KNIGHT QUESTOR

ok so ive been a little quite recently....blame warhammer quest silver tower for that one.
just a quick little blog post here. whilst this game, its theme and all of its fluff are very different to the grimy old world i know and love. me and my family are really enjoying this one.

the bad guys will no doubt get a run around in AHQ at some point. but for now im absorbing the game and its depths to see if it deserves a slot on my shelf...so far its not doing bad. ill do a full on review of this later on. i dont feel ive covered every nook and cranny just yet to be able to give a really valid user perspective review

anyways i was testing out how i was going to do my bases. and of course i had to paint up a figure too.
so here he is.....gold bloke!

i wanted to fo the heroes in a thematic base style so to really fit into the game.. yes i could of gone transparent base wise. but i made my choice and sculpted a base.

A try at dungeon tiles

whilst i dont really show off much interms of digital work on this blog. i have actually have a lot of experience under my belt as a texture artist and 3d modeller. its not something i tend to apply too much to this hobby of mine.
graphics these days is something i much prefer to do as a passion. and a way of flexing those creative juices. ive done a few things over at advanced heroquest reforged. the odd overlay and the templates and spellbooks. but never really for much direct creative purposes.

ive never actually delved into making dungeon tiles before so thought i would have a little go at creating a modular tiling photoshop document that i could essentially use to craft quick and easy dungeon tiles that still at least have some cosmetic clout to back them up.

so first of all i realised if i wanted to go the modular route i would need to produce something generic enough that would then be able to  be reused over and over with minimal effort but still be able have a varied look.

so i dug out my heroquest board first and copied a variance of the floor tiles.

these are all made in neutral grey so that a colour overlay can be added to the tile in order to then colour them any colour you want.
once i had enough variationi then created a layer that would enable me to draw cracks anywhere over the tiles and still get a pretty decent look to it.(see the top left tile)finally i applied some huge rocky mountainous images over the entire template with the layers set to 'overlay'. this would then allow each tile to have a varied look to them no matter how they were placed.and i could change these textures to ultimately create infinite rocky texturing to my tiles

so once i had my basis i thought "lets put this to the test" and make some high res copies of older tiles.
first up i decided to grab a AHQ tile. pretty bog standard in look. and apply this template in a hope to succesfully re-create (as well as adding a few more details just to spice them up a little)
so here the original

and heres the reboot (god i hate that term)

turned out pretty good i think for a first attempt. ok its not perfect. but i used this simple reconstruction to help refine my template. adding a border if i wash to create AHQ tiles. as well as a spotlight overlay to create that 'middle of the room' glow. this only uses 2 square variations. all flipped or rotated. the rocky overlays doing the rest of the work to make it all look different and nice and varied. the cracks layer works pretty decent as well. i decided to give it a very slight skaven theme on the middle tile as well as adding a straw next of sorts. this entire tile took me about 20 minutes in total to create..so not bad

so next up i thought..lets try something a little more specific. so i nabbed a warhammer quest tile and once more put my template to the test

so heres the one i chose.

and my second recreation.

again this one turned out pretty good. once more refining my template a little. i got bored doing the skeleton and couldnt be bothered drawing him. after all this was more of an experiment than an actual production. again this only uses 2 squares. each flipped and rotated. and once more those mountain overlays doing pretty nifty work in giving a varied look.

so there we have it. a pretty successful experiment.
with me now having my hands on warhammer quest silver tower. that might give me further impetus to go into full creative mode. who knows. but at least ive got a tool now to create any dungeon i so wish. with relative ease.

SKAVEN PLAGUE MONKS

a couple of months back i managed to nab a few sprues of various skaven stuff for only a couple of quid. one of those sprues consisted of 5 plague monks and some giant rats
well i actually managed to do 6 plague monks because one of them is actually a pack master thingy.
that came on a sprue of 3 pack masters and some giant rats. so of course between the 2 sprues i was able to add to my skaven bestiary 3 times over. consisting of about 12 giant rats
6 plague monks and 2 pack masters. so not bad for a couple of quid.
now ive got a very minor gripe with the GW plague monks in that they all look like an old gypsy woman.

