Sunday 25 October 2015

Thy will be done...

In an updating mood so err yeah, its a cut and paste jobby but better than nothing eh? Some original content and pics.

So hot on the heels of last update's on the first wave of Kingdom Death arriving, the final wave of my Raging heroes toughest girls of the galaxy Kickstarter appeared on our shores to be picked up, which i duly did!

Included this wave, General Ilsa Wolfenstein, Svetlana, the Light of Freedom, Commander Elektra Eisenstein, Arushka, Yaga Soul-Weaver and the Iron empire jet girls. Thus concludes about 2yrs on this Kickstarter. The sculpts on these have been brilliant and casting generally quite clean. Lovely details and now looking forward to see what their 2nd Kickstarter delivers.

But to back the main event only because it's been so long coming...starting back in 2012 in fact. Been avidly watching the updates, the development, the delays, but it finally came! Kingdom Death - Monster and boy was it a monster, 22lbs apparently!

This thing is huge, Russ for size
Anyway, i know the pin up range isn't to everyone's taste but this core game moves away from that and is much more to the billing of Boutique nightmare horror. The minis are beautiful and highly detailed and as such am as terrified at painting these as reading through the rulebook.

The extra survivor box with extra minis





No progress yet on any of its contents. Will be testing stuff on the Twilight Knight and white speakers since they are doubles.


Onto other painting though. Seen stuff of Dreadtober, not actually doing it formally, but do have plenty of Dreads to paint so decided to get Mr Furioso done. 

Here he is with Space hulk minis which have also been getting some attention to bolster the Blood Angels 1st co. Its only been 6 yrs...

He's the first of a few have got on the go including more work on the Tyranid hunter dread, a standard dread and a FW ironclad and an old metal Bjorn.




Fritz
Also as October has been known as Orktober so an Ork Nob for Orktober. Though is a cheat as he is an Orc from oldenhammer. Black Orc champion i think, but he will be a Nob to some 2nd edition starter set Ork

Also One shot gets her cipher Fritz from Soda pop mini's.
Only a little fig, but cut and been sitting around for a while





So next on the bench are Ultramarines, (dreads and tactical sqd) hopefully finished Angel tanks, more Blood angel termies, hulk and others. And progress shots of Revenant, Thantar, and Imperial knight. 2 weeks of at xmas hopefully will help the cause. Fingers crossed though will try to fit in another update before then.

Monday 21 September 2015

Kingdom come




Gift Twilight knight
Some additional plastic pin ups
Hopefully you have come to the conclusion that you shouldn't expect to much of my offerings. They are few and far between. But hopefully when i do post they are worthwhile.
Anyhoo a quicky post as always, but just to commemorate the delivery of a long awaited kickstarter 2 yrs in the making. Kingdom Death Monster has begun to ship. I haven't been as fussed as some of the rest of the internet with the delay. Patience is a virtue and with all the work that has gone into it not surprised it took so long.
Previous resin pick ups.
Candy and Cola


Grateful that Mr Poots took the time as the initial offerings are awesome and well worth the wait. Kinda regret not splashing out on some of the resin versions now. Not that the plastic offerings are anything to be sniffed at but just to go with some of my previous purchases. Anyhow, like with those now its a case of doing justice to such lovely figs. I've only taken the plunge with the 54mm Pin up preacher so far. Maybe will hold off. In the build up though have been practicing skin tones with other figs and trying out new paints. Trying Reaper triad system on an Anima tactics fig "Bella" has come out quite nicely. So definitely something to play around with more. Also been working on Infinity amongst other things so onward and upward. To top off an amazing weekend for more than just these reasons, the other kickstarter i backed for Raging heroes should also complete shortly with my final wave due for pick up. Can't wait, and with their second kickstarter (also backed) looking mighty impressive need to reign in the urge to splurge, especially with my only little mini on its way.... Exciting times!
Infinity Atalanta and spot bot


Bella WIP

Wednesday 22 July 2015

Summertime, air is sweet, lets move those update beats..

So, erm, has been a while... dare i make excuses? Well, life is one great big excuse! Can't complain though, big changes afoot and has been an exciting couple of months resulting in happiness (lots of various bits to list!), sadness, (main thing being i lost my wedding ring :S ), but generally the good has out weighed the bad. One particular good bit of good news is i have finally completed all my professional exams! Huzzah, that means more time to do fun stuff that i actually want to do,to use my annual leave as actual leave and not study leave!! Has been a long slog but hopefully will be worth it all. So hopefully that gives me more incentive to write up my hobbying exploits, it being my main vice in life.
Tanks tanks and not a drop to blow the heck out of anything..
So what have i been upto in the meantime? well, continuing to buy too much with the justification that i am saving for retirement... :P Hopefully by then my robot body and eyes will allow me to continue to paint and appreciate fine sculpts. But it i do need to reign it in a bit.. Case in point.. too many tanks...?






Quite possibly, considering this is just my guard armour,...  i would say this is down to a slight case of OCD and that i require order. Cos i tend to collect symmetrically so they form up nicely... Hence they are in squadrons.

Anyway sometimes i sit back and think what is this all for? and in times like these its just to array them out or occasionally have a mock battle. Here is my Blood angel armour vs some of my Eldar armour including recently added Scorpion from the wonder and curse of ebay...

One day this will take place on a proper table with proper terrain, but for now, the floor must do.

