A Christmas Revolushun (and Bonus Creepiness)

It's Christmas! At least here, it is. For some of you, it's probably almost Boxing Day already, and for a few, it might not have started quite yet.

I got myself Da Red Gobbo, because he was just too awesome a Model to pass up. Because I bundled him in the same shipment with some Made to Order stuff, tho, he didn't show up here until Saturday. I got him built that evening, primed on Sunday, and painted between yesterday and today. Used it as a break when the noise and anarchy of having that much family around got overwhelming. So, yeah, I put in quite a bit of time ;)

Anyhow, here he is, in all his glory:

As usual, I'm noticing a bunch of stuff here that I forgot or messed up, but overall I'm really happy with the final result. Freehand candy cane stripes on the pistol and badge, and writing on the list, just weren't happening, tho. I particularly love the results I got one the star, the decision to do the grenades in Christmas colours, and the coloured metallics on the globe ornaments.

Also, given that it inspired me to take it from NIB to done in less than four days, I'm going to say I'm excited enough about it for it to qualify for Azazel's Destino December Hobby Challenge.

I also picked up the full set of Models from Ana Polanscak's (seriously, if you're not already following her blog, and like creepy atmospheric stuff, go check her out. Amazing modeling and painting, and some of the best narrative battle reports anywhere) Kickstarter earlier this year, and the Skull Familiar's hat just screamed "Christmas" to me, while the rest of the Model just sort of invoked generalized screaming. Nightmare Before Christmas sort of thing. So I got it done up as well, simple job, but it came out well. Kinda wish I'd done more with the legs, but I just sort of ran out of steam. Still happy with it.

So yeah, I hope all y'all have been and continue having pleasant holidays, regardless of which one(s) you celebrate. I also got my set of the Untamed Beasts from WarCry done and photographed, which was a really fun experiment, but I'm gonna save them for their own post. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Scenic September: WarCry Terrain

Finally getting around to posting the pics for the other half of Azazel's September challenge. Again, mostly just a pic dump, as there isn't a whole lot to say about these. Sprayed black, then just heavily overbrushed, using a half-inch brush for the grey first, then a quarter-inch for most of the rest. The seasoned and cut timber is XV-88, while the fresher logs are Rhinox Hide (I think. Might have been Dryad Bark) for the bark, and Ushabti bone for the still-green inner wood. Some Typhus Corrosion and Skrag Brown for rust on the steel parts, the always wonderful Nihilakh Oxide on the bronze gratings, and then a bit of drybrushing to bring both of those back up.

Starting off with the bell tower, the coolest piece in the set. Again, these were shot before I switched back to my dark background again, and the high contrast made it hard to get great pics, but if you open the bigger versions, they should be a bit better. The stairs fit really nicely, staying in place well, but still easily removable to use elsewhere.

In retrospect, I probably should have done a "breakdown" pic of this one, too. It's actually four separate parts, each usable on their own in combination with various other parts of the set: The fallen statue, the stairs, the platform, and the "gate" on the end of the platform. Again, stays together very nicely during game play despite how easy it is to take apart and move around.

The various smaller pieces of the set. I don't have enough room in my lightbox to show the bridges actually in use. The log barricades really didn't photograph well here; the bronze sections are much clearer in person. If you look at the end parts of the little ruin, you'll see there are two different broken grating pieces. If you put them together facing each other, they're both distorted in the same direction, so you can set up a spot where something just busted right through and the broken parts all look right for it, like it really was one section originally.

The first of the larger buildings. It takes a lot of angles to show everything that's going on here.

The second larger section of ruins. I really like how that joining piece between the two halves works. It's just the right degree of broken down for the gap there. There's a third pic of this, but it's not uploading for some reason.

