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As noted back when I started painting this model, Raging Heroes' Jinx was a gift for someone. There's a little story behind it, though - which I'll share now. Back when the RH KS1 pledge manager was a thing, I asked a question in the chat box and was answered by Mirielle. Now at times I've been both a strong supporter and also a strong critic of RH (sometimes at the same time), and not been shy to take the piss, either (Hey BrookM!) - so this led to a couple of interesting and quite amicable chats over a couple of days.

In those conversations, we talked about what we do a bit, and in there I mentioned how I worked with a young lady with ASD who is also completely in love with cats, to the point where she writes a blog based around my own cat. Mirielle made a very kind gesture, and offered to send out a 54mm sculpt of Jinx as a gift for this young lady. Fast forward to roughly a year later and the last wave of RH KS stuff arrived, including Jinx.



There was a bit of mold slip, which I was (mostly) able to clean up on a fairly tight timeframe, as I was attempting to get it finished before the 4th of December, when the young lady finished up and moved on. Since work becomes an actual nightmare at that time of year - as I've referenced before - it didn't get completed - cleaning the Trollcast resin just to get started was quite problematic, but I made arrangements with her parents to catch up with them and her over the start of the New Year. This gave me a chance to keep working on the model.

Since Jinx is theoretically one of those hairless cats, there's no fur texture. I decided not to worry about the "lore" but went instead for colours that would be acceptable in animation - something that would stand out - and so Jinx became a shorthair with purple fur. Highlighting and shading was going to be an issue with a model this big on a deadline, and I'm still far from confident with an airbrush, so I went with a very careful drybrush and wash combination, which seems to have come up quite nicely.



With purple, gold/brass was an easy choice for a nice contrasting colour for Jinx' jewellery. I'm sure gold jewellery could have had something to do with the choice of purple for Jinx' fur, but at this point I can't recall. The faint texture of the resin gives enough of an impression of very short fur, certainly on the 54mm Jinx. Basing was a bit of a quandry - I certainly wasn't going to add sand and flock or tufts, since this is a shelf ornament rather than a wargame model. In the end I went for classic black. I did a little more touch-up after these photos were taken, and varnish was applied immediately afterwards. Gloss varnish on the gems, eyes, etc, yesterday morning.



In the end, the large details were quite nice to paint, and not one of those painful models at all. I checked the RH webstore and it seems that the 54mm Jinx isn't available at all. I think perhaps the 54mm Mascots were exclusives limited to the Kickstarter campaign/backers? Most importantly of all, when I presented the model to her yesterday she was absolutely delighted and it was immediately decided that Jinx is "an Egyptian Cat". Her parents were also touched by the story behind it, so I do have to publicly offer a warm thank you again to Mirielle and Raging Heroes from all of us here.

 Azazelx wrote:
As noted back when I started painting this model, Raging Heroes' Jinx was a gift for someone. There's a little story behind it, though - which I'll share now. Back when the RH KS1 pledge manager was a thing, I asked a question in the chat box and was answered by Mirielle. Now at times I've been both a strong supporter and also a strong critic of RH (sometimes at the same time), and not been shy to take the piss, either (Hey BrookM!) - so this led to a couple of interesting and quite amicable chats over a couple of days.

My senses were tingling, something was triggered. But yeah, I'm in the same boat as you in all honesty, I want them to succeed for sure and they will get my money, but I also strongly feel that criticism has its place in it all. What a ride that was.

 Azazelx wrote:
In those conversations, we talked about what we do a bit, and in there I mentioned how I worked with a young lady with ASD who is also completely in love with cats, to the point where she writes a blog based around my own cat. Mirielle made a very kind gesture, and offered to send out a 54mm sculpt of Jinx as a gift for this young lady. Fast forward to roughly a year later and the last wave of RH KS stuff arrived, including Jinx.

Job's a good 'un for sure, it's an interesting paint scheme for the critter, but it works well with the extra pieces of jewellery on the model, making for a nice contrast.

And kudos to Raging Heroes indeed for sending you one, it's indeed a nice gesture.

edit.

The 54mm mascots will be added to the range at a later date, they're not KS exclusives and according to the pledge manager site will go up for around $27 a model.

Awesome story, and a great model to go with it I'm glad she enjoyed the gift, long fought for and well deserved.

Also you saving Iron Warriors till end of the year sounds good. Maybe by then I'll decide to break mine out of their fortified dungeon world and we can have a co-challenge like I'm facing Grimdork with. Though getting together for a game might be problematic

That's a creepy lookin' kitty there Azazel, nice work

Jinx looks fantastic. The purple is a startling choice of colour that works well with the jewellery.

