Tag Archives: Painting

Eru-Kin – On Guard!

10 Tuesday Dec 2019

Posted by in Eru-Kin

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Greetings Terrans, how goes it? I have a quick(ish) update for you today – I’ve been plugging away at my unfinished pile of Eru-Kin, and managed to get these two chaps finished:

 

They are lovely minis, and really look like some kind of ceremonial honour guard to me, so I’ll probably have them looking after one of the leading characters in the army:

 

A strange thing happened while I was painting these guys – I kept having the irrepressible urge to do something like this with them:

 

After some pondering, I realised that there was a huge amount of similarity with this piece of classic Dragon Lance art:

 

This (and many other) Larry Elmore paintings are etched deep in my memory… cue wobbly flash-back video effect, a la Wayne’s World… (yes, you can make the noise if you like)…

Many moons ago, I wandered into a small bookshop in my local town, and I stumbled across a book called ‘The Art of the Dragonlance Saga’. I spent at least an hour flicking through the pages, and it blew my mind… I was reading Fantasy novels by this point, but this was before I had encountered any genre art, and way before I discovered Warhammer. I knew I needed this book in my life, so I saved up for weeks and weeks to be able to buy it, (pocket money was slim in 80’s South Wales). I think it is telling that this is one of the few books I can actually remember buying… It had everything my juvenile brain could ever want to see – mighty barbarians, elven babes, knights, dwarfs, floating castles, monsters, undead, dragons, wizards… The list goes on and on, and many of the pictures were slavishly studied & copied by my amateur hand.

I moved on from this style of sword & sorcery art as my tastes matured and I discovered the grim-dark insanity of Warhammer, but for a brief time, this book was like a magic portal for me, and was one of my favourite things. In fact, I still had this on my bookshelf up until last year, relatively unloved and rarely opened. That changed when my young niece, who is showing a lot of artistic talent, started drawing dragons. The book was duly passed on, and is now one of her favourite things – I absolutely love it when I go to visit & she shows me the paintings that were inspired by her exploration of it.

 

Anyway, that’s it for this post – what do you guys think? Do you reckon this painting was the inspiration for these particular miniatures? Was there a favourite book/magazine/film that got you hooked into geekdom back in the day? Drop a comment below & let me know dudes!

Great news – I’m not dead!

27 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by in Eru-Kin

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Greetings Terrans – wow, it has been quite a while since I’ve posted… Simple reason for that is that it has been quite a while since I painted anything!! You know how sometimes you plan to take a short break from something, and then before you know it, 4 months have flown by? Yeah… that’s pretty much what happened. It’s a strange feeling – after a couple of weeks of not painting, I just didn’t have the urge to do a damn thing. I had a pile of unfinished minis that got the occasional & unfulfilling 20 minutes of paint here and there, but I wasn’t excited about them and they never seemed like they were getting closer to being finished. Gradually, my hobby gear got tidied away to make way for family life, and this made it even more of a chore to get stuck in & pick up a brush… Meanwhile, the wider hobby world continued to evolve around me, with a seemingly relentless wave of new stuff & breaking news that just became overwhelming… I couldn’t keep up, and couldn’t summon the fucks to even try.

It isn’t that I’ve been idle – far from it! I’ve been hitting the gym, I’ve been getting some longer runs in, and I’ve been putting more time in with the family, (much to their dismay). Hell, I have even been watching TV of an evening! Work has also been progressing nicely, as it slowly emerged from a chaotic time into something approaching ‘normal’. All of these important RL things very easily filled the time that had previously been occupied with toy soldiers, and given my lack of fucks to give about the hobby, it really is no wonder that I fell out of love with it for a while…. And then a strange and wonderful thing happened.

