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So, I was very productive on my snow day today. I finished up this critter; it's a Griffhound made by GW for their AOS fantasy wargame. I dont play that, so I figure he'll make an interesting stand in for a war dog in a FrostGrave or perhaps Mordheim warband. I hope you like him.

This is actually a 54mm miniature; it was made by GW for their long OOP Inquisitor game. It came as a pet/sidekick for the mutant character Quovandius. I got the pair of them for $1.50 at a store clearance sale. While going through boxes the other day, I found the rat, but not the other figure. I decided the rat would make an excellent mad scientists experiment, so I painted it up. Please let me know what you think.

So back in December I decided that one of my hobby goals for 2022 would be to finally complete painting one of my 90s era 40k forces. Upon inspection of my forces, my Sisters of Battle army seemed the most likely candidate to start with, as it only has 24 figures and a vehicle. Up on my whiteboard I have a spot to track my progress on the army with a goal of working on them at least a little bit each month, with the intent of having the army complete before midnight Dec 31st. These are going to be from my own made up Order of the Ebon Tower, with a color scheme of cream/ivory armor, purple cloth with red linings and purple weapons. The symbol is a black tower using the same decal I used for my Soldiers of Dalend models, seen here. This is not a coincidence - the black tower decal was originally designed specifically for this army, it just got repurposed for my fantasy Dalend soldiers. Eight minis and the Immolator were partially painted with crappy 90's paint jobs (using craft paints), eight were simply primed white, and 8 were unassembled. As inspected the partially painted ones, I didn't see anyway to make them look good with such a crappy base coat on 25+ year old paint. So into a can of Simple Green they went - though I now regret not snapping a photo of that bad paint job: That was Saturday. Monday night I pulled them out and scrubbed them with a toothbrush which took off about 75% of the paint, and threw them back in. Tonight I pulled them out and did the toothbrush thing again. They're mostly clean now - trying to figure out if I can get them any cleaner: Those of you who have more experience stripping with Simple Green than I do - is this as good as I'm going to get? These ladies are primed white already, still trying to decide if I want to use a white, gray or black primer as my base coat. I'm leaning towards white, but am still undecided. If I use something else, these might have to go into the Simple Green as well. Next are the eight that were unassembled, plus the backpacks for them and the primed ones. I spent some time cleaning flash off of these, putting them on bases, etc. My standards for prep have gotten higher since the 90s - I could see marks of previous half-hearted prep efforts. So for the backpacks, I've filed off the fleur-de-lis in preperation of putting my decals on. I did a much better job of filing these smooth than I did back in the 90s, so those stripped ones are going to have to get filed to match. Instead of using decals, I may try to figure out how to stamp something out of green stuff, or 3d print something. I will probably leave the fleur-de-lis on the seraphim's backpacks, as I don't want to risk messing up other details trying to file them off. The final part of this project is the Immolator tank. As you can see, I sculpted (poorly) some towers for the Rhino doors, but I decided those weren't to the quality I am capable of now. So I fired up Fusion 360, and designed a replacement door with better detail: It's on the 3d printer now, so we'll see how it comes out. I'm pretty happy with my progress on this project this month, so I'll probably set it aside until mid-February and go back to painting Warmaster for my upcoming game. Look for another update then - and poke me with a sharp stick if you don't get a monthly update from me.

Hi Gang, Been a while... this project took some time. The shoulder and knee pads were a lot of "cut and paste" (read kitbash). This isn't strictly the "Emperor's" lore, but I'm just a painter so I do whatever I like. I've also been a bit obsessed with fluorescent paint lately, and the plasma gun got the full treatment. In the end I didn't try pushing this project further as I was just running out of gas. Perhaps I could have left it on the "shelf of aging" for a while and come back to it, but in the end they made a sweet squad that I'm pleased with. See the sides, back and all that. Here. Thanks for checking it out, HMP

As I mentioned in the thread on the Captain with Terminator Honours, here is the best painted Dreadnaught I have done, the trident symbol on the front is the chapter insignia. Let me know what you think!

Started this guy back in 2010 and, after eleven years of on and off work (mostly off), I'm going to say he's finished. There are things I could do better now than when I started him, and certainly areas I could try to tweak more, but I'd rather save the energy/time for another figure. 54mm Games Workshop "Brother Artemis" Space Marine from the old "Inquisitor" game. Made a few minor tweaks (repositioned the sword) and left off a few bits 'cause I didn't like how they looked. Base was sanded down and then rebuilt with plastic card to look industrial. Nowadays I can just buy 40mm bases that are done this way. It was actually the first part thing that got painted which meant I had to be careful when I was painting the figure! Painted primarily with Reaper paints.

