decided to get that sucker painted.
So here it is:
I figure this thing can work just as well as a 40k-sci-fi alien leech as a D&D-style fantasy giant leech. So, you know, whatever. I went with green and mustard yellow since the underside was sculpted with a bit of contrasting texture, so I thought I may as well transfer that to the palette. Same deal with the pinky-purple tongue and the bone teeth, again so they stand out.
A nice thick layer of polyurethane varnish on the model keeps it looking suitable shiny and yucky. I also added some Vallejo realistic water mixed with some transparent yellow to create the slime effect on the side of the model where the slime-holes(!) are located, and some realistic water without colouring onto some of the mouth-parts and tongue. I found that the figure looked too small for its base, and to help fill in the empty space without going overboard – or adding in fantasy or sci-fi-specific extras, I just went for some of the larger tufts that I had sitting around in the packets. Often those are the hardest ones to find a use for and they end up on scenery, since they’re too large for use on almost all miniatures.
Finally, a big-hat Warhammer High Elf for scale. I should really finish this guy’s unit off. I bet it would take less than half a day if I ever manage to pull my fist out… Actually, I’ve got some scenery that just needs finishing off that could be measured in probably less than half an hour…
Full disclosure – I actually painted this thing a couple of weeks ago but didn’t get around to posting it. After a pretty productive two weeks or so of painting I’m in a bit of a ..not burnt out, but kinda taking a rest. Also, since my wife bought me that PS4 as a belated birthday gift, and so I’ve been running around Mordor after work and on the weekends instead of sitting and painting like I’m “supposed” to…
Looks cool, definitely slimy and gross so pretty much just right.
I often find myself having a painting/hobby lull/break/hiatus/whateveryouwannacallit after I get a batch done. Or a single large model, or couple of pieces of terrain. Sometimes I jump right into the next thing but usually I just take a bit of a break without really intending to do so.
I really like that leech thing. Reminds me of the days of crawling through the Eye of the Beholder sewer levels with heaps of these bad boys trying to eat my party.
Despite my last post here being in Mid-October, the last time I painted anything until about 2 weeks ago was on about October the second. Mostly spurred on by playing a lot of Zombicide with the group, and Tarmor coming over to do some painting.
Today’s topic, though, is the Bronze Bull. I ordered this from Wargames Foundry, along with a pile of other Mythological Greeks for Marouda’s Mythic Greek KoW army a couple of weeks ago, and it turned up a few days ago. Since it’s going to be one of the centrepieces of the force, and it’s not an especially complex model, I thought it was a good idea for her to do most of the painting (with me just doing the base and some details that she was less confident with. I mounted it on a GW 40mm base and added putty, slate and an appropriate spare shield, then sprayed it on Friday. All painting done last Saturday. Always nice to get something started and finished in a day!
Colours were straightforward. Various copper, brass and silver tones from Vallejo’s ranges, and P3’s Brass Balls. Some Citadel Technical Nihilakh Oxide over white for the eyes to give a nice subtle glowing effect, and job’s a good’un!
I intend to make another large order to Foundry in another month or so – this time for Jason and many Argonauts and also some more historical Greeks to shore up the army. Later on down the line it’ll be time for my Romans.
Good to have you and your quality work back among the Blogs. It is an incredibly clean and vibrant paint job and the base does a great job of highlighting the Bull.
Thanks guys! I'll be trying to post more stuff this year. My target is once again 365 figures (as it has been for the past 2 years) with a "soft" target of beating the number I got past year (319 click for the list). If I hadn't stopped in October last year I'd have easily hit it, but hey!
The main difference is that this year I'll try and show off more of them, even if they're not great. Last year I finished a ton of Gondor men, but since they're individually not very exciting at all, I held off on showing them off. The 2 years before I finished a whole lot of D&D Ravenloft and Ashardalon figures, but since I wanted to show them all off together - again because many of them are individually unexciting, or very average models...
So on that note, I'll have a small update later today when I get back from work.
So is *this* where I got my stupid goal from? I have been blaming Para but.... huh.
Don't worry about showing off the less exciting models, just DO IT I do it all the time! We can bask in each others mediocrity (and dear god that sounds like a mutant pickup line now that I see it typed!).
If it's not too much of a bother! Good luck with your goal, perhaps you will have a pace that I can keep up with a little better than Para
Since Marouda is building an Undead army for KoW, and was interested in practicing/learning how to paint more gooder, I dug out the undead Bones figures from their first Kickstarter. I'd already knocked up the 6 archers for a missile unit, and so suggested these Swordsmen and Spearmen as easy/simple/fast figures to teach my method of doing bone. It's much easier to paint "naked" skeletons than clothed or armoured ones, that's for sure! They got up to about half done - the point of starting to highlight the bones after base coat and wash, when Marouda chickened out(!) because she was intimidated by picking out the bones, so they sat on my paint desk taking up space for 6 months or so.
Now that I'm starting to paint again, and starting on her Mythic Greek army, I had an idea while cleaning up the Wargames Foundry Greek Undead (think Jason and the Argonauts) and noticed that the Bones Spearmen have Dipylon-style shields. I decided then to pair these bones figures up with the Foundry Undead Swords to make a full unit of 12 (20) for her Kings of War forces. They can obviously do double duty between Mythic Greeks and Generic Undead. Unless of course the Mythic Greeks are fighting the Generic Undead. Then they'll have to choose a side!
So anyway, there's absolutely nothing special about the paintjobs on these. I finished them off over 2 days that were mostly spent playing Far Cry 4, and the final touch was adding some of Warlord Games' Greek shield transfers and rimming the shields to give them more of a Hoplon look. Since these figures are pretty ...shall we say basic. We chose unexciting transfers for them. They'll be the rear and centre-mid ranks of the unit, and so will mostly be hidden by their nicer Foundry brethren once the unit is set up. They're being shown mostly due to wanting to document what I get done this year a bit better than I did last year, and also to share my opinion on these models. Only changes to the models has been mounting them on Proxie Models 25mm round bases so they fit in with the rest of my armies and doing the usual sand & putty combo - and slicing off the shield bosses to make them look a little more like Hoplon-style shields. Obviously helped a great deal by the transfers, and surprisingly, even more so by the simple act of rimming the shields in a simple Hoplite-style.
As models go, like many Bones, these do what they say on the tin, in a very basic manner. I'd really only recommend them for roleplayers. If you're playing D&D and want some cheap and cheerful skellys for your adventures, then these are a perfectly serviceable way to go. They even work okay if you're the kind of roleplayer who never paints their models, or just gives them a wash to bring out the detail. For wargamers, and obviously those of us more focused on painting, there are many better options out there. Still, I already owned these, they pass the three-foot test, and they've now gone from Unpainted to Painted, and we know that every time a miniature gets painted, a Kitten gets their Wings, so it's all good.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, and right now, I'm on 20 figures for the year. The Wordpress is slightly ahead of Dakka for the moment, but the thread here will be caught up soon (and won't have videogame reviews, brush reviews and other more esoteric stuff.)
The second pic is how they'll be arranged once I finish the Wargames Foundry ones. Mid-second rank, and as the rear rank. Foundry ones taking the front rank and the edges of the second. This is actually a good example of why so much of my stuff never gets shown. Last year I'd have waited until the Foundry figures get finished - which could be in a few days, a few weeks, or next year since I can have the attention span of a gnat.
I finished a couple of plastic LotR Fellowship figures a eyar or two ago. They haven't been photgraphed yet because I was waiting until I had a full Fellowship to show together.
Skeletons are supposed to be basic, it's why they are usually such a chore to paint. You have done a good job on the bones and a really good job on the shields which as has already been said hide a lot of the simplicity of the skeletons.
I adore that bronze bull sculpt, such a natural pose for something that isn't. The muted metallics are great as well. Agree on the transfers and Hoplite edging on the skeletons shields, it really makes them stand out.
I love a blog like this, it brings so many models that I have no knowledge of to my attention. Best of luck with maintaining the attention span Azazelx.
Thanks again guys - That’s all they need to do – add mass to a group of skeletons while taking up the back part of that mass. Luckily the large shields also manage to draw the eye from the rest of the models.
Agreed on that Bull, Thraxas - It's a surprisingly nice model and was no challenge to paint. Marouda was surprised how easy it was for most of it to get it looking good.
Here's the next two:
First up is the Reaper Stone Golem, who I decided to paint in a Sandstone kind of scheme, ostensibly for the Egyptian-themed contingent of Marouda’s Undead army. Originally, the plan was to have the bronze/gold armour pieces as part of the magical mechanism keeping the golem animated/enslaved (pick one!) and to additionally feature chipped and worn paint on his skirt in the traditional blue/yellow scheme everyone uses for Egyptians based on Tutankhamen’s Death Mask. The thing was that I was never entirely happy with the idea, so the figure just sat in almost-finished limbo for over a year. So recently, I decided to just bloody finish it. I used the same Citadel Technical Nihilakh Oxide over white for the eyes as I did on the Bronze Bull, though this one was finished a week or two earlier. (And this was used as one of the examples for Marouda to choose the Bull’s eye style from.) I see I’ve missed some overflow below the belt line on it’s skirt. Probably from when I’d planned to paint the skirt. I’ll have to go back and touch that up. Maybe.
The second figure in this update is the old Harlequin Miniatures Zombie. Somewhat of a classic figure in many ways, mostly due to his distinctive “exploded” torso. I picked up this figure in a single blister many, many years ago. Long enough to qualify him as an “Oldhammer” figure? Maybe just on the fringes, since it would likely have been into the mid-90s, when GW stalwarts like Kev Adams and others had started to move on from the company. This guy seems to have a name “Buster Rotvessel” (see what they did there?) and apparently had a whole unit to back him up back in the day. Sadly he no longer appears to be available from Black Tree Design, who currently own the old Harlequin sculpts. Still, I’m sure he’s relatively easily available on eBay and from other sources. Still, the silly name they gave him makes me keep thinking of Busta Rhymes. And giggling.
Not a perfect figure by any means, his ham-hands and the tree-trunk handles on his weapons are both somewhat ridiculous, and indicative of the WHFB4-era’s aesthetics that he’s very much a part of (despite not being an actual Citadel figure) but his obese, corpulent, exploded physique add a lot of extra character to the model overall. He’d been sitting around in various stages of partially painted for several years (5?) before I finally pulled my finger out and finished highlighting the skin and picked out the exposed bone. A week later when I was blooding up some Zombivors, he got finished up with the same batch. I'll show those off shortly.
Since my group has been playing a fair bit of Zombicide over the past couple of months, and starting to paint the figures was one of the things that got me restarted with painting models, I'm showing off the first three here. I'm painting S2 Survivors & Zombvivors rather than the S1 figures because I'm painting them in their pairs and we haven't cracked open the S2 box(es) yet and so don't have their Zombvivors out.
"Fred" is a homage to Simon Pegg as Shaun from "Shaun of the Dead" (2004)
I took Shaun's black pants as a little challenge, as they're quite nicely sculpted. To make them look black, (they are SO black in the film and stills) while still picking out the sculpt detail - but without resorting to typical light greys and almost-white highlights. I think I pulled it off. In contrast with the pants (and several other Zombicide figures), the sculpt on his head and face was a bit of a shambles (the artwork isn't so hot, either!), and his cricket bat was clearly sculpted by someone who has never held or possibly even seen a real cricket bat, as the thing looks more like an American college fraternity paddle from a comedy film. I did pick out his two-tone-red tie, but I fear it is too subtle, and is lost in the general bloodstains on his clothing (taken from the point in the film where he's using his tie as a headband).
"Don" is a homage to everyone's favourite hotelier - John Cleese as Basil Fawlty from Fawlty Towers (1975-1979)
As always, I googled the character before beginning to paint, and found that in most images Basil's suit was actually grey and not the brown pictured in the Zombicide artwork. In the end I made the choice to stick with brown as a brown suit just feels so much more 1970s and "Basil Fawlty", somehow. I did carefully copy the colours of his tricolour tie from the reference photographs, though. This figure is quite nicely sculpted as well, though I found that has face again didn't photograph all that well. (and the figures appear shinier here than IRL). A small detail that can't be seen here is the shine and polish on living Basil's shoes that is absent on undead Basil's scuffed shoes.
"Rob" is a homage to Sean Connery as John Mason from "The Rock" (1996)
This was the easiest of the three to paint due to the almost entirely black outfit. I'm not really a fan of over-highlighting things, and as John Mason is supposed to be a black-ops type guy, I kept his gear nice and dark. I did pick out his medical lanyard in red, and painted his twin Uzi SMGs in Vallejo Metal Black with a highlight of gunmetal, so they're actually far brighter than is realistic. The sculptor of this figure did a good job of picking out Connery's trademark "smirk/people's eyebrow" look in the sculpt, and I did an okay job of keeping it followed by an average job of photographing it. The Zombvivor also looks better in person, as shiny transparent red over dark grey/black also doesn't photograph all that well.
As always, a few more pics of the stuff in this update are on the wordpress blog.
Your work on these three (or should I say 6) models is outstanding. Even if the photos don't do the real life models their full justice they look sweet enough for me.
