Leviathus wrote:
Looking very good Azazelx!

Can't shake the feeling though that the warscythes are a bit too big, especially the wooden shaft. *shrug* the rest of the models look fine!

They are super-chunky. That's true. A bit more than I'd expected when I ordered them. It might be why they're being sold as "Warscythes" rather than "Scythes"?

Thanks for the kind offer Damo, but I've got plans for them. I'll be moving into a doghouse from Bunnings and letting the figure storage take over another room of the house - sorted!


More seriously, I'm up to 311 figures for this year, making it my most productive year yet!

Celtos weapons are absurd. I love 'em. Those scythers look very cool.

Thanks, mate!

As part of my "Clearing the Painting Desk" push that I've been on for the past few months, I'm also including "Renovations" as valid. Turning old models that have been sitting unused in cases for years into models that I'm once again happy enough with to display or game with is something that really feels worthwhile. Sometimes it just takes a rebasing, other times it also requires touching up, and other times it requires a significant repaint of parts of the model.



These two date from at least 1988, as they were both part of those waves of models released in conjunction with Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness, the tome dealing with Khorne and Slaanesh. Both were originally released simply as Beastmen, but they're clearly a cut above most of their compatriots from those releases in terms of fancy-pants gear, and so I've always considered them to be Beastman Champions of their respective deities.

I originally painted both of these two many years ago, and aside from the rebasing (the Khornate champion receiving a new 32mm base due to his size), both also needed some repainting.



The Khornate beastman, a Kev Adams sculpt from memory had a few pieces of gear that were originally painted green (because contrast) were redone in cadmium red, the webbed ruff was reddened, the (badly sculpted) shoulder spikes were redone in black from their original "aged horn" look and the armour and metal parts were redone, with a bit more done to highlight and shade. Painting in the gems across his crown was the final bit of updating.

I never liked this Khornate sculpt, but the rebasing and removal of the garish greens have turned my opinion a little. It feels like a solidly ok figure now. Still nothing great, but decent.

The Slaaneshi beastman, which I believe is a Jes Goodwin model had much more of a repaint. Back in the day I thought that "Slaanesh" meant "lots of garish colours" apparently. The leather legging (originally a pale, bright blue) was repainted to match the corset. The grinning face shoulder pad was originally pink, and repainted a dark gold/brass to match the sword's furniture and foot guard on the legging - which also features a grinning face. The leather straps were changed from a deep blue to a Deep Purple(!) to better match the tone of the figure set by the corset and legging, and the bag - which was originally a horrid garish yellow was also turned into a Deep Purple. The studs on the leather strapping and legging were also changed to a pale, pastel yellow to match those originally on the corset. I deepened and highlighted the yellow-green of his fishy head-crest to define it a little more, and highlighted his pale skin further, though it's a little washed out in the images here. The sword was originally a deep, dirty metallic blue, which I turned into a brighter metallic green. As with the Khornate, the brass was highlighted a little. The red crab-claw remains untouched, as does the pink panel on his right breast. I'd have repainted that one, but I decided to leave the freehand Slaaneshi rune untouched.

A fair bit more work, but it's turned this figure from what I've always thought of as a "trash model" into something I really quite like.

These guys will eventually be included in armies for Kings of War, but exactly which armies remains to be seen. My Beastmen (Herd) army will be much more of a "Bestigor"-type army, while these two (and many of the others that are part of my renovations of my older models) are deeply Realm of Chaos-style Beastmen rather than the more feral Bestigor-style.

Oh, wow. I remember the Slaangor, but I don't think I've ever seen that Khangor (Khornegor?) Every once in a while I think I should go back and revisit those old Chaos minis. Maybe I will once I get through my current batch. Thanks for sharing!

I like it, very nostalgic for me. Both Gors remind me of reading WD 135 as a kid. It was the first issue I ever read and there was a great article about a heavily converted Chaos warband with lots of beastmen conversions. Of course all the minis were metal so there was a lot of sawing, pinning and green stuffing which was very inspiring and intimidating to me. It's really nice to see you work through your catalog of minis you've got a lot of iconic minis and you paint them up well. It's a bit embarrassing how often this thread makes wish I could look through your collection and see what I can find since it seems like you've got one of everything stashed away. Keep up the good work.

Congrats on such a productive painting year. Must be a good feeling getting through the back log. Also with still 4 months to go you should be able to knock out 400?

I love those old beastmen, they were so wacky. Well done on the refurb. You are one of the most productive dakkites I follow, always something new (or old-new) to look at.

Thanks guys!

I'd love to see what you've got tucked away, Josh!

Thanks Prestor. I admit that I've got a hell of a lot of old, cool stuff unpainted, since I spent pretty much all my pocket money on collecting models back then from the ranges I found interesting. In the last couple of years, I've spent a bit of time chasing down figures I never had back then, so it just adds to the pile of old lead. I just need to get those suckers painted!

That's my hope, Archer. I'm aiming for the magical 365, then the following push will be towards 400.

Thanks Weety - your own blog of old, cool stuff is one of the things that helps motivate me to get my own stuff done.

Nice beastmen there Azazel. The Slaanesh one in particular looks freaky (as is customary with the Dark Prince)

I have a bit of a Beastmen thing going at the moment now I know where Warhammer Fantasy is going, so I will be integrating some of my Bones II minis into the herd as Gors, Un-gors, and Bestigors. This should save me a pretty penny or two and give the herd a bit more of a Chaosy vibe.

Oh wow indeed, the Slaaneshi champion in particular looks good without going over the top.

Thanks guys - I've finished renovating some more old Beastmen which I'll be showing off soon (and a few more to go as well). At some stage I might even start some more from scratch.

Anyway - another set of questions for the people who follow this blog - suggestions on what to do with these two?



My Blood Bowl team's colours have variously been Red with Black and Yellow, and also Red with Black and Gold/Brass. I don't mind the look that the yellow has when shaded down with orange and up with pale yellow. But.. I'm just not entirely convinced. The Jes Goodwin ogre looks decent still, but the yellow (still unshaded and un-highlighted) on the Olley ogre just doesn't work for me right now.

NMM's not a preferred option at all, since these guys are part of a team - which at this point has both "yellow" and "brass" in the "golden" slot. NMM would require a bit too much to potentially work on all of them.

I feel that either the skin tone or yellow needs to be darkened or dirtied a little. Too much bright and light especially for a bloodbowl team.

Personally I would go a thinned out brown wash on the yellow to take the really bright hint off it. Unfortunately that is just about my answer to almost everything. So don't pay too much attention to it.

I agree with you. Do you think grimy "Imperial Fists" style, (though without so much chipping) or darken it down with orange?

Maybe some blood on the punch dagger and some blood splatter all over the fist too

I like the bright red and yellow scheme as many a football team has used bright and vibrant colours for their clubs

Therefore, I personally feel brown and dirty is the way to go as
orange would probably tie the yellow trim into the red plates better than brown And you may lose the contrast between the two.

Just my two cents though. I would hold out for better opinions than mine on this.
.

Maybe a really light Sepia wash?

Hey it's McOgres

Dirty it up a bit. I'm not as sure about the orange thing, maybe just some grime?

Minimal amount of grime should do the trick yeah, Blood Bowl minis actually look better in brighter colours, in my humble opinion.

I might photograph a couple of models where I used orange to maintain the "clean" look - so you guys can see what I mean in practice rather then in theory. I'll be keen to get rid of this pair from my paint desk, as they'll take minimal work to complete and then get them the hell out of the space.

Anyway, here's a couple of figures I updated about a week ago.



Back in the olden days, when I was just a pup, I played a bit of the Chaos Warbands variant of WHFB. My very first champion was a Skaven. Since at that time I had a Skaven army (which I later sold, keeping only a few figures) I did manage to pluck out an appropriate figure for use, with the sword, dagger, and a crest of evil-looking spines. This guy had a very, very old paintjob, and so I've gone over most of it as well as rebasing him. The biggest changes were reversing the colours on his Skaven-style lorica segmentata, and a repaint over his clothing in order to brighten it a little, and getting rid of his yellow pouch.



I don't remember the story behind his little mate, but I do remember having Khorne in mind when I painted up his shield, so I figure he can stand in for now as a follower of the first guy. he just needed as bit of a touch-up and tone down to bring him up to scratch. For the time being, I'm still a long way off building and painting my Skaven army, which will see the field under the Kings of War "Ratkin" list in the future. Until then, the odd Skaven that I may paint will be dropped into either my "Chaos" Army with my Realm of Chaos beastmen, or my "Beastmen" Army for any "cleaner" looking Skaven.

Looks good, pleasant surprise to see some skavens

And now for something completely different....

This figure was one I painted many years ago, and found in a box recently, beaten up and nasty. I'm sure that I'm far from the only person who as a teen decided that their metal Citadel Judge Dredd figures needed some more heavily-armoured backup and found that backup in the form of a plastic RTB01 Space Marine.

After seeing the Mega-City One project going on over on Sho3box, I pulled it out and thought to myself that I should repaint it. Last weekend, Marouda selected it as a figure for me to finish off to clear the paint desk, and so I set to the task. Kind of a complete repaint, and kind of an overpaint. The eye lenses are original, as is the numeral on the power fist. Everything else used the original paint as the base coat, and added modern highlighting and shading. The exception is the gold work, which was originally painted a bright yellow, and was simply plain. I decided to go for metallics, and freehand a MC-1 Eagle of Justice onto the pad. Because I can.

I also stuck him onto a 32mm base, because apparently I'm also doing that now.





There's a second one of these guys as well. Unfortunately he's in the kind of shape that C-3PO was in about three quarters of the way through The Empire Strikes Back, so he'll require a bit more work in order to recover.

One day I'll use him in Judge Dredd games, and also as an Imperial Adeptus Arbite in 40k/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch/etc. And in games like Frag!

Awesome, that freehand symbol is smashing!

Dude!

He looks the part alright, you could probably use him as a Mechanismo, or if you really want to let rip, as a Judge in a Holocaust suit.

Long time follower, first time writer... Have to say your P&M blog is my favorite on Dakka. Great painting skills, a wide variety of minis including a lot of old or odd stuff, very regular updates, and interesting blog-length text accompanying each picture. Great job, and that Dredd Marine looks awesome!

The 32mm base really works on that Rtb1 Marine, I never would have expected that. That paint job is the epitome of cool.

That really works, surprisingly. Groodalicious freehand.

He looks really great, that freehand eagle though

Awesome

Eagle is great, I also like the lightning bolts on the eye lenses

There is just something about the old school models that I really like. I know a guy who almost has a complete 2,000 point army of them and they look really good.

Thanks everyone. Doing freehand is one of the things that I really enjoy about painting minis, but don't get to do nearly as often as I'd like. I was also surprised at how well such an old model fit with the new base. He's still a little hunched, but yeah - it works!

That's actually one of my future projects, Archer. Rogue Trader-cover art style Crimson Fists made up of RT-era marines, though with a bunch of Forge World and other fancy modern bits added in. It's been in the "planning" stages for about 4 years now. Once I clear this backlog the hope is that I'll be able to pick up and start and maybe even finish some of these cool projects that live in my head and in my figure storage. That's the hope, anyway.

I used to do all my eye lenses in that style, Grim. Directly ripped off the old JD artwork and the odd RT-era Marine model as well.

And Mymearan - thank you for the huge compliment - especially with the wealth of talent that people here have. I'm very flattered.

Kind of neat, if a bit of a pain!

Funnily enough, it's probably a little easier to do than the "gem"-style eye lenses.

Not exactly Oldhammer this time, but still a few years old. I picked up this guy in a partially painted state off my mate Matt F, who I haven’t seen in an age now.

So anyway, it’s probably taken me 15 years to get around to finishing him off. I’ve certainly been staring at him on my shelves since I moved into this house, and we’re moving up on three years of that now. I’d recently moved him up the queue and been actively wanting/trying to make myself complete him for a couple of months, and this past weekend I finally forced myself to do it. It turns out that this extended timeline very nicely coincided with my playing about with a different technique to my tried and tested method for doing gold/brass to, so maybe it all worked out for the best.



Quite a lovely figure, I have to say. Sculpted by Colin Dixon and originally released as the Warhammer Quest Troll Slayer, it was re-released as a companion piece to the mid-1990’s metal slayers that were done by Aly Morrison. While some of those are nice enough models, this one is clearly the best of the entire range, so when it was moved to the WHFB range it was also renamed (or promoted) to Dragon Slayer, as befits such a fine model.

I took these photos while the PVA was still wet on the grass tufts, hence the “white blob” look, which has now disappeared. Sorry ’bout that!



I considered adding Slayer Tattoos, or Woad Warpaint, but it’s just such a wonderful model as-is that I decided that I prefer to keep him “clean”. I’ve now got plenty more Slayers to paint, after all – many who will come with much more appropriate amounts of skin to add ink to.



He’s a bit bright, both with his pants and also his hair. But then, he’s a Warhammer model, so I’m fine with it. The shading on the white stripes on his old-timey Warhammer pants is a bit washed out by the lighting, but at least the blue showed up. He could also look fantastic with a dark, grimy and stained look, but I’ve gone for the bright and clean style here which while far less realistic is just as valid an aesthetic for miniature painting. It’s like Goblin Green-skinned goblins!

In gaming terms he’s perfect for a PC or NPC in WFRP and on the tabletop as a Slayer Hero. He’ll find some form of use in KoW eventually, very much as a Dwarven Berserker(slayer) hero. Until then, he can just sit in a display case and pretty the place up.

I’ve got some more very old Dwarves painted up here that I’ve completed over the past few years. I’ll have to get them photographed soon and up on display here as well.

Very cool! What's the gold/brass technique you used?

Some nice slayer awesomeness there Azazel

Nice work!

Classic Slayer. Nice work!

I like the bright, "look at me I am a slayer" look. The hair looks great and the striped pants are excellent.

So reminds me of Asterix & Obelix!! Love those guys!!!

Oh yeah it's obelisk! Looks great, reminds me of old GW style.

It is weird the things that you forget over time, like the fancy striped trousers (not pants!) that Slayers had for ages.

A great take on a classic miniature, I think you were right to not add any tattoos/warpaint to this one.

Thanks everyone! I really appreciate the comments as always.

 Mymearan wrote:
Very cool! What's the gold/brass technique you used?

Thanks! I recently got hold of (well, found) VMA067 Bright Brass which I realised would be a great match with VMA066 Gold - which is a much "whiter" gold than most. Instead of starting with brown, I started with black, then brass, then gold, washed it down with thinned black wash, then picked out the highlights again. It gave a nice effect - a much "colder" brass/gold look than most paints and what I'm used to producing.

 Januine wrote:
So reminds me of Asterix & Obelix!! Love those guys!!!

I did have Obelix in the back of my mind when I painted him, what with the braids and all but the stripey pants started initially in homage to the old-school paint schemes for such figures.

Great job dude but I've got to say you've done a Cracking face on the slayer mate

Well done

How do you best follow up a post featuring a Dwarven Slayer?

With Trolls, of course!

I've shown two of these trolls before, just two weeks past a year ago now, as it happens. Last week, while stuck for something to paint I asked Marouda to choose some models for me to finish and as a result, I finally got a third finished for them.



