SKULL GRINDER

Hello again!

with my recent shadows over Hammerhal journey posts featuring me moving through the game, out experiences as well as the model i am painting. i also paint a few other things.
this is somewhat linked. but in order to keep up with regular posts i decided to split the painting for their own features.

we only have a few quests left of Hammerhal. but the 3 extra bounties that came in White dwarf gave us a little bit more lifeblood for extra quests

and speaking of blood. i purchased a mighty adversary to go along with the first bounty mission. being Khorne themed leads us to lovely chap.

wielding a mahoosive flaming hammer head on the end of a chain should make him a mighty adversary indeed??!!

I used a variation of methods to paint up this guy. starting with a recess wash of black over the top of white, then giving him a drybrush of white to bring out all the details.

I then painted in very thin glazes to make up the skin (that shading is natural from the recess wash as the start) all i dit was build up to a lighter tone.

i used the old GW method for edge highlighting the armour

and again some thin glazes for the flames. the purple pouch is is just 1 glaze. no highlighting and no shading involved..same for the boots 

 

painting in this way has also helped me speed up my painting in general. and i am finding i am much more happy with the results because i am not painstakingly spending stupid amounts of time on them. as well as actually saving the rainforest by not having to use so much paint :)

All in all. this guy took only about 4 hours to paint and i am really happy with the result.

the model itself is pricey (18 quid!!!!) but was actually total joy to paint as well.

i have been hitting my rhythm this year. and have already painted up more minis than i painted in the entirety of last year...so more posts to follow :)

peace  

Minotaur lord

so whilst ive been soldiering through the rather bland 'units' side of my dungeon i also decided to dig out my massive mountain of lead from days of old. its actually ridiculous how much stuff i have, how much stuff ive lost. and how much stuff i didnt even know i had.
WH40k...never played it...but somehow got loads of it...soon to be making ebay appearances i think.
same goes for bloodbowl. i have the 3rd edition and loads of bloodbowl minis...guess what..never played it..never going to. so these will also be making ebay appearances soon. seriously id crazy how much junk i have that i need to get rid of and even more crazy how much has gone walkies over the 20 odd years. space hulk..perfect condition. played lots...Vanished!! im still baffled.

anyways that aside i am an oldhammer at heart. there is something i really love about the old mini's its like each miniature was made from the heart, with no intention of it ever ending up on a sprue. and even less consideration that it would ever be duplicated and sold to the masses. this for me is why older minis just seem to ooze so much more character. now im not in anyway going to slate the newer plastic sprue stuff GW churns out.because for the best part. they are pretty f*&^~n amazing. but it must just be a whole different mindset of creating back then. maybe made for love more than money. but some of my fave minis of all time circulate from around 1987 to about 1992/3 ish.

and this one to say the least was a huge fave of mine. the minotaurs GW offers these days look more like kangaroos on steroids. where as back then they looked feral and menacing and could quite literally eat the new ones for breakfast. especially this dude

DoomBellow Minotaur Lord

and i've got to say. it was a blast from the past painting him up. having not painted a lead mini of this size for a long time. ive got so say how much harder i found it to keep him balanced whilst painting and the sheer weight causing the paint to rub off during painting. that said though. absolute joy to paint! something i really enjoyed doing that helped distract me from the laborious task of unit painting on the skaven.

again on the weight of this thing. really does make me think how lucky we are with the whole plastic/resin mini's we have today. i used to much prefer to feel the weight of a mini whilst painting. like you were painting something worthwhile. plastic lacks that. but i have to admit. the lack of weight certainly has much more benefits. if i dropped this guy. then there is a good chance that he is going to be taking a pretty hefty chip out of the paintwork. plastic minis just bounce..so no chance of any chips occuring.

as if getting through a maze wasnt bad enough, that at the end of it you come face to face with this guy!!

all in all i really loved painting this beastie up. and will hopefully be delving deeper into my lead mountain to cook up a few more beasties for my dungeons.

as well as sifting through and getting rid of all the 40k, bloodbowl, 40k epic stuff i seem to of gathered up over the years.

2 posts in 1 day..go me!!

