WHQ 1st Citadel Journal character - the Ex Blood Bowl Player

You may remember back in 2012 I asked which of two old blood bowl figures to use as my "Ex Blood Bowl Player" character - from the bonus characters published in the Citadel Journals.

Both Paul and Axtlinge voted for this figure, so I started working on him, I chose a generic yellow and blue colour scheme to match the Reikland Reavers without any of the icons as he's no longer an official player.

This counts as 1 painting point putting me to 6 for the year.

Got my FOLDIO!

Well it took a bit longer due to shipping to Canada being slower through USPS - but finally it has arrived and I love it! A very cool portable lightbox that folds together and uses magnets to hold it's shape and a thin LED strip to provide the light. It has multiple background colours too!

Here are just a couple teaser pics. I have begun taking some nicer photos of my figures and updating old posts using them. Check out the links below for some updated piccys!

My spyrers page and the eversor model I might use counts as with them :)
http://gwpertinent.blogspot.com/2007/01/spyrers.html
http://gwpertinent.blogspot.com/2009/09/eversor-1pp.html

The warhammer quest characters page and specifically the warrior priest post.
http://gwpertinent.blogspot.com/2007/01/warhammer-quest.html
http://gwpertinent.blogspot.com/2009/07/warhammer-quest-character-2.html

Some earlier posts from this year have some additional piccys.
http://gwpertinent.blogspot.com/2014/01/novamarines-terminators.html
http://gwpertinent.blogspot.com/2014/04/whq-baddies.html

WHQ baddies

In between other projects I've been getting some models fixed up that I got from various trades as warhammer quest bad guys. Here are a couple shamans I've done recently. They were both already painted when I received them - I did some minor touch ups where the pewter had shown through.

You can't really tell but I also had a go at some special bases that are similar to the one's I've always used, but I mixed some Agrellan Earth technical paints and painted some lightning effects under the base so it would seem like they are using some magical power and it's cracking the earth open.

04/24/2014 EDIT
Some FOLDIO lightbox pics

Even more WHQ monsters

As previously mentioned - I was unsure of my ability to get through a batch of 6 terminators over the christmas holidays, so I had pulled out a few more WHQ monsters to try desperately to reach that painting points goal for 2013.  Up now is the spiders..  +4 PP

no flash

Quickly the recipe was;

• prime them with a necrotic flesh army painter spray
• paint a triangular blend from yellow to reddish on the middle of their body round to the end of the bulb
• paint one segment of the legs red
• paint the pincers/mouth silver
• drybrush black all over
• 2x army painted strong tone on the legs
• paint eyes silver, then lime green

flash

I actually prefer the shot with the flash, it kind of gives the impression of a light being shined on them, and it's definitely easier to see their details.  Also I am looking forward to taking better pictures next year - my parents and brother got us an amazing new camera for christmas with the new baby (including a tripod) and I got myself and my dad a small portable lightbox (FOLDIO on kickstarter - I recommend you check it out, it is an amazing deal!)

More WHQ monsters...

A few more quick PP before the end of the year. As mentioned in my previous post I had assembled these plastic bat miniatures using some old flying base stands and more bases made of washers for my WHQ baddies collection. I definitely don't want any of the monsters to look any better than the characters so for that reason these guys were done with stains/washes mostly similar to the minotaur I just finished.

4 down, 8 to go (and find!)

Really like that I decided to use the clear flying base posts instead of the plain plastic ones that come on their base - it really adds a lot to these figures IMO.

At the same time I got the last 2 goblin spearmen painted up cheaply and based.  My plan is to use a bit of watered down wood stain on them plus the night goblin archers to act as a cheap "dip" and provide some depth to their paint jobs. Quick and easy.

I've pulled out 4 plastic spiders and if I get a chance I will attempt to get them painted with stains/washes. I'm saving the novamarine terminators for my week off since they are a proper batch and will need some focus to accomplish.

WHQ Minotaur #2

Well here is another quick 2 PP.  A while back I picked up a box of WHQ monsters when I spotted it in an old FLGS (two headed dragon) it was both cheap and good value because the bat/spider figs are tough to find alternatives for.

I had packaged off the minotaur along with another fig to Dave at mini painting 4 free.  Unfortunately real life got in the way so after a period of time I just requested he send them back no matter what state they were in. He did mostly finish another figure but this guy just had a coat of black primer.

minotaur #2

I decided he would be easy to finish before year end, especially if I used a mostly wash/stain approach to his skin & fur.  I picked red & purple as colours to add because the other minotaur I have (came painted) has green & blue. I used a washer to make his base as with all my other WHQ monsters.  They are cheap and easy to do with some simple card to make broken up flagstones and a touch of flock.

