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Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/09/13 06:18:08


Post by: Azazelx


I'M SLOWLY REPAIRING THE BLOG AFTER THE PHOTOBUCKETPOCALYPSE, A FEW POSTS AT A TIME. RIGHT NOW WE'RE GOOD FROM ABOUT PAGE 68 ONWARDS.


So I’ve taken the name of this update from one of Blink-182’s classier little ditties, though it has less to do with the song and more to do with an upcoming project I’ve set myself for my two-week break from work. (Though if you decide to YouTube that song, be advised that it’s very much NSFW!)

The Plan is to paint up a fully functioning army to use in Mantic Games’ Kings of War. I’ve had the makings of a good half-dozen or more fantasy armies for many years now, stashed away inside various boxes and figure cases. All never likely to see the light of day in between not having really properly played Warhammer Fantasy Battle with any regularity since 3rd Edition and my general misanthropy when it comes to going out to clubs or FLGS to look for games.

With the advent of Kings of War, which is apparently fast, elegant and easy to learn, and some online battle reports like Eilif's one here, my interest in Fantasy Battles, played with Armies of toy soldiers has been reawakened. I have to say, while I’m not usually a fan of Battle Reports (WD has put me off over the years) there was just something about the combination of old-school, DIY, fully painted and a little bit rough around the edges of the pics in this report that really reminded me of WHFB 3rd ed. Not the Mantic rules (which I admit, I still haven’t read), but the feel. Mixed figures, paintjobs other than the stale GW studio armies. Real people’s work (which is one thing I always preferred to see in WD).

So anyway. With the help of JudgeDoug, I’ve decided to dedicate all of my hobby time during my two and a half weeks off to cleaning off all the random stuff from my painting desk. He’s kindly agreed to write up the army lists based on what I have available, and I’ll take care of the rest.


The Painting Desk

But it’s not just going to be 2 weeks of solid painting. I’m sure we’ll also go out for meals, play computer, board and console games, have friends over, sleep in, take my mum to the Zoo, watch TV, DVDs and BluRays, fix the back fence, mow the lawn, clean up the garage a little more, and... Maybe I'll go out until 5am and update my tumblr, too! well, you get the drift! So while I’m hoping to get a lot done, who knows how this will turn out?

With bases, because I’ve always liked them more for aesthetic reasons, I’ll be giving everything 25mm round bases rather than the 20mm squares that are traditional for both Warhammer and Kings of War. This is because:

1) I’ve always preferred Round bases and have never especially liked square ones.

2) After more than a decade of not playing WFB, I figure the “just in case I want to use them in Warhammer” excuse to not paint them because I’d rather use rounds has expired.

3) I do like those games based on books about Rings. You know the ones. They use both round bases and also round-slot movement trays to drop them into.

4) I’ll use those trays.

5) If need be, the fantasy figures can do double-duty in those games about Rings. Even if they don’t look exactly like what WETA produced.

Since I’ll most likely be using these figures in friendly games in my own home, everything will be based consistently, and so there’ll be no “advantage” to one side over another based on unit base size. Besides, I be playing for the funz0rz.

The contestant(s) for this challenge will be a Kings of War “Elf” army, made up of Citadel’s High Elves (and maybe a few Wood and Dark Elves as well).


One Pile of Elves.

In the unlikely event that the Elves actually get finished, I’ll then be starting phase 2, which will be the second contestant - an Ogre army, made up of my very old-school Citadel models, some Ogre Kingdoms models, and the metric gakload of Mantic’s own Ogres that we have coming as a result of the Kickstarter – which are (hopefully!) due to arrive anytime now, and hopefully before the holidays begin.

The Ogres should have a much smaller (I hope) model count, and with the already finished figures thrown in, as well as how much I enjoy painting the big old brutes, should also be achievable – at least theoretically.

So in short, I’m going to put aside all the random crap on my painting desk, and the painting ADHD that I have in order to focus for a short, specific time, and hopefully have something tangible to show off and even use(!) at the end of it.

While I’m going to wait until next Wednesday night (18th September) before I allow myself to start painting, I figure I’ll allow myself to assemble, base and prime figures before the date. I'm crossposting this from my wordpress blog since I figure the more people see this thing, the more encouragement I'll (hopefully) get for it which will in turn keep me motivated enough to finish a whole 2 1/2 weeks on the same thing. Since I haven't painted a thing for the last three weeks, it's probably going to be needed.


Index:
Ogre Posts:
Starting out, some old painted ogres.
Mantic Ogre Shooters WIP
Mantic Ogre Shooters finished
Classic C23 Ogre Captain Hrothyogg
Classic C23 Ogre Warrior
Classic C23 Ogre Thug
Updated Mantic Ogre Shooters, Classic Olley Ogre
Classic Olley Ogre
Classic Olley Ogre
More Mantic Ogre Shooters WIP
Golfag's Mercenary Ogres
More Mantic Ogre Shooters -Completed! + Army Progress Shot
Classic C23 Chaos Ogre, Pirate Ogre (Rollins Tatts), Ogre Berserker
Classic C23 Ogre Bounty Hunter, Ogre Thug, Gutlagg the Executioner

Bob Olley's Late-Rogue Trader Era Ogryn Sergeant


Dark Elf Posts:
WIP Executioner and Assassin
Dark Elf Repeater Bolt Throwers


High Elf (Blood Elf) Posts:
Swordmasters of Hoeth WIP
A near-complete Swordmaster Sir Forscaling.
...and again.


Undead Posts

RPE Undead Ballista
Celtos "Fir Bolg" Skeletons
D&D Howling Hag and Dark World Haunter
Mantic Zombies Unit 1
Mantic Zombies Unit 2


Gondor Posts
Archers of Minas Tirith 1
Swordsmen of Minas Tirith 1
Archers of Dol Amroth
Archers of Minas Tirith 2
Swordsmen of Minas Tirith 2
Osgiliath Veterans
Denethor, Steward of Gondor


Fantasy Chaos Posts
Khorne Champion
Slaanesh Champion


Orc & Goblin Posts:
Iron Claw Goblin Stone Thrower (with Orc Crew) - Finished (and WIP)
C22 Bolt Thrower

Goblin Netter and Clubber


Dwarf Posts

Giant Slayers


Dark Angels Posts:
Dreadnought WIP
Completed Dreadnought with Weapon/Deco Options.
Choc-Chip Camouflaged Dark Angels Scouts.


Blood Angels:
Rogue Trader-era Terminator Captain


Minotaurs Space Marines
Tactical Marines

Zombicide Posts:
"Fred" (Simon Pegg/Shaun of the Dead), "Don" (John Cleese/Basil Fawlty), "Rob" (Sean Connery/John Mason)
Hasslefree "Ray" & "Dynamic Ray" (Simon Pegg/Shaun of the Dead)


Wood Elf Posts:

Dryads
Reaper Bones Treekin


Scenery Posts:
Secret Weapon Hesco and Jersey Barriers
Siege Ladders, a Grave


Odds and Ends:
Dust Zombies And here.
Fortune and Glory Boardgame pieces


WarZone Posts:
[http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/90/551946.page#6520046]Warzone Dark Legion Zombies[/url]


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/09/17 00:24:24


Post by: JoshInJapan


I'll be following this project with interest.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/09/17 10:51:18


Post by: Slinky


 JoshInJapan wrote:
I'll be following this project with interest.


Yeah - Good luck!

And I can say from experience that KoW is a fun ruleset, and WFB 3rd edition was where I started as well...


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/09/17 16:20:13


Post by: judgedoug


I expect another update!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/09/18 01:15:45


Post by: RiTides


Looking forward to seeing an army of Mantic's Ogres

How is Judgedoug involved, I'm assuming only providing morale support? Your flags seem to imply no chance to help in-person


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/09/19 19:22:50


Post by: judgedoug


 RiTides wrote:
Looking forward to seeing an army of Mantic's Ogres

How is Judgedoug involved, I'm assuming only providing morale support? Your flags seem to imply no chance to help in-person


I'm helping him learn Kings of War and creating staggered army lists from his vast pool of models. A 600, 1200, and 2000 point army list for each of several armies, complete with model breakdown in each list. That way, instead of looking sadly at a pile of 1000 unpainted models, he can look at the 600 point list and ready/paint the few models in that list, game with them, and then paint the next few models needed to bump it up to 1200 points, and so forth


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/10/11 06:24:22


Post by: Azazelx


Sorry about the (total) lack of updates on this one.

As it happened, a combination of life factors combined to completely torpedo my grand idea of getting a couple of small armies painted on my break. I got as far as clearing off all of the half-painted figures off the painting desk. Despite this, a combination of painting burnout, work stresses, exhaustion, friends and late nights (and the smashed mornings that they lead to), spring cleaning, more spring cleaning, a new bike and riding along the river in spring, too much time posting here in a lethargy, getting sick for a few days and the releases of Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online all conspired to me not doing a damned thing on this until the last day or two of my break. When I cleaned, heat-straightened and assembled six Mantic ogres. I suppose, I did also ring up GW and ask them if they could help me with the bits that were broken when I opened up my IoB box for the Elves. I should be receiving those replacement parts later today. I'm also going to have to edit out the "time-limited" part of the original title, since that was a pretty hard fail.

Yeah, Doug is offering both moral support and the actual army lists, based on my model collection. After getting the KoW shipments, I worked out roughly what I had, give him the caveat that I didn’t want any goblins/gnoblar proxies and sent the list off to JudgeDoug, and in reply I got three army lists for KoW – 600, 1200 and 2000points, which it turns out, I can put together with just a little effort. Old-School Warhammer/Oldhammer devotees may or may not have much of an interest in Kings of War, but I’m sure will like the old-school Citadel Ogres.

Anyway, this blog is nothing without pictures, so here goes:

600-point Ogre Army
only 13 models!

115 Ogre Warriors Troop
[3x Ogres] solid unit






The two fellows on the ends are Bob Olley sculpts. While Bob is in many ways one of those Vegemite (or Marmite) sculptors (you’ll love him or hate him) his Ogres manage to be pretty well liked by most people. And with good reason, as they’re excellent sculpts that still stand up extremely well today. This pair were painted pretty much when they were released, so aside from rebasing them in my current style, will be left intact. The middle Ogre I believe is a Tim Prow sculpt which was released by Grenadier or Ral Partha or the like. I cut the integral metal base off him and based him on a 40mm, painting him in the style of Empire Ogres of the day. He must be a good 10-years old as well. I may tone that bright yellow down to an ochre, but otherwise I won’t be messing with him much either. All three are certainly table-ready right now, after all!

115 Ogre Warriors Troop with Two-Handed Weapons
[3x Ogres] solid unit






Once again, three classic Citadel Ogres, painted a long, long time ago. I think these three still hold up very well today, with the exception of the horribly garish red-green-blue of the guy on the end. Even back in the day it didn’t quite work for me, so he’ll be having some paint surgery to tone that the hell down. I’m still quite happy with the other two, especially with the skinhead ogre with the bag of loot and flagon of ale. I’m also very happy with the freehand tattoos on the “woodsman” ogre. As can plainly be seen from these six figures, I always chose to paint almost all of my Ogres as individuals, with different skin tones (and where appropriate, tattoos) to go with their unique sculpts. As this ogre army expands, I’ll continue to do the same with the models that are clearly individuals, while those with a more uniform appearance, like the Mantic models, will be painted in a more “regimented” manner. Obviously these guys don’t have the crazily-oversized 2handers that the newer GW Ogre Kingdoms models or the Mantic ones have, but they’re all a more than acceptable size for 2-handers, and besides, these classic Jes Goodwin Ogres trump all other Ogre sculpts, in my opinion.

140 Ogre Shooters Troop with Heavy Crossbows
[3x Ogres] solid unit




140 Ogre Shooters Troop with Blunderbusses
[3x Ogres] solid unit




Both units of these guys are obviously, the Mantic KS Ogres, sculpted by Remy. I’ve only built these ones so far, and clearly, they’re very WIP – but my thoughts on them.

1. They take a bit longer to assemble than the plastic GW ones, due to needing to wash them (I sometimes wash hard plastic, but not always, and it’s always fine). You will also need to immerse them in hot water to get their feet evenly flat for gluing to a base. You will need to use super glue, not plastic cement. You will also probably need to use a hairdryer to heat up 2-handed weapons (you definitely need to do so for both the crossbows and muskets) so you can get the two arms/weapons to join properly. This also means that you need to properly file/cut away the mould lines/flash before assembly. Heating the arms does allow you a fair bit more flexibility in poses though, compared to hard plastic kits. Oddly, I found I enjoyed the heating, gluing and cooling part of the model assembly.

2. I was pumped to start painting them, but I found that due to their arms and weapons crossing over their torsos, that the missile troops are annoying to paint for someone like me. I imagine the 2H weapons will also annoy me, but that I’ll be quite happy with the sword and board models, as well as any conversions I do using GW’s plastic Orc arms. This is because…

3. They’re nicely sculpted, nicely moulded models. I wish that there was more variety in heads and torsos, but that’s because I like to make larger models like ogres more individual. They are nice models, though. Detail is lovely.

4. On the missile troops, there’s no real need for GS. I did drop some liquid GS in a couple of wrist joints, and in the neck joints, but that’s largely because I reposed the arms (slightly) while heating and gluing. Otherwise they’re fine. Again, I imagine the 2H troops will be similar, and that the 1h/shield troops won’t need anything at all.

As we have something like 80 (eighty) of these Mantic models, I’m going to be giving them what I consider a good quality tabletop level of paint, but not going to town on them. The metal above has been painted with a simple layer of Vallejo Model Colour “Oily Steel” (70.865) washed with Army Painter Dark Tone (aka Badab Black). I think it’s come out bloody well, and with these guys being Ogres, I like the weather-worn, dulled look of it (which is why I used Oily Steel rather than a brighter metallic). They will also be, clearly, more uniform than the unique individuals that most of the Citadel Ogres are.

90 Ogre Army Standard on Chariot
* Mace of Crushing
[1x Ogre Banner guy on Chariot] hero/monster


No pic of this guy yet, as he’s not yet assembled. I’ve got many of the bits picked out. Mantic Chariot from the KS. Mantic Ogre torso – either the upright one or possibly the “general” one. Undecided on the head. Probably a conversion for the “reins” arm, and either a converted arm for the standard, or mounting it in some manner onto the chariot itself. Undecided on whether I’ll use the Mantic Boards, Citadel ones with metal heads, or even some other kind of beast(s). I’m pretty much still waiting on Hoard O Bitz to send out my bits order that I placed a week ago, then have it make it’s way across the Pacific to me.

Finally, a size comparison pic:



I don’t have any assembled OK models to add to this at the moment – the only assembled ones I’ve got are Ogryn conversions, and they’re still MIA from moving house right now. I’m sure there’s some other pics comparing the two elsewhere on the internets. Since I plan to use a couple of OK models in the larger versions of this army, I’ll eventually have some more comprehensive comparison shots.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/10/11 07:32:46


Post by: rohansoldier


I will be watching this project with interest, especially as I have an ogre wfb army and have recently started playing kings of war (1 game so far).

Nice start, it's great to see the older sculpts still being used and holding up with the modern stuff.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/10/12 10:25:49


Post by: Da Boss


I'll be following this! Lovely to see some of the older, charming citadel sculpts.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/10/22 13:52:05


Post by: judgedoug


I require more updates!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/10/25 03:03:25


Post by: Azazelx


Oh alright. Not really much to show really. Certainly not an exciting update! It's been a bit slow going as I'm not really enjoying painting these Ogres because of the arms and weapons going across and obscuring the chests - I'm sure I'll like painting the regular ones with 1-handed weapons eventually. Pretty sure I said that at least once before, but hey!

Have put down a GW Ratskin Flesh base on their skin, given it a targetted wash of thinned down Coat D'Arms Red Brown paint, then blended back up (only on a couple so far) to the Ratskin Flesh. I notice that it's not coming up especially stark or obvious in the pictures, but I prefer a more subtle/realistic highlight and shade on flesh, while I can go the other way on things like cloth when appropriate. I'll give the flesh another layer of highlights (after I finish bringing them back up to the Ratskin tone) and see if they need a second highlight layer when I get there.

Added some VMA Bright Brass with a bit of VGC Glorious Gold to the brass elements on their weapons. I was tossing up whether to give the armour some brass elements, but I really do like the way they look with just plain, slightly tarnished steel without any brass/copper/gold filigree. I'm not going to add rust to them as GW has done with many of their OK figures. I eventually went with blue for the tabards, since I wanted to avoid more reds and browns due to the fleshtones and brown pants I've given some of them. I used Reaper's MSP Denim Blue, with a wash of AP Strong Tone (aka Devlan Mud) since I want the tabards to look dirty and haggard, rather than highlighting them and shading to a bright shade of blue. I figure that military-minded Ogres (and the Mantic ones are clearly quite uniform) would maintain their weapons and armour reasonably well, while not being too fussed about keeping their denims bright and clean.





My Hoard O Bits order arrived with some banner pieces and such. So after I finish these six, I can finally (re)start on the Chariot(s) for the army.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/10/25 23:35:21


Post by: Azazelx


So as mentioned, the counterpoint to this Ogre army for KoW is a Twilight Kin one. Originally the plan was to use GW High Elves in a KoW “Elf” Army, but through some discussion with JudgeDoug it slowly morphed into a Twilight Kin (Dark Elf) army list via my suggestion of using my few Dark Elves at the time and then Doug finding the most appropriate list for the figures I had at the time. In the last month, however, I found I nice bloke in the UK selling off a shitton of Warhammers, and managed to pick up a whole lot of his Dark Elves (though not as many as I’d liked to! Damn those eBay snipers!). In any case, the “Elves” have had another turn, and now the Twilight Kin going to be a “Proper” Dark Elf force, with a whole new colour scheme I’ve worked out, and the (High) Elves will remain in their previously planned colours – when I get around to painting them. Right after these two armies, hopefully! I’ll also have to ask Doug to rejig the TK army list to reflect the loss of the High and addition of many more Dark Elves.



This first Dark Elf is from the previous/recent metal range. I have to say that while I liked the look of the executioners in pictures, their separate greatswords just looked like an accident waiting to happen. I also didn’t think much of this guy in pictures, as the visual balance always looked right off, with his obscured face, and overly-silly-large-hairdo. Once he was in hand, already assembled and sprayed black, I was somehow compelled to paint him up. So I did. Not sure where he fits exactly into the TK army list, but he’ll go in there somewhere, for sure.

It took me awhile to figure out what colour scheme to give the Dark Elves. While Purple/Black always looks good, it’s also the standard GW go-to colour (like Blue/White for High Elves) so again I wanted to do something at least a little bit different. After close to a day of poking around on the internet and looking at different models, some pics of nicely painted Sons of Horus helped me decide to go for some deep sea-green armour, based on the look I prefer for Sons of Horus. With sea green chosen for my main armour colour, I gave a local paint store a call to see if they had any sprays in sea green, and it turns out that they can literally make spray cans (or pressure packs, as they call them) in any colour off their extensive colour charts. So I went around, was somewhat overwhelmed with the amount of choice, and chose one from the 6 or so that were in what I felt was the right range. I also decided to go for a metallic tint, since I felt it would work a bit better (and hey, otherwise I may as well just mix up some custom dropper bottles). Later, I found some more images with metallic Sons of Horus, so I may eventually do up a squad of those guys as well.



When I got back and gave him a spray, I then had to figure out what to do with the cloth parts. I originally wanted to avoid any reds, but saw another pic of the Sons of Horus where a very small amount of red was used effectively, so went with it – on the lower cloak, and also using a reddish-brown for the leather on his topknot-wrap and sword handle. Using a purplish shade to his skin also warms the figure, slightly and provides a contrast to his armour. Again, taken from a good blog article – this one talking about Dark Eldar skin tones. The hair was finished, but it looks like the end of the topknot has had something splash onto it.

I knew I wanted to do some freehand on the cloak, so I was originally going to go with flames on the cloak, Legion of the Damned-style. Then green flames. Then a black cloak with “glowing green” runes – palette inspired by the Cryx boxed set. In the end I went with a faded spiral pattern on the inner cloak, and plain wet-blended turquoise for the outer. I’ll likely varnish the whole model next (after fixing the hair) and then work out what to do on the cloaks – either some freehand or just leaving them as they are. Suggestions welcome. What was particularly nice for me was getting this guy to this point in about 2 1/2 days from the original black sprayed model.



Then there’s his little mate who came with him that I’ve just started – a DE Assassin. Again, not sure where exactly he’ll fit into the army, but not too worried about things like that. I’m basically happy with the cloak being a P3 Coal Base-Trollblood Base, and the metal armour in the same colour as the other model, but not entirely sure about his turquoise thigh-high go-go boots. Perhaps shade them down and see how it looks? I plan to paint his undershorts black and skip the spot of red on his clothing, unless it’s a touch of face paint. But yeah, the main delay on this one is working out what to do with his booties.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/05 06:51:46


Post by: Azazelx


Yay! Three updates in a row without comment. Here's a couple of quick pics of finished Ogres.