Skaven Slaves (pt 3) COMPLETED

yay!! ive completed my skaven slaves!
whilst having to fight back the urge to do fully detailed minis all the time, knowing full well ive got near on 100 minis to paint. i decided to just dip in and get these finished.
so for some reason i did 11.. i have no idea why but theyve turned out pretty good. and will look great on the board.

they have a total none uniform look to them. which was totally what i wanted to achieve.
i had really hoped to of gotten these looking a little more worse for wear. but at the end of the day. these are so i can play AHQ. and they are more than fit for the purpose
if you missed any of the previous slaves i had painted and now feature in the above shot.
they can be found
HERE 
and
pt 2 HERE

here are the additional slaves that make up this almost dirty dozen

so thats my second unit from the skaven bestiary completed
having painted up the rat ogres some time back now.

next up on this front ill be moving onto 2 separate units of clanrats (10 with swords & 10 with spears)
and a few champions thrown into the midst too.

gotta say i enjoyed painting these up. they allowed to me to trial a few things out. and at the end of the day the paint jobs never needed to be perfect. which is very helpful for me at the moment as my hands are getting pretty shaky these days.

anyways..skaven slaves down...clanrats next

Enjoy!!

Skaven slaves (pt 2)

building upon my earlier start this month where ive been itching and itching to start painting skaven.  I decided to start with skaven slaves for my AHQ bestiary. havong painted the first 2 with a little trial i decided to continue.
making only slight variation changes to how I am painting them to see what bodes well for me.
im happy if the skaven slaves have no uniformity to them. as this would essentially be true to what they are.
and will hopefully in the long run help me discover what works best and so on for when i paint all of the others..because boy i have a lot to get through!

there is a weird transition on some of these between skin and fur. so i decided to mix up and try different things

obviously on the arms being a part where its hard to tell what is what and the back part where some are showing a little bit of a skaven booty! on this i decided to go with the for covered bottom and i felt showing more flesh on the top half would help show off those pustules.

This guy i decided to go for a base cadian flesh tone (all previous others have toyed with bugmans glow and ratskin flesh)
then washing the wole model with agrax earthshade then bringing the raised areas back upto cadian fleshtone.

honestly doesnt look much different from the others. but hopefully they all are subtly different enough to give some variation.

not a bad start so far. however i think im going to need to pick up the pace at some point. whilst my hobby time is limited these days. i do try to squeeze in a few hours a week....i just need to learn how to slap that paint on a little quicker i think :)

Let the Chittering Commence

So. ive been working on a LOT of material for Advanced HeroQuest as of late. working with Slev on his AHQ:Reforged rules changes.
if you like AHQ. i suggest you check these out
HERE

as a result ive made a lot of graphical stuff to assist. (bestiary graphics, spellbooks etc)
now of course with a fleshed out bestiary. you need a fleshed out collection of models too. and whilst some may of complained that AHQ lacked figures and was created as a way to get people to go and buy more models (which is a totally just complaint) some of us feel compelled to go the whole hog and actually buy them. so you cant play AHQ and not have skaven.
so ive made a start finally.
about 2 years back i managed to grab the entire skaven collection from Island of blood for a very cheap price to get me started. unfortunately i never got any further than painting the rat ogres (which are awesome models)
ive since bought a clanrat pack also so i can have some skaven without shields (as all the skaven in IOB have shields already on them.

so without further ado. the first 2 rat men that are no doubt going to get slaughtered at some point! lol

now ive never really painted skaven before. so skaven slaves seemed like the perfect opportunity to mix and match ideas and test out what works and what doesnt. if as a result they all look different. then nothing is lost. as they arent exactly a regiment are they. they arent supposed to look like a team. so usung these as my lab rats seemed like the way to go.....yes that joke was deliberate :)
so the slave above i tested out with a ratskin base colour built up with cadian flesh tone to reikland flesh for the pointy bits. also if knowledge serves me correctly skavens worth is measured in the tone of their fur. so i thought this would give me the opportunity to also toy with fur colours and would also help distance me from the uniformed look

this next one was done in exactly the same way as above but with a bugmans flesh base. built up with cadian fleshtone and reikland flesh.
now one thing is certain. after painting these. i gave them a coat of army painter anti-shine...why do you ask? out of habit. and as a result. this made the models shinier than they ever were!!!
but i like to protect my models. so im a little lost in terms of how i protect my models from now on..less spraying and more wrapping in cotton wool i think!!

about to get their asses handed to them by a halfling farmer.

so there we have it..my first 2 skaven out of about 80 that ive got to paint. i'll most certainly keep you all upto date as i work my way through them. ive got a total of 11 slaves to do. then its onto clanrats. these will look much more uniform. but hopefully will be a much quicker path too. hopefully laid by my experiences with these slaves.

