'nids part 275 - Genestealer cult - Aberrants - Ork Boyz conversion

Afternoon #warmongers I so want to tick off my Aberrants as built, OK technically I already did but deep down these 2 Ork Boyz to Aberrant conversions still needed to be finished off. I did them before the Rippers but as the second conversion stalled I thought to delay posting in the hopes I might eventually complete the second one. Unfortunately I didn't take any intermediate WiP pics on the first, which I had envisaged being a second Hypermorph but that's definitely not an improvised weapon and he has no tail.

I trimmed away most of the Ork body and the Aberrant shoulders went on like American Football padding. It got glued in place and then I filled it with greenstuff. I bizarrely wanted a 4th vestigial arm which I cut from a spare broken Termagant torso. It's kind of rubbish but I had to give it a go. I also added a tiny GSC glyph as a belt buckle, replacing the Orky one.

I also added a chitin plate to his shoulder, while using some Drop Pod bits for the base and part of some Sanctum Imperialis girders which will blend with the other resin bases and my actual Sanctum Imperialis model. Although Red Planet BASE! is my philosophy I try to adapt them a bit so there are some that are more 'rural', with all the slate and those that are urban - Genestealer Cult. Ferron Proxima is red all over but that doesn't prevent weird and wonderful debris from adding further interest to the bases.

The plan with the greenstuff was just to pad out the torso but I did some pretty ham-fisted sculpting and I think it'll do. I added a little spine crest on the lower back, hopefully the painting will blend it all together. I also added some chains, that had previously kept him locked up. A dot of super-glue gel to hold it in place and then liquid superglue to bond all the links together.

The GSC knife and belt pouch completed the look, it had been the one I cut the glyph off for the buckle and just hides the waist a bit - makes it less orky. It was the only one without grenades on too, as I don't think they carry them.

As kitbashes go I think it does the job, certainly won't stand out too badly once it's painted.

The second one had a leg removed above the boot and a spare Genestealer leg was added [again no pics] then I decided to sculpt a cult skirt... or hakama. This is the early stage just to give a base to build the folds on. The front isn't too bad.

But the back has still a long way to go. I need to prepare a base that he's stretching up onto with his right foot.

I had the headless body mounted on a base for months, but couldn't find the motivation to sculpt the remaining folds on his skirt. It started to annoy me so I decided to set aside some time in my lunch break at work to do it. I quick splodge of terracotta Milliput and I think I did a half decent job.

The folds aren't perfect but once painted I'm pretty sure it'll all blend in. I think the tattered nature helps sell this, in particular the little holes at the end of the fabric work really well - it helped to have a similarly dressed Abberrant as a reference to get the same look.

When I got home I stuck a genestealer icon from the upgrade sprue on the central hexagon thing on his back. But it looked odd, so I cracked open my Empire Flagellants box set bought solely to make some fanatical shotgun and flamer toting neophytes, that have never been used. I knew there was a banner [or 4] in there and this one was ideal.

All it needed was a slight twist with pliers on the bracket and it fit perfectly on his shoulder webbing straps. Not sure I could argue he was a Hypermorph - still no tail or improvised weapon but he does stand out so might be able to proxy him in friendly games with my crew. Not that we ever play, but you know - options...

Anyway, Big Build TO DONE! Big Galactic Stamp of Approval, because why not! He's since been undercoated and if I can get the base and a couple of basecoats done he'll be back up to speed with the others.

Blackstone Fortress - Amallyn Shadowguide Big Build - TO DONE!

Afternoon #warmongers I've built my second character for #blackstonefortress Amallyn Shadowguide [#paintingwarhammer]. Now I'd normally feel bad about including this as a 'build' they are afterall 'easy-build' - she comes in 2 parts! But I was compelled by a vision to put her on a step and it was a number of days cogitating about how to achieve the vision that brought us to this point.

The step was made out of a used plasticard gift voucher

And the back of a 25mm slotta-base to raise her up a little more. Some Milliput to smooth it altogether and triads of plastic to help obfuscate joins between the three basing elements [base > slotta > plasticard].

