Bar-Zhagg’s Grot Slaves

The dawi zharr Daemonsmith Bar-Zhagg has been on a slave capturing mission in the Painted Spires of Efengie.  He and his enforcer Druzgul have managed to collect 5 grot slaves and 2 squigs to accompany them on their quest in the damned city of Shadespire.

The Flames of Penitence

Having recently acquired Nightvault, I've got a new warband up and running!  I've made a Dark Age of Sigmar inspired conversion of Averon's Cursebreakers.

The White Scarstriders

Continuing on with my series of ridiculous conversions for Shadespire warbands, here is Veteran Sergeant Sanson Farstrider and his White Scars battle brothers.  They have answered Sigmar's call for aid, been issued Mk. S power armour, and are now on the hunt in the dead city of Shadespire.

A Song of Ice and Fire: House Bolton

I received my A Song of Ice and Fire Miniatures Game kickstarter pledge a few weeks ago, and so far I've played two battles against grownups (a few against my 4yo son though) and painted the House Bolton forces.

Here are some characters you might recognize.  First up are Ramsay Snow and Reek.

Gor-rek's Reavers

I've finished a third Shadespire warband!  I'm still figuring out what wacky conversion to do with my Sepulchral Guard, but for the moment, here is my Khorngor warband (otherwise known as Bloodreavers).

Speaking of Harlequins

Earlier in the year, I painted these Star/Voidweavers for one of my friends.  He's working on an army of Harlequins enlisting as many different painters as possible, which I think is a super cool idea.  I was thrilled to get the chance to paint some of them, because I've always wanted to paint Harlequins, but feel no need to do a whole army of them.

Anyhow, he submitted his Ynnari army to Faeit, and it got featured, so if you're interested, you can see the rest of his army (and some more pictures of the Voidweavers) over there.

The Tzaanitaur

Sadly, I missed Ex Profundis' 'The Eclipse' modelling/painting competition back in the spring, but I decided to do something for the Monster Competition.  After an extensive rooting through of my bitz and bobz, I settled upon building a Tzaanitaur to go with my Tzaangors.  Enjoy!

   

Lava Monsters of Khorne

I've finished two more models for my Bloodbound "army"*.  I picked up a starter set a few months ago so that I could get the Bloodsecrator and Bloodstoker for my Gorechosen battalion, so I've been slowly working my way through the other contents (along with other projects).  Today I want to show off/discuss my two lava monsters.

Gorechosen Battalion

So GW managed to trick me into playing Khorne by selling me a copy of Gorechosen, which then led to me purchasing a starter box and the Blades of Khorne book.  Those sneaky guys.  I have no interest in any of the proper units (with the possible exception of Wrathmongers, who I think are both ridiculous and awesome), but I've had several fun games using my (until this moment) unfinished Gorechosen battalion.  I haven't painted my Mighty Lord of Khorne yet, but here is my completed battalion, and basically my entire army with the exception of my Khorgorath, and the Damsel of Distress (who has found an excellent new vocation as a 'counts-as' Valkia).

Lord Torstein the Destroyer

I finished a project a year in the making today.  For my birthday last March (2016) my brother got me a Daemon Prince to start me on the path of having a Lord of Chaos with a Daemon Prince and Chaos Spawn that match it for use with its 'glory or damnation' ability.  At Christmastime, my parents got me a Chaos Spawn kit; and recently I acquired the last piece... an old Crom the Conqueror model.

Tutorial: Very Easy Lava Bases

I bought myself Gorechosen for Taxsmas (a traditional American gift giving holiday that occurs around February or April or whenever you get your tax returns), and decided that I would try out LAVA BASES!!!  I wouldn't post this tutorial unless I thought I'd come up with something I hadn't seen elsewhere.  After doing my research, I found a bunch of advice for doing lava, but nobody doing the super easy thing I had been envisioning, so I tried it, it worked, and I figured I'd share it with the world.

Larvulous, Gadfly of Nurgle

I've been inspired lately by this new "Aos28" movement.  I'm not sure this really qualifies for it, but looking at all these awesome conversions got my creative juices flowing.  I was looking for stuff I could convert into grim-dark weirdness, and I stumbled upon my old Skarsnik model (he's been very lonely ever since Gobbla became Wheelsquig, a mainstay of my Space Orks army).  I started playing around with Skarsnik and some nurgley bitz, and came up with this.

Malifaux Overview

I don't only play Age of Sigmar (even though it might seem that way).  I also dabble in a variety of other games, one of which is Malifaux.  This is going to be kind of a rambling review/discussion of the game and its models.

The game itself is a lot like WarMachine in that it has very complete and thorough rules.  However, unlike WarMachine, it is not quite so cut-throat in spirit.  It is highly scenario driven (more so than any other miniatures game I've played) and the players basically never have the same victory conditions.  In fact, the core rulebook even includes a "narrative" scenario generator.

Tutorial: How to Paint Blood

Over my years of painting zombies, ghouls, nurgle stuff, and so forth, I have developed a pretty solid technique for painting fresh slick looking blood that I'd like to share today.  I used it recently on the champion for my Putrid Blight Kings, and I've been using it a lot lately to paint my big box of Flesh-Eater Courts guys.

Chaos Dwarf Deathshrieker Finished

Since I posted a work in progress shot of my Deathshrieker Rocket, I figured I'd post the finished product.

