Morcar and and complete set of oldhammer exclusives !

Ok so after painting Curtis' sculpts for BOYL, I had to finish one last model to complete the set of Oldhammer events exclusive models. This one was sculpted for BOYL16 by Geoff Sims from Oakbound.

You might either have recognised him or just understood who he was from the title of this post but in case you have no clue, here is Morcar of Heroquest fame.

Studio/9/art give away !

Blogging about models I didn't paint myself is kinda of lame I know but this one was one I won during one of Studio/9/art's give aways !

The model is a converted Goblin King from the Hobbit set with tyrannid pieces and it's been skillfully painted by Stéphane Guèbe.

The Stillman is here !

Yeah, I know, it's only after 9 months that I manage to do what I was meant to do and finish my entry for the Give-away I organised to celebrate my 200th follower...

Since this was 9 months ago, I'm just going to sum things up a little. Each contestant had to choose a model from a list of neglected models of mine and add 2 "flavours" to it.

More limited edition Santas, Frostgrave and Asgard !

 

It seems Christmas doesn't stop on the 25th of December... which is good. I mean , we can all do with a nice gift or present every now and then right ? Well Just yesterday, I received a very nice gift from the most excellent Stuart Bannister. 

I could have expected it since I sent him the model in the first place but I didn't expect it to arrive just the day after Christmas. Well I could... since the model is Sanity claws after all. Only thing is I hadn't really taken that into account when I sent it to him to paint.

2015 Give-away results : and the winner is...

Well after a week or so now, I guess it's time to determine who won this year's little give-away to celebrate the 200th follower of this blog.

Just like for last year's event, I've decided to use my trustworthy Excel sheet. It does look like crap and it is terribly not romantic or poetic like rolling a dice but there are times when the cold hearted engineer in me takes control and does things the cold hard way...

This year, 26 participants have taken the time to state what they'd want to win and that just about the same number as last year with a few new heads in the lot.

As you'll see below, the magic happend right when I pressed F9 (yeah I know I should have used a VBA button instead) and the stress of all contestants could end :

Celebration time... Again ! (with Give-away)

Well after the first celebration party organised to celebrate a couple of events amongst which my 100th follower, it's only natural I come up with something to celebrate the 200th (which might very well be Joe Kushner).

First things first, I'd like to express my most sincere thanks to you people who take the time to comment and follow blogs to list them in your own corner of the interwebz, to make them live so this hobby doesn't get like masturbating in the open. All this energy to share is what makes a comuunity for me.

THANK YOU !

Those who were in the first 100 might remember that I offered to convert a model selected by contestants from a list of models who don't get enough attention from me. Those models could be seasoned with 2 flavours.

Here's the time travelling gunslinger elf mage, Warlord Paul won last year.

Well let's take a formula that worked the first time (25 people entered the competition) and make it better !

Morikun, the space Ashigaru

Alright folks, let's get something painted at last !

The model today is a little special as it is an entry for a painting challenge run by Morikun over his temple. Not only is Morikun a very fine fellow (for me at least but we'll talk about that later) but he's also organising this very impressive competition with prizes that left me speechless. Check out HERE to see what I'm talking about (the first 3 lots are especially grabbing my attention ^^)

So let me first borrow some suiting music to get along (watch and listen, this is fascinating)

The only rule for this competition (apart from it ending at the end of August) is that the model has to 'somehow' portray the blogger himself... "how arrogant" I hear you say ? Well it could be but there are actually no other rules and Morikun insisted on us using all our freedom of thought to try and depict him in the most original ways... that's a deal for me ! On top of that I think the prizes really show that he is generous before anything.

Always look on the bright side of life... (and give-aways)

(...Says the guy who adds a header full of hung corpses and pillaging skellies)

Some of you might have seen that this place has slightly changed its look and those who have are right.

For a time it sort of annoyed me to have a header composed of a stolen picture from the net, poorly cropped to fix my lack of talent and ideas to have anything else instead.

There's a point where one has to make the right call and ask to those possess those talent and ideas and it's why I asked Zhu to make me a header for this blog.

It's far much better than the older one isn't it ?

I can only say that Zhu's design exceeded my expectations and that he managed to both get the very blurry ideas I had given him and his own touch to form that excellent result. Just have a look at the little details here and there, it's those kind of things that make illustrations evocative for me. It's the kind of details that do not make you think "ok, it's that way" but which make you think "wow, what's behind that ? and why's this?", the kind of details that ignite imagination...

Check out Zhu's post on this piece of artwork HERE.

Ars Moriendi - A life in progress post

(Some appropriate music first)

It's common knowledge that life's a funny thing. You'll hear the "life's worth nothing but nothing's worth life" motto and all kinds of ready made predigested thoughts when getting on the topic but rest assured I won't bore you with any of it...

It's just that life's funny, you get a slap from one hand and a caress from the other... but memento mori I suppose (OK I did continue).

Why all the weird (and let's face it, slightly gloomy) tone ? Well because among a massive dose of real life that hit me in a face like a trout, some good things have immerged. One of those is that Brian Roe AKA the Roebeast from the Magical house of sunshine blog, has kindly organised a giveaway to celebrate his 200th follower and I've somehow managed to be the winner of it thanks to a fluke !

I think giving away a present in which Brian put some time and effort makes it even more valuable and the excellent thing about it apart from its quality, is that it blends just nicely with my bases and their sort of purplish tone.

