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.

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!

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!

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.