Do not call up that which you cannot put down: Part Two

Greetings all.

Just enough time to squeeze in another post or two before the end of the year right? Well here's one!

I've been powering through the last of my "to paint" list, and I'm actually almost at the end. Three more off that list are these fine fellows, more daemons (demons) for Frostgrave:

A minor demon and another imp, made from an old Tzeentch flamer and a familiar.

I also painted another major demon, more in line with the other major demon I painted recently:

This time it's an old Lord of Change, minus the wings (because Frostgrave). I painted them all in the same scheme as my other demons and my warband, to tie them all together.

Hope you like em!

Painting continues!

Hello all.

Well I'm continuing to force myself to do a little painting here and there. I've been feeling like I've lost my enthusiasm for it a little, but I guess these things come and go. The only way to get back into it, is to get back into it. So that's exactly what I'm doing!

To ease myself back into things, I've been working on a few loose bits and pieces that I've had lying around for too long. The other day I finished off the mutant ogre and plague elemental that have been sitting in their undercoat for a couple of years... Yesterday I finished off a couple models that haven't been quite so neglected, but needed some attention nevertheless. This time it's the second edition pink horror command:

I do apologise for the shoddy picture; I haven't got a proper set up for taking photos at the new place yet.

These second edition chaps aren't my favourite horrors (first edition all the way), but these two do have a certain wacky charm.

Hope you like them, more painted lead to come soon. Currently working on a few Rogue Trader bits, and kinda feeling that I'm getting back in the groove a little.

Comments welcome of course!

Finally painting again!

Greetings all.

I've certainly not been idle on the hobby front, but it has been a while since I actually slapped some paint on something. This week I rectified this!

This poor chap has been sitting on my desk for quite some time. So long in fact that I actually had to dust him off before painting :S

I can't actually remember whether I showed him as a WIP, but he's a Tzeentch Daemon Prince built from a variety of old school parts. His head is from a first edition horror, as are his hands, and the grimoire-toting familiar comes from Arkhan the Black's chariot (proper old school). It's not a great pic I'm afraid, but I hope you like him:

Expect to see something a bit different from me over the next few weeks and months. I mentioned that I've been bitten by the Rogue Trader bug, and the next few posts will certainly reflect that...

Comments welcome!

Hobby update: Tzeentch Horrors & Magic Marker

Greetings all.

I've been busy with real life stuff recently, but I've still managed to be fairly productive hobby-wise. I finished off the last of my Tzeentch Horrors that I've had sitting around for too long:

I'd actually painted half of this unit a few weeks ago, but it turns out that I'd forgotten to take pictures of them. Here they are with the last five. It was a fairly quick and dirty job on these as I just wanted to get them done. I had planned to use them to pop out the portalglyph (D6 daemons on a 4+), but I can't really remember the last time I used it! Nevertheless, I've got them finished up just in case.

Also finished up something else I've had sitting around for a while, my last magic marker:

This one represents the psychic power "Prescience". The model itself is a Reaper minis crystal ball, and as soon as I saw it I knew it was perfect!

I'm still cracking on with my Khorne Daemonkin, so look out for more of them soon. In the meantime, comments are welcome!

Hobby update: Speed daemons

Greetings all.

I've got another little update for you this evening. Nothing tremendously exciting, but progress is progress!

I've (finally) finished off the last of my Screamers and Flesh Hounds, and now have enough for full units of each. That's 20 Flesh Hounds, nine pink Screamers, and nine blue Screamers.

First up, Screamers:

And three more Flesh Hounds, including the little guy with the press moulded head (in the middle):

I apologise for the crappy pictures again; I can't actually get to my gaming boards at the mo. Look out for more stuff on the way pretty soon, including a rant about how much I hate the Plague Drone models...

Comments welcome!

2014 in review

Greetings all.

Welcome to my final post of 2014!

This has actually been a pretty good year for me hobby-wise. I've painted exactly 80 models (of various shapes and sizes), which is damn good going by my standards.

