So long 2013...

Yep, another review, but at least this time it's mine !

I don't know how to put this so I'll stick with the methodic way my job has taught me (being an engineer really does give weird habits in every day life...)

What I have painted this year :

That's 53 models (about one per week) if I'm counting right and that's apart from any moddeling or work in progress. I guess painting at the same pace but in a more ordered way could lead to having a nice collection but I'm afraid I'll keep the habbit of painting whatever I feel like painting...

What I have played this year :

• a couple of games of Neuroshima hex which I liked a lot
• a couple of games of Munchkin which I also happened to like
• A lot of games of coups d'un soir (I'm afraid If you're are not french or at least speaking french, you won't be able to enjoy one of the most funny card games EVER)
• A LOT of kid games with my 3 years old daughter
• Skyrim and finished every possible thing to finish in it until I had the platinum trophy
• Final Fantasy XIII-1 and finished every possible thing to finish in it until I had the platinum trophy
• Final Fantasy XIII-2 and finished every possible thing to finish in it until I had the platinum trophy
• Hannah Montanah the movie and finished every possible thing to finish in it until I had the platinum trophy (in 4 hours) 
• Dishonored and finished every possible thing to finish in it until I had only 5 trophies left
• absolutely NO GAME AT ALL of any wargame with actual models whatsoever
• absolutely NO ROLEPLAY whatsoever

I think you inderstand now how all of this could be improved...

Merry Christmas - may the lead be with you

Merry Christmas to you all my fellow model addicts (or "Ferry christian" as the auto correction tool of my wife's phone seems to understand it).

I took the Christmas opportunity to speedpaint Sanity Claws yo can see below. 

All I can say about it is that I'm not happy at all with it and that speedpainting is not something I enjoy most (even though slow painting doesn't please much more) I'm an "efficient painting" kind of hobbyist I guess...

Watch him closely because he's going back to acetone to get ready for next Christmas...

And since all of you must be full of chocolate, turkey, duck, goose, gravy, foie gras and all sorts of light things, here is some naked lead to help you through this...

The B teams

OK last time we took a glance at the main gangs I'm going to field in the Rogue trader/confrontation campaign I'm building so now, let's focus on some of the NPC's :

The illuminati :

Since I have a sensei gang, I believe having a couple of Illuminati to chase them may be a goo idea. These illuminati are humans that have been possessed by a demon and who have managed to chase this demon out of their soul with nothing else than their tremendous will power.

Those who have withstood such an experience have little mental sanity left and those who keep enough sense to start on a new life dedicate it to erasing chaos in all its forms. Amongst them some understand the nature of the sensei as children of the emperor and want to sacrifice them just like the shamans of old did to make the emperor a new man.

If nothing of this makes sense to you, I'd strongly suggest you read the Realm of Chaos books and everyting about the emperor and the star child. It is one of the most evocative part of the 40k background and it has shamefully been put aside of modern fluff.

I'm really looking forward to painting them and especially the lad on the right with his monk head and what appears to be jet engines on the legs. The left one has a very classy plasma gun thingee and the left bot is just a WIP rogue trader equivalent of the famous adventurer mule...

The adeptus Arbites :

Who doesn't want to throw a bunch of  judge Dredd inspired maniacs at their players when fighting in the underhive? Well, if some of you still have second thoughts about it, will you also let the opportunity to put lovely Jes Goodwin sculpts on the table? OK now we're talking...

Nomads/traders :

I still don't have enough of them but for Roleplay purposes I believe 2 will be enough for the time being. To battle you have to have equipement and to get the equipment you have to steal or buy it, that's when these 2 come. They'll also be here to help the players cross some areas or why not go from one planet to another...

Imperial officials :

These officials will serve as objectives or NPC's to kill/protect/extract or whatever depending on the scenario. The classic assasin on the right is clearly not going to be here to toast bread so expect him to act as a high-class bodyguard or guess what, assassin and to be a real pain in my player's feet.

