Leviathan Dreadnought

Today's mini is a humble Leviathan Dreadnought. This is one of the Forge World ones, which I bought just before the plastic one came out (haha!) I think my paintjob is not one of the best I've done, but it looks okay, and sometimes when you're building an army, as I am doing for the Minotaurs, you just have to accept when something is done and move onto the next model. I am pleased with the pose, however, making use of an old basing piece, in the form of the crushed dreadnought arm, to add some dynamism to the pose. Once painted, I added a few decals - there is a veterans symbol on the left shoulder - and gave him a suitably Greek name, Phemius, and he is done and ready for battle.

 

I also wanted to mention that my bitz business has now moved onto its own website, at https://voidrabbit.co.uk/ . There is a large selection of bitz, and there is a flat rate of postage of £3.65, no matter how much you buy. 

Not 300, but 10, though they are space marines!

It's been a while (again!) It's been a busy summer, with my partner and I getting married, taking a honeymoon in Scotland and doing all the stuff associated with setting up a life together. I've also been migrating my bitz store from ebay to a website, which should improve my business considerable. Check it out at https://voidrabbit.co.uk, where you can buy bitz from many Warhammer and specialist games kits, bases, and in the future, 3D printables. It's now up and running and you should be able to make purchases (do use the contact form if you encounter any problems!)

That said, I have managed to make a little bit of progress on models, and below is the latest finished squad. This squad of Vanguard Veterans significantly beefs up the Minotaurs force, which is now looking like a solid force. The colour scheme of these was the same as for previous units, so there isn't anything new going on here, but I do like the conversions I did here: there's a nice variety to the models.

Things are starting to calm down a bit in my life, so hopefully I will have more time to paint in the coming days, but... we'll see!

 

I ain't afraid of no tyranids...

Today's post is a squad of Tyrannic War Veterans! Four are from the Tyrannic War Veterans set sold by GW, and the sergeant is a metal Sternguard Veteran. These were nice to paint, and all the little details such as the Ultra symbols and purity seals were fun to pick out.

The banner is a freehand design and this is probably the best freehand I have done so far. Since it went well, I will likely do some more freehand in future!

 

We are Lyubay

 Today is an update for one of the key units for the Wings of Vrayax, which is the Civillian Militia. These count as conscripts for the purposes of 40k gameplay, but the models are a wonderful assortment, mostly coming from the French Resistance from Atlantic Games.

The squad has expanded with an extra eight models, taking the total to 19 models. 

 I added some more flowers, but this time I cut them in half, as the flower tufts are really big and the models are small.

You keep what you kill.

 Recently I posted my Blade mini, and I mentioned that I had a Riddick model too. Well here he is!

He was a little harder to get right, as he has so much black on him. I decided to add a little colour by painting the highlights on his clothes in red. 

Not much else to say, except this is a very cool mini!

Camo is for wimps

 Today's model is a nice blue Chimera for my Cadians. I am enjoying painting my Cadians in a non-camo colour scheme. It's bright and fun, and it's made very easy, thanks to the Macragge blue spray that GW produces!

 

Tree? I am no tree.

Today's model is the wonderful Ent who helps Merry and Pippin escape the Uruk-Hai, Treebeard.

Whilst the majority of the minis in my Middle Earth collection are the ones my friend gave me, I decided that each army needed a centrepiece model. I already have the Balrog for the side of Evil, but nothing for the Free Peoples. Hence Treebeard! It was really refreshing to be painting a model that is entirely natural surfaces like bark and leaves. I tried to use a few different colours layered up on the bark so the model has some depth. I then added a different coloured highlight on his face and beard so it stood out a little.

I painted Merry and Pippin separately and had to stick them to cocktail sticks to hold them because they are so tiny! I did my best to bring out the details on the Hobbits, but they are so small that it was very difficult. In the end, the model looks very cool and I reckon he will look excellent on the battlefield, towering over the enemy Orcs!

 

Well, that's pretty on the nose...

I finally finished my Gorechosen box, and I'm very happy with the results. I got a great burst of satisfaction from finishing painting a boxed game,which is handy, since I have a few boxed games that need doing! 

The basing is quite on the nose, being an actual pool of blood that's full of skulls, but when has Khorne ever been subtle?

 

Some nasty folks

Continuing the MIddle Earth updates, today is a few characters from the Evil army. 

There is Gorbag, Grisnakh and Shagrat, who lead the orcs into battle.

 

A Barrow Wight and two Mordor Uruk-Hai round off the post. I have an additional Barrow Wight, but it has some damage and I'm not sure if I can fix it, so it's just the one for now. Luckily, the Middle Earth game doesn't have any requirements for unit size: you just have as many or as few models as you want and pay the points from them. It's a nice change from the squad limitations you have in Warhammer.

Sum Orkz

 I've been slowly working on some Orks, painting a couple here and there, and I've got a little group of Meks now. Two are from Gorkamorka and the middle one is from the current range.

And three boyz. Again, two are from Gorkamorka.

