Azazel's Neglected Model September Wrap-up Post

Basically just a proof of completion with just a few minutes left in September. I'm going to go back and do better individual shots of all these in the next couple of days,  but I wanted to get something up to mark the end of the month.

As is usually the case, all of these could use a little more touch-up, or a couple more details picked out, or another layer of highlights somewhere, but they've hit my personal point of "Fuck it, they're good enough." I feel I should note that all of these were at least started, and some of them (particularly the Skaven) were quite far along, and just needed some final touches. Even so, 16 Models completed in a month (and not just slammed out to three colour minimum, even if it was a pretty decent 3-colour minimum for all those Daemonettes in August) is very good for how my productivity has been trending these last few years. My original plan was to stagger the finishes throughout the month and give them each their own post, but instead, I ended up bouncing around between the various groups, and getting them all done right at the end of the month.

Coming up next, I've got a couple of possibilities for DreadTober, and most of what's left of the Silver Tower box will qualify for the Unit-ed October Challenge, as well as (hopefully) a significant chunk of the Rogue Trader box. It's not likely, but it's also not impossible that I might manage to squeeze in a little something for Orktober as well. I'll hopefully have some preview posts up for those soon as well. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Alternate Fiend of Slaanesh and Flesh Hound Models from FFG

Fiends of Slaanesh are a really cool design and concept, but with only a single sculpt available, in resin, at US$25 each, they're kind of awkward to fit into an Army, and they look sort of wimpy next to their counterparts that have been updated to plastic kits, like the Beasts of Nurgle and Bloodcrushers. Flesh Hounds are in somewhat better shape, with 5 sculpts in the box, and a couple of plastic ones teased along with Korghos Khul and Magore's Fiends, but are still US$10 each on their own, in resin only.

A while ago, I stumbled across the Uthuk Y'llan for FFG's Runewars Miniatures Game, and was struck by the potential in some of their options for use as Chaos Daemons, particularly the ones I'm discussing here. It's not entirely surprising, as the Uthuk Y'llan make use of a great many summoned daemons (tho they call them other things), and almost certainly took inspiration from some of the same places GW did.

First up, we have the Spined Threshers, which feel pretty much perfect as an update for the Fiends of Slaanesh. Not as much of an improvement as I might like in terms of variety and price, since the two available sculpts are designed to be built one way, and the plastic used is very hard, but they are still an improvement in those regards, and their size and presence are vastly better.

Apparently in the Runewars fluff, they're made from multiple summoned daemons bound together into a single form, which is why they have multiple mouths all over the place. One mouth remains for each daemon that was bound into a given Thresher, I guess so they can individually feed or something. IDK, I haven't actually paid much attention to Runewars except for the Models.

Now, as I've mentioned, and as shown in the pic at the top of this post, they are much bigger than the current Fiends. But they are about the same size as the current Beasts of Nurgle, which were formerly close to the Fiends in size. So I feel like they'll make a pretty good alternate. I plan on knocking half an inch off any measurements where the larger base would benefit me, and since they have no shooting attacks, the greater height and profile are pure disadvantage. They can actually just barely squeeze onto 40mm bases, but it looked stupid, so I put them on 60s.

Flesh Hounds, as I said at the start, are in better shape, but can really suffer from lack of variety, especially when running multiple packs at once. I like to use a ton of them in minimum-sized packs, so I've made a practice of getting as many possible varieties as I can, to help keep them sorted out. The Flesh Rippers summoned by the Uthuk Y'llan seemed about perfect to form up another pack, since they have an aesthetic that's entirely compatible with Khornate stuff, but are distinctly different from any of the specific GW designs. They also cost about 60% of what the GW ones do.

Unfortunately, there are again only two sculpts, but they actually mix up fairly nicely when not ranked up, and it should be less noticeable when they're one of 8 Packs on the table. The other disadvantage is that they come attached to the rectangular bases you see here, but those are much softer plastic than the Models themselves, and so relatively easy to cut away. In terms of size, they match up quite nicely with GW Flesh Hounds.

Thinking about it just now, they'd probably also make good alternatives for Drukhari Khymerae as well. I'm looking forward to getting both lots of these painted up, but since (as usual) I have far too many projects going on, who knows when I'll get to them. When I do, I will put pics up here.

I have a couple more of the Heroes from Silver Tower ready to go, and several of the monsters very close to completion, so hopefully I'll get them wrapped up and photographed soon, and then I'll do another post of those to wrap up Neglected Model September. I'm also working on building and priming the stuff from the Rogue Trader boxed set and the Heresy Girls Kickstarter, so those are going to be my major goals for October. Until next time, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Neglected Model September: Mistweaver Saih

For Azazel's Neglected Model September Hobby Challenge, I'm working on finishing up my Silver Tower boxed set, which I halfway painted within a couple of days of getting it, and then never put brush to it since. First one finished is the Mistweaver Saih:

I decided to go for a very restricted palette here, using only light greys, off-whites, and the brightest silver I have. I wanted to really double down on the idea that she can just fade into the mist, and be effectively invisible in there.

I also decided to go with a more covering garment, so she's got those little blades or trinkets or whatever they are dangling from her sleeves rather than being extreme piercings.

You're going to notice some variation in the bases as we go through these. My original plan was to do them all like this, maybe paint in some tiles and cracks, but basically do something just painted, that would look like it could be flooring in the Silver Tower. The square bases tied in to that, being flagstone-shaped. Then GW brought out rules for a bunch of them to be used in AoS and/or 40K Armies that I have. So many of those got re-based on round bases, and have sand and turf and such. I still really don't know if I'm going to unify them all or not, and if I do, which way I'm likely to go with it.