All great stuff. The Zombiecide miniatures are great and capture their original inspiration really well.
And that stone Golem has long been a favourite of mine. It is sad that there are so few decent Golems on the market, but this may well be the best. I kind of fell in love with them after reading the DiscWorld novel "Feet Of Clay". The Sandstone is done really well.
Yeah, I watched Shaun twice recently. Once when my mum came over (she hadn't seen it) and then in the background while we played out next game of Zombicide.
It is one of those films that never gets old; you can watch it a dozen times a year and it's just as good every time. While I probably prefer the second 'Cornetto' film (Hot Fuzz), SotD is one of the best comedies ever made.
Another couple of figures that I painted recently (at the same time as the first batch of Zombicide survivors) were Hasslefree's Ray, and Dynamic Ray. Obviously I painted these as they're Hasslefree's take on Simon Pegg as Shaun of the Dead. Since all four figures were of the same character, it made sense to paint them all at once. I'm showing off these separately I think the Hasslefree models deserve their own post.
Although these are shorter than the Zombicide figures, I prefer both of these to the "official" ZC sculpt, as they have more character to them and are nice sculpts, and the cricket bat looks like a cricket bat (particularly on Dynamic Ray). These are somewhat heroic-scaled, though. "Regular" Ray is an early Hasslefree sculpt, and as such, Dynamic Ray - the later sculpt - has a better likeness of Pegg, better proportions all around, and better detailing (just look at the pants!) Still, if you're a fan (or need a figure for that boardgame!) either or even both are a worthwhile purchase.
Army of the Pegg! I like the sound of that. I've also got the Hasslefree Hot Fuzz figures as well. I can't recall if I have the later upgunned versions as wel, but I definitely have the originals. They're way down in the painting queue for the moment though, as I try to paint more Zombicide survivors and finish units so as to clean off my painting desk.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Slinky wrote: On the ZC minis, did you just use your standard undercoating technique?
I may try a few Zombies to try and regenerate some painting mojo
I just sprayed them with cheap black (Connery)/white (Pegg/Cleese) primer. It wasn't a problem going onto the ZC figures.
The models are really great. Must agree the cricket bat is far better on the last Simon Pegg lookalike. Where do you get the rules for Zombiecide? If the minis are anything to go by it sounds like fun.
The game is great fun, and the rules are all available online for free, but you do need the boxed game to play, as it's a boardgame. There are a ton of extra Kickstarter-exclusive characters, but their rules are also available for free on their website, so you can just sub in a proxy figure (like the Hasslefree Shauns)
Naturally, both places are out of stock right now... I've bought heaps of stuff from both places and they're both very trustworthy.
Games Paradise says they have stock, $95 and free shipping for $125+, but their service is slow, poor, poor packaging, and they may not actually have stock. (google them for some reviews!)
http://www.gamesparadise.com.au/zombiecide
Thanks for the tips. I will definitely look into it. My social group love board games so it could be a big win (still can't convince them to try table top war games).
Archer wrote: Thanks for the tips. I will definitely look into it. My social group love board games so it could be a big win (still can't convince them to try table top war games).
Zombicide might be a nice segway from one to the other.
That's sort of what I was thinking. I have a few mates (well 6 actually) who used to play GW games regularly and I know a couple of them have been getting a tad itchy again. Just need that final "push" to get them over the line........(insert evil laughter here).
Zombicide's co-op gameplay is also a good deal. A friend of some friends who I've played a few games with in the last couple of years wrote up a review of it after a games evening at my place if you're interested in the perspective of a gamer who never followed the Kickstarters, etc and had his first games "cold".
https://tarmor21.wordpress.com/2015/01/08/so-this-is-it-were-going-to-die-game-review/
And now, new pics!
Another of the Reaper Bones Golems that I started painting up an age ago that I've finally finished off. I think I actually picked the three of them - the others being the Stone Golem and the Battleguard Golem out at the same time, thinking that I'd do them all at the same time. According to the timestamp of the Iron Golem's post that was back in August-September 2013. So, um.. yeah.
So... what actually is a Clay Golem, anyway? Some bloody D&D/Pathfinder/etc thing, obviously. But what should it look like? Certainly when I looked at the miniature it didn't match my mental image that the name "Clay Golem" conjured up. I imagine something far rougher, earthier, and less steroid-laden. So I turned to google for inspiration. As it happened, I found my inspiration on the Reaper Miniature forums, with this figure by Metalchaos. He (or she!) turned out a very nice looking figure, with a bit of conversion and a nice base. Since I'm mostly a D&D/Pathfinder ignoramus, I had to look up what a Carnage Demon actually is, and after a brief look, thought "good enough" and got started. I wasn't planning to rip MC's base off, since I'm too lazy and generally prefer more generic bases for my gaming models. I was planning to rip off the horns, though. And that's why this figure stopped in limbo for 16-odd months.
Fastforward to a few weeks ago, and my current attempt to clean up my painting desk by finishing stuff that's taking up space (instead of filing it away for years!) and I spied this little bastard. Down he came from the half-finished shelf, I went through the google images pics again, decided that horns are an optional extra, and finished him off. Finished, based, done, job's a good-enough-'un. Especially for something that will probably never get used for anything.
Here's the Bones Golem Triptych that I've painted so far. It's just occurred to me that I painted the Iron Golem as bronze, the Clay Golem as red (demonic) flesh, and the Stone Golem as sandstone. So much for grey tones!
Not the most interesting figure, granted - but I'm trying to show everything I finish this year, so there's going t be some real exciting stuff mixed in this year...
I like your take on the Golems, refreshing to see non-gray and silver when Golems are concerned. I also thought using the Clay Golem (not a great sculpt in my opinion for a Clay Golem, it needed to be less defined) as a Daemon was an inspired idea and you painted it really well.
Wargames Foundry is a well-known maker of Historical Miniatures. At one stage in its history a sister company to Citadel Miniatures and Games Workshop when all three were owned/controlled by Bryan Ansell, their paths have diverged wildly over the years. While it's generally well-known that Bryan took a lot of Citadel's earlier very-historical-inspired ranges with him to Foundry. What's less well known is the fact that they have some ranges like the Greek Mythology range, which features models like Harpies, Satyrs, Centaurs, Pegasi, our old friend The Bronze Bull, and our topic of the day - Skeletons!
As part of the Mythic Greek force, the (two, probably) units I'll be making of these guys are going to be referred to as The Hydra's Teeth. Apparently they should be more correctly referred to as Dragon's Teeth, but to me "dragon's teeth" mean tank traps, and I've got more than a soft spot for Ray Harryhausen's seminal animation work of decades gone by. Since the 2 packs of 5 Foundry figures come to have 6 figures with blade, and 4 with spear out of the 10, I've split them for Kings of War purposes. I've combined the 6 blade figures with the 6 Bones skeleton figures that I finished off a couple of weeks ago to make a KoW Regiment of 12 (20).
The other day I saw a gallery of someone's commissioned figures that featured some masterfully-painted figures, amongst the (hundreds?) of models were some with battle-scarred and scratched up shields. While I've added a small amount of verdigris to these, I mulled over trying something similar. While I have confidence that I could do a good job, I decided against it based on a couple of reasons - 1) While I like my bone technique, the shields are very much the focus points of these figures, and I wanted to keep them looking neater to draw the eye. 2) The Bones figures are really not very good at all, and I really wanted to avoid anything that would potentially dull those shields from drawing the eye away.
The linen curiass on the figure I decided should probably be a "leader" (at least as far as mindless skeletons go) was lacking a bit of detail, so with the help of the talented artists who work for Osprey and a quick Google Image Search, I worked out a way to add some more interest to the unit commander by adding some geometric patterns across his chest and under his arms.
It's a little unfortunate that out of the 10 sculpts by Foundry, only two of them wear torso armour - the linen curiass in both cases. One blade, and one spear. Similarly, only two are helmeted, both of whom are amongst the four spear-wielding sculpts. Most of the sculpts are pretty much plain skeletons with perhaps an armband - not even bronze greaves! The only positive of all this is that it would make it relatively easy to swap in any other brand's undead models armed with sword or spear, glue a Greek shield on, and bump up the numbers. Now all I need to do is find a source of decently-sculpted, unarmoured metal undead - preferably inexpensive and one-piece casts that are armed predominantly with swords or spears. Not as easy as you'd think as I'm finding. Otherworld's models are beautiful sculpts, but have separate arms that look like fragile attachments, and aren't really priced for making regiments.
The Wargames Factory (not Foundry) plastic box are very much Greek-themed - in fact it's where I sourced the larger Hoplons and Dipylon-style shield that I mixed in to the Foundry models but I still have concerns about their potential fragility on the wargames table. Anyway, here's the first unit of The Hydra's Teeth, ready for action!
I think the combination of large, bright Greek shields and keeping the Bones models to the mid-centre and rear ranks does a good job of minimising the visibility of the multiple boring monopose figures well enough in static photos like these, and will do even moreso once they're all on the table amongst scenery and an active battle. Now I just need to sort out two more spearmen somehow, and I can call both initial units done and dusted.
Yeah I agree with the others, the skeletons work really well, the shields divert the eye and "concealing" the mono-pose models in the back makes them hard to notice. But being animated undead as carlos13th has said they are simply standing vigil until they are called to action....
Another model in my "Clean up this bloody messy desk and shelf by finishing stuff" series - This Bob Olley-sculpted Iron Claw Stone thrower was first painted by myself way back in the dark ages of the late 1980's, not too long after its release in 1988. The goblin crew have been lost to the ages due to my general dislike of Bob's sculpting style (aside from Ogres and Ogryns), but the war machine remained, albeit somewhat grudgingly.
Spoiler:
Now it's time for the resurrection. I'll be adding this to my Kings of War Orc and/or Goblin force (they're separate armies in KoW, and only Goblins have much in the way of war machines) when I get around to painting more of my old-school models. In the meantime it can fit in with whoever else is on the table with appropriate crew, perhaps as war booty.
As (most of) you guys know, I've been rebasing my old WHFB models to have 25mm round bases for KoW and other games, and because I generally prefer them. The exceptions being larger monsters like Ogres - though I've continued to give War Machines round bases. After some looking around at options, I'm still not sure what to do with this one. While it fits on a 60mm round, it's clearly much too small. My next options are the 80mm round, and the 50x75mm square (rectangle) - and I'm really not sure which to go for.
With that in mind, here are a couple of pictures. Please vote or comment to help me decide. The rectangular base makes it more of a discrete piece, while the round base would allow some crew to be placed on the edges of the base (on their own bases).
Option A - 50mmx75mm Rectangle
Option B - 80mm Round
I'll leave this up for a few days (I'm going away for work for a few days with intermittent-at-best internet) and I'll make a decision when I get back later in the week. Just a note, even if 100% of the vote is one way, I absolutely can be swayed by a well-argued point the other way. Compatibility with WHFB is something I don't give two hoots about, though! Once I decide, I'll do any touch ups/cover ups or repaints I think the model needs, base it, and then post again with the completed renovation! The good news is that it shouldn't take long to finish either way.
I think having the crew on the round base could open up some nice options for cool diorama/scenic basing, you could even make some dented green-stuff balls for ammo,
or use spare undead and dwarf heads if you have any lying around. Besides its not like these things need to rank up or anything, and the facing shouldn't cause any
issues, the catapult itself is a rectangle after all.
Also round bases for individual models just look "neater" for some reason, especially for bigger units like war-machines.
BTW Aza you still working on your KoW Ogre army, or is it classed as finished, theres gonna be a whole bunch of new unit options (including giants) available when KoW V.2
lands later this year, just curious if your planning on expanding your army. I'm gonna start work on my own KoW Ogre army soon (first one), already got a mock-up or two
ready for some conversions, definitely gonna be adding a giant myself, should be fun.
I think having the crew on the round base could open up some nice options for cool diorama/scenic basing, you could even make some dented green-stuff balls for ammo,
or use spare undead and dwarf heads if you have any lying around. Besides its not like these things need to rank up or anything, and the facing shouldn't cause any
issues, the catapult itself is a rectangle after all.
The Mierce base I'm using has some little nubs on it - three of them for some reason. I guess it's 2x 90 degree arcs or something? Anyway, I carved one of them off and will just use the other two as 90% front fire arc markers - not that it matters in KoW since they just swivel at will. After reading your post I remembered that I've got some volcanic beads that I bought off eBay years ago that are perfect for an ammo pile, so I'm using some of those. I spot-glued them together last night and will add some more glue shortly.
BTW Aza you still working on your KoW Ogre army, or is it classed as finished, theres gonna be a whole bunch of new unit options (including giants) available when KoW V.2
lands later this year, just curious if your planning on expanding your army. I'm gonna start work on my own KoW Ogre army soon (first one), already got a mock-up or two
ready for some conversions, definitely gonna be adding a giant myself, should be fun.
