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Greetingsss!

Long time Dakka-ite, first time blogger. I recently started painting miniatures again after taking a short 30-year break from the hobby. My skills are humble, my quest is to git gudder.

I'll be posting all sorts of things here, from Heroclix repaints to kitbashed minis to brand new stuff to Oldhammer classics.

First up we have the lovable boogeyman from the venerable British comic anthology series 2000 A.D., Judge "Sssidney" Death.  This is a repaint of a pre-painted Heroclix model, with kitbashed arms and hands taken from a Wyrd Miniatures Sorrow. Judge Death's modus operandi is reaching into his victim's chest and squeezing their heart, so I thought he needed to look suitably grabby, with grasping hands extending long, gaunt fingers.  (Given how often he's been sculpted, it's odd that nobody's ever rendered him in this iconic pose.) The mouldering bones on his uniform were particularly fun to paint.  A few more views:


All life is a crime. The punishment is . . .


. . . damn. I forgot.

Thanks for tuning in. I'll be posting more painted minis soon.

You cannot kill what doesss not liiive...

But you can paint it. Looks good!

Ah yes, that's the other classic Judge Death quote. Thanks for the compliment, youwashock.

Flyberman Kitbashing: Part I



I've had a weakness for Doctor Who's Cybermen ever since watching the Cyberleader clench his fist in triumph and intone "Excellent" during Tom Baker's run. The silver villains always trail Terry Nation's Daleks in popularity, but that's a battle I refuse to take sides in, because I love them both.

The most recent company to produce official Cybermen models was Warlord Games, and I was thrilled when their "Exterminate!" game came out. After all these years, I could finally get hard plastic cybermen and daleks in one reasonably priced box! Then I opened that box and discovered just how small Warlord had made their Cybermen, models that ought to tower over average humans on the tabletop. You can forget about having Warlord's plastic Cybertykes face off against your Imperial Guard.

Fortunately, with a little kitbashing, I found a silver lining.



The Cybermen were upgraded with Iron-Man-style rocket boots during the "Death in Heaven" story in Peter Capaldi's Doctor Who run. Warlord never made flying Cyberman models, but their plastic Cyberman heads just happen to kitbash perfectly with early* Heroclix Iron Man figures, and there are enough flying Iron Man Heroclix variants to make a small squad of flying Cybermen, each one uniquely posed. Even better, most Heroclix flying Iron Man models can be bought dirt cheap for around $1.50 to $2.00 each.

Comparison shot of Kitbashed "Flyberman" and original Heroclix Iron Man model:


Both Iron Man and the more recent Cyberman designs share the most important design element: a glowing circular power source on their chests. As for the other differences, once you paint the armor silver they really don't matter much, and both Iron Man and the Cybermen are constantly upgrading and changing their armor designs anyway.

Plain silver is canonical for Cybermen, but I livened it up by adding glowing blue elements and breaking up the silver with black armor sections. (For purists, there actually is precedent in New Who for Cybermen having glowing blue power cores.) After doing all that work on the chest I wanted it to be visible, so I replaced Iron Man's horizontal jet boost with a rising arc of flame from a Heroclix Wildfire model that I got cheap. I like the resulting position a lot better, and it gets rid of the awkward transparent column that holds up the Iron Man model.

3/4 view:

--YOU WILL BECOME LIKE US--

Sounds good to me. Who doesn't want to shoot fire out of their boots and soar into the sky?

I've got more Flybermen and earthbound cyberkitbashes primed and ready to paint, so watch this space for more Cyberstuff.

*Kitbashing buyers beware: Heroclix upscaled their entire line recently, so Warlord's cyberman heads will look too dinky on the latest Heroclix models.

Up today is a Mantic Orx Marauder kitbash, made from a first edition Deadzone Marauder (the guy wielding two knives), a Dreadball Greenmoon Smackers head, and a power claw from Mantic's early polystyrene space Orc kits cast by Renedra. That power claw is nicely detailed, but lacks a thumb in a way that makes it look impractical. Fortunately gluing a thumb on (I used a finger from another claw) is simple.



Working on this guy taught me that painting anything with a lot of buttons and clasps and buckles, provided you want to paint them all, takes a lot of extra time. I'm happy with the way his bad dentition came out.

I realize my photography needs work, and ask you to bear with me as I learn the basics.

The Flyberman is exceptional. I love that conversion. Such a great sense of motion!


If you hadn’t told me you’d replaced Judge Death’s hands, I would never have known. They really work with that mini.

And the Orx with the knife and claw is quite effective.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The Flyberman is exceptional. I love that conversion. Such a great sense of motion!


If you hadn’t told me you’d replaced Judge Death’s hands, I would never have known. They really work with that mini.

And the Orx with the knife and claw is quite effective.

Thanks, Bob!

Hi all,

Today I have three Blue Horrors to share. Two of them are monsters produced by companies other than GW that I've painted up as Blue Horrors, namely the Notbe from 5th Field Fantasy Miniatures and the repainted demon (whose name I can't remember) from Mage Knight. The final one is a classic GW Oldhammer sculpt, but with a little fiery modification.

As Tzeentch is all about change and mutation, I liked the idea of having his demons be less uniform.

I've put the Notbe up in the Showcase section before, but the other two painted Blue Horrors are new here.

The Notbe:



The Mage Knight demon repaint:





The classic Blue Horror with kitbashed translucent flame:

Those are great. The Notbe is a delightful model, and the finger flame is an excellent touch.

Thanks, youwashock, I appreciate the feedback.

It's been awhile. Here's my latest, the "exotic dancer" Terla from the Starport range of sci-fi bystanders from Zombiesmith (https://zombiesmith.com/.)

I'm usually not a big fan of cheesecake minis, but this one was so sexy that I couldn't resist.

Hmmm...quite a looker.

Great colors and excellent work on the eye!

That exotic dancer is just plain fun. looks like something right out of Futurama.

Thanks for the comments, guys.

And now for something a little less whimsical: my first kitbashed headcrab homage to Half-Life. It's a little different from the canonical version, but I think it gets the idea across.



For anyone interested, the not-Headcrab head is from CP models (they sell them as a pack in 5 variations,) the body is a Mantic space zombie, and the arms are from Mantic Nightstalker reapers.

For those who haven't played the video games Half-Life or Half-Life 2, headcrabs are alien creatures that remove your head (presumably eating it after they kill you with the razor sharp teeth on their underbellies,) then take the place of the head, rooting themselves in the host body and gradually changing that body to be more predatory, most notably turning hands into extended claws. They're not very smart - all they do is hunt, eat, transform, and kill - and their control of host bodies is crude, so they shamble about like unsteady zombies. They're basically a biological terror weapon in the games deployed by smarter aliens to reap fear and chaos in the human population. While one is usually just a nuisance, they can be dangerous in numbers when they get too close.

And for some reason, unattached headcrabs look more than a bit like plucked chickens. Plucked chickens that waddle around, leap up at your face with unearthly shrieks, and try to eat your head off.