Thanks for the kind words, everyone. Knowing that someone is reading this pblog helps keep me going.
I started working on a unit of Oldhammer elf cavalry last week:
I decided to work on the horses first, due to my long- and deeply-held dislike of painting horses. As cygnnus alluded to above, my first attempt at painting these models way back when involved a layer of ink from the old Expert Paint set over bare metal. I got a lot of ribbing for having red, blue and purple horses in my army, but at least the stupid things were done. I decided to try real horse colors this time. They turned out pretty well, I think, especially given that I opted to not use the glazes I have some to rely on so much. The bases are 25x50 pill bases from Warbases. Now that I'm redoing the elves on round bases, the old rectangles these guys came on just didn't fit, and 40mm circles just feel odd to me. I like these much better.
The riders are about half finished. I hope to have them ready to show mid week. As always, feedback, comments and general validation is most welcome.
Loving those old elves - I think those are really nice skintones too, some of the best work you have shown off on here I reckon!
I have some of the horses and riders somewhere, I have always considered them some of the best Warhammer models ever made. But now I have a box of the plastic Rivendell Knights, and I think they may be even better
@Slinky: Thanks! This is the third time I've painted these models so I've had lots of practice with them. I really like the LotR elves, but have never been in a position to pick any up. maybe you can paint them up and I can enjoy them vicariously...?
@bbb: Thanks, I have always loved these models.
@cygnnus: Maybe I'll do something with the next set, when I get around to them.
@Archer: I don't play AoS, and have little interest in doing so. LotR uses 40mm bases for cavalry though, and that's how I based the Melniboneans I did last year. I've never really been happy with how they look on such large bases, though, so I'm pleased that I found these.
@Camkierhi: Thanks for the kind words. And speaking of riders:
I cranked these guys out in about five morning sessions (about 45 minutes each), relying a lot on glazes to make up for the speed. Three of the riders are identical models, mostly because they stripped cleanly-- other, more varied poses are still soaking in alcohol. I did their shields all in one go while still on the sprue-- I'm running out of unpainted Citadel shields. The spears were a hassle-- the hole in the hand doesn't fit the peg on the model's wrists very well, so I had to build up the join with putty, which explains why none of them are holding their spears at the same angle.
Here's a group shot:
I really like the pill bases. The models rank up nicely, and the lack of square corners mean they look good in a looser formation, meaning I can use them in both Kings of War and Dragon Rampant and/or Songs of Blades and Heroes.
As always, comments, criticism, and validation are most welcome.
The cavalry (and horses alone, as well) look great. The pill bases suit them perfectly, both in shape and size, and yeah - they work great for both skirmish and "block" games like that. That grey spotted horse looks particularly nice. I'll have to keep an eye out for that captain as well.
I wouldn't completely write off AoS though - While I personally discard the background for the most part (my couple of games took place in The Old World, because I decided they did) it's a reasonable little ruleset and the GHB is very reasonably priced while the rest is free. I've got that little skirmish book coming now as well.
Yes but it's a reasonable ruleset where Dragon's Rampant is a good ruleset....Excellent Elves by the way Josh nice gritty look more Melnibone than Ulthuan.
It certainly is and maybe I was to harsh. Equally the way combat is resolved in DR/LR is one of my favourite systems whereas AoS where you don't resolve both sides of the combat at once just annoys me for some reason. I also like the unit flexibility of DR/LR far more.
Archer wrote:They look really good as a unit. Well done. It is amazing how dynamic the old horse sculpts are compared to a lot of the more modern stuff.
I haven't really painted many cavalry models recently, but I remember thinking how much better these horses and the Metal chaos steeds from this era were compared to the plastic horses Citadel released shortly after.
cygnnus wrote:Do you need more unpainted old citadel shields? I should have a Baggie of them running around somewhere...
The riders look great, btw!
Valete,
JohnS
I have plenty of shields, but almost all are off the sprue and poorly painted. I was mostly remarking on how rare it is to find a whole, unpainted sprue among all my bitz.
amazingturtles wrote:They look great together. the armored horse is interesting in how robust it looks for it's size.
The barded horse is a solid hunk of metal; not quite as deadly as a 3rdEd Dreadnought, but stuffing it in a sock it would make a pretty good cudgel.
Azazelx wrote:The cavalry (and horses alone, as well) look great. The pill bases suit them perfectly, both in shape and size, and yeah - they work great for both skirmish and "block" games like that. That grey spotted horse looks particularly nice. I'll have to keep an eye out for that captain as well.
I wouldn't completely write off AoS though - While I personally discard the background for the most part (my couple of games took place in The Old World, because I decided they did) it's a reasonable little ruleset and the GHB is very reasonably priced while the rest is free. I've got that little skirmish book coming now as well.
Llamahead wrote:Yes but it's a reasonable ruleset where Dragon's Rampant is a good ruleset....Excellent Elves by the way Josh nice gritty look more Melnibone than Ulthuan.
Azazelx wrote:I own both. It's ok to like and play more than one thing. Having said that, I haven't had time to read and digest LR/DR, let alone teach it.
Llamahead wrote:It certainly is and maybe I was to harsh. Equally the way combat is resolved in DR/LR is one of my favourite systems whereas AoS where you don't resolve both sides of the combat at once just annoys me for some reason. I also like the unit flexibility of DR/LR far more.
I have only ever given AoS a cursory glance. I think I prefer Dragon Rampant for the same reason I liked DBA/Hordes of the Things. Cosmetic differences aside, troops with similar arms fulfilling similar battlefield roles can get along just fine with one common profile. I have yet to try AoS, though, so maybe the rules would win me over? Of course, I like having everything I need in one book rather than spread out over several different PDFs, so...
Well, WHFB is still out there, just not supported by GW. I plan to use these for Dragon Rampant, Song of Blades and Heroes/Of God and Mortals, maybe even Frostgrave and Kings of War. Old models never die, they just get rebased for use in other games...
Speaking of other games:
I started these guys just after I finished the Asterian marionettes, but before I got bored and moved on to elves. The marionette sprue comes with the "heads" for three different drones, but only one grav-platform. That offended me, so I broke out the bitz box. The Comm drone (the one that looks like a robot head) is mounted on an eldar Wraithlord torso, with the fancy shoulderpad for a marionette command-type to break up the lines. The little cloaking device thing is on the backback for the same command-type model. I mounted them on round Mantic bases, flipped over and filled with putty. They don't match the older restic drones that come with cyphers, but they look alright next to the marionettes.
I should have a few more elves to show off by the end of the week. As always, comment, criticism, encouragement and validation are welcome and appreciated!
Those Drones look great! Nice solutions to using the extra parts as well. If I ever do anything with the couple of Asterian Sprues I got from one of their KS, I'll have to remember this post.
As for rulesets, a lot really depends on how much work I have to do. I don't have a current, active "proper" miniatures gaming group as my old group got scattered to the winds when we got older with jobs and wives and kids and people moved across the other side of the city (like 2 hours drive away) and all that fun stuff - so my current gaming group is my wife and a couple of longtime friends, the result is that we end up playing 4-player co-op stuff on PS4 a lot, as well as boardgames like Zombicide, Pandemic, etc and occasional tabletop RPGing - and anything miniatures-based involves me supplying all of the models, rules, table, etc and also having to learn and teach the rules.
I'm ok with almost all of that, except for the rules part, because it's such a fething mental drain on me at the end of a day or week at work. So really streamlined is about all I can be bothered with anymore. Hence a preference for KoW, SAGA, AoS and now 8th. LR/DR read really nicely from my bed, but then I have to remember that while re-reading it and trying to teach someone new, and blahblah.
I'd like to get some more, new, regular opponents who are actually miniatures gamers, but that'll require me to get enough energy to go out and meet new people, and I hate the dill weed who runs the closest store (which is still probably a 45-60 min trip to get to), I'm generally over travelling in general, and I'm not naturally inviting randoms into my home. Hell, I don't even go to Jiu-Jitsu anymore because I'm perpetually tired. And clearly, grumpy. :p
Sorry. TMI there - but it hopefully helps to explain a bit about my current attitude to wargame rules.
Definitely Azazelx. I'm lucky theres a regular gaming club and an FLGS within 10 minutes walk of my house, which is surprising given I live in a small town in the countryside. Those Drones do look good Josh as well.
These days, my criteria for wargaming rules include:
Low model count. Kings of War is grandfathered in, but I want to be able to transport enough models for six people in one Reaper case. Even with 1 hour every morning, I just don't have time to paint hundreds of models just for a starting game.
No proprietary miniatures. One of the reasons I won't play 40kv8 is that I don't want to have to update my already extensive Ork and Eldar armies to make them legal.
Second-grader friendly. Sadly, my current life schedule doesn't allow me to get to game nights, so my main opponent is my son. Frostgrave, SoBaH, and DR are playable because he doesn't have memorize a ton of special rules-- just roll dice and add modifiers.
I had a day off from work yesterday, so instead of being productive, I finished these guys:
A couple of wardancers, in startlingly drab colors. There appears to be some gender bending on the one with the spear-- those guns don't match those hips.
One of Scarloc's archers. Note that I forgot to give him a shield. The tip of his bow is broken off, which is pretty common with these models. I have the skin tones done on five more of these guys, so this one won't get lonely.
A mounted archer. The sculpting on hIs face is really weird. Jes Goodwin is usually so consistent, but something must have happened here. Maybe he was getting tired of this particular assignment?
Finally, a mounted wizard. I was originally planning to do the crystal ball in a Dikto-esque cosmic starscape, but I couldn't get it right, so I went with this simple blue instead. All of the models in this set are in fairly dynamic poses, with their hair blowing in the wind, but the heroes' steeds are all static. You'll have to pretend that this guy is leaning into the wind.
You just have a neverending collection of sweet looking, old school Elves, Josh. I know I said it earlier, but the pill bases really make the models. Are they the Warlord ones? Do you plan to do some stars or such on the Wizard's Horse's tabards? I would also hit that ball with some gloss, to make it super shiny. Or even hit it with the blue gemstone paint as a final coat.
The weirdness of those elves is probably due to the age of them. We're talking really early Jes there, and a lot of those models were variations on other ones, so some weirdness would happen. The Spear wielder might have been based on a male figure originally, especially since those breast look a bit smooshed on. Maybe the Horse Archer was the first one he did, before he got his groove on?
You should probably take a look at 8th, Josh. Leaked rules and lists are all over the place right now (for 1 more day, at least). I had a look at my Iron Warriors yesterday and how "legal" they are yesterday - only used the looser "power rating" point costs, but the equipment and model options are the same either way - and found the following problems:
Obliterators are now bought in threes for 10PR. I have two painted.
My options: Paint another one, or agree with opponent to run them as a pair for 7PR
Only 1 Power weapon in a CSM squad. I have two painted in my squad of 10 - I only did one of them recently because I was rebuilding a model.
My options: Either run one of them (the sword?) as a CCW for a 10-man squad for 9PR, or split them into 2x 5-man squads for 5PR each and keep both power weapons.
My Lord has a Thunder Hammer. Chaos doesn't get those. (Did they ever? I can't remember - I may have originally just put it together as a funky "power weapon" in 3rd because Iron Warriors.
My options: It's now a Power Maul. Or, "Hey Josh, I modelled this guy with a Thunder Hammer like 10 years ago, do you mind if I use those stats?"
Cultists are bought in blobs of 10 for 3PR each. I have 27 of them.
My options: Run 20 of them, or pay 8/9PR and just run the 27. Or paint 3 more.
Now ok, it's a pretty small force that's painted, but I really did have an "oh, it's that easy?" reaction once I started working out how legal my models were.
That sounds like an ideal travel distance, Llama. If I had that (especially the club) within that range I'd be all over it, and no doubt I'd be playing a bunch of the other rulesets I've picked up with a bunch of like-minded souls.
My supply of Oldhammer elves is pretty much neverending. If i include my Fantasy Warrior plastic archers, I have enough for a 2000-pt army in 4th edition points.
The pill bases are from Warbases, but I suspect that any online source of bases will have something like them.
I'm not really sure why the spear-armed WD is so butch, as the other two based on the same sculpt are much more feminine. That's OK, though, as wardancers probably shouldn't be as "fey" as a standard elf.
As for 40kV8, I may wait until the hype dies down and pick up a rule book from one of the many players here who will buy multiple boxed sets. I'm still not sure I'll ever play, especially if I have to buy a codex for each army...
I've got these guys down to a science. The first session is scraping/filing, followed by basing-- in this case with sand and ballast. The second session is black gesso for primer, with a heavy layer of Delta Ceramcoat hunter green to keep the sand in place. The third session is their skin--AP fur brown for the base color, layered up with AP barbarian flesh, followed by a wash of AP soft tone. The fourth session is the browns or grays/greens and metallics, covered with my homebrew glazes; if I have time, I do the opposites. Finally, I touch up the bases and hit them with brush-on matte lacquer. Five models in less than one week. It helps that these old models are essentially the same sculpt with minor variations in equipment.
As always, a group shot:
As always, comments, criricism, encouragement and validation are appreciated. Next up, even more Oldhammer elves.
I think they look better on round bases than they did on 20mm squares, too...
Thanks, I think so too. Square bases look good for tightly-packed troops, which is why I still use them for my Samurai for KoW, but these elves really benefit from a looser formation.
youwashock wrote:You really hit the mark with those archers.
I am not by nature a morning person, but we have dogs that wake up at the crack of dawn wanting to go for a walk. I bit the bullet when my son was much younger and required more help to get ready in the morning. Now, my circadian rhythms are set to 4AM, no matter what I do or how tired I am.
Ahh fair enough. I can still sleep in to 7 or even 9 if people let me though it rarely comes up. Sometimes I do get up at six with slim time to spare for painting but i haven't managed lately.
They look suitably arboreal? Woodsy? The colors work well.
I think pretty much everything looks better on round bases. Maybe add a few flowers to some of the bases? I'm thinking of the elves as illustrated in the game Small World. Sniffing Pansies, or some sort of flower.
Flowers? Hm. Basing is, and has always been, my least-favorite stage in painting. Static grass is a relatively recent thing for me, and I've never even considered doing more than that. Any recommendations for flowers/leaves?
Fantastic work sir, so much character and you have brought it to life. Agree with the flower power brigade, it's the little things that take it to 11, your already 10's in my book.
Another day, another set of models to share. This time, they're wardancers:
This is the third model based on the "crouching female" pose. Check out her fingers. On the other two, I decided that there must either be some terrible mold slippage, so I painted to cover it up rather than file the fingers down to nothing. Working on this one, I decided that they must be fingerless gloves. That would have been era-appropriate, so I went with that.
