Bloodsecrator

This is a great model and I enjoyed painting it. All of the miniatures from the AoS box is just outstanding and I'm looking forward to working every last one.  

Though, before I start on any other khornites I've something else in mind... More very soon.

Winter Of Discontent

It's spring and my winter hobby freeze is beginning to thaw. Mainly I just had nothing worth blogging or things stalled half way through. 

This is where this fellow stalled. I am not happy with the claw and he needs a 32mm base. I've put him aside for now. 

Next, I began work on an Epic Eldar army, with the all but finished Blood Angels force, I hope to play some Space Marine Second Edition with. 

A company of Falcons and one of Guardians. 

I've pinned the grav-tanks so that they look like they are flying once fixed to bases.

I air brushed on a coat of yellow and then gloss. 

And then gave them a wash of oil paint for that old-school panel line look. This is where these stalled. The first reason is that the oil paint took ages to dry enough before I was confident to lay a matt coat over the top in preparation for doing the details. The second reason is: 

 

The Age Of Sigmar!

Goldie here was the only model that I managed to paint since the last post. 

Age of Sigmar has certainly made one hell of noise in our quiet hobby world. So much hate poured onto the Internet. It's been quite extrodanary and, if I'm honest, quite off putting. On more than one occasion I've thought about going on a long, long online holiday and leaving all the anger and stupidity behind. 

The up shot of this is that AoS fits our little group very well. We've been playing it and enjoying it. After three games  I'm starting to see it as a subtle little game that has given us the freedom to do whatever we want with hobby and models. It's also brought all sorts of half finished projects out of cupboards and sparked many more future plans. All great things in my mind! 

My forces of chaos fighting my dwarfs in our first game. Lesson: synergies are king!

Warriors of Chaos v a loose coalition of Aelfs, Free Men and Stormcast. Lessons: Chaos Chosen are mighty. Synergies are the king of kings.

Warriors of chaos with chaos dwarf allies v Aelfs. Lesson: princes on dragons are crazy good and should be targeted with anything that deals out mortal wounds ASAP. Numbers do eventually show in combat. 

All this gaming led to me putting together the khorne half of the new starter set. It was a few weeks of work during the darkest days of winter. Trulely some fantastic models! 

And since then to this; 

I've made good progress on these evil little bastards and will post some more WIP shots as I go. 

I'm also thinking about re-basing some of my chaos army. Round bases just look better. I don't know why but they do! It'll be a painful job so I'm putting it off. 

That's it. Hopefully spring will be more fruitful hobby-wise than winter! 

The Warhound and the Cult

I've got a couple of projects done since my last post. I've not had the time for much hobby sadly. Real life stuff like getting a new oven installed and an increasingly tiresome job have got in the way.

This has taken up most of that hobby time I've managed to steal. It seemed to take forever to get done. Every time I finished one thing five more loomed. The red and the stripes are air brushed. This sped up the initial colouring but it lead to lots of additional work touching up and pin washing the details. It felt a little arse about with getting the bulk of it done in a couple of nights then spending weeks on small things. 

I was very lucky to get this model. It was one of those right place right time things. I understand not many were made and that it is no longer available. 

It has turned out ok. Though I fear it may lead to a new Epic army using modern style models. White Scars on city fight bases would look great. 

And I've finally got the second two cultists with some support done. 

I'm not sure what stopped me from getting these done. I was overthinking it and they became more difficult in my mind than they needed to be.

I'm really happy with this crazy bug-eyed madman.

With the gun-servitor I really tried to add a thick patina to made it look as if it had been in use for a few thousand years and was no longer in the best condition. I imagine a heretical cult has to make do with whatever it can get its hands on.

All self respecting cults need a subject for their veneration. 

Inspired by this little bit of progress I've raided the bits box and come up with this "blessed" cultist.

Don't know about him, as others have suggested, he may be too much like a He-Man villain. Options and ideas are always welcome.

--Richard

Knights Of Old

Three Knights done and ready for the Epic battlefields of the 41st millennium. 

If I'm honest I've never been a great fan of these designs. They come from the age in the mid-nineties of insipid mono-pose plastic models. An age that spawned the dull figures in the second edition box set and whole regiments of single cast skaven or chaos warriors. They did the job but were not that exciting once you'd painted one or two. I should say that I think the "new" 40k scale plastic knight is one of the best designs ever produced by GW. It's good to finally -- after owning them for nearly twenty years-- get these ones done. 

For my next project I've delved very deeply into my hoard and pulled out a classic that will never be bettered in my opinion. 