The final, and largest, section of ruins. I don't really have a good shot of the whole bunch of it together, but here's one from a game a while back. This was actually before I'd got it to the point it is in the rest of the pics, but it still looked pretty good at tabletop distance:

I'd like to do a little more with it, maybe do a super light drybrush with an off-white over everything, and there's a ton of sloppy spots that could use some touch-up, but it's more than good enough for casual use. As usual, I have a few more things currently going on, and hopefully I'll get some of them done and ready to post soon, but who knows how long it will actually be. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Squaddie September: Flesheater Courts Warcry Warband

 Basically just a pic dump. I've been really unproductive for the past month or so, in large part due to a pretty nasty bursitis flare-up in my hip that makes shifting from a sitting to standing position really painful, and has been interfering with pretty much every aspect of my life. Anyhow, here's some Ghouls, and also some larger ones. I can never remember what the hell the bigger ones are called, I just sort of think of them as bigger Ghouls. I actually built them more like the Vampire Counts version because the heads look cooler, and those ones aren't used in WarCry, so there's no possibility of confusion. I kind of wish there were smaller winged Ghouls as well, I think that would be a cool niche.

Like most of the Warbands adapted from pre-existing forces, they're stupidly overpowered compared to the Warbands created purely for the game. Theoretically, it's balanced out by the points costs, but the ability to concentrate so much hitting power and durability into the space of one Model (and as a result into one Activation) is a really big deal, and the Fly runemark seems to be badly under-priced by the devs.

They were painted purely with Army Painter glazes over a light tan spray (one of the Krylon Camo line), except for the wings, which I used to experiment with Volupus Pink, from the Contrast paints. Unfortunately, it doesn't end up looking like I wanted for my Thorns of the Briar Queen, so I need to go back to the drawing board there to figure out how I want to do them.

I also have some Terrain pics to post up, and I'm halfway done with my Untamed Beasts (using a similar approach as with the Ghouls) and my Splintered Fang (need to find more cool venomous snake patterns that are within my ability to paint. Hopefully something out of that will be up before too much longer, but however long it may be, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Squaddie September: 40K Beastmen

First off, a quick note that I fixed the photos in the previous Squaddie September post, got some new pics against a black backdrop. Still not perfect, those Models are just as much of a pain to find a good angle for photography as they are for finding a good angle to get a paintbrush in there, but at least the colour scheme is visible now.

Anyhow, as the title indicates, this time we've got the Blackstone Fortress Beastmen ready to go. These guys were much more fun to paint than the Megavolt Cultists, and I decided to mostly stick to a pretty limited palette and see how many browns I could use in there:

The rusted metal on the machetes was my fave bit, I always like doing rusty metal. Then they got some cleaner metal on the Chainswords and pistols, and a bit of red and yellow flair to tie them in with the Renegade Guard Squads. Looking it it now, I notice I also forgot to do the brass rings that a couple of them have in their noses, but whatever. I may get to it at some point.

Even some pretty cool detail back here. I like the hair they've got, lots of cool details like braids and little charms woven in.

Pretty simple lot, it's back to the grindstone for now, but I've got a couple more posts from the September challenge to write up, so they should be along reasonably soon. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Dreadtober '19: AU Edition

Confusingly, I don't actually have any projects going right now that involve actual Dreadnoughts of any sort. So I decided to switch fictional universes and go with the Vulture/Mad Dog kit that I got from FCY Battletech Models last spring.

The top part is kind of back-heavy, and I didn't go with the best pose to compensate for that. I'm going to need to pin it to the base really solidly, but for now, my finger works. Plague Marine for scale.

 I was a little disappointed that this Model is based more on the MWO version (mainly I like the arms on the classic one better), but he'd already done the classic version some years ago, and doesn't do repeats. I may come back to it later and try to scratch-build some new arms for it that better fit what I want it to be, but that's way too much work for right now.

A better look at the base without my hand in the way. It's going to be a street with a collapsed wall partially across it.

 I just got the base in the mail on Friday, so that hasn't been primed yet. Need to stick some bits of paperclips and such in there for "rebar", and spend some time with some spackle to cover up the texture on the flat surfaces of the cork. Hopefully I'll get that done and get the base primed sometime this week, and get some paint on the Mech itself during the same span. I'm planning on a Ghost Bear Clan Invasion-era Alpha Galaxy camo pattern. Frustratingly, I can't find any information on how Unit insignia etc. is displayed on Mechs. I never bothered when I was painting the regular scale ones, but working at this scale, it seems like I really should. Between the various computer games, the fluff books, the official art, and the larger-scale Models, it seems like there should be information about it codified somewhere, but I can't even find anything referring to it at all.

More to come later. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Squaddie September: Megavolt Cultists

EDIT: Better photos added!

