Goblins!

Yet more miniatures painted by someone who isn't me! Here's my first batch of goblins by Brushchewer Inc. Once I've found the light box I'll take some better photographs.

This definitely proves my idea that a bundle of goblins from different miniatures from different manufacturers painted in a unified scheme really do look excellent as a motley horde of troublemakers.

I just need to have a serious think if I want to go through with an entire army of them given my current priorities.

I've just received notification that my copy of the Infinity book Third Offensive has arrived, complete with a complementary Libertos Freedom Fighter, so that's a twentieth model purchased, but 20 painted goblins is definitely starting to catch up!

Hopefully the weekend will allow me to get some painting done myself...

Models Painted: 30
Models Purchased: -20

WIP Goblins from Brushchewer

As all is still boxes here in the land of the Responsible One, I thought I’d share some work in progress pictures I got from Brushchewer Inc, who are painting an assortment of my goblins at the moment.

There’s a good selection in the batch - the idea has always been that the army is a motley assortment of different body shapes of goblin brought together by a single paint scheme. You can see some Northumbrian Tin Soldier Nightfolk, a figure from GoblinAid and one from Atlantis Miniatures. I don’t recall where the drummer is from - he’s almost certainly a Kev Adams sculpt, but I don’t recall if he’s Crooked Claw or someone else!

Still, it’s always good to see some progress on miniatures you’ve sent off elsewhere! I can’t wait to see them back in person when they’re finished.

A nice scenery idea from Warhammer: Tottenham Court Road

A while back, I was pottering through Warhammer: Tottenham Court Road, and what should catch my eye...

Of course, it's the scenery. This Arcane Ruins set was painted by basing black, drybrushing with green, then a gloss varnish to give it a reflective feel. Definitely a method I'll want to try myself later.

Old Warhammer World Photos: Fantasy Village

Back in 2013, I went up to an open day at Warhammer World, and at one point went around taking a bunch of modelling reference photos of some of the various gaming tables they have up there. I've been doing a bit of maintenance on old folders and found these during the clear out, and thought people might be interested.

This set of photos is of a fantasy village table, intended for gaming. What I loved about it was that they'd just used the standard kits of the time and painted them well to give a very different feel to the usual box art.

A busy weekend - Forsaken and lots of figure prep

Well, after aiming to get them done in August, I've finally got five Forsaken painted and table ready in January! This is another unit for my challenge with James at Gonzo History Gaming. These are my first finished models of the year, and it's left me feeling really positive and cheery.

I've also pottered along with assembling one of the Chaos Spawn - it's an astonishingly versatile kit for it's time. I'm looking forward to getting this one fully assembled and painted. It will be serving double duty in both Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40K.

Here's some old "never released by Citadel" figures that Wargames Foundry have now put out under their Warmonger Miniatures line. They'll be joining a squad of "not GW" Inquisitorial retinue of various figures I've picked up over time of stuff I thought was cool.

The space suited miniature had a bump on his backpack that I recognised as being intended for a Space Marine style backpack. I dug out a Forge World piece from the bitz box (I think it may be from a Legion Recon Squad? I don't know) so he could have one. I thought it was a fun mix of old and new.

I also finished basing up the EM4 Miniatures scavengers I'd started on last weekend. As those around the UK will be aware, it's not exactly been undercoating weather, so there's a big build up of bits and pieces awaiting undercoating.

Well, this takes the biscuit for rubbish progress pics, doesn't it? At least there's some other, real progress above it. This is a Forge World Renegade psyker and an Antenocitis Workshop "egg car" I got as a freebie when I attended the Infinity Winter Challenge down in Exeter.

I washed the resin, as you should, and cleaned up the (minimal) mould lines on both. I'm planning on doing a "cracked earth" style base for the psyker, so I'm keeping him separate to his base until both are painted. This is a bit of a new thing for me. To get the base ready for undercoating, I filled in the little hole the GW bases have with a bit of polyfilla.

So, there you go - 12 figures made ready for undercoating, and the last 2 figures of a set of 5 painted. I'm not sure if we'll keep up the pace, but I'm pleased to be managing to get some time at the hobby desk and not getting distracted and wandering off.

New Year, New Me

To the left of my obviously immaculate and well organised paint desk, lies a small pile of miniatures I simply dropped onto my desk because I thought they would be a "quick win". I'm aware some of them have been there since the start of last year, at least, so perhaps it was time to start pushing through them in the New Year.

