Exö-Squad Röknauts

 

Hey everyone, so you might have noticed I'm a huge fan of Röknauts from Ontos Games, and their latest project saw the arrival of a much anticipated troop type :

Now the thing is, Röknauts have got some some love from very talented painters I cannot possibly emulate, however, I'm having fun keeping my approach to them and I absolutely love seeing the force grow and seeing the project make a cohesive whole thanks to the impeccable artistic choices from Ontos.

As ever, the Rökthane is always a great piece of attention and Hurtzr Wârnug is no different from his brilliant counterparts.

Colour wise, I've kept the colours familiar, it's the green and yellow combo that was chosen by my brother Crooks for the Heavy Industrialist Union.

I love that this theme ties our little imaginary worlds.
Of course Hurtzr Wârnug had to bear a little resemblance to Werner Herzog so I kept the pale hair and tried to make his beard as luxurious as possible.
By the way, I think any dwarf enthusiast will agree the beard is the definite test when it comes to dwarves and the beard on this one is jus *chef's kiss* MWAH.

The Exö-squad comes with a new time of special weapon in the form of a sunstorm rifle which I painted like I usually paint my plasma weapons.

I'm also VERY glad Ontos did the work right  and gave one of the Silvrhand gauntlets a pointing finger pose because nothing's cooler than this if 2nd ed 40k has any place in your heart.
A little detail I aded is painting the loincloth in the same camo the other troopers wears as a reminder of their former squads (more than to actually camo their crotch).

Now although there are 2 body variants fro the trropers, I find the poses make for a smart array of combos with the way the heads turn

As you can see, the Exö-squad are quite chunky and imposing as befits their status, you really get that sense of indestructibility from them.

Now with so many Röknauts done now, I had to check and see how they looked together !

This is really shaping up as a great force and I'm really eager to see more of them in the (I hope near) future.
Now If I'm happing a few other space dwarves I have at hand, it's getting even better !

I couldn't resist testing some backgrounds and a little scenery do try some more atmospheric shots. For some reason the settings on my camera went funny and I only managed to get them back to normal after I was done so these are a little washed out but it's definitely given me the will do do plenty more !

Small Scale Scenery

 

Hey everyone ! 
So my son and I have had a few games of Flames of Orion now and we've found we're destroying more and more scenery as we play which is a good thing right ?

Rein and Raus - Blackstone Fortress

Hey all, so I recently got a box of the new Warhammer Quest : Darkwater like many I guess but that triggered a wave of guilt from the few models I had left unpainted for Blackstne Fortress. Since I'm easily influencable, I decided to just get them out and finally finish 100% of the heroes and later do the last 3 marines I needed to complete the whole set (and hopefully play some games)

Space Pirates !

 

Hey everyone ! Happy new year and best of everything for 2026 to you all !

2025 ended with a little group project with my friends and I decided to make it this particular band I've had in mind for a long time but only just finished now after starting it 2 years ago (see HERE).

Now since I wanted my band to be mostly made of overweight untrustworthy idiots, model selection was pretty fun.

Battletech mechs and Flames of Orion

Hey everyone, so last October, I took the boys to the Octogone, a great gaming con in Lyon to meet some friends and dicover new games. Amongst other things, I was offered t test Flames of Orion, a fast paced indie mech gamed. There was obviously no way 2 twelve years olds and me would ever refuse that so we did test the game and had an absolute blast.

It is intuitive, low granularity unlike the original Battletech and you still get the same stupid fun from it by seeing giant robots overheat and explode in cataclysmic balls of fires !

Bastards in Bascinets

 

Here's a little palette cleanser ! I'm going to a gaming con next week end and some folks have mentionned the opportunity to play Batards in Bascinets so I had to check on it !

You can find the rules HERE and to sum things up, it's a quick little game where knights fight one another in the most dishonourable ways, think Monty Pythons' Holy Grail and that sort of stuff.

Zombie Dragon

Hey all, so a while back, my favourite FLGS was about to close and they had sales amongst which "plastic by the weight" deals. Amongst the many bits I collected, I found almost all the bits for a vampire count Terrorgheist and I thought it was a hell of a deal !
But one doesn't simply build ALMOST a terrorghesit so obviously I had to build the missing parts. I could have looked for scanned part and have them printed I guess but part of me likes to salvage models in a DIY approach.


So I started adding armatures and bits of putty step by step to rebuild the whole thing...

I was missing some key strucural bits so assembling what I had into something coherent wasn't easy but I was able to build a strong enough structure inside the belly area, hiding it with gory effects and organs and organic parts.

After that it was only a matter of adding a layer of texture, missing hair and skin, fixing the broken wing finger and blending everything into a whole.

Painting wise, it all went very easily, using a zenithal of white over zendri dust, some drybrushes to really enhance the prehilighting and then washes and glazes to gives every area its sickly texture.

A model of this size is a nightmare to photograph since it's much bigger than my usual photo booth and it doesn't really take light well so a lot of the subtleties in the skin are kinda lost in the process but they're here and I'm really happy with them and the sort of "realistic" (or maybe believable) look I wanted to achieve

I really encourage anyone to try that sort of exercise, the model was super cheap and it wasn't part of a big plan so the stakes were really low and the return on effort was sensational. It's always a way to learn something painting wise because you can try new techniques, cut corners or approach things a new way. The result is practically always a net positive in my experience.
 

Ancient Brain - Archon Studio

 

Following the Ettin I got i nmy dungeon and laser pledge, I thought I'd continue with big easy models and so I build the Ancient Brain. It's a big brain with tentacles and that's pretty much it, nothing to overthink or anything, paint it like a big brain with tentacles and you're good !