Welcome to my current hobby blog. I've been recording my antics here on dakka since 2009, and on the one blog since early 2010. However, at nearly 400 pages the previous blog had become rather unwieldy, and very prone to the dreaded rollover (disappearing posts at the top of new pages). You can find it over here:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/300224.page

A bit about me. I am dad of 3, hobby blogger over at bigcomicpage.com and instagram as @big_geekingout , a Media (and occasionally English) teacher and lifelong nerd. I play and paint all sorts of games, but I lean towards comic IPs, mini-board hybrids, quirky fantasy skirmish and small scale sci-fi, mostly (Papa bless ). I am an enthusiastic, productive if not terribly capable painter; I also enjoy building terrain and indoctrinating my children since the demise of regular gaming in times of Covid.
For the last few years I've tried to average a mini day. With 424 in 2023, this year I'm looking at working on Carnevale, Shadows of Brimstone and Star Wars: Shatterpoint. I am, however, a creature of whimsy.

2024 Painted model tally: 348
January - 22
February - 55
March - 24
April - 19
May - 85
June - 24
July - 23
August - 26
September - 43
October - 15
November - 14
December -


The current iteration of the blog stems from 2021...


So what's going on chez graven?
Well, it's Orktober so it's got to be a greenskin, right ?!

MCP is featuring heavily just now, and The Lizard was my favourite spider-man foe as a kid.

I've always liked characters who do the wrong thing for the "right" reason (vid. Lando)

The sculpt is so dynamic it's crazy.

Plus he's a solid addition to a lot of teams, an excellent fairly low-cost big bruiser.

Hope you like what you see, and stay tuned for more!
Till next time, true believers
Graven

Nice work on the LIzard. The slime on the manhole cover.

Lizard looking great, the base as much as the mini. Brilliant sculpt, done justice.

Looking forward to further continued Graveny antics here!

I have also now migrated to your new thread

JoshInJapan wrote:Nice work on the LIzard. The slime on the manhole cover.

Thanks! I did try to get that down, so pleased that it was noticed.

Paradigm wrote:Lizard looking great, the base as much as the mini. Brilliant sculpt, done justice.
Looking forward to further continued Graveny antics here!

Definitely antics. Perhaps also shenanigans. Thanks chum.

Slinky wrote:I have also now migrated to your new thread

Welcome dude once more!

My old blog seems to have broken dakka, though the mighty legoburner is on it. How privileged do I feel?! actually there's that total fear when you see one of the bigwigs commenting on your blog...

Continuing to work through the Web Warriors, we have the legend that is ...
The Amazing Spider-Man!

Lots of layers of red over black to keep the suit lines defined. Not fun.

Experimenting with super white highlights, inspired by some amazing eldar Harlequins by Hendarion on Instagram (check them out if you're on insta, top-notch stuff).

I added the barrel to base just to give the model some visual balance. I'll likely do something similar with Daredevil, Bullseye and/or Kingpin.

Nevertheless, I like the gravity defying sculpt, it's really succesful/

And as we are swinging through the multiverse, you meet all sorts of Spider-Men!

The spectacular Spider-Man swings into action!

I'm liking these explosions. Fun to do.

I should, really, have done the DP in red but I think the "gold" works ok.

Black Cat and Ghost Spider next, but I'm also starting to build up the Deadzone - 2 big Nightmares built yesterday (which apart from no obvious indication of which feet went with which legs, were not really a nightmare to build), 10 little space clan rats and giant clawed resin Hero to do.
On we go!
Graven

Marvel-ous stuff. Curt and the Peters look awesome. Especially the more dioramic Spider.

Hope your old blog can be fixed but glad to see you're still here!

Another blog to subscribe to .

Well you at least kicked it off with an Amazing Lizard-man

Found you. Brilliant as always.

Found you! Great start on the new thread, Lizard and multi verse Spider men!

Ah this is where the rollover went

Nice work on the spider-men and Dr Connors

Subbed.

youwashock wrote:Marvel-ous stuff. Curt and the Peters look awesome. Especially the more dioramic Spider.

Thanks amigo. The dynamic, dioramic basing is a great ybing

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Hope your old blog can be fixed but glad to see you're still here!

Cheers mate. Yeah, well, bit sad I didn't catch up to Gitsplitta, but it's not the end of the world

Theophony wrote: Another blog to subscribe to .
Well you at least kicked it off with an Amazing Lizard-man

Sucker Spread the love, tell your friends good to see you here buddy

Camkierhi wrote:Found you. Brilliant as always.

Many thanks old son. You're too kind.

endtransmission wrote:Ah this is where the rollover went
Nice work on the spider-men and Dr Connors

Yeah, I'm like a bad penny, you can't get rid of me.

Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:Subbed.

Ta
Last night the elder spawn and I resolved to play some Deadzone, as we're both missing gaming, which had been such a regular fixture of lockdowns. Middle spawn has started doing basketball with his bestie, run by his dad, so once little spawn had gone to bed we decided to try out Deadzone 3rd edition.

He'd read the rules, but I deliberately hadn't so he'd be forced to teach me. In just over an hour we had desprued and built 6 minis+terrain AND played the intro scenario twice.

It's fair to say we had fun.

Yeah, I'm pretty sold tbh.

Head is a bit of a mess. Not in a great place, not sure why. But I'll bounce back, no doubt.

Hey ho
Graven

Cool to see Deadzone is still going strong, I remember getting the original big box and expansions and really enjoying what little I did manage to play. And I assume it comes with much nicer minis than that first edition too!

I love that you started off with The Lizard. He was my favorite Spidey foe as well! Great work on the water gushing up out of the sewer.

Paradigm wrote:Cool to see Deadzone is still going strong, I remember getting the original big box and expansions and really enjoying what little I did manage to play. And I assume it comes with much nicer minis than that first edition too!

Yeah, they're super crisp. I didn't enjoy earlier editions much - first was too unbalanced, and second was a mess of special rules - but 3rd is really streamlined.

Gitsplitta wrote:I love that you started off with The Lizard. He was my favorite Spidey foe as well! Great work on the water gushing up out of the sewer.

Thanks old chap and lovely to see you here! The water was really enjoyable to do, Vallejo Cayman green, nightshade and white blends, plus a little Nurgle's rot for slime.


Continuing to trudge through the Web Warriors, I finally get one that I can use for Crime Syndicate... Black Cat!

Ridiculous model.

Genius pose, impossible to photograph

Also, annoyingly gappy. Lot of gs work here.

In the comics, and cartoon, I really disliked her for a long time a cheap, cheesecake Catwoman knock off.

However, I really loved Mark Waid's take on her - within the context of Daredevil, she's a much more nuanced character. So as you can imagine, Matt Murdock is on the to-do list also.

In the end, I think she turned out ok
Next up, Ghost Spider, the amazing Spider-Gwen!
Graven

The pose on her is fantastic. Imagine if GW were to try to do something similar .

Nice highlighting of the black on her outfit too.

Hi, Felicia.

Ambitious mini, sculpt-wise. Still not sure it works. Paint looks good. Digging the highlights.

Great work on the black bodysuit. That couldn't have been easy.

Dang thats a ridiculous pose perfect for super heroes although it just begs for a just shoot her scene.

That might just be the most bizarrely posed miniature I've ever seen! I get what they're going for, but it doesn't really work for me at all. Can't knock the paintwork though, nice levels of contrast on both the suit and face!

Whereabouts did she show up in Daredevil? I never really got her as a Spidey character, she always seemed a bit too sudden with her endless hero-villain-antihero-whatever turns to really be genuinely compelling, but DD runs do tend to afford a bit more nuance to that sort of thing, might have to track it down now I have Marvel Unlimited, see if it can change my mind...

Theophony wrote:The pose on her is fantastic. Imagine if GW were to try to do something similar .
Nice highlighting of the black on her outfit too.

The nearest would be assassins or witch elves. But the balance points on these are bonkers.

youwashock wrote:Hi, Felicia.
Ambitious mini, sculpt-wise. Still not sure it works. Paint looks good. Digging the highlights.

Lol I know exactly what you mean. Thanks amigo.

Gitsplitta wrote:Great work on the black bodysuit. That couldn't have been easy.

Yeah, not much fun Much obliged.

Paradigm wrote:That might just be the most bizarrely posed miniature I've ever seen! I get what they're going for, but it doesn't really work for me at all. Can't knock the paintwork though, nice levels of contrast on both the suit and face!
Whereabouts did she show up in Daredevil? I never really got her as a Spidey character, she always seemed a bit too sudden with her endless hero-villain-antihero-whatever turns to really be genuinely compelling, but DD runs do tend to afford a bit more nuance to that sort of thing, might have to track it down now I have Marvel Unlimited, see if it can change my mind...

Yeah it's certainly... Interesting. Mark Waid's 2012 Daredevil run iirc. Thanks for comments about face, that's definitely where I'm trying to raise my game.

Continuing with the webheads and black theme, it's the Amazing Spider... Gwen!

Aka, Ghost Spider.

The sleeves were a nightmare.

More gap filling, too.

But in the end, pretty content. Had quite an enjoyable time rummaging through my stls finding more Marvel stuff. Keen to print once more. Speaking of which, I've been looking for skaven stls so I can make some more Veer-Myn, though I might be better trying to just find a grab bag of bits on eBay. Kids are loving Deadzone, texted me pics of their game whilst I was at work today. Wee buggers
Graven

Newspaper base is ace

Gwen did NOT look fun to paint

Nice work on SG/GS. Web pattern really turned out nice. Like the reflection of her teal crocs on her backside.

I was out of comics before spider gwen, but she looks great.

There was just a kickstarter for a kings of war type rat army not too long ago, probably on page 1 or two of the News and Rumors thread.

Found the late backer on myminifactory.com $55.00
https://www.myminifactory.com/campaigns/ravenous-hordes-385

Oops, never mind.

That's what I get for doing this at 1 am.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Oops, never mind.

That's what I get for doing this at 1 am.

So i guess it’s safe to post in here again .

The Marvel stuff is looking great!
Can't have been easy getting those web patterns done on the various Spider-people.

Stevefamine wrote:Newspaper base is ace
Gwen did NOT look fun to paint

Thanks mate, it's the cover of the trade of Spider Planet shrunk tiny. No, indeed she was not.

youwashock wrote:Nice work on SG/GS. Web pattern really turned out nice. Like the reflection of her teal crocs on her backside.

Dude, means so much that you spotted that! I thought no-one would notice but it tickled me to do it.

Theophony wrote:I was out of comics before spider gwen, but she looks great.
There was just a kickstarter for a kings of war type rat army not too long ago, probably on page 1 or two of the News and Rumors thread.
Found the late backer on myminifactory.com $55.00
https://www.myminifactory.com/campaigns/ravenous-hordes-385

Well, I am notoriously tight fisted I have actually tracked down some decent STLs I think on thingiverse.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Oops, never mind.
That's what I get for doing this at 1 am.

Easily done mate lol much obliged.

Theophony wrote:
So i guess it’s safe to post in here again .

Well insofar as it ever is

aku-chan wrote:The Marvel stuff is looking great!
Can't have been easy getting those web patterns done on the various Spider-people.

Thanks mate they were indeed a pain :/

Took a wee breather from Marvel to get on with Moonstone

Swiggarty Swooty! Another goblin pirate to add to the horde!

He is such a fun sculpt.

Arrrrrrr.

Well, it IS Orktober after all

And as it is greenskin season, well...

She-Hulk

I am very excited for the TV show, has the potential to be a lot of fun.

Another lovely sculpt from Atomic Mass

I'm really looking forward to have her hit the table too, especially as she's so disappointing in Marvel Champions

I have also done the skin on some other goblins also, and spent a chunk of today building GCPS Marines and Veer-Myn with the kids so we're all set for Deadzone. Just trying to enjoy the week off, having spent a full-on weekend tackling the jungle of my father in law's garden.
Want to try to get a game or some more painting in, fairly busy week ahead though. My folks tomorrow, more to be done at herself's dad's Wednesday, Shang-Chi (finally!) on Thursday and nephew's birthday Friday ah, family
Graven

Shulk was ok-ish in Champions...

But, minis are where it's at. She looks cool. Great muscles.

Enjoy Shang-Chi. I found it quite entertaining.

Both of those are great, but I especially love the goblin pirate!

Enjoy Shang-Chi, I thought it was an excellent movie

Nice rust on She-Hulk's girder

And that goblin pirate is arrrr-some.

youwashock wrote:Shulk was ok-ish in Champions...

But, minis are where it's at. She looks cool. Great muscles.

Enjoy Shang-Chi. I found it quite entertaining.

4 card hand size is brutally restrictive. It's bearable in multiplayer but horrendous in solo. Thor and Drax at least have draw mechanics so can offset it but she and Hulk really struggle to get going, in my experience.

Thanks, I enjoyed doing her. She was my first must-purchase when I got the game. Crazy expensive in game but really good.

I really enjoyed the movie, yeah. But then it was never going to be as bad as Croods 2...

Slinky wrote:Nice rust on She-Hulk's girder
And that goblin pirate is arrrr-some.

Cheers on both counts. Excellent punning too

So been busy this week clearing years of crud out of my father in law's garden, an utterly thankless task, but there were are. Little miss has been rather unwell also, just a rotten bug but not much fun for the small person. That's not left much time for hobby, though the boys are steadily playing more Deadzone by themselves, which is definitely to be encouraged. I did manage to have a little bit of hobby time with my girl though, she loves Wandavision so she painted pictures and I... Did this!

Love how the sculpt seems to defy gravity.

Got to love some Cape work

Hopefully the magic effect doesn't look like toothpaste.


And a couple of other projects on the go. I don't often post wips but this is a big job. Really big.

The demon that is Aku...ma. The tiger pelts are going to kill me. The Odo Kuro, bone giant, arrived today so I really should crack on. I am slightly frustrated at my hobby ADHD atm but it's the gamer's curse, I guess.

And down the bottom is the WIP of the next Goblin

Goblin king in his mighty chicken hat.

It does irk me slightly that I've not got to play anything with the boys, particularly as my father in law is an absolute miserable ingrate. Still, he's aged about 20 years in the course of lockdown so I can't be too harsh on him. Ah well

Graven

Wanda looks great! Love the darker red cape.

Nice job on Wanda, looking forward to seeing that big guy all done.

Wanda looks fab, it really does look like she’s floating. That Oni-Demon is one monstrous model, really like how the skin is turning out.

Nice and shiny new plog I really like your Spider-Man, but do not like your comment, that that it's hard to keep the black lines, because I have mine primed on my desk

Spider-Gwen is my favorite of the new bunch, her costume is so cool and you've done a great job getting the colors right.

Paradigm wrote:Wanda looks great! Love the darker red cape.

Thanks mate, joy of blue shading

aku-chan wrote:Nice job on Wanda, looking forward to seeing that big guy all done.

Thanks, and, me too lol.

Yorkright wrote:Wanda looks fab, it really does look like she’s floating. That Oni-Demon is one monstrous model, really like how the skin is turning out.

Thanks man, very pleased with her He's a beast indeed; the skin is just the logical evolution of my Hellboy skin (which I also used for the smaller Oni).

Viterbi wrote:Nice and shiny new plog I really like your Spider-Man, but do not like your comment, that that it's hard to keep the black lines, because I have mine primed on my desk

Spider-Gwen is my favorite of the new bunch, her costume is so cool and you've done a great job getting the colors right.

you are a funny man. Much obliged!

I reckon Akuma, the Oni Warlord is done

The tiger pelts were the death of me.

Still raging at how gappy he was. So much GS work.

