Reaper Elementals and a @&$% Scrap Launcher WiP

 The RPG adversaries menagerie has had some color added to it.  The Reaper Bones I Kickstarter, and Bones II when it ships, repopulated my Fantasy RPG collection.  It had languished for many years as I concentrated on Armies and Wargames instead of RPGs.

There is a certain relaxing effect to knocking out some individual miniatures.  By which I mean miniatures that do not require a lot of thought about how they will integrate into the rest of the army and how to make a new model fit into an old scheme or mesh with techniques that I'm not currently using.

 The woodland Spirit, and the Large Rock Elemental still need bases but I've misplaced my stash of plain 40mm squares.  In light of the trend towards round bases in the most recent batch of games maybe that's a good thing.  I'll probably do a batch of bases for these once I've got a good pile together.... darn it!  there I am thinking about a unified theme for bases again!

At any rate these were both knocked out in a very short time.  They are unprimed but scrubbed with dish soap, dried and painted straight on.  This time there do not appear to many adhesion issues other than a few high spots that seem to rub off easily when handled.

These were rapidly painted using basic color blocks followed by two layer dry brush a wash and and two layered highlights.  The Rock Elemental got multiple colors to emphasize that is an aggregate creature while the Woodland Spirit got  colorful emphasis on the fruits and mushrooms... a little bit of walking lunchbox there. There is a wicked mold line that I missed in clean up on the Woodland Spirit... good thing its not a competition piece!

Moving on the Ogre Kingdoms I swapped out the supplied base (actually swiped it to use on the FW Great Unclean One) for a Dead Land 50mmx100mm from Base of War.  It is base coated, 2 layer dry brush and a wash of Secret Weapon "Sewer Water" in this picture.  It gets worked up to be a lot more dry looking in the plates between the cracks as it goes along.

 Th rest of the Scrap Launcher is a nightmare. The construction requires more than two hands... I swear it!  after a few false starts... including one rather spectacular explosion I finally cobbled together the basic frame, although I'll still have to get the skis set to the right angle to make the whole thing settle into place.  Th whole thing looks very fiddly and fragile at this point... a design feature to be sure but it might make for interesting transportation issues.

 I spent a little time further experimenting with the GW technical paints for the rust and patina effects.  These are much more coarse and pronounced than my usual method but I think I like where they are going.

Typhus Corrosion creates a sandy, low grade, texture and the much more granular Ryza Rust builds on that.  The combination can give a really gnarly, rust rot, look.  Adding the Nihilakh Oxide as a targeted wash completes the effect.  With some practice I think it'll be a good addition to the toolkit.  not indispensable... but handy.

Angron on the Rampage!

 

I finally got round to finishing up Forge World's Angron.  The  model is very detailed and the narrative pose makes for a fun painting project.

In this scene of Angron's Betrayal at Istvan IV I stuck with the casualties being portrayed as Loyalist World Eaters and Death Guard. 

The model has a scenic base that incorporates a playing base but the positioning of the two Loyalist casualties makes accessing the play base difficult.  Since the whole scenic is just a bit to fragile for actual play it'll always be a display piece anyway!

 Here you see the horizontal position required of one of the casualties in order to get the bases to mate up.  It makes for some awkward cabinet dynamics as well.  Come on... share already!

 After doing most of the mini with Reaper Master Series triads I experimented a little with the new GW technical paints.  I have avoided the new GW paint line since I've never liked their pots and the color progression was clumsy but the technicals sounded interesting. On this I used the Blood for the Blood God which is satisfyingly gloppy and dries with a fresh, wet, look.    I'll likely use it more in future.  The dry rust was less satisfying and ... not entirely dry... more like a thick paste that was in the process of setting up.   I think I'll give it a pass in favor of actual dry pigments for regular use.

I'm looking forward to experimenting with the self-cracking earth and the thick, translucent Nurgle's Rot.

Now to stumble off in search of a suitable target!

Angron WiP and RPG musings

After a really hectic Holiday Season It was time to sit down, scratch my head, and remember where I'd left off in November.  I turned up the Angron model I'd started and put fresh eyes on the armor work up on the central figure. 







I picked up where I'd left off with the Reaper Autumn Gold Triad adding two more layers of highlight.  This is starting to come together.

 I also got some shading on the World Eater Loyalists done using Reaper Nightmare Black which turns out to be a very nice Blue/Black and will be a great addition to the toolkit.  I managed to fail at photographing this but there is always next time!

Blogger is defeating me!  I can't seem to post more than one picture.... hmmmm... 








In RPG land I've been busy working with Ubiquitous Rat on the Serene Dawn SF setting and experimenting with a new, minimalist RPG engine called The Affinity System which emphasizes jumping into playing straight away without spending a session creating characters and doing player prep as part of the initial adventure.  It also seeks to intentionally evolve a style of game that the player group wants to play.  Its still early days on this but I'm excited to see what comes of it.