Mantis Warriors and Ork Dok & Grots WiP

We've been living in a hotel room for the past month which has played Havoc with my Hobby time!  I've got a few bits of work done but have mostly been consumed with the moving process.

Anyway I did manage to build and prep some of the new Mantis Warriors from Raging Heroes TGG 2, a Dwarf Drill from Mantic's Kings of War bonus points program, and an Ork Dok with some Grot assistants from Kromlech via Bits of War.  All are still very much WiP.

The Mantis Warriors are brilliant sculpts with fixed leg poses and ball joint shoulders.  There are, as is typical with RH kits, a fair amount of spare bits... in this case mostly claw arms in different poses, or heft. 

 I'm using the basing scheme I used with The Blood Rain and painting these in sort of an earth elemental style with the idea that I might use them as alternative Wracks for Dark Eldar, as Wood Elf Dryads, as part of a Forces of Nature collection for Kings of War, or Daemonettes.

I've based these Vallejo Foundation White and then base coated Vallejo Dark Flesh. In the test model I've followed that with an application of Secret Weapon Green Wash to hair and clothing bits then washed the whole thing with P3 Flesh Wash... which is a purplish flesh and seems to sit well with these colors.

The Kromlech Orks are hilarious sculpts and easily large enough to stand with GW Orks. they cleaned up well and take paint quite well but are a bit on the brittle side, as resin goes, so there was some breakage, particularly among the tools, that I'll have to patch up.

I've been experimenting with an ultrasonic cleaner on these new models with mixed results.  Hopefully that will improve as I get more practice using it.  Basically it does a great job on metal but resin is still hit and miss.  The Kromlech stuff came out clean on the first bath but the RH models took about four baths with some good scrubbing in between.

Dreadtober progress

 Progress on the Dreadtober Project!



The Throne of Judgement is being worked up from a black base... big surprise yo!

I got to thinking about being representative of my style of painting... and realized I hadn't really thought of that in a while.  I think, in the main, I'm a texture and process painter with a lot of layers of build up.. sometimes pretty heavy... and thence the texture... 

Typically starting with black and brushing everything with a dark grey so I could make out the details.








 After the grey the areas that would end up weathered or red got a brush up of scrofulous brown... love that color!






The model got a weathering pass of Rustungs Farbe... a bright white metal color.. and then all the scrofulous and metal brushed areas got a Secret Weapon Flesh Wash.

Bases got the pale brown over black, brushed over with tan earth and washed with Army Painter Strong Tone ink then re-brushed with Tan Earth... wood got the standard wood treatment. 

 Then on to scrolls bones and robes... for some reason these guys persist in viewing themselves as "The Good Guys" in spite of all evidence to the contrary.... so I thought yar!  white rube for the judgy Priest!... I'll trim it in red... vanity is a thing even for judgy priest types!

Anyway Jack Bone, Menoth White, Menoth White Highlight.

 Going forward... will be reds and then gold trim and actual black areas.

I've done this a bit inside out... where some of the raised detail was done before the recessed detail... almost always a recipe for failure but in this case a lot of sub color texture was done so Ithink it'll work out.... well see soon enough!

Malice RPG: Tombs of the Dark Sun - Starter Set

 So... technically this is really a WiP.  For two reasons actually.  First... the very cool

Tombs of the Dark Sun - Starter Set

 is not yet complete.  I finished the floors and several of the wall sections are well along the way.... actually I thought I'd finished them until I saw how cool the candles could look with some OSL... sigh... SO those will have to get retrofitted! 










I wanted to set up these tomb like areas to support some scenes with the Iron Empire as I'm spinning them as a hidden remnant of the Necrontyr.  So... Tombs.. Mortuary Cults... some pseudo-Egytptian flavors... etc...


 
 Since the Iron Empire is being worked up in Purple and Cream I was thinking about staying with cool colors. In retrospect using some warm OSL for the candle alcoves will look awesome... er soo... yeah better get on that! I wanted a sandstone and turquoise kinda feel so I started with a Blue base coat and worked up some sand colors from there... Vallejo Tan Earth, Vallejo Sand, Secret Weapon Dark Sepia Wash, top up with Vallejo Sand.

 













 



The rest of the set is doors that work, some water features, and a tomb.  I'll most likely use this set for Heroquest or a Fantasy RPG but it'll always be an Iron Empire Crypt in my mind!



