Nurgling around with green stuff

Xanadu is on telly.  So I was elsewhere.

The blightking box is very model specific in its parts.  Torso variants A and B fit model 1 only, for example.  So what is a girl to so when she likes both A and B?  She reaches for the dremmel, greenstuff and fixes the problem.

As usual, I added super sculpey to the green stuff.

Aaaand since I had the dremmel out I decided to do this.  Mmm, nurgling peekage.

And a bit more to my Blanchitsu warband... Mostiqorr!  He sucks worse than xanadu!  My first pain engine parts come into play!

So this leaves me with all these parts.  Five models for 100 bucks?  Lol, GW... you failed to factor in my cheapness and sculpty skills!  I see six more, yes I do! A project I shall document next year as 'kit pushing'.  I promised myself I would squeeze THREE giants out of the citadel giant.  And dammit, I shall!

Speaking of projects, once I paint these I am heading back into old school territory.  

 Stay tuned.

Great.  Now I have "got to believe we are magic" stuck in my head.  Thanks Kat.

Jitter free hobbying

Putrid Blight kings.  Not to be confused with the kings of putrid blight or the blighted putrid knights (splitters!).

Them's all stuckered together like and converted whilst the turkey digests.  Bwaahp!

Honourable mention to the engineer behind Gutrot Spume (not to be confused with Gutrot Smith).  A seriously clever bit of plastics mould cutting.  But a dull head... I switched it out for something more interesting.

I need to charge a good camera.  Still on my shit apple 3.

Oh and a chaos undivided demon.

Yep.

Saturnalia offerings pleaseth the King

Loot!  Plastik krakk!  Ermagerhd, germs werksherp!

The end times are upon us (well, end of 2014 at least).  I may have to fold and get a glottthingie to go with them!

A decidedly creepy array of prezzies for me this year (plus expensive smelly girly gunk like lip glosses that I am sure you couldn't give a crap about).  Those wracks are going straight to my Blanchitsu inq32 bitz box!

So what did sanity claws bring you all?Comment the ever merry shit out of the comments section... or I will sonic screwdriver your faces upside down!

Shakes (sadly not the hippy, hippy kind)

Graboid my Bacon

 Hey all,

  I just had a lovely week vacation in the local hospital.  Good news is I am home now, bad news is I have anxiety tremors that make me thrash around like a Silent Hill Nurse riding an Alien that has just been pulse rifled in the nads.

I am told it is not permanent, and I should recover in a few days.

I hope it will die down in time for me to enjoy the plastic crack Sanity Claus will no doubt bring me!


Oh, and I saw the new GW 32mm bases.  CALLED IT BITCHES!!  Remember I said that would be the first thing I did with 40k?  Yeah.  Hopefully they will follow my other suggestions.

PAX Been there, done that, got the FREAKING CTHULU!

Aaaand I am back... just.

  I barely survived PAX.  No, not the PAX pox, which everyone seemed to be catching (man flu) but the crushing weight of my bag laden with goodies (and yeah, clothes, makeup, hair accessories... I AM a girl, okay?).

I decided not to enter the speed painting contest, as to not crush peoples wills.  Let them enjoy their so called 'speed painting'.  (actually I was drunk at a party when it happened and felt annoyed I did not drive my enemies before me and eat the lamingtons of their women.  Mmm.  Lamingtons.

  I managed to get away with minimal spending actually.  A black master series paint, an free elf ranger (painted at the paint and keep table Reaper put on), a fire elemental, one of the sexy Umberhulks from the new DnD collectors range and...

 CTHULU HIMSELF!

 

Okay, roll for initiative bitches!

After getting the king of beasties, everything else seemed a little tame.  Y'know?

Okay, Glottkin and Nagash are looking like my christmas list nasties... but oooh, So Cthulu!  Much Lovecraft!  Very f'taugn.  (I think it is cruel that his mother named him Hit Points Lovecraft, don't you?)

Great face... kinda feels more like Hellboy than Lovecraft in my humble bumbles... also I think he is a tad on the small size... even for 15mm.  But a nice model.  I am tempted to make his gaze downwards to his victims and shift his pose a little.  You know.  Because reasons.

I got roped into the Reaper table (who helped store my crushingly heavy bag) and spend some time teaching people about acrylics.  I have to say I am dead impressed by the master series.  The black is particularly good coverage.