I had a very nice ‘out of the blue’ message from Papafakis asking how I was, and basically checking that I hadn’t died or anything, (thanks for caring bro! 😊). He also has Tytus (gameoftravel) visiting at the moment, and is rocking some fab looking RT games – and man, before I knew it, I started to give a slight fuck about the hobby again – just a little quiver on the fuck’o’meter needle so to speak. Also, it hadn’t even occurred to me that folks might worry about my lack of blog activity, so I figured I had better a) paint something, and b) post something… And so, after a rather long-winded explanation, here we are – an actual, honest-to-goodness painted thing:

So this is one of the fantastic Eru-Kin minis that I picked up in the Diehard KS a few years back – I didn’t manage to finish this guy in time for the army that I took to BOYL in 2018, and he’s been in his undercoat since then, (along with several other minis from the range – oh, the shame!). He wasn’t a joyous painting experience, but for the reasons stated above rather than any issue with the mini itself. It was tricky to match back to my original paint jobs, but I think I managed – here he is with some of his Amphibi-bros:

Funny thing – as well as being horribly rusty with the brush, I also found my sense of scale had gotten worse during my hiatus… I didn’t realise how big this chap was until I put him next to some other minis for this photo! I’m guessing he’s supposed to be a leader of some sort, what with the arm-mounted communicator (or possibly snack dispenser), and his natchy bionic eye… He looks like a leader to me, so that’s how I’ll fit him into my army.

Anyhoo, that’s me for now – I won’t make any promises about posting again in any particular timeframe, but I do promise to make more of an effort to do some painting, to get more hobby done, and to keep you updated. Peace out!

Getting back into the groove

15 Thursday Aug 2019

Posted by in OldHammer

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Greetings Terrans, how goes it? I’m still coming to terms with life after Wolf Time – motivation to paint anything has been pretty poor these last couple of weeks, and this has combined with a general low mood, but my mojo is slowly coming back… I know from experience that the best remedy for any kind of slump is to focus on the positives and just do what I can, so I’ve been getting some decent running in the bank while the weather has been good. I also decided to crank out something quick and easy on the painting front, and have sort of committed to clearing my neglected minis pile, (which for me means ‘undercoated and based’). Fortunately, I had this wee beasty lurking in my heap’o’shame:

He’s a Diehard Miniatures Undead Minotaur – a sod to photograph but a lovely sculpt, and for me, the perfect mini to get back into painting. I’ve followed my usual approach to undead here – mainly ink washes, only using ‘proper’ highlighting for the bone & metal, and then some rust, blood & goo added for good measure… nothing taxing, just a basic zombie jobby! I also finished up this long-neglected chaotic type:

I think he’s from the Pantheon of Chaos range, but I can’t find him on their site so feel free to educate me in the comments if you know better! Regardless of provenance, he’s a superb mini with loads of old school charm. I’ve painted him to go with my version of ‘Konrad Venkel’ from PoC… I vaguely had/have a notion to build a chaotic warband in the service of Malal, so black & white predominates on these guys, and an overtly insectoid look abounds. Clearly this is a slow burning project – I painted Konrad back in August last year, so at this rate, I’ll have a decent warband by the time I retire! For now, the party stands thusly:

 

Aaaand that’s it I’m afraid folks – nothing else doing at the moment! I’m going to be away from my paints for a week, and then I plan to crack on with the rest of my neglected minis – mostly Diehard Eru-kin and a certain Necromundan celebrity. I’m not sure what to expect after that – I have vague plans for a Wood Elf BB team, expanding my DoK for Warcry, some sci-fi civilians and a RoC warband, but not sure what order to approach this in… I’m kinda keen to try Warcry, so maybe DoK might get to the head of the queue? We’ll see.

Anyway, that’s all for now folks – onwards and upwards!

Makin’ Xit Great Again

14 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by in OldHammer, Scuplting, Wolf Time

≈ 30 Comments

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Greetings Terrans – exciting news today! After 8 months, I have completed Rulko and Kulo to finally finish all the Orks for Wolf Time! First up, let’s take a look at Rulko, Captain of the Guard. From the Book of the Astronomican:

“Rulko is the new captain of the guard following the execution of the traitor Gort. Rulko is a nasty ‘stab-in-the-back’sort of Ork. He prefers to advance his cause by underhand dealing rather than by actual fighting. He is armed and equipped as follows:

Powered armour. Flamer. Bolt pistol. Chainsword.”