Adeptus mechanicus :

Adeptus mechanicus. Always popular, you know where they're from, you know what they do, not necessarly why but they'll do whatever they have to in their renowned fashion. After painting this guy, my desire to paint some more ad mech has been fuled up so expect these quite soon.

Oh and yes, middle guy is getting his staff end back, no worries.

The eldar traders :

Did you ever ask yourself how on earth so much rogue trader marines/imperial guards/adventurers and even squats got to be equiped with eldar weapons? You thought it was just loot from battle? Nope , it isn't. Eldar weapons are made to obey their owner only, plus you would have the ammunition issue. Real adventurers rely on eldar traders to get their hands on xenos weaponry and that's exactly what this lot is supplying. You can't really know if they're just rogue and steal it from their craft world or if they have some secret agenda but here they are... you don't want to talk too much to them or your head starts to feel heavy and you mind gets confused. Just pay and go...

In case you're wondering, the eldar trader is th one from the adventurers range and his girl colleague in the right is a recent female version of him sculpted by Bob Naismith for a hobby group.

Oh and did I mention that the idea of a romance betwen a playing character and the female eldar can't be put aside?

Some planetary defense forces :

The last section will be the one with most NPC's (i.e. controlled by me) fighting alongside the players or against them depending on their side. I have some more squats to add and possibly some other models but this is just to give you an idea.

So here we are, just add the venators I'm working on, a fistful of marines and eldar pirates and we're done. Maybe a couple of genestealer hybrids could be used but let's focus on what we have for now.

I may have the occasion to post a couple more posts (with painted stuff) before the new year but if I don't manage to write or paint anything before, let me wish you a warm and very merry christmas !

The A teams and how to tune a ride

Ok people, I recently showed you what I was to make of my used deostic, well, I have made some putty work and felt the need to go the demonic way. The job is not finished (far from it) but it's taking the road I wanted...

 I am going to add some lips made from torn metal and I will also add some organic textures thanks to Strygianheart's excellent tips. I also have to find a good way to design reactors on the side but I don't have lots of ideas about it. For now it is heading towards weird sphincters with mechanic bits consisting of guitar strings and things of the sort but nothing carved in stone here...

There is yet a lot of work to smooth everything and blend what has been done and make details fine but I've learnt that you've got to make little steps one after another in these kind of projects rather than rushing and ruining what you've done before...

As you might have guessed from last post about the venator gang, confrontation and rogue trader skirmish has been on my mind lately. It's now a few months I'm trying to gather as much adventurers and hive gangers I can to build a campaign mixing skirmish battles (using either confrontation rules or inquisimunda's) and some role-play.

The gangs I'm building may also help me in a little side project I have to port McDeath to rogue trader but we'll talk about this later (for those interested it's on the old hammer forum)

I'm quite happy with the models I've gathered so far (OK, I'm really happy) and I've managed to assemble them in characterful gang/bands/teams/whatever. Some associations may not be as obvious to you as they are to me but I believe the painting and little background I'm building will tie them nicely.

I'm going to start with my favourite gang which is one I've been meaning to do for a long time (actually from when I first got my chubby hands on the lost and the damned book when I was 10).

The sensei gang.

This one is the typical "good guys" band. The band is lead by a sensei (I've had him for ages and now is the time to get him some action) who has spent most of his looooong life running from people trying to mess with him while trying to fix people's problems and saving orphans from burning buildings. He is surrounded by young and cheerful members who all share his genuine care for others and will do to good. 

I will develop the story a bit further and present it later but let's just assume for now each of them has been saved by their leader at some point and that they bear an eternal gratitude towards him for that.

To represent this band I selected "shorty" the ratling so that the band has an abhuman which shows the tolerance of the band and because the model just look cheerful as can be. the 2 adventurers right to the ratling have been selected to add some youth energy to the group. The nerd guy and the 2 cheeks are also here to give diversity to the band. I want everyone to have a special place in this band so I'll keep that in mind when giving rules to them.

Having god guys means you also need some hard guys to throw at them...

Face off - How to start a venator gang for confrontation

OK, if you read yesterday's post, you might have seen some models captured in blue putty to get their faces copied. The mold has been made and the resin has been poured...