Also, remember me complaining about how masculine this model's face is? I didn't feel that was when I first painted these, and when I was stripping the old paint off of this one, I remembered why. I was a big fan of hair metal back when these were new, and I painted almost all of my wardancers with ugly 80's makeup-- lipstick, blue eye shadow, that sort of thing. The makeup was a visual signifier, I guess, so it didn't bother me then. Now, I think I prefer them with more natural faces.
These two are, as you can see, essentially the same model with some cosmetic differences. I had a hard time fielding the guy with the throwing spear, as that wasn't an option for wardancers in any of the editions I played. In fact, I never had enough models with similar equipment to build a full WYSIWYG unit. I was pleased when they were changed to only have dual weapons with no other options.
Most of Jes Goodwin's elves from this era had either mohawks/fauxhawks like the models above, or else long, wavy windblown hair. This guy, with his Johnny Ramone bowl cut, is the lone Punk holdout versus the Glam movement. I wasn't really a fan of this model back in the day, but now his ugly hair, "f*** i" expression, and businesslike, just-standing-there pose really appeal to me.
This last one is not actually a wardancer, but rather one of the elf animal keepers. The adverts showed her with three lion/wildcats/whatever, but I only remember having one. I supplemented her little unit with two Pan Tang sabertooth cats, but even that wasn't enough for a viable unit. Ever the nerd, I based her original look on Cheetara (from Thundercats, for those who had girlfriends in highschool). I decided to keep the look, but drabbed it way down to match my current sensibilities. Remember how I said I prefer the makeup-free faces a couple of paragraphs ago? That may have been a lie, as I like how this warpaint looks. I'm no Azazelx, so I'm not going to even try tattoos, but a little warpaint here and there might add a welcome splash of color to these otherwise drably-painted models.
Finally, a group shot:
Also, inspired by Camkierhi's flattery and Azazelx's google-fu, I have ordered a bunch of flower tufts and model railroad plants to spruce up the bases on all these elves I've been painting. I'll share photos when they arrive. As always, comments, criticism, feedback, validation and flattery are most welcome.
They definitely look like wood elves, a lot more earthy and without those crazy cone/egg hats high (and sometimes dark) elves like to wear. Nice stuff!
Thanks, as always, for the comments. Knowing that someone is looking really inspires me. And right now, I'm running out of inspiration. I've had a blast working on these old elves, but I think I'm ready to switch themes. Before I do, though, I need to finish off a few larger pieces I have started. For example:
I used this model as my general when playing WHFB 3/4/5. Originally, he had a spear molded in his hand, but being lead it was bendy like a Crazy Straw. I replaced it with steel wire and and spear tip from a goblin (I think). The spear tip looked a little incongruous to me when I stripped him, so I replaced it with a Basilean spear-- the nifty weapons being the only bitz I kept when I binned the sprue that came with my KoW1 kickstarter pledge. It's a little hard to see in these photos, but his nose got mashed while he was in the package, so he looks kind of like a boxer. I went with the same drab Wood Elf colors I've been using for all of these guys.
Another mounted hero. This is the same basic sculpt as the guy above, but with much different equipment. I wonder how he fires his bow-- he doesn't have a scabbard for that sword. His eyes were a beast to paint. Did you notice the heart motif? I tried three times to paint them like gemstones, but I just couldn't get it right. I ended up using a heavy red wash over Mithril silver. I'm not wholly satisfied, but it will work until I figure it out.
One more guy based on the same pose. As I recall, his tab read "wardancer," but of course mounts were never an option for Wardancers. I based his mount on Silver, the Lone Ranger's horse. I plan to hide that black tab on the forefoot with some model rail plants that I ordered a few days ago.
Finally, a group shot:
As always, comments, criticism, flattery and validation are all welcome. next up: Treemen!
Great work, Josh. The Wardancer looks like the ones on foot, and of course a lot of the stuff sculpted back then was simply because Jes or whoever felt like sculpting X, Y or Z thing, as opposed to following a strict regime as they do today.
The hearts look pretty good, at least in the pics I can see. You might be interested in checking out GW's gemstone paints, as they're actually pretty decent at the task. Just have to ensure you apply them last, after any varnish, etc.
Nice work on the spear replacement as well. If you hadn't written it up, I'd never have guessed it was a conversion with a replacement spearhead.
What's next on the horizon after you take a break from the Elves?
Azazelx wrote: What's next on the horizon after you take a break from the Elves?
I'm not sure. After the treemen, I have a couple of Elven Attack Chariots that need some love, so that should keep me busy through July. After that, I may switch to SF/Ppost-apoc, samurai, or else try to power through my Mantic goblins. I'll put up a poll when the time come.
Azazelx wrote: What's next on the horizon after you take a break from the Elves?
I'm not sure. After the treemen, I have a couple of Elven Attack Chariots that need some love, so that should keep me busy through July. After that, I may switch to SF/Ppost-apoc, samurai, or else try to power through my Mantic goblins. I'll put up a poll when the time come.
Can't wait to see your take on the horse whisperer crewman! Great stuff as always Josh. Great to see the old lead getting yet more love, even if some of the sculpts did not "age" well. I think the naturalistic color palette is working a charm on the wood elves and, yeah, the horses look much better now. Can't wait to see how you can punch up the bases with the silflor-type stuff.
Slinky wrote:Oooh, the original elf chariots? Looking forward to seeing those given a new lease of life!
Hopefully you won't be disappointed. One of them is incomplete, so I'm trying my hand at pressmolding with kneadatite for the missing parts. Wish me luck!
cygnnus wrote: I think the naturalistic color palette is working a charm on the wood elves and, yeah, the horses look much better now. Can't wait to see how you can punch up the bases with the silflor-type stuff.
Valete,
JohnS
It's like the end of an era, isn't it? Also, don't get your hope up too high re: tufts. It's mostly just a matter of sticking them on the otherwise finished bases.
Have you got any Oyumaru Instant Mold? It's a Japanese product, so I assume it's at least reasonably accessible. It makes for great press molds. Combine with Greenstuff as your casting medium, and you're golden.
I have something called "plastic clay," which I think is the same thing. I've played around with it, but this will be the first time I've ever tried to make something for real. I should have a WIP to show tomorrow.
Instamold is a little tricker to work with than I originally thought. I'm on my third try for one of the parts I need to fabricate. Hopefully it works this time. In the meanwhile:
This is, of course, the first Treeman made under the Marauder imprint. Originally, he was painted in lush browns and greens, not unlike the studio paint job in White Dwarf. This time, I decided to go with more natural colors. I went with these pale browns and greys based on the trees in our yard. The brown is Ceramcoat chocolate brown and Army painter monster brown, the greys are the same chocolate brown and Army painter ash grey. The patches of lichen and moss are AP army green highlighted with AP necrotic flesh, washed with GW sepia ink. The mushrooms on his raised arm are based on mushrooms that grow on trees here. The direction they are growing in imply that this guy pretty much never lowers that arm. Speaking of which: "Hi, John!" (exactly one Dakkaite will get that reference).
And here's the other one. Following everyone's advice, I invested in some grass and flower tufts. One of the sets I ordered was the Fuschia Bushes you see here. They are much to big to use on human- or cavalry-sized models, but they fill these bases nicely. It's hard to believe that these guys were originally on 40mm square bases. These 60mm rounds work much better, I think. As always, a group shot:
with one of my son's assembled-but-not-yet-painted Marines for scale. Both of these treemen are pewter, making them potentially dangerous weapons. The limited palette made them quick to paint, despite their size.
I'm still planning on doing the chariots next, but I have to get those missing pieces replaced before I can start in earnest. As always, comments, criticism, flattery and validation are most welcome.
Really sweet work on these two. Classic models that I'm not sure have been bettered (to me, anyway) and seriously top-tier work on the colours and finish. The tufts and basing foliage really add that extra complimentary level to them as well. If I were to do mine again today, I'd go for colours like yours here. I think I only have one of them finished, though, so maybe...
Azazelx wrote:Really sweet work on these two. Classic models that I'm not sure have been bettered (to me, anyway) and seriously top-tier work on the colours and finish. The tufts and basing foliage really add that extra complimentary level to them as well. If I were to do mine again today, I'd go for colours like yours here. I think I only have one of them finished, though, so maybe...
Thanks. I would enjoy seeing your take on these models. Also, thanks for your advice re:tufts. I admit that I was resistant at first, as I find highly-decorated bases distracting at best, and downright ugly in a lot of cases. That's one reason I dislike the vocal mulitbasers playing Kings of War. These little tufts-- grass and flower-- really do add a little something to the models.
Theophony wrote:Those are excellent treemen. They really do look alive...for a tree.
Thanks. I was a little surprised at just how drab most trees are in the real world, but I'm pleased with the results on these models.
Fantastic work on the tree men, they look completely natural and real, believable. And the tufts look great too, nice touch.
I have had some success with the moulding clay and doing it similarly to a two part mould, in lego. Not sure which parts you are after, one other trick is to warm the GS up in hot water first, makes it more pliable. Apologies if I am telling you how to suck eggs here. Another option I have had success with is epoxy resin, if you don't want to go the whole hog and get resin off the net, Just a pack from the pound store will do for a few parts.
Azazelx wrote:Really sweet work on these two. Classic models that I'm not sure have been bettered (to me, anyway) and seriously top-tier work on the colours and finish. The tufts and basing foliage really add that extra complimentary level to them as well. If I were to do mine again today, I'd go for colours like yours here. I think I only have one of them finished, though, so maybe...
Thanks. I would enjoy seeing your take on these models. Also, thanks for your advice re:tufts. I admit that I was resistant at first, as I find highly-decorated bases distracting at best, and downright ugly in a lot of cases. That's one reason I dislike the vocal mulitbasers playing Kings of War. These little tufts-- grass and flower-- really do add a little something to the models.
Yeah, it took me a long time to get past adding anything more than a slight amount of flock to a base, and even now I don't like too much added. I'm okay with rare exceptions to my own, such as when it's helping tell a story or add a setting (like on the Brass Bull or Talos), but I think things like tufts are good for adding a setting without going overboard.
Because of photobucket's recent actions, I'm finding it really hard to find my Treeman photos, since they were taken quite awhile ago. I may take some new ones if I have to. Anyway, here's a Reaper Bones treeman thingy from 2014. It's still decent, but much more "brown" than I'd do today. Probably.
Painting realistic bark is one of those things that seems like it should be easy but actually takes a lot of thought. You've nailed it here though. When I started playing WFB my regular opponent played Wood Elves, and he had this treeman I think. Was the star of many battles.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Just checking through everything i missed this year. Wow, you've been productive. I think we have pretty similar interests because large chunks of my to do list seem similar to yours.
Elric Elves were really cool and moody sculpts, and they looked awesome as a group.
Those Wood Elves really tickled my nostalgia. My friend definitely had a few of those guys.
Nice to see your DS Orcs as well - very different style to mine but looking good.
Oathsworn minis are the stand out minis from what you've done, I'm going to go and buy some based on your paint jobs.
Frostgrave Gnolls are on my to do list, and I really like your solution to the head gap issue. I reckon mine are gonna look a lot like yours when they're done.
You got a hell of a lot done last year, I'm jealous!
evildrcheese wrote:Wicked work on rhe tree men. The natural bark cokours look realky good. Very realistic.
EDC
Thanks, doc. I am both happy and amazed that I pulled it off.
Slinky wrote:Ah, nice! The original Marauder treeman was a real revelation when it was released, compared to the previous dim-witted looking model.
And the natural colours you have used, and the variation thereof have led to a brilliant effect - Really great stuff
It definitely added a bit of brutality to my otherwise permed-and-made-up Hair Metal elves back in the day.
Camkierhi wrote:Fantastic work on the tree men, they look completely natural and real, believable. And the tufts look great too, nice touch.
I have had some success with the moulding clay and doing it similarly to a two part mould, in lego. Not sure which parts you are after, one other trick is to warm the GS up in hot water first, makes it more pliable. Apologies if I am telling you how to suck eggs here. Another option I have had success with is epoxy resin, if you don't want to go the whole hog and get resin off the net, Just a pack from the pound store will do for a few parts.
I only need to recreate two parts (which is to say, one of each of the side walls), so Instamold and kneadatite will be enough. I have managed to get one part to come out well enough to use, and the other is curing as I type this. I'll share photos tomorrow.
Azazelx wrote:Really sweet work on these two. Classic models that I'm not sure have been bettered (to me, anyway) and seriously top-tier work on the colours and finish. The tufts and basing foliage really add that extra complimentary level to them as well. If I were to do mine again today, I'd go for colours like yours here. I think I only have one of them finished, though, so maybe...
Thanks. I would enjoy seeing your take on these models. Also, thanks for your advice re:tufts. I admit that I was resistant at first, as I find highly-decorated bases distracting at best, and downright ugly in a lot of cases. That's one reason I dislike the vocal mulitbasers playing Kings of War. These little tufts-- grass and flower-- really do add a little something to the models.
Yeah, it took me a long time to get past adding anything more than a slight amount of flock to a base, and even now I don't like too much added. I'm okay with rare exceptions to my own, such as when it's helping tell a story or add a setting (like on the Brass Bull or Talos), but I think things like tufts are good for adding a setting without going overboard.
Because of photobucket's recent actions, I'm finding it really hard to find my Treeman photos, since they were taken quite awhile ago. I may take some new ones if I have to. Anyway, here's a Reaper Bones treeman thingy from 2014. It's still decent, but much more "brown" than I'd do today. Probably.
That guy came with the Earth Elemental in Bones 1, right? I think I have him in a box somewhere. I may have to pull him out to make a trio.
Da Boss wrote:Painting realistic bark is one of those things that seems like it should be easy but actually takes a lot of thought. You've nailed it here though. When I started playing WFB my regular opponent played Wood Elves, and he had this treeman I think. Was the star of many battles.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Just checking through everything i missed this year. Wow, you've been productive. I think we have pretty similar interests because large chunks of my to do list seem similar to yours.
Elric Elves were really cool and moody sculpts, and they looked awesome as a group.
Those Wood Elves really tickled my nostalgia. My friend definitely had a few of those guys.
Nice to see your DS Orcs as well - very different style to mine but looking good.
Oathsworn minis are the stand out minis from what you've done, I'm going to go and buy some based on your paint jobs.
Frostgrave Gnolls are on my to do list, and I really like your solution to the head gap issue. I reckon mine are gonna look a lot like yours when they're done.
You got a hell of a lot done last year, I'm jealous!
Thanks. The treemen were the stars of many a battle back in the day. They didn't always do the most damage, but they certainly distracted my opponent.
2016 was super-productive, but I'm not sure I can match my numbers this year. I'll keep trying.
youwashock wrote: You work at a prodigious rate. With great results. The Treemen do not disappoint. Such awesome models.
Thanks kindly. The secret to my speed is lowered standards and lots of shortcuts.