And here he is:

I used another classic ‘Ork-in-Power-Armour’ as the base model for Rulko, but removed the power glove & replaced it with a metal Painboy arm (donated from Doc Spleenripper!). I over-sculpted the arm to match it to the rest of his power Armour, and did the same with the Doc’s saw to make it into a Chainsword. Finally, I sculpted on a wee Bolt pistol, and converted his main gun to be a Flamer (including fuel tank on the back). It’s all quite subtle work, and I think Rulko really does look like a ‘proper’ figure from that period. He doesn’t really look sneaky as per his character description, but really, how sneaky can an Ork in Power armour actually look? I painted him up predominantly red, and with less weathering & rust compared to the other PA Orks – I figured as Captain, his kit would be better maintained than the other guards.

 

Now for the big guy – Governor Kulo himself! From the Book of the Astronomican:

“Kulo is in charge of the whole base, the whole island, the whole damn world. He is a merciless, murdering maniac, and thus well cut out to run the planet. Kulo has become justifiably paranoid following several unsuccessful assassination attempts, and now prefers to rule Xit from the deepest and most secure level of Castle Kulo. He is enormously fat, and wears two suspensors just to enable him to walk normally. His maximum move is 4”, which is never increased (to charge etc.). Kulo is armed and eqiped as follows:

Conversion field armour. Stasis field armour. Two suspensors to offset personal weight problem. Two bolt pistols. Power-glove. Neuro-disruptor.”

Hmmm… Fat, megalomaniac, paranoid, political survivor extraordinaire, names buildings after himself, bit of a cunt… I don’t know why, but Kulo just reminded me of someone. Here’s how he turned out:

As you can probably guess, the current POTUS was the inspiration for this mini, and the opportunity to poke fun at the big man was too good to miss. Old RT used to be full of political commentary, (Ghazghkull Thraka famously being a mangling of Margret Thatcher for example), so really this is a nod back to those times. I hope none of my American followers are too offended – it’s just a bit of fun.

Appropriately for the head honcho, this was a very involved and complicated conversion… I started with an old Judge Dread Fatty, and added the shoulders & head from the Evil Sunz Nob from the ‘Ere we go range of Orks. His left arm comes from the mini I used for Rulko, and he has twin Bolt pistols mounted on the power glove (otherwise, how would he ever be able to use them!?). The right arm was donated from a damaged LE1 Space Orc that I picked up on the cheap – note the delightfully small hand ;-) I also changed the gun out for a new Neuro-disruptor from the Harlequin mini. Next, I added a backpack from an ‘Ere we go Mega Armoured Nob, and started adding cables and other gubbins to the mini. I wanted the backpack to look like some sort of primitive life support system for Kulo, as well as the generator for his Powerglove. Finally I sculpted on a few details – more suitably sized feet, collar & (power) tie, baseball hat, pouches, a holster & doodabs.

Paint-wise, the armoured bits were a mix of grey and black, rust and gunk. I went with the classic power-dressing blue trousers, white shirt & red tie, and the ‘Make Xit Great Again’ hat finishes the look. The Neuro-disruptor was a faff to do – I’ve never painted a crystalline gun before, so it was a bit of an experiment… I hope it works!

Here’s Kulo with his Captain, just to show the size difference between the two. Kulo is obviously a hefty lad, but I don’t think he’s so big that he looks out of scale:

Finally, here’s a group shot of all the characters from the final scenario:

 

And that completes all the Orks for Wolf Time! Want to see what a full set of Wolf Time Orks looks like? Of course you do :-)

 

Now it’s time to start the Marines, so I’ll be in another building & prep phase for a while & I won’t be posting for at least a week. Next time I do post, it’ll be all about the Space Wolves. Haarooo!!!

Salute 2019, paint brushes & Doc ‘Bits’ Spleenripper!

08 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by in Mag Bellum, OldHammer, Scuplting, Wolf Time

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Greetings Terrans, how goes it? It has been a bonkers weekend for me, and this is a pretty eclectic post as a result. First up, I had the privilege of attending Salute this weekend – as a trader! I was helping out my pal Mark (Heresyofus) on his Mag Bellum stand, along with Ed (aka E.J. Henries of Malific Design). It was a real eye-opener being on the other side of the table, and was brutal on the voice, (I completely lost mine), but wow, what an experience! We didn’t sell much, but we got a whole lot of positive feedback on the Mag Bellum system, and on the prototypes for the next phase of the product. We also learned a hell of a lot about running a stand in the process, and we will certainly be better prepared next time! It was also great to spend some time with Mark and Ed – great company & we had a proper good laugh, (Ed faking an orgasm was a thing of absolute beauty). Here they are, looking tense (Ed?) prior to the punters coming in:

