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Thanks for making me feel old

Muahahaha! I have to make myself feel better somehow

Besides, I could have been into the hobby earlier, and I only had scifi models to start with.

So, I took azazelx's advice on this guys plume:


It looks good enough, I think, to call this guy finished. I'll have something bigger to show once I finish it's base.

The painting is good and as ever, I'm really impressed with the Mantic and Kings of War models. Half the price of GW models and generally as good.

I now present the Lava Dragon:


This is Citadel's Lava Dragon, sculpted by Nick Bibby and released in 1987, according to The Stuff of Legends. Someone in my high school gaming group picked this up, but it traded hand several times before coming to me. I seem to recall attempting assembly, getting frustrated and then putting in a box. It sat in that box for probably twenty years, and would most likely have stayed there for much longer, had it not been for my son's insatiable curiosity about my Closet of Shame.




At least six months ago, we were sitting on the floor playing a "game" (which means we had lined up as many miniatures as I would allow, and were rolling hi-lo until he won), when he asked if I had any dragons. I pulled out the box labeled "monsters," and we found a bunch of neat stuff, like Glogfag's Ogres, some CoC mythos monsters, and this dragon. He decided then and there that we would assemble and paint the dragon that very night. We assembled it and filled the gaps with kneadatite, and primed it before bedtime. It got a basecoat of Army Painter chaos red, and then his five-year old attention span ran out, and it sat on a shelf until last week.




I pulled it down after finishing those Chaos Thugs I posted a while back, and gave it successive drybrushings of Liquitex Pyrrole Red, mixed with Liquitex Cadmium Yellow. The claws were done using my bone technique-- Delta Ceramcoat dark chocolate highlighted with whatever the very old GW ivory paint I still have. I gave him vertical pupils that are essentially invisible at arm's length. I briefly entertained the idea of building a scenic base, but then I remembered how much I hate basing, and then just did a glue-and-sand base, painted in desert colors. This model is big enough that I'm not sure I have any way to store it. Something in the display case will have to go in a box, I think. Maybe the Dreadfleet ships?

Next up: more monsters.

Very nice take on a certified classic, good work from your Son too for having you rescue it from the cupboard of shame. Would love to see some of Golgfag's Ogres in the future.

As promised, here are some monsters:



This is, of course, a Yithian or one of the Great Race from RAFM's Call of Cthulhu line. I've had this model for close to thirty years, and this is the second time I've painted it. The first time around, I chose colors to match my GW Beastmen so I could use it as a Chaos Spawn. Having discovered Pulp Alley, and thus having a way to use all the RAFM adventurer models I've acquired over the years, I decided to repaint it closer to HPL's original description. I'm not sure about the ring of green around the base. It's supposed to be a slime trail like a slug, but I think it may be too garish. I would welcome any ideas for how to fix it.



This Yithian was produced for RAFM's CoC 7ed line. I don't like it as much as the first one, but it came in the Indiegogo package I got from them a couple of years ago. This one has a lightning gun and some kind of webbing all over it. The official paint scheme makes it blue, which along with the very yellow head makes is look like a lesser-known X-man. Ultimately, I decided that it's part of the Yithian reproductive cycle, and painted the globes on the back like spore cysts or whatever, which makes the red flower things spore launchers. Here are the two models together:




Next up, Patient Zero. I got this for backing an indie zombie game called Biosyndrome on Kickstarter. Somewhere, I have a PDF of the rules and equipment cards, but I've never really gotten around to reading them. This guy was an exclusive reward. It doesn't really look like a zombie to my eyes, but it's weird and tentacle-ey enough to use as a mythos monster, maybe a possessed cultist? Anyway, he turned out much greener than I'd planned.



And finally, we have Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos. I delightfully gross model, I tried to make it fleshy, but it turned out a little dark. It doesn't show up in these photos, but he has an enlarged human heart in the groin, and the green is supposed to be lymphatic tissue. Note the unfinished base. In general, basing is my least favorite step in painting, and scenic basing just seems too artificial for gaming use. I'm going to make an exception for this model though, once an item I ordered from Outpost. Watch this space.

Love the dragon.

Nice monsters!

Am watching this space...

I decided to retitle this pblog now that I'm painting more and more stuff that isn't for a Kings of War army. That said, here's something for a Kings of War army!



This is the Reaper storm giant that came with Bones 1. I originally wanted to paint up a giant for my Orcs, but this guy just didn't fit the aesthetic. After cleaning him up and priming, I noticed that the Ogre army list also has giants, so I painted him up to fit with the ogres I have so far. I had planned to give him simple grey skin, but for whatever reason it turned out more blue than I had intended. I gave him verdegris-stained bronze armor and glwing white eyes that don't show up in these photos.


Keeping with the storm giant theme, I gave him a lightning sword. It doesn't look this sloppy in real life.