Hill troll suffered a broken wrist many years ago, and with my meager skills of the day I "repaired" it by pinning and then wrapping wire around the join, as though it were bound with rope. Not the neatest of jobs, but it works passably, and I've not got the desire to destroy his wrist again in an attempt to repair it. The two that have already been shown were painted Blue, as GW-style "Stone Trolls" probably sometime during the period of 4th Edition of WHFB. Most likely the one with the boulder overhead "Cave Troll" was painted as he was a pretty good approximation of a Stone Troll. "Warrior Troll" was no doubt painted to match, and the "new" guy, "Hill Troll" was definitely started with the other two in mind. He just took a lot longer before I got around to completing him!



These three together will make up a regiment-sized unit for my eventual Kings of War (Orc and) Goblin Army, made up of (mostly) older Citadel figures. Not to be confused with the Moria Goblins who I've been working on a fair bit this year. In the short-to-medium-term, there might be some crossover between the two, but only until I manage to get both playable.



As it happens, I've just found that these three comprise 3/4 of the entire original C20 Troll range... queue a week-long delay in publishing this post to do a bit more BTS work...



...and also as it happens, I've also got their fourth, here, who just needed a little touching up and a rebasing from his old, 90's-style green-flocked base. I'll share Swamp Troll again sometime soonish with a bit of luck when I sort him out a pair of proper mates.



And the final shot - all four of the C20 Troll Class of '87. Finally completed!

Great trolls

Very nice. I particularly like the blue skin.

Haven't seen those sculpts before, they look great.

What models will you use to accompany the Marsh Troll in all his greeny goodness?

I think the old models have such an interesting look about them that although the manufacturing techniques produce amazing models these days I feel they lack a lot of a sculptors personality/ Keep the memories coming.

Great work on the TIEs there, mate, and the Mercs figure looks cool as well.

This might be a helpful and relatively cheap way to be able to do tufts (now and for quite awhile)

http://www.firestormgames.co.uk/gamers-grass-beige-tufts

Sure you're in the right thread there?

Cheers though! (unless you were taking to someone else round here who's been painting TIEs, Mercs and asking about grass tufts! )

Trolls are looking good!

Whups! Too many tabs open at once!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Thanks for all that on the trolls - I've got a couple of models in mind that should fit with the swamp troll decently, while still retaining the "old school" ethos of the unit.

These take me back 25+ years to when a friend introduced me to Games Workshop. Before that it was D&D. His father brought home the GW models from England on his trips and he got 10-15 of us hooked at our game store. He also multi based his figures for fantasy and used toothpicks to track wounds , total innovator.

The more things change, eh? Hopefully these guys will also take you back as well..

And from Trolls, back to Dwarfs we go. Specifically, the Original Troll Slayer model and an old Champion from Bugman's Dwarf Rangers.



This Troll Slayer seems to have appeared in about 1988 as part of the "Dwarf Adventurers" range (or at least that's the earliest reference I can find, but it feels like a slightly earlier release). I painted this figure about 20 years ago and repainted it to "modern" standards a couple of years ago, at which point I added the tattoos. I gave him a more "natural" looking shade of orange for his hair and beard than the red-orange shade they usually have these days.



There's another of the "Dwarf Adventurers" who was also used and considered an early Troll Slayer and at least two "Berserkers" from the Norse Dwarfs range who predate this model and were later retconned into the early "Slayer" models in the same way that many of the Eternal Champion Models later became formative High Elves and Wardancers. But I don't have them so we're not too concerned about those models today.



Not the original RR1 version of Bugman's Dwarf Rangers, but from what I can tell the second version "RRD1" released in 1986 during the time of WHFB 2nd Edition. This piratical-looking guy is called "'Owd' Tom Thyksson". Once again, this guy was painted long ago and given an update a couple of years ago. I gave him a paler skin tone, while the Slayer was given a more ruddy look.

I'll have some more Oldhammer dwarfs coming along again soon. But next... more Trolls!

Making me nostalgic for crap beyond my years

Thanks! I'm quite enjoying going through these older models - both the ones I'm finally finishing as well as the ones I'm updating right now and even the ones I'm just showing off for the first time (or properly for the first time).

Nice Dwarfs. Not really a fan of the newer GW Dwarf stuff, so it's nice to see some models that aren't bling'd up to the eyeballs in runes etc.

I've got a few of the newer models as well. I have to say that I like both for different reasons myself.

And now back to trolls again!

Both of these trolls were released in July 1988 - with White Dwarf 103 and following Blood Bowl 2nd Edition. I got my first one of this sculpt around that time, alongside the ogre. Over the following years I picked up another two of the trolls, and as I already had one painted up for Blood Bowl, decided to paint them as Warhammer Fantasy Battle Trolls. The pair have remained prety much untouched since they were originally painted. The green one had an awful club made of sprue that I've since removed, and I've recently rebased both to bring them up to my "modern" speed.



I believe that these two were both painted before the C20 trolls shown recently were started. I removed the horn/spike from the shoulder in an effort to differentiate the two, which is obviously who one was painted green and the other purple. It's also why one of them had that awful club, which I've since removed.



My latest batch of Oldhammer Trolls, arranged as a Kings of War Regiment. I based the BB trolls in a very similar manner to the C20 Swamp Troll, using Army Painter Swamp Tufts. Hopefully they give the impression wet, rich soil when combined with my standard bases.



And now the full "Oldhammer Troll" group shot. All Six Oldhammer Trolls - Arranged as a Kings of War "Horde" Unit. All the rest of my trolls are newer models, though only one of those 4th? 5th? Editon trolls is even started. I might need to try to finish him off soon now...

Love the colors. Have you ever talked about how you paint skin? I find your skin tones to be pleasantly blended without going over the top with contrast.

The magic ingredient is saliva! Well, that and colour choices. For those who are a bit squeamish, Lahmian Medium works as well, but saliva has a kind of "elastic" quality to it as a medium,

In the old days, when I was a young'un I used to drybrush, as you do. You can still see remnants of that on some of the older models, though I often go over the harsh contrasts on them and try to add a bit of blending to soften the transitions.

For human (dwarf/elf) skintones I usually pick a base colour. The old Dwarf Flesh, Ratskin Flesh, (Pick a) Flesh, Sand, Bestial Brown, etc - whataver works as a good base colour for the skin tone I'm going for. (I tend to put more thought into the base it if the model is more of an individual).

Then I thin some paint that is broadly "chestnut" - so anything from Swamp Brown to Chestnut to VMC Burnt Cadmium Red (my current main go-to) and work it into the areas that need shading - kind of like a wash or glaze, but without really doing much to the base coat, due to the use of saliva and that elasticity I was talking about.

Whoops - gotta go. More later!

Don't tell GW, the executives would be rubbing their hands at the thought of Citadel gob! Interesting tip though.

Some nice looking trolls there Azazel. Great work as usual

FineGob! (tm)

Love the beast men and the dwarves, but the free handed eagle on the Judgemarine is amazing.

Thanks, Bob!

Once again following from Trolls, more Dwarfs. Or Dwarves. Both are correct, so I'm told...

I've found almost all of these guys are in the 1988 catalogue along with White Dwarf 107/November 1988. The three to the right are all in the Norse Dwarfs range, though I'm reliably informed by Somet that "The ‘Viking dwarf’ is actually the model GW used to represent Sven Hasselfriesian for the scenario ‘ The Magnificent Sven’ in the WHFB 2nd Ed rulebook, so around late 84. The guy on his right is of a similar age too."



I can't find the fourth one - the leftmost with the Goat-horned Horned Helm - in any of the old catalogues but it's pretty clear to me that he's from the same era as his compatriots in the photo, having both a very different style to the revamp of the range and influx of Marauder Miniatures line in 1993, and having owned him since probably the late 1980's when I'd collected the others. I strongly suspect that he's also a "Norse" Dwarf as he shares the same base sculpt as the Ginger dwarf standing next to him.



These were all painted a long, long time ago. These guys were some of my earlier repaint/touchups, back in 2012 - before doing so became a stronger focus as it has been recently. Obviously all four were painted to a similar aesthetic. Perhaps they're the Hearthguard of a Great Norse Dwarf Hero? I might have to figure out a model that fits that description. The two on our left have Marauder Miniatures' Embossed shields, while the two on the right have freehanded designs inspired (ok, copied!) from the Hammer-and-Anvil Marauder shield.



You'll notice that instead of a beaskin or wolfskin, that Sven - the model wearing the historically-correct Viking helmet(!) has a dog-skin cloak. I prefer to think that instead of celebrating his victory over such a mighty beast, that it's actually the skin of his own (former) companion that he chooses to honour by wearing his pelt into glorious battle. I'm sorely tempted to redo/touch up his cloak and "viking" horns, but I'm finding it a hard call to retouch some of these models again for some reason, even though they were updated once, just a couple of years ago.

I have to say that looking through the old catalogues to gather info for the last couple of Dwarf posts has really made me want to grab out a few more of these old models and get them painted up. I've got to hold to my discipline and keep finishing off the half-painted models on my desk, though.

Good stuff! Nice characterful poses, great freehand on the shield designs as well.

How on earth do you get such straight lines on your freehand? The black lines framing the color is offensively good.

Nice dwarfs!

oo My favourite kind of dwarf! Yes tell us your straight line secret! Those are very straight lines (I know how I do them but yours seem straighter somehow)

Uh.... just a steady hand and fine brush, and when I feth up a line, I go back over it with the other "border" colours. For those hammerheads and stuff like that, I sometimes tend to do the entire "thing" in black. Starting the outlines from the corners so they're sharp, then filling in as needed, and then doing so again with the next colour, and then going over it again with the black line if needed.

You can see on the Greek Key on the shield that my lines when blown up can be a bit wonky, and sometimes th black is thicker than the white or vice versa. That stuff is easier with a "solid object" like those hammer heads though since you can just redo the edges until you're happy with it.

It is weird how critical painters are of there own work, I can see no issues with those straight lines there, or any thicker paint.

Very nice Dwarfs though, always good to see classic minis that I have no idea about. Do you have any pre 1982 miniatures (thus minis that are older than me)?

Well, I guess you've got to be critical so you know where you can improve? Dunno, I guess you also know where you might have done better or where you've "cheated" and so forth while others just see a cool finished product (or WIP).

I do have a few older models, though no Citadel (to my knowledge). I've got a very few survivors of the tons of old Minifigs that I got off my older brother which date from the 1970's. He's the one responsible for all of this mess! I've got one giant rat recovered and painted, which I'll get photographed soon, and I'm working on an update to the "Bone Pile", supplemented with newer pieces.

It's darn fancy work whatever you call it

I need to work on some more stuff like that, and NMM, but I have such a killer backlog and most of my joy in painting is getting stuff done. Some day I'll slow down and take my time... Maybe when the kids are school age and have homework to do and rock music to listen to and hangouts to be had I won't feel so rushed. For now, I shall enjoy your excellent works

And now the last post to show off my older, previously-unseen Dwarves. I’ll have to paint new ones from here on in!



This bloke is an Adventurer from the late 1980’s. He’s in the ’88 catalogue, but may predate that as some of the others have. He’s also a good example of why old-timers often talk about the “character” that many older models have. Instead of almost all of the models from that era simply growling as they charge into combat, you get models like this, where he’s pushed his helmet back onto his head while he reads the document with an intent/beguiled/confused look on his face.



The rear view really displays the “RPG elements” that were a part of the ethos of this line back in the day. A big Adventurer’s pack, axe stowed and a sword for backup. Rather in contrast to the more “military” look of other Dwarfs from the same time period like those found in the Regiments of Renown of the day.



When I painted him I briefly considered trying to paint in an elf centerfold, but instead went with a map with diagrams and arrows for units and movement. He’s either reading a really old-school Battle Report in White Dwarf, or as I decided, looking at battle plans for the coming battle as part of Artillery Crew, which is where I always pictured him on the tabletop – and where he will soon(ish) have a place in my nascent Dwarf Army.



The Advanced HeroQuest Dwarf happens to be the only one of the sculpts for that game that I ever got around to painting. He’s nothing amazing, and if a secondary function to this blog wasn’t a form of (slowly) archiving everything I’ve painted that I still have, I probably wouldn’t show him off. Since he fits the current “Dwarf Theme” though, he gets a guernsey.



It’s not that I’m embarrassed by the paint on him, just that the model itself really isn’t anything special, and neither is the paint (though I’m still happy with the runes on his shield, as plain as it otherwise is). I guess it has a place for many due to the AHQ connection. Speaking of that sort of thing – Man, I wish I still had some of the original Plastic Dwarves from the Warhammer Armies boxed set. Those cool old white plastics.

Yet more nice dwarfs. The first one really does ooze character. Good stuff.

The Warhammer Fantasy Regiments still do the rounds on ebay:

http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/23-Dwarf-Elf-Goblin-Vintage-Games-Workshop-Citadel-Warhammer-Regiments-/191671725406?nav=SEARCH

Usually cheap too. I sold the whole boxed set a few years ago for quite a low price.

Huh. I hadn't managed to find any in my usual trawling. Can you get back the box you sold cheap and then sell them to me instead? That would be lovely. No? I guess I'll have to take your advice and keep an eye on the Bay. Are those the usual keywords to use in that auction?

I almost had a dwarf army back in 2nd edition. I was torn between really liking the models vs their horrible Move of 3 and a lack of enough cash to buy them all. In the end I picked up the odd cool-looking dwarf and no actual army, which I'm kinda rectifying nowadays.


In other news, I just bought some deboxed Fantasy stuff from Troll Trader (Chaos Marauders before they get his with the discontinued stick in favour of the AoS guys) and saw WarMachine Ogruns for the first time...

Nice one, I myself use Troll Trader. Pretty quick service from that guy. Got a few of my Necrons from there (Canoptek Spyders)

If you have a problem, and no one else can help, maybe you can buy stuff from "the troll trader"!

Troll trader is not cheap, but always always always has what I want. I've lost track of the times I bought something and then looked to see who I bought it off and oh, its troll trader.

I think the search keywords could be anything tbh, though they were from the "Warhammer Fantasy Regiments" boxed set, so maybe that term is your best bet.

So many memories:

Hahaha! Man, that's ancient stuff. I think I was like, 3 when this came out.

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
I think the search keywords could be anything tbh, though they were from the "Warhammer Fantasy Regiments" boxed set, so maybe that term is your best bet.

So many memories:

Spoiler:

Yeah, that's what I've used when I've done a search. I guess maybe I've just not searched often enough.

I had probably one entire box of my own, and went "2/6 in (I ran Orcs) for.. I dunno how many boxes, back in the day. Now I've still got most of the O&G, and have found a few Skaven, but I'd love to load up on a unit or two worth of each... hopefully us lot here won't all bidding against one another on that link you posted, because I'll be giving that auction the old snipe test if I'm up early enough...

I have no intention to bid. I hope you win and that the postage and packaging is not a killer.

Friends used to swap the contents of those boxes with each other constantly. I seem to remember a 5 pack of sprues too, cannot remember what that box was called though.

Yeah, I've sent the "message to seller" on that, hopefully it's not too bad. Buying from experienced UK ebayers is usually quite reasonable, and the weight here should be negligible.

Just a bit of fun today!

Inspired by various other blogs, and especially those setups I often see on Grim's displaying his figures alongside his intricate terrain, Marouda and I took the camera out to the War Room yesterday morning and laid out some terrain for photos. Her iPad does a far better job of photos on the table than my little camera, so it got the job for the session. One day I should learn to use my good camera, or perhaps I might need to buy an iPad now. Hmm…

I set up a few photos, forming a loose narrative of a band of Dwarf Adventurers searching out an old Dwarven keep for loot, glory and the location of their missing companion. All images clickable for embiggened versions…


The Dwarves carefully pick their way through the wood, Slayers on point.


