Painting by Witchcraft

Monopose models are not now the enemy!

Greetings. Today I am here to talk about Witchcraft, or to be more accurate, Citadel contrast paints. as an experiment I cought five or six colours that I thought would be useful, namely, Magus Purple, Ultramarine Blue, Skeleton Horde, Militarum Green and Snakebite Leather. I have also bought the contrast skin tone whose name escapes me at present but as I haven't used it yet isn't important. What is important is the Purestrain Genestealers I painted in probably 2 hours. I'm sure many people would do them in half that time but I'm a slow painter. The most exciting thing for me is the great results you can get in an acceptably achievable time. Makes me think I can actually finish my armies! Of course they're not golden demon standard, but I've never been within an asses roar of that anyhow.

Near the back on the right is a previously painted Purestrain. Took me four times as long and looks half as good!

So in keeping with the speed of the painting I will hit publish forthwith regardless of any little errors. Hopefully these miraculous little paints will  mean many more semi well painted models hitting blog posts and batreps in the near future!

Thanks for reading

Something Big Is In the Process Of Happening.

As I alluded to in my previous post, myself and Dylan are embarking on a campaign. To me the campaign is the epitome of war-gaming so I'm pretty stoked. It's going to be set on an as yet unnamed Imperial planet. The combatants are Astra Militarum (probably the Krablokistan 47th) and the Orks of Waaagh Gitsmasha. Dylan is providing the fluff and I will write updates as I am able. Hopefully the campaign will be similar to the Andy Chambers narrative campaign from the 90's White Dwarfs which I will try to dig out to get a better feel for that sort of thing.

My Shopping List in the Grim Darkness of the Far Future!

Having made a bit of cash via PayPal I'm eager to piss it away, but reluctant to at the same time. My reluctance is mainly because of the disgustingly huge pile of lead/plastic that inhabits my loft. So I think I will put together a post made up of stuff I want to buy but I can only get them if I paint something up beforehand. First up is this little beauty from Reaper miniatures; Doctor Totenkrantz, and absolute babe of a model (if you're into rotten old half dead mutant naked guys). I see him as being a rather tasty bad guy for my Inquisimunda games.

From Moonraker Miniatures comes some more Spacelords models, space craft crew. General standing around in the way types who will either aid or hinder good honest folk or get in the way of slavering maniacs (an end up as interesting costume jewelry for them). There are quite a few very nice models from that site and the prices are very reasonable too.

Pilot, cigar smoker, equipment carrier, doctor, poser and gawper.

Next up are some novelty items from Black Cat Bases firstly an old decrepit Bag Lady aided and abetted by her diseased cats. Either an undercover agent of the Imperium or a Slaaneshi cult leader who likes it dirty, you decide! 

Smelly Mable.

I also very much like this cat man holding an empty tray. A bit of magnetising and he can hold a severed head, esoteric weapons or a bunch of grapes. I see him as the snooty servant of some intergalactic crime kingpin, but for now he is just a dream........

Cuddles the butler.

Also from Black Cat Bases (there really is a massive range) are  Smoggers, a small alien race that look a bit moleish and can be seen painted up on  The Tales From The Maelstrom blog. The is around 20 different Smogger models and if I ever manage to wend my way through the many hundreds of unpainted 40K figures, a warband and scenario would be on the cards. I like the models very much, thick robes and rodent like teeth, ideal for representing Hrud in my semi regular games of Inquisimunda.

Proper Old School - Goblin Green Bases!

They also come with heavy weapons, so a small Imperial Guard vs the peace loving alien inhabitants of an idyllic planet is very much doable too! A one sided war of extermination seems like a laugh!

Rocket Launchers out for the lads!

From Lancer Miniatures come these techno apes, definitely not Jokaero. Nice sculpts and if I ever get round to enacting some of the old Rogue Trader scenarios, the one with Jokaero ravaging and imperial settlement for parts, these models seem to be excellent proxies rather than buying 7 or 8 of the single GW model.

Bracelets and strange shaped tools.

