Ghosts of Random Rursdays Past: Snakeman

On Thursdays, I like to take a break from my army projects.  Instead, I try to do something that I can start and complete all in one evening.

I didn’t get a chance to go any painting this Thursday, so instead I’ll feature one I did a couple of week ago.

This is Snakeman, from the first Reaper Bones Kickstarter.  Its painted in my traditional Random Rursday technique: midtone, wash, drybrush or edge hightlight to taste.

Snakeman

I’ve done the red fletching things for arrows a couple of times now, but it never quite turns how I want it to.  I should probably branch out a bit.

The blood on the knives is Games Workshop’s Blood for the Blood God technical paint.  It’s pretty easy to get a nice effect, although I haven’t been able to get enough volume on a splatter type effect.

Updated December 2017 with improved images.

Ghosts of Random Rursdays Past: Descent miniatures

On Thursdays, I like to take a break from my army projects.  Instead, I try to do something that I can start and complete all in one evening.

Over the course of many Thursdays past, I painted up the entire set of Descent base set miniatures, one hero (or set of monsters) at a time.

The heroes all get Secret Weapon flagstone bases.  This is both to make them stand out a bit from the monsters, and was an excuse for me to check out the resin bases without committing to buying a whole army’s worth. The skeleton (a familiar for the necromancer) is from the Reaper Bones Kickstarter, since the game itself only comes with a cardboard token.

Zombies

One of my players noticed that these guys are giving each other high fives.  Somehow they seem somewhat less threatening now.

Flesh Moulders

The purple magic fireball thing in their hands kind of came out looking like a scarf or something.

Cave Spiders

Painting the underside of these guys (and their base) was a pain.  In retrospect, I probably should have sliced them off, then reattached once painted.

Goblin Archers
Barghests
Merriods

I’m really happy with how these guys mouths and teeth turned out.

Ettins
Shadow Dragons
Elementals

In game, these have powers representing all the elements.  I decided to catch them in fire and water mode.  I tried doing some OSL-style lighting on the base of the fire one, but it kind of just looks like I’m sloppy.

Updated March 2019 with improved images.

Inquisition War: Inquisitor Volta and retinue

I’m participating in a 40k campaign over at Endgame.  The premise is a war breaking out between Radical and Puritan Inquisitors.  Each Inquisitor takes command of some army (all armies are possible, even Tyranids!), and then they start to duke it out.

This, of course, means that everybody needs to paint up an Inquisitor and his retinue.  I decided to use some Necromunda models I’ve had lying around.  My fluff is that Inquisitor Volta (of the Puritan Ordos Xenos persuasion) most recently cleared out a genestealer infestation in the underhive somewhere, and recruited a bunch of local gangers.

Everybody got Urban Invasion bases from Secret Weapon.  This serves a couple of purposes:

  • It ties back to the fluff
  • It’s distinct from the main army, which is a fairly simple grass flock/dying static grass
  • It still ties into the main army, through a Deathwatch Kill Team, which I’ll talk about another time.

Inquisitor Zanino Volta

Volta is made from a Necromunda Pyromaniac.  I gave him a rosette from the Forgeworld brass etch, and made a needle pistol out of a Dark Eldar splinter pistol and the targetter bit from some tact marines.

“Servo Skulls”

My servo skulls are Necromunda ripper jacks.  The idea is that Volta psychically dominates some of the local fauna to do his scouting for him.

The retinue itself is made of Goliath models, with a few conversions.  The big guys get carapace armor (I guess if you take enough steroids bullets will bounce off?), while the juves are stuck in flak armor.  The hair is super cheap craft store neon paint, and they’re wearing matching pants (a more muted version of the color).

Grogg, the leader of the gang

Grogg gets a plasma gun.  I replaced the barrel of the gun with a plasma barrel, and strapped a melta bomb to his back.  I kind of regret not putting on the plasma coil thingie in the middle, but I was too intimidated to try to carve that much out of the middle of the gun on this one-piece metal model.

One Eye

I figured the guy with a flamer doesn’t need very good aim, so I tried green-stuffing a giant scar over his eye.  You can’t really tell from a few feet away, but I think it works okay.

Ripper

Same plasma conversion here.

Dancer

One of the juves started life with an autopistol, which got swapped for a laspistol.  I don’t remember which.

Skinny

Updated April 2018 with improved images.

Random Rursday: Khadath, Nefsokar Captain

On Thursdays, I like to take a break from my army projects.  Instead, I try to do something that I can start and complete all in one evening.

Tonight is another model from the first Reaper Bones Kickstarter, Khadath, Nefsokar Captain.

I’ve been using a few Secret Weapon washes for a shading and such, and recently decided to complete the set.  The shipment with most of them came yesterday, so I decided to try to paint the model entirely with the washes.

The experiment was not a success.  I made at least two mistakes:

  1. The blue and the red were poor color choices.
  2. I didn’t give enough time for the washes to dry, especially when doing neighboring colors.  The washes stay really watery for a while.  I ended up getting some bleeding between neighbors, which was really hard to clean up.

I started by doing the bone sections in Armor (I think), which looked really nice, but then it went downhill from there.

I’ll probably try it again, but I’m not sure I have the patience for an all-wash style.

Unpainted model from the Reaper Bones Kickstarter
Unpainted

Khadath, Nefsokar Captain

Updated December 2017 with improved images.

Hobby, games, and other amusements