More pics on my blog (linked from my sig) for those who are interested.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/08 01:29:39


Post by: carlos13th


I like the Ogres a lot. I agree about the lack of sculpt variety though. Looking forward to seeing the rest of your work. Subscribe.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/10 04:05:19


Post by: GrimDork


I thought I had this subbed, nice progress. Those ogres look great, I kind of want some Mantic ogres now. The DE look nice too, I'll have to read through the talky bits later when the toddler isn't terrorizing me.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/10 04:37:20


Post by: Joyboozer


Much prefer your flesh tone ogres to Mantics red blobs, in fact you've convinced me to get some!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/10 05:48:03


Post by: Azazelx


The main reason I started Ogres was to have a reason/excuse to get out my classic Citadel Ogre models that I'd just painted for the pleasure of it. All of them painted between 10 and 23 years ago. I've also got several that are still unpainted, and a couple that got started and never finished. With this in mind, and after some bloody stupid moves a couple of years ago when I stripped some very well painted figures from my youth in order to repaint them "modern style" that I now hugely regret, I decided not to repaint these guys, but to touch up where needed (chipped paint or toning down overly garish bits, re-highlighting metals) but to keep the essence of them as they were originally painted. So where some of the highlighting is a bit rough, or the blending on the flesh tones isn't 100%, that stuff stays untouched. The old railway-flock bases have been redone with painted sand and tufts so they fit in with my current stuff, but that's mostly it, aside from the touch-ups.

I'll post them one at a time, and more complete pics will - as always - be on the blog (when it gets updated). I'll update with more periodically after updating and photographing the figures as I go.

First Up:
Ogre Captain. Sculpted by Jes Goodwin.





For the moment, he's leading the first infantry unit. I've not glued him to the resin base, as I'm also considering mounting him in a chariot to be the Warlord of the entire force, as this is my favourite ogre figure ever, and also one of my favourite miniatures ever.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/10 05:51:51


Post by: GrimDork


He's interesting to be sure, and a very clean nice looking paint job too.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/10 10:17:16


Post by: Llamahead


Some great models and cheers for the advie about the restic stuff. I'm envious of the classic ogres as well.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/10 11:50:57


Post by: carlos13th


I really wanna see you add these.



to your army.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/10 13:19:47


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks for the kind words, guys. Those ogres look interesting, Carlos. Where are they from? I've got quite the pile to get through before I buy any more Ogres, though...


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/10 14:56:11


Post by: carlos13th


From here. But they are practically closed down though.

http://cavalcadewargames.com/cavalcade/Fantasy_Armies_of_the_Far_East_Menu.html


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/11 07:39:31


Post by: Azazelx


A shame, they're very nicely priced and I like the touch of the headgear being separate.

Here's another one. I remember, I painted him from bare metal to done in a single Saturday, many years ago. Still a nice, characterful sculpt, but the memory of painting him entirely in a day especially makes him a special model to me and still gives me the warm fuzzies (though I forget the actual details of the day.)





Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/12 00:01:18


Post by: GrimDork


I like how he labeled his drink just in case he was too dense to remember what he put in there , nice touch.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/12 00:28:42


Post by: Pacific


Very cool looking blog, and good to see someone with a work desk as messy as my own!

Completely know what you mean about utilisation of a work break - 'real life' stuff always gets in the way, but great that things are building up steam now.

Didn't realise you could paint so well Azazelx, these guys look great, and interested to see how the different bits will slot in together.

Consider me subbed!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/12 00:38:26


Post by: GrimDork


I hadn't looked at the table in the first pic... It looks more of organized chaos to me. If you want mess, I'll take a picture of my own desk. Hell, sometimes I spend 5-10 minutes trying to find my xacto or 6" ruler =/

He does seem to be getting through quite a few ogres though, doesn't he


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/12 06:34:08


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks guys. It's always faster to do touchups and rebasing than paint whole new figures. I'm just happy that the old boys will get a run on the field again.

Now, 'ave another Ogre!





And a group shot!



115pts Ogre Warriors Troop
[3x Ogres] solid unit


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/12 07:40:19


Post by: JoshInJapan


 Azazelx wrote:
Thanks guys. It's always faster to do touchups and rebasing than paint whole new figures. I'm just happy that the old boys will get a run on the field again.

Now, 'ave another Ogre!





Aw! You cut the spike off his helmet!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/12 09:11:10


Post by: carlos13th


I'm impressed with the level of painting on the skin.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/12 20:28:43


Post by: Da Boss


Love the tattoos on the last guy!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/16 04:56:44


Post by: Azazelx


A small update to the shooters - finished the bases on these guys after finally getting a day warm enough to spray them. Paint-on Vallejo varnish kept leaving some non-matt areas. Hurrah for Testors Dullcote!






And the first of the next unit: Olley's Ogres!





This guy always reminded me of my Dad, from back when I painted him, and still to this day he reminds me of my father at that time. A bit of the face, the Calabrese complexion, the physique and even the brains(!)


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/16 07:09:21


Post by: Rabid Ferret


Looking great. It is nice to see someone doing something differently from the plastic GW ogres.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/16 13:59:44


Post by: GrimDork


Coming along nicely! I always feel better after the sealer is down. Gonna need a group shot to keep track of this growing force soon!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/16 15:16:09


Post by: Pacific


Yes the tattoos do look very nice! Lovely bright colours as well, and the highlighting on the gem stones and such is a very nice touch.



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/18 06:07:43


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks guys - there's a couple more upcoming with well done tattoos that I'm still proud of to this day. I'll be doing tatts on a bunch of the new ones as well - the hardest part is getting enough bare skin to use as a decent canvas.

Having said that - Another of Olley's Ogres. This guy has all the skin you might need, and if I painted him today, he'd be covered in Ink. Since I'm really only doing touch-ups with these old ones, or correcting any major colour mistakes (so bright! my eyes!) he's once again - as is! If I were to paint him today, he'd be covered in tattoos. I'm leaving him with his original paint, though, but I'll be keeping an eye out on eBay etc for a twin!







Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/18 14:36:55


Post by: GrimDork


Well done, as usual, I like the big ripped back. Looks like he can really swing those bludgeons.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/21 00:31:30


Post by: Azazelx


The third of these Olley Ogres.
The blue straps are a bit bright, but they're not overwhelming enough to need to be repainted. IRL they're not quite so garish.





And a couple of shots of the newly restored/updated unit:




Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/21 01:58:03


Post by: GrimDork


Definitely like the ramshackle nature of the group. Like they're a pack of ogre adventurers, they've all got their own way of doing stuff, but they've banded together for safety in numbers and so on. Great stuff


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/21 02:19:33


Post by: Azazelx


Yeah, one of the things that I always liked the most about the old Citadel Ogres was that each one was an individual. The Mantic ones and the new OK ones still look nice, but lack that sense of individuality.

I guess the OK "Maneaters" were a kind of nod or throwback to the originals, but I never managed to pick any up (due to low priority and AU prices) before the switch to Finecast...


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/21 02:28:56


Post by: GrimDork


Ahh yeah. I mean you could take the effort to personalize your mantic/gw ogres, but those older ones definitely already have that going on for sure. And since ogres seem to have been shoehorned into the mercenary army role by most fantasy fluff factories, it totally makes sense that you've got those older guys mixed in with the other ones. Different groups gathered up to make a strong merc company etc.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/21 04:00:27


Post by: 40kFSU


Wow, you have some talent with a brush.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/21 04:56:07


Post by: Azazelx


 GrimDork wrote:
Ahh yeah. I mean you could take the effort to personalize your mantic/gw ogres, but those older ones definitely already have that going on for sure. And since ogres seem to have been shoehorned into the mercenary army role by most fantasy fluff factories, it totally makes sense that you've got those older guys mixed in with the other ones. Different groups gathered up to make a strong merc company etc.


The Mantic ones are a bit harder to personalise than the Ogre Kingdoms ones, given that there's only three torsos and six heads - and being so very armoured up. I plan on doing a little bit of light conversion on the next batch of Shooters, but nothing too much. The OK ones lend themselves very well to kitbashing, since there are so many compatible parts across their range.

I'll likely add some units of both (Melee Mantic ones and OK) down the line, but from the list that Doug worked out for me, I've got well over 2k worth of points for KoW well before looking into painting any new stuff that's not a character, individual or chariot. Once I get the 2k points finished, I'll have to work out what to do next. More Ogres - get back to the elves for an OP, or start on that ally detatchment that I've got planned...


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/21 13:47:14


Post by: GrimDork


Yeah, ogres shouldn't take too long to fill out a roster, its fine if their high points . Looking forward to playing along at home, this is a fun project to follow!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/26 17:38:54


Post by: Alpharius


This Blog is... fantastic!

Really do miss the old style GW Ogres...


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/28 07:39:13


Post by: carlos13th


These look really good. Love the uniqueness of many of the older models. Very full of character. I like the mantic ogres a lot but they feel somewhat generic compared to the other ogres you have.

The painting is great btw, you have picked out the muscle definition very well .


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/11/28 14:57:20


Post by: KingCracker


Typically I'm not a big fan of the old GW minis but I have to agree, those ogres are very charming to look at. GW definitely lost the charming look of their older minis.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/12/03 21:19:06


Post by: Azazelx


Agreed Carlos - the Mantic ones would actually work well as characters and I think do work as a uniformed army, but lack the individuality of the old Citadel models. Same with the OK stuff, actually. I started on the second pair of missile units last weekend (more Blunderbusses and crossbows) with a little bit of kitbashing so they're not identical to the first lot. They're looking alright, though I think one of the two headswaps is a bit borderline as far as individual minis goes - it either just works, or just doesn't quite work - but I think it'll be fine in the context of the larger/full army.

The last few weeks of work have been the most full-on for the entire year, and I have a on of exra work to do on the weekend (rewriting policy - fun and exciting!), but I'll hopefully at least get some WIP pics up of the new ones, even if I don't have any new fully-painted pics of figures.

I need to finish the touching-up on my final one of the unit of 3 Ogre Berserkers - some of my earliest ogres - so old I dryrushed their flesh for highlighting, so just blending in some gradient onto the original paint. One left!



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/12/03 22:15:19


Post by: Pacific


Really like the leopard skin effect on the one ogre's fun, very nice attention to detail!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/12/04 08:13:40


Post by: carlos13th


rewrite the policy to give all workers free time that can only be used for painting ogres.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/12/04 20:57:32


Post by: Azazelx


haha! No it's meshing together departmental policy with existing local policy on the responsible use of technology, rights and responsibilities. It's as exciting as it sounds!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/12/04 21:19:57


Post by: carlos13th


Good luck with that mate. There is very few subjects more dry that policy documents.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/12/05 10:18:34


Post by: carlos13th


Btw someone on lead adventures is selling a bunch of ogres. I know you probably have more than enough yourself but just incase you are interested.

http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=60599.0


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/12/05 13:38:11


Post by: Azazelx


Hm, somewhat interesting, but a bit too much there I'm not really interested in and the shipping from Canada might be a bit much. Thanks for the heads-up, though!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/12/07 14:25:12


Post by: Azazelx


Well, I haven't entirely been slack in the past weeks. I've managed to do a little bit of work on models...





Here's the next two units of Ogre Shooters I'm working on. Pretty ugly at the moment, but that's the nature of WIP!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/12/07 14:44:01


Post by: carlos13th


I like the helmet, what's it from?


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/12/07 14:49:43


Post by: Azazelx


It's an Ogre Kingdoms head - though I'm not sure which "set" of OK figures it's from as it came in a bag of heads. It manages to work with the Mantic ones, though - which is the important thing.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/12/18 03:59:47


Post by: judgedoug


Looking great, dude! PS the lady and I are thinking of an Aus/NZ trip possibly this year, we did Europe for three weeks last year and have been itching to go out of country again... we'd have to get in a day of gaming if it happens!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/12/18 07:41:03


Post by: Breotan


Liking the variety of skin tones you're giving them.



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/12/21 04:44:52


Post by: Azazelx


 judgedoug wrote:
Looking great, dude! PS the lady and I are thinking of an Aus/NZ trip possibly this year, we did Europe for three weeks last year and have been itching to go out of country again... we'd have to get in a day of gaming if it happens!


Hah! You're just trying to pressure me into actually finishing a whole force!

I think I'm going to scrap my initial plans for the Ogre Warlord and Standard Bearer on chariots. The Mantic Chariots look okay, and I got a bunch of good looking bits to stick on them, but I think I'm going to have to use a couple of the larger Ogre Kingdoms giant warbeast models instead, to really give them "oomph" (and because I've always liked the look of them). I'll just need to figure out a way of making them look worthy of leading my army...

In the meantime, lots more of the troops to come! Then it's either the TK Elves, or a detour into Undead Lands that I'll just need someone to kindly write up an army list or three for....


 Breotan wrote:
Liking the variety of skin tones you're giving them.


Thank you Breotan. I figure that as so many of the figures are individuals, they'd have a variety of backgrounds, both tribally and in their recent travels.


Have only done a minimal amount of painting in the last couple of weeks, due to work's final end-of-year frenzy of work, and temporarily moving my temporary painting table to take delivery of and assemble more furniture. Soon I'll be back up to speed, though!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/12/21 05:17:45


Post by: GrimDork


I hear you, I'm not even working right now (landscaping, what can you do with snow on the ground...) and this time of year still has me hardly painting


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/12/21 21:32:09


Post by: Azazelx


 GrimDork wrote:
I hear you, I'm not even working right now (landscaping, what can you do with snow on the ground...) and this time of year still has me hardly painting


Yeah, we had 40 degrees 2 days ago. Even indoors it was a wipeout, since we've had such a cold spring, so 40 was quite the shock to the system.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/12/22 00:10:00


Post by: GrimDork


It was 60 yesterday, after a foot deep snow a few days ago. Wonky here.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/12/22 02:14:49


Post by: Azazelx


I think we're talking across formats, as it were. I meant 40C, which is 104F - but yeah, a lot of our spring was unusually cold - pretty much around 60F and raining for a week at a time, then punctuated by a couple of days in the 95F range, then back down to 60F-ish...


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2013/12/22 03:16:59


Post by: GrimDork


Oh lord yeah sorry forgot the location tag. 104 this time of year does sound absurd!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/01/22 03:24:23


Post by: Azazelx


Haven't been posting in my thread lately. This is mostly because I've been busy turning this:


into this:



I also speed painted 6 boxes totalling 30 DUST Zombies in the last week - 6 days from unboxing to varnish. Which is some kind of record for me.






They're rough and ready - far from beautiful or showcase models, but they're finished and completely appropriate for purpose, which is zombie-cannon-fodder.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/01/22 04:15:25


Post by: GrimDork


Those look pretty sharp for such speed.

Does this mean that you might be getting some gaming in? /jealous.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/01/22 07:27:33


Post by: Azazelx


I've had 2 games of Kings of War in the last week, and will be intro-game-GMing a couple of friends in a game tonight. It might have been a game or two if they'd arrived about 4 hours earlier, but c'est la vie.

I fear the DUST Zombies will remain gaming virgins for some time, though. Can't (re)learn too many systems all at once...


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/01/22 14:46:29


Post by: GrimDork


I hear you there with being unable to do too ,many games at once. I remember playing the second smash brothers and switching back to the first and being abysmal at it. Bit different, kinda the same thing.

At least your zombies are done and collecting dust instead sprue grey collecting dust


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/01/22 23:12:20


Post by: Azazelx


I've got more zombies that fit that description, though - Studio Miniatures, Zombicide... the (grey) horde never ends!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/01/24 02:25:55


Post by: Archer


I sure wish I still had some of the models from when I was painting 20 years ago.....well maybe just the model, the paint job would have been horrendous, unlike your ogres that have weathered the years amazingly well.

Keep up the good work I am interested to see how things go.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/01/24 02:42:52


Post by: GrimDork


Aren't the Zombicide zombies a different, not grey color? If it were me (and it might be someday) I might almost just paint the handful of player pieces, and leave the zombies to their default color. It isn't as if they'll be staying alive long enough to earn paint right

I haven't been at this for quite that long... so I do have many of my first minis. Blah. Trying to sell them


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/01/24 02:49:54


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks Archer! I'm still sad about the models that I did sell off back in the day. A fully-painted RT-era Imperial Guard army with a large detatchment of Squats was the biggest set. I'm still hurting over that one.

Grimdork - all must (eventually) be painted. I'll probably leave the zombies with colour-coded bases, and perhaps give them a dominant colour per set since the game colour-codes them (orange jumpsuits, etc). Having said that, you can see there's quite a few Zombies in the queue before the Zombicide ones come along... especially if I'm to paint my Sedition Wars ones thanks to you!

And now, a bit of an update:

So with the paint enthusiasm seemingly on the go right now - for another couple of days at least - here's the stuff I'm working on right now. You'll notice that those bloody Mantic Ogre Shooters have been temporarily put to the side. The lack of pleasure I was getting from painting them certainly affected my enthusiasm, so I figure a short break from them should help me come back to them somewhat refreshed in a little while. Once those six are finished, I'll be able to start on the FUN Ogre stuff! Or the Chariots. Those are less fun.


Axis Gorillaz (feat. Damon Albarn)

Anyway, finishing the DUST Zombies recently got the next few boxes of DUST stuff opened - Axis Gorillas! That's another three boxes disposed of (cleaned up!)


Swordmasters of Hoeth WIP on a temporary regiment base.

My recent games of Kings of War (BetRep to follow sometime in the next week, hopefully-maybe, caused me to start on a unit of Swordmasters of Hoeth, which I guess would be Palace Guard in the KoW Elf army, but is standing in for Twilight Kin Darksome Guard right now. Whatever. They're Elves! The best part of these (so far) is that they were completely unpainted just a week ago. At the glacial pace I paint, getting to this point is pretty amazing. The basing has set me back 2 or 3 days, since it's slow, unfun and tedious. (Hi, Cash!)


Basing almost complete. Then crests and boots!

I'm painting them up a little different to other High Elf armies I've seen. I've had a small collection of unpainted WFB High Elves for 15-18 years, but never had the enthusiasm or a reason to paint them. Ever since The Burning Crusade was released for World of Warcraft, I knew how I wanted to (eventually) paint my High Elves - as Blood Elves rather then the typical White/Blue/Silver with Gold & Red accents most HE armies are painted in. So I'm going Red/Yellow/Gold with Silver and Green accents. It's giving them a nice autumnal feel, as well as regal & rich - though obviously the colours are highly saturated.


Zombies!

Next up we have some zombies from WarZone, circa the early 1990's. These would have been purchased during the file sale phase after WarZone 2nd Ed managed to kill our local enthusiasm for the game, and Heartbreaker started to crash and burn. I never actually played Dark Legion, but regardless was willing to pick up a couple of blisters (I'm guessing 2 or 3, since I have 10 figures here?) on closeout. I basecoated the flesh on these about 8(?) months ago when I started assembling my Studion Miniatures IGG KS figures, but like so many projects over the years, (Ogre Shooters!) they got shoved to the side. The initial plan was to use Army Painted dip on them (and the others) but since the DUST Zombies went together just fine and quick using the AP washes, I'm going in that direction with these instead. They have more details and individuality than the DUST figures - and lots more exposed skin, bone and viscera, but I'm still hoping to have them finished in a couple of days. Again, these are more likely to see the tabletop in 40k working alongside Typhus then a WarZone game, but painted is painted, and they can work across several games.


Some DUST Campaigns

Also inspired by wanting to clean stuff up, I decided to unbox these two of my DUST campaign box expansions. Seelowe because of the Character-model Gorilla inside (who you can see above in the background of the Gorilla pic), and Icarus for the Quonset huts, which I figured I could paint reasonably quickly. All of the rest of the contents got shovelled into the DUST Core box set.


Quonset Huts from DUST.

Considering that these have only been out of their box for about 14 hours, (including my sleep overnight) they're not doing too badly. Hoping to finish them today, and varnish overnight/tomorrow. I might even buy some more, since they're good looking, cheap and effective!

And that's it for this quick WIP post. I'll update again when some of it is finished!



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/01/24 04:41:31


Post by: GrimDork


Nice, good to see you rolling right along

Do the batrep if you have time, I've got limited experience with KoW and would love to hear a play by play.

Gorillas AND zombies? Dust sounds.. interesting.. to say the least

What's getting you on the elf bases? Are they glued down before you paint the bases? I couldn't do it. I mean I used to, all the time, but not any more. I've got to take everything I paint and put it on a nail or the top of an old paint pot or something, and any bases get painted separately before joining the two. It's not for everyone, but it's a line I draw. Like some people leave guns off to better/more easily paint the model. I do it with bases.

Man... those gorillas look hitty. Nasty even before you give them what look like electroshock bludgeon fist things.

Keep it comin


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/01/24 07:15:30


Post by: Azazelx


Basing for me depends on the model. If the figure is easily glued, then sanded, then I do that. If the figure is going to be a bit of a nightmare to glue before sanding (like these guys) then I do the bases separately, then glue the models down and then fill the gaps at the sides, then re-sand the edges, then re-ink, then re-drybrush. It's not hard, just tedious - mostly because you spend a lot of time waiting for the PVA/sand and then the ink to dry before you can move on and keep painting. In the second pic, you can see where I've painted the edges brown over the white putty on the edges of their bases - so these guys are now ready for the PVA-sanding, though they're going to be in a game in an hour or so, so that'll have to wait till either after midnight or tomorrow morning. (Probably after midnight so the PVA/sand is dry at least tomorrow morning....)

Once the figures are completely done, I'll add a little static grass. These guys are too small and fill too much of their bases to get tufts.

Quonset huts are almost done. Just waiting for some washes on them to dry, then I guess some drybrush weathering and dirty them up a little. So likely tomorrow, and varnish them right after.