The Dwarves stop to check their map, with several on guard against what lurks in the darkness of the wood off the path.


Consternation as the map seems not to match their location?


Finally! The entrance is found!


…but something can see the dwarves as they approach. Who could it be? Oh, you read the post title, didn’t you? So much for surprises, eh?


Trolls! Foul creatures! And is that Bjarte on the ground?


Wild Nyjhul and The Nameless Slayer charge the Trolls without hesitation.


The rest of the Dwarves join the fray! But what’s that movement from the boulders over the wall?


While the Dwarven navigator checks on the welfare of their downed Kinsman, the Dwarfs force the Trolls back by the sheer ferocity of their assault. Now though, the Stone Trolls now join the battle in aid of their foul cousins!

…aaaand that’s it. I had a bit of fun setting up and taking these images. They’re not meant to be anything amazing, with the edges of the terrain camouflaged and blended or anything like that – rather a bit of a play with the toy soldiers and camera with terrain added in a “yeah, grab that as well” way.

I thought it best to leave the result of the melee in the minds of the viewer, since it’s not even pretending to be a Battle Report. It looks like it’d be a damned fun roleplaying session, though!

awesome narrative and even better with the terrain. The dwarves in the picture remind me of pigpen from Charlie Brown as they keep walking around with dirt around their feet on that perfectly manicured grass. As soon as they walk away the grass is clean again and the dirt seems to follow them .

Also reminds me I need to finish my dwarf bloodbowl team.

haha yeah. I need to get a "brown dirt" mat of some description at some stage, especially since the GW mat, nice as it is looks like the green from a golf course. Unfortunately the guys who made my desert mat went out of business and I haven't found a nice textured mat of the same kind of colour outside of dodgy places who take 6 months to ship (if you're lucky!)

I started going with the dark brown years ago because I was after a "natural, neutral" colour that could be consistent across most of my models, and work ok on grass, desert, tundra (breaks in the snow), swamp and urban terrain.

Yeah, dark brown seems pretty versatile. What you've done here is pretty much the whole reason I want to paint up adventurers, monsters, and dungeon terrain. Lite narrative photo shoots.

Grand example, thanks for paving the way

Nice to see the LOTR terrain make a cameo appearance too.

Love the photos, looks really high quality.

That was great fun!

More please!!

Those are some really nice pictures, great seeing the dwarfs and trolls in action.

The narrative stuff is great fun! I love seeing your terrain assembled like that.

Great stuff. Need to get the terrain set up to do that myself at some point

Awesome playtime with great old models. Love it.

Thanks guys - it was a fun way to "cap off" the batch of Trolls and Dwarfs. I appreciate the feedback and I'll start doing a bit more of that, especially when I finish off a batch of appropriate models. Had a pretty horrible and drawn out Sunday, so I crashed out and completely forgot about the WHFR models, which sucks since they went for a very reasonable price. I'll have to keep keeping en eye out on them now.

The warband group shots are really cool, Adding in the scenery adds so much to the set up. I've found that my phone has more mega pixels than my normal camera however does a much worse job.

A couple more of my old Beastmen from the Realm of Chaos era. As I’ve mentioned before, painting them in a unified army form was the least of my concerns or priorities back then. In fact, making each model as individual as possible was the focus for those models that I painted.



I ended up with three of this sculpt, and so naturally wanted to make all three unique by painting them in a way that they could be used either as followers of three different Chaos gods, or all as generic beastmen with a bit of colour variation and a spot of Brightly Coloured Fur. I’ve given these guys a bit of a touchup and minor repaint a few weeks ago both to clean/neaten them up a tiny bit and also to make them a little less garish. The shields on both the Pestigor and Tzaangor are Marauder Miniatures’ embossed shields. They were pretty exciting for the time. The one with the Marauder Miniatures Logo (Skull with dagger clenched between it’s teeth) was from the Undead sprue while the Skull over “Chaos Star” was actually a Dark Elf design.



These two were painted with Khorne and Undivided in mind (Sorry Slaanesh!) and while the Khorngor has been touched up, the Undivided fellow has remained untouched except for the rebasing. I’ve added this particular undivided model to this set of photos as he’s got the same facial sculpt as the other three identical models. Usually when you see “conversion” models from that era they share the same pose or body, so it’s rather unusual for models to share a face in this way (that I’ve noticed anyway!) Still, it’s a good face, and on the second body it gives a very Satyr-like appearance.



As with the Khorngor and Slaangor champions shown a couple of weeks ago, these guys will eventually be included in armies for Kings of War, but exactly which armies remains to be seen. My Beastmen (Herd) army will be much more of a “Bestigor”-type army, while these two (and many of the others that are part of my renovations of my older models) are deeply Realm of Chaos-style Beastmen rather than the more feral Bestigor-style.

Love the Beastmen. Those old sculpts have got a lot of character to them that a lot of midern stuff just doesn't have.

Those old beastmen remind me of Calibos from Clash of the Titans (no, not the recent one... 1981 version)

Love all of the shield free hand work, it's good stuff.

I, too, love those old Beastmen. These pre-date RoC, don't they?

Honestly, I can't remember. I think these ones might, but only slightly. They were definitely (re?)released as part of the big RoC push with Slaves to Darkness, along with a lot of the Thugs and warriors that predate RoC. The catalogues from that pre-1988-era are spotty at best also.

I've got a few beastmen that are definately pre-RoC, and obviously tons that were part of the release, and post-RoC, but these two are from that "errrm...?" period right around RoC for me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hrm. I think I know why I just stopped painting last October. I'm just so beat up, stressed, gakky and perma-tired at this point by work and three months of gakky winter weather that the thought of painting isn't nearly as appealing. Now there are the first rays of occasional sunshine (but still lots of gakky weather) and new, shiny videogames to play that generally involve less work than painting models. It'll be interesting to see if I can push through and regain my mojo instead of stopping cold this year. I doubt either the Moria Goblins or Gondor armies will be finished this year as I'd hoped, as the "finishing gak off and renovating old gak" focus continues to provide me with more than I can ever do...

I have always felt that if you need to "motivate" yourself to do anything then it may be time to kick back, out the feet up and take a well deserved break. Otherwise it can really start to affect your interest and quality. So I say plug into the video games and relax until the sun finally comes back.

Yeah, if you don't feel like painting, don't. It's far too easy to ruin minis when you're forcing yourself to work on them, and there's no shame in prioritising something else like video games. This is a hobby, not an obligation!

The retro beastmen are great!

Agree with the others, take time off if you wanna. We'll still be around

I was thinking the summer hasn't been quiet that bad and then remembered the whole internetty thingy has global communication doodads. If your having trouble to motivate your painting and still want to do some painting, spice it up try a different scale or terrain maybe a vehicle or something?

Take a break if you need too, we will still be hear when you come back.

I think I just need a rest. More from work than anything else. The problem is being so burnt out from work and weekends just not being quite long enough to regain my mojo, combined with figures that are a pain in the arse to finish dominating the desk. You know those figures you look at and just don't want to keep working on either because they give you the gaks or a mental block. I've got some time off work after next week (just 4 days to go!) and then hopefully I can get more enthusiastic again.

The Good News is I've got probably a couple of weeks worth of updates of figures to post after I photograph. Stuff that I've either touched up or finished in the last few weeks. So by the time I've finished posting those, hopefully I'll be back on track.

Sounds good, take care of yourself. Stressful work is lame.

Yeah. I really think if I get a few solid days off without needing to think about budgets, budget planning, tracking down missing assets and allocation of resources and assets I can become human again. It's a beautiful day today - pretty much the first since the 1st of September - which was a work day and the first really nice day in ages before that. Four more days.... just need to survive that long, then I have an early finish on Thursday next week and 17 days off. Maybe I can even stop being tired by the end of it.

Anyway, enough bleating about my first world problems for now. Time to show off the model I plucked from the pile and finished last Friday.

This figure is one of Michael Perry's efforts that redefined the look of Warhammer Trolls back in 1992 for 4th Edition. So leaving that narrow era of 3rd that "purists" feel is "Oldhammer". With 4th Edition WHFB, the armies began to be overhauled and have their looks unified in many ways, putting an end to the "rough and ready" and slightly chaotic look that forces and their ranges had previously.



The old C20 trolls were retired and replaced with the new "Stone Trolls" and "Swamp Trolls", sculpted by Michael Perry. Although the Swamp Trolls were superseded a few years ago by the plastic River Trolls, four of the original six of these Stone Troll sculpts are even still available today, some 23 Years later, including this guy. (One of the rare times I don't mind comparing my own paintwork directly with the official GW paintjob!) Still, that's one hell of a distinguished time of service on this model.



I first started on this guy 5+ years ago, at the same time I started on the other blue C20 trolls. As with the "Hill Troll", this guy got "left behind" and was never finished. Since I managed to finish the Hill Troll a couple of weeks ago, it motivated me to pluck this part-painted guy off the desk and finish him off. All I'd done was the base, the basecoat in blue with a wash and drybrush on his cracked back texture - no details. I've gotta say that I really enjoyed finishing him off, and if I weren't in the midst of a self-imposed moratorium on starting new models, I'd be all over the rest of these which I've got tucked away somewhere.



As you can see, this guy is much larger than the older models. As KoW uses regiments of 3 and 6 in size for Trolls and I already have 6 of the older models ready to go, if I manage to use him in a game before I paint up some more, he can be used as a Troll Bruiser (Hero).

I like your addition to your trolls!

I actually like the 4th ed trolls a lot, they have a lot more character, compared to the 3rd ed Oldhammer stuff IMO.

They have a very "animated character" style to them, which is emphasised even more by the bright blue colour scheme that they used then - which admittedly, I've followed along with like a good little puppy.

Admittedly I don't have any GW trolls, but what I do have is this:

Not my pics obviously, but I currently use these as Clawed Fiends in 40K. The latter kind of reminds me of a Wampa from Empire Strikes Back.

Andy's stuff is great. I don't have either of those two, but they're solidly on my "maybe if I can afford it after I pay for the important things first before the dollar is totally smashed" list.

 Azazelx wrote:
Andy's stuff is great. I don't have either of those two, but they're solidly on my "maybe if I can afford it after I pay for the important things first before the dollar is totally smashed" list.

Yeah I read that the AU$ isn't doing too well at the moment. Why don't you guys join the Euro? lol. We can all go down together haha. Biggest mistake ever that one.

After 1-2 months (more) of mad shopping, I'll pretty much be stopping all of my buying except for a few things, at a massively reduced rate. Those trolls might make it into the latter category since I already got my Heresy KS stuff.

I have always liked the stone trolls and much preferred the metal swamp trolls to the new plastics. Almost made me get Throgg and do an all troll army. Almost.

 Archer wrote:
I have always liked the stone trolls and much preferred the metal swamp trolls to the new plastics. Almost made me get Throgg and do an all troll army. Almost.

Screw Throgg... THIS is a Troll King lol.

What on earth is that? I am almost needing one.

The troll looks great I like those ones I have the one with the stone above his head, might finish painting it at some point.

 Archer wrote:
What on earth is that? I am almost needing one.

That, my dear Archer, is Minion Miniatures Kickstarter Troll King...

love the old GW stone trolls, so much character, plus takes me back to the old days of collecting miniatures and playing every week.

also sweet job on that greenish colored beastman, that fur is fantastic.

Good stuff. That might be one of the oldest models still in the Warhammer Range still do love the Perry stuff. I have to not they've decided they can't compete with them on realistic medieavel humas and decided to go Stormcast instead!

I love the old trolls. One of the many, many minis I wish I had picked up when I was in high school/college with no real responsibilities claiming my money.

That troll king model is amazing! I've never seen that one before.

That Troll king is indeed a sweet model. It looks a bit like a Giant GW-style Goblin with those facial details, but nonetheless, very bloody nice. Throgg is a nice model as well, but suffers a little bit from having mouths all over his body and so forth. I guess it's the "Chaos" at work.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've finally finished some of the second batch of Zombicide survivors (and Zombivors) that I started bloody ages ago.

"Will" is a homage to Simon Helberg as Howard Wolowitz from the popular Television program "The Big Bang Theory".







I went for one of Howard's less outrageous outfits for this figure, partly for ease of painting and partly because we actually have to play as him, so... you know.



I also googled Howard's shoes, so that I'd have appropriate footwear for him to wear. I think I did a pretty good job of replicating his Vans sneakers. I also attempted to give his belt buckle the impression of Howard's NES controller belt buckle, but it's hard because we're talking pretty bloody small at this stage.



"Helen" is a homage to Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling from The Silence of the Lambs (1992).





I think there's a touch of Ally Walker as June Stahl from Sons of Anarchy in there as well. Particularly on the artwork.



I think Jodie/Clarice is the more obvious influence, especially with "Achilles" being a clear Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, but there's still a solid similarity there, and I probably would still have painted the model in the brown late 80's/early '90s style suit, but if I had a second figure to paint, I'd definitely paint her as Stahl.

With a bit of luck, I'll have two more finished in a week or two. I'll probably have the last of the dogs finished before then, though - so they'll likely be shown first.

Love the work on the trolls on the previous page. As for the Zombiecide minis I would never dare to paint trainers in that much detail, excellent job.

Nice work on the Zombicide figures. At first I thought that female was supposed to be Gillian Anderson from X-files. But I haven't watched sons of anarchy and it's been ages since I e watched silence of the lambs.

Those Zombicide minis paint up pretty nicely I must say!

Good spot. The hair on the actual model rather than the art does have a very Gillian Anderson look to it. What does it say that the overall look of the figure represents three of the most well-known female FBI agents in media so well?

How do they scale against 28mm? Backed the Black Plague for Nurgley goodness and hoping they scale right!

Zombicide stuff looks good, nice work!

Love the zombicide models. Such amusing characters. How is the actual game to play?

 Llamahead wrote:
How do they scale against 28mm? Backed the Black Plague for Nurgley goodness and hoping they scale right!

They're more "truescale" in their proportions, so are much thinner compared to the typical "chunky" models we see from GW and others - but height-wise they work well. It really depends on how picky you are. I'll take a couple of pics when I get a chance this weekend.

 Archer wrote:
Love the zombicide models. Such amusing characters. How is the actual game to play?

The game is fantastic. I give it my highest recommendation. It hits a whole lot of buttons for me and my group as it's a mix of humour, violence, strategy and adapting to situations (as the Zombie spawn and equipment are the result of card decks, so randomised). It's very easy to learn and has got a very "cinematic" feel to it as well, when you get those "oh feth, we're surrounded" moments at times (especially early on before your characters are ultimate killing machines.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's a little dilemma for you all. This model is an older Kroxigor model that I got from my friend Matt, fully painted years ago. I've rebased him a year or three ago, but other than that, the paint it all Matt's.

I'm in two minds on whether to do a partial repaint. I know the model looks good as-is. But the brightness and high contrast of of the stomach and "floating scales" on his back kind of annoy me, so I'm thinking that perhaps I'll redo those in more muted and analogous shades. And then rebase him to square as my other 40mm-sized non characters are in KoW. Maybe a little bit of greening on the bronze, but not a lot else besides scales, underside and rebasing. Possibly a little more highlighting in places.



thoughts?

Do you have any other kroxigor for him to go with or is he the first of his kind?

