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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.

It's been far, far too long since I sat down and painted a mini. Too many other life priorities. But anyways... So, I painted a Sisters of Battle terminator, and I decided I wanted her as a mini. Games Workshop does not sell SoB terminators. And so began my long conversion process, spending far too much money on bits for a model that probably can't be ever fielded. A ton of plasticard cementing, ProCreate sculpting, and general hackery later, I came out with this. Proportions are somewhat wonky, but I think they're beyond my capability to fix short of sculpting everything from scratch. Plus GW's proportions have always been wonky, especially for terminators. A coat of primer and I'm feeling better about this whole project already.

So - my next small project - I cannot keep with just one ... errrr. After having a small but nice talk with @SGHawkins09 and being sent home by the doc to cure a sickness I recently picked up, I had to decide what to do next. As all those wonderful and enthusiatic responses to my previous projects (I mean it - I never had so much response in such a short time) made it near to impossible to just sign off from the forums and disappear into the wilderness, I agreed to take on a different plan. I just grabbed into my miniature box and took some figures to paint them and get them done. And then it struck me: I am at the Reaper Forums yet I missed to paint a Reaper miniature. So I picked out ... errr - let me see ... Troll Slayer Sophie! Yay! - hey! Hooooraaay! Who the heck is Troll Slayer Sophie and when did I buy her? It seems I already started to paint her, but then decided otherwise, stripped *chuckles* her and put her away. Hm. Good point to start her all over again. As I chose her to be the figure I wanted to paint next I had to think about the color scheme I wanted to use. Well. I had no idea. I never really cared about fantasy style, so it never meant anything to me. The things I know about are modern or sci fi. I played a lot of Warhammer40k back in the days. I even wrote fanfiction stories which included the Imperial Guard and the Sisters of Battle ... ... Sisters of Battle ... hm. that could make a great colour scheme. Works well with the flesh tones and still contrasts it. And as Sophie is a demon, the demon/witch hunter theme fits her rather perfectly. I'll take it! Well then - primed her and started painting. But I am not sure - do I want to give her skin the grim dark appearance of an Adepta or a more Succubi-like appearance like ... this one: Succubus Suggestions?

6mm Sisterhood "Angelus" CHQ mecha, variants A and B. Models are converted Reaper Miniatures "Scorpion" CAVs. The infantry are 6mm Sisterhood from Onslaught Miniatures.