Nope, Ogres are still very much a WIP. I was painting a second unit each of shooters, and since I dislike painting the models so very much they stalled me out. I've been going with "finish these before starting any new ones." so they took me about a year? I finished the crossbowmen about a month ago now, and literally just finished the blunderbusses this past weekend before my work trip. I'm hoping to photograph them this weekend as well as some full army-in-progress shots as I get back on the Ogre train properly. Though I still want to make myself finish some more stuff that's clogging up the paint desk before starting tons of new units.
I also have some more photos - Just a bit of a mini-update today. A small unit of mummies. These were painted some unknown number of years ago on square green-flocked based, and rebased to my current style last year. I'm not even sure if they got touched up in terms of paint. Later last year they were drafted into my wife's KoW Undead army, when I had to create an undead army out of existing painted figures in a day. Of course, KoW "officially" uses 20mm bases on mummies, so a Troop of five is on a 100mm frontage x 20mm depth stand. Four mummies based on 25mm round bases gives me the same frontage and +5mm depth - which is well within reasonable for a movement tray, so good enough for our games.
The "hands down" mummies are from my original copy of HeroQuest, cut off their original square bases and stuck onto citadel-style ones. The "reach out and touch someone" mummies are from a boardgame whose name I cannot remember, but it was from the same era, had a bunch of miniatures, and some temple scenery that I keep recognising in people's collections and batreps from time to time. Dark-something? I'm sure someone will remember. Anyway, quite decent mummies. I have a few of the official Kings of War mummies from the Kickstarter, but they don't really appeal to me. I'll probably look at them sometime this year and see if I can convert them more to my liking.
While these are nothing special in terms of wonderfully painted figures, they're effective enough for what they are and do, and along with photographing everything I finish this year, I'm also planning to show off the armies as they get built up. Mostly, though - this post was inspired by seeing Tarmor and Subedai's mummy-blog-posts in the last few weeks with the same HeroQuest figures. So it's also a "me too" post.
Who would have guessed heroquest miniatures could turn out so nicely? I remember that board game must have been the first attempt I ever made at painting models. Oh the terrible memories.......yours look great.
I like those mummies. I have a few of those HQ mummies in a box somewhere. I never bothered to paint them because they looked to boring, but your results may have changed my mind. I'll have to dig them out sometime.
Love the old stone thrower. I used to have the old goblin "skull crusher" and "lead belcher" from the Machineries of Destruction range, but they got lost in the original grand sell-off...
Nice! I never had either of those. I had (still have? somewhere?) the Man Mangler and the Gobbo Chariots - and painted a few Gob Lobbers for various people back in the day. It'll be good once I've gotten as far as resurrecting my Orc and Goblin armies for KoW.
While I continue to work on the Stone Thrower's base, here's some more stuff I finished recently and just photographed today.
Despite the difference in dates, it's "only" 14 months since I last updated on these figures. As I've noted before, while Mantic's Ogre models do turn out night enough, I do not enjoy painting them. My cunning plan was to cockblock myself and not allow myself to paint the "fun" Ogre models until after I finished the second batch of shooters. Since I hadn't worked on them in 13 months, I think we can safely state that particular plan wasn't the best. It was one of those 3am epiphany-type things that actually got me to finish these. Getting back into painting again after almost 3 months, wanting to paint Greeks and Romans, and thinking about the mess on the desk resulted in the thought of "just finish the fricking things - they'll probably only take a couple of hours to finish" replacing the usual "shove them out of the way". It's the same thought process that helped get those Skeletons out of the way as well as a several of the other odd figures that I've recently shown and will continue to show shortly, and will also have some Elites for my Gondor army finished and off my desk in a couple of days. Or within a week. Or two. Hopefully.
I went with red tabards for these guys, so they're distinct from the blue of the original two units, though sometimes they'll potentially be combined into regiments of 6 rather than troops of 3. I've kept the tabards a dull red. I feel there's no need for them to be overly highlighted. I'd been looking at the shields for months thinking about adding some red to them, and I think it's worked well to add a little more colour and interest to them. As I mentioned a long time ago, I used Citadel Ogre Kingdom heads on the leaders of both units since Mantic has an incredibly limiting six total heads for their ogres - most of which are average or below quality. (Along with only three body types!) The Crossbows are equipped with the "Jar of the Four Winds", which I've represented by cracked amphorae filled with lemon-lime soft drink-coloured ...liquid.
The blunderbuss unit had a bit more reposing, in an attempt to make them a little more interesting (or less uninteresting?) I also gave them bucklers and a shield on the boss to aid in this. It wasn't until the end of painting them that I finally decided on painting the shields red.
I'd hoped to finish all six of these in a week from getting "motivated", but in the end it took closer to two weeks to finish the Crossbows and a further month to finish the Blunderbusses, but that's largely due to the fact that I still found it quite hard to make myself sit down and finish them. I found breaking them up into their sub-units just made it easier again. The trouble being, obviously, that I didn't really enjoy working on them. Now they're done, I'm happy enough with them to use them or look at them, but I'm in no rush to work on more of them. I'm planning on getting back into painting more interesting and fun Ogres - not Mantic ones for awhile! I've actually got two more units almost done - each both lacking a single Ogre to finish them.
If I may ask, what is it that you don't like about the Mantic ogres. I've got half a dozen of them that I may work on sometime, and it would be nice to avoid any pitfalls.
They're nice enough models in many ways, and if you needed just a couple, they'd be fine. For units (or worse, an army) they're just way, WAY over-detailed. So, so many straps and belts and tiny tiny buckles and rivets and stitches and so on (and on). Only three torsos and six heads, so repetition is the name of the game - Especially since most of the heads are bleh. Not so bad if you only have 6 in total, but imagine painting an army.
All that is aside from the broader design choices such as the Mantic Johnny Bravo Huge Torso and Tiny Legs Proportions that they have, or the Remy is French So They're All Knock-Kneed thing that they also have going.
With the shooters (I've now painted 12 of them) they all have their arms across their bodies so it's a nightmare to get to the underlying tiny, tiny details with a brush - and you still have to because you can still see it. The one that isn't in my pics has had his blunderbuss arm converted and rebuilt, and given a "warrior" shield arm. I imagine armed with sword & board (or WHFB Orc arms) would be less painful, but that armed with 2-handers would be just as painful.
Now that they're done, I'm happy with how they look. But I've got no enthusiasm for starting on some more any time soon.
Ahhh. That's kind of why I can only paint so many Infinity models at a time, and why typically prefer painting Martians to mars attacks human soldiers. Straps and buckles can be an absolute bear, especially when there are a lot of them.
Cool thanks, I'll probably aim to do one ogre at a time then, to help prevent burnout. It's kind of funny, usually Mantic sculpts are a bit lighter on the detail (one reason I like painting them, especially the mars attacks stuff) without being overly plain. I guess they figured they had a bigger canvas with the ogres.
Interesting about the ogre sculpts. The GW ones I have been doing I feel have the right amount of detail with the possibility of gluing on seperate pouches and bags and such if you so choose. I have to admit I prefer the stockier GW sculpts to the leaner mantic ones.
You have done an excellent job of painting them though. They really have come alive.
Once I've finished up with some of the older classic metal Ogres in my half-painted queue, I'll be doing some of the current GW Ogres. I like the GW ones since they have enough "blank space" to use as an interesting canvas for tattoos or decorative pants, etc - as you well know. Though some furry/hie pants to mix things up would be welcome as well.
And with the 6 Gondor Spearmen I've just finished I have just hit parity on 2015's personal 365 painting challenge!
I'll keep staggering the photos of the stuff I've not yet shown, but things like these Gondor figures will be shown once I complete their units, and I'll fill out the quiet times with pics of last year's that I didn't show and other models I've worked on.
January Restart (not taking note of the dates):
Zombicide Sean Connery John Mason "The Rock"
Zombicide Sean Connery John Mason "The Rock" Zombvivor
Zombicide John Cleese Fawlty
Zombicide John Cleese Fawlty Zombvivor
Zombicide Simon Pegg Shaun
Zombicide Simon Pegg Shaun Zombvivor
Hasslefree Simon Pegg Shaun A
Hasslefree Simon Pegg Shaun B
Sweet, look at you go I've just cleared 70 so we seem to be at a much closer pacing than I was to Paradigm. Though you look to be rapidly picking up steam!
Ha! If I'm extremely lucky, I'll have a few over (like 20-30) at the very end of the year, but I'm more likely to waver over and under, get a slight lead, and then have a few breaks that drop me below again.
I'm trying to stay as far ahead as I can now as I know the summer will kill my progress eventually.
Right now I'm getting a boost from bones 2 as well, but eventually I'll run out of really cool models that I just *have* to paint, and models that make neat sets when combined... and I'll have to start fishing around for more inspiration.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Just glad to have someone to keep up with as opposed to Para who's probably cruising towards 200
My current boost is coming from making myself knuckle down and finish off stuff that's been sitting on my desk and shelf, half-finished for ages. The only figures I've allowed to queue jump in have been the Foundry Skeletons - who have the job of completing the units that the Bones Skellies bulk out. Tempted to start the Foundry Harpies soon, though.
Anyway...
Last year I did one of these Confrontation Hill Ruins in a desert scheme to match my desert mat. Not too much later than that, I started on another of them, going for the "brown dirt and flock" temperate scheme I use on my bases, which will probably see use on my green grass mat. This time I glued sand to the surface of the "dirt" in order to give it the same texture and look as my models. When I took a months-long hiatus from painting last year, it sat unfinished for several months until a few weeks ago. There's really nothing too exciting here, excepting the fact that I finally finished it, and I've decided to show off all of this year's painted/completed items.
I did use weathering powders again here, but much more subtly than on the Desert Hill. Obviously the Desert-painted hill looks far nicer on the Desert mat, but the brown dirt should fit in much more nicely on the Grass mat than the Desert Hill. Why didn't I photograph them on the grass mat? Because I was taking a bunch of other photos at the same time (like last post's Ogres) and it basically didn't occur to me at the time. Still, it will work nicely across a large variety of games, so job's a good'un.
Good job on the scenery there Az, I especially like the picture on your Wordpress blog comparing this and the more desert themed one. It is also a nice looking gaming piece in of itself, I may have to hunt one out but I assume they are now like hen's teeth.
LotR RotK SBG Box. FFS!
Well, only 11 and some change years later after buying them, I've finally painted the scenery that came with it. I started one statue and rubble pile last year, then found the second status and rubble pile, sprayed them, then let them all sit in their own (rubble) pile on the painting desk until a couple of weeks ago, when (as you'd be used to by now) I pulled out my finger and finished the former and painted the latter.
Actually, I'm pretty happy with how well they came out in the end. Some static flock, some tufts and a bit of weathering powders have given them a look I'm quite happy with over the bog-standard drybrushing.
For the statues I ended up repainting the first one. I went for an aged, dirty and yellowed "white" stone. Just the kind of thing to make you think of fallen civilisations. I honestly wouldn't mind getting hold of another of these sets at some stage soon. I think another of each of these pieces would go well with the ones I've (finally) finished here. Now I'm tempted to string some Ivy over these.
I second the satisfaction gained in turning out some good scenery. I find it as rewarding as painting models and when they are all together on a tabletop it looks simply awesome.
Recently I showed the Bones Skeletal Swordsmen that I finished for Marouda's Mythical Greek force. These six are the other half of the group. Originally the twelve of them were to make up a single unit of more generic undead troops, whether spear or blade worked out simply by swapping the front rank as appropriate. Since the Mythical Greeks are now becoming a thing with the addition of a big load of stuff from Wargames Foundry, they got split into the Blade regiment and these guys, who I finished last Friday and will be the back half of the Spear regiment.
You may well have noticed that the spears appear to be made of rubber. Well, that's Bones PVC for you! While I could have replaced the spear shafts with wire by cutting them off, drilling out the hands, and reattaching the spearheads, just look at the sculpts! They're hardly worth that kind of effort! I did what I think is a nice enough job on the actual bones, but that's because I enjoy painting bone most of the time. I've painted the shields with a kind of pseudo-Verginia Sun to give a Greek-Macedonian vibe to go with the preudo-Dipylon style shields. I left the shield bosses bronze rather than painting them the colours of the rays, or carving them off as I did on the swordsmen.
The unit will be completed soon, hopefully. I've got the four Foundry skeletons with spear completed, though I still have to do a shield for one of them and I'm unsure about shields for the other three, due to their poses. I've used a Wargames Factory Model for a fifth, but I'm still struggling to find an appropriate sixth to complete the unit. Any ideas? I'm looking for an unarmoured skeleton armed with a spear, sturdy one piece casting, nice enough sculpt, and preferring metal or at least sturdy HIPS. (The Wargames Factory ones seem a little fragile).
Sometimes scenery is more fun because it's bigger and chunkier, you can be rougher with it and it'll still come out surprisingly well at times. Plus, it's the backdrop for your fancily painted armies. One of my fellow local gamers uses a lot of felt. It's fine... but making something really nice can set a game off so much better.
What's that saying... terrain is the third faction? I think it works aesthetically as well as tactically
You're right about the Bones skeletons. Individually, they might lack a little something, three ranks of them behind something a little nicer will work out just fine. I look forward to a group shot of the completed unit.