I see know harm in reprinting parts. It is your model. I have always preferred darker than skin colours for scales and the like. However I quite like the brighter belly. Although it does sort of act like a "stick a sword in the soft underbelly" sign.

It's not so much that it's brighter, more that it's yellow/ochre against a blue main body. I'm thinking a paler blue/ice blue would look more harmonious and a but more natural. Similarly, going darker or into a different shade with the back scales would make it feel more natural as well.

He's the first, though I have a few others unpainted. I prefer not to have them looking like a collection of overly-bright jelly babies (the trolls already do that!) and have them a bit more natural and muted. I'll probably go with greens and browns for the others

Still looking for feedback on repainting the Kroxigor just up the page!

And now...

Another blast from the past today. The Talisman Troll. Remember when Games Workshop used to make boardgames? No, not "Specialist" (a title that came much later) minatures games that started in a big box, like Battlefleet Gothic or Necromunda or even Dark Future, but actual self-contained Board Games. Talisman was one of these, alongside things like DungeonQuest, Chaos Marauders (which was a card-based game about Orcs & Goblins), Block Mania (set in 2000ad's world of Dredd), The Fury of Dracula and so forth. There really was quite a variety. GW was quite a prolific producer of both original and licenced boardgames for a bit of time back in the 1980's before they went fully-Warhammer focused.



I had a few of the old metal Talisman figures, but I never really liked any of them especially. I think the Space Marine (from Timescape) got rolled into my RT-era models, though even that was an unimpressive sculpt. I've probably got a few of the others still floating around somewhere, I recall a man with a top hat in his hand, a woman with a small cauldron, and the Ninja being in my collection. They probably still are. In a container of junky old lead. Somewhere.



Anyway, this troll was the one of those old figures that has gotten painted and not lost over the years. I painted him with a flesh tone rather than green as by the time I got around to painting him I had no intent to use him as a Troll or in Talisman. Instead, he was recruited to my small gang of old-school Beastmen. We're talking old-school Beastmen, before the entire race had been retconned into the Broo-inspired Goatmen and Satyrs that dominate to this day. Not that I dislike modern Beastmen. I actually think they're ace. I just happen to also like the variety found in the older RoC-era ones as well. So this guy fit in with the mixture of malformed miscontents quite well. Or well enough.

I gave him old-school warhammery stripey trousers and dirtied him up a little. I could obviously use him as something like a half-orc or even a more D&D-styled orc for roleplaying purposes. Whichever way, he looks very much the demi-human style thug. I'll probably roll him back into the old-school beastmen unit for KoW that will be very much Warriors of Chaos-aligned, as the more modern Beastmen will be their own thing.



Talisman Troll Character Card & Cardboard Standup from Talisman 2nd Edition.

Troll/ogre/half-breed/beastman looks good. The pants have come up a treat.

I know I have already presented you about the kroxigor but I like your idea of light blue underbelly, leave the blue skin as is and go very dark blue/black on the hard scales. I have always liked that combo on reptilian models.

That troll brings back memories, I remember playing Talisman for hours on end was really fun.

I've got the latest version of the pc game now from Steam which is quite cool. Sadly its not 2nd ed so no Timescape.

Find the brightness a bit garish and cartoony for my tastes. A series of washes might work to subdue the tones and give more depth imho

I think I'll get rid of the high-contrast bits completely and try to make them look more "natural". The problem is the typical, well.. I dunno? Laziness? That sculptors often use on lizardfolk - instead of trying to give any semblance of scales, they just get sculpted like skin. The GW practice of throwing some gigantic scales on the back and thighs like a child's mosaic doesn't really help to make it all look natural.

I might add a bit of green to the back. I did some googling of "blue lizards" and it seems to be a bit of a thing (along with quite a lot of surprisingly bright examples). I'll probably leave the blue "as-is" (or close to it) since even though it's not the colour scheme I would have used, I still want to leave some of Matt's original work there, and that seems the best place to do so.

You have the Swedish version of Talisman? :O

Nope, those Talisman Troll pics are from BGG. I have the 2nd edition, English Version as well as the FFG one.

Today's post comes from Marouda, who I've convinced to start wriring the odd post in an effort to encourage her to do some more painting. This model is Reaper's Thornback Troll by Ben Siens, Released in 2004.

Anyway, over to Marouda:



I selected this model to paint for a Reaper Miniatures painting competition in 2011. However I never got him finished in time, so he sat unfinished for a while. Originally he had a bright orange yellow loin cloth, which Azazel suggested that I tone down. The shading and highlighting on the muscles took ages to do as it involved many, many layers.



I enjoyed painting his club and his pimples. I am very much a beginner painter, but it's very handy having Azazel who has been painting for most of his life coaching me through the various stages and layers of painting. Last week I decided to finish the model and further highlighted his belly brows, jowls and muscles with a pale highlight. I did all the painting on this model myself apart from the very fine detail work of the pupils of the eyes, some of the teeth and the base.



This is the second model that I have ever started and just recently finished apart from some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that I painted more than 10 years ago. I also started and finished a water unicorn model at the same time I started this troll. I have a female Entwife figure from Mithril Miniatures that was started some years back that I should really get finished. I also really like the GW Tomb Kings models although that involves some very fine work and a very steady hand.

-----

I did the basing so that the model remains consistent with the rest of the miniatures. The model was based on a round back when this model was started, and since it's as much a display model of Marouda's as a gaming piece, I'll leave it on the round instead of rebasing to square as the other trolls are. Tufts of course tie the model in with the other trolls in the collection, so this purple guy can fit in nicely enough in a unit with the various others.

Ahhhh.....Talisman. The game where I spent more time being a toad than killing

Marouda's troll is excellent. A real frightening model with a great choice of colours. Great work on the highlights and details. Will put Azazel to shame if you keep this quality up. I really like some of the GW tomb kings, but alas my first tomb kings army (there will be another one) was very basic in its troop choices.

Would really love to see the ent wife model.

Marouda's troll is very nice, I really like how the skin came out.

The models face reminds of a bull dog.

Keep up the great work Marouda you'll need your own blog soon

It looks good and creepy. Definitely not someone you'd want to run into

I like the grain on the club.

But man is that a freaky face, bulldog mixed with a lamprey.

Bulldog troll? Kind of scary actually.

The more I look at it the more it reminds me of the Rancor from Return of the Jedi......

Yes! That's its mouth and face. Except the rancor has a slightly bigger mouth. Great paintjob Marouda.

Hopefully we'll get some replies from her tomorrow, but for now...

I've been waiting ages to use that awful pun. I just had to finish the last of the six Zombicide dogs first.



Moog and Gapard, the American Bulldogs
The American Bulldogs were the first dogs I got finished. I attempted to pretty much match the dogs up to their appropriate artwork, but also did their collars and leads in slightly different colours so that players could have a secondary colour thing to latch into visually. Also, six black collars and leads would have been boring.



Martens and Bismuth, the German Shepherds
After finishing the Bulldogs, the others sat on my desk for literally months until I managed to force myself to paint the German Shepherds. Martens is easily my favourite paintjob of the bunch.



Lucien and Cherry, the Blue Heelers
And finally, I finished the last of the Blue Heelers. I didn't mind doing Cherry, the ginger-brown one, but Lucian was annoying as all hell to do.



Despite the fact that they all came up pretty decently, I really didn't enjoy painting the dogs. I'm not sure why, but I kinda just lost interest in them after the Bulldogs were done, and at that point they became a chore. It might have been the smaller size, or perhaps trying to match the colours closely to the figures' cards. I'm really not sure.

I've seen people clip the stands off the dog models and glue them directly to their bases, but my group tends to play Zombicide a lot, and as a result, all of the models get a lot of handling. This means they need to be and stay especially robust - no flimsy models wanted here, and if I did the clipping I'd be concerned that their leaping poses with few contact points simply wouldn't hold up to the amount of play that we do.

They provide a very powerful buff in the game. Our group no longer really bothers to give the Dogs much in the way of commands or orders except for occasionally early on in the game if someone lacks a decent melee weapon. We also use them for the extra search action, but mostly we use them for the bonus dice to melee attacks. We're about to finish the Season 2 campaign done vanilla-style, excepting the addition of a few extra survivors so the 4 of us can play with 2 characters each, but once that's done, we'll be combining everything together and there'll be some really nasty melee-centric characters. 2x Claw Hammers with 2x American Pitbulls and the Gas Mask? 14 dice melee per action that can take out any number of Vanilla, Toxic or Berserker Walkers, Runners or Zombie Dogs and the Pitbulls' damage of 2 as backup for Fatty duties? Ouch!

Huh, didn't know the dogs had those stands, it's not really an elegant solution for those minis.

They do look lovely though!

I love random miniatures, and dogs.
Miniature cats would be better.

I was going to pick those dogs up for Frostgrave, didn't realise they hand weird stands either.

Any chance of a scale shot next to a Space/Plague Marine?

Nice dogs, quite believable. Sounds like it would be useful to obtain a set for the game, someday, when I actually have the game

I'd probably rush mine more but I really like the way your fur coats flow.

The blue troll is striking. Sorry to hear about your work wearing you down.

 angelofvengeance wrote:

 Archer wrote:
I have always liked the stone trolls and much preferred the metal swamp trolls to the new plastics. Almost made me get Throgg and do an all troll army. Almost.

Screw Throgg... THIS is a Troll King lol.

That "Troll King" looks like my dad trying to get up after picking something off the floor. I can almost hear the "Agh. oof. hah. agh."

Dating from 1986 (Ghoul) and somewhere between then and 1988 (Golem), these two models originally hailed from Citadel's Night Horrors range that started off as a kind of Gothic Horror/Hammer Horror/Cthulhu-esque range that covered everything from Ghosts, Ghouls, Vampires, Witches, Werewolves, Mummies, Headless Spectres, Wights, Devils, Demons (no æ!) and everything in between. Most of that stuff got rolled into the V̶a̶m̶p̶i̶r̶e̶ ̶C̶o̶u̶n̶t̶s̶ Undead army and as such was replaced fully in the early-mid 1990's with official models wearing big hats, but despite some rough sculpts in the Night Horror range, others still hold up very well today.



These two models are in the upper-mid tier of those models in my opinion. They're still decent models today, though nothing amazing. They're not embarrassingly bad either, though. Which is always a bonus. The ghoul was probably the first non-skeleton undead model I ever painted, and served as a bit of a template for models through to this day. Using Citadel's "Rotting Flesh" paint, shaded with purple for an unnatural and horrible effect. I'm sure I got the idea from an old 'eavy Metal article (remember when Blanche and co used to write about their painting techniques?) or at the very least, some pictures in 'eavy Metal. The ghoul is pretty much as I painted him back in the 1990's, with some touching up and maybe some updated blending.



The Golem is a much more recent one. Well, started a year or two ago and finished this year a couple of months ago. I followed the same palette as the Ghoul and decided to paint the "stitches" as staples, because it just seems a bit nastier. I may have been planning to use the Golem as a Blood Bowl player at one point, but clearly never got around to it. No great loss!

These two will be rolled into Undead Army units at some stage, but they also sit happily in reserve for any kind of Fantasy Roleplaying or D&D-style boardgames.

Whoa! I have no memory of those models. The golem holding his own head is great.

Love the golem. What a great sculpt. I really like your skin tone. Very effective without being that cartoony undead that the older ghouls used to get.

Thought I'd replied to some of this yesterday, huh.

Brook - The stands on the dogs isn't perhaps ideal, but it works fine for Zombicide, and they're not as intrusive visually in hand as they seem in the pictures. it also lets them hold those poses, given the boardgame PVC material they're made of. I guess you just focus on the bright doggies and ignore the dark stands. Kinda like flight stands on 40k models. You could replace them with clear acrylic, but that's more work than I'm willing to put in.

Weety - Cats would be awesome, but I'm not sure how much use they'd be in Zombicide.

Giraffe - Here's some scale pics for you, as requested!







L-R: Dog, Fireforge Templar, Dog, Plastic Marine, Dog, Zombicide Survivor, Dog, Chronopia Guy.
As you can see, the base sizes will make a difference when mixing in with other models. It'd be simple to glue the dog base to a round renedra base or two for some extra height, though. They're realistically big dogs - head up to your waist on a standing model.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Whoa! I have no memory of those models. The golem holding his own head is great.

There's quite the old range of these guys. It seems I have a few of them floating around still, too.

http://www.solegends.com/citWDAds/citwd1986/images/WD838611p1819Various-01_04.htm
http://www.solegends.com/citcat89/c891304nighthorrors-02.htm
http://www.solegends.com/citcat89/c891305nighthorrors-02.htm

Archer - thanks! It works for me. I've varied it slightly for larger batches of Zombie-types with a greenish, bluish and reddish shade instead of purple. All give an unnaturally unhealthy look.

Looking at those SOL pages, I recognize four or five minis I've had kicking around for a while, but I've never seen those two. The staples really make that golem look wicked.

There's quite the variety of those Night Horror figures. I'm sure some made it into other ranges as well at different times, particularly the Undead. I initially did them as stitching, but they just blended in and got lost - too dark. Going for metal staples made them stand out a lot more.

Replies from Marouda to people who commented:

Archer
Thanks I'll have to find the entwife model, I remember I got as far as putting a base coat on the model. Good comparison to the rancor, in the ugliness features, although he's a mini rancor

Giraffe X
Thanks, I thought painting the skin would never end I think that's Azazel's plan to get me motivated to paint more.

Grimdork
Thank you, his expression looks intimidating and he means business.

Warboss Waaazag
Glad it turned out as scary looking as it did and that you like it.

Weetyskemian
Thank you for your comments. I appreciate it.

Love those ghouls, great stuff!

Thanks for the comparison shot, those dogs would fit in quite nicely with most miniature ranges.

Dogs look great , maybe you could paint the black stands as fire hydrants

I just gave my brother in law a ton of ancient citadel, marauder and old GW undead. Your painting makes me wish I hadn't.

Haha, actually... did Mantic have Fire Hydrant included with the Mars Attacks scenery bits? that would be some potentially nice little bits of scatter terrain. Perhaps you should have a ...little chat with your brother and work out which models you'd like to paint and which ones he'd like to?

And now another pair of the old Night Horrors from the 1986-88 time period for today. These two are a little further down the scale of interesting than yesterday's undead-themed models, and I really think they both only ever got painted because fur is easy.



The apeman's fur was pretty much all the same shade, so when I rebased him recently I decided to touch him up a little and add some colour variation to his fur. Most readily seen on his back, which is darker along the spine. Ape-Man is pretty much as he always was, but I drilled into the neck of his victim and stuck a little bit of wire in there to act as a bit of neck/spine. FATALITY!



I'm not sure why I gave the Ape Man blonde locks. I guess he's just that bit more fashion-conscious than the other Apes, but not so much as to actually start wearing clothes. Wheras yesterday's pair will be rolled into the Undead army, these two fit in much more nicely with the Old-School mixed-style Beastmen of Chaos, along with the other weirdos like the Talisman Troll and the various Realm of Chaos-Era Beastmen.

I've got a few more Night Horrors floating around. There's a Medusa on my painting desk, and I know I have a werewolf or two completely unpainted somewhere. Sadly I don't have any of the really cool undead figures from this range, but c'est la vie...

Those are funky and weird and once again I have never seen them. I would love to get together someday and compare all of our weird OOP minis from the Elder Days. Maybe you could relocate to Japan?

