Wednesday, 2 July 2025
Converting Old Mantic Models: little space soldiers, a demon mercenary and The Thing
Sunday, 29 June 2025
Two More Monks!
Following on from last week's post, here are two more Westwind Productions monks with torches, painted with object source lighting. Despite a lot of mould lines in annoying places, they were very enjoyable to paint, and I even started to like doing the OSL, against my better judgment.
Monk squad assemble!
Sunday, 22 June 2025
Two Monks - Experimenting with Object Source Lighting
A quick post, this time. Ages ago I bought a load of Westwind figures off ebay, and I've been slowly painting them over the last year or two. I had four monks, each of them equipped with a torch and hand weapon. The models are decent enough but old-fashioned and have a lot of flash on them, so I thought that I'd use them as a chance to test out a new technique: object source lighting.
This is something that I find pretty hard. The main trick seems to be to paint the model as usual and then to drybrush on a dark yellow/ochre colour, to show where the light would catch on the miniature. Then, you paint on the OSL bits, using the drybrush as a guide. At least, in theory. It's quite cumbersome and I'd be interested to know if there's an easier way of doing it. It's also hard to work out where to finish the light effect, and of course painting over your earlier work is daunting.
Anyhow, here are the first two monks. I think they've come out fairly well, although I can't help but think that something is "missing". I'm not sure what, though.
Sunday, 15 June 2025
Converting a Great Big Lizardman
"Across roaring rivers their warsong rang
'Skull, skull, skull, skull,' the Norsemen sang.
They looted Lustria, lizards they slew
Till the Slann sent soldiers to slice them in two.
The Norsemen fought fiercely but their gold-quest failed
When the thane Thag Thagssen on a tail was impaled."
- The Saga of Thag Thagssen.
Years ago - literally, it was at least a decade - I subscribed to the Kickstarter for the first wave of Reaper Bones models. This was, in retrospect, not my best purchase, as a lot of the models weren't much good. The bigger creatures were a little better, and among them was a "swamp troll". This thing looked weirdly like a stegosaurus, but with a troll's head.
I pulled this thing out of a long-forgotten box, washed off the dirt and fluff and decided to turn it into a kroxigor for the lizardmen warband I seem to be making (extremely slowly). I cut its head off and sculpted a new one, going for that slightly bovine, snake-shaped head that stegosaurs have.
I made a new tail, too. First, I made an rough armature out of a piece of twisted garden wire:
Then I sculpted over the tail, first in DAS clay to get the right shape, and then in green stuff for finer detail. I find it helps to put a thin layer of PVA glue over the clay once it's dried, to stop it flaking off onto the green stuff.
I added tail-spikes from a wood elf plastic dryad and an ornamental tail-guard from a tyranid bit that was lying around. Other details were added from lizardmen leftovers, green stuff and random odds and ends.
Bright colours were called for, but I surprised myself by painting his skin a drab khaki. Still, blue armour and bright red back-plates set this off, along with gold ornaments. I added the skull of a conquistador to his base, along with a little snake made of green stuff. Invaders beware!
So that was my weekend (and most of my week)! All hail the serpent god!
Tuesday, 10 June 2025
Loads of Tyranids - zoats, zoanthropes and spore mines
Hello again! It's time for a big post about tyranids.
I've been slowly working on a bunch of old tyranid models over the last couple of months. First up, I was able to acquire a second metal zoat fairly cheaply on ebay a while ago. This chap has a missile launcher. While he's a very detailed model, I found it quite hard to work out exactly what was what with his weapon. I suppose it's all "biological stuff", so that's not too much of an issue. I enjoyed painting this model a lot.
Here he is with his friend, about to hit the town.
Next up are three zoanthropes. These are floating psychic creatures that functioned in the game as tank-shooting artillery, a bit like lascannon teams. These models are the second iteration of the zoanthrope and were released around 2000: the first version was a four-limbed creature like a Tyranid warrior with a very big head, and looked a bit silly (like a lot of the very early Tyranids).
Originally, these guys had large helmet-like shields that went over their heads, and were usually painted like bone armour. However, these shields obscure their heads, and I think they they look better with their nasty little faces on display. They're identical models, although someone had trimmed the spikes off one of the miniatures. If you want to bulk out your army with a conga line of giant evil sperms, this is the unit for you.
Last of all, I've painted a unit of spore mines. Spore mines were Tyranid artillery, either fired by a creature called a biovore, or dropped in from on high and left to drift around the battlefield. They were essentially a mobile hazard, and were probably intended to slow down and confuse the enemy. They come in three varieties (frag, acid and krak), and were both plastic and metal. I bought some of these models as a bunch, and others came with various old tyranids. I collected them together until I had enough for a little unit.
Strange looking things, really (they remind me of Smarties), but they do fit the rather jolly colours of the rest of the army, and they're actually quite nice miniatures. They would make good weird little aliens, too.
I'm not sure what I'll be painting next, but I think it will be some kind of fantasy creature. We shall see!
Monday, 2 June 2025
Retro Chaos Dreadnought
Hello! I've had a busy week. I went to Glastonbury to relax for a couple of days, which was great, and then I injured my knee, which was less great. The damage isn't awful, but it does make sitting down to paint uncomfortable, and so I've been chipping away at little bits and bobs.
