So much fiend... We need a factory.

One Fiend Factory goblin, as promised.  (Shitty iphone pic.)

I went with classic DnD ocre skin, and took the oriental themes in the model into  account for colors- so this goblin pack should double as XP grinds for both oriental adventurers and western dungeon bashers alike.

The rest of the goblins will be dressed in all kinds of colored fabrics to help identify each in combat.  The skin, metals and green hair will tie them together a bit.

And since I was in FiendFactory mode here is more stuff...

Uh, Oh... Spongebob Squarepants is fucked!

The Angel of Hell, or as I like to call it- Evolved Squidworth.  This photo really doesn't do the glazing justice... The orange windsor and newton over white in the eyes really pops off the gaming table.

I have a lot of projects to get through, but it would be cute to redo this model with a modern eye from Rus' Original Fiend Folio art. (Anyone got a PDF?).  I realised halfway through that I could have asked him what colors he imagined this blighter... I am currently working with him on a private comission and have his email.  Doh!

I love FF stuff because it is kinda like a turd polish challenge... Plus I get to experience old school at its oldest.

All of them.

Goblins with thankful hafts

I just wanted to thank everyone for all the emails and facebook messages showing support for my decision to be openly trans, intersex, lesbian and completely unable to settle on a basing standard.  Plus all the lovely baby congrats!

There are just too many and some are quite long and heartfelt, and deserve more than a 'ta very much luv'.  I hope to get back to everyone eventually.

Your support is really important to me!

So last night was my first night with some hobby time in aeons.  Actual, literal aeons.*  Strange aeons, at that.

[*Oh stop it, your thinking in linear time and space, mere mortal. ]

My focus at the moment is cleaning up and storing so I can get dust and sand free to finish my commissioned mini sculpts.  One day I will have a separate clean desk and a dirty desk.  Mmm.  dirty desk.

To that end, I just rebased my Fiend Factory goblins from 30mm ply down to 1" round bases ready for some old school dungeon bashing fun.

Fuckity fuck, these little fuckers are fuckers.

The spear shafts snap easily, are thin (not DnD collectors series thin though- still grrr) and seemingly hard to fix.

To solve the problem, I sliced mine off an hand and haft (great pub name) and rebuilt the naganata by threading thin wire through metal pipe from a railway hobby store.  I could not find any flexible plasticard or nylon tubes- which are better because they will bend back rather than snap.  Broom bristles make awesome pikes that won't spear you through your hand.

I am tossing up whether to headswap and augment them to make a little variation, but not sure yet.  I am not overly fond of these minis.

Now that the whole team is on 25mm rounds rather than 30mm ply, they fit in a small tray and fit neatly into my overflowing FF box.  A few more sessions like this and I may be able to move.

Paint jobs soon!

Here comes trouble

To coincide with the end of The Old World... Here is my son Tobias!  Ain't he a cutie?

This kit is awesome.  Though it takes two people nine months to assemble and you are not really supposed to paint it beyond a tiger or spiderman face once in a while.  Costs slightly more than your average Warhammer army, but it does not require gluing and the sprue is a single cut to remove.  There are no rules or instructions supplied, but it will keep us both entertained for decades.

This little blighter is all thanks to the wonder and miracle of hard, medical science.  Thanks to the hundreds if not thousands of hard working people behind IVF, dopplers, safe Caesarian section, rhesus negative anti-d, heart rate monitors and, most of all, to those who donated the 2.5 litres of blood required to save my wife's life.

Donated blood recently?  (I mean, not offered to the hobby desk boggart through the rite of slipped scalpels?). It would be lovely if you did.

Awwww look at that puddums!

I am a mum :)

George R. R. Martin.

Fuck you, George R. R. Martin, I KNEW you would kill her off!  

Aww... Can't stay mad at you for long.

Spoilers in comments will die, you know, like my favourite character.

Bases? Again? (Updated)

My 30mm bevel bases are great, but I am having issues with them.  Let's talk about that, shall we?

Yes.  We shall.

So first problem is that some early minis look just swamped by their bases. True 25mm scale need so much decoration to fill the void, it is eating into painty sculpty time.  So that is a concern, but only on some figures.

Problem numero two is that I am running short on display and storage space.  Space is a hard thing these days.  Also the bases do not fit doorways easily so my city scenery is cramped and tricky to use.