About to consider flinging faeces no doubt.

More bracelets, metal ones this time.

Blind Beggar Miniatures are where the next few bits I like are to be found. I have funded a couple of their kickstarters and I do like the models simplicity, as much as I like Games Workshop's highly detailed models with pouches, holsters and such coming out of the wazoos, it's nice to paint up a figure who isn't all filigree and lace, overlaid with ropes, chains and skulls. The first picture are Dune Tribesmen who are denizens of Blind Beggar's own setting Farport, I think. Anyway there is a passing resemblance to star Wars Sandpeople and for that reason they are on my 'to do' list.

Sandy cracks I bet.

Another Blind beggar treat is some multi species special force group also from Farport. Nice uncomplicated models, that may be purchased once the new 40K comes out and the fluff concedes that xenos and humans can get along and work together. Failing that this squad is a mercenary band who lives and works in some of the remoter parts of the galaxy.

The picture below has some cultists that - if ever I go the road of pulp gaming - would make a rather nifty collection of adversaries. as it stands now they can be chaos cultists without any leanings towards a particular deity. I really like the leader on the throne.

So that is part of my never ending list of things I wants to buy. With the new 40K supposedly around the corner and me ordering the Shadow War : Armageddon rulebook, my list is subject to change at a whim, the main reason I made this post was so that I didn't forget about Doctor Totenkrantz. So it will be interesting to see if any or all of these items remain unbought for the rest of the year.

Anyway thanks for reading.

The Raising of Krablokistan I

Well I've been musing over my Imperial Guard and how to make an interesting regiment and I've come up with the following, Krablokistan finest! The idea came from my ongoing mutant project and a conversion I have made. Basically I cut the head from an old 2nd edition gretchin from the 40K boxed set and replaced it with a metal acolyte of the Light College of magic. This gave me a rather short autogun armed yahoo that is currently undergoing painting.

Then I'm wandering the internet, lonely as a cloud and find these:

Thinking that I can remove the Gretchen heads and replace them with some of these, I can make around 40 guardsmen that will have a uniform look. With a little bit of help from my trusty Dremel I can make an interesting few units for my already swollen imperial guard army. Below is the test model for the project, but I see him as one of these villain type henchmen who is associated with the big boss and due to his small size is rather sadistic. Also due to my inexperience with sculpting has a slightly longer than is normal neck and a raggedy scarf so perhaps he is the survivor of a botched lynching?

Little Nug as I have decided to name him

Also going to be part of a guilder gang in Necromunda!

Another thing I found on the Maxmini website that I have the serious model horn for is this Confession Machine. It look just the sort of Gothic ATM, self dispensing chemist, or Report-A-Heretic device. It's on my list of things I want so if any benevolent reader fancies making me happy just get me one of these!

Or indeed one of these:

This looks like the sort of thing an ever-so powerful underhive crime lord would have, as he avoids capture from the Enforcers or a rival. Looks like my mind has gone off on a terrible Necromundan tangent! 

Sticking it to the Man Warhammer Stylee!

All my projects are long term but this one is (I'm sure) going to drag itself into the far future.

Simply put, I've decided I want a Hellpit Abomination (2 preferably), two Warplightening Cannons, a Plague Engine Thing, and a Plagueclaw Catapult. I want these items but I don't want to buy them. I don't particularly  want to steal them either so it leaves option #3: make them. I have been sketching the first of my projects which is the Abom, its going to take is plenty of wire and greenstuff (of which I have a goodly amount), some items from my bits box and we can Rock n' Roll. I also saw on a forum how to make a barrell shaped item which should enable me to make my cannons. On another forum I got the idea of how to make wooden wheels fairly easily and the viability of the project gets more viabler. I have plenty of skaven slaves, clanrats and plague monks just begging to be chopped up into new and interesting poses. Catapults are essentially a frame with a beam and a counterweight so one of those could be knocked up. Then to cap it off I had an idea of making a third Doomwheel for my skaven one that is a ratty knock-off of a  dwarf gyrocopter. Hopefully my initial burst of enthusiasm (and this blog entry) will get me off the blocks swiftly.

