Here's the first of the bugs. I went for a very rough-looking scheme, partly for a change from all the smooth stuff I've been doing recently and partly because I wanted to get a natural, actually-bug-like effect. I think there's something more freaky about this scheme then the glossy look I was originally going to do; it's a bit hard to see what's what, but that's kind of the point.






And the first of my proper commission work, two Space Marine characters in a custom schemes. Still got to tidy up the base rims and do a few final touches, but they're mostly done. It's my first time doing quartered Marines, and I'm rather pleased with it!

Emperor's Champion (I believe this version is a limited edition?)






And a not-Dante:





That's all for today! Thanks for reading, and let me know what you think!

Dude, very very nice quarter paneling on those marines. I especially like the Emperors Champion. I always thought he would be a good commander model.

Cheers!

I think that Champion might be one of my favourite minis ever. I was pleased when I saw the client wanted an EC done, as the model had always been on my to-paint list, but when the package arrived and it was that version I was absolutely chuffed. Great pose, lovely sculpting, a real blast to paint!

The bugs from puppetwars look quite nice and the paintjob on them differs from the otherwise bright colours you normaly see on tyranids. I'd say it' refreshing!
How do you plan to base them? Are you going to stick with a somewhat muted palett or go for something with a bit more contrast?

They're actually based already, although it's hard to see due to how low/wide the minis sit! They're on grey moonscape/asteroid style bases done with press moulds, I'll take some pics of the next batch I make before I attach the bugs.

Those bugs look very creepy Para, very spider like (shudders).

Client should be very happy with those models. They look fantastic. Did you help develop the scheme or did they already have it in mind?

 Paradigm wrote:
They're actually based already, although it's hard to see due to how low/wide the minis sit! They're on grey moonscape/asteroid style bases done with press moulds, I'll take some pics of the next batch I make before I attach the bugs.

Haha, now that got somewhat embarrassing on my part...
Some pictures of said bases would be appreciated!

Nice work there. Novamarines?

I used to have that Sigismund model a while back- he was the LE 25th Anniversary model that you got with White Dwarf.

Cheers guys!

@Archer: scheme was requested by the client, and I was aiming to match his existing minis as closely as possible. He's very pleased with the results!

@Az: as above, it's a custom scheme, although he did mention the Novamarines as an influence.

@Lindstrom: cool, I'll snap some pics when I get the next batch made!

Wasn't expecting to see the Puppetswar bugs. They look suitably creepy. Nice work.

Congratulations on the first painted commissions Para, I really like that scheme too. Did the client have strict parameters on the basing or was it up to you?

Thanks!

@Thraxas: with the base I just tried to match the existing ones, so it wasn't 'strict' per as, but I wasn't going to do anything too fiddly so they didn't look out of place.

And with one commission down, it's on to the next! This time it's the KemVar from Megacon Games' Mercs line. Between the larger 35mm scale, the awesome near-future aesthetic and some very dynamic poses they should be a real blast to paint!

First up is a 'running guy with SMG' (I am reading up on the fluff/names, but haven't memorised much yet!).








The jungle base is a WIP, and if anyone knows a good way to do leaves/undergrowth without sculpting it all then I'm all ears!


The finished Marines are now up in Showcase, but since the pics are essentially the same as the last lot, I won't repost them here!

Thanks for looking! Any thoughts welcome!

Kemvar is looking pretty good. Looks like you're going for a scheme similar to the studio colors. It's a nice change to see some Mercs on here instead of the usual 40k everybody else does.

Some of these might help

http://www.antenocitisworkshop.com/wargames-bases-basing/basing-materials.html

http://www.antenocitisworkshop.com/decorplus-leaf-litter.html

lovely work Para. really glad the commisions are stating to roll in Been looking at some Infinity stuff recently. Not that keen on the Corvus Belli aesthetic with the massive exception of their bikes - esp the Kum Riders - they are lush. How much smaller are they to the WH40K models - much?

More Mercs!

@Barzam: yep, the request was to match the studio scheme for the most part. I've added a few of my own flourishes to a couple, but in general I'm basing them closely on the official look!

@Carlos: good shout! I was hesitant to buy anything as I've no call for jungle bases myself, but a couple of their 40p sample packs of leaves should certainly do the job!


Anyway, pics!

The Sniper. Absolutely love this mini, the pose is bang on! Played with some camo on the trousers and gun, which I think has come out rather nicely.







And a man throwing some kind of grenade:






Go team!



Three down, four to go: a hacker-type, leader with big-ass power knife, a sneaky commando and a dual-wielding Heavy. Really enjoying working on these guys!

That's it for now, might have more for you later! As ever, thanks for reading, any thoughts welcome!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Januine: the Infinity aesthetic is something of an acquired taste, I hated it until I came across their awesome Knight range, which were a little less anime, a little more European in style, and just awesome!

They're a tad taller than 40k but much thinner, even than Eldar and such thanks to being true scale/proportioned. I'll take some scale shots at some point if you want, but there are plenty out there on the web. I don't own any of the Bikes, but I think they're on 50mm bases, so pretty chunky.

Nice stuff! I think there's a tutorial, possibly on the forums here, that shows how to grind up some kind of leaf or seasoning whatsit into pretty convincing mini scale leaves. Can't remember where I saw it though.

Cheers! I'll look that up if the Antenocitis stuff doesn't work out!

Update time! It's been a while coming, this one, but it's very heavy on pics, so straight to it!

First off, the completed Mercs commission, spoilered simply as there's about two dozen pics:



And as mentioned a few posts back, I just bought a bunch of Knight Models Batman minis, giving me a full League of Shadows/Assassins (depending on whether we're in Batman or Arrow) crew and the start of a Batman team. Aside from the rather disappointing fact that the Dark Knight version of Ra's Al Ghul is pretty significantly out of scale with the rest of the range (as tall as Batman on his perch, his daughter's waist could fit inside his leg, he's about twice the height of Robin ect) these are pretty epic minis. The capes in particular are stunning, so smooth!


What better way to kick things off than the dynamic duo?

Robin, based on the Arkham City video game design (by far my favourite)





And Arkham Knight Batman. Annoyingly I couldn't actually get rid of the glare on the cape, at least with today's lighting. It's actually far more blue than it looks here, contrasting better with the armoured Batsuit.





That's all for now, thanks for reading! Any thoughts welcome as ever, and be sure to tune in same bat-time, same bat-channel for more!

Great job on those two

I really like the batman models!

Awesome Batman and Robin models. Very atmospheric

Cheers guys!

Batman and Robin are great, so's the rest of the stuff recently.

Batman may have the largest tactical...gargoyle ever. Tactical rock but with more style

Haha, yeah, he takes Foot on Rock to a whole new level! I considered leaving it off since he'll be standing on the 'floor' most of the time, but then figured if Batman isn't standing on a vantage point looking imposing then he's doing it wrong!

Yeah, I'm really torn with this shasvastii noctifer I just got. He's got a tactical... 6 steps that he's apparently climbed and is trying to look cool at the top of them (and he does, oh my) but he would totally sit flat on a base too. I just dunno where he's gonna find old crumbling stone steps on an infinity battlefield in the city or w/e.

Batman tends to stick to Gotham so the tactical gargoyle is less of a problem

Pretty soon people will put 2+2 together and figure out why Wayne industries installs thes gargoyles all over Gotham.

They look awesome, really love the color tones on Batman.

Wonderful work as ever Para. Really loving those mercs

Any chance you would have Red Hood and Nightwing for some scale shots? I'm looking at starting a Batman crew with the 2 models you've already done plus either Red Hood or Nightwing, and I want to see how well they're scaled with each other

Cheers Januine!

@Rygnan: not yet, but both are on my to-buy list. I should have Nightwing pretty soon, so I'll let you know as/when I get it.

Awesome, thanks! I'm really looking forward to seeing how you paint up Nightwing, and if you're going with the New 52 red or classic blue

Not sure yet. Both Bats and Robin got their Arkham colour scheme, so Nightwing will probably get the blue as that's how he appears in those games. To be honest I'm not that familiar with Batman source material beyond the basics, the games and the various film versions.

Awesome work. Batman and Robin look very nice.

I like the Mercs models as well, but the thing that stands out to me the most on those is how far your basing has come. They look really good - very effective!

Batman and Robin look good. For the glare, try a diffuser, or just home-brew one. Parchment paper in front of the light sources does wonders I've learned.

Great work, the interior on Robin's cloak is especially good. Any other Batman minis in the pipeline (or indeed the rooftop)?

Thanks guys!

@Az: yeah, I'm proud of those bases! Admittedly it's just GS, sand and some leaves (link on the last page), but the effect itself I'm happy with. I've got another Mercs commission coming up, this time with savanna bases, so I'm going to have to havcw a good think about how I go about that

@RH: well in this case the light source is the sun, but I'll certainly try a cover/diffuser of some kind at some point.

@Thraxas: Robin's cloak was a bit of an experiment that I think went quite well, getting the almost-shinyness to work. I'm tempted to buy Batgirl just so I have an excuse to do more yellow like that! Plenty more Batman to come over the next weeks. I've got Ra's and Talia Al Ghul and their ninjas on deck at the moment, then up next will be either Nightwing and Batgirl, Team Arrow or the Clown Prince of Crime himself!

More BMG today!

First off, Ra's Al Ghul. As mentioned, this mini is pretty massively over scaled, but still nice in isolation. I've got the Arkham one coming next week that will hopefully be closer in size.




And his ninjas army. Sorry that they're a bit dull to look at, but I wanted to keep them dark, as they're, well, ninjas!











Here you can see how huge Ra's is. It's the head, really, if that were smaller then I think he'd look a lot better.

On the subject of scale, I took this shot with a few other minis as the BMG size question does come up a lot.


CSM, Ninja, WGF Survivor, Ra's, Bats, Infinity Fusilier. To add some perspective, I'd say that I'd be happy to use Bats/Robin with the 28mm minis without too many concerns, the ninja with a bit of fudging, but Ra's is right out, closer to 40mm than 35. It's a bit of a mess, but hopefully that helps anyone interested.

And to round things off, a little preview of what's up next...





What could that be base decoration for, I wonder?

Thanks for looking, as ever your thoughts are welcome!

Wow, Ra's forehead is mahoosive. That is some really odd scaling, a product of using several different freelance sculptors perhaps?

I hope the base decoration is for something big and stompy.

All looking good though.

I think they were probably contractually obligated to get the actor's face accurate and so that threw things off. At least that's my guess. Very big though.

That batman is virtually the same size as the fusilier. May have to look into a few of the batman things if they're that much closer to 28mm than I thought.

@Thraxas: moderately big, and reasonably stompy... And angry. Very angry!

@Grim: the Batman, Robin and Talia minis definitely fit with Infinity-scale well enough, and the ninjas could at a pinch, it's just Ra's that's out. I'll keep the scale shots coming as I get more, and Miniature Market in the States have a selection of the minis at real cheap prices if you want to try them:
http://www.miniaturemarket.com/clearance.html#/?_=1&filter.manufacturer=Knight%20Models&page=1

Maybe Ada's bath in the Lazarus pit has him grow like the Haqqislam character has grown. Either way they look great.

Is that a marine dying from the base around a certain really angry primarch?

Well i thought the batman stuff was 32mm but maybe they go by height instead of eye level.

Definitely looks like some crossover is possible.