Great trip down memory lane again Az! I really enjoy seeing these older mini's done so well, things I haven't seen before and they seem to all have so much personality! your collection is an amazing thing.......just needs more LoTR? :-)

No can do, Josh. But perhaps you can join the list of Dakkaites that it would be great to have move to Melbourne?

Thanks Damo - I'll be getting back to you on that one today. Just need to ask/confirm some stuff with Marouda, who I'm trying to not-so-subtly encourage to pick up a brush again....


Continuing the late 1980's/early 1990's thing I've had going for awhile here are a trio of Chaos Space Marines from the rather famous Space Crusade boardgame - part of the cooperation between Games Workshop and Milton Bradley from that era along with HeroQuest and Battle Masters. I had owned both HeroQuest and Advanced HeroQuest in the day, and managed to pick up replacement secondhand copies of both in the past few years to re-complete them. I also owned Battle Masters and Space Crusade, but sadly both of those got scattered to the winds over time through my own fault and poor choices, so there's not that much left of either now.

Anyway, these three got painted back in the day and updated a month or two ago.



As noted in earlier posts, back in the 90's I was't able to afford all of the models I wanted (how some things never change, eh?) and so my solution was to paint what I had differently or uniquely to make up for it. Sadly, these are still the only World Eaters/Khornemarines and Thousand Sons/Tzeentchmarines I actually have painted to this day! I thought it'd be a good idea to give the Nurgle guy a cut-down "hoof" style foot, and then damage his horn. For some reason, I then thought it's be a good idea to damage the Khorne guy's horn in exactly the same place and way. /facepalm.



The Nurgle guy got a visit from a red-hot paperclip from the stove and a bit of putty to create the disfigurement and damage to his armour. The iconography on the other two is freehanded, and was done 20-odd years ago with no need to touch it up recently. The main things I did to touch these guys up was to remove the green elements of armour from the Khorne and Tzeentch guys, as well as the removal of a bit of purple from Tzeentch-dude. As I've said, the early 90's were a bit garish if you followed GW for inspiration too closely. They look much nicer now, muted down a little to their "proper" colours.



The Red-and-Green of the Nurgle Marine isn't what I'd choose today, but was actually a common scheme for Nurgle Marines and Chaos Renegades from the Slaves to Darkness book, and was a bit part of the "original soul" of this painted guy, so I left it. I also rebased all three on the new 32mm round bases, which they fill out nicely and really fit with these models much better than the 25mm ones they lived on for so long.

This blog really has been filled with old models lately - it's not intentionally retro, it's just that a lot of what I've painted, am repainting and am finally finishing is from that era, and I'm trying to document everything I finish these days. I'm keen as hell to get onto some newer models and some Forge World and so forth, but I'm making myself hold off, with the exception of "work minis" that have simple techniques that I can do at work (and bore me to do at home!)

Ooo dem's some old school Chaos Marines

Great stuff lately

No fire hydrants in the MA scenery. Mailboxes, trash cans, park benches, stop signs, there's a lot of stuff on which a dog might pee, but none of them are fire hydrants (wasted opportunity).

I'm pretty sure there is at least one fire hydrant in one of the resin scenery sets.

Those are some very nice Chaos Marines. I can't imagine painting a whole army of them to that standard, though.

Oh yeah, the resin sets, forgot about those. I think there was a hot dog cart and so on? I don't think those have ever been offered at retail though.

Yeah, the one with the hot dog cart. I picked up that set to have crap to hide behind. I bet it's on eBay.

Thanks Josh - that's the difficulty I have. Between wanting to have armies painted and wanting to paint them to a specific standard (that changes depending on the models, to be fair). So despite being able to field some almost-totally painted battles, the result is I have no completely finished armies.

The resin scenery looked really nice, but just too rich for a game like MA. Even though they can be used elsewhere, boutique-priced resin scenery is always a hard sell to me.

I like the chaos dudes!

Nice and bright chaos.

Good stuff! I've always wondered just how good those classic board game Marines painted up, now I know!

They look really good, I like how bright the Tzeentch marine is with all the yellow.

With these chaos marines you are really spoiling us ambassador...

I love what you've done with them.

As good as ever, Sir. I really like that you did a variety of Legions rather than just one, and the tiny bit of conversion work on the Nurgle Marine really sets it apart.

As a painter of the "once it's done it's done" variety what motivates you to go back and re-visit miniatures that you have already painted?

Good job on those marines.

Now those are true chaos marines like when I was a Lad. I've got a few of the metal Slaanesh marines with the guitar/bolter and frohawk set aside somewhere. I tried doing the cheetah prints and rainbows on him to no avail.

Thanks guys - I'm happy with how they came up in the end. Theo - I've still got those guy unpainted to boot. They're one of the (many) things on my list to do once I finish the backlog I'm working through.

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
As good as ever, Sir. I really like that you did a variety of Legions rather than just one, and the tiny bit of conversion work on the Nurgle Marine really sets it apart.
As a painter of the "once it's done it's done" variety what motivates you to go back and re-visit miniatures that you have already painted?

Good question. The main thing motivating me is wanting to rebase the really old models so I can happily use them again because many are on square bases with gakky green flock. When I rebase them, it's generally pretty easy to do a bit of touch-up on some, and it also motivates me to "fix up" figures that I dislike the paint on for one reason or another. There's enough time passed between these as well (generally 5-20 years) so that it doesn't feel like I'm redoing something I just finished, and I've found quite a few times that it results in taking figures that I considered gak or disliked and turning them into something I now enjoy and appreciate. These three models were ones I considered gakky old models which were hidden in an old figure case and now with a small amount of work I can actually appreciate them. Often it's just been the difference between overly bright or garish colours (and poor colour choices) that were my best emulation of the 90's GW style at the time that took a few years for me to see how awful they really were.

These guys are all examples of this - simply due to the original paint (and the original weapon swap in the case of the single ogre. I'd actually intended to get rid of most of the unit of Golfags' Ogres before I went back over them and found a new appreciation for them. The Slannesh beastman was just hideously garish, and the Khorne one had a horrible lurid green as a badly-done "complimentary" colour. All of the below figures (as well as the Space Crusade CSM) were ones that I really disliked before doing the rebase and touch-up to them.

You paint so fast! Geez!

Looks good though.

You have a never ending supply of ridiculously old school models. They're great!

I really enjoyed Space Crusade and Heroquest. Probably would have been the first foray into the world of tabletop. Wonder how the Space Crusade Plastic Dreadnought would have matched up with todays dreadnoughts.....

 Archer wrote:
I really enjoyed Space Crusade and Heroquest. Probably would have been the first foray into the world of tabletop. Wonder how the Space Crusade Plastic Dreadnought would have matched up with todays dreadnoughts.....

To be fair, the SC Dreadnought is still a pretty big(height-wise anyway) model, with a hell of a lot of guns, when compared to the dreadnoughts of today.

For some reason, the Deredeo Dreadnought feels like it's taken at least partial inspiration from the SC Dread. Even though they really don't look alike at all.

And now.... WarZone!

Nope, not the new Prodos models. I almost went big on their KS during the PM phase, but I asked them a couple of questions and while they did get back to me after a few days, by the time they did I'd already spent my money, and getting that big bundle of cash together again was on my "yeah, I need to do that" list until it kinda got forgotten about and the PM expired. So I missed out on some lovely new figures, and they missed out on my big pile of cash.

Anyway, these models are Heartbreaker sculpts from (when else?) the 1990's and painted in either the '90s or the early '00s. I never played Dark Legion, but picked up the odd sculpt that I felt had 40k crossover appeal, and then later bought quite a lot more during their final "Fire Sale" period. I've already showcased a bunch of their Zombies as part of my Nurgle Lost and the Damned force. As such, they were painted with obvious 40k influences, but without going the whole hog in case I decided to play WarZone 1e again some time.



The Nepharite of Algeroth, with his big-arse chain-halberd thing makes an ideal follower of Khorne. Algeroth in the WarZone canon being the d̶i̶e̶t̶y̶ Apostle of War. Hmmm...

I decided to paint him in a Khorne-inspired palette, but avoid the whole "blood spatter" thing. I gave the Kev Adams face sculpt some face-paint, to bring out the skull-like aspects of his visage even more. His gloves are made of flayed leather skin, and I kept the rest to red, black, brass and iron - with the exception of the Hazard Stripes on his chainblade. Health & Safety at the forefront, wot?



The Razide I decided for whatever reason to paint as a follower of Tzeentch. I guess the more obvious deity might have been Nurgle, what with the Swamp Thing face and the boil-looking growths on the shoulders and so forth. The tubes were originally painted in way too many colours, which I recently turned into reds, shaded with brown ink. The Tattoos... well, throughout the 1990s one of my biggest influences in many ways was Henry Rollins. I admired the man's integrity, his no-bs ethos, and of course the live performances of Rollins Band were pretty impressive, with all that raw power and intensity. I also thought he made a great template and influence for wargaming models. Remember, this was back in the days when tattoos were mostly the domain of Bikers, people in the military, rather rough types of people, and musicians. They weren't on every second guy you met, and certainly not on every second girl. The tattoos on the bikers and rougher people I knew (family & friends of) were far too small and intricate to work in miniature scale, so Rollins became a bit of a default for inspiration, with his large, distinct pieces that worked from a distance. I'll just point out a few of the obscured ones. "LOVE" and "HATE" on his knuckles. With a cheeky ? on the thumb of LOVE = "LOVE?"



There's a pentagram on his right thigh that's hard to see in the pics, and the text across his lower back says "SCARRED" in a stylised font.





And finally, a scale shot with a Metal Guardsman I had to hand. Both are pretty handily Ogre-Sized:



These two will likely be rolled into other Lost and the Damned forces - Khorne and Tzeentch at some future time when I have a hell of a lot more models painted. Until then, they're mostly just going to sit in the figure cases. The Nepharite of Algeroth might make it into a Kings of War Chaos-themed force, I guess. He could be a "Minotaur Hero" to the old-school RoC Beastmen.

The Razide is still available from Prince August who bought out the remaining WarZone stock sometime 20-off years ago when Heartbreaker collapsed, but the Nepharite of Algeroth seems to have been sold out. I'm sure they'd be easy enough to pick up from eBay, etc, though.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 EyeamRai wrote:
You paint so fast! Geez!
Looks good though.

Nah. What tends to happen is I finish things in batches, and I've also got a decent backlog of things to show off that I've finished this year. So on a good weekend I might finish 7 models from various ranges, which then takes awhile to photograph and show off. I spent almost all of last week spring cleaning (like from 7am till midnight some days) and between that and Mad Max on PS4 (and World of Tanks on PC) I have barely picked up a brush, and even then it's been to try and paint some (roughly) 1:7 scale Vampire heads for a friend's garage kits. I've got a half-dozen Black Numenorians, 8 Night Goblins and a few more old-school Beastmen, Chaos Warriors and Chaos Sorcerers that I should be able to get finished in about 2 days of dedicated painting. If I can manage to get myself motivated for a couple of days of dedicated painting. So they're all well overdue now.

I lurk lots from the shadows, but damn, those two models have a good old-timey vibe about them. First thing to pop into my mind is Andy Chambers with a beard and mullet.

Also, the first guy has an awesome KISS vibe to him, like he's been ripped from a 80's metal album cover.

OOh... that's a bloody good idea. I'm not especially a fan of KISS, but now I'm gonna have to give a set of 4 (5? 6?) guys KISS makeup at some point!

I was too much of a GW/Citadel nerd in the 90's to have played Warzone, but I liked a lot of their minis (I still have a considerable pile of whatever their Samurai-in-Space faction was). You have really done justice to them. I'm particularly impressed with the flesh tones on Meat Thing ('cause he's made of meat, not swamp muck. Get it?). Also, all the 90's red makes me nostalgic.

Please tell me you have an Ezoghoul to show.

I love your time machine minis and style.

And if I recall, Mishima was the space samurai faction.

Oh wow, didn't expect to see Warzone minis out of you. They look awesome! I can't help but feel Target Games was sort of the Mantic of their day, trying to do their own thing but copying GW just enough to be cross compatible. I'd love to see your Legionnaires.

Yep, Mishima. I have a few of those to paint one day. Sadly, no Ezoghoul in my collection, though.

Barzam - I've shown a few over the last few years. Some are scattered through this thread, but an easier way would be to have a look through here:
https://azazelx.wordpress.com/category/warzone/

That's a pretty fair description of Heartbreaker with WarZone in a lot of ways. The biggest difference was that Their game was actually going gangbusters and was really popular. The figures weren't as nice, but the game was probably the biggest rival to 40k ever. Heartbreaker went down not due to poor sales or mismanagement, or Rackham slliness, but because their parent company went down and took Heartbreaker down with them. Oh, what might have been....

Warzone 1e was a really good game. I should probably relearn the rules and try to play it again (using whatever models work). Just a shame I never seem to have time to play much anymore...

Did you play VOR?

Nope, never played VOR or Kryomek. I did pick up a couple of VOR figures which I converted into Chaos/Necromunda-type models (and then never painted) - but I was all about the GW games and WarZone at the time.

Today we have something that's somewhat recent and still available. I just finished these a couple of days ago, varnished them yesterday and finished the static grass this morning.
Six Black Númenórean Warriors from Citadel's Lord of the Rings range. I don't recall when these were released exactly, but the slotta says 07 so it would have been either 2007 or 2008 most likely. These models are exceptions to the "no starting anything new" rule I've got in place, as the "stuff I can paint 90% of at work" rules overrides the former rule. As I've noted before, a limited palette and a simple job to do (usually highlighting black cloth or painting bone) works well for me at work, and keeps me interested in the hobby when I'd otherwise be tired and (more) burnt out.



I wanted to paint these in a slightly more interesting (to me) manner than the usual, which is essentially dirtied-up steel with black robes, but still retain the proper feel of these Morgul troops. I've seen some really nice looking Morgul Knights (these guys on horses, basically) painted with deep sea green robes, but I wanted to maintain stronger visual ties through their palette being in tune with both the Ringwraiths and also (and more importantly) The Mouth of Sauron figure.



I kept the dark robes, highlighted via blending rather than drybrushing which I've used in the past for similar models. Sadly the highlighting seems to be a bit washed out in these pictures, but something I absolutely wanted to avoid was over-highlighting the robes to light grey or white, which seems to be a common solution for many painted - because the robes are black. I used my usual black palette, of blends between Army Painter Black and VMC - Black Grey and Basalt Grey. Basalt Grey is plenty light enough for these guys.



For the metal areas, I tried a new technique. First I painted the armour and shields with Vallejo Chainmail undercoat with a little bit of VMA Bright Brass mixed in. Two glazes of Citadel Seaphim Sepia Shade, and then an edge highlight of VMA Gold. Sword blades were done with Army Painter Plate Mail, washed with AP Dark Tone, and then edge highlighted with Plate Mail again.

Faces were done with VMC Sand, shaded with a paint wash of Fire Dragon Crimson, which is a very old Citadel paint that's actually a purple shade and then touched up with sand. A bit of black around their mouths and teeth picked out with VGC Elfic Flesh. Leather on the sword handles and shield straps were done with AP Chaotic Red (which is more of a deep red-brown) and washed with AP Strongtone. Done!

The reason I've documented exactly how I painted them here is because I've found that I have literally a dozen more of these guys, as well as a single pair of Castellans of Dol Guldur, who may well get the same paint scheme, given how similar they are in look and feel, and to add more variety to the scant three poses that the Black Númenóreans have.