So despite the easy build nature this was a good week of contemplation and avoidance before I got it done. It was a stretch despite the simplicity so I get my Big Build Galactic Stamp of Approval

And it's kind of based too, I mean not painted base which is the true criteria but... that will come at the end.

Sector Mechanicus Galvanic Servohaulers - Big Build - TO DONE!

Afternoon #warmongers if you were unaware Hachette Partworks brought out a new Age of Sigmar weekly mag - issue 1 of which included 10 Night Haunt Chainrasps and 3 Stormcast dudes [and dudettes], dice, ruler and a 'battlefield' all for £2.99 as a loss leader. Now I don't play AoS but even I had to try and pick up one of those to play around with. While I was in the Smith's in the Manchester Arndale on the week of release, they did not have any, but they did have an issue of Warhammer Conquest with just the Galvanic Servohauler Crane sprue for £7.99 so I picked that up instead.

My wife picked up a copy of Mortal Realms in my local Smith's and the following week when I went back to the Arndale they had issue 2 and a [much] earlier issue of Conquest with the sprue for the smaller Galvanic Servohaulers and the crane carriage, but for just £6 [on offer]!

Well it was rude not to pick it up - with both sprues combined £14 for what is £30 retail! If I get them painted up they'll look pretty cool on my next Armies on Parade - which will be my Knights and possibly Ad Mech.

With some time over a weekend I built and primed them black with a red oxide zenithal base. I'll be adding a load of stippled brown and orange in places and ultimately sponge on yellow and weather similar to my Imperial Knight base.

I've just noticed the official model for this smaller servo-hauler has the claw pointing backwards, why did I not figure that out? Meanwhile none of the tracks are glued in place yet so I can get to the stuff behind. I don't need everything perfect but I need to match at least some of the grunge behind because it'll just about be visible through the tracks.

A totally unnecessary diversion from all my other projects and despite the battered nature of the weathering they'll no doubt occupy far more time than they should... BUT I think one of my motivators at the moment is doing different things. Granted I've done the weatherimg on the Knight's base already but its about exploring that further - embedding those skills.

Recently I've felt genuine progress in my painting thanks to doing different things [not nids or Dark Angels]. So allocating time to explore variety could be beneficial in the long run. I get my Big Build Galactic Stamp of Approval regardless.

March 2nd is Old Stuff Day

Afternoon #warmongers, just a heads up March 2nd is #OldStuffDay A few years ago now warhammer39999 wanted to join a movement to rediscover lost gems from the world of hobby blogs and it's still going strong today. To choose one or more of your own blogposts that you're most proud of, or may not have got the attention it deserved or any thing that may warrant some necromantic blogpost bothering. On top of that you are to share blogposts from other bloggers which you think deserves the same spotlight of attention before they're returned to their dark nightmare infested slumbers.

So if you have a blog don't forget to root through your old posts and rediscover those hidden gems. Feel free to use the Old Stuff Day poster by Firstkeeper from DeviantArt.

Whats on my palette?

Bless me #warmongers for I have sinned, it's been over 5 months since my last confession! I've known exactly what I needed to paint so it didn't really require an overview to keep track.

When last I confessed I had these 6 items on my palette:

1. Genestealer Abberants
2. Genestealer Iconward
3. Genestealer familiars
4. Blood Bowl Humans
5. Callidus Assassin
6. Extra Knight weapons

Of which you can see only 1 of them has been done. In fact the Genestealer elements only got the  barest of attention, it at all and the assassin and weapons none. I still have an Abberant to do some sculpting on so there doesn't seem much point to progress any of the others with that figure not even out of the starting blocks. I'm looking at a way to do that outside of my evening hobby time though which might get it over the Big Build finish line.

I've finished my Blood Bowl Ogre, but that gave me time to finish off the Middenheim Marauders turn counters

I'll pop a TO DONE! post up soon for these, but then I'm free again [sort of].

So, my thinking is I should really crack on with my Deathwing Knights. They've been too long on hiatus, sitting taunting me. I also have their ride - a Land Raider Redeemer, that I think I should throw on some shades/texture at least, just to move it on [not that I've personally ever actually put paint on it, it came like this].