 Theophony wrote:
Maybe Ada's bath in the Lazarus pit has him grow like the Haqqislam character has grown. Either way they look great.

Haha, perhaps that's it! And I find it somewhat hilarious that autocorrect (presumably) turned Ra's into 'Ada'.

Is that a marine dying from the base around a certain really angry primarch?

Spoilers!

Hmm. That Batman scaling really is all over the place. Ra's is gigantic. Now I'm really curious how well The Arrow and the Gotham cops scale. I'd always heard that the line was 35mm, so I'd never really given it much attention. If it's closer to Infinity, maybe I could do with getting some of the gang members, too.

Nice work again on the Batman stuff. Looking forward to Kharn as well!

Cheers Az!

No idea how fast Angron will get done, as I want to get it perfect. The three dead Marines for the base are now almost finished (pics tomorrow) and Angron himself is primed, so I should make good progress tomorrow, but a model that big in basically all NMM is going to take a while!

Glad to see the pompous EC are getting cut up by angry ron! Great choice!

Really keen to see how you turn out a Primarch. Should be a lesson in awesome for the rest of us. I know my brother would love to get all of them as a display.

@Ustrello: Just the one EC! As you can see below, there's also a Son of Horus and a Death Guard as well; I wanted to represent all four Legions present at Istvaan III.

@Archer: hopefully I won't disappoint! all of them would be quite the display, but one one is quite enough for me for now (although I think I'll have to own Horus one day! He's just superb!)

Anyway, on the pictures of dead Marines.

A Son of Horus:




And a Death Guard. I found a few variations on their HH scheme, so went for the one I liked the look of most, green as the rim rather than fill colour on the shoulders. The hole is where Angry Ron's foot will go.






And a couple of WIPs of the Big Guy'. This is far from done, especially the red, but it gives you an idea of where it's going. The NMM bronze will certainly be getting a bit more contrast.



Any thoughts on that are welcome! Be critical if you can, I want to really do the best job I can on him!

Thanks for looking!

I really like where this is going! Can't wait to see "Angry Ron" all finished. It'll be epic!

An Angry Ron, very exciting.

Ooh! Look at all the pretties! Subbed

Angry Ron progresses! Still LOTS to do, but he's starting to come together now. The arms are just tacked on and I haven't even started the cape yet, so there's still plenty to go.








That last shot isn't very flattering, and there's a fair bit to tidy up, but it does show how detailed this face's sculpt is. Kind of wish the head was separate as it'd then be easier to work on, but then you look at how the Butcher's Nails connect to the armour and that it would be very difficult to make it a separate piece.


In other news, my next Batman mini came in today, the other version of Ra's. He scales much better, so I'm very pleased about that, and with a spare head from the WGF Survivors head I was able to get him looking more like Matt Nable's version of the character from series 3 of Arrow. I plan to base the scheme on that version as well, rather than the bright green of the Arkham City version.



On a similarly Leaguey note, it's a long shot, but does anyone know if any minis exist that look more like the League Ninjas from Arrow, rather than the Batman Begins versions?



That's all for today, any and all thoughts welcome, thanks for looking!

Caught up on the last couple pages! Lovely work all round and congrats on the commissions,well deserved

Your gritty style really fits the tone of the HH stuff. The dead marines look great. Angron is coming along great. Really looking forward to it all coming together

Cheers mate!

I do love doing Heresy-type stuff, those dead and messed up Marines and Angron were a nice change of pace over the slightly brighter stuff I've been doing recently.

Looking good over here!

Angron, The Red Angel, The Butcher, The Gladiator King, The Twelfth Son


















Pretty damn pleased with this! Took a lot of work, but that's to be expected on a mini like this, and the final composition really is something quite awesome to have put together. I'm not sure it's the best model I've ever done (personally I think Prince Althran still holds that title) but I am proud of this! I know for a fact that even 6 months ago, there's no way I could have managed anything like this!

Thanks for looking, and as ever, let me know what you think!

Angron looks pretty badass! Nice work as ever mr Para

It is truly an epic composition. I like the choice of colours. Although, is there a reason you decided to do the facial tattoos? I can't remember was Angron described as being tattooed?

Cheers guys!

The tattoo/warpaint was taken directly from the Forge World one, though it is less pronounced on theirs, and a poster that came with WD when the HH range launched (from which I took the actual design). It might be a recent addition, as I don't recall it mentioned in False Gods/Galaxy in Flames (the only two I've read featuring Angron), but I figured it looked cool and added a bit more detail to the face.

The poster in question (not my pic)

Very nice work. Your style fits the mini.

What are you going to do to follow that guy up though?

That is one of the best minis you've painted, and that says a lot, as you paint a ton of minis. Very nice work!

Ta chaps!

How to follow that indeed? Honestly I've got nothing as grand in the queue; there's a couple more Batman minis on the desk, and maybe some Cop/thug standins, more Mercs in a week or two, some Bob Olley WW1 not-Squats (both commission stuff) and maybe a World Eater or two to accompany Angron.

Lots of random stuff basically, so business as usual!

Superb stuff Para - absolutley top notch. The dulled muted tones are perfect for this fig. Really brings through the raw bloody filthy chaos of battle and echoes that of the character. Best yet fella - the only way is up

Just awesome. Great job on the face, I think you really captured it.

Bloody hell he looks bloody hellish! Really grimdark angron there, he's often done too bright for my taste. Excellent stuff!

Thanks a bunch, guys!

He looks like one mean fighter, very nice Para.

Others are more elegant in their words, so I'll just say great job as usual

The primarchs have such cool armor designs/concept art. As befits them of course.

You did a great job Para, stunning.

Beautiful job!

Fantastic work Para. You've done the primarch justice.

Thanks everyone!

Angron is a hard thing to follow, but here goes, with more Batman stuff!

First off we have the alternate Ra's Al Ghul. I'm not a huge fan of his comic look so I went for something a little closer to his design in Arrow.








Next is his daughter Talia. To be perfectly honest I'm not happy with this, but having had to strip and redo her twice I'm calling her done for now. She might get revisited later, but not now.





And on a different note, a couple of cop proxies and a Jim Gordon standin. They'll get replaced eventually hence the stunningly mediocre painting, but for now at least they do the job (the job in this case being handcuffing anyone who the Dynamic Duo put a beating on, otherwise as Bats only does Stun damage the enemy can keep getting up)

From left to right, Agent O'Connell (taser), Commissioner Gordon, Agent Ron (handgun)






Really, this brings to an end 'Phase 1' of my BMG project. I now have full crews for Batman and the League of Shadows:





I'm not quite sure where I'm going next with these. It's between a Bane crew (that also gives me a lot for the League), a Joker/Harley teamup that is complete but doesn't have any crossover potential, or a Team Arrow crew, with Arrow, Arsenal and Canary, most of whom can be used with Bats as well. Regardless, I'll also be picking up Nightwing and Deathstroke in the near future as well, just 'cause they're two of my favourite minis and characters.

As ever, cheers for looking, any thoughts welcome!

Looking great! What did you use for the alternate models? I vote arrow, btw. Because then swat

Cheers Graven!

The cops are from the Wargames Factory Apocalyptic Survivors box, I also have some Blackgate Prisoners, Two-face and Black Mask goons in the works from the same. They're decent enough minis, especially when you get 30 for about £15, but a bit more limited than they appeared so its taking a while to get them all done.

Angron has come out being very epic! Awesome job.

Great work on Angron there. Was he a commission or one for yourself? Any idea which ones will come next? The batman stuff is also very nice.

Thanks guys!

@Az: Angron was for my own collection. Up next on the commission front will be either some Bob Olley Prussian not-squats from his last KS, or another Mercs team, depending on which arrive first, and for myself it'll be some more Batman proxies, Nightwing when he arrives and whatever I find to enter into the Monthly Challenge (I'm determined not to miss a round, but I have very little that suits off the top of my head...)

And even more Batman here? ( was just at Graven's blog) Looking good. Appropriately dark for Gotham. They are nice sized too, 35mm? And fun to paint, I bet.

The Batman minis look really nice, I'm so tempted to pick some up but haven't finished any of my other projects.

Yeah, there seems to have been quite the rise in BMG interest, possibly due to the new video game/incoming film, and their expansion into other stuff like the Arrow series. KM appeared to have accelerated their release schedule as well.

The minis are great fun to paint, packed with detail and very faithful to the films/games they're based on.

Good job on Ras he looks less cartoony than the original one. Which is good or bad depending on your perspective. Works with what you were going for though.

That new Ras is waaaaay better, especially with his team. Both teams look quite nice, that version of Bats is imposing as heck

As always, your work continues to impress! Angron is amazing, especially since he has all those victims that he just beat up! Also, I noticed that you seem to take my approach with painting only what you can do well (you said 6 months ago you couldn't have done Angron very well). That is why I haven't painted my Bloodthirster yet; I don't think I'm up to it. I'm getting there, and it's partially due to you and others giving me lots of inspiration to drool over, I mean look at!

Cheers guys!

@Grim: having got a few games in now, he is certainly less jarringly huge on the board than the original version. To be honest I think the figure itself is much nicer too; DK Ra's was nice, but this guy has loads more detail.

@ZergSmasher: truly humbling to know I'm inspiring people to push themselves! Speaking from experience, just keep trying new stuff, keep on painting and you'll have the skills you need to paint an awesome centrepiece like the Bloodthirster in no time! One thing that can help a lot is picking a technique or area that you want to improve and just do it again and again until you're good at it. 3 months ago when I decided to give NMM a shot, I had very little idea what I was doing, now it's second nature. The more you do something, the easier and more natural it gets! Can't wait to see you tackle that BT!


In other news, I should be placing the order for Batman Phase 2 today: Origins Bane and mercenaries, Origins Deathstroke and AC Nightwing. Gives me a new crew and options to add some tougher guys to my League lists (Bane's guys), a kickass Free Agent (Deathstroke) and another hard hitter for Batman (as I found out the hard way in last night's game, Robin is more a finisher/scorer, less a fighter. Nightwing should add a bit more punch)

really solid awesome stuff Para. You've defintely established your own particular style and it rocks. lovely work, looking forward to seeing much much more. Working my way towards evetually shelling out for a primarch myself ......not just yet though....few things to get right first but well looking forward to it

 Januine wrote:
really solid awesome stuff Para. You've defintely established your own particular style and it rocks. lovely work, looking forward to seeing much much more. Working my way towards evetually shelling out for a primarch myself ......not just yet though....few things to get right first but well looking forward to it

I'm waiting for the Lion before I get a Primarch. They've done 10 so far so shouldn't be long.

Loving the Batman stuff, as for Angron you struck it out of the park with that one. I am just not too keen on working with Resin, but the sculpt is quality.

You just need to paint every other Primarch now!

Thanks guys!
@Januine: Not Angron, please not Angron! I don't need that kind of showing up!

@AoV: I think Sanguinis is the one I'm most looking forward to seeing, he has the potential to be amazing! Of the current ones, Horus is by far my favourite, but it'll be a loooong time before I think about getting another one!

@Thraxas: every Primarch is a bit of a stretch, but at this rate I think I may well end up with almost all recognisable Batman characters by about Christmas! The amazing minis are one thing, but I've got a few games in now and it plays brilliantly too! If the supers/Marvel rules are anywhere near as good, my budget is just going to get annihilated! If there's an option to settle The Avengers vs The Justice League on the tabletop, I'm not sure I'll be able to resist!