Just a simple one today. Some of these models were finished last year, but I've finally finished off the last few of these last weekend, so now the unit is finished (for now). I've got them stuck to a Renedra 100x80mm movement tray for Kings of War, but since I use these guys for the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game I keep them based on 25mm rounds (also for aesthetics, and for consistency with most of my other models). These figures, as reasonably simple and uniform as they are have become a real bane to my painting queue. Originally, I only had the 24 models that came with the RotK starter box, and so with 8 of each type (Archers/Spear/Blade) I afforded them each a reasonable paint job, which involved blending their skirts, leggings and the edges of their shields with wolf grey over black rather than doing something simpler and faster like a black wash over dark grey. Because of this, and the fact that they're just not that interesting to paint - particularly en masse, they tend to take me forever to get done. The tree device on the shields, as many people will know is reeeeeeeally shallow as well, making it way trickier than it should be to give a quick once-over, which is a bit annoying.
When finished - and especially in a unit either on a tray or in a bunch - they look pretty good. They're effective at looking like what they're supposed to be. On the other hand, individually, they're really not very exciting at all. This is why despite painting quite a few of these guys last year and haven't shown any of them off to date aside from a single character model - Beregond. These guys are only on show today since I'm wanting to photograph everything I finish this year, and because people on Dakka's LotR forum have shown some interest.
In the rear view here you can see the blending on their skirts. It's come out a little more stark in the photos than in real life, but that's ok. The 75mm of the three ranks of figures also doesn't quite fill the 80mm of the movement tray, but again that's ok - especially as Kings of War is an element based game, and people often use fewer models and/or unit fillers - this unit "should" be 20 men strong, rather than 12 - but that's okay since it means I actually get a lot more units completed by using models and their bases in this way.
When you base them like that they really look like they're meant to be done that way, and i wouldn't expect 20 models to fit on such a tray if I hadn't seen it before.
Those guys look awesome, aesthetically I think they are some of the best in the range! I know what you mean about the tree detailng being soft/shallow, I found that on mine on the chest as well (although the fact they've all been repainted twice might have a slight effect on that... )
You may lament the level of detail that you decided to go into for these guys, but they really do look spectacular and you should be proud of your efforts.
Even if you feel they are a little dull I think the finished product is an excellent result.
Thanks for the positivity on these. I certainly didn't expect that much of it. I'll get some more photographed soon, and reveal the army a bit at a time. Also, a whole bunch of units just need their command to be finished - so it'll definitely be a bit at a time...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
JoshInJapan wrote: You're right about the Bones skeletons. Individually, they might lack a little something, three ranks of them behind something a little nicer will work out just fine. I look forward to a group shot of the completed unit.
Probably a couple of weeks still - I need to find a last figure to complete the unit, and I'm waiting on some Macedonian transfers from Warlord to then completely finish the unit.
As requested the other day - my Dark Angels Scouts. These figures are part of the fourth wave of Space Marine Scouts, released in 1998. The first were the initial two models, followed a year or two later by the second wave - an expanded range in the same style. With Advanced Space Crusade came the Scouts who dressed like a weird combination of Landsknechts and the previous designs (with clown colours to top things off). Then these guys were released, with the first Space Wolf Wolf Scouts being released shortly before, and acting in many ways as the prototype/sketch book pages for these.
If you browse the Stuff of Legends page for these figures, you'll notice that no actual bolter-armed model exists in the line. This is why I've got a squad armed with shotguns. With no bolter-armed models available, these guys could be (and were) alternately armed with Bolters or Shotguns, as appropriate to the game being played. The "Sergeant" model came later. I think he was released alongside the bolter-armed model a few years later from the initial models. I believe I acquired him later on, but painted the whole gang at once anyway.
Eagle-eyed viewers might notice that these guys aren't actually painted much like the typical Space Marine or Dark Angels Scouts. Space Marine Scouts' of whichever chapter tend to have their armoured bits painted like their Chapter's armour, and the soft "cloth" bits painted in a beige/off-white. All the better to scout with, obviously.
I made two choices about scouts and my 40k armies, long long ago. One is that Scouts should be dressed to scout. While it's fine for the fully-armoured Marine brothers to charge forward in their bright, heraldic powered armour, I thought the guys with the job of doing actual reconnaissance, ambushes, infiltration, and general sneaking around should be dressed a bit more appropriately. I chose the 1991 Desert Storm 6-colour "choc chip" camouflage pattern for the Dark Angels because it was fun to paint, still pretty much in common memory, and because I didn't want to paint them in a predominantly green camouflage. With this in mind (and reference pictures from Iraq in my folder), I painted both the "hard" armour and fatigue clothing in the camo pattern and their webbing and pouches with a nice "webbing" green. Boots were brown/black, and the weapons were given a dull green (plastic/plasteel/etc) for the furniture.
I used white Dark Angels transfers for the shoulders as low-visibility army identification. The white doesn't particularly stand out on their camouflaged armour, just like real armies. The Sergeant has a slightly different transfer to make him stand out to me and other players (aside from the model's pose), but not so much as is usual for Marine NCOs.
The other painting variation from the traditional theme? Several of the scouts aren't painted with Caucasian skin tones. It comes up from time to time when people question why pretty much all Warhammer/40k models are painted as though they come from Coventry, and without getting into a whole discussion on the origins of GW, Warammer and 40k, it always bothered me a bit that there was never any growth or movement in that aspect (and still isn't). It's nothing to do with Political Correctness and everything to do with realism in modern armies - particularly in large armies and forces that recruit from entire worlds or a wide variety of locales. Why am I bothering to mention it here? Because reasons.
Aye, they look great. I'm very much in the school of 'Scouts will wear Chapter Colours and be damn glad of it', but then the only Scouts I have are Raven Guard, and brown and black are pretty subtle anyway!
Fair enough - though Camo cloaks weren't a thing until recently (5th Ed codex), and these guys were painted early on in 3rd, so I'll stick to camouflage armour for my various marines.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Day 59. Finished 12 figures (that had been on the desk for months). Total now is 71 for the year.
Just as, or maybe even more importantly - I'm getting the half and part-painted crap cleared off my desk and shelf that's been clogging it up for months and in too many cases - years.
Well, I managed to get that Stone Thrower that I was asking about at the start of last week finished today. It's a good feeling, especially since it was started and kinda-finished so long ago. I should be able to get some pics up on Wednesday night, or more likely Thursday/Friday.
Another of the figures that I've just finished this week after initially being started years ago, restarted a couple of years ago, and re-restarted several months ago - the C32 Chaos Ogre from the mid 1980s. He nicely provided the final figure in another unit of three - my Berserkers. I think I may have originally been planning to use him as one of my two single-Ogre units - since he looks like the kind of complete nutjob that Ogres might allow to fight alongside them, but, you know, don't get too close to me - but since they'll be removed as an option in the new edition of Kings of War, I've just dropped him onto the Base with the other two C23 Ogres that I'm using as Berserkers for now.
It took awhile to work out a skintone that would work well with the armour. The ruddy tones for his face and horrid pink and purple for his lower jaw seem to provide enough contrast without looking too garish. Red-browns for his leathergoods, and bronze for the metal trim again provide enough contrast without overwhelming the model or making it too busy.
As you can see, I decided to go with a Nurgle-themed look to him in the end, though not so completely over the top as so many of the current models. A green tinge to his beaten-up and damaged armour, and some glistening, oozing pustules on his shield were enough to match the model's aesthetic. He's much more "Chaos Warrior" than "Chaos Spawn", after all. Unsurprisingly, the rear of the model is the least interesting side. Armour plates are as armour plates do, after all. I used brass/bronze chain to break up the endless green a little.
I really thought I'd shown off the other two, but I can't find them in my archives, so here goes. These guys were both painted a long time ago in the early 1990's. Last year I cleaned them up a little while maintaining as much of the original work as possible. In practice this really just came down to smoothing the blends in their flesh and brightening up things like metal that had become dull, rather than any kind of major repaints.
This guy was (is) actually called "Ogre Berserker", so how appropriate for his current role in my collection. The mono-horn predates the whole Nurgle aspect by several years, but I admit does fit in thematically with his fellow here. I've got some "proper" Forge World Chaos Ogres somewhere, but their time will come later on down the line. I want to finish all of my old-school Ogre models before starting on newer ones like those. You can tell that he was painted in the same general timeframe as the Dark Angels Scouts I posted the other day as his pants are in "choc chip" desert camo and his loincloth in woodland. I think this might have been the figure that inspired me to paint my Marine Scouts in Desert Storm camouflage.
This next Ogre has clearly seen better days. With a peg leg, an eyepatch and a hook-hand, he's got the pirate battle-wound triptych down. All he needs is a parrot and a tricorne hat (or bandanna) to complete the look completely into self-parody. A clear forerunner and inspiration for many of the Maneaters that came decades later (as are many of the Original Ogres). This particular figure is quite special to me, for reasons you're about to see.
There's a nice glimpse of it. When I painted this one, it must have been 1991 or 1992, and I was working in the fringes of the music industry, taking home a lot of CDs each week.
Search and Destroy - Life is Pain - I Want to be Insane
More Than Soul - Death Trip
Creepy Crawl - Wash This Out of Your Life
Yeah, once I finished the skin on this guy, I just started painting Henry Rollins' tattoos onto him. Not planned or anything, it just happened. If I'd planned it, I would have chosen a much more suitable figure to be the canvas for it, with a fully-exposed back, visible forearms, etc. Maybe even exposed legs. I'm planning to do another Ogre in the semi-near future with Rollins' tattoos on him, and do a better job. But for work that's more than 20 years old, this guy still stands the test of time for me and remains one of my special favourites from all of my painted models.
These guys should make an impressively scary unit on the table, each figure an individual you wouldn't want to feth with combined into a very nasty unit. Now to get onto finishing their Shaman...
Thanks guys! Haven't had a chance to work on any more ogres yet, but I've got another guy to work on this weekend - once he's finished I've got another small unit ready for the table.
I haven't been out to the shed to take photos yet for this week, so in lieu of something completely new, here's a blast from the past instead. This guy was done awhile ago (late 2012), painted for a charity auction. Very happy with how well he came out in the end. I still need to paint this model for myself. Well, I guess once Gondor is "finished", Rohan will be next up.
A couple more pics here, but they're just additional angles.
I definitely would have bid a pretty penny to own such an outstanding model. Hope he raised some good funds and one day you get to keep him for yourself.
This one goes out especially to Captain Galenus. For the White Tree!
These guys were painted last year, making up a decent chunk of the models I painted. As I've said, I wanted to avoid showing them individually (or at all) until I had more to show. Now that I've shown some of them recently, I figure I may as well start to show them off here on the blog to help motivate myself to get the army finished. I've got two units of swordsmen finished so far for Kings of War - one set up as a Regiment, and one as a Horde. They used to be three units, but I combined two into the larger unit.
Everything I said about painting them previously applied and applies just as much to these guys, as well as the ones I've still got to paint.
For Horde-sized units, I just double the number of models I use for a regiment. In this case 12->20 becomes 24->40. I think it still works, especially on the tabletop.
My two units of Sword-Armed Warriors of Minas Tirith
Yep those are preeety sweet. The LotR models paint up well and look good when they're done, you and Para have both done some pretty nice work on these.
Looking good mate, I wouldn't have noticed or remembered unless you brought it up. Glad you got use out of something that was just sitting in a box. Shame shipping to aus from the uk wasn't cheaper but it wasn't extortionate either.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The Mimas tirith guys look great, even if you are not to happy with them individually. Theoden looks fantastic as well.
Three weeks ago, I put up a post here and on Wordpress asking what people's opinions were on how I should rebase this stone thrower, originally painted a hell of a long time ago. Feedback both here and on Dakka was overwhelmingly in favour of round, (as well as my own preference) and so that's what I did. Unusually in some ways for me, I've actually got a follow-up with the finished goods - in no small part due to the "get this stuff finished and outta here" kick I've been on lately.
Something I never bothered with back in the day was to paint or even glue on the shields on the front. Something I rectified this time. It took awhile to figure out what to paint on them, which accounted for at least a week of the painting time - in the end I went for "realistic" Red Eyes, given that they can work well enough for either Warhammery goblinoids or the vassals of the Dark Lord Sauron. They also have a suitably "old-school" feel to tie in with the Warhammer Fantasy Battle Third Edition feel of the model - and really create an entirely new, really strong focal point for the model, as we naturally look people and "things" in the eyes. I toned down the original Goblin Face masthead slightly by going over the bright red-orange "sideburns" I'd painted originally with some copper/bronze, though I left the rest of it in the green it was originally painted in, just adding some darkness at the base of the horns.
I also toned down some of the other stuff, like the blue padding on the crossbar, and brightened up the brass metal areas a little as well. I left the bright goblin-face filigree and decoration untouched. As per some of the suggestions, I added some ammo to the base, and some static grass and tufts to make it into a slight mini-diorama - and also left some spaces for crew - though as you can see, the Orcs you see here don't entirely fit on the base. I used a spare Mierce base I had sitting around since it was more or less the right size and had some kind of direction/facing markings on it, to help mark out the 90 degree front firing arc for KoW.