Scratchbuilt Abom

The above conversion is the kind of thing I'm talking about, and the full entry can be found here a blog called a Tale of four geeks. Below is another one I found on a Warhammer 40k forum. Both figures are different but are pretty ratty as well. All I have to do is get cracking!

Abom with the jaws of Doom

Another brilliant model.

N.B. This plan is in no way an attempt to delay painting my Wood Elf Glade Riders, and more importantly their goofy horses!

I'm Not Dead!

Despite 8 months of nothing on the blog, and before either of my two followers (I had 3 but he/she dumped me) fill in a missing persons report, I have gotten out of my painting hiatus and started messing up my figures again.

I'm even too late to do an end-of-year review type thing to brag about how good I am at hobbying! Looking at a previous post I had the following in my figure cases awaiting pigmentation;

Telekinetic Wyrd
5 Attilan Roughriders
2 Orlock Juves
4 Mutants
Chaos beastmaster (converted)
Nurgle Sorceror
Eldar swooping Hawk Exarch
Astropath
Genestealer Hybrid
Beastmaster Wyrd
2 Ice Warriors of Valhalla
Catachan Luitenant
The Skaven Screaming Bell
Ratling Machine Gun
3 Jezzails
Deathmaster Snikch
Skaven Assasin
5 Wood Elf Archers
Necromancer
Gotrek & Felix
Mutant
Glam the Laughing Elf
Wood Elf Hero
4 Dwarf Ne'er Do Wells
Norse Warrior Woman 

Also in my previous years review, I had promised to finish these;

5 Marine Scouts
a 10 man Space Marine squad
Fabius Bile.

Of this long list of miniatures all I managed to complete was 5 Wood Elf scouts. Pathetic really.

I also didn't finish my four pieces of scenery, write any batreps or achieve ANY of the things I promised to do. So last year was a victory for apathy.

My inherent laziness 1 My Overoptimistic Ambition 0.

We'll  see who wins in 2013.

Bare Breasted Barbarian Buxom Beauties!

 My first blog of the year was all very well intentioned, it was supposed to be about what I planned to do with my vast selection of unpainted models, how I was going to come up with some disgracefully unbeatable army lists, build epic scenery that would put Warhammer World to shame and stuff like that. Then I started looking over my meagre viewing stats and came to the following conclusion, if you put tits (or some derivative name for tits) in your blog title then you get more views. My most viewed post 'Mutated Tits Out For The Lads' is proof. Some of the search words used to find my post were 'mutated tits', 'fat hairy tits' and 'mutant tits'. I'll be honest the sort of person who does put that in their search , probably isn't looking for converted 40K miniatures but rather something altogether less pleasant.
Anyway all this digression leads me away from the real subject of this post, some old School Barbarian Ladies from the 1980's that I painted up a long time ago but still quite like.

Behold: Jubblies!

'Oh No! My wizardy robes have come undone just as I was about to fireball the shit out of you!'

This is an old Citadel wizard that I have used mainly for roleplaying purposes but made it on to a few battlefields where magical ability took precedent over common decency.

Very pert Executioner type Barbarian and Peek-a-Boo Sally

The next two are nice characterful topless Barbarians, the one on the right is from Citadel, the one on the left is from Black Tree Designs, but when I bought it they were called Icon , I think. The most remarkable thing about this model is she is wearing a mask to pressumably cover up her hideousness but at the same time show off her impossibly pert norks. Women, eh?

Two Buxom Bare Breasted Barbarian Beauties

 Lastly are another two Citadel barbarian girls, the one on the left almost seems transgendered judging by her mannish face whereas the other is considerable  more feminine. I always feel that they are best suited to dungeon crawls as NPC's. The sort of plot devices that have managed to escape from their cells by outwitting the imbecillic guard, stolen his weapons but decided that there simply isn't enough time to put some clothes on.

The cheeky rear view.

I don't really buy half naked female models anymore, which is unfortunate as they are much fitter these days, but I thought I'd like to share these anyway as models like this just don't get the publicity they deserve!