But what is all of this about?

Well, if you've ever read the confrontation rules published in a series of White dwarf magasines  between n°130 something and 140 something, you might have come across some of this :

And I am pretty sure it must have left a trace inside of you. It's evocative, it feels crazy and it's full of little details (like staff faces as you can see here).

Steal your face - the ultimate conversion

OK, the ultimate conversion MAYBE is a little overrated but you got to make people dream a bit... (and maybe when you see the final result you will find it ultimate).

What all of this is about is this : 

These were the 2 basic components of yesterday night's work :

• The 2 blue and white putty boxes are known as Siligum (which sound like sillygum if you're 8 years old).
• The paper bag beneath containning plastic bits from an online bits store.

First part  of the evening was used to prepare the bits (I just love doing it). There's nothing like annoying your wife and cats with the sound of a moddeling knife removing flashes from models when they're watching a bad movie or TV program...

Are some of you getting a view of where this is heading ? Nope?

Pimp my ride - Rogue trader style

OK, let's get back to cruising hobby speed now !

I haven't managed to get all my hobby stuff yet but I do have my bits box and tools plus an empty deo stick which was looking at me with a little high voice "pleeeaaase, I want to liiiiive, I can still help youuuu..."

It's 23 years I'm worshipping Chaos and I still have a soft heart... An asslessman can't be a heartless one too.

 This should be the starting point of every good Rogue trader vehicle or grav-attack

Do you see all the potential that hygienic device has to offer?

 But look at what it can become...

Why go the obvious way when you can go the silly way ? - an ode to the hobby God

There is a Hobby God, that's a fact.

I can't prove it but the hints and clues everywhere in our hobby are so compelling that it feels stupid to deny this truth.

Go ahead and get painting you lazy naked fool !

You don't know what I'm talking about? Come on ! Dare tell me you never ever got yourself in one of these situations :

- Lad's rolling his saves for the last wound of his general "Please don't roll a 1, please don't roll a one (rolls a triple 1), NOOOOOOO"

- You're in the middle of some tricky modelling and the glue just keeps gluing the piece to your fingers instead of the model.

- You finish the best paintjob ever and proudly show it to your mates until someone points out the flash you forgot to remove and now everyone including you only sees it.

- You realise you could have cast another spell, or used a remaining dispel you had forgot and the game just takes another way...

- you fail every instability/stupidity/animosity/whatever test in your game

- You're looking ni your bits box for pieces to add to your latest conversion and the pieces you want to add keep coming until you've sorted out 3 dozens of them.

- you realise your latest project is nearing its end when you come across a new unit you never cared about and now you want a 30 man strong one (plus the hero which has to lead it and all the other units that need to go with it to make it effective) , ruining your plans to go on another project...

- there's this particular mini (you know which one I'm talking about) that keeps falling and breaking game after game, pining after pinning, repair after repair...

- You lose a superb ebay deal for a silly reason (failed sniping, wrong bid typing,...)

There are countless examples of this (feel free to share yours), and someone has to be responsible for all of this (though 80% of the time it's only because of our own clumsiness I admit).

But sometimes, the hobby god also starts to smile at you and when he does, you come up with the best of conversions nobody ever thought of, you win battles that were doomed from the start, you manage to actually paint something the way you meant to...

This Week-end, though the hobby god didn't consider me worthy of getting my paintng table back amongst all the housework, he at least blinked my way...

I was starting to consider that I wanted to make some vehicles for a change and that my chaos renegades needed some motorized reinforcement.

Amongst all the boxes to be opened from my moving home, I found 2 boxes of Chaos space marine rhinos I had bought for nothoing from a closing hobby shop.

Yeah I'm a brand new /fresh from the forge 10000 yeras old tank, got a problem?

Just tell me this was not a sign..

You still want to deny the evidence? OK, here's for you : the morning after, I opened my deo stick and realised it was finished, empty...

Do you see where this is heading? No?

A guy wants to make a vehicle for his chaos renegades and he just happens to find 2 chaos space marine rhinos boxes and an empty deo stick and this still is a fluke?