Thank you gents. Theo - that sounds like a plan, mate. I've got a games table here, so you'll have to come out here for a game. There's a fold-out couch, fridge and TV in the War Room, so it'll all be good.

 Azazelx wrote:
Thank you gents. Theo - that sounds like a plan, mate. I've got a games table here, so you'll have to come out here for a game. There's a fold-out couch, fridge and TV in the War Room, so it'll all be good.

I'll have to start getting in shape then because the only way it's happening is if I manage to swim their while carrying my mostly metal iron warriors . Plus I'll have to work on my immunity to all the poisons if your land while Honning my senses to keep me alert from attacks from drop bears, great while sharks and beautiful Australian supermodels (well two of those at least).

Very nice indeed. The little mouse looks pitiful.

Cool cat. The mouse it has caught looks absolutely terrified.

Looking forward to seeing some undead.

EDC

Yeah, the poor mouse! Not normally softhearted about that but the expression on the poor guy's face, and the evil grin on the cat...very nice.

Btw, I reckon dual projects for Gondor/Undead is a good idea. Gives you a change of pace every now and then which is neede d when you're doing block infantry.

Sweet purple cat dude. That poor mouse lol. Eyes are just bugging out.

 Theophony wrote:

I'll have to start getting in shape then because the only way it's happening is if I manage to swim their while carrying my mostly metal iron warriors . Plus I'll have to work on my immunity to all the poisons if your land while Honning my senses to keep me alert from attacks from drop bears, great while sharks and beautiful Australian supermodels (well two of those at least).

That's cool. Don't worry about the immunity thing. I'll be able to keep you safely away from at least one or two of those things.

I didn't even notice the mouse at first. It was a bit of a shapeless blob until I worked out what it actually was supposed to be, and then I had to paint it!

I Should have some undead finished shortly. Just need to finish this second batch of Spartans first. I'm hoping to use the models that are well on their way to completion to help me get through them while I clear out a couple of other things (the December stuff, another gift) and then I can mix up boring block infantry with more interesting characters, monsters, etc.

In the meantime, here's another gift I finished on Friday for the same person.





No huge story behind this one. They love Grumpy Cat and LPS, so when my wife happened to see this particular sculpt (which is apparently the one that people repaint as Grumpy) I bought the pack and repainted it as well. I already used it in the motivational picture for the Take of 4 Billion Gamers thing the other day.

That's some grumpy cat, alright...

Nice work on both of them

Thanks Insaniak!

And now the fruits of most of the last couple of week's labour. (Cats aside)

Today I finally finished the second two dozen of these. The first batch had all but two wearing the bronze bell curiass - the other couple wearing a linothorax. I realised that with the limitations of the Warlord/Immortal kit there was no avoiding having a whole lot of the models simply wearing robes and a helmet. So this lot are in essence the "secondary" group of Spartans to the first. Like the first batch, these are a little anachronistic in terms of their gear, but nomoreso than most media depictions and they look decent, so I'm fine with it.



As such, I went for a shield scheme that would be distinctive from the previous set, to mark them out as a separate unit. Black Lambdas on a bronze field, rimmed with red was a simple scheme to apply that also looks striking and effective.



Being a mass of historical figures that will be far in excess of my "proper" Fantasy armies - and also made of figures on the low end of the detail scale, being both "historical truescale 28mm" and frankly not that detailed anyway (their feet are just undetailed hams with a hint of toes at best) I gave them as simple a tabletop job as I can stand to. I still couldn't help going and lining the clothing of every one of them with a bit of white pattern, though. You can really only see some it from the side or behind, though.



They'll be predominantly used for Kings of War at this point, and so the 24 models make up either two regiments - or more likely a horde - of Spear Phalanx. Marouda helped sporadically, but didn't enjoy the experience, so I ended up doing much more on them than I'd planned to.



As with the previous unit, I did a simple conversion to mark out the leader. Not that it matters for KoW, but I like to take the opportunity to add a little bit of character in this way. I gave him his spear to hold in his shield hand so that he could wave his sword in the air, no doubt while delivering a stirring speech or battle cry to his men. If many years of warhams have taught me anything, it's that leaders must be shouting, not wearing a helmet, pointing, or waving something around in the air. It's simply the rules.

I should also point out that since these guys are neither Undead nor Gondorian, I'm not counting them towards the Tale of Umpteen Gamers 6-month army painting challenge. Instead, these guys are just to be counted as more of the "general stuff" that I work on throughout the year.

Company Master Balthasar (40K Dark Vengeance set) would like a word with you on that point re Leaders lol. Helmeted and generally looking badass with his sword Fellbane..

You may feel you have gone light on the painting quality, but I don't think that comes across in the photos. They look fantastic.

Yep they do look very good indeed.

