Behind the wall of sleep : part 2

Since I'm on vacation again, I won't have the opportunity to take pics of recent painted stuff, yet I have a few older things I believe to be of little interest to some :

In 2004, I bought myself some ogre from the the comic "chroniques de la lune noire" This minis was painted to a relatively good standard considering my skills at the time. The real subject here is what happens when you put resin models in foam trays? :

Here's the answer

Chaos giant

 Yeah, I know, it sucks BIG TIME. No matter how hard I tried to get that one straight, it always got back this silly way. The upper part of the face and the helmet are of my composition though and remain quite to my taste apart from the fact I realised too late it made him look like a big-hat (giant) chaos dwarf...

If you wonder about his weird face expression, it's actually what I wanted to achieve since I was highly inspired by Death metal for this army and wanted him to look like Glen Benton from Deicide :

Next thing uncovered from the mists of time is my "Harry the Hammer" version. I got it the day of the release. The base is being used as filler for my undead units but has to be painted. I tried to be as subtle and realistic as I could on this one which proves to be hard to read (especially when poorly photographed). It was nonetheless a great joy to paint it and now, I wish I had bought 2 of them to try a more funky paintjob on it.

Harry the Hammer

 The avatars of war chaos champion is a model for which I have mixed feelings. I own the necromancer who was unfortunately rather badly cast and on the other hand the female vampire which is an absolute HIT for me. The chaos champion certainly has charisma but his ridiculously small feet and somewhat awkward pose made me paint him without really knowing what to do. I just painted him very simply like the rest of the army but it's unlikely I shall make hime the general of my army (maybe for some roleplay or some other project).

Avatars of War chaos champion

 This one has been waiting for too long now. When I converted my 3 dragon ogres, I found myself with arms and heads on the hands. I decided to build myslef a shallot. Though I love Alex Hedstrom's models, his shallot doesn't do the trick for me. I wanted one like the one in the realm of chaos. i decided to get my hands on some carnosaur and some pieces do build a really bulky shallot. The pieces you can see are just assembled with blu-tac to try poses and I have to find good chain and a suitable eagle to try to copy the best I can the excellent one I saw when I was a kid. The blade is made from plastcard and is a bit oversized but I guess such a lad can hold somthing this big without complaining too much...

Dragon ogre Shaggot 

This last one, I believe a lot of you remember it if you bought the WD issue in which it was offered (or any other imperial wizard). It has the distinctive blood on th esward all my minis had at the time but as a richer background than others. Look at the red on it. This is hardcore gloss enamel (varnished satin later on) and the day I painted this one I shook the pot of red like a maniac without holding the top with my thumbs as I usually did. 

The cap and all the paint of the pot jumped into my right eye.

I screamed.

I ran screaming to my parents with bright red pouring from my eye.

My mother nearly fainted.

My dad facepalmed and took me to the hospital.

A lot of people at the hospital fainted and I was admitted in top priority...

When the doctor discovered what had happened, he just laughed his ass of and got some product I don't really remember. He laughed because he was a hobbyist too and had experienced such a problem but in his hair. He washed my eyes (which looked for 2 weeks like if I had picked a fight with an ogre ).

Yep, my clumsiness and that little chap did just that...

For the record, I got to painting with acrylics the day after that, maybe without this incident I would have become the next Fraser Gray? Nahhh, I would have sucked anyway, but who knows?

Bloody Imperial wizard

Kaleb's on his way - battle chaos part 22

OK, this is the end of the first step. Modelling and building are complete., There may remain a single detail being the helmet. I believe a skull would be more than appropriate instead of the sun on his forehead? I've been thinking about it since I wanted to paint the sun as a wind rose with black and white halves.

The helmet is made of an elf shadow warrior helmet with wings taken form a bat I git with the Avatars of War female vampire (very good mini BTW). I've been a total douche by not anticipating the issue of the big shoulder pad which makes the helmet hard to place. If I had thought of that before, I would have placed the bat wings slightly more on top of the helmet and it would have been perfect. In real life he would be unable to turn his head or to ben it on the sides.

If you compare this version with the previous one, you can see I changed the shield to have a big demonic skull instead of the multiple eyes, this will allow me to add Malal's design more easily and it reminds in a distant way of the original concept for the shield.

You can see I finished the awe by adding some teeth on the lower jaw to close the mouth.

The base has benefited form addings in the form of shell pieces and sculpted mushrooms. I wanted to give a less regular look and more twisted feeling to the base. I want this one to truly look like he's in the middle of the chaos wastes looking for champions to slay.