Next year I will do cosplay.  Be warned!

PAX

Sooo, anyone going to Penny Arcade eXpo Australia this week?

I will be.  Oh yes, yes I will.  But lurking in the crowd, not on a booth.

I will be the hot chick confusing nerds.

(Heh, yeah right).

Beauty is in it

Limited edition Beholder for half price?  Yoink!

Not my fave sculpt of this type of beastie to be honest, that prize going to one of Julie Guthrie's eyeballers.  This one kinda looks like a lounge lizard saying something like 'hey baby, did you fall from the heaven?  (If so take 99d8 HP damage.)'.

I have the citadel one somewhere, probably in a bag marked 'sod fixing these eyestalks for a laugh'.

I suppose to follow up my sphincter beasts I will have to make A Behinder?  It is a large bum with dozens of little bums on stalks, each with their own magical abilities.

Smell that?  Smells like teen spirit.  Or plastic and superglue.  I get those confused.  More kit bashing tonight, to celebrate the fact The Block was on TV and I would rather gargle barbed wire.

 

First up, Sister Ophelia Proximity.

A sister of battle using Dark Eldar and Chaos parts only.  Because that's how we roll in the shire.  Ever listened to the lyrics of Teen Spirit and thought Kurt was just cramming words in there.  A warband made up of a mulato, an albino and a mosquito called Libido would probably fly over peoples radars I suppose.

So four more nasties, made from Skaven, Dark Eldar, ogres, a Giant, ork, daemonettes and empire bits.  I cannot find my box of imperial guard, I must have eaten it.

That happens.

That article...

John Blanche explained his modern painting style in what I suspect was a 2009 issue, possibly december.  It was plugging skaven and crimson fists, if that helps.  348-360ish.

I don't know because I removed it from the dross and put it in a scrapbook.  Jervis Johnson was replaced with JB for standard  bearer.  Here is a snapshot of what your looking for.

It is actually disappointingly vague and basic.  I pretty much summarised it last issue.  Base coat everything.  Sepia/mud mix, mud recesses then blend or drybrush up.  Fine subtle white drybrush and never use a metal higher than chain mail.  Be grimy, weather stuff and buy lots of games workshop stuff.

 

The little Talos pain engine that could

Talos pain engine.  I wanted one so much I actually went Into a Games Porksword shop and actually interacted with the staff.  Shudder.

I made it out alive.  Just.  So I am now armed with a box of nasty, gribbly pain bitz for my inquisimunda conversions.  Yay.  I feel like I need a shower, but dammit I made it!

I am now upstairs chillin' with an assam tea in the goodgames store above GW, listening to nerds nerding hard.  Ahhh, my people.

Actually, I had a pretty good kitbash session last night.  I knocked up a few more thingies to Blanchitsu.

I also had a couple of good putty sessions on my sphincter beast and ass cannon.  I hope this isn't going to be a big theme of my work.

Inquisimunda

To kick off the adventures of Delaney King, I decided to Blanchitsu the shit out of my bits box.  I had a lot of fun, and I can see a warband or three emerging from this.  First a skavenger mutant "Gruyere".

Photo courtesy of Samsung Galaxy screen engineers who forced me back onto my old, old, old, old iphone.  Because dropping a phone on lino should destroy it utterly.

I have to dust off my old camera and shoot him properly once I get more done.

I followed Johns description of his modern technique from white dwarf, first painting in all the base colours, weathering, then using washes of devlan mud mixed with gryphonne sepia, blending highlights here and there, then giving the final glaze of thin mud/sepia to give that yellowed varnished look.  I used pen to add dots, stitches, chequers and words. 'This cursed earth' on the scroll refers to a quote John used in a painting from the eighties.  Because.

I deliberately over-varnished the whole thing with layers of gloss spray, giving the model a smoother, more porcelain effect, then matting down parts with matt medium.

I used a Skaven clanrat, Dark Eldar gun and Flagellant head.  They felt used.

The green stuff was 2:1 yellow:blue with a hint of supersculpy added to remove some of the putties 'memory' quality and increase working time.  This is perfect for filling and detailing, but produces a very soft, rubbery material once dry so don't use this for structural stuff.  As this reduces stick, you will often have to dot superglue with a cocktail stick under some parts to makes sure it will stay on.