Mutant rescue

After enjoying one of those week ends where some shitbags decide to break into your house to rob you of all your technological possessions with the photos of the kids and music they contain I somehow felt like changing my mind with something relaxing. I have a squat warband on the line but felt like taking a break. 

Good thing is humanity is not entirely made of human waste. There are actually some people who just give you stuff instead of robbing it...

A while back, my pal Colin Murray of the Leadpile had a mutie feeling lonely... He took the decision of letting it go to clearer shores so that he might gain some attention.

Well, while I have tons of unattended models myself, I just couldn't resist the look of that one. He's definitely the kind of kitbashes I'm not able to come up with and he would make a perfect mutant for my Rogue trader Setting.

For some reason, some postman (we will never know on wich side of the channel) decided to use the package to play rugby or something but not only did the model take a month to make its way from UK to France, it arrived in the state you're seeing below...

Nothing like the view of a defenseless model smashed to bit by some indelicate post officer to help you gain back your faith in humanity.

Well, good thing is, seeing a gift in this state left me little choice but to fix the mess because it just didn't feel right. So a couple (or two) of hours of modelling and painting after that, here's what the mutie looked like :

The mutant you see is called "Big tooth Ed", he is natural mutant born in the underhive, he's a nice guy with a bad temper but yuo have to know he's been mocked by everyone because of his rather particular physique. His left lower canin is indeed far bigger than it should and this gives him a peculiar face. The cruelty of men knows no limit and time earned him his nickname "big tooth"...

I hope you will excuse the rather poor quality of the photos but I had nothing left but my wife's phone to take pictures right now...

Couldn't help but put red and checkers on that one, damn you John Blanche !

Well, now I've completed this one, I'd really like this idea to evolve a bit. I mean we ALL have unfinished models, part done conversions or models we converted but which never saw any paint... I think it could be really cool to exchange those with people enthusiast enough to finish the job. What better way to share the mojo around ? Anyone who has those kind of unloved models lying around, take a pic and ask to the community ! I'll be looking for some to share and look forward to painting some done by others !

If you're looking for a place to exchange thjose unloved models, here's the place, the Oldhammer Salvation Army  has its arms wide open !

Stranger in a strange land - The give-away prize

Please let me suggest you some music to go with the post to come :

You're fine? Good, let's begin then.

You may remember, I organized a little give-away to celebrate my 100th follower?, Well you may also remember that Warlord Paul won it. The little challenge associated with this event was really simple, everyone who felt like participating only had to pick one model amongst those I submitted and give 2 flavours to go along.

And here is the result !

Connor Mc Lambert - Grey Sensei (and I won a prize again...)

Here he is, Connor Mc Lambert, the grey Sensei !

Some of you may know I've engaged myself in a game of Necomunda during the Oldhammer Week End this summer. This game revolves around the idea of  a crossover between Highlander and the Sensei concept  (as presented in the Realm of Chaos tomes).
The link between the Highlander movies and the sensei concept has been instantaneous for most of the contestants with the immortals, special powers and all.
You can learn far more about the game HERE.

This game will probably be on of the most silly and tongue in cheek of the week-end and every member seems to be awaiting it with great expectations.

Of course I'll be throwing my own sensei in the pit but since some participants like Cheetor have already crossed the line with characters directly inspired from the film , I thought I had to take the opportunity to do a sensei based on Connor McLeod (played by french actor Christophe Lambert).

You may have realised the model does not have a striking resemblance with Christophe Lambert but it's almost intentional...

Give-away results

OK there's been time enough for all the people who wanted to enter the competition to do so. Now is the time to decide who is winning the most sought after reward of all : an unloved model modelled and painted by no other than me with the winner's touch.

Having received nuemrous propositions, I've decided to list them in an Excel Sheet. Why would I do that?, well I'm a engineer during daytime so numbers the lies you can get out of them is part of my job and skills so I guess it came as the way to go for me. That and it is very convenient to actually draw a winner from the list.

Sooooo, here are the entries and their associated propositions :

Looking at the Charts you probably realise that some models inspired the contestants more than the others : 

 But let me show you in a more graphic fashion :

Everybody loves a good pie chart right? No? Ah OK, guess my love of numbers is not shared by all...

Funny to see Aenur and the imperial preacher were the 2 most wanted models with the Slaanesh Daemonette a close 3rd.

So maybe you'll like how I chose a winner ?

Oh yes you're right, with Excel's random command (that's the french version but I'm pretty sure the english one has it too :D)

 Just add a little database search in here...

And we're good to announce the winner! (simple as that).

All it took was a lunchbreak of typing and a few formulas here and there, why give the task to an anonymous online random generator! 

I have to say if I had a D25 I would have obviously opted for it but I'm pretty sure you'd have missed the pie chart even though you won't admit it.

Well you must have understood by the heavy Spoilers in the pictures above who the winner is . I am very happy that Mr Gates via his microsoft software decided to award Warlord Paul of this random because though I've had very friendly contact with most people on the list above, he's been a very enjoyable person to deal with via all this blog/forum/facebook/interwebz thing. (that and his proposition is one of the rare I can actually achieve in a reasonable amount of time...). 

I'm also very happy that the model to get some love is one of those which would have been the least likely to get some attention from me so it's actually a triple win !!!

Now I have to find a way to tie this :

This...

And this :

 You can see there is already a little idea spawning here...

I've actually strated prepping and basing the model and there should be just some little conversion job to make this one look good...

Next post will probably be about another Rogue Trader adventurer OR maybe about the Grey Sensei I'm building for BOYL2014... Only time will tell...