Third problem is I am running low on 30mm multibases and money is getting tight.

So the obvious solution was to downsize to 25mm bases for figures that need it... stick to 30mm for the rest.  Basically use the bevel as the constant.  This also means some models can have hex bases (Talisman) and so long as the topping i similar it all looks unified.  I did some tests and liked the result.

80's Skeletons and zombies looked particularly swamped.  This test warband nails it for me- they can swarm together suitably Harryhausen style.

I played with Renedra bases for a little while, and they are still great for gaming.  However, I decided the bevel let me pick up the mini by the base- so better for display details like mushrooms and ferns. My collection is part gamer, part painter, part collector.  It make sense to have the base as handle.

  I also like the black edge as it is what I grew up with.  Renedra is great for gaming minis because of the low profile, and is the next best thing to washers (but the paint sticks nicely).  I will still ship my minis with Renedra by default.

Another thing that ha been bugging me with my standard system is that it does not quite conjure the mossy, burn scrub from John Blanches paintings.  Tufts also look out of place.

So to that end upgraded my dirt mix from beach sand to a special blend of flock (sawdust), wood chips and pet store shellsand, to give a more John Blanchey scrub feel to the base when tinted with scorched brown and olives.  The goal is to have that rotten, mossy feel where you are like 'what the hell is that? Feel.  I want to hide details in the base and have people go 'hey look..'

Welp, I will have to sleep on it.  Comments welcome.  :)

Realms of Fido

I love dog minis, so even though I am not fond of the style of Marauder Miniatures, I  still got excited when I found this in my mate Pete's box of delights.  I pushed this one up the queue because I wanted to show Pete that his donated figures are in good (and grateful) hands.

 

 I started with natural ghoul greys highlighted in menoth white base but was attacked by the demon 'fukdisforralaff' and changed to crazy chaos mode.

I feel the trick with minis you do not like stylistically is to go all out batshit crazy on them. We all know just how prone to serious mental disorders guano can be.

Stay frosty people <3

 

[Lgbtiq bit:]. Speaking of bats... DC comics not only gave us a lipstick lesbian batwoman (and a redhead too) but recently announced Catwoman is officially bisexual.  The original, retired Catwoman  Selina Kyle is to be involved romantically with the current Catwoman). This is massively important, because erasure of bisexual identity is a real problem, even in LGBTIQA communities. Just youtube the Anna Paquin interview on bisexuality and you can see it in practice.   I had the pleasure of discussing this with a fired up bisexual friend recently and she got me all fired up about the problem too!  Some people like chocolate, some people like strawberry.  Some are happy with either (or both in one bowl). And that's that.  

I like mint choc with the chocolate picked out.  That isn't a metaphor by the way.

Well done DC!  I must get some DC minis to celebrate.  I hope Marvel makes Spider Gwen a polyamorous pansexual.

Look it up if you have to.

Review: Illithid raiding party

Beautiful ain't it?  I thought so, and based on the quality of the Purple Wyrm I  took a punt on it.  I have to review this product.

Do not buy it.  It is not fit for purpose.

This product will not yield miniatures you can paint to a fine level and it most certainly will not give you playable miniatures if that is what you are after.

There is a golden rule in miniature sculpting.  Nothing finer than 1mm- and thicker if you can.  It is 101.  Day one.  First thing a caster asks you.  It is definitely the first thing as a product manager you should check.

 Now that rule is for pliable lead, not resin.  And filled resin (talc added)?  Absolutely not.  Go thicker in a support area, weapons and legs.

Okay, so I am a mini sculptor.  I can merrily sculpt eyelids on a halfling.  It is safe to say I have a light touch, and I do not think it a stretch to say I am an experienced, if not advanced modeller.

Every single model broke during assembly.

Every single one.

The duergars hammer was first, snapping in two in the middle as I ran a carving scalpel along the flash.  Yes, that weak.  As I glued this back together the spike snapped off, lost forever.  Then the handle again and I tweezered the hammer into place using accelerated superglue.  Okay, so I guess I can make a new hammer.  Uh, he doesn't go with any of my druergar minis in style, so I guess that would mean a long wait in my fix queue.  At least I have the mind flayers...