Haahhaa - nah - I'm waiting on Corax

Great stuff Para.

Love the work you've done on Ron

So that was Phase 1 of Batman... Let's go straight to Phase 2, and a man with a very dangerous reputation. Introducing Slade Wilson, Deathstroke, The Terminator.











Just him for today, I did get another one done but the light had gone by then. Tomorrow I'll be back with a handful more minis, as well as scale shots of this new batch, but I wanted to show Slade tonight as I'm really rather happy with him! I took the armour a bit brighter than I had planned, just to get enough contrast to show off the details, and I think it was for the best.

As ever, cheers for reading, let me know what you think!

Up next, the Man who Broke the Bat...

Nice stuff. I'm excited for Bane, I haven't looked at any new bane models but I'm really hoping it's a giant crazy-muscled Bane like in the past and not the funny mask-voice bane of the present.

He looks really great. I think you did the right thing having lighter body armour. I can imagine any darker and we the viewers would have lost the details.

The spot brownie/orange colour works really, really well with the armour.

Fantastic job.

Nice work on.Deathstroke. What made.you go for the origins version over the other one?

@Carlos: Simply aestheric preference. The other one is nice (let's be honest, most of the range is 'nice' ) but this is my favourite design, a little more modern perhaps, more armoured. The other is probably going to get bought eventiually, but I won't be buying any duplicates until I've got most characters I want.

@Grim: Bit of both! This is Bane as he appears in Arkham Origins, at the point where he's just a very, very good fighter turned mercenary. Later in the game, he suffers the Titan overdose that turns him into what the BMG colloquially refers to as 'Big Bane', but even here he's a pretty large fellow.

And here he is! Not a huge amount to play with design-wise, so I instead focused on texture/finish here. The jacket is aiming for leather, the trousers some kind of heavy-duty fabric, the armour plates some kind of dulled ceramic/carbon fibre or something.






And his crew of Mercenaries. McGregor, Dallas and Smash (Oh, I wonder which one he could be? ). Tried different types of camo on each of these, with varying levels of success.













Might revisit these guys just to add a bit more interestingness, as they're rather bland at the moment, but they'll do. Here's the crew together, showing best just how massive Bane is (and he's a one-piece mini, big chunk of metal!)




For what it's worth, that last pic with Deathstroke shows you a 330-point list (standard game size is 300-350), and comes from just 2 packs of models. Bane was £23.50 after discount from Element Games,DS was about £11.50, so that's a full and pretty lethal crew for about £35. The models may cost more per head, but I don;t think you could do a full Infinity/Malifaux list on the same budget. That, I think, is why I'm going to keep spending on this game; for the price of a box of Terminators, you can quite feasibly start a whole new force. Add in the fact that Deathstroke can be used by any bad guy faction and is about 150 points on his own, and I could get a workable Black Mask, Two-face or Penguin force for just the £23-ish of a starter!


And as promised, a scale shot. As you can see, there's still a bit of variance, but frankly guys like Smash that can swing hammers like that as weapons can get away with being a tad larger!



Ona less interesting note, I planned out where I'm, taking this BMG stuff in the forseeable future. Phase 1 was a Bat-crew and the League, so once Nightwing's head arrives that'll be reasonably complete. Phase 2 is going to be Bane and Arrow crews, giving me this as a shopping list (putting this here as an aide memoire as much as anything else, and so you can hold me to if it I get distracte ):


Anyway, sorry for the rambling. Next up might be Nightwing, and he might even have a head! It won't be the right one, but I'm tempted to stick on a 'close enough' one from the Bits Box until Knight sort out my replacement.

Thanks for looking, any thoguhts welcome as ever!

Nice stuff mate. Will be looking on with interest and trying to resist dipping my toes in the batman pond myself.

My word you've been a busy boy! I thought I was cranking them out!

Cheers guys!

And if I'm not mistaken, this is the 1000th reply since I started this blog last September, so a fitting time to say a huge thanks to everyone who's kept it going this far. Your support, advice and encouragement have been instrumental in spurring on what has almost certainly been my most productive, most improving period of hobbying!

Here's to the next thousand posts!

Huzzah, and so forth! Moar Batty goodness (and badness) I say!

Nice work on Deathstroke, Bane and the gang. I'm almost tempted to pick up some of the Bats models myself after seeing yours, but I've already got way too much to paint for the time being...

Do you spend a lot of time painting para. Or are you very fast at painting?

 Azazelx wrote:
Nice work on Deathstroke, Bane and the gang. I'm almost tempted to pick up some of the Bats models myself after seeing yours, but I've already got way too much to paint for the time being...

Yeah I feel the same. However with everything I already have and getting into Bushido at the local store I just cant justify.

 carlos13th wrote:
Do you spend a lot of time painting para. Or are you very fast at painting?

Probably a bit of both; I do spend more of my free time painting than I do on my other hobbies, such as video games or writing, and the way I paint can speed up a model a fair bit. Lots of washes and such, and working on all aspects at once rather than, say, all the armour, then all the cloth ect means there's less 'dead time' waiting for stuff to dry ect.

To give some idea, something like the Bane thugs probably took an hour and a half of actually sitting and painting to get the three of them done, as I was using mostly the same colours (in different places) on all three, so I did them all at once to make the most of my paint. On the other hand, Deathstroke himself probably took longer than that, as there was just more detail and I was determined to get the look 'right'. Then you come to something like Angron, including the base and casualties there must have been at least 15 hours in him over a few days.

Incidentally, I'm off to uni next month so productivity is very likely going to drop a fair bit, but I am determined to keep going even if I'm down to painting a couple of minis a week.

 Azazelx wrote:
Nice work on Deathstroke, Bane and the gang. I'm almost tempted to pick up some of the Bats models myself after seeing yours, but I've already got way too much to paint for the time being...

Yeah I feel the same. However with everything I already have and getting into Bushido at the local store I must cant justify.

As I think I mentioned to someone else, either here or in another thread, the Batman minis are worth the price tag a) if you're enough of a fan to pay a little more for official minis and b) have someone to play the game with, as it is really, really great fun. If you're looking for just nice painting pieces, you're probably better off going for Infinity or Malifaux stuff, as they're the same quality (maybe even better) for a lower cost.

With a few people painting BMG figs right now it's making me a little sad that I didn't pick the game up last week when miniaturemarket had it on the deal of the day. You guys have been great at showing off the details and hearing how fun/easy it is to play is really tempting, even on a limited budget.

Also nice to hear that the quality is good, rather than great as I won't get disappointed comparing them to infinity or other manufacturers.

I think the biggest gripe (probably not the right word) that I have is the scale, but I keep seeing that in all games so I might have to overcome that issue.

 Theophony wrote:

Also nice to hear that the quality is good, rather than great as I won't get disappointed comparing them to infinity or other manufacturers.

I think the biggest gripe (probably not the right word) that I have is the scale, but I keep seeing that in all games so I might have to overcome that issue.

As far as quality goes, I'd sum it up like this; as far as design/attention to detail goes, they're brilliant! Every model I've got is a perfect match to the film, game or comic they've been based on. Similarly, the sculpts are great from a technical point of view, there were no real assembly difficulties on most of them, and the poses are all pretty awesome. The only issue is that a few models did need some filling to get the parts to fit, and some had a fair bit of flash.

The scale is alright, there are a few outliers like that first Ra's, but on the whole it's no worse than what you'd see in Infinity or even 40k.

Something a little different today.

I was rather randomly given a prepainted TIE Fighter model kit yesterday, so being the hobbyist I am I immediately decided it needed repainting and sprucing up. A few hours at the desk later, here we go!














All in all, and uber-simple assembly aside, not a bad kit; nice and big, plenty of detail, took paint as well as anything else. The scale might be a bit off (listed as 1:110, but the pilot/interior were much bigger than that) but from the outside you can't see that. These usually go for about £6-10 on EBay or Amazon, and if they're all like this I might well pick up a few more. Like I say, there's no consistent scale, but I'm not sure I can say no to a Slave 1 or Millennium Falcon at that price!

I do have a TIE Interceptor to do as well, but I might take a break before that. I'm due some more commission stuff coming in soon, so normal mini-centred service will be resumed shortly! In the mean time, cheers for looking, any thoughts welcome!

Very nice indeed! Have you considered X-Wing minis at all? 1/270, take a repaint pretty well.

Cheers!

X-wing minis have always seemed a little too expensive for me. Perhaps odd when I'll happily pay the samefor a Batman mini, but I've always felt they were a tad too small from a painting perspective and I'm not sure the gameplay really appeals to me that much (especially the thing of certain cards being exclusive to certain sets and the 'gotta catch 'em all' approach that leads to). If I ever find some on a really good deal I might be tempted, but at the moment I'd rather buy these larger-scale model kits for my Star Wars fix and stick to other stuff for gaming.

Like Batman, I think I could swallow the price if I was sure I'd get to play and like the game, but just as models I'd rather get the bigger stuff and display them.

Mind you, I first saw the Imperial symbol I put on the wing painted on an X-wing mini, hats most certainly off to anyone who can reproduce that design at that scale! Drove me mad on the big one!

It's not cheap, certainly, though there's deals to be had. The models are lovely, but painting ultra-fine detail on them is way beyond me. Red Stripes are maddening enough...

Given the relative chunkiness of 40k chaos models.. I'd say that tie fighter is just big enough to be a 28mm scale ship, would you agree? Looks like a seated guardsman would totally fit in the cockpit. I'm sure it isn't 100% scale-accurate to the movies or w/e, but it looks 'good enough' to do in a pinch, especially if you were just gonna use it for something like a landed space craft on a landing pad as scenery

I've got a Revell x-wing and it's a pretty similar place.

Did you keep the box? There are usually 2-3 kits with very similar names and it's easy to wind up with the one that's just not even close to the right scale when ordering.

They've got a TIE Advanced at my Hobby Lobby, it looked a bit pricey but with the coupon, I may have to give it a shot. Nothing like having a crowded space port full of starwas ships I just wish they still made a semi-affordable 28mm scale friendly Falcon.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Nice work on the repainting, if that looked anything like my x-wing does now, you've done it a great service

Yeah, for Imperial Assault or something it could certainly be put down to add a bit of context, or stuck on a Deadzone landing pad or whatever.

I do still have the box, I'll make a note of the name/scale before I bin it. In this range there looks to be a TIE Advanced, a Slave 1 and an X-wing all in broadly the same scale, then assorted others like the Falcon, Snow Speeder, Republic lander ect in 'whatever fits in the box' scale. There are also larger X-wings/TIEs ect, but they're a little more than in willing to spend on a single kit at the moment (upwards of £35-ish). I can see myself picking up a couple more of these at some point, though, just to paint up and stick on a shelf.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and this is a pic of an unpainted one (not mine)


Just a simple two-colour kit. I like to think I've improved on that a little!

Yeah, yours looks way better. That looks pretty similar to the X-wing that I have. Though mine didn't get a stand, but landing gear.

Funny enough, the TIE Interceptor I have from the same range has no stand either. It's also about 2/3 of the size, despite coming in exactly the same size packet. It's all a bit random.

Yeah. Hmm, if the interceptor is smaller, it would almost have to be a drone to be used in the same scale as the tie fighter and x-wing. However.. with some creative cockpit manipulation (remove glass pit, replace with sensor array!), that could work...

