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

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



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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ahem.

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

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

...



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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm glad to hear your mother is better.


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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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



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

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



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



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



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

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

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

Cracking stuff, as usual splendid paintwork and fascinating variety!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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





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




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





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

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

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

Lovely stuff

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

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

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

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

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

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

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