I used my old green pipe roller tools too.  Love those.

The base uses bicarb and superglue, for authentic JB baseyness.

Later alligators!

Felix Jagermeister and Gotmilk?

Eddles sent me a pic of the recently reunited heroes of some books I am unlikely to ever read as I find exclamation marks annoying.

It is kinda nice to think these models where destined to stand together painted, despite being 12,000 miles apart at one stage, in two totally different collections, both half painted, laying in a box somewhere under piles of junk no doubt.

Kings minis.  Friends reunited ain't got nothin' on me.

So how's my chick painting? 

Dnd miniatures. Fail.

Random boxes sets!  Crappy rubber!  Twenty dollars each!  Need ten mites for your scenario?  Well you sure as hell ain't gonna buy enough random boxes to get those.  Therefore you eBay them.  Therefore box sales from game stores diminish.


  They didn't learn a thing.


Hmm.  Think I might have to kickstart some styrene multipart plastic kits next year.

Sphincter beast revealed

Finally, a picture of the fabled sphincter beast miniature!  Thanks Steve!  http://eldritchepistles.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/have-you-ever-seen-sphincter-beast.html

As promised, I shall henceforth sculpt a modern one so players may finally have ass-ass-ins of their own.  It will be a great warm up to ease me back into Darkling miniatures.

 

Rare, old school, ugly as ass

D&D

I picked up the d&d starter.  Pretty close to what I would have done.  Glad to see the ampersand logo is back.
The cover is a big disappointment.   It totally misses the brilliance of the Elmore orgininal.  Elmores dragon was coming at YOU... right out of the frame.   Between you and the dragon,  a dynamic fighter... clearly your character... the spoils of gold behind.  It summed up the game, reached out to grab you.
This editions dragon droops into frame in washed out pastels... the fighter framed out... the logo apologetic in it's sizing.

Bad art director.

I picked up the prepaints too.  They are sprayed and awaiting fresh paint.  The details shallow and poses mostly weak.  Why not unpainted, snap together styrene in six colors?  Why Drizzt again?  Why not  Warduke?  Or the classic mix of base characters?  Why the oriental armor designs?

Meh.  Close but not perfect.

Felix Jaegerbombs and Antonio

The drought is broken.  I painted these up last night.  Nothing fancy, but good to get rolling again.

Felix Jaeger, C01 Fighter (Antonio, Terror of the Lichemaster)

Not dead yet.

Yes, yes, I got sick again with my weird ass condition.

But fear not- after years of confusion about said weird ass condition, I finally have an official diagnosis from a specialist, and thanks to the wonders of modern medicine and a butt load of pills (not literally, I might add- those are suppositories anyway, not pills.)  I am better than I have ever been. Seriously... I have energy now.  It's freaking cool.  I feel like I have superpowers compared to where I was.  Tis magic!


Anyway, it is going to take a little time for me to settle back into a blogging and game development routine, as I need to cram freelance jobs to make up for lost time.  Kate and I are looking for a new house, and things are probably going to pack down for that too.

I wanted to give a big thanks to everyone for the emails asking if I was well, oh and for the Four Liebster awards.  I have to look up what they are, because I am just ignorant about the interwebbything and stuff.  I am pretty sure they don't win me money, which is a shame because I do so like the stuff.  It buys lead.  And paint.  And more lead.  Can we have leadster awards?

I would like to thank Sterling Archer for keeping me out of the dangerzone.  Because that is how you get ants Lana.

Since getting my mojo handed back to me by a very nice specialist, I have done hobby stuff, but nothing exciting.  I have based up / rebased and primed a couple of hundred minis (all on 30mm bases you may like to know) and tonight I will be picking up a paintbrush for the first time in a long while.

Wish me luck!

-D

A little progress

A little progress on my current batch- two of which are shown and a quick color test for my minifig high elves.  I went with the Rodney Matthews classic purple/green combo.  I think the tunnel elves will be autumnal or green/slate grey.

I also forced myself to assemble and base up a tray load of multipart Reaper minis I have had in storage forever and fix a couple of broken minis that will go well with the current batch.  Mainly for the discipline, and a feeling of progression- plus they can all be photographed for Skulldred.  I found some nice treasure models in there so I whacked those on some bases too for the items section.