That said, I have been able to finish a model that I've been working on for a while. Hybrid Miniatures make a range of retro-styled miniatures, some of them quite reminiscent of 40k models from the good old days. They were having a sale of some of their old-school resin dreadnoughts, and I took the opportunity to get one of these.
The old dreadnought was the first dreadnought specifically made for Chaos, and can be seen in the blue Citadel catalogue. It had a very organic, Giger-ish look, with pipes and pincers, and an odd big skull for a head. It looked really cool to my mind and is my favourite version of the Chaos dread. Later versions were either blocky and awkward-looking (the 3rd ed version) or very fleshy (the Hellbrute).
Anyhow, I went for a similar colour scheme to that which I used on a Necromunda Spyrer a while back. I highlighted the black with both grey and khaki. The weapons and pipes were painted quite brightly, for contrast and as a nod to the old version. I also painted a few pipes to look organic. Anyhow, here we are! It's 90% finished, but there are a couple of bits that I'd like to add to.
Monday, 26 May 2025
Zoidberg meets the Mekon
Monday, 19 May 2025
Space Marine Whirlwind Conversion (and bonus rhino)
Last time, I made a whopping great cannon to go on the roof of a space marine Rhino. I also promised further silliness. And I've been hard at work to do just that.
Back in the days, I purchased a plastic Empire hellsturm rocket launcher, a sort of multiple firework array on a cannon chassis. I put this onto a Rhino to make a very medieval Whirlwind tank.
The basis of the conversion is one of the plates that goes on the back of the Rhino. The Vindicator cannon lifts off, and I used the plate with a hole for a hatch in it. I put a Lego cog into the hole and stuck it in place with plasticard, to be the part that the launcher sits on. Here's a picture of a normal plate and my version.
The rocket launcher went on top. I added a piece that holds some extra rockets, in case the marines get excited and fire all their fireworks at once.
It was painted in suitably jolly and heraldic colours, to match the overall scheme.
Whoosh!
Now, I thought it would be good to finish this project off by making a flat panel to go on the top, for when the marines just need nothing fancier than a Rhino. I found some doors and glued them together.
I wanted to decorate the doors, but I know my limits. There's no way that I could do the sort of freehand that wins modern competition. But I could draw as well as a medieval monk who's never left his cloiser, and so that's what I did. Hence this:
That looks suitably antiquated. Here it is on the tank.
That was fun!
Monday, 12 May 2025
Space Marine Vindicator Conversion
It's a little tank with a great big gun!
Inspired by last week's comments, I decided to have another go at a conversion I did many years ago. It was gathering dust and slowly falling apart at the back of a cupboard, and I fished it out to see what I could do.
Before all that Primaris nonsense, space marine tanks were largely based on the Rhino APC chassis. The two main variants, the Vindicator and the Whirlwind, had a big cannon and a missile launcher, respectively. I must have realised that, if you could make the bits interchangeable, you could, er, interchange them.
So, I had bought a Rhino and got to work building a massive cannon to go on the roof. The "real" Vindicator has its cannon at the front, but this would be easier to swap out and would look more cool/ridiculous. I built the cannon out of a pipe from an old scenery kit, along with parts from various Empire buildings. When I fished it out last week, the tank looked like this:
Very dusty. I didn't really like the ram on the front, so I removed it. I also felt that the cannon looked a bit basic and front-heavy, so I made some hydraulics out of bits left over from a knight titan. Plasticard was used to attach them and space things out.
A bit better. Once painted it looked like this. I used a basic grey shaded up slightly and washed with thinned-down brown to represent dirt. It's nothing very fancy but it helps to bring out the details.
I also added some details from Empire kits and the spare parts from the original Rhino. Then it was time for paint!
Sunday, 4 May 2025
More Medieval Marines
Here are some marines. I had so much trouble getting a half-decent photograph of any of these.
This is a "masters of the chapter" model which was missing a head and an arm.
This guy is an unconverted veteran marine.
The two below are lower-ranking marines with basic bolters, based on some pretty battered plastic marines that I got from ebay. This bloke has a Bretonnian man-at-arms head and helmet.
And the final marine has an Empire shield on his left pauldron. I used chequered patterns for variety and to suggest additional heraldry.
Sunday, 27 April 2025
Female Fighters for Mordheim
I thought it would be nice to include a couple of female adventurers in the Mordheim warband. For one thing, it provides a bit of visual variety and for another you get some more opportunities for modelling random people.
The first one I made used a lower body from a very mangled Eldar warlock that I got a long time ago. The upper body was a Tempestus Scion breastplate, with some old Mordheim mercenary arms, and a head from Stargrave. She looks like a tough customer!
I kept with the usual colour scheme, but tried a more complex pattern on her skirts. This involved a "weaving" pattern, which I copied from a Bretonnian knight. I found this really difficult, and frankly it made my head hurt. It's done now, although I think it could be better. Maybe sometime I'll have another go, but for now I'll move on.
The second miniature is an archer to round off my small band of bowmen. I had previously made a "youngblood" (ie a novice fighter) with the lower half of a plastic flagellant, so I used this lower body to work as her skirt. I sculpted a torso around a piece of sprue, and added Frostgrave arms and a Stargrave head. Her magnificent hat was in my bits box.
Here she is painted. I really like this model. My sculpting could be better, now I look at it, but I'm quite pleased with the results. I imagine that she might have been a professional archer, appearing in shows to entertain the people of Mordheim, before the comet struck and the city fell into chaos. Now she puts her skills to new uses, scouting in the ruins.