05 Tuesday Jan 2021
Posted in Chaos, Finished Work
Initially I painted these to go with the War Alter I posted last week. Both are fine miniatures, from different eras, and I think its not contentious to suggest that the earlier one is the better! I like the big nose and tusks look much better than the blobby LOTR troll-esque look. I thought they’d go well with the Alter, as if they had been tasked to pull it and had stopped to throw rocks at something. But I had a brain fart, and did their bases differently. C’est la vie!
26 Saturday Dec 2020
Posted in Chaos, Finished Work
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This is a bit of a one-off project that I painted for the hell of it, though I suppose that over the last few years I’ve probably painted enough fantasy squads that I could put together some sort of Chaos army, especially if you consider all the Battle Masters stuff… which reminds me, I must finish that sometime. Yeah, a chaos army would definitely work, some beastmen, chaos knights, I’ve got some plaguebearers and some pink horrors, some tzeentch wizards, some chaos dwarf artillery. that would make a good army. Anyhoo, when I pulled a war alter out of the leadpile, I struggled to think what to do with it. It was incomplete, missing a horn, and I considered trying my hand at sculpting but in the end decided that it would be more fun to tell a story with it.
Recently captured by a Nurglish wizard, the alter is just beginning its descent into chaos. It has been desecrated in Nurgle’s name, and sacrifices have been made on it to Nurgle. The statue hasn’t yet begun to change, but is degenerating. When enough sacrifices have been made, our wizard friend is possessed by a demon of decay and his physical form changes. Then men will tremble and plagues will run free!
Happy Christmas everyone, hope 2021 is a better year for us all.
16 Monday Nov 2020
Posted in Oldhammer Challenges
Painted this one up for the annual challenge! I’ve been very tempted recently to start a Genestealer Cult properly, using some of the nice modern figures, but one look at the leadpile (and the plastic pile) reminds me that I’ve got a lot of projects on already. It was fun to paint though, I will do some more one day…
23 Friday Oct 2020
Posted in Chaos, Finished Work
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I love John Blanche’s work in all mediums, and have done since I discovered it – I did my GCSE art written project on John Blanche’s drawings, all the way back in 1994, and I bet I’m not alone in that. I have a particular love for the whole Blanchistu thing and whilst I’m no great painter I’ve wanted to have a go for some time. My first attempt was the Dark Mechanicum squad I posted last year, but somewhere along the way I lost confidence and fell back into old ways. This time I have looked at more models, done some research, and thrown myself into it. I am pleased with the results. Not White Dwarf standard by a long shot, but a good start. Next time will be a bit better. If you’ve got a squad of cultists that have been on the path too long and whose humanity is starting to degrade, then they need a leader who aspires to greatness, whose mutations are more pronounced and less debilitating, and who, maybe, glows with an eerie light! Eagle-eyed viewers may note that he is snapped at the knees and has been glued to that gravestone in order to give the illusion of completeness… this is because my mini was bent and my attempts to fix it were spectacularly unsuccessful. There was some swearing that day, I can tell you.
08 Thursday Oct 2020
Posted in transformers
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So yeah, this is a thing…. My other manchild nostalgia obsession, aside from Warhammer, is Transformers. I’ve been buying and selling vintage toys on and off for many years now, but didn’t pay any attention to modern Transformers lore or toys until recently… I discovered a site where you can read comic books for free, and from that I naturally discovered the IDW series, especially the series written by James Roberts. Well, that was amazing. James Roberts seems to have many of the same influences and ideas that I have, but is actually capable of spinning them into a proper narrative that is a joy to read. Most of the rest I can take or leave, especially the tie-in nonsense, but JR’s work is amazing. Feels!!!
Anyway, so the other year I learned that some company in America had the licence to make Transformers miniatures, and so I had to get some to paint. The cartoons weren’t my thing really, aside from Transformers The Movie, so I think I’ll be aiming for a more Marvel UK kind of look when I paint the next one, but this was a lot of fun.
06 Tuesday Oct 2020
Posted in Finished Work, Space Marines
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Just a quick one this time – a drop pod for my Steel Guard. I was going to experiment with my new airbrush but I got distracted and forgot and just painted it! If I ever do another one of these I will do the red and grey the other way round so that the aquilas show up better.
06 Tuesday Oct 2020
Posted in Finished Work, Inquisitors
I’ve had this box set sitting around for a while and could feel the weight of shame upon me… build ’em and paint ’em boy! These are tricky miniatures both to build and paint. Cawl I am pleased with – I built him in sections and stuck him together after painting him and mostly I got it right. Celestine and the gemini are much harder than they look and close-ups really show where my painting skills need more work, but apart from Celestine’s wings they look ok on the tabletop. The Inquisitor was a pleasure and I’ve aimed for simplicity with her, and it helps! Lovely models all round, but the detail makes them very tricky for fat-handed monkeys like me to get right.
