Sunday 30 April 2017

Wolves, wolves, wolves

Crossing a couple of games here, but it would feel a little repetitive making multiple posts on the same topic.

I'm painting wolves. Lots of wolves. Many wolves.

Doing inventory over Christmas on what needed painting and realised I had wolves from several different games - Zombicide: Black Plague, Conan, Warhammer 40,000 and Blood Rage. It occurred to me that if I painted them in two groups - grey and brown, it could give nice variation on the game boards. This is the first batch of the greys for Zombicide and Conan.



It's not a complex formula. Undercoated black, airbrushed grey, then a lighter grey, then heavy washes, then pick out a few details and add eyes. Done! Been a while since I just bashed out tabletop quality units, and after the brain melting complexity of the Hasslefree figures, it was a welcome change of pace - throwing the painting into automatic and just getting something wrapped up.

Red Box: Hostrom Hammersmite

More free time, and more Red Box! This time it's Hostrom Hammersmite.



I wanted to develop a theme through my little set of figures where each of them is quite muted but has a a different colour on fabrics. So the previous one, Ullr, was blue and this is red ... so something different next. My hope is that when they're all in the same group it will look quite nice - but let's see how that goes.

Only a few on the Red Box pile to go now. Which is just as well, as my brain can't handle this detail for too long - something simpler required next!

Saturday 29 April 2017

Red Box: Ullr the Red

Still working through the Salute 2016 backlog and finishing up my Nordic-themed purchases from the super lovely Hasslefree - they were selling the Red Box Games range of Norsemen.



Detail on these feels a little beyond me at times. The faces are so intricate and I'm just not there yet for picking out all the features, which is occasionally frustrating - but we got there. This is another without a basing theme as I'm not sure where I want these to go yet.

Sunday 23 April 2017

Warhammer 40k: Space Ork Raiders

This weekend saw the ever enjoyable Salute happen, and a friend of mine flew over from Holland to attend. As he was the brain behind the 90-Minute Miniature Challenge, it seemed a perfect opportunity for us to go head-to-head for our April challenge to see how we do!



Guesses as to who painted which one are welcome. The figure is one of the original RTB02 Space Ork Raiders. I picked up a box of them last year and thought this was a nice step up from recent efforts. Big, chunky features and packed with character.

We were both surprised that around 70 minutes we had all the main detail in place - so it was a case of going back and picking up highlights to push up some contrast. Far more controlled than my recent mad dashes to meet the time limit.

They're not based, as my Ork army is in limbo while I decide what to do with them in 8th edition, and his is going back to Holland for some nefarious purpose.

Saturday 1 April 2017

The Wicken King

Another model from my Salute 2016 pile that demanded attention. Broken Toad's lovely Wicken King bust.




This is the first bust I've ever painted, so there's been a struggle trying to understand how to play with shadows on something of this size. When it's a 28mm figure, my brain goes "yep, that's fine, more shadow!" but on a larger piece there are natural shadows too - and that needs more thinking.

I wanted it to look like he's wearing some sort of horrific skin mask over his actual face. Lot of things I'm happy with, including the mix of textures and colours but still room for improvement especially in understanding the concept of volume.