The on foot version is pretty much the same as before, the only difference being I added a malestone eye like on the original concept.

And here's the undead version of him, he has lost some hair and his rotting skin makes his face look bigger (the first case I see where an old model has a bigger scale than a recent one...)

As you may have started to realize, I always feel compelled to working on a ridiculous amount of minis at the same time. As I found some parts in the dettol box, I found an old friend of mine n the form of a power armoured chaos squat. The lad had been cut in two and the upper part is not usable anymore. I took the lower half and decided to cast ressurect on it. Here is what came out of it :

It may be hard to see but the helmet is a space marine one glued to a dwarf head for the beard. The torso is a chaos space marine but backwards (up is down and front is back). The problem is the arms are far too long for this lil'chap. I may consider something else but I don't know what for the time being... I really like his mechanical torso (the back for the marine coming in the rhino sprue)

To finish this on a happy note, the khorne champions are nearly on their way and should be finished soon. Her's a pic of the most advanced one, he just needs some freehand to make him a little bit more vibrant/funky and he's good to go.

Honneur et Bravoure, pour la Bresse ! - Battle Brettonia Part 3

The work on the khorne champions is reaching the end of the tunnel now and a few unexpected guests have made their way to the painting range so for now, I'm going to shar e with you some of the brettonian knights I've down.

If you don't remember, I've chosen blue as the army overall colour since it's the colour depicted on the Bresse Flag (Bresse being the french region where I was born :

 The blue colour is thus reserved for the henchman and peasants whor are the duke's property and for the charcater who are part of the duke's family, he is the only allowed to bear his country's colours in his coat of arms.

This means that each knigt in this army bears is personnal colours with a little blue flag and blue caparison to show his allegiance. The standard bearers obviously bear the colour of their duke and region rather than their own.

Since the knights errant and the knights of the realm are made from the same plastic kit, I decided to make them stand from each other. Knights errant being young and rather poor (they most certainly don't own land), they carry bare wood lances and simple helmets. Their poses are the standard pose because I believe they want to look serious in front of the ladies and their elders. I know this doesn't match the rules which impy Knights errant are wild and all that but I prefer things this way.

Knights errants

 Knights of the realm on another side are richer and possess some land, they have coloured lances to represent the fact they break them less and their helmets are more elaborate. I also chose to give alternative and more dynmaic poses to enhance the fact they are used to war and battle and thus feel more confident and a bit more intimidating. Some bear golden touches to show their wealth as well.

Knights of the realm

Questing Knights were an absolute pleasure to paint, they are really charcaterfull and remain amongst some of my favourite recent miniatures. Any of them can be taken inidvidually to represent a paladin or any knight for roleplay for they have all their gear with them. I especially like the one with the lyr and the one rubbing his moustache.

Questing knights

 The dukle himself, I was really lucky this model has a lion on its shields because that's exactly what I needed to represent my country's arms. I remember the paintjob was the best I had ever done at the time and I still consider it pleasant (although there are few mistakes I wouldn't do now especially on metals). It reaaly is a nice mini to maint and I wish I had known rare earth magnets before. I would have loved to lake his head and hand changeable for alternatives.

Duke of Bresse on Hypogriff

This army is done for I have no room left in my arm box. Maybe I will continue it if nex releases appear but that seems puched back to a distant future.

I have one project though which would bring some new blood to the army, You'll see part of it in little time. Oh and I still have got to show you the ladies of the army (the best for the end as they say)

Oh and by the way, please help Laughing ferret reach 300 followers. You won't regret it. You'll only find regular and very enjoyable posts on hobby, with excellent Blood bowl teams and insane Genestealer cult conversions amongst many other greats things !

The last brothers of filth and an invitation - Battle Chaos Part 21

Ok, so for today, Here are some of what I expect to be the last crappy pictures of my Nurgle Warband. I hope to achieve a better photo studio (one I wouldn't move or break all the time with a proper camera)

The first is the one holding the grenade launcher. This one has greatly suffered with the loss of a shoulder some 17 years ago. At the time I was completely obsessed with 40K and tried to alter everything to make it look futuristic. This lad here got his shoulder replaced with a marine shoulder pad (now I reapaired it with a plastic marauder one) and he had a backpack with guitar strings to link it to the gun. This version is a desperate attempt at reapairing this non sense :

 This one is a very special one for me since it's the first Nurgle champion I got which also makes him one of the very first lead minis I got in 1990. This is the 3rd time I paint him and it's always a pleasure to spend some time with him. It looks like anything you want, it could be a sorceror or a warrior or a marauder, anything...