While they do look great, I must say, harump, that the historical accuracy of these models is most questionable, therefore totally ruining the immersion for me.

I kid and as mentioned, this "light" paint job is aeons better than what I can muster on a good day.

Yep, good stuff as usual, Az. Keep on truckin

Fantastic work!

Excellent work on the Spartans

Loving those Spartan Az - wonderful jpb

Thanks guys - Much like the Warriors of Minas Tirith, they're not much to look at individually, but they look good and effective as a whole unit - which is what I was aiming to achieve with these. I'll put more work into the heroes and better quality figures that I do down the line.

Those Spartans are nifty. Is this the start of your fifth (sixth? tenth?) army?

Uh.... the problem is that unlike Archer, I never seem to actually finish them. I do at least get them onto the table (sometimes) though.

Let me work out what's at least reasonably table-ready for KoW - so not counting stuff that I haven't started or models that are random/odd/not nearly fieldable yet like the GW O&G/Beastmen/Chaos:

Ogres
Moria Goblins
Minas Tirith
Basileans East (Confrontation prepaints)
Basileans West (Confrontation prepaints)
Blood Elves
Undead
(Mythological) Greeks




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My hobby work for today/tonight:

Cleaning up 20 single-piece metal Wargames Foundry Harpies from their Mythological Greek range, flattening the little jokes of a integral metal base they have so I could superglue them down to Renendra 25mm rounds.



Seriously! Look at those tiny and skinny little things!



So then I decided to greenstuff around and over each and every one of them in the hope that it'll help them stay on their bases and not pop off as a result of looking at them funny. Once that dries, I'll use some acrylic putty, then glue the sand down, then prime and take it from there. I'll see if I can get Marouda enthusiastic and set a highly idealised target for the 20 of them for Monday night completion to varnish, and Tuesday night for static flock and photos. Wish me luck!

Back in August last year, I put up a post reviewing the Ral Partha Europe Undead Ogres from the Das Schwarze Auge line – Undead Ogre – Axe, and Undead Ogre – Club. I'd recently picked them up and shared my experience with ordering from RPE and showed off the figures as well as the minor conversion work I did on them. I'd originally planned to take them to work, since painting bone and metal is something I can do there with limited time and a limited palette. It never actually happened, since the models were a bit too big to find a small enough carry case for them once I'd based them on their 40mm squares. So, like so many others, they sat on my desk, staring at me for months with baleful eye(sockets).



Thanks to starting up the "Tale of X Gamers" army painting challenge here last week, I had something to motivate me to get these suckers finished. I couldn't choose between the Undead and Gondor, so eventually I decided to try and do both - 1 unit from each per month. Hopefully I can pull it off.



So here they are. As a direct result of making some rules for myself in the form of the challenge, I knuckled down and finished these guys off yesterday. Mostly it was a matter of highlighting the bone, painting the shield, and finishing off the metal. Not too much, but sometimes it's a matter of making yourself complete these things rather than an actual lot of work.





This trio will be used in Marouda's Undead Army for Kings of War. We'll use the entry for Zombie Trolls, since the stats fit well enough with these big fellas. Now I owe the Gondor Army a completed unit for January!

Those are great!

Look at the wights profile, got bumped up to large infantry and may provide another option.

Very nice. I remember seeing those as WIP last year. They turned out great, especially the customization . I may have to get some for myself.

If nothing else they can be used in dungeon saga as an undead troll. I guess the same for KoW as well. They look awesome. It would help to fill out an army of the old Dogs of War undead where they had skeleton skaven, orcs, goblins and such.

 GrimDork wrote:
Those are great!

Look at the wights profile, got bumped up to large infantry and may provide another option.

Yeah, though I've also got some wights painted that I'm very happy with - and a few more from Otherworld that are also really nice sculpts. I'll make them a custom base with holes that they can slot in and out of to keep them "legal".






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 JoshInJapan wrote:
Very nice. I remember seeing those as WIP last year. They turned out great, especially the customization . I may have to get some for myself.

Thanks Josh. The customising was easy, and the models themselves were very cheap, even with the postage. It'd be great to see your take on them!

 Theophony wrote:
If nothing else they can be used in dungeon saga as an undead troll. I guess the same for KoW as well. They look awesome. It would help to fill out an army of the old Dogs of War undead where they had skeleton skaven, orcs, goblins and such.

I wish you could still get those older models easily and cheaply. Or at least modern ones by other companies that filled the cheap and easy criteria - along with being decent sculpts. I'm sure there's some out there, but I ain't found them yet... They could be used in DS for the trolls, and theose are the stats we plan to use them with in KoW as well. I'll also get the DS ones painted up at some stage as well, but these three were the ones that were outstanding for the last 6 months on my desk...