Just to be clear with those of you who are not into all the oldschool gibberish, yes I am going to assemble these two rhinos and make them fit with a regular chaos spacemarine force. But it's been nearly 23 years of hobby for me and I have yet to build a grav-attack. 

For those of you on the Saint Thomas side of the force, I also found some star wars toys in the boxes, there's no quetsion left here, I have the pieces and it's all about answering the best way I can to the Hobby God calling now... (and getting my hobby table and tools back).

I hope to be able to paint something this week thanks to my comittment to the hobby god...

Mars Attacks

I don't and can't consider myself an artist. I'm deeply far too pragmatic and though I have some imagination, it's always tuned down by my scientific side.

Why do I say that ? Well, because I realise I always tend to stick to "realistic" treatment in my painting style (if I have such a thing). My artictic side though is visible through the trends I have and right now I'm in a red era. Since painting a chaos warrior in red In June, I've been putting red everywhere and I'm liking it a lot.

I've even been given the opportunity to work on this by a fellow oldhammerer on the forum who proposed me to paint something for him (whose blog can be found here).

I have to say that seeing a Bob Olley Techmarine was quite a surprise. I've had mixed feelings about his models for a long time and I've lately come to realise that these models have to be painted to be appreciated. I really believe you only truly know a model once you've painted.

Bob Olley's oldschool models always tend to have one of these points :

- they have weird textures you never truly know how to paint

- they lack flat areas

- Clothes always have an infinite amount of waves

- eyes are often hollowed

- you get organic shapes everywhere you never truly understand

- they are insanely detailed

So getting started with them is always kind of weird for me.

I started knowing these could be a tough job.

The only thing asked by the owner was to make it bright so I decided to give the armour a bright red to start with and to see for the rest afterwards. (Oh and did I mention how awesome the grey priming proved to be? I'll develop that later)

WIP with base coulours

The magic happend when I decided not to care about the textures and just apply the base colours where I wanted them. Once I did that, I realised the way to paint them came as an evidence, the texture on the legs just needed some drybrush, the stripes on the higher part of the legs just needed to be painted in different colours and so on...

Why try to fix what is not broken?

You know people, being oldschool may not entirely be a matter of taste or even a choice sometimes. If I consider my own humble example, I do have a strong link and empathy towards old stuff but I have to tell you the reason why I'm into all this retro/old/vintage thing

I am an idiot.

I don't mean to say people with similar taste are idiots, most of them have willingly decided to keep some old stuff around for nostalgia or lots of good reasons but mine is just that I'm not adapted to this world.

- I don't have a FB account (yet)

- I don't even have a cell phone (apart from the one my boss gave me by force for professionnal reasons)

- When I go on my blogger page from my whife' smartphone in front of the telly because my painting table is still not operationnal, I only end up screwing my blog outfit.

Now you have the reason why this place looks different. The idea to change it had crossed my mind but my inadequacy with modern technology forced me to do it in a hurry...

I'm only 32 and already too old for this sh*t...

I'm just showing the above picture of an oldschool Nurgle beast because Nurgle is the opposite power to change and therefore should be my patron god. It also makes me feel less guilty since this post is not entirely about whining...

Oh and it reminds me that it was offered unpainted to me by a schoolmate for painting him a whole lot of models for our DnD campaign.

Behind the wall of sleep - part 3

I'm just at the end of moving home right now with the dust from boxes and furniture settling down and my evenings becoming a little more quiet.

I hate moving home, I mean I really hate it and the fact this time is the 4rth in 3 years time (11 in 10 years) doesn't help even though this new home might be the one and it's a pretty good one.

Anyway, what you're reading is still meant to be a modelling/wargaming blog so what is all this moaning and grumping about?

It is said some beautiful flowers can bloom on horrible soils and that wonder can emerge form horror.

One such thing happened yesterday while I was tidying the garage. I happened to come across a strange blue box that I'd seen from time to time without paying much attention to it. This time, I had decided to tidy things properly and not just put boxes in places where I would forget them forever, I gave a quick glance inside it...