Nope.  Magician snapped in three places along his staff, crystal, magic bolt.

The Hyena mans toes snapped, his spear wrist (unpinnably thin) went. The shaft is gnawed through.   Now sculpt something that protrudes far, like a spear,  it must be reinforced because it is basically a lever. 

 Snapity-snap-snap.

Here is the spear staff of the Gnoll stickman compared to a regular cocktail stick, just to give you an idea of total pisstake this kit offers.  See the nice casting on the spear?  This will break.  Not might.  Not 'if handled well'.  Will.

The brain eater you think would be fine.  It is in two bits, fore and aft.  Nope.  The arms snapped as I eased the model into the cradle and pushed the dab of glue at the belly closed with the tip of my finger.  A fingertip killed my braineater!  That is not even 1HP damage!

One by one the models disintegrated into my 'fix this at some point... probably when hell freezes over' pile.

"Oh, but Laney you must have a bad cast!"  No.  It isn't the resin.  I home cast resin.  Resin bends, and you can fill up to 50% with industrial talc and retain integrity- the problem is the sculpts.   

Pretty, yes- but they are all too thin to handle.  You cannot even drill and pin, there isn't room.  Drop one of these and god knows where your limbs will end up!

Sculptor, hang your head in shame.  You failed sculpting 101.  Why?  clearly you can sculpt.  These are... or at least where gorgeous sculpts when they left your desk.  But these are absolutely useless miniatures. Literally without use.  You can't assemble them, you can't handle them, you cannot play AD&D with them.  Fail.  Fail. Fail.  Take off your optimiser off.  Throw it away.  Feed your minis some more putty.

The sculpts need serious reworking and reinforcing in the masters, recasting and rereleasing if you want this product on the shelves. This is simply not good enough, especially for this huge price tag.  

I am going to skip the rest of the range unless they are large thick set creatures.  I suggest you do the same.

Grrrrrrrrrrr.  Teeth.

What a Total cult!

Want a work in progress shot of my dirty great cult?

This batch is abooooout fifty percent done.  Lots of cheques, skin work and details to go.  I start base up, in case ya didn't know, so I can use big brushes without worrying about dirtying the models legs.  Feet are usually last to finish.

And here is the rest of their team so far.  I hate having doubles, so I just head and weapon swapped a whole bunch with daemonette and millitia bits.  Arrr.

I had planned to do much more with converting the whole lot, but this is part of my 'just get it done' campaign.  There is nothing stopping me stripping and reworking things later!

The bases are the new citadel 32mm bases.  They are a bit tall and chunky for my liking- plus here they cost 70c each, which is fucking ridiculous.  But GW is pretty much an evil cult.

Once these are used up and I going back to the normal 30mm bulk buy bases for my 40k moderns.

Miniatures. Actual miniatures. In a miniatures blog. Whatever next?

I have been insanely sick with flu this past month, and it is really grinding everything to a halt re: hobbies.  Work and sleep are pretty much it at the moment.  But one thing did happen tonight that was nice.  I got the good camera back.

So though nothing here is recent, the photos are now quality and finely detailed.  You know.  Like finecast.  (cough, cough)

90's Plastic warrior.  Shit just got shit yo.

So first up in my quick photo session tonight between pixel pushing and dying by degrees, is a classic 90's chaos warrior.  After the wonders of the drastic plastic orcs, psychostyrene dwarves and ultra classic skeleton warriors boxed set and purely brilliant plastic space marine box, citadel did a shit stained backwards slide into the single posed dross of the 90's.

No wonder I left the hobby to have lots of sex with goth chicks.

I went with a quick Mike McVey-esque style paint job (painted on crackles and smooth blendin')- Rodney Matthews color scheme and finished it off with a John Blanche style graphic pen attack.  Hate must be written on knuckles.  It must.

The base is also worth noting.  Based on the AD&D battlesystem pictures, the base is made from mounting board card.  You often find old school minis glued to cardboard, and prior to slotta bases this was pretty standard practice.  Beer mats, by the way, where the best material as they are designed not to warp!  I had a theory you could turn it to rock hard plastic instead of freying paper shite by soaking it with superglue.  You can.  It also lets you sand the edges to smooth, plastic like finish.  There see?  No more excuses for not basing that irregular sized mini up.