Not the best picture I know, but I think you get the idea. Everything you see there, bar the boards, was painted this year. To give you a run down, that is:

• Great unclean one
• Nurgle daemon prince
• 16 flesh hounds
• Portalglyph
• Khorne herald on juggernaut
• 12 1st edition horrors
• Slaanesh daemon prince
• 12 2nd edition horrors
• 14 screamers
• Nine familiars
• Three rocky outcrops
• Two tzeentch heralds on discs
• Three flamers
• Chaos bastion
• Be'lakor
• Fateweaver
• Tzeentch herald on foot

Phew, not bad! I'm pleased with my progress so far, but there is so much to do in the next year :S

My goals for 2015 are:

• Paint 100 models! Specifically that is: 40 daemonettes, eight or so nurgling bases, 20 cultists, two soul grinders, three plague drones, khorne daemon prince (forge world), tzeentch daemon prince, slaanesh daemon prince, chaos knight... Plus a bunch of other stuff that I haven't quite decided on yet.
• Play at least 40 games. I've done a lot of painting this year, but not played nearly enough games. Gotta rectify that in 2015.
• Expand my daemons. I've got about 1850 points fully painted at the moment, but I want to paint a whole bunch more to give me options for different lists. I might also mix things up with some unexpected allies (orks, necrons, maybe even "crone world" style eldar or radical space marines like the Relictors).
• Make a start on my chaos marines/renegades & heretics. I haven't quite decided which yet, but either way they'll work well as allies to my beloved daemons. 

So all in all, not a bad year. Roll on the next one!

Penultimate hobby update of the year

Greetings all.

This will be very nearly my final post of the year (I'll be posting a little retrospective in a couple of days), and I'll keep it short and sweet.

I managed to bash out the last three Screamers, and another psychic marker:

This little guy represents "Forewarning", because he can see what's coming...

Now I've got the two units of Screamers all painted, and very nearly all my psychic markers :D. It's been a pretty good year for me hobby-wise, and I'll sum it up in the next few days.

Bye for now.

Quick progress update: Magic marker, Tzeentch, and more Tzeentch

Greetings all.

I'm just dropping in with a super quick update tonight, before taking care of a bunch of boring grown up stuff like paying my credit card and other tedious tasks that get in the way of hobby time...

Got a few more bits done over the last few days. First up was a magic marker to represent "Warp Speed", a power that gives +3 Attacks, +3 Initiative, and Fleet. Something in 40k that has a bunch of attacks at high initiative... How about this little dude:

I also polished off the last of the blue Screamers, just three more pink ones to go (thank the gods):

Lastly, I finished off the herald on foot that I was working on:

I'm not overly pleased with him tbh, but he's not bad and he'll fit in rather nicely.

That's all from me for now. I'm rolling out the Stormbringers for a game tomorrow night, and if there's time I'll snap a couple pics. It's against Alex's excellent Praetorians, so should look pretty awesome.

Bye for now!

Old meets new (WIP)

Greetings all.

I've chilled out on the hobby front a bit, partly due to rekindling my obsession for Baldur's Gate (if you haven't played it, you should do so immediately). I have been doing a few bits of this and that though, and I've got a couple WIP pics just to keep you lot interested...

First up is something that I actually started aaaages ago, but I don't think I ever blogged about (this was in the early days). I've recently picked this guy up again and he'll be getting some paint on him very soon. I fancied putting together a cool champion for my Plague Drones (Plaguebearers on giant flies, for those not in the know), and I had a damaged palanquin of Nurgle rider in my bits box. Mix in a dash of creativity and a dollop of green stuff, and this is the result:

Bzzzzzz!

I'm pretty pleased with how he turned out actually, and he should fit in nicely with the rest of my gribbly horrors.

I've also been slapping a bit of paint on my screamers, as well as this guy here:

Colours blocked in

He's an old champion of Tzeentch from the excellent range by Jes Goodwin. I've got a pile more of that range, as well as half a mind to collect them all because they really are just flawless, and epitomise everything that makes Chaos great.

That's all for now, comments are most welcome.

Just as planned... Fateweaver finished!

Greetings all.

Yet more progress from me, and this is kind of a big deal actually. I've finally got my Fateweaver finished:

This guy is a bit of a white whale for me. He's been sitting primed on my desk for almost a year now, and I just haven't had the motivation to paint him (no matter how indispensable he is in-game). As my motivation and productivity has been pretty high recently, I thought why the hell not??

Now this is actually the second version of Fateweaver I've painted. The first one was the failcast version and was rife with casting problems. Even once I'd fixed him up and painted him, his staff had *ahem* a bit of a droop to it. This was... less than ideal, so I tracked down a metal version on eBay. Just haven't had the motivation to slap some paint on him until now.

You can see the original version here:

Nothing wrong with the original scheme, but I wanted to change it up a bit and match it with my current models a bit more (plus I don't really like that much blue in retrospect).

As a side effect of finishing Fateweaver, I do in fact have a fully painted and fairly effective 1500 point army (and there was much rejoicing)!