DUST is a Weird-WW2 game, and while I admittedly haven't played it yet (soon, now that I have a space to play!) by all accounts it's a pretty good game, and many of the figures can double-duty in 40k, Incursion (a good boardgame quite similar to Space Hulk), Tannhauser (a W-WW2 boardgame cousin to DUST), and of course, DUST Warfare, which is the "wargame" version of Dust.

I've got a Reaper gorilla that would work perfectly with these guys (and in Incursion, from memory). Actually, I think I may have several of him, since there's one in metal and it also came in Bones Vampire, so I'll have 2 or 3 more from that. I just need to find a 40mm diamond-plate base so it matches the rest of the Troop - which I think I should have around here somewhere...



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/01/24 13:29:18


Post by: GrimDork


Haha that gorilla... gotta love the mini gun.

I definitely appreciate collecting models for their cross compatibility.

Looking forward to more


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/01/24 18:58:01


Post by: Sageheart


Exciting stuff here! Will keep an eye on this.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/01/31 14:03:29


Post by: Azazelx


So I've been browsing over at The One Ring forum again lately, and one of the cool things the community over there does is have a monthly little painting competition for LotR models. The January theme was "Monsters" but, you know, January is over - but I found the Feb theme of a unit of models to be a little off-putting (I'm better with individuals, generally - and especially with start-to-finish stuff). Then yesterday afternoon, a thought hit me - grab out an appropriate monster of some sort from the pile of unpainted Reaper Bones figures I have from the Kickstarter, and speedpaint it as a personal challenge. I knew that it wouldn't be winning the TOR comp, but if I managed to finish it, I'd have a pretty cool prize anyway - a decently tabletop standard finished model for wargaming - KoW being the current hotness (even though I have a couple of completed Ents anyway.)

So I took a look through, disregarded several dragons since it was already 6pm on the 30th of Jan and heat-straightening dragons wasn't something I felt like doing, and eventually found this guy - Good enough for an Ent or Huorn!


"Proof" pic, as required at TOR.


It turned out to not be a fun easy mini to paint as I'd hoped, but pretty horrible, with ill-defined "what the hell is that supposed to be?" "details" all over it. It's not going to win any prizes - over on TOR or anywhere else, but I was at least on track at the end of the first night for a half-decent tabletop model by the end bell.


I also decided to grab a pic before adding the moss and foliage. You can see much of the muddy "detail" on the model that I decided to cover...
I considered OSL for the eyes, but decided against it. I wanted to keep it a little more subtle for this model. I went with green Entish eyes over red Huornish ones.


Here we go. I'm just happy I managed to get this guy done in about 28 hours from baggie to finished - and most of that being drying time from washes, inks, glue and varnish. Thanks to this comp, I now have another model for the table, and since I can be as slow as all hell to paint, this is a very good thing.




Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/01/31 16:07:30


Post by: GrimDork


Pretty kick ass for the time you spent. The moss really brings it to life.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/02/02 00:53:32


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


The grass on his back and shoulders really adds a lot of interest to the mini. It gives him a sort of Swamp Thing vibe.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/02/02 21:14:50


Post by: Archer


I am constantly amazed at how good adding a little bit of 'flock' to a model either the base or in this example directly to the model can look.

I will definitely rip this idea off if I ever get around to Tree-kin, Dryads and Treemen.

Great job.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/02/02 23:23:56


Post by: GiraffeX


I think he came out really well, I like the vines and moss effect.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/02/03 09:37:33


Post by: Slinky


What make are the vines? They are very effective looking.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/02/04 06:17:35


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks guys, I was quite happy at how well he turned out. The vines (and flowers) are Army Painter while the multicoloured static grass is AP Steppe Grass while the brighter green is from a (giant) bag I bought many years ago of bright green static grass from a model train store. Might be Woodland Scenics.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/02/04 06:34:28


Post by: GrimDork


Ahh woodland scenics... I went through 2-3 of their economy tubs doing my original fantasy board (all static grass, 4x6 feet lol). Good stuff, I like their tree kits. They look good, and you can turn the inevitable shedding into bushes later

What's next after your treeman mini-break?


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/02/05 02:06:45


Post by: Azazelx


Well, I've finished 3 Quonset Huts from DUST Tactics (but suitable for any games from WW2-40k) (WIP above), 3 Jersey Barriers and 5 Hesco Barriers, 10 WarZone Zombies (WIP above) and 5 wooden barrel stacks. I just need to photograph them and get them up on the internets, which I've been too tired to do for the past couple of days.

I've got a couple of Bones Golems I started awhile ago that I plucked off the shelf this morning before work to throw back into the rotation to finish, as well as all those Gorillas and High Elves I started a couple of weeks ago (WIPs above).



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/02/05 03:40:30


Post by: GrimDork


Excellent. Will. Watch this space.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/02/05 04:47:38


Post by: Sageheart


Really cool treeman model!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/02/07 23:17:46


Post by: Azazelx


Here's some of the most recent stuff:



A pair of metal GW Dark Elf Repeater Bolt throwers.

I got the pair cheap off eBay already assembled and primed, so the day after finishing the treeman last week, I decided to spray them with my two custom sprays that I got made for my DE/Twilight Kin - since I no longer play WHFB, I'm happily basing everything for Kings of War with it's more relaxed basing options - so round 40mm bases from Proxie Models to the rescue. By the end of the day, they were all but finished. Of course, I need to do the crew sometime soon as well... I guess.



Secret Weapon Hesco Barriers


Secret Weapon Jersey Barriers

Over the Christmas-New Year period, I picked up a couple of sets of Secret Weapon Miniatures' "Bag O Crap" thanks to a post in Dakka Discussions (which I now can't find!). Essentially miscasts and bits that don't make their quality control standard. I've half-written a review of them, so I'll save the detailed commentary for later, but suffice to say that a couple of other resin companies might want to take note of what Quality Control means. Puppetswar in particular. These were done in Mid-Jan, but I didn't get a chance to photograph them until now.

These painted up nice and fast, and (will) look good on the tabletop. I'll probably need to buy a ton more of each, though... I went for a bright orange plastic that had both been sunbleached and dirtied up in use for the Jersey Barriers. Despite being pretty small and simple, I'm quite happy with how they turned out. These barriers will work nicely in everything from moderns to zombiepocalypse to 40k and everything in between.

Next up: More Zombies!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/02/07 23:32:03


Post by: GrimDork


All looks pretty good. But a question arises... what kind of zombies?


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/02/07 23:52:45


Post by: Azazelx


WarZone 1st edition zombies...


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/02/08 01:35:40


Post by: GrimDork


Cool. Get at it *whip crack*


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/02/08 04:03:16


Post by: Azazelx


Yeah just didn't have time this morning to make the update any bigger. Had to go out shopping which has been a painful time in 40.degree weather. (Thats 100 for you US guys). Still not back . No wonder I buy almost everything online these days....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here we go!


WarZone 1st Edition Zombies:

A bit more detail on these guys, and I tried out the new GW Blood for the Blood God paints, which worked well enough. Didn't really notice much difference from Tamiya Clear Red to be honest, but I really didn't use a whole lot on them. These photos are way too dark. I'll take them again at some point. These were taken in diffused natural light and looked bright enough at the time. I think the white paper behind them threw the light balance way off on the camera...



I also took a couple of shots of the DUST Zombies this morning as well. The shots from the previous update are okay, but kind of take away from how I felt the teeth and eyes came out on them. Like I said at the time, they’re speed painted and weren’t done for awesome, but I was happy with how those details came out, so I may as well show them off.

There's a couple more pics on the external blog. I still need to photograph the other scenery that I've finished recently.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/02/09 21:16:59


Post by: Archer


Love the DUST zombies, the jump suits are awesome. But for someone that knows nothing about the game or setting, what the hell are the giant metal balls for hands all about?

I like your paint on the warzone zombies, but I just can't reconcile zombies using guns. I mean what chance would we have if zombies can use guns?

Keep up the great work.




Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/02/09 23:59:39


Post by: Azazelx


Yeah, I have the same kind of issue with gun-zombies myself. I guess the answer is a combination of "they were cheap" combined with some kind of pseudoscience nonsense about necrotising flesh, the plague and leprosy - and perhaps something like advanced syphillis (I saw a doco recently talking about people in renaissance Italy essentially being walking dead - decaying, exposed bone and flesh, and just generally unpleasant nastiness - also reflected in some of the art of the day.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, the metal balls are just an alternative model option for a weapon called "Panzergloves".


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/01 11:55:41


Post by: Azazelx


Some pics of recently-completed models and scenery...



These guys are some Dryads that I was either given or sold quite cheap by a friend back in the mid-90s. I’m not sure why I wanted them, so they must have been cheap or free. I think they may actually be recasts, given how malformed some of them are. Anyway, I found them in the bottom of a box of figures recently, and since I was able to finish the Bones Ent/Spirit of the Forest in a day recently, I thought I’d try and knock these up quickly as well in a similar manner, and finished them tonight. While they’re no works of art up close, they’ll look fine from across the table in KoW or in a game of Pathfinder, etc. A good example of “good enough”!






One of the real highlights of my Secret Weapon Miniatures Bag(s) ‘o’ Crap that I picked up in December – along with the Hesco and Jersey barriers shown previously was this overturned Half-track Ute (or truck) from the Secret Weapon Miniatures Scrap Yard Barricades set. I had quite a lot of fun painting this, with layers of washes and drybrushing and mediums and edging and applying effects with foam and so forth. Obviously this thing works best for Sci-Fi/40k/GorkaMorka/Post-apocalyptic stuff, but if you squint, it could also work for moderns in Afghanistan or the like.






Another nice surprise in my Bag(s) ‘o’ Crap was this turret. Part of the Secret Weapon Miniatures Scrap Yard Destroyed Tank set. A pretty nice piece, though Holy 3-d print lines, Batman! Still, for the price I paid for it, and even full RRP ($20 for a whole tank) it’s pretty nifty.


Lots more (scenery) on the blog.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/01 13:28:35


Post by: GrimDork


Terrain looks nice, as do the dryads. I love the flock/etc on your recent nature projects. Any chance of a scale shot for the terrain pieces? They look decently sized but its a bit hard to tell.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/02 01:03:38


Post by: Azazelx


Yep - next time I take some photos, I'll do scale shots for these and the barriers I posted recently.



In the meantime, here's the Quonset Huts from DUST


And some barrels - which are still available from Grendel.





Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/02 01:25:41


Post by: GrimDork


The barrels look great! Those buildings.. what scale? They seem small for 28mm given marines aren't especially large for their scale.. but they'd be fairly enormous for 15 and I thought dust was 28 anyway. They look nice in any case.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/02 03:52:15


Post by: Azazelx


The Quonset huts are 28mm scale. Dust is a little closer to truescale, and the Marine is rather chunky. They "suffer" (if you like) from the usual aspect of almost all 28mm buildings terrain in that the buildings are a bit small to realistically be used for purpose. Then again, a 6x4 table is about the size of a supermarket car park if scaled down to the figures, so they're actually completely fine for things to fight around - and you can easily "stack" them end to end to make longer huts.



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/02 03:59:35


Post by: GrimDork


Ahh, I kind of had a feeling it was something like that. They look nice, and should provide plenty of cover to boot.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/02 22:26:43


Post by: Archer


The Barrels are great, I love the little details on top of them.
I like the discoloration on the middle Quonset building on the outside corner.
I second the liking the use of flock on your forest creature models, really effective and can help get them to the tabletop that much quicker.

Keep it coming.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/03 02:43:21


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks! Yeah I wanted them to look worn, weathered and reasonably realistic, which means some staining, uneven patches, and discolouration over the top of the sprayed base coat and camo aspects.

The flock actually makes them take a little longer than if I'd left them with bare paint, but stops them from looking too plain (and painting the sculpted foliage just tends to look average at best.) It certainly makes it easier to call them "good enough", though!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I was originally going to post this reply over in Grimdork's thread, but since it's mostly talking about myself, I decided to chop it and drop it here instead.

 GrimDork wrote:

I haven't gotten to play :( Kind of waiting until I have a painted set of terrain and two painted strike teams before I try to strong arm any friends/family into playing. Really want that A.I. deck and solo rules expansion As to your MA quandary...

I would say if you have the disposable income, get the 1-click and buy dz scenery too. The terrain is really neat. If you don't use glue, you'll want extra connectors, but I don't know that those are offered on the MA pledge (maybe you could work something out via the message system, if they ever reply ). I think if you use as many connectors as you can to make your constructions rock-solid, you probably genuinely need twice as much as they send. If you use connectors to set the pieces in place then glue, you can get away with half as many or less (probably none, honestly, but it might be more of a pain to go in and unclip connectors than it is to just leave a few in.. especially the inside corners).

If you have someone who will play MA with you, it looks really fun and I think all of the goodies would take ages to play through and add a lot of value. Most of it is also colored plastic so you wouldn't even have to feel obligated to paint it right away.

If I had to choose, I'd pick up the scenery first, though the base MA game will probably offer a fair amount of replay value for what it costs.


Well, I finally worked out my pledge yesterday. I really didn't want to go much over my $300 pledge with $325 worth of stuff, so I decided to price out my scenery and then decide.My terrain wants - plus shipping - came to $185 over my already-paid pledge. So if I'd gone for the full MA experience, it'd have been a bill for $485. So in the end I decided I was better off to ditch the $300 1-click in the end and just go for scenery. $300 is a pretty hefty spend on an unplayed, untested boardgame based on an IP I'm not actually interested in at all (never liked MA), and with Mantic's ...uneven track record on the model side, it was too much to gamble on.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/03 03:23:15


Post by: GrimDork


So did you burn all $325 credit on DZ battlezones then? Or uhh, 13 battlezones? I've got 12 here, with 2 more coming, and I think it should cover a 4x4' table with a reasonable amount of height. It depends on your game system and how much open space or gap you're willing to entertain. Deadzone likes to be packed, I could probably cover an 8x4' 40k table without batting an eyelash, mostly 6x9" buildings spread out with reasonable gaps and several pieces of line/cluster terrain etc blah. If you did get that many BZs.. what distribution did you go with? I have 8 core worlds, 3LP, 1 fort, and then the two ruins coming, could have done with just 2 of everything.. but I stand by getting majority CW since it's the most versatile/flexible set.

And the core MA game that came with your BotB pledge anyway will likely have quite a lot packed in anyway, there are like what ten heroes and they probably all get a scenario etc.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/03 06:10:24


Post by: Azazelx


I went with:

Wrecked Car - $5: 2
Urban Accessories - $5: 4
Deadzone Accessory sprue - $5: 2
Ruined Scenery Deluxe Pack - $50: 2
Intact Scenery Deluxe Pack - $50: 3
Deadzone Scenery Standard Pack - $25: 2
Deadzone Fortification Standard Pack - $25: 2
Deadzone Battle Damage Standard Pack - $25: 2
Deadzone Landing Pad Standard Pack - $25: 2

So whatever that works out to be. Not sure how many battlezones it all comes to, but I decided to get two of everything, then decided to decrease the ruined brick walls to one Deluxe set and increase the intact ones to three (since the base game comes with a sprue or two), then decided to keep the ruins at two and just have three intact.

My cunning plan is to combine them both to make some large, buildings that can be centrepieces for the table - using this sort of thing as inspiration:





Using the brick walls, ruines bricks, the DZ sprues, some foam core, hardware fittings and this kit:


Plus
Spoiler:

Spoiler:


Adding that sort of thing - but the gantries and pipes and boilers and such on the outside of the building, rather than inside.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/03 07:07:56


Post by: GrimDork


Pics in spoilers aren't working for me, but maybe is tablet.

Well every 25 dollar set is a battle zone. You will have more than me once that all comes in, that's a lot . If I read your numbers right its 18 bz equivalents.

I don't think the ruined sets (of either variety) will give you much height, but you should have plenty of the other kinds to get along with, and the ruined pieces could easilly go on top. Start making plans for big laser cannons, you should get four from your lp Anne fort sets.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with once this is all in hand.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Managed to view pictures, interiors like that would be excellent. First iimage tried to convince me I had a virus though... must have had to sift the dregs of the inter pipes to find it!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/03 07:49:55


Post by: Jehan-reznor


I never knew they had 7-Up and coke then (nice chronopia figure by the way)


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/03 11:06:51


Post by: Azazelx


 GrimDork wrote:
Pics in spoilers aren't working for me, but maybe is tablet.

Well every 25 dollar set is a battle zone. You will have more than me once that all comes in, that's a lot . If I read your numbers right its 18 bz equivalents.

I don't think the ruined sets (of either variety) will give you much height, but you should have plenty of the other kinds to get along with, and the ruined pieces could easilly go on top. Start making plans for big laser cannons, you should get four from your lp Anne fort sets.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with once this is all in hand.

Managed to view pictures, interiors like that would be excellent. First iimage tried to convince me I had a virus though... must have had to sift the dregs of the inter pipes to find it!


Yeah, I'm planning to use the ruined buildings to integrate with my old Armorcast ruined building sets that are almost all ground-floor corners for more single-storey ruins, as well as using on different levels (ground, 2nd storey, etc) in my ruined factory project(s). Big laser cannons? You mean those flat ones, don't you? Bits box for those I think, unless I make a decent multi-gun cannon out of them which should make the flatness of them look a little less toy-like.

I'm going to try and use those interior pictures as inspiration for the factory/building exteriors, though. I figure no point doing all that hard work if it can't be easily seen - and having all that crap on the outside of buildings makes them a lot more visually interesting while the little men are trying to shoot one another.


Also going to go for more generic and less overt-sci-fi so they can be used in anything from Bolt Action to 40k - so no eagles or skulls.


Thanks Jehan - it's the little things that keep me interested. Barrels are pretty boring business! I'm working on more now. Hooray for finding another few in a box! Should all be done by the weekend at least - I hope! I just realised those two Chronopia figures need some tufts, too.



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/09 15:11:57


Post by: Azazelx


While I haven't updated with pics in what feels like forever, it's only been a little more than a week in actuality. I've finished quite a lot more random bits of scenery, somewhat following-up from my last post which dealt with a similar theme (at least in the pictures). I've just got to take some photos, and hopefully tomorrow will be the day!

In the meantime, I've been rooting around in my resin bits boxes for more stuff I can knock out quickly, and found these two little beasties. I must have had them for 10 years or more, and in all that time they've done nothing but sit inside a few boxes. Time for some paint, then. I figure I'll treat them much like Bones critters and resin scenery, in that good enough will be good enough - but I'm just not sure on how to paint them yet. I figure I'll post them here, and in a day or two I'll have them based properly and can then knock them out reasonably quickly once I see what feedback and ideas people have.

Looks like these are also from Grendel - as so much of my old resin stuff is - These are two of the three critters from the Dungeon Crawlers kit. Giant Centipede and "Leech". I kinda prefer my own names though. I don't know where the third one of the trio has disappeared to. I'm sure I'll find it one day.

Feel free to reply here, or go over to the blog and click on radio buttons.



Mr.Millipede should be painted:
Black with yellow markings.
Black with a metallic sheen.
Red with yellow markings.
Red shaded down with dark cadmium red/brown.
Yellow with black markings.
Other.

Frog-kinda-thing should be painted:
Red. A shiny, shiny red.
Green. A slimy olive drab with Nurgle's Rot paint on top.
Other.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/09 16:16:47


Post by: bebopdrums2424


Great stuff in here man! Lots of creative projects Thanks for sharing!

BB


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/09 19:43:56


Post by: GrimDork


I make votes on blog, bumblebee and nurgle green!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/09 21:25:39


Post by: Archer


I like a black metallic sheen for Mr Millipede and Frog-kinda-thing should be bright, bright red.

My two cents.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/09 22:01:41


Post by: GrimDork


I could be swayed to the side of metallic sheen, but that frog screams green to me


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/03/10 02:11:54


Post by: Azazelx


For the Yellow/Black and Black/Yellow, I'm thinking of a pattern inspired by this sort of thing, with the emphasis either on the yellow or the black.




For the slimy green on Froggie, I'm thinking something like the out-of-focus bits of this pic:



The red would be more akin to:




Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/07 02:20:39


Post by: Azazelx


I've been off the P&M blog section of the board since I haven't been able to take photos for several weeks, and now with a short respite from work, have been spending time trying to finish off what my friends have dubbed "The War Room". We got the former kitchen fridge going last night and filled it with healthy sugary carbonated beverages and such (at least they use sugar here instead of corn syrup). I'm planning to put up the last shelves later today, as well as the bike hooks on the wall. Electrician hopefully coming in this week to install some more lights and move the alarm sensor and such. Then it's go time, and only a floating shelf, blinds and perhaps a nice rug to finish up. So... hopefully updates soon!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/07 03:08:00


Post by: GrimDork


Excellent, always neat things coming here so good to hear that there will be more potentially soon


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/15 05:38:19


Post by: Azazelx


It's been quiet on the blogging front for a few weeks now. While other lucky gamers around the world have been at Adepticon and Salute, I've been working on the room, which was all but complete by last Saturday, and had the electrician in again yesterday for the final touches (installing a second flouro light and some spotlights, as well as cabling the alarm and some other stuff). Now all that's really left is a bit more clean-up, some blinds, and perhaps even a split system aircon/heater (at my awesome wife's suggestion!)

So just shy of the lights being installed, some friends came over for a gaming night on Saturday. We started with a big game of KoW where I GMed/refereed the three players per side (I only remembered to take one pic, so no battle report unfortunately). Three of the six players had never played anything like this before, and so it was good to see just how easily non-wargamers could pick up the basics of the rules. They all had lots of RPG experience, so it wasn't incredibly difficult.