The first of a few posts for Azazel's Squaddie/Scenic September Hobby Challenge. It's taken me way too long to get this stuff photographed and ready to post, but now it begins.

First off, no, that isn't a typo in the title. When I was a kid back in the early 90s, one of my favourite cartoons was Darkwing Duck, and as soon as I saw the name "Negavolt Cultists", I knew I was going to have to do them up as a tribute to his longest-lasting and most persistent nemesis, Megavolt.

I tried as best I could to go with a similar colour scheme, with a drab yellow for most of the clothes, greenish-blue for the gloves and leg wrappings (Megavolt's boots), red for most of the backpack unit and wire insulation, and brass for the electrical contacts and exposed bits of wiring.

Bangles Approved

Unfortunately, nearly all of this seems to have been washed out by my camera not being able to handle them against a white background. I may have to re-shoot with my black backdrop, but I can't deal with it right now. Dealt with! But I did get this one "action shot" on the black background before I shut down my photo setup.

Megavolt Cultists attempt to hunt down Beastmen within the corridors of the Blackstone Fortress, but are outflanked and ambushed in turn.

Also, on a totally different note, this was supposed to be part of my last post, on my Death Guard army. I made up some "souvenir" copies of my Army List for the event, but it turned out that almost no one wanted them. One guy wouldn't even pick it up. All that, despite the fact that it was just done with coffee grounds and used tea bags and they actually smelled quite nice.

It amused me to wait a moment after handing these across and then say "And here's a copy you can actually read" and give them a non-aged sheet in a much more reasonable font.

That's it for now. I'm going to take a look through the other shots I took and see how many of them really want the black background as well. Hopefully at least some of them will be decent as they are, and I can get them up relatively quickly. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Death Guard Army Showcase

I'm submitting this one for Azazel's Awesome August Hobby Challenge. Not because every single one of the Models seems awesome to me or anything like that (tho quite a few of them would probably qualify on their own), but because I painted almost all of it in a week. I had finished the Angel of Disease for Jewel of July, and one of the Predators, plus the underlayers for the rust on the other Vehicles, were done then too, and one Squad of Plague Marines just needed touch up and re-basing, since I did them in like 2002. All the remaining work on the Vehicles was done in that week, tho, and the other 22 Infantry Models were primer at the start of it. Anyhow, on with the show!

90s metal Plague Marines with newer arms, the Serpents of the Light. I had a couple of the old backpacks, and got someone to help me cast up a few more to fill out the Squad.

This is the Squad from 2002, the Unyielding Kings of Agony. Those are Tactical Marines, a few random bits, and a whole lot of putty. I am still damned happy with how they came out.

The new guys, Cleansed in Pestilence. Even with no easy customizability, there is a ton of variety in the sculpts, and they were a whole lot of fun to work on. There are only six right now because it's OFCC tradition that every team who didn't win puts a Model in the Bucket of Death, and there was one that I have a dupe of.

The Doom of Artifice. I fucking love this Predator sculpt (altho not dealing with hybrid kits), and particularly for Nurgle, it just feels right. Hopefully at some point I'll get around to doing a couple more back and forth bouts of stippling on green and rust colours to really get the transitions right.

The Unholy Blasphemies. These are cool Models, very fun to paint, altho I kept finding more bits partway through that I hadn't realized were actually something else and needed to be re-done. I tried to mess with them a bit to get a little variety, but they're only available as an ETB kit, so there's not a whole lot to be done. A proper kit for them with some options would be great.

The Lord of All Plagues and Fever. Converted from a Dark Vengeance Chaos Lord.

I forgot, I meant to do more work on the pattern on his cloak. Well, that's what happens when you're finishing an Army in a week.

Last, but not least, my BlightKing Terminators, Blessed Are the Sick. These guys were a hell of a lot of fun to make and paint. I'll try to do another post on each of them individually at some point.

The names mostly come from Morbid Angel songs, except for the Unyielding Kings of Agony (Slayer), and the Serpents of the Light (Deicide). As mentioned, due to rushing, there's a lot more I want to get to, particularly some obnoxiously bright highlights on the green, and without those, I had to tweak the colour balance really carefully to get them even this visible. Need to clear my desk off properly again so I can get in to the light box and change out the backdrop for a darker one, but that's not happening anytime soon.