I then primed them all (and my tunnel elves) with my airbrush... which sadly broke today whilst cleaning.  The nozzle thread came off.  I swear I barely cranked the living hell out of it.  Lesson learnt.

So do you like the rough color scheme for the elves?

Barbarian warband

Oh just found this on my phoney thingie.  My barbarian warband work in progress.  I think there is butter on my lens.  Very romantic.

I popped by the Garema place game store in Canberra today and picked up a pack of warmahorde skorne girlie figures in dresses with drum hats that took my fancy.  I plan to beat the fancy out of them with some converty type skillage.  Does it annoy people I don't give a crapette about minis official names?  All part of my evil plan.

So as you can see the barbarians are at various stages of paintyness.  I am planning to push them along with my dwarfs in a wantom baccinnalia of flesh painting- then once varnished on to my high and tunnel elves.

Windex is hassle free

Only had a little time so whacked on some base colors on the dwarf warband- plus a few loose figures in need of similar colors.
  The basecoating process is far less painful to me now I have forsaken water in favor of windex.

Windex you say?

Yes.  Windex.  As in My Big Fat Greek Wedding Windex.

Windex dilutes paint without destroying surface adhesion and evaporates quickly- so it sticks to your model in a thin layer, then dries.   Therefore you can apply several thin coats in quick succession.  The first bit of paint is literally dry by the time you finish coloring in the last bit.  Windex allows the paint to flow off the brush easily, and is really cheap.  Windex can also reinvigorate drying acrylics.  Give your wet palette a windex spritz under your baking paper and marvel how it doesn't go moldy.  Yep.  You heard it here first kiddies.

The blue tint evaporates leaving your colors exactly as you mixed them.  Bless it.  However- if you want to spend money, however, buy vallejo airbrush medium.  It is basically windex without the blue in it. Don't believe me?  Give it a sniff.

Windex has been used as a thinner in airbrush art for donkey's years.  Though I would definitely wear a gas mask.  Are you my mommy?

I layed out a quick pass of black, leather brown, vermin brown and flesh.  But now I must sleep.  Good night, whatever you are.

Windex.

New warbands: Hassledwarfs

New warband #2.  A lovely batch of dwarfs from Hasslefree minis.  As with the elves I went with washers.  They certainly look a lot better on the smaller base, and feel sturdy.

I think I may field them as snow white and the seven dwarfs.  I have a hasslefree Kaylee who would make a good Snow White and the sleeping Beauty from Reaper.

I am going to give each dwarf a strong, cartoony theme color.  Great figs!

New warbands 1: Aurelo Rococco Elves

New Warband!

First of my minifigs Aureola Rococco collection (best.  name.  ever.) is some elves.
Based on (to put it politely) Rodney Matthews art, this range is pure Skulldred.  Old school, quirky, kookie and fun.  I have the riders and tunnel elves too.  They where at the bottom of my stripping jar, and I was terrified of breaking them!

The Aureola Rococco collection is the best minifigs produced in my umberhulk opinion.  Yep.  Glad I told you, ain't ya?  Made your night reading this didn't it?  Sigh.  Blogging is a weird, narcissistic thing.

Anyway, Rodney used one color trick throughout his career- pick a color- pick its complementary color, desaturate them so they don't clash... and then go apeshit.  Purple and green being my fave Rodders combo.  Lo... these minis shall be so.

Rodney allegedy denounced rpgs as satanic,  so there where never any official Rodney Matthews figures- though Jes Goodwin constantly references his work.  They both rocketh mine munda dawg.

Aaaaaanyway- new warband!

I based them on washers.  Yes I did.

Some dick at google

Wondering why your big photos look bad after uploading them lately?

  Some dickwad a google decided that applying a filter to everyones photo uploads automatically wasn't just the most inconvenient, idiotic and brand damaging idea ever.  Fortunately you can turn it off in your google plus settings.  You still have to reupload your damaged images.

Think it's the same moron forcing google. Plus down youtubers throats?  Lets get out the pitchforks and torches!

Because rebasing is relaxing

Had trouble sleeping so popped off the old bases on my chaos warriors and slipped on some 30mm multibases.  Here is a snap of one of the two tubs!
No progress tonight... catching up on sleep.  Zzzzz.

