Chaos tzeentch warshrine WIP

I am not too keen on the new GW Chaos war-shrine figure, but I quite wanted to add a war-shrine to my Troll army.

My thought process started with a plastic earring which I picked up from a £1 shop. I thought this would make a good pattern for a war-shrine base.

After a bit of thinking and a couple of false starts I decided to make the shrine out of cork board. I used two cork tiles glued together. I recon I can make this look like a rough cut stone. I used the parts from the earring to provide a pattern to the base. 

I then needed something to pull the shrine. I decided to use some empire fanatic figures. I added marauder heads and arms. Now I want to make the shrine appear to float. Sky-hooks anyone?

Avatar of War: Painted Dwarf Ironshield

Last year, I supported a Indiegogo (a kickstarter type) venture to to support figure manufacturer Avatar of War in their venture to extend their excellent Dwarf range. 

Avatars of war have been a little slow in developing their figures following the success of the campaign, but before Christmas I received my first figures. A set of 21 Ironshields.

At long last I have assembled and painted my first five of these figures. The design of the figures is excellent and they make some super looking Dwarfs. The Dwarfs are quite tall and this is accentuated by me putting them onto rocks, but I like the design. There is a slightly restricted range of tops and bottoms, but I think you should be able to create a good looking unit.

 

So the design is excellent, but the casting is less so. The material that they have used is a resin - plastic blend and it has a strange grainy feel to it. However, once you undercoat the figures you soon forget this.
 

I found that the casting was quite thin in places; especially on the shields and that some had holes all the way through. I also experienced some significant problems with the weapons. The casting material is quite brittle and with rough handling from my fat fingers; I managed to break off a few of the weapons from the shaft. Easy to fix with a bit of a pin, but not a good sign for the longevity of the pieces..
 

However, once painted, they look pretty cool (IMHO)...

See if you can spot which dwarf has his legs on back to front....

Dark Angels Banner....

 A quick post today...

A friend of mine is putting together a Dark Angels force for a tournament next weekend and he asked me to paint a banner for him. The plastic banner has the pattern moulded onto the face of the banner, so painting this was very very easy. It was just a matter of colouring in between the lines. I spent a few hours on this but was able to produce a nice looking flag with very little effort.

This is when GW is at its best. Please GW more plastic and less messing....