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!

Books and Bugs!

Today the Sister's of Battle fortress Monastery gets another push in the form of an Adeptus Arbites Codex that a good friend has painstakingly assembled and bound up for me!  I'll use this as the basis for my Urban Suppression Army which will form up around Sisters of Battle and Adeptus Arbites.  I've been collecting bits for this for a long time and am anxious to start organizing units!  Of course I'll have to manage my time even better if I want to work on the actual army and still maintain my work schedule for for Geekfest Orks, Project Thunderhawk, and the Golden Demon 2011 submissions.   

I also finished up the Venomthrope and Hive Guard.  The Bomb squigs are getting their basing treatment but are otherwise finished.  Time to go delve into the new book!

Progress

Nothing is quite finished yet but there are some updates as I have been working!

I've had three projects make good progress:

An update to a Gobsmasha...  I've had this Epicast piece kicking around since second edition and It was painted in one of the very bright cartoon Ork schemes that were popular at the time.  Here I've simply dirtied it up and distressed it a bit to make it better able to blend with my current grubby Ork scheme.

Updated old Gobsmasha

 

Continuing in the red theme there is a new Tyranid Hive Guard.  I love these guys and the strongly remind me of the old Zoat!  I may actually use some Zoats in this capacity for a lark... I'm liking the fleshy look of the cannon and am working on a second one of these.  This guy is essentially done except for the base.  I do a paper mache treatment for the Tyranid bases so like to do them in batches.  This guy is waiting on his sibling and a Venomthrope that is being worked along with it so they can benefit from the same base materials batch.

Finally there is Old Greasus...  I really hate this guy!  He is a huge figure and has been the reason why the update has taken so long.  I actually like big projects but this figure just takes a lot of work! He's only about 40% at the moment.  I hope to finish him up by ... Wednesday..ish... before I get to work on Project Thunderhawk!

So there are the active projects for this week.  Next week sees Project Thunderhawk enter phase II, work on the display base for the Runtbot, and work resumes on Campaign based fiction. Worky worky!

Stone Crusher getting lunch

Its been several weeks since I last posted.  Sorry about that.  I was feverishly working on submissions for the Baltimore Golden Demon competition.  I'm largely an Army Painter and it had been several years since I really painted a figure to be viewed solo... much less judged. 

Lunch time!

Anyway I ended up with three submissions.

An Empire Regimental Mascot in the Warhammer Single.
A Unit of Bloodcrushers in the Warhammer Regiment.
A Stone Crusher Carnifex in the 40k Large Monster.

The Stone Crusher made First Cut which I think is pretty good for my first try ever at the Golden Demon.  I learned a lot and I think I'll be a lot stronger next year.

Today is catch up day for all the stuff that slid over the last couple of weeks then its back to the work bench!

Mawloc up

I got a couple of hours to work on the Mawloc. The kit is really well thought out in terms of assembly and I was able to do the basic painting with the model partially assembled in three major sections. This is not quite complete yet but I'm hitting the road to attend the annual Apocalypse game with my old Rogue Trader era gaming group. I'll be out of town for about two weeks with this and will finish up the Mawloc while I am there. This thing painted up very fast ( I just started it two days ago) due to the ease of access to areas that are usually obstructed. At this point all that is left to do is the final couple of highlights for the carapace and finsihing off the base.

I'll also get the Sisters Fortress named and get the base done for it this week. I'll likely finish it up entirely before the trip is over. Since the Mawloc has proven to be such an easy build I'll probably Do a Trygon and a Trygon Prime next probably concurrent with a Crusher Carnifex.

Finished up the Ripper Swarms this morning. Bases were Spice Brown (Ceramcoat) wet brushed with Golden Brown (Craft Smart) and then with Bone White (Citadel) after that a heavy splash of Devlan Mud (Citadel Washes). Another coat of matte sealer then static grass and done. Static grass was only applied to the leading edge and occasionally to the side to represent the Ripper Swarm devouring every living thing in its path! These are play peices and you can see the edges and transition areas are not sharply dressed and the highlights are exaggerated to better show up at gaming distances. I was intending to move on to the next Ork Trukk and sprayed the sprues black before I discovered that I have a pile of Blood Crushers of Khorne that I had been working on before we were sent out of town for three months. Looks like they are next up! In between I'm still working the Sister of Battle Fortress and got a lot of basic work completed on the small personnel door. I added a fleurs-de-lis to the center of the door and accomplished base coats and initial weathering.

Ripper Claws

Picking up after a hectic weekend (I managed to knock a cap off one of me teeth on Sunday and it took a couple of days to get it put back on) by working on the claw and teeth whitening. Here I brushed over the old Mold Yellow (Ral Partha) with light wet brush of Bone White (Citadel). After this I went back and retouched the faces of the individual rippers with Blood Red (Citadel) to get some definition between the very similar claw/teeth and carapace textures.

Ripper Claws

Today all I got done was the base Spice Brown (Ceramcoat) for the claws on the rippers. Mostly this was due to the arrival of Imperial Armour II from Forge World! I also got the Crusher Carnifax and The Modeling Masterclass book but it was Apocalypse II that ate my afternoon! At any rate I'm may not get round to finishing these little guys until sometime next week. They are getting close just the claw work up, carapace tie in, definition for the muddy areas, and bases left. That will probably take four or five days just because its a hectic week coming up. I'll start prepping the next Ork trukk this tomorrow and possibly put a little time in on the Sisters Fortress between now and Monday.

Rippers Carapace

The rippers next get some gray streaking on their carapaces (Ral Partha Gray) followed immediately byt a Sepia wash (Citadel Gryphonne Sepia Wash) This makes the little beggars look like proper roaches! I will finish the carapace top dress at the end to give one more texture layer and tie it all together. At the moment the carapaces look awesome from three feet but very splotchy up close as the pictures reveal. I'm a big fan of making the finished general use figures look great at about three feet since that is the most commonly viewed range. Center piece figures should be a bit more refined as they are often picked up for closer inspection.

Undercoats

Undercoats have such an influence on the outcome of a finish. In this case I want the eyes to be a glowing green color so I'm starting off with Sunburst Yellow (Citadel) over the red base color. Green goes next and the slop round the eye socket will be tidied up when the carapace textures are added.

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.