Normally, I'm loathe to show WIP photos, but the chariots are taking much much longer than I had anticipated. In particular, these parts took far too long to complete:
Only one of my Elven Attack Chariots is complete. The other consists of parts that a friend found for me in a Bitz Box at GW headquarters in Maryland many years ago (Hi, John!). It came with none of the crew, only two horses, and neither of the side walls. When I first assembled and painted it, I made replacement parts out of Sculpy, but they were ugly. For these, I used kneadatite and instamold. It took me several tries to get it right, which means about one day per attempt. The secret turns out to be using enough putty to get the flash you see here-- otherwise not every detail gets molded. Anyway, after some cleanup, I have these:
There are a lot more gaps and ill-fitting parts than I remembered, so the next step will be to get those filled in. After that, painting. I think I will try to do them with a wood grain pattern to fit in with all the elves I've been doing. That will take forever, but it's not like I have to rush, what with my never actually playing anymore .
A request to everyone reading this: The front and side pieces are all covered with divots. What do you think those are supposed to be? Worn leather? Knotty wood? Some sort of mysterious elf secretion? I really have no idea.
I think they are supposed to be like a wicker mesh on the sides. From my understanding ancient Celtic chariots didn't have solid floors but mesh type floors that cushioned the rider and made it smoother to shoot from.
cygnnus wrote: I think the naturalistic color palette is working a charm on the wood elves and, yeah, the horses look much better now. Can't wait to see how you can punch up the bases with the silflor-type stuff.
Valete,
JohnS
It's like the end of an era, isn't it? Also, don't get your hope up too high re: tufts. It's mostly just a matter of sticking them on the otherwise finished bases.
When are you going to paint something?
When are you and Bruce going on your next skiing trip?
Together? Probably never. Would it count if our trips are at the same time, but to different places? Or how about if I just say we're going skiing, for the placebo effect?
JoshInJapan wrote: Together? Probably never. Would it count if our trips are at the same time, but to different places? Or how about if I just say we're going skiing, for the placebo effect?
But the placebo effect doesn't work as well if you are expecting it.
Honestly haven't painted much in a long time. My motivator for years was the grand tourney, but with that gone, not so much. For now, I'm painting vicariously through you..
btw, I just missed out on another trip to Japan... maybe next year.
But what if I tell you we are going skiing, but don't tell you it's not true. You'd fall for that, wouldn't you?
Shame you couldn't make it. If/When you do come next, we'll have to throw down some Frostgrave or Deadzone or something. The last time you visited, Gene was more than a little disappointed we weren't gaming 24/7.
The divots could be an attempt to do a hammered finish, so maybe a bronze or copper paneling, though Theo is probably correct, as wicker would fit the theme better.
A google image search trying to find the original photos resulted in one where the sides were just white with some metal picked out, but I am not sure if that really is the original photo or not...
That's the color scheme I used when I painted these for the first time, but I don't think the white would fit in well with all the emblandened (that's a word, right?) I've been doing recently. I think I'll treat the divots as wickerwork of some sort.
The chariots are on hole temporarily. A friend asked me to paint the models for Scythe (the boardgame), and I'm cranking those out this week. Also, the chariots fit together horribly and will require a lot of putty work to patch all the gaps, meaning I need to find time to go to the hobby shop in the next day or two.
About ten days ago (shortly after I last posted), A friend asked me to paint the models that came with Scythe. The chariots were proving to be more frustrating than I remembered, so I said yes as a way to take a little break. Here are the results:
The base game comes with five factions, each led by a hero and their pet. I tried to match their outfits to their faction colors, but opted to do spot colors on the Soviet and Polish characters. The models are closer to 20mm than 25/28, and being board game plastic, their faces are somewhat blobby. They look good at arms length, though, so I have no real complaints. Each faction also comes with five identical mecha:
Lots of drybrushing and glazing on these. Here's everything together:
This was a fun little project, and now that I've finished, I feel ready to tackle the chariots. I should have something to share in a day or two. As always, cricitism, feedback, flattery and validation are encouraged and welcome.
The paintjobs on those characters are really good, though - I bet your friend is very happy! The tiger in particular is brilliantly lifelike and I love the (Prussian?) guy with the wolf.
Those are very cool indeed, Josh. I certainly wouldn't have taken those figures to be 20mm by looking at your painting - they look "full" size. Great work.
Thanks, everyone. In retrospect, the models may have been closer to true 25mm, like Ral Partha models from the 80's. Still, that's pretty tiny by today's standards. I'll have to open up my set and check. Did I mention that? The guy I painted this set for had another, unopened box that he gave me as payment. That was a nice surprise, but it might be a long time before I actually get to play. Also, I was really pleased with the tiger until I did the stripes. They were much harder than I thought, even with photo reference.
As regular readers know, I don't like posting WIP photos, but it's been so long that I feel like I need to share something:
I went with a wood grain pattern rather than the traditional white so that these chariots would fit better with my current paint scheme for the rest of the elves. The wood grain was harder to paint than I thought, but it works well enough (IMO) that I'll keep it. I only have five horses total (four from the first set, but only one with the bits my friend found for me), so I'm doing them up as two-horse chariots for now. I need to mount the chariots on card to make them easier to move around. I also only have one set of scythes, but they were glued on too well to break off and copy, so the other chariot is scytheless. Finally, I have another of the drivers on order from Ebay. Once it arrives, I'll paint him up and call the chariots complete.
As always, comment, criticism, flattery and affirmation are all most welcome.
Azazelx wrote:Looking good so far. You could always proxy scythes for the second chariot from spearheads, I'm thinking those 4th edition Starter High Elf Spearmen.
Originally, I used spearheads from the Undead Army box. I don't have any plastic elves from that era, so that's not currently an option. Of course, the scythes stick out really far, meaning the models won't rank up very well, so I may just leave them off for now.
Slinky wrote:I like the way the "bumpy bits" you were agonising over look
And the flowery bases also look good,
Thanks. It's just a medium brown with a wash, so the eye just sort of passes over that part. And I have to thank Azazelx for the flowery inspiration. I have some bigger tufts for when I get around to basing the chariots, as well.
As of today, summer vacation is officially over. We weren't able to travel to Kyushu this year, meaning I didn't get my 48-hour painting marathon, which in turn means that I don't have a big pile of finished models to bump up my numbers for the year. I do, however, have these to share:
Apart from painting the edges of the bases, I'm calling these finished. The wood grain works well enough, and I'll be using this technique in future terrain projects. The drivers are stuck down with blutac, and there is enough space to stick down a hero or wizard or something if/when I actually field these models. It's hard to believe that we are supposed to stick four models in that space-- how do they move or fight? Also, I have them all based individually. As predicted, the scythes stick out to far to really rank the models up, and I'll likely leave them off the second one.
Of course, these aren't the only things I have to share. There's also this guy:
This is the dog handler, a companion to the wildcat handler I posted a while back. I had been using him as the driver for the incomplete chariot, but ended up ordering a driver from Ebay leaving this guy free to run with his dogs. He was dead easy to paint, inspiring me to revisit this guy:
This is the bear handler from the same series. Again, dead easy to paint, being nothing but browns. There was one more handler in this series, but I thought he looked stupid and traded him off. Of course, I regret doing so, to the extent that I picked one up from Ebay, along with three boars. I currently have the animal companions for these guys based and ready to paint sometime this week.
One more guy to share:
I plan to have this hero riding one of the chariots. This was a strip-and-repaint, but whatever primer he originally had just wouldn't come off, so he's a little rough. The model looks good enough at arm's length, but up close it kind of breaks down. Ah, well.
Amazingly, I managed to play a game over summer break. Remember how I painted those boardgame models for a friend? Well, I convinced him to try Frostgrave. Knowing that I would actually play something inspired me to throw these together:
Ignore the Arcane Ruins in the background. I threw together some corner ruins using the ballpoint pen-on-foamboard method. The floors on the two-story buildings are removable, so these are easier to store than my Dave Graffam paper buildings. The corners on the bases are made from scrap foam mounted on scatter terrain bases from Miniature Scenery. These were remarkably easy to make, which is why I have several more in various stages of completion.
I had a lot of half-oval scraps left over from cutting out windows and doors, so I turned them into standing stones.
This fountain has been essentially finished for a couple of months, but I have never been satisfied with the water level. The statue is a Loka piece from one on my Mantic crazy boxes. The fountain is made from a container for strawberries and another for Camembert cheese.
I made this one from a tofu container with parts from the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue and some pipes from a Pegasus kit. I'm not wholly certain what the building is supposed to be.
Here's all the terrain together:
Thanks for looking. As always, comments, criticism, flattery and affirmation are welcome.
The chariots and other elves look great Josh. The bases really pull them together and elevate the whole model nicely - especially on the chariots where they unify the entire set.
Buildings look ace as well. As Slinky says, they look like bought ones in the pics. Fountain is good - maybe layer in a few ..erm, layers of 2-part clear resin from the hardware store? Cheaper than water effects, anyway. The MEdge building is clearly a pump station control room. Hence the tubes. Because pumping!
Llamahead wrote:Really liking the chariots and looking forward to the creatures which will naturally give you some beasties for Frostgrave.
Also for Dragon Rampant. Beast handlers were never really a viable option in WHFB, so I'm glad to have a use for these models.
Slinky wrote:Buildings are v good - At first glance I thought they were plastic Osgiliath buildings!
That's high praise. I originally wanted to buy some of those kits, but GW stuff at Japan prices costs almost as much as a real house. These, I think, work just as well.
Azazelx wrote:The chariots and other elves look great Josh. The bases really pull them together and elevate the whole model nicely - especially on the chariots where they unify the entire set.
Buildings look ace as well. As Slinky says, they look like bought ones in the pics. Fountain is good - maybe layer in a few ..erm, layers of 2-part clear resin from the hardware store? Cheaper than water effects, anyway. The MEdge building is clearly a pump station control room. Hence the tubes. Because pumping!
I have you to thank for the basing. I never would have conisdered model rail stuff, and now I can't seem to stop buying it.
I switched to 2-part epoxy after the second layer of Realistic Water. And I think I agree that more is needed. I saw something on a Hirst Arts tutorial about adding waves to water effects that I might try.
I decided to paint the animals to go with the handlers I've been doing. Here we see:
・ one hunting dog, based vaguely on the border collie
・ two wildcats that came with the relevant handler, and one saber-toothed tiger that originally came with a Pan Tangian handler from the Eternal Champion line. I have one more somewhere, but the handler is long gone
・ one bear from this same line, as well as a Grenadier werebear that I've been pretending is a regular bear.
The only one missing from the set is the boar handler. I picked one up from Ebay, and he's in the queue for painting, along with three boars to run with him. That should give me plenty of animal companions for Frostgrave, as well as a unit of warbeasts for Dragon Rampant.
I'm getting a little burnt out on Elves, so I have decided to work on some Chaos models to clear my palate. Here are the first five:
These first three are pretty straightforward wasteland savage/Road Warrior types. The mottling on the crab-claw guy didn't come out as subtly as I'd hoped, but it works well enough at arm's length. The bottom guy's outfit of fairy boots and leather straps seems somewhat impractical for battle, but I figure he's heading to the leather club afterward.
This guy is one of two bow-armed chaos thugs in my collection. I tried an abstract symbol over a Kirby-dot background for his shield, with unsatisfactory results. I feel like I should redo it, along with his bulgy right eye. I probably won't, though.
This last guy fits in with the Chaos jester types I've shown in the past. I went with a greenish tone for his skin to emphasize the Frankensteiny quality for his face.
Here's a group shot:
These guys made a nice change from all the elves. I have four more about half-finished. I hope to share them by the end of the week. After that, I'm at a loss for what to do next, so I'll leave it up to you, my loyal readers. Should I power through my Mantic Goblins? Ogres? More Chaos repaints? Samurai? Frostgrave soldiers/barbarians? I'll leave the poll up until the 1st (my time). Democracy in action!
Brilliant and solidly beautiful work, really love the trip down memory lane, excellent work bud. Chariots are looking particularly good, basing is spot on.
So far, Chaos is in the lead, with goblins in second place, and no one in third. I have some more Chaos thugs soaking in alcohol, and will likely start them early next week.
Hey Josh - nice work on the animals and their handlers. I should try and complete my set of those as well. Seeing yours painted so nicely makes me want to work on my own ones.
I'll also vote for Chaos. Those old Thug models are uneven in their quality, but it's very cool to see them painted up. Let's see what else you've got!
I think the "bulgy eye" just adds to that one Thug's appeal as a Chaos-affected nutter
And I love the natural looking effects you have achieved on the various animals, those are great old figures and I look forward to seeing the boar too!
Thanks, Slinky. I like the bulgy eye, but I feel like I need to make it more visible or something. Maybe I'll make the cornea yellow or something.
Oldhammer Chaos came out way ahead in the poll. I suppose I had better honor the will of the electorate. Here are some more thugs:
This guy is another Chaos Jester themed thug. He reminded me of Mr. Punch (of Punch and Judy), so I tried to emulate the garish colors while keeping the dirty, tattered feel of all the other thugs I've repainted to date. I'll let you judge how well I did. His feet are somewhat poorly sculpted and/or cast, so the flowers help hide that particular flaw.
This is one of three female Chaos Thugs in my collection. Much like the leather daddy guy I painted last week, her butt and hips have been lovingly rendered, to the point where I felt like a creep painted them. Note also her form-fitting chainmail teddy. The sculptor put a lot of work into it, including the g-string and crotch. That outfit must chafe like the dickens, which is probably why she looks so angry.
This guy apparently suffers from some sort of skin condition, which is why his face is all bandaged up. His sword looks identical to the one that comes with Mantic's mummies for Kings of War.
This last one is a variant of the guy just above. It took me a while to get the skull right.
Finally, a group shot:
I have another five thugs primed and ready for paint, and a unit of Chaos Knights soaking in alcohol. As always, comment and criticism are welcome.
Very nice work Josh they looks like a great group of violent weirdos. It's always good to see old school minis painted well. The older I get the more I seem to be drawn to older sculpts (or intentionally old fashioned modern sculpts) I'm not sure what it is but they seem to have a lot more character than a lot of modern minis.
The chaos rabble look great. They will look the part of unhinged ruffians in almost every game imaginable. Well done. Particularly like the guy wearing the skull.
I love that everyone is digging out their old chaos and space marine stuff. Great nostalgia and those figs are getting awesome updates with newer painting styles. Chain mail teddys were always in style .
Nick Ellingworth wrote:Very nice work Josh they looks like a great group of violent weirdos. It's always good to see old school minis painted well. The older I get the more I seem to be drawn to older sculpts (or intentionally old fashioned modern sculpts) I'm not sure what it is but they seem to have a lot more character than a lot of modern minis.