Since the Legion of Azorgh artillery pieces are atypical and have the crew as a part of the model instead of a separate unit, I magnetized them to the base.  Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out as a function of how difficult it was, and I'm also pretty happy with how the pieces I sculpted myself came out; namely the skull mask, the domed helmet, and the visor for the guy in the back.

Then and Now...

  So I saw a cool thread on BOLS today about how far we've all come since painting our first models.  So I took some pictures to post in the thread, but I thought I shouldn't let it go to waste and so I'm gonna post it on my blag too.

  The first models I ever painted were a pack of Warhammer Cave Squigs.  I painted them with Testors oil model paints.  They turned out a lurid glossy purple with glistening white teeth.  Two colors.  But that was all it took, I went out and bought some more models.  Honestly I have no idea where my second models went.  They were a pair of space marine knockoffs for who knows what game.  They had big blocky shoulderpads and static poses.  I painted them red and blue and then drybrushed them with silver... cuz... ya know.  It seemed like a good idea at the time (did I mention I was in sixth grade?).  Anyways, my parents got me a Marneus Calgar and a Razorback for my birthday that year.

Mr. McCragge has since been repainted (he didn't look very good back then).  The Razorback is in pieces.  So the oldest models I have with their original paint-jobs are the Dark Eldar from the 3rd edition 40k starter I got that Christmas.  The Space Marines got new paint-jobs because I actually used them from time to time.  The Dark Eldar were never used again and some things that should not have been forgotten were lost.  History became legend.  Legend became myth.  And for two and a half thousand years, the ring passed out of all knowledge.  Er, I mean the Dark Eldar.  So anyways, when I saw this thread I rooted around, found them, and took these pictures of a Dark Eldar from 1999ish next to a Lamenters Sanguinary priest from a couple days ago.

It's nice to take a step back and look at how far we've come since the days of globbing on crappy acrylics (or worse yet, oils) over a half-done base-coat and calling it a day.

Weathering Orks

So I started an Orks army. It's been coming together nicely so far. I just wanted to talk for a minute about weathering. I've tried a couple of different weathering techniques with these guys so far and I'll tell you which one I like best.

First:

For this one, I made some battle damage on the front plate with a modelling knife, then basecoated with scab red. Then I brought all of the non damaged parts up with blood red leaving scab red around the bullet holes. Then I just painted the bullet holes with boltgun metal. The mud on the front was done by super gluing sand all over the front of the buggy.

Second:

This time, after painting the whole tank with mechrite followed by blood red, I applied chaos black to the hard edges using a torn up piece of blister foam. Then I applied boltgun metal via the same method. I like this method better than the first and it is reeeally easy to do, but I think it looks a bit sloppy, so while it's not a bad method, I don't think I'll be using it again (although maybe I'll decide otherwise).

Third:

This time, after painting the wheel well with fancy flames, I simply painted on some chipped looking boltgun metal. This doesn't look very good at first, but after washing the model (I use devlan mud or gryphon sepia, I like to change it up from model to model) the boltgun metal kind of pops and looks nice. I like this method of weathering best of the ones I've tried so far. I've been using it on boyz shoulderpads, here's a nob I used it on.

Anyhow, the third method is pretty easy and I think looks pretty good, just make sure to give the model the wash as it improves the look greatly.

Erasing Paint

I though I'd explain something I have found to be exceptionally useful. Since I've been painting a lot of bright colors lately, I've stumbled upon a way to erase painting mistakes.

Step 1: Make a mistake when painting. This is really a problem when you get black on your yellow for example.

Step 2: Quickly rinse your brush and leave it a little bit wet.

Step 3: Apply water to the spot where you want the paint gone. The principle here is that you're going to water down the paint in that spot and then suck it up with a dry brush.

Step 4: Dry your brush (or grab a dry brush) and use it to mop up the painty water.

Step 5: If you've done this all quickly and carefully, you should no longer have paint in the affected area!

Tyranids

Hey folks,

First post for my blog here. I'm mostly going to be discussing modelling and painting war-games miniatures. I do a lot with Warhammer Fantasy and 40K, but have been known to occasionally dabble in other games (painting if not necessarily playing) Malifaux, WarMachine, etc. Who knows what I might do in the future.

Here are pictures of my Tyranid army. I've been playing tyranids for several years now when I returned to the hive mind after finally accepting that the new codex was here to stay, I decided to update my color scheme. As you can see, the hormagaunt in the back is painted using Dark Angels Green, Snot Green, and Scorpion Green for the flesh with Scorched Brown, Bestial Brown, and Bleached Bone for the carapace. My new color scheme (front) is Scorpion Green followed by Thraka Green wash for the flesh, and Bleached Bone followed by Gryphon Sepia for the carapace.

One thing I noticed when beginning work with my new scheme was that the carapace was a bit too light with only Gryphon Sepia on the carapace and the bleached bone details on the carapace didn't stand out enough. To rectify this I ended up using Devlan Mud first on the carapace in the deep recesses between armour plates on the back and head. Then

The eyes (not that they are visible) are yellow with black stripes down the middle (cat-like). And as a highlight color for the flesh I use Rotting Flesh. This is mainly for the vents on the arms and any sinuous muscle (like the jaws), but I also used it for the cords on the devourers and will surely use it for other highlights in the future.I did two washes of Sepia to get it darker so that the Bleached Bone streaks stand out better against the dark carapace.

Here are some pictures of my whole army, they're not very good though, so I'll probably try to get some better ones later.