I wasn't originally planning on it, but getting this guy finished prompted me to pull out the two remaining spear armed goblins I needed to finish to get up to the required 6 and I also started converting and painting the bats from the box.  If I keep several projects going I think I will have a better chance of hitting my year end target.

collecting a few quick painting points

Back in 2010, I had a rather large dip in painting points that I accumulated.  There was a combination of factors involved - mostly due to playing in practically every blood bowl tournament within Ontario and Quebec that year!  Another thing that shaped my hobby time that year was joining the blog Weekly Minis.  It has pretty much fallen off the rails now - though a few persisted with it beyond 2010.  The goal was to paint a miniature a week and while I really enjoyed the variety it did mean I tended to focus on bits & bobs, or smaller batches that would count for a few weeks.

Dwarf character

Therefore I did end up painting several Warhammer Quest characters.  They were a good challenge to paint in a week and allowed me to use lots of colours that are often neglected.  The part that I left neglected was basing them to match the others and the monsters I had collected.  Yes that's right these figures have sat in a "near complete" state for practically 3 years!!  Since I have done so well with painting this year I just forced myself to grab these and base them to collect some painting points that have been dangling for a long time.

can use as Elf Ranger (Knight) or Lord of Aenarion

The dwarf figure is a special character from WHFB, a bit blingy but I couldn't resist keeping him as the WHQ dwarf due to his amazing dragon cloak.  The above elf figure is an older marauder mini that I removed the shield connector and painted up using lots of white.  I hope to eventually get a more "ranger" looking figure to act as the knight version of the elf ranger.  The below model is a simple wardancer champion that I still had kicking around from a friends venture into fantasy, I really like the combination of two very deep colours - the green and the brown really look fantastic.

Elf Wardancer

I will have another post up for painting points soon as I have completed a zombie figure to send to Axt over at Merry Mayhem News to add to his zombie collection and thank him for the harlequin he painted for me and all his assistance with the dugout for my Insane Goblin Posse blood bowl team.  I have pics I just don't want to share them until he gets to see it first! :)

blood bowl <=> warhammer quest

While I was rooting through one of my many boxes full of miniatures - looking for the prize to award for best "painted" goblin in the GHAG contest over at Merry Mayhem News - I came across a couple old 2nd edition blood bowl humans.  At this point I remembered something about a warhammer quest character in one of the citadel journals that was a blood bowl player.  I went and looked it up and all the equipment he has is a "spiked shoulder pad" - which both of these models have.  I will definitely paint one of them up to be that character, but am undecided which one I should use.

Blocker

Chucker

So please help me out and use the voting panel on the right, and select either the "blocker" (top) or "chucker" (bottom) that you think I should use as the blood bowl player warhammer quest character.  This won't be a rush but it will mean I leave him sitting on the painting desk for those times where I am sick of whatever batch work I am in the middle of.

awesome partners OR how i got some help for a new project....

Some of you may know I have the most awesome partner in the world!  She's always been very supportive of my hobby - well she's gone a step further and agreed we're going to spend a small amount of time every week where I'll teach her a bit about painting and together we'll get some of my pile of unpainted figures done.  Here she is having a go at painting a Spyrer while we were up at the cottage one weekend.

concentrate...  concentrate...

The goal is to get a full set of miniatures ready to act as battle level 1 baddies for Warhammer Quest.  I decided that instead of using the standard square bases that we were going to make some bases using washers, business cards, sand and a bit of flock.  These are pretty simple to make, have a little more weight than plastic bases, match the bases on my WHQ Characters and provide the same advantage in terms of being simpler to use in a dungeon setting (allowing models to face pretty much any direction - so flailing arms and weapons don't necessarily impede each other).  We stuck some packing tape on top of the washers and cut up chunks of business card to glue on top.  Once that was done we glued on some sand to act as rubble in between the "stones" of business card.  They were simply painted with P3 Greatcoat Grey, and then drybrushed them with P3 Frostbite. Sarah learned how to drybrush - first technique in the bag!  She was worried about how they came out but I couldn't tell the bases apart (ie. who did which - and I still can't!) so I think she did a fantastic job.  We then just glued bits of flock wherever it needed it, either to cover up mistakes/missed spots or where it would look realistic and natural.  Here are the bases we did - a reasonable batch that will base 12 goblins with spears, 12 with bows and a minotaur.

25 washer bases complete!

I really want these miniatures to have an eclectic look to them - they are a bunch of smelly creatures living in a dungeon - of course they aren't going to have a uniform look! I also don't really care too much about shading or highlights.  The best way to achieve this is going to be simple neat basecoats and rotation of colour placement.  As it happened, some of the old figures I put into this project were already painted to this reasonable level.  Gives us a bit of a head start and hopefully gives Sarah some examples so she can understand what we're aiming for.  This pic is of the first batch of "pre-painted" figures, there are a few more whose feet broke while removing the old bases, they will get fixed up and we should soon have around 11 models complete.

first figures finished!

That's it for now - I will definitely be back with more posts once we actually paint some figs ourselves!

Week 38: Tristan - a couple singles

A couple singles that I've gotten finished up over the past little while.  I've had the wyrd finished since I got into building my pit slave gang.  I took some time trying to get two good photos of the wyrd with the magnetized electric bolt (pretty cool if I do say so myself) this was as good as it got.  I actually ended up leaving his skin (pretty much just the head) as just the skull white + badab black wash undercoat I've been using frequently of late.  I wanted to try and get a very pale/albino type look and finally just realized it was staring me in the face!

This guy is an old warhammer fantasy elf from back when there was marauder miniatures.  I kept him to build up my collection of mini's suitable for warhammer quest (or any other fantasy character based game) and the original plan was to use him as the elf ranger or lord of aenarion from deathblow.  I was browsing through a buddies blog when I saw he had a few warhammer quest posts up, and in one he has a mini to use should the ranger select the "mage" path.  Well another mini I've kept from before my hobby sabbatical is a high elf mage.  I've decided I'm going to touch him up and re-base him along with the other few warhammer quest mini's I've painted this year to use as the "mage" version of the ranger. For now this guy will be the "knight" version, but I may decide at some point to get a specific elf knight model so I can count him as only a lord of aenarion and boast of having a model painted for all the "official" characters.

Week 3: Tristan - Wardancer (warhammer quest) painted

Yikes, is this guy ever late! Week 3 my ass! To be honest I found him a bit of a chore to paint after doing the Dwarf. Along with having other priorities for hobby time meant he got the back shelf for a bit. I think I'm going to test out saving up a bunch of painted models and then just doing a bunch of bases in one day.
I tried to stick with a very limited palette on this guy as with my other warhammer quest models. I want to make sure they are all quite unique and easy to pick out from one another. As his hair was going to be blonde I went with purple for his gems. Once I had everything basecoated I gave him a wash of devlan mud all over and then started picking out details.

Week 2: Tristan - Dwarf (warhammer quest) painted

Here finally I am done with the Dwarf for warhammer quest (except for that blob of orange on his boot - how the hell did I miss that?!?!?). It was challenging picking a colour scheme that wouldn't tie him with troll slayers, especially once I ended up using the same key colour - however I think I've succeeded as he looks very distinct next to my troll slayer. I'm pretty happy with the way he turned out. What do you guys think?

Week 2: Tristan - Dwarf (warhammer quest) progress 2

I've almost gotten all the basecoats done on my Dwarf for warhammer quest. I ended up going with orange just to go with the dark green of the dragon cloak. You'll notice I stayed away from orange hair though. Now it took me a while to realize but it's not a full covering helmet on his head, so what looks like a horsehair plume is actually his hair. Which hair colour should I go with - all grey so he looks a little more grizzled or blonde? Also what colour for his shoes? A neutral colour?

Week 3: Tristan - Wardancer (warhammer quest) plan

I have a few more models I kept to build up a collection of all the warhammer quest characters. I plan to try and use lots of greens without losing detail. I think I have to do something interesting with his huge hair as well.

I've got another old high elf model but I'm going to see if I can pull out something different after two weeks of warhammer quest models. I'm also looking for cheaper mfgr's mini's I could use for the following characters (barbarian, wizard, brettonian knight, chaos warrior, imperial noble).

2009 tidbits pt2

Here's the last couple bits I did in December last year.

First up is my Pit Fighter for warhammer quest. I decided since I wanted to paint his clothing a very beige colour that maybe it would be a good idea/opportunity to paint him with a darker flesh tone. It was only then that I realized this would make my only "black" mini a slave :\ not good! Since then I did the pyromaniac "shaft" character to balance things out until my Salamanders get some paint.

Second is an objective that I had built a while ago, and was primed black. I decided one day to quickly just get it painted. I ended up basing it to match my Crimson Fists bases. I intend to have three (20mm, 25mm, 40mm) objectives for each chapter.

Week 2: Tristan - Dwarf (warhammer quest) progress

I got my dwarf ready for painting over the last couple days, wanted to get a head start on him since I figure he will be one of the most involved models I'm painting for my set of warhammer quest characters. Most of my others I finished in several hours painting in either a day or two. I fully expect this guy will take longer. Sorry for the crappy pictures, I found it hard to get good focus with all the white.

This required gluing on his dragon cloak.

As well I had to do some green stuff to hide the gap.

I'm going to try to get at least a couple progress posts up per mini now, as that's kinda the fun bit - seeing it progress from pewter to painted. :)

Week 2: Tristan - Dwarf