 
  

 That brings us to the early stages of Harbinger.  I did a reboot on my basing scheme as I suddenly got this hair-brained idea to work her into the Battlezone scenarios as an omen/special effect that can appear on battles in the zone.  I'd originally gone with a more elaborate base with a ruined arched window... that sort of thing... but it was looking to busy and distracted from Harbinger itself.

Currently she's planned to be a ginger at the orange end of the spectrum with cool colors in the robes and the long-feathers with the warm spot of her hair and some strong dark accent in the short feathers.

I've been scratching my head about some free hand in the robes but haven't settled on anything just yet... I better do it son though because its time!  The subsurface, cool color, shading  being held up while I dither!

Jailbirds WiP and Reaper BONES Kickstarter Undead Giant Colossal Skeleton WiP

Its a WiP kinda day.  Its been a hectic week mostly doing clean up and priming the Lulus from the TGG Kickstarter Wave 1.  All of the casts cleaned up quickly except the Butterfly Lulu.  It requires a lot of careful excavation of a large area that connects the bottom of her teddy bear toy to her cape fight in front.  There is also a tricky hand that is buried in a casting vent and has to be very carefully revealed. Its a great model anyway and is worth the effort!  I've gone with a White undercoat for this faction unlike for the Iron Empire.  I'm finding the black undercoat  made it difficult to see the detail.  The Jailbirds will be inevitably brighter than the Iron Empire and I'm still undecided about the way forward with the Kurganovas.

 Just in case you thought the Lulus were alone  There is a tree of metal One Shot Blondie and Mad Nurse Bernadette to keep them company.

The Jailbirds also get a different base treatment from the Iron Empire.  I think these came from Base X War but the site is closed making it hard to confirm.  These are some nice battle damaged streets and I'll have to get more as the project develops.

Finally comes the Undead Giant Colossal Skeleton from the Reaper Bones I Kickstarter.  This was pretty quickly done using Secret Weapon Sewer Water Wash over White Primer followed by two layers of drybrushing from the Reaper Bone Triad.  Vallejo Light Sand for ropes and bandages washed with Gryphonne Sepia from GW and then glazed with Ruby Red wash from Secret Weapon.  The stone Hammer is a concrete wash from Secret Weapon dry brushed with Reaper Grey Triad.  I experimented a bit more with GW technical paints for a glowing eye-socket effect but it initially looked a lot more like some weird jade colored sun shades!  I may still have to rework that a bit.

The biggest challenge with this model has been the very flexible nature of the Bones material.  the thing wobbles and shakes whenever its touched or picked up.  Gluing the hammer to the base helped a lot but the awkwardly extended left arm is highly mobile.  Might be a blessing in disguise since its bound to take impacts on the arm which just flexes out of the way.  Time will tell if droop is going to be an issue. It also did not take the primer gracefully and remained tacky for several days.  I'm currently working out a base for it and plan to try out that GW technical paint that cracks as it dries.

Forge World Great Unclean One Step by Step

The last of the Contagion Salvage Project group that I picked up second hand a few months back.  I've been coveting this model for years and just never worked it into my purchase plan.  I thought I'd do a walk through of how this guy painted up.

For the initial color blocks I painted all the flesh areas with Vallejo medium Flesh and dry brushed with Vallejo Flat Flesh.  The sores, tongue, and open wound areas were base coated with Vallejo Rosa and highlighted with Vallejo Salmon Rose.  I used GW leviathan Purple inside the mouth to vary it a bit and add depth to the gullet. The gums got a glaze of Vallejo Salmon Rose highlights to tease them out a bit.

 The wounds were then treated with a Dried Blood Wash from Secret Weapon then layer highlighted with Vallejo Rosa and Salmon Rose.

 The Skin was more complex.  It was washed with a different color by skin texture,  Warty Patches had Secret Weapon Sewer Water and normal to shredded skin with Secret Weapon Flesh.  Once these were dry upper areas of normal skin were highlighted with Forge World ash powder, crevices with Forge World Medium Earth Powder and green shadows with Forge World Light Green Powder.  These areas were then damp set and the extended shadow areas had GW Ogryn Flesh Wash applied to for blending.

 The Horns and nails were a work up of the Reaper Master Series Khaki triad with a final highlight of P3 Menoth Highlight.