they were fun to paint and will be a nice distraction for me to partake over the coming weeks.

enjoy :)

UNDEAD and the WITCHLORD

With the barbarian all finished up you would of thought id of made a start on the other hero's, but like everybody else into this hobby....I got sidetracked. this is why we have project running for years and years right? its amazing because I do actually finish jobs off. just some take longer than others. so I don't have a new dwarf or a new elf or wizard (and boy do we need a new one of the him!!) but I've got some more undead.
these come from the games workshop skeleton sprue. Now I'm very much an old hammer when it comes to miniatures. and plastic? (they call it resin to make it sound like it has more worth these days) so plastic miniatures replaced metal ones...blasphemy!! well not quite. but I gotta be honest I much prefer a weighty figure to paint than a 'plastic' one. so all my doubts aside. some of Games Workshop's sprue stuff is quite amazing despite me trying my hardest to not like them. you have the option for a lot of variation, and variation adds character to dungeon fodder in my eyes. so we got the barbarian and he needs to crunch some bones!.
now I actually finished these about a year ago.
i had made my own little twists on them to give them more of a Heroquest vibe. i turned every spear into some crazy 'not so big ass this time' scythes and painted them up, but these have been sitting in a box all that time with no bases on them, I re-based and here we go

Now these are kind of my first of my 'reworked Heroquest figures. all previously were just paint jobs. so these are my first in replacement figures to bring them up to date and add a bit more depth and detail instead of just having 1 skeleton type. we have a few scythes and two champions. but that's not just everything.
.
.
One thing that always bugged me with Heroquest was this guy.

the chaos sorcerer.......OK so he does look like he's about to do a bungee jump but I love this mini. what i hated was that everywhere in the quest book this guy was basically the 'substitute'!!!
for sir Ragnar - use the chaos sorcerer, blah blah. so this just demoted him to an extra that played multiple parts. This demeaned any possible nefarious position he would have as being the bad guy
he was also the 'please use for the Witch lord.

Ok so he's not totally dissimilar. but the witch lord even got his own sequel! RETURN OF THE WITCH LORD. and still cameo chaos sorcerer was to be used as the witch lord. he became the where's Wally/Waldo and
that just wasn't enough for me. I've just made my barbarian and he needs a nemesis!
so over time I've scoured the net thinking that if I was to get a model for the witch lord I would need to find some amazingly sculpted proxy to choose from. there are some great undead models out there. in particular I envisioned a Wight or lich king type being the closest.
Everything I found that came anywhere near just somehow didn't do it for me. I've scoured around searching back on those that caught my eye as being 'potential' choices.

now Warhammer quest had an expansion call THE CATACOMBS OF TERROR and i believe that the witch lord made a 3rd appearance? please correct me if im wrong.

good luck finding this guy. if you do, be prepared to shell out a lot of cash. anything warhammer quest related these days is somehow treated like gold dust and costs excessive amounts on ebay and the likes.

onto my other searches.
firstly I found a lot of potential from reaper. if you ask me these guys are the masters of character models, their library is huge. if you need a specific looking character, there is a good chance reaper will fill the void.

Barrow warden mystic

This one seems like a very good choice to me. he has a mixture of warrior and mage, which is what i saw as perfect for the witch lord. but for me he lacked a sword. now if i would of swapped one of those hands out for something that was wielding a sword. it would of dragged it away from what I wanted. 1. swap out the staff and he looks too much like a warrior. 2 swap out the ball of fire and his hands look too cluttered. but still for other i think this is a great choice.

reaper miniatures

Vordakai, cyclops lich

This one seems like a good proposed option if you want to take the mage type of witch lord. simply swapping the head out for something suitable would give a pretty decent witch lord I think.

reaper miniatures

Tar-Baphon, The Whispering Tyrant

probably not one of the better options. but definately has that lich lord sort of look to him.

reaper miniatures

Vardus The Interred
ive seen this one mentioned a few times to be a option. but for me. those shoulders pads are better off left in wardrobe for some 80s tv show.

reaper miniatures

Dragoth The Defiler
this one is kinda similar to the one from warhammer quest. for me personally ive got some weird mental block about having a figure move around and taking his throne with him..weird right?

reaper miniatures

Dragoth The Defiler, Undead Lord on Throne

i really like this mini, but like the above i would never use it... but that thrones pretty neat regardless. i wonder if the model comes in 2 parts. i would like that throne in my collection

reaper miniatures

Dauron, Necropolis hero

I guess with a different head he might be a good choice if you want a more warrior styled witch lord.