The filth of Isengard

While I wasn't posting for a while, I was happily working on my Middle Earth minis, and I finished this unit of Uruk-Hai of Saruman. 

These were pretty quick to do, and I used some of the techniques from painting my Black Legion cultists to get some effective looking cloth and metal. The most fun part was painting the White Hand of Saruman on the shields and faces.

 

 To lead them into battle is Lurtz, Uruk-Hai Captain. I made his base a little fancier by adding a shield of Gondor that has been buried in mud.

Back in yellow

Hey folks,it's been a while! I have been incredibly lax in updating this blog. I have been painting, so there are some things I can update you on. However, I will start with a model I finished yesterday. 

This is the second Armoured Sentinel for the Wings of Vrayax, this time equipped with a lascannon.  

The Wings of  Vrayax are nearly done: I just need to finish the squad of civilian militia and another infantry squad. Hopefully that won't take too long: I have a lot of projects on the go!

 

Here you can see the two Armoured Sentinels together to make a squadron!

 

Journey into Middle Earth

 Some time ago, someone gave me lots of Middle Earth miniatures. Lots of them. Not being one to turn down free miniatures, I graciously accepted them, and then... they sat in a box for a long time!

Well, currently filled with motivation and energy, I have made a start of fixing them up and painting them. Some needed stripping of paint, some needed small repairs (such as straightening bent spears or replacing missing swords), and some actually need to be built. There are lots of heroes (there are four Aragorns!) and lots of Men of Gondor, some Elves, some Uruk Hai, and Orks. Oh, and Sauron and a Balrog!

The plan is to create two balanced armies and put them in a box, ready to play games with whomever of my geeky group of friends fancies a romp through the Pelennor Fields. I'm only going to use the minis I have, except for the occasional addition to even up the sides or fill out a unit (e.g. I have just bought Treebeard, so the Free Peoples have a centrepiece model).

Previously I showed you a couple of models: Aragorn and Denethor, but now I am going to be showing you a lot more!

The next completed models were the Elves shown below. I painted them in a muted palette, mixing each colour with Eshin Grey so that they all had this subdued, greyish hue to them, which is sort of how the Elves of Rivendell appear to me in the films. There are a few more Elves that I will paint after after I try my hand at something else! I also painted my first Legolas. I think I have three Legolases, so expect to see his pretty face again!

The Bloody-Handed God

As soon as the new Avatar of Khaine was released, I knew I had to have one! I've never been really into the Eldar, though recently I have been reading more and understanding them better, and they're actually quite fascinating. Though I was never an Eldar fan, I always liked the Avatar of Khaine models, and the being they represented. You may already have seen my older Avatar,  and now I have added the new one to my collection. I decided to keep the Avatar in the same style as the old one, head-wise, rather than use one of the newer designs, though I decided to go with the spear rather than the sword, just because the spear looked cool and seemed to balance the pose of the model more. 

This model is really easy to build. Thanks to whoever did the slicing: this thing was a pleasure to put together. The colour scheme arose because I am planning a Harlequins force that belong to The Midnight Sorrow masque. However, I will be modifying their colour scheme to have a bit more blue in it. Thus the Avatar, with blue skin and blue flames, will fit in nicely with those Harlequins. I experimented with some other colours too, such as the reddish hues of the plume and the blue-grey of the tabard. These will probably be carried over to the Harlequins. I will be able to recreate them too, because I have just started making notes of colour schemes in a little notebook. I wish I'd done that years ago, instead of vainly staring at models, trying to decipher if the paint on the model is Mordian blue or Ultramarines blue!

Enjoy the Avatar of the Bloody-Handed God!

 

Gors for the Blood God

Last week, I showed off my completed Doombreed model, and now it is time to reveal his warband of followers. Once again inspired by the second edition Chaos Codex, my plan is to create a daemon world warband. My idea is that he rules over a planet within The Warp and from here he draws his soldiers. At the moment, I only have Khorngors (beastmen) in the warband, and I'm considering what else to add. Perhaps it will be other units from the Codex or some creative ideas of my own. If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment below!

 

Here they are, all together. There are currently two unpainted Khorngors, but apart from that, this is everyone.

While most of the models are converted GW gors, some are from elsewhere. Below, centre, is a model from Mierce Miniatures. To the right is Gor Halfhorn from Forgeworld.

Many of the models are converted with parts from bloodletter, space marine and cultist kits.

 

In the second row is are two models from one of the Warcry warbands.

Thanks for reading!

The Big Baddie Returns

A few years ago, I was looking through the second edition Chaos Codex. Described within were the rules for a daemon character called Doombreed. This powerful Daemon Prince was one of Khorne's first servants and was rewarded for ravaging the nations of Earth. He is described as carrying an Axe of Khorne and a Rod of Khorne, a twisted rod with the mark of Khorne at its head. Elsewhere, he is described as wearing a cloak adorned with the skulls of his vanquished enemies. 

