Work in Progress Wednesdays: Oldhammer, Heresy Miniatures and an Out of Production Mini

 

I've been finishing up the prep on an assortment of models I sent off a while back, and it's a bit of an eclectic mix. First up is Aenur, the Sword of Twilight. He was an Elf Ranger for Mordheim who came free with White Dwarf many years ago. He's a lovely sculpt, and I need to look at what he could be in Age of Sigmar before I decide on his paint scheme.

This dwarf berserker was originally made by a small company I found online called The Miniatures Apprentice. I think they're now out of business, sadly. They mostly did sci fi things, but this dwarf was their (only?) fantasy offering. He's a bit chunky, but I love him.

I've had this liche from Heresy Miniatures sitting around for a while. I've had a few miniatures by Heresy assembled over the years but rarely finished them. It doesn't help that a bunch of the older ones I had done on square bases, and I now much, much prefer rounds. I'll probably sell off the square based models and buy a new one from Heresy in those cases. In the meantime, I want to get paint on this creepy boy!

Nothing finished, but plenty going on

 Some of you may be asking "Hey, TRO, why haven't we heard from you about all the cool things you've painted recently?"

You should stop asking that. It shows that you're new in these parts.

Those of you who've been here longer (I'm so, so sorry) are more likely to be asking questions like "Hey, TRO, you haven't whined about not getting anything painted recently, what's up with that?"

 Well, the thing is that there's plenty going on. Just not much getting finished. The other weekend my darling wife helped me assembled some of my Infinity figures by using her Dremel. Assembled, unpainted figures aren't all that interesting, but here's one I took a photo of to post excitedly to Twitter about. She still needs her brass fire arc marker adding, as do a whole bunch of other ones.
 

I did get sat down the other day to do a little painting. It's not much, but the base and wash is in on the markers I'm going to use for Strategies in Malifaux. This won't be a complicated paint job - a few dry brushes and a little tidying up, and they'll be done.

Jumping on from that will be the rest of my "starter crew" which is using the models I already have to get up to 50 soul stones. I understand that's the standard game size. That means just two models - my Teddy, and a Convict Gunslinger (an old metal ltd edition "Miss"), although I do need to find a card for her.

I'm not sure what to do next from there - most of the other Malifaux I have is various limited edition bits and bobs I got with the Through the Breach Kickstarter or Black Friday bundles and stuff like that. I do have a University of Transmortis set, but I seem to remember I can't do the single player version of that without a Henchman to lead the crew (I need to find the rules booklet for it as I took it out to read and it's somewhere around here).

What I'm likely to do is get a model that makes a model useable / useful. For example, I have a Performer - once I get a Coryphee or two, she becomes useful in the Collodi crew as a Mercenary.

Getting other people to paint stuff for me is definitely worthwhile. Here's a quick snap of a Valkyrie painted for me by Vidpui. You should hire them. They're pretty great. I'm already planning on sending them another one!

I'm really not too worried about the lack of finished stuff I've painted in September - plenty of stuff is progressing nicely, it was just mostly on the assembly side of things. October is pretty busy too, with the Warhammer 40,000 Open Day and some painting lessons already booked in.

Also, a lot of the lack of progress has been down to me making the conscious decision to spend some of the energy tidying up my house and throwing out junk instead. I'm at peace with that because I'm generally happier as a result - and I think happier than I would have been if I'd painted instead of tidying. This blog isn't UYH so I'm not going to be posting "before" and "after" pictures of me tidying the dining table...

I'm planning on getting a Widow Weaver for the Collodi crew, and I decided to hunt out some tokens for her web markers. They need to be 30mm, and I went with these markers from Litko. I was worried about buying her and getting her finished before they came from the US, which is another spectacular example of my terrible over-estimation of how much painting I'll get done.

The webs themselves are some webbed markers, I'm guessing for D&D, but they are smaller than 30mm, which is what Malifaux needs. So, I also bought some thin clear 30mm discs from Litko to glue the webs to. Really pleased with how these have turned out.

Also, the other day I got a very pleasant surprise when The Miniatures Apprentice sent me some free stuff! I bought the "Mantis Warrior" from them a while ago, and while it's still in the box looking a bit intimidating, I was very impressed with the quality for first forays into the world of miniature production.

This chap is a mecha-dragon. He carries the halberd type thing underneath him as he flies. I reckon he's going to look pretty rocking when assembled up and painted.

Here's a mecha-wasp. (It's not all mecha, though!) Looking at TMA's shop, I haven't quite laid him out how you should assemble him. He'll work quite well in weird pulp games, a xenos antagonist for an INQ28 game, or possibly even as an alternative for some Necron thingummies, should one be so inclined.

Here's a chap who might be of interest to the adventuring types, and probably some of the Oldhammer folks as well. He's a dwarf warrior, looking really mobile and keen to engage with his enemies.

I really wasn't expecting to be sent a parcel of really quite gorgeous miniatures out of the blue, so thank you hugely to The Miniatures Apprentice! It has certainly laid on the guilt about my not having assembled and painted the Mantis Warriors I got before they went out of stock...

For the Oldhammer inclined, I've just spotted a new demon on the TMA webstore. I think he'll appeal to that sort of crowd! I kind of want one myself, but I really need to assemble and paint the stuff I've already got!

Stuff I got in March

As mentioned in my last post, I ended up buying a few bits and pieces which meant I didn't complete more projects than I bought. So, what was at fault?

The first culprit is Boatswain Rickard here, my entry into the Oldhammer Legacy Crew 2015 painting challenge. The idea is that everyone paints up a model to a theme (this year: Space Pirates) and then everyone's names are put in a hat and someone wins the crew.

The legs and backpack of the Boatswain are from a EM4 Miniatures' Space Ranger - I was given them many years ago while I was still at school. I felt that was suitably old school, and I haven't managed to find a use for them in two decades. The rest of the parts are from Anvil Industry. They have a nice look to them which works just fine. I considered adding an RTB01 pouch or ammo pack somewhere, but I couldn't find a suitable spot - for all that the old Space Ranger kit was a bit . . . primitive, there's a lot of sculpted detail.

The other purchase was two Mantis Battlesuits from The Miniatures Apprentice. You can currently buy them here, but I understand they're limited in supply. The flying one is currently showing as sold out!

This chap is new to the miniatures casting side of things, and I'm super impressed. You can see some of the lines from where the original was 3D printed, but a bit of fine sanding will clear that right up. The level of crisp detail is excellent, and these are really intricate kits.

I'm not a huge fan of the laser cut acrylic bases, but that's easy enough to fix. I was considering a nice resin display base or two for these ones anyway.

All in all, I'm really looking forward to the massive challenge that these kits are going to be. In that sort of "top of a rollercoaster" kind of way...