Because he enslaves people to work in his mines, I've made him a more Old West base (his scenarios use Shadows tiles rather than FoFo)

Obligatory scale shot. He'll do.
Wet weekend days are also made for Marvel Champions LCG , cleaning resin off your deadzone miniatures (#deadzoneislife) cinema (Bond!) and a spot of baking (double choc cookies, blueberry muffins, and beef& mushroom pie). Good times
(And don't worry, there were plenty of arguments and bickering and real life moments too, in case you think this sounds like a heartwarming American sitcom )

This time we tried the Wrecking Crew scenario pack with Venom (justice), Thor (aggression) and Dr Strange (protection), slightly tweaked from their stock hero packs just to run a bit smoother. I'm always very negative on 4-card hand heroes but Thor has lots of draw/untap shenanigans with 0 cost cards, so I wanted to give him a fair shot. It's a very challenging pack, up there with Kang, Ultron and Arnim Zola as a really good, tough play experience.
My only negative is that you don't play with any obligations or the nemesis card - they could realistically be shuffled at random into the encounter decks (or at least obligations could be) - but I do like that it's totally self contained as an expansion. As for the heroes, all 3 are interesting, a good fit together; Thor is a bit ploddy (I don't really like aggression decks, as they often lack finesse) but enjoyable months. We're going to try the 3 against Green Goblin next. I want to try Nebula though as she is aggression with all sorts of strange deck manipulation (card draw is king!)
Built Deadpool, Bob and the taco truck last night, so more marvel to come!
Graven

Loving the giant oni - Only suggestion would be to go round his base rim with another coat of black to neaten up the brown

Love the Oni! Great job on him.

Excellent work on the Oni graven, you nailed him... and the tiger pelts too! Well worth the effort.

Nice Oni , Poor people in the big cage , I wouldn't be sticking my arm out as it's a big drop down. Play dead, maybe he will just eat you and end your suffering .

The Oni looks fantastic! Love the tiger skins

Hopefully the magic effect doesn't look like toothpaste.

It didn't... but now yeah, thanks for that. Haha.

Akuma looks great! The tiger pelt detail is excellent and adds so much to the model where less pattern would have gone unnoticed. Well done (as always).

All worried about the Tiger Pelt and you just nailed it. Now try something hard.

Slinky wrote:Loving the giant oni - Only suggestion would be to go round his base rim with another coat of black to neaten up the brown

Fair point, believe it or not that's deliberate as I tend to have the mines extending over the rim.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Love the Oni! Great job on him.

Thanks old son.

Gitsplitta wrote:Excellent work on the Oni graven, you nailed him... and the tiger pelts too! Well worth the effort.

You're most kind, I'm really dissatisfied with them, so your words are much appreciated.

Theophony wrote:Nice Oni , Poor people in the big cage , I wouldn't be sticking my arm out as it's a big drop down. Play dead, maybe he will just eat you and end your suffering .

we can hope

endtransmission wrote:The Oni looks fantastic! Love the tiger skins

Okay, okay, clearly they're better than I think!

Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:

Hopefully the magic effect doesn't look like toothpaste.

It didn't... but now yeah, thanks for that. Haha.

Akuma looks great! The tiger pelt detail is excellent and adds so much to the model where less pattern would have gone unnoticed. Well done (as always).

I'm willing to accept that my toothpaste magic is a thing

Solar_lion wrote:All worried about the Tiger Pelt and you just nailed it. Now try something hard.

So, busy real life, but on with more stuff here and there. Had an excellent game of Deadzone in our new Tuesday night slot duty with the elder spawn, close fought but he bested my space rats with his elven mecha. Great fun. He's also starting to make a name for himself online, getting to be on Hasbro's live panel covering Pulsecon Uk which is pretty awesome.

On with more minis and it's October... Doc Ocktober!

I added the barrel, because he mostly throws stuff.

I am really enjoying taking my time with the Marvel stuff, and do think it's generally paying off.

Check out that sneer.

And continuing with weathering stuff, I figured out what to do with my next piece of moonstone scatter:

I like the idea of contrasting rust and verdigris

So that's me, for now. Slightly overwhelmed by the scale of the shelf of shame... but that's normal, I suppose
Graven

You make us look bad by only having A shelf of Shame . I have a basement, part of a garage and spaces I have yet to name of shame .

Doc Ock looks great. I like the drab ochre you used--it's close enough to the yellow of the comics without being quite so garish.

Doc Oc... one of my long-time favorites!

Theophony wrote:You make us look bad by only having A shelf of Shame . I have a basement, part of a garage and spaces I have yet to name of shame .

Thanks for that, that makes me feel better lol

JoshInJapan wrote:Doc Ock looks great. I like the drab ochre you used--it's close enough to the yellow of the comics without being quite so garish.

Thanks mate, that was exactly my intent!

Gitsplitta wrote:Doc Oc... one of my long-time favorites!

Oh totally. He's no Lizard, but he's still an absolute legend.

A mixed bag of stuff this weekend. We took on Green Goblin in Champions, it didn't feel too hard yet we were all almost dead by the end of it. I think that speaks really well of it, and it's an interesting expansion as it gives the rest of the sinister 6 as enemies for any game. Next time, goblins everywhere!
As for completed painting, a set of Acid Worms for Belly of the Beast (FoFo)

I really wanted to have them looking maggoty, as they burst through the beast's intestinal tract to attack players. Disgusting

In other hobby news, middle spawn started his GCPS Marines with a layer of heavy dark green, and I began work on a cement truck in the red and white livery seen in Thor The Dark World, whilst little miss started painting a fellowship Rizzo (from the lovely endtransmission). I also built up more Veer-Myn, and broke out my printer again. It's been 4 months, so I started with some fun stuff for the kids, prepping for Hallowe'en.

Great to be printing again, so decided to go for something more substantial too.

I really don't like the MCP sculpt for hulk, so scaled down a statuette, found a base which I nudged up a smidge to get to 65mm and found a nice girder to add to it. I needed to repair a finger with gs but that was my shoddy clipper work. Whilst he may not be perfect, I look at it as £35 saved. I have a whole bunch of MCP villains to do too, and some interesting 40k skaven bits to bulk out my Veer-Myn.
On we go. Heads a bit messy but doing ok. Ah well... There's always toys
Graven

Hulk print with custom base looks great .

Love the little ghost .

Printing is so addictive .

Nice print - And you nailed the maggoty look, quite put me off my breakfast

Doc Ock looks like he's a barrel of laughs, for sure.

That little ghost looks cool, as does the printed Hulk - are you missing any card components for him by not getting the box? I'll be honest, the price of MCP is definitely putting me off picking anything up, the cost per model seems nuts.

Hulk looks SMASHing!

Love those worms man. Truly disgusting!

Theophony wrote:Hulk print with custom base looks great .
Love the little ghost .
Printing is so addictive .

Thanks man. I wonder whether I need more smashy bits. It's great printing again though. The wee ghostie is a great print, easy to do and beautifully designed.

Slinky wrote:Nice print - And you nailed the maggoty look, quite put me off my breakfast

Huzzah!

Dysartes wrote:Doc Ock looks like he's a barrel of laughs, for sure.
That little ghost looks cool, as does the printed Hulk - are you missing any card components for him by not getting the box? I'll be honest, the price of MCP is definitely putting me off picking anything up, the cost per model seems nuts.

I see what you did there well, his gamma blast is good but not essential and all the cards are freely available online and via the app on Acrossthebifrost . The game is certainly prohibitively expensive, I'm lucky that I get some stuff free to review but even then I've just printed Toad, Sabretooth and Winter Soldier today (well, and Venom, but one of his legs collapsed).

Paradigm wrote:Hulk looks SMASHing!

I wondered about more rubble flying actually. I'll see how I feel about him once primed.

Gitsplitta wrote:Love those worms man. Truly disgusting!

Thanks buddy, getting into the Hallowe'en spirit. More seasonal fayre to follow later in the week.
Not masses more done (gardening, juggling kids, catching up with erithromycin) but, a bit of terrain to be going on with.

Bonus points and internet cookies for the guessing the references.

And the return of the inception walls! Why not eh? I am debating making a crazy base for Dr Strange along these lines.

It's a recycled kid's toy that I've been saving your years. Got a recycling truck to do as well. Recycle, recycle...
As mentioned, this week is going to be very Hallowe'en themed... In theory. COP26 is going to destroy traffic for the next 3 weeks so don't know if I'll have time to do anything. I have some more Belly beasties to do that will make the others look like grubs.
Till then
Graven

Nice job on the horrible worms!

Plus, nice truck, I love how you do windscreens.

Who knew Umbrella did cement?

From Holloween worms to Christmas Peppermints, you really are in a Holiday mood .

Nice work on the cement mixer. You even mentioned in a previous post where you got the idea for the red and white and now I can't find it ...no cookies for me....

Classic Doc Ock... did they ever do a Movie version of him? By far my favorite SM villain.

Your worms are disgustingly good would not like finding one of those in an apple.
Doc Oc also one of my favorite Spidey villains, good call on him holding the trash can.
Cute ghost, letting the kiddos paint that up? You always have so many projects going at once how can you have shelf of shame? Minis don’t have a chance to stay grey. Keep up the great work.

 Solar_lion wrote:
Classic Doc Ock... did they ever do a Movie version of him? By far my favorite SM villain.

Alfred Molina, in the Maguire Spiderman 2 - and due to reappear in the upcoming No Way Home, if I remember correctly.

Definitely up there in the running for best cinematic Spiderman villain, I'd say.

aku-chan wrote:Nice job on the horrible worms!
Plus, nice truck, I love how you do windscreens.

Cheers on both counts old fruit. My windscreens are very easy, truly. Vj ultramarine and a zigzag of white wet blended across, basically.

Dysartes wrote:Who knew Umbrella did cement?

Lol I suppose it does have a Resident Evil vibe, which certainly fits Hallowe'en. But, not quite. It's a very specific MCU reference; the number plate is the clue.

Theophony wrote:From Holloween worms to Christmas Peppermints, you really are in a Holiday mood .
Nice work on the cement mixer. You even mentioned in a previous post where you got the idea for the red and white and now I can't find it ...no cookies for me....

Ah well. The licence plate is TDW-2013, if that helps.

Solar_lion wrote:Classic Doc Ock... did they ever do a Movie version of him? By far my favorite SM villain.

They only have the comic license, however, the display version of him coming out later in the year is very Raimi movie.

Dysartes wrote:
Alfred Molina, in the Maguire Spiderman 2 - and due to reappear in the upcoming No Way Home, if I remember correctly.
Definitely up there in the running for best cinematic Spiderman villain, I'd say.

Absolutely. And whilst I enjoyed Mysterio, I think Far From Home is a bit disappointing. Spiderverse, now there's a movie...

So as it is the season, how about a big old monster?

Odo Kuro, bone giant yokai.

The gashadokuro is a great, legendary beast of myth formed from the corpses of battlefield dead.

It's ridiculously big even for an XXL and I have no idea where to store it, but that's ok (for now) as little miss wants to use it as a Hallowe'en decoration.

He's vast. That hand will comfortably encompass a 40mm fig.

What else? More worms? Oh go on then.

Skin Crawlers. I had originally planned to paint these in the style of the Demogorgons from stranger things but was so pleased with my maggoty Acid Worms I decided that this is the next evolution.

Sticky

I got a mighty supply drop yesterday also from Asmodee:

This is getting a bit out of control...
Graven

 inmygravenimage wrote:

Theophony wrote:From Holloween worms to Christmas Peppermints, you really are in a Holiday mood .
Nice work on the cement mixer. You even mentioned in a previous post where you got the idea for the red and white and now I can't find it ...no cookies for me....

Ah well. The licence plate is TDW-2013, if that helps.

Thor: The Dark World came out in 2013...

Dysartes wrote:Thor: The Dark World came out in 2013...

Give that man an internet cookie! Indeed it did, with the scene of the Cement Mixer floating in mid-air. Pretty rubbish film, but has a lot of excellent moments.

 inmygravenimage wrote:

Dysartes wrote:Thor: The Dark World came out in 2013...

Give that man an internet cookie! Indeed it did, with the scene of the Cement Mixer floating in mid-air. Pretty rubbish film, but has a lot of excellent moments.

Ah, I tried to forget that film. I'm sure lady Sif also is trying to forget it as she got hurt bad in it. I think it shut down production for a bit as a result of the accident. I think it could have used the time to make it better.

Skin Crawlers look absolutely horrible, but in a good way!

Thanks for sharing

Nailed the Bone Giant. Well done.

Awesome offerings there my friend!

That's a big skelly!

Love the Yokai skeleton monster thing!

Theophony wrote:

Dysartes wrote:Thor: The Dark World came out in 2013...

Ah, I tried to forget that film. I'm sure lady Sif also is trying to forget it as she got hurt bad in it. I think it shut down production for a bit as a result of the accident. I think it could have used the time to make it better.

They really could've. Horrible mess of a movie.

IGtR= wrote:Skin Crawlers look absolutely horrible, but in a good way!
Thanks for sharing

And thanks indeed to your sir!

Solar_lion wrote:Nailed the Bone Giant. Well done.

Cheers mate. It's rare for a model to leapfrog the entire paint queue but I pre-ordered this in June and I had a clear plan for it.

Gitsplitta wrote:Awesome offerings there my friend!

I know your love for spooooooky season.

aku-chan wrote:That's a big skelly!

Ludicrously so

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Love the Yokai skeleton monster thing!

I'm definitely loving my feudal Japanese horror.

Continuing with spooky shenanigans, I decided to do my Chochinobake, possessed lanterns:

They seem very fitting for the time of year.

I may have embraced a more Hallowe'en colour scheme than is strictly accurate but paper lanterns come in many colours, right?

Tuesday night is game night in my house, and it being the elder spawn's turn to choose we went for Crisis Protocol. He was playing Web Warriors - Miles, Gwen, Peter (classic), Rocket, Groot and Lizard - whilst I went for Cabal - Red Skull, Ultron, MODOK, Doc Ock and Black Widow.

I continue to argue that Doc Ock is one of the most underrated characters in the game, he absolutely smashed spiders with scenery. Web Warriors are tough to play, as they're all about planning movements ahead, and whilst the boy tends to be over-cautious, this time the opposite was true as he rushed in head first. Still, he's learning, and no doubt he'll soon best me at all the games

Not many more Hallowe'en horrors to do. But let's see if we can't get those numbers up
Graven

More spooky fun. You can never have enough Skeletons at Hallowe'en, right?

Dishonored Dead for FoFo, undead Samurai. Done in a similar, albeit simplified, scheme to the Fallen Shogun and the rest of the Takobake clan (mutant warriors). Death is no release!

Love the guy at the front here, I think the flooring has worked well. I'm also glad I had an excuse to attack FoFo this week, it means I've turned the corner with the majority of the monsters are now painted - still got 6 Tengu, 13 Takobake and 3 Akaname Tongue Demons to do, but still, real progress.

Talking of monsters with ridiculous tongues... We are Venom!

Ssssssssso gooooooood... printed him on his back, worked really well - right leg didn't collapse this time and 25% bigger than before, so he feels right scale-wise (fractionally shorter than my Hulk) though he'll still need to be mounted on an official base to be usable. I really dislike the official model, it's very static; that being said, I might gs some tendrils to my one's back, as apart from anything else relying on that ankle join is petrifying.

As his chums, Sabretooth, Winter Soldier and Toad: I think the Sabretooth is a little wee but hey, it's base size that matters. Toad is still on some supports as I want him leaping from a wall or something. 2-cost characters are a rare breed in game and though he's very fragile his area control abilities are nuts.. but I'm not willing to pay £45 for him and Magneto (I have no real interest in Mutants of any stripe as factions) - hence the print. Winter Soldier is rubbish in game but my younger lad likes the character. Hurrah indeed for the printer.

Hallowe'en is upon us, anyway, with sugar and sleepovers and suchlike. Cya on the other side
Graven

Undead Samurai look great, very ghosty.