Since there has never been a model for Doombreed, I thought he made a good candidate for a project, and shown here is the result. The base model is Skarbrand, with wings from a Tyranid Hive Tyrant. Like other hobbyists I've spoken to, I thought Skarbrand's axes were a little small and held in a very idiosyncratic fashion, so I lengthened the haft of the axe in his right hand, wrapping the pin with wraps of green stuff. The rod is made from the staff from a Skaven Verminlord. The Verminlord's hand looked suitable, so I simply needed to marry the wrists together.  This was then topped with an icon from the Lord of Skulls kit. Moving to his face, I added a daemonic-looking beard with some little pieces of green stuff. I then modified his stance a little by heating up the legs with a hairdryer (be super careful if you want to try this!) and bent his right leg so he could have one foot higher up on the base rocks. The rocks themselves are made from slabs of cork. Doombreed is supposed to have a collar of Khorne, but this was tricky to execute, so I gave him a sort of "halo" across his shoulders instead. Finally, the cloak is made from green stuff, and I then glued skulls on, having first cut them down so they had a lower profile. 

For painting, the cloak was kept separately, allowing me to paint both sides of it and paint his back. The cloak was difficult to paint, because I wanted to do blending for the cloth, but the skulls made it difficult to do exactly was I would like. Still, eventually, after also drybrushing the skulls, the cloak looked ready. Once both the cloak and body were painted, I glued the cloak on and attached it to his shoulders with more green stuff. A couple of offcuts from a sprue were added as buckles on his shoulders. I then had to paint the new section of green stuff to match the cloak, and overall, it looks great. 

I am very pleased with the overall results, even if the project took far too long: three years, if you can believe that!

So say hello to one of the first Daemon Princes, the immortal Doombreed! Blood for the Blood God!

We Are the Champions

 

 Hey all,

I totally forgot to mention that I put a video out on my Youtube channel! It's a showcase of one of my armies, the Champions of Plufestea (a Tzeentchian Chaos Space Marine army). 

Have a look!

 

Ruling Gondor

A while back, a friend of mine gave me a big box of Middle Earth miniatures and paints. The paints really supplemented my collection, because there were lots of earthy tones and moody blues and greens, that I didn't already have, and I was very grateful to be able to expand my selection of paints that way.

However, the stars of that box were the miniatures, and there was some really cool stuff. A few of the characters were painted, but most of the models were built and not painted. After sorting through, I realised there was probably enough for both a good and an evil army, and perhaps one day I could play some Middle Earth games with a friend. I've never dabbled in the GW Middle Earth games or miniatures, so this was a new venture. These are quite different to the Warhammer miniatures. They're in a more realistic scale, without the oversized weapons and hands that you find on Space Marines or Imperial Guard. 

When it comes to painting them, the colour choices tend to be different to Warhammer too, as the aim is to recreate the way they look in the films rather than make them bold and high contrast, as most people tend to do with Warhammer. Certainly I would be using fewer bright reds, pinks and blues, and instead using more of those earthy and subdued colours my friend gave me! Thus here stand Aragorn and Denethor, doing their best to look like the film representations of themselves! Something I enjoyed was all the folds of cloth and the simplicity of the models. There aren't as many details as I'm used to, so I could spend more time on the fabric and not have to worry about too much else. 

I'm very pleased with my first Middle Earth miniatures. I have a lot to paint, so I will do a few more characters to increase my enjoyment, then move on to some of the troops, such as soldiers of Minas Tirith and Uruk Hai, before coming back to some more characters. What's nice is that there are a lot of characters in the collection, including four different Aragorns and two Gimlis, so I have a lot of fun to look forward to!

 

Shiny little so and sos

 I just discovered this photo from a couple of months ago and thought it was worth sharing, despite not having my usual photoshop touch.

This is a Vanguard Veteran squad for my Minotaurs. There is a variety of models here, all converted, from different eras, all brought together to make an elite-looking unit of the Emperor's finest!

Back from the breach

Hey readers! I'm back. Sorry about the break. I hadn't been doing a lot of painting for a while. Where I had done, it was on a model here or there in a really basic standard and I didn't really feel like posting them on here. They wouldn't have been interesting to look at!

But I'm back into the swing of modelling and painting, and specifically, trying to paint nice models to a high standard again.

Something that really motivated me was picking up this wonderful 3D print of Blade, from Etsy. Unfortunately I can't share a link as Etsy didn't save my order in my account and I can't find the item again! It's a really good render of Blade, with a high quality print, and it was nice to paint something a little different. It's amazing how different something like this can be compared to almost any Games Workshop model, with a different way of sculpting details and creating shapes. I got a Riddick from the same seller, so expect to see him soon.  

The model came with an integral base that was quite small and low-profile, which made it difficult to put a magnet under it, so I put him onto a larger Warhammer-style base, and added some battlefield basing material. This will make him fit in nicely if I make some rules for him and field him in a 40k battle... just for a laugh!

 

Just an upshot to show you what I did with the inside of his coat. You know I love blending with red, so of course I enjoyed doing this!