Eldar: my first 40k unit

With 6th edition Warhammer 40k freshly released, I thought I would bite the bullet, go the place I've never been and assemble  an army. Its not that I don't like the game, it is just that I have never been inclined to play. The change from 5th to 6th is the impetus I need to make that leap.

My son had had a brief foray into the hobby and we had assembled a few Eldar figures back 5 or so years ago; so I thought that that could be my starting point. When I looked, most of his remaining figures were quite badly damaged, but I managed to find five unpainted Eldar dire avengers. I had a brief look at his old codex and opted to try Biel-tan. I didn't realize that dire Avengers tend to be blue do I went for the green colour. Oh well, I'm sure its a big universe and there must be some green Dire Avengers out there! 

 Hope you enjoy.

Vlad Von Carstein

I am currently painting Vlad for a friend. The sword was in pretty bad shape so needed some work; in the end I did what I could and was ready to paint.

I have tried to keep genuine to the GW colour scheme which maximizes the distinction between the black and gold armour. The gold was an attempt at NMM, but it has come out quite dark. I was hoping it might pop a little more, but wanted to keep a natural look. I had some trouble deciding on a hair colour and this is the third attempt. In the end I went for quite a dark colour to draw attention to the pallid colour on the face.

Hope you enjoy.

straightening the vampires sword

I have a longstanding arrangement with my friends in the local gaming community. This is that I will agree to paint any figure they want, so long as it is only once per lifetime...


Well, a good friend from my local gaming club decided to take advantage of this offer and passed me a Vlad von Carstein model from GWs Vampire counts range to paint

The only problem with this is that it is a fine cast model and the sword was in pretty bad condition.

The sword was not only bent out of shape but had a pretty strange split near the end. The owner had already assembled it, so I could not swap it at the GW store ( I understand that they will swap with no hassle), so I had to try some repair work....

I have heard that you can reshape finecast by first placing in boiling water, putting into the shape you want and then putting into cold water. I tried this and found that once the sword was put into the hot water it became very floppy and I could put into any shape I wanted. The problem was trying to make a straight sword and holding it straight long enough to put it into the bowl of cold water. Eventually I got it as straight as I thought I could get away with.

I then filled the sword with green stuff, let it dry and filed it flat. Not great, but better than I started with. Next up I will get to throw some paint at it.

(Otherworld) zombies return!

Zombies, what is not to love; and recently I managed to lay my hands on some pretty cute ones. These are zombies from the otherworld miniatures collection. They produce figures for the role-player mainly and some of the best skeletons out there. The zombies I could not resist.

 These first three are nicely conventional human zombies. I have retained my standard zombie colour collection of brown, green and dirty white. I have used this colour combination on all my zombies because this helps create a unified feel to the unit. I like the contorted faces, but I especially like the trousers of the guy on the right which are at half mast.

and again from the back... 

 This second three are from their demi-human collection. From left to right they represent elf, dwarf and halfling zombies. Pretty cool yes! fun to paint, once I worked out what each part of the mold represented. I found the dwarf zombie most difficult to work out.


Hope you enjoy!

Ghoul King leaping. What is not to love?.

I have spent the last few weeks playing with a Terrorgheist model.  I played with his wings and gave him a new base. The Terrorgheist box set also includes two rider options. Not wanting to put them onto the Terrorgheist I now have the option of adding them to their own bases. The first of these that I have played with is the Ghoul King.

The model has a natural running or leaping pose and I wanted to accentuate this. The slight problem was that he will not fit on a 20mm base and still rank up, the back (right) leg just gets in the way of figures behind him. This can be overcome of I could move his left leg to the very front of the base. I solved both of these problems by adding a gravestone to the base. This not only gives a point to fix to off the front of the base but gives a reason to leap and helps raise him up a little to make him look a little more impressive.

The gravestone is taken from the Renedra gravestone kit. I think it looks great and works perfectly on this situation.

I kept with the same colour scheme that I have used with all of my ghoul figures. However I was very keen to made the figure look life-like so I have added multiple washes of red and purple to his cheeks, ears, elbows and knees to show up these more vulnerable areas.

Hope you enjoy..

Otherworld Zombies

I have managed to lay my hands on a collection of interesting zombies from Otherworld Miniatures. These guys appear to gear themselves to the roleplay market, but that does not mean you cannot use their figures for other games.

The first three that I have based are a selection of multi racial zombies. By this I mean I have a Halfling zombie, a dwarf zombie and and elf zombie.

The remaining three are more conventional human villager zombies. They are quite nicely done, the flash is pronounced in places and it is a tad difficult to work out what is flesh and what is clothing, especially on the dwarf.

Having said all that, they are a nice mix and I LOVE zombies. Expect to see them painted and posted in a week!

Terrorgheist conversion completed

I have spent the last few weeks playing with a slight conversion on a Vampire counts Terrorgheist. I wanted to spread his wings out a little to try and emphasize  his flying beast nature. At last I have him completed...

The main problem I have with him now is that he is just so very wide.. With a wing span of a eye watering 14 1/2 inches (37cm) he only just fits into the cabinet in which I store my figures. Even then I have to put him in at a slant to get him through the door! I decided to build his colour scheme off a purple/black base colour. I did this because I didn't want him looking too grey because it can look a bit drab. This has caused quite a lilac colour scheme to come through, but I am getting used to it!

Hopefully it does not look too unnatural close up. To complement this colour I have gone for quite a dark bone colour. This is built off a base of bestial brown (Mournthang Brown) through Snakebite leather (Ballor brown) to Bleached bone (Ushabti brown). I may yet add a gloss varnish to the red areas to make them glisten and appear more alive(?)

The width of the figure can make him difficult to interact with other figures on the tabletop. For this reason I chose to lift him as high as possible so that infantry and cavalry figures can fit underneath his wings. I placed him on top of walls from the excellent gardens of Morr set.

His left foot rests on a gravestone. Both of these connections are glued and pinned and are quite robust. I fully expect them to be able to withstand the rough and tumble of gaming.

Hope you enjoy!. Remember that you can make each picture larger by clicking on it.

A little bretonnian zombie gathering

I have a little zombie collection for my Vampire Counts army, but I thought that they could do with a little addition from the Bretonnian army...

I took some Bretonnian peasant bowmen and added some basic zombie bits. The conversion was very very simple, but keeps the same zombie look as the remainder of my zombie horde.

To help them all appear as a single horde I have kept with the same three basic colours as the other zombies. These are green, brown and cream. I hope they look OK.