so i tried to minimalize this a little by sculpting the hoods to make them look like they were part of the robes and in turn make the heads look a little less 'stuck on'.
Anyways. im quite happy how these turned out really

now my skaven pack seems to be growing a little more. i think its about time i started adding a few characters into the fray.

i still have the rest of the island of blood skaven to paint up. as well as a few other characters ive purchased and not yet had chance to get painted up yet. im also considering trying my hand at a little converting. ive got so many skaven floating around im sure i can stretch them out even more. the poses of the clanrats are kind of hard to do much with. but im sure ill be able to cook something up.

till next time :)

WARHAMMER QUEST - THE SILVER TOWER

So i first caught wind of this some time at the tail end of last year, hearing a possible reworking of warhammer quest was in the work. assuming very much that this would be similar to the recent space hulk release.
Now with it being a dungeon crawler. It clearly peaked my interest.
Now let it be known. i care absolute zero about age of sigmar. those big gold dudes, the awful semi naked dwarfs that are on fire (sorry fyre) and have a very strong fondness for the old world and all of its fluff. so was. and still am very dubious about this new announcement from games workshop

very much like heroquest i suspect thsi will be the main box art, now whilst trying to ignore the boring dude in the gold armour with zero personality. its the actual bad guys that caught my eye here...lets face it. we all have our own characters we prefer to use in these sort of games anyways right?
Tzeentch being the main culprit to the antagonism here. but the art...yeah looks great i think

so i dug a little deeper

- Price up to 125 € 

- 13 double-sided base plates (the old WHQ had with extensions 28) 

- 51 models, including six heroes and Skaven and Tzeentch 

- Familiars

- Rulebook 

- 40-page scenario book (9 missions) 

- 2 to 4 players 

- the old cards for each room are back (the ones used for random dungeon design + Encounter- and special rules) 

- the Summoner can manipulate the space arrangement

So its going to cost bout 100 quid

• 13 double sided base plates? which im assuming are dungeon tiles...
• 51 models? now were talking!
• familiars? sounds cool. a dynamic thats been missing from many a dungeon crawl if you exclude henchmen
• 9 missions....hmmm not much here. lets hope fan made and white dwarf/further expansions offer a lot more here.
• 2-4 players- so no change on the old warhammer quest..this wont be a dungeon master based game.
• the old cards are back? does this mean old stuff is compatible?
• the summoner can manipulate the space arrangement...ok this only sounds scenario specific. ie the silver tower being a maze etc etc

ok then so far...not sounding too bad i dont think.

a little tinterweb scouring flushed out a few leaked images.

firstly the heroes.

The barbarian looks pretty cool. as well as that little familiar down there. im not really overawed by the heroes. but as i say. id always replace and choose my own anyways. i really have zero love for those space marine things to the point i cant even think what they are called right now. it feels to me that literally everything AOS represents a top level god like world of warcraft character. and ive always been much more fond of 'the little guy' the humble farmer who went of in search of adventure, you get what i mean right? AOS just doesnt cater for the little guy. so i will definately be filtering my own heroes.

gotta admit..that sorceror looks pretty mint. as do the familiars. little mr punch there reminding me of one of my fave figs of all time.

whilst not a very clear picture. you at least get some insight into the box contents here. looks like a good amount in there.

and finally a little bit of a closer look to some of the contents.

really liking those birdmen styled beastmen Tzaangors i think it reads.

also liking that skaven deathrunner as well as the acolytes.

for me its the Tzeentch love being thrown at this game. its cleary being used as a platform to push the Tzeentch chaos forces into the fray. for the last 2 years its all been nurgle and khorne. so nice to see one of the other chaos gods children getting a run out for once, this may also be a taster of the new skaven that have been rumoured to be on their way soon too also.

whilst i never really got into the whole warhammer quest thing (i was too busy being a teenager, getting drunk, girls etc etc lol) i might just see what all the fuss was about and take a dive into this one.

i never for once expected to be let down by the minis, say what you want about GW but their production is always top quality. and whilst all of my dungeon crawling mainly persists of the use of a dungeon master. maybe its worth mixing it up a little for a more coop game where im not stuck being the evil overlord and killing all of my family and friends lol

anyways im sure over the next week even more images will come flooding out..amazing how this stuff ALWAYS leaks!!

till next time

DUNGEON DOORS ALL COMPLETED!!

yup! ive finally managed to finish another project. go me!

all 22 doors now finished and ready to be used in the dungeon
long slog here. most definately. but i hope it was a worthwhile venture all the same.