Minotaur Lord.  Citadel 1980s.

On the day I first bought miniatures, this was one of the chosen.  Sadly, my original is gone, so it was a joy to get my hands on a second copy and do him justice.  The base needs work.  It is merely a poker chip with grit and cork stucketh upon yonder surface.  Mid green and highlight missing.

And to finish up a picture of my mostly done Ral Parth storm giant.  A classic Tom Meier sculpt if I am not mistaken.  Somehow, my money is on the Gypsy.

Ral Partha Storm Giant VS. Citadel Talisman Gypsy

Blending!  Blending!  Yarrrr!

Well, a productive break considering I have not picked up a brush in ages.

Enjoy peoples.

Seriously.  You can enjoy peoples.  I recommend the danish.

Damage: War gaming Vs. War (or why I am so very, very angry at seemingly harmless comments)

This is a revision of the spooktalker post, which I will delete shortly, that may explain my anger. I think it is better to be positive and look at the underlying problem as to why I am furious at two faced internet behavior.

Gaming should be positive. The difference between wargaming and war is damage. What you say about people can harm them. If you catch them at a critical, fragile moment in their life, it can make them extremely ill or be the last straw that ends up killing them.

I used to go to Frothers (Frothers United Uk!) because I find censorship vile, and a bunch of people calling each other 'c*nts' perfectly fine, because at the heart of it it was a bunch of guys who actually like each other. But you see, this is where I was wrong. There is a difference between play fighting and actually making damaging comments.

Take a closer look at Frothers, maybe this time from my perspective as a transgender woman. For those unaware, I was born intersex- somewhere between male and female. I did not choose this, I have no control over this and depending on the numbers you look at between 1 in 2000 and 1 in 100 people you meet are actually intersex. Very common.  Transgender is merely a form of intersex where the development is focused on the central nervous system. You look one sex, but your brain is physically another. Again, not a choice. Around 1 in 15,000 people suffer from this.  

The suicide rate before 20 is officially 48% in the USA, but more likely to be well over 50% if unreported cases are factored in. 1 transgender person is murdered somewhere in the world every 72 hours, 10% of these children. Check this out...


Though I am intersex, I was assigned male but had a female gendered brain, I chose to transition to female. Because of this, I am classed as transgender (lit. "crossed gender"). The archaic term for this was transexual (lit. "crossed sex") which was discarded because it incorrectly implies it is about sex. It is absolutely not.

I am not a transvestite- (lit "cross dresser"). The term 'tranny' came from transvestites, not transgender people. The term is absolutely, utterly repugnant. It is equal to the 'N' word to people of color. Why? Because it is dehumanizing, and that dehumanization has been (and continues to be) used to abuse, murder and oppress trans people.

So let's look at some members of our community using this language.


Stedders: I watched a video of the German Tranny painting a Nurgle marine, it was excellent. I didn't book mark it and can't bloody find it  Help!

Stedders: That's the one! He/She sounds like a super villain out of Austin Powers!

Oh, a he/she for good measure. Thanks for that Stedders. Clearly you think it is open season.  Incidentally we get the brain gender as our gender, mine is she.  Call me a heshe and you will have a problem on your hands.

So is Stedders (who has Pmed me and asked advice on several occasions) an isolated case? Well, no. Not by a long shot.

The Jim Jones Cocktail: 'I've assumed my alter ego, dressed up as my dead mother and I'm wanking to tranny porn'.

or

Monkeyborg: "My mind is going Bill. There is no question about it. Got any tranny pics? Amicalement."

or

The cat with a human face: Ye gads!! Zombie Ainsley Harriot! Fucking hell they is scary bad. The tranny reminds me of Quagmire's sex change dad from family guy!Are all their miniatures that bad?
This is a re-occurring theme. If a female miniature that is poorly sculpted it is often dismissed as a 'tranny'. A lesser being, a poor joke. An ugly thing.

If you really want to wade in utter filth and hatred... be warned, not only disgusting but not safe for work. Now I raise this thread in particular becomes some of YOU, my readers, have posted in it.

http://www.frothersunite.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=45031

Apparently people like me, heck, let's just say me for context... apparently I am an 'it', perhaps part of a crime cartel of 'ladyboys' and really only good for pornography, which judging by the comments, pictures and language taken directly from trans porn, is actually quite popular with these guys. One member even knew who Buck Angel is (he is a former porn star turned vital trans activist who has saved many lives). Another named female porn star Bailey Jay (also a former porn star turned activist). Clearly, we are not as repugnant as they are making out.

