Back in the game!

Well to say it's been a while since I last did a blog post would be an understatement. It wasn't due to a lack of content, it just dropped off as a priority. But now I've got lots of stuff backed up that I'd like to take photos of, so it makes sense to blog about them too.

For the next little while I'll be posting things I've painted or worked on over the last year and a half. By the time I've caught up I should then have current projects I can show and hopefully not have a long break again, but no promises.

I'll start with some Iron Kingdoms RPG figures for my Character in a campaign we ran, which has since ended (we've moved on to DnD 5e).

These two were a lot of fun to paint, and I'm really glad with how well they match and look like a team. I discovered freehand isn't so daunting when you have a decent brush!

I have a few more figures to go along with these guys, and will eventually have my own party with 2 more characters and 1 more 'Jack.

-V-

Jade Skorne: Part 3

The force is finished! Well, there'a a couple extra pieces I'll do eventually, but I'm happy with this for now.

The push to get these finished was 'Ides Of March', the first of hopefully many Warmachine tournaments of its name here in Auckland. 

36 players, 7 games. I won 2... Moving on.

No but seriously, it was a lot of fun and glad to have been a part of it.

Aside from finishing the gold on the Immortals, the Bronzeback Titan was the only thing I needed to get done for Ides. Was nice to not be painting until 5am before the tournament for a change.

And here's some other random pics I took while the force was on the table.

Ancestral Guardian

Standard Bearer... minus the Bearer. Since it gets no attacks I used the fig to make another Swordsman.

Bronzeback Titan and Extoller 

Cyclops Brute AKA Zaal's bodyguard.

Titan Gladiator

Hakaar

The man who makes it all tick and his sneaky friend.

Swordsmen 

Currently deciding which force is next. But first, some IKRPG figures!

-V-

Not so Purple Worm

I painted this a month or two ago for work. GF9 is releasing Dungeons and Dragons figures soon, and this model is in the first wave. 

We painted up some examples of our own to show off what you can do with them. I went for a desert theme using scorpions and snakes as inspiration.

I wanted to use this little project as a chance to get some practice in with the airbrush. I haven't used one much before, and never for blending/gradients. The intention was to go from beige on the bottom/belly, to a very dark brown along the back.

The model has dings and scratches sculpted on it where it's been previously attacked or stabbed. I made these into current wounds by adding arrows. I got the idea from this blog post, http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.co.nz/2012/01/tutorial-creating-realistic-arrows.html (awesome blog BTW), but instead I just used thin brass rod and paper.

I added a little extra sand to the base and painted it similar to my Warmachine bases. For the mouth I use reddish browns and white mixes to highlight areas and the gloss varnish helps sell the effect.

This was a really fun mini to paint and a learned a lot. Not so scared of the airbrush now and look forward to using on my IKRPG Warjack.

-V-

IKRPG NPCs 1

I've been slowly working on this Warjack to be an NPJ (Non-character 'Jack!) for the Iron Kingdoms campaign I'll run eventually. I wanted to have a couple NPCs heavily involved in the campaign, 'cause making characters, and also modeling them, is one of the things I enjoy most about roleplaying. So even being the GM I wanted a way I could still do this.

So there will be 2 NPCs, and one will have his own 'Jack ('cause what's the Iron Kingdoms without 'Jacks!). I'll detail the characters more when they're complete, but I wanted to show off the little conversions I did on the 'Jack first so here goes.

The 'Jack will have a Steam Lobber, so it was a no brainer to use the steam tube from the Mule.

He'll have the 'Heavy Boiler' rule, and his boiler is also powering his gun, so it's only logical he'd have extra smoke stack for all this pressure… It's taken from the Nomad plastic kit.

I used the Avenger's gun, which normally has 2 rounds under the gun. I wanted to remove these and make a magazine like thing so it didn't look like he only has 2 rounds with him!

I know it's silly on the hammer arm, but the piece fit perfectly, and there's nothing stopping it in the rules… Also from the Nomad kit with a spike from Drago added.

I like the look of hulking robots with small heads. Much like this:

So Dragos head seemed great. I just removed his horn.

They looked silly on Vladimir, and they look silly here. But I like silly. And I also like top heavy robots… Like this!:

I got textured plasticard from a model railway store quite a while. One of my favorite aesthetic features of the IK setting is the victorian style streets so figured this was the perfect basing idea to use. I may go crazy and add newspapers/litter or something after painting.

The 2 NPCs will also match.

Some other things I did were drilling out the smoke stacks and gun barrel, and I removed the Cygnar Swan from the top of the hull.

Stay tuned for paint!

-V-

Twenty Thirteen

The new year has started, and with it a new painting mojo… Right? 

WARMAHORDES

Painting has been slow (or non existent) in the past few months. New band and girlfriend are the main culprits, but also lacking the motivation to paint new things. Well in just over a month is Ides of March, a Warmachine tournament here in Auckland. I've decided to go with Skorne again to ease my way back into brush work. I'll need to paint one more beast and finish of the immortals unit to have my force ready. I've also ordered a few more solos so they might see paint time at the same time, but I might wait for these to be realsed…

My ever expanding Rhulic army is still in the assembly stages, but they will be lined up after the Skorne. Maybe there will be another tournament later in the year to give me the push? After those 2 armies are complete, I'll have to choose between Cryx, Farrow, Retribution, and Cygnar. But they all require quite a bit of buying...

