Anvil Blacksmith, Raging Heroes WiP Slithiss, Reaper Mouslings WiP

 Hopping back on the painting wagon for the first time with the new glasses.  It was wonderful to be able to see again and I was able to work for much longer without having to wear, and work around, all the cumbersome visual aids I've been deploying.

First up is the Blacksmith from Anvil Industries.  The model comes with two heads... this one, which is kinda normal, and a spiky head with a full, chaos flavored, visor.  Once I got a good look at this guy the logic bombs became really noticeable.  While the sculpt is good... who does their smithing wearing armor and using an actual war hammer? I mean that would be a really hot job without the plate shin and knee guards and reinforced skullcap. Maybe I should have gone with the chaos head after all!

 Don't get me wrong... its no more egregious than chain mail bikinis... its just incongruous.  I'll still happily use the fellow in an RPG setting.

Speaking of new tools I am trying out the new Citadel painting handle and I like it.

Two thoughts:

One is that the weight of it seems a little light and unbalanced.  That doesn't matter for plastic and resin figures but might be an issue for metal.

The second is that the clamp system could use some kind of quick release or locked lever release as its a bit tricky to remove models from the clamp when finished.

I'm gonna use this thing a lot and like it anyway!

 Currently Lady Slithiss (SF) version from Raging heroes is in the clamp.  I've been anxious to paint more Raging Heroes stuff but was having a hard time seeing all the great details on them!  Now that I can see again I'm aiming to put a lot more of their stuff on the painting desk.

This model has a lot of extra spikes which I'm mostly painting before installing them.  The clearances are very tight so it seemed an easier approach.  There also remains a lower cloak so that means the model, as it stands now, still has 7 more pieces to install.

Reaper Mouslings!

These festive mice-people will look right at home in their pub!  I was torn over the eyes.  Mice eyes being just beady black disappeared in all the earth tones so I went the full anthropomorphize route... I mean they are wearing clothes and drinking beer already so
cartoon eyes FTW!








Next thing being prepped!

Whatever could it be?

Toughest Girls of the Galaxy 2 Preview; Executrix Champion Sephea and Dark Elf Mascot Violet

I got a preview set of the the freebies from the Toughest Girls of the Galaxy 2 "Darkness and Light" (TGG 2) and I'll be painting them up just as fast as I can manage but, even though the freebie set contains Sisters and Lust Elves I really fixed on Executrix Sephea and the Mascot Violet as my first targets.

 Its kind of funny that I first got interested in the Kickstarter because of the Sisters of the Chalice/Orphanage and then became completely enthralled by the Lust Elves and now have really started looking hard at the Void and Dark Elves.

 I usually play Dark Eldar in 40K and have proxied some RH stuff in my armies before... Asharah SF version as the Archon of the Blood Rain, and the Blood Vestals SF version for Wyches as well as the fantasy versions for Witch Elves.  Because I have a full blown Dark Eldar army already built and painted up I thought I'd have less interest in proxy Dark Eldar... boy was I wrong about that!  At this point I'll be building a parallel pure Void Elf army, complete with its own backgrounds, as kind of a "Darker Eldar" army that is related to my main Force  "The Blood Rain".



The figures are very finely detailed and crisply cast.  There are few mold lines and they are generally well placed.  After a thorough cleaning I primed up Sephea and Violet and set to work.







The Blood Rain has a very identifiable color scheme and the new Void Elf Shard is going to as well.  First things first, Asharah's Void Elves will be the "Vertigo Shard" and will have a lot of asymetric designs worked into the heroes and vehicles... I'm thinking that the Blood Rain will retain the old school Dark Eldar vehicles while the Vertigo Shard will get the new style... we'll see how that plays out for troops but these minis are so inspiring I might go there!

