Last Living Souls at Games Expo

This weekend I am helping some of the Ancible guys (Si and Jez) run the Last Living Souls game at Games Expo 2012 in Birmingham:

OK, the picture isn't great - should have some more tomorrow (hopefully I'll get some pictures of the rest of the show too).  It's a zombie apocalypse survivor game that Si and Jez have been working on for a fair old while now - check out the Google+ page for more info and pictures: https://plus.google.com/u/0/115032673181092400316/posts.  If you're attending the event, please feel free to say hello and have a game.

I'll have "Crazed Scientist" on my name tag, carrying a clipboard and maybe wearing a white coat...

A little elegance for the Guild...

The penultimate model of the Lucius Guild crew is finished.  While being a much prettier model than Ryle, the Guild Guard was no fun to paint.  She's very bitty and fiddly at the front, and the coat just wouldn't look right, so I kept having to touch up the blending.

The face was also a bit tricky - the casting isn't great for a start, so getting the cheekbones highlighted properly was a bit of a challenge.  However, the eyes were a dream to paint, and I think they're some of my best eye jobs.

The colours are my standard Guild colour scheme, and possibly my last use of my favourite Charadon Granite colour method - farewell old friend!  The hair was Bestial Brown, shaded with Devlan Mud, then highlighted with Bestial Brown and Squig Orange - it's the first time I've used Squig Orange, and I love the auburn colour I've got from it.

The base is another of the Dark Templar's Malcontent range, which really fit in well with these miniatures - people doing dirty work in a dirty place. :-)

Lucius is up next, and then it's finishing some ongoing projects while I work out what to do next...

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

Maybe good, maybe bad, DEFINITELY ugly

Not a huge amount to report this week, I've mainly been working on my Malifaux crew.  Ryle is next up - probably one of the uglier miniatures I've painted!  However, despite some early trepidation (i.e. not knowing where the hell to start), he was a blast to paint.  The skin was particularly fun to paint - all that practice with the barbarians is paying off...

He's the standard colour scheme I've used for my Malifaux crew so far (see earlier posts), so I won't go too much into that.  The only real difference is the brass work, which was a base coat of Tin Bitz, shaded with Devlan Mud, then highlighted with Tin Bitz, P3 Blighted Gold and Mithril Silver.  The steel metallic parts were dry-brush highlighted rather than layered/blended to give them a battered/dirty look.

The base was a little bit of a modelling project.  Ryle is quite a bit bigger than the rest of the crew, so sits on a 40mm base.  My Malcontent sewer bases are only 30mm so I set about creating my own 40mm base to match.

The "pipe" is some random piece of plastic I found lying about the house.  I made it roughly semi-circular in cross section by attacking it with a Dremell.  This was probably a mistake as the plastic was a royal pain in the backside to work with (it chewed up unpleasantly rather than sanded particularly smoothly), but it got done, and was glued to the base first.  The paving slabs and metal strips were plastic card, carefully sculpted (OK, scratched and hacked) with a knife.  The rivets were drilled indents with individual "bits" from a Brita water filter glued into them.  This was all then neatened up with liquid green stuff.

Undercoated it doesn't look too bad, and painted up it fits in with pretty well with The Dark Templars professional jobs.  I'm really pleased with the way it's come out, and now I'm seriously considering making more of my own custom bases (for my own use, not as a commercial venture).

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have the Guild Guard completed, and then it's on to Lucius himself.

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

Raising the dead...

This chap has served a bit of a triple function, a) the beginnings of a new warband for "Get the Girl, Kill the Baddies", and b) to test a colour scheme for a potential new project, and finally c) another step on the road to living without Charadon Granite.  Those of you of a certain vintage may recognise the miniature - it's the Marauder Necromancer, who came in the same blister as the Vampire I painted a little while back, a Lich and a Wight.

I went for a really quick and easy paint scheme, with a nod to my old "Charadon Granite" base.  The base coat for the entire model was Stormvermin Fur, which is just a lighter version of the Granite, but a layer rather than a base paint. I then highlighted everything with increasing amounts of Karak Stone added to the base colour, with some final highlights of a 1:3 mix of Karak Stone and Skull White.  The robe and staff were washed with Badab Black and then the sleeves were washed twice with Thraka Green.  Once these were dry, the belt and tabard were washed twice with Baal Red and the fur collar was washed with Gryphonne Sepia, with some Devlan Mud on the lower parts.

The blade of the sword was given a highlight of pure white, and then washed twice with Thraka Green (one coat just doesn't seem to be enough for some reason) for a rough jade effect.  The gold all over the mini was P3 Blighted gold, washed with Devlan Mud, then highlighted with the gold and Mithril Silver

I wanted the skin tone to be pale and unhealthy, so a base coat of Rakarth Flesh (near enough Dheneb Stone in old money) was washed with Devlan Mud, and the highlighted with the Flesh colour and White.  The glowing eyes effect was done by first flooding the eye sockets with Thraka Green, then working around the eyeball with Catachan Green.  The eyeball was painted Camo Green and then slightly highlighted with Cano Green and Rotting Flesh.

...and that's pretty much it!  Not too bad for a few hours work (not including drying time), and he has kind of an old-school feel to him, which I'm really pleased with.

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

Ancible Issue 15

Lordy, 2 months have come around again and the next issue of the Ancible is out...