Yeah, I'm not sure these were built to be used together as anything more than individual display pieces/toys for kids who don't care about scale. A a TIE-drone could be cool, though, especially if it's in a non-SW setting as something nice and generic. I'll take some scale/comparison shots when I've got the Interceptor painted.

Cool, thanks

I figure they'd go well in a Deadzone setting as dressing and objectives: Get to the cho..Tie Fighter!

TIE Interceptor is done!


















Again a pretty nice model, although as you can see it is quite a bit smaller in both size and scale.

Up next will be an A-Wing, and possibly the start of my diorama entry into next month's challenge, which will feature Enforcers, Orx, Deadzone's answer to Rocket and Groot and as many Zombies as I can paint in half a month!

As ever, cheers for looking, any thoughts welcome!

Always been a fan of the Tie Interceptor. Though on X-Wing vs Tie Fighter it was always like flying a paper aeroplane in terms of durability. At least with Rebellion ships you get shields!

Nice work on the Tie Fighters. These kind of kits were my first forays into model making, a Star Destroyer iirc, again it would have fitted nowhere near in scale terms with these but scale has never really been an issue for me. Great job on the weathering on these.

The diorama sounds great too.

Nice work! Looks like we'll have dueling zombie dios.

Cheers guys!

I actually have a Star Destroyer somewhere, it's always been just a little too big for me to comfortably tackle.

Liking your choice of Soontir Fel scheme on the interceptor!

Hah, as noted in my showcase thread that was a complete accident. I just picked the red stripes because they looked cooler than plain black and I didn't fancy repeating the white full-wing design.

Any resemblance to Imperial fighter aces, living or retconned-by-Disney, is entirely accidental!

Even if Disney retcons him, he will always live on in...X-Wing!

As others have said. Great work on the TIE ships. Did you find any different techniques required on something larger in scale than your normal offerings?

Seeing you do those Star Wars ships makes me kind of want to go back and do some of my small collection of non-wargaming models. I have a Polar Lights U.S.S. Enterprise (not the big nice one, but the smaller one), a set of Star Trek TNG adversary ships (featuring a Romulan D'deridex-class Warbird, a Klingon B'rel-class Bird-of-prey, and a Ferengi D'kora-class Marauder), an old Star Trek 3-ship set, an A-10 Warthog kit (by Revell, I think), a Cylon Raider from the old BSG series, and a couple of other things I can't think of at the moment. Unfortunately, as I've said elsewhere on Dakka, I've got too much of a backlog of 40k stuff to paint to give those models serious thought right now.

Back on topic, I love your TIE ships, especially the Interceptor with the 181st squadron markings.

Thank you chaps!

 Archer wrote:
As others have said. Great work on the TIE ships. Did you find any different techniques required on something larger in scale than your normal offerings?

Not really. The freehand was certainly easier to put together simply as I was working on a 6" square piece rather than a tiny shoulder pad or cloak, but at the same time did need doing twice to get decent coverage, the black lining round the edges to get it all sharp. Other than that it was mostly just standard layering/a bit of drybrushing. The thing to bear in mind is that the larger the model, the more it will form its own shadows, you you don't need to take the highlight colour anywhere near as bright as on a normal sized mini.

@ZergSmasher: if you already have the models then I definitely recommend doing some! They're a great change of pace from 40k stuff, and sometimes it can be relaxing to paint something completely different and without the pressure of needing it for a game. Besides, who doesn't want a TIE Fighter, Enterprise or A-10 looking awesome on the shelf!

Been away for few days, so not a great deal of progress, but my next commission came in; the Sefadu faction from Mercs. As before, I was asked to stay pretty close to the studio scheme, and this time to do some savannah-style basing (which is still WIP, any ideas welcome).

Here's the first mini:






Still not 100% done, but getting there! Pretty happy with the reaults, I was going for a pretty vibrant look compared to the stealthy KemVar, from a quick fluff readup these guys are all about speed, shock and awe tactics.

More soon! Let me know what you think!

He looks really good Para, not sure on the basing needs some long grass if its suppose to be savannah.

Cheers! Like I say, still trying to work out the base, got to find some old brushes or something for long grass, maybe some sponge for small shrubs.

The base looks fine to me, has it been painted or is it just bare grit/sand?

Just sand and a bit of flock, I think it just needs a bit more variety. I'll play with adding some more height and some different colours when I've got a couple more done.

Looks really good para.

Really like the depth you've got in your blacks. What's your. Recipe?

Black tends to be something I vary on a model-to model basis, depending on the tone, the overall scheme and the effect I want. Sometimes, like on Bane ovcer the page, there's three or four recipes on one mini.

They typically follow two routes, though, depending on whether I want deep, hued, smooth black or stark contrast.

For the former, something like a Batcape or the armour on my League ninjas, I start with black, then work through highlights by mixing in colour (blue, grey or white work well, and I plan to experiment with purple and green at some point) until there's enough highlight to add a definite tone, but keep the overall impression that it's something black catching the light rather than something grey or blue. There should definitely be some black still showing though in the recesses, and only the uppermost highlights should be neat colour rather than coloured black.

The other way is the reverse, starting with the mid tone and using black washes (sometimes one, sometimes several) to darken it to 'black'. This is better for giving the impression of something blue/grey/whatever in heavy shadow.

This link is exceptionally helpful in the theory behind painting black, and explains it far better than I have.
http://www.critskillpeople.com/2015/07/painting-black.html/

ahem.

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

Two more Mercs done! These guys are taking a little longer per model than the last lot, as the bright reds are a little more labour intensive, but I'm happy with how they're coming out. Apologies for the dark pics, it's very overcast here today.

A shotgunner:




And a Heavy:






The bases are still in progress, I ordered some of those grass tufts above (and Arrow and a set of Bane thugs... To reach the 'free shipping' threshold, of course! ) which should hopefully add some height and variety.

More soon, and the start of the DZ dio. I'm debating whether that should be just Enforcers vs Zombies or whether I should go through whole hog and do a desperate alliance of Orx, Rebs and Enforcers facing down the horde. I guess it depends on how many Zs I get painted!

As ever, thanks for looking, any thoughts welcome!

Sefadu are looking good. They've got neat designs and their shotgunner is probably one of the nicest looking figures in the line. I like the way you've done the colors. They don't seem as garish and bright as the studio scheme.

I look forward to see how many zombies you can get painted.

Yeah, I do like that shotgun guy, he's up there with the KemVar Sniper that I just love! As for the colours, I wanted to keep the red red, that was the big thing. I didn't want it to go pink or orange with the highlights, so even the brighter parts are still just red.

I know naff all about Mercs but I really like those miniatures, pretty neat paint scheme as well. Have you many more to paint up for the client?

As for the Deadzone diaroma I quite like the sound of a last minute three-way anti Zombie alliance.

Cheers! Honestly I've very little idea about Mercs myself, all I know is that it's a skirmish game/boardgame with a near-future setting where mega-corporations have basically taken the place of nations. The last lot I did were KemVar, the South American based Megacon, these guys are African. The minis are certainly very nice both as designs and casts, not quite on par with Corvus Belli or Knight but getting there.

Four of these guys to go.

Should be sniper, grenadier, assault/medic, and leader I believe. I'd like to grab some more one of these days. Sefadu has some of the coolest designs, but the worst posing though. I can't tell what the assault guy is doing, the sniper is brandishing a knife, and the leader has got to be one of the most nerve-wracking figures I own. I'm afraid I'll wind up bending something every timei pick him up, and I swear his leg is slowly being bent under his own weight.

And another! I'm guessing this guy is the 'Assault' model.







And one for myself, a Deadzone Peacekeeper Captain. He's converted from the starter Captain, with an Anvil gun, Deathstroke's spare head and a SM power sword.








Not sure whether I like him or loathe him at the moment. On one hand, he's one of my best painted Enforcers and I think the conversion work is fine, on the other I'm not sure whether the scheme actually works on this model. I was looking through the Giraldez book and saw his Sun Tze, thought 'hmm, I'd like to try orange like that' and grabbed the nearest mini at hand. Does it work? That's your call!


As ever, thanks for reading, more Mercs and DZ coming soon! Let me know what you think!

That's the Sefadu Grenadier, actually. Nice work on him, too.

I think the orange looks good on the Enforcer. It looks like you've kept the brightness of the orange toned down, which keeps him from looking goofy. Yeah, I think it works.

Is that head from the Arrow styled Deathstroke?

Huh, must have missed the actual grenades! So is the Assault the guy with two arm blades?

That head is from the Origins Deathstroke, which is pretty similar to the Arrow design. There isn't an actual Arrow one yet. I have the TV Green Arrow coming in my next order, though.

Looks good to me. If you're gonna give them a face, you picked a good one for the boss.

I thought that Deathstroke was based on his TV design.

The Sefadu Grenadier has a grenade launcher on his rifle. Blade guy is classed as a Berserker. The Assault guy looks like he's landing from a jump.

The enforcer captain is pretty sweet. My favorite part of the model is his base. You did a great job. Plus it would match on the mat that comes with the game!

Cheers guys!

No progress today, but hopefully I can get something done tomorrow!

Oh, you slacker you!

Haha, I may have slacked yesterday, but lots was done today to make up for it!

First off, more Mercs! Apologies for the switch to the black background, blue just wasn't working today!)

Third time lucky, I'm assuming this guy is definitely the Assault guy, simply by process of elimination!




And the sniper, who has for some reason eschewed his big ass rifle for a tiny knife.... Because reasons...





Here's the group as it stands, just the leader to go now.




And some more of my own models. A pair of test Zombies for my DZ diorama, speed-painted but hopefully still decent. Not yet decided how they'll be based.




I'll need a least a dozen of these blighters for the dio, and 2-3 times that many if I ever want to play solo DZ, so I needed something easily replicated and fast. Lots of washes and drybushes, and I used glossy-ish paint for the flesh as a) its creepy and b) it doesn't need much highlighting.

And to kick their asses, an Enforcer Assault Trooper. The head is a spare Sefadu one that I see as the Enforcer equivalent of a MkVI 'beaky', the jetpack plumes are those leaves I bought for the KemVar glued to wire and painted over.







Tomorrow should see the Mercs finished, the Zombie Horde continued and maybe another Enforcer, maybe some rebel scum.

As ever, thanks for reading, any thoughts welcome!

That is a brilliant idea for the jetpack flames! And you managed to make the Assault guy's pose not look completely weird. I love the sniper's "come at me, bro" pose, too. Great job all around.

Oh man those zombies look WAY better than mine! Mind telling us how you painted them?

Thanks guys!

@Mymearan: not sure how much help I can be there, I was pretty much mixing together excess paint from the other minis for the most part! I'll keep better track when I do the next lot and let you know.

I really like the headswap in the Enforcer, the idea if different "marks" of Enforcer armour is cool too.

Nasty (in a good way!) Zombies too.

The Mercs guys have come ut well, especially as a group. Nice work on the Enforcer Captain and Jetpack guy as well. I do like the flames!

That group shot is kinda scary! I think something terrible is about to happen!

Aye, they are a fearsome bunch! From the little I've read, these guys are all about shock and awe, hence the bright colours and warpaint, and I must say I'm rather pleased with how striking they are seen en masse.

Thanks guys!

Great stuff! Neat enforcer mods as always.

