A bit of a mistake

The not mistake bit first - the first Chaos Spawn for my Warriors of Chaos project is finally assembled and ready for paint.

One of the work in progress pictures I posted on Twitter elicited an "Oh God, what on earth is that?" reaction, which I regard as pretty much on the mark. He'll double for a Spawn in my Iron Warriors if that project ever gets off the ground.

And here's the mess up. I thought she was done to table top quality, but when I came back to her this evening to do the blog photo, I didn't like the face. I went in to "quickly fix" it, and will now need to completely repaint it, having stuffed it up.

Bother.

Anyone got any good zombie face / flesh painting tutorials they can recommend?

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.

Quick update: How's that Tale of Gamers Challenge going?

Well, it's not terrible!

Where I wanted to be, with one weekend to go, was to have all the Forsaken assembled, and half of them painted, and be going into next month's assembly.

We have eight out of ten Forsaken assembled, and five are mid paint. Five of next month's Marauders are assembled and ready for undercoat.

I am tempted to do a little bit of a swap, and finish off the five Forsaken I'm mid-way through, but paint the five Marauders as the other half of this month's progress. The Forsaken sculpts are pretty detailed, and there's a lot of fiddly detail to deal with.

I think I'll just see how I go next weekend.

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.

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...

A new basing experiment

Long term followers of the blog will know that I've previously experimented with Agrellan Earth with varied degrees of success. The Bloodletter experiment mostly lead me to swear that all crackle bases would be done separately to the model...

So, with a big unit of Forsaken needing assembling for my Warriors of Chaos, I decided to dig out the pot that had been languishing in a bag for over a year and give it another go.

My old pot seemed to have separated out a bunch. So I used a clay shaper to ladle the stuff onto the bases in random blobs to see how it turned out.

An experiment with pouring it ended . . . poorly. As I was trying to catch up on TV at the coffee table at the time, a sweet wrapper was swiftly used to avoid getting paint everywhere. I did have to be rescued. It was a little embarrassing.

I put some new lumps on the two failed experiments and then left them to dry overnight.

In the morning, it was looking pretty positive! The separation you want from Agrellan Earth had happened, and it was time to do the rest of the work.

Here they are ready for models - I used a few rocks from a Games Workshop basing kit, Vallejo Coarse Pumice and Vallejo Sandy Paste.

The next step will be to pin the assembled models to them, then undercoat the lot before painting.

Goblins, Snorklings, month and and next month's plans...

So, I'm continuing with trying to get a model a week painted so there's something pretty for people to look at when they come to the blog. Or in this case, ugly. Here's some Snorklings, sculpted by Kev Adams. I got these with the Kev Adams self portrait sculpt I painted a while back that Foundry sold for GoblinAid.

I painted these up to check I was happy with my planned colour scheme for the goblins. Quite happy with that!

The main activity of the weekend was goblin assembly. I spent a bit of time trying to work out how this Goblin Spear Chukka went together before realising that the central piece of it was missing. I bought it cheap, sold as seen, due to a damaged blister. I'm going to have to be creative to sort this one out!

I was hoping to get about twenty or so goblins assembled this weekend. I've managedt complete these four shaman and a squiggly beast familiar. An internet gold star for anyone who can name the company / caster for all of these! (This does really show off the sort of thing I'm looking for with my goblins - a rag tag bunch of greenskins from many different suppliers!)

The plastic GW goblin shaman needs to stay in the pieces he's in for painting, as getting a paint brush into some of the nooks and crannies would be otherwise near impossible! There still needs to be a little work on the mould lines on the staff, but it is super fiddly, and I didn't want to rush it!

So, with the February project having been goblin assembly, I've not been hugely successful. They are at least organised, and I know how much effort assembling and painting them will be. For now, I'm going to keep a handful on the assembly desk as I move through other things, trying to get a few done a week until I've got a couple of units assembled up.

I've also put a little bit of fiction on my goblin project page. As units get assembled and / or painted, I'll get pictures and background put up there.

This is the March target. It does look like a lot when you pile it all together. Not all of it is purchases - due to being away at Christmas, we had a late family Christmas in February, so I have many presents! The idea is to get this lot all assembled in the course of the month.

It can be broadly broken down into:

• The Chaos models I wanted that went onto Last Chance to Buy
• An Age of Sigmar force using Bretonnian peasants as survivors of a lost kingdom of the mortal realms (because I was afraid they were going to become Last Chance to Buy)
• Skitarii (present)
• Arcane Ruins (present)
• Arco Flagellants (present)
• Arcworlde Boglin Bazaar

This is certainly an ambitious target. Some might say "brave". But I'm determined to start dealing with  models as they come in! Hopefully, I'll get a couple of speed paints in as palate cleansers as I slog through the mould line removal and gluing!

Wish me luck...

Warhammer 40,000 Open Day - Exhibition - Armies on Parade Display

More pictures taken while I was at the Warhammer 40,000 Open Day at Warhammer World. This time, the exhibition of Armies of Parade entrants.

First up is an internet famous one! This is an amazing Dark Eldar display piece done by James Taro. I think it's a bit of a shame that there wasn't a national Armies on Parade competition last year or this year, as I think this would have been a serious contender for winning last year.

I like Orks, and I'm very fond of irresponsible giant land ships. This board has both. It doesn't look great from a distance as the multi-coloured metal plates break up the outline a lot, but it's really nice.

Here's an awesome chaos board, with a lot of work gone into customising the board to add the chaos star.

An awesome chaos daemons board, invading an Imperial city. Some of the daemons have had some green stuff work done to change their faces.

This Ork board is apparently inspired by the old Deff Skwadron comic.

Nice little Grey Knight force working alongside some Storm Troopers. Coteaz supervises from the building on the back.

A nice simple Adeptus Mechanicus and Skitarii board - really like the rusted pipes and weathering.

This is a Tomb Kings / Nagash Age of Sigmar board - the idea of the column of skeletons coming out of the Realmgate is a really nice one.

If you look closely, you can also see some spirit hosts just behind the portal, painted in the same colours. I really like that effect.

Bit of a Space Hulk vibe going on here...

An oldie but a goodie - one of the White Dwarf team's Empire board.