Hey all, Mods if this is not acceptable please feel free to delete. I started a new project. last week. I bought the mini at a game store that I go to to paint with Ludo. I had another friend give me more minis... so I am turning this what was going to be just the one, into an army. I am still working on this one, but I thought you all might like to see it. Anyways here is the Commander:

Down Under We Are Behind A couple of months ago the Mortal Realms magazine finally got to Australia. Near that period of time I also brought some Wargames Atlantic skeletons. Now that it is deadcember, I decided to post some of the figures I have painted. GW: Stuff I already had I had these GW models from when they came out, (also have the wraiths, which are 90% finished, so hopefully I should post them in the future). GW: Mortal Realms 1 (Chain Rasps) Being in Australia, where chain rasps cost 70AUD for 10. The first issue of Mortal Realms (6AUD for Chain Rasps and SigMarines). Well it was hard to pass up on the value, especially since I do enjoy the chain rasp aesthetic. This were speed painted with oils. So that was a nice experience. The painted wanted to wipe itself off, but it was a lot faster than if I did it with acrylics. GW: Conversion Now the chain rasp kit has one option for one of the ten chain rasps. Yes, it's insane how much it costs for such a limited kit. I know it is push fit, but so are the Sigmarines and they come in the same size of sprue. So being left with one nice large piece, I decided to modify the figure. Using green stuff I sculpted some robes, one hand and the weapon. A paperclip acted as arms and weapon shaft. Wargames Atlantic: Skeleton Archers. The variety of bits on the sprue is quite nice, sadly there is only enough bows to make 8 bowmen. And the weapon variety can be said to be lacking (e.g. only ancient greek weapon, and one helmet option). I am sure you could modify some of the spears to make a long bow, but then you would be either missing some arrows or a quiver. I decided to make the maximum amount the box permitted. The helmeted head is the unmodified version from the sprue. Wargames Atlantic: Javelins There was some modification on the javelins, spears. I followed a guide that was advertised on the Wargames Atlantic site. I did go a little further, by cutting one spear in half and passing both halves onto a shield arm (figure pointing). All the shields are freehand, and based on some website that had designs that were broken down by time period (I think, they were from vases or murals). Wargames Atlantic: The pike, that has a special name. I forgot said name. I may have put the shields with the semicircles missing, the wrong way around (got confused with a different shield). I noticed this too late, and did not want to modify the figures or repaint the designs. Once again he helmet is the one from the sprue. There are only eight of the pikes on the sprue, but in the end I decided to have only 6 figures hold them. The reason will become apparent later. Wargames Atlantic: Heavy Spears. Now, I started doing some modifications. The spear arm of the horn blower was heavily modified, including the cutting of a thumb and using a bit of cut off sprue to make the proper one (to make it a left hand). All but the helmet of the sword wielder are the modified versions from sprue (with the decorations being either fully removed or modified, all the decoration types were based on some helmets I found on the internet). Wargames Atlantic: Dancing Devils Now, I was a little bored of making just skeletons. The kit comes with eight ram skulls. I decided to use 6 of them to make some devil figure, I decided to make them look like if they were dancing. Furthermore, to make them more devil like, I decided to give some of them amazing decorations. This is where the cut of pieces from the helmets became useful. In the end I was going into more of the medieval dancing skeletons.