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The rest of the show mostly passed me by to be honest, but I did get to say hi to a few pals from the OldHammer scene, (Geoff, Paul, James, the Wargames Foundry team), and I got to say a quick hello to Annie from Bad Squiddo too. Dave ‘The Imperfect Modeller’ kindly stopped by to say hi – lovely bloke, great to meet him & put a face to a name! He had some of his minis with him too, so I had the bonus pleasure of seeing some of his work in RL – (the photos on his blog really don’t do him or his minis justice at all!)

I also had the chance to have a brief natter with John Blanche, (gasp!). I’ve met John before, but only very briefly, and I was a bit too star-struck to say much on that occasion! It was great to have more interaction with him this time, and I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing him at BOYL later this year. I also met & had a really good chat with GW designer Maxime Corbeil – wow, what a lovely guy! His enthusiasm for his work is just brilliant to see, and he’s such a cool dude to chat with.

On a personal level, the highlight was probably bumping in to Kev Adams. We had a good talk about sculpting, and I got to show him some pics of my attempts at Ork power armour –  I was quite nervous, but he was so kind and positive! He gave me loads of encouragement & some top tips on how to do a better job of edging and detail, so it was brilliant to meet him again & so decent of him to take the time to give feedback and advice. He really is a top bloke.

It was also my Birthday over the weekend, so my only purchase at Salute was a slightly indulgent paint brush set from Artis Opus – I used some B’day money I received from my folks, so thanks M&D!!:

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I had a quick spin with them last night, and they are bloody lovely to use… Not revolutionary, but they are certainly nicer in the hand & more accurate than the brushes I am used to. I also saw a demo of their new KickStarter Drybrush set, and I had to completely revise my view on what you can do with a drybrush… I saw a piece in hand that was so subtle that it almost looked like airbrushing. Seriously guys, go check Artis Opus ‘D’ series on KS – it’ll blow your socks off! Needless to say, I’ve now backed that project for an early Christmas pressie to myself ;-)

Speaking of painting, I did manage to finish one of the characters for the final scenario of Wolf Time in amongst all the chaos! Doc ‘Bits’ Spleenripper is the first out of the blocks – he’s basically a proto-painboy. From the Book of the Astronomican:

“Doc is fond of ‘experimental surgery’, as many of his patients have discovered. It was whilst cleaning his chainsword that he lost his right arm, and whilst many surgeons would have taken this badly, ‘Bits’ merely saw it as an opportunity for further experimentation. His arm is a marvel of Ork bio-engineering ‘know what’. It doesn’t work all that well but… by grumblat! …it’s impressive.

Doc’s arm is bionic and includes all the gadgets listed below. To represent the fact that this piece of technology is rather haphazard, roll 1D6 immediately before any phase of hand-to-hand combat:

1 – the arm goes wild, attacking any randomly selected model within 1” (including Doc Spleenripper himself)

2 – the arm simply fails to work for that combat phase

3-6 – the arm works normally

Doc Spleenripper is armed and equipped as follows:

Flak armour, Mesh armour, Bolt pistol

Plus

Bionic arm: Chainsword; Power-glove; 4 Jokaero digital lasers.”

So quite a specific and tricky modelling challenge! I started with an ‘Ere we Go era Painboy, (the one with the surgeons mirror to match the artwork from the book), and I looked around for a suitable bionic arm to graft on, but I really couldn’t find one that worked for me so I ended up having a go at sculpting one over a wire frame. I wanted it to look like it would work as a hand/power-glove, yet have a chainsword that could be extended out as required. I also tried to suggest some digi-lasers on the knuckles as well – not the easiest of things to represent! While I had the putty out, I just did the left arm as best I could, and sculpted on one of my ‘standard’ bolt pistols:

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Paint-wise, I kept to a blue theme for his scrubs – for reasons that will become apparent in the near-future. I also deliberately added less rust & gunk compared to the Ork Guards, but I did slap some ‘Blood for the Blood God’ around to really push the crazy surgeon vibe. Finally, I added a suitably ‘Painboy-esque’ glyph to the back plate – back plates & glyphs aren’t strictly a Rogue Trader thing & came a bit later, but I thought it a nice nod to the Doc being the first example of what has since become a standard part of Orky law.

