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I kind of like the idea of the metallic red, maybe 2 parts silver to 1 part red of choice followed by a red wash? That is what I did with my Alpha Legion (but not with red obviously).

Great to see more Iron Warriors and the barricades came out looking sweet.

Thraxas.

Nice work on the SW terrain. I finished off all my SW stuff apart from the terrain set last year. I'll have to dig the box out and see what I can do with it.

If Nerdfest ever comes over for a game let me know and I will try to arrive suspiciously around the same time and beg for a game too. Aussie Dakka Dakka all the way.

love those meat shields..........I mean tech thralls Az. Meant to pick some up at WHW but totally forgot. My wallet failed to remind me ><

One day we'll finally have that game. Or games. Maybe after 8th hits if 40k becomes less of a messy nightmare?

I keep getting distracted from those Thralls. I'm going to have to do some test models to find a way I'm happy with for the metallic red. But first, I need to clear a bunch of crap off my painting desk. To wit:

A bit over a year ago I busted open my Mars Attacks Accessory sets, and got to (slowly) working on the contents (occasionally). So far, I’ve finished the incredibly unimpressive result of 8 box stacks, from the four sets I had. Recently, I’ve finished a few other bits and pieces. Namely, the STOP signs, and the benches.



You can’t really tell here, but there’s a subtle metallic as part of the red and I tried out Warcolours Metallic White on the white sections. I did this to emulate the reflective qualities of real STOP signs, at least those located in Melbourne, where I live. I initially tried the metallic white over silver but it worked poorly, so I repainted the details in white, and then went over with the Metallic White. Even in-hand, the metallic effect needs to be pointed out with an “oh yeah, now I see it” result. A kinda generic grungy grey for the bases.



The benches. To me they seemed much more like public bus (or tram) stop-style benches than anything else. In keeping with this, I painted them in a horribly-plasticy bright orange, of the sort that would have been seen back in the 1980’s. Of course, back in the 80’s here the bus stop benches were made of concrete and wood, and painted a dark green. I dunno, I could have gone with a sleeker, more modern silver which would have been easier, but I felt that a harsh, bright colour (then dirtied a little) is a little more evocative of actual urban city streets. And the horrid orange just “feels” right for a bus stop. I used Warcolour’s Orange “One Coat”, though naturally, it took multiple coats to actually cover over the base silver spray. So much for “One” Coat…



Scale shot with thanks to a Minotaurs Space Marine and a T-800 Endoskeleton. I think these will be perfect for any modern/post apoc and even urban sci-fi battlefield that’s not too far removed from “Earth-like” environments. One day I might even paint up my Secret Weapon tiles from their Kickstarter. Seems like a Summer project…



Oh, and as an addendum. I found these yesterday. Ignore the game of Runebound in progress and note the ten(!) additional accessory packs that were inside a tub of Mars Attacks scenery when I was looking for an unassembled incomplete Imperial Bastion. That’s a hell of a lot of mould-line scraping before I can get to the easy-ish part of painting up all that scatter terrain…

The scatter terrain remains one of my favorite parts of Mars Attacks. You did a bang up job on them.

Thanks Josh!

This time I have a very “Oldhammer” Warhammer Orc Warrior, known as “Slyss” from the 2nd-3rd Edition era, sculpted by Kev Adams. I bought this guy and started to paint him long, long ago and only recently found him in a Chessex case and made myself complete him.



As can be seen, he’s one of those models with the huge, spiky shield boss. A big part of getting this guy finished was simply deciding what to do with it. The easier option would have been to make it a big, nasty spike. The other obvious option, though a little more involved was to follow Oldhammer tradition and turn it into a 3-D shield, and use the boss as the basis for a nose. Obviously, I went with the latter. I built up very slight brow ridges, bridge of the nose, cheekbones, lower lip, teeth and nostrils with liquid greenstuff. Mostly so the shield wouldn’t look like a completely flat piece with a big spike sticking out of it. The bridge of the nose and nostrils then, were the most important aspects.



The earliest reference I can find of this guy is in the 1987 Citadel Journal, which pretty safely dates the model to 1986-87. He’s an evil-looking bastard, alright – and a good example of the whole “older models have character” thing that people like to bandy around – and overuse at times. With such squinty eyes and a weird-as-hell mouth – he fits in here. He’d work okay these days as some sort of Chaos Mutant, painted in more human skin tones.



Rear view shows the slightly crude, but still detailed sculpting of Kev Adams’ early Warhammer Orcs. Along with the crocodillian mouth and face that is oddly reminiscent of some renditions of trollface. Also, my awesome handpainted woodgrain shieldback.



This pic is the money shot – my show-off pic for the freehanded Ogre-Face shield design. No radiating black sun lines or chequerboard on this one. Just the nasty face, scowling at the world in front.

