Raging Heroes Sci-Fi Blood Vestals WiP

Raging Heroes Sci-Fi Blood Vestals WiP

 A group of 5 of the Sci-Fi version of the Blood Vestals.  These still require eyes and water effects.  I decided to go with Anime Blue hair for this unit to further separate it from the regular Wyches

The larger group.  These will be used as Hekatrix Blood Brides, elite Wyches, while the regular GW minis will be rank and file Wyches.  The blue hair really stands out at tabletop range.

 These Wyches are sporting rose colored armor while the regulars are a bright primary red color.

The unit Syren. 

I just got the Sci-Fi hero (not pictured), which has an awesome fan option.  There are three weapon configurations included in the kit and I'll build all of them just because they are pretty, and Raging Heroes had a special on a set of three.... evil!

And... a halfway decent shot of the fantasy Blood Vestal unit.  The flag device could use some cleaning up but is pretty close.  the beach effect still needs some sparse and ragged weeds as well.

Back to the kitchen!

Super Secret Objective Markers

 Some Super Secret Objective Markers from Secret Weapon Miniatures.  They were clean castings and painted up quickly.  These are hidden in the Steel Decking series of Beveled Edge bases on the website but can really be easily used in any modern setting on any surface.

The guys at Secret Weapon were great to work with and shipped fast and got me into their new Military discount program when they noticed my mailing address was an APO... without me having mentioned it!  Pure Awesomesauce!

I already use their Blasted Wetlands series for my Blood Rain Kabal and just got enough of the Trenchworks Series to start basing the Unwritten.

Today was meant to be an update on the Raging Heroes Dark Elf Blood Vestals but the photos were ....poor... The unit is nearly complete with finishing touches being added to Skaarya the Blood Mistress and a few fiddly bits with the bases.   I've gone with a beach sand color base for this unit with the idea that they are an aggressive invading/raiding force that spends a lot of time on the beach.  The reality is that I'll decide on a basing scheme for the whole army a bit later ... when I actually get working on Dark Elves in general.

I have done bases and construction for the SF version of the Blood Vestals which are looking really good.  They come in two sets... a troop and a command.  Each set has 5 minis and the both together give a good unit of 10 similar but unique poses.  I've gone with two boxes of troop and one command but in retrospect the command box has more unique weapons that substitute more or less directly as Dark Eldar Wytch Weapon options....so I'd reverse my assortment if I was doing it again.

Raging Heroes Blood Vestals WiP

I've been making some headway on these Blood Vestals from Raging Heroes.  I've decided to keep them as fantasy figures sonce a really good SF version of these was released.  I'll be doing it soon.

That said, its been quite a while since I've done any minis in the "Chain mail Bikini"  genre and these are taking longer than I thought they would.

The armor is a rose color worked up using the Reaper Blood Triad and the hair is currently being based with Citadel Fenris Grey foundation paint.  It took a bit to shift me off the primary red that was my first impulse here but I'm really liking the Rose.

The down side of doing these as a Fantasy unit is that I may have to dig out the old giant box of unpainted Dark Elves and paint up an army to go with them...  There are worse fates!

Raging Heroes Gluttony

Getting back into the swing of things with these two Minis from Raging Heroes.

 They are the Fantasy and Science Fiction versions of the 28mm model.  I was originally thinking that there was very little difference between the two minis but, as a got to work on them, I discovered that there were a few things that I had missed.

The SF version has what looks like some kind of flamer built into the right arm, the torso some gems and a respirator backpack with several hoses. 

I elected to use a sort of impressionist approach to painting these.  Partly because its been a while since I painted anything and partly because I have recently been looking at a lot of Blanche's paintings and minis.  They won't win a Demon but should be a fast and fun way to flesh out an evocative, cinematic force. 

  The weapon arm of the SF version is shared with the fantasy version but its not really a problem since so many system specific weapons are available to replace the cleaver if desired.  For this one I opted to keep the cleaver.

This should serve ably as a Chosen Champion for Death Guard. 

 For Chaos, especially Nurgle,  I really like the fuzziness, limited palettes, and distressed look.  They show well at table top range but are a bit scary up close.

 I'm shamelessly stealing the Gnome's Chaos Warband... The Unwritten... as the basic framework for the Chaos Space Marine Project.  This fellow should be sporting a "Veteran of Corpulous Prime"  Campaign banner on his trophy rack so I'll have to scare one up!

  The Fantasy version.  In a fit of fevered inspiration I'll extrapolate the Unwritten as a Fantasy Battle Warband as well.  Go Gnomie!

I also went with a basic bases so I can rip them off once I settle on  theme for the two forces.

And then there was paint!

After about six months of fail... I've finally located my paints, brushes, and lights!  While excavating a box yesterday... incongruously labeled "Dishes and Crystal" I was amazed to find my long lost painting tools and supplies!

I'd just about given up on locating them and was trying to figure out a way forward.... but now I can proceed!   I had been struggling to justify the expense of restarting the paint and tool collection so that is a huge relief!

This week I'll be setting up a good area to work and moving forward...  The first projects on the Block are from Raging Heroes.  28mm Gluttony in Fantasy and SF versions and the Fantasy Blood Vestals.  I've since acquired the SF versions of the Blood Vestals and the Character Model Skaryaa so they will follow closely on the heels of the fantasy group.

Now if I can just get Blogger to stop defaulting everything to Japanese....

Paint on!

Setting up

Its been slow in the Swelterverse. 

I went to get in a pick up game last week and found that the box of Dark Eldar Vehicles was actually a Box of Chaos Daemons and had to do a quick search.... made of fail!  They vehicles are still on the MIA list.  I cooked up a list of the Chaos Daemons and headed out the the local game day at the rec center only to find that my late arrival had cut off the chance of getting in a game.  I did join and play a running board game of Lords of Waterdeep which seems like a good game and followed up with a game of Chaos in the Old World.  Between those games a Warmahordes game kicked up that featured some really massive individual figures many of which were either well painted or well on their way to it.  I love watching a game with painted minis!  The terrain was good as well, snow themed rocky hills and forests which helped display the minis.  Great minis need great terrain!

I laid out some stuff and went to open the box labeled "Paint and Supplies"  only to discover no paint or brushes.... grrr.  I'll need to open all the boxes in the hobby room until I win the paint roulette.  I have had some success in finding supplies like tools and magnets etc...  so I feel like I'm getting close!  In the meantime I discovered that one of the Dark Eldar boxes I have found has a fair bit of minor damage to repair so I'll need to spend a little time working on that before next weekend.

I've been stricken with Bursitis in both of my knees and hips which has pretty much KO'd me for the past week.  Unfortunately I'll miss this week's game session due to the ongoing pain. 

Raging Heroes Blood Vestals and Gluttony first looks and some Bug repairs

 I love Raging Heroes, I really do.  Their customer service is phenomenal and I really get the sense that they care about me individually.  Their products have been impressive although the details have a softness to them that requires a bit more work to fully bring out.

My fist encounter with them was with their amazing Ashara miniature which came with enough bits to make the completed variant of your choice (Dark Eldar, Chaos, or Sister of Battle Saint) and then, with the addition of some plastic GW Dark Eldar torsos you could make 2 more figures or just use the bits around your forces to spice things up.  Each variant had significant differences in weaponry, a different head and a different backpack structure all wedded to a common body. 

 With that experience under my belt I was anxious to take a look at their new series based on the seven deadly sins.  They began with Gluttony done in SF and Fantasy versions.  I ordered both!  Today I finally got round to opening them up and taking a peek.

Sadly I was a bit disappointed.  The differences between the two versions were minute.  Basically a gem and some hose and a backpack/tank were added to the SF version.  No weapons, no alternate heads, the two versions are armed....identically.  Fortunately there is a fist that will easily take any number of cool SF weapons so the flaw isn't fatal.  Just not quite what I'd come to expect from there otherwise exceptional catalogue.

 Moving on to their Blood Vestals I was again impressed by the efforts of the customer service.  When they encounted a problem with the supplier of the packaging they sent out an offer to either ship in alternate packaging (which I did) or to wait for the regular package.   The alternate package looked very sharp and they packed all of my Blood Vestals (2 squads and a command squad) in the same package.

I also got what I was expecting from the figures.  They are single piece soft metal figures that are in dynamic poses and have no options.  There are 5 poses for the regulars and 5 command (although one of the command set is repeated from the regular squad)  they look very good.  I would have liked to see SF versions of these to use as Dark Eldar Blood Brides but I can convert them easily enough considering how many extra weapon bits I've accumulated on DE sprues.

These we so clean that I thought they must be pre-cleaned.  Only one figure had any noticeable flash and that was very minor.  I had thought to build these as fantasy Dark Elf but now I'm thinking I'll go ahead with the mild conversion and add the to the Wytch Kult.

Here we see a casualty of the Move.  A Stone Crusher Carfnifex from Forge World that I entered in the Golden Daemons for Games day 2010 (First Cut).  Needless to say I was unhappy that it was this particular model that took the hit but it really isn't a bad outcome for a move halfway round the planet! 



















Easily repaired and back to devouring the universe!