This time I painted the skin green although I terribly wanted to avoid it. I don't know why I didn't, I'm weak...This version is nonetheless the most realistic version of him, the first version of him had its fly parts painted red and the use of purple made it stand a lot on the gametable. The satin varnish kils every constrast on this picture though.

 Apart form the various projects I talked about in previous posts, I found myself wanting to start my eldar force from scratch. Evreything has been stripped and repaired. It consists of a mixture of Rogue trader stuff and 2nd ed. I tried to modify as much as I could because some minis had been damaged and some others needed a serious makeover.

This army will be a challenge in the fact I want it to be fit for both Rogue trader and the last version of 40K. SInce I haven't played the new rules for the latest eldar coedx, I still don't see how to play a good autarch (I know I want one) and fex other things but anyway, rules will come second as they always do in my armies. Bad-ass look and good models come first.

My Eldrard was designed to emphasise the fact he is old and most certainly relying on his staff to stand as much as for its powers

The eldar dreadnaught because I thought the only options of pose would look silly. I may have overdone it with his "hey guy" look but I like the fact he looks like he's leading some people on the front.

I'm looking for a real retro paintjob on this one with lots of red and bone but I still don't know wether I want a bone armour with red helmet or a ed armour and bone helmet... The aspects warriors will also have the same colour device with slight alterations to remind of their original colours.

At last, I would like to have your attention if you are willing to play some nice game in the most pleasant and oldhammery way and you are around Grenoble in France, here is the way. If you aren't you probably might find other groups of the same kind.

If you don't know about the oldhammer community, let's just say that if you fancy good narrative non-competitive gaming and you have some little nostalgia on the good ol'days of GW, then you might have found the right place.

Don't take my word on this one, click on the logo on your right to get what it's all about.

Next post is about Kaleb since I just finished the mini with all options before he goes on the painting range, that and a silly rooster who might become the most heroic chicken ever...

It's business time !

First, here is a song I like but with no connection whatsoever to this post apart from its name :

Don't try to find any link with anything below but I just posted it because I find it excellent and I do what I want.

Now, it IS business time because I'm back from Holiday and I can get back on the painting range to do my stuff. The room and the hobby area are tidy and everything is ready to spend some sweeet luvin' time with my little lead friends.

Having spent a small week in UK, I've been able to come back with some very good loot (no lead though, I'm afraid).

First I decided to get back to the basics and get my eyes on some Moorcock goodness. I have read some but in french and a long time ago. So this time I went for the english versions and I intend to read the whole "eternal champion" series before each model of the range.

Another VERY essential loot was something some of you will consider laughable but I baught 3l of Dettol. I've hard such a hard times getting my hands on some in France that when I arrived in England, I immediatley rushed to the nearest Sainsbury's to buy 4 bottles (couldn't find huge ones). As I'm writing these lines the liquid is already working its magic on some old Chaos Marines backpacks and RT Imperial guard arms and lasguns...

This morning, I gave a look at the jam pot in which I poured everything and I almost had tears seeing the 6 layers of shitty paintjobs peeling off the plastic. Now I want to dettol every plastic mini I have.

 

 

Another useful loot I've found (in France) is birch seeds. A fruit holds a truckload of seeds and therefore I have more than what I'll need. With the ground tea I found, this will help me build some very nice autumn bases for characters such as the eternal champions or any fantasy adventurer.

Now apart from that, I still have some Khorne champions to finish but this is heading the right way. The RT chaos marines should also receive the final touches needed with the proper varnish jobs before going all to the photo range I just built. 

I took the time to glue my WHFB buildings form the White Dwarf before buying balsa wood and starting to do some timber work.

 With all of this I also took some time to arrange and line up all the miniatures I've gathered for my confrontation/roleplay campaign. I've based most and I've divided them into groups, choosing a leader and a henchman for each team (following the conforntations rules)

So far I have :

- 1 team with a sensei leading a bunch of good lads (sort of robinhood of modern times)
- 1 team with a crazy arbites judge leading some nasty imperial guards and other tough guys
- 1 bounty hunter team
- 1 scavenger/mutants team
- 1 pirate team
- a bunch of imperial citizens with astropaths, techs,etc... to play some NPC's
- the start of a Bratt gang with necromunda van saar juves, they will represent inhabitants form the highest levels of the hive)
- a team of traders/merchants/prospectors
- plus a bunch of imperial toughnuts with an assassin, some inquisitors and cariatids...
- some eldar NPC's like a trader (female) and an exodite

 This project is far from its end but I already have some good story elements and some good teams with plenty of character. I'll present each team in its time with some background to have your opinion on them.