Tzeentch & Nurgle, together at last.

Comments are welcome!

Great balls of fire: Flamers of Tzeentch

Greetings all.

As promised, I have another little update for you.

I got three old school Flamers of Tzeentch painted up for the occasional summoning:

These were just a quick paint job, but I'm happy enough with them. I do like the weird original Tzeentch sculpts, before things went all shiny and Egyptian.

Comments welcome chaps (and chapettes).

A quest for self-improvement: Painting process and better photos

Greetings all.

I'm pleased to say that this time round I've made some pretty decent progress. I've finished off the second Herald of Tzeentch (which was a pleasure to paint, but fiddly as hell), and I managed to build my display cabinet that has been sitting in the corner for the past month...

The Lost and the Damned (Nurgle & Tzeentch)

Slaves to Darkness (Khorne & Slaanesh)

Blood Bowl (Undead & Necromantic)

Another little development is that I got some inspiration recently from the excellent tutorial posted on Orlygg's always brilliant blog. I've been promising myself that I'll make more of an effort to take decent photos for aaages now, just never really got round to doing it. By "decent" I don't just mean better lighting etc, I'm also referring to making them more interesting to look at and maybe telling a bit of a story, or at least setting a scene. 

So I printed off some suitably epic backdrops and gave it a shot...

Gibberdoom, Herald of Tzeentch

With his brother, Blastgnaw

Gibberdoom with his Screamer retinue

Blastgnaw with his Screamers

Group shot

These are my first attempts, so the lighting isn't perfect, but I'm pretty pleased all in all. Let me know what you think!

The bird is the word: Tzeentch Herald (bird face) finished

Greetings all.

I'm delighted to say that I have yet another update for you! I managed to sneak in a little brush time the other night and got one of my Tzeentch Heralds finished:

I've said it before, but I really love all the Realm of Chaos champions. I think they're all Jes Goodwin, perhaps someone can correct me if I'm wrong?

I went for predominantly blue on this guy, as he'll be accompanied by the blue Screamers in battle, but I also worked in some secondary colours that I've used / am using across the rest of the army. All the different gods' minions can make for an eclectic mix, so I try to stick to a palette and use that selection across the army.

Next up on the list is this chap's brother, Moon Face.

Comments are welcome guys and girls!

Workbench update: Heralds of Tzeentch

Greetings all.

Just a quick WIP update today to show what I'm working on right now.

I've started work on my Heralds of Tzeentch (partly to put off painting the 'grinders a little longer...). Just started blocking in the colours so I can get an idea of what they'll look like. One is mostly pink (to go with the pink Screamers) and one is mostly blue (to go with the blue Screamers).

These two are amongst my favourite GW models of all time (as are any of the Realm of Chaos era champions tbh). The quality of casting isn't quite as crisp as a modern sculpt, but they're still covered with detail and oozing character.

I'm hoping to get some more work done on them tonight, so look for an update soon!

Carry on screaming: Screamers of Tzeentch 2

Greetings all.

Between work and the many trials of being a grown-up person (currently revolving around shopping for blinds, followed by putting up said blinds around the house), I have actually managed to get some painting done.

I got another four Screamers painted, making up the unit of eight in my 1000pts list. You'll notice that these are blue primarily, while the others are pink. In my 1500pts list I'll have two units (one pink and one blue), so I thought I'd paint a blue group and a pink group now, just to mix things up a little.

Here is my latest offering, the blue (man) group:

And here they are swimming through the aether with their buddies, in search of prey:

Hope you like em. Comments are welcome as ever.

Carry on screaming: Screamers of Tzeentch 1

Greetings all.

I've had a couple days off boring work recently, so I spent the time in the best way possible: Painting and playing Halo 4.

Made some progress on my first unit of Screamers. I'm going to have one pink unit and one blue unit to help identify them in battle. Here are the first four of "pink" unit:

Another crappy pic, I know... I went for a pretty quick paint job on these guys because they're not much fun to paint, and I have another 10 to get through...

Comments welcome as ever!

Where am I and what am I working on? (Part Two)

Greetings all.

Those of you who read my blog will know that I've been a little quiet recently. It's simply because real life keeps giving me grown up things to be getting on with instead of painting my beloved toy soldiers. We're moving house this coming weekend at there's still a million things to do. As you might expect, packing up the flat has put something of a dent in painting and modelling time...

I have managed to get on with a little bit though, just to keep my oar in before we get to the new place and unpack everything.