December has only just begun but this year's ornament is already finished. Unlike previous years I decided to wait until the piece was finished rather than run a WIP thread. With the little one being a lot more involved this year it certainly made things easier. Our daily progress was also lower too as you can only keep a two and a half year olds attention for so long. Starting out I knew I wanted the little one to be more involved this year. Plus she's certainly been showing more and more interest in what I've been doing at my desk lately. With a bit of thinking and planning (something we all know I usually avoid) I came up with a concept that would give her a lot of "big" areas to paint unlike my other ornaments which were just little figures that require "precision". That's right I really did plan this build. As you can see I'm no artist but it does show off the concept. My plan was simple enough, I'd build a small rooftop complete with a "Santa" that would fit inside an ornamental bulb. Using plasticard I made a roof and chimney that fit snugly inside the bottom/lid of the ornament. I added the appearance and texture of bricks to the chimney using thin squares of cardboard. For the figure itself I simply used a GW necron I had leftover from an earlier project and with some greenstuff I sculpted a hat and toy sack. Lastly I covered the lid with masking tape and primed it. Once it was primed and ready for paint I could finally get the kid involved. With a bit of brush assistance from myself we quickly found our rhythm and started painting together. Unfortunately there are not a lot of progress shots. Most days I just completely forgot to take one and on others the little one was just so excited to keep going. I did get one after we finished the chimney's basecoat however. After that we painted the roof, the toy bag, the red portion of the hat, and the silver metallic. The white of the hat I did myself at one point while she napped. So far she had really been enjoying the project and seemed to like painting together but I was not prepared for how much she loved applying the wash. I'm not sure what it was but she really liked splashing the dark wash over everything. I guess dirtying up a model is just satisfying. After that we applied a little drybrush to the bricks. Everything was nearly finished but the fine details remained, so alone I quickly painted the eyes, chest, and the Christmas lights. After applying a bit of snow flock our ornament was complete. In retrospect the "lights" were a little too close together on the back, but as it only truly obscured my name it wasn't worth redoing. We put the bulb back together and hung it on the tree. I think it doesn't look too bad. It's certainly an improvement over the previous years, almost as if my skills have improved. Happy holidays everyone.

At the moment I'm not exactly starved for projects (I've actually got a long list taped to my desk), but what I really wanted was something quick and easy. Luckily one of the projects on that list fit the bill perfectly so my third Imperial Guard joke squad has started. Unlike my "Fabulous" squad or even my Tau defectors this is a more nuanced joke. Instead of painting battle hardened Cadiens I'll be painting a squad of the Planetary Defense Force. GW lore is a funny thing whenever comparisons are made as any player can tell you. So while the Imperial Guard especially the Cadiens are "elite" warriors completely at home on the battlefield the Planetary Defense Forces are easily killed cannon fodder living the cushy good life on Imperial worlds. The PDF act as peacekeepers and the first line of defense during any attack and they usually end up dying in droves (not unlike the actual Guard). The only real difference at least on the actual tabletop will come down to color scheme. I've decided a peacekeeper's color scheme would work well and I've come up with two options. I think I prefer the blue tunic with the grey armor, but the reverse could work too. I figure I'll just sleep on it and decide tomorrow with fresh eyes, but I'm open to any thoughts/ideas.

I painted some minis from the Kill Team: Rogue Trader box. They are originally a nurglish warband called the Gellerpox Infected, but I will use them in my Swampstalkers army for Kings of War. The second line in the big unit is made of Titan Forge ogre pirates mixed with parts of the Reaper's Crab Man (SKU:44110). They are all now Butchers, and they also have the dedicated hero for them (Fleshripper, one with the cleaver ). Smaller guys are Horrors, wizards in my army.

With my Cadian army nearly finished and my wife's army at a playable state I decided to take a break from 40k painting. Since I've been painting for our actual armies for so long I decided to start a new WIP thread rather than use my old random projects thread (the "Too Many Projects" thread will be replaced by this one). But before getting too far ahead I'd like to show everyone just how bad my box got while painting for 40k and killteam. This of course doesn't include any GW boxes I may or may not have on hand to paint "just for fun". I swear I'll paint those Skaven sooner or later. Though some of the figures were closer to completion, I simply couldn't resist painting one I've had my eye on for months (I mean this quite literally as the figure sat on my lamp's base since I first got it and probably ended up in the background of many of my progress shots). When I first pulled this from a box of goodwill I knew exactly what I wanted to do. This figure just screamed Don Quixote, at least to me it did. So that's exactly how I painted it and though it may just be a simple paint job I'm already thinking about creating a new character just to use it.

I bought these 16 converted nurgle warriors for my Swampstalkers army and added two Reaper minis (battleguard golem 77169 and Anval Thricedamned, Evil Warrior 77055) to get 3 bases with 6 warriors each.

I painted this GW's Lord of Plagues as a hero for my Swampstalkers. He is now the Swamp Drinker, one of the Reapers (the unit I showed recently). And this Morphus from the (unfortunately) defunct Enigma Models was actually painted few years ago. I found him in my display cabinet and though he would make for a nice Swamp Hunter, another hero for my army. So, here he is, with just a new base

This is some variant of the Great Unclean One, called Rotigus. I will use it as Terror in my Swamptalkers. He's a big... fellow…

I will use these GW Plaguebearers as Blood Worms in my Kings of War army. As with nurglings earlier, I painted lots of different skin tones to get some variety within the unit, hoping they still work well together. Table-top painting, not caring much about all the details or super quality.

