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Leadballoony – It's a lead thing

Monthly Archives: August 2016

Dem bones #1

30 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by Alex in Side projects

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Frostgrave

Hello folks, I have a little post to share with you today – I haven’t had too much hobby time lately what with one thing or another, but I did manage to make a start on the recent Dungeon Monster Kickstarter from Johnny Lauck. The KS was to produce a range of undead (both skellibobs & zombies) from different fantasy races – each race covered by a different sculptor. I got a double batch of each, very much with Frostgrave in mind, and got cracking with my first eight. Paint-wise, they are all mostly painted with various washes, followed by drybrushing – nothing fancy or demanding here :-)

First up we have ‘Dead Sonja’ by Faron Betchley. She’s a lovely little sculpt, one of the best of the bunch, and I could have gone in to much more detail here if I wasn’t pushed for time:

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Next up we have the ‘Ranger Skeleton’ by Nadrav Igra. Again, this is one of the best of the bunch, with a nice pose & detail. I’m reading this as an Elf:

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Thirdly we have the ‘Goblin Skeleton’ by Leandro Ventic. This is probably one of the more bizarre sculpts in the set – light on detail, and why would a skeleton have ears and a nose?? Still, he’s good fun and quick to paint:

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Finally we have the ‘Dwarf Skeleton’ by Bob Olley. This is classic Bob – big head, and loads of detail should you want to spend the time on it. This guy also comes up a bit big within the context of the group, if you care about such things:

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And here we have the four plus their dupes – quite the group I hope you will agree!

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Next time I’ll share the other half of the Skeletons with you – a lot of the ink washing is already done on them in a batch-paint stylee, so hopefully not too long to wait. Catch you from the graveside!

Two portions of fish, and a huge bag of chips please

22 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by Alex in OldHammer, Side projects

≈ 23 Comments

Tags

Oldhammer, Rogue Trader

 

Greetings Earthlings! I come in peace, and have a quick post for you today – I’ve had a bit of a monster painting session over the weekend, and have no fewer than 18 painted models to show for it! First up are a couple of fishmen that I picked up at BOYL – quirky little sculpts, nice and easy to paint up:

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They were fun to paint, mostly done with washes and a quick drybrush, so nothing too demanding. I have no specific plan for them, so they can just hang with the rest of my galactic scum. My league of Xeno adventurers is growing!

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Secondly, I have a bumper haul of 16 Johnny Lauck droids to share, (you can see details about Johnny in my last post), hence the post title. Droids… chips… computer chips…? oh, never mind :-/      Anyway, I speedpainted them up with no great attention to detail – simple colour blocks, wash, drybrush, weathering, done. I plan to use them as scenery items or plot points rather than characters in their own right, so I treated them as such. I painted five up each in blue, red and yellow, and I singled out one chap to be some sort of protocol droid ;-)

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Here, protocol droid ‘AR53’ attempts to diffuse a tense situation between Hraxi Jonas and a couple of fishy customers… apparently only one of the aliens appreciates Mum jokes!

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I love these little critters, and was instantly hooked on these when I saw them available on the undead kickstarter. I really like the idea of little civilianised droids bumbling around the place… probably something to do with growing up a long time ago, with my head stuck in a galaxy far far away :-)   Some of these guys do look weaponised, but they can equally be drinks dispensers, fire extinguishers, hoovers, fumigators, etc.  I’ll go back and add fine detail as and when the mood takes me, but I’m calling them done for now.

So that’s it for the time being – what a productive weekend! I have an assignment to write over the next couple of weeks, so painting time is going to somewhat limited for a while. That said, I’m sure I’ll manage a bit of painting here and there ;-)   Catch you sucker DJs on the B side

More BOYL booty, and a random…

15 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by Alex in OldHammer, Side projects

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Oldhammer, Rogue Trader

Hello chaps, my BOYL buzz has receded as the week has progressed, but I did get a few bits and bobs finished last week/weekend. First up, we have a nice little Freebee from Curtis @ Ramshackle games – he’s a generic priest/administratum type, appropriately/amusingly equipped with an old hammer. I added the servoskull to 40k him up a bit, and painted him quick to hang with my slowly expanding Administratum group:

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Next up we have a random chap that has been in his undercoat for ages and ages – I just never got around to him, despite the fact that he is such a cool model. He is from Moonraker Miniatures I think, and he’s a cracking little wasteland/bounty hunter type. I painted him up in quite a muted palette, with no particular purpose in mind. Here he is on his own, and with a bunch of reprobates from the RT Pirates range:

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Finally we have another BOYL gem. He’s actually an impulse purchase from Johnny Lauck – I backed a recent Kickstarter by Johnny, (a very cool series of undead dungeon monsters – watch this space!), and I added a few sci-fi minis that he also produces to the order. You can check Johnny out here, but suffice to say that the quality and service were both excellent, though I did cop a customs bill for the delivery :-(

Anyway, I actually picked up the KS package on my way to BOYL, and had a good look over the minis on the Friday night. I knew that the mighty Kev ‘GoblinMaster’ Adams was going to be at BOYL on the Saturday, and would be sculpting faces for folks in exchange for a modest donation to charity. I selected a rather cool mini with a disc cutter and blow torch with the Kev face sculpt in mind. This is what poor Kev had to work with:

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And here is the resulting mini with my face!