Download Link

No painting article from me this issue, but an "on the spot" bit instead, where I get asked questions and I try to come up with answers that don't make me sound like I'm a schoolkid (which in all honesty, I still am...).  There are however, plenty of pictures of some of my best miniatures.

There are also some great reviews of Rogue Trader, Cutlass and Star Trek Expeditions.

In other news, it looks like I'll be at Games Expo with the rest of the Ancible team, helping run the "Last Living Souls" game - I'm hoping to be there both days, so come along, say hello, and have a game!

Assassino!

...I had to get an Assassin's Creed reference in there somewhere.

My next completed model is Apagado, from Freebooter Miniatures.  This wasn't for any particular project, I just wanted to see what Freebooter miniatures were like to paint.  They get a very big thumbs up from me - they're fantastically sculpted, they're nice to construct, crisply detailed, minimal flash and really, really nice to paint.

I undercoated this chap in black, as I wanted him to be dark, particularly inside the cloak.  There are only really 3 colours of note, the maroon of the jacket, the green-black cloak and the cream cuffs and mask.  The jacket was based with P3 Sanguine Base and washed with Leviathan Purple.  This was then highlighted through a series of mixes of Sanguine Base and Hormagaunt Purple, finishing with pure Hormagaunt Purple at the end.  This was then washed with diluted Baal Red, to move the colour back from purple and more maroon.

For the cream I used a new colour!  OK so Rakarth Flesh isn't much different to Dheneb Stone, but it was nice to try something different - a base of the flesh was washed with Gryphonne Sepia, then highlighted with the base and then a 1:1 mix of base and white, finishing with pure white.

The cloak and leather details would usually have been done in my favourite Charadon Granite and Dheneb Stone combo, but with Charadon Granite gone, it was time to do something new.  A base of P3 Cryx Base was washed with Badab Black, then highlighted firstly with the Cryx Base and then mixing in increasing amounts of my second new paint, Karak Stone (a little similar to Rakarth Flesh, but not a base).

I'm really pleased with this miniature, and the photos don't really do him justice (well, the photographer anyway).  It's definitely tempted me to buy more Freebooter stuff!  I've borrowed the Freebooter's Fate rulebook from the Ancible team - looks like it's going to be yet another game to try.

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

EDIT:  Updated the pictures to better ones with a grey background.

After the Lord Mayor's Show...

...or Salute as everyone insists on calling it - OK I was stuck for a name for this post and this was the best I could do.  

I'm not going to do a review of Salute as many people have done a fantastic job of this already.  I had a great day out with some of the Ancible team (Kenny, Mr B, Si), spent a fair amount of money, saw the Frontline Gamer from afar, and caught the Angry Lurker and Ray at the end.    I forgot my camera, so no pictures I'm afraid.  The venue itself was pretty good, but it was a bit of a pain having to get across London to get there - but good for the South East and European visitors I imagine.

Purchase wise, I came away with the following list:

• Feldherr carry case (small) purchased from Wayland Games, Si had a good old chat with one of the Feldherr chaps as he'd reviewed a case for the Ancible in a previous issue
• Azumi by Studio McVey - quite frankly Studio McVey blew me away, the miniatures look fantastic on the website, but those pictures do nothing to prepare you for how wonderful they look up close. O...M...G...  I didn't know which one to get (I limited myself to one), so it was a bit of a random pick, but the pose of Azumi just grabbed me for some reason
• Mizuchi from GCT Bushido - A dragon, for Bushido - 'nuff said
• Big Boris Mk2 from Heresy - Armoured Boris was sold out, but this was my second choice
• Hasslefree: Wolf, Ferrus and Valaska Syn
• MicroArt Studios:  Rincewind, Twoflower and the Luggage, and some forest bases for my stalled  and about to be restarted "Wood Eldar" 40K army
• Plus some other stuff that I can't remember off the top of my head

There were a couple of free miniatures too - A Wayland the Smith miniature because I spent over £20 at Wayland Games (quite appropriate as I live not too far away from Wayland's Smithy), and the Salute 2012 miniature, which I wasn't sold on, but it was free, so didn't need to be...

Now for some painted stuff:

Pretty much the same colour scheme as for the Lawyer.  The coat was the usual Charadon Granite basecoat, for that greenish-brown tone.  I was surprised and rather happy to find a pot of unopened Charadon Granite on a shelf - that should keep me going until I've finished everything I need it for.  A word of warning - despite the GW conversion chart, Stormvermin Fur is NOT a good match for Charadon Granite.  As far as I can tell there really isn't one now, so it's time for me to drop the crutch (let's face it, I use Charadon Granite a lot) and look at some alternatives.

The gold trim was a pain, I really didn't enjoy painting it - I can see now that I've missed bits and it's not as neatly painted as I'd hoped. For the rest of the models I think I might do the trim before I paint the coat.  The gun and axe blade were painted normally, but then I added some Charadon Granite and P3 Cryx Base as extra shading which works quite well I think (feel free to disagree!).

The base is another Malcontent Sewer base - painted in a similar way to the base for the Lawyer, I used some Chestnut Ink for rust on the metal and some Thraka Green on the stonework to change the colour in places.  To be honest I'm as pleased with the base as I am with any other part of the model.

Up next will be some more characters for Get the Girl, Kill the Baddies, a Freebooter's Fate Assassin and the millstone that hangs heavily around my neck at the moment...

As always, comments and criticism welcome!