I'm aware that the "Tale of Gamers" challenge has nominally finished, and I have missed the deadline, but as far as hobby goes (if not in my work life) I will quote Douglas Adams: "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they go by."

I'm going to continue on with the project, but at a slightly more (!!!) erratic pace than before, taking a leaf from my co-conspirator's approach and having a little break by painting or assembling whatever takes my fancy.

So, first up on the desk as a result of the "Just get something done! Anything!" policy are these scavengers from EM4 Miniatures I was part way through assembling at the end of 2015, and put to one side as I had too much work in progress at the time.

I've filed down all the flash and glued them to their bases. Just going to fill the basing gaps, add rocks and sand, so they're ready to undercoat. They'll then go on the "wait for the weather to improve" undercoating pile.

In the background, you can see that 3 of the 5 Forsaken are now done, and the last two are inching closer to being finished. There's also a Chaos Spawn with a head attached to a base that I don't recall if I've posted before or not.

One of the reasons that my painting is slowing down a little is that I've realised that clutter is not good for my productivity, so spending more of my free time tidying up around the house. This is the evidence as to why I need to do this more. I cleared the right hand side of my computer desk last weekend. At the bottom of this pile, I found these business cards and ticket stub, helpfully dated to show when the pile started.

Meanwhile, do you recall the blacksmith I did for the Chaos Villager challenge at the Oldhammer Forum? It turns out, I was the lucky winner, so have been sent an amazing collection of creativity and art. Most have not been based, to allow their owner to base them up to match their forces. I'll be getting that sorted some point in the next few months!

Tale of Gamers - Forsaken - a little bit a night

With Christmas Party season drawing to a close as people start to go off on holiday, I'm starting to get the odd evening back. As such, I was pretty pleased to get in, sort some food, then settle down for forty-five minutes or so of painting and faffing with the Forsaken unit that caused me so much trouble back in August.

It's not a huge amount - tidying up some overpaint here, getting a wash on there - but they're slowly creeping towards getting done now, and that makes me pretty happy.

The latest challenge was finding a rather large and annoying gap I'd missed at the assembly stage, so some liquid green stuff was deployed to fill in the hole. I'm leaving it to cure overnight before painting over it, meaning I couldn't quite push a second Forsaken through to being finished this evening.

Tale of Gamers - Chaos Warriors Assembled

 

The Tale of Gamers challenge I'm doing with Gonzo History Gaming is still plugging along. The Chaos Warriors are assembled and undercoated now - so there's 30 miniatures assembled at various stages of painting now.

This is Adira the Dark Champion, from Bad Squiddo Games. You can get her here if you like her. And yes, I spotted the mould line on the cloak - I'll get it when I paint her!

Meanwhile, here are some Harlequin "Templars". These are the ones I found on a shelf in Foundry, but they've been out of production for a while...

I also dug out the "finished" Forsaken and started redoing the base to match the finished barbarians.

Oldhammer Forum Challenge - Chaos Villager - Complete!

So, with the deadline on the Oldhammer Forum Chaos Villager challenge fast approaching, I sat down to quickly finish off the Chaos Blacksmith you saw in my post the other week.

To finish up the base, I drybrushed various different light colours onto the paving slabs to add some contrast - there's a lilac, a green, a blue and a couple of different greys all there. The piece of paper got a Steel Legion Drab base coat and a quick bone drybrush. I then dabbed in some Typhus Corrosion, wiping off the worst with my finger, to bring the stone back down a bit.

The anvil got a nice simple grey stone base with a plain Nuln Oil wash. Nothing fancy.

And here he is all together. Pleased oto have gotten a model finished, and had fun playing around with a few new paints.

Background wise, I'm thinking that his drive for perfection attracted the attention of Slaanesh, and his gold mask is riveted to his skull, driving him mad with visions of techniques and secrets beyond mortal comprehension. He uses those secrets to craft fine swords for the champions who sometimes pass through the village.

I basically took this photo to show the piece of paper behind the anvil. No other reason.

As a reminder, this miniature is available from Anvil Industry, should you want one of your very own.

Tale of Gamers: October - Finished Miniatures!

So, I've finally finished something for my Tale of Gamers challenge with James from Gonzo History Gaming! I'm super excited!

The first batch of John Pickford Barbarians (available from Wargames Foundry, though I think you need to visit the shop or phone) are painted. So yes, there should be ten finished in a month and I managed five, but I'm happy to get something finished (first thing since August).

So, next up is a quick diversion - I've got a villager for the Oldhammer Forum chaos villager project due! I feel like I might have a bit of a speed paint coming on...

Tale of Gamers: First finished Marauders

The challenge with James of Gonzo History Gaming continues apace! I've actually been away this last weekend at a 40K LARP, running around and shooting at people with NERF guns, but trying to find the time each evening to get a little progress has borne fruit.

Here are the first two Marauders finished and table ready. I've also just realised I've not paid attention and not done the basing scheme the same as the first Forsaken I finished a while back. I think I prefer this scheme though, so I will probably just update the Forsaken's base.

Tale of Gamers: End of September report

Fires up the computer

Checks previous blog posts for already used exuses...

Right, lets have a look at how we did this month, shall we?

Ah. Not quite finished. Again. I don't like how the weapons have turned out, so I'm going to have to take those back. There's just a wash for the armour, the bone and details to go, so we're nearly there!

Meanwhile, the assembly hasn't gone anywhere. This was a busy month, with a trip away for my wife's birthday and a big LARP meaning I didn't get much done at all.

I'm going to experiment with trying to free up half an hour each evening, as well as the weekends, and see how effective that is.

I thought I'd be more demoralised at this point, but I'm actually pretty positive I can turn this around!

Tale of Gamers: A little more Marauder Progress

Just a few more colours blocked in, and another wash or two down...

Tale of Gamers: Marauder Progress

Only a little progress this week as I was away at a LARP at the weekend. Starting to block in colours and washes on the Marauders.

Maps to far off lands

Tale of Gamers: Alternate Chaos Warriors

So, for my Tale of Gamers challenge with James from Gonzo History Gaming, I need ten Chaos Warriors. Now, I'm not a huge fan of the current Games Workshop plastics, and I keep picking up potential alternates, so lets see what I can find lying around...

Well, this is a good start. It's a Barbarian Warlord from Heresy Miniatures, and a Chaos Warrior from the Circle of Chaos Kickstarter. Even better, these two are already assembled, so less work for me!

This sealed bag contains a smattering of old Harlequin Templars. I found them during a trip to Foundry some time ago, and picked them up as they're not a regularly stocked item, but something they'd found a few spares of and had put up on the shelves in the hope someone would buy them. So I obliged...

And then, to round up, two miniatures I bought from Bad Squiddo Games. You may know BSG as "The Dice Bag Lady", but she does miniatures, not dice now! She stocks an assortment of awesome female sculpts and other useful stuffs. I'd picked up a "Gray Maiden" by Reaper from her at Salute, and had ordered an Adira Dark Champion from her own range when it came out recently.

So, there you have it - ten miniatures, old and new to form up a small unit of Chaos Warriors. There is a ton of choice out there at the moment, and I can strongly recommend both Heresy and Bad Squiddo.

Tale of Gamers: End of August Report

Some of you may recall I'm engaged in a bit of a painting challenge with James from Gonzo History Gaming. You can see how well he did in August here.

Target for end of August: 10 painted Forsaken.

Achieved at end of August: 1 painted Forsaken.

Only one number out!

It turns out, these Forsaken, while beautiful miniatures, are super, super fiddly and awkward to paint - making it more time consuming than I expected. I've finished off one, and will keep plugging through the other nine as time goes on. But September is a busy month, so I'm not going to try and catch up and do September's commitment at the same time!

The good news is that the Marauder unit is assembled on schedule and ready for paint. These are much simpler sculpts so should be quite achievable in the time available.

Meanwhile, the Chaos Spawn have very pretty bases finished, but I should probably finish assembling the actual models...

So, looking at the list, what am I aiming to have painted by the end of the month?

Lord of Slaanesh on Daemonic Mount
10 Chaos Marauders
10 Chaos Warriors
10 Forsaken
2 Chaos Spawn
Hellcannon

I also hope to have the Chaos Warriors assembled and ready to paint for October's part of the challenge.

Tale of Gamers: Forsaken Test Paint and a bit of assembly

 

My key goal for the weekend was to test the planned paint scheme for my army. I'm terrible at visualising colours, so it's vital I get some paint on a model early on to get a good idea as to whether or not the scheme in my head will actually work.

So, here's the guinea pig. He's not finished - the objective was purely just to block in the main colours to make sure they tie together OK. I'm using an off white Vallejo for the white armour, washed with Nuln Oil thinned with Lahmian Medium. The cloth is GW light purple edge paint with a very thinned GW purple wash, too. The horns and growths are bone and Earthshade wash, while the skin is Rakarth Flesh and Fleshtone wash. The metal detail is the new GW light silver, which is really very good. Stormcast Silver? Something like that.

My white definitely needs work. I think I'll probably layer some light greys and whites over the base and wash to make it cleaner. The flesh needs some bruising and detail picking out. All the bone needs detail picking out by hand, which will suck.

I'm undecided about the belt and straps. Sim reckons I should use a different white, I was considering a brown of some kind. I'm still not sure.

Still, next weekend I hope to have five of the monsters up to something approaching tabletop quality. Should be pretty feasible!

 

Here's another two assembled - just three need the arms and heads adding now. I've tried to give each one a bit of personality, rather than just jamming parts together at random. At least, they work in my head.

Forsaken are Warriors of Chaos who've mutated too much to be completely in control any more. They're never going to make Champion, let alone daemonhood. They're on a slow descent towards spawndom.

Slaanesh is very much about excess, and the rest of the warband probably has mixed feelings about them - respect for their dedication to have pushed themselves so far, but disappointment (with perhaps a little 'there but for...' feelings) in their failings. The name that springs to mind, for me, is The Indulged.

Tale of Gamers: A beginning

So, I am engaged in a battle of nerdery and productivity with James over at Gonzo History Gaming. I ahd a bit of a think, and I've sketched out my army as:

Lord of Slaanesh on Daemonic Mount
10 Chaos Marauders
10 Chaos Warriors
10 Forsaken
2 Chaos Spawn
Hellcannon

First up on the block are the Forsaken, as they're already half assembled. You'll notice I'm sticking to square bases with this army for compatability with older systems. In order to stay on target, I need to get them all painted by the end of August. I'm continuing to assemble the second five while I paint up one as a test to check I'm happy with my planned colour scheme.

By halfway through the month, I should have half painted and the others assembled, and be forging ahead with prepping the Chaos Marauders and Chaos Spawn for painting.

This is an ambitious pace, but it is not impossible. Wish me luck!

Weekend progress - goblin wizard painted

So, alongside the fun and games of trying to paint a small Chaos army in five months, I knew that I needed to get a few quick paint jobs done in between, if only to maintain my own sanity, if not interest in the project. I know I have a bad habit of getting hung up on stuff if I spend too long on that and nothing else. So, along comes another goblin.

This is a GoblinAid sculpt by George Fairlamb. I originally painted the robes blue in the intention of painting stars on it in yellow, but the practice stars soon made it clear I didn't have the brush control to manage that. So, that turned into the star on the hat.

I have also updated my Goblin project page with the extra progress.

I also got a bit of miniature preparation done - nothing work photographing at the moment, though. I finally finished assembling and undercoating my Arco-flagellants for my Inquisition force. I also started on a Chaos Blacksmith for a painting challenge over at the Oldhammer Forum.

The model pictured, though, was my cleaning the resin on Tik Tok by Darkstar Miniatures, as a favour for my darling wife. It's a lovely sculpt, and made me definitely think about picking up one or two of their kits for painting. Perhaps as a reward for getting through the current Tale of Gamers project?

Bank Holiday Assembly Blitz

So, I took advantage of the Bank Holiday to settle down to some serious assembly. And yes, I did work on more than four figures, but there's a bunch of other ones that are 'nearly done' so will have to wait for another post.

First up are some models from the Circle of Chaos Kickstarter. These arrived recently, and I'm trying to get things assembled and undercoated ready for paint as they come in now, rather than leaving them in boxes forever.

The long necked chap will be added to my slowly growing Chaos force, probably just as a rank and file warrior. This barbarian type will also be joining some thugs or marauders, depending on what else I find to go with him.

This weird chap, however, I have no real idea what to do with. I'll probably just keep him as a random model for use in AoS, or get inspired randomly at some point.

Another Arco Flagellant also got finished off. He'll join the pile of "prospective Inquisitorial Warband members" until I get some Inquisitors done and inspired for colour schemes...

Also coming up on the assembly table are finally getting the first five of the Chaos Forsaken ready for paint, a couple of strange wizards for a very particular Age of Sigmar hobby project, and another Chaos Warrior from a small manufacturer. Oh, and the rest of the Circle of Chaos figures, of course! It may be a while before you see them, as I have a few other blog post ideas in my head as well, but they'll be getting worked on while you see the last of the WarhammerFest content, and a few other musings...