The grand battle begins!
A 600-pt Pan-Elven force of Blood Elves (GW High Elves) and Dark Elves (GW) using the Twilight Kin list ally with 600 pts of Basileans (hastily assembled using Rackham Confrontation Lions pre-paints) and a small 300-pt contingent of Gondor/Kingdoms of Men infantry (GW) square off against 1200pts of Ogres (old GW & Mantic) and 300pts of "nature" (GW Wolves and GW Ent using the KoW Goblin rules for a Giant and Wolfriders).

Through a combination of superior manoeuvre, the main ogre general being distracted the whole time, and some eagle-eyed sharpshooting and resilient defence from the Gondor contingent, the humand and elves carried the day in the end. The Ogre Warlord's final devastating rampage through the Elven/Human lines not being enough to carry the day before he too was pulled down under weight of numbers.

After that, we ate pizza and pasta, played a couple of games of SJG Frag!, and then finished up.



The following day, my 74-year old Mum came over for a visit. She ended up playing a game of KoW against my wife, while I once again refereed and offered advice to both sides.


The setup - Basileans vs Elves.
Allies just the previous night, the Elves and Basileans turned on one another and met across a green hilly field. My mum took the Basileans and my wife took on the Elves this time.



The armies clash!
Once again I forgot to take a lot of pictures, but the final outcome was a close one. It basically came down to a single (un?)lucky dice roll where the Elven Halberd (spear) phalanx survived a final round of shooting and magic from the Basileans, leaving the Elves with enough troops to declare the day victorious. If the Halberds had broken, it would have essentially been a drawn game. Which is not too shabby for a 74-year-old woman's first wargaming experience. Once again, both sides enjoyed the game, which is what it's all about for me.


I also got all the bits of the "box" part of a light box sorted, so now I just need to pick up a (couple of) lamps tomorrow, and I'll be good for photographing figures again - and at a higher quality (hopefully).


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/15 05:53:40


Post by: JoshInJapan


Your mom played KoW? She may be the coolest mom ever.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/15 21:55:08


Post by: GrimDork


Sounds like a fun time! Also good to hear you've about got your hobby room sorted out!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/15 22:23:24


Post by: Archer


Great news about the gaming room. Its awesome when you have a wife who is interested in what you do and supportive (and understanding) isn't it?

Can we have some shots of the Gaming Room once completed?


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/15 22:34:58


Post by: Da Boss


Hah, that's a great update, really makes me smile. I can only imagine how my mam would react to learning to play wargames- kudos to your mother for being so open minded!



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/16 01:50:38


Post by: Azazelx


Yeah, it was a bit of a surprise - not a huge one, mind, but not 100% expected that she'd be willing to have a go at playing. She told me on the phone yesterday that she quite enjoyed playing it as well, and could see the appeal of it. I've just posted an update on the wordpress blog with shots of the completed game room, but it's a bit of a big update with 12 pics, so I won't over-spam dakka with them all and just post a couple here. Lots more there for anyone interested.

January:


Today:


Scenery Cabinet (yeah it needs tidying up!)



Still a little bit more work to go. Buying some lamps for mini photography and a set of window blinds later today. And at my wife's suggestion, perhaps a split system heater/aircon in the coming months!
But basically, it's done!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/16 02:29:39


Post by: GrimDork


Looks great.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/16 02:31:57


Post by: Archer


Jealous, so ever jealous. My Wife has suggested we build a shed for my hobbies. But that is a way off yet. In the meantime I will continue to be envious of your creation.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/16 02:37:42


Post by: squall018


Good to see some KOW pics around here!

Love your work on the ogres, especially the older ones earlier in the blog.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/16 03:03:38


Post by: JoshInJapan


Whoa! Dark Future? That's a blast from the past.

Also, two copies of Dreadfleet?!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/16 03:11:25


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks guys, I'll be back onto the Ogres shortly. I just need to force my way through the two half-painted Mantic Ogre shooter units and I've then got some really cool stuff planned for the Ogre force as a reward for myself. I'm just not letting myself at them until the Mantic figures are done...

yeah, Dark Future was one I missed out on back inthe day buy managed to pick up off eBay for a reasonable price last year. I also got Heroquest and Advanced Heroquest, as my original copies of both hadn't really survived the years all that well. Now if I could only find Adeptus Titanicus, Space Marine, EPIC, Warhammer Quest and BFG for a reasonable price (My AT and SM didn't survive the years, I missed EPIC, WHQ, split a BFG box years ago, but I'd like the proper set today).

And yeah, 2 Dreadfleet boxes. Haven't played it yet, but they were on 50%-off clearance, the ships look decent, the sea-map is great and it was only a little more expensive than buying a few extra ships and such off eBay.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/16 11:18:31


Post by: squall018


I have a copy of Deadfleet myself. I haven't played the game but the models are pretty darn good, and the sea map is beatiful. We use it for Dystopian wars.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/20 14:18:22


Post by: Azazelx


Some scenery shots this time.

Here's the Siege Attackers and (most of the) Defenders Almost all of this stuff was painted recently, mostly after sitting undercoated in random boxes for over a decade.






Some graveyard centrepiece scenery. I think they might be by Grendel, but I'm not sure. Both of these were started about a decade ago, and only finished recently.






And some more generic and historical-friendly stuff:








Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/20 15:25:36


Post by: GrimDork


Sweet, nice stuff all around. The siege attacker stuff looks hastily assembled , especially that second ladder, which is cool. Good colors all around, and a nice use of static grass where you used it. I like the house.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/21 09:00:09


Post by: Archer


The scenery is awesome. I love the wood on the siege equipment. Really nice job.

The tomb has got to be one of the nicest pieces of work I have seen in a while, keep it up.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/22 09:42:29


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks guys, I've got a bunch of LotR Uruk-Hai Siege stuff to paint up as well sometime. Hopefully the ease and speed of it will be enough to counterbalance how boring they'll be to paint!

Anyway, here's something a lot more interesting - More Ogres! Golfag's Mercenary Ogres!
Yes, I be kicking it old-school!















These are the second series of Golfag’s Ogres aka Golfag’s Regiment of Ogre Mercenaries. I picked these up when they were reissued sometime in the late 1990s with many of the other Regiments of Renown in the clear hard plastic sliding-back containers. (And I’m still spewing that I didn’t get the cultists!) At the time I was collecting Ogres, and so this set was a natural, despite the higher than usual price. The set I got had 8 Ogres in it, but since the grunts were pretty weedy compared to even the current figures of that time (about the size of an Orc) and I wanted each of my ogres to be an individual model (which I still like the idea of today) I modified the mace of one (cut off the spikes and bindings) painted them with different skin tones and traded away the extras.

These guys, as my least-favourite ogre models had actually sat around in the bottom shelf of my glass cabinet, with no real priority to update them. The standard bearer had been pried off his base to be blu-tacked to a chariot for KoW games and otherwise they were pretty much semi-forgotten models. When we had the large game with my friends a couple of weeks ago, they got grabbed out since they had all the right bits for a unit I needed (6 ogres, standard, musician) and so seeing they had some use, I decided to rebase them. I had originally half-considered/planned to split them out and spread them across other units and repaint them, while binning the grunts. I think the minor repaint and keeping them together is a much better aesthetic choice, and as odd as it sounds, one that respects the models a lot more.

The funny thing is that after I finished rebasing them and updating them – which was pretty much so they wouldn’t look like crap anymore, found that I quite like their new look. It keeps the uniform look, the contrast between the blue and mustard still works, but the toning down of the colours and removal of green and purple (what was I thinking?) – and the new earthy bases make them look a much better looking unit.

So after all that, and thanks to that one game, I’ve ended up with a unit of painted figures that I really didn’t care much about being reborn as a unit of models that I actually quite like. Even before I realised that they’re Jes’ sculpts. All that’s left now is to make a unit base for them out of plasticard.

Lots more words and pictures on the Wordpress blog as usual, but hopefully this Dakka update is worthy in and of itself!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/22 22:37:30


Post by: GrimDork


I appreciate the Dakka updates since it's too hard to track down all of my favorite hobby bloggists on my phone and I get a nice easy notice of updates on the threads subscribed page. Though... I guess it's pretty damn simple to add a blog to my RSS app thingy.

They look good. I think the bright colors work well for those older models. I'm not sure I could get myself to paint them like that, I've always been a dark and dirty painter, for whatever reason, but I certainly appreciate brighter schemes when other people pull them off. I'm losing track of how many ogres you've gotten finished, but it seems like you're getting a solid force built up.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/23 03:34:06


Post by: Archer


I love the old models, they have so much "character" than some of the new ones. Sort of like that old antique chair that is hideous to look at, but endearing at the same time because it has so much going on compared to the mass produced IKEA of today.

I totally agree with GrimDork that they carry the vibrant colors really well and you have done an excellent job of painting them.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/25 03:39:12


Post by: Azazelx


That's a good comparison, Archer. It covers most of this batch quite well, really. Well, I still objectively like the drummer, but the others really rely on character a lot more...

I probably wouldn't paint them nearly as bright if I were to start them from scratch today, but I've fethed up enough of my old paintjobs over the years that I much prefer to see if I can tone things down now rather than strip and/or totally repaint. So this works out as a reasonable compromise for me. It's also finding that balance between interesting and realistic. Real models would mostly be dirthy brown with dirty brown shading and dirty brown highlights - which is much more realistic and looks great onscreen but not so much on the table.



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/25 03:51:43


Post by: carlos13th


Loving the progress mate.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/26 02:13:01


Post by: Azazelx


I think I have painting ADHD.

I've just talked myself out of casting bases today. Which is not something I have a lot of experience in anyway. I've cast two in my lifetime, with passable success at best, and even those had no retail, being recasts of WotR cavalry regiment bases when I was trying to learn how to do it. One was okay, and the other two.. well, the resin wasn't mixed all that well, so they never ever quite cured properly.

Why was I wanting to cast up some bases? Well, resin bases are expensive. I looked on the website of the place where I've gotten most of my cast bases from (back to base-ix) and they wanted AU$8 for one 50x100mm chariot-sized base. That's a bit rich, especially for something as simple as "slate". Why did I want a slate chariot base? Well, I tend to like putting big and important figures on cast bases, and slate tends to be one of the most nicely generic types - and works well in many kinds of environments. Tiles or ruined temples or urban bases are a lot less flexible. Slate kind of works decently across all of those. What was the important figure? I found a Reaper Bones hydra in one of my figure tubs while I was looking for another model. I found the hydra, looked at it, thought "hm.. I bet this would paint up quickly, and look bloody nice." and got it out of the tub, opened the baggie, dry fit it, and started looking for ideas on how best to base and assemble it (types of glue) online.

What was I looking for in that tub? Reaper Bones Frost Wyrm. So I could paint it up as a speedpaint jobbie as a Catachan Devil. Directly inspired by Sho3box and something I originally wanted to do several months ago. I happened to have his blog open again when doing some blogging yesterday, and spied that page this morning when closing down a bunch of windows left open last night.

But anyway. I'm not going to create and then cast bases in resin today. I decided i need to get back to what I'm supposed to be doing.

Which is painting stuff that's already started.



Here's my painting bench, right now.
As you can see in the foreground, I have some trolls on the go. The one on the left was painted years and years ago, and then rebased about 2 years ago. The one in the middle was also painted many years ago, and was rebased in the last couple of days. There's varnish drying on the underside of his base, which is why he's sitting like that. The one on the right is hanging over the table for the same drying reason. I started him (basecoat of blue) and glued him onto that base about 2 years ago - when I rebased the first one. They all came out of the case with the ogres, last year, and have been sitting around in the open since then, waiting to be reborn as a new unit. I started on them again this week.

Though, this was as a distraction from what I was supposed to be doing - which is painting the Men of Gondor who cover the active part of the bench. I'm updating the 26 that I painted about 3-4 years ago, and adding some eBayed ones I picked up early this year, which were primed black or simply painted - good enough for overpainting - as well as a couple of command groups that have been here forever and Beregond, originally started when I finished the initial bunch. They got used in the recent games, and I thought I should bump up the numbers and at least fill the regiment bases.

The Men of Gondor though, are a distraction from what I'm supposed to be doing - which is painting the High Elf Phoenix Guard - which again had use in the same recent KoW games as Elven spearmen. You can just kinda sorta see a couple of their red cloaks in the top left corner of the picture. I did their armour, based them properly, then started base coating things like cloaks and robes. They look a hell of a lot better than the primed-white-since-1997 figures they they used to be, but they still need to be finished. However, those Phoenix Guard are actually a distraction from what I'm supposed to be doing. Which is finishing off the High Elf Swordmasters of Hoeth, who you can kinda see in the middle, behind the Vallejo gloss varnish, silver and brown paints. They have a few figures who still need their gems done, and then a varnish, and they're done. Some already have the gems done, and then there's a bit more work to do on the leader, musician and standard bearer - including painting a standard. Not much though - that unit should take maybe an afternoon to complete everything but painting the standard.

The Swordmasters are actually - you guessed it - a distraction from what I'm supposed to be doing - finishing the unit of Dark Elf riders. Which in turn are a distraction from what I'm supposed to be doing - which is finishing the Dark Elf warlord and Standard bearers on Cold Ones - all oH whom you can kind of see in the metallic blue-green, buried behind the red and gold of the High Elves. Those in turn are a distraction from what I'm supposed to be doing, which is finishing off a dozen or so DUST Tactics Axis Gorillas. I started those as a concurrent speedpaint project back when I did those DUST Axis Zombies. Back in January. The Gorillas were supposed to be knocked out and completed at the same time/right after the Zombies. Unfortunately, though - it seems I got a little distracted.

So anyway. I probably should skip resin casting slate bases today. I should probably try to complete some stuff I've already got on the go instead.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/26 03:30:49


Post by: GrimDork


Haha I've got that too. Is there a twelve step program? Beyond some nice layering I mean

These days, I just don't see the point in painting something if I'm not feeling it. So paint that hydra


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/28 07:16:34


Post by: Azazelx


After procrastinating for a couple of days, I got my wife to wash the Hydra for me with dishwashing liquid last night and started it today. It's about 70% finished, so hopefully I'll get it finished next weekend. I need to sort out a base for it, though.

In the meantime, here's more pictures of scenery - finished and photographed recently.


I did a lot of playing around with Verdigris effects on these. Pretty much figuring out how to do it. I missed that little Dark Legion icon up top of this archway until I was looking at these photos. Maybe I’ll go back and paint it with gold/brass/verdigris.


Obviously, I used a lot of drybrushing on these sets as well. I almost always use it on stone, but I usually hand paint and shade things like skulls. In this case, however, they got drybrushed as well, and the starkness actually turned out really well, I think.


I also had a bit of a play with weathering powders and Tamiya’s weathering compacts on the bottom of these scenery elements. The compacts worked a lot better than the powders, especially as the scenery needed to be varnished and will be handled a lot.


Since – let’s face it – this scenery is going to spend more time on Warhammer-game-themed tables than Warzone tables, I looked around for awhile for something appropriate for the banners. Originally, I was just going to paint some runes of Khorne on them, but that seemed a bit too boring. These stars appear to be used by the “Blood Pact” Renegade Guard forces from one of the IA books, but also look generic enough to be more general Chaos than just Khornate. Turned out better than I’d expected, too!


I really like this Sewer grate. It had a couple of the oversized skulls that I wasn’t fond of, but my clippers took care of that (one skull went flying through the lounge room and has still not been found!) My big plan for this piece is to use it when playing Helms Deep in LotR SBG or WotR – or Helms Deep-inspired scenarios for Kings of War. Butt it against a castle wall and let those Uruk-Hai sappers loose!






Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/28 11:45:09


Post by: GrimDork


Damn, those are all really nice. The chaos tapestries especially are awesome.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/28 22:33:56


Post by: Archer


Love the terrain. I think people too often gloss over spending time and effort on their terrain and it is a real shame.

A great looking playing surface with painted mini's really takes the hobby to a new level.

Keep the updates coming. Wish I could get my wife to wash my miniatures, all she wants to do is fling paint at them (ok, so I have encouraged her to do that, but she could at least do some of the hard yards too).


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/30 21:00:56


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks guys - I really wanted to do something different to the kinda boring old runes of khorne, etc on the tapestries, so some googling really came up with something I wouldn't have otherwise thought of. Pretty cool that your wife joins in on the painting, though Archer!


When I'm able to focus, and manage to remember, I like to participate in the monthly painting challenges over at The One Ring webpage, which is a great community of Tolkien/Miniatures gaming enthusiasts. Sometimes I check their page too late, sometimes I forget for months at a time, sometimes I select a figure but just don't finish (or start!), and sometimes I actually manage to finish the model on time. This month, I managed the latter.





This Gandalf is from one of the very early boxed sets, circa around 2000. I bought it back in the day, and haven't exactly been quick when it comes to painting it. In fact, I don't think I've completed any of them. Well, excepting Gandalf now. I never got around to really playing the game in any meaningful way, so most of my interaction with the LotR line has consisted of collecting them.




I'm quite happy with the outcome, especially since the model was also a speedpaint, and something a bit left field - since I wasn't planning to paint any Fellowship-type models at the moment. I only started the figure yesterday afternoon, and he's done in just a bit over 24 hours. I rarely manage to do it, but there's something especially rewarding about finishing a figure in a day. Or in this case, 2 days. Regardless, a lot nicer than my usual, which is months or even years to finish figures.

My previous attempt to paint a Gandalf model petered out and the model hasn't been touched since 2010..



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/30 21:11:46


Post by: GrimDork


Looks good, really bright and smooth.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/04/30 22:32:22


Post by: Archer


That Gandalf is a lovely simple version. By simple I mean it is really neat, crisp and I love you haven't over complicated anything. He is meant to be a simple traveler not wanting to draw undue attention and I think you have captured that beautifully.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/05/01 09:16:49


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks guys. Gandalf is indeed a pretty simple figure. I went with a bluish-grey rather than the almost brownish, dirty grey from the film in an attempt to add a bit of (muted) colour and interest to the figure - also so his beard would contrast with the clothing once it was all highlighted. Then when I do a Gandalf the White eventually, he'll have a super-clean beard, and a totally different robe palette.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/05/13 09:26:09


Post by: Azazelx


A quick update today. Just a couple of pieces of scenery to share. These three pieces were all done at least 10 years ago, so it's really a back-catalogue update.

First up, a couple of Daemonette statues. Once again, these are based on some Scotia Grendel (hey guys, send me some free stuff!) scenery. Back in the day I collected my Space Marines and Imperial Army Guard and whatnot as armies, but I also tended to grab anything else that took my fancy just to paint - much as I do today, really. Most of my Chaos figures of the day were procured just to have them, and since I wasn't a serious WHFB player (outside of my Dark Elves, then Orcs & Goblins), I wanted other figures to be individuals, as I noted in the last post with the Fleshhounds.

So what to do with doubled-up Daemonettes?

Turn them into scenery, of course!

I took a couple of the Grendel pillars, jewellers-sawed a channel out of the tops of them, then glued the model tabs in there with Araldite.



Daemonette Standing Stone Statues

I painted them with pink highlighted into white, and added blue marbling-style veins to them. I thought the pastel look worked for Slaanesh, and yes, there's a conscious subtext there as well. The bases were originally done in green flock, but several years later when I changed my basing style to the dark brown I painted over it, added the static flock, and also glued a bunch of soft seashells around the edges of the base. I felt that they had the right soft, pastelish, smooth, sensual look to them to fit in with the Slaaneshi scenery as offerings made by the chaos tribes.

More recently, I added the flowers to the bases, to add a little more interest to them. And besides, who said everything Chaos touches needs to be blighted wastelands?



Italieri Fountain, 40k style.

This one's as simple as hell. While perusing a model store years ago I saw this cheap Italieri kit on the shelf. I thought I could use it for scenery, and bought it. One simple assembly, four old-school Space Marine Banner tops (you could easily do the same with easily-available brass etch these days), and a quick base coat and drybrush followed by some thinned down orange paint for rust streaks and you're golden. And yes, it's still available today. What I especially like about it on current reflection is that it's still generic enough (even with the Aquilas) to be used in Historical or Fantasy gaming. Simple, cheap, effective and good looking.

Like me.

Ok, so I'm not as good looking as the fountain.



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/05/13 11:47:48


Post by: GrimDork


Awesome stuff, its all simple yet looks great. I like the little rust bits on the fountain, and the colors for the statues are reallly great.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/05/16 03:25:50


Post by: Archer


I second the rust/slime effect on the fountain, it really adds to the overall.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/05/18 10:49:46


Post by: Azazelx


Another smallish update today. Basically, I haven't been painting much at all over the last few weeks, and so I'm sharing some more "back-catalogue" scenery pieces. As usual for this stuff, these are at least 10 years old, yadda yadda. They were painted during the heyday of Necromunda, and have been used in many an underhive battle and on 40k tabletops since then. I'm also sure they'd fit in just fine for Warpath, DeadZone, and pretty much any other sci-fi tabletop or RPG games.





This piece, despite looking like the sort of thing that you could easily assemble from a few bits from your local hardware store is actually a purchased resin piece. Probably cost between AU$10-15 back in the day. It's a slightly rough cast, and I think it's an old piece from Armorcast - or possibly Forge World - not the current GW-subsidiary, but the US-based company that produced 40k-scaled Epic stuff back in the 1990's. It's a slightly rough paintjob on a rough cast of a rough terrain piece, but it's good enough for most tables. I went with blue-grey because Necromunda, and as you can see, I wasn't quite sure on what happens to the orientation of hazard stripes on certain things. Not sure what the iron sights on the pipes are in aid of, either.