However, I have the Manchester Battle of the Brush to deal with:

February - Big Model - Dark Angel Redemptor Dreadnought

March - Character - Blood Bowl Ogre

April - Squad - Blood Bowl Team

May - Big Model - Land Raider? 

June - Character - ?

July - Squad - Deathwing Knights

As you can see I have a decent amount of time to get the Land Raider and Knights done, typically the Characters are my weak spot, but the stuff I've painted recently at least covers me for a few months. I do have another Blackstone Fortress model - Amallyn Shadowguide that may fill that gap.

Not to mention a load of Blood Bowl balls, long overdue Imperial Knight weapons and additional basecoats on those various Tyranids.

Blood Bowl - Human Team Original Middenheim Marauders - Flocking Hell! - TO DONE! again...

Afternoon #warmongers and although I finished #paintingwarhammer #bloodbowl team. I did decide to add flock to the bases. I'd contemplated it, thought it'd lose the effort I'd already done in the brown bases and asked online after creating a test base. Ultimately I went for it and I'm so glad I did.

It's like the verdigris weathering on my brassy bronze. As much as I love the metal effect [but hate doing it] and it looks great, as soon as you add the turquoise it just makes it better. It requires a leap of faith every time and adding flock was the same, particularly as I don't use it on any other bases.

But it works so well with the red and black and although I had some mixed feelings about the team the flock has levelled them up. So much so I'll probably do the elf team too, they could do with some love 💖

I did all these in a lunch break at work, there are only the coins still to do.

Turn and re-roll markers.

I feel perhaps I should have added a little more rust on the players, something I only decided to add to the ogre, but my Orc team will definitely have that as a feature so perhaps not. The rust is Ryza Rust, but thinned down as a wash - one way to get the effect of weathering powders without the powder and issues getting it to set.

These were the markers before flocking.

Which is nice but I spent so much time looking at the test piece below that I knew I would get so much more joy out of them flocked than left plain.

The test base, I really need to sort out all the balls as well.

So, a Big Build Basing Galactic Stamp of Approval. 

 And a Hobby Season Big Galactic Stamp of Approval, again because why not? I may not get as many models painted this year and it's the best stamp yet so I want to get the best value I can out of it!

'nids part 274 - Tyranid Warrior Termagants, Rippers and Carnifex head - basecoats

Afternoon #warmongers and I've been #paintingwarhammer on some outstanding Tyranid models. Outstanding in the sense they need to be painted, not so much they are 'amazing'. I have these 5 Devgaunts, some made from Hormagaunt 'chassis'.

I know this isn't exactly quality content but what I wanted to showcase just how bad my basecoats start off. Coincidentally Marc over at Old School Gaming did a similar post on his Iron Snakes, but I think my Tyranid are in a much worse state initially.

I had undercoated these red, but with hindsight I should have done them Bone colour, like I used to. It's much easier to cut in the red elements. I had started carefully doing the Bonewhite but after one ad a half models completely lost patience and just splashed on a load of paint expecting to pick out the red areas much as I used to do the 'liver' wash that I originally used to do.

Now if I'd done a Skeleton Bone prime, and then masked off the base and done that Red Oxide, I could have saved myself a bit of effort. Or perhaps, primed red and zenithal bone?

Whilst I was at it I threw on some Bonewhite on the 4 bases of Rippers hanging around.

I was a little more cautious on these, mainly to ensure the Red Planet BASE! was retained. All of these Tyranids will keep sitting on the shelf. Every now and again I'll add another step in the painting process until I reach the tipping point whereby a small push would get them done, should a window open up to focus on them. 

I had these Carnifex heads knocking around for a while so it made sense to get their first basecoat on too. All my nid bits are now ready for Bahama Blue on the chitin, but also cutting in that red for the fleshy parts where necessary.

With my Blood Bowl Ogre done and getting through these while I also finish off my Middenheim Marauders turn counters and a few Blood Bowl balls it's about time to take stock of what's on my palette, so expect an update next.