This really shows how feast and famine my productivity can be. I got whatever it was done between January and March, then nothing from then 'til mid July, and then another 36 completions in less than a month. Unfortunately, the two purchases I made since then added another 46 unpainted Models plus Terrain, so I'm even further in the red despite that. Hopefully some of those will make it as part of next month's Scenic & Squaddie September Hobby Challenge. I have a bunch of other stuff well along, too, and have been keeping my momentum up fairly well, so hopefully there will be more soon, probably a mix of stuff for various smaller-scale GW Games, since I'm way more into those than full-on 40K these days. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Rome Wasn't Built in a Day

But Carngrad (or at least this section of it) actually was.*

One of my gaming buddies came over on Saturday, and we finally got around to actually playing Warcry. The weekend before, I'd seen some people playing, and one of them said that he thought it might be just barely possible to build all the scenery in a single day. Obviously, that's the kind of thing I take as a challenge, but after finishing, either he builds extremely slowly, or he also meant all the dudes from the set as well, or something else, I don't know. Even taking more care with cleanup and such than I usually do, and consulting the guide that Waywalker Studios did on making sure your Terrain can actually be used for all the Battlefield cards, it still didn't take anywhere near a full day.

Speaking of that guide, as you may or may not have noticed, the assembly instructions in the box only show how to build two Ruins, and leave the remainder up to you. Which would be all well and good except that the game is built around specific Terrain set-ups on the included cards, and if you do just randomly build something cool with the rest, you won't necessarily actually be able to set all of those up. Furthermore, there are a couple of places where it's important to not follow the directions, as they tell you to glue on the stairs and a couple of other parts that the cards call for using in different configurations. The Waywalker Studios guide is good, but they relied on the pictures from the set, which don't have very good angles for the ruins that don't have directions. So hopefully, as well as being a build showcase, this will also have some useful reference images of those ruins from different angles.

Some of these barely fit in my light box. It got a bit sketchy at points.

These are some different angles on the ruin that doesn't have a good pic in the instructions. Hopefully, along with the parts list in the Waywalker guide, they'll make it easier for someone else to build than it was for me.

The other ruin that doesn't have directions. This one is pretty simple, tho.

One of the two that do have directions. Where they did them (and didn't tell you to glue things that should remain loose), the directions are really very good, with the different types of parts categorized and colour-coded.

The last of the ruins. Together, they really do offer a pretty impressive range of options. OK, technically, I think the next one is a ruin as well, but I think of it as The Bell Tower instead. It doesn't really have the same range of options and potential for mixing with the other parts, but is still really cool.

Again, as noted before, don't glue the stairs in. They pressure-fit just fine. I chose to leave the skeletons off of this one because A) the overall concentration of them was getting a bit high for my taste after doing the barricades, B) they'll be cool for other projects, and C) they all have the same pose, and collectively, it makes them look like they were sentenced to The Hell of Infinite Coffee and No Toilets. One big thing to note is that none of the stone framework is damaged except the very top. Chop off those shattered column tops and this could work great as part of an intact structure, make an actual bell tower or something. Also, you could put all kinds of things in the niches instead of the skeletons. A bit skinny for most actual minis, but there re definitely things that could make cool statuary or whatever in there.

The last major piece of terrain from the set. Again, don't glue the stairs in, and ideally don't glue the platform to the statue head (it actually stays on surprisingly solidly), or the barricade at the end either. I did that before I looked up advice on building these, and really wish I hadn't.

See. If that bit hadn't been there, this would be great for extending the platform area available. But it's stuck, so that's always going to be blocked off. Don't make my mistake. Leave it unglued. It sits on there just fine. I thought I also had a pic showing how well the stairs fit with the other ruins, but apparently not. You can see it in the big pic at the top, but it's not as nice as it would have been if I'd done it in the light box.

I really want more of this Terrain. It's built to be pretty compatible with the other AoS Terrain from the Azyrite Ruins on, and there's so much more potential than what I felt constrained to by the limitations of the Game.  A lot of this stuff (particularly the bell tower and statue head) could even fit in with 40K Sector Imperialis sets pretty nicely with a bit of work.

I've also got a bunch of shots of the Death Guard stuff that I've done this month, just need to get those ready to post. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

*Don't ask me about how long it's going to take to get it painted.