Another Day, Another Crazed Nudist

Hello again! I'm in the position of not really having any projects on the go at present. I'm vaguely making some Frostgrave warbands and scenery, somewhat assembling a metal Sisters of Battle army, kind of painting my town full of little lead villagers, and just sort of painting various random stripped models. Since I discovered the magic of Dettol, I can basically repaint anything I've ever painted - whilst still buying more miniatures!

While converting a Sisters penitent engine, I ended up with the pilot model left over. He's a sort of half-nude loony wired into the machine's controls. I didn't have much of a use for him. Anyway, inspired by the Inq28 magazine that came out this month, I stuck a pair of Ramshackle Games' robot legs to the pilot, added some bits to bulk out the model and gave him a shield and power sword. The effect is hopefully of some kind of crazy berserker.

And now with paint...

Brother Zaydoc was once a travelling preacher, who stirred up the masses with his furious sermons. His calls for murder, carnage and flagellation brought him to the attention of the Ministrorum, who thought he was great. However, Zaydoc's insistence that everyone should be nude was anathema, and the priesthood declared him to be a heretic. His followers in the Brotherhood of the Truth Laid Bare handed Zaydoc over to the authorities, and he now serves the Emperor as a cyber-berserker, admittedly still with no trousers.

I always think that some of the "folk instruments" used by Reeves and Mortimer as Mulligan and O'Hare would fit into the 40k world, with a few extra skulls.

Anyhow, here's the second MDF house I got from ebay. This was very cheap, and it's a simple, decent, easy-to-assemble kit. They're available HERE.

I added roof tiles made from bits of card, which is dull but easy to do, a plastic door from Mantic Games and a chimney. The chimney was made from thick card, smeared with thinned down Das Putty to hide the joins. The chimney pot is actually a pin pushed through a piece of plasticard, painted like stone.

The Happy Swamp Monster

This has been another week of bits and pieces. The first model I painted was some sort of swamp-monster, perhaps a lizardman or crocodile. I was given it by a friend about 10 years ago, and it was caked in paint back then. I was able to get the paint off through the miracle of Dettol, and mounted it on a 40k bike base. It's a single lump of lead.

I rather like this guy. He looks so happy! Purely by chance, someone told me that he is a Grenadier Games miniature, from a long time ago. I think he could be good to terrorise the lead villagers, who probably date from about the same time.

For once, that crappy shiny "non-shiny" protective varnish from Army Painter has worked in the model's favour.

Secondly, here are a few more cultists for the genestealer horde. They're actually old metal Redemptionists from Necromunda, but a robe's a robe. Besides, it's probably a pretty small sideways step from "killing everything for our weird emperor who sits on a metal throne" to "killing everything for our weird patriarch who squats on a metal pipe".

Sadly, the crappy protective spray has not been kind to these guys, so we'll just have to pretend that their robes are made out of silk. And their guns. And their skin.

More Goblins, More Houses

This week, I made some more goblins for... well, I'm actually not sure for what. Maybe for Frostgrave, but just as much for my own entertainment. I don't have nearly enough for a Warhammer-type army (and I don't want to go down that route) but I do like the idea of having a small horde of them.

Anyway, first up is a troll with a goblin rider. The model is from the pirate game Rum & Bones 2, and is a one-piece plastic model. It was very cheap and the concept is nice. However, it reminded me why game models aren't great: the combination of terrible mold lines and dodgy plastic made it a real pain to paint. The surface didn't take paint all that well and I was glad to finish it, although I'm not that pleased with the end result.

And now onto something nicer. These two guys are from Tor Gaming's Relics, and they're really nice sculpts. They painted very easily, although I would have liked to do a more detailed design on the flag. Great characterful models. They will look good at the front of the goblin horde.

Last up is a Tudor cottage. It's an MDF model that I got off some bloke on ebay for £5. It's very simple, but will do the job nicely. I added the roof tiles, the door and a shield above the door for a bit of detail. The chimney isn't great and will require more work, but overall it will make a fine addition to the Frostgrave/ Mordheim terrain.

Genestealer Acolytes

This has been a reasonably quiet week. I bought quite a lot of bits and pieces, all of which, of course, were essential purchases that I'd never get the opportunity to acquire anywhere else. Among these vital items were ten plastic Empire flagellants, crazy hermit/monk types in scrappy robes and armed with chains and scourges. I thought that the bodies would make a good basis from which to build some genestealer hybrids.