It's not much to see, but I did snap a pic of what I've been working on over the last week:

Yeh, it's an awful picture, I know. What you can (just about) see there are two squads of Daemonettes (10 a piece), with converted command groups, and a Tzeentch Herald on foot. I was originally going to have these in my army list, but I think I'm going to try summoning them in and see how it goes. Still haven't had a chance to play a game of Seventh Edition, but I intend to rectify that soon.

Not much to go on I know, but comments are welcome!

Where am I and what am I working on?

Greetings all.

I realise I've been a bit quiet of late, and for that I apologise... The missus and I have been sunning ourselves in lovely Fuerteventura for the last couple of weeks (OK, I'm not in the least bit sorry for that). We got back yesterday, bringing slightly more than the allowed limit of tobacco and rum, and in turn making me feel like a real genuine pirate. Between being far from my models and having spotty internet access at best, I've been a little quiet on the blogging front.

Now I'd like to tell you that this will change, but that may be a cruel deception... So I wont. In the next couple of weeks we'll be moving house, into a much bigger place. One of the many upsides to this is that I'll have a spare room to set up a table of my own (huzzah!). One of the (only) downsides is that my desired level of geekery may have to take a backseat to packing and other grown up activities.

All that being said, I thought I'd be a good blogger and keep you all in the loop as to what I'm working on at the moment. It's all unpainted I'm afraid, but it might give you something to look forward to...

So for now, a little update on my current works in progress:

My current goal is to have a "7th edition-friendly" 1000 point list assembled and painted in fairly short order. With that in mind, I've assembled two Tzeentch Heralds on discs (although only one will make the 1000 point list). This will give me the opportunity to play around with the new Malefic Daemonology discipline and try out some summoning.

Bit of a shoddy picture, but you get the idea. Both of these guys are built from classic Tzeentch champions on classic discs. I put them on the large flying bases as this is what the current model is supplied with, and I like to keep all of my classic models "game legal".

Next up are eight Screamers of Tzeentch for them to ride with:

I've developed a bit of a liking for Screamers due to their speed and general utility, but we'll see how they work out. These are all made from the incredibly painful to assemble original metal versions.

I've also got a big blob of Daemonettes in the works. I need 18 for my 1000 points list, 10 of which are currently assembled with the remaining eight still needing cleaning:

These are the original Realm of Chaos Daemonettes, which are still the best by far (with the Juan Diaz versions coming in second). The one with the mohawk and pointing claw will be used as a champion for the unit. I don't quite have the full set yet; I may search out the rest at some point in the future, but for now I'm satisfied with the mix I've got.

Also to come are two Slaanesh-aligned Soul Grinders, but I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with them yet.

That's all for now; comments / advice / death threats are welcome as always!

Oh the horror! Pink Horrors finished...

Greetings all.

It's been far too long since I've posted (again)... I've resolved to make more of an effort to post more often instead of letting it slide. Today, I'm pleased to report that I have an update for you!

I was off work the other day, so what better time to finish off the last of my Pink Horrors? Of course these aren't the last of my Horrors, but if I fool myself into thinking that they are then I'll feel a little better... Thanks to the introduction of Malefic Daemonology (summoning) in seventh edition 40k, it looks like I'll be painting at least another unit of two. I'll worry about that in the future though.

For now, here are the final five Horrors from the second edition unit:

Not the greatest picture I know... Think I might have to work on that in the future. I also put together a couple champions (one for each unit). For those of you that play 40k, this is to mitigate against a bad result on the Warpstorm table (number three I think). For the second edition unit, this was easy enough as each of the lesser daemons had a full command group produced at the time. For the first edition gribblies I had to get a bit more creative, so I cobbled together a little conversion. I gave him a third arm to mirror the second edition champion somewhat, but otherwise it's just your standard Horror.

Finally, here's the second edition group all together:

Comments are welcome of course!

Rocky Horror: More Pink Horrors done!

Greetings all.

Those of you have been following the 40k 7th edition rumours and subsequent release will know that the psychic phase is now a rather big deal. Horrors are going to play a pretty important role in helping daemon armies dominate in the psychic phase, so it's a good thing I have around a bajillion of them...

I don't have a bajillion to show you however. What I do have is the first six from my second squad (of probably four). These guys are from the second generation of Pink Horrors. Not my favourite, and a bit of a chore to paint, but they do have the crazy, joyful features of the early versions, so I guess they aren't all bad.

There are another five to follow these chaps but for now, enjoy: