Greetings Terrans, how goes it? It has been a while since I last posted – again! Life continues to be busy, but at least half of that busy has been fun stuff, so I’m certainly not complaining… Last weekend was a belter, with the rescheduled Bring Out Your Lead event going ahead & then nipping into London on Sunday to see my wife complete her first official Marathon!

It was so good to see people up at BOYL – lovely to talk shit and throw a few dice, but mostly it was just brilliant to catch up and reconnect with so many hobby pals. Meanwhile I am soooo proud of my darling wife’s efforts – me and our youngest caught her at about mile 24 & it was lovely to see her face light up when she saw us. It’s a hell of a thing to do, and I’m in awe of her.

Anyway, back to Hyborian Age!

Here we have the imaginatively named ‘Giant Snake’:

Models like this are just perfect for Contrast paints & this model really didn’t take long at all, with lots of wet blending & drybrushing to make it pop. It is loosely based on a picture of an especially vivid Horned Viper that I found, and is perfect bestiary fodder.

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With that in mind, and while I was feeling snakey, I grabbed this big fella from the Mythic Battles Pantheon box:

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And this Nure-Onna from the Rising Sun game:

Both were great to paint – the big Mythic Battles dude is roughly based on a King Python, while the Nure-Onna is painted to match my Daughters of Khaine (and so is a bit plain!). Along with the Conan snake, this trio will be perfect for games like Ghost Archipelago & so on:

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Finally, the Conan game came with a few objective tokens, so I based them & slapped on a super-quick paint job:

While I was a it, I did the same to a whole bunch of random objective/treasure tokens I had lying around:

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So there we have it – a bit of an eclectic feel to things this week, but hopefully nice to see. Next week will be the FINAL CONAN model! Hopefully this last monster will be a joy for fans of H.P Lovecraft 😊

Greetings Terrans, I hope this finds you well. My apologies for not getting this out sooner, but this week has been pretty full on – nothing major, just work shit, but enough to push a few things out a few days. Never mind, better late than never, and what could be better than a cheeky bit of mini-monster madness for the weekend – this time with a rather more aquatic twist!

Let’s get straight into it with these imaginatively titles ‘Tentacles’ and ‘Tentacles Alt.’:

Not much to say here really – I googled up a few pictures of (plural octopus) and picked out a natty little number in red & orange with blue spots and white suckers. I hedged my bets on the bases & went for something that could be a scummy pond, a swamp or mire… I didn’t want to commit to full on water bases! Here’s a few trying to get to grips with Conan the Wanderer:

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While I was in the mood for tentacles and such, I grabbed hold of the mighty ‘Thaug’:

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I followed the same paint scheme as for the other tentacles – I figured that all the bits could be played as the same creature if required. Not much else to say really, the mouth was awkward but satisfying to paint, and the glowing eyes were good fun too. Here is Thaug about to get a yard of steel inserted somewhere:

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Anyway that’s all for this week – a bit of a strange selection I suppose, but I think these will come in handy for Ghost Archipelago, or as some kind of mutant/alien sump dweller in a sci-fi skirmish. Catch you all next time 😊

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? Welcome back & good news – we are on the home stretch with the Conan kickstarter! Ironically, I’m finishing with the models that got me hooked on this project in the first place – the Monsters!!

Let me explain – I’d been looking for creatures with potential to crop up in games like Frostgrave & Ghost Archipelago, and there are a good few in the Conan KS that suited. Me being me, I knew I had to eat (i.e. paint) the vegetables (shit minis) before I could get on to the meat (good minis)… ok, so the metaphor is a bit weak, but you get my drift & so here we are, 5 months later and I’m finally getting stuck in to the Monster minis I wanted to paint all along. Let’s get started.

First up isn’t technically a monster (though having ridden one, I’m not convinced!):

The camel was included in the game as a bit of a joke I think, thanks to the infamous ‘Camel Punch’ scene in the Conan movie. It was a lovely thing to paint, with Contrasts making short work of the basecoating & ‘normal’ highlighting and shading doing the rest.

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Next we have a beefy man/beast called ‘Thak’:

He’s a funny mini – the proportions are a bit iffy, but he is true to the book so we’ll let him off I think… Difficult to see what use he might be, but he was a nice paint & I’m glad to have him done.

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Next up is this ‘Swamp Demon’:

I really like this mini – it was a doddle to paint with Contrasts & wet blending straight on the mini, followed by a quick drybrush & some tidy up… I honestly thing that it took about 15 minutes (not including drying time) – talk about low effort/high return!

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Next we have this ‘Dark Demon’:

I’m not too pleased with how this fella came out – it’s a funny, lumpy thing & I tried for a ‘dark fate to purple’ vibe with it. I also experimented with the GW Gloss Nuln Oil, and I’m not hugely pleased with how it came tbh… that said, I don’t care enough to fix it either, so it is what it is.

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Lastly, we have this imaginatively named ‘Gray Man-Ape’

He was good fun to paint – similar to the Swamp Demon, I wet blended on the mini, did some normal highlights on the black skin & drybrushed the rest… really simple and effective!

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Here’s a final shot of all five together:

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And that’s all for now – more monster madness to follow next week 😊