I'm thinking leopard skin and blue-greens with purple, red and yellow. No pink with black here! No, sir. Just pure 80's heavy metal. Need to hunt up some D-rok on YouTube now. 

Speaking of classics. Here is a model that I painted as a teenager. I saw him in White Dwarf and had to buy him on my next trip to the big smoke. This was before there was a GW in my state. I think that there was only one in the whole country. Ahh, the olden days.

I'm still pretty proud of that paint job.

(Hobby) Life Goes On

Just an update. Nothing new or exciting I'm afraid. Just life, and hobby (which are one and the same IMO), continuing. 

Epic comes into its own once you have Titans stalking the battlefield, I think. No point in Epic without huge behemoths hurling ordnance capable of flattening whole cities at each other. It brings a real sense of scale. And they are just plain cool! 

I've done some more work on the Rapax Dominus. It's been slow because I've not wanted to make mistake (there are plenty) and because I've been trying to channel the late '80s/ early '90s style of eye watering brightness. The next major thing are the banners. For a hint of what I'm going for think of '80s heavy metal album covers. I'm happily humming Twisted Sister's We're Not Going To Take It as I type this.

Sixty scouts all done. These are head and shoulders taller than the tactical marines. Clearly they were made long after the other parts of the range.

Twenty terminators. They are much, much bulkier than the normal marines so they stand out nicely. 

And the current project; three Knights. The total lack of variety of these has made them a bigger challenge than I expected. The easiest way around that is to do different heraldry on each but that means lots of freehand work that I'm not really in the mood for. I've been sorting through old decal sheets tonight so that may offer a solution.

The red is much better. More martial, more honour guard. I need to nail the skin though. It'll need to be pale but also still living. Some blue-greys I'm thinking. And a bright red bionic eye to draw the viewers eye. 

It's amazing how hobby, like life, goes on without you noticing it sometimes.

The Hobby Shuffle or In Search Of Inspiration

So I've been kinda stalled with the cult. I'm not happy with the one I've done and it's stopped me moving onto the others. It's the pants I think. This is why the blog has been silent for so long. I've been cracking away at other hobby but I'm not sure anybody is interested in that. I certainly feel some pressure to post only Inq28 stuff here but I've only been inspired to work on other stuff. You'll have to put up with it, I'm afraid 😉

Red and black pants?

So since my last missive I've been up to all sorts. I entered the Golden Barry painting competition at Arc40k (the biggest 40k tourney in the country) and placed third in the single miniature category with my Dark Elf Sorceress and second with my Inquisitor warband in the squad comp. Not bad. The single was won by Meg Maples of Privateer Press studio fame and second was Mark Soley the last Australian Slayer Sword winner. 

Miniature painted by me, photo by Sam Benson. For more pictures of the other winners check out the Golden Barry Facebook page. 

At Arc I picked up a couple of models from the forthcoming locally produced game Twisted by Demented games (again, check them out on Facebook) I'm not really a fan of Steampunk but these models are truly exceptional. 

This is Nouveau sculpted by the mind meltingly talented Sebastion Archer. He's supposedly a take on Neo from the Matrix so I thought green would be the thing for him. After feedback from the Golden Barrys I was really trying to push my highlights and to use the dreaded "colour theory" on him. So, it's a snot green base worked up with yellow and white for highlights and shaded with blues all the way to a strong purple. Not sure I've gone far enough yet so it's another project shuffled to the side for now. 

I've also made some more headway on my Epic stuff. 

Sixty scouts and twenty terminators that just need basing. 

And some old plastic Dreadnaughts based and done. That should push me over the 4500pt mark. I keep thinking I should do some army shots for you. Next inline are three knight Paladins, six mole mortars and the banners for this big boy

I've also played -- and won, to my great suprise-- two more games of SAGA. 

These shots are from the last game where Dean was beginning to work out how to use the Anglo-Dane battle board to his advantage. Not sure how to deal with him next time. The Normans are one trick ponies and I don't think it'll take much to neutralise that trick. Still, it's a great game even when you are loosing. 

In a different vein I'd like to thank KrautScientist over at The Eternal Hunt blog for the nice words after I posted him some old stuff. Very kind, Mr KS 😊

Are these pictures better? I bought Camera+ for my phone and it seems to have made a difference. Well worth the few dollars it cost. Here are some random test shots. 

That's about it for now. If any of you care to see what I'm up to outside the Inq28 realm let me know and I'll try to be more motivated to make this a blog of my general hobby progress.