I Was at Miniaturemarket last night and they had 3 boxes of those Worms you just did for less than half price. I almost grabbed them as you made them look great, but I don't play the game, so I left them hopefully for someone else to enjoy. Though now I'm thinking about how I could have used them to do Blight King conversions .

Venom looks like a beast.

Nice undead Samurai - is FoFo a game itself, or an acronym for something?

Venom seems well-fed - maybe the leg that gave way is because it was Agent Venom that time, and Flash is missing the underlying limb...

Theophony wrote:Undead Samurai look great, very ghosty.

I Was at Miniaturemarket last night and they had 3 boxes of those Worms you just did for less than half price. I almost grabbed them as you made them look great, but I don't play the game, so I left them hopefully for someone else to enjoy. Though now I'm thinking about how I could have used them to do Blight King conversions .
Venom looks like a beast.

always buy the shiny toys! Papa bless and keep you! And thanks bro.

Dysartes wrote:Nice undead Samurai - is FoFo a game itself, or an acronym for something?

Venom seems well-fed - maybe the leg that gave way is because it was Agent Venom that time, and Flash is missing the underlying limb...

He's had plenty of chocolate. Or brains...
FoFo is Forbidden Fortress, a feudal Japanese horror co-op dungeon crawler from Flying Frog Productions. It's compatible with Shadows of Brimstone, the Old West game from the same folk. As well as exploring Ancient Castles (or Mines) each core set covers a different Otherworld - FoFo comes with Belly of the Beast, inside a giant alien creature somewhere in space - and all the worlds are connected in time and space (which some of the adventure packs explore).

This weekend has been taken up with Hallowe'en, but we had time to play some DC Deckbuilding (I lost, wonder woman Vs Batman) and Marvel Champions:

Taking on the pumpkin pest himself seemed very fitting. A bit hairy in places but Thor is a minion munching machine - I've never seen his card draw work so efficiently. Great teamed up with Agent Venom and newly-tuned Dr Strange. Next, we're tackling Guardians of the Galaxy and THEN I'm determined to get back to some classic heroes to take on MODOK and the Doomsday Chair, the only base game scenario we've not tried. Once we get Mad Titan, though, we're going to try to do Guardians of the Multiverse against Ultimate Ultron
Graven

Lovely crisp print on Venom!

As always, I don't know where to begin after catching up Love all the MCP stuff and envy your supply drop with all the magical practitioners and especially the Sanctum. I built the apartment building recently and it is a really nice set, Strange's house should be equally fun.

And love that big skeleton, even in the pics it looks positively huge

Slinky wrote:Lovely crisp print on Venom!

Yeah it's a great file and it's scaled up really well too.

Viterbi wrote:As always, I don't know where to begin after catching up Love all the MCP stuff and envy your supply drop with all the magical practitioners and especially the Sanctum. I built the apartment building recently and it is a really nice set, Strange's house should be equally fun.
And love that big skeleton, even in the pics it looks positively huge

Odo Kuro has now invaded the Large Model Shelf alongside Mortarion and the Rancor I've actually asked the wife for the NYC apartment for Xmas, just to keep me busy lol lovely to hear from you again, thanks for kind words. On the supplies front I've also got Dormammu and Moon Knight/ Blade en route so more than enough to distract me a while...

On the subject of Venom, I needed to get him onto a larger Size 3 base for MCP though and decided to add some tentacular action:

He feels much sturdier now. I also primed up Sabretooth, Toad and Winter Soldier.

Annoyed with myself for putting Winter Soldier on his base the "wrong" way round (should've had the gun overlapping the base) but really, really pleased with Toad hanging from the wall.

Ubiquitous scale shot

Looking ahead, tomorrow's game is likely to be Overdrive, which should be fun. Assuming the COP traffic lets me get home...
Graven

What printer are you using?

Venom is GREAT

Solar_lion wrote:What printer are you using?

Elegoo Mars 2. I've had it a year, had to replace the fep once and I've taped down one edge of my LCD because of suction. I only use plant based resin and it's an absolute cracker. I'm no expert but certainly enjoy the results. Next jobs for it are a QuickStop sign for a convenience store and some 40k skaven parts.

Stevefamine wrote:Venom is GREAT

Cheers mate! Good of you to swing by my corner of the dakkanet.

Will you be adding the "I assure you, we're open!" sheet to the window of your QuickStop?

So much to catch up on! Quick synopsis of my enjoyment of seeing all these bushido but not bushido sculpts. Lanterns and skeletons are super, especially that glow! Venom sculpt is rocking it just need to see some paint soon.

Dysartes wrote:Will you be adding the "I assure you, we're open!" sheet to the window of your QuickStop?

I absolutely will. I need to get some corrugated cardboard to make the shutters though... Hmm...

Yorkright wrote: So much to catch up on! Quick synopsis of my enjoyment of seeing all these bushido but not bushido sculpts. Lanterns and skeletons are super, especially that glow! Venom sculpt is rocking it just need to see some paint soon.

Hola! I'm surprised how well the glow turned out, actually. I'm loving the Venom, so keen to get him started.

But, in the meantime I've had to accede to the whims of the offspring. He's planning his roster for Web Warriors and wants Okoye and Toad to fill gaps. Sigh...

Whilst the Toad STL is not as detailed as some, he's perfectly serviceable, and as I've said previously I'm simply not willing to shell out a fortune when I have no real engagement with the characters. I've never been a massive X-Men fan - it's not like DC, where I'll happily collect everything

Went for a more recent take on the character with colours. Fun with rust, too. Hurrah for random bits of ork vehicles.

For Okoye, I went with a much more MCU feel for the colour scheme

Right down to the Starbucks cup

I've started to prep a few other Marvel figs - Shuri, Thor, Hulk and Bob, Agent of Hydra - but I think I need to tackle the big fantasy scenery for Moonstone as, apart from anything, it's taking over my hobby space. I might just do the exteriors and worry about the interiors at a later date.
Graven

Great work on all of those. The lanterns look like ice cream that is coming to lick you instead

endtransmission wrote:Great work on all of those. The lanterns look like ice cream that is coming to lick you instead

They do rather, don't they?

Just a quick update. Didn't get round to Overdrive last night, young lad's basketball was cancelled so we just hung out and played some DC deckbuilding (I was victorious! Superman FTW!) and did a spot of painting: the kids are working on Deadzone, but for a bit of variety I went back to Brimstone proper with some of the new critters - Void Swarms!

Mutant parasitic space wasps you say? Go on then. I do love a monster that can turn up in any of the game worlds, Void creatures are always an absolute nightmare in game and it's great that we've now got another horde creature (along with Void Spiders). I really, really hate Wasps - even if they are just bees with bad PR - so definitely channeled that into the nasty little blighters, but they felt quite in their look which informed the colour scheme.

I've been watching a lot of Futurama, so definitely channeling alien space honey for the Hives. These generate yet more of the bloody bugs, as you'd imagine. Horrid things.
It's more than possible that I am actually just avoiding painting terrain...
Graven

Those honey hives look delicious .

Be nice to WASPs, they are just people with alternative philosophical beliefs....

I'm inclined to dislike the Void Wasps just for being a Wasp variant, but I do like the hives.

Looking forwards to seeing Bob, though. He's a fun character in the comics.

Theophony wrote:Those honey hives look delicious .

Be nice to WASPs, they are just people with alternative philosophical beliefs....

Mmmhmm...

Dysartes wrote:I'm inclined to dislike the Void Wasps just for being a Wasp variant, but I do like the hives.
Looking forwards to seeing Bob, though. He's a fun character in the comics.

It's ok I feel that way about wasps too yeah, I find Deadpool a bit samey but Bob was a good addition.

What's next? Well now, as promised, some terrain. Not the terrain I meant to do, but still... After the success of the mixer truck at swatting spiders, I decided I needed another large vehicle:

Because Oscorp Cares TM

It occurred to me that the oscorp logo was very like a recycling symbol, and even criminal masterminds need to be net zero. What point is taking over a planet of there's no planet left?

I do rather like a big old grimy truck. Lots of greasy streaks and spillages around where things have been shoved in.

And side by side with its buddy. Can't wait to use this backdrop for some Dr Strange pics
That's 730 models this year, double a 365 challenge. Not shabby.

I also built up a couple more cars, lampposts, traffic signals, trashcans (or, as we say, BINS) and a coffee shop. I'm working on the QuickStop but I'm struggling to find corrugated cardboard around the house, oddly, to do the shutters. By the end of the process though going to have plenty of good terrain to lob about the place It's bitterly cold here, though, so no priming at the moment.
Mad Titan's Shadow turned up for Champions (it's fine, we've not played through GotG yet anyway), so that's a bonus and a mate who prints cards is going to do the print-and-play promo pack for me (Ronan the Accuser as a minion of Thanos, rather than a Villain in his own right) - because Thanos isn't hard enough
Graven

Grimy truck is great, v realistic effects.

Nice work on the dark skin graven.

Slinky wrote:Grimy truck is great, v realistic effects.

Thanks! I do love filth

Gitsplitta wrote:Nice work on the dark skin graven.

Much obliged buddy. I enjoy doing darker skin tones and if I'm being completely honest find them easier.

I am currently toying with the idea of doing Valkyrie as MCU/Exiles, as the sculpt could lend itself to well to this, I reckon. It's interesting that the in-game Baron Mordo is already heavily MCU rather than comics (which is no bad thing), despite them not having the cinematic license. Speaking of which, I've been buildling him and other mystics - he's an astonishing sculpt, but sadly I won't get to play him much, as the boy has already twigged how potent an addition he is to a Web Warriors team. However, I do still find I am frustrated by the gapping still present in some of these figs (especially at shoulder joints), considering how ridiculously expensive they are. Clea was particularly bad for it

As mentioned, I am on a bit of a terrain kick, although still ferociously avoiding painting my fantasy stuff out of sheer spite. So, I decided to modify the second Daily Planet Newsstand a bit

QuickStop sign to follo, across the top line. And of course, the impromtu bedsheet sign will read I ASSURE YOU, WE'RE OPEN
Like Dante says, I'm not even supposed to be here today...

I have accidentally discovered I am getting a whole pile of geekery from the wife this year, plus she wants me to make a Venetian-themed book nook for living room. If that's not an excuse to buy some Carnevale models, I don't know what is

Graven

WHich slot do friendly neighborhood do goodness get put into on the recycling truck? I would assume paper as that’s what they are both printed on and smacked with, but plastic might be a viable spot with all the action figures .

Great paint job on the truck regardless of who gets to throw it or be thrown at it .

Embrace the terrain kit... it is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the hobby when you are feeling it (and have the living space to store it!!)

Thanks for sharing

Loving the Clerks shop, any chance of a mini Jay and Silent Bob?

Or a Bluntman and Chronic, given the terrain is for a superhero game...

Trucks look great together and I'm really excited to see the Quick Stop. Despite having seen Clerks only once, whereas Clerks 2 is one of my favorite movies and lands more often in the player Could you do a golden calf fast food restaurant?

Theophony wrote:WHich slot do friendly neighborhood do goodness get put into on the recycling truck? I would assume paper as that’s what they are both printed on and smacked with, but plastic might be a viable spot with all the action figures .

Great paint job on the truck regardless of who gets to throw it or be thrown at it .

Lol you're a funny man. Definitely paper or maybe compostable waste...

IGtR= wrote:Embrace the terrain kit... it is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the hobby when you are feeling it (and have the living space to store it!!)

Thanks for sharing

Well, I have a garage and a ... fairly tolerant wife I am working on some other bits of terrain for Deadzone, but I have finally started the Wizards tower. Long road ahead, I've caved and bought the gw creeping vines (half price NIB on eBay, not bad)

Slinky wrote:Loving the Clerks shop, any chance of a mini Jay and Silent Bob?

Well there *is* an STL file for them as a mini on Cults3D... Sadly it didn't print well at all.

Dysartes wrote:Or a Bluntman and Chronic, given the terrain is for a superhero game...

I had originally planned to add a tag of them to the back, actually

Viterbi wrote:Trucks look great together and I'm really excited to see the Quick Stop. Despite having seen Clerks only once, whereas Clerks 2 is one of my favorite movies and lands more often in the player Could you do a golden calf fast food restaurant?

No Mooby's here whatever next? A buddy Christ?? I am actually considering doing a video store though

Busy busy, drowning in marking - November is the hell month in teaching - but eldest and I played Crisis versus the Anti-Monitor in DC Deckbuilding (we won!) and for Marvel switched Venom to Aggression plus built a (hopefully) viable She-Hulk Justice deck . And then, little one has been sick. So stuck looking after her, poor little lump.
Still, did manage to get a couple of pieces done over the last few days. I decided to just go for it with an MCU/eXiles Valkyrie...

I'm so happy with her it's ridiculous. Exactly as I envisioned. I'm also rather chuffed with the Costa coffee cup and irn-bru can on the base

And, as I'm finally cracking on with my Asgardians (which I'd always planned as my primary faction)...

The Mighty Thor! I am very fond of Thor as I teach the movie a lot. Relatively indifferent to the comics, tbh, but then I find that about a lot of Marvel.

Decided to get an irn-bru bottle on the base as a nod to the one in Bro Thor's pad. And at the other extreme, a character I really don't care for: Bullseye.

I like the sculpt, and even though he's a lack lustre character both in the game and the comics, I was surprised to find myself tackling, and indeed enjoying it, nonetheless.

And revisiting an old paint job, for myself rather than a friend:

I still like this hyper-comic style.

Granted I now have 4 cars that are basically the same (1 is still WIP, patience my young padawans) but I think it's like when trendy cars pop up in urban areas, they're everywhere you look.

Also, the biggest, baddest, bestest beastie turned up: Sho-Riu, the Dragon King -

As you can see, he's frikkin huge.

I also have got a lot of legwork done: bases washed on all MCP stuff, Veer myn and assorted scenery all primed, quick stop sign printed... That sort of thing. Not glamorous or pic-worthy, but necessary and feels productive
Hopefully, I'll get more paint on more stuff soon...
Graven

Shi-Riu is an absolute monster isn't he?. He's really fun to paint too.

Nice work on the marvel lot. I'm especially liking the Iron Bro representation! I'd agree with Bullseye. He only really became interesting in the comics when he pretended to be Hawkeye and went completely psycho

I love the car graven! Love it!

MCP stuff is all looking sweet. That Venom is quite an improvement. Brimstone Shenron is an amazing mini. Have fun with that one.

You are a painting machine. That dragon looks like it's going to be an interesting thing to paint and a nice change of pace from all the tiny marvel figs you've been painting. Good to see you work.

The car looks just like my daughters red Prius..minus the body damage .

That Dragon almost got me to jump in on the kickstarter, luckily/unluckily I did not have $$$ at the time.

endtransmission wrote:Shi-Riu is an absolute monster isn't he?. He's really fun to paint too.
Nice work on the marvel lot. I'm especially liking the Irn Bru representation! I'd agree with Bullseye. He only really became interesting in the comics when he pretended to be Hawkeye and went completely psycho

Very fair point. Love a bit of Hawkeye action. And thanks!

Gitsplitta wrote:I love the car graven! Love it!

Cheers mate

youwashock wrote:MCP stuff is all looking sweet. That Venom is quite an improvement. Brimstone Sho riu is an amazing mini. Have fun with that one.

Thanks on all counts!

Warboss_Waaazag wrote:You are a painting machine. That dragon looks like it's going to be an interesting thing to paint and a nice change of pace from all the tiny marvel figs you've been painting. Good to see you work.

Paintasaurus, me
Tbh painting keeps me sane. Well, ish particularly after days like yesterday.

Theophony wrote:The car looks just like my daughters red Prius... minus the body damage .
That Dragon almost got me to jump in on the kickstarter, luckily/unluckily I did not have $$$ at the time.