Boar me

Hi folks- can anyone ID the boar that Aly Morrison used in this conversion.   And do you have one?

Some (nearly) finished stuff

Lots of minis this blog- not one completely done,  but very close.  My camera phone does not do a good job in low light- I must dig out the digital cam that I used at the start of the blog.

Enjoy!

Coming along nicely

A quick scale test before painting and surfacing begins.

My skulldred themed dice pillars!

The chaos warrior from my ' John Blanche's undead assault diorama' inspired project surveys the land.  He agrees.  More shrooms needed!

Emerald dwarfs survey the building of the skull doored castle.  She-he-man likes skull faced castles... they give her a +3 to her combat dice!

Bridge by Eureka- Dnd repaint model crossing.

Strip show part deux

Hyped up on sugar, and unable to continue my water terrain table I decided to work on Skulldred.  Only it was too frikkin hot in my studio.  The only solution was to strip everything left in mah bukkit.

I know you love seeing piles of stripped figures... you dirty leadwhores... and this pile does not disappoint.

First up, sodding great chronopia hydra. Part metal, part resin... part garden ornament.  This beasty is going to be a blast to paint!  He was one of the first ever resin models out if memory serves.  Blinking huge, but sadly not very dynamic.

A couple of early dragons I picked up from CANCON- Tom Meier's gnarly black dragon on the right- a very early fiend factory dragon on the left.  The other half of my Grenadier Dracolich is bottom right.  A ral partha land dragon- based on the Roger Dean artwork (next to the Dnd skirmish giant).
Great, dragon month can get off to a flying start.

Also from Cancon, a metal diver war machine.  Yes.  My fingers are set to bleed this year with endless frikkin pinning.

The bloodthirster is the second from last daemon I need- jist tzeench to go.

The most exciting stars of the show are center... some more of the critically needed undead for the John Blanche Undead Assault Skirmish Project (jbuap?).  Stay tuned.

Wargame table time!

Well I am excited.  Are you excited?
Today I picked up a three by four foot lightweight mdf board and 18mm battens to make me the first panel of my full size wargame board!

I managed to assemble the frame pretty quickly.  In hindsight 18mm may be too thin to prevent warping entirely, but it will do for now.  Any larger and I wouldn't be able to stack it against the wall neatly behind the bookshelf. I may have to add a few more cross braces.

I am thinking I will paint the underside white to make it seem airy and light.  Or bkack and white to look like a japanese screen.

I intend to paint it deep sickly green then gloss the crapola out of it.  Gloss modpodge and ink will then be used to texture ripples in the top.

This new board is the basis for my  Skulldred photography board- and will also be used for demos at events like Cancon/PAX/MOAB.

Once this is done I will fashion some islands in various sizes which can each have different looks- muddy trench, city, flocked field, necromunda hive, leafy forrest... whatever I feel like.  The gaps between the islands form rivers.  Infinitely configurable water/toxic sludge features!

Undead assault here I come!

Base and spray

So only an hour or so of hobby time tonight but hey, results. I got a big batch of those I stripped the other day primed and based tonight, plus painted their bases.  Nice.

The pic shows whats on my table right now.  Some gothic horror and doctor who minis in there.  Lots of fun coming...
  Mmmm... miniatures.

Yes.  That is Krell.  No.  You can't have him.

Hobby goals

This post is more for me, whilst I pass time in a car trip to get my head together.  Still, it may interest you.  Who knows what sick twisted things you get pleasure in.  People like Kanye, for example.  That worries me.

Okay so my goals in general in rough order.  I will throw in limited editions and one offs now and then.

Darkling demo figures
   Toads, dwerg ordinance, burrowguard

15mm Warbands for skulldred
   Splintered light elves and undead.

28mm minis for skulldred
  Hasslefree amazons
   Mirliton barbarians,
Megamini dwarfs (good and evil)
Viking forge lizards
Reaper monsters, half orcs, amazons
Dwerg

Warband project: 
This project is to get a functioning, finished painted warband of each factions I have collected.  The idea is to expand these out later to complete my collection.  Each must have a leader, standard or musician, three troops and a wizard.