Another unit for my Swampstalkers I was looking for a suitable alternative for Scarecrows, the cheapest zombie-like unit in my army. These goblins from the Hobbit game looked like a good choice - gnarly, twisted bodies with some wounds, smaller in size than plaguebearers I used for a slightly stronger unit of blood worms (my other infantry unit). And I got them very cheap, second-hand - they already came primed white to me, which saved some time. Lots of different washes, picked some details (mainly eyes and wounds/warts - both with GW blood effect). Swampy base of course, as this is the main theme for my army. Cut some of the models legs off to create an effect of them rising from the mud.

Third unit for my Swampstalkers (Kings of War army). I've used nurglings from GW, and they will be my Swamp Fangs

Second unit for my Kings of War army, Swampstalkers. These GW Dire Wolves will be my Swamp Hounds

A kid who works for me plays 40K, and was showing me a color scheme he liked. I asked if I could give i a shot on one of his minis, so he gave me this one to paint up. I tried to get a decent result while doing it as fast as possible. Counting priming and sealing I think this is about 2 hours and some change. I did a zenithal prime with Stynylrez, and all colors are RMS with the exception of Nuln Oil and Seraphim Sepia.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/droptop/droptop-by-drtabletop?ref=thanks-recommendations This came up after I pledged for the new EC3D campaign. It looks interesting thou I'm not sure how comfortable it is or since when I use a dropper bottle, I use the standard Vallejo-Reaper-Army Painter-whoever bottle style. Squeezing the body vs the tip. Granted you can't squeeze GW bottles. I may or may not back this one just for curiosity sake.

So browsing MM for their BF sale & I come across this from Citadel/GW All the title says is Citadel Colour Spray Stick & there is no description, other then Manf: Games Workshop Contents: 1 Spray Stick 1 Detachable Handle 50 Elastic Bands Instantly I thought it was rubber band shooter, but it got me to look at GW's website to see what purpose this actually does: Ie something I can accomplish with double stick tape & a piece of cardboard......sigh.

With my Cadian army mostly finished (aside from painting nine more squads, the inevitable additions, and tweaks that never really end ) it seemed like a good time to start my wife's army. This week I finally picked up her codex and learned how to build the units to fit this edition (I didn't want to build a bunch of squads only to realize I was short figures because they can't actually take the loadout legally). Next came the task of deciding which clan/clans she wanted to play. She chose the Bad Moons to start, though that could change, but since we'll be using an original color scheme they'll be playable as anything if she wants something different. Choosing her clan lead her straight down the rabbit hole of the Orks lore however. She asked me if I knew anything about them which led to a condensed explanation of their culture, life cycle, tactics, technology, and of course the Waaagh! I honestly wish I had recorded her reaction as each fact seemed to make her eyes get bigger and bigger as she realized just how much craziness there is to absorb. This of course led to us putting a pin in the topic, with me telling her that reading the codex is way more fun than someone just telling you everything. Now she knows the Kill team rules and routinely destroys my Guard team but she has never played 40k, which means creating this army will be a joint venture. I'll assemble and paint the miniatures but we will create the army together with her deciding the troops and their loadouts. For the actual creation I'll be in a purely advisory position. So tonight we started out slowly and talked out the weapon choices of the Runtherder. She decided on the Grabba stick and a squigg, reasoning that she wanted the extra attack and the squigg's morale ability. Once everything was decided I got to work building her Runtherder and gretchins. Then came the task of gathering up everything else we've acquired over the last few months. With winter still causing problems for priming a trip to my brother's garage may be in order.

Howdy, For International Mini Painting Month I'm recruiting... Raise it, Kev!

So recently one of my wargaming friends has been really trying to get someone in our group to kitbash together some Imperial Guard Rough Riders. Not exactly sure why he doesn't just build some and I had decided to just ignore him when inspiration hit. While hanging around some GW kit bashing forums I came across an image. I have absolutely no idea where this image actually came from, it was a repost of a repost. In the end it didn't matter though, I knew I could pull off something similar and more importantly I could build most of the project using only pieces on hand. Only needing wheels and bases means these will be very cheap to make. After getting lucky on eBay I have a ton of guardsmen, but ten of them just don't fit my current army. They do however fit this project perfectly. Step one was getting them off their bases and that GW plastic melting glue really made that hard. Luckily I was able to get them all detached without injuring myself. The rest came together really quickly. I swapped out some arms, trimmed some sprue pieces, raided my bits bags, and trimmed down some toothpicks. Here is my final result. Closeups Now the search for wheels begins.