Here he is with a couple of ogres to give a sense of scale. He seems to scale pretty well without towering over his little cousins like, say, a plastic giant from GW would. I wasn't planning on turning the ogres into a full army, but now I may have to so I can field this guys.

I never have one project going at a time, because I hate just sitting around waiting for paint to dry. I finished off these guys while working on the giant:




These are cultists from RAFM's Call of Cthulhu 7th ed line. I actually got five of them, but they only came with four of these Cthulhu heads-- there is also a set of four devil-masked heads, but their robes have a sort of ocotopus design on the back. Also, I find it best to err on the side of Cthulhu where possible.



All of these guys have collared shirts with neckties under their cultist robes, as well as what appear to be leather dress shoes. In my mind, these guys are like Shriners or the Knights of Columbus-- a sort of men's club that meets after work, dresses up in silly ritual gear, and goes home to their families after doing their silly rituals. I find this idea delightful, and if I ever get around to running Delta Green again, I will use them as the basis of at least one adventure.

Next up, some more Oldhammer stuff, and then I'll try to crank out another regiment of something before the end of the year.

If that sword is your idea of sloppy, I'd love to see what your idea of amazing is. That sword looks fantastic mate don't beat yourself up!

Thanks. The sword looks quite nice at arm's length, if I do say so myself, but zoomed in like this I can see a lot of places that need touching up. I guess the lesson here is "don't take close-up photos."

Sorry I've been away a while, family issues trump dakkadakka. Very nice dragon, love the extra work on the eyes even if you can't see them from far away you can still appreciate your own work. Also loving the giant, I might have to look into that model when at the flgs next time. About how tall is he?

Great job on that Nyarla, always liked the sculpt, just wish it was much larger

- Salvage

A little package from Outpost Wargaming Services arrived today, so I can finally finish off Nyarlathotep. I'll have to bump him back up in the queue.

Theophany: Real life gets in the way, sometimes. No need to apologize. The Mantic ogre's head comes up to the Giant's belly button or thereabout, so he's properly giant-sized, and being Bones he's dirt cheap. You can7t go wrong with this one. I'm not sure about the pin-up storm giantess that came with him, though...

Boss Salvage: Nyarlathotep should be even niftier once I decorate his base.

Love those Cthulu cultists. Very cool.

D

The Cthulhu stuff looks great, and so does the sword. I know what you mean by seeing the flaws in it - to me your sword looks fantastic, but you know which buts you're not happy with and they stand out like they're painted green instead of blue while the rest of us just see an awesome sword. (And no, I can't see anything wrong with it - aside from bloody Reaper making it a bit too bendy! - which is my own frustration with that particular model...)

@evildrcheese: The cultists are much cooler models than I thought they would be. I kind of wish I had gotten more.

@Azazelx: The sword looks pretty good at tabletop distance, if I do say so myself. That said, I can't unsee the sloppy bits, and I suspect I'll go back in and touch it up before too long. The sword is, indeed, quite bendy. I felt like I was going to snap it off correcting it. Thankfully Bones really is as elastic as they say.

I spent the last week cranking this out:


This is, of course, the old Citadel Skull Chucker. I actually have two of the Skull Chucker and Chariot set, and was planning on painting both of the catapults together. However, both were pretty heavily primed, and I got bored srubbing off all the old paint halfway through the second one. I'll try to finish it by the end of the year.



With only three crew, I decided to take my time. The bone is layered/blended up from Army Painter walnut brown to AP skeleton bone. The armor got a black ink wash over AP chainmail, followed by another wash of Ogryn Flesh. These ancient Citadel skeletons may not actually fit inside any human model, but they make up for their grotesque proportions with the sheer volume of character they have. I wish I had more of these old lead skeletons.



The catapult was a bear to reassemble. It's lead, of course, so three very thin parts snapped in storage or during stripping. Superglue wouldn't hold, and steel epoxy took too long to set. After trying five mornings in a row, I ended up epoxying the parts, then using BluTac to hold everything together. If you look straight on, everything is listing to the right, which is the best I could hope for. If I'm feeling charitable, I tell myself that it just looks even more rickety than the original build.

Next up, a couple more Chaos Warriors.

Inspired in part by Azazelx and his refurbished Chaos Warriors, I stripped and repainted these guys concurrently with the Skull Chucker I posted last week:


They are both pre-Realms of Chaos Warriors of Chaos. Both had originally been in my undead army, back when it was hard to find good undead heroes.



This guy originally had red metallic armor (chainmail silver with red ink from the Expert Paint Set), but it looked odd to my 40-some year old eyes, so I redid it to match the other Chaos Warriors I painted a couple months ago. It took me a while to figure out what to do with his shield. Bone seemed the obious choice, but Azazelx had already done that, and I'm enough of a contrarian enough that I wanted to do something different. I decided to paint it as if the bug thing were still alive and trapped in tar or something. Anyway, it's a splash of color on an otherwise drab model.