Some of these Orc crewmen were in semi-painted limbo for years until 2014 when they got finished, others were originally painted over a decade ago. They'll work as stand-ins for now, since I think I threw away the original Bob Olley goblin crewmen.
Ultimately, I'm very happy with the way this one turned out. It's the best kind of update, really. Taking a model that I had considered an old piece of junk that I pretty much disliked, and turning it into something that I actually actively like. The last major example of this was Golfag's Ogres, who had a similar kind of update last year.
I think the shields are a fantastic addition. They really draw the eye. The colors are such a blast from the past and really yell 3rd edition warhammer to me. Brings a sentimental tear to this old dogs eye.
Thanks guys - I'm really pleased with how it came out. Unfortunately, I don't have enough of my old orcs painted up to use it with them - and won't for for some time yet. So near-term it'll be used as a captured war machine, or by others of various races.
More artillery this update - I've finished a pair of War Machines for my growing Gondor army. As fate would have it, right after photographing these guys the other day I won a second one of each on eBay, so I'll have to do a followup post to this one in a month or three when they've been paired. I think two of each should be plenty - both for games of LotR and KoW.
I'm not entirely sure which crewmen go with which artillery piece, except for the guy with more bolts, but it hardly matters anyway. Like a lot of the LotR range, and the Gondor/Minas Tirith stuff specifically, they're straightforward models that aren't anything flashy, but look good en masse and on the tabletop.
2 of each should certainly be plenty for LotR and KoW. To be honest, I never really liked LotR SBG Siege Weapons. Fine against castles, but not really that great for stand-up battles. KoW though they look damn nice, so I might have to see about throwing together a Trebuchet or two...
Another small unit for Kings of War. Undead archers. Something I’d not even thought of until Marouda told me in no uncertain terms that she wanted some archers for her undead army, so I painted these suckers up.
The stars of this little show are obviously the single blister worth of Harlequin Miniatures Skeleton archers that I had sitting around from the early 1990s. The company either changed their name or sold most of their stuff to Black Tree Design years ago now. Not that it matters here. These figures are definitely on the very chunky, very heroic side of things, but they’re also very nice sculpts, and while they lack the fine detail of something like the Otherworld Skeletons or WGF’s plastics, there are no worries that these guys will easily break from normal game handling. They’re still available, it seems, but with just the three sculpts in the range, there’s little point in trying to make an entire unit or expand this one using them. For me at least in this day of easily available and reasonably-priced HIPS models, metals are great for individual sculpts and character, but I’ve largely moved beyond buying multiples of the same sculpt to make up units – at least when I can avoid it.
The Reaper Miniatures here are the Skeletal Archer figures from the 1st Bones campaign, and like the others that I’ve shown are good for roleplayers, kids, and unit filler. As usual, I’ve put the nice figures up front so the Bones aren’t as noticable. I also gave the unit early-1990’s style “redwood” bows, which both give the figures a splash of colour (it fits in with the army scheme) and draws the eye away a little from bad Reaper sculpts.
As for the balsa Trebuchets, I reckon Para could turn out a half-dozen of them over a weekend. Hop to it, man!
If I had the patience, materials, tools and coordination for it, I could probably build a couple at most! As it is, I've none of those really, but I may well give it a try soon, as I do like what I've seen of War Machines/Catapults in KoW so far.
Yeah, sadly the Harlequin ones only have the three sculpts. If/when I come across a decent looking skelly archer in the future, I'm sure it'll replace that one.
Bones are made of a type of (generally quite flexible) white PVC. Some of the figures are actually very nice, but these skeletons aren't really anything special. There's a Bone Giant I've started on that's pretty cool, and both a much nicer and more impressive sculpt made out of the same stuff.
It's pretty big - A based Space Marine comes up to about the top of the shin-bone, but entirely under the kneecap. I'll get a scale shot once it's finished - though the skeletons on the table behind it should give a bit of a sense of scale.
angelofvengeance wrote: Sweet Looks quite big- possibly 2 and a bit times bigger than a Space Marine?
Much bigger. Much, much bigger. I love that model so much that I have two, one in metal and one in Bones. I look forward to seeing it finished. What rules are you going to use for it?
I'm not entirely sure yet. One option is to use the bog-standard giant rules, and let the random attacks aspect cover for the lack of Shambling. Another option is the Greater Obsidian Golem, as it has Shambling, and is pretty nasty. Another option is of course to use the Giant with the profile of a Regiment of LOGs, especially since the final base size is going to be much more in line with a full regiment of LOG than a single GOG, and it still covers Shambling etc. Hopefully the rules committee fix up the huge disparity between the GOG and regiments of LOG which cost the same number of points, but with the LOG being far better.
Azazelx wrote: Yeah, sadly the Harlequin ones only have the three sculpts. If/when I come across a decent looking skelly archer in the future, I'm sure it'll replace that one.
Bones are made of a type of (generally quite flexible) white PVC. Some of the figures are actually very nice, but these skeletons aren't really anything special. There's a Bone Giant I've started on that's pretty cool, and both a much nicer and more impressive sculpt made out of the same stuff.
Being part of the Undead army, at best it'll be allied to my own force, and more than likely I'll spend more time facing it across the table. So choosing the LOG profile has more of a potential downside to me personally than upside. Ideally something in between LOG (18 attacks, CS2) and GOG (8 attacks, CS3) would be best, but with those as the only options that don't require profile-tweaking. it'd probably be the regiment.
It'd also be totally rules-kosher for the LOGs - an allied regiment of Large Infantry (proxied by the Giant model) as opposed to an allied Monster (the Giant or GOG) without a regiment to make it legal.
Azazelx wrote: Being part of the Undead army, at best it'll be allied to my own force, and more than likely I'll spend more time facing it across the table. So choosing the LOG profile has more of a potential downside to me personally than upside. Ideally something in between LOG (18 attacks, CS2) and GOG (8 attacks, CS3) would be best, but with those as the only options that don't require profile-tweaking. it'd probably be the regiment.
It'd also be totally rules-kosher for the LOS - an allied regiment of Large Infantry (proxied by the Giant model) as opposed to an allied Monster (the Giant or GOG) without a regiment to make it legal.
From memory, Reaper have free worldwide shipping for US$100+ (and charge for lesser orders). I've ordered direct from them before to here in Australia (free shipping used to be US$100) so I don't see any reason they wouldn't ship to Korea.
yep,
Do you offer free shipping for some orders?
Yes! We offer free USPS shipping to any US or Canadian destination on orders valued at $35 USD or more.
We also offer free USPS shipping worldwide on any consumer order over 70 Euros, 60 Pounds, and $100 AUD.
Please be aware that the customer is responsible for any local import fees or tariffs regardless of shipping cost.
International retailers and distributors are responsible for their actual shipping costs.
You can choose to ship UPS, but free shipping will not apply.
All of our packages originate from our factory in Denton, TX, regardless of destination.
Azazelx wrote: From memory, Reaper have free worldwide shipping for US$100+ (and charge for lesser orders). I've ordered direct from them before to here in Australia (free shipping used to be US$100) so I don't see any reason they wouldn't ship to Korea.
yep,
Do you offer free shipping for some orders?
Yes! We offer free USPS shipping to any US or Canadian destination on orders valued at $35 USD or more.
We also offer free USPS shipping worldwide on any consumer order over 70 Euros, 60 Pounds, and $100 AUD.
Please be aware that the customer is responsible for any local import fees or tariffs regardless of shipping cost.
International retailers and distributors are responsible for their actual shipping costs.
You can choose to ship UPS, but free shipping will not apply.
All of our packages originate from our factory in Denton, TX, regardless of destination.
Yeah - just having a peep at their website now. Gonna order up that bone giant. For $15!! I mean if the shipping is another $20 - its still a pretty nice deal given the size and sculpt
It might be worth poking around to see if there's anything else you'd like - it it's enough to get you close to or over that free shipping threshold and it's stuff you like anyway...
At minute that's it. Working my way through the DV boxed set and have a WS waiting and all of the new Harlie stuff as well. I'm wanting to pick up an IG sentinal for a wee diorama soon as well. and some DE helions n reavers too. After the sentinal, I'm banning myself from buying stuff for a while.....well, maybe after the helions.....and whatever I order from Reaper...
Nothing too exciting today - but since I'm showing off what I finish... and this week I've finished this unit of Moria Goblins from LotR. I'm working to finish the sword & shield armed batch now. I just need to find their shields, or even some replacement shields since the original ones got lost in a move...
I’m really taking this desk-clearing, model-finishing thing seriously this year, I’m rather happy to say. Results!
They're pretty much a separate race and style to all of GW's offerings. The only thing they really have in common as far as "evil fantasy races" go are the shared origin from Tolkien's books and the name.
Well, they're LotR goblins right? I know they're separate from WHFB goblins. I just thought the runty scavengery look was really appropriate for what they are. And I prefer it. If they weren't metal (they're metal right?) I'd want a horde of them to serve as goblins
Yep, those are the ones. Not to be confused with the newer 'Goblin Town' Goblins, which are based on the Hobbit aesthetic and are completely different (and far worse, to my mind. These original ones are tiny, but very nice minis en masse)
GrimDork wrote: Well, they're LotR goblins right? I know they're separate from WHFB goblins. I just thought the runty scavengery look was really appropriate for what they are. And I prefer it. If they weren't metal (they're metal right?) I'd want a horde of them to serve as goblins
Oh yeah - I just mean that they're as different as goblins and ...gremlins or orgu, or whatever. Or kinda that Orcs ain't Orcs, while (excepting the model proportions) Gimli could still be Gotrek's cousin. I liked the look of the films as well. And yes, as Para has pointed out, they're plastic, and there's a plethora of very cheap sprues out there. I recommend picking a couple up and seeing how you like 'em.
Another unit I've just finished, these guys were supposed to be one of those projects that takes a week, at the most. That of course was sometime between 6 months and a year ago. I honestly can't recall since they've basically been a half-finished fixture of my painting table for a long time now. One of the big hold-ups that became a mental block (and then a wall) was my plan to convert one of their number into a Standard bearer for Kings of War. It took long enough to settle on a colour scheme for the unit - I went with red to get a look that is distinctive from the Warriors of Minas Tirith, especially as I find the stock GW scheme rather boring, even if it does fit in well with the WoMT.
I chose Red for two reasons - since the unit is considered an Elite unit in the GW SBG (despite the background talking of the men of Lossarnach being farmers and such) - and obviously these guys aren't dressed as a levy of farmers, in their fine plate over the chain. The second is because I'm reserving Blue for the substantial number of Dol Amroth guys I'll have when the army is finished, and Green for the small "Arnor" contingent, who will either be renamed for another of the Third Age Fiefdoms when not used in scenario play, or will be a "made up" unit of WoMT guard that represents their former kinsmen by wearing their traditional uniform. I might do something in Yellow/Mustard, but I'm not really a fan of that colour as a unit colour on models for whatever reason. It works for me more as an accent. So while I've been reliably informed this week by BA with his pretty thorough knowledge of Tolkien that red probably wouldn't have been used by Gondorians, I'm going with a combination of artistic licence, the rule of cool (I think they look good) and the fact that they were already painted(!)
I did briefly consider using some form of Tartan for the sashes on these guys, but with the Clansmen of Lamedor also in my painting queue, I decided that I've already got enough figures to make me sick of painting Tartan without starting early here.
Now take a good look at the next picture.
Did you look? The red line on the under-surcoat of the leftmost guy being thicker than the others really does bother me for some reason. Did you even notice it?
Anyway, with the upcoming KoW rules having done away with Standards and Musicians in units as things that have their own rules (since in 1E they were overpriced and pretty much just cancelled each other out) and now just going with "model them however you like", It helped to motivate me to just get these guys off the paint desk and onto the gaming table. I might do a standard bearer for them sometime down the line, but it's not a priority for the moment.
Oh, and the reason that the second and third ranks don't have any static flock/grass on their bases is simple. I ran out of Matt Varnish, so they've got a coat of satin for the time being while I wait for a couple of new cans of anti-shine I ordered to come in. The front rank was finished first, and got some of the Matt before it expired. I'll try to get a whole-army shot featuring the Gondor units I've shown off so far sometime soon. I'm working on some unit leaders for the WoMT Spear and Bowmen that I'm really struggling to get done, and I really want to get those finished first, so hopefully we'll have the army shots soon.
Archer wrote: I like the look of the GWLoTR Goblins. They have a menace to them that lacks in the Warhammer range of models.
Yeah, the Moria ones look like an evil, nasty race whist the GW goblins look more mischievous - or cartoony-evil. That's why I tend to think of them as entirely separate things, that just share a name. Because they're so very different. Ditto for the orcs!
ckig wrote: Having picked up a lot of the same LotR models that you just painted, your blog is a nice inspiration for me Nice work!
Thank you! Always a pleasure to help inspire others in their painting.