I always check the pictures first before reading and my initial impression was that the shield was part of the model. Have an exalt, your extra work on the shield gives it a nice bit of extra Old Hammer feel to it.

Your solution for the shield spike is brilliant. I used to just shave them down to make a flat surface. If/when I get back to my Oldhammer stuff, I'll have to give this a try.

Love that shield Az! Indeed full of that undefinable "character".

That's a lovely looking Ork (well, as lovely paint job, not sure how lovely Orks actually are..)

Love that shield!

EDC

Superb work on the shield!

Lovely mini all round. I think what sets it apart from some of the lesser Oldhammer sculpts, much as I love even them, is the posing. He's clearly fighting, rather than just standing around oddly.

I didn't even know you could use liquid greenstuff for sculpting as well as gap-filling. This is impressive work though. And the painted-on woodgrain is a great touch to deal with the often blank backs of the early shields.

Thanks guys. I guess sometimes it's quite beneficial to have a big ol' nose!

I've pulled out some almost-as-old Orcs to work on bit by bit, but it'll be awhile no doubt before they're done. You'll be glad to know that only 3 of the 5 are standing around oddly (though 2 are Bolt Thrower crew, so I guess we can fogive those guys) but 2 of them could be said to be "in the fight".

I have recently finished some 4th ed-era orcs though, so they should be ready to show very soon once the varnish, photos, etc are all done. And a Heartbreaker Big'Un (or Black Orc?) just a few minutes ago.

The liquid greenstuff "sculpting" was pretty much just slowly layering it on, and pushing it around to the right places, then letting it dry and doing another layer. A slow and tedious process, but trying to get actual putty or GS on that shield would have been even more painful.

Recently I completed and showed off the barricades from the Sedition Wars Kickstarter’s Terrain Set. Today I have some more scatter terrain to share – specifically the crates.



Once again, these were inspired by the ones from Agis Neugebauer’s blog. I liked the weathering that he put into the crates, and also liked the contrast created via the red straps. He did use transfers to define them with Imperial cogs, and once again I decided to skip any markings that would tie them to any one universe, so they can be used in anything from “movie-style” Bolt Action WWII (when we don’t go to great pains to ensure historical accuracy of the design of all the crates left around that are being used as cover, through moderns, Star Wars (we can see how well they work above), near-future, post-apocalyptic right through to the 41st Millennium, where mundane things still often look strangely familiar…



The proud warriors of the Minotaurs Chapter provide scale reference alongside members of the Terror Australis Regiment of the A̶s̶t̶r̶a̶ ̶M̶i̶l̶i̶t̶a̶r̶u̶m̶ Imperial Guard. As can be seen, I gave them a light weathering, though not to the level of detail or care that Agis did on his. As far as scatter terrain goes, they’re really just more of the same sort of stuff I usually churn out at the level I’m happy to go with, generally. Not superbly exciting by any means, but additional, solid looking stuff that looks better than simply a spray and wash, a bit of extra weathering, though not nearly to the effort put in by people like D&B in his diorama-level pieces. Oh, I also found and finished one more of those U.S. DUST Tactics Supply Drop Crates, so it gets a guest appearance in this photo.

And finally, some “in action” type shots alongside some of the other appropriate scatter terrain I’ve finished in roughly the last year (so no stop signs here!) DUST Tactics Supply Drop Boxes, DUST Tactics Dragon’s Teeth and Confrontation Walls, and the very recent Sedition Wars Terrain Set Barricades. There’s not a lot of height variation, nor any foliage, but just these bits of scatter make a passable battle site for a small combat patrol sized skirmish.

Loving the scenery you've done here Azazel . Also nice job on the Oldhammer orcs .

Was hoping you'd paint up one of the STOP signs as SOP ala Simpsons movie lol.

Nice classic Cadians.

Those are some nice boxes, which is something I never thought that I would say about boxes.

I concur, those are some quite nice crates.

Thanks guys - that's not the end of the scatter terrain I have to show in the next few updates, but I prefer to mix it up with other stuff I've finished recently. To keep it somewhat interesting and whatnot....

I have been going back and forth between Dwarves and Orcs a bit over the past couple of months. Well, rather than break that pattern, I’m going to continue with it while I get a bunch of models on my desk completed. Hopefully without adding too many more to the queue.



I recently decided to dig out all of my metal Slayers with the intent on working my way through them. In that batch are a pile more of the mid-90’s range, as well as a bunch from the Marauder range.



I was never a big fan of the Marauder Slayers. They were just a bit random for my taste, and a bit cartoony to boot. While the Slayer look wasn’t as fully defined at that stage, the archetype that will always work for me is “Wild Nyjhul”. The Marauder Slayers were overall a bit far from that.