Now this post nears its end, I just wanted to show you a detail I had not seen before and though this is clearly no high level humour, I thought I had to show you what emerged of 10000 years in the eye of terror for some marines...

We can do it anywhere ! (At last some real pics of actual minis) - part 2

Summer is a hard thing you know...

I'm not talking about these insanely high temperatures but about these hard hobby times holidays are... Hard to get the time to paint, when you do, you find yourself lacking time, material or simply energy to do it...

I feel like a goldfish in its aquarium... I don't even have Kendo to get all this energy out since the dojo is closed during summer. Hard times, I told you.

BUT, now I'm lying on my towel at the beach, burning under the mildly hot sun of the Normandy coast. Can I still get something done? The answer (and you knew it already) is YES.

First of all, I managed to bring with me a few paint cans and some brushes to finish my entries for the painting challenge on the Blood Forum. 

First model is the dread with my first attempt at OSL on the plasma cannon, I'm not sure if painting the lenses red was such a rilliant idea and I still consider erasing all of this with pure black to give a more sinister feeling. The terminotor lord is quite to my taste even if the OSL on the power claws is weird and the face is totally messed up...

The jezzail Champion is my favourite so far in this army, I tried for the first time a "sort of Blanchistu" style with bright red and chessboard patterns (I find it almost insulting to sum up John Blanche's style to just that but you get the idea). This one is quite probably leading my cultists once they're painted.

At last I decided to get my Sorcerer lord in line to be painted with the others and I'm glad he's done. He will remain the benchmark for the whole army since it was meant to be built around him.

Chaos marines champions and dreadnaught

The squats next, they obviously need some sort of banner but I still don't know what to give them...

I've already painted the beards with brown and white vertical lines but I don't fancy it much, maybe it will come back on the painting range...

Chaos squats on power armor (Rogue trader era)

I maintained a very limited black pattern all across the army on purpose because I wanted to give them the most sinister look I could. This lead me to changing my basing habits. I usually drybrush brown, flesh and bleached bone to get some sort of dirty limestone ground effect but this being a 40k army I wanted to change things a bit. I also discoverd much to my surprise that Dark flesh + Bleached bone gives an unexpected purple-ish affect... I considered erasing it but then found myself enjoying this old school touch. I also decided to paint the edges in grey to enhance the black of the marines.

As I was getting hot at painting energy coming out of weapons I also painted some effect on the power gloves in the unit (in fact they look better than on their terminator captain).

Chaos traitor marines (Rogue trader era)

 (Sorry for the low quality here, it's just smartphone photos on the kitchen table...)

I said finished but I meant sort of finished, I could declare them done and field them shamelessly but I want to add a few things here and there beforehand.

Here is the start of my upgrading for this army :

The banner is a test for now (hence the pigeon looking eagle), I used it to have something to field and to try Orlygg's tutorial for banners which proved really useful. It's given me the will to try some new things...

The black spots you can see on some of the bases are meant to be some sort of oil leaks or equivalent and will be glossed once everything is varnished.

I'll update all of this once it is to my taste (a few touches here and there and varnish on top of that and then I'll give you good photos so you can judge the result).

Now, this was the start of what I could do during nap time for babies, but then I had to get all the family to the beach and everything : I took the time to go treasure hunting after getting inspiration from Don Hans.

I found a whole lot of broken seashells which should help me add some sort of organic feeling to the bases for my champions or stand alone minis. I don't intend to copy exactly Don Hans' bases but I love the idea of giving some bit of mutated look to the ground to represent chaos wastes.

 A mixture of all sorts of pebbles and small rocks for big bases and terrain :

And I decided to put my everyday morning tea to full use and dry the used tea leaves. This brand is quite good actually (don't know what it is since I'm at my wife's parent's) and is already cut in small pieces.

I have particularly great expectations of these tea leaves with my recent collection of birch seeds to make lovely autumn bases for my fantasy adventurers.

So that's all for now, I'll be visiting Southern UK for a week and won't get anywhere near a computer for that time. Once I get back from Holidays, prepare yourself for some Khorne champions and the finished Rogue trader Renegades (first wave at least).

Cheers.