Most of the other Heroes and the Pink and Blue Horrors are coming along pretty nicely, so I'll hopefully have them ready to photograph in a few days, and post shortly after that. I've also got another post in the works, about some third party Models I found for Fiends of Slaanesh and Flesh Hounds. One or the other of those should be up fairly soon. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Moar Slaaneshi Conversions

In addition to my Keeper of Secrets and Noise Marine Dread, there were three other Conversions that were the driving force behind making the Slaanesh Army I took to OFCC. Everything else in the Army was basically just there to let me use these five Models, and/or fill up Points.

First up is this Chaos Lord on Steed of Slaanesh. I'd been wanting to use that Steed Model for a 40K Chaos Lord ever since it was released back something like 15 years ago, and finally got around to it:

I wish I'd had some more time for it. The Steed in particular could have been substantially improved by a wash and then bringing some of it back up to Rakarth Flesh, and there was more detail I didn't get around to picking out in gold. The only thing that really bugs me, tho, is that I didn't get the edge of the base finished off, which was a common "theme" with this Army.

He got massively overkilled in most Games, because the Model ended up looking much more impressive than his statline actually justified (He's essentially a Chaos Lord with Jump Pack, Power Sword, and a couple of minor stat buffs), so people would line up an attack on him suitable for taking out someone like Abaddon, and then splat him with the first third of it.

Next up is another that I wanted to do since I first saw the base Model. The amount of conversion required here was actually very minimal, basically just scraping off some detail, and replacing the feet and one hand.

Really, most of what went into changing her from the Yncarne to a Daemon Princess was just tweaking the colour scheme, and even then, a lot of the colours are in the official colour scheme for the Yncarne, just used differently. Again, really could have used one more round of wash and highlight, and some gem effect paint on the spirit stones, but I'm still really happy with how she came out.

One of my teammates, who has an Ynnari Army himself, just about lost it when I unveiled her, totally pissed that I'd turned an Aeldari Avatar into basically its exact opposite. Which, honestly, was pretty much the kind of reaction I was hoping for. Chaos should disturb people.

Finally, we have The Vindication of The Devine. (No, that's not a typo. House Devine was the first Knight House to fall to Chaos.) Blending together some rough concepts from the old Hellscourge Daemon Knight from Epic (which had a Castigator Cannon, but was so lacking in detail that it was impossible to tell what that actually was, and was also terrifyingly fast and maneuverable for a War Engine of its size), Forge World's Cerastus Knight Castigator, which established the Castigator Cannon as some sort of dual Gatling gun arrangement, the options available to Renegade Knights, and the general theme that Slaaneshi stuff is faster and more maneuverable and more capable of acrobatic feats than a similar Unit that didn't have the blessing of the Dark Prince would be.

Even with a ton of 1/16" brass rod running through all that, it ended up sagging a bit from its intended pose. The original version had the knees bent in a little tighter, like it was in the process of springing off of that crag and suddenly reversing direction. The left foot was originally up higher as well, which helped the sense of motion, and kept the detail I added to the bottom visible, but it didn't hold. These pics were a total pain to take, because the thing barely fits in my light box at all. I took a bunch more, trying to get better shots of things like the head, but these were the only ones that came out even halfway decent.

 Again with the gloss causing problems for my camera. I added an eye where there's usually a little viewport or something (I'm not really sure what that's supposed to be) in the hatch above what was the pilot's compartment, before it got turned into a Daemon Engine. Similarly, I left off all the grab rails and ladders and such, since no one needs to be able to climb up there and get inside anymore.

 I added some plasticard and putty and a bit from the Chaos Hatch Sprue to fill in the foot, but it ended up sagging down to the point where it wasn't visible, so it ended up unpainted because of the time crunch.

A shot focusing on the base. I get way too into it sometimes when I'm working on these big Models. There's just so much room to go wild with, and the larger bases look so flat and featureless if you don't do something to break them up.

Currently, I'm working on finishing up a bunch of things from the Silver Tower set for Azazel's Neglected Model September Hobby Challenge. I should have enough to do a decent post sometime in the next few days, but it might take longer before I get around to actually taking pics and processing them and stuff. How ever long it ends up being, until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Technical August: Marble Effect on Noise Marine Dread

Hobby-wise, my August was mostly occupied with assembly-line painting basic Models, but I did get time to try out one new thing. A while back, Thor posted a tutorial on painting marble that I thought might be within my capabilities, and so I decided to give it a try on my Noise Marine Dread, since the Venerable Dread I was using as a base had a few panels that looked like good candidates for it. So how did it go? Let's take a look:

The groupie is magnetized on, and can be taken off to complete an Objective marker

The engraved lettering and gloss finish messed with the camera. You can still sort of see what's going on there, tho.

Nothing new here, but I was happy with how the base came out. I didn't have time for enough highlighting tho, so it doesn't come through as well in the photo.

So how did it go? Succinctly, not very well. But I'm pretty sure I know what I did wrong. Firstly, I used the wrong colour. Should have mixed some grey in, rather than just going with the Army Painter Soft Tone. Probably should have thinned it down even more. Secondly, I didn't wait long enough between coats. When not completely dry, the Army Painter washes seem to improve the flow qualities of further coats, so even when I managed fine lines, each coat spread to cover the whole previous layer as it dried. I've got a couple of terrain pieces that are good candidates, so I'm going to try again at some point with them.

It's not really noticeable, because Castaferrum Pattern Dreads don't have much potential articulation (even when you are willing to cut the joints apart and re-position them), but I tried to pose him as close as possible to the classic Iron Maiden style "foot up on the amp playing out to the crowd" pose as I could manage.

I've got a couple more conversions from the Army waiting for me to finish prepping the photos. I should have those up in a few days. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!