Author Archives: Alex

A most barbarous village!

18 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by in Side projects

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Happy Monday chaps, I hope you are all well! Just a quick post from me this week – it has been a bit of a funny one on the hobby front… Firstly, and probably most significantly, I didn’t make it to Salute this year. A prior (and distinctly underwhelming) commitment prevented my attendance. Secondly, the same commitment kept me away from a GW store until late in the day, so I missed out on all the ‘happy birthday dear Space Marine’ goodies… I really, really wanted the book and the mini… I was extremely lucky, and was able to pick up the Marine from a friend, but no chance on the book :-/

It has also been a bit funny on the painting front… funny as in ‘I haven’t painted any minis this week’! I did finish off the sculpting for this guy (really going for the Mean Machine look here), and got him undercoated:

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The undercoat looks a bit weird because I’m trying a technique I have read about – he got a black undercoat with a white zenith undercoat sprayed on top of the wet black spray… He’s ready for some paint to go on, but he’ll have to wait a bit because I’ve got this lot to finish up:

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This is a set of ‘Barbarian Huts’ from Scotia Grendel Productions, and is a bit of an indulgence if I am honest… I wanted some scenery for my Techno-barbarians, but didn’t want to go all ash-waste/mad max with it. The buildings are solid blocks of resin, and they took some cleaning up and a bit of repair here and there, but the overall quality and detail is pretty darn good! I’ve embellished the huts with a scattering of 40K bits and bobs, made repairs where needed, and applied the base coat thus far. I also pushed ahead and finish up the ‘Barbarian King’s Longhouse’ to nail down the look. It is the biggest and most complex piece, and I’m pretty chuffed with how it came out. I had great fun with the lichen and moss on the stonework, and I shamelessly stole the ‘bloody handprint’ idea from Krautscientist and his excellent Chaos Knight, the Warrior King ‘Gilgamesh’. I imagine the warriors of the Azmaa ritually cutting their hands and adding their prints for luck as they head off to battle… “Witness Me!!!”   Anyhow, here it is, along with some minis for scale:

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I’ll be cracking on with the rest of the village this week – the aim is to have them done by Sunday. After that, things are going to get a bit weird because we’ve got the builders in and the bulk of the house will be unusable for quite some time… Not sure how it is all going to pan out as yet, but I suspect that life, (and therefore hobby), is going to be a bit disjointed for a while. We’ll see how it goes :-)

The good, the bad, and the ugly…

11 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by in OldHammer

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Hi folks, I got back from my camping trip last Friday, and I’m still absolutely knackered – turns living in a field with two lively kids is hard work! We all had a great time, but it’s good to be back in civilisation… I really missed central heating, hot running water, my wife, and (most pertinent to this blog) my paints! Luckily, I have a number of minis based and undercoated, ready for a quick painting splurge, so I had a good session over the weekend and cranked out 3 additions to my mook squad/PDF… a series I am calling ‘The good, the bad, and the ugly’ for reasons that should become clear…

First up, ‘The Good’. This is an old (1987) Citadel piece produced under license for a roleplaying game called ‘Chainsaw Warrior’. He’s quite a ‘flat’ sculpt, which is fairly typical of the time, but I quite like the little fella… He’s properly tooled up for action, and he brings some much-needed heavy fire support to mook-squad:

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Next up we have ‘the bad’… This is a piece from the 1991 Adventurer range, and he is a really odd sculpt – the folds in the cloth are quite soft and puffy, and he has a face like a witches tit. That said, he actually painted up quite nicely! And then I decided to try and do some OSL for his glowy sword-thing… (for some reason, I thought that glowing swords of light might be a catchy idea in a sci-fi setting…don’t know why). I’m less than pleased with the result – it’s not what I had in mind at all, but I’ll live with it for now and see if I can fix it up at a later date. Anyhow, he’s on the team to bring some leadership to mook-squad:

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Finally, we have ‘The Ugly’. This is another old (’87 again I think) Citadel piece produced under license for a roleplaying game called ‘Paranoia’. This is a really odd sculpt, with an almost medieval design to the helmet which just leaves the guy’s snaggle-toothed mush hanging out… judging from what we can see of his face, it’s probably a good thing that the bulk of it is covered up! He’s quite lightly armed and equipped, so at some point during the painting I decided to appoint him the role of Medic, and it is in this capacity that he joins mook-squad:

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I have a couple more figs that are undercoated and ready to add to this group, (and I suspect that the group will grow even more over time), but here’s a shot of the whole crew as it stands:

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So, as well as a frenzy of painting, I also found time to work on a little piece that I’ve been quietly putting together for a little while. There is still a way to go, but he’s ready for a sneak preview…

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He’s based on the rather excellent ‘Slaughter Priest’ mini for AoS, combined with many and various ad-mech bits and bobs… I have no idea what to use him as – pit slave most likely, but maybe part of a bAd-Mech warband or something similar… Oh, and sorry, but no prizes for guessing the inspiration here ;-)   Anyhow, that’ll do for now, have a good week chaps, good to be back.

Frostgrave reinforcements

02 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by in OldHammer, Side projects

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Hello chaps, super quick update from me today – after my last game of Frostgrave I managed to roll up a ‘magic crossbow’, but didn’t have a model to represent it! I had a quick rummage in the leadpile and saw some possibilities with an old Citadel chaos thug, (the one with a brace of pistols), so I set about him with snips, file and filler. Playing to the techno side, I tried to suggest that the crossbow was some kind of compressed air powered device in order to set it apart as a ‘magic’ item. I got him finished earlier today, just in time for a cheeky little game this evening, so I thought I’d get a quick post in to show him off. I chose to paint his legs up as if he had tights on rather than have him bare legged… I couldn’t resist painting his pants up in leopard skin, (it’s sad, I know… but I couldn’t resist!). A few bits and bobs were used to make up the crossbow, and his right arm was transplanted from an earlier chop job on a Marauder thug… I wanted to include arrows somewhere, but I didn’t think about the discrepancy of having flights on the arrows in hand, but none on the crossbow bolt until painting… hopefully no-one will notice… You didn’t notice, did you? :-/   The rest of the painting was as per the rest of the warband, including his warpaint… Anyhow, here he is:

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This will be my last post for a while, (sorry impRebelOrk!), I’m away on a camping trip with the kids next week so I’ll be off-grid for a while. I’ll catch you homosapians on the flip side!