That Sedafu (sefadu? whatever) sniper must have played too much Call of Duty May as well call it the Snifer class.

nice!!! liking those zombies Para and the merc qua has come out rally sweet

Stop showing off cool stuff , I saw a box of the nerds figs at miniaturemarket the other day that was reduced, now your enticing me into buying it.

I love that red color you have on them.

Stop tempting Theo, Para. He's got too many more zombies coming to have room for anything else

True, I've been marvelling at how fast Theo's been working through his horde, though!

As for myself, I did get my horde off to a start this morning. Joining yesterday's piece are five more, all based on the hazmat suit/mining gear to keep the batch painting speedy. At minimum I want 5 Zombies from each style (miners, military and civvies) for the final layout, if not more.



Basing isn't final, and the lighting is crap, but you get the gist. I think as a mob they look good, though.

As far as the dio itslef goes, I've hit a sticking point; do I go smaller and build some base pieces that the minis slot into, or simply set out the finished array on a DZ mat with some terrain? That would be faster, and allow a much broader scope, but the minis would just be placed on rather than slotted in/part of the terrain, which I worry might look a bit odd. On the other than, I'm t sure I have the time or skill to do anything more detailed and not botch it... Thoughts?


And the last of the Mercs, that's a wrap on these for now. Final pics will come when the tufts come in and are applied.






That's all for today! Any thoughts welcome! I've got a bit of free space between commissions now, so it's all-in on Deadzone for a few days!

Zombies are looking great. I think just put the bases on the mat (easy way) so you can spend more time painting than on the Dio.

Good stuff!

Counter sinking them probably looks most professional by the mean/median/average standards. I still prefer clear acrylics for everything. If I run out of time I'm gonna use the Mars Attacks mat myself, though I'm hoping to build a proper 2x2' city board if time allows. Gonna be putting my guys on their bases and then on the terrain. It hurts my brain to not be able to remove the models for play, but I also don't like holes in the scenery for later. I could think of a way to have the best of both worlds but it would be fiddly and way more effort.

Maybe plan for the mat and do the harder way if you have time?

Grass tufts came in, so here we have the final shots of the Mercs. The long grass certainly added something, so cheers Az for suggesting that.

Leader:




Sniper:




Grenadier:




Shotgunner:




Berserker:




Heavy:




Assault:




Group shots:




That's a wrap on them! Very fun minis to work on!


And now for something of mine. While I will finish the Deadzone dio at some stage, with the limited time I have I've chosen to swap my challenge entry this month to a smaller piece, the fall of Sauron at the hands of Isildur. The latter is proving to be a right pig to photograph, thanks to his pose, so here's some WIP of the Dark Lord instead. Still a bit more to do, but he's mostly done now.





That's all for now, if the light holds I might get another update in today, if not it'll be tomorrow. Thanks for looking, any thoughts welcome!

Beaky mercs are great, and Sauron is really shaping up

Sauron is looking bang on thus far, is his armour NMM? Have always loved that miniature. So have any exciting real life things gotten in the wayof the Deadzone ddiorama?

Ta chaps!

@Thraxas: yep, NMM on the armour. It's been a bit of trial getting it to match the clean but not shiny look he has in the movie, but it's getting there. The Deadzone dio is on hold as I move in to uni next week, so I only have a few days of actual hobby time left this month, hence switching to a more manageable project.

Looking very nice. Will he be fiery on the inside?

Best of luck with the move, where are you heading and what are you studying? Hope they have a good gaming group wherever you are off too.

Cheers Graven. No inner fire I'm afraid; if I were doing him as a one off then I'd be tempted to try and emulate the firey look from the Hobbit, but as was part of this set I want to stay as close to film look, the impression of an empty armour, as I can.

As for the move, I heading to Salford/Manchester to do military history/international politics, so pretty much perfect course for a wargamer! hopefully I'll find a gaming club or two, if not then it's not actually far from Element Games, so I'll definitely be heading there once or twice!

Great, Manchester is a brilliant city to be a student in and as you say Stockport for Element Games is only a 10 or so minute train ride away.

Any plans to tackle this guy Para?

"His name is Oliver Queen, and after five years in hell, he has come home with only one goal... To save his city, and do a lot of brooding on rooftops!"






Yep, it's the Arrow, the Starling City Vigilante, the Hood Guy. I wasn't sure about this mini when it was released earlier this year, but it's grown on me since and now having it in hand, it really is great. The posture, the details, he actually looks just like Stephen Amell under that hood (and there was an unhooded head I was the tempted to use, but he never goes hood-down in combat).

Next up we have Dick Grayson, the original Robin, now Nightwing. He's undoubtedly my favourite character to have taken on the mantle, although I am a big fan of Jason Todd/Red Hood (why do these guys get so much cooler once they stop being Robin? ). He's actually been done for a while now, but he had to wait for KM to send out a replacement head as the original was missing. Again this is a very nice model.





The new additions with the dynamic duo. A pretty fearsome team of badasses now!



Thraxas, it's funny you mention that guy (Azreal, for the uninitiated, in several continuities this guy takes over from Bruce Wayne as Batman), he's next on the list, too cool a mini not to have! I also have the funds for one other bilster at the moment, not sure yet what I'll be getting. It's between Red Hood, Red Arrow/Speedy to run with Arrow, or the last set of Bane guys to finish that crew off. Thoughts, anyone?


On a different note, finally managed to get some decent pics of Isildur and Elendil. These two are pretty much done, barring a few touchups.










That's all for today! As ever, cheers for looking, and any thoughts are welcome!

Brooding from rooftops. Sounds just right. Nightwing seems to have found a tactical rock.

Everything looks good. Those LoTR minis must look miniscule next to the Batman minis.

Hey man, everything looks great! I love the Batman minis. I was actually in the gaming store today looking at the Batman mini line. I thought about putting feelers out about it, see what it was like as a game system. You played any games of it? How does it play?

Good stuff as usual!

Azreal looks like a beast.

I really like Arrow, the green and skin tones are very well done.

Cheers guys!

@RH: there is quite a lot of Tactical Rockery going on in BMG. The whole of Team Arrow (if I used the comic version) would be carrying around their own masonry, Firefly has a Tactical Chimneystack, but Bats takes the prize with that Tactical Gargoyle of his!

@Zambro: welcome back to the UK! Short answer on the 'how does it play' question: I would say that, hands down, it's the best minis games I've played, period!

Here's a bit more I wrote on it, but I'm more than happy to answer any questions you have about it.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/90/369662.page#8075033

Really love your arrow. I don't understand why some folk hate the textured Knight bases, you really show how well they can complement such awesome models, especially with Nightwing's pose.

Great work. Arrow looks particularly good. Sauron is coming along nicely and the fallen kings of Numenor look very nice as well.

Yeah the LotR diorama is gonna be sweet.

That Azreal guy... has a sword. Does he do away with Batman's 'I don't kill people because morals' thing? Or does he someone just maul people with his sword without killing them?

Cheers guys! I do like the textured bases as, being typically lazy about basing my own stuff, a basecoat, wash and drybrush can still get them looking decent (need to retouch a couple, though). The only issue is the tab running down the middle, it looks a bit odd at times. The other thing that bugged me slightly was that the ground texture doesn't really say 'city' to me like cobbles or paving would, but I'll trade that for ease of use!

About Azrael, pretty much the former. In the comic arc Knightfall, in which Bane breaks Bruce Wayne's spine, Azrael (Jean-paul Valley) takes over as Batman and is much more brutal, and while he doesn't often outright kill people, he's gets a lot of people killed since he's more about punishing the baddies rather than protecting the innocent. The Arkham-verse version is slightly different



He carries the sword in the minis game, though, and I for one look forward to it! Batman teams can struggle with taking out guys in the long term as most of the damage they deal is (healable) Stun damage. Between Arrow and the upcoming Az, though, they'll at least be capable of dealing some more permanemt hurt, which in pure game terms is undeniably useful.

Thanks for the info, sounds like an interesting character.

Oh, so it's first season Arrow, then Guy went from the punisher to touchy feely in a hurry

Yeah, definitely Season 1 Arrow, more than capable of dropping a body or two. In a game earlier, his first volley put Bane on half health (Batman knocked off the other hits with Batarangs, but by the end of the game all those were recovered) and he spent the rest of the game in a shootout with Deathstroke, who he killed as well (but only just, if DS hadn't missed his last shot things would have been very different, and he'd have taken home the bounty on both Arrow and Batman, almost certainly enough to retire on! )

I'm still temped to write up some rules for boxing glove arrows, though!

Excellent work on Arrow. I wonder if there's any dressed up bodies the Oliver queen head can go on. Oh!!!! I sure Alfred is probably too scrawny, but graven had an extra one he was going to decapitate.

Thanks para! I read the write up you did in that link. Very helpful. I found myself looking through the mini range again this morning. And while I have pretty much planned out what I want to buy over the next few weeks, some of the character models might find their way onto the list next month...

Can you point me to further reading about it? I was going to youtube a game of it, just to see. And google it generally. A little bit of direction would be awesome.

Of course. There are two great blogs that cover a lot of BMG stuff, the first has a whole load of content like beginner's guides and such, while the other posts up a lot of tacticas and 'theory' stuff.
http://pressganger.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/useful-35mm-dc-marvel-and-batman-game.html

http://www.critskillpeople.com

There's a forum with a decent beginner's section:
http://www.critskillpeople.com

And an online roster builder which is great for playing around with crew builds, less good for your wallet! It also lists all the stats/rules, so once you're more familiar with the game you can quickly see what models do.
http://bat-builder.com

There are a few batreps on YouTube, not the best quality but good for getting a view of how the game plays. The rulebook is also available free (well, the last edition but mostly the same), this version is missing the pretty pictures but easier to read.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dmr77pu237bacj9/BMG%20rulebook%201.13.pdf?dl=0

It's certainly a game that you can run as a side project, while the minis are expensive you can build a full crew for as little as £35ish, and the addition of a single model can totally change how a team plays so you don't need to change constantly be buying new stuff (though you might want to! )

Lastly, there is a BMG thread down in misc minis games, more than happy to answer any other questions here or there!
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/660463.page#8117002

Finally caught up on your blog (missed almost a page's worth), and it looks like you've been doing even more great stuff! I especially love the LOTR minis, can't wait to see how your diorama turns out!

Cheers ZS!

Not a huge amount to show today, just the last two Bane Thugs (for now, there is one more set but it's not a priority)

This chap is known only as T.N.T. He's wearing a full suit of body armour that makes him tougher than your average street brawler, carries one of the most lethal guns in the game, and can be equipped with Night Vision Goggles in case you feel like being an utter bastard and removing the one factor that limits the capability of said gun, Gotham's typical darkness.





And this rather large gentleman, who is imaginatively named 'Venom Thug' because he's... well, a Thug on Venom (it's this kind of creativity that makes DC comics so exciting and fresh! ). I kind of feel sorry for him being the only Bane-specific model without an actual name or codename, but he makes up for it with some pretty beefy stats, only slightly less hitty than the man himself, Bane. I used both red and green washes on the skin, as I wanted it to look healthy and tough but also a little tinged by the Venom formula.






And this is Bane's crew as it stands right now. Can't actually field all of these guys at once without adding some more to get a higher Funding cap (those nasty Assault Rifles cost a lot!)