Once I get past the batches of fantasy figures and terrain I'm working on right now, I may well wander down to the local hardware store and pick up some plumbing fittings to create some new and better-quality variations on this theme. Maybe some more exhaust ports like the above? The traditional outflow pipe into a small pond of toxic sludge? There's an endless supply of clichés to mine, after all...




This generator is made of an old broken toy part that many of you have probably already recognised - yes, the Hoth Generator from Empire Strikes Back. It's from an old, old Micro-playset that was a bit broken and busted up from many play hours as a kid (and was second-hand and incomplete when I got it) The main body is made of two audiocassette cases glued together, the box on the side is a random part from a model kit, and the control panel on the front is a thumb switch from a kids' flashlight. Some flyscreen mesh and a rectangle of card over the top to finish up. Mounted the whole thing on some MDF, then add paint and a couple of decals to finish.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/05/18 12:45:14


Post by: GrimDork


Those are both really nice but I especially like the generator. Great paint jobs and fancy weathering, the decals really add a lot as well. Looks like you had some damn fine necromunda games over the years?


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/05/18 12:50:24


Post by: squall018


I had assumed the first piece was made from hardware supplies until I actually read your post. Like the use of the Hoth generator. I think thats my favorite piece between the two.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/05/19 12:34:00


Post by: Azazelx


At some stage, I'll be building some made of hardware supplies - and I'm sure they'll be better than the one I have there. Still, for 10 or so bucks on a Friday night it made for quick and simple, effective terrain and painted up pretty quickly.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/05/29 19:28:51


Post by: rosafari


Great thread, love the variety of your projects and I want to say thanks for bringing the Italeri fountain to my attention - grabbed a cheap one from ebay and it's just arrived It's a great little piece as is but like yours I'll be giving mine a little extra bling, thanks again!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/05/31 11:33:40


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks! I'm a big fan of cheap and simple but effective little models like that fountain.

I've been doing a bit of work lately, but not really photographing anything for awhile - have finished updating a bunch of WFB orcs and gobboes, have finished some LotR Men of Gondor, but I'd rather show off the Orcs with some newly-finished figures, and the Men of Gondor are pretty bland, so not worth sharing until I have the units completed (ie- after varnish and flocking the models I just finished at minimum...) - The combo of black cloth, steel armour and truescale make them pretty boring and uninspiring figures, despite how cool they look onscreen in the films...


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/01 01:37:49


Post by: Azazelx


Hm. Does anyone here happen to have any spare musician instruments from the Mantic Elf or Dwarf range? Or any of the Citadel plastics ranges? I need a fair few for conversion into LotR plastics units.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/01 01:53:16


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


Tons. I almost never make musicians. What are you looking for, specifically?


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/01 02:36:00


Post by: Azazelx


Pretty much any instruments. Horns, drums, harps. Standards/standard pole toppers could also be useful if you have any spares. Basically, I have heaps of these bloody things











and even a few of these:









(and that's without getting into the evil side, like the Black Numenoreans, Orcs, Goblins, Haradrim and Easterlings)

I have some (Gondor) standards and captains (who look too bloody close to the troops anyway) but no musicians, and similar but without the metal command/standards for the other factions.

I'm starting by turning the Gondor guys into a KoW force - I've just finished 3 or 4 units (Shield Wall Regiment, Spear Phalanx Regiment and either 2 troops or a regiment of Missile Troops. Just that none of them have musicians due to model issues. Once I finish painting all of the Warriors of Minas Tirith that I have, I'll start on the 2nd Age Men of Gondor and the smaller feifdom units, and then start to add in the Rohirrim. Working on a couple of metal standards and some character models now.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/01 23:29:26


Post by: Archer


I have quite a few things in my bits box. Whereabouts are you located?


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/05 09:34:51


Post by: Azazelx


I'm in Melbourne. Where about are you?

TANGENT:
Ok, thanks to Grimdowk and his stupid tank, I've gotten all enthusiastic about making a tank graveyard for a major table/scenery project. I looked up some pics to provide him with inspiration, and accidentally became inspired myself. I've been playing with it in my head for the last couple of hours.

http://imgur.com/gallery/JDIGm
http://shiftedplay.com/threads/battlefield-4-real-life-zavod-311.1805/
http://ftr.wot-news.com/2014/03/05/tank-graveyard-in-ukraine/
https://goo.gl/maps/YUIEI

Spoilers for huge pics:
Spoiler:


Spoiler:


Spoiler:



Now, much of the work will have to happen over Christmas, as there's a pretty heavy reliance on both DeadZone and Mars Attacks scenery to put together the large buildings.
In the interim, I can start thinking about, and then purchasing items for the rest of it.
Those $6 tanks that Grimdork has are just not an option for Aussies, so my next best option is AU$18 tanks from Korea. I'm looking at getting 20 of these T-72s:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/T-72-1-48-Academy-13006-/370989265823?pt=Model_Kit_US&hash=item5660aef39f&_uhb=1

Sure, they're not mega-40k-ish or anything - or even as futuristic as the Merkava that I can get for the same price - but they look great and have the perfect fit and feel for a tank graveyard. Much better than the Patton for this kind of thing. The table elements will still kick all kinds of arse for 40k while not being made of skull-encrusted skulls. It will also work for Moderns, Warpath or even WW2 (if you squint hard enough at the T-72s they'll look just like T-34s, right?)

I'll paint the tanks with a mix of sprays, salt and washes. Maybe a drybrush and some freehand numbering, etc at the end. I imagine that it'll be pretty quick and painless - and by that I mean it'll take 10 times as long as I hope and plan for, and have all kinds of screw ups raise their heads, but still look good in the end.

So.. next I need to work out or find what kind of train tracks would work best for the odd 1:48/1:56 mix that our figures are in. I'll also need to get a few engines and a good 10-12 freight carriages/flatbeds. As well as a pile of shipping containers that fit properly onto them. I've got a few AT-42 containers and there's that guy on Dakka who sells his own shipping containers, but it'll obviously be a lot better if all the train stuff scales together properly.
Any ideas on that stuff, guys?

Pipes and smokestacks will be taken care of by Bunnings and Masters hardware stores. I'll need to figure out a painless way of making factory-style windows. The many fences could be made with square-cut wire with plastic strut for the poles.





Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/05 12:27:28


Post by: Talking Banana


Love the fountain! Simple perhaps, but beautiful.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/05 22:13:10


Post by: GrimDork


Hah! Nice, way to take an idea and run with it I had no intentions on anything quite this large, and am very interested in seeing it develop. I can't help you with the trains though, one thing I've stayed pretty well away from.



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/06 08:56:45


Post by: Azazelx


I did some research, and apparently "O" scale is approximately 1:48. And it's also hard to get hold of (especially here in Aust) and trains cost approximately eleventy bejillion dollars. (which I kinda knew, but wow... worse than I expected!) Still, I've always wanted to get hold of some sets of tracks for terrain, since they seem to be such an obvious and easy way to add interest to wargames (even if there's no actual carriages or rolling stock).

I am in the process of ordering 20x of those Academy 1:48 scale tanks - all T-72s. With luck they'll be here in about a month, and I can then begin to assembly-line assemble, paint and weather them. Also bought 6x other random 1:48 scale armour kits off the 'bay which should be here next Friday. With reports for work finally finished this week, and a long weekend imminent, I may even go out and start to foam-core a building together this weekend.

Spoke to the owner of a local model store at length last night, and he seemed quite excited to help me get set up with various bits and pieces, including picking through his bag o' random tank bits. He also shared a ton of knowledge, including almost everything I now know about O scale trains.

You know, I think this might actually be a go-er.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Thanks Vermonter. I love simple things like that. Especially when they still "work" so well.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/06 11:28:17


Post by: GrimDork


Excellent, may you have the tenacity to complete what sounds like a pretty awesome project ;D


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/06 13:02:13


Post by: Paradigm


This does sound like a good project that could work for a lot of systems, and if nothing else, you'll get enough terrain for a board and a rather massive fleet of tanks. Looking forward to seeing how this pans out.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/07 11:40:56


Post by: Azazelx


Well, I didn't manage to build anything today, and negotiations continue of those 20 T-72s. Well, those are sorted, but not yet paid for, since I'm trying to add 4x Merkavas to the order so I can have a bit of variety in the graveyard, so waiting for my Korean eBay friend to get back to me.

I did just buy a pile of the $1 sale Dave Graffam models. I was initially looking for some free papercraft buildings that I could use as templates for the storage buildings (in the background of the train pic above) and eventually found some of the DG ones that seemed to have potential for cutout templates for foam core. (And then bought a bunch more for Fantasy/medieval cityscapes down the line, because, hey - $1 each!) Now I just need to wait for them all to finish downloading....

So, hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to start building some buildings.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/07 12:09:05


Post by: GrimDork


Excellent, progress! I think I'll make it a point to keep an eye out for more of those tanks at Hobby Lobby whenever I'm not already planning to use the coupon on something else, then I'll be able to make a mini tank graveyard so as to compare notes


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/07 12:26:59


Post by: Azazelx


I've got the planning for the T-72s all worked out. Should be rapid and reasonably painless. Maybe even slightly enjoyable. The guy said he can hopefully send them towards the end of next week, and then it's a good 3 weeks from Korea to Australia, and then I tend to do a weekly mail pickup on Fridays.

I figure batch painting them is the only sensible way to go.

First assembly.

Prime black (spray can). Airbrush the crevasses that I miss.
Rustoleum Brown or red-brown
Airbrush various patchy different shades of red-brown through orange.
Salt.
Spray can an approximation for the appropriate undercoat colour for T-72s (research this in the meantime, then get a "close enough" from the hardware store)
Salt.
Spray can an approximation of the right colour for Soviet armour. There are a few specific cans made for FoW players.
Salt.
Patchy highlights and such via airbrush.
Salt.
Maybe some badly-applied camo (as in the GY pics).
Airbrush with Pledge for a clearcoat.
Wash with oil paints.
Let dry for a day or two.
Mineral spirit some of the mess off.
Remove Salt.
Maybe some really subtle metallic edge/scratch highlights, but probably not. They're supposed to be rotting hulks, after all.
Gloss Varnish
Weathering powder.
Matt Varnish.

Those spray colours (and spray varnish) will take forever to dry between coats, and so will the oil paints. So I'm hoping I can maybe get them done in a week or so, but it could well take two weeks or even three or four since I'll also have to go to work, and it'll be the mid-winter (which is obviously gak-awful for spray-can work. Or not pissing down rain. Or light by the time I get home from work.

Hm, after writing all that, I don't know how much fun those middle 45 steps are going to be. Hope I still have my enthusiasm for the project when they arrive in about a month.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/07 12:33:04


Post by: GrimDork


That's a lot of steps for something you're doing 20 of! Sounds like it'll look good though


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/07 12:58:27


Post by: Azazelx


Well, I figure most of those steps should take a couple of minutes per tank at most . And since I hate doing stuff like cleaning and changing the colours in the airbrush it will actually make it much faster per step on a per-tank basis. I need to get a new airbrush since I seemingly killed my double-action top-fed badger the first time I used it - I really need someone to teach me to use the stupid thing properly. At least I haven't killed my cheapo bottle-fed single action one, though!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/07 16:09:16


Post by: GrimDork


How did you kill it? I broke the apparently non removable nozzle from a cheapo iwata clone, but my SOTAR seems like I could just replace any faulty parts and get it going again.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/07 20:55:57


Post by: Llamahead


Cool concept


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/07 21:36:07


Post by: carlos13th


I may have some musicans parts from KOW. I certainly have a few from the WGF romans if they ae of any use.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/08 03:40:52


Post by: Azazelx


 GrimDork wrote:
How did you kill it? I broke the apparently non removable nozzle from a cheapo iwata clone, but my SOTAR seems like I could just replace any faulty parts and get it going again.


I used it, paint dried in it while I was still using it/changing paints. Then I tried to clean it by dismantling it and then reassembling it in the exact same way. Something is now seriously messed up in it with the action or springs or something. I have so far managed to resist curbstomping it, so there's that at least.

Basically, I don't know how to use or clean an airbrush properly, and most online tutorials seem to be filled with useless instructions like "and now disassemble it for cleaning - be careful of losing the parts, though" or "then clean your airbrush". Yeah, thanks. Just typing this is making me frustrated and angry. I feel like taking it outside and "fixing" it with a ball-peen hammer....

Carlos. Those parts seem ideal - though I may have some coming shortly, so I'll hold off for the moment and let you know if I still need them in a week or two if that's ok?


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/08 04:02:00


Post by: carlos13th


Sure mate just let me know.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/08 04:39:22


Post by: GrimDork


Hmm. When you are feeling particularly zen some time... Google the exact name and get the parts diagram. Completely field strip it and try again? A missing tiny seemingly insignificant washer or o ring can foul things up but if everything is present and unbroken.. well good luck if you try orhappy hhunting if you go to replace it


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/08 07:38:54


Post by: Azazelx


For anyone familiar with Battlefield 4, this is the map section that I'm going to be basing my board, layout and components on:


And the Aerial View


Here's the building I'm basing the first storehouse on: (the ones at the bottom of the above pic)

http://www.davesgames.net/catalog-warehouse.htm
Still available on WGV for a buck!

Using the Warehouse card building sheets as a template on Foam Core. Still needs a roof and floor at this stage. Thanks to my long-suffering and supportive wife for going down to Bunnings to pick up a can of adhesive spray for me earlier today. I might go out later this evening and see if it's all dry enough for me to move to the next step of assembling the foam core walls and roof properly and adding some corrugated cardboard for the roof texture. Then I'll carve some 40k-sized doors out of it. If this first building works out well, I'll batch-build another 1-3 using the same template. I want to mount them on large concrete slabs as well, so I'll probably have to buy a giant sheet or three of foam core so I can finish them.


Leonard the cat offers his assistance!



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Went back into the shed for a bit. Bloody cold in there in the evenings now.

Assembled the walls and the removable roof. Made a right mess of it in some (most!) parts while assembling but managed to recover it all in the end. It was certainly a good move to build one as a learning experience before doing the others. Now to print out the templates for three more, and hopefully build them all tomorrow. My wife found my 10-year-old roll of corrougated cardboard and I found the other card that I intend to use as sheetmetal wall and roof reinforcement, so I can add those to this building tomorrow.





Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/08 12:18:04


Post by: GrimDork


The scale of this board is intense . Gonna be awesome.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/08 20:07:19


Post by: carlos13th


Looks great so far mate. Looking forward to seeing the finished product.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/09 03:34:06


Post by: Azazelx


The work continues:


Breathing spray solvent is supposed to be really good for you. or something. Remember kids - use a well ventilated room!


It's not glamorous, but it's got to be done.


Spacemans and toy tank for scale.


Obviously they’re not exactly the same, but they’ll be close enough, and representative of those warehouses. Except a Dreadnought will also fit into my ones!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/09 03:43:09


Post by: GrimDork


Those look nice. Good solid LoS blocking terrain, can't wait to see you finish up and weather them I'd make buildings out of foamcore if I could cut straight or evenly to save my life, I'll just have to let you do it and stick to buying terrain. And picking out random coffee cans and such


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/09 04:58:57


Post by: Azazelx


That's one of the main reasons I bought the card building templates. No measuring!

I'll take some card which I'll use for the corner and roof supports into work tomorrow so I can cut consistent strips using the guillotine.

Probably need to buy a guillotine myself at some point. I've put my decade-long-rolled-up, erm, roll of corrugated cardboard under the rug in the shed so that it flattens out well enough for me to use as roofing. The ingame ones use concrete slabs for roofing, but I figure that I'd like the visual interest that rusting iron roofing can add, even though it's a bit more work than leaving them as concrete.


I'd rather buy a lot of ready-made stuff as well, to be quite honest, but it's hard to find buildings to match a certain vision - and I bet it'd be expensive, and I've just burnt a fortune on tanks, and might do more on train stock and rails. I'm wondering about the table base now. Perhaps a set of SWM tiles or a combo of two themes? I'm not sure - I still haven't seen any great pics of the full individual tile sets.

Ruined Temple as a base

These for the paved/plaza areas where the buildings are, and where the majority of the tanks are parked, fading into:
either


Scrapyard
or


Rolling fields? (though not painted in a desert scheme)

For the outer, wooded and overgrown areas, including where the rail lines run.


The tricky thing with this is wanting to avoid using the larger, "centrepiece" and "feature" sections like the river in Rolling Fields, or the Amphitheatre or crypts on Ruined Temple, or the huger piles of scapyard junk, since I'll have my own Tanks taking care of that, for the most part - and will need lots of flat space to put buildings, rail lines, tanks and such....


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/09 12:12:50


Post by: GrimDork


Hmm, I'll have to come back and look to give advice, just checking in with my pre-work coffee, though the SW stuff would look really killer.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/16 03:29:13


Post by: Azazelx


I've been painting a little in the last month or so, just haven't finished anything especially interesting or worth sharing. I've finished a bunch of soldiers of Minas Tirith to a tabletop standard for my KoW Armies of Men force (as well as, obviously - LotR SBG and eventually - WotR). I've also finished the odd Dwarf, Human, Orc and Goblin as well, though I'll share them later down the line when they have more substantial groups to pose with. I'll try and take some more proper photos in a couple of weeks.


Dwarves and other random painting desk models. I did finally finish something worthwhile though - Beregond, first Captain of the White Tower - guard and friend of Faramir.


Both of these two were started at least four years ago, at a guess. Maybe longer. The Faramir model is quite an average sculpt in many ways and also suffers from mould slip on the face. I'm just going to use him as a more generic captain, and use a better Faramir model as Faramir. The shading on the cloak hasn't come up all that well in the pic, but then, the photo backdrop this time around is... well... read on.


This is the main reason why I decided to share Beregond here. While the pair still needs to be varnished and have flock added to their bases, I was quite happy with the freehand on Beregond. The knotwork on the front of his cloak and tunic came out decently, but The White Tree turned out quite nicely, despite the folds of his cloak making the tree look even tricky. Using white (and yellow) on black is a bit of a pain - darker colours on lighter colours would be easier but that's not really an option. Perhaps gold on off-white would work for a future cloak if it comes up.


This Dark Angels Dreadnought was originally started back during 40k second edition. I've finally dug the thing out and decided to finish it off. I also decided to stick some of the plastic DA bits from the intervening years on the model to liven it up a little more.


Dark Angel Dreadnought Legs - I tried the salt weathering technique. It went badly. The panels on the Dreads' legs are just too small, and it's probably not the best model to learn that technique on. That's been scrapped. Just trying to repaint it green now.


Dual Assault Cannons!
And there we are. The paint on the arms dates these arms back to 1997 (when I added the nWo logo) and then 1998 (when I went over it with the red of the Wolfpac). The long scroll is from 2014. I imagine the painting of this model got abandoned late in 1998 when 40k 3rd edition was released and the uber-combination of dual assault cannons on Dreadnoughts became a thing of the past. Back in the day there were no "left-handed" Assault Cannons and dreads were 100% metal models, so I cut up a right handed one (in metal) and a Missile Launcher left arm to make the above. With the Contemptor Mortis pattern Dreadnought being an actual thing, I'm also considering adding a magnetised missile launcher battery to the top of the model. Both arms are already magnetised.As part of my "1k 40k Armies" project, I've costed out a Dread with Dual assault cannon for a 1k Dark Angels army, and plan to finish this sucker off in the coming couple of weeks. Since, like the KoW forces I'm working on, the 40k armies are all going to be supplied by me for friendly games in my War Room, there should be no arguments.

I'll be showing more of the small 1k Dark Angels force in the coming weeks as well. Many of the models are already painted. I just need to sort out the vehicles and a few more troopers. And the characters.


Discount photo box. Those pics of Beregond not being the best? This is why.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/16 03:51:27


Post by: GrimDork


The freehand on that lotr guy is really nice! I look forward to bones 2 arriving so I can try some more fantasy oriented things like that. I'd probably have to cheat and mask it though, I'm not nearly as handy at such things.

Dual asscan dread, huh, cool. So you're getting several 40k armies built to 1k to have around for people to use? Sounds cool. Like a more intensive version of my strike team for each dead zone faction thing.

Gotta hear the story behind that guy with shades and a space marine torso.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/16 06:02:40


Post by: Thraxas Of Turai


Love your painting style Azazelx, some great work here. The game board is very ambitious, but from the posts am I to understand that the Secret weapon boards have not been delivered to backers yet? Had no idea that it was so badly delayed.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/16 06:26:13


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks Grim. I was overall happy with it. I need to get a bunch of these KoW-destined figures that are cockblocking me out of the way so I can paint some more fun stuff - like some mroe freehand stuff on some really open, flat surfaces.

And yep, multiple 1k 40k armies - basically the same as what I'm doing with the KoW stuff, except there I'm aiming for 600-1200-2k in segments. Having said that, I plan to build the 40k forces to at least 2k each as well.

Thanks Thraxas. The board should be great, assuming it all goes to plan. Or even mostly. The SWM boards are likely to arrive in August or so, if we're lucky according to the latest update. I'll have to buy another couple of boards to make up the ground properly-Zavod-style, so I'll have to wait until delivery of the KS, and then use the coupon that Justin has been promising. Hopefully it's a decent coupon, given the 10-or-so month delay and not just 10% or something like that....