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Pretty good eh? This guy is going to go very nicely with my Colony 87 Star Port crew, (coming soon), but he can hang with my conversion of Techpriest Schlan for now, and just chop some shit up:

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It was great watching Kev work – the guy is a legend, and it was fascinating to watch him building up the face, sculpting in the detail etc. He sat in a hot tent all day long, sculpting and chatting with folks about all sorts, and all done with a broken arm! The conversation was great, so many rock’n’roll stories from the golden age of GW, and a fair few of Kev’s own adventures since. For example, did you know that Kev’s Night Goblins were inspired by the Jawa from Star Wars? No? Me either! (Sure makes me look at that range a bit differently…)

Anyway, that’s it for now, but I’ll be churning out some more random bits over the coming weeks. I’ve kind of parked the whole Silver Tower set for now – it wasn’t bringing me much pleasure tbh, so I’m going to crack on with some of the many Kickstarters that have been fulfilled lately. Expect RT civilians, random undead, hordes of robots, and lizard men in spaaaaace! Catch you on the flip side.

Cower, inferior beings!!

10 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by Alex in OldHammer

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Oldhammer, Painting

Hello chaps, very quick post today – I painted up my award for the BOYL painting competition! He’s some kind of alien overlord sculpted by Tony Yeats, and cast on the day on a whim I gather. This is actually one of the masters, cast directly from the original. As you can see, he’s a bit rough around the edges, but is such a fun & characterful piece that it’s hard not to love the little guy. I imagine he has a huge superiority complex due to his undoubtedly formidable mental prowess:

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I spoke briefly with Tony to find out the inspiration behind him – basically Manga, so I went with a bright palette and an Oriental vibe on the paint job. What do you think? I have no idea how I’ll use him – Mutant psyker is the obvious route, or mind controlling cult leader… he’s the kind of mini that fits in anywhere really! Here’s a couple more pics – one hanging with some Xenos Homies, and another with Arturo – the very model that won the runner-up spot in the painting comp:

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I’m still slightly in shock about picking up this award – seriously, the standard in that competition was so high. What an honour!

Tales from BOYL 2016!

09 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by Alex in 215th Praetorian, OldHammer

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Oldhammer, Praetorian Imperial Guard, Rogue Trader

Wow, what a weekend! BOYL 2016 was amazing – I travelled up on Friday with my pal Ross, and had far and away the best hobby experience of my life. I’m still slightly blown away by the whole weekend, so I’m just going to photo dump and get my impressions and experiences down in print while it is fresh in my mind:

 

Friday – Arrived at Wargames Foundry at around 5pm, and had a mooch around the shop and display cabinets. Met Bryan Ansell and talked through some of the amazing minis on display (many of which I recognise from the pages of White Dwarf issues from my teens). Met folks at the Rogue Trader table – planned some RT mayhem for the morning. Also had a really lovely chat with artist Tony Ackland, pouring over examples of his lovely work and discussing vagaries of the hobby as each image nudged the conversation in a different direction. Chatting with Tony was actually a real highlight of the whole weekend – he’s such a lovely chap, and I just hadn’t realised how deeply some of his images are engraved in my memory! Here are some pics of the miniature display cases, but sadly none of Tony’s work (too damn busy gawping and talking!):

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Saturday – Arrived at 9am, unloaded my Rogue Trader lead Praetorian army for a bit of RT action, and after a bit of house ruling from Curtis (of Ramshackle Games – top bloke who arranged the Rogue Trader table), I played James’ awesome Evil Sunz Orks. What a fantastic army, full of Orky Know-watz, and using the frankly insane ‘Ere we go!’ list & rules. Playing a fully painted army with my own fully painted Praetorians on a decent table is a real bucket list item for me, and as an added bonus, it was against a brilliant opponent in James, and it was Orks!!! James has done a brilliant write-up over on his blog,  so I won’t repeat the endeavour in detail here, but James’ report is well worth a look. Suffice to say that the mayhem and carnage was suitably intense, and included memorable incidents like having a whole flank denied due to an expertly placed Pulsa Rocket, and having a Chimera exploded by Snotling farts, (killing practically everything in a 1ft circle)! I think the tanks and guns of the 215th carried the day in the end, (plus the combat prowess of Rogue Trader Arturo), but luck also played a huge part, and it was right to the wire. James was a gracious and worthy opponent, and good fun was had by all. My Rogue Trader went directly from the battle field and into the display cabinet that was the holding pen for the OldHammer painting competition, pausing only to wipe the worst of the Ork blood from his power armour… more on that later, but here are some pics from that battle:

