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!