As you can see, I attempted some minor conversion with these initial six when I got them years ago. I clipped some shoulder spikes from one of the models, and turned one of those spikes into a "rear" headspike on one of the other models. Without going into Chaos Warrior-style spikiness, I'm not sure how I can easily add any differentiation to the dozen others I have of these three sculpts. I'm not willing to go so far as to resculpt parts, and these models aren't exactly conducive to headswaps, so there's probably not a lot going to happen here.

The eventual Army of Mordor will find a home both in the various LotR games, as well as Kings of War. Plenty more to paint before I worry too much about that, though... Perhaps these guys will find their way onto the table alongside Marouda's Undead army as Allied troops.

I think the blends look great Az, it is a shame that there were so few poses cast for the BM. Good idea on leaving yourself a personal painting guide too.

Wow. Three of those guys would be fun to paint, a dozen more would be a grind. I reckon they'll look good on the tabletop, though.

Thanks Thraxas - the polyurethane varnish leaves a bit of a sheen, which with the lighting for photos seems to have messed up some of the shading (for the photos, anyway)

They could easily become that, Josh. Luckily working on them at work during my breaks (about 20mins per day in practical terms) prevents it from becoming a grind. Then stuff at home (like applying the washes) just takes a few minutes at a time.

Top quality work. I really like these models. Lots of detail and character. I think your colour choices are excellent.

Bad-ass models! the pale gold and black work perfect with the slightly visable lower face in the purple hues, makes them look evil! :-)

The Black Numenoreans wouldn't look too out of place in an Undead army as Wights methinks..

Awesome stuff, I've always liked those minis, but the cost to get enough to be useful wasn't really manageable for my younger pocket-money-reliant self.

My biggest hope for the LotR range just before it began dying was that we'd get plastic on-foot Black Numenoreans and Knights of Dol Amroth to go with their mounted counterparts (which I believe were the last pre-Hobbit releases?).

Great work on the BNs! The colour choice is perfect. Top notch painting too.

And as someone who also paints in lunch breaks, I understand the need for a simple paint scheme to work with.

Thanks guys. We've already got more than enough Wights and Wraiths from the LotR Barrow-Wights and Army of the Dead ranges.

Here's the (Barrow) Wights (and a ringer)


I also have the Otherworld Wights and a Lich to paint up, who will make a nice, second unit of Wights. (Not to mention a possible use for some of the Ringwraiths.

I've just realised that the Army of the Dead figures haven't ever been photographed. I'll have to sort that out. Not that they're anything special, being painted in that same ethereal style that GW has been using for undead/ghosts/spectres ever since they debuted those AotD models...

Agreed it's a real shame that they never released plastics of these models to give some more variety, as these three are so hard to convert. I guess they did that with most of the LotR metal range - having such a limited set of poses for them.

That's what it's all about, Bottle. 5 paints, a few figures and (generally) just one aspect of them to work on - preferably something that's tedious at home - and then chip away at it for a short while each day. Magically, when painting at work it's not actually tedious!

Those guys are sweet, nice work.

Ideal minis considering the month there Azazel Nice work!

The LotR stuff is looking great!

Awesome. Loving the Chaos models you've been sharing with us recently.

D

Crikey - loving those Barrow Wights Az - They are gorgeous. Beautful palette you went with there. Really really great work

Thanks Januine. I'm still really pleased with how they turned out.

Something a bit different from the norm again today. A few years ago now there was a time before Zombicide and Borderlands 2 when my gaming group spent quite a few evenings playing through those D&D Boargames. I've shown off the odd critter from Ravenloft and Ashardalon here before, but this guy is from the other side. A model purchased to represent one of the player characters. I actually created a huge list of (mostly) Reaper Miniatures to better represent the player characters as I was never particularly enamoured of the PC models that came in the boxes. One such character was the Half-Orc Thief. Needing one of those, I browsed the Reaper online catalogue and saw this guy, a lovely Tre' Manor sculpt. Shortly afterwards, he was mine.

Since I'm no fan of broccoli bases, I had to base him on something plastic and round. A Proxie models 40mm round base was the best and most appropriate thing I had, if a little large, but with his stature and wide-legged stance, this was the smallest thing I could fit him on.



The most important thing was to work out a palette that worked for a rogue, was somewhat realistic (for a fantasy trope) and wasn't completely boring. That means an all-black outfit was out. It might be the "obvious" go-to for a rogue or thief in some ways, but I also thought it's the sort of thing that's very likely to attract lots of attention if he were to be walking down a street or sitting in a tavern. Kinda like a sign saying "YES I AM A THIEF", or a guy in a ninja outfit sitting in your local Starbucks. So I wanted to use some colours. Secondly, this guy is a Half-Orc, not a weedy Elf, so I wanted to go for muted, natural colours instead of rich, opulent colours.



The result was dark grey leggings, a brown leather padded jerkin, and for a spot colour, red-brown gloves and boots. Pouches in dark grey again, and a natural woodland green for his cloak. The sort of thing that would be dark and dull enough to provide some camouflage in a town or out in the bush. His dual-wielded daggers are painted in the Vallejo colour called "Metal Black" (Or Black Metal!) - which is a really dark, true gunmetal colour. No shine, no highlight, no picking out the pommel or crossguard in bronze, or painting the little skulls on them in bone or gold or whatever. They're bloody rogue's daggers!

Anyway, this guy - like so many other figures - sat half-painted and mostly forgotten for a couple of years before I chose him a couple of weeks ago to get done and dusted. Within a day, he was finished. Since we're not playing the D&D games at the moment and haven't played Pathfinder in a year or more, now he goes into a glass cabinet until needed at some point in the future. At least he's done, though!

Heh slightly jealous of your ability to paint at work. Can't really do the same in a random field in the middle of nowhere!

Yes me too - my employers like to see me in constant motion for my pittance.

Lovely muted half orc there. I like his quilted jerkin. Reaper are so good for character models.

He looks really good Azazelx, you can tell he's a d&d miniature he's just got that kind of pose.

Those barrow wights are fantastic. The ethereal bits contrast nicely with the material bits. I especially like the faces, and the fat that they are not ethereal, meaning that when these guys are at rest, they are a pile of armor with some dead guys head on top.

I like the rogue. I think I have that same model in bones plastic and am looking forward to painting him up as the rogue for my 'brute force' themed adventuring party. Great color choices. I'll probably wind up doing something similar for mine but I doubt I'll pick as nice of a palette for him.

 weetyskemian44 wrote:
Yes me too - my employers like to see me in constant motion for my pittance.
Lovely muted half orc there. I like his quilted jerkin. Reaper are so good for character models.

Well, I only get to do it for 15-20mins of my 30min break (due to needing to walk to and back from where I can paint, toilet stop, etc), but it's a nice, if brief de-stressor and something to look forward to. It was a pretty easy figure to finish as well, and not at all unpleasant to paint. Thanks for all the positivity towards the wights as well. Again, they were fun figures to paint. My only real concern is making sure the next three have a matching palette when I get onto painting them...

The wights look nice and I really like the half Orc. I totally agree with you colour choices for him. I always thought if you were walking around in completely black outfits in a city you would stick out badly.

If you are concerned about matching the wights palette you could solve it by choosing a different palette altogether? Kind of sounds crazy, but if they may end up different anyway use it as a feature?

That's a thought, but I might just go for trying to match it, actually. Worst that happens is that it's a similar but not exact colour scheme, but I quite like that deep but luminous greeny-blue that I used, and other colours would be more suggesting of cloth or fire, etc

Two figures with a common origin but different destinies here today. The first is the Nurgle Champion of Chaos with Halberd, a 1990 The Lost and the Damned release of one of Jes Goodwin's, who shares a base sculpt with "Mace" and "Sword 3". Back then, many of the artists and sculptors in Workshop were still that little bit subversive, and liked to sneak in little "inappropriate" things into their artwork. Some were quite subtle, and others much less so. The original runes of the chaos gods had a few variations to them. While many have remained over the decades, some were quietly taken out back and shot. The most obvious one that's been excised being the version of Nurgle's rune/icon that this chap sports on both his breastplate and also atop his head, which featured on quite a few models of the time, as well as internal artwork. I never viewed that one as particularly subtle, but others to this day still somehow deny what their eyes see.



The second model in this update is harder to place with accuracy. The earliest I can find him in the old catalogues is in the 1988 Catalogue, which was the first time that Citadel/GW had really started to properly document and ...catalogue their figures. I suspect that the sculpt was released around 1985, as the model is featured in the '88 catalogue alongside many of the C35 models that were also in the Third Citadel Compendium (1985). I suspect he's from late-'85 to perhaps 86. Probably pre-'87 as the Chaos Warriors featured in those catalogues take another distinct design turn (Slambo and his ilk) before they changed yet again with the release of Realm of Chaos. The C35 era-Chaos Warriors would probably have been called Champions if such things existed in the same distinct way at the time.



As for the painting on these two - The Nurgle Champion always had a slightly ropey paintjob, which I cleaned up while keeping as much of the original paint and feel as possible. His armour had some significant tide marks from early washes which I cleaned up. I also had a play with Ryza Rust and Typhus Corrosion on his armour and toned down his overly-garish pouches.

The Undead Warrior was originally painted a horrid bright red (Khorne, right?) and then never finished, and then stripped a few years ago. I had gotten as far as re-priming him black, and then having him sit annoyingly on my desk for another couple of years. The only way to finally end that annoyingness was to paint and finish him. I decided that I've got plenty enough Chaos Warriors and Champions in my collection and mentally reassigned him to Marouda's Undead Army. I figure he can lead the small and slowly-growing "Oldhammer Skeleton" regiment. As part of the undead army, I had a palette worked out for him quite easily. I went for an aged-bronze look on his armour (ith a tiny bit of turquoise for the glow of the eyes on his helmet, red spot colour for his bright plume, and red-brown for his gloves. Bone was obviously the prefect fit for his shield, to which I added ruby-red for the eyes.



I find it amusing when "Oldhammer purists" wax poetic about the simple beauty plain flat shields and arcane armorials while bemoaning and decrying the more modern tendency towards shields (and models!) with fully sculpted details. How conveniently they forget the Marauder Miniatures sculpted shields, those of the Warhammer Fantasy Regiments and indeed, models like this guy and his peers. Me? I like both. Being able to like both is a thing. I love an excuse for a spot of cool freehand, but also enjoy working on a lovely pre-sculpted and detailed shield, like this one.

I quite like the Chaos Warrior, even with his very strange symbol, I have to tell myself the sculptor was making a joke rather than them truly not realizing what they were doing.

The Skeleton is an interesting model, I like the pose of actually trying to put the shield in front of as much of his body as possible. But I just don't gel with the skulls of the older models.

I like both color choices as well. I think the varying colors on the Nurgle Warrior works well.

My feeling is that they were taking the piss and trying to see how much they could get away with. The studio was a lot less corporate back then and from an artist friend who went over there for awhile who told me a few years later that "Adrian Smith got my spot" - meaning post Slaves to Darkness and pre-Lost and the Damned being published - the corporate office was getting very corporate, while the studio had Blanche still in his biker-in-leathers phase, many in the studio still looking like punks and bikers and metalheads, and ...interesting smells being common. Probably incense.
So that's the environment that models like the Nurgle Champ came from.

I found out some more info in the Skeletal Chaos Warrior - he's actually older than I thought.

The undead champion is an older sculpt than 1988 as you suspect. He was a preslotta model recast as a slotta base when GW converted some of their older models over in 1985. From the back his armour looks like he was sculpted by the Perry Twins and shows similarities to the armour on other early C35 Chaos Warriors and the Men at Arms range circa 1983.
If you look at the Spring 85 Citadel Journal on SoL I think you can see a poorly illustrated side view version of him in the C35 range.

And yeah, I checked there and he's in there. Making him from '84 or earlier, then converted to slotta in '85.

I have never been a fan of Nurgle, but you make his followers look good. The rust effects are remarkably realistic. I have that skeleton guy-- he' s in the queue for repainting. I hope to do as well as you did.

That Nurgle warrior is a classic, and a great paintjob

To claim that those symbols represent anything smutty is a phallusey.

I apologise.

I do not recall seeing that Skeleton Warrior before, but great mini and a top paintjob. The Nurgle warrior is great, I especially like the rust on the halberd.

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
To claim that those symbols represent anything smutty is a phallusey.

I apologise.

I do not recall seeing that Skeleton Warrior before, but great mini and a top paintjob. The Nurgle warrior is great, I especially like the rust on the halberd.

Lol! I think you were looking for fallacy not phallusey there fella

 angelofvengeance wrote:

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
To claim that those symbols represent anything smutty is a phallusey.

I apologise.

I do not recall seeing that Skeleton Warrior before, but great mini and a top paintjob. The Nurgle warrior is great, I especially like the rust on the halberd.

Lol! I think you were looking for fallacy not phallusey there fella

Phallic symbols aside, that Nurgle guy actually has a pretty cool design. The chainmail mask over the helmet isn't something you ser too often among Chaos these days. I like the wider variety in armor the old stuff had over the more uniform looking guys they have today.

I actually deliberately brought a bunch of the old Marauder plastic shields for the more intricate designs a couple of months ago!

More oldies/goodies. Great stuff.

Had a hell of a week. Back to work, a heatwave, daylight savings and then on Monday night I found out that Mum had been taken to hospital that morning for respiratory problems and being unable to walk. It was lung disease, emphysema, pneumonia, and a lung infection. She's out now, but I didn't have the mentality to post in this thread or browse other people's painting. Just to vent on a couple of other KS threads at things like Mantic's poor choices. Anyway, she's out now, and while there's naturally a lot of followup to go through, she's feeling better and as a consequence I'm starting to as well.

Llamahead - those Marauder shields are great, aren't they? I've got as fair few, I just wish I had more so I could build whole units with them.
Barzam - He's a cool model, whether he's got a phallus on his head or not. Goodwin's sculpting somehow surpasses the WTF elements of that model (and the others that he did). I agree that the variety of armour was a good thing. I do like the current look of Chaos Warriors, which is pretty much a throwback to the range that just preceded the RoC books (Slambo and his ilk) but variety is always a good thing.
Josh - Thanks, I'm looking forward to seeing your take on him. I'm thinking of digging out his peers from the same vintage, but I should concentrate on getting started stuff finished first.

Here's some more models to look at.

A few more of my old Beastmen from the Realm of Chaos era. This time, a foursome of Khorngor - Beastmen of Khorne. Distinguished by their visages being of dogs, which was a distinctive Khorne thing back then, but has pretty much faded away over time.



I had two of this sculpt, and as always when I ended up with duplicates in the past - particularly for more individual models such as Chaos ones, I wanted to distinguish them. I did so with both their fur and flesh colours as well as their shields. Military green loincloths provided both some contrast and a way for them to occasionally be part of a Traitor Imperial Guard regiment.



Very distinct shields provide a couple of quite different takes on the Rune of Khorne. One influenced by Ian Miller's work, and the other being a little more abstract, but still recognisable. Shaving the rims off those old plastic shields was (and still is) a simple matter that gives a bit more real estate to play with while giving those shields quite a different look and feel. These two were both painted in the 1990's and required relatively little work to update. Cleaning up and re-brightening the metal and some of the lacquered red armour, as well as rebasing.