Thanks, Nick. I think of a lot of the character of these older models comes from so many of them being unique sculpts. So much modern stuff is multi-part plastic, which has merits but limits how you can design models so that they look natural. That's why I don't have any of Warlord Games' plastic samurai-- they only really go together in few different poses.
Archer wrote:The chaos rabble look great. They will look the part of unhinged ruffians in almost every game imaginable. Well done. Particularly like the guy wearing the skull.
Theophony wrote:I love that everyone is digging out their old chaos and space marine stuff. Great nostalgia and those figs are getting awesome updates with newer painting styles. Chain mail teddys were always in style .
bbb wrote:Love the bandage dude.
That's Chaos in a nutshell-- something for everyone, and madness and damnation for everyone.
JoeRugby wrote:Love your Oldhammer stuff dude
Thanks, dude. One of the few benefits of being as old as I am is all the classic toy soldiers I have managed to accumulate.
Yeah, I have to agree with everyone else - your old chaos thugs look great, and very much the part of a gang of thugs or brigands. You can really see the Mad Max-inspired post-apocalyptic influence crossed with an admiration of Boris and co in these early figures.
Another week, another set of finished models to share:
I got this guy in a two-pack of "Chaos Thugs," but I've always treated him as a Chaos Marauder instead. In the olden days, Chaos warriors came in five levels: Thug, Marauder, Warrior, Champion, Knight and Lord. The final three were generally pretty well labeled, but the distinction between thugs and marauders was vague at best. I thought of Marauders as being more heavily armored with closed helms, so this guy made the cut, despite the bare legs and furry diaper. Chaos being and equal opportunity exploiter, this guy is showing some buttcheek. It doesn't show in this photo, though.
This guy seems to be an up-armored version of the bandaged-up guy I posted last week. When I first painted him many years ago, I filed down his shield boss and filled the hole with putty to make a flat surface on which to paint a terrible freehand design. I opted to give him an arcane armorial for his shield this time, despite not managing to get the surface as clean as new.
Another Mad Max thug. He has warpaint and/or mascara and a single fang, none of which you can see because of his shield. The shield design is taked from an Edward Gorey illustration, but it's pretty much impossible to tell at this scale.
Another marauder. This was the more boring model I've painted in a long time, to the point where I couldn't think of anything to put on his shield. He looks almost like an automaton, so he will pull double duty as a construct for Frorstgrave.
This one comes from Citadel's Norse barbarian line. Way back in 4th edition, there was a Norse army list in White Dwarf, and I had planned to build an army, but lost steam after about three models. This one got repurposed as a Chaos Thug. Note that instead of a thong, she merely has a terrible wedgie. She makes up for it with some serious underboob. Again, I felt like a creep painting it, and I can only hope the sculptor felt the same.
Finally, two group shots- one of this week's models, and one of all the thugs I've painted since August:
As of this writing, I have three Chaos steeds based and primed, with the riders soaking in alcohol. Feedback, criticism, and flattery are welcome, as always.
They look spot on matey, funny how these old models look better than the newer stuff, I know it was way off on the proportions and very cartoony, but that was the point, that's why we love caricatures so much, it reminds us of someone, the modern are so bland and samey.
Theophony wrote:They look like a right motley bunch of goons. The wild mix of colors and weapons really helps the unit seam cohesive with its incohesiveness.
This statement is more than a little incoherent, which is to say totally appropriate for Chaos.
Camkierhi wrote:They look spot on matey, funny how these old models look better than the newer stuff, I know it was way off on the proportions and very cartoony, but that was the point, that's why we love caricatures so much, it reminds us of someone, the modern are so bland and samey.
While there is a lot to be said for blandness and sameyness when building regiments, I totally agree that the wild variation in this (very old) series really makes it work.
Awesome stuff, Josh. As well versed as I generally am with much of the Oldhammer stuff, I didn't have the money at the time to collect and explore the whole Chaos range, so Beastmen and Warriors and Champions won over the Thugs and Marauders for me back in the day - so in the stuff you're painting up right now seeing a bunch of models that I've rarely and never seen before - which as I'm sure you can appreciate - is very cool.
Azazelx wrote:Awesome stuff, Josh. As well versed as I generally am with much of the Oldhammer stuff, I didn't have the money at the time to collect and explore the whole Chaos range, so Beastmen and Warriors and Champions won over the Thugs and Marauders for me back in the day - so in the stuff you're painting up right now seeing a bunch of models that I've rarely and never seen before - which as I'm sure you can appreciate - is very cool.
I didn't have much money, either, which is one of the reasons I collected Chaos back in the day-- even Thugs and Beastmen cost more than, say, Empire troops, so I could field a fairly large army with relatively few models.
Kid_Kyoto wrote:I really like the Chaos Thugs, I kind of wish GW had gone that way with them instead of the Not-Conans and the current ultra beefy dudes.
The Chaos Thugs managed to capture both evil and pathetic, which is what chaos worshipers should be. I think the latest Chaos cultists do that too.
And your paint job really give does them justice.
I was (and still am) disappointed with the plastic Chaos Marauder kit. It suffers from all the limitations of multi-pose plastic kits-- static poses and mismatched joints-- exacerbated by their nakedness. Much like Catachans, their humongous deltoids never line up with their massive pecs. "Evil and pathetic" sums up Chaos troops quite nicely.
Having cranked out some low-level cannon fodder, I felt like (re)painting some elite troops for a change:
This Chaos steed is my favorite from this line, so of course I only have one. The lack of eyes and the little horn make me think it's a corrupted unicorn or something. All of these guys are mounted on Lo5R Clan War bases. The top of the base is 25mmx50mm, but the bottoms is closer to 30x60. Visually, they fit a lot better on these than on the older, smaller bases they game with.
I used an Arcane Armorial transfer for the shield. The ink is translucent, so I had to very painstakingly repaint the whole thing. It works well enough, I suppose. Also, I like how his daemon weapon turned out.
For this set, I painted all the horses black. I was inspired by a half-remembered line from Tolkien about orcs stealing black horses from Rohan. In keeping with almost every other Chaos model I've revisited, I kept this one rather drab. I'm not sure they manufacture a lot of textiles in the Chaos Wastes, so I'm keeping these guys businesslike. The rider has a weird head-- he has tentacles coming out of the bottom of his helmet, and his skull looks like some sort of grub or something. I had painted those details as beard and metal originally, but opted to acknowledge the mutation this time around.
This third Chaos steed got a little more color, but I tried not to cover up the browns under the red and yellow. I tried to give him goat-like eyes with those weird pupils, but I'm not sure it worked. His shield also has an Arcane Armorial, but without touch-ups. I may go back and do something with it, but for now I'm calling it done.
Finally, my son wanted me to share these:
These models came from the "Frostgrave Starter Set" I gave him last Christmas. You probably recognize them from the first Reaper Bones kickstarter. It still feels a little stingy to me, but they were just sitting there and would quite probably never get used. He has about ten more waiting for his attention. Finally, here are some group shots:
As always, comments and criticism are welcome and encouraged.
Oh how I love the old chaos horseman with the comically long toes .
The shields are great .
I too did chaos because of point costs, that was after skaven though , so I did learn my lesson. I still have a bunch of the plastic chaos archers from battlemaster game along with the ogres and minotaurs.
@Theo: Thanks! I think the pointy boots are supposed to be easier to slide into stirrups, but since the models don't have any, they just look fabulous. Chaos archers? What heresy is this?!
@Slinky: I told my son what you said, and he was so excited to get feedback that he insisted that we work on his half-finished Space Marines that have been cluttering my painting area for a couple of months. He lasted about twenty minutes before he got bored/distracted, which is pretty good for an eight year-old.
@bbb: I have a few of those as well. The heads are pretty nifty, but the plastic bodies are a little too plain, I think.
I love those old Chaos Knights. Well, I love the old one-piece mounts. I'm less enamoured of most of the 2-part riders except for the first one. I had those (the ones I don't like) and they never managed to really grow on me. You've done a great job on them however.
Your son has also done a really fine job on those Bones models. I don't recall how old he is but he's already doing a lot better than many people. Helps to have dad as a teacher as I can see he's using multiple washes on the same model as well as drybrushing. The paladin's flaming sword looks exceptionally nice - the deep metallic red gives it a palpable look of heat. Now he needs to fix the tabard on the paladin that he left silver and get someone (dad!) to show/help him to do the bases.
Let's see if you can get him to have a semi-regular guest spot here on your painting blog.
@Theophony: I have absolutely no memory of that Chaos archer dude. I never, ever fielded any ranged units in my Chaos armies-- it just seems out of character.
@Azazelx: The Chaos Knights stand out to me as being vastly better than what came before, which is to say nothing. In particular, I liked that at least one of them came with a lance so I could argue that my units were WYSIWYG.
@Camkierhi: My son liked hearing that so much that we spent a whole five minutes on his Ultramarines before he decided that it was time to play with Legos instead. Ah, well, a little bit at a time...
@Archer: I was really disappointed with the second generation of these models. There was a little more variation in the riders, but the horses were the generic armored horses with metal heads.
Here are the last models for ChaoSeptember:
This guy is my favorite of this series, entirely because of the helmet with the Joker grin. I painted his armor in my standard Chaos armor pattern-- VGC Tinny Tin, SP gunmetal, Payne's Grey glaze-- with an additional layer of Mr. Color clear red over the top. He was too shiny like that, so I hit the whole thing with matte varnish to tone him down.
This model is identical to one from the last batch, so I hit him with some GW Asurmen Blue ink. His shield is an Arcane Armorial, with some touch up work by me to mask the low-res printing.
These two were sold together as "Evil Fighters" as part of the Collector's Series of blister packs. They are based on the same sculpt, but with enough variation in accessories that you can't really tell. The guy with the coffin shield has another Arcane Armorial, again with touch ups. I tried one with the other guy, but the only one i had with a hole for a shield boss looked derpy, so I painted over it with a Chaos star. The shield boss is supposed to be the Eye of Agamotto as designed by Steve Ditko, a design I've used repeatedly in this set.
This is a Champion of Khorne, released with the first Realm of Chaos book. Being sort of a centerpiece model, I did everything with traditional layering rather than relying on glazes as I've done with almost everthing else this month. This guy is the only model this month without a flower tuft on his base-- I can't see a Champion of the Blood God having anything to do with floral decorations.
Finally, a Slaaneshi wizard, also from the RoC:StD era. Her tab reads "Chaos Witch," but I that sort of gendered descriptor seems dated to me. In this post-LatD era, the fly face seems like it should be on a Nurgle model, but her rod/wand/thing has a Slaaneshi symbol. I guess the Prince of Pleasure has a sense of humor. This is one of maybe a half-dozen explicitly Slaaneshi models in my collection. In the 2010's, Slaanesh is supposed to be about sensation and/or the drive to excel, but back in the 80's s/he was decidedly sexual. As I've stated in the past, I don't really see a place for that on the battlefield.
Finally, a groups shot for September:
In the background, you can see a couple of nearly-finished ruins. The crumbling stone works well enough, but I want to make them look ancient. You can see the "vines" (which are actually rows of vegetable for very small train layouts), but the ivy I ordered hasn't arrived yet. Once I have that in place, these ruins should give the impression of age that I want. Also, there are a couple of Battlefield In A Box swamps that I'm in the middle of decorating.
For the time being, my October models will be 80's era beastmen. Watch this space.
Theophony wrote: I think the fly head your speaking about was meant to be more of the older slaaneshi demon beast head look, but either way it all looks good .
Looking forward to the 80s beastmen as I have a whole shoebox full of them myself.
I'm pretty sure it's a fly head. The Slaaneshi beasties had long pointed snouts and anteater tongues.
When you're ready for a break from the Samurai, you should get those beastmen out.
Love them all. I've been packing up our house for a few weeks and haven't had time to paint. Now all my paints are packed away and won't be back out for about another month. Really looking forward to getting back to it.
Theophony wrote: I think the fly head your speaking about was meant to be more of the older slaaneshi demon beast head look, but either way it all looks good .
Looking forward to the 80s beastmen as I have a whole shoebox full of them myself.
I'm pretty sure it's a fly head. The Slaaneshi beasties had long pointed snouts and anteater tongues.
When you're ready for a break from the Samurai, you should get those beastmen out.
when I need a palette cleanse from samurai then it will be my werewolves army.
Theophony wrote: I think the fly head your speaking about was meant to be more of the older slaaneshi demon beast head look, but either way it all looks good .
Looking forward to the 80s beastmen as I have a whole shoebox full of them myself.
I'm pretty sure it's a fly head. The Slaaneshi beasties had long pointed snouts and anteater tongues.
When you're ready for a break from the Samurai, you should get those beastmen out.
when I need a palette cleanse from samurai then it will be my werewolves army.
Old lead corrodes slowly (if at all), so they should be waiting for you when you retire.
That Bloodletter looking Champion is pretty cool. I missed out on so many characterful sculpts back in the day (though my brothers had a bunch of Chaos looking Ral Partha guys). Does that Champion have a Bloodletter head on his tail?
Slinky wrote:Nice work to round off the month - Love the chaos champion in particular - All the champions and renegade models from that era had so much character!
Indeed. All of them were unique, so the sculptors could go wild.
Barzam wrote:That Bloodletter looking Champion is pretty cool. I missed out on so many characterful sculpts back in the day (though my brothers had a bunch of Chaos looking Ral Partha guys). Does that Champion have a Bloodletter head on his tail?
He does, indeed, have a Bloodletter on his tail. Also, his helmet is elongated and horned like a Bloodletter, and he has claw feet like at least some of the Bloodletter sculpts from that era. He may, in fact, be an up-armored Bloodletter now that I think about it.
Love that Champion of Khorne. I like to think of him as half way to daemon so shares a lot of characteristics with the daemons. But still holds on to his old armour.
I completely missed your sons models. They look great. I may pick your brain on how to encourage a child to adopt the hobby (read force in the nicest possible way :-))
Hm. I think the best ways to engage kids are a) accept their short attention spans, and b) let them win.
a) My son gets bored after about 30 minutes of actual play (not including set up), and about ten minutes of painting modelling. Short, manageable bursts are key.
b) As much as I hate GW's "Forging The Narrative" BS, it works pretty well with my eight year-old. My bad guys push him to the wall, and then his heroes rally, just like his Super Sentai programs. He can learn a few rules along the way and hopefully learn how to lose gracefully sometime in the future.
And now for something completely different. And by "completely different" I mean "closely related to what I painted last month." This month is officially Beastober!
This is a pretty standard Gor. I'm pretty sure he is a Jes Goodwin sculpt, as he has the same massive arms, pouches, and studded belt as so many of his Wood Elves. The nose ring is a nice touch. I gave him an Arcane Armorial for his shield. Naturally, it required some touch up painting.
Another Gor, another Arcane Armorial.
