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I looked back a few pages and didn't see a thread for this, so I thought it might be fun to have one. Please feel free to post your finished minis in this thread, too.

Is anyone else painting the free minis that GW stores giveaway each month? I thought I might make an effort to do it so that it gives me a diversity of models to paint, and not get stuck on black power armour (BL CSM general here).

Also, I have just returned to the hobby after a long break, so this is literally the first mini that I have painted, based AND varnished in around 15 years. Also, a first for me, not a stroke of metallic paint was used. Please be kind!

June 2024 GW free mini: Darkoath Warrior.

Never mind being out of the hobby 15 years, that's a damn fine paint job any time.

I've been getting the free minis since April (I think) last year, when I found out about them - I'm sentimental enough to enjoy the excuse to go into the store for a bit (without feeling like I need to buy anything just so I'm not wasting everyone's time, although most of the time I wind up buying something anyway), even though it does mean assembling the minis without all the usual tools (I take in my familiar clippers and file, but you can't just bring a hobby blade in), and under just the ceiling lights rather than a pair of LED desklamps pointed right at the mini so I can properly see what I'm doing. At first I was converting everything to be useful to my warband because that's all I was doing in the hobby anyway (I've had other armies previously, but these days it's just Slaanesh) - starting this year I've taken to just painting random things for the fun of it, even if I'll never have a tabletop use for them, but the whole chaos conversion on free mini day has become kind of a tradition, so I'm keeping at it (the regular staff at the store have taken note of the trend, and are curious each month what I'll come up with).



From the beginning, starting with an Assault Intercessor, now one of my heavy melee weapon legionaries, the Terminator arm scales well to the Primaris boys - my excuse for the lack of spiky trim is this one's just joined up and the armour hasn't fully mutated yet. Since I didn't file the wings off I decided she's still wearing her loyalist chestplate in mockery of the Imperium, which let me play with a different colour scheme in the happy knowledge that I wouldn't have to paint whole squads with that blasted neat colour line down the centre, it took me half a dozen touch-ups just to get that little bit looking right. Next an Arbitrator who's now I guess a traitor guard sergeant, given the boltgun - I don't pay attention to rules and who can have what weapons when I'm converting, just whatever seems fun. Next, a Termagant mixed up with Steed parts, which I guess I'd probably field as an Accursed Cultist Torment and just assume it's too insane to aim so the plasma pistol doesn't come into play - one of the folks at the shop wasn't sure Tyranids were capable of falling to chaos, but my feeling is Slaanesh can seduce anything, and if my warband needs to open up enemies' heads and implant whole new brains in them so they're capable of feeling desire, so be it. And next, a twofer, with the top half of a Saurus Warrior becoming a Chosen, and the legs later contributing to a particularly thicc daemonette (its shield ended up on a Necron too).



And catching up to the present: an Infernus marine who turned up just as I realised the legionary I'd given a backpack with a book mounted on it also had a boltgun, and the Balefire Tome bearer shouldn't have a boltgun, so I found another book (from the sorcerer, I think) and set to work - I did some painted spiky trim to help disguise the Primaris parts a bit, although the chestplate's another one where it's the loyalist colours on purpose, this time the original Minotaurs scheme. Next, Hormagaunt Replacement Therapy, I actually really like the sense of motion in the pose she ended up with (like the Saurus, the rest of the gaunt ended up on other miniatures, with the head on a spike on a Chosen's backpack, and the torso now a Possessed's head). Then a Sternguard Veteran, and I was a bit tired of painting on some trim and pretending they'd only just been corrupted and hadn't finished getting their proper armour yet, so he got turned into a gun servitor - White Consuls chapter, so the grime would stand out, his daemonette doesn't really clean him that often. And the most recent one completely painted (because like 90% of it was just two contrast paints, for the skin and hair, so I figured why not finish it off), a beastman or whatever they're called now - technically could've joined the warband straight out of the box (not that anyone in a Slaaneshi warband is straight for long) but I felt like I needed to mess with something about it, so the leftover Possessed arm, and a Sororitas helmet trophy to cover up the hole where the pistol holster's supposed to plug in, now there's no pistol - I'm not planning on getting a whole beastman squad, so this is probably an Accursed Cultist now.