These next two aren't duplicate sculpts, but they're close. They clearly share the same base sculpt, most likely the one on our left as the one with chainmail and tentacle feels more like a conversion. Again I've trimmed the rim off the shield to give more space. The skull is freehand, as is the smaller rune of Khorne on its forehead. Once again, these two needed just a little cleaning up in spots redoing the belt on one and the axe on the other - and following the same general colour notes as the previous two models.

Awesome beastmen. I love the sheer variety of models from the RoC days and before. Newer models may be technically well-executed, they lack the personality of these older guys. I really like the abstract Khorne rune.

Great news your mum is on the mend. Unfortunately the universe decided that I needed to be exposed to family tragedy early on and frequently since (wonder who I wronged in a past life) so I can very much sympathize with your situation.

I absolutely love the beastmen, they have such a chaotic feel to them, almost hybrid dog and human rather than a distinct species as the Beastmen have become.

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Awesome beastmen. I love the sheer variety of models from the RoC days and before. Newer models may be technically well-executed, they lack the personality of these older guys. I really like the abstract Khorne rune.

Nothing a few snips, bitz and green stuff won't fix

I love this blog! it's truly wonderful to have such an educated guide, guide us through the history of Citadel/GW mini's and provide brilliant examples of painted miniatures and history of them all through the many years! thanks AZ :-)

One hell of a combination of things that your Mum was suffering from, no small wonder that you lost your posting mojo. Hopefully she is feeling a lot better now Az.

Top Chaos Beastmen, as ever your shields and the freehand on them is top notch.

Lovely dog-men! And I see what you mean about the nurgle thingy.

Nothing wrong with a bit of incense. Aids the concentration... Kids today would probably do a modafinil.

Best wishes - Hope your mum recovers quickly.

Good luck to your mum loving the evil bulldogs!

Thanks all for the kind words regarding Mum. Turns out that she had pneumonia as well! She's out now, ok-ish and the other things have resolved themselves as much as possible, but I've had little interest in picking up the brush outside of my lunch hour meditation. When I've been home I've just binged on trash TV via Netflix and wasted hours and hours on Mad Max and now Destiny's expansion on PS4. The only real respite was a bit of Zombicide with friends on Friday night. Sorry to hear about your stretch as well, Archer.

On the weekend I did these. Gluing and so forth Saturday and painting Sunday. Mostly because I found them in a little baggie, and decided it would be nice to just get something done from start to finish, even something as simple as these, which it turns out are from the 40k 3rd edition starter boxed set. So I've had them since 1998, or 17 years. Oh. Apparently I've lost one of the little bits, as I only had the three when I should have had 2 of each. I must have just shoved them to one side and forgot about them until whenever I was sorting through stuff and chucked them into a zip-lock. I might have decided to save them to incorporate them into something more grand, which clearly never eventuated. Whevever. Now they're done and have been added to my collection of little bits of scatter terrain.



Sprayed black, a mixture of cat litter and coarse sand applied. Painted black again. Drybrushed through VMC Black Grey, Basalt Grey and then VGC Bonewhite. Varying shades of weathering powders added for colour, and then another Bonewhite drybrush on top. Matt varnish, done! The technique isn't especially interesting, and I'm only writing it down here so I've got a record of it in case I find more of these little blighters and want to keep it consistent.



I was going to add some static flock to them at first, but decided against it for the same reason I avoided doing so on the Citadel Craters I painted a year ago. I'd like these small bits of ruins to be of indeterminate age. I want to be able to use them in a game of Bolt Action or 40k to represent a building that was shelled by artillery that very morning, as well as to use them to represent a small corner of a town like Frostgrave, or Osgilliath, or any generic place in most any climate. Adding grass instantly means it's been there for awhile, which I wanted to avoid.

They're a little smaller than I'd like, but they're decent. More of an obstacle to movement than something that provides any cover, as the pictures-for-scale shot shows.

Hopefully I'll have something more interesting up in this coming week, but hey, at least I painted something this week... Hopefully I'll also get back into other people's Plogs this coming weekend. I just haven't been in the right mindset for it, and Theo's one is a particularly hard one for me to even think of reading and catching up on right now, though I certainly wish him and his all the best.

My Dad once suffered from pneumonia, a horrible illness. Am glad that your Mum is getting better Az.

That boxed edition was 17 years ago? Now I feel old. At least you kept some painting going, it would be very easy to lose all motivation with the illness of a loved one (or as you saw with me I ended up painting as a distraction).

I'm glad you're mother is on the mend, Azazelx. My father has been fighting metastatic cancer for the past year, fortunately with some success. He's looking healthy these days, with tumors receding, although he's mostly lost the use of his right arm due to nerve damage. But when he began treatment, he looked emaciated and weak like he was ready to pass over at any moment, and that threw me pretty hard. So I can relate to that spell of emotional fatigue and disorientation you just went through.

I have to say, I really love your taste in the chaos classics of GW's creative golden age, and really like your take on these beastmen, a particular weakness of mine. Chaos used to be cruder, but much, much wilder, and much more exciting to follow. I've been looking at beastmen bits for possibly doing some 40K versions and the new Gors just don't have the same character and variety as the older ones. (If you have any recommendations for sources of good beastmen heads with that old spirit, feel free to let me know.)

Honestly, I have no idea how you find the time to do so much at such a level of quality. I guess you've done enough that you now have the facility to do it with greater speed? Remarkable.

Thanks Vermonter. She's incredibly thin right now. Like skin stretched over bone, so I'm very concerned that this coming summer will be her last. Hopefully she puts on some weight and we can get a few more years out of her, but I guess we'll see. Apologies to all the people who I'm usually good at following on their own blogs - I've just been a bit "off" lately, and now after a shower I'm off to the dentist's as I may have a wisdom tooth that needs to come out as I've had pretty severe pain coming and going in my jaw for the last few days.

Ahem.

I've been doing very little painting lately with all of this going on, and mostly just playing Destiny on PS4 again, but this weekend Marouda motivated me to get a bunch of the Black Numenorians that I'd been working on at work finally finished, so that was a thing. I finished the last Zombicide figure from the last panting batch that I was working on as well, so I've got a new batch pulled out of the game set. For the beastmen, it depends on whether you want them for Chaos Beastmen or Imperial Beastmen. The imperial ones were definately all goat-gors - all with curved horns. The closest job might be to use some of the curved horns on the Skeleton sprue (do they still sell those?) to replace the long horns on the plastic gors? I'm not sure, otherwise, though to tell you the truth,. I quote like the modern plastic Gors as well. I know Vic makes some, though like all of her products, they're not cheap.

Also on the weekend, I finally got her to finish off her post for the Ki-Rin model that she painted a few years ago, so I'm going to show that one today:

...



I painted this model about 4 years ago. This figure is a very nice model sculpted by Julie Guthrie as part of the 'All Things Dark and Dangerous' range for Ral Partha, probably in the late '80s.



The model is a Kirin which is a creature that looks similar to a unicorn with the scales of a dragon. I remember that I enjoyed painting it as I particularly like mythological creatures such as unicorns and pegasi. I chose to paint the Kirin in a turquoise palette of colours. The model was fairly easy to paint except for the fine detail of the eyes which require a very steady hand so I asked Azazel if he could help by painting the eyes. To provide a shimmer effect to the scales I used a white opalescent paint over the turquoise paint. I am really happy with how the mane and hair turned out. Azazel helped me with painting the base for the model. I wanted the Kirin to be running through waves. To make the waves of the water on the base 'water effects' was used.

A draco-corn! Nice work Marouda (interesting name btw). I like the water effect on the base

Sorry I haven't made the rounds in the threads lately, been busy. Sorry to hear about your mum being sick, I know I'm late to the party on wishing her well but you know where I've been. I'll keep her and you in my prayers bud.

Oh I have one of the armored dog faced khorne beastmen with mallets that are from the same time as these guys. He is still one of my favorites of all time.

A very nice Kirin there. I never would have thought of those colors-- I'm probably a little to used to this color scheme.

My painting career started with Ral Partha and Grenadier, and a lot of those old minis hold up really well, even today. I look forward to seeing more of your work.

Huh nice evil unicorn. Color scheme looks a lot like what I imagined the one that showed up in the Dresden Files would look like.

Sorry to hear about your mom's health issues Az, wish you and her all the best.

I'm glad to hear your mother is better.


The Ki Rin is damn awesome. The color scheme gives it an otherworldly look to me.

The Kirin looks spectacular; colours work really well together and the horn and hooves stand out nicely. The opalescent works really, really well.

I think my first models were Ral Partha, but that was so long ago I am really not sure. Some sort of Orc/goblin/ogre shaman and a goblin on a wolf. Think I painted both with metallic bronze flesh from my dads old enamel model paints. Ah such fond memories.

Fingers crossed for a good turn of health for your mother.

We are thinking of you Azazel, there are no real right or wrong things to do at the moment. Just pop in here if you want to talk or vent.

Thanks guys, the next few weeks are going to be a nightmare of work with Jury Duty appearing this week as well to feth things up further. Hopefully I'm ugly enough to get rejected. I wouldn't mind an interesting case, but only when I have time - which won't be until March and they won't allow me to defer for that long, so I've just got to hope I'm not interesting enough. Mum is okay, but I've got to sort some stuff out for her, while trying to juggle all the rest of that gak. Plus I'm still a bit off myself - turns out it was a pustulent gum infection. I'm a fan of Nurgle, but not so much of Nurgle in my mouth. So I'm still on powerful antibiotics and occasionally (now) powerful painkillers.



So. Models. I'll get Marouda to reply to the Ki-Rin feedback on the weekend, though she did read every one of them and seemed very appreciative.

From me, there's more Realm of Chaos era beastmen today. Once again, these are Khorngor - Beastmen of Khorne. One is (probably) intended as such, while the others are generic beastmen painted as followers of Khorne from back in the day. I believe all four are again Jes Goodwin sculpts, though I'm not 100% sure on the bulldog head. He could be one of Kev Adams' or Mark Copplestone's sculpts from the same range?



When I was young, I was a fan of Khorne. Blood for the Blood God, Skulls for the Skull Throne, a combination of maddening blood rage and marital honour. While that last thing has kind of fallen by the wayside in recent years, Khorne remains a firm fan favourite for GW and no doubt teenagers the world over. Is it any wonder that the SigMarines battle KhorneReapers and BloodSmashers and all the rest?

So with this deep background in mind, we'll let that suffice as the explanation as to why the generic goatheaded beastman was painted with Khornate-friendly armour. The shield on the other hand shows my own humour of the day. It's not a Union Flag - it's a variation of the eight-pointed star of Chaos. I do remember that this shield bothered by friend Jared something fierce. He might have found it broke the atmosphere of the game or something like that. Bulldog-face was actually painted with brown leathers and pretty much no markings of alleigance to Khorne, which I found odd. I repainted his leathers to a deep red, to keep the original feel of my original paint while tying him in a little more with his Khornate brethren.



These two are clearly Goodwin sculpts. The one on the left seems to have the head of a horned dog(!), while the other has that Satyr face yet again - this time with a giant, crazy mohawk nestled in between some big-arse goat horns!



As in my last post featuring Khorngor, the shields are just a little abstract - though still pretty easy to distinguish. Just a matter of figuring out how to paint a rune of Khorne on that shield on the left, and a tiled pattern probably inspired by Wayne England's style of painting.



Finally, the unit shots. One regiment of Khorngor Beastmen to use The Herd rules and be allied to whatever Chaos is called in Kings of War. I did cheat by stuffing the Night Horror Apeman and the Khorne-worshipping Skaven in the rear to make up the numbers, but once I get the part-painted backlog finished, I'll pull out some completely unpainted beastmen and finish this unit off properly!

Some really nice freehand stuff here Azazel- that Union Jack is pretty spot on! Also you seem to have put MARITAL honour rather than MARTIAL honour. Don't think khorne cares that much about the former

I have a bucket load of reaper minis and GW goat men to assemble still. Life however seems to be interfering of late so not much is getting done unfortunately.

Cracking stuff, as usual splendid paintwork and fascinating variety!

 Azazelx wrote:
Blood for the Blood God, Skulls for the Skull Throne, a combination of maddening blood rage and marital honour.

Huh, I never knew Khorne was big on the exchange of vows back in the day.

Apologies, normally I just lurk and silently nod in approval, but I couldn't let that one slide. /youmaykillmenowforthebadpun

Also, despite it not being a British flag, it certainly gives off a nice Iron Maiden vibe.

BRITISH BEASTMEN!! best beastmen in the world. I bet he likes football riots and lager... No I'm only kidding its a star of chaos of course. I can see why it distracted your friend though. Great work, I love the bulldogman he is very erm... britishish.

Cracking work as ever Az. Some of these figs, paintjobs and aesthetic really really sends me back. Warm and fuzzy times! Well, fur will do that

Good to hear mum is on the mend , glad the forum is all typed and we don't need to share your Nurgle blessing .

Kirin looks awesome by the way, as do the British beastmen, nice free handing there. Always good to see some good old fashioned chaos things.

Enjoyed the British Beastmen although I'd probably give it to the bulldog headed chappy!

That Jury duty and Nurgle combo sounds nasty. Is jury duty a thing that you are expected to do a number of times in your life in Aus because of the population size?

Good to see you back with the brushes though, as others have mentioned I really like the Iron Maiden (band rather than possibly fictional torture device) feel of these Beastmen. As ever your freehand is great, and the paintwork does the sculpts justice, especially the Jes Goodwin ones.

How are your KOW armies doing now? You must have so much done.

That beastman unit looks fantastic Azazelx, really like the way you did the tile pattern shield.

Best part about that unit for me is that they're all "recovered" minis - ones that had spent the best part of the last decade or more stuffed into a case and me just not giving a gak about them. Now they're an actual unit that can function on the tabletop.

I've always liked the aesthetic of the British Flag. Flags in general, actually. I think it's due to the direct link to Heraldry which has always fascinated me. I did have a "Captain America" style flag-logo painted on an Orc's shield back in the day. Not sure what happened to that one. I'll have to have a look when I get up to redoing my old orcs. Not for awhile yet, at least. Besides, as you guys have noted, this particular flag resonates well with GW models of the late 80's and early 90's.

Whoopsie on the Marital/Martial typo. Though it reminds me of when I was a real young'un and my Mum used to take me with her for the weekly grocery shop. There was a shop in the local shopping district that had "Marital Aids" (amongst other things) painted on it's signage. As I was rather young, I matched those slightly unfamiliar words up with the closest thing that I knew that still made sense.... Martial Arts.

And so for at least a couple of years of my childhood, I always wondered if "Maritial Aids" were something related to "Martial Arts"...

Jury Duty is one of those things you might never be called for, or you might be called for multiple times. Just depends on the (un)luck of the Draw... I can still feel a bit of swelling in the Jaw, so staying with the antibiotics until that's completely gone, rather than stopping early and trying to cultivate a superbug inside my mouth.

Stop the antibiotics, get a superbug, get out of jury duty with doctors note....game.....set.....match

Very nice beastmen. Do you have enough Dogmen for a full unit of them?

Sadly, no. I tried back in the day to get one of each, and got as many different ones as I could (aside from the Bob Olley ones), but whole units wasn't really my focus. Even back then I was as much or more of a collector than a gamer (though I also like to game, obviously).

I mean, it was a lot of different models to try and collect! (and that's without warriors which I got a lot of, Champions which I was actively collecting as well, and thugs which I skipped almost entirely - not to mention 40k...)

There's still quite a few of these I'd like to get hold of. I still lack almost the entire top row of the third image, for example...