This guy is based on the same body as the guy above. He is carrying less equipment, but makes up for it with those massive guns. Check out those delts-- Gold's Gym must have a branch in the Chaos Wastes.
This guy predates the previous three-- you can tell by how mutated he is. Chimpanzee face (with horns), goat legs, and what looks like crocodile skin on his shield arm. I wish I had more guys from this era, if only to break up the sameness of all those goat men.
OK, I guess I do have a few Ungors in my collection. I'm not sure what this guy is supposed to be-- a monkey? a yeti? He has a sort of skull face, but you can't see it behind the shield. I had never painted this one, which is why his shield boss hasn't been filed down, so I had to freehand his shield design. It turned out well enough, I suppose.
This guy is a dog-faced Korngor. According to the fluff in Slaves to Darkness, dog-men are favored by Khorne, and don't suffer the same discrimination than other Ungor do, which is why there were so many canine variations in this era. For the shields on these last two guys, I attempted a splotchy/pointillist effect a'la John Blanche, but it didn't really work.
As always, a group shot:
Six models in nine days seems really slow. In my defense, I have also been working on some terrain at the same time:
The evil tree is from Grabblecast (they have a thread over in N&R, but the photos don't work). I mounted it on a MDF base from Miniature Scenery, along with a rock made from scrap foamboard, some cuttings from an old broom and some static grass that is almost the exact same color as the base. It will make a nice piece of scatter terrain. Also:
I have a lot of scrap foamboard from the ruins I built a while back, so I've been assembling them as low ruined walls like these. I cover up the ugly joins with O-scale ivy, which also acts as a signifier of age. I plan to go back and add some to the larger ruins as well.
As always, comments, criticism and compliments are welcome.
Great stuff here Josh. I really enjoyed the final run of Knights, Warriors and Champions. You've painted up one of my favourite-ever Champions with the Bloodletter head there, and he looks great. The beastmen are very cool. I (re)painted most of those sculpts myself a couple of years ago, and your take on them looks really nice.
That skull-faced dude is a "satyr" beastman, btw - but I've never seen that Chimpman before. I have seen a few of the other more random beastmen, and have just a couple of them but never ever seen that one before.
Thanks, everyone, for your comments. Here are some more beastmen:
I started collecting beastmen almost as soon as I started playing WHFB-- their basic troops had two wounds in 2e, so they were a no brainer. A lot of those earlier models were all sorts of strange, like the chimp-gator guy I posted last week. The models releases with Slaves To Darkness were much more uniform in their poses and such, as you can see with these two. They are based on the same core sculpt, but with significant variation in the details. The Slaangor on the left has brighter colors than the Korngor, but I tried to keep things a little grimy, as they probably don't ready access to laundry facilities in the Chaos Wastes. I tried once again to get that splotchy John Blanche effect on their shields, and once again I failed.
Two more models based on the same pose, but with very different final looks. The Slaangor is a human/fiend hybrid, the Korngor is part fleshhound. I'm quite pleased with the colors on these guys. The pink is nice and vivid, as one would expect with a Slaaneshi model. I opted to paint the fleshhound ruff thing in the same skin tones as the rest of the model rather than the at-the-time-standard bright red.
Finally, to identical, very ugly models. These are probably the oldest beasmen in my collection. SOL has them in the 1988 catalog, along with a bunch of other, very weird models, none of which I own. I originally did their sleeves in the same brassy metallics as the rest of their armor, but they looked too much like Balinese dancers. I went back over them to make them look like puffy-sleeved Empire state troops. Only one guy in this set got an Arcane Armorial. These two have flat, stumpy shield studs, but the other three above have the standard hemispherical mounts. Way back in the day, I would have filed those down and filled the hole inthe shield with putty. Nowadays, I am loathe to do any cutting on these very old models, and with no more transfers with holes in the center, I was force to freehand their shields instead.
Group shot:
I will stick with the theme of beastmen this month. I am tired of painting shields, though, so I will be working on a set of Chaos furies. As always, comments, criticism and feedback are welcome.
Another amazing looking batch of beastmen, Josh. I'm all over these, and if I wasn't on a 40k kick right now I'd be tempted to bring out some of mine to paint them after seeing yours. Actually, I am tempted, but I'm going to use the little willpower I have to stay on the 40k train.
Will you be segregating them into "cult" units as you get more painted? Or at least separating the Khorngor and Slaangor into different units?
Azazelx wrote:Another amazing looking batch of beastmen, Josh. I'm all over these, and if I wasn't on a 40k kick right now I'd be tempted to bring out some of mine to paint them after seeing yours. Actually, I am tempted, but I'm going to use the little willpower I have to stay on the 40k train.
Will you be segregating them into "cult" units as you get more painted? Or at least separating the Khorngor and Slaangor into different units?
Give in to the temptation. You know you want to. Besides, it would only be fair, since all the 40K stuff you and others have been posting made me bump one of the Space Marine Heroes up in the queue.
I have always been a follower of Chaos Undivided, with jut a hint of Malal iconography. I don't have enough cult-specific models to make a whole unit, so they'll just be mixed in.
kestral wrote:Love those critters! Great paint!
Thanks, they were a lot of fun to do, even the bug-eyed dog men.
Beastmen have been moved to the back row (I had a look), so they're a bit difficult to get to, but next time I get past the tubs, I'll pick one or two out.
You know I love the old school beastmen when they are were these crazy hybrids not the generic "race" that they have become. You have made some really nice colour choices amongst these ugly mugs. My Beastmen are going to be way more of the generic mainstream ones unfortunately.
Azazelx wrote:Beastmen have been moved to the back row (I had a look), so they're a bit difficult to get to, but next time I get past the tubs, I'll pick one or two out.
I'll be waiting.
Archer wrote:You know I love the old school beastmen when they are were these crazy hybrids not the generic "race" that they have become. You have made some really nice colour choices amongst these ugly mugs. My Beastmen are going to be way more of the generic mainstream ones unfortunately.
Slinky wrote:Much more like the beastmen in the WFRP stories - Weird and warped, cast out by their family - not so uniform.
Nice paintwork too, Josh!
Most of the stuff in the Realms of Chaos books was wacky and over the top, but there were some hints of tragedy in the beastman sections that really brought them to life.
aku-chan wrote:Nice job on the Beastmen, I love the fishy one!
Thanks. I have one more packed away with the other beastmen I painted 10+ years ago. I'll have to dig those out for an army feature.
Camkierhi wrote:You are really knocking out excellent work lately. Real pleasure to see.
Thanks. I've been enjoying there Chaos models, although I am getting a little tired of all the brown.
Thanks, guys. It has been fun revisiting these old models. However, I am getting tired of all these browns. Speaking of which:
I re-started collecting beastmen with the release of the 6th(?) edition army book and plastic boxed set. For whatever reason, I decided that they needed demonic allies. Being a devotee of Chaos Undivided from the very beginning, these furies were my one and only option. I even got as far as opening the box and looking at the pewter/adamantium alloy before deciding that I didn't want to spend the hours necessary to pin all their wings. They remained in their box until I started a little CSM force for 40k. This time, I lost steam on the project, and these guys went into the Big Box of Unpainted Chaos Models. After finishing off the previous batch of Beastmen, I decided to bite the bullet and get these guys done. The box came with ten models, but only these three poses. Their weird faces reminded me of vampire bats, so I used a variety of browns (Ceramcoat Dark Chocolate, AP Leather Brown, AP Skeleton Bone). No washes or glaze this time-- only tedious layering. All in all, they took about a weeks worth of 45 minute early morning painting to finish.
About two weeks ago, I splurged on a static grass applicator. Real, professional models cost more than I wanted to spend, and the DIY option is outside of my comfort zone. Searching Ebay gave me a source from China at a price I could afford. It turns out to be just a DIY model like you see all over YouTube, but it works well enough that I managed to finish off a couple of pieces of scatter terrain that have been clluttering my painting area:
This one uses a fallen tree from Grabblecast, a rock built up from scrap foamboard and spackle, some clump foliage, and some straw that I clipped off the broom.
This one is a stone shelter, inspired by a photo from this Facebook page. There are a lot of nifty photos that I want to try to emulate on the tabletop.
Finally, here is a group shot, including the GF9 swamps that I finally finished decorating:
As always, comments, criticism, and praise are welcome and encouraged.
That bit of terrain with the fallen tree looks really nice, Josh. Mind pointing us to the Static Grass applicator that you picked up? It's been one of those things that I'd like to get someday, but low on my list (like all that junk from greenstuffworld that I've never gotten around to ordering!)
The furies look good, and in that scheme they really fit well with the beastmen as well. Like, they could be daemons, or they could just as easily be (as breed of) harpies or even flying beastmen - especially with as much variety as you have with your not-all-gor beastman collection.
Thanks, Az. You are correct about the flying beastmen. That was my original thought-- they would be beastmen with wings rather than daemons. I have never really like daemons in either WHFB or 40K, but I wanted something to fill whatever hole I saw in the army list at the time.
This is the static grass applicator that I picked up. The first one was horribly packaged, and arrived mangled and useless. They guys sent a replacement quickly and with no complaints, so I guess they're good. Much cheaper and a professional model, and much less hassle than building one myself.
I have one last model to share for Beastober-- a bray shaman:
SoL puts him in the 1997 catalog, alongside some nifty command models and some rather blah troopers (of which I have a bunch). I cranked this guy out in about two hours, spread over two days. No washes/glazes, just traditional layering and drybrushing. For his robes and such, I went with a palette similar to the Frostgrave gnolls I posted a few months ago.
I don't have a real theme for November. Instead, I will be clearing out the half-painted and never-started models that have been cluttering up my painting area since at least August:
There are three more beastmen, the heroes that ride the Elven Attack Chariot (minus the wizard, who I painted last year), an Elf boar handler and his pigs, and the Sergeant from the Space Marines Heroes set. If/when I finish all of these, I'll pull out some other random stuff to keep me busy until December.
For December, I plan to participate in Azazelx's "Painting Big Stuff Project" (that might not be the real title). During December and January, I will be focussing on all thing Mythos-- various monsters I got in two RAFM crowdfunding project and in Bones 1, including Great Cthulhu. Here's hoping I come out with my sanity intact.
Azazelx wrote:I really love that Shaman model (and most of that particular wave of Beastmen!) You've certainly done it justice! Thanks for the SGA link as well.
While I really like the character/command models from this wave, I find the troopers rather lackluster and generic, especially compared to all the weird beastmen that came before.
bbb wrote:Everything is wonderful.
Words to live by, my friend.
Slinky wrote:The shaman is fantastic, well done! Love the colour selection all round.
Looking forward to seeing the elven attack-piggies painted too
Ask, and ye shall recieve:
This is the boar handler, the last of the elven animal handlers. His outfit is ridiculous, even for a 1980's era Citadel elf. I decided to give him black leather pants and a white furry vest like a glam-metal dude would have worn. It doesn't show in these photos, but he has a massive nose ring, just like his pigs:
These guys are tiny compared to the boars that orcs ride. Maybe they are babies? Or else the larger ones are too difficult to control? Either way, there was a lot of empty space on their bases, so I added some flowers to fill them out. Here they are all together:
I also managed to crank out some more beastmen:
Not much to say about these guys, as they are identical to some models I shared last month. Did I mention that I'm running out of old Citadel shields? These guys are using the shields from the now-OOP plastic orc set. I used the boyz to add some variety to my space orks, and kept the shields for the glyphs. It's actually quite nice to be able to use some of the metric ton of bitz I have been hoarding all these years.
This guy has been stripped and repainted a few times. Originally he was an ugly combination of pinks and greens, as befits a Slaangor. Later, he was in blacks and greys, with his original weapon replaced by a giant bone. I used him as a shaman riding this wyvern. This time, he's back to being just a beastman. His axe came from the Frostgrave gnoll sprue (one more bit used, about one billion more to go!), and his shield is another orc shield. The shield is decorated with the beast-Malal symbol that I used the first time that I got serious about Beastmen about 12 years ago.
Finally, the other bray shaman. This model is nearly identical to the one I posted last week-- the only differences being his axe and horns, and all the bling. In FG, this guy would be the Wizard while the other guy would be the apprentice.
Finally, a little battle scene, featuring a little dolmen I threw together:
As always, comment, criticism, and compliments are welcome and encouraged.
Loving these old-school beastmen and elves, Josh. I picked up that Boar handler when I went elf-shopping on eBay a couple of years ago. Never got as far as the Wood Elves since the High Elves blocked me. I should probably try to finish those two HE units over summer this year.
I like both that range of goat-bray-beastmen as a "stable" set - and even their HIPS successors along with the Realm of Chaos releases. Some of the in-between ones, like the Marauder models and the old, old random ones I'm not nearly as fond of, aside from the odd super-cool one. Those really old, pre-RoC ones are very hit-and-miss for me as a range, so you're mixing my favourite two sets with your recent painting.
Azazelx wrote:Loving these old-school beastmen and elves, Josh. I picked up that Boar handler when I went elf-shopping on eBay a couple of years ago. Never got as far as the Wood Elves since the High Elves blocked me. I should probably try to finish those two HE units over summer this year.
I like both that range of goat-bray-beastmen as a "stable" set - and even their HIPS successors along with the Realm of Chaos releases. Some of the in-between ones, like the Marauder models and the old, old random ones I'm not nearly as fond of, aside from the odd super-cool one. Those really old, pre-RoC ones are very hit-and-miss for me as a range, so you're mixing my favourite two sets with your recent painting.
I started collecting beastmen pre-RoC, then started again with the plastics. That is probably why I'm not really fond of the in-between metals. They aren't bad models, just a sort of lost generation for me.
youwashock wrote:Wow, look at all the old-school goodness. Quite an impressive haul of classic models. Love the beast master and his wild pork.
I never get tired of painting those old elves. It's a good job that I have so many poorly-painted ones waiting to be stripped and repainted!
Love the Beastman Shaman. You do such a great job of natural colours. I have always liked the idea of wood Elf beast handlers. But have never looked into trying to get some of my own.
Finally, the other bray shaman. This model is nearly identical to the one I posted last week-- the only differences being his axe and horns, and all the bling. In FG, this guy would be the Wizard while the other guy would be the apprentice.
Your browns are very good, distinctive but still going good together.
Funny, I have this little lead guy somewhere in the junk box. Hmm, maybe I should steal Your scheme?
Thanks, guys. I have rather enjoyed working with these naturalistic colors. Everyone needs a change, though, so here's something unnatural:
This is one of the Mythos Monsters from the first Bones KS. I'm not sure what it is, but it has a lot of eyes.
And another one from the same set. This one also has a lot of eyes. They are hard to see in real life, which is why I didn't bother with pupils for them. I may or may not go back and add them in. Also note the half-digested dude on the inside.