Oh and it is not just Frothers. Check out this hate speech, dehumanization and sexualization of those unfortunate people born like me.

https://blackpowdergaming.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/why-i-detest-bill-armintrouts-the-miniatures-page/

I just want to add what a 'chaser' is.  It is a trans attracted man who fetishize pre-op transwomen, but hate them for it due to shame.  They are extremely dangerous, as they do not see the source of their attraction as human.  Avoiding chasers is part of everyday life for us online.  I do not know Bill Armintrout, and have no idea if he is a chaser, or is trans attracted or is simply trans supportive.  I hope the latter, because goddess knows we need it.

Back to my point.  So after reading through this bile, I come across my old name in a Forthers thread. Fortunately, not assaulting me based on how I was born, but instead dismissing my ability as a game designer based on someones opinion. Hardly harmful, right? Yes. Very harmful. You see, some of us rely on our skills for vital doses of self esteem. I am proud of sixteen years in games design, of hundreds of beta testing fans, of all my fans who support me and get me through this living hell of living in a world designed to destroy those like me.

It was a small poke, but on a criticial support. One of my life supports. And for what? As far as I can tell, self aggrandizement. Trying to pull himself up the nerd pecking order by assuming his opinion is worthy enough to make hurtful comments.
And yes, it was by someone who comes here to read my blog. This free magazine I put my heart into, has readers who feel they can dismiss or mistreat me elsewhere.

You can only put out enough free material, free floorplans, free rules, free advice, free tutorials, free magazine pages... before you begin to question why you bother.


Make sense now?


Back to miniatures next post...

Into the woods

I am sick with flu.

Having that 'can't concentrate/can't sleep' bullshit.

So I wasted a little time trying to finishing up the box of unfinished scenery that has been unfinished since I didn't finish it.

This is about half of the fucking things.  Lots to still do on these, but playable quality now.  By the time I am finished there will be fruit, flowers and shrooms, hidden animals and stuff like that.

My second deathworld cactus.  Needs paintjob fixed up.

Get well me.

Yes, other me.

Grace is gone (revised)

"Grace is Gone"

I painted this for my wonderful wife Kat, who is very pregnant right now and a showing me just how much of a total warrior she is.  She loved it.  :)

Grace is still gone.  As is my iphone focus.

The mini is called 'Grace is Gone' (gone meaning pregnant in this case- not her Grace is gone because she let someone up the duff her).  It is back in production over at Here. Be warned, the price will make you feel like someone at Cmon is trying to impregnate you.

I scored this copy many years ago at my first Mother of All Battles com, and it has sat in a little baggie waiting for the day

I really hate working with resin.  Right now I am looking at all the broken pieces of the AD&D collectors Ithillid raiding party and wondering who the hell thought making details less than a mm in resin was a good idea.  I also rather dislike integral resin bases, so I snipped it off with tin shears and mounted it on a 30mm plastic one.  With resin, I always glue a thin washer in the base to give it some weight (but not enough to snap the ankles if tipped).

To be honest, the paint job isn't the greatest I have ever done but I only had a short window to do it in whilst Kat slept.  I focused on overall feel, rather that precision.  It is really nice that I cannot paint this in my usual hobby time as my wife actually takes an interest in what I am doing.  She can even identify minis with cute terms like 'that's a nurgley thing' now.

To protect it, I put it in a clear chessex dice box as a display case.  oooh, you handy little things.

ANECDOTE TIME!

I was in a game store the other day talking to a lovely chap about the dire state of Sydney game stores re:tabletop mini gaming (we agreed on this matter) and our recent other conversation at CANCON.

I mentioned I wasn't sure I would make the next one as "my partner is about to give birth to our son".

He paused and blinked for a very long moment, looking confused.

"I am gay".  I said without adjusting volume from the 'I am a nerd talking to one other nerd in a game store, therefore talking loudly so that ALL the nerds in the store can nod sagely at our righteous nerdfuckery volume'.