I don’t think the painted examples helped too much either (grey beards and orange hair just looked – and still looks – odd). Finally, I just didn’t like the Morrison’s Dwarf sculpts as much as I did the Perry’s. Some of their other Dwarves are very fine, but their Slayers just aren’t as good. Citadel’s Dwarves have always had wonky proportions, but the Marauder Slayers were overall a step a little too far towards them just being heads with arms and legs attached.





Now that I’ve spent the last 5 minutes slagging them off. The act of painting them has warmed me to these models a bit. I also like the fact that they’re not all armed with the typical axes. After all, Dishonoured Dwarves would have come from a variety of walks of Dwarven life, and so I see the other weapons mixed in – particularly the swords – as a reflection of that. Particularly for the (let’s face it) less impressive models like the Marauder models that can be viewed as representing Dwarves who have more recently taken the Slayer’s Oath.





I’ve included a bonus shot of the naked slayer, to show off his dragon tattoo. I think I may have to go back over it with the blue to redefine it though. The thin layer of flesh to embed the tattoo “into his skin” seems to have worked a little too well…





For the wounded slayer, I considered adding fresh blood to his wrappings after varnishing the models. I decided against it, instead going for more of a dried blood stain on them than a monents-fresh set of wounds. Think David Wenham in 300.



I decided on a group shot of all my currently-finished Slayers, to see how they looked together. Also including the rebased-on-32mm Stonehaven Dwarf Berserker, who I think looks much better on the larger base.







Then while putting them all back onto the shelf with the new three, I noticed that I actually had enough for a complete KoW regiment, plus the two heroes on their 32mm bases. So, having accidentally achieved Numberwang, I took them down again and mounted them on a unit base and took a couple more photographs. They’re guaranteed to be juggled around as I complete more of the metals. The later Giant Slayers will be condensed into their own regiment along with standards and musicians, while the smaller models – Troll Slayers as well as the Marauder and older Citadel models will end up on their own regiment base. But for now, they’re ready to kick some arse as a single unit!

They look really impressive. The sculpts may be a little odd. But they certainly look the part of the unhinged, demented and honourless of their race.

Marauder sculpts definitely had their own character, didn't they I think your paintjob has brought out the best in them.

Nicely done. It must feel great to suddenly have a unit done and ready to field. Do you have enough dwarves painted for KoW?

Thanks Gents. Working on another trio of the Marauder Slayers in the queue right now (amongst other things), and it'll be good once they're all done.

It was a nice surprise to have enough for a unit. I've now got 3 regiments - the slayers and the two BFSP ones, 3 BFSP cannon (still lacking crew), 2 Slayer heroes, 1 other hero just finished - to be shown shortly, and probably enough to field another regiment of rag-tag dwarven adventurers/explorers. Or close to it. Definitely a troop at least.

So I guess that's enough for a small force for small games. More of an ally-sized force for the moment, I think.

Keeping up the tradition of Orcs vs Dwarves, today we have some more of the mean, green boyz. Specifically a trio of Big’Uns from the early 90’s – 1992-93 to be more exact, or the early days of WHFB 4th edition.



As befits orcs of this size, I’ve rebased them both on 32mm bases. They’re both just too big for 25mm bases – round or square. With a pair of duplicate sculpts here, I had the options of painting them the same, mass-assembly style, converting one for proper uniqueness, or giving them different shields and simply painting them a bit differently. I went with the third option, both because it’s an acceptable compromise and because these days I’m really loath to chop up old figures that aren’t already broken for conversion purposes. I mean, I cut a slotta out of all of these flat-topped 32mm bases rather than snip the slotta off the model!



The ogre-sun-face shield is (I think) from the goblins in the 4th Edition WHFB starter box, while the grinning goblin-faced shields are positively ancient – from the PBS3 Warhammer Fantasy Regiments plastic boxed set circa the late 1980’s. Damn, I wish I could buy a few of those boxes today.

Nice work on the orcs. I'm not particularly fond of orcs from that era, but you made them look nice.

I totally understand where you are coming from re: not chopping up older models. I had a bear of a time basing my Melniboneans for just that reason.

All the blood in my head just rushed to my nostalgia.

Lovely orcs there az, especially love the skin tones.

About the bases... I recently managed to snag 60 Blood Bowl slotted 32mm bases and now I won't have to snip any Oldhammer tabs or carve into the bases. Very convenient.

Thank you guys. I still have a real fondness for Kev Adams' orcs, despite their cartoony look. My Orcs were the only full-sized army that I didn't sell off during my great WHFB purges of the past. And now I'm going to (very slowly) paint them.

Joyboozer - you're directly responsible for the figure I dug out last night, and am putting on the fast track. Plan is to get him painted and finished today, so hopefully I'll actually get him painted by the end of the weekend.

Thanks Mymaeran. Those Blood Bowl bases sound ideal. Which figures do they come with? I thought the BB stuff was non-slotta plastic??

No the Blood Bowl figures are actually slotta figures, weirdly enough. They all come with 32mm slotta bases AFAIK.