It doesnt really look like a great deal when i lay them all out like that. but this has been an ongoing project that ive been doing between other projects in a hope to prevent that monotonous feel when doing the same/similar things over and over, very much like unit painting.

now i could of just given these dip and been completed in a day. but i dont really do things in halves all that much. ok ive done some quick jobs on some of my projects. but generally its not a view point i favour. this is probably why i dont have many blogposts. but i think overall. this is a hobby. so we all need to enjoy it right? why should it feel like a chore. its a chance to be creative. and thats exactly what iver done here. so here they all are...

8 closed doors first up

you will notice i also experimented a little, wood is not something ive ever been comfortable painting. i guess its the organic look to it. but nonetheless i tried out a few different techniques with the wood. from simple washes to dry brushing as well as painting the wood grain individually.

 this is a new from the final batch. as you can see ive gone for a little bit of light sourcing from the torch. which i might add is something i dont have much experience with. but was really happy how this one turned out. i wanted to keep it subtle and i think i succeeded, however i think the light should of been shining a little further across the doors

 another new one here. simple insignia above the door and a rat running away with a turnip!

 another new one. simple skaven themed door here with a skaven skull i think and some warpstone

 ogre themed one here this time.

another new one. simple door with a few toadstool and a rather poisonous looking spider lurking above the door.

 sort of crypt/undead themed one here usong a shield from a skeleton warriors sprue. some random skulls, and finally i pressed a small mould from a skull to create the skull carvings on the wall and sculpted a little scarab.

 this was one from an earlier batch with sculpted ivy and spider

basic door as part of my early colour tests

12 Open Doors

ill hold my hands up in that i was starting to run low on ideas/ and bits through this project. so really started to scrape the barrel in trying to make them look unique.

 this was definately one of those barrel scrapers. but still its a skaven themed door so not all is bad.

 a chaos/beastman themed one here.

 standard open door from my earlier colour tests

 this one is probably my favourite out of all of them, in fact it was also the very first door i started working on. so i guess udeas were fresh at that point

 another simple one from my final batch.

 dwarf tomb. you may notice on a lot of these doors that they have dwarven runes. of which all of them were taken direct from the WFB dwarf army book.

 orcish doorway, this was my first real go at light sourcing. and whilst for the best part it doesnt look too bad. i do feel i went a little too yellow  around the flames.

 over grown doorway. i wanted to try and get something that looked really overgrown. sculpting some mushrooms and vines did a pretty decent job of that.

my second attempt at light sourcing. you will notice it is much more subtle that the orcish one above. experiment experiment! first was too yellow. and i feel this one was way too light on the glow from the flames. you will notice on the very first image for the closed doors where i finally managed to find that 'inbetween'

 chaos door thingy. ok lets just imagine youve got 22 door and you have some madcap idea to make them all unique and you have a nice sized box of bits...you throw everything you can at them right? thats simply the case here. its got a skull...because you have to have skulls. some weird star on a chain and a standard top from something. i can only assume is chaos?

 i kind of like this one purely for its subtlety. it has 4 features from the base doors. a hanging skull. dwarf rune, spider and some toadstools. but i think it really works nicely.

and the final open door. which was also from the last batch. was a simple 'glue this here' jobby using a dwarf standard top and a skull. simple and not too bad.

2 Portcullis'

i chose to do nothing with these as i didnt want them too removed from their function. for the best part a portcullis in a dungeon is more of a trap or onstacle than a door. so i painted these early on just to get them out of the way.

so there you have it. all 22 brand new double doors. fresh and converted from zealot miniatures.

i was really happy with these right from the get go. and needed very little attention to get them paint worthy. i had already planned before getting my hands on these that i would be converting them. so that is takes nothing from the base builds. these really are a great addition to any dungeon as they are. and hopefully with my own little addons they make for even better decor to the dungeon