Project Log

Well as it seems some blogs of note (of which this is not one of them) seem to have a review of their year I thought I would do the same. Ok here goes;

Well this year I have posted (prior to this one) seventeen blog entries. Mostly about figures I have painted, a couple of Batreps and my ongoing affair with ebay. I think I have painted up about 30 models which is pretty shite really, my only defense is I can't be bothered a lot of the time. Coupled with a somewhat unhealthy obsession with Facebook my spare time is unequally shared. The choice between hauling my arse up a ladder into my oftentimes icy cold loft or scamper joyfully to a warm room with a pc is generally an easy decision. In fact, its amazing I ever bother going up there to be honest. Call it dedication!

I started about four pieces of scenery, a Comms Tower, a Drinking Hole and two hills. None have been finished but I have some time at Christmas so hopefully I can get a good bit of work done. Incidentally I have a project that has been ongoing (some might say for the last 17 or 18 years) in my head, and that is Athel Loren the home of the Wood Elves.I have grand images in my head , of tower like trees, huge rooty ramparts and bridge of vines. A bit ambitious I know but aim high, thats what I sometimes say.


Something I have put on my resolutions list is painting. Both the quality and the quantity I want to increase. If I can improve my photography skills as well I will be well on the way to putting pictures up that I'm proud of. My collection of mutants will also have to be finished early in 2012.Looking back I also promised to finish the following ;

5 Attillan Roughriders
5 Marine Scouts
a 10 man Space Marine squad
5 Necromundan Pit Slaves  Done!
Fabius Bile.
Of these only the Pit Slaves got finished so I'm already behind last years quota so it doesn't look good for my ability to formulate then stick to a rigid painting plan. Oh well.

Of course the main ambition for next year is to play more games. I want to introduce Boy to Warhammer as my large Skaven and Wood Elf armies haven't had a ruck since the previous summer! This is quite puzzling as Warhammer is the game (other than Necromunda possibly) that I have played the most and have the most figures painted.

And Warhammer Quest, I really love that game and would like to run a few dungeons for Boy and his buddies. I used to roleplay a lot and WQ was one of those don't-have-to-think Hack n' Slash dungeon crawls. Considering I have hundreds of painted skaven to run whole soap operas of series's of campaigns of games, it should be relatively easy to acheive.

So really if I am to make an attempt to progress in my hobby I have to set myself realistic goals. Well goals anyway. They are play more, paint more and build more so my 2012 targets are;
Play at least three games with Batreps (should be easy)
Paint up and finish at least 31 figures (doable)
Complete the four scenery items I started (definately acheivable).
So there is my plan for 2012, lets hope my inherant laziness can be defeated BY THE POWER OF  GREYSKULL!!!

How crap am I?

Well there is a well (?) known figure painting site called Cool Mini Or Not (or CMON to be really cool) where you rate the painting abilities of fellow figure painting nerds. A long time ago I decided it would be a great ego boost for me to put some of my best stuff up on there to make me feel great and let others see how good I am. Unfortunately after clicking through half a dozen pictures of other peoples efforts I came to the conclusion that my stuff was pretty crap!

Five years on from my initial input I have decided to put a few more up on display, partly because I am an eternal optimist but more so because of the 3 main forums I frequent that allow me to put up a gallery, after a combined total of over 30,000 views, no one has rated a single figure.

Undetered I have decided to post like buggery on there to bring up my average rating. The way I will do this -obviously- is by improving my standard of painting, and photography. Well I have 9 pictures up and by adding them all together and dividing them by 9, I get an average rating of 4.95 per figure. This in itself seems an easy task to improve my average. I mean one decent paint job and I should get into an average rating of 6! Well that is my target to achieve a better than shit average rating for all my CMON piccys.

So in an attempt to understand why the people of CMON don't like my painting I will analyse each of my poorly scoring pictures.