Now, this is really interesting.

Interpretation :  "Gosh, you look like a natal straight female.  I thought you where suggesting your boyfriend was giving birth and got confused"

Interpretation 2: "Gosh you look like a transgender woman, and the media portrays transgender women as male attracted as part of the woefully incorrect and offensive "dem transgenders are all just reeeeeaaaally gay men" trope.  I thought you where suggesting your boyfriend was giving birth and got confused."

Interpretation 3:  "Dammit!  I just had two long conversations with a woman about mini wargaming and it turns out she is gay.  When will I ever catch a frikking break?".

Now the latter is rather unlikely with my supermodel looks* but by the manner of the previous conversation I would rule it out.  Contrary to what you believe guys, we girls do know when you are subtly chatting us up... oh and whilst we are on that subject, do NOT spray deodorant like in the TV commercials, where the guy appears to be varnishing himself... just a light zap under each arm will do.  Please- to all the lawful deities-  stop.

*(super model currently unassembled and requires painting- glue and paint sold separately, contents may vary).

Oh, I suppose there is also...

Interpretation 4:  "she is having a baby?  A baby.  Fuck... didn't I have one of those a moment ago?  Where did I put it?"

And the old...

Interpretation 5: "lesbians.  Hmmm... The scripture specifically says "man layeth with a man like
with a woman"... I guess women laying... Uh... Layething.. with women as a woman is okay.  A touch abimination-y I suppose.  Maybe just lob gravel at them for a bit instead of stoning with stones".

"You said Jehovah... roll for initiative."

Oh wait...

Interpretation 6:  "gay?  She's gay?  That reminds me, I forgot to be gay in college. Must get around to that.  Maybe once I finish painting my Saga Skraelings".

I am going with interpretation 1, mainly because my ego needs it.

I have to say that it struck me just how wonderfully loud " I am gay" (said in the manner, I now realize, not dissimilar to the way Princess Leia said "what?!" to Moff Tarkin... and boy, how differently that scene would have gone had SHE said "I am gay" instead)...

uh... Where was I?

Oh yes.  Saying "I am gay" out loud to a room of men and the complete non-reaction you get these days felt good.., because once upon a time it would not have been a non- reaction.  It would have been quite, horribly, different indeed.

Even gravel hurts when thrown.

These days, I can be openly a lesbian, openly in a serious relationship with a woman, openly having a child together and most importantly openly blogging about openly painting her extremely overpriced miniature of a preggers cyborg killer.

We can forget just how far we have improved things.

Hopefully soon, we will be grudgingly given back the right to be married by our inbred, catholic private schoolboy government.

On that day I will paint a couple of girls standing on a pile of defeated twisted monsters and blog the shit out of it.

What's in the box?

Girls like me love box...

...especially when that box is filled with miniatures!

That is one sexy box.  Cannot wait to get my hands into it.

A mate of mine very kindly donated this box of figures to me.  He is both having a big clean out and is ex GW staff.  An excellent combo if you ask me.  Most excellent.

Let's crack it open and have a butchers!

It's like someone poured the 1990's on the table.  Note the girl behind the window also appears very 90's,

Yeah, my thoughts exactly.  It has all the bitz to all of these too!  Beers shall be bought in his honor.

Girls like me also like carpet...

...when it stops the little critical bit of the expensive miniature you dropped disappearing forever into that dimensional zone where all odd socks go.

Wip fight

I squeezed the dying weekend and a little more hobby juice came dribbling out.  This was spent on basing and underpainting the Eureka Brughel demons and recently arrived Skaven packmaster and rats that I got to spray earlier.

Intrepid of heart, yet noisome on the nostril, my WIP merc's battle a WIP Skaven swarm for Lanie's attention.  Who will be finished next?

Militia/Mercenaries, Merc Ogre, Terror of the Lichemaster halfling, Skaven and giant rats (All citadel minis.)

Yes, my Packmaster has pinky red fur.  Skaven's first colour advert in my first ever issue of White Dwarf had several pinky red Skaven.  Thusly I just had to.  You cannot judge me.  I AM THE LAW.

Simkin (Citadel Mercenaries) appears in the backdrop with his colours blocked in but no flesh work.  Naturally he will be exactly the colours he appeared in WD too.  Seriously, I am glazing layers of orange to get the exact tone as printed.  