Scale shots of the most recent wave as well, since I did say I'd keep them coming. Probably not a lot of crossover potential here, though you might just get away with Arrow as an Ariadna 'Hardcase' in Infinity, I believe he carries a bow for some reason!



That's all for now. I move out on Sunday, so hopefully I can get a couple more updates in before things will slow down for a bit. Got a rather different mini on deck right now and some more Batman in the post that should arrive tomorrow or Wednesday (Red Hood and Azreal), so I should have material for another post or two, I'm also planning to get some better pics of older stuff for my commission portfolio before I head away from my collection, but unless anyone wants to see anything specific in a better setup then that'll just be in my gallery rather than here.

As ever, ta for looking, any thoughts welcome!

The skin on Venom Thug's arms has come out looking fantastic. I love how grimy your stuff looks, dude. Do you give everything a final wash of Agrax or something? I can't put my finger on it but they look very cohesive and gritty.

Overall the posse (?) is looking really impressive!

Cheers!

If you're talking just about the Batman stuff, then almost all of it gets either a Nuln or Agrax wash at some point. I wanted to emulate the look of Batman comics (that can be almost monochrome at times), so everything is very subdued (unlike, say, a Superman or classic Avengers comic where bright primary colours are to be expected). It's also just a case of not taking the highlights as bright as I could for the same reason.

I really must stop looking at the batman stuff, its ruining my resolve. Need the zombicide pledge manager to pop so i have no way of buying any BMG figs.

The skin on the nameless venom thug is indeed very nice with the washes you did

Yeah, as the others have said, the dark grimy tones really work well with those batman models! They look awesome!

That Bane set looks great together, a fantastic set if sculpts that really fit into the setting because of your realistic based painting style.

Good luck with the move, and good luck with Uni. Hope you keep the student debt to a reasonable level

Cheers guys! Glad Venom has gone down well, I wasn't 100% sure I'd pulled off the effect or if the pics actually showed it, but my mind is now at rest!

A thought just occurred to me: this crew are all based around the Arkham Origins game, set on Christmas eve, and Gotham is covered in snow. I'd been thinking about adding something to these guys' bases just to make them a bit more interesting, would the odd bit of snow work, do you think? Follow-up question, does anyone know a good way to do snow?

I found this link:

http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2010/01/details-8-ways-to-base-with-snow.html

very useful when looking into snow baseing.

Nice work on the thugs.

Love the BMG minis! The greeny flesh is great. Not helping with my desire to play it And on that front, a friend of a friend is going to bring some minis down tomorrow and give a demo game. Not sure if I'm able to play it, trying to play X-wing, 40k and participate in the organised play for Conquest. But we'll see

Great stuff, that gang looks vicious.

Cheers guys!

@Nev: Thanks, that's very handy! I'll definitely be giving some of those a shot at some point!

@Zambro: Hope you like the look of it, BMG really is a great game and the kind that if you have to play on a tight budget, you really can. I've kind of gone a bit mad, buying into it more/faster than anything other than my initial discovery of 40k all those years ago, but you could easily get a crew going for around £35 or so with the right build. Let me know if you do want to get in on it and want a hand putting together some good starter lists!

They look fantastic! Really inspiring.

Really nice work with the knights model's, I like how Bane and his thugs have turned out. They remind me very much of how they looked in Arkham Origins.

Bane and his crew look great.

How many do you use in an "average" game?

Thanks all!

@Archer: Band size in BMG can be quite varied. For example, the Batman crew I usually run in standard games is just Batman, Robin and Nightwing. Some crews (Joker in particular) can hit a dozen models, but Bane is more middle-of-the-road, A typical list might be:

Bane (Origins)
Deathstroke (Origins)
T.N.T
McGregor (knife dude)
Smash (hammer dude)

You could downgrade Deathstroke to the regular version and throw in another merc, but I don't have the last set of those yet. Conversely, upgrade Bane to his Big version and you'd probably want to drop Deathstroke, maybe throw in Venom.

So yeah, it ranges from 3 (for all-hero crews) to about 12 (for henchmen swarms), but it tends to be in the region of 5-8 models per crew, depending on how cheap your henchmen are or how expensive any Free Agents you take are.

Gee three models sounds rough......

Oh have any tips and tricks for painting a Primarch? I have been roped into painting them for my Brother and I just took delivery of Horus and Robute Guilliman, lets say I am panicking a little bit.

 Archer wrote:
Gee three models sounds rough......

It can be. In Bat-crews you have the advantage of having a Batclaw on just about every model to get around, and you can pad it out with cops or SWAT if you want, but yeah, there have definitely been games where anther model or two would be handy. Batman is awesome, but he can't be everywhere so you do need to think on your feet, pick your battles and plan ahead. Nothing worse than being just out of range to grab an objective or picking the wrong guys to attack while the guys you have to leave alone rack up points.

All that said, I do prefer playing all hero/hero-heavy teams more than anything else, the challenge and the fact these characters play exactly like they should from the comics, games and films is so fun.

Oh have any tips and tricks for painting a Primarch? I have been roped into painting them for my Brother and I just took delivery of Horus and Robute Guilliman, lets say I am panicking a little bit.

Give 'em to me, I'll do it!

Seriously, though, a few tips:

- paint in parts. On models like this you don't want to fiddling around with hard to reach areas just for the sake of speed, you want to take your time on everything. I don't know how Horus or Rob fit together, but I'd definitely say leave off arms, capes and heads if you can, and do the base bits separately as well.

- plan first, and practice on something that didn't cost quite as much. Even if that's just pulling some bits from your spares pile and painting an arm or leg or whatever, make sure you know a) how to paint the style you want and b) what that effect looks like when done. It's easier to strip and redo a test marine than a whole Primarch!

- use artwork as a reference, whether that's from a HH novel cover, one of the Forge World pieces or even other painted examples of a mini. If you like something, copy it and don't be ashamed!

- don't rush, this is the most important. Forget any shortcuts you'd normally take, and accept that this will take as long as it takes. There were times when doing Angron that I thought 'how long have I spent on this now', but the end result is worth it!

Above all, enjoy it! The Primarch models have to be among the best minis ever made, an absolute dream to work on, so this really should be a treat for you!

Gee thanks Para for the tips and taking the time to write them up. Will definitely enjoy them as a diversion from my army plan (yup knew something would derail it eventually).

When the time comes I definitely will try to rip off your angron model as well.....

I really love your painting style Para. You're a very fast painter, and I can see that your not concerned with spending tens of hours making sure that each little dot of color is in exactly the right place. You don't have to, because you have a great sense of aesthetics and color. If you study, say, a wristwatch on one of your models, it may not have individually painted numbers, but damn if the overall effect of each model isn't spot on. You also don't exaggerate highlights, which for some painters (me) just looks like they don't know how to get enough contrast, but with you it looks very deliberate and realistic, for lack of a better word. That "dirty" look is something I would love to do but can never pull off. Love it!

Theophony wrote:

Spoiler:

Had to be done as you and Graven had me interested in the game, then I saw it half price on the dinged and dented shelf at miniaturemarket. Next I'll have to start looking at gangs. I've just been rewatching Arrow on Netflix the last couple of days....wonder who I'll start with.

Good, good... give in to your feelings! Join us on the Bat Side of the Nerd!

Arrow is a good one to start with if you're leaning that way. He's got two models/profiles you can use straight off the bat (no pun intended), so you have some variety there, and all bar one of the models in the Arrow list can also be used by Batman, so you're essentially getting two crews for the price of one!

Did that rulebook have Alfred with it?

Mymearan wrote:I really love your painting style Para. You're a very fast painter, and I can see that your not concerned with spending tens of hours making sure that each little dot of color is in exactly the right place. You don't have to, because you have a great sense of aesthetics and color. If you study, say, a wristwatch on one of your models, it may not have individually painted numbers, but damn if the overall effect of each model isn't spot on. You also don't exaggerate highlights, which for some painters (me) just looks like they don't know how to get enough contrast, but with you it looks very deliberate and realistic, for lack of a better word. That "dirty" look is something I would love to do but can never pull off. Love it!

Cheers.

To be perfectly honest, I am trying to be a little neater these days, not take shortcuts or half-measures like I used to an awful lot. Up until a few months ago I was definitely all about the overall impression rather than detail, but these days I am attempting to take a bit more time and be more careful. I'm getting there, but I do need to keep working at it. I still aim to keep the style, but just refine it a little.

On a side note, the gallery updating goes on apace. By the end of today there will be better pics of my Space Hulk, GK, Infinity, Imperial Fists, Malifaux and Chaos up (and a few other bits and bobs) if anyone fancies a blast from the past!

Nope, just the rulebook, no figures with it. Though they've had a penguins crew set sitting there for a while and today put a batman on his motorcycle out (it's missing one of the bars that holds the wheels). Just a quick flip through the book, are all the stats online somewhere for the models? Or do they come with the models? Guess I could use bat-builder to see how people stack up.

The stat cards come with the models (if there are multiple versions the character you get the card which corresponds with the specific mini). But they are all available on Bat-builder (click on a mini to bring up the 'card', click on a rule to bring up a summary) or on the KM site (the page for each mini has a download link for the cards).


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On a completely unrelated note, I'll be painting a couple of Tactical Squads for sale to add to the Batman fund, any particular Chapters you guys would like to see me tackle? I'm thinking it'll have to be First Founding as I don't want to risk something obscure and not end up selling them, but I'm thinking a squad of Ultramarines, and maybe one of Iron Hands or Salamanders?

Thanks for the info

As for chapters, I think Iron hands as you have the gritty paint job down pat, and dark angels.....for reasons

Would love to see you tackle Salamanders, but I think UM are a good choice if you want something nice and saleable.

I think the problem with Para painting Dark Angels is that he would want to keep them for his own army, though at this rate 40k may get blown away in the pursuit of a full Batman collection.

White scars would be interesting, but UM would be cool especially since you could pimp them out with the new upgrade kits from GW

If you are up for a little yellow, Imperial Fists would be nice. Their tac squads perform pretty good on the table as well. Plus they look good beat up and grimy, which fits your style.

Hmm, lots to think on!

Iron Hands would certainly be fun, the only issue is that these guy already assembled and for IH I'd probably want to kit them out with some fancy techo-implants and bionics. There still an option, especially as my ability to paint black has improved a lot recently, and as said they're ripe for heavy weathering. From what I understand, IH are also pretty popular game-wise these days.

Scars are probably out as as much as I like how they look, saleable white is still a little beyond me. If these were for me I'd do it, but I don't want to be experimenting on something that I'd be selling.

UM I can definitely do, did a load for my own armies a few years back and I'm certainly up for revisiting the Chapter. As said, they're popular too. Pretty sure at least one of the two squads will be Ultras, probably 2nd Co.

DA and Sallies are an option, I'm just not sure how well I can pull them off. I can do them to a standard I'd put down on the table myself, but good dark greens are something I'm still a tad unsure I can pull off. Might give it a shot, though.

I kind of want to do BA as I know I can do them, but it seems silly to use generic Tacs for them when they have a shiny kit of their own.

Fists I'm tempted by; again I can definitely do them, but yellow is far more unforgiving than UM blue or Sallies green, I think.


Sorry, lots of rambling today and no pics! Should get the next Batman lot tomorrow (Azrael and Red Hood) so I should have something more meaningful to post then!