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/16 08:03:16


Post by: Paradigm


The LOTR guys are looking really good, Beregond's cape is awesome (he's one of the few Gondor character models I don't have, I'm beginning to regret that now). Incidentally, I really like that version of Faramir. It's not as cool as the ranger version, but I really enjoyed painting it.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/16 14:13:47


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks for that! I dislike the Faramir because of the mould slip and the fact that his pose is so closed. I prefer the variation on the same Faramir model where he's drawing his sword, but really my bigger issue with both of them is the helmet - it doesn't look like his helmet really - a complete lack of details
compared to the actual one

And if they were going to do that, why not give him an unhelmeted head? (similar to the Armoured Boromir)

I guess it's because I quite like Faramir (the character) and found the figure sub-par, and not worthy of him. Beregond on the other hand is quite a nice one indeed...


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/16 14:18:17


Post by: Paradigm


Oh yeah, I just realised that's the sword-drawing Faramir, I have the sword-swinging one and it's a great model. This is why I should look at my LOTR stuff more often.

Is this the one you're saying is the better version:

Because that's the one I've got and there's no mold slip and the helmet is actually OK, although that painted one GW show is terribly done.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/16 17:44:29


Post by: carlos13th


Nice stuff so far Az. Did you ever got those instruments you needed btw? interested to see your conversions using them.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/16 21:22:39


Post by: Azazelx


 Paradigm wrote:
Oh yeah, I just realised that's the sword-drawing Faramir, I have the sword-swinging one and it's a great model. This is why I should look at my LOTR stuff more often.

Is this the one you're saying is the better version:
Because that's the one I've got and there's no mold slip and the helmet is actually OK, although that painted one GW show is terribly done.


Yep, very much that one. Though from memory that one also has no detail sculpted onto his helmet? Not that I have an issue with freehanding stuff (I quite enjoy it) but if something is supposed to be embossed it's not nearly the same...

No instruments yet, Carlos.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/16 22:02:58


Post by: GiraffeX


You have lots of interesting projects going on.

Really like the idea of the tank graveyard and your freehand on that cloak is really nicely done

You also have the same photo box as me just in a different colour

Keep up the excellent work.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/16 22:26:43


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks Giraffex! Hope to have some mroe actual finished stuff to share soon.

Hoping to get the two Minas Tirity Banner bearers finished tonight. Would have been last night but I had to give the WIP-banners a coat of future to protect them, since they seem to be made of especially chip-happy pewter. So tonight!

Then onto that Dreadnought till it's done.
And also half-finished Denethor.

Then a bunch of decent photos next weekend


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/24 11:53:31


Post by: Azazelx


A couple of days ago, while looking for some models - some MIA Plaguebearers for an upcoming Daemons Unit (didn't find the bastards, either!) I found my Eureka USMC models that have been missing since I packed up all my stuff for the move about 2 years ago. I've decided to rotate them back into my paint queue shortly (after a couple of higher priority jobs). So with that in mind, I've found my original P&M blog for them that petered out shortly after starting (due to all kinds of crap going on at the time...) and so I'm reposting it, it edited form for 2014...

===========

Something different to the standard 40k P&M I guess, but since I’m quite excited about these new Modern USMC figures from Eureka, I’ve decided to start painting them already – typically figures sit in my “to do” pile for anywhere between months and forever (don’t ask me how many unpainted Space Marines from the 1990’s I still have). Moderns though – I’ve always wanted to get hold of moderns, but until very recently they have always been in 20mm, or quite frankly – not good enough models for me to be willing to spend money on. I guess I’m a bit of a snob in that sense, but I grew up with Games Workshop sculpts by Jes Goodwin, the Perry Twins, Kev Adams, Mark Copplestone et al, and later on, figures by the Rackham crew, so seeing figures that looked mostly-smushed or not much better than what I could sculpt myself never did it for me.

I started by basing them on 25mm rounds from Proxie Models. A couple of months ago I ordered a ton of bases ($70 worth) from Ken after some recommendations on Dakka, and they are both dirt cheap and excellent quality. I’m tempted to order more just to have a healthy stockpile for the future.



One of the new things I’ve decided to try with these was the coloured primers I picked up from Vallejo. These are the new Acrylic-Polyurethane primers. I picked up the full range of 10 colours in the 200ml bottles, in the hope that I’ll never need to buy the stuff again.



I’ve heard people talk about how they’re wonderful for plastics but not so great for metals. Well, they applied very nicely and smoothly to my Marines using a 3/16 flat brush, and once dry, the paint has indeed “shrunk” into the detail, leaving them unobscured.
I have to say, using coloured primer has been a little hard to get my head around – after more than a decade of using a spray can, using a brush to apply coloured paint just seemed wrong in some way – like I’ve started basecoating without undercoating. The Vallejo primer was very smooth in it’s application, and feels quite nice on the models. I used a 2:1 mixture of RAL8000 German Green Brown with White, as I figured if I’m going to use coloured primer I may as well lighten it to be a bit closer to what will be my main base colour.
In all, it turned out well. After drying I’ve spotted a few places on a number of the figures that I’ll need to touch up. After that, basecoats!

The one thing I wasn't sure about was the basing of the sniper. He’s too big for a 40mm round, which leaves me with a choice of the two 40k cavalry bases. The WFB square one leaves his rifle overhanging, which means I could more easily position him as shooting out of a window etc, but the round one will better protect the rifle from damage in storage, transport and play. I can also do a little more on the base by adding some rocks and such, though not to the extent of making a mini-diorama, as I feel they detract from models when used as gaming pieces. I also prefer round(ed) bases. A 60mm round would be overkill, I feel. I’m using another figure as a spotter, but I prefer to have 2-man teams based separately as it offers more flexibility on the tabletop and in storage.





In the end, I went for the rounded base for the extra protection. Since with these figures I’ve decided that I want to try a bunch of new materials and techniques, I found the Vallejo Sandy Paste that I purchased awhile back, and decided to ladle it onto their bases. I hadn't used this kind of material for basing before, and have only used non-textured acrylic pastes for adding bulk, such as on my FoW DAK, and then going over the top with regular fine sand. Since the Proxie bases have a slight indent and the Eureka figures have an integral metal base, I used the paste to level out the tops of the bases, using a sculpting tool to apply it, and the same brush as I used for the primer to wipe it off when I got too much on their boots.



Verdict – the paste is way too fiddly to use on something like a 40k army or a full historical army, but should be fine on a smaller skirmish force like these ones. Finally, I added some kitty litter to the bases to add some texture as rocks. I’m going for a more rural Afghan-style base, rather than simply sand. I added a couple of the larger stones to the front of the sniper, to make it look like he’s found a spot that affords him a little bit of visual cover, while still keeping him in theme with the rest of the figures (so no bricks or ruins).



Now I just need to touch up the primer where it got rubbed off during the basing, and the actual painting can begin! Or continue!

===========

In other stuff, I've 90% finished that Late 2nd Edition Dark Angels Dread, and I'll be posting up some pics soon (probably on the weekend) to get some feedback on leg posing. I've also restarted on the Mentor Legion Dread that I started at the beginning of 3rd Edition with planbs to finish him off as well (photos to come, also). Then I'll probably show something I've restarted that's even more retro, but in the same vein...

And yeah, those Minas Tirith Standards. Still got to finish them, too...


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/24 12:13:47


Post by: GrimDork


Huh, cool. Good to have some soldiers to prowl around your tank graveyard, hope they're good at fighting zombies as you've got a lot of those too


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/24 12:42:26


Post by: Azazelx


The tanks arrived yesterday, too! I'll be picking them up on Friday. Along with my titanium hobby knives and blades (for cleaning restic!)


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/06/24 12:49:45


Post by: GrimDork


Sweet, remember to change them out every couple of minutes


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/07/10 11:04:23


Post by: Azazelx


So it’s been awhile – almost a month since my last proper post. Combination of being tired from work and watching The World Cup (it’s on in the early AM hours, here), poor weather, no motivation to take photos, and going through boxes and boxes of stuff that had been in storage has all ganged up, even though I’ve now had more than a week off from work (though with unrostered days in, and work at home – the nature of “holidays” in my work, I’m afraid. Also, friends coming over a fair few times for some intense 4-way-LAN sessions of Dead Island.

The 24 tanks I ordered from Korea for Zavod 311 have come in, and I’ve almost finished the assembly on 4 of them. Pics in a proper update, later. I received some much-needed bits from a Dakka-friend, Carlos13th – to create a couple of musicians and such for Gondor. Also a work in progress that I’ll share later with proper photos of the figures.

What I have today, though are some photos taken from a large 8-player Kings of War battle last Saturday night. Our regular LAN-and-other-gaming friends, Pyro and Orez brought some of their old-timey Pathfinder friends over to play some games. We ended up playing KoW – 1800pts per side with each player controlling roughly 600pts. It took a fair while, mostly due to people getting to grips with the rules (and I haven’t played much lately, either!) and a fair amount of planning and bickering between allies and opponents alike, as it the nature of very-multiplayer games.



The Order of Battle on the Good side was comprised of a 600pt Basilean contingent, led by a Paladin with holy book (army standard) and Wizard, featuring a unit of Mounted Paladins, Foot Paladins, Men-At-Arms and a unit of Heavy Bowmen. These were all proxied from Rackham Confrontation Lions pre-paints, which resulted in much better looking Men-at-Arms models! Unfortunately, due to some issues with the Elohi figures (terrible arms and weapons) they didn’t make it to the field this time. Once I’ve found parts to proxy their horrible, mould-lined and ill-fitting arms and weapons (as I already have for the heads) then they’ll be painted and join their mortal counterparts. Mantic… almost!

Allied with the Basileans was a 600pt contingent from Minas Tirith. The Men of Gondor (Armies of Men) were led by Beregond, a standard bearer, and were made up of a unit each of Knights, Shieldwall, Spear Phalanx, and Archers.

Finally, sub-commanded by myself and Orez were 1200pts of Ogres. Warlord on Chariot, Standard on Chariot, a Shaman with a unit of Berserkers, one large unit of Ogre Warriors, two small units – one standard and the other with 2-handed weapons, and finally, a unit each of Crossbows and Blunderbusses. And I think I may have forgotten a single-ogre unit that might be supposed to be in there as well.




Fighting for the Evil Team on the day was a battle-tested 1200pts of Pan-Elven force (Twilight Kin), led by a mounted High Priestess, A Dark Avenger Hero and Standard Bearer on Cold Ones. The troops were a large unit of Knights supported by Spearmen, Darksome Guard with 2-Handed weapons, Shadows, Wardancers (Blade-dancers), Gargoyles and Heralds of Woe (scout cavalry). Finally, a Reaper Bolt Thrower.

Their allies were 1200pts of Undead, worked out the day before and based on “What undead stuff do I have painted?” So an unusually hard-hitting, elite-style undead army with one unit of skeletons, one unit of ghouls, one small unit of mummies, 2 units of Wraiths (Army of the Dead), a unit of Werewolves (Rackham to the rescue, once again!) and a Balefire Catapult, all led by a Liche King, played ably on the night by the Mouth of Sauron.





In the end, we played 4 full turns, no scenario. After one of our number let us know that he had to leave shortly, the game took off at a much faster pace. So we were finished by around about midnight with what was effectively a draw – 3 units destroyed on each side. Thanks to all for coming, and especially PE for taking photos, since I forgot to bring my camera out to the room several times, so all of these photos are thanks to him.

Overall I felt that the Undead and Elves had a significant advantage in that they both had an artillery piece each, while the good side had none (this will be rectified!) and a significant speed and manoeuvrability advantage – the Werewolves with Speed 9 and Elves with their fast cavalry (S9) units overwhelm all of the others (Ogres merely go from S6 on foot to S7 in a chariot for some reason) and the units with Fly all being on the Evil side – Gargoyles and 2 units of Wraiths. Again, this will be balanced out when the various armies that I’m building start to fill out towards 1500 and 2000pts.

* Ogres will get Red Goblin Cavalry (played by wolves without goblin riders), and units of chariots (played by Ogre Stonetusk cavalry)

* Gondor will get Trebuchets and Ballistas as well as Rangers of Ithilien and Swan Knights of Dol Amroth (using Elven Ranger and Elven Knight stats respectively, as befits the elite of Gondor – but no gunpowder or Ogre units, despite the KoM list, as I want the army to fit the Gondor theme.) As well as more foot troops. And eventually, they will be joined by my unpainted Rohirrim.

* Basilea will get their Elohi Angelic units and possibly some exotics like Griffons and Phoenixes, as well as more foot troops.

* The Undead will ironically, get more non-elite units – more skeletons, ghouls and zombies to fill out their numbers, as well as undead cavalry, wights and more heroes to Dark Surge their minions forward.

* The Elves will be split into two forces (once a lot more painting happens – High (Blood) Elves with their woodland offsiders, and proper Druchii – Dark Elves. This will mean warhawks, and possibly treemen/Ents and perhaps a Phoenix on the High side, and things like Manticores, Hydras and even a Cauldron of Blood on the Dark side.

* And then I can start on adapting Nurgle, Chaos Warriors, Beastmen and Chaos Dwarves. I really can’t wait for those…

More pics on the Wordpress blog, as per usual.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/07/10 11:50:39


Post by: Paradigm


Looks like it was fun! I keep meaning to try out KOW with my hundreds of LOTR figures and proxies, but I just can't get into Fantasy gaming at the moment. I have a feeling that Minion Miniatures may change that, or maybe Dwarf King's Quest from Mantic, if the value is good.

Looking forward to the tank pics.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/07/11 00:08:40


Post by: GrimDork


I'll echo Para, sounds like much fun was had, great to see all those different minis getting along on one table to duke it out.

Looking forward to the tanks also.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/07/11 04:53:15


Post by: Azazelx


So far I've assembled 4 tanks to near-completion. Since they're rather tedious to clip, clean and assemble, I'm just trying for 2 a day at the moment. So.. 20 more to go.

Then I'll start on the batch-painting!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/07/11 11:53:18


Post by: GrimDork


Brave soul, i'm not sure i have batch painting in me anymore, even when i'm doing a regiment for supposed kow style games i still can only paint maybe five at a time.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/07/11 15:16:43


Post by: Azazelx


Well, my batch-paint plan involves aerosol cans, an airbrush, salt, hairspray and then some weathering powder and fixative.

A "normal" brush would only come in at the final stage before final varnishing. After they're basically finished - if I decide to add some rough hand-lettered numbers like you see in the Ukrainian reference pics.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/07/11 21:25:09


Post by: GrimDork


That should help, airbrushing and rattle cans change the game a bit. The best i can do with a brush is maintain a 2-5 model 'productivity queue' where i've got something else ready to use up extra paint.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/07/12 14:26:00


Post by: Azazelx


I've got 11 batch-painted Gondor rangers that only need less than an hour worth of finishing their faces and hands. I haven't been able to motivate myself to finish them for the past three days. If they weren't some of the worst figures I've ever painted, they'd be done and dusted by now.

Then I have 21 more Minas Tirith Soldiers to do, and 6 Knights of Minas Tirith that also have less than an hour's work to finish. And have for a bit over a week now. Again, mental block from painful figures...


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/07/12 14:51:23


Post by: GrimDork


I think it's the 'having to do it' that kills me. I've got 8 dr who minis to paint up for a diorama but since i've got a deadline i keep finding excuses not to do it.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/07/13 02:40:29


Post by: Azazelx


So as a complete Painting ADHD tangent, I'm trying to work out which way to go with painting my Chaos/Abyssal Dwarfs.

There's the traditional "Brass/Red/Black" type schemes, which look pretty good, but possibly shares a bit too much in common with Khorne (who will come later).
Spoiler:




Then there's the version that brings in a lot of blue as well, but I'm not too fond of this one. It's a bit too 1990's over-coloured (which, admittedly, is how my CD Bloodbowl team of those days looked. I just dug them out, I need to finish off those figures as well...)
Spoiler:


Even when it's much more copper and less red, it's still got a similar feel:
Spoiler:

(red metals, whod'a thunk it?)

Then there's green and metallic green armour - probably accented with gold/brass/copper etc - I was always partial to it from the early WFB3 days
Spoiler:




My only real concern with the green is that my Dark Elves/Twilight Kin are already using a Metallic Turquoise colour scheme (with gold/brass accents), going both into more blueish and more greenish, depending on the unit. I wanted to avoid the "traditional" purples and blues that DE always seem to be in.

A third option is to use both green and red, and use the gold/brass/copper elements to tie them all together.

Any thoughts?


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/07/13 03:23:26


Post by: GrimDork


Paint them like their armor is lava! Or like heated metal that's just starting to cool.

Green seems somewhat less traditional, so maybe the green and red together? Unless... have you considered classic glossy black with stark highlights? Also, what about something off-kilter like white? Of course it would have to be soot-stained white, or maybe a medium grey?


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/07/13 06:21:15


Post by: Azazelx


I'm going glossy black without highlights for the Obsidian Golems that I'm working on today, though I'm painting in a kind of glow effect between the rocks to represent the magical magic that animates them (rather then the usual inner-lava-glow that we see). Pics sooner or later. I'll need to figure out the army's colours before I can do their armour plates, though.

Dirty/stained white.. that's a painful colour and a lot of work. I might do it down the line with Death Guard, but even that's not for certain.

Green and Red together might just work. Red for the Big-Hatted Dwarves, and Green for the real old-school ones, and the FW ones that lack big hats. Not sure. There are figures in the force that I really want to paint in each of the two colour schemes.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/07/13 08:28:43


Post by: Paradigm


My vote goes to the red/black/bronze scheme. Those colours really do work together, and have very nice contrast. Not a fan of the green, to be honest (I've always seen dwarves as having very earthy brown-red-black tones rather than natural green that I associate with Elves).


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/07/13 13:34:31


Post by: GrimDork


Hmm yeah white is probably too much trouble. I forget not everybody dips their white like me . Golems sound cool, looking forward to those.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/07/13 19:00:47


Post by: Theophony


I vote for white ash armor, very volcanic, maybe some grey hues also.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/07/13 22:48:25


Post by: GiraffeX


I found these that are quite nice

Spoiler:


neil101 on dakka done some nice Chaos Dwarfs







Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/07/14 02:23:06


Post by: Archer


I like the idea of cooling magma on the armor. Perhaps done like a lot of people do the Eldar avatar? With the joints of the armor showing off the fires within?

My other vote would be glassy obsidian, making it look like their armor has been carved from stone.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/07/14 03:55:49


Post by: Azazelx


 Paradigm wrote:
My vote goes to the red/black/bronze scheme. Those colours really do work together, and have very nice contrast. Not a fan of the green, to be honest (I've always seen dwarves as having very earthy brown-red-black tones rather than natural green that I associate with Elves).


Good points, but Chaos/Abyssal Dwarves would be using far from a natural green. I'm leaning towards different units using both, and having the gold/brass/bronze be the thing that ties them all together. Hopefully I'll get some photos up later today.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 GiraffeX wrote:
I found these that are quite nice


Those turned out really well, I have to say. Not really the look I'm wanting to go for, though. I'm slogging through a lot of silver/iron with this Gondor force (pics soonish), and the CDs are going to be a "reward" of sorts, so I'm wanting to use a scheme that will be fun to paint as well as look good. The armour plates on the Lesser Obsidian Golems will have a bit of that look, though. I'm working on them now.


 Archer wrote:
I like the idea of cooling magma on the armor. Perhaps done like a lot of people do the Eldar avatar? With the joints of the armor showing off the fires within?
My other vote would be glassy obsidian, making it look like their armor has been carved from stone.


I'm wanting to avoid overdoing the usual colour tropes with my fantasy armies - one reason I like the ones that GiraffeX just showed. But CDs may end up one of the closest to the "standard" schemes at this rate. (Nurgle & Khorne's daemons and warriors will also look fairly "typical" - as will eventual tribal/dirty races like Beastmen, Orcs and Skaven.

I considered doing the magma glow thing with the Obsidian Golems, but in the end I went with a "magic glow" instead. I spent a good couple of hours googling the best ways to paint Obsidian, and it's a tricky one - and not an easy one at this scale given how dark the stuff is, the shine, and the shading colours. (Seems to be purple or blue as the common choices - both colours I want to avoid in this army.) Painting them in two halves, so the lower halves are about 30% done so far.



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/03 04:48:44


Post by: Azazelx


As seen awhile ago, one of the things I’ve dug out of the pits of half-finished hell was a Dark Angels Dreadnought – old-school heavy metal style, dating back from 2nd Edition 40k. Back in the day when the dreads were all-metal, the only way to get hold of the different weapon options was to buy the different chapter dreads. So some things have definitely changed far for the better since then.



Anyway, as noted previously, the paint on the arms dates these arms back to 1997 (when I added the nWo logo) and then 1998 (when I went over it with the red of the Wolfpac). The original painting of this model would have been when 40k 3rd edition was released and the uber-combination of dual assault cannons on Dreadnoughts became a thing of the past. When I restarted painting this guy, I blinged out the model a little more with plastic bits from more modern Dark Angels plastic kits.



Back in the day there were no “left-handed” Assault Cannons and dreads were 100% metal models, so I cut up a right handed one (in metal) and a Missile Launcher left arm (probably the original one from the DE Dread kit) to make the above. With the Contemptor Mortis pattern Dreadnought being a thing that exists these days, I added a magnetised cyclone missile launcher battery to the top of the model with optional DA-Icon Bling for normal games. I’ve never been a fan of ginormous banner poles on things, so that’s something I didn’t bother with at all. Both arms are already magnetised, and so I may paint up and magnetise a normal Power Fist arm for an option at some point in the future.