Here they are, along with another piece of scatter terrain I threw together:
And here are some bonus photos, hidden behind the spoiler tag:
Spoiler:
I do all my painting and modelling work downstairs, but completed models are stored upstairs. I'm running low on storage, so every time I haul something upstairs, I have to repack whatever case they are going into. This is time-consuming, to say the least, so I usually have twenty or thirty models stored up by the time I get around to putting them away. This time, I finally made myself pack up all the beastmen I did last month, and I was pleasantly surprised by how many I had already done. For example:
These are the plastics from 5th edition. Very nice models, but the ball joint on their necks is really ugly. I gave them all massive manes to cover the joint.
A bunch of nearly-identical ram-men with two-handed axes. This was the core of a Bestigor unit.
This is the rest of the Bestigors. The bulldog-guy with the frog feet is delightful to me.
Some snakemen.
A cat-man, a bird-man, and an ugly goat man.
Three identical goat(?)-men. One is missing his shield.
Three mutants. I'm not entirely sure why I decided that they need tentacles. Beastmen have never had access to archers, so at one point I had planned to convert them to spearmen, but appear to have given up on that as well.
A little minotaur (minitaur?) and a monkey/goat man.
A couple of musicians. I'm not sure the guy on the right knows how to blow that horn. The guy on the left has a plastic horn left over from a plastic sprue-- one of the few instances of me actually using things from my bitz box.
A kitbashed standard bearer and a weird mutant. I was seriously considering picking up that two-headed guy on Ebay for an outrageous sum. I'm glad I chickened out, as I'm not sure anyone needs two of this guy.
A rhino-man, two bull-men, and a very pink Slaangor.
A couple of heroes. I wish I had the time/patience I had when I painted the Chaos Champion on the left.
Minotaurs. If I were to repaint these guys now, they wouldn't be quite so red. I have a few more waiting in a Box of Shame, though, so I'll try a different palette on them if/when I get around to them.
A minotaur lord. He is lunging so far forward that he was exceptionally difficult to photograph.
All of the beastmen ranked up and poorly lit. Not really enough for a pure beastman army, but they work as one part of a combined Chaos army.
Those Mythos monsters painted up pretty quick, but with the release of Ghost Archipelago, my enthusiasm has shifted back to fantasy warbands for now. At least there won't be many browns on those models.
That's one hell of an impressive Beastman force, Josh - and painted so quickly as well!
The Bones stuff looks surprisingly good as well. I don't remember any of those though - was the Mythos stuff an add-on, or do I probably have them in a box somewhere?
Archer wrote:Not sure exactly what the green one is. But the second one would be a very good substitute for a Gibbering Mouther.
I like them. You have done an awesome job on a fairly amorphous model. The giant eyeball is particularly awesome.
GIbbering Mouther is the first thing I thought of, too.
OnlyWar wrote:
This is one of the Mythos Monsters from the first Bones KS. I'm not sure what it is, but it has a lot of eyes.
If I remember my Mythos correctly, those blobs are shoggoths, artificially created slaves of the Elder Things who rebelled against their creators.
As I recall from playing the Call of Cthulhu RPG many years ago, shoggoths are much bigger than this thing. Maybe it's a baby?
youwashock wrote:Blobby goodness. Very effective eyeball on the green one.
Thanks. I had a couple of false starts, but it turned out OK in the end.
Azazelx wrote:That's one hell of an impressive Beastman force, Josh - and painted so quickly as well!
The Bones stuff looks surprisingly good as well. I don't remember any of those though - was the Mythos stuff an add-on, or do I probably have them in a box somewhere?
Thanks. All the beastmen in this latest post are at least ten years old. I was just so pleased to (re)discover that I had them that I wanted to share. The Bones guys were an add-on-- only $10, so I couldn't say no.
Slinky wrote:Hideous beasts are great, Josh - The eyeball is very effective and creepy
Thanks. My son hates them both-- he calls them "gross" (in Japanese).
I think I mentioned that my Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago stuff arrived last week. FG hits all the right buttons for me, and GA does the same. As a result, I couldn't stop myself from bumping these up in the queue:
These four are the female crew members from Northstar. I used brighter colors on them than I have anything in the last six months. Also, no washing/glazing-- traditional layering only. I'm quite proud of the stripey pants.
This is Eva, the pirate queen from Bad Squiddo. When I buy into these Nickstarters, I go through BS because shipping is cheaper and they carry some nifty models, like this one, that I don't feel like scouring the 'net to find. This model comes with a giant iguana, which is still in the primer-only phase.
Here are a couple of group shots. First, all five models together:
And one with another piece of scatter terrain:
The statue and plants are aquarium decorations that have been sitting in my terrain-making box for over a decade.
As always, comments, criticism and praise are welcome and encouraged.
kestral wrote: That is great work J in J - though I feel that the crewwomen fit better than the captain with the frostgrave look.
Hats off for painting without washes. I admire those who can.
This whole set was painted with GA in mind, but I agree that the Captain wouldn't fit in well in Felstadt (sp?).
Layering isn't that difficult, just time consuming. You just have to make sure you start with a dark-enough base color, or else the model looks washed out.
These look very nice. But... no peg legs or hook hands? A sad lot of pirates these be. Yar. They've painted up very well. The minis are not too 'busy' at all. I like that.
It is possible to layer from light to dark. Sometimes this is much easier on really small areas. At least for me.
Now as far as aquarium decorations... one of those chests of coins? Or would those be too big. Pirates gotta have a treasure chest. Plus, you need stuff like that in Frostgrave anyway.
Red Harvest wrote:These look very nice. But... no peg legs or hook hands? A sad lot of pirates these be. Yar. They've painted up very well. The minis are not too 'busy' at all. I like that.
It is possible to layer from light to dark. Sometimes this is much easier on really small areas. At least for me.
Now as far as aquarium decorations... one of those chests of coins? Or would those be too big. Pirates gotta have a treasure chest. Plus, you need stuff like that in Frostgrave anyway.
Well, the creators are pretty adamant that it's not a pirate game, but rather a pre-black powder, low fantasy Indiana Jones/Lara Croft treasure hunt.
bbb wrote:Awesome pirates, matey! Frostgrave sounds like a ton of fun. Hope GA is as well.
I recommend both. Both games are miniatures-neutral, so at least some of the models I've painted in the last couple of years are finally seeing some action.
Very cool stuff Josh. You've got those stripey pants down - now paint some slayers to go with them!
I do like the look of the Ghost Archipelago stuff you're producing, and the setting appeals to me a bit (lot) more than the Frozen City thing. Not that I've gotten around to a single game of Frostgrave yet, despite owning a pile of the books.
Camkierhi wrote:Wonderful pirates, but sorry the squiggly stuff at the top of the page wins, just love it.
The squigglies were fun and easy to paint, except for the eyes, and also count as a warm up for my December/January project.
cygnnus wrote:Dang... those look great Josh! Nice change of pace with the bright colors. Love ‘em!
Valete,
JohnS
Painting some more colorful models was a nice change. Of course, that didn't last, as we'll see below.
Azazelx wrote:Very cool stuff Josh. You've got those stripey pants down - now paint some slayers to go with them!
I do like the look of the Ghost Archipelago stuff you're producing, and the setting appeals to me a bit (lot) more than the Frozen City thing. Not that I've gotten around to a single game of Frostgrave yet, despite owning a pile of the books.
I think I'll leave the slayers to you, thanks.
FG and GA aren't really setting dependent-- there aren't rules for frostbite or slipping on ice, for example-- so if you have some scatter terrain and ruins, you can play. Mechanically, the rules are particularly sophisticated, but then again neither is 40K. Give it a try in your copious free time and let me know what you think.
Speaking of free time:
This is the Ranger from Oathsworn's second Senisble Shoes KS. She seems a bit drab after the brightly-colored crewmembers from the previous update. They don't show up in this photo, but I really did paint her eyes.
A couple of brigands, from the same KS project. They seemed like the kind of fellows who waylay travelers, so I kept their colors muted as well. I don't have a lot of models that fit the description of "thug," so these will be useful. Finally, the obligatory group shot, with terrain:
The plants are trimmed down aquarium plants, hot glued down to MDF bases. Good for blocking LOS, not a lot of effort to make. Expect to see more like this.
As always, comments, criticism, and compliments are welcome and encouraged.
A witch from Oathsworn's second Sensible Shoes KS. Her eyes look really weird in this photo, almost like she painted her eyelids to fool her teaching into thinking she was not sleeping in class. I'll have to make her upper eyelid more distinct.
A paladin from the same KS. His eyes turned out well enough. The colors for his surcoat came from GIS-- I wasn't sure the drab colors would work, but I'm happy with how they turned out. Also, because of how I mounted him on the base, I had a hard time finding a good place to stick the tuft. It looks like he is willing to lay down his life to defend that patch of flowers.
I picked up this model when I ordered my Ghost Archipelago stuff, but I can't remember the manufacturer. I gave her dark skin to make her look a little less naked. The sword and her hands were a separate piece, and I had a hell of a time getting it to line up with the arms. Her left hand is, in fact, not attached to her wrist. You can't tell unless you turn the model upside down, so I think I'm safe. I painted her eyes, but they are too small to see in photos.
Finally, a vampire hunter from Bad Squiddo's Last Sunrise KS. Her face turned out quite ugly. I think she'll see service in FG of GA as a crossbowman/marksman.
And now, a group shot, with a couple of pieces of scatter terrain-- a bottomless pit and a little pond:
In the background, you can just make out a Spawn of Cthulhu model from Reaper. December/January will be focused on large Mythos monsters, building up the Great Cthulhu from Bones 1. Check in to have your sanity blasted!
aku-chan wrote: Nice stuff yet again, I particularly like the Lion Lady.
Thanks. I've really enjoyed all this random stuff I've been working on. FG and GA have inspired me to work on stuff that would probably have never seen the tabletop otherwise.
Continuing the holiday theme, here are some Horrors From The Deep!
This is the third model in the Mythos Monsters set from Bones I. I know that Cthulhu is usually green, but I wanted him to look more like an octopus. This model has this bumpy texture all over, making layering more hassle that it would be worth. The tombstone thing on his base came from a RAFM set, but I don't remember which one.
Speaking of RAFM, here's Father Dagon, from their CoC Kickstarter. Deep Ones are always described as ichthyic aand/or batrachian, but this guy is so scaly I went with saurian instead. I modeled his eyes after crocodile eyes. As you can see here:
He's a lot bigger than a standard RAFM Deep One.
Finally, Mother Hydra. RAFM sells this model as a Servitor of the Outer Gods-- you can see the flute it plays to placate/entertain Azathoth-- but it doesn't look amorphous enough to me for that. The model is mostly resin, but the arms and metal, and were a real hassle to attach. Did you catch the little white spot in the second photo? I washed and scrubbed the model three times, but never got it completely degreased, and I had a hell of a time getting the gesso to stick.
Here's a scale shot with all three together:
And one more, this time with another piece of terrain:
As always, comments, criticism, and feedback are welcome and encouraged. Thanks for looking!
Thanks, guys. This has been a fun series of models to work on.
Next up, some more Deep Ones:
I painted these guys essentially indentically to Father Dagon/Mother Hydra from last week. My son assures me that the guy with the book is not in fact a wizard, but is merely taking some time to catch up on his reading.
Here's a shoggoth:
I wasn't sure how to do a translucent amoeba effect, so I went with human skin instead. It's not quite so yellow in real life. I gave it a mix of human and non-human eyes to reflect the truly amorphous nature of the shoggoth. HPL heavily implies that all life on Earth came from these things, so there's no reason it should all look like us. The main body is resin, and the tentacles are metal. The kit came with another ten or so little tentacles that probably go in the little holes, but I decided that would be to fragile for the tabletop. Instead, I dribbled some green glaze to simulate leaking bile and/or other fluids, like in an Erol Otus illustration. I think it turned out gross enough.
Finally, a group shot:
No terrain this week-- I spent too much time on all those eyes. As always, comments, criticism, feedback and praise are welcome and encouraged.
A couple of weeks ago, I treated myself to an early Christmas gift. When they arrived, I decided to bump them up in the painting queue:
These are from Bad Squiddo's Onna Bugeisha (lit: female warriors) line. Their armor seems to be modeled on late-Sengoku styles, so I decided to keep the colors simple-- in this case, dull yellow lacing over black armor plates. The jinbaori on the leftmost model feels a little too plain, but I'm not sure what to put on it. For now, I'll leave it as is.
Two more from the same line. The red armor turned out a lot more red than I'd wanted. I have been trying to achieve a rusty effect, but every time it comes out either too red or too brown.
After all those Jes Goodwin models, with their prominent eyebrows and razor-sharp cheekbones, I had a heck of a time with the faces on these models. The camera was a lot more forgiving than the naked eye. Also, to emphasize their female-ness, I added a bit of color to their lips-- a half-remembered tip I got from the Sedition Wars "How to paint" DVD. There are four more models in this line. I hope to have them finished by the end of the year. Finally, the obligatory group shot, with terrain:
The stone hand and the face hidden behind the plants are also from Bad Squiddo, the treasure counters came with the FG:GA Nickstarter.
As always, comments, criticism, and praise are welcome and encouraged. Thanks for looking.
Very cool. You're levels above my own painting so I'm reluctant to offer suggestions but since you asked the shaft on the naginata could use some grain or texture, the color it too close to the leather I think.
Kid_Kyoto wrote: Very cool. You're levels above my own painting so I'm reluctant to offer suggestions but since you asked the shaft on the naginata could use some grain or texture, the color it too close to the leather I think.
I'm a little reluctant to try painting woodgrain on something so small, but you're probably right. I'll have to give that some thought.
Wow, it's been a while since I posted here. Holiday distractions and all.
Nice work on all. Amusing that you mention Erol Otus. That Shoggoth reminds me of the Shoggoth illo in the old 1st edition Dieties and Demi-gods. The first print, before TSR removed the Cthulu mythos section. For some odd reason, I was recently looking through my copy.
The other tip for female faces is to use warm colors for highlights and shading.
Kid_Kyoto wrote:Black lines with a fine point marker?
That seems like it would be more hassle than the results would be worth. Maybe I'll try something with a fine brush.
bbb wrote:Excellent work as usual.
Thanks kindly.
Red Harvest wrote:Wow, it's been a while since I posted here. Holiday distractions and all.
Nice work on all. Amusing that you mention Erol Otus. That Shoggoth reminds me of the Shoggoth illo in the old 1st edition Dieties and Demi-gods. The first print, before TSR removed the Cthulu mythos section. For some odd reason, I was recently looking through my copy.
The other tip for female faces is to use warm colors for highlights and shading.
My first introduction to HPL was the old Dieties and Demi-gods. I still regret getting rid of all my old D&D books when I came over here.
Archer wrote:I like the female Warriors very cool to see. I really like the lacquered armour colours.
You always have such a cool diversity of models. What's next in the queue?
Thanks. I have a couple more of these to finish, then it's back to Mythos Horror. I'm planning to paint up Great Cthulhu from Bones 1 for January. Then maybe some Deadzone and/or Dreadball for a change of pace.
youwashock wrote: Great Bones Cthulhu should be very cool to see. I await with barely retained sanity.
I'll be sure to write to you while you're in the sanitarium.
Final update for 2017:
Two more onna bugeisha from Bad Squiddo. These two models have essential no female signifiers, but they turned out well enough. I'm pleased with the jinbaori in particular.
And the final two in this set. The one on the left with the sword is the only model in the range (so far) with the older style ornate lacing. Sadly, it is just lines etched in the armor plates rather than raised detail, so the effect isn't as good as I hoped. Note that the model has no sheath for that sword.
As always, a group shot:
Special bonus update:
I have a bazillion painted Enforcers, and another bazillion on sprue/in bags of restic. The sheer number, combined with the fiddliness of assembly, has kept me from making any more progress. Then, Puppets War came out with these nifty skull helmets, and I just had to get a few. I went with a more menacing color combination to go with the new helmet. I'm not sure about the wrist blades-- they sort of blend in when photographed. Should I go back and yellow them up some more? Maybe a different color?
Happy New Year, everyone. Be safe, and I'll see you on the other side.
Thanks for the feedback. Here's where I ended up going with these guys:
I tried blue, like the official Enforcer paint jobs, but it was too "cool" against the warm red. I thought green would be too Christmasy, but it worked well enough. This was a fun little exercise, apart from assembly-- I still don't see what the point of having the legs separate from the torso if they aren't meant to be mixed-and-matched.
The obligatory gropu shot:
Next up, I have some Broken from Maelstrom's edge primed and ready to go. After that, Cthulhu.
I must admit I'd really like to acquire this figure for my arena Leos - you said you don't remember the manufacturer, but was it from the Ghost Archipelago website?
@kestral: It's not an official Northstar model, I just ordered it at the same time. A little Googling tells me that it's from DGS Games' Freeblades line.
As an aside, I'm suddenly wondering of Freeblades is any good as a game. One can never have too many rulesets, right?
I've never played it either. Too many games, not enough time.
It's still winter break here, and while the rest of the family is off visiting my in-law's, I'm at home with our geriatric dog and lots of free time. I finally get to watch whatever movies I want, and spend hours and hours hobbying.
This first model is right off the Maelstrom's Edge Broken sprue. I had a little trouble getting his left hand to line up with the gun, and it's currently held in place by the varnish.
This is the other body from the same sprue. I really like this gas mask-- it reminds me of Zardoz. Each body sprue comes with two torsos, four set of legs and four heads, while the weapons sprue comes with a bunch more non-human heads, and lots and lots of guns and arms. I'm not much of a kitbasher by nature, but seeing so many unused parts offends me. Thankfully, I had a sprue of frostgrave barbarians lying around:
The arms don't fit seamlessly, but they work well enough tht they didn't need any gap filling. Both the broken and the barbarians have a sort of rag-tag look to them, so they go together pretty well, visually. I don't think I'll ever need 25 barbarians (r cultists, for that matter) for FG, so I should end up with a decent sized force of post-apoc mutants for Scrappers.
Finally, a group shot:
I have Cthulhu basecoated and have applied a couple layers of drybrushing. I hope to have him ready to show this week. Stay tuned.
Nice! Zardoz guy is pretty crazy. Looking forward to doing something with my broken sprue also. I wonder if they would work with the Frostgrave men at arms, though I feel they would be too small.
cygnnus wrote:Dang man... you keep on churning out some great work. I continue to be amazed at your combination of quality and quantity. Really, really great stuff!
You flatter me. It's easy to keep up this level of production when you don't have much of a life. I'm still waiting for you to pick up the brush again.
kestral wrote:Nice! Zardoz guy is pretty crazy. Looking forward to doing something with my broken sprue also. I wonder if they would work with the Frostgrave men at arms, though I feel they would be too small.
That's a good question. I'll try to take a look sometime this week.
The wife and son are still away, leaving me with little or no human contact, but lots of time for stuff like this:
This is, of course, Great Cthulhu from Reaper's Bones line. The model went together really well, with only a little gap filling around the tail, and some minor seam lines across the shoulders. I based the paint scheme off of a Dr. Faust video. Given the size of the model, I couldn't bring myself to use any of my AP or Vallejo paints for the base colors, so I ended up painting him with Delta Ceramcoat charcoal grey/hunter green, with a little Vallejo shadow grey for highlights. The tentacles and spines are grey/green with some AP alien purple mixed in, further highlighted with AP barbarian flesh. A remarkably simple, if time-consuming, model to paint. As you can see in this scale shot:
this is a really big model. I'm honestly not sure where I can put him-- he won't fit in my little miniatures cabinet, and the box he came in is too small. I have a few days to figure it out., though.
Finally, here's a shot of Cthulhu rampaging through the Osgiliath ruins I painted while waiting for various washes and stuff to dry:
I enjoyed painting these buildings so much that I dug out some of the many, many Battlezones I picked up oh so long ago. Those will be mostly drybrushing, so I can do those while I watch the terrible action movies that I only get to watch when I'm alone at home. Also,. beer. Bachelor life gets lonely after a few days, but those first few days are a lot of fun.
Azazelx wrote:Very cool stuff Josh. You've got those stripey pants down - now paint some slayers to go with them!
I do like the look of the Ghost Archipelago stuff you're producing, and the setting appeals to me a bit (lot) more than the Frozen City thing. Not that I've gotten around to a single game of Frostgrave yet, despite owning a pile of the books.
I think I'll leave the slayers to you, thanks.
FG and GA aren't really setting dependent-- there aren't rules for frostbite or slipping on ice, for example-- so if you have some scatter terrain and ruins, you can play. Mechanically, the rules are particularly sophisticated, but then again neither is 40K. Give it a try in your copious free time and let me know what you think.
I'd love to get a game up and running. There's just SO MANY bloody games, though. It's easier to buy them and even get the models painted than to manage to actually play anything, sadly...
The Oathsworn stuff looks great, as do the smaller(!) Mythos creatures. Any particular ideas on what you'll use them for? Samurai and other Japanese models are very nice. Will you be playing that new game from Warlord with them? Or perhaps using them for Frostgrave? Enfocer dudes look cool, as I mentioned in the other thread the other day. Broken look good as well. I'd have to find a bunch of cheap torsos to use with them if I ever pick any up. It does indeed seem like a huge waste to have all those extra parts!
And of course, Great Cthulhu looks ...well, great. The sea green he's done in does indeed look great, as the others have said. Very cool stuff, and the Osgilliath ruins seem a suitable place for him to rampage through. I need to get myself a couple of those sets, actually...
Miguelsan wrote:I wonder who woke the damn thing. Luckily the Enforcers will get rid of it... maybe.
M.
Well, that guy does have two pistols. That's probably enough.
Boss Salvage wrote:Great color on Cthulhu, love seeing him in not-goblin green Hella big boy too!
- Salvage
youwashock wrote:My mind!
Love the color combination on Cthulhu. Always a good model to see painted.
Thanks. I was a little nervous that the model was too teal, which is one of the least horrifying colors in nature. The dark grey-green glaze brought it back to horror territory.
Azazelx wrote:
I'd love to get a game up and running. There's just SO MANY bloody games, though. It's easier to buy them and even get the models painted than to manage to actually play anything, sadly...
The Oathsworn stuff looks great, as do the smaller(!) Mythos creatures. Any particular ideas on what you'll use them for? Samurai and other Japanese models are very nice. Will you be playing that new game from Warlord with them? Or perhaps using them for Frostgrave? Enfocer dudes look cool, as I mentioned in the other thread the other day. Broken look good as well. I'd have to find a bunch of cheap torsos to use with them if I ever pick any up. It does indeed seem like a huge waste to have all those extra parts!
And of course, Great Cthulhu looks ...well, great. The sea green he's done in does indeed look great, as the others have said. Very cool stuff, and the Osgilliath ruins seem a suitable place for him to rampage through. I need to get myself a couple of those sets, actually...
Too many games, not enough time-- the eternal lament. Nothing I have been painting is geared towards any particular system. I can use fantasy/historical stuff for FG and GA, SoBaH, or Vanguard (when that gets released). Enforcers are meant for Daedzone, of course, but this most recent set could work as cyborgs for Scrappers or Rogue Stars. Cthulhu probably won't see any action on the tabletop, but the smaller stuff will make good monsters for a lot of different settings.
The family is still away, and I have been filling my free time catching up on movies and building larger projects. So far, I've watched Death Race (with Jason Statham), Mad Max:Fury Road, and Wonder Woman. I have built these:
These were built with most of a Core World's battlezone. The cubes were designed to be stackable:
Giving me a security checkpoint and a couple of watchtowers. The tower on the right needs a floor. I also built these:
This is a Ruined battlezone with a few parts from the coreworld, which is why that one tower doesn't have a floor. These turned out to be stackable as well:
These were fun, if time and space intensive, to build. I ended up using two full sprues of connectors, and part of a third-- I'm glad I thought to buy some more in the PM. If/when I get around to building some more, I'll have to build some more interesting structures, I think.
When I was getting all the stuff out for this project, I decided to sort through all my DZ stuff, and have come to the conclusion that I have too many DZ models. I have three more ruined BZ, at least one landing pad, and two bunkers, all unbuilt, plus enough models of each faction for Firefight, if not Warpath. I also have twelve sprues of zombies (what was I thinking?), and mulitple walkers, including one more of the OOP stuntbots. For anyone worrying about your hobby spending, I recommend going through your unpainted stuff periodically. Doing so has killed any desire I had to buy new models for quite some time.
The terrain looks very nice. I built a bunker-ish building awhile back with a tower in one corner, but I've caught decision paralysis on deciding how to paint it. Military greens, or industrial colours (whatever that means?) or Necromunda blue-grey, or metallic, or... I'll just put it on the shelf here. For roughly forever.
Real life has been getting in the way, but I have gotten a few more things finished:
Five steel warriors for Deadzone/Firefight. The legs come attached to the hips, making them far less of a PITA to assemble than Enforcers. In exchange, the torsos are split into front and back halves, and the assembled piece is not quite deep enough to sit flush on the hips (compare with the deep socket on tactical space marines). They look pretty good once they are all together, I think. These guys turned out a lot darker than the drop armor guys, but I think I like this version better.
Some poorly lit Asterians. I actually started these about six months ago, but lost steam after the Necron Abyss basecoat. That particular paint dries glossy, making it really hard to get the highlights. I ended up drybrushing them with Vallejo stormy blue (also glossy) mixed with a little matte medium (to kill the gloss), then did the edge highlights. The missle launcher probably needs some more work, but I'm kind of tired of looking at these guys. Here's an under-lit battle scene:
For February, I plan to get through the Forge Father starter set from DZ1-- brokkrs and then more brokkrs. They should be fun, despite the material.
The Brokkrs look like construction workers-- work boots, equipment harnesses with wrenches and screwdrivers-- so I painted them as such. This guy seems to have lost his shirt somewhere, and is probably violating an OSHA protocol. I tried to give him stubble on his head, but it doesn't really show up. I'll need to go back and give him another pass or two with the glaze.
Another bald guy, this time with his shirt on. You can't see the stubble here, either.
This guy is apparently a welder. His arms don't quite align with the body-- I should have been more patient with the hot water bending. That said, you can't tell at arm's length, so I'll leave him be.
It was hard to get a good photo of this guy due to his bent-over position. He looks a lot like my dad with the receding hairline and ZZ Top beard.
Finally, a group shot:
These guys painted up pretty quickly. I have another identical set waiting in the queue, right behind the Asterian jetbike I have half finished. I hope to have that ready to share by the weekend.
Nice job with those Forgefathers Josh.
I need to get my ass in gear and try to get people in Kansai for Mantic. I just finished a 1st gen mutant that needs somewhere to play. Maybe if I show them your dwarves in space they'll be impressed and come to play.
Slinky wrote:Very nice, and the stubble on the heads actually looks quite good to me, subtle, but definitely there
Thanks. I think I can make it more distinct the next time I try it, though.
Barzam wrote:Nice work on the Mantic minis. It's nice to see more people painting them.
I really like Mantic stuff, which is a good thing given how many of their models I have waiting to be painted.
Miguelsan wrote:Nice job with those Forgefathers Josh.
I need to get my ass in gear and try to get people in Kansai for Mantic. I just finished a 1st gen mutant that needs somewhere to play. Maybe if I show them your dwarves in space they'll be impressed and come to play.
M.
Thanks. I'm the only minis gamer up here, so it's not so difficult to get people to try Mantic games. The difficulty is the lack of players
Deadzone month continues:
Here's the Asterian jetbike I started about three months ago. It was a lot easier to work on the second time around. The edge higlights and OSL look much better at arm's length than in these photos.
A Forge Father mining laser.
And the engineer to drive it. This guy has some weird casting imperfections on his head which I painted as a combover. It's kind of hard to see in photos and in real life.
I have another set of Brokkrs started, and after that I'll be painting FF bikers.
The starter sets from the first DZ kickstarter (and possibly the modern ones as well-- I may never know given that I have all the deadzone models I will ever need.) come with two of each model, meaning I have to paint everything twice. These guys went a little faster than the first set since I knew what all the little blobby restic details were. I got better results from the stubble this time around, but looking at the photos, I see that I need to hit the belts and pouches with a wash to deepen the shading a bit more.
As always, a group shot:
I have half of a booster set in the works-- bike, chief engineer, and bombot and driver-- about 1/3 finished. As always, comments and criticism are welcome and encouraged.
The steel warriors are hard plastic, the brokkrs are all restic. The latter have been easier to work with than expected-- the exaggerated features don't suffer from being cast in restic as much a finer details would.
Thanks, everyone, for the kind words. When I first started this project, I didn't have any thoughts on their skin tones beyond not wanting to paint another set of caucasian models. That said, I am happy with the results. I always liked the idea of squats, but the execution-- both a fat space bikers and undersized IG--always fell flat. I think Mantic really hit the ball out of the park with these Space Construction workers.
Here are some more FF:
I've shown this guy before, but while painting the guys below, I finally realized that brokkrs are wearing chaps over their jeans. Once I saw what those lines really are, I couldn't unsee it, so I repainted his legs. I may or may not go back over the rest.
Here's the chief engineer. Sorry the photos are so dark. I switched over to an Android phone, and I'm still learning how to use it.
Another engineer, this time holding the remote control for the bombot there. His arms are amazing, like that guy who overdeveloped his biceps for Jesus.