IKRPG

I have a few cool models to do up for this (2-3 NPC's and a warjack), and will start working on mapping out the campaign soon. I want to try show off the conversions I do to the figures here, and then have real fun painting with more dull and drab tones to my usual Warmachine painting, and trying new weathering techniques on the jack

DYSTOPIAN WARS

This has to be the project the has gone the longest without being started. With the last of my ships hopefully arriving soon, I'll be able to finally airbrush them all and dive in. But there's not rush so they'll probably be done along side my Warmachine armies.

OTHER

I've got a few random single miniature things I'd like to work on. I just finished a monster from GF9's new DnD miniatures range, which I'll hopefully be able to show soon. I learning a lot while painting it, and have become more confident with the airbrush, which will come in handy for the dystopian stuff.

I also have a Han Solo figure that is too cool to leave much longer, and I might paint a space marine or two!

-V-

Where did July go?

Well I have literally a few hours to get a blog post in to keep up my 'atleast once a month' streak. This wasn't intentional from the start, but I might aswell keep it going. If this was a blog about getting schmammered at bars though, we may have had more posts in the last month.

I haven't got much painting done since finishing the Skorne (which still isn't quite finished), but I've done lots of thinking about painting. And a bit of buying things to paint…

Dystopian Wars is creeping slowly towards the painting table. I've been doing research into Imperial Japanese Navy ships, printing out some blazing sun flags, and buying a couple last pieces to give me a 1500point force (including an awesome squid). Maybe by the end of the year I'll put base colours on…

I bought some Farrow, bringing my Warmahordes faction total to 7, and my painted ratio down. But, they're bad-ass mechanical pigs, so it's a win. Again it'll be awhile before these see paint, as I'll be buying the units slowly.

I 'spose the next painting table inductees will be some more Dwarfs! I finally bought some units for them (Max Highshields and Forgeguard) and with the release General Ossrum in the new Warmachine book, it should provide some cool new dynamics to the dwarves play style I'm used to. I should be able to pick up the General while I'm at PAX, along with the Iron Kingdoms RPG rulebook. Looking forward to campaign of that, and looks like I might be Dungeon/Game mastering it.

Oh yea, I'm going to PAX in a month, so there'll be a post about that at some point after.

I've also joined a rock band. Static Era. Had two jams so far and it's been pretty fun. Getting straight into things and recording a music video this weekend. Will be a learning experience for me.

That's all 'till next month. To the bar!!! *Ehem* I mean, to the painting table!… yeah…

-V-

Jade Skorne: Part 2

This past weekend was NiCon, the annual Warmachine Teams event. Chris, Sean and myself teamed up once again under a new name (Sticks, Stones & Bones) and with Hordes this time. 

It was pretty fun. Played 5 good games, met some new players and faced off against some return customers. I went 2/5 for the weekend, but with 2 of the loses being really close it felt better than the score reflects. I was generously awarded best painted, but there were a number of armies it could have gone too. Was nice to get some acknowledgement for all the effort though.

No sleep + Thinking = Hand must be on chin alot.

I spent just over 2 weeks getting these guys done. I really needed to start 2 weeks earlier so I could've got the Immortals and Guardians done too, and not had to have got lest than 6 hours sleep most nights (2.5 on the night before the tourney, but who's counting?…) The scheme went through a few revisions, but I think I got it right in the end. I think I'll go back and improve the Gems at some point, kinda phoned those in at 5am…

Zaal

And his girlfriends. Looking forward to punishing some Gargantuans...

Titan Gladiator

Cyclops Brute

Praetorian Swordsmen

Swordsmen UA

Next week I'll try have the statues done and do a nice big army photo.

Next project? Hmmm...

-V-

Jade Skorne: Part 1

I've slowly been amassing a 35point Skorne army. A tier 3 Zaal list to be exact. The lists debut will be Nicon, a teams tournament in June.

This past weekend I decided it was high time to settle on a colour scheme. My colour scheme was always gonna be based on what would look good on the Immortals. I toyed with the idea of many different stone colours; Obsidian, Sandstone, Concrete, Terracotta, etc. But I think I've finally decided on Jade. Or rather, a 'green stone', 'cause turns out Jade has a distinct colour that I haven't managed to acheive. None the less, I'm happy with the green I have found and it's quick to paint.

(Yes, he has no arms. They were used to convert another swordsmen.)

That part that isn't quick is the gold. 4 layers going on there, so I may have to revise that method. Or just suck it up and do it. There is only 2 months-ish...

C&C welcome. Not too late to change stuff. Still have to base and undercoat the whole lot before I commit.

-V-

P.S. Congrats to the Haught family on their new addition!

Equinox 2012

This past weekend was Equinox 2012, a tournament with all the major systems. I of course entered the Warmachine 35point event. You can head over to http://www.thrallblacks.com/ to check out all the details and some photos. The only photo I bothered to take was Gorten getting munched by a Carnivean...

Chris Baker ran a great event with awesome terrain and prizes. Had 7 really fun games and even managed to win 3 of them. Obviously not the best result but better than I was hoping! I walked away with some tokens, some foam trays and a sweet Thrallblacks beer glass!

As you can see we did indeed get my t-shirt design printed. A few of the other entrants now have them as well as Chris, Sean and I.

Before the event (literally just before the event...) I got these dudes finished for my list.

Gun Mages with Captain

And my Reinholdt proxy (from Malifaux) which people really liked.

James and I tried out using printed backgrounds for photos and they seemed to have turned out better than just plain white. I retook photos of Riardon Immerfel and entered him into the Steve Dean painting competition (www.steve-dean.co.uk)

Now it's onto planning what to take to NatCon in a few weeks. I need to come up with a fun 25point Highlander list using stuff I already own. It'll no doubt involve some painting. MacBain perhaps? Oh sorry... MACBAIN! perhaps?

-V-