Some of the content is clearly obvious and is the main reason why I didn't look too closely at this one before. We have a  lot of scenery pieces made by me. I remember these clearly because they were made just at the time of the release of WH40K 2nd edition. I had found a big blue isolation foam board and I used it to make a lot of scenery like :

A chaos altar

A paper toilet dungeon (at least I know where my chaos toilets will go...)

WH40K ruins and buildings

Barbwire fences

Some of you might as well have noticed something odd from the first picture... come one, take a good look, I 'm adding a little hint ...

it looks like some plastic package with a card back...

Let's have a closer look at it...

Oh, I remember getting this one from an old hobby shop in Nantes in 95 or something. Let's put this aside for a while and see what else we have here...

An Iron maiden patch with the Derek Riggs drawing for the song "seventh son of a seventh son" coming form the album bearing the same name (Maiden's best album of all time to me)

I had this attached to my jean jacket by my grandmother (god, I was wearing a jean jacket...) and later on it was attached to my wallet before getting worn out and me shying away from such fanboyism (I didn't want to frighten the few girls I managed to get close too at the time).

If you don't already know this brilliant song :

I also found a huge Union Jack offered to me for a birthday. Playing british wargames, and learning english by deciphering Iron maiden lyrics at 11 (not to mention reading pat mills comics, Tolkien and Moorcock books to name a few) must have had quite a influence on the young french teenager I was... (it still is to be honest).

Another thing  I found was totally not related with all these early 90's goods but comes from a trip in Martinique in 2005. It's jet black volcanic sand. Just how cool is that. There's no way my chaotic-to-the-chore heart won't find a way to use this the best way possible...

I hope you all agree this was quite a fluke to find such things while moving boxes of women shoes, children bicycles ans things like that...

What? You're waiting for something else? Oh you mean that old blister ? you want to know if it contained something or not and if yes, did had the balls to open it?

Well, it DID contain something... however, the blister was already broken and the content could flee from the blister without any help... The ogre was at the bottom of the box...

So Yes this was a VERY happy find and I didn't have to consider endlessly "do I have the right to open a sealed blister? because time (and moving home 10 times at least) had answered that question for me.

The only remaining question is : which one did I get from it ? It's obviously not the one I showed you last week but let's say if lats week's ogre was a captain, that would make him his higher officer...

My painting desk and hobby place are still not available at the moment (working actively on this though) but when everything's in place, I expect to come back at full speed !

For now...

PS : By the way if some of you are fanatics to the point to want this blister, I can give it to you, I also found the same blister which contained the only slanns I ever bought so that makes 2 John Blanche blisters in pretty good shape (if you don't consider they're damage enough to let the minis go.

Somehow, throwing away such blisters even though empty doesn't seem right to my oldschool heart...

The finishing blow

This weekend I've been painting a lot. I mean something like 3 liters of paint must have gone of my brushes... to the wall of the bedroom...

OK, that's silly I know. Anyway, I also managed to take the time to actually finish some models too. One of which was started 3 years ago and whose paintjob was mostly done 10 months ago. The fact that it only took 10 minutes to actually finish it felt both good and ridiculous.

Hrothyogg is one model every one has painted or wishes to paint and one which nearly always comes out the same way :

You all know him because he's part of the picture of the monsters in both WHFRP and WHFB 3rd ed. He nearly always come out painted with a red ogryn face and trousers with blue and white stripes.

He's also very famous thanks to this brilliant drawing from John Blanche. 

As you will have noticed, no white and blue stripes here. After completing mostly everything but the trousers, I felt some mixed feelings between going the oldschool way or my own. I ended up taking none and giving him simply the best trousers ever. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about :

The guy doesn't often wear trousers, I'll give you that, but when he does, he wears some bad-ass yellow tartan device. And this is exactly what all my Jes Goodwin ogres are going to wear too.

I'm apologising in advance for anyone who think it's ridiculous and that I'm mixing all sorts of things meaninglessly. I am.

I've not completely mastered the tartan skill though and I hope it will turn out better on the others...