Rampant Misery

Gearing up for Dragon Rampant, I have pulled my Dark Elves out of retirement. Generally, the paint jobs hold up - certainly not enough for me to want to strip them and start again. You can expect shots of that warband shortly.

But obviously I need an opposing force; how to decide? The freedom of Dragon Rampant is a kind of trap in itself as it can lead to a kind of paralysis. I therefore unleashed my secret weapon - my firstborn. I opened a bunch of browser tabs showing all the possible options - undead, dwarves, elves, orcs, goblins, skaven, pretty much everything - and let him decide what I would build.

He chose orcs.

I'm not displeased by this, as I can throw in a few of my old miniatures (assuming I can find them) and orcs and goblins are always fun to paint. The mantic miniatures also look as though they will be cheap enough to bulk out basic troops.

Before buying anything, though, I hied myself to the garage to dig through the piles of accumlated stuff. Lo and behold I found something I have no memory of buying:

I therefore cracked out the paints (and my notebook to try and remember my recipe for Orc skin) and got stuck in.

The first thing that struck me was the flag on the standard bearer. It reminded me somewhat of Les Mis (showing my musical theatre background, there):

There was, then, only one way I could paint him - which I duly did (apologies for the slightly dodgy photos - taken with assistance from a 4 year old):

It also gave me the name for my Warboss, Miserable Les. When looking at all the options in the GW kit, I decided that - in true Orc fashion - less is not more. More is more. So we have a spear, shield and sword. Mmmmmmm, spikey. 

So the next step is going to be putting a couple of units of Orcs together and then we'll probably throw in some Goblins for seasoning. I also have a couple of Oldhammer warmachines, squigs, fanatics and wolf-riders kicking around somewhere. In the meantime, the full warband looks like this:

Expect updates at the usual glacial pace.

By Your Command

Still chipping away here; currently deep in planning my Dragon Rampant forces. While doing this I have been working on one of my Christmas Presents - the Cylon raider.

This was a very simple build: I decided not to light it as I wanted to concentrate on the painting. So without further ado:

This was my first go with Vallejo air metallics, so I was able to lay down the basecoat and progressive highlights very easy.

Here you can see I've done the pin wash.

One of the interesting problems with this raider is that the CGI model has a sort of 'burnished' look on some panels like this:

 I did this by stippling a black wash over some arease

As there was no LED I painted in the light along with some rough and ready source lighting. 

And a daylight colour test: 

Looking pretty good. Just the weathering and then final shots to do. 

Thank you Dan - and curse you.

A while ago I painted a couple of miniatures for Dan Mersey ( http://merseybooks.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1)  for use in the Dragon Rampant rule book. Today a copy of the rules popped on to my mat, courtesy of the author. I'm also particularly touched that I go a credit for the mini I painted in the book - a totally unnecessary courtesy but hugely appreciated. 

There was also, courtesy of the author/publisher, a copy of En Garde for Musketeer style adventures. Given that I love a bit of swashbuckling this is best surprise present ever. It does, however, mean that my intention not to buy any miniatures this year may have gone out of the window.

This also means that I'll have to watch the Richard Lester Musketeer films again, but that's no hardship. 

In terms of of actual hobby stuff, I built and primed the Raider and I think you will agree she is gorgeous even before painting:

And last but not least, tonight I'll be playing X Wing again and might be fielding this Beast: 

Joker's Wild

As I said some time ago, as a post-Ofsted treat to myself I bought a luxury. The Batman Miniatures Game figures are lovely but waaaay to expensive for me to make a habit of it.

Anyway, the first of the two minitaures I ordered turned up just before Christmas; it is the Joker as he appears in Moore's peerless The Killing Joke as drawn by Brian Bolland:

I made a couple of palette changes; I felt the gloves in another shade of purple didn't help and a blue would make the miniature pop a little more. I also added pinstripes to the trousers to help differentiate them from the jacket.

Anyway, here he is









Cylon Raider is up next, followed by an X Wing repaint.

"Nothin' but the rain."

As promised, the beauty shots of the Viper build. No photoshop trickery with the viper model itself, just a composite onto a suitable background.

I think it rather looks the part, don't you?

Let The Chains of Fenric Shatter

Got the first of my Blood Rage miniatures painted. Quite happy with it.