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Anyway, after a spot of lunch and a natter, I got the chance to sit with the amazing Kev ‘Goblin Master’ Adams, and had my face sculpted onto the mini of my choice. I’ll get that mini painted and shared on a subsequent post, but suffice to say that sitting and watching a bona fide master push putty is a wonderful privilege, and what a dude! We had a really good natter about the ‘good old days’ at GW, and all the crazy shit that went on… I won’t divulge details on here, but let’s just say that it was all those creatives in one place made for a very rock’n’roll work environment…

Shortly after that I was incredibly lucky to grab a vacant spot at a GM-led game of Rogue Trader about Inquisitor Cynole’s investigation of an alien artefact. The game was set up and run by an awesome guy called Aiden, who provided all the scenery, models, scenario, plot points, etc. He also GMed it, (with a little help from his son)… what a legend! The game was amazing… six (I think) factions, all with hidden agendas and secret plot lines. I led the Mercs, and started out killin’ Natives for the Trade Guild before learning that the natives were actually trying to contain a world-ending Daemon that the greedy Nobles, Trade Guilders and Mechanicus were in danger of unleashing. I threw in my lot with the Inquisitor & Natives after that, and set about exterminating those who might unleash the evil, (including a butler and some journalists… ‘Leave no witnesses!’). Half of my squad got chomped by a giant jungle beast that sneaked up on me, but the other half ended up killing their way into the temple itself while my leader, (lone survivor of a beast attack… actually, he left his men to die and legged it!), lurked around an antiaircraft battery. The body count was horrendous, and little did we realise that the Daemon in the artefact had actually possessed the Inquisitor! A bloodbath around the artefact ended up fully releasing the creature before the natives could perform the bonding ritual, thus dooming the planet. A lone Trader managed to escape by Ornithoptor, despite my attempt to shoot it out of the skies, (though I did down a ship that the Mechanicus leader tried to escape in, just for badness).

Phew! What a game! It had literally every cool thing you could think of…  Jungle beasts galore? Killer robots? Space Marines fighting skeletons? Spaceships and magic? Daemonic possession? Natives with bazookas? Backstabbing and subterfuge? Yep… this game had it all. I literally can’t thank Aiden enough for making this game possible – truly the finest example of a GM-led Rogue Trader game that I have ever had the pleasure to play. Here are some pics:

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Oh, and guess what else happened… We took a break half way through the Inquisitor Cynole game for the painting comp results, and I found out that my Rogue Trader had taken runner-up spot in the single miniature category!!! Flippin’ ek! I just couldn’t believe that I got a look-in to be honest – the standard in that cabinet was absolutely brilliant. To think that my mini was closely examined by Bryan Ansell, Tony Yeats and Tony Ackland is incredible enough to me, but then for them to like it enough to put it in runner up spot is just jaw-dropping…  I won a very exclusive master cast of a green that Tony Yeats had brought with him – literally cast that very day, specifically for the painting comp… I think they did another run for gifts here and there, but it’s going to be a rare thing, and getting a master cast (i.e. cast directly from the original Green) is pretty darn special! I don’t want to spoil the surprise so I’m not giving any details on who or what the mini is, but I’ll be painting it up very soon, and will do a separate post on it :-)

The rest of Saturday was spent mooching, chatting, and generally soaking up the atmosphere. No photos I’m afraid, but there will be many floating around on the interweb I am sure. The ColdHammer game was incredible, and there was a massed Fantasy battle that must’ve had thousands of models per side. I saw, Adeptus Mechanicus, Advanced Space Crusade, Advanced HeroQuest, and so many other cool games… Finally, after a full 12 hours of gaming heaven, it was time for bed.

Sunday – Arrived 9am again and did a bit of shopping, chatted more, and watched James’ Orks take on a really nice and compact Space Marine force to rescue/kidnap an Imperial Administrator, (a painted example of a freebee mini from Curtis of Ramshackle – again, I’ll paint up and present mine in a post soon). I was really pleased to see the Orks come out on top this time – the expert use of the Pulsa Rocket was key in this battle, pushing the objective closer towards the Orks, and making their job just about easy enough! I snapped a few pics of these lovely Marines:

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And a couple of shots of Curtis’ Nurgle force (which I didn’t get chance to play against unfortunately… next time Curtis!):

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I also looked in on an incredible Fimir battle that was mostly using Geoff’s exquisite army, (divided into warbands for multiplayer madness), and was blown away by Geoff casually describing how he learned to bind books in leather, just so he could put all his Warhammer editions & associated publications together… Seriously, the artistry of the man is just mind-bending – so much so, I forgot to take photos again!

Before Ross and I knew it, time was up! Lunch time rolled around, and we hit the road to get home to loved ones and grown-up stuff. Our hearts were heavy, but our creativity was fizzing, and we solemnly vowed to return next year. Seriously, this was an amazing weekend – I met so many cool people, and saw so many amazing hobby things, it was all too much to absorb really! I must extend a huge thank you to all the people I met, gamed with, laughed with, etc. What a brilliant community. Finally, a special thank you the Ansell Clan for their hospitality and kindness throughout – they are true heroes of the hobby.

Next post will certainly be sharing painted goodies from the weekend – see you from orbit!

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