Rule Britannia!

Over the last few weeks, when I've had the spare time (what's that again?), I've been working on my Kingdom of Britannia army for Dystopian Legions.  I did 3 of the troopers for my last Ancible article (if I can get permission, I'll repost the article here), so to keep the motivation up, I went for a few of the more interesting miniatures in the box.

First up is Major De'Ath (anyone who follows me on twitter would have seen this picture a few weeks back).  The Spartan studio paint job has him in different colours to the rest of the army (an all blue uniform with black webbing), but that didn't really work in my opinion, so I used the standard uniform colours, with some gold trim.

The coat is the most obvious different bit, to the standard trooper, and it's a simple process - a base coat of Steel Legion Drab, shaded with Army Painter Strong Tone, then highlighted with the base colour and Karak Stone.  I think I mixed in a little Rakarth Flesh for the final highlight.

Here he is with the 2 of the original 3 troopers I painted for the magazine:

Major De'Ath is named after a kind old gentleman who used to live next to my grandparents, who actually was a major in the army - a pretty good name I think...

Next up are two of the Sky Hussars:

The idea was to paint these quickly, but me being me, that never happened, and so they came out much neater than I thought they would.  I ditched the red jackets in favour of brown leather - these guys reminded me of "The Rocketeer" (a Disney movie I think) and "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" so I wanted to capture that look.  I left the trousers blue, so there was still some continuity with the rest of the force.  The brown was pretty simple, a base of Rhinox Hide, washed with Agrax Earthshade, and highlighted with the base colour, then Mournfang Brown and then a little Deathclaw Brown mixed in.  The webbing and gloves were done using the same method as for Major De'Ath's coat.

I'm pretty sure anyone using these rocket packs would get their arse burned, but let's not worry about that.  The rocket packs are simple metal, with some different coloured washes applied in places to stop them looking bland. and the "flames" were a simple transition from very pale yellow, through orange to red and then black - I don't think it matters too much which paint you use, just trying to get the blending as smooth as possible is the important bit.

The smoke was an interesting experiment.  Initially I tried base coating with the old Adeptus Battlegrey, washing it with Nuln Oil, then highlighting with progressively lighter colours the closer I got the ground.  This didn't look right as the near black shadows didn't work with the white highlight at the bottom - it just didn't look like rocket exhaust smoke.  The solution was this:

• Top:  Vallejo German Field Grey highlighted with Adeptus Battlegrey
• 2nd Level:  Adeptus Battlegrey highlighted with Codex Grey
• 3rd Level:  Codex Grey highlighted with Astronomican Grey
• 4th Level:  Astronomican Grey high;ighted with Ceramite White

The base coats were roughly blended into one another, and the highlights were heavily dry brushed on, making sure there was some overlap.  I also gently dry brushed some of the base texture at the bottom of the smoke to give a hint of it dissipating.  I'm really happy with the way this has come out, it actually looks like smoke!

Just to finish off, I've been using GW Lahmian Medium quite a lot recently, and it's really helping with blending, I'm using it in addition to the water as a thinner (more medium than water most of the time).  Mixing a little in with the base coats and washes, it keeps everything nice and matte too - definitely recommended!  I'm going to be trying out Vallejo glaze medium to see how that compares too in the very near future.

My plan to only buy a number of miniatures equal to what I've painted beforehand is about to get blown out of the water, it looks like I'm getting into Drop Zone Commander...

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

The Toad of Truth and a Demonic Hoodie

A few odds and sods (literally) this post.  First up are the two demonic familiars from Heresy that I purchased  back at Salute.  I've named this ugly little fellow "Scrat":

He's painted to fit in with any evil/chaos/nurgle/necromantic warband I could think of, so intentionally dark and dirty.  I basecoated the whole model all at once, and then washed the whole lot with Agrax Earthshade - it's a lazy way of doing things, but it got the result I was looking for.  The flesh was a base of Rakarth Flesh, highlighted with the base coat and Pallid Wych Flesh - the Earthshade wash gives it a nice grey-brown tinge, like something just this side of the grave.  The yellow was my usual Tausept Ochre base, but with the darker wash, and highlighted with more and more Rakarth Flesh.  The green is the same old method with Castellan Green, Death World Forest and a little Karak Stone.  Here's Scrat with Garg as a size comparison:

He's maybe a little big to be a familiar, I like to think of him as an Evil Sorceror's lackey...

Next up is the "Toad of Truth":

Fans of the quite fantastic "Big Bang Theory" (a big favourite in the Walker household) may recognise this as a quote from Sheldon Cooper, which was the start of an in-joke between a few of us in our little gaming group, so once I saw this miniature at Salute, I had to get my hands on it!

Very similar colours to Scrat, the major difference was that I used Kislev Flesh rather than Karak Stone to highlight the green, with a lot of the flesh tone added for the mouth and throat.  I've seen "human" flesh tones used to effectively highlight Orc/Ork skin, so I thought I would give it a go here, and I'm really pleased with the effect. As an additional little detail, I gave the eyes a coat of gloss varnish to finish him off.

Both of these Heresy sculpts are lovely miniatures with HUGE amounts of character, they were loads of fun to paint, and I can't recommend them highly enough.  Also, they've got me back on track to get everything I bought from this years Salute painted before next year's Salute, AND with two miniatures down, it means I have space for two purchases...