And as for the mono-pose ranks of Axemen - yeah - it's an issue. I tried to vary their paint a little and make it look like they're each doing the jobs for the guys in the first/second/third rank about to receive a charge with the middle guys about to counter-strike and the rear guys preparing for the same. At least the Clansmen of Lamedon have poses that can be mixed up a lot more, even though they still only have three variants.
First up, I'm not the one who converted these - I picked them up on eBay from someone who was clearing out a lot of Warhammer stuff, and didn't realise that they were conversions until much later when I was trying to work out what they were so I could sort out a standard bearer. The torsos, shield arms and heads appear to be from Grave Guard, the horses are the long-serving "Skeleton Army" horses and could have come from almost any kit of the last 25 years, which just leaves the Glaives/Lances and legs. Unarmoured Skeleton Legs could be off any number of kits, and I suspect that the glaives come from another current kit, though I've got no idea which one.
As is often the case, when I started painting these guys I had great progress for the first week or so, getting a lot of them done. Unfortunately, I then decided that I should build that standard for the unit to paint at the same time for consistency, at which point the entire project stalled out for 6 months. Last week it was their turn to be finished and gotten off the desk. I'll sort out the standard bearer later.
They were originally mounted (and I was painting them) on standard 25x50mm GW cav bases, but partway through I decided to cut them off and stick them on 40mm rounds. Makes it easier to call them a larger unit in KoW, and also allows us to use them as (slightly over the top) Oathbreakers/Army of the Dead in LotR SBG.
The're a little plainer than they should be, since I'm still waiting on my cans of matt varnish that I ordered 2 weeks ago. I called the place on Friday and it turned out that they never got ordered because the guy who took my order has been sick (for 2 weeks?) and the other guy didn't know what the note was about, despite my name and phone number being on it. (Now that's service!) So he ordered them on Friday and hopefully they'll have them inside another week or so. Once the varnish is done, I can add some tufts and flock, which will distinguish them from their bases a lot more.
I stuck to the Undead Army Palette that we're using for these guys - bone, black, red, bronze and steel, with subtle touches of blue-green verdigris where appropriate. As I said, they look a little plain to me right now, but getting some green onto their bases will help a lot.
This guy's shield was a real headache for me. The metal spike-shaped brace going right down the middle made the black background incredibly plain looking and making it pretty much impossible to freehand something interesting onto the shield. I thought of halving the shield - red and black but it seemed a bit weak for the unit leader. I then decided to try and incorporate the spike into the design and freehanded a femur snapped in half by the spike but I was unhappy with it. Then inspiration struck, and decided to use it as a nose guard on a helm, with an undead face underneath. While the spike still looks a little big, this worked well enough that I'm happy with the final result.
I'll show these guys off again later on. Once the standard bearer is built and painted (and they're all flocked). Until then, these guys are done and can be used in games.
Thanks guys, I'm pretty happy with how they came out, and especially the shield. I'll have to work out something appropriate for their standard, but at least I've got some time before it's a hugely high priority.
Like others said, great work on the freehand! They all look good actually
Are you converting one to be the standard or making a new one from scratch. Look forward to it though, especially if its got more of that freehand stuff
I'll be building a new one from scratch. I've got a few of the old-school horses, and a box of the Grave Guard somewhere (I think). I'll have to figure out where to scavenge some rider legs from, as well as work out a nice ragged standard. It's highly likely that I'll freehand the design on it.
See if I can finish off these figures by Sunday night:
I've posted this in the LotR forum's monthly army painting challenge pledge thing, because they're all LotR models, but in reality it's much more of a a continuation of my "get these half-finished fethers completed and off my table" project combined with "painful stuff to paint at work during lunchtimes" (ie: Gondor guys). They just all happen to be LotR models that I'm wanting to get done and out of the way in the next few days. There's 16 Moria Goblin Archers - 8 of the Goblin Archers are about 70-80% done, with the other 8 needing significantly more work still. 3 Metal Goblin captains almost done.
Also started 7 Gondor war machine crew on Sunday and worked on the painful parts at work. They'renow about 80% done, with all the pain in the arse highlighting of black cloth finished today at work. Just flesh, hilts, hair and belts to go.
Also, an "Oldhammer" Orc/Dwarf Bolt Thrower with only the bow arms to go.
Hopefully I'll get all 27 of these finished by the end of the weekend. Here's to hoping!
Good luck trying to bash through all of them. Am I wrong that I count 29 based models and the bolt thrower bow? Or am I going insane?
You are lucky that you can get anything done at work. I struggle to even get a bite to eat at work and certainly have no area that I could actually paint at.
Look forward to seeing you succeed and all the pretty painted figs.
No, you're right. It's 29. I think I forgot to count (or apparently mention) the goblin prowlers. My excuse is that I was tired - and I did go to bed right after posting that...
After getting close to a decade of working for the same organisation, and over 18 months of being in the current location, I figured out that I can take a half-dozen models to an unused (during break times) area with 1-4 paints in a little plastic container and get about 18-20 minutes of painting done in my 30 min break (after allowing time for toilet and walking from and back to my work area). I keep 2 brushes, a small water container, a bit of paper and a palette in an unused drawer in that room. So I just bring in a couple paints and models each day.
It doesn't sound like much, but the tiny bit of solo time away from other people, just (generally) one paint, a normally-tedious task (which becomes zen at work), some music on my phone and a bit of headspace works wonders - especially when it comes to keeping motivated through the week when my previous model had me getting worn down and disinterested until halfway through the weekend and then on fire by Sunday - only to have to go back to work on Monday and have it crashing down again.
That's a great idea. I have started grabbing 15-20 minutes in the morning between fixing my wife breakfast and the. Leaving for work to do a color on a model or two. You are so right that even a regular small amount of time really adds up.
Smart man about the 'sneaking in little moments to paint' thing. One of the cooler things about painting is that once you do it, it's done, but it's really quite stoppable mid-process unless you're wet blending or something. I was doing this last summer/fall and a bit into the winter but have slacked off and the resulting fall off of progress is telling.
The two main benefits I found have been the fact that even the stuff that I find uninteresting and tedious can be pleasant when you're doing it at work. Stuff I found unmotivating that cockblocked me on a regular basis at home becomes a pleasure at work.
The other main benefit was that it keeps me interested during work days/nights, so "ramping up" on the weekend is much, much easier.
Finished 8 Goblin archers and 3 Prowlers today. Should get the Bolt Thrower finished tonight, and working on more Archers and the Captains as well today..
I've finished the other 8 Goblin archers this morning. Woke up early and knocked them out. Then I went and found another bunch of part-painted goblins. So I'll get onto finishing the archers and archer captains amongst them, as it'll give me enough painted models for 2 Goblin Archer regiments (or one horde) for KoW.
Aside from that written update, there are no figures to show off today. The painting's been going well, but I've got to get out and take some more photos soon. In lieu of anything new, here's some scenery that I painted a long, long time ago and photographed last year and forgot to post.
I bought both of the sets mentioned up top around the same time, but I vastly preferred this entranceway "Ruined Gothic Archway" to the "proper" one that came with the set, so this is the one that I ended up painting up to go with the walls. Much more "Gothic" and since the main game this stuff was used for over the years was 40k...
Imagine my surprise and pleasure at seeing that the rear of the arch piece was void of all detail whatsoever - just a smooth resin piece from a one-piece pour mold. The base was fine, but I decided that I had to do something about the lack of detail on the upper. I scraped out the stonework with a hobby knife, and did my best to weather and stress the stonework using the tools I had at my disposal in the mid-1990's. So probably the end of a file and a hammer, by the look of things.
As can be expected, these walls from the Ruined Keep have seen a lot of action over the years in no end of configurations. Another of the unpleasant surprises from the Grendel Kit once I opened it was the fact that all of those windows were sealed. As in cast-solid. It took my pin vice, a hobby knife and no small amount of time to cut them all out.
As you can imagine, these "ruined towers" have seen a lot less action. Mostly due to being shorter than a Space Marine in height, so not exactly much of a ruined tower in any of their cases. Three or four steps hardly makes a tower, after all...
Here's the typical "closed" layout I've used in games for the entire set. It really could use some more wall sections to look a bit more reasonable.
And here's the "Open" layout that gets used much more often, as it allows models to move through the ruins while taking cover from their enemies. Now that I've been gathering and painting a lot more scenery in the last couple of years, I could do a lot more interesting things with these. For example combining them with the WHFB Gothic Graveyard kit, as well as other things I've picked up and painted, like those Confrontation brick walls. I need to get some Hirst Arts molds as well, the Graveyard scenery kit looks promising.
First of course, I need to clear the desk. Not sure how I'll ever do that if I keep letting goblins and their ilk queue-jump from figures cases. Even if they are half-painted...
The ruined walls and archway look fantastic, love the little details all over it and you have done a great job of detailing the rear of the wall as well.
Thanks. They're some nice pieces and I've always been happy with how they turned out. Hopefully I can 2015 some nice companion pieces for them on the table.
Speaking of that. I got my mini-painting challenge completed a couple of hours ago, so all 22 goblins, 7 Gondorians and the War Machine are finished. This brings my total for the year up to 137 figures on Day 88.
I've got a pile more part-painted Moria Goblins there as well, but looking at them more closely, I'm going to have to repaint them entirely. I've got 8 plastic archers in the second part of rebasing (ink is drying) and some metals went into the paint stripper just now. I'll try and salvage some of the other part-painted metals, and after all that I've got more spears and swords to redo.
Not sure if I should push on with them or not after the archers, because they're getting a bit tedious to paint. Either way, first I'll be trying to finish a nice old Ogre that was started very roughly about 20 years ago, as well as a Dwarf Slayer (Lord? Hero? Champion?) that was also started 15-20 years ago...
Not a "proper" update, but something I'm interested in feedback on from you guys
Taking a break from Goblins, I'm going to use this Bull as another opportunity to teach Marouda some basic painting techniques. I'm in two minds on whether to cut it off its Bones base - I probably will remove it as it's slightly warped, and boiling and then ice watering them doesn't have a brilliant success rate. If I do that, I'll replace it with a slate outcrop at a slight angle, as though he's glaring from (or over) the edge.
So anyway - do I base it on the 50x50mm base, or the 50x75mm base? It looks like a 60-65mm base would be ideal, but it's not on the cards. What it'll be used for in games will be related to how the basing goes in the end, so I'll worry about that a little later. The previous Brass Bull we did from Wargames Foundry went nicely onto a 40x40mm base, but this fellow is a fair bit larger. The 50mm base could be problematic when he makes it into combat with other models, as he hangs over the base on it - could be a problem with pikes and spears (and the ham-hands some of my friends have!)
Yeppo, gots my Bones II a few weeks ago. I haven't had a chance to go through them and inventory yet, but I opened up the box and tore this guy out of the big baggie this morning.
Man, I've been thinking about painting him too. Seems like a large number of people are attracted to the metal bull / gorgon goron or whatever it's called from the D&D monster manual. It breaths poison woooo!
Azazelx wrote: Yeppo, gots my Bones II a few weeks ago. I haven't had a chance to go through them and inventory yet, but I opened up the box and tore this guy out of the big baggie this morning.
Azazelx wrote: Yeppo, gots my Bones II a few weeks ago. I haven't had a chance to go through them and inventory yet, but I opened up the box and tore this guy out of the big baggie this morning.
Ahh right- which gubbinz did you go for?
Uh.... Core Set, Kraken, Hill Giants, Mashaaf, Khanjira and Dragons Don't Share. Kind of wish I'd gotten the paints as well now, but I found that paying for some paint 16 months in advance is a bit silly, so I've got to respect how I felt about that.
It's looking like the Bull will be 50x75mm. Which is the way I was leaning anyway, but the feedback has very much been in that direction as well. I should have some new pics up in a couple of hours. The Moria Goblins and Gondor guys I've finished recently need more figures to complete their units (mostly command) before I photograph them, so it'll be some other stuff for the time being.
Automatically Appended Next Post: This post will probably append to the previous one, which is always a pleasure. Anyway, I haven't taken the photos of finished models yet. Will do so in a little while.
In the meantime, I've decided to give myself another painting challenge - After the last one of these helped motivate me to finish a whole lot of (mostly tedious) stuff done in a reasonably fast (for me) timeframe, I've decided to go again.
This week's end/weekend project - See if I can finish off these figures by Sunday night:
Crossposted to the LotR forum's monthly paint challenge thread, because they're almost all LotR models. 8 Moria Goblin Archers that I got half-painted and am ending up giving a full repaint to (already did the bases), and 7 metals that will act as Captains or at the very least, KoW unit leaders. For pleasure, there's a Dwarven Slayer and C23 Ogre that were both started 10+ years ago that I've started doing some work on again lately. So only 17 in this batch to try and get done in the next 3 1/2 days.
If I manage to get these done in time, I've got 2 units of cavalry I want to get rid of, since they're taking up valuable space by being half-painted in one of my cabinets. But that's my next self-challenge.
Ok, it's a day later than I'd promised, but to be fair, it's also several weeks later than I intended!