reaper miniatures

Laumarak The Pale
i quite like this one purely for the awkward twisted body look. hes got the magic sword and a staff which lends itself nicely to the warrior/mage look i want. but the head aint right. and looking at the figure. i dont think swapping heads would be a simple task.

reaper miniatures

Neb'nesew, Nefsokar Warlord

if you want the egyptian look i guess he would be handy/

reaper miniatures

Barrow warden lord

I wish i had of found this guy previously as this probably would of been my top choice. of course i would of changed the head to something more skeletal. but still another great choice

reaper miniatures

pathfinder minatures

doubt this one would be easy to find. ebay maybe? it cropped up on a google search and looked like a good option. so i thought i would include it

Pathfinder

Other world miniatures

otherworld miniatures

Otherworld Miniatures wraiths

Lich King

mad puppet miniatures sadly sold out

Liche King
i like this dude. he has that awkward twist to his body than kinda creeps me out. but that scenic base made this a no no for me. maybe it could be seperated? but i wasnt prepared to shell out cash to find out otherwise

mantic games

Wight lord

heresy miniatures

Vampire Counts Krell, Lord of the Undeath

i am quite surprised at games workshops lack of undead. but these 2 here were the only 2 i saw as being anything remotely fitting.

Games workshop

Games workshop

OK... so that was a run down of all my internet searching and research. because me being me... I took inspiration from all of those I found. all of them good in their own right. and from the bits i liked. i decided i was going to make my own Witch lord! i know i would never be happy with a substitute that im not totally happy with, and at least in making my own, it all becomes my own take on him.  first I decided that I didnt want him to look exactly like this.

So im about to attempt making him from scratch. and i pretty much almost did. all I've used is some arms, a rib cage and a head from my bits box

so yeah id gotten my research completed. now the biggest risk i got here is that im not really a sculptor. i do bits and bobs here and there. but this is something i saw as a task that was stretching out of my comfort zone.ive been doing more and more green stuff pushing recently and im starting to get a little more comfortable with a few things. ive learnt a few new tips and tricks. but here with this figure i was about to put them to the test..

I knew I wanted a warrior/mage type Witch lord. i didnt want him to look too much like he was a knight from a past life. or a wizard from a past life. but i did want him to look like he and learnt a few things here and there. gathered a few magic artifacts and such. the one thing i did choose against though was to give him the spirit blade. he does have this at some point but i just wanted him to have a sword. nothing fancy. so anyways. heres what i came up with!

all the new techniques i had read up on for first attempts didn't turn out too bad. the chainmail..not perfect but still good enough for my first attempt i also decided to show the magical side of him with a ball of fire. originally i was going to go with a skull on fire in his hand but decided against it as all the skulls i had didn't quite sit right in his hand/ so ultimately i went with just fire. i also chose not to give anything magical on the sword as i wanted to do some source lighting (also a first for me here) and the glow from the flame in his hand was enough. if i then had of put some magical glow or flame on the sword i would of been forced to add more source light to the other side. and i think this would of overwhelmed the mini.

the legs weren't as easy as i had hoped. i really struggle to get greenstuff to have any sharp edges to it. i know its possible. but i don't think my skill levels are quite there just yet. but as part of the warrior/mage balance i figured a few armour type items on his frame would help give the mixed impression. i also sculpted some simply bracer's onto his arms and some shoulder pads (yes they do resemble corn on the cob) 

the coat wasn't as hard to do as i thought it would be. and I'm happy how it came out. i wanted it to be all torn and hanging off him. and feel I got that pretty much down to a tee! i did the torso part first. then added the sleeves after wards.

hoods...this is the second hood I've ever sculpted. and think I need to go back to the drawing board with hoods. and use a little more source material as I'm not sure I get how the material hangs down properly.

in terms of artefacts. I wanted to have lots. but ultimately tried to keep it simple in the end as I didn't want to add too many items and clutter him up. so I sculpted the pendant around his neck, and gave him a magical ring on his flame hand. we can pretend that helmet is magical too..and the sword! :)

so there we have him. finally i have 1 mini that is the Witchlord!

now the barbarian has something to fight through! :)

hope you enjoyed folks. of course now ive made a mini for the witch lord im going to have to make one for sir ragnar too. and every other supporting character in heroquest. i could well end up making that chaos sorcerer redundant...poor him hehe

till next time 

Peace