GW did an interesting take on painting yellow on their youtube channel let me see if I can find it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLpkAjDZKU4

Around the 4 minute mark

Cheers for that link! Those GW tutorials really are awesome, pretty much compulsory watching even if you never plan to paint the model in question, the techniques are easily transferable to anything. They're also so professionally filmed/presented that you're never left wondering 'what just happened there?', you can see exactly how it's all done. If you haven't checked them out, go and do it now!

Right, on with another round of pics. I went for Iron Hands and Ultramarines in the end, more on why below.

Iron Hands:






Chose the Hands as they a) play to my strength of heavily weathered, dark Marines, b) my method for black is very simple, so I can get them done pretty quickly, and still looks decent once the weathering is added, and c) they're one of the few First Founding Chapters I've never really tried to do, so it's an adventure! I'm considering changing the base colour, maybe to a Mars-style browny-red, just to add a bit more contrast. That colour combo works quite well on my small Raven Guard force, so I'm tempted to repeat it here. Any other suggestions?


And now the Ultramarine:






UM I chose as a) I wanted to revisit the Chapter, having done them (to a far lower standard) a few years back, b) they lend themselves to a brighter/neater scheme, nice and different from the IH, so I don't need to get bogged down painting 20 minis the same way. I'm considering adding just a bit of weathering (in a neater manner, not just all over like the IH).


And on a slightly different note, I came across this in a local model shop yesterday (by accident, I was actually looking though their blister pack baskets for some Mantic stuff they had on sale, to no avail) and just had to buy him. This is the 'Hold The Line' model from Warlord Games' Hail Caesar line, a mounted Roman general and his faithful warhound. The detail on the sculpt was pretty impressive, and the fact he reminded me of the opening scenes of Gladiator absolutely didn't sway my opinion in any way, honest guv... yeah, it kind of did!










Pretty happy with this, to be honest. The horse is probably the best I've done, and I think the whole piece comes together quite nicely. I've no plans for a 28mm Roman army, but I may well pick up a couple more blisters to display alongside this guy.

That's all for now, I should have more Marines and hopefully some more Batman tomorrow. As ever, thanks for reading, any thoughts welcome!

Nice job there fella. gorgeous treatment of the Roman dude....Biggus Dickus????

Marines look nice. For the freehand I found using a mechancial pencil first really helps the uniformity and keeping them tight

Marines are looking good! I'm going to have to pinch the red bolter w/ white stripe idea for my Fists. While it's always good to practise freehand, why not use the tactical arrows from the decal sheets? It could save time, and effort, for the same result.
And regarding the IH. All of my blacks aren't 'black'. If you go back and take a look at my scouts, and blacks on heavy weapons etc., they are all a dark grey. Close enough to look black, yet light enough to allow you to shade details. Some food for thought.

Excited to see some more Batman. Last night a friend brough down some BMG. We didn't have to for it, unfortunately... Gotta wait a bit longer...
When (I'd say if, but when is more accurate) I get some minis for this, I'll make sides that reflect the Dark Knight films. Batman+Gordon and Joker, or Batman+Catwoman and Bane. Something like that to try and hook friends

Cheers guys!

@Januine: He didn't have a name, I guess he does now!

@Zambro: Going from the films is definitely a sound idea, The only issue you might run into is that the film minis for Bane and Ra'sare massive compared to the rest (you can see Ra's a few pages back), but if you can deal with that aesthetically you're sorted. DK Batman is a good one for starting out too; not too expensive points-wise, and unlike the Arkham versions he's not got a dozen gadgets to keep track of.

The black is exactly like that, a dark blue-grey highlighted up. I just wanted to keep it looking black, so there's only 2 layers of highlights.

As far as the freehand, it does look worse in the pics than it actually is (and on the IH, the chipping has blurred the outline slightly). I've never really got decals to work properly and look good, and the freehand is not that time-consuming, so I'll stick with that for the time being. In the next round of pics, I'll try and get some that show it a bit more favourably.

Should do a Sister of Battle or something called Incontinentia Buttocks too

Some things are perhaps left to the imagination rather than the paint desk!

Got Red Hood for Batman painted today, and should get another Ultra finished for tomorrow as well.

That Ultramarine looks really striking, very nice work .

The Batman and now the Marine stuff are all looking very nice. Bane's Venom Thug looks good too, though I did at first think of Spidey's Venom and have to do a "oh, yeah, right" doubletake. Do the Knight models for Marvel and DC both use the same rules? I've been content to just look at the pretty pictures, but The Punisher makes things tempting...

I like the Ultramarine better than the Iron Hand guy, but that has more to do with the fact that Ultramarines have a better looking scheme than Iron Hands. The Roman guy is awesome, too! Always nice to see some historical stuff around with our scifi/fantasy miniatures. Do you think you will pursue Ultramarines instead of Iron Hands, or are you planning to do both?

Love all three of those minis. I hope you go the roman/greek style of UM, and keep the bright colors.

 Azazelx wrote:
The Batman and now the Marine stuff are all looking very nice. Bane's Venom Thug looks good too, though I did at first think of Spidey's Venom and have to do a "oh, yeah, right" doubletake. Do the Knight models for Marvel and DC both use the same rules? I've been content to just look at the pretty pictures, but The Punisher makes things tempting...

There's no rules for marvel yet. I believe they are working towards getting the rights to do a game for it, but their contract with marvel was only to produce the minis.

I really like the roman. Very cool model. In regards to the iron hand, I just wonder if his pauldrons need their trim painted in a different colour to break up the model a bit?

Excellent job on those marines. The paint job on that mounted roman general is something else. Great work.

D

Romans now? Awesome. I love the variety. Keep it coming

Thanks y'all!

@Az: As Theo said, there's sadly no rules for the Marvel stuff yet. From what I've seen, the 'supers' game that's coming soon for the DC stuff will also be able to work with Marvel, either as part of the game or just two games built on the same mechanics that are 'totally not compatible wink wink' to alleviate any rights issues. Either way, when it happens, The Avengers vs the Justice League will be happening, definitely! Now I've got access to a blank character card too, I'll be writing up rules for the 'street level' Marvel heroes in Batman. Punisher, Daredevil, Elektra, Spidey, Wolverine and assorted villains will all be getting house-ruled in at some point, though probably not until I'm done collecting the Batman stuff I want.

@Zergsmasher: I'll probably be doing a squad of both, as an experiment if nothing else, but the UM are taking priority as they're more fun to paint.

@Archer: I thought about it, but the codex said they have black shoulder rims. If anyone can point me to some fluff that states otherwise it's definitely up for consideration.

Now, on to the pics!

As mentioned yesterday, here's Red Hood. If Nightwing/Dick Grayson is Robin dun good, Hood/Jason Todd is Robin dun bad. After being abandoned by Batman, killed by the Joker and resurrected by the League of Shadows, it's understandable that he's pretty messed up by the end of the ordeal. On returning to Gotham, he sets about cleaning up the streets in the way Batman never could, not afraid to drop bodies by the dozen and play off the criminals against each other from behind the scenes. As you might expect, this brings him into conflict with Bats... then spoilers happen (by which I mean, the animated 'Under the Red Hood' movie is awesome, so I won't ruin the ending here). These days he's teamed up with Arsenal (formerly Speedy) and Starfire in a band named the Outlaws, who are basically DC's Guardians of the Galaxy (their New 52 comic run is well worth reading).






And since someone asked a while back, scale shots of Hood with Bats, Robin and Nightwing:



Not overly happy with how the hood itself looks in these pics, but it looks fine in real life. Very nice model, with a good mix of textures to work on.


And another Ultramarine:





This will probably be it for a while; I move out/in on Sunday, and the rest of the time between now and then will most likely be spent on packing. I've got a bit of free time in the first week so I'm going to try and get Azrael done, but things will definitely be slowing down a bit here. Thanks again to everyone who drops by here, and hopefully I'll still manage to keep reasonably productive on the hobby front over the coming weeks and months.

Cheers for looking, any thoughts welcome.

Best of luck with the move and settling in, if your first year is anything like mine you will have plenty of free time to get your hobby on.

Really like the Ultramarines and Iron Hand, some really good work on those, brave to do the freehand chapter symbols too.

I think that Red Hood is one of the few BTMG sculpts that I am not sold on, as a whole the miniature is great but the head just makes it seem off. Then again he is painted well and looks great as part of the group.

Jason Todd wasn't abandoned. He got kidnapped by Joker and beaten within an inch of his life with a crowbar lol. Then blown up.

Red Hood does seem to be a pretty polarising sculpt among BMG fans, I like it a lot but that could be because I'm a big fan of the character. More than a few jokes about his fabulous dancing pose have been made, though!

angelofvengeance wrote:Jason Todd wasn't abandoned. He got kidnapped by Joker and beaten within an inch of his life with a crowbar lol. Then blown up.

True, but particularly in the Arkham version and the Outlaws comics he seems to see it that way, and rather resents Batman for not saving him. He's messed up either way!

Always wondered which robin it was that became the red hood, I heard he was one of them, and remembered him dying, but really didn't care enough to find out back then.

As for this picture.....

I think it's just a coincidence that the glare on Batmans leg looks like red hood just shot his gun, which is aimed at his groin. Well that'll teach him

Also picked up a box of Mercs for dirt cheap today. Did you say you have the rules, or just painting the one gang for fun?

ooo i picked up arkam batman
I should really get around to painting him...

Good luck with the move Para, all these Batman minis from you and Graven make it so hard to resist and now you've converted Theo as well.

My only thing is I don't know DC characters that well, was always a Marvel person so half the minis I've never heard of.

Looking great mate. Your stuff is inspiring indeed!

Cheers guys!

@Theo: That's hilarious... and has probably happened at some point. This is the guy who once pulled a gun on Superman and told him to drop dead.

@GiraffeX: To be honest, up until about six months ago I didn't have much of a clue about DC either. The Dark Knight films have always been among my favourites, but it wasn't until I got the Arkham video games that I really got into Batman. Since then I've been reading quite a few comics and recently binged most of the recent animated movies (they're mostly great, there's a good selection free on Amazon Prime if you have that), but I still wouldn't call myself an expert!

@Graven: I'm sure 'inspiring' is far too high a compliment for what I do, but thanks a ton!

cracking stuff Para. Good luck in the move

Good luck with the move and start of Uni, mate! I'm guessing you'll be busy for a little while settling in, but keep in touch.

Best of luck in uni Para, you are gonna have a blast I'm sure.

I'm sure your time in uni will be awesome. Just remember, don't decline doing things with people for painting minis At uni, I never turn down doing things with friends and always found an hour here or there to paint.
I doubt you'll keep up your rapid pace of putting minis out, but please give us at least something to look at each week

Have fun. Stay safe. Keep painting.
Z

Oh yeah, good luck moving and getting unpacked, hopefully any roomates (if you have those) aren't jerks and your classes go well. Get educated so you can have a nice job that allows for plenty of painting time

Cheers for the well wishes, guys!

I've got a good mix of minis squirreled away to work on over the next few months, a little HH, some LotR characters, various sci-fi stuff, and a few other fantasy bits and bobs, so hopefully I can keep going on that. I'll set myself a soft target of finding time for a mini a week, but I shan't be kicking myself if I miss it doing other stuff!

Just remember what my dad told me when I was in college: school comes first. Sounds like you've already got that straight, though, so good luck and have fun! And, like the others, I look forward to seeing more of your minis!