I've picked up all the other free minis since I started as well, but they're not painted yet - I've got quite a backlog of minis waiting their turn to be painted, so most of the free minis get undercoated and then put into the standby box until I haven't got anything else pressing to do and maybe they'll catch my eye.

Wow, they look amazing! And painting them to a theme is something I wish I had thought of.

 Aspiring Champion wrote:
Wow, they look amazing! And painting them to a theme is something I wish I had thought of.

It's become a fun kind of self-imposed challenge. I feel like Slaanesh is uniquely suited to it as well, even moreso than the other chaos powers it makes perfect sense for a Slaaneshi warband to be a collection of random freaks with no rhyme or reason to what they look like.

Anyway, finished another one this evening:



Originally a neurogaunt, now a daemonette for people who're really into the animalistic insectoid look, the Eye of Terror's a weird place, somebody'll be keen. Funny story about this one, normally I bring a bag full of various sprues and bits containers into the store to see what seems like a good idea once I've got the mini in hand, but just from seeing the picture of the neurogaunt on the news page I was sure it'd be a daemonette conversion, so I just brought the daemonette box - and in the process forgot the little container I use to get these things home safely, despite all the conversion meaning they're generally much more fragile than the stock minis until the plastic cement's had time to properly set. So I asked one of the staffers to put it in the back room for collection during the week - when I turned up after work the following Monday, the manager - who hadn't been there Saturday - knew immediately why I was there, because he'd spotted this weird little thing in the back and realised it had to be one of mine.

Finished painting this month's Kroot Carnivore:



Still a maneater, just metaphorical - maybe also literal, you never know what Slaanesh will get up to. I knew this was going to be a daemonette conversion as soon as I saw those lanky legs (the regular daemonette poses are so dull, like they're just milling around waiting for the battle to start, so any excuse for a bit of flair), so I prepared a daemonette torso with a smooth cut waist at home - cutting the Kroot in half in-store wasn't so easy, since the torso's two pieces front and back and I didn't have time to dry it solid before cutting, and it was just with clippers instead of a blade, but the Kroot shoulder armour added to the right hip covered the worst of the messy join. I haven't gotten around to painting my box of pistol-and-ccw cultists yet, so I gave her a pistol so she can be one (my rifle cultists are still filling in, but I like to go WYSIWYG as much as I can) - still used the Kroot left arm, and fitting the hand to the wrist meant to support the rifle gave her this tilted over quick-draw gunslinger look which I didn't plan, but quite like; similarly happy accident, I primed her when it was possibly still a bit too humid, or cold, or whatever, so the wraithbone cracked a bit instead of being nice and smooth, but I think that dry look on her skin plays into the wild west theme too.

Finished one I've had sitting on the bench for a little while:



This ghoul stumped me a bit for useful ideas when it was revealed - seems like a bunch of other people likewise didn't have much use for it, the store was still offering them to people well into the next month - since while I'm sure Slaanesh has a place for people who want to be or be intimate with a reanimated corpse, it's not my personal warband's aesthetic. But then I thought, if it can't be useful to Slaanesh, it can be useful to one of Slaanesh's followers, and ended up with the Ponyghoul. Mounting the rider (from the daemonette cavalry) presented a bit of a problem, since the ghoul's got that big mane of back fur sticking up, and putting her in front of that, where she'd essentially have been riding his neck, would've had the whole thing off-balance since he's stooped forward so far. So in the end I just fudged it - hacked a chunk out of the mane to make room, glued her on (not really sitting 'on' anything), then used that skull and ponytail from, I think, the Orc that was an earlier MOTM to hide the lack of any kind of proper seating arrangement. Since the ghoul's on the battlefield anyway he may as well make himself useful so I gave him an old stikkbomb from Gorkamorka leftovers, and then I got to thinking backstory for the miniature and stuck a Khorne icon (from the set of little icons you get with the Chosen to make their Chaos Icon) on his belt, to suggest he was a Berzerker who got captured by my gals, and this is probably not how he imagined himself serving chaos for all eternity, but a job's a job right? (Despite the grenade I'd just field this as a regular daemonette.)