The second unit for the Mythical Greek army is the one shown below - made up of Reaper Bones Skeletal Spearmen and the starts of the show - the other half of the Wargames Foundry Greek Mythology Skeletons range. "Children of the Hydra." Unfortunately, the whole range is made up of only 10 models across two blisters - 4 with spears and 6 with swords. Within that only a few of them look distinctly Greek, so with 6 models needed to fill out the regiment, I decided to look elsewhere rather than order another pack from Foundry (I prefer fewer doubled-up figures, anyway). Their sister unit, armed with swords was finished some time ago, as was most of this unit, but some recruiting issues drew finishing this lot out for longer than I'd hoped.
The metals from Foundry worked out well. I just wish more of them had more explicitly Greek gear. I replaced their metal spears in the end with plastic ones from the Wargames Factory skeleton set. The shield on this guy comes from Little Big Men, and was a real bear to apply. Apparently it may have come from a faulty batch, since the plastic film would just not come off, and destroyed two other transfers in the process/attempts...
In the end to fill out the missing two in the ranks, I again turned to the Wargames Factory plastic skeletons. They're already Greek-themed to an extent, which is great. My only concern was how fine they are, and as such are very susceptible to breakage as wargaming figures - especially with spears sticking up everywhere. Still, with these guys towards the middle it should be fine. Again WGF comes to the rescue of the WGF-dominated unit. In the end, I decided against adding shields to the skeletons bracing their spears - mostly because there was no easy and effective way to attach them that would still look good. A bit of a shame, but c'est la vie.
I went with the one skeleton coming out of the ground to help invoke the whole Jason and the Argonauts thing. A classic from our youth, (even if it was made before many of us were born, it was often shown late on Saturday Mornings here, as well as when VHS arrived.
And now, The obligatory Finished Unit shot:
And finally, an army shot of the Mythological Greeks so far. Not a whole lot yet, but it shows the two units of Skeletons along with the Bronze Bull painted earlier this year.
At this point I'll be leaving them plain. I might sand the borders sometime down the line so that they fit in with the bases, but for the time being I'm just concentrating on getting models finished.
Of course, as far as getting models done, I let myself get distracted today and ended up stripping about 3 dozen models instead of working on the figures I need to paint. Followed that up by playing through a long level of Sniper Elite 3 in co-op, and tomorrow I've got friends coming over to (probably) play Zombicide, etc - so it doesn't look like I'll be getting all the figures in my little challenge completed this time. Probably get the goblins done, but not the Dwarf and Ogre...
The desk clearing project is clearly doing doing wonders for you. Love the mix of Reaper and Wargames Foundry skeletons look, they look like a cohesive unit from the same company and that is a testament to your excellent eye for colour and painting skills.
I await the second brass bull too, as the first is just exceptional, the 50x70 looks better to me.
It will be nice to have a little break and get some games in, enjoy your Easter weekend.
Thank you for the compliments! It's certainly been rewarding to finish so many figures recently, though I'm starting to realy pine to paint something more interesting/fun/substantial than masses of troops. Something more impressive. Soon, my precious, soon.
Well, strictly speaking, I failed the last one of these. Two metal goblins still left, as well as the Dwarf Slayer and Ogre (who didn't get touched). Between a solid batch of videogaming and friends coming over for some Zombicide - and just needing a bit of a break from painting. So for this week, which I have off work - I'll be trying to finish those four, as well as several additions by this coming Sunday night:
Yet More Goblins on the WIP desk.
So now the priority queue is:
C23 Ogre Bounty Hunter.
Dwarf Slayer (Finally identified him - he's a Daemon Slayer circa '96-97).
Those last two Metal Moria Goblins to be used as Captains and Unit Leaders (Spear, Sword). Perhaps the odd Biggit.
7 more Metal Moria Goblins for use as above. 4 Bows, 1 spear, 2 swords.
4 Goblin Prowlers. They'll combine with the other three to make a unit. Shame I can't find another one, cheaply.
6 plastic goblins with sword & shield.
10 plastic goblins with spears.
Durbûrz, Goblin King of Moria.
Tom Bombadil (GW) and Lady Geneve of the Council of Seven, Speaker of the Far Stars (Red Box Games) - to be painted and used as Goldberry.
Reaper Bones II "Cython" (a Grick from D&D*)
Reaper Bones II "Mind Eater" (an Intellect Devourer from D&D*)
So... 36 models. The goblins shouldn't be too hard, but the more individual characters might throw up a bit of a difficulty. I'd wanted to paint something nice on my break as a reward to myself for my recent productivity. Perhaps a Minotaur or the Greek Talos. Instead, I'm going for more goblins. I guess the reward there is getting a ton of them done and out into the War Room as a very quickly put together starter KoW army.
After I finish the above, the remaining (for now) push of Goblins I plan to paint will be made up of Golfimbul, Foot & Mounted; 6 Warg Riders (strictly speaking, Orcs); 18 Wild Wargs with a Wild Warg Chieftain; a possibility of 2 more sprues of these Moria Goblins (24 in total) and several "Hobbit" plastic goblins to use as Shamans, since I've been unable to get find any "proper" Moria Goblin Shaman figures for a reasonable price. Same deal, unfortunately with the War-Drums. The problem with all of those is that while they round out the (new) KoW force and also allow some more LotR SBG scenario play, they're not "half-painted", and so would all be freshly started models. So the question will be whether I continue to clear the desk, or let these upstarts jump the queue...
*Thanks to Tarmor for IDing the D&D critters - I'm not especially familiar with the D&D menagerie of exotic monsters.
You'd think so, but that's how I ended up with literally hundreds of part-painted figures that I'd started and never bothered to finish.
Sadly, for way too many years, I've been in this situation:
Now, aside from wanting to get projects finished and miniatures done, my cat gets up on top of the bookshelf that is against the staircase, and "goes fishing" - which isn't good for figures. I need to move them out of that shelf, and while more sensible people might suggest putting them in a figure case, that just leads to more of the same. So my solution this time is to paint until as many of those suckers as possible are finished and moved out.
And on that note, here's what I got done last night on that queue-jumping Bronze Bull while watching John Oliver..
No progress whatsoever on the Goblins that I'm "supposed" to be working on. A little on the Bull. Mostly I've been playing games. Played some more Sniper Elite 3 co-op yesterday, and a long multi-scenario session of Zombicide with friends to follow-up until the early hours. We did all the A-series missions, and introduced Companion Dogs and Zombie Dogs, as well as 7 of the S3 Survivors. Though only 2 of them hit the table, because of random draw.
I do love the bull, so what is the next process to be used on him? Glad you watched Last Week Tonight as well, it is good that a lad from Birmingham has a truly global audience.
Next up is more highlighting of the scales into a brighter brass, and then probably turning the horns and hooves into a wrought iron/steel look. I'll paint up a Hoplon for base deco, and maybe a Kopis as well. I'll also give him the same "glowing bluish" eye effect I used on the Foundry bull. I've liked John Oliver for years and years now. Almost impossibly, the guy just keeps getting better.
What have you used on the base? Please feel to free to ignore me if you already explained the process. It looks great so far. Amazed at how much extra detail you manage to squeeze in when I would already call it done. Keep it up.
The base is just some shards of a slate tile glued down to the 50x75mm base. Used PVA to glue some sand around the edges of the slate pieces, and did the usual paint black and drybrush to both - shades of brown to the sand and shades of grey to the slate. This model really needs the silver-tone parts on it. It looks way too monochrome if left only bronze/brass.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Some silver added on the horns and hooves (just a base so far) and some ink to give definition to the Brass. Tried photographing it with two types of lighting...
Well, the Bull and his slate base got completed today, and so while they're both outside drying from my spray varnish, I'm painting up a couple of the base deco elements. The Kopis will be simple and relatively unexciting, but today I decided to try my hand at freehanding a Greek Hoplon shield with a little more challenge than the others I've done recently - being core and rim with simple colours, finished with a transfer.
I decided to try a Greek "key" design, as well as a freehand device of a bird. Shield is a standard-sized 28mm Hoplon/Aspis from Wargames Factory. This is the WIP and result:
Tomorrow, it'll be glued down on the base, and the Bull will likely have one of his hooves resting in part on it.
Thanks guys, it's actually a lot neater looking in reality. The photo being blown up to about 4x or 5x the size of the shield doesn't do the key pattern or the bird any particular favours. At that size it actually makes me feel a little embarrassed, since it looks quite sloppy. I'm sure I'll be able to put this Greek practice to good use when I eventually get around to painting Marouda's Minotaurs 40k army. For Grimdark!
Azazelx wrote: Thanks guys, it's actually a lot neater looking in reality. The photo being blown up to about 4x or 5x the size of the shield doesn't do the key pattern or the bird any particular favours. At that size it actually makes me feel a little embarrassed, since it looks quite sloppy. I'm sure I'll be able to put this Greek practice to good use when I eventually get around to painting Marouda's Minotaurs 40k army. For Grimdark!
He has a point though, I never like taking close-up pics of my own stuff either. Then again, I aim for tabletop quality, but I certainly get what he's aiming for.
I think it looks very neat. But I can sympathise the camera shows everything. The number of times I take some photos for an update and notice things I have missed is countless.
I've been quiet for a couple of weeks. Didn't get enthused for that second large batch of goblins, back to work after Easter, and allowed myself a break/some distraction by working on some other more random projects. So here we are, with the first of those to show off:
I received my Reaper Bones II Kickstarter stuff a few weeks ago, and while I had a little bit of Buyer's Remorse at not having purchased a few additional bits and pieces from the campaign, that's mostly due to having started new projects that things would have worked well for in the time since the campaign ended, and then finally delivered however many months late it was. I didn't even bother keeping track of that this time around. Overall it's a solid bunch of models for PVC, and I picked out a few that I thought would make nice, quick painting projects. The first was that Bronze Bull/Brass Bull/"Gorgon" which I asked about recently, have been working on, and just need to finish the final touches on (probably later this weekend). The second and third are these two ...thingies.
Now, my nerd-background is solidly on the Warhammer/LotR side rather than the D&D side, so when I saw the 77228: "Chthon " and 77229: "Mind Eater ", I saw silly-weird Rogue-Trader-esque space aliens, rather than D&D critters, and decided to paint them up in that spirit - somewhat inspired by Cheetor'sAlien Flora and Fauna project (and the fact that they looked like they'd be quick and easy enough). So in the spirit of all that, I thought I'd paint these suckers up.
Knowing that of course, the things must be some kind of D&D or Pathfinder ripoff, I also asked Tarmor if he knew what these things actually not-are. He informed me that the 03603 "Cython" looks a lot like a Grick from 3rd edition D&D and that 03582 "Mind Eater" is a direct "copy" (ripoff) of an Intellect Devourer from all editions! Tarmor also kindly provided me with a couple of pictures that I then used as paint references. Now that I've done the photography, I'll be adding some Gloss Varnish to the Brain Diner, and these two will be done and dusted.
Since I rarely play D&D/Pathfinder (every few months I play the occasional session run by Orez. I think we're level 3 or so?) I don't know when or if these will ever see the table in their "proper" form, much like that not-Purple Worm of theirs (Wow! I just googled "Reaper Purple Worm" and my pic is the first thing in the image search above the actual link to Reaper!)
Anyway, both figures were reasonably quick and easy to paint, and the various blending of tones was fun and turned out pretty decently as well. Now it's back to those bloody goblins!
Having quite a background in D&D (although I wish I got more games) I am surprised just how close those models are to actual D&D creatures. Seems wizards of the Coast aren't as protective of their IP as some other model companies.
Paint jobs are top class as well. Some gloss varnish would really suit the brain devourer. The blending on the gricks mandibles is really good as well.
Some pretty fethed up looking beasties there Azazel! Nice work! Those large worm thingies kind of remind me of the ones from Peter Jackson's King Kong (when they get stuck in that canyon with all the gribbly bugs)
Those are some really funky looking creatures. Good work on being top of the Google hit list for the purple worms.
The smaller gribblies look just like just plain odd beasts in the most wonderful traditions of sci-fi, as BrookM says theremin music would suit them down to the ground.
I think Gricks are relatively lower leveled but something you might encounter several of, just kind of an unintelligent monster. The Intellect Devourer is probably a bit bigger than your party, not sure if its by a lot though.
You could always encounter a purple worm at your level... you'd just want to run away really fast
The new gribblies look good, solid work. Keep it up!
It'd be funny if old TSR/WotC were more protective in the old days. They might have Vrocked GW's world at one stage in much the same way as GW dickishly Lammasu'ed Raging Heroes. The D&D stuff is mostly online-generated dungeons hung on a simple "swept away to a pocket dimension and you must run dungeons to escape" premise. Which serves as almost a CRPG hub - played like you used to play D&D in high school - more of a combat generation system - so not the most in-depth world. Having said that, that nature of the campaign means literally almost any "level appropriate" D&D monster is possible, I guess.
Theremin is perfect for the Brain Bug thing. It's very 1950's sci-fi. But then I guess that's where D&D's roots lie. Tolkien, Howard, etc - plus any interesting thing they could throw in.
Just took some more pics. So look for an append to this post soon unless someone else comments while I photochop!