Anyhoo now to actual progress updates, work continues on various projects from one mini  month entries (OMAN), to stuff that takes my fancy or that has been hanging about a while. I was going to give the Eldar  rest a bit, but does not seem to be happening so for now work continues on Fire Dragons, Crimson hunter, Phoenix, rangers, and Old school guardians with a smattering of old jetbikes, seers and exarchs... not all featured here Just dragons have pics at the mo, but they are in train.

Otherwise OMAN entries include, Imperial preacher, White Dwarf in spaaaaaace, and this month Malifaux Oiran, Quite happy with the effect on her err.. dress/sash. The main body of the dress needs some work though as not entirely happy with it as could be neater. But Brush definitely helps if it is decent, as does paint.Trying to work with paint without mixing as much now to see what effect that has... Its feels like cheating as i grew up with only a 10 colours max to mix to make other colours from.. But does result in a slightly smoother finish. Also testing other companies. Already moved to Vallejo for airbrush work, but starting to utilise their other range, but also branching out to P3 and Reaper. Will see what i can achieve with them.





 Finally some misc, Picked up the assassins sans box from ebay, They came built but have not seen paint yet. Nice dynamic sculpts, not that the old ones were bad, the old ones have their charm and are still some of my favourites.


 Finally some base work for the larger models. Here you see the base for one of my Valkyries. Reasonbly happy with the result utilising all sorts of waste models and crud on my desk to form something half decent. needs more weathering and the Forge world resin chunk needs a bit of work to ake it look more like a concrete something or other.. But those offcuts do come in use!


Sunday 19 April 2015

Biker kicks from phwoars....

Apologies for the rather poor tabloid-esque title, but couldn't think of a thematic title to segue into the post.  

Anyway what's the reason i wanted to shoe horn a biker reference in? Infinity, that's why. Their new releases continue to amaze to the extent i can't help but need to have them. This especially seems true of their bike based units --->
I now have picked up Yojimbo, the bootleg version of Penthesilia (having already painted the original) and their latest release the Nazarova Twins. I absolutely could not resist with these girls, I was going to pick up their compatriots the Kum enforcers at some point as those too are fabulous models, but these jumped the queue. The only issue now is doing all these figures justice... they are just so intricate and the amazing paint job by Angel Giraldez on them just makes me feel so unworthy... but try i will at some point, probably using tips from his book. 

But Infinity do seem to have taken over from GW with the wow factor for me. This seems to be an ongoing trend. While undoubtedly the quality and tech is obviously there being the big player in the industry, GW new releases are doing it for me less and less as more and more the sculpts and designs are leaving me cold. I'm not sure why this is but i have a sneaking suspicion they have changed the design team... Where does Jes Goodwin feature nower days? who does do the designing? I can't seem to find names of who sculpted what these days, Is it because it is all CAD designed now? Are the new minis now the work of trainees to meet the demand of the intense release schedule? All in all while there are some nice ideas, final execution just is missing for me meaning i am not in a rush to pick up any of the new stuff like i used to. The last model that did get me going was the Imperial knight, but i put that to it being a large kit so more QA has been put into it. But that was a while ago now and none of the new stuff is making me want it right now. Take the new Eldar, haven't even picked up the harlequins yet, while some of them look nice, none scream get me now... Now looking at the new craftworld releases, this seems to reinforce the feeling. While they have been based on Jes's designs, they seem to lack his finishing touches. More so on the Farseer model, but the canopy seems a little short and the riders a bit lacking in dynamism. I can't put my finger on it but compared to the dark eldar reavers they are missing something.

But where they have fallen away, my attention is more and more drawn by Corvus belli's work. a combination of excellent studio painting and quality minis, priority is now going to them for my hobby budget. 

Anyway enough of this semi monologuing on my views of the state of miniatures. back to the updates. Continuing on from the biker theme, another reason why am not rushing out to get the new kits.... i still have a bunch of the old ones! this will complete my ulthwe windrider host as well. Infact many of the bundles they have put together now i already have so it does look like minimal renewal for me in this respect.

Also have bee working on old skool rogue trader harlequins, guess who discovered pink paint ... So now one of the troupes have electric pink hair. In addition, Crimson hunter is coming to fruition after much debating on the final colour scheme as wanted it to fit in while still reflecting its aspect colours.



Old is the new new for me a the moment and as you can see have also been revisiting an old epic knight errant, do love these figs, won't be for gameplay but i like these occasional one off pieces to mix it up.

Finally a couple of projects also nearing completion. One for One mini a month for Ammobunker, A commissar which i have now found out is from a company called brother vinni miniatures i picked up off ebay. nice sculpt. And FW Ultramarine Venerable dread also from ebay which is having finishing details such as the banner being worked on to bring it to completion. All in all, still productive despite exam season fast approaching!















Sunday 22 March 2015

Quarter year update

I probably should update, just days pass,... then weeks, then months.

Warp hunter progress
Anyway that is life, so best quit whining and cut to the pictures as haven't been idle hobbywise. It's has been a good distraction from the daily challenges of trying to be an adult. Anyways what do we have? Mainly Eldar, guard and Angel Giraldez's book plus some group shots.

Photo collage on the way
Metal company's new snipers




Raging Heroes Foxy Dynamite
Techpriest
Nightspinners



Lovely book.
Metal Co's new Command





Base coating of more guard
Valhallans
Some additional hawks to round out the sqd
New sentinel




Tanith first and only



Heavy flamers
Rogue trader Solitaire

Harlequins and Fritz from sodapop


Blurry shot of "Bastion company" 1 of 3 of my main Guard companies.