Stealer hybrids come in various varieties, depending on how close they are to being full-on purestrain genestealers. I thought that the flagellant bodies would work well for the second generation hybrids - also known as acolytes - who are well down the bestial end of the gene pool. I imagine that they would cover their strange bodies with loose robes to hide the awfulness below, and would probably be regarded as holy by the cult anyway.

I had some of the truly dreadful Space Hulk hybrid bodies from the late 1980s, which may be some of the worst models GW has ever produced (the Space Hulk marines were pretty dreadful, too). I took the arms off them - the arms are ok, actually - and put them on the flagellant bodies, along with some spare hybrid heads. I bulked up the shoulders with green stuff to suggest size and to make the arms fit better.

Some weapons and pistols were added, and in a couple of cases I kept the odd flagellant head or arm to suggest slightly less inhuman members of the cult. Then came the painting.

It's a fairly simple paint-job and certainly not my best, but I think it works fine for the unit. I enjoy doing their weird skin tones.

The second batch has an extra guy, armed with a massive circular saw (on the left below). This chap was made from the top half of a Warlord Games model from the Gates of Antares range: a "Ghar outcast". The legs came from an ancient plastic Grave Guard model from Warhammer Fantasy Battle. I sculpted him a clawed arm out of green stuff to make him fit in more.

A little crude, perhaps, but they work well as a unit. I should be able to get a few more out of the set that I bought. By my standards, this is bulk painting, and I can't say I enjoy it as much as the usual style.

In The Neighbourhood

Just a few street scenes. Apologies for the ropey camerawork, but these guys looked shifty and I had to work quickly.

Here we see a potential customer approaching the local Trading Post stall. Trading Post franchises its arms-dealing and shack-defence business to various wasteland settlements. Customers under eight years old require parental consent to purchase heavy weaponry. No warheads are kept on-site.

Bellvue Mews is a cosmopolitan melting pot. Many pots have melted here, owing to the nearby reactor. The power facilities are kept safely behind a chickenwire fence purchased especially by the council to deal with the town's supply of vast, irradiated mutant chickens.

As the police walk past, an entirely respectable civilian emerges from a side-street with his shotgun.

The Towering Reactor

Far back in the mists of time - round about Christmas, in fact - Mantic had a sale. One of the things was this:

It's an extra section for a tunneling machine that Mantic's not-skaven army use. I bought two, because they were cheap and had an interesting shape. However, I thought that they looked more convincing as terrain than vehicles.

I put one on top of the other to make a cylindrical tower. Then I started adding extra bits from old toys and other terrain kits to fill out the model and give it additional detail:

The original kits provided a lot of interesting shape. A lot of my Necromunda terrain is quite low - small houses, market stalls etc - and it's good to have something that towers over them to break up the monotony, rather like the reactor in the middle of Diamond City in Fallout 4. I was able to extend the tower to the side, using leftover plates from the tunneling machines. Then it got some extra details in the form of control panels and what might be fuel rods, and some paint.

As you can see, it's quite large and bulky. As with the favela-type houses that I made a while ago, I tried to paint some panels in bright (but dirty) colours to break up the monotony of grey. The base was an MDF frame from the local art shop. The reactor doesn't actually lean to one side - that's just my dodgy photography!

And here's a picture of the top.

Thinking about it, I wonder if I should add a lift to the side to explain how people get to the top. I've also got a strange mounted device from Warlord that could be used as a communications array or some kind of gun, which could sit on the helipad. But at the moment, I'm happy with how it's turned out.

My Fantasy Novel In Paperback

This has been a busy year so far in terms of hobbies. As well as the miniatures, I write books, and for the first time I've tried self-publishing a novel on Amazon.

Anyway, I'm delighted to announce that my novel, Up To The Throne, is available in paperback as well as for Kindle.

Copies have been purchased and they're looking good! You can buy copies from Amazon here:

Click HERE for paperbacks!

And you can read the first chapter for free here:

Click HERE to read Chapter 1!

And, what's more, here's me reading the first chapter out loud:

Click HERE to listen to Chapter 1!