I’ve costed the thing out with dual AC for very friendly local games, based on the costs for the various other arm weapons. Since the Rifleman Dread is also a thing these days, it’s not as offensive as it might have been a few years ago. But really, the main thing here is rule of cool since for the time being it’s mostly going to see action from the inside of my display cabinet till I get some more armies costed up and built. Not to mention finishing these Dark Angels.



Note the kill-markings from 2nd edition on the Assault Cannon arms – looks like each one racked up a Dread back in the day. I didn’t bother keeping track of infantry, and Tanks weren’t as ubiquitous in 40k as they are today.



As can often be the case, I think the model looks far better in hand than these pics show. C’est la vie, I guess. Small details always show up like huge pimples and dimples when something is blown up this much.



The experiment with salt weathering didn’t work out at all. However, the weathering powders on the feet and lower legs of the model did turn out quite nicely. Trying for a mid-ground between the pristine factory-fresh paintjobs that so many vehicles and walkers have the the more realistic and weathered painting that looks so good.

Well, that’s it for today. This guy was finished a month or more ago, but with midwinter here, decent days to take photos have been so few and far between the photos had to wait.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/03 05:55:33


Post by: angelofvengeance


Excellent looking Dreadnought there Azazel
Loving the White Tree of Gondor freehand on Faramir's cloak

PS> Holy **** that's a shooty dreadnought lol.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/03 08:19:33


Post by: Thraxas Of Turai


I think it looks brilliant, you have totally nailed it. One of my best gaming memories was getting this new style metal dread when they first came out, and it is the desire to paint a Dreadnought model that has seen me get back into 40k.

The rust/weathering on the bottom of your dreadnought is great, and the purity seals and main body really pop, brother!

(I see wrestling references, truly the NWO is for life).



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/03 13:19:07


Post by: GrimDork


Looks excellent


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/03 23:32:40


Post by: Archer


That Dreadnought looks fantastic. I love dreadnoughts and that is a fine example. I love the twin assault cannons it looks really brutal.

Love the weathering (its a skill I would really love to get better at) an the missile launcher and little angel to go on top depending on the configuration is great.

Keep the great work coming.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/04 00:09:16


Post by: carlos13th


Dreadnought looks sweet mate


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/04 09:14:15


Post by: Paradigm


Dakka dakka dakka, that's one snooty Dread! Very nicely done!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/04 09:34:14


Post by: angelofvengeance


I assume you'd just field him as a AC/ML dreadnought in a game.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/04 17:15:05


Post by: Warboss_Waaazag


Nice dreadnaught. I bet it weighs a ton, though!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/05 07:29:43


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks guys - It was certainly a good feeling to get the poor neglected bastard finished and painted up properly. No longer a place of shame across several miniatures boxes, but a place of pride in the cabinet.

@ angelofvengeance - thanks - I'll be doing similar freehand trees of Gondor on my Palace Guard (who will double as unit leaders in KoW) and others such as Forlong the Fat of Lossarnach. In-game for friendlies at home, I've costed him out as a dual-AC dread, based on the points costs for a rilfleman and the difference for the AC. I can also use him with the FW Contemptor Mortis rules as well, now that I've added the optional cyclone.

Damn straight, Traxas. Back from when wrestling was good (ok, well good chunks of it, anyway). I may add a few other old-school references to some of the other vehicles as crew graffiti.

@ Archer - I agree mate, and it's embarrassing to say that this is the first dreadnought that I've ever properly and fully finished in over 20 years. Well, I had some original RT Dreads painted, but they got stripped and partially repainted, so I can't claim much for those these days. I've got a 90% finished Mentor Legion dating from the start of 3rd ed to finish, and a FW Iron Warirors Dread that needs to be repaired and finished (Cat helped it base jump from a shelf awhile back)

Now I need to do some more. I ordered a pile of Dread bodies and parts from Forgeworld when I made my very first order with them years ago now, not to mention a few Contemptors in the last couple of years. The weathering is something I'm still working on myself, so I'm glad this guy ended up looking this good.

Grim, Carlos, Paradigm - I appreciate the kind words.

@ Waaazag - you're not wrong. It really is a good example of what used to be called 'eavy Metal. He's got enough weight to put a good sized dent in the bonnet of your car, or give you a nice concussion or skull fracture. Which is exactly what you want in your toy soldiers...? I guess?


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/05 11:48:25


Post by: angelofvengeance


Personally, I'm waiting on a Dark Angels Legion Contemptor kit. I'm hoping they will look amazing. If not, I'll go with the Relic contemptor and bling it up with some Dark Angel gubbinz. Probably have it as a Deathwing.

Downside to metal dreadnoughts is their frailty. Number of times I had to re-glue stuff was so annoying.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/05 12:54:24


Post by: Azazelx


Yeah, I'm hoping that this guy will be pretty sturdy. Arms are magnetised, so they're not a worry - and the torso joint is nice and solid. The sarcophagus/chest/power plant has survived more than a decade withiut coming apart (and not always being treated the best in that time) so I'm confident it'll be ok.

I think the DA Legion Contemptor will look amazing. My biggest quandry there will be on whether to paint it in Legion Black or Chapter Green/Deathwing Bone. Even if I see it only as a "40k" model rather than "30k", would I see the Chapter repainting it or leaving it it's original colours in honour of the hero entombed inside? hmmm.....


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/07 07:37:35


Post by: Azazelx


So here’s some more stuff I’ve had kicking around for the last decade and a half. Produced in a kind of foam resin (compressed polystyrene?) by Epicast - one of the contemporaries of Armorcast and non-GW Forge World USA back in the days of licenced Titans and Epic 40k stuff – before the founding of the GW-owned Forge World we now know. Anyway, as regular readers would know by now, I used to buy a lot of resin terrain back in the day, including a lot of stuff by Grendel – now known as Scotia Grendel. Amonst those purchases were three buildings, made in the 40k Ork style of the day – basically Adobe buildings. So I bought them, used them a few times and so forth, and then put them away. Since moving and setting up The War Room, my desert mat has gotten some use again, and I’ve found myself using these buildings again. They never got painted and never even made my painting radar since I never liked them all that much, and planned to Orkify them with various gubbins and all that sort of thing. Since I’ve actually used them recently, I took a good look at them and decided that they don’t need Orkifying after all, since I’d also like to be able to use them in Fantasy, Historical and Modern games as desert buildings, and if I glued scrap metal crap and spikes all over them I’d be literally painting them into a 40k-only corner.


I nicked this picture from a Google Search that found it on TMP, since I forgot to take an unpainted pic of my own ones.
The main problem if I’m being honest is that I never really liked them much at all. They’re rough as guts, and it wouldn’t be hard at all to build better ones out of form core – which is what you can pretty clearly see these ones were made from originally.



While I was painting them, I noticed some odd things about them. The L-shaped building has a 2nd-floor door that opens to nothing, and the little courtyard to it’s left has to entrance. Looking closer, I figured out that the original building had some supports and a balcony that led to that courtyard, and you can even see where the wall was roughly patched up, as well as the pole-hole. I also cut out one of the excessive buttresses from the middle of the main doors. At first I was going to rebuild all of those balconies, which caused a lapse of interest in the project for a week or so before I simply made myself just get the fething things finished. I can make my own, better quality adobe buildings later on if I want balconies and other fancy sundries like that.



I added the second door way that you can see above by cutting a hole out of the foam building and gluing in some icy pole (popsicle) sticks. It’s at least as good as the malformed castings that the model came with. And now figures have a way to get up there!


This building in the above pic also has clearly had a balcony removed from the original – both with a door and visible holes where the support posts used to be. So clearly, these three models were someone’s own personal scenery that ended up being cast and sold. Which is where the gap in the wall was plugged, and possibly the over-used buttresses were added.

In order to make these things look reasonable, they had a few layers of drybrushing, and then I broke out the airbrush to darken the lower parts of the building, along with the space between the buttresses. I also added some unsubtle weather streaking down the windows and from the roofing on the buildings using Tamiya Weathering Master kits – you know, the ones that look like eyeshadow make-up compacts. Also added grime to the doorway areas using the same stuff, some Kromlech weathering powder and some smearing with my fingers.


This building comes without a base for some reason, but I added some grass tufts in a couple of different colours to the bases of the other two buildings. I have to say that the work I did on these was a success from my point of view. While they’re not outstanding, I think they actually came up well and now look pretty good, and the airbrushing, weathering products and grass tufts manage to make them look like they have a bit of detail on them. Any further details can come from leaving game-appropriate resin detail pieces around them – toolboxes, jerrycans, oil drums, hesco barriers – or wooden crates, wicker gabions and wooden barrels.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/07 08:57:53


Post by: Slinky


Nice.

I made some very similar ones back in the day from instructions in White Dwarf - foam card construction, liberally smeared with filler. Worked really well.

I wonder what happened to them


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/07 09:56:35


Post by: angelofvengeance


 Azazelx wrote:
Yeah, I'm hoping that this guy will be pretty sturdy. Arms are magnetised, so they're not a worry - and the torso joint is nice and solid. The sarcophagus/chest/power plant has survived more than a decade withiut coming apart (and not always being treated the best in that time) so I'm confident it'll be ok.

I think the DA Legion Contemptor will look amazing. My biggest quandry there will be on whether to paint it in Legion Black or Chapter Green/Deathwing Bone. Even if I see it only as a "40k" model rather than "30k", would I see the Chapter repainting it or leaving it it's original colours in honour of the hero entombed inside? hmmm.....


I think they'd repaint it in current chapter heraldry. Probably the bone white of the Deathwing.If you're a space marine old enough to remember the schism on Caliban, chances are you're inducted to the Inner Circle of the chapter pretty much immediately. I wonder if there's any Fallen Dreadnoughts? Have a similar scenario to the Helbrute mission in the Dark Vengeance campaign. Try and deactivate the Fallen Dreadnought


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/07 10:46:48


Post by: Azazelx


@Slinky - yeppo. I wouldn't be surprised if that's how these ones got built initially to be quite honest (before they were cast and sold). I might make some more myself at some stage - but not until after I've finished painting all the premade terrain I have - and my Zavod table.


@Angel of Vengeance - Hm, that sounds quite reasonable, actually - in terms of repainting it as a Deathwing Dread. That's another of my started but never-finished projects, actually - A small force of Fallen made up of RT-era metals (and I guess nowadays - FW marines) painted in Pre-Heresy DA colours/heraldry as one of my 600-pt forces (now 1000-pt forces) or ally with IG to represent a small force of Fallen who have stayed together for mutual protection and survival - able to ally with IG who (thematically) wouldn't know the difference between Fallen and "proper" Dark Angels. I might have to resurrect that concept when I get further into my bite-sized 40k armies...


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/07 11:20:29


Post by: angelofvengeance


 Azazelx wrote:

@Angel of Vengeance - Hm, that sounds quite reasonable, actually - in terms of repainting it as a Deathwing Dread. That's another of my started but never-finished projects, actually - A small force of Fallen made up of RT-era metals (and I guess nowadays - FW marines) painted in Pre-Heresy DA colours/heraldry as one of my 600-pt forces (now 1000-pt forces) or ally with IG to represent a small force of Fallen who have stayed together for mutual protection and survival - able to ally with IG who (thematically) wouldn't know the difference between Fallen and "proper" Dark Angels. I might have to resurrect that concept when I get further into my bite-sized 40k armies...


In the Dataslate for Cypher, you can ally with pretty much ANY of the other Imperial factions with exception to the Dark Angels or their Successor Chapters. Also, Cypher himself is INCREDIBLY badass now. Think Grammaton Cleric from Equilibrium in Power Armour and you have Cypher.

As for the Contemptor Dreadnought, thinking about it now, if he was in stasis when the schism happened he could still be assigned to one of the other companies and be painted green instead. He wouldn't have any knowledge of the Fallen if that was the case.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/07 11:32:31


Post by: Azazelx


I guess we'll find out a lot of the specifics when the DA are finally featured in one of the FW HH books - which will also be when their chapter-specific Contemptor is released.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/07 11:43:17


Post by: GrimDork


Houses look cool. Almost makes me want to take a stab at something similar.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/07 12:44:48


Post by: Slinky


 GrimDork wrote:
Houses look cool. Almost makes me want to take a stab at something similar.


They are remarkably easy, go for it


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/07 13:14:49


Post by: GrimDork


Ahh but where to put them? All I've got is green grass and urban concrete boards. Guess I could do a 2x2 deadzone dessert outpost.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/10 03:36:40


Post by: Azazelx


That sounds like a good plan. Some changes in terrain will keep your Deadzone games from becoming boring, you can use it as the outskirts of a town for Infinity, and of course you can use it in both Fantasy and 40k skirmish games.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/10 05:25:25


Post by: Warboss_Waaazag


Sweet terrain.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/10 10:54:03


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks mate. Something for Da Boyz to share with others


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just a small update today. Last shown way back in June 2013, I ended up finishing these two some months ago. So I’m taking this opportunity to follow-up and show them off – something I haven’t been too good at with my various WIP figures to date. The Lady of the pair turned out not to be a Brettonian, but an Italian.. erm, Tilean. Lucrezzia Belladonna to be exact – sculpted by Chris Fitzpatrick’s for the WFB Dogs of War range, circa 5th Edition – so 1996+


Lucrezzia is basically a display piece, as she was painted for my wife. While I’m sure I could (and would) do something a bit more interesting with the model today, I’ve learned enough about repainting my old models to know when to go in with gusto for a repaint and when to leave well enough alone. I might just keep an eye out on eBay for a second one instead. She might have a small role as a Wizard or even a mounted Vampiress in a KoW force, she’ll mostly be inhabiting the shelf.

The Ranger definitely qualifies as Oldhammer, either late 2nd edition or early 3rd WHFB. I wasn't sure of his origin or name but Dave Kay found him over in Stuff of Legends as Farendil, Elf Ranger. Even back in the day I would never picked him for an elf, especially with that nose and his great ham fists. I certainly remember seeing him in one of my early White Dwarves, circa issue 101-ish, and his paint scheme reflects that – a homage to my memory of the original picture back in my formative years.


I like to add the rear view. You so rarely see the sculpting or any images of the back of the figures we paint, and half of the sculpting and paint is there, after all.


Some of the Oldhammer and modern miniatures crowd alike seem to have their heads disappear up their arses a little bit, with the endless “it was all so much better back then” or “that looks so bad – like a 1990s figure” – and while the mid-90’s really did throw up some dogs in many ranges, and sub-par figures replacing older, better sculpts or figures that have been replaced more recently with better models – figures like Lucrezzia prove that lovely, characterful sculpts have been a feature of all eras.

If anyone out there happens to have a spare of Lucrezzia that they’re willing to part with for a reasonable amount, please feel free to contact me. I promise she’ll be well treated and painted.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/10 11:13:05


Post by: Thraxas Of Turai


That Lucrezzia makes me long for my old Dogs of War army, pikes and pavises were always my favourite. I think it is a fine job, what do you think you would do different with a "new" one?

Ebay wise the cheapest seems to be £25 over here, but then again most Dogs of War minis have been sought after for some time, good luck in your quest. My pick would be the DOW Mercenary General or Borgio The Besieger, both great sculpts.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/10 12:01:55


Post by: Azazelx


Yeah, those were really some classic models. A real shame they got culled. Same deal with many of the ..was it Storm of Chaos? Dwarven Slayers with chain-flail things?

I may have the Merc General somewhere with my few DoW models that I picked up just as cool stuff for painting, back in the day. Is it this guy?


As for another Lucrezzia, I'd like to do the Horse's Caparison a little fancier, and more strongly themed, with more freehand. Something inspired by this, most likely:


I also like this one, but it can go on almost any figure, so I might do something like this with a Brettonian Socreress down the line:



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/18 11:02:55


Post by: Azazelx


This time we have another couple of figures started decades ago and finished a couple of years ago. A couple of the old-school Citadel (or Oldhammer) Trolls.


C20 Cave Troll
The first guy is a C20 Cave Troll. I started painting him in the mid-1990s with the skin tones of a Stone Troll, for my WHFB Orc and Goblin army. Finally finished him 2 or 3 years ago, and stuck him on a slate base from back-to-base-ix


C20 Warrior Troll
Also from the old C20 range, this guy is known as "Warrior Troll". No D&D style misgivings about metal armour for him, no indeedy! Also started around the same time as his mate up there, and finished at more or less the same time, when I dug them out of half-painted purgatory and finally completed them.


C20 Trolls. Two thirds of a unit!
Both of these guys were sculpted by Aly Morrison, who really did quite a good job on the Troll range of the day. I have to say I've also liked pretty much all of the subsequent renditions of trolls that GW has come out with over the years. The stone trolls, the LotR-inspired Trolls, the plastic Swamp Trolls... all good stuff. Well, except for the Chaos Trolls, I guess. But I don't really consider them part of this range, which I've mostly thought of as a subset of the O&G one, with a side range of being really useful for tabletop RPGs. These guys will have a new lease of life at some stage when I finish painting their mate, and then convert my old O&G horde over to Kings of War. But working on 5 armies already at once means the Orcs and Gobboes will need to wait a little while.

Looking at them today, the golden yellow-blonde hair does look pretty garish, especially with the bright blue skin, but hell - that's how I started them, and it's not something I'm willing to mess up, change or repaint. I'm just happy to have them done. I've got their mate on my painting shelf as well. A mid-90's stone troll who I selected to finish this unit off about three years ago when I finished these two. He's been partially painted and sitting on my painting shelves ever since... funny how these things work, eh?



And finally, a request to those who read this blog. Inspired by the fast work in finding out the identity of Farendil, Elf ranger so quickly, I'm again asking for help in identifying this guy.


Oldhammer Wizard - seeking his name!

I've been looking through SoL a bit, and he's not a C02 wizard. There's no pic of the TL2 wizard on SoL, so that's a possibility - it's certainly from the right timeframe. He's not from the DungeonQuest series, or any of the other board games of that time. He's listed as #19 of the Wizards in the Blue 1988 catalogue, but that group is a mash-up of several previous ranges, and I'd like to find where he comes from originally, and if he had a name as well.

This is actually his second paintjob. I first painted him bright blue and red, with brown hair back in the 1990's, then repainted him in the 2000's in the darker blue scheme with grey hair. I don't intend to repaint him again, just rebase him this time. I figure he looks the part to play the Necromancer that Marouda's KoW Undead army needs for their next battle, so I'm rebasing him and might just add a tiny bit of edge highlighting.





Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/18 12:17:44


Post by: GrimDork


Nice stuff! The trolls are old but totally still work. Can't help on the wizard/soon-to-be-necromancer though.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/18 18:07:12


Post by: Pacific


The trolls look excellent! Lovely bright and vivid colours.

The one with the rock above his head is great. That one was featured on those old Citadel Combat Cards they did, I remember it well (although I think in a green colour scheme).

Like the old-school skeletal steeds stood there in the background of that shot as well..


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/18 21:14:07


Post by: angelofvengeance


 Pacific wrote:
The trolls look excellent! Lovely bright and vivid colours.

The one with the rock above his head is great. That one was featured on those old Citadel Combat Cards they did, I remember it well (although I think in a green colour scheme).

Like the old-school skeletal steeds stood there in the background of that shot as well..


I remember those cards- I had the Dwarfs deck. There was one really badass Chaos Dwarf warlord card that I liked. I can't remember what happened to mine :(



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/19 09:14:55


Post by: Azazelx


I've still got my cards. In this very room, even. I can't for the life of me remember what those icons are. I've even got that Chaos Dwarf, and he'll be getting painted soonish - hopefully this year!

Thanks for the comments on the trolls. Once I finish their mate, I'll probably do the next few a bit more naturalistic, but more beyond that one will be a low priority for awhile with so much other stuff on the plate.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/26 10:17:15


Post by: Azazelx


The figure I'm showcasing today was painted quite some time ago, and has only been rebased in recent times - so not quite enough work for me top count him as part of my finished figures for this year.

It's Bob Olley's Ogryn Sergeant, which to me is the truly Archetypical Ogryn. Not the first Ogryn model, mind you - that particular honour goes to Jes Goodwin's effort of 1988. Regardless, and despite my own huge preference for Jes' work over Bob's, Bob's Ogryn here remains the most defining figure of the range ever sculpted - and never bettered or even equalled in my opinion.





I originally painted this model back in early 1989, not long after it's release. It got stripped down and repainted in the early noughties, this time with Auscam fatigue pants to match my Imperial Guard Regiment (who I need to update and photograph sometime as well) and a Māori-style arm tattoo, following my repeated travels to New Zealand. I blame this figure for starting my long love affair with Citadel's (and others') Ogres. I just wish Bob's later Ogryn efforts (for Citadel, and even for Maxmini) lived up to this figure's quality, but alas - nothing yet. Perhaps we'll get lucky one day and Bob will sculpt some more fantasy or Space Ogres to compliment his range of Scrunts (not-Squats)?

More pics on the Wordpress blog, as usual.



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/26 10:48:34


Post by: Fifty


I love those Ogryn models. A clear inspiration for these. Actually, I suspect these are new Bob Olley sculpts.