The Triumvirate of the Imperium in full effect!
03 Saturday Oct 2020
Posted in Finished Work, Orks
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Well, I may have been silent for a few months, but I have been painting occasionally. I just haven’t been taking photos of my completed miniatures. This has now been rectified and so over the next few days I’ll be updating a selection of badly but enthusiastically painted miniatures with my comments on same.
Things are still mostly shit here. Seven months on I am having to admit that we are now a household with two sufferers of chronic conditions, and that there is not much we can do about that. I am trying to face this stoically but its still worrying, and I’m worried and sad and angry most of the time.
So here we are then, in Orktober, the orkiest time of year. This Orktober I am renovating an old battlewagon, but I have an even bigger Orky achievement to celebrate too. I have finished the Warboss’s Retinue for Waaagh! Uzbog, which means that I have a complete and list-legal Rogue Trader Ork Army! Uzbog, his Retinue Nobz, and the Bigmob were all featured in earlier posts, so this time I will put up just pictures of the retinue.
Oddboyz Retinue: Mekboy Snagagrot (flak, bolt pistol, hand weapon; kustom weapon – kustom special – heavy bolter +1 to hit +8″ range D10 damage; power fist), Krusader robot; Painboy Dok Wortbad (flak, boltpistol, hand weapon; bionik bitz x 2 – legs: tracks, doks surprise – steel hornz),2 x dreadnoughts; Weirdboy Badskab plus minderz (flak, bolters, handweapon, force field – konverter, bionik bit – boltpistol hand); Weirdboy Gorslag plus minders (flak, bolters, handweapons, force field – deflektor, bionik bit: axe hand); Runtherd Gutgrim (flak, boltpistol, hand weapon; bionik bit – melta hand); 5x grots – handweapon); squig catapult; hop splat gun. 600 points.
12 Sunday Jul 2020
Posted in Finished Work, Space Marines
The final thing I’ve finished recently is another squad of obsolete marines for the Steel Guard. Apparently Assault Squads are completely pointless in 8th edition because there are flying primaris marines who are much better. I expect the same to be the case in 9th, but if oldhammer is about anything its about playing for the love of the game and not picking your team based upon a complex series of equations most guaruanteed to deliver victory. I hope to play more games of 9th edition than I did of 8th (i.e. five or more games), but I reserve the right to throw an assault squad onto the table if I feel like it.
The highlight in this squad is that Ive slipped in a christmas marine, as I felt that his wobbly stance would work as a landing pose. You will probably agree that is doesn’t particularly, but that’s life. Sergeant Plaid is a Space Crusade sergeant whose fat power glove should have been painted as a foam fist really. Next time!
10 Friday Jul 2020
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This is the second of the three pieces I’ve finished since March, an experiment that failed. Having painted a Night Lord next up on my journey through the Chaos Legions was World Eaters. Now the World Eaters started out as the Warhounds, and were blue-grey and white. When Angron took over he called them the World Eaters and reversed their colours. When Khorne took him over their colours gradully migrated to the red and brass we know today. So I thought that I’d paint a squad of each!
Hunea’s squad were based a long way from the rest of the Warhounds on garrison duty in a distant stronghold, with irregular updates by astropath. They followed at a distance the change from Warhounds to World Eaters, the butcher’s nails, the rebellion. They were able to hear the Legion break down into madness and bloodlust but not be part of it. Finally there were no more astropathic transmissions, the galaxy was at war, and the squad had to decide which side they were on. They decided that no-one cared for them so they cared for no-one, and started to carve out a petty empire for themselves on the edges of known space. After the heresy came the Scouring, and Hunea and his gang fled in the face of overwhelming Imperial retribution. They tried to use a warp storm to hide in and wound up in the Maelstrom where they made a base which they used to raid the Imperium and in which they gradually succumbed to the lure of chaos. They act as sell-swords and security detail for lesser chaos warlords in the Maelstrom, and are mostly trying to avoid notice by bigger fish like Huron Blackheart!
I didn’t enjoy painting Hunea’s squad that much, it felt like I was fighting the minis’ natural ‘feel’; a colour scheme that works for the clean lines of loyalists doesn’t work very well for the complex lines of chaos marines. It felt like I was forcing the paintjob. One of the plastic marines was one from a parts lot that had been stripped but was very badly built. I should have just chucked it in the bitz box and used a different marine instead of trying to repair and reuse it, it looks crap! But you live and learn, innit.