♥warbands
Undead.
Broo
C01 Fighters (blue)
C01 Fighters (Red)
Orcs.
Amazons.
Savage Orcs.
Goblins.
Norse Dwarfs
Militia.
Chaos thugs.
Paladins/ battle lords
Skaven.
Barbarians.
Dark elves.
Wood elves.
Hobgoblins.
Lizardmen.
Night horrors.
Rangers/theives.
Halfling & Gnomes.
High elves.

Chaos in rough order:
   Slaanesh (rebase), Nurgle, Khorne, Tzeench, Undivided (rebase) and eventually Malal.  Dwarfs of chaos mixed in as I go.

At least five models finished of the above before moving on...

♥Undead assault
Last three dwarfs.
Undead painted ready to base (I want to base them exactly in the order they appear in the diorama about five to a base).  Then hunt remaining minis.
Mushrooms.
Doors.
Ballista.

♥Giant month:  original citadel giants, ogres, trolls- lund giant and ral parthas.  Oh my!

♥ Malifaux month:  all my collection.  A hodgepodge of neverborn, resurrectionists and outcasts.  Yay finicky multipart metal.  Meh.  But so purdy.

♥ Dragon month.  Much wings!  Such Dragons!  So scales!  Get at least five of my dragons assembled- including Kegox.

♥Demon month.  Possible now.  Pencil it in.  Lots of succubi.

Terrain upgrade time!

♥ 36" square soft dirt board with batts to stop warping.  Good for all genres.  My old board is too small, too warped, too heavy.

♥Undead assault board: 36" square water effects base board, islands, hills, and more mushroom stands.  (Castle and bridge modules next year.)  Back board?

♥Warband phase 2:  Y'arrr!

At this stage I should have a water board, so it is time to hit the high seas with...Skeletal pirates, Pirates, Ninjas, Samurai, Cryx pirates.

2.5d card boat for playing above, or tortuga like docks?  Then maybe a real boat model.

♥Rogue trader warbands 2012?

Playable squads of (in order) space orks, crimson fist, eldar, dreadnoughts, tyranid/zoats, space pirates, guard, adventurers, chaos cult, genestealers, tallaran dog soldiers, death world fauna, judge dredd and perps.
Modern chaos, modern sisters, remaining sci fi figures. Necromunda escher.

♥SCIFI TERRAIN
spikey plants, Domes, yoghurt tub towers, necromunda bridgeworks, Shanty town buildings, refinery pipes and landing pads.  Starting with pieces of cover and working up to buildings.

Strippity do dah

Well gosh darn it, if I didn't manage to strip one of my two stripping buckets in the measly few hours I had tonight.  Yay me.
Now I know I usually take a picture of the shiney gems, but space was limited and I offed them into jiffy bags for the moment ready for the next few weeks.
There is an ungodly amount of doubles in there.  Bad collector.  No more ebay for you til you sell them.
I got a message from ebay saying turbolister should work now... but the breezy nature of the message suggested gen Y and did not inspire me with confidence in the tester.  Still, if it proves true that's great news.  I have sooo much to sell you all.  :)

Some highlights to surface from the jar included The Nottingham Dwarf (aka Robin Hood dwarf) and a few undead for my Undead Assault project.  The Robin hood dwarf is very special, and I am hoping to set aside time to do a full 'Eavy metal style pdf on his history, previous owner and the models restoration, basing and painting.  I am jazzed to be able to push on with the project and complete the dwarf contingent.  Mimbrin the guard needs to be repinned before I can go on, and he needs superfine drilling.  Must get some new bits.

One thing I have been loving this month is my airbrush.  I grabbed some Vallejo model air primer and have fallen in love with it.  I plan to grab a black and grey air primer next week to do preshading with.  It makes such a huge difference to the quality and speed of priming and laying down base coats that it's a no brainer.  It's no where near as tough as enamel spray, but at least I can use it on rainy days.

So back to the stripping session- I want to reduce doubles, but the idea of setting up a database makes me uncomfortable.   This is a hobby, and meant to be enjoyed in a casual, cavalier manner.  Which is good because I am a casual cavalier at best.  I probably should do a got list on my website using catalog pictures ans crossing out the ones I have.  Hmmm.

The thought of the database did get me wondering just how many minis I now have- and that made me think about how one would officially count them.  Do broken ones count?  Do multipart components count?  Kits?  What about props- or models fused together in twisted mutations?