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/26 10:54:34


Post by: Azazelx


Yep, those are the new Olley sculpts I mentioned. I'd have been all over those if only the guns weren't awful.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/26 10:59:58


Post by: carlos13th


Yeah those guns are not the best are they.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/26 11:01:41


Post by: Fifty


They would probably be fairly easy to convert, no?


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/26 11:33:22


Post by: GrimDork


Nicely painted ogryn sir


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/26 11:51:18


Post by: Azazelx


 Fifty wrote:
They would probably be fairly easy to convert, no?


Depends on how easy/hard it is to cut the weapons off. The Maxmini ones also seem to have the same body and left arm (just the heads and right arm/gun are unique).


 GrimDork wrote:
Nicely painted ogryn sir


Danke'


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/26 12:10:03


Post by: Leviathus


I'm assembling those new plastic ogryns for my Astral Claws and I must say, those old ones have so much more character! I really like 'em.

Anyway, you gave him a very nice paint job!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/26 22:20:06


Post by: Archer


Nice work as I have come to expect from you. You have such a wonderful collection of the old stuff, the stuff with real character. Makes me misty eyed about all the models that I have had and lost over the years, really makes me wish I had the presence of mind when I was younger to not throw anything away.

Then I see those hoarder shows and get the shivers....


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/08/30 03:24:37


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks guys for the kind words. I would like to categorically say that only parts of my house looks like one of those crazy hoarder shows. The toilets look perfectly normal!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/03 15:19:01


Post by: carlos13th


What's next in the painting cue mate. I love your wonderful little(I use that term loosely) collection of different genres and sculpts.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/07 23:11:00


Post by: Azazelx


WIP - Citadel Craters!

No, not the new ones made from dead Cadians and Skullz, but the older ones, made from cheap, vac-formed plastic with the softest of soft details. I got these around 8-10 years ago when a friend of my wife’s got me a GW voucher for Christmas. By this time I was buying most of my stuff from overseas, due to Australian prices being a rather steep gouging. So when I went in, I found something that seemed reasonably priced, so I picked these up. They then sat in various boxes, uncared for until 2014, when I was going through my stuff as part of getting the War Room into shape. I put them in a box I marked “Fast Scenery” while sorting through stuff. Fast scenery being scenery that I felt like I could paint… you guessed it – fast!



A couple of months ago I was moving stuff and spied the box. I pulled the craters out, and sprayed them with grey. They then sat around until tonight, when on impulse I brought them inside and gave them three layers of drybrushing to get to the stage in the photos. Now I’m putting them on my blog, in what must be the most underwhelming update I’ve posted so far. So why do this? Because I want to make myself finish the damned things, so maybe this will help me guilt myself into doing it. Also, because I’ve barely been updating for the past month or so, despite still doing a bit of painting. I’m just worn out, and a large amount of what I’ve been painting have been plastic Minas Tirith troops, which are about as uninspiring as it gets in terms of WIP (right up there with drybrushed craters, in fact – but a hell of a lot more of them!) The Gondor guys look great all ranked up on the table, but until then, they’re just meh.



To be fair, I’ve been finishing off some stuff that’s marginally more interesting. A little bit of undead, an Ogre got renovated, as did some old Familiars. I guess I’m just tired and a little burnt out. Hopefully the end of winter and the depressing gloomy weather we’ve had for so long now and a bit of time off work to sleep and recharge in a few weeks will renew my interest in blogging, and I’ll show off some newer stuff. Until then, let’s just hope I can wash, airbrush, powder and varnish these craters instead of put them aside for another 2 months (or 8 years!)


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/07 23:31:01


Post by: GiraffeX


Craters are looking good, all progress is good progress in my books.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/08 00:13:45


Post by: Azazelx


I also spent a day before spraying them going roun dthe edges with textured paint. Of course, you can't really see it in the pictures, or even on the models now. Come to think of it, those edges and various questions about basing them. gluing them down and so forth were big reasons (along with the super-soft details) why I never actually id anything with them.

Luckily these days I'm far less of a perfectionist about things like battlefield craters. Also luckily, I'm a bit better at painting this sort of thing as well, so I figure it evens out, and gets the suckers onto the table.

So far today, I've done a little bit of airbrushing to them, and just now a drybrush over the edges. Next will be a thinned brown wash, and then a good coat of polyurethane gloss varnish to protect them - which will probably finish them out for today since the varnish has a long drying time.

Later in the week, matt varnish and weathering powder. Then done!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/08 01:38:03


Post by: Littletower


Nothing wrong with those craters, and I'm guessing they'll end up looking quite good once you get done with them!

As for the rest, it all makes an awesome sight, both the old and the new!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/08 05:44:21


Post by: Archer


Any progress is good progress. It's when things grind to a halt when you start to run into trouble. I loved doing the craters I did, coat of paint, heap of drybrushing then flock the hell out of them and hey presto simple terrain that makes for an interesting addition to the table top.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/08 05:48:46


Post by: JoshInJapan


Yeah, I thought the craters worked just fine for what they are. I have enough trouble getting myself to build terrain that even something as minimalist as these felt like a real accomplishment.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/08 05:49:23


Post by: Thraxas Of Turai


There is nothing I enjoy more than painting up some "fast scenery" and the craters are looking good already. I get that thing too when you start/undercoat a project and then leave it for weeks/months/years before a fit of pique sees you finish the project with gusto one unexpected day.

Do not let the Gondor troops get you down, as you say when they are all together they will look brilliant.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/08 10:11:57


Post by: angelofvengeance


My brother and I have been on a bit of a DIY craters binge recently. Though I wouldn't mind having some GW Quake Cannon craters. Apparently you can split them in half as a sort of foxhole for your troops to use as cover.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/08 10:31:30


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks guys!

They looked alright in the half-done stage they were at yesterday, but I wanted to really make them a bit darker and create more contrast in the bombed-out centres. I've got more than enough other stuff that's sitting in the semi-perma-stalled situation right now, unfortunately. I'd love to see what you guys have come up for craters. I might consider buying the new Quake Cannon ones if they look good enough (and easy enough to paint) - not to mention seeing what you guys came up with.

Anyway...

So between not needing to work today, a small sleep-in until 7:30am, and the morning being a beautiful blue sky morning, I decided that instead of going back to bed, I'd go out to the shed and try and see what I could get done on those craters that I started yesterday. Luck was with me, and I managed to get them finished. Good thing, too. The weather is turning back to it's normal foulness tonight, and will stay that way all week...



Turned out alright, I reckon. Just enough contrast between the light and dark, and a bit of weathering powder to represent the dirt underneath being thrown up. I kept the palette to grey and brown, so that they can work reasonably well on a variety of table surfaces.



I really enjoy finishing up pieces like these - they work well across a variety of genres, as our Dark Angels, Heer, WarZone Imperial and other friends here demonstrate. I also very much enjoy being able to quickly turnaround pieces. Being able to go from basically unpainted (ok, it was sprayed and had some texture on the edges) to finished in 24 hours or so (under in this case) is always incredibly rewarding and appealing. Even more than the usual feeling of accomplishment that I get when finishing a model.

Maybe I should start showing some of these Gondor bastards in here. Might motivate me to finish more of them. We'll see next weekend, if there's any decent light...





Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/08 10:47:14


Post by: angelofvengeance


Nice looking craters- are you going to put a few bits of flock on there to give it the freshly blasted look?


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/08 10:58:00


Post by: Paradigm


Nice work, those craters should spice up any battlefield.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/08 12:54:56


Post by: Littletower


Craters did turn out fine, with extra credit points for the quick job.

If you need/want some more, and are in the mood to give a try at DIY ones, there's a good inspirational reference (not that you seem to need much) here: 3T-Studios: Making Wargaming Craters That Don’t Suck.

Even simpler, I've used one single piece of expanded styrene, heartily attacked with a hobby knife and "finished" going over it with a heat source (I used a hot air blower, a flame would do if carefully used and kept at a distance, always outside, fumes and all), textured paint and/or sand and gravel and you'd be set for paint again in no time.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/08 13:19:19


Post by: carlos13th


Nice one mate. Those look really good. Nice way to chuck quick terrain down.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/08 15:15:08


Post by: GrimDork


Looks solid! Well... not *too* solid, they are kind of holes/blown up.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/08 21:21:18


Post by: Azazelx


 angelofvengeance wrote:
Nice looking craters- are you going to put a few bits of flock on there to give it the freshly blasted look?


I considered that, but I want them to work just as well if I drop them down on a Secret Weapon Tablescapes Urban road or my desert mat. (or even a DeadZone mousepad.) Thanks for that link, Littletower. I'd seen that article before but forgotten the page. I'll likely make a few of those down the line as well when the weather gets better, since I do the craft-y stuff out in the shed.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/09 16:37:38


Post by: Jerp


The ogryn is looking good, as are the craters.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/21 08:16:33


Post by: Azazelx


A couple of weeks ago , I bought a bunch of Bolt Action kits from Warlord. After checking out the T-34s, I noticed that the kit wasn't especially complex, and so perfectly suitable to start and actually finish as well, since I've got a habit of ..not finishing everything I start. When my DeadZone stuff arrived this week and I found that they missed the additional rulebooks and a few other things, I had a bit of a rage for a bit, and then decided to start assembling the tanks to get my mind off it. I thought I took some photos, but this is where I'm up to at this point:



Basically, all assembled excepting the final assembly of the two halves of the hull, and the turret will just pop on. I'd have magnetised it, but I didn't think of that until after I'd assembled the two turret halves, so...

The tanks have been sprayed with PSC Russian Armour, airbrushes with a 50:50 mix of VMA Russian Green and Camo Light Green, followed by a 70:30 mix. My airbrush skills are awful still, or maybe its the cheap POS airbrush I have. Either way, the results are far from impressive. Once that was done, a 50:50 mix of VMC Russian Uniform and Army Painter Camo Green for a final-ish highlight. Next will be some sandy/buff colours for weathering. Tracks got a coat of Vallejo Panzer Aces Track Primer with a drybrush of VMA steel over the top.

I still need to hit the whole thing with PSC weathering spray and have a play with weathering powders and the like. Add some decals and then finish them. Hopefully next update!



The other thing I've been doing today was opened up a care package from a mate. Quite a lot of loot in there, along with something I totally was not expecting - ghosts!



The ghosts were mounted three each to several goblin green-painted 40mm square bases. I pried them off immediately, and after a bit of faffing about, decided to mount them on some Back to Base-ix resin "ruins" bases I bought years ago. I felt they raised the Marine figures up too high from the "ground" and so never used them for the original intent, but they work perfectly with these undead. The weight of the resin also stops some of the more lop-sided members of the gang from toppling over.



After mounting them, I took them outside the hit them with some Rustoleum Heirloom White. You can't really see it here, but it's a slightly off-white with a slight touch of coffee brown to it. Better for projects like this than pure white. I mixed up a suitably-ethereal coloured paint wash using a mix of Citadel's Lahmian Medium and Gauss Blaster Green. Stupid names, yes, but the paint being fit for purpose is all I care about.



They're outside now. I was going to start on the bases right after I did this, but decided to seal them with gloss varnish, since it was a bright warm sunny day - so wanted to take full advantage of that. That stuff dries much much faster in the sun. This way I can work on them tonight, and maybe even finish them off. It'll just be the bases and some touch-up work - then a coat of matt. Also hoping to have those T-34s finished tomorrow, or perhaps the following day...

...then I can get back to the grind of my other half-finished projects. Gondor, ahoy!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/21 08:47:09


Post by: Paradigm


Great idea, should come out nicely! The T-34s should be good too. How far did you get on your other tank project?


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/21 08:55:53


Post by: Yonan


Tanks are coming along nicely! I started on my T-34s for the same reason haha.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/21 08:59:40


Post by: Azazelx


 Paradigm wrote:
Great idea, should come out nicely! The T-34s should be good too. How far did you get on your other tank project?


I've got 4 T-80's partially assembled, and then I stalled. Being "proper" model kits, there's a lot more fething about to assemble them, but I plan to build some more of those as well in the next week or so. Also waiting on stuff like the MA terrain, and the SWM ground tiles, so we'll call that project a slow burn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Yonan wrote:
Tanks are coming along nicely! I started on my T-34s for the same reason haha.


Yeah. Just need to add some colour to the road wheels and then I'll get weathering. If not tonight, then tomorrow. Or the day after. Or the day after that.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/21 13:25:06


Post by: GrimDork


Looking good. That's a lot of ghosts.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/22 01:54:26


Post by: Azazelx


Almost done. Just need to have the last paint wash dry, rim the bases, spray matt and then add some flock or maybe little teeny tufts.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/22 12:00:22


Post by: angelofvengeance


Still can't get over how much more badass the new spirit hosts look when compared to these lol.



Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/22 12:06:06


Post by: GrimDork


New one is cool but I think I almost prefer the aesthetic of the old. I mean the new one is nicer overall, but it's almost too dynamic for me. Kind of like the implacable slowly advancing unrelenting undead horde.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/22 13:33:16


Post by: Azazelx


I do like the look of the new ones, but these ones were free, painted in a day (they're finished now - photos on Wed, hopefully), won't snap off their bases if you look at them funny, and are a lot more versatile - at least when based individually.

I just can't see those new ones passing muster in a Pulp Alley/7TV scenario game of Scooby-Doo using the Hasslefree figures - can you? (and yes, I'm half serious there)


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/22 13:36:04


Post by: angelofvengeance


 Azazelx wrote:
I do like the look of the new ones, but these ones were free, painted in a day (they're finished now - photos on Wed, hopefully), won't snap off their bases if you look at them funny, and are a lot more versatile - at least when based individually.

I just can't see those new ones passing muster in a Pulp Alley/7TV scenario game of Scooby-Doo using the Hasslefree figures - can you? (and yes, I'm half serious there)


Free? 'Nuff said then haha!
Not had any experience with the Hasslefree stuff tbh.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/22 13:47:53


Post by: Azazelx


This is what I'm talkin' 'bout, Willis.

[url=http://www.hfminis.co.uk/shop?product=gang-and-dog~hfn016&category=miniatures~modern-non%252dcoms-%2F-civilians]
[/url]

[url=http://www.hfminis.co.uk/shop?product=post%252dapoc-gang~hfa093&category=miniatures~modern-adventurers]
[/url]

When I was working on them, I noticed that they looked a lot better/more impressive spread out more than how they'll be when I'll use them in a unit for KoW. I then started thinking about alternative uses for them - stuff like Pathfinder, but also for stuff in scenario based games - especially those based on TV shows like Supernatural, and then even Scooby-Doo. (and yes, I own the Scoob figs - though they're still unpainted...)


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/22 17:28:08


Post by: GrimDork


Those are pretty awesome. Especially the weaponized version.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/22 22:46:44


Post by: Azazelx


I could see designing a scenario that starts off like a typical Scooby-Doo adventure, and once "the gang"'s players makes it to the safehouse, taking their figures away and replacing them with the second set, and turning it into a L4D apocalypse scenario...


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/23 00:55:49


Post by: GrimDork


Too bad you live ridiculously far away in a den of horribly deadly native beasties.... I would totally play that game


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/23 07:25:48


Post by: angelofvengeance


 GrimDork wrote:
Too bad you live ridiculously far away in a den of horribly deadly native beasties.... I would totally play that game


Lol that's rich coming from you Grim, I seem to recall the U.S. having a fair number of horribly deadly native beasts... Not quite so much as Oz but still plenty to go at lol


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/23 09:19:31


Post by: Azazelx


Here they are! - Citadel Spirit Hosts - Based as a unit of Wraiths for Kings of War. As stated last time, it's a quick and simple job, but it's effective enough and they look good on the table.



So it seems that these figures are properly called "Spirit Hosts", and appear to date from 2000 when GW split the undead army into "Wet" (Vampire Counts) and "Dry" (Tomb Kings), as that's the first reference I can find to them over at Stuff of Legends. They usually mount three to a 40mm base, but I'm using them for Kings of War, so individual 25mm round bases does it for me to turn them into a regiment of Wraiths, and easily used as Individuals for skirmish games.



From the last post where I talked about the paint process, I simply painted the bases (base, drybrush, wash, weathering powders) and added a thinned down Citadel Sybarite Green paint wash to the eyes, nostrils, mouths, and around the belts and necks/hair of the individual ghosts to emphasis those parts slightly. And of course, a nice matt varnish to finish them off. - And yes, that is a spot of weathering powder on that front guy in the photo. Sorted now! Some might be critical that I'm using what now seems to be the "official GW palette" for ethereal models, but I liked the effect when they were used on the Army of the Dead figures more than a decade ago, and to me the look really is suitable for undead, and looks better than the "dirty sheet" look that was used before.

While I was photographing these guys, I thought I'd also take a pic of my Citadel Lord of the Rings Barrow-Wights. These two (and their third - a former Army of the Dead figure) are used both as actual Barrow-Wights in LotR SBG, and also as a troop of Wights (surprise!) in Marouda's Kings of War Undead army. Well, she hasn't used them yet, but soon.



Citadel LotR Barrow-Wights
I've shown these on the wordpress blog before, but that was some time ago, and the pictures there aren't exactly the best, so why not show them again in a slightly better light? Why not indeed.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/23 09:30:41


Post by: Yonan


No problems for using that palette for the undead. Sybarite green hey, I thought it looked a bit like Vallejo verdigris but it definitely works for that ethereal feel. I didn't see the "dirty sheet" look but from the sounds, yeah this is much better. It does look like it was a quick job but it doesn't look like a bad job so win-win ; )

Those barrow wights are great, I love the contrast in blue-green cloth and dark/rusty metallic armour and leathery skin.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/23 09:40:11


Post by: Paradigm


Love those Barrow Wights and Army of the Dead minis, very nicely done!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/23 09:43:04


Post by: Azazelx


Yeah. There's really not a lot to these spirit hosts, so as long as they look good passing the "three feet test", then it's all good. (and they do - I checked - for science).

With the Barrow-Wights I was trying for a similar ethereal feel with the cloth, but with mummified corpses clad in the armour they once wore with the steel they once wielded. They're also much darker than the AotD figures (which I'll show later) to make them stand out a little.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/23 10:25:07


Post by: angelofvengeance


Those Spirit Hosts look loads better Nice job

Liking the Barrow Wights too. Looking suitably undead and ghastly


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/23 11:38:45


Post by: GrimDork


Both units are quite awesome I like the way you've based your spirit hosts, I'm looking to do something similar (individuals plunked into a tray) for my Bones orcs/goblins/etc.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/24 00:56:31


Post by: Azazelx


Yeah, works for me, saves some figures - regiments are usually 20, these are 12, but still look good - and gives a lot more cross-game flexibility.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A bit of a WIP update on the T-34s that I started assembling just the other day. I included them in the update a few days ago - partly to keep me motivated. At the time, my plans to finish them were "I still need to hit the whole thing with PSC weathering spray and have a play with weathering powders and the like. Add some decals and then finish them." As it tuened out, it was a bit more complicated. I decided to forego the PSC weathering spray on these (I'll still use it when I get around to my 15mm stuff) and instead pretty much spent the entire day today working on these. AP washes, multiple weathering powder washes, oil washes, pin washes, foam weathering, more weathering powders, Tamiya Weathering Master kits, Decals, Micro Sol, some freehand and some touching up. And in all kinds of order.

Hopefully I'll get the final bits finished tonight or tomorrow, and take some better quality photos with a nice background and such - but in the meantime, here's some WIP shots showing the progression. Enough words - have some pictures!







Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/25 12:24:20


Post by: Azazelx


Over the years, I've accumulated a lot of stuff. Amongst that stuff has been some Rackham Confrontation starter sets from the prepaint plastics days. Griffins vs. Wolfen. While I've not done much with the Wolfen to date, the Griffins have recently been multibased on cardboard for Kings of War, and I've done a bit of work on the terrain. Since I've got more than one of these Hill Ruins, I decided to paint them in different ways. The temperate climate hill is still being worked on, but I finished the desert scheme hill, and so here it is!







I've been using weathering powders a lot more on things recently, and I found them to be a bit of a double-edged sword on this piece of terrain. I thought it looked great without the powders, and it lost a fair bit of the distinct looks of the stone slabs when I added them, but I felt that the realism of the sand gathered between the stones made it worthwhile. Added some grass tufts around, just enough to make it look a bit more "real" but not so many as to hinder gaming on the piece, which after all is the whole point of the thing. As I keep saying, I do quite like terrain that can work well across a variety of games, and this one is characterful enough that it works for pretty much anything - though the dragon might be a little out of place in the Libyan desert of WW2, it might still pass if we squint a little.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/25 12:50:00


Post by: Yonan


Damn you've done some good work on those T-34s!


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/25 18:54:37


Post by: GiraffeX


That hill looks really good, I like the weathering powder makes it feel more real as you say.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/25 21:28:01


Post by: GrimDork


Something about the decals/lettering just makes those older model tanks look much better.

The hill is nice, I think the weathering stuff is superior overall. If you want to use the hill in a historical/contemporary setting, just put a slab over the top, shouldn't be too hard to find some rocks or what have you.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/26 02:41:04


Post by: Archer


I have been trapped in the Nations capital for work for the last week and you have been soooo busy. The spirit hosts look fantastic and I LOVE the idea of a Scooby Do scenario that ends up all weaponized.

Keep the work coming love the updates.


Azazelx's P&M Blog. Latest: Photodump 17th September '22 @ 2014/09/26 05:32:43


Post by: Azazelx


Thanks guys. Have been busy trying to clean up for the last two days. Almost finished the T-34s now - just need to finish the commander and then give them a nice matt spray to protect them.