Warpfire Thrower team 4.0

First up is my beloved Warpfire Thrower team. The paintjob is (I think) sound, based with static grass and dirt coloured sand. Ok so gloss varnish was used, that was before I learnt that that was soooo unfashionable! The background is equally uninspiring so I have to agree this should have a low score, but 4.0? That's not fair!

Barbarian #1 4.7

Next is one of my Ginger Barbarian. By this time I had discovered the curved-piece-of-paper-that-hides-the-shadows-at-the-back trick. Nice leather loincloth, static grass reasonable, if somewhat bland skin tones. Me likee. Unfortunately most CMONers don't. Score 4.7

Heartbreaker Ratman Warlord 4.7

This one slightly baffles me. When I finished this Ratman Warlord from Heartbreaker (not a heartbreaker of a model, in case you thought it had in fact; broken my heart) I was made up. The unusual colour of armour was acheived by many different ink washes applied one after another a lovely pallid flesh tone and to top it of a border around the picture. Admittedly it was glossy again with that god awful background, but hey! Nobodies perfect. 4.7 for fuck's sake!

Warzone Demon 4.8

Scoring slightly higher was my Warzone demon. Matt finish, minimal shadows and an attempt at a sculpted base. It only got 4.8 so back to the painting table I guess.

Barbarian #2 4.8

I really liked the way this one came out, the figure is from Black Tree Designs and a real pleasure to paint. He has a nice eyebrow ring which isn't quite pictured and a big bloody sword. Still for all his beauty he still only got a 4.8. Sheeesh!

Barbarian #3 5.0

Woop woop! This is the first figure has has a better that shit rating of, wait for it-5.0. It is also the only one that got a comment (nice leopard skin markings). Perhaps the wood on the axe and shield could have been highlighted more, or his nipples darkened to get that extra 0.2 of a score to make it loved, I just don't know.

Barbarian #4 5.1

of all the Black Tree Barbarians this is by far my favourite, he is quite litterally dripping with axes! Big meaty hands and a bald head, who couldn't love him? I suppose giving him pink nail varnish and a bland skin tone helped to lower his score. Sorry old buddy. 5.1.

Imperial Psyker 5.5

My imperial Psyker scored 5.5 with a gloss finish and shit background, but then he did get a frame so it's swings and roundabouts really. Does it matter that it is ever so slightly blurry?  5.5? Really?

Genestealer Hybrid 6.0

My highest scoring model! Also the most recently painted and photographed. A big lumpy base probably helped too! 6.0, yeah baby! Who knows what he would've gotten with a frame? The sky could've been the limit!

I'm not really sure what conclusions to conclude from this rather patchy data, what I probably should do though is to paint a bit better and stop whining about overly critical peers. Frames will defo help though! Best if I don't paint them as Gingers either.

Progressive thoughts and consequent brain shutdown.

Well I played a game of 40k 2 weeks ago and as is customary for me, once I play a game I want to paint a few new items for the next game to jazz things up a little. I'm sure lots of people do, but unfortunately this leads to my common failing with my hobby. My overactive (and quite unrealistic) painting schedule. I played chaos cult vs IG and that was fun. So then I think to myself, I had better paint a few more 'culty' figures for the next battle to make it bigger and better. Then I also think to myself I had better paint some IG to even it up, even though Boy wants me to paint up some Space Marines. Then my ever ambitious brain thinks it would love the idea of the Eldar make an appearance in the game ( jetbikes to be precise) as I love the whole Chaos VS Eldar Eternal Battle sort of thing.
 So after a bit of pinning and basing and spraying I have put on my soon-to-be-painted painting table the following;
5 Attillan Roughriders
5 Marine Scouts
a 10 man Space Marine squad
5 Necromundan Pit Slaves (simply because I would love to make some rules up for mining weapons against tanks)
Fabius Bile
and various human fighters that aren't really IG but can be used as Brood Brothers, Pirates, Adventurers, Cultists or even a retinue of a Rogue Trader.
And of course now I really want to put my jetbikes together and convert my Dark Elf Cold One Riders into Exodite Knights!
Is it any wonder I can never finish any project?