 The sword was also done at this point getting the standard "Blighted Weapon" treatment that the rest of the Contagion has.  Basically Vallejo Brown stippled with the Reaper master Series fire triad.  Some Vallejo Flames of war German Camo brown and German Light Camo Brown with a wash of GW Gryphon Sepia saw off the leather bits.

A little Green Stuff to texture the base to match the rest of the Project painted in reds from the Reaper Master Series Blood and Fire triads and some Secret Weapon Red/Black and Drying Blood layered washes gives the guy some contrast. 

I went with a chariot base for the time being in part because it'll work out for fantasy battle (although really a 100mm square is more appropriate) and mostly because it'll pack easier for the big move back to the states.  I'll likely magnetize the thing and have a fantasy and 40 style base to swap out as needed. 

 I sprayed the whole thing with Army Painter Anti Shine Varnish at this point (the green stuff based figure above) and the spot varnished the eyes, sores, mouth, and red areas with Vallejo Gloss Varnish.

The figure was a lot of fun to paint and should make a suitably disgusting centerpiece for the Contagion or for a Daemon Host.

...and now for something completely Nurgle!

 I recently came across a pile of Nurgle themed Chaos Space Marines that were assembled, modeled, and partially painted.  The assembly and modelling were really quite good and the paint colors were well chosen so I decided to salvage them.  I typically find it easier to repaint from scratch but really liked the basic feel of these guys so pressed on.  The top picture shows the current state of the first squad and the lower picture the state they arrived in.

While I was doing the "ooooh....ahhhh.. thing about the green stuff work I totally forgot to pick up the backpacks!  I seem to have missed about a dozen over the entire group so I took the opportunity to order a dozen of the Bio-Hazard backpacks from Maxmini to add some variety to the few backpacks that I did manage to get.  They came pre-based on what I think are MicroArt studio bases.    I'll have to research that a bit when I start adding fresh meat to the pile.

Here is a good view of the most painted mini in the pile and a view of it in its current condition post salvage.

This squad is mostly green with some rust while the next squad will be mostly rust with some green.

The force was truly massive and I was short of cash so I picked up a core force that includes Plague Marines, Terminators, Rhinos, Landraders, Daemon Princes, Great Unclean One (FW) and a handful of Blight Drones (FW).  In truth I'd been wanting to pick up some of the Blight Drone models for a while but hadn't got round to it.

I've been collecting Chaos Space Marines for a couple of decades so there are plenty more Lost and Damned, still in blister, to add to this group.  They will be joining the "Unwritten" even though the warband is primarily Tzeentch in composition.  I envision this group as an allied warband and am currently in talks with the Gnome about what to call them.  I'm currently in favor of "The Siwa Contagion"  or something that similarly refrences the name of the leader of the Unwritten, who has many titles... one of them being "The Oracle of Siwa".  Looks like we'll need to think about defining exactly... or even approximately... what "Siwa" is! 

Chop Chop Gnome!

Pics

Well. I think I should have started taking pictures of work a long time ago! My eyes have faded a bit so its hard to see some of the detail while I'm working on it without some rather draconian headgear! Unfortunately my magnifier is a one size fits all special and my head is, predictably, bigger than that... rats! Anyway the Charadon Granite is working out. The ragged edges will get touched up in the next round.

And Bugs!

The Forge World ripper swarms are altogether different.

My Tyranid army is enormous, very old school, and needs a lot of updating. The color scheme is largely the original tyranid army scheme. Genestealers are the original blue and purple scheme while Tyranid warriors and termagants are red. The other creatures in the swarm tend to be blue with the odd red one more or less randomly dumped in. During the update I want to make a more unified army while updating the technique and scheme.

The rippers are going the red route.

Due to the vast preexisting horde having been entirely painted over white primer I elect to continue with white even though the FW rippers pretty much scream out for a black base.

I thoroughly, or so I thought at the time, cleaned and washed the figures using warm soapy water and an old toothbrush. The figures are deeply recessed and this will come back to vex me later. White primer was applied and then I washed the figures with Mold Yellow (Ral Partha) and then with Alizarin Crimson ( Americana). At this point is became clear that not all of the mold release had been done away with. Pin pricks of brilliant white peered out between the forest of fangs and refuse, despite many coats, to be covered. I then used a heavy wash of Baal Red and it took care of most of the pinholes. Now I'm covering the carapace sections with Charadon Granite (Citadel Foundation) and it is collecting the remaining pin holes.