Good luck Para.

The ultramarine look great

Had some time to kill this afternoon, so I took my first delve into the pile of unbuilt/unpainted minis I've brought with me and about 4 hours later, came out with this fellow:






He's built from the Forge World Rampagers set, but I've no idea if this loadout is legal; it just looked bad-ass, so had to be done. In the end this unit will be more like a Command Squad. There's a banner bearer in the works, and the others will be getting a mix of weapons whose only unifying theme is that they're all lethal. There's a Double-handed chainaxes, a power-flail, and I've yet to decide what the last guy is getting.

The camera I've got here isn't stellar, so sorry if these pics aren't any good, at least the lighting is decent. I'm rather pleased with the paintjob, it was an experiment in 'clean dirty', by which I mean that under the chipping and blood, there's hopefully some quite smooth white and blue going on (Lamhian Medium is the stuff of the gods when it comes to layering whites, get some if you haven't got any!). The face I'm also pretty pleased with, he looks suitably mean but also I think rather arrogant.

Let me know your thoughts! More soon, thanks for looking!

Looks fantastic. The White looks dirty rather than an off grey which is a common issue with trying to weather white. Excellent job I say.

For the last guy give him something silly like a pocket knife. Surely if everyone else is armed to the teeth the little guy with the small knife must be a true lunatic.

Cheers!

I was thinking of giving him just a shiv or something, maybe even just bare hands/brass knuckles. It depends what arms I have left, as I didn't bring my bits box.

Very cool indeed. Like it a lot, always fun to see csm.

Got another mini done last night, BMG's Azrael. Totally badass mini and character, which sadly I don't think the pics do justice to (I'm still figuring out this camera, so far my only lasting impression is that it's rubbish... hopefully I'll have access to a better one soon!). Still, these'll do for now, and I'll get better ones once my better setup is, er, set up!









That's it for now, thanks for looking! Any thoughts welcome!

World Eaters Standard Bearer up next!

love the rampager, you should set him up running at Azreal with Azreal standing with that pose just scream " please"to me

The Rampager and Azrael look very nice, I didn't realise his cloak was split like that.

Cheers guys!

Yeah, Azrael's pose just says 'go ahead punk, make my day!' He's not a guy you want to mess with...

He's rockin'. I need to get my hands on one.

Nice model

If you're having trouble with photos... you're in college right? You should just seduce a photography major. Or if you've already got a SO, convince the photo student that you can help them work on their macro work.

 Paradigm wrote:
Got another mini done last night, BMG's Azrael. Totally badass mini and character, which sadly I don't think the pics do justice to (I'm still figuring out this camera, so far my only lasting impression is that it's rubbish... hopefully I'll have access to a better one soon!). Still, these'll do for now, and I'll get better ones once my better setup is, er, set up!

So this is what Azrael does when he takes a break from leading the Dark Angels...
Sorry, couldn't resist!
I don't think the photos are too bad myself, although your blog is the only place I've heard of the character Azrael (the Batman one, not the Dark Angels Chapter Master of the same name). Not too familiar with Batman, overall, although I can still appreciate good-looking minis!

Out of curiosity, what kind of camera did you use most recently (for Azrael), and what did you use before?

Ta chaps!

Re: The camera, before I was using a rather good one, 14MP, lots of buttons to play with, various macro settings, nice big screen... now I'm using a FinePix F601Z from 2002, just 6MP, no tripod, Macro and Timers that are either on or off rather than variable, and with memory space for a whopping 5 pics if they're macro and in high quality! And the screen is less than an inch square, so it's hard to actually see if what I've taken is any good until Ioad them onto my computer... I'm sure when it came out 13 years ago it was a very good camera, but now... not so much.

One way or another I should be able to sort it, either by convincing the family that I need the decent one for minis more than they do for holiday pics, or by the new phone I should get hold of soon, which seems to have a very good camera on it.

Sorry for the mini-rant!

@ZS: Yeah, Az is pretty damn obscure. His two major roles are in Knightfall (where he takes over as Batman after Bruce is crippled) and the Arkham games (where he plans to take over as Batman after Bruce's secret identity is exposed).

Not a massively meaty update today, I've not had a great deal of time to put paint to plastic in the last week with lectures starting up. However, thought I'd throw up a few pics of what I have managed to get done. Just assembly so far, the rest of the Rampagers.

Guy 1, with Big-ass Axe of Axing.


Guy 2, with a chain-blade (as in a blade on a chain rather than a chainblade.... Confused? Me too?)


Guy 3, with a pair of morning stars. I'm debating whether or not to add a spare bit of chain to connect the two into one big weapon, or leave them two separate ones.


Fourth guy is part-painted, so looked terrible in the pics!

Lastly a few slightly better shots of the painted one:


So what's up next? Well, those Rampagers are on the list, and my entry into this month's challenge will be a lone Eldar Harlequin tangling with a group of Space Hulk 'Stealers. I'm also going to try and find time to paint up some fantasy stuff, I got a few members of the uni's board game society hooked on the D&D Adventure System game so I'll be doing up some more PCs for that and maybe a few more monsters.

That's all for now, hopefully I'll have some more soon!

Nice looking bunch of psychos. And if you have a spare length of chain, I’d defiantly connect those morningstars.

Done! It does look a heck of a lot better now!

Yeah those guys are BA! Glad to see you are enjoying them

Yessss, those Rampagers look excellent. How did you find working with the FW resin? Have never purchased anything from them myself.

Any particular fantasy stuff in the pipeline? Glad that you have had some luck with the board gamers at Uni too.

Cheers guys! Here's the second Rampager; he was going to have a banner but that just didn't work with the pose, so I lowered his arm and have him the spare axe.








With this guy, I tried out something that'll feature more on one or two of the others, tinting the white armour red in places. The fluff says that the WE are red by 40k as they basically stopped cleaning the blood off their armour (why waste time cleaning when you could be killing servants of the Corpse-god, eh?). The one thing I don't love about this kit is the heads, they're all pretty darn strange to be honest, but as I'm many miles from my Bits Box they'll do for now. Plenty of detail on them, they just look a bit odd...

As for the resin, it was fine to work with, very clean casts with only a couple of very, very minor bubbles and mostly on parts you can't see like under the feet or inside the shoulder pads. I've not done a huge amount of FW (Angron, these guys, and Solomon Lok and a DKOK commissar a few years back) but I've never had any issue with the casts or materials. I hear it's the vehicles you have to watch out for, as I guess they're more prone to warping.

On fantasy minis, I brought a bit of a mix, but there's things like my other Bugman, a couple of High Elves, assorted LotR characters and a couple of older minis that I may or may not get around to. I also plan to possibly revisit some of my Bones minis I did a while ago at some point.

That's all for today, cheers for looking! Any thoughts welcome!

Yeah the heads are stranger, but that is the WE butcher nails for you. It makes them look like a person from the matrix human battery complex. But the entire squad is looking great so far, sucks that the banner idea didnt work out though.

As mentioned in my last update, one of the things I'm now working on is a dungeon-delving party that's slightly more up to scratch than some of my previous Fantasy stuff, that, on getting it back out a few months later, looks decidedly sloppy. There will something of a mix of minis and ranges, though mostly LotR and WFB, and first up is the second Josef Bugman.

I've tried to change him up a bit from the one I did earlier in the year, most notably in the armament (a barstool is hardly dungeon-crawl material unless you're very, very good) but also in the palette and tone. To that end, the areas of gold and silver have been largely reversed on this one, and I've gone for different colours on the clothes and beard. The flesh method is also slightly different, but I tend to develop those on a model-by-model basis anyway. He's still technically WIP as I haven't decided where I'm going base-wise yet (possibly putting him on a slightly larger one with a suitably angry hunting hound mini), so feel free to suggest any changes!






That's it for now, let me know what you think! Ta for reading!

That is excellent Para, think it is one of the best miniatures you have done. The beard, skin, cape and metallics are all really top work. Well done Sir.

Wow, high praise indeed. I will admit there are some areas I'm particularly proud of, most notably the NMM on the axe and the beard (which the camera isn't being kind to, actually). Thanks!

In other news, I ordered a load more Batman yesterday after finding a great deal (about 50% off RRP). Coming some time this week I have Nyssa Al Ghul for the League of Shadows, Black Canary, Huntress and Batgirl for Batman/The Birds of Prey (they don't have their own list, but all work together in a 'Batman' crew), a Court of Owls starter, and the Joker and Harley Quinn sets to give me a full Joker team right off the bat (pun most definitely intended).No idea how soon or in what order I'll tackle them in, but expect a lot of Gothamy goodness!

Awesome!! The face and the hair particularly stand out to me. Excellently painted, made even better by the fact that dwarfs are a lot smaller.

Oh man, that's a lot of Batman things! I would imagine Harley and Joker are first (They are your entries to the monthly comp, right?).
Do you watch the TV show Gotham?

50% off retail? Sounds very good to me, great find.

I like that Bugman quite a bit. For a dungeon delver, consider a minimally intrusive base, perhaps just a flagstone floor?

Thanks guys!

@Zambro: Yeah, Harley and Mister J are up first, after that though it'll be whatever takes my fancy on any given day. It's a lot more than I'd normally buy at once, but I wasn't going to let this deal pass me by! I think the guy in Swap Shop still has a few bits if you want to grab a bargain!

I started watching Gotham, but gave up after about 6 episodes as it didn't seem to be going anywhere. I hear it gets better in the later episodes, though, so I may try it again at some point.

2nd season now. I'm loving it. The guy playing 'The Joker' (or is he?!) is cracking. Give it a good try Para - worth it. Loving that Bugman fig - absolutely one of your best. cracking job

oh here - while I'm at it....Para, you have good colour sense - the helemets of the dead termies at the feet (and in the claws) of my 'stealers........which chapter(s) do you reckon. I'm stumped

Good to know. If I see the DVD set cheap or it pops up on Amazon Prime (or Netflix when I get that renewed) then I'll give it a go!

Personally I have gone for BA helmets on Stealers I've done so far, just to tie them in with the boys in red when it comes to actually playing SH. For your almost monochrome Stealers, I'd definitely go for something pretty bright like BA or Ultramarines, just to add a spot of colour that should contrast nicely.

Aye. Thinking a browny red BA scheme. Don't want it to pop out too too much and distract from thheeeee hoorrrror lol. Was thinking of SW for personal satisfaction but the colours just don't go. BAs it is then!

Yeah, I think SW colours would be too 'cold' for the Stealers and get lost. Something along the lines of the scheme you used on the BA Sergeant would add a spot of colour without distracting from the models themselves.

Agreed. Cheers man

Here's the finished article. I've uploaded and deleted about two dozen pics today trying to get some that do him justice and I'm still not 100% pleased (with the pics, that is, I am rather proud of the mini itself). As far as basing went he's just on a standard round with a section of the tiled scenic base he comes with attached for some context.







Any thoughts welcome, hopefully the pics are all right. Up next will probably be either a High Elf Swordmaster (to double as a Paladin for D&D) or a Space Hulk Genestealer.

Bugman looks pretty good! Was he hard to paint?

Looking great! Love the job you did on his whiskers.

Thanks guys!

@ZS: There was nothing too complicated on him; the edging on the cloak and tunic were a bit fiddly but that's about it.

Good to hear you're getting your bat on again!