Actually looking at them, there's a solid 20 individuals I'd still love to get hold of one day...

A couple more Zombicide survivors today - the last two from the previous batch.

"Rick" is a homage to Jason Statham as Chev Chelios from the 2009 Film "Crank 2: High Voltage".





It seems that Statham's outfit from Crank is a somewhat popular "costume" for people to wear. I guess it's pretty flexible and a lot more subtle than going somewhere dressed as a Jedi. Turns out that in the second film, he had some fairly distinctive shoes because product placement. No matter to me, and as they have a look I can replicate on the model, so much the better




Angry Mary is an original Zombicide survivor, from the Karl Kopinski guest artist box.





Mary is a popular character whenever one of us manages to draw her, and from our early games kind of defaulted to Marouda's Zombpocalypse proxy, especially since Marouda managed to draw Angry Mary pretty regularly. So Mary has her combat boots painted as Marouda's purple Doc Martens in a semi-subtle nod.

Zombicide figures are odd ducks. They have some really well done, subtle truescale details like the folds in clothing while at the same time often having soft details on faces and weapons. It's a limitation of the PVC that they are made from, and while they're pretty much the best boardgame models I've used or painted, I still don't entirely enjoy painting them in the same way that I do with a metal, HIPS or resin model. Still, they get a lot of use on my tabletop, so if anything deserves to keep a priority rating in my painting (such as it is), then these figures do.

Mary's black fatigues and gloves are pretty dark, though they are highlighted subtly, and in a way to preserve them being black as opposed to grey. I'm just not fond of the whole "shade to white" thing that's very popular on my own models. Statham's dark blue jacket gave me the same kind of difficulty. For a change, the photography seems to have picked both out decently.

Lovely stuff

The first film was SO MUCH BETTER than the 2nd. Didn't really enjoy it.

Those characters are really, er, characterful. I never got into Zombicide, and every time you post something I regret it a little bit more.

I agree with you re:extreme highlighting. Natural looks much better.

I agree with JoshinJapan; you posting zombiecide stuff makes me wish I had gotten onboard at the outset. You make them look so good.

Re angry mary, a life in retail will tend to make one angry!

Lovely models, I love that you gave him the special shoes. Statham is the bestest movie 'ard man.

I only have three of the beastis from those pics, bet you got loads more n me.

Great job on the zombicide models and chaos mate. Hope your mothers health and thenl nurgle's blessing in your mouth improves soon.

I'm now on a third set of even more powerful antibiotics. My left lymph node in my neck is about twice the size of the righthand one, and I had to go in for a jaw x-ray yesterday. Wheeee!

I did get deferred from Jury Duty until Feb next year, as I told them I could come in tomorrow (which is now today) but I may have to go back to the doctor or dentist next week, and they need me available for a solid 1-2 week block. Need to fax them through my medical docs when I go back to work tomorrow.

As for Zombicide - I missed S1 entirely, but picked it up at retail. So until I find, buy and paint some suitable proxies for the exclusives, we're not using those characters at all.

Still, (almost?) all the exclusive character "sheets" are available as free downloads from Guillotine's website, so it's still very doable to pick up the retail sets, print the character sheets for the exclusives and just drop in your own suitable models. I think the game is enough fun that it's a viable/worthwhile option. There are enough broadly similar characters out there in physical terms that proxying is easy (there's 3-5 sword-wielding women models, about 15 "some guy with a pistol" models...) we proxy a lot of the models even now since I stopped opening survivor boxes until I get more painted, and we've got well enough already opened.

Oooh that makes me more confident about buying the game, thanks for that insight Azazelx. I wasn't gonna let exclusives talk me out of it, but knowing I can get the rules for them makes it a wash entirely.

Feel beetarz!

Here 'tis
http://zombicide.com/en/promo-survivors

The boxed games would also be a great source of more Zombies for you, and would also provide interiors if you went for a homebrew variation of your Zombpocalypse rules.

Thanks for the link, holy crap so many! Zombicide is definitely on my x-mas list and next in line for what gets bought with my amazon credit card credit, just waiting for whichever happens next!

 GrimDork wrote:
Thanks for the link, holy crap so many! Zombicide is definitely on my x-mas list and next in line for what gets bought with my amazon credit card credit, just waiting for whichever happens next!

Also on sale through walmart and target for slightly cheaper than miniaturemarket.com. Wife might not look twice at a walmart purchase on the credit card

A couple of weekends ago, I was doing a little bit of procrastinating at my paint desk, trying to figure out what to work on. I spotted a pair of Mantic's plastic Zombies, primed and based that have been floating around for bloody ages. I'm not sure when or why I initially assembled them, especially just as a pair. I haven't been able to find any more of them either, though I have plenty on sprues. So this time, instead of shoving them to the side, I decided to speedpaint them.







It took just a couple of hours to get these painted. It helped a hell of a lot that they were already fully prepped, but still. Very easy to paint. I used some mixes of the usual wash colours to subtly influence the stain on the flesh tones, and then blended up the highlights post-wash. I kept the palette very simple, because Zombies. I went with dark grey rags to keep them in theme with Marouda's Undead army scheme (dark grey standing in for black on these filthy creatures). Citadel's Blood for the Blood God paint over Tamiya Clear Red, since BFTBG is easier to clean up.

Due to my (poor) photography skills, you can't see the individual teeth that are picked out. I need to either get a better cheap camera or learn how to use my good camera properly. It's taken me ages to actually paint any, but really I have to reiterate how good these HIPS Zombies from Mantic really are. These came up really well for so little time and effort. Now I want to paint up more of them. Gotta finish clearing the desk though, first.

These will obviously get used in Kings of War eventually, when I paint about a million of their mates. Obviously they're useful for any Fantasy RPG. Age of Sigmar? Why not? (If I ever play it!). They might even provide some Walker action for Zombicide at some stage.

Agreed on the quality of the HIPs zombies, the best plastic kit that Mantic have ever released due to a combination of sculpting and the work of Renendra. The details are awesome and as you say they take minimal time to paint, they smash the GW Zombie kit into the ground.

I have painted over 150 of the things, though to nowhere near your quality, and never once got bored of them. As you say they are usable in any zombie related fun.

Good that you are back painting on a regular basis Az, these look grand. More please.

You put a lot more work into those zombies than I did with mine. They look really nice. Do you remember having any issues where the torsos join the hips? I ended up puttying over the ugly gaps mine had.

Thanks guys. I can't remember pretty much anything about their assembly, but there was remnants of liquid greenstuff around the necks and torso/hips, so I'm guessing I had the same issue.

Super stuff Az! I've painted a few of the sci-fi Zombies, but I need to get my hands on some of Mantic's plastic fantasy undead (and other stuff) at some point...

They look great and the poses are actually pretty menacing. I think the really pallid tones work well and wonder if the addition of a little green to a few in a unit to show extra rot would work.

Nice work on those Mantic Zombies. I like the gruesome grizzly loom they have.

D

Wow those zombies look genuinely creepy haha. Nice work!

Agree with the above, nice zombies . They do fit a little loose at the waist, especially if you mix zombie/ghoul kits, bit its easy to fix.

Nice work as usual! Looks really good for a speed paint!

Thanks guys. I'm really quite happy with how they turned out for the time it took. These next three are kind of the same, and kind of the exact opposite. I had this trio of figures sitting around for a few years, doing nothing. I always found them pretty uninspiring, so really had no plans to do much with them or buy more. I'm not entirely sure why I bought them - probably just collecting the different LotR figures before GW went super-ridiculous with embargoes to AU and such a few years ago. You know how it goes. At some point in the last year or so, I decided that since there were only three of them, and their outfits as seen in the films were basically a mixture of dirty rags, I should paint them quickly and get them done.

So it turns out that painting figures which you don't especially like in an uninspiring colour scheme does nothing for getting them done, so they languished with a few base colours for a year or so. Until recent, when I tried again. That attempt was a failure as well.

So. Thoroughly uninspired, I turned to Google image search to find some inspiration to paint these little suckers and get them off my painting desk. As luck would have it, I found some images from FunkyBrush's painting blog, (posted on Lead-Adventure) with his Dunlanders converted and painted as Celts. This led to some further poking around, and the images on Bennett Blalock-Doane's blog cinched the deal.



I didn't convert the weapons or add shields as FB did, as I tend to like to keep my "first" one of any given figure untouched, unless I purchased it for that purpose, or it's otherwise an irredeemable/seriously flawed sculpt. So these guys are Wildmen of Dunland, and when I have a bunch of my Warlord Games Celts painted up, they will also be Wildmen. Sometimes. Except in games where they're all used as Celts, including the Wildmen. Who knows what the future of the table holds? Kings of War games with Saruman leading his Uruk-Hai army alongside his Celt allies led by Boudicca? Why not?



I repainted this guy as a ginger, as opposed to the dirty unkempt grey/white beard that he originally had when I was trying to be more movie-accurate to Jackson's films. When I threw that out and decided to go Celt, I almost painted the top guy as blonde, until I remembered the comments about Rohirrim as "straw-heads" in the (books? films?), so I toned it down to brown. Of course, that just applies to these three, and my actual (eventual) Celts will have plenty of blonde and bleached hair amongst them! There is a fourth sculpt that I don't have. I'm not going to chase it, but if I happen to see it for a reasonable/cheap price someday, I'm sure I'll pick it up.



The Celtic theme was a real inspiration. Adding a woven tartan pattern to these guys was a real godsend, as it allowed me to have some fun on them and do something I like with freehand. So ultimately, after pretty much hating these hard-to-paint models for the longest time, they finished up as a trio that I'm really quite happy with and got done in about a day. I like it when that happens. Gotta love the internet for inspiration!



...now I gotta keep looking for that Undead Chaos Warrior that Josh just posted...

Those tartan patterns, along with the crazy eyes, redeem those otherwise uninspiring minis quite nicely. The aged metal on the weapons looks great as well. These guys would make a nice little SoBaH or Open Combat warband.

The cloth does look excellent, well pretty much what Josh said. Always useful when someone makes a more elegant post than me first and I can just kind of glom on

A very beardy lot.

Thank you, gents. Now I can forget about those guys until I get around to doing some Celts sometime in the future.

Here's some more Citadel Black Númenórean Warriors!



These guys are queue-jumpers, via the "stuff I can paint at work" clause - as opposed to stuff I've been working on for ages. That's pretty much it for these ones. I mean, there's not a lot interesting that you can write about more of the same three sculpts you've shown before, all painted more or less identically. These are all new, though. None of the first batch are shown in the mob above. I'll make the lot of them more interesting soon, but for now. this bunch is done!

Impressive, especially how consistent the whole lot are and how epic they look en masse!

Nice fancy picking up a few of those for Frostgrave shenanigans!

Thanks guys. They'd look a lot better to me if they were more varied, but with three poses and not a lot else that fits with them there's little I can do. Ah well...

As a followup to some of the previous posts that featured WarZone 1e Dark Legion Demnogonis (WarZone's version of Nurgle) models, I've gotten off my arse and painted these four, that I found and photographed as a post-script to that last post. I actually found them next to my light box, where I'd left them and forgotten about them months ago. Whoops!



Once again, they painted up damned quickly - within a day and a half from start to finished, most of which was drying time and time spent playing with my PlayStation. As with the previous post's Black Númenórean Warriors, there's not a lot to say about showing more figures from a range I've painted and shown off before, painted pretty much in the exact same manner. I'll have the other seven, more military-themed ones done soon(er or later). The Auscam that I plan to give them will make it all take a bit longer, no doubt.

Once all are done I'll probably do another group shot of sci-fi zombies. And then more again when I bust out the plastic Mantic ones. Bloody zombies never end....

Ooo some nice Nurgle cultists

Ooo I like those Warzone zombie things. Very cool indeed.

EDC

They do look really good. A good quality paint job can go a long way on Warzone figures. What is the mwthod you're using for their skintone? I like the greenish hue, looks good and rotten.

I used the easiest method for these guys. I use a mix of colours for the skin base - anything from light greens through to lighter-mid browns, maybe do a simple highlight on brow ridges, lips, cheekbokes, shoulder tops. So much the same with the rest of the model, including wounded areas, then hit the lot with AP strong tone (the dropper bottle one, not the paint tin). Add Tamoya Clear Red/BFTBG at the end and you're golden!

The skintone bases for these ones are from L->R: Vallejo Model Air Duck Egg Green, Vallejo Model Colour Brown Sand, VMA Dead Flesh, Vallejo Game Colour Plague Brown (I think!)

Really though, when doing this sort of zombie flesh now, I just grab some random light green/brown tones and flesh-ish tones from the desk and go with it.

Here's some more new-ish stuff recently finished:

This pair of Goblins are from 4th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Not quite "proper" Oldhammer, but close enough for me, as they were some of the first models out in that time, and more impoerantly are Kev "Goblinmaster" Adams sculpts.



I skipped freehanding a shield for the champion, and used a sculpted shield this time. I did it for two reasons in about equal measure - being too lazy to freehand one, and the (bright) sculpted shield being totally in keeping with the era and nature of these figures. My concession to the "red period" of GW which these models helped to usher in is the chestnut/red-brown that I use for the boots and staves.



I also skipped adding flames to the rims of their hoods. I might keep that sort of thing for the Fanatics, Clubber/Netter guys and some of the Squig guys. I've also disliked the checkered pattern that GW gave their Orcs and Orks around that time, so you'll rarely if ever see that sort of thing on my greenskin models.

There should probably be a standard bearer to go with these guys. If I manage to find him and get a banner painted up, I'll show the three of them together. For now, it's just the pair!


I've been thinking lately. My painting has changed focus a couple of times this year. At the start it was simply to "paint models and maybe get an army finished" with a hopeful goal of getting 365 models painted in the year - which I've never managed to do. It then shifted to getting my Gondor Army (for KoW, etc) completed, then the Moria Army was added to that hopeful focus. Then it shifted to getting things that were started (often years, or even decades ago) finished before starting new units and projects. I've been reasonably happy with the way most of it's all gone, but in a few weeks I'm taking some leave from work, so I'll have pretty much all of December off.

I thought it would be a nice thing to paint something new/different/interesting/cool, to celebrate my holidays. The question is: What to paint? I don't really want to slot a unit of models or even a vehicle or Knight in here - I'd much prefer a cool character, or monster, or walker. Something I can enjoy, that can be a bit of something special and cooler than my usual endless Rank & File, but not something that's going to be off-putting in terms of assembly like a vehicle or knight. Or scenery.

I've got a LOT of models across a lot of ranges so there's a lot of scope/potential for something interesting here. GW, Forge World, Warhammer Forge, Fantasy, Raging Heroes, Avatars of War, Reaper, Blood Bowl, Citadel-Oldhammer/Rogue Trader, 40k, Historicals.... so I reckon I'll ask here, and then just disqualify any suggestions people make that are out of my scope or preference (Mantic or Reaper Bones models for example are probably not up to the level of what I want to have fun with doing as a special job.)

Any suggestions?

Got any Inquisitor figs?? Theyre usually pretty characterful and you could give them a small retinue of savant, tech dude, bodyguard etc to go along

Perhaps pick out a 'commander' model for each of your main armies and give them a nice paintjob; keeps them as something you can put down on the table, while also being able to spend some real time and effort on.

Failing that, you've been doing a lot of old stuff recently, so how about some stuff that's somewhat newer. I know you mentioned you had a few AoS box sets, all the character models in those are pretty stunning.