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

Bones and a Beastman

In the last ever issue of the Ancible, I wrote an article reviewing a Reaper Bones miniature.  For those unaware, Reaper are reissuing large swathes of their range in white plastic, making them much cheaper and supposedly easier to work with.  In the article I expressed the concern that this new material was a softer plastic than we've come to expect from GW, Privateer or Mantic, and is prone to bending.  On a recent trip to London, I popped into Orc's Nest and they had a good range of the new Bones line - so I picked up an Ogre (one of their original, pre-kickstarter Bones figures), and Michelle the Human Ranger character.

At £2.50 each they seem good value, especially for the ogre - he's a little flexible but nothing much to worry about.  Pinned to a 40mm base, he'll be sturdy enough.  I guess Michelle is still good value for £2.50, but the arms and sword blades would have been enough to make me balk at buying her in plastic form had I known previously.

In the first picture you can see there's a little bend in the sword blade anyway, but as demonstrated inexpertly in the second picture, even a little pressure causes everything (sword blade and arm) to bend alarmingly.  I'm not convinced that the paint will bend as much without some cracking, but I'll put some paint on her this weekend and we'll see how it goes.  I'm tempted to replace the swords with some old Empire swords, but that won't stop the arms flexing.

The Bones kickstarter was really successful, hitting quite a few stretch goals - were people aware of what the miniatures were made of before they pledged?  This would have been an absolute deal breaker for me, and I'm a HUGE fan of Reaper miniatures...

In other news...

I've given myself a new rule - I'm not allowed to buy a new miniature until I've painted one I already have.  Therefore my lead/resin/plastic mountain doesn't actually increase, and it's some extra motivation to get stuff painted.  One of these completed miniatures is an old Marauder Beastman:

"Garg" is not the most dynamic of figures, and he's quite obviously a Marauder sculpt rather than a Citadel one.  He's on a round base, as he'll be another member of a Nurgle(ish) warband for whatever skirmish game I might end up playing. If this plan falls by the way side, it will be relatively easy to transfer him to a square base if needed.  

It's a quick and dirty paint job, with P3 Beast Hide, Stormvermin Fur, Dryad Bark and Deathworld Forest providing the majority of the base coat.  The metals were dry-brushed onto the Dryad Bark, splotched with Chestnut Ink, and then dry-brushed again.

The shield is another Marauder product (Marauder shields were the business back in the day), specifically an Undead shield, but I think it works well for a Nurgle Beastman.  The green was shaded with Agrax Earthshade, and then highlighted with the base coat, and then mixing in more and more Karak Stone.

The skin was washed with Seraphim Sepia, and then highlighted with the Beast Hide, and mixing in more and more Rakarth Flesh. Across the model I glazed on a little Druchii Violet in places to mix up the colour a little, and then gave the whole model a very, very light dry-brush of white, just to pick out the top edges.

His brother Harg (another Marauder sculpt) will be started soon, alongside the first two of my Salute haul.  I'm well behind on my plan to paint up everything I bought at Salute, so I need to pick up the pace...

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

Testing mobile blogger app...

Hi all, nothing much to report due to DIY commitments (laying laminate flooring is not as bad as I thought it would be). The purpose of this post is to test the mobile blogger app, and to let you know I'll be at Games Expo in Birmingham this weekend. A couple of the Ancible team are entering the X-Wing tournament, and I'm going to be trying out some new board games, and doing a little light shopping...

The attached (I hope) picture is of some Victorian British Bobbies I did for another Ancible team member quite a while back. They are for his "Gentleman's Club masquerading as Police" Empire of the Dead faction. The cobbled bases were made with green stuff, and worked really well for my first attempt at that sort of thing - the recipient was happy too, which is the main thing! The miniatures were a royal pain in the arse to paint and put me right off Foundry miniatures...

As always, comments are very welcome! !

Salute Post 2 (Delayed)

Well, it's been a while since Salute, and I completely forgot to post up a picture of my haul...

From the top, I got Ticket to Ride for Mrs Walker as part of her Birthday present.  It's a lovely, simple, yet elegant game that's loads of fun - if you've watched Wil Wheaton's TableTop show on YouTube, it's featured in an episode.  Very highly recommended (both the game and the show)!

The first row of blisters are all from Micro Art Studios.  Two packs of resin bases (which will appear in posts soon I hope), and Moist Von Lipwig and Adora Belle from their Discworld range.

The next row starts with Guillermo, Kaylee and some leather shields from Hasslefree.  Next is a rather stunning miniature from Origen Miniatures, and "Live by the Axe...Zombie Hunter" from Ax Faction.  I got to chat to these guys for a bit which was very cool - I find it more interesting to talk to the small companies, they seem to have more time for people.  You'll also see the Orange special Salute 2013 dice in that row too.

Along the bottom is the Salute 2013 model (which is rather nice actually), and then a couple of Demonic Familiars, Sebastien the Apprentice Mage, and a Wood Elf Sorceress from Heresy Miniatures.

Now, my cunning plan (OK, it's not cunning, and it's barely a plan...), is to get all the miniatures you see here painted before Salute 2014.  Now that doesn't seem much of a challenge, but as you may be aware, I am easily distracted by new things, and my haul from Salute 2012 is probably only 25% completed, so I have work to do, and focus to keep.

There are 11 miniatures in the picture, so I plan to do one a month (with one month off for good behaviour), interspersed among my other projects.

Wish me luck...