This guy is Festooned With Skulls, an early example of what would become the norm. I originally did the skulls on his armor as more armor, but the model was to boring that way. Picking out the teeth on his helmet makes him look buck-toothed. I may go back and paint the lower jaw as metal. Maybe. The shield design is an Arcane Armorial that I had to fancy up. Originally, it was just the Slaaneshified Chaos star on a yellow field, but that was just boring. I added the Kirby Dots, which iimproves the design immensely. In my opinion, anyway.

Next up: another giant.

Firstly, how the feth did I miss the Lava Dragon up there? Amazing! Just to see someone own, then take on one of those old classics and then have it turn out so well is awesome indeed.

Great to see a Skull Chukker up there as well. I got my first one done earlier in the year, then picked up two more from eBay, but both of those have stalled out horrible. One still needs stripping while the other is still unassembled ..somewhere. Yours is looking great, and the crew even better. I thoroughly agree on the character of those all skeletons, and also wish they were easier to get hold of these days.

I'm liking your take on the undead chaos warrior and his mate. Funny thing is I also have his mate somewhere, though if I remember correctly, he may have snapped at the ankle. Dammit. Now I have to go and look for him!

I think the teeth on him work, though you could always try adding a second row of teeth on the lower jaw if that'll make him look less buck toothed to you (I think he looks fine!) I also agree that turning the yellow into a glow effect rather than a straight shield colour makes it look far better. I'll be stealing that idea at some stage.

Nice old minis there.

Thanks for the kind words. I have really enjoyed digging through all the ancient lead I've been carrying from house to house over the last 20+ years. While a lot of models from the 80's may be crude compared to models cast with modern technical advances, you can still feel the "anything goes" attitude of the era.

I toyed with re^painting the Buck Tooth Warrior's helmet, then decided that he looks fine and to move on to something else.

After deciding that the Storm Giant didn't fit, I had to find a giant to go with my orcs. Then I remembered that I had this guy:


.This is, of course, one of the C series giants from the late 80's. Going by the photos, this guy would be Knobber Whitherwattle. This is actually the third time I've painted him. THe first would have been when I got him new, the second about ten years ago as part of a beastman army for WHFB. He was a little frustrating to paint because the casting is so soft, not unlike the worst restic models to come out of the first KoW kickstarter. For example:



I painted the fish there on his belt as an empty pouch twice before I noticed the gills and the eye. I ended up having to blackline those parts to make them visible. I had to apply a heavy wash to the stitching on his shirt to make it visible as well. That said, he's a fun, characterful model, and I love his Spock-style riased eyebrow:



Next up: some mantic revenants.

Great work on the giant there. He's come up rather well. I have one or two of his contemporaries, though I think they're all broken. Your guy has done well to survive this many years in such a good condition. I have to wonder though - that if some models like these ones weren't old Citadel would we love them so as we do?

I think you're right-- a lot of the joy I have gotten from re-doing the older models is from nostalgia. I still have quite a few Ral Partha and Grenadier models that look like they'd be fun to revisit, but which don't fit into an "army." I might refocus on individual models for a while in the new year.

Nice collection of old school stuff. That skull chucker and other choas skeleton dudes are great.

EDC

Thanks. I've had a lot of fun revisiting these old minis from my teens and twenties.

Love the old school Giant, great job!

After finishing off two giants, I wanted to crank out some more troops. With four Kings of War armies (or five, if you count ogres), I am spoiled for choice, but I settled on some Mantic revenants:





I like these models a lot. There are enough skeletony parts to make them readily identifiable as undead, but they have heavy-enough armor to look different than skeletons. I did their bones in my standard dark brown-ochre-ivory layering technique. Chainmail is AP gunmetal, the filigreed armor plates or Vallejo old gold. The metal and dark grey cloth got a glaze of Payne's grey, then the metal and bone got a second glaze of AP soft tone. The shield designs are Howling Griffon transfers (downloaded from Bell of Lost Souls), with the colors inverted in MS paint. My original plan was to have these guys in black with white griffons, but for some reason the ink separated on the transfer paper, giving me this burgundy color. Rather than reprint in monotone, I just went with it.

I have another then of these guys primed and waiting for the glue on their bases to dry, as well as a few other minis that will fill out another, not-quite-twenty man regiment. Watch this space.

Oooh those are fancy

I've got some but I've only painted regular skeletons so far.

I really like the metals and how they're very obviously the elite skeleton warriors in your force.

Mantic's plastic undead really are exellent miniatures. If I didn't have so many of the old Citadel plastics I would be tempted to get even more of them. As it is, they will make a nice detachment for the army if I ever actually get to play KoW.