Do you know how many you have?  If so, how do you keep track?   Post comments below!

Multipaaaaa a arrrrtttttttt madness.

Picked up some Necropunks and Copycat Killer from Malifaux today on a whim.  I have decided to focus on painting now, than collecting.  I have a lead mountain to enjoy.
The necropunks are typical of most modern minis- thin and fiddly to assemble.  Not the robust single part things of my teens that could survive a good game.  A large portion of my collection of non-vintage figures are unpainted for this reason... fiddly ass assembly!

So next time I can, I must grab some really fine drill bits.  My current ones are paperclip thickness.  Not good when drilling limbs as thin as paperclips.  Half the time I may as well just rebuild the limbs with greenstuff on wire- easier and more robust for gaming!

What confuses me is why many of these figures are not reposed slightly to allow for minimal part casting.  One necropunk had four limbs to pin on- uhg.  Not fun.
But I stuck at it and managed to get all three assembled and based (30mm bevel bases not the lipped ones- makes for easier handling).  Yay me.  This is the sole reason I do not buy infinty models.  Way too thin and fragile.

That reminds me... I was promised an intro game by mainly medieval!

So anyone have their multipart horror stories?

Display shelf part 3

And I am done... a quick paint job and a matt seal and I had just enough time to squeeze in the last episode of game of thrones season 3.  Total time about two hours.  It's nothing special,  but it is durable and solves the display space problem nicely.

The next one I do will be a more elaborate affair.

Display shelf part 2

Cracks where drawn in with a pencil.

The next step in the process involved making up a goop to harden, texture and color the surface.

This recipe is two parts weldbond, five parts fast drying wall filler, one part acrylic house paint (I had it mixed up to match vallejo model color german camo green).  I added a sprinkle of fine sawdust flock (noch alpine) to give texture without acting as glasspaper on the minis.

Here is the first coat- a couple will be needed.  I am tempted to add in a few cast details at this stage.  A backboard would be a good idea to stop minis falling down the back of the shelf.

A citadel Skelly vs.  Darkling Dwerg

Display shelf

I have shelf issues.  I need more space to show off figures.  I also have a heap of blue foam I cannot store.  Sometimes, solutions require putting two problems together.  Often with glue.  Lots of glue.

I had planned to do more display boards like my stonework one to make an intricate dungeon lair display that can double as shelving- but time is not my friend at the moment.  Rather than wait, a simple interim board will have to do for now.  A simple old school stone wargame style step hill will have to do.

Here, in step 1 I glued blue foam layers together with weldbond and hammered cocktail sticks in to reinforce.  Once dry, I coated the whole lot in modgepodge to seal and strengthen it.  Detailing and surfacing next.

Look familiar?

Recognize.

Works in progress, really rough models that I wished I had filled with millijuice first.  Though the red on the sorcerer's helmet was technically cast from his perspective ignoring fireball, I though I would leave it on to match the artwork a little closer.   Not happy with greenies look yet.  I think the red should be charcoal black.

I don't have the two headed goblin or long neck goblins that appear in the art, but they exist.   I have yet to find the elf and dwarf, but the hammer bearer was never made.
May have to fix that...  where is my grwen stuff?

Okay, first comment to name the source art gets smug points!

Grom the goblin

One of the first off the blocks from my Cancon haul... a classic Kevin Adams nineties goblin.  I prefer his earlier works, but how could I say no to dis widdle belly. 
I painted him a while ago but forgot to take a snap.  Plus... some days you just lose your mojo.  I tried to get super nice blending on his belly and stuffed it up.  Dirt got in, I rubbed it off and it all went downhill from there.  I may strip him down one day and go again when Mars isn't in retrograde and shit.

Female chaos thug

I tried a new flesh recipe for this girl, starting with a base coat of vallejo model color tan, highlighted up through bone.  I tried a muted, natural look for her so she could double as a barbarian raider.

I love chaos thugs, and collect as many broken ones as I find going cheap.  They are so much fun to convert, fun to paint amd a blast to play.  Psycho punk mutants?  Yes please.

You know nothing Riolta Snow

Lichemasters terrorizing you?  Who you gonna call?

Riolta Snow is the first finished figure from my mostly complete Lichemaster set.  And by mostly I mean all but the bloody hard to find, expensive ones.  Sigh... one day.