Yeah I really regret not getting into them at KS, though their dispatch times are all over the place. I'm fairly elbow deep in the next one (SoB adventures) for all the Vikings (though not the Conquistadors and Serpentmen - which I'll no doubt regret) and Trederrans (TANK!)

So, yesterday. We finally got an initial autism diagnosis for the middle boy. I have mixed feelings, honestly - it's good to have what we've long suspected confirmed, but it's another lengthy trek to get him support he'll need as he moves up to high school. I suppose as long as it helps him make sense of himself, that's the main thing.

Right, anyway, onto toys! I've been working on a lot of terrain the last couple...

I'm not even supposed to be here today...

My take on the Quick Stop from Clerks, heavily modding the MCP Daily Planet booth.

The A/C unit and other exterior details are from Brutal Cities, apart from the ladder which is Mantic iirc.

Continuing the cinematic theme...

My take on Razor Fist's car from Shang-Chi

Idiotic name for a not-so super villain. Quite happy with the freehand tags though. Hungry work...

Taco Time!

Deadpool & Bob's Taco truck, you can guess what's next on the WIP pile
But in the meantime, I took a notion to do this fella after watching this week's British Bake-Off:

My 3-D printed Hulk. Need to get a better pic of the eyes/face.

Loved painting this.

Can't quite believe how well the print worked.

Obligatory scale shot, as always

So Deadpool, Bob and Daredevil are currently on the WIP pile, along with the Sanctum Sanctorum which I've primed in various colours for the different brick/stone/metal-work. My creeping vines have turned up also so I SUPPOSE I'd better tackle the wizard's tower *sigh*
Graven

Nice work on the modified building and Hulk print came out great.

The diagnosis of Autism is hard to take when they are older. Our oldest daughter (now18 1/2) got her diagnosis just before graduating high school. I had argued non-stop with the therapist that she was not JUST ADHD for years and even switched doctors twice. Finally got a full day appointment with 8+ hours of testing. Luckily we got it done before she graduated because she can now get lifetime assistance having been diagnosed as a child.

The Quick Stop is a major labor of love, congratulations!

Quick Stop is the best thing. Ever.

Oh, yes! Quick stop came out brill

Theophony wrote:Nice work on the modified building and Hulk print came out great.

The diagnosis of Autism is hard to take when they are older. Our oldest daughter (now18 1/2) got her diagnosis just before graduating high school. I had argued non-stop with the therapist that she was not JUST ADHD for years and even switched doctors twice. Finally got a full day appointment with 8+ hours of testing. Luckily we got it done before she graduated because she can now get lifetime assistance having been diagnosed as a child.

Cheers! Yeah, similar for us with Anxiety. But as long as it helps him, that's the main thing.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:The Quick Stop is a major labor of love, congratulations!

Means a lot pal, many thanks

youwashock wrote:Quick Stop is the best thing. Ever.

*bows in nerd*

Slinky wrote:Oh, yes! Quick stop came out brill

Thank guys, I will *try* to reprint Jay & Silent Bob, and make a video store to go alongside at some point.
Meanwhile, here's a better pic of Bruce:

Weird to do Banner, not Wayne

That's a great Quick Stop rendition, chief.

If you're printing add-on bits, a couple of roller-hockey goals might be an idea

Dysartes wrote:That's a great Quick Stop rendition, chief.

If you're printing add-on bits, a couple of roller-hockey goals might be an idea

Now that is an EXCELLENT idea.

What's next, well, it's the Man without Fear... Daredevil!

Added the oozy barrel cos how else will Turtles mutate?

Never really liked Daredevil till the Charlie Cox / Netflix version. No affinity for the comic at all so tried to lean into the deeper reds of the TV version.

Tweaked the taco truck a bit, decided to add the same comic highlights as the cars.

Wee tag too:

Seems fitting

So, unsurprisingly, on to the Merc with a Mouth

"Do you know how hard it is to impale a taco shell?!"

I'm glad I added the extras, it adds a bit of extra... spice it was a PITA to do, but still - worth it I did the soda spray with the plastic drilled out of the cup

Elder spawn's birthday weekend, so not much else to report. Saw Eternals, better than expected. Might play some Champions tomorrow, his choice though.
Adiós
Graven

Deadpool is great!

Lovely job on all the terrain too.

Looking at your plog is like looking into my future. Most of the minis you paint from MCP are waiting for paint on my bench too Deadpool is a tough one, because I mostly love about the MCP minis, that you don't have choices. And with him I know have head options At least Bob is easy, there will be no Chef's hat

Love the tag on the Taco truck, the Reynolds/Jackman "feud" is just gold.

aku-chan wrote:Deadpool is great!
Lovely job on all the terrain too.

Thanks pal!

Viterbi wrote:Looking at your plog is like looking into my future. Most of the minis you paint from MCP are waiting for paint on my bench too Deadpool is a tough one, because I mostly love about the MCP minis, that you don't have choices. And with him I know have head options At least Bob is easy, there will be no Chef's hat
Love the tag on the Taco truck, the Reynolds/Jackman "feud" is just gold.

nice to see it made sense to someone lol. I actually dislike the general lack of choice ... Though I think my Bob may disappoint you

Well, this weekend was the elder spawn's birthday, so that dominated. He got some good nerd loot (more Asterians, Railroad Ink Yellow, Boss Monster) - raise em right at his request, we saw Eternals (not bad) and played Champions - finally got She-Hulk to work! Still needs a bit of tweaking but she plays well with Hawkeye in particular (he's very fragile, she's designed to take hits for the team).

As promised, or perhaps threatened... BOB!

Agent of Hydra and maker of tacos.

Continuing the comestible theme, with another of my favourite things to consume...

The Daily Grind, variant build for the Daily Bugle booth.

Only comes in the NY Terrain set, which is a bit of liberty if you ask me for something that's essentially a glorified repack.
The Squid, Inc poster is a reference to my DC board, which includes a tattoo parlour of that name
And some street furniture that's seen a few fights
I might smash up the streetlamps a bit, in retrospect.
I'm slowly working on Moonstone and Deadzone terrain, so they may make an appearance before the week, but hey, I am a creature of whimsy
Graven

It always fascinates/baffles me what does and doesn't get traction on dakka even after being on here for 12 years

Work is crazy, because November. I'm also very short of breath atm, which is deeply frustrating. It's just a bug, but post-Covid breathlessness has a tendency to bite back hard.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaanyway. Game night was taken over by Boss Monster, which I narrowly won best of 3 - crucially, the boy loved the game despite some initial misgivings (he was worried it would play too much like a video game), but as he said, it's a pleasingly synergistic card game with deceptively simple mechanics and cracking 8-bit art. Smart kid, don't know where he gets it from He did then proceed to take me down in Railroad Ink Yellow, though, so fair's fair

Meanwhile, I've been working up modular scatter/partial ruin for Deadzone:

I know that some folk find the cube aesthetic frustrating, but I like it a lot and think it's really versatile. I do tend to resort to gluing some clips in place, however, as I can't be bothered making it up completely fresh every time.

You can tell how much of the Mantic team are ex-GW from the interlocking Munda vibe. It's nice to have a good stack - this is roughly a third of the pieces from the starter set.

I'm definitely going to make up a noodle bar amongst some other scatter, channel the blade runner vibe. It's also good to have some terrain that's not too ruined - this ain't the grimdark, after all. I think that it'll also work really well for Crisis Protocol in non-Earth environments, as you want sectional (i.e. throwable) terrain for it also - so scatter would be size 1, a wall would be analogous to a size 2 object (small car), a cube to size 3 (truck, news-stand) and a stack to size 4 (small building) that makes sense, to me at least. So I plan to do most of the rest in a similar way, so that ultimately it can in theory all be stacked together to make one large, sprawling complex also (size 5 - like an apartment block).

And talking of MCP, damaged the lampposts

Much better.
Coming up, more big, BIG terrain...
Till then,
Graven

Those lamp posts look great. Nice work matey!

I love all the little extra newspaper pieces and Billboards you have added to all the terrain.

Gitsplitta wrote:Those lamp posts look great. Nice work matey!

Thanks bud, it's good to have variety

Theophony wrote:I love all the little extra newspaper pieces and Billboards you have added to all the terrain.

I just think that the bases all look a bit samey otherwise. Many thanks!

And ONWARDS! Lord Fancyhat's Townhouse for Moonstone, from TT Combat.

I haven't gone for a fully-furnished interior, as you want the full floor to be accessible in game. Plus, I'm basically lazy.

I have realised what most irritates me about the kit, and it's EXACTLY the same thing as TT's pub: no chimney. Not scratchbuilding one this time, though. But I have left the lintel off one of the rear windows in case I change my mind

Working on the Wizard's Tower next, stonework started and vines attached. Might even get it done over the weekend.
Graven

Nice work on the DZ terrain. I'm a big fan of the blocky, modular look, and it's always a joy to have ideas to steal, er, emulate.

The townhouse is quite excellent. I have nothing in my terrain collection with a playable interior. I may have to rectify that.

JoshInJapan wrote:Nice work on the DZ terrain. I'm a big fan of the blocky, modular look, and it's always a joy to have ideas to steal, er, emulate.

The townhouse is quite excellent. I have nothing in my terrain collection with a playable interior. I may have to rectify that.

Cheers buddy. Interiors are a faff, to be sure. Every so often I think I need to print more scatter - bed, tables, hearth - then I can't really be arsed. I might just buy some more of mantic's excellent dungeon scatter.

In the meantime, here's the other "half" of the Moonstone terrain, the Wizard's Tower:

Pretty much a full pack of gw creeping vines added to it. They're very handy, though not cheap.

For the interior, I decided to try for a starry night inspired map room. I'm not entirely sure it works, but I kinda like it.

And some shots of it as part of my town, Tumbledown

Action shots!



Really pleased, just need to (a) get more Moonstone painted and (b) get it actually played
In terms of the rest of the paint heap, I think this week it's going to be Venom, Kingpin and Enchantress for MCP, at the suggestion of insta followers (insta.graven, folks, go check it out ). I *might* rearrange the hobby space as well, to make better use of my desk (which, frankly, is a riot).
Still on a bit of card gaming kick, we've been playing even more Boss Monster and started our Guardians of the Galaxy campaign as well, with Agent Venom (Aggression), Star-Lord (Leadership) and Nebula (Justice) as our team. Pretty solid, Justice feels like a bit of weird build for Nebula but as a Guardians Team-Up it worked really well. Had a lovely moment where we had Rocket, Groot, Adam Warlock and Cosmo out as well, enabling maximum team-up shenanigans. Star-Lord is ridiculous, you take massive risks by taking extra encounters from the villain deck but get huge rewards for doing so, and given that Nebula also runs off the villain deck that could get dicey in later scenarios (when the Villain deck runs out, they reshuffle and get better). Venom continues to be a solid run-and-gun machine.
Hey ho, and another week beckons,
Graven

So I've gone a bit monochrome...

There's no black and white, Mr. Murdoch, only shades of grey...

This month's Dark Elf Dare on insta is monochrome, with one spot colour allowed. I decided that I think of Kingpin all in white, so ran with that.

I have decided I need to raise my game when it comes to faces, and he was the perfect excuse to try.

Generally, I'm rather pleased. But he's not the only one that's making monochrome (online meetings with your camera off are great for productivity )

Spider-Man? I hate that guy!

Lovely print, and the paperclip tentacles seem to have done the trick. Obviously went with red as a spot colour.

This is the best rendering of the colours. I'd been fiddling with the macro settings on my phone for Kingpin, and finally had it working, or so I though the freehand logo was a faff, but turned out ok in the end, I think.
And on the subject of ridiculous tongues, more Akaname for FoFo

These ones are Belly of the Beast themed, because it's gross, mostly Past 750 fig mark for the year, don't really have a "target" number in my head though 777 appeals .
Enchantress is next for MCP, she'll be later this week probably though: busy couple of days ahead, and no game night tonight because it's the Bake-off final Might take a bit of a super-break, maybe take a pass at my Veer-Myn or some Moonstone (Lord Fancyhat himself, perhaps) - the skin/face test on Kingpin was also a bit of a test run for the Commonwealth humans. Need to build the Sanctum Sanctorum though too...
Graven

Fisk looking great, the face definitely shows the extra effort and the contrast of the suit is super, still looks white while not being boring to look at.

Terrain up the page is awesome to see all laid out as well.

I thought the jolly Fat Man wore red and had a white beard. Well at least we know how he funds all those toys for girls and boys .


Venom looks like a scary beast there.

Kingpin has always been one of my favorite villains in the MCU. Manipulating those around him with a bit of super strength if needed. I really like how his face turned out and that white suit, nice!
Venom must be hitting the gym lately as he’s looking pretty buff. Black is a hard color to pull off and you’ve done a great job with it.
I really like the terrain you’ve been working on too, never a dull moment on your plog.

Awesome work on the Kingpin! Great job graven, especially on the face.

Those akaname are wonderfully gross. Which is appropriate, based on my research (which in this case translates as "reading the WIkipedia entry.")

Great work on Kingpin and love the interior of the Wizard tower. You didn't happen to watch Tangled, before you painted that?

And I'm glad that you went with the options you used with Deadpool and Bob, because now I can always see them in your gallery whilst I built the "serious" versions (for a given value of serious)

Paradigm wrote:Fisk looking great, the face definitely shows the extra effort and the contrast of the suit is super, still looks white while not being boring to look at.
Terrain up the page is awesome to see all laid out as well.

Thanks old son. I do like a white suit, I imagine I'll do Moon Knight in the same way.

Theophony wrote:I thought the jolly Fat Man wore red and had a white beard. Well at least we know how he funds all those toys for girls and boys .
Venom looks like a scary beast there.

Ain't nothing jolly about Wilson Fisk Many thanks.

Yorkright wrote: Kingpin has always been one of my favorite villains in the MCU. Manipulating those around him with a bit of super strength if needed. I really like how his face turned out and that white suit, nice!
Venom must be hitting the gym lately as he’s looking pretty buff. Black is a hard color to pull off and you’ve done a great job with it.
I really like the terrain you’ve been working on too, never a dull moment on your plog.

Thanks, I wonder whether I should've gone for deeper shadows - but nevertheless, much appreciated.

Gitsplitta wrote:Awesome work on the Kingpin! Great job graven, especially on the face.

Very grateful, it's definitely what I need to improve generally. Hurrah for 40mm!

JoshInJapan wrote:Those akaname are wonderfully gross. Which is appropriate, based on my research (which in this case translates as "reading the WIkipedia entry."

Oh, they are indeed disgusting creatures and I do need to crack on with FoFo It's our big "plan" over the festive period as a game to play.

Viterbi wrote:Great work on Kingpin and love the interior of the Wizard tower. You didn't happen to watch Tangled, before you painted that?
And I'm glad that you went with the options you used with Deadpool and Bob, because now I can always see them in your gallery whilst I built the "serious" versions (for a given value of serious)

Lol. My wife and 5yr old daughter said pretty much the same thing. It was absolutely intentional, yes - I even originally considered doing the interior paintings more directly in the style of the movie. "given value of serious" It is funny how we're pretty much painting the same thing at the same time though. The conclave (marvel super-wizards) are on my to-do.

On the very subject of magic, this week I've been working away on the Sanctum Sanctorum.

What looked at first to be a really well-designed kit (and at around $£70, it bloody well should be) turned out to have some real gapping problems (my persistent complaint about Atomic Mass plastics). I bit the bullet and gs'd it - I know milliput is more cost effective but I hate trying to sculpt it and I wanted to include the brick work.

I could, in theory, add a ridge of stonework all the way round between the floors, but I think my handiwork has just about done the trick. It was a lot of work, but hopefully worth it. I've got a dropper of the primer colour on order (AP Fur Brown) so hopefully that should do the trick.

