Tag Archives: Conversion

Guess who’s back!

24 Friday Jun 2016

Posted by in Side projects

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Hello folks – just like Arnie, I’m back! Yey!! Man… I can’t believe it has been almost 2 months since I posted my completed Techno-Barbarian village – our house has been upside down in all that time, making painting, modelling etc. practically impossible. I have really missed painting and blogging in that time, though luckily, I have been able to closely follow a number of excellent blogs out in the Noosphere, (yes… you know who you are), and so I have been getting my kicks second hand. I have also managed to get in a fair few games of Frostgrave these last months, (my techno-barbarian warband is now up to level 16!), but nothing to really satisfy my creative urges.

Anyhow, I am really pleased to report that a) the house is finished, and we have a cracking new kitchen & downstairs layout to enjoy, and b) I have picked up the brushes again. You know, it’s weird, but I am feeling incredibly rusty on the painting front, and strangely timid about ‘getting back into it’. I don’t know if anyone else has had a similar situation, but it definitely feels a bit uncomfortable… Ah well, got to start somewhere, right?

So… I’ve been pondering what to work on for my return, and (as you can imagine) I have a number of options. For starters, I have the Silver Tower game to sort out, plus several lovely Kickstarters that shipped recently. Also, I want to expand on the techno-barbarians, I have some Frostgrave creatures to sort out, and I have a number of small Confrontation collections to tackle as well… Such decisions! In the end, I decided to finish up my pit slave conversion, just to get my eye in, so to speak. He’s based on the AoS Slaughter Priest, and we last saw him in this state:

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Now he’s finished, and he looks more like this:

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And a little diorama to show just how big this guy is!

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I worked really hard on getting a nicely weathered look to the armour, and even harder on the blending & washing on the flesh… it did not feel like a very graceful or natural process at first, in fact, I found it to be quite mechanical and robotic at times… kind of ‘painting by numbers’ so to speak. Happily, the process has blown out a few cobwebs for me, and I’m pretty happy with how he turned out in the end. So what next? I have a few Oldhammerish odds and sods lying around in their undercoats, so I’m going to work through them just to sharpen up my brushwork a little bit more… I’m not sure after that, but the main thing is that normal service is resumed at Leadballoony – thank you all for your patience, it’s good to be back.

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!