Something from 1988, this Bolt Thrower sat around part painted for more than a decade. Recently I noticed it on the paint desk and decided to get rid of it - doing so in my current fashion by finishing the bloody thing. The crew had already been painted several years ago, so it was really a no-brainer that somehow took me years to figure out. What does that say about me, then?
Ahem.
So anyway, I finally got it done. Semi-interesting fact: The same bolt thrower was also packaged with Dwarf Crew for a time as a Dwarf Bolt Thrower - sometime after they discontinued the cool-looking (and much more Dwarfy) Imperial Dwarf Bolt Thrower. The thing about this Bolt Thrower is that uncrewed, it's generic enough to be used with pretty much any army at all. My plan for the time being is to use it (and the Goblin Stone Thrower I also fixed up recently) with the LotR Moria Goblins for the time being, as my 3rd Edition Orc and Goblin army is probably quite awhile away from becoming a force that can hit the tabletop.
It's far from an "exciting" paintjob, I'll admit. But then it's a simple thing made from metal and wood and wheels and spikes. Very utilitarian, and so I decided to reflect that with a very simple and straightforward paint job. I might string the bow one day down the line. But not today.
Here's the Bolt Thrower alongside the Stone Thrower I also recently repainted.
Loving what you did with the Bones II gribblies! It's very cool to see the little white lumps given some real form like that.
What bits did you skip on and regret? I have a sack of the pieces and a couple of dragons I don't want from my pledge, if there's anything in there you missed out on, you're welcome to it (I was just gonna throw them to a local kid to learn to paint on.
Hm.. there's actually quite a lot spread across all of the expansions and most of the smaller add-on packs. I just didn't want to add on $300 worth of stuff (plus postage) for 30% of the included models. Certainly interested in some of the dragons as well, as I couldn't afford nearly as much in Bones II as I wanted.
Are you able to PM me a list or pic for me to scavengebuy some stuff off you?
Back in my teens, I used to finance many of my Warhammer purchases by commission painting for other people. I got to paint some cool stuff, and bought a hell of a lot of Space Marines (most of which are still unpainted to this day(!) One of the kits I painted for other people was the stuff from the MD8 Skeleton War Machines box set, , which was the eighth in the Machineries of Destruction range. As with my old Dwarves, I only ever had a couple dozen of the old Undead models, and sold off most of them back in the day, excepting a few (exactly as with the Dwarves). Since Marouda's "building" an Undead Army for KoW (as fast as I can paint it for her) and I've been following Subedai's blog for a couple of years, I've gotten inspiration for various bits and pieces. Recently, he showed off his Plague Cart, which triggered something in my pea brain and sent me to eBay looking for some of the cool old Undead kits I painted back in the day. While I haven't been completely successful so far, I've managed to get a few pieces at least. Here's the first of them: The Skull Chucker (also alternately known as the Screaming Skull Catapult before that new TK kit took the name)
Yep, there are some "mistakes" and missing bits there.
First and most obviously, the crew are "wrong", and it's missing the Skull Ammo Pile. It was sold on eBay with two loaders and a spotter, but not the bonehead who fires the catapult. Still, the price was ok, and shipping from the UK was decent rather than exploitative (both real concerns when you're here in Australia) so I figured "good enough" and got it anyway. There was a ton of old superglue encrusted on the launcher arm and frame, and the arm was glued slightly up at an odd angle. Also a fair bit of old, old flash and extruded bits of lead to clean up. No big deal though. I used a bit of greenstuff to get a good bond when reassembling, and then noticed that both braced were missing from the kit. D'oh!
Now luckily I'd just bought some undead Tomb Kings stuff off a guy locally, and I'd literally just received the bag of bits that he'd "forgotten" (cough) to send out with the other stuff a week earlier. I thought it would be worth checking through to see if there was something appropriate in it that I could use to fix up the Skull Chucker. Now the bits bag was actually filled with cool bits (it was a big reason why I bought his stuff). and it included several of these ...banner poles(?) After cutting them down, they turned out to be a great fit, and the socket cutouts with little embossed skulls on the joins worked perfectly as replacement pieces. I should make up a replacement Skull Ammo Pile. It was one of the first things I thought of, but I completely forgot about it until now. Shouldn't be too difficult, at least.
They look like they're supposed to be there, so as fas as I'm concerned, Job's a Good'un.
For the paint, I stuck to Marouda's chosen Undead palette. Bone/Black/Brass/Iron with deep Red and some Aqua (verdigris) as the spot colours. My style of painting bone might be a bit bright to be properly realistic but it pops nicely on the table.
The crew provided me with some stuff to work on at work last week. I'll have to prepare some new models to work on for this week's lunch breaks now. It's like an extra deadline each weekend. Eurgh.
Undead and Orcs. Back together for the first time in a long time. Back in 3rd Edition WHFB, I used to regularly summon Skeletons as allies for my Orc and Goblin army. They often just stood in lines breaking up the line of sight between my Orc units so they wouldn't kick the crap out of each other via failed animosity rolls. Now that's something I don't miss in KoW!
Huh, you go from awesome Bones models to awesome Bone models! (see what I did there?)
I really love those strange 'gribblies' the first one you did with the pale pink in the mouth is really striking! it's subtle and I just am drawn to it! perhaps it wants to eat me?
Loving these Az. Reminds me of the figs I used to make with my Dad (rubber moulds, melting white metal, pouring etc) looooong time ago which first got me into figs. Great job
Azazelx wrote: Thanks! - and thanks for the Bones Offer as well!
Lemme check..
Hm.. there's actually quite a lot spread across all of the expansions and most of the smaller add-on packs. I just didn't want to add on $300 worth of stuff (plus postage) for 30% of the included models. Certainly interested in some of the dragons as well, as I couldn't afford nearly as much in Bones II as I wanted.
Are you able to PM me a list or pic for me to scavengebuy some stuff off you?
This was exactly how I felt, luckily between three of us here it was just about viable to go for it.
I'll spread out what's left and snap a pic for the PM, it's easier than trying to remember what these are called.
Thanks gents. Haven't been on as much this week as work has a bunch of new things for me to take care of from here on in, and I've been much more sleepy once I finish of an evening. Hopefully I'll have some more cool old war machines to share soon, and some other interesting stuff.
But first, I'm still working on those tedious goblins.
Come on Az, punch out those Goblins and get back onto the awesome trip down memory lane with the cool old school warmachines. Can't wait for what you have for us next.
You did a fantastic job of repairing the skull thrower by the way, its seamless.
I got 14 of the plastic Moria Goblins done by last weekend. I've picked up some more Moria Goblin Prowlers in the last couple of weeks (8 more of them, plus three I had sitting around unpainted) and so I'll combine this 11 with the three finished ones for a KoW unit of 12 and a couple leftovers. These Prowlers are my week-work project, so hopefully done by this weekend and I can get back to the final f̶i̶v̶e̶ seven of the metal Moria Goblins (maybe next week?) and then paint something fun. I've also started a few more random metal skeletons that have shown up recently in the post. Also tried to get a trio of GW Night Goblin Fanatics done over the weekend, but failed.
The Bronze Bull is kinda-sorta-mostly finished. But needs to be glued down to its base and have the shield and sword spots worked out. Probably this coming weekend.
Yay me!
Have some WIP pics for the meantime... had some fun with the rust on the goblins' ball and chains. It'll be easier to see in the final (completed) pics. I hope to finish these three over the coming weekend as well.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'll photograph the plastic Moria goblins when I've got the metals done, as the metals will be their "unit leaders" while the plastics are more of the same old.
It just occurred to me on the weekned that I could use them as Red Goblins for my Ogres in addition/instead of as a crappy small regular goblin force.
Looking forward to the metal cow. And yes, the Goblins look great as well, loving the colour of the flames in direct contrast with the typical black robes.
Thanks all. I was trying to work out what to do with the gobboes to give them some interest/pop, since I'm not really a huge fan of checkerboard patterns on my goblinoids. I went with the old standby of flames in the end.
The Skelly is coming along alright so far. Hopefully I can have some fun with his shield. Just got to figure out what to paint on it...
and yeah, I'm looking forward to gluing down the bovine as well. Then I can get it off my desk!
No updates for a little while. New role at work with increased hours has meant less time for painting, blogging, sleeping, gaming and all of the other stuff that I enjoy. Not to mention the weather has been unsuitable for spraying lately as we slide towards winter here.
First up, we have "Snake" from Wrath of Ashardalon boxed game. I'm assuming that these "properly" come in several different flavours, but I'm happy to just go with "Giant Snake". These three have been near-painted for.. well, quite some time. At least a year, and probably around 2-3, when I was really into painting the boxed D&D games' figures. Finally knuckled down and got them finished yesterday after doing a little on them last weekend. They're a little bright, and much more on the "fantasy artwork" side than the "realistic" side in their colouration, but that's ok by me. The important thing is that they look good on a table, and more importantly - are finished.
Next up we have "Cave Bear". These were actually painted a year (or two?) ago. Aside from the unfortunate PVC mould lines, these are lovely little sculpts and painted up like a dream. I've always been pretty happy with how well they came out, as well. Obviously here I went for more of a realistic feel to the colours, though still keeping it bright.
Heartbreaker Chronopia Kilt-wearing Celt-Barbarian guy provides human-sized scale reference. What can I do with these figures aside from roleplaying? I'm honestly not sure. Mayhe they can slip into Kings of War as proxies for units in the "Nature" army. I'd need a bunch more to fill out enough to make up a unit, though. Maybe the bears can join in with a unit of Wood Elf Wardancers and the Snakes can do the same for Witch Elves? Actually, that's not a bad idea...
There's always 7th Voyage from Crooked Dice, which is a nice homage to the stop motion swords and sorcery movies done by Ray Harryhausen. There are plenty of expansions and tool sets released to date that allow you to field just about any monster you've got in your collection.
The D&D monsters look great, you got a great scheme going with them and they look very impressive. I think as a "mascot" within a unit of Elves or other nature oriented troops could work pretty well.
7th Voyage looks interesting, and you've just reminded me that I've got Song of Blades and Heroes knocking about here somewhere, and I've also been meaning to do something (someday) with 7TV. I'll certainly have a good chunk of Mythical Greek figures (soon) for use in 7thV.
Today I've got another couple of trios of Wrath of Ashardalon figures. Despite both of these sets being finished a year or two ago now, I haven't photographed them before. This is because my initial plan for both the Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon sets of figures was to paint them all up, and show them all off as completed sets - one for each of the boardgames. Obviously that hasn't worked out, and so I've decided to show them off anyway, which will hopefully help motivate me to finish them off.
The Orc Basher is a nice enough figure. It's a very different style of Orc to the much more familiar (to me) Warhammer Orc. I took my paint cues for these figures from the LotR Uruk-Hai of the White Hand. I was in two minds about actually painting a White Hand on their shields, but decided against it in the end in order to keep them a little more generic.
Gibbering Mouthers are another of the oh-s0-very D&D creatures that inspired the new D&D category. When I saw these figures, it took a little while for me to work out what to do with them and how to paint them. Fleshy-looking tendrils of eyes and teeth? Hm. In the end, I decided that I had to paint them in a disgustingly wet, fleshy manner, with subdermal veins visible through the pinkish skin. Finished with satin varnish, and with some clear mucus of some kind dripping from one of their mouths via Water Effects.
Once again, Heartbreaker Chronopia Kilt-wearing Celt-Barbarian Guy provides human-sized scale reference. The Orc is pretty much human scale but more heavy-set, while the Gibbering Mouth-breather is a bit shorter. In wargaming terms, the Orcs can easily fit into an Uruk unit of some kind anyway if need be, and manage to look quite decent in and of themselves. I guess the mouthers could either be mounted on top of 40mm bases to be something disgustingly daemonic/abyssal, or as a form of chaos spawn/beast of Nurgle. Or possibly Slaanesh.
You have managed a suitably nasty looking gibbering mouther.
The Orc looks fantastic. I have always preferred the D&D aesthetic to the green-skins of games workshop. Although I appreciate the humour they inject into the game.
Yeah, my reaction to it when I first saw it out of the box was pretty much "WTF is that thing supposed to be?" But out loud, and without the abbreviation. It's very Cthuluesque in many ways.
I'm personally torn on the Orcs. I know exactly what you mean about the D&D look, and in a lot of ways I like the "brown orc" look better than the green, but I've got so much history with the bright green ones that I just can't do the GW ones any other way. (They're the only one of my WHFB armies that I kept whole from my 3rd edition days.) LotR and D&D Orcs on the other hand, I'm now happy to go hard in the other direction whereas even just a few years ago I'd have painted them all green as well. Tre' Manor's Bones ones will be quite the quandry. GW-style features without being quite as exaggerated.
Don't get me wrong. After doing a 40k ork army I came to love the character and chaos of the greenskins. I just like the brown Orc for my more serious moments. Plus you have done such a good job.
When it comes to fantasy Orcs, anything but green and the less bulky the better, as far as I'm concerned. With the LotR orcs being 10/10 stylistically for me, and WFB Greenskins at 1, that guy is a solid 8 or 9, and would work perfectly in LotR as a Black Guard, Feral Uruk or even Half Troll.