I always think it's funny how I get less hobby done on the weekend. It's just the nature of life with kids I guess. However, we DID get a fairly large distraction ... a pile of review stuff from Asmodee UK and loads of things from them, hasbro and others for Xmas giveaway over on my bigcomicpage.com blog. Currently up to about £750 of stuff. Not shabby.
For me, there's Dormammu, Moon Knight, Blade, 7 Wonders, Unfathomable and...

DESCENT! YASSSSSS! This is a box of glory:

So much stuff, and packs away neatly.

And the minis are beautiful, super crisp hard plastic.

Enemies have base slots for levels, and
notches for the colour blind or visually impaired, whilst terrain stacks and builds as you explore, guided by the app.

Genius.
Think this will distract us a wee while

Enchantress next, and then perhaps some FoFo. Who knows?

Graven

That's rough with the Sanctum and makes me rethink, if I will get it eventually. But wasn't planned for the foreseeable future in any case.

But great start, excited to see it finished. And still envy you your wizards, will be some time, until I'll order those.

Nice job on Kingpin!

Shame about the Santorum, for the money they cost you'd think the Marvel Crisis stuff wouldn't be such a hassle to assemble.

Viterbi wrote:That's rough with the Sanctum and makes me rethink, if I will get it eventually. But wasn't planned for the foreseeable future in any case.

But great start, excited to see it finished. And still envy you your wizards, will be some time, until I'll order those.

It is certainly frustrating that I effectively "lost" hobby time to it this week. I still need to build Voodoo and Hood, need to raid the skull pile to amp up the spooky factor.

aku-chan wrote:Nice job on Kingpin!

Shame about the Sanctorum, for the money they cost you'd think the Marvel Crisis stuff wouldn't be such a hassle to assemble.

Cheers my friend. Yeah, it is a PITA. Some of the figs are really stunning but the issues are deeply frustrating.

Enchantress, as promised

The purple of the belt is not exactly cannon but my lovely 5 year old was colouring in a picture of her and went for that colour for the belt and I rather liked it (contrasting colours and all that). Plus, now our versions march

I also shaded the skin with violet, though less sure that worked.

Tried to do the swirly green energy of a very different base colour and I think there's enough variety there.

Love a cape.

I'm almost encouraged to do my Green Lantern corps now... Almost
The rest of the work pile just now is Taskmaster, Baron Zemo, Clea, Brother Voodoo (needs more skulls! ), Cap and SamCap. I foresee more blue in my future...
Graven

Ended up blasting through one more model for November... Taskmaster!

Photo has come out a bit grainy. Hmm.

Always thought that Taskmaster was a cool villain. I'm still on the fence about the MCU take, but then the Black Widow movie is a bit meh generally.

I do, as I say, love a cape.

I'm trying to get ahead on my to-do stack, but the weather has turned milder today so getting some more stuff primed is the priority. Wee fella's youth club is off (C-19 ), so he's going us for games night and we're off to Frostmarket tonight (the main town in Descent) to buy, trade, gamble, drink and probably end up getting stabbed.
Good times ahead
Graven

 inmygravenimage wrote:
... but then the Black Widow movie is a bit meh generally.

Thems fight'n words! It's clearly the best Bond film in *years!*

Nice work on Taskmaster though, so I'll let you off.

DZ terrain looks good, you spent a bit more effort on it than mine, and it really paid off

endtransmission wrote:

inmygravenimage wrote: ... but then the Black Widow movie is a bit meh generally.

Thems fight'n words! It's clearly the best Bond film in *years!*
Nice work on Taskmaster though, so I'll let you off.

Well, here's to us I think it has great bits but the villain is profoundly disappointing. Thanks for kind words on Taskmaster though.

Slinky wrote:DZ terrain looks good, you spent a bit more effort on it than mine, and it really paid off

You are most kind, but yours is excellent! I need to get on with the other bits, we've got a bunch of the mail-order Mantic point heroes coming in the next couple of days so I'm hoping that'll get the kids keen to play again.

My plans to prime went to pot as RL got in the way. Busy, busy. But, instead, chipping away at the to-do pile with some work on the core box.

Baron Zemo. I've tried to tone down the 4-color-comic look with him for a more muted plum, more in-keeping with his MCU depiction (Daniel Bruhl is just SO good).

I also used this as an opportunity to play about with reflective blades, which I'm still on the fence about but it's always good to try new techniques. But every villain needs a hero, right? And who could be more heroic than...

The Star-Spangled Man himself, Captain America!

Lovely model to paint, great pose. Went for a slightly deeper blue than last time when I did the KM metal version.

And then I thought [i]WELL if I'm doing Cap I might as well do...[i]

SAMERICA! I have always loved Sam Wilson, even his 70s Falcon get-up, being my namesake.

This is a stunning, if slightly terrifyingly wobbly, model. I enjoyed painting it way more than I expected, though.

Continuing to rumble through the hobby heap, I think I'm ready to call the Sanctum done.

In the end, the repaired brickwork looks... fine. It does the job.

Still not worth 70 dollarpounds.

And the start of Advent means beer and reaper miniatures

Love this dryad, great sylvaneth vibe

Lovely addition to my fantasy townsfolk.

Chugging away, I'm upgrading the bases for Brother Voodoo and Clea (the latter is a particularly dull sculpt, so I'm adding some Dark Dimension energy) but Tengu and other Fofo are what the instagram crowd have asked for - good to get a bit of variety.
Graven

Congrats on being done with the Sanctum, your repairs worked well! Zemo looks great, although I'm still on the edge about the mini. But totally agree with Brühl being great, his appearance in FATWS was the high mark.

Love both Caps, one is waiting for paint at my desk too (core one), but has to get in line and wait a bit more.

Sam looks smashing, great model and done well! Sanctum looks good as well, does MCP have rules for lobbing buildings at people like DCUMG foes?

I feel like I'm still waiting for MCU Zemo to really be Zemo to be honest. His performance is great in Civil War, but that really felt like a proto-version of the character to me. I do hope the various setup moments are leading towards us getting MCU Thunderbolts with him in the lead, though!

I'm rather a fan of the four-color comics version of Baron Zemo, but yours is quite lovely as well. The Sanctum looks good-- does it have a game-able interior? Also, Brother Voodoo?! I never, even in my wildest dreams, imagined that he'd appear in 28mm form.

Lots of lovely stuff on these new pages (I would comment on the 'Classico Blog' stuff, but it's already slipped my mind - suffice to say it was all cool, nuff said )

Great looking sanctum, but, perhaps obviously, it's the fofo gribblies that caught my eye, luvverly. All those big guys are pretty cool too.

Cool Marvel stuff again, Zemo in his more muted colour scheme is particularly nifty.

Viterbi wrote:Congrats on being done with the Sanctum, your repairs worked well! Zemo looks great, although I'm still on the edge about the mini. But totally agree with Brühl being great, his appearance in FATWS was the high mark.
Love both Caps, one is waiting for paint at my desk too (core one), but has to get in line and wait a bit more.

Thanks kindly. Yeah, he was absolutely the highlight of FATWS I'm so nearly finished core that I'm determined now to get it done, just Iron Man and Captain Marvel to do, though I need to top up my range of blues first (running low). Luckily, I won a £25 paypal voucher so that's gone straight onto Vallejo supplies (VGC purples, blues, and staples like VMC Deck Tan and VM Air Black).

Paradigm wrote:Sam looks smashing, great model and done well! Sanctum looks good as well, does MCP have rules for lobbing buildings at people like DCUMG foes?
I feel like I'm still waiting for MCU Zemo to really be Zemo to be honest. His performance is great in Civil War, but that really felt like a proto-version of the character to me. I do hope the various setup moments are leading towards us getting MCU Thunderbolts with him in the lead, though!

I do know what you mean about him, and I am very keen to see the Thunderbolts on screen also; I did find FATWAS You can throw buildings at people, and indeed people at people - everything has a size rating - though not everyone can throw because it's essentially a "superpower". However, there's no falling/pushing rules - it's essentially a 2-D game with volumetric LOS /blocking, and the lack of such mechanics is my major gripe with the game. The power mechanics and team building are better than DCU, but, on balance, I still think DCU is the better Super-Power game, even if KM are an utter shambles.

JoshInJapan wrote:I'm rather a fan of the four-color comics version of Baron Zemo, but yours is quite lovely as well. The Sanctum looks good-- does it have a game-able interior? Also, Brother Voodoo?! I never, even in my wildest dreams, imagined that he'd appear in 28mm form.

Why thank you. No, no playable interior alas. It would've been easy to do as well (from a casting perspective) and, in retrospect, I should've at least put a floor in but the game also has no rules for interiors. Another irksome element. Yeah, the Brother Voodoo sculpt is great, too (especially with my additional ) though I'm not entirely sure how good he is in game - he feels a good deal weaker than the other magic users, though large base size makes him relatively mobile and more difficult to be thrown (base size correlates with model Size).

monkeytroll wrote:Lots of lovely stuff on these new pages (I would comment on the 'Classico Blog' stuff, but it's already slipped my mind - suffice to say it was all cool, nuff said )
Great looking sanctum, but, perhaps obviously, it's the fofo gribblies that caught my eye, luvverly. All those big guys are pretty cool too.

Well thanks lol I am certainly wrestling with FoFo!

aku-chan wrote:Cool Marvel stuff again, Zemo in his more muted colour scheme is particularly nifty.

Cheers buddy!

In fact, proof that I play games other than MCP (as if I actually ever play games)... Tengu for Forbidden Fortress!

Some slight reshaping, as they're monopose figures. I do love the way they capture the yokai feel though.

I had originally planned to do them in the turquoise/yellow scheme I'd done for the mutant samurai clan, but in the end went for something a bit more vibrant.

Now at the point where most of my FoFo enemies are painted - it's relative, though, there's still masses : bandits and many mutant ashigaru, riflemen and samurai, plus A FREAKIN' DRAGON.

But, I have been working on a particular favourite MCP figure also.

Brother Voodoo! Additional base skulls really do the trick, I think. The hell of dakka superzoom makes me realise I need to address the glow around the left eye though.

He's some sculpt. And I do love doing cape work.

Advent Updates. Day 3 I got this rather sinister plague doctor.

I think he'll be an excellent addition to a post-xmas project of a Venice-themed Book-nook (a vignette you insert into a bookcase) featuring some Carnevale miniatures (such as the one I previously painted as Alice for BMG


Day 4 is a lovely drow potion and trinket seller.


And for day 5, a rather generic ranger/archer.

I mean pragmatically he's a great DnD fig, just less useful to me.

Let's see what's a coming next week!
Graven

That pox doctor mini is great, nothing looks more helpful and sinister at the same time as a medical practitioner in that garb

Winged people give me a bit of a Flash Gordon vibe, cool color choice. And Brother Voodoo looks amazing. Atm he's not on my (too long) wishlist, but that may change.

Hope the paint arrives soon, so you can finish the core set. Iron Man was actually my first painted mini and I now have Cap Am, Cap Marvel and Crossbones left. Cpt. Marvel should be the easiest, blue contrast, red contrast and separate both colors with gold

Viterbi wrote:That pox doctor mini is great, nothing looks more helpful and sinister at the same time as a medical practitioner in that garb
Winged people give me a bit of a Flash Gordon vibe, cool color choice. And Brother Voodoo looks amazing. Atm he's not on my (too long) wishlist, but that may change.
Hope the paint arrives soon, so you can finish the core set. Iron Man was actually my first painted mini and I now have Cap Am, Cap Marvel and Crossbones left. Cpt. Marvel should be the easiest, blue contrast, red contrast and separate both colors with gold

Thanks on all counts, yeah paints came and hope to crack on with Carol this week. I feel the need to do some FoFo though and clear my backlog, I prepped all the remaining bandits and clansmen at the weekend (apart from the bases for the 3 giant mutant samurai) and it's all block painting so it's mostly methodical and tedious. That'll just leave the heroes and the dragon, but I need to have semi-decent weather again first.

No other painting over the weekend, but some good stuff nonetheless. We went out with the kids for some food (and a drink) on Friday, which buoyed me up enormously (post Moderna bleurgh). Wife was out Saturday so watched Venom 2 - outstanding, you don't really need to have seen the first one but it is enormously good fun. Very silly, absolute romp, and does leave you wanting more (but not in a bad way).

Also had a massive hobby-sort.
I have surprisingly little unbuilt just now: Avenger Strike Fighters, Sinestro & Corps, Wonder Woman 84, Dormammu, Moon Knight & Blade. Helped elder spawn build the Asterians (deadzone 3) he got for his birthday though, not that he needed much help (bloody teenagers) I'd really like to chug through my backlog by xmas (hey, I bought myself the Avengers last xmas).
Part of this way motivated by the fact that I'm no longer sharing the study with the dog (which was always the plan once he hit 6 months), so my wonderful wife got me a new geek rug <3

It also conveniently covers the buggered-up lip of the floor hatch

The hell of clearouts but nearly there. More space, actually able to use my painting desk instead of crouching over the desktop (the big cupboard belongs to herself, tis full of cake stuff).

We managed to do the first mission versus the Collector last night, crazy hard (he removes from play your discarded cards into his Collection, and when it hits 15, you lose) and just scraped through (but you yourself still get added to The Collection - escape is the next mission). Great fun, Star-Lord is bonkers but in a really good way, maximum risk/reward - totally unplayable out of the box though, you need a sizeable collection to fine-tune the deck :/ Venom and Nebula are rock-hard and super-versatile, although Nebula runs off discard so it was very hairy at points! I'm working on a Hulk deck atm as I'm determined to make him viable and, well, SMASH. Picked up a spare Valkyire deck with an ebay voucher and am currently gutting it for parts, whilst retooling the Valkyrie stuff for a mate.
And because I need more to paint...

This genius Reaper Chaos gatling mutant was today's advent treat, he's going to get drafted for Dredd/Strontium Dog, my Mutant Marauders are a little light on the heavy firepower so he'll fit nicely. I'm acutely aware there's a fair Lovely smooth, light beer too
So, hoping to tackle Captain Marvel, maybe Iron Man and at least some FoFo this week. We'll see
Graven

Again heaps of great stuff going on here. I’m really impressed how good these marvel sculpts are and the quality of your painting skills. Enjoying the beer posts too.

Brother Voodoo looks great, adding those skulls worked a treat.

Plague doctor is certainly the nicest of those advent adventurers, always going to make an interesting mini. Although the latest one with his big horns and bigger gun does top him.

Nice rug, and cool piece of Boba/Darth art!

Nice work on Brother Voodoo (No idea who he is though!)

Wow, that's not the Brother Voodoo that I [urlhttp://www.marveldirectory.com/individuals/b/brothervoodoo.htm]remember[/url]. You did a good job on him.

Yorkright wrote: Again heaps of great stuff going on here. I’m really impressed how good these marvel sculpts are and the quality of your painting skills. Enjoying the beer posts too.

Given how insanenly expensive the figs are, the sculpts really should be top-notch Not sure about my skills but certainly I am trying. I'm enjoying the beer too

monkeytroll wrote:Brother Voodoo looks great, adding those skulls worked a treat.
Plague doctor is certainly the nicest of those advent adventurers, always going to make an interesting mini. Although the latest one with his big horns and bigger gun does top him.
Nice rug, and cool piece of Boba/Darth art!

Ah yes, one of my other pieces of nerd decor! I have many more, and many yet to put up, alas

aku-chan wrote:Nice work on Brother Voodoo (No idea who he is though!)

The houngan supreme, master of magic of the spirits. And, thanks!

JoshInJapan wrote:Wow, that's not the Brother Voodoo that I remember. You did a good job on him.

Ah, the 70s! I think - but don't quote me on this - the redesign correlates with his time as Doctor Voodoo, Sorcerer Supreme in Strange's absence. Cheers!