Finally, a biker. Because space dwarves have to have bikers somewhere in the list.
Lastly, a group shot:
I have one more set identical to this one, but I'm going to take a little break. Next up, I will be painting some more models from Scythe for a friend, and at the same time I'll be working on the armored trolls from Dungeon Saga that have been taking up space since I lost steam on that project way back when. As always, comments and criticism are welcome and encouraged.
These two models are the heroes from the 5-6 player expansion for Scythe. Loyal readers of this PMBLog remember the other models in the set. These two were easy, if time consuming, to paint. I kept the glazes to a minimum this time around, focusing more on effective layering. I think they turned out well, although the blurry photos makes that difficult to believe. These guys came with four identical mecha models each:
I'll hand these off to my gaming friend this weekend. One day, I hope to actually play the game.
Speaking of playing, my son and I have been playing a lot of Dreadball since the second edition rules came out. DB has proven to be one of my favorite games, right up there with Frostgrave/Ghost Archipelago. My renewed enthusiasm inspired me to dig out my DBX models and get them ready to play:
The top photo shows the Glambek Ghosts, a team of extra-dimensional energy beings who can become immaterial. My son calls them "Power Men," which is a pretty good name. They are cast in translucent blue plastic, which we painted over with Mr. Color clear blue paint. I hit the crackly energy bits with a white highlight. I think the little ball in the front is supposed to be a prone model.
The bottom photo is the Sulentic Shards, a team of rock people. My son calls them "Rock Guys." They were cast in the same material as the Power Men, and I had intended to use the same clear paint on the crystal parts, but the paint on the rock parts blocks light from passing through, which killed the effect. I ended up going over those parts in turquoise instead.
Next up: the remainder of the Warlord of Galahir expansion for Dungeon Saga.
Slinky wrote:Scythe models look great, very effective paintjobs, and I am v impressed by the neatness of the lines on that kilt tartan!
Thanks. The tartan was pretty simple, or rather I kept it as simple as possible. The poor lighting helps, I think.
Camkierhi wrote:Seriously good work here, really great stuff. As mentioned very neat and clean. Love the selection of models too.
Thanks to you as well. Those Scythe models made a nice change.
Archer wrote:Your painting is really hitting top notch standards Josh. You may have lost the clear plastic effect on the Rock People. But they still look amazing.
Yeah, I'm fairly pleased with how they turned out.
bbb wrote:Wonderful stuff as usual.
You are too kind.
After the previous batch, I thought I would spend some time finishing off the models that have migrated their way downstairs from the Closet of Shame into the Drawers of Shame. I got sidetracked pretty quickly from that, but not before I finished these guys:
These are the trolls from the Warlord of Galahir expansion for Dungeon Saga. I had to cut them off of their 50mm dungeon bases because a) the bases were badly warped and b) I want to use them for Kings of War if I ever actually play. I probably should have positioned them a little better on their bases, as they really don't rank up on the right side. Here they are with some of the other trolls I painted up last year:
Aesthetically, they match up well enough. I have at least six more trolls, maybe as many as nine, so these guys will add a little variety to the units.
As always, comments and criticism is welcome and encouraged. Next up, some apprentice wizards from Midlam.
Thanks, Cam. I enjoyed painting them. I rather like all the Dungeon Saga models, despite the complete lack of variety.
Back when I posted the last update, I had planned to continue/finish the models for that particular DS expansion. As it happens, though, I seem to have partially converted a local friend from (exclusively) boardgaming to miniatures. He bought a bunch of Frostgrave stuff, and I gave him a couple of badic painting lessons to get him started. That got me thinking about FG again, and inspired me to finally paint up these models from Midlam Miniatures. This particular set are all apprentices .
This is Confusius (they all have funny names), who is having trouble figuring out how to use a wand. The model doesn't have a lot of extraneous detail, and so was a breeze to paint.
This is Hattrix, who has a very large hat. I realized after I had finished her that she is dressed like Dr. Strange. I would have gone back over her leggings in black, but I spent a little too much time layering them.
This is Bookwyrm, tasked with carrying all the Grimoires. He has two pairs of glasses for some reason.
Explodio here is mixing potions, something you're not supposed to do, if I remember my AD&D correctly. My phone refused to focus on this model for some reason.
Toadini is wielding a toad. The model looks a lot like Matthew Lewis in the first couple of Harry Potter movies.
Scrollux has a lot of scrolls. I painted this model's robes in various browns in an attempt to make it look like a medieval scribe. Did it work?
Sanloss appears to have summoned something from a non-Euclidean dimension. It's hard to see in this poorly-focused photo, but he's bleeding from his eyes.
Naturally, an apprentice needs a master:
This very old Chaos Sorcerer has been sitting, unpainted, in a box for close to thirty years. I also started a couple of Bones wizards from the first KS, but for whatever reason they just don't appeal to me at the moment. They will languish, half-finished, until I find the inspiration to finish them.
I'm not really sure what to work on for the rest of the month. I need a project, but I just can't seem to settle on one. I'll brainstorm for a bit, and them maybe put up a poll for you , my loyal readers.
As always, I close with a group shot:
Comments and criticism are welcome and encouraged, as always.
Great stuff as always! Lovely job on that old sorcerer. And the apprentices are neat. i like the natural tones. Makes ‘em look poor and downtrodden, like all apprentices should be.
Those are great wonderful figs and good painting on all of them. I really dig the Confusius character, but I think I’ll have to get him and paint him with orange hair like presto from the old D&D show. May have to make a little hat for him too. No few painting on all of them. How is FG as a game?
Thanks, everyone, for the comments. That last batch of models was fun to paint. Since I've finished them, though, I've had a hard time getting inspired to paint. I managed to get these rats from the FG Gnolls Nickstarter finished:
And followed up with these barbarians from the FG Barbarians Nickstarter:
But having finished these, I'm at a loss for what to do next. I have started working on the goblins from the DHQ orc module, but the muse just isn't visiting and it's been slow going. I need a project. Can you help? Vote in the poll, and I'll do what ever you guys choose. I'll leave it open until next Sunday (my time).
Great stuff as always! Your naturalistic style is really working well for these low fantasy figures. Very very cool stuff! Those barbarians are great. And you know I always have a soft spot in my heart for rats…
The voting is pretty close, but the Oldhammer stuff has a slight lead. I'm a little surprised, and at the same time I find myself regretting buying new stuff this past year. I could just keep stripping and repainting all the models from my youth.
cygnnus wrote: Great stuff as always! Your naturalistic style is really working well for these low fantasy figures. Very very cool stuff! Those barbarians are great. And you know I always have a soft spot in my heart for rats…
Valete,
JohnS
I'm sorry there are only three instead of millions, and also that their eyes aren't red.
I gave Ghost Archipelago a vote as I am unfamiliar with the game/models and would be keen to see them. The Samurai would be a close second as I like your take on those models I have seen so far.
JoshInJapan wrote: The voting is pretty close, but the Oldhammer stuff has a slight lead. I'm a little surprised, and at the same time I find myself regretting buying new stuff this past year. I could just keep stripping and repainting all the models from my youth.
cygnnus wrote: Great stuff as always! Your naturalistic style is really working well for these low fantasy figures. Very very cool stuff! Those barbarians are great. And you know I always have a soft spot in my heart for rats…
Valete,
JohnS
I'm sorry there are only three instead of millions, and also that their eyes aren't red.
Well, that and they aren’t albino and headless....
Very nice work. I'm always jealous of people who can pull off good looking samurai. What are you using for color references? I have a few old metal samurai I came into possession of, and I have no clue how to paint them.
the axe barbarian is my favourite from this batch, probably because of the magnificent beard
That's probably the best model in the entire set. He was certainly the most funto paint of the three.
Barzam wrote:Very nice work. I'm always jealous of people who can pull off good looking samurai. What are you using for color references? I have a few old metal samurai I came into possession of, and I have no clue how to paint them.
I take a lot of the lacing patterns from Osprey books, but there are suits of armor on display in a couple of museums where I live. Taiga dramas from the last three years have all been sengoku/bakumatsu, so I get inspiration there as well.
Da Boss wrote:Love the giant rats, lovely minis. Those barbarians are ace too, particularly like the beefy fella with the axe and the lady.
Thanks. Theres's not a lot to painting rats, so I was able to crank them out quickly. It's nice to have something finished-- it eases the pain of the Pile of Lead.
Huh. It seems that Chaos was the winner this time, so I've started a few random models that have been sitting, unpainted, in a box for years. Elves were a close second, so I have a selection soaking in alcohol for after the Chaos guys. And after that, I have a couple of things I might try for the samurai. Thanks, everyone, for you votes!
Thanks again to everyone who voted. I'm going to do one unit/set for each category, in descending order of popularity, and see which of them (if any) really grab my attention. First, though:
Three identical goblins from Dungeon Saga. I gave these rather "meh" models rather "meh" paint jobs. They are good enough for boardgame models, and that's good enough for me. Just six more for this set-- three goblin archers, and three stands of orclings.
This Chaos Thug has been sitting, unpainted, in a box for a long long time. He turned out very brown. I was going to give him an Arcane Armorial, but I don't have any left in that shape with a hole for the shield boss.
Another Very Brown Thug. He was in the same box of unpainted models as the guy above. He breaks one of the few Unbreakable Rules of Chaos: chaos armies have no missle weapons. He'll work for a FG or SoBaH warband, though.
Back in the day, there were three levels of Chaos troops-- thug, marauder, and warrior. I divide them according to equipment-- thugs are lightly- or unarmored. Warriors have heavy armor and closed helmets. Marauders have visible faces and heavy armor. I love this guy's Ebenezer Scrooge face and the facehugger on his helmet (I may go back and redo that in fleshy colors). I'm not sure what to do with his shield-- maybe a Steve Ditko starscape to go with the disembodied face?
One more from the unpainted box. He's got the full armor and massive weapon of a chaos warrior, but I couldn't figure out what was up with his grotesquely-oversized head. I ended up painting it like a Babylonian/Mesopotamian death mask. Should I go back and paint the eyes?
Here they are altogether:
There was one more in this group, but I decided to undo the ugly putty bagpipe that I tried to give it. I'll give him a go in another week. Next up: elves. Very brown elves.
The Thugs are great . Such awesome figs and really well done paint jobs.
I’m going to have to look through my dungeon saga stuff for those goblins. I think I only took out the furniture and the zombie trolls, everything else is still in boxes somewhere.
Theophony wrote:The Thugs are great . Such awesome figs and really well done paint jobs.
I’m going to have to look through my dungeon saga stuff for those goblins. I think I only took out the furniture and the zombie trolls, everything else is still in boxes somewhere.
Thanks. I do enjoy painting Chaos Thugs (moreso than the heavily armored warriors). As for DS stuff, the goblins are among my least favorite so far. The orcs were cool though.
Slinky wrote:Old school!
Yes, I would say adda few stars to that shield, that should look cool - But I would leave the metal head as it is personally...
I added some stars and lines and stuff, but I guess I'm just not Ditko-enough to make it work. He's packed away in a box, officially finished.
Archer wrote:The thug with the big axe and gold face reminds me a lot of the Chaos Dwarf aesthetic that developed later on.
I hadn't thought of that. I had a fair number of Chaos Dwarfs back when they were little Chaos Warriors, but none of the onion-hat versions. I still regret selling those off...
Having gotten through a set of Chaos models, I decided to work on the first runner up in the poll: oldhammer elves.
A pretty straightforward elf warrior. I didn't notice the spot of bronze on his nose until I posted this photo. I'll have to go back and correct that before packing him away. Note that this guy has no scabbard, meaning he carries that sword everywhere.
A couple of variations of the same model. Everything I have painted for the last year or so has been really dark, so I went with lighter colors on this set. They're still really drab, but they'll add a little variety if/when they see action.
Grr! This guy is really angry about something. Every model in this particular set was stripped and repainted. I got this one, and the next one as well, in a trade from a friend who used spray primer when he painted them, so I had a lot of trouble getting them cleaned off. This guy turned out OK, but there are a few spots where the detail is still a little soft.
I never managed to get this guy's hood stripped. It worked out OK in the end, I guess.
This guy is not, in fact, an elf, but rather Aragorn from Citadel's LOTR line from way back in the 80's. I had used him as a Wood Elf scout, covering the stubble with camo face paint, but decided to re-Rangerify him this time. There is no way that Anduril would ever fit in that scabbard.
Group shot:
All of these models look better at a distance.
Bonus model:
I had originally planned to paint this guy with the set from my previous update, but he had to spend some time in acetone to get rid of my terrible failed attempt to give him a set of bagpipes. I love his Judge Dredd chin, but I got bored painted all that armor.
As always, comments, criticism and feedback are welcome and encouraged.
I do love seeing you continue to work through those Oldhammer elves. Jes’ Stuff may not hold up completely with modern sculpting, but they definitely have an old-school charm. Never mind the personal nostalgia value….
Great stuff, and as always, I am absolutely blown away by the balance you have struck between volume and quality whilst keeping them both so high
Terrific work on the Elves, Josh! I have these figures too but could never do them the justice that you have- wonderful pieces. Thank you for the memories of when I was first getting into Warhammer!
cygnnus wrote: I can just see him yelling, “I am the Chaos!”
I do love seeing you continue to work through those Oldhammer elves. Jes’ Stuff may not hold up completely with modern sculpting, but they definitely have an old-school charm. Never mind the personal nostalgia value….
Great stuff, and as always, I am absolutely blown away by the balance you have struck between volume and quality whilst keeping them both so high
Valete,
JohnS
The secret to getting your numbers up is to lower your standards and use glazes. I guess that's two secrets. When can we expect some models from you?
Meer_Cat wrote:Terrific work on the Elves, Josh! I have these figures too but could never do them the justice that you have- wonderful pieces. Thank you for the memories of when I was first getting into Warhammer!
Jes Goodwin sculpts are easy to paint because everything is so exaggerated. Maybe that's why I keep coming back to them.
youwashock wrote:Vintage GW looking so good. I love this stuff.
"Vintage." That makes me feel old. Still, I'm glad you like them.
cygnnus wrote: I can just see him yelling, “I am the Chaos!”
I do love seeing you continue to work through those Oldhammer elves. Jes’ Stuff may not hold up completely with modern sculpting, but they definitely have an old-school charm. Never mind the personal nostalgia value….
Great stuff, and as always, I am absolutely blown away by the balance you have struck between volume and quality whilst keeping them both so high
Valete,
JohnS
The secret to getting your numbers up is to lower your standards and use glazes. I guess that's two secrets. When can we expect some models from you?
.
.
, so I did learn my lesson. I still have a bunch of the plastic chaos archers from battlemaster game along with the ogres and minotaurs.
when I need a palette cleanse from samurai then it will be my werewolves army.
. Such awesome figs and really well done paint jobs.