I need a life.

(Sigh)

Getting my ass to mars

A brief break in the weather game me the chance I needed to spray stuff.  I then attacked my Blanchitsu playset with big brush work.  All it needs now is a few hours of detail work, picking out and shading individual parts.  Tedious work.

To get this far required a spray prime of black, then chestnut brown.

First layer of rust was thinned bestial brown thinned slightly.  This was highlighted with Macharius orange.

Steel was stippled here and there.

Vmc pale green grey formed the basis of the paint layer.  This was stippled with peppermint.

Black craft paint was then brushed on for oil, fire damage and deep shadows.

The martian surface was brushed with red oxide artist acrylic paint.  Deep crimson and hookers green artist acrylic added the sump oil and blood like stains.

Lots to do, but a pretty effective first pass.

Wip it good

Jes Goodwin made some damned awesome ogres.  I could no longer wait to paint them, so I started trying out bolder colour schemes circa 1989.  Here is some works in progress.  The chaos ogre is really unfinished at this stage. Not sure about the colours to be honest.

Hrothyog is badly cast- looking like a run from the end of the moulds life. He was also missing a foot (this is Jes' fragile ankle era) hopefully from playing a lot of third edition battles in his life.  Poor killing machine... bit of Procreate and wire made his owie go away.  The buried skulls and shrooms where leftover putty.

Whilst painting my ogres, I pushed along a few more that shared the palette.  This is a great way to save time.

Front and centre is a Malifaux undead chihuahua... Possibly the worlds most overpriced figure in dollars per gramme.  As a dog miniature addict I had to have it... But only managed to pick up the pack and a dozen times to check if it was still priced at crazytown prices, promptly sighing and putting it back.   I got this little bitch in that ten buck Malifaux tub from CANCON.  See?  I am being a good girl this year and painting my new acquisitions right away.  Yeah, biatchez.  Clear conscience for next years used stall feeding frenzy!

I was stuck for ideas for the halfling's shield, then my wife walked in with a lovely cup of tea.  Perfect!

Next up is my Citadel '80's militia/mercenary collection so far.  Sooo much character!  Obviously early days.  I am tempted to modify them a bit to make them really loopy- but I dunno... it still feels wrong to edit a perfectly healthy vintage mini.  I guess I always have access to The Foundry recasts to go crazy on.

I call this warband 'Capn Chode's Cunch 'O Bunts'.  I think they need pig, chicken, rat and dog companions.

I need more dog minis.

I have a Mordheim warband of modern plastic militia but that will have to wait for a rainy day.  I have shame to wash away first!

And remember kids... commenters make better lovers.

Tragic progress

My collection nears completion and com.. Er.. Paintshun.

Most of the McDeath team.

Project coming on doncha think?

  I just need Sandra Prangle, Lady and Laird McDeath and at least one more pack or two of clansmen so I can have each clan colour represented.  Quicksure's mounted version is unassembled at the moment.

I also have the zombie clearly used in the card counters as Boney prince Charlie and the LOTR Ent used in Johns painting.  It would be nice to know who the warriors guarding Brewben Keyler's wagon train where that shipped with the deal... Any ideas?

Comments make m..mm...mmm...me haapyee.

Warduke, imp and more

Kicking off with a work in progress... a night horror imp.  Naturally I had to paint it to the scheme used in the Chalice of Doom diorama.  The space on the base will be ceremonial candles and a plastic skeleton rising.

Giz a kiss

Wip of back.  Wings not done.

Chibi Warduke.  Needs matte varnish to kill the ink glaze shine.  I modified it slightly to be closer to the original- shaving off chainmail and the third skullspike.  The colors are from the back painting from the Warduke toy blister... Which I happen to have on my desk.  Because I love Warduke.  Yes, I do.

WARDUKE FTW (Impact miniatures)

And two trays full of shame pushed forward more.

So all my balrogs, trolls and ogres are repaired, assembled, based and primed.

The shame is slowly abating.

Blanchitsu PDF

I made a PDF of that Blanchitsu episode where Blanche tells you how he done does that Blanchitsu thype stuff.  Pontifex maximus!

http://www.darklinggames.com/eavyledd/blanchitsu.pdf