I’m really happy with how the Doc came out – there are probably a few things I’d do differently if I were to do him again, but he certainly fits the brief admirably I think. I’ll be continuing to finish the remaining characters this week – they are all basecoated & shaded, so it’s a quick evening on each to highlight, add detail etc. You can expect a series of smaller posts as the week progresses, and hopefully the Orks will be finished by the weekend!

Onwards and upwards :-)

The Handmaidens of Seros

27 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by in AoS, Daughters of Khaine, Fembruary Challenge

≈ 35 Comments

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Greetings Terrans, and sorry it has been a while since I posted! We’ve had our half term break here in the south of England, so I had a nice week off with the kids, visiting family & having guests in return. My hobby time has been a bit fragmented as a result, but I have been chipping away at a few bits and pieces. My Power Armoured Orks are almost built, and I have some cool terrain on the go as well, but most importantly for today, I have finished my Daughters of Khaine AoS warband quota for February… By extension, this means that I have hit my goal for Fembruary as well:

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These three ladies are pretty much the stock Witch Aelves & Slaughter Queen from the Cauldron of Blood set – the only slight modification is using the heads from the Melusai Blood Sisters to give them a more sinister silhouette & tie them in a bit more with Seros herself. I’ll play them all as Witch Aelves in the first instance, though the Slaughter Queen might get a weapon swap & a promotion later in the project. I’ve followed the colour scheme that I established with Seros – the red skin is intended to give them a more demonic look, and I hope also serves to de-sexualise them a bit, (still something that bothers me with the DoK range).

Here’s the accompanying fluff:

Following her exile from Hagg Nar, Seros kept herself to the shadows – a broken thing, she slowly nursed her change-ravaged body back to health, just as she fed her hatred and anger. Little did she realise that others within Khainite society had been inspired by her defiance of Morathi, and that small groups were quietly seeking her out. The auspicious form of her cursed body and her high reputation as a former Priestess led some to believe that Seros was a prophetess, and that she was destined for greatness. The first such followers to find her were three warrior sisters, who tracked her to a deep mine on the borders of the realm of metal. They called to Seros, declaring their loyalty, and begging to be allowed the honour of serving her. Seros allowed them to approach through the darkness, but their torch-revealed beauty caused her such anguish that she lashed out at the sisters, her crown of snakes striking each in turn. Thus poisoned, the sisters lay in agonised paralysis as their flesh darkened to a crimson hue, and their faces contorted into rictus-like masks. Seros retreated deeper into the shadows, intuitively understanding that if the sisters survived their ordeal, then they had been judged worthy to join her by a higher power than Seros herself. Quietly, she watched from the darkness, as one by one, the sisters slid into deep, dreamless coma.

Many days later, the three sisters awoke, and were soon recovered enough to resume calling out for Seros, beseeching her to allow them to serve her. Their venom-induced transformation had left them with skin the colour of blood and hideously transformed faces, but this seemed to have only strengthen their devotion. Finally convinced of their worthiness and no longer taunted by their Aelven beauty, Seros allowed the sisters to join her. Known as the Handmaidens of Seros, they became her first acolytes, and wearing snake-crowned masks in her honour, they continue to fight at her side. Meanwhile, Seros continues to subject new members of her warband to her venomous ‘kiss’ in order to determine their worthiness and loyalty… The survivors of this ritual are left similarly marked by the experience, and follow the Handmaiden’s example by donning hideous masks to honour their prophetess.

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So that’s it for now – I hope you like the handmaidens, and that you enjoyed the read! I’ll be doing a Fembruary round-up in the next few days, and will be continuing to work on various projects in the background as well… Jobs for March include continuing to add to this warband (another 25 renown), finish building my Wolf Time Power Armoured Orks and start getting some paint on them! I am also committed to finishing up some of Mark’s Heresyofus Mag Bellum terrain pieces that I have on the go – more news to follow!