A very quiet week hobby-wise, it's prelim (mock) exam season so marking workload is bananas - between that and doing xmas family type stuff with the kids, I'm barely cracking open a paint pot, although I have done a bit more on some FoFo and Lanterns:

TBH, things won't really calm down now till 22nd, end of term; so apologies in advance if it's a bit quiet on the graven front. Advent, however, continues to be both productive and delicious:

Tuesday: a ridiculously smooth beer, and an excellent cackling, crouching witch! I got one similar in my calendar last year, as it happens, but she got stolen by little miss to paint, so it'll be nice to have one myself - again, love me some fantasy townsfolk for Moonstone! I've got my preordered Vespa (faerie riding a wasp) and Mystics (faun/faerie dual faction characters) and my KS order has dispatched - The Arising campaign (with rules for townsfolk too!), campaign deck, Promo enraged Faerie Queen and Voth. The latter is particularly exciting as he's the first of the game's wizards (that everyone is scurrying around trying to sell Moonstones to) and he's bonkers powerful: as a result, he's also the first piece to count as 2 models for your troupe size (of 6) - well actually, 3, because he must be taken with his (weasly, weedy) Homunculus servant also.

Wednesday brought this mighty Barbarian! Another reasonable addition to stock fantasy characters, great Heroquest / Frostgrave vibe to this chap. Plus, a very juicy beer indeed.

Thursday, an excellent nautical type. Very Call-Me-Ishmael. With Dominion human pirates coming in The Arising he'll fit right in with the townsfolk. And quite rightly, the beer is aquatic also

And today, I got an excellent undead wolf type to menace and generally ravage. No Beer pic, but that's cos I'm off to the pub tonight and they don't let you bring your pets Bear in mind my beer advent is more a self-made odyssey to celebrate small brewers. Hectic weekend, too - xmas party for little one, theatre for Christmas Carol (excellent production, much big puppetry), seeing old friends and out for dinner with my parents. Busy busy!

Graven

Lantern Corps looking good there, Guy in particular, although I can't say why that sculpt calls to me more than Hal, or even Kilowog.

And samurai with tentacles?

Nonchalant nautical navigator is pretty cool.

Enjoy the weekend and beer.

monkeytroll wrote:Lantern Corps looking good there, Guy in particular, although I can't say why that sculpt calls to me more than Hal, or even Kilowog.
And samurai with tentacles?
Nonchalant nautical navigator is pretty cool.
Enjoy the weekend and beer.

I think it's the gleeful, barely contained rage on Guy.
Thumbsup or tentacles up
Talking of tentacles - as so many people are these days - TAKOBAKE SAMURAI!

Big squiddly buggers.
Anyhoo. Work is bananas, hence the erratic posting, but I have had time to splatter some paint on a range of things. So, finally...

In brightest day, in blackest night...

The casts are ropey tbh in KM's shakey new rubbery "resin"

Hal Jordan

Ch'p, who might be my favourite

Kilowog

Arisia Rrab

Salaak

and a very angry Guy Gardner

The advent calendar is a continual delight also. Here's the undead wolf, and a very bloody butcher:

Beer seemed fitting also

Sunday brought this very neat spell effect from the Bones 5 Kickstarter.

Random. I'm going to use it as a base for Wong, eventually, as he just gets a tactical rock to stand on.

And Monday, a fab steampunk adventuress came.


Today, another pirate type, but he's clearly been blessed by

What a great sculpt. Straight into the blightkings he goes!

So ticking over. On the workbench are a dozen FoFo Bandits and a LOT of Veer-myn for Deadzone. Wonder what I'll actually finish next?
Graven

The Corp looks great, right off the pages .

I think that Guy looks so bad because he’s obviously a Green lantern, he knows how to use that power and he is just standing there not looking aggressive. So you know the power is all coiled up inside him ready to lash out, and he is not known for his restraint , so you are a bit leary in doing anything that might set him off.

It's not easy being green... Love the corps, great work on them! And the tentacle samurai are a fun contrast.

Tentacles samurai are what the world's been waiting for

Finished corps look very nice - didn't spot Ch'p in the teaser, you're right, I think he lips Guy as my favourite, although there's still something about Guy that grabs me.

And looking at the way the shadows from below his collar made me think he could be converted into a variant Punisher - seems doable to make a skull form on that torso and swap out the energy for an M16

Nice advent additions, particularly those last two.

Theophony wrote:The Corp looks great, right off the pages .

I think that Guy looks so bad because he’s obviously a Green lantern, he knows how to use that power and he is just standing there not looking aggressive. So you know the power is all coiled up inside him ready to lash out, and he is not known for his restraint , so you are a bit leary in doing anything that might set him off.

I think that this would be a great sculpt for his Red Lantern incarnation, not green. Ah well.

Viterbi wrote:It's not easy being green... Love the corps, great work on them! And the tentacle samurai are a fun contrast.

Thanks buddy. Good to see you also worship at the church of DC!
On which, I thought I'd finally get round to last year's black Friday promo, Krypto:

Lovely cape. Terrible cast. Bloody km it's why I haven't yet tackled the sinistro corps Still probably going to pick up the latest releases (Larfleeze, Saint Walker, new Zod, new Black Adam) as I have everything else for DCU - and KM's hopelessness notwithstanding, it's a fantastic game.

BUT there's more mileage just now in Marvel, so...

Going very comic.

Don't know why she's such a dodgy cast. Very odd. I mean there's some fitting issues with the plastics sure but she was just... nasty.

And last but by no means least, from the core set:

Great sculpt straight out of the gate, very enjoyable to paint. Dialed back the OSL from what I planned but still very pleased.

And another beverage and Reaper delight

I'm loving the ragtag band of classic dungeon delvers I'm getting, starting to think about another book nook already! And very pleased that the wizard's staff does indeed have a knob on the end

Veer-Myn are swarming across my desk, but the weather's been unseasonably mild so got more priming done also (Dormammu, Moon Knight, Blade, and Avenger strike fighters). Bandits are nearly done for FoFo also - which mean the end is finally in sight! I'm determined to play the game fully painted by hook or by crook >;E a foolish brag
Graven

So, we went to see Spider-man.


As a result, there really was someone I HAD to do... Dr Strange, Sorcerer Supreme!

And a bit macro'd

I do love a cape, it's true

And, next up, the last (for now!) Spidey villain: Kraven the Hunter!

I have no great affection for the character, but it's a great sculpt and he's very good at annoying my son when he plays Web Warriors I am a terrible parent


And as I'm finishing up things, the last of my Asgardians: Angela!

I'm a sucker for Neil Gaiman at the best of times, and his dip into Marvel was certainly interesting.

I had intended to go with more gold on the armour but I just really liked the angelic silvers.

BUT that's not at all... Beware of Bandits!

The heads are modular, and even a couple of body poses, but I did some hand swaps and some masks also.

And with the Fallen Shogun:


A productive hobby weekend, it also featured an epic game of DC Deckbuilding which, most improbably, ended in a draw

And more advent adventures: a creepy gnome porter, who'll go rather well with the goblin porter I got last year.

Rats! Good for the Veer-Myn hordes

And this excellent retro zombie. I think I'll do him a train driver for Brimstone.

My Moonstone: The Arising pledge turned up yesterday, so that might just motivate me to paint more Moonstone. Who knows though, I am fickle
Graven

Strange and Angela look great , also kudos for how Graven the Hunter turned out . I think the first Spider-Man comic I read was fighting him, or maybe it was from the Spider-Man and his amazing friends cartoon. Either way, not one of my favorite villains.

Nice bandits too, glad they are modular.

Theophony wrote:Strange and Angela look great , also kudos for how Graven the Hunter turned out . I think the first Spider-Man comic I read was fighting him, or maybe it was from the Spider-Man and his amazing friends cartoon. Either way, not one of my favorite villains.

Nice bandits too, glad they are modular.

I can't believe I didn't make the Graven the Hunter joke clearly my dad powers are weakening.
Right, onwards to Festivus!

Despite thinking was taking a break from Marvel, decided to get some paint on my 3D printed Sabertooth.

Turned out decent, I think. And talking of prints.

Longing, rusted, seventeen, daybreak, furnace, nine, benign, homecoming, one, freight car.

Well, it is Winter, after all

Lovely chilled Xmas Eve with the kids. Played DC Deckbuilding with the boys, introduction for the younger via Crisis Mode taking on the Antimonitor. We JUST won, but two turns away from losing - 2 hours of nail biting fun. Little miss wanted to paint models, so...

Female supers, 3d printed - Karu Sil, Queen of Blood and Arisia Rrab - and a saloon girl from SoB. She also did a painting of Arisia which led to the following:
Me - She's a magic superhero!
Clara (pointing, patiently) - *sigh* no daddy, she's a green lantern.
That's me told

Merry Xmas my brilliant brothers and sisters. You truly are the best.
Graven


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Theophony wrote:Strange and Angela look great , also kudos for how Graven the Hunter turned out . I think the first Spider-Man comic I read was fighting him, or maybe it was from the Spider-Man and his amazing friends cartoon. Either way, not one of my favorite villains.

Nice bandits too, glad they are modular.

I can't believe I didn't make the Graven the Hunter joke clearly my dad powers are weakening.
Right, onwards to Festivus!

Despite thinking was taking a break from Marvel, decided to get some paint on my 3D printed Sabertooth.

Turned out decent, I think. And talking of prints.

Longing, rusted, seventeen, daybreak, furnace, nine, benign, homecoming, one, freight car.

Well, it is Winter, after all

Lovely chilled Xmas Eve with the kids. Played DC Deckbuilding with the boys, introduction for the younger via Crisis Mode taking on the Antimonitor. We JUST won, but two turns away from losing - 2 hours of nail biting fun. Little miss wanted to paint models, so...

Female supers, 3d printed - Karu Sil, Queen of Blood and Arisia Rrab - and a saloon girl from SoB. She also did a painting of Arisia which led to the following:
Me - She's a magic superhero!
Clara (pointing, patiently) - *sigh* no daddy, she's a green lantern.
That's me told

Merry Xmas my brilliant brothers and sisters. You truly are the best.
Graven

Merry Christmas you young GOAT.

Hope all is merry and bright.

That’s the Sabertooth I know and love. Huge mutton chopped and bad fur collar . When I get my computer sorted out and can start printing again I may have to put him in a cue.

Theophony wrote:Merry Christmas you young GOAT.

Hope all is merry and bright.

That’s the Sabertooth I know and love. Huge mutton chopped and bad fur collar . When I get my computer sorted out and can start printing again I may have to put him in a cue.

Right back at ya chief.
Very much so, it really was an excellent day, and indeed season.
Yeah it's a very good STL, very retro. I'll fire it over to you if you want, it's a free one, just lmk.

Got a mighty haul of nerd loot to keep me busy

Particularly happy with triangle barreled sables which make painting a lot more bearable with my cruddy hand muscles
On the painting front, finished of the takobake

Which means FoFo is done, apart from the characters! Taking me past the 800 mark, no less.
And, to the devil, a daughter!

Dormammu and Clea Strange

Dormammu, I've come to bargain!

And, Clea. She needed a better base, so did some dark Dimension energy with green stuff and paper clips.


So done STUFF
As I'm clearing backlog I can confidently say that Moonstone stuff is in the offing
...
Maybe

Graven

That Dormammu is epic.

D-man is really nice.

Your haul is looking great as well.

Wow, that is not the Dormammu that I remember, but I've been away from the comics scene for a long, long time. Your fire effects are particularly nice.

All is good in the Graven blog. That Captain Marvel and Doctor Strange really pop for me. Your going to have to give us a battle report sometime with pictures.

youwashock wrote:That Dormammu is epic.

It's a beast of a fig, for sure. Thanks man.

Theophony wrote:D-man is really nice.
Your haul is looking great as well.

I have indeed done well. And cheers amigo.

JoshInJapan wrote:Wow, that is not the Dormammu that I remember, but I've been away from the comics scene for a long, long time. Your fire effects are particularly nice.

Not a giant floating head, right? I think this is supposed to be as if he is summoned physically into our dimension. And thanks!

Yorkright wrote: All is good in the Graven blog. That Captain Marvel and Doctor Strange really pop for me. Your going to have to give us a battle report sometime with pictures.

Oh indeed! Hoping to play some more soon.
Now I don't know about anyone else but I've been loving Hawkeye on a weds so I'm a bit sad it's over (as much as I'm excited for Book of Boba Fett) and so to tide me over I did a thing:

The fig is from Kitbash Games, Arrow - I was going to use her as Emiko / Red Arrow for DC but it occurred to me that sculpt was great for Kate Bishop.

At 32mm she's slightly wee but not too bad. Good enough to save me the price of a Hawkeye pack I reckon

Little bit of base detail.

And a little bit of festive fun

And how about an obscure modern marvel character in the form of The Hood, and his demonic form?

It's really just an excuse to do capes


Not sure how good he is in game but with the rules changes coming everything is a bit up in the air anyway


As promised, a little bit of a batrep

Asgard vs Web Warriors. Asgardians are very powerful but very expensive; web Warriors light and fragile. Crises were cosmic cube fragments and dark portals

Valkyrie is a combat monster, but venom is the heavy hitter that keeps coming back for more

Angela is likewise brutal but Gwen has all the movement shenanigans.
In the end, the boy bested me fair and square. Because the game doesn't let you one-shot, you need a mix of light and heavy characters (and size of team matters for igougo). It's very interesting, a bit too swingy for my taste (and the 2D nature of the 3D map - no falling - annoys me intensely) but the boy loves it and minis are a joy to paint. More marvel ahead, I suspect

But in the meantime, and to round out 2021, Forbidden Fortress: the characters!

Well 3 forbidden Fortress, 2 temple of Shadows.

I decided the soldier and the samurai were uncorrupted members of the takobake clan, hence the colour scheme
Now technically the other characters are painted also.

However, I want to try something a bit more ambitious in terms of the robes for the Geisha and Shugenja and the enforcer's shoulder I guess you'll have to come back in 2022 for that
Thanks for all your support over the last year. 817 models and lots of quality chat.
Till next time, my lovelies,
Graven

That's a mighty impressive painting total for the year!

Thanks kindly sir! To be fair lockdowns have helped, I don't think 2022 will be nearly as productive.

That was a mighty hobby haul for Christmas! Fantastic work on rounding off the year with those fofo heroes!

And caught up Missed quite a bit, love all the magicians and Dormammu looks ace. Love the "unofficial" Kate Bishop and I hope they get her in the game officially soon. Show was really fun and will surely get a rewatch next christmas.

And 817 minis Even if 2022 will bring less minis, there will still be enough to watch on here

Wow, that's quite the score - Good dedication

The board for your bat rep is sublime, really immersive.

Loving the combo of beers and models here.

endtransmission wrote:That was a mighty hobby haul for Christmas! Fantastic work on rounding off the year with those fofo heroes!

Well thanks. I have the family... Reasonably well trained lol.

Viterbi wrote:And caught up Missed quite a bit, love all the magicians and Dormammu looks ace. Love the "unofficial" Kate Bishop and I hope they get her in the game officially soon. Show was really fun and will surely get a rewatch next christmas.
And 817 minis Even if 2022 will bring less minis, there will still be enough to watch on here

Well thanks indeed. More magic users to come for sure. Yeah, Hawkeye is already a Xmas classic.

Slinky wrote:Wow, that's quite the score - Good dedication
The board for your bat rep is sublime, really immersive.

Aw cheers man. It'll be even better with a couple more buildings.

carlos13th wrote:Loving the combo of beers and models here.

I do love a beer, it is true. I need to dry out a bit though, not a full dryanuary but certainly a week or two off the bevvy.
I'm not going to do a year in review, but the big "new" of 2021 was Crisis Protocol. It's been good on many levels, helping me (re)build confidence with my painting - I feel like I'm almost back to where I was 5 years ago before developing muscle problems in my right hand. But anyway, what is coming 2022?
(1) Deadzone is high on the list. I have a swarm of Veer-Myn to do, plus terrain and my kids to help with their Asterians and GCPS. I finally have a clear plan for the look of them, and how to paint batch paint it, so here's hoping.
(2) Moonstone! The models are utterly beautiful but I've been scared of painting the humans as they're quite intimidating - finally feel ready to tackle them.
(3) MCP. Those Christmas presents won't paint themselves
(4) Aeronautica Imperialis Asuyrani / Astartes : Wrath of Angels was a delightful gift at Xmas, and I am going to revisit one of my early hobby memories, going to GW London Oxford Street and seeing an epic t'hawk drybrushed boltgun over black and being blown away by it. So they're going to be Raven Guard, as that's the boy's SM force; I've caved and ordered the FW transfer sheet as it will save a lot of hassle in the long run. And then some Eldar too, because you have to have the space elf glass ninjas to go with (but... I'll probably stick with da Orks, fanks )
(5) Descent - a funny one this. We got a review copy of Descent, and it's great... But it's a board game so ordinarily I don't obsess about painting the models. They are VERY shiny however.
(6) Booknook - I have an urge to make a Booknook, a little vignette that you slot into a bookcase. The first one will be Venice themed, and we'll go from there.

And as I say, here's the state of my Veer-myn

I know that I seem to churn out minis so here's what's ticking over! I always have lots going on that I don't post. What's your thoughts on the rusty metal scheme for my giant space rats? As you can see I'm playing about with different variations, although the Night Terror (big one down front with blades on its back) is closest to what I'm going for I think.
So that's me for now - 2022 agogo baby!
Graven

Sorry for not checking in in what seems like ages (though that could just be the rate you paint, which warps space-time with sheer productivity).

Catching up, love what you've done with Dormammu and The Hood. I can only recall coming across him in the Bendis Secret Avengers run and an old crossover with the Beyonder, but I always enjoyed Hood's aesthetic and power set. Kraven deserves a soecial mention too, love the colour palette you went for there and just the character in general.

Happy new year, hope it's as productive as the previous few!

I'm glad I'm not the only one with an urge to make a booknook! I want to make a Necromunda one to go with all the rulebooks... at some point.

Most excited for seeing more MCP in the future, but that booknook sounds fun, especially if Venice will be the first foray!

Paradigm wrote:Sorry for not checking in in what seems like ages (though that could just be the rate you paint, which warps space-time with sheer productivity).
Catching up, love what you've done with Dormammu and The Hood. I can only recall coming across him in the Bendis Secret Avengers run and an old crossover with the Beyonder, but I always enjoyed Hood's aesthetic and power set. Kraven deserves a soecial mention too, love the colour palette you went for there and just the character in general.
Happy new year, hope it's as productive as the previous few!

Well, I doubt it will be quite as productive but I'll be happy with painting merrily along. Thanks for all the kind feedback.

endtransmission wrote:I'm glad I'm not the only one with an urge to make a booknook! I want to make a Necromunda one to go with all the rulebooks... at some point.

Oh, Munda is a good shout. After Venice I think a dungeon scene is next on my list. I'm vaguely surprised the wife is so keen though.

Viterbi wrote:Most excited for seeing more MCP in the future, but that booknook sounds fun, especially if Venice will be the first foray!

Well you won't be disappointed, at least in the former... Hopefully

Well perhaps unsurprisingly, the year begins with MCP, firstly in the form of Moon Knight:

I quite like when the comics universes draw on Egyptian mythology, and it opens up the possibility for Kang the Conqueror (because timeywimey shenanigans).

I'm looking forward to the TV show even if I'm slightly wary of Oscar Isaac's accent in the trailer, more so than the Black Adam movie (which likewise all Egyptian), weirdly, despite being a DC nerd at heart.

I think it's easy to write him off as just Marvel's Batman, he's more nuanced than that and his mental health struggles are compelling when written well. Here's hoping.

Slight repose, angling the chimney forward and adding more rubble so it seems to have crashed to the ground.

And next, the Daywalker: Blade!

I'm of the generation that grew up with the blade movies and far too much vampire stuff in their geek lives.

This is a funny old base so I tried to add more glowy and rubble so they're bursting through the ground.

In all, i think he's turned out well. I'm all about the capes

And, did a bit of scatter.

I decided to really go to town with the slaps.

By my Byzantine rules, two small things usually counts as 1 painted model, but I really think these 3 should only count as 1.
Also, I'm trying to sort out my absolute shelf of shame of Moonstone; I need to get back into these as it's my absolute favourite fantasy skirmish, but having total paralysis of choice so... It's over to you! Groups in the pictures in the spoiler block, should it be goblins, humans, faeries, trolls, giants, witches or Leshavault cultists and fantasy creatures?

Help me out gang!
Back at work, just trying to get into the swing of things. It's always a bit odd. Anyway, ticking over, all in all.
Graven

I vote for witches.

Moon Knight looks great. I loved that book back in the day-- before Bill Sienkiewicz got all weird, he was a really good Neil Adams imitator, which suited the character really well.

Clearly the Marvel version of Batman is Night-Owl, but yes, Moon Knight is pretty close too I guess. I'm really looking forward to that series

Great work on Moon Knight and blade too. As for Moonstone... my vote is to finish the Goblins that you've already started first!

Great job on the capes as usual!

I also vote for witches.

Goblins!

Moonknight and all the capes looking good Although no idea who the Hood is.
Be interesting to see how they work the multiple personalities, including Mr Knight, if that was indeed who appeared in the teaser.

I'd like to see what you do with the faerie contingent, but also cultists and monsters, and indeed the Veer-myn So basically, I'll wait and see what comes out the Gravencave...

JoshInJapan wrote:I vote for witches.
Moon Knight looks great. I loved that book back in the day-- before Bill Sienkiewicz got all weird, he was a really good Neil Adams imitator, which suited the character really well.

Ah, the lovely witches. Yes, the 70s Adams vibe really suits the character.

endtransmission wrote:Clearly the Marvel version of Batman is Night-Owl, but yes, Moon Knight is pretty close too I guess. I'm really looking forward to that series
Great work on Moon Knight and blade too. As for Moonstone... my vote is to finish the Goblins that you've already started first!

Well indeed. And yeah. Pesky goblins!

aku-chan wrote:Great job on the capes as usual!
I also vote for witches.

I love capes. Blame Gitsplitta, he made me learn to wet blend vote noted

Dysartes wrote:Goblins!

It's headed for a tie! Witches and goblins, oh my!

monkeytroll wrote:Moonknight and all the capes looking good Although no idea who the Hood is.
Be interesting to see how they work the multiple personalities, including Mr Knight, if that was indeed who appeared in the teaser.
I'd like to see what you do with the faerie contingent, but also cultists and monsters, and indeed the Veer-myn So basically, I'll wait and see what comes out the Gravencave...

Interesting that you have very different tastes to the others! Goblins and witches seem to be most popular but I'll bear your vote in mind
So I'm trying to clear my backlog in the meantime. First up, the last 3 heroes for Forbidden Fortress:

Shugenja (elemental sorceress), Geisha and Enforcer.

Lots of experiments. Green highlights on orange, blossom on the parasol, and freehand tattoos.

Whilst I am not 100% on them I am, for the most part happy.
I've also been trudging away at my Veer-Myn for Deadzone. I HATE army painting. Never mind, they are finally coming together in all their rusty, ratty glory.

Stuck in the house with the kids today, waiting for PCR test results. Still, got some marking done and managed to take down Ronan the Accuser in the process.

Really testing scenario, as befits an end of campaign boss fight. Didn't help that we had Klyntar symbiotes (like Venom) flailing around at us as well.

Going to try to make some headway on my booknook, but the rats are gnawing away at me...
Graven

Hah, my tastes vary greatly, depending on the time - although tentacles and wires are obviously always at the forefront

Good job on the tattoos, and the parasol looks great, very effective.

Untill I blew it up I thought it was a shujenga, geisha and Don Ho playing a ukulele....very intimidating and more proof I need new glasses.

as for the Moonstone guys I say grab all the fat ones and knock them out first, then midgets and then normal sized beings. That is also a very insensitive thing for me to say, but it would put me in the first batch

 inmygravenimage wrote:

Stuck in the house with the kids today, waiting for PCR test results. Still, got some marking done and managed to take down Ronan the Accuser in the process.

I see. "marking"

monkeytroll wrote:Hah, my tastes vary greatly, depending on the time - although tentacles and wires are obviously always at the forefront
Good job on the tattoos, and the parasol looks great, very effective.

Hey there's always time for tentacles

Theophony wrote:Untill I blew it up I thought it was a shujenga, geisha and Don Ho playing a ukulele....very intimidating and more proof I need new glasses.
as for the Moonstone guys I say grab all the fat ones and knock them out first, then midgets and then normal sized beings. That is also a very insensitive thing for me to say, but it would put me in the first batch

noted.

endtransmission wrote:
I see. "marking"

Yup lol. Got to stay sane somehow

This is a very project-y month, and I'm just plodding away with my Veer-myn for now:

The metals are now on over the rust - the idea is the higher status, the less rust - and so the next job is straps/pouches (khaki) then eyes/cables (red), claws/teeth (bone), fur/tail highlights, and finally finishing off glowy bubbly green goo. It's a long slog - I really find army painting soul-destroying - but breaking it down into chunks makes it a lot more bearable

The Book Nook is also primed in its various sections, and starting to come together (dodgy pic, sorry):

Need to assemble and paint the two sides separately (green shutters, off-white stone work) and then slide it all together, along with the mirrored backing and base insert for the water. That'll be... interesting.

And then, goblins and witches next... Honest Though I have just primed up all my Wrath of Angels stuff
Graven

Yooo book nook looks like itll be really good. Keep it up!

The rusty rats look great so far. You're nearly there... keep going!

Stevefamine wrote: Your book nook looks like it'll be really good. Keep it up!

High praise indeed from a master craftsman! Here's hoping ...

endtransmission wrote:The rusty rats look great so far. You're nearly there... keep going!

Cheers. They were a slog, but worth it.

So, indeed, here are all 24. A mix of DZ3 starter, a cheap box of the old figs and a promo.

I ended up doing yellow for the cables and turquoise for lenses, just popped better. Essentially, the more rust, the lower in rank they are.

Nightcrawlers (shooty grunts)

Night Stalkers (stabby runts)

Night Terrors (fast heavy/fast assault one is a rescue, one is not ... )

Nightmares (slow elite heavies; I freakin' love these, and want more).

Pack Leader (new resin DZ3 boxset leader, massive and lovely)

Progenitor and Brood Mother (leaders, very pleased to snag the old promo progenitor, need to print some rats for big momma)

Creeper and Volt Chaser (Creeper is a big kitbash with GS lower half, Volt Chaser is mini kitbash)

Maligni (specialists; new style, great models)

Rumbler and Spotter (slow mobile field artillery; need to kitbash another Rumbler with the alternate weapon and likewise another spotter). So, yes, that's quite enough of a horde for a skirmish game, barring a swarm of rats or two.

What else? Well, where there's rats, there's plague...

This Reaper Plague Doctor will be going into the Venice Book Nook, lurking in the shadows. I'd considered some deep red for the hood as a nod to Don't Look Now, given that I'm trying to get a few references in the one place, but the green just looked better.

And you didn't think I'd really take a break for Marvel, did you?

Baron Mordo - not a character I'm overly fond of in comics, but I'm a huge Chiwetel Ejiofor fan and love that the in-game sculpt is so close to his appearance in the MCU (so far ) I added the barrel because it just felt to fragile (plus ties it in with some of my other bases).

Lurking in the WIP section of the paint queue is The Ancient One - I can't believe that Marvel minis have become a palette cleanser > oh, and I have started on the witches and goblins, but nothing to show... Yet
Graven

That's a great set of mucky soace rats! Consistent, interesting and somewhat disgusting, what more can you ask for?

Mordo looks excellent too, and I 100% agree about Chiwetel, he does a superb job in that role (I have my issues with some of the action in the Doctor Strange movie, but the cast is perfection)

Love the plague doc, for a mini that reads as one colour at first glance, there's a nice amount of variety within that, and the sword is super.

Nice little horde Good touch with the rust ranking. That pack leader looks lovely, ripe for some champion's
Are we missing pics for the creeper and volt-chaser though ?

Great plague doc, and the sword is lovely.

Paradigm wrote:That's a great set of mucky soace rats! Consistent, interesting and somewhat disgusting, what more can you ask for?
Mordo looks excellent too, and I 100% agree about Chiwetel, he does a superb job in that role (I have my issues with some of the action in the Doctor Strange movie, but the cast is perfection)
Love the plague doc, for a mini that reads as one colour at first glance, there's a nice amount of variety within that, and the sword is super.

Thanks on all counts. That was exactly what I wanted with my Space Skaven
I likewise have many issues, but it's still better than Eternals
I am so thrilled you like the Plague Doctor and his sword, I did try hard with it so that's much appreciated.

monkeytroll wrote:Nice little horde Good touch with the rust ranking. That pack leader looks lovely, ripe for some champion's
Are we missing pics for the creeper and volt-chaser though ?
Great plague doc, and the sword is lovely.

Yeah the pack leader is a cracking figure, and thanks for the feedback.
Ah! Bother!

Creepers are hackers, able to disable tech on the field, which makes them particularly good against Asterians (robot drones). Volt Chasers are Technorati (ha!), rats with bionic upgrades - so he's got a wee bionic eye.

Painting likely to be out of action this week: trying to get the broadband fixed (Thursday) which translates to emptied out man cave. Going to prime, as it's a little milder, and build, instead.

Despite being crammed into a tiny space surrounded with all hobby in boxes, I managed to tackle a couple more bits.

The Ancient One for MCP. I went hooded, not bald, athough I do like the gender-fluid sculpt that they created for the game. Enjoyable experiments with deep warm yellows.

It's surprising what you can do in a tiny corner.

Caught up with metropolis, one of my oldest and dearest brothers-in-nerd, whom I've not seen in over a year - indeed thanks to pandemic he'd not even met my youngest spawn - we even ran a gaming webstore for a couple of years in the early days of online shopping. Easy to forget, in this age of TTS, Discord and so forth, how important the human side of the hobby is. And because he is the devil himself, he got me the KS of Core Space: First Born for Xmas.

It's a whole lot of game, cos THAT'S what I need more of

On which note, I've decided that this is the year to make the grand pilgrimage to Warhammer World (and Mantic HQ) - again, was planned pre-pandemic with the elder spawn for July 2020 but I'm determined now to do it, and take both my boys - it's a beast of a drive at nearly 5 hrs each way, but doable with a sleep one-way: 3 hrs or so down to outside York on a Tuesday evening (wife doesn't work Wednesdays), morning drive to Nottingham, AM at Mantic, Lunch and PM at GW, drive back up with dinner en route back up.

Might get some Aeronautica progress done next. We'll see.
Graven

Great work as usual here, seeing the Veer myn makes want to do mine, I have the box, and a bunch to be 3d printed.

Camkierhi wrote:Great work as usual here, seeing the Veer myn makes want to do mine, I have the box, and a bunch to be 3d printed.

Cheers buddy; might need to pick your brains about decent STLs for them as I'm struggling to find any.

Some progress on the Raven Guard air support:

Getting there. Red windows, and transfers galore, to follow.

So much amazing stuff... action and adventure. I have missed it!

I do hope appropriate sound effects will be used while those planes are in use, graven...

I do love the yellows you pulled off on the Ancient one

I'd love to try AI, but support from GW and the pricing just doesn't work for me. Local shops won't stock it if they could. I guess being burnt by X-wing 2.0 have them thinking twice about any flying games.

Nice looking yellows on the ancient one

The AI stuff is cool, but I can't help but feel those interceptors would look better with a long swishy tail and some claws....

Check out this guys work.

https://cults3d.com/en/users/EmanG/creations

Looks pretty amazing to me. A few swaps on weapons and some work on the armour and you are ggetting close.

This gent has a few as well.

https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/art/ratmen-gatling-gunner

I am patreon ing him, has some blooming nice bits.

Unsurprisingly I love all the new stuff, but especially the MCP additions And love the alternate head on the Ancient One, didn't know it came with an option. Good call on the support for Mordo. I love the dynamic poses on the MCP minis, but sometimes feel they've been made by people who don't have to built the stuff

Gitsplitta wrote:So much amazing stuff... action and adventure. I have missed it!

Missed you too Buddy, lovely to have you back.

Dysartes wrote:I do hope appropriate sound effects will be used while those planes are in use, graven...

Fwoosh, nyahhhowwwww, dakkadakkadakka boom.

Theophony wrote:I do love the yellows you pulled off on the Ancient one
I'd love to try AI, but support from GW and the pricing just doesn't work for me. Local shops won't stock it if they could. I guess being burnt by X-wing 2.0 have them thinking twice about any flying games.

Thanks pal. Xwing 2.0 was an absolute travesty. Don't talk about it, you'll give me the rage. I find gw's attitude to AI frustrating also, specifically the lack of ready availablity of card decks. At least they've started including stat cards on the building instructions now.

monkeytroll wrote:Nice looking yellows on the ancient one
The AI stuff is cool, but I can't help but feel those interceptors would look better with a long swishy tail and some claws....

Lol we do need some big chaos space birds

Camkierhi wrote:Check out this guys work.
https://cults3d.com/en/users/EmanG/creations
Looks pretty amazing to me. A few swaps on weapons and some work on the armour and you are ggetting close.
This gent has a few as well.
https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/art/ratmen-gatling-gunner
I am patreon ing him, has some blooming nice bits.

Knew of the second but not first, good catch.

Viterbi wrote:Unsurprisingly I love all the new stuff, but especially the MCP additions And love the alternate head on the Ancient One, didn't know it came with an option. Good call on the support for Mordo. I love the dynamic poses on the MCP minis, but sometimes feel they've been made by people who don't have to built the stuff

Lol so true and thanks as always

Speaking of the said tiny spessplehns:

A little progress, and the addition of FW transfers.

Trying to decide if the storm eagles need anything ventrally... Perhaps a name? "Shadow" and "Umbra" both come on the sheet...

Ongoing broadband hell seems to finally being resolved, ish, so can start to put study together again. Have so far spent 4-5hrs punching tokens and building cardstock scenery for Core Space, and still not quite done. OTOH, managed to blag stuff for giveaway and the trading post expansion for myself...

So that's a bonus, eh?
Graven

 Camkierhi wrote:
Check out this guys work.

https://cults3d.com/en/users/EmanG/creations

Looks pretty amazing to me. A few swaps on weapons and some work on the armour and you are ggetting close.

This gent has a few as well.

https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/art/ratmen-gatling-gunner

I am patreon ing him, has some blooming nice bits.

I am a big fan of Eman, I have printed a lot of his works. I just found out that he takes the files from the GW games and videos and then work so on them, at least from what I’ve read. Either way they are fantastic.

Those Marine fliers are looking great, that Raven Guard scheme is really striking with the white transfers. Love what you did with the Ancient One too.

On the subject of printed rats, only thing to watch for with EmanG's models is that they can sometimes have some hollow voids in them that can cause cracking later. I've not printed any of his Skaven, but I had a couple of his goblins burst on me a while back for that reason.

I love your work on the Veer-myn. I got my son the starter set for Xmas. Combined with my Projectandora set, we have a pretty good start on a warband. Sadly, he doesn't enjoy the painting aspect of the hobby as much as I do, so we have a bunch of assembled and primed models sitting and gathering dust. Maybe once his spring vacation starts I can get him to start...

I'm jealous that you can visit both Mantic and GW. Being on the other side of the world poses and insurmountable obstacle for me.

I loved the Core Spare rules and miniatures, but felt overwhelmed by the cardboard... the setup of the games seemed to take forever.

Look forward to seeing what you do with them all!

 endtransmission wrote:
I loved the Core Spare rules and miniatures, but felt overwhelmed by the cardboard... the setup of the games seemed to take forever.

Look forward to seeing what you do with them all!

That was one of the selling points to our original Necromunda groups, the setting up of all the cardboard terrain. I've seen it on the shelves at the local FLGS, but will have to live this one through Graven.

I struggled to identify some of the wall pieces for the map setups in the campaign and always ended up with slightly wonky layouts. Looking back, I wish I'd tried harder (or just gone with a gridded floor plan now I have the whiteboard table top). I was part of a beta playthrough day with the designers and it was an absolute blast to play.

The loot crate idea and the civilians wandering around were all really interesting design choices that just gave the whole thing some character. Looking forward to seeing Graven play

Theophony wrote:
I am a big fan of Eman, I have printed a lot of his works. I just found out that he takes the files from the GW games and videos and then work so on them, at least from what I’ve read. Either way they are fantastic.

I think that despite the Skaven symbols they're probably more useful than the others too as they aren't covered in :eagle:

Paradigm wrote:Those Marine fliers are looking great, that Raven Guard scheme is really striking with the white transfers. Love what you did with the Ancient One too.
On the subject of printed rats, only thing to watch for with EmanG's models is that they can sometimes have some hollow voids in them that can cause cracking later. I've not printed any of his Skaven, but I had a couple of his goblins burst on me a while back for that reason.

Cheers! Good to know. That's always a bloody nuisance.

JoshInJapan wrote:I love your work on the Veer-myn. I got my son the starter set for Xmas. Combined with my Projectandora set, we have a pretty good start on a warband. Sadly, he doesn't enjoy the painting aspect of the hobby as much as I do, so we have a bunch of assembled and primed models sitting and gathering dust. Maybe once his spring vacation starts I can get him to start...
I'm jealous that you can visit both Mantic and GW. Being on the other side of the world poses and insurmountable obstacle for me.

Well, I have a similar problem with my kids tbh. My current thinking is get the younger to drybrush the GCPS with a dark green for easy master chief style paint scheme.
In 30+ years of being a gamer, I've never made the pilgrimage, so really it's about time. Mind you, I've never made it to Japan either

endtransmission wrote:I loved the Core Space rules and miniatures, but felt overwhelmed by the cardboard... the setup of the games seemed to take forever.
Look forward to seeing what you do with them all!

Yeah, it's all sorted at least now so we're going to try to do the first scenario (2-player intro) ... It seems pretty crunchy though.

Theophony wrote:

That was one of the selling points to our original Necromunda groups, the setting up of all the cardboard terrain. I've seen it on the shelves at the local FLGS, but will have to live this one through Graven.

That is a lie I will corrupt you!!

endtransmission wrote:I struggled to identify some of the wall pieces for the map setups in the campaign and always ended up with slightly wonky layouts. Looking back, I wish I'd tried harder (or just gone with a gridded floor plan now I have the whiteboard table top). I was part of a beta playthrough day with the designers and it was an absolute blast to play.

The loot crate idea and the civilians wandering around were all really interesting design choices that just gave the whole thing some character. Looking forward to seeing Graven play

Yeah the searchable terrain is ace. The new set has a gridded board which also makes the game much more accessible for younger spawn.

Little miss has been poorly (not the 'rona, just one of papa's other varied blessings) so not made masses of progress on the P&M front. I have, however, printed some more goodies, an experimental base of rats and Juggernaut for MCP also:

Not willing to pay £50 for Juggernaut, no matter how good he is in game. It's odd that I seem to be inadvertently making myself a set of Brotherhood simply by virtue of filling gaps on my 3d print bed The gaps existed as I was doing stuff for the little one:

Lovely crisp prints, really well designed. Kinda makes me wonder why more free ones aren't like that honestly, I'm such an ingrate.

Played the intro scenario for Core Space First Born, following the guide:

Whilst the skill tree is initially baffling, it's fairly easy to get grips with. The guide takes you logically with references into the rulebook at every step of the way. Also, the rulebook is laid out logically so everything's easy to find which is a bit of a novelty when a game has this much crunch.

One of the most entertaining, intuitive and terrifying aspects of the game is the Hostility tracker, where the danger increases not only every turn but the first time a shot is fired also (amongst other things), so there's a delightful tension.

And amazingly, we survived! The tip you get after the walkthrough of the first two turns is Don't Be a Hero and this is excellent advice - this is a game of finding stuff and running away like buggery. Definitely be playing more of this one It is undeniably fiddly but it's a rich setting with enormous amounts of content: as well as the 10-game campaign and all the downtime actions of trading, hiring new crew and tinkering with your ship, there's plenty of side missions and extra adventures available for download, along with campaign design and generators - and that's before you even get into purchasing expansions. It's a big universe out there
Graven

Nice to see it's not just me falling down a Marvel printing rabbit hole. a week ago it was 'oh, that's a cool 2002 movie Green Goblin mini!' and now I have most of the X-men on my desk, the Avengers in the printer right now and a rapidly growing pile of files from all over the place to fill out the collection (though I'll be damned if I can find more than one good Spidey floating around! ).

Is that C27's juggernaut, or someone else's that just looks similar?

JoshInJapan wrote:I love your work on the Veer-myn. I got my son the starter set for Xmas. Combined with my Projectandora set, we have a pretty good start on a warband. Sadly, he doesn't enjoy the painting aspect of the hobby as much as I do, so we have a bunch of assembled and primed models sitting and gathering dust. Maybe once his spring vacation starts I can get him to start...
I'm jealous that you can visit both Mantic and GW. Being on the other side of the world poses and insurmountable obstacle for me.

Well, I have a similar problem with my kids tbh. My current thinking is get the younger to drybrush the GCPS with a dark green for easy master chief style paint scheme.
In 30+ years of being a gamer, I've never made the pilgrimage, so really it's about time. Mind you, I've never made it to Japan either

Paradigm wrote:Nice to see it's not just me falling down a Marvel printing rabbit hole. a week ago it was 'oh, that's a cool 2002 movie Green Goblin mini!' and now I have most of the X-men on my desk, the Avengers in the printer right now and a rapidly growing pile of files from all over the place to fill out the collection (though I'll be damned if I can find more than one good Spidey floating around! ).
Is that C27's juggernaut, or someone else's that just looks similar?

Kobarf, on thingiverse. I've printed a bunch of his and they're excellent.

JoshInJapan wrote:
He won't do his painting, but he's always willing to throw down, so even in the midst of the pandemic I'm getting in a lot of games. Re: Warhammer World, I'll get there someday, maybe once I've retired...

You were supposed to say that Core Space is borderline unplayable. I've been on the fence for a while now, and have managed to resist the urge to pick up yet another game. You've just made it that much more difficult for me...

Lol sorry brother. It's genuinely exciting, and there's loads of free stuff for it, but it an enormous pile of bits: for the starter game, for instance

In terms of P&M, though, I have made some progress on my AI Astartes speshmehrine speshplehns.

I am generally loath to use transfers, but went for it and used VJ matt medium to seal them. Mostly, I think it has been successful.

Dark wings, dark words, or something like that. The FW HH transfer sheet seemed like a slightly excessive purchase at the time but I think it's been worth it on balance. Plus if it motivates the boy to get on with his 40K Raven Guard then so much the better. I've also settled on doing my Avenger Strike fighters in a kind of inverse of the scheme, almost like a PDF airwing.
And, just by the skin of my teeth, my book nook is done!

Taking inspiration from Il Mandrago / The Mandrake, Machiavelli's Venetian sex and skulduggery sage

Balloon LED (ah, that old faithful) and vinyl mirror sheets have worked well. The slight smoking from the superglue (bother) just adds a bit of mist, in the end (phew!)

The Contessa holds her skirts daintily to avoid the treacherous water, unaware of the lurker in the shadows.

Now, yes, there was supposed to be a gondola, but the papercraft one it came with was awful. So I've got a resin Carnevale one on order from TT, which will get added anon. Still, pretty happy to call it (and indeed enter it in this month's Dark Elf Dare on insta).
I'm trying VERY hard not to get enormously distracted by (a) Core Space (b) more MCP and (c) AI Thunderhawk as I actually do want to get back into Moonstone... it's a hard life
Graven

The nook is looking great, and fits nicely between those books! I still don't know where you find the time to do all this stuff...

You make the AI stuff look very tempting....BAH...not another game , plus if my flgs cannot get it, I just don't want to go and hunt all the things down.


That Book Nook is great. Too bad I sold off my Horus Heresy books as those would be a great wall to have GW minis mixed into with the battle scenes and chapters running between the different titles .

Lovely job on the Book Nook!

Grea use of the mirrors with a seen which makees sense with them.

Oh fook, I'm shook by a look at a spook (or a mook, but certainly a crook)with a hook in a book nook that looks like a brook....

That book nook is incredible graven! I'm blown away!

endtransmission wrote:The nook is looking great, and fits nicely between those books! I still don't know where you find the time to do all this stuff...

That glorious time between the small and medium kid going to bed >

Theophony wrote:You make the AI stuff look very tempting....BAH...not another game , plus if my flgs cannot get it, I just don't want to go and hunt all the things down.
That Book Nook is great. Too bad I sold off my Horus Heresy books as those would be a great wall to have GW minis mixed into with the battle scenes and chapters running between the different titles .

Oh man I hate you . A HH nook (or indeed a 40k one generally) is a great idea. Git I am already planning a couple of other ideas for birthdays, a Dune themed one (sandworm, very tiny Paul) for metropolis and possibly a Diagon Alley for the wife.

aku-chan wrote:Lovely job on the Book Nook!

Cheers man, been really taken with the response to it

Llamahead wrote:Great use of the mirrors with a seen which makees sense with them.

Thanks pal! The glue I've used has caused a slight smoking of it, unfortunately, but hey, Venice gets foggy right?

monkeytroll wrote:Oh fook, I'm shook by a look at a spook (or a mook, but certainly a crook)with a hook in a book nook that looks like a brook....

Gitsplitta wrote:That book nook is incredible graven! I'm blown away!

So kind old friend!

My painting time this weekend has been curtailed by painting the dining room. Pesky wife, getting me to do stuff. I mean, I do things eventually, she doesn't have to keep on reminding me every 6 months...
However, made progress on the Thunderhawk

Gorgeous beast. I feel that the white panels on the fuselage and front edge of the wings are a bit stark. The fuselage ones may get iconography but I wonder about switching the wing edges to red or (shockingly) bright silver. Thoughts?
Still, got a mighty supply drop from Asmodee and Hasbro.




It's good to be a geek kids are stealing the marvel merch (though Thor will be a giveaway, as will 7 wonders.
We tried both Splendor and Pandemic Hot Zone out straight away.

Turns out I prefer this to regular Pandemic. It's really just a condensed version of the game you can do in half an hour. So even if you're 2/3 of the way through and have hit that yawning inevitability of losing (but have to keep playing just cos) you don't feel like you've wasted your time. It's a bit more random, but it's so easy to replay that don't begrudge it

Another speedy delight is the splendid Splendor, where you collect gems, craft items and try to earn prestige and patronage of nobles. It's a fast and devious game with multiple strategies for victory - do you try to win through gaining the favour of nobles, or concentrate on mastering the basics of the jeweller's craft? Excellent and rather fiendish.
Next up - Arkham! And a LOT of marvel
Graven

So grateful you are painting up AI minis, so the rest of us don't have to pile on the pile of unfinished projects Looking great and excited for the new MCP stuff.

Nook looks great and makes me long to visit that beautiful city again.

Is that the revised Arkham starter, graven?

The nook is superb, really effective!

Nice little thunderhawk there. I'd say red would be a better choice than silver if you're trying to avoid the stark contrast, but how about adding some tiny grey scratches to the white panels, or a few streaks across them? Giving the impression of weathering at that scale should prevent the white from standing out too much...