My first thought is to take the iconic Incubi... all black and skulls and scary... and re-imagine them in rose and indigo.  You see that here with Sephea and Violet... who will serve as the Shard's Communion Familiar... sort of a modified creature that talks to lesser beings so the Void Elves don't have to... The actual Executrix troops will have the same, or a reverse, of Sephea's scheme... all depends on how the rose sits against the flesh... tricksey!

 I imagine Executrix Sephea's first meeting with Val'orn Archon of the Hidden Kindred to have gone something like this:


 "Dire Lord!  The Void Kin vessel approaches as anticipated." whispered the diminutive Communion Familiar.
Archon Val'orn of the Hidden Kindred, vassals of the Blood Rain Kabal, winced.  He did not agree with this course of action but the Kabal  had chosen this path and he was compelled to obey.

 "Dispatch Ar'Rrath" he directed.








 "Void Sisters we welcome your arrival and look forward to this exchange. Klaivex Ar'Rrath is on his way to you. When can we expect your Executrix?" the tones of the communion familiar were carefully cultivated... radiating an indifference just short of actual insult... it was unclear, to the uninitiated, whether or not a reply was actually expected.


 "You may expect me now." replied a lilting and remotely amused voice from the foot of the command dais.  A tall blonde female Void Elf, for no outsider had ever seen a male Void Elf... if indeed any of them existed, clad in brilliant blue and pale rose armor stood gracefully in the single moment before the command deck erupted in furious activity.

 Two Incubi clad in the heavy armor, and bearing the signature great blades of their profession, moved rapidly to flank the new arrival.


 "How quaint, you actually wear....black... oh, and skulls.... yes there are skulls!  I imagine that is fearsome!" mused the newcomer.

"Stay your blades Incubi!" laughed Val'orn "I suspect this is Executrix Sephea... your new Klaivex."

The Incubi came to a sudden, and complete, halt as Val'orn turned his attention to Sephea... "I expect to learn something of that trick as part of this exchange but recommend that you use it with caution while you are among the Blood Rain."

For all his glib demeanor Val'orn was off his guard.  The Void Elves had a reputation that was equal parts mystery and terror, even by the standards of the Kabal, but this sparkling gem did not align with his own vision of fear.

"As you command Dire Lord, although... if I might mention such a trifle... while caution might be useful if simple fear is your desire" a slight pause, a blatantly incredulous eye cast toward the Incubi she was to command, she continued "it's usefulness is substantially diminished when invoking true terror."

"We shall see Executrix... we shall see..."  Val'orn retreated within the protective void bubble of his command throne and wondered again about the wisdom of this course.



The story is still unfolding but such an auspicious beginning!




Sephea and Violet, in its role as Communion Familiar. The Mascot "Violet" should probably be renamed to "Indigo" in my service since I painted her that way... but, reduce confusion, Violet she remains!

Sephea seen paired with a rare female Archon from GW.

Oh... before I forget completely!

Painting notes:

Skin: Basic Flesh (Vallejo), Flesh Wash (P3), retouched with Basic Flesh.

Indigo areas: Nightmare Black (Reaper), Deep Sky Blue (Vallejo) highlights, wash Sapphire (Secret Weapon), spot highlights Deep Sky Blue.

Rose areas: Rose Brown (Vallejo), highlights Brains Pink (Reaper), wash Drying Blood (Secret Weapon), retouch Rose brown, spot highlight brains pink.

Designs in the rose area were painted between just before the first wash using Deep  Red (Reaper)



I based her on the same Blasted Swamp (Secret Weapon) bases that majority The Blood Rain is based on.  I thought about a separate basing scheme for the Vertigo Shard but they may still be used with the Blood Rain quite a lot and it will be more unifying to have the bases regularized.

Oh! before I forget.... Sephea and Violet are both part of the big pile of freebies you get for pledging at the LT. level or higher.  It's still possible to join the Kickstarter if you do it before the Pledge Manager opens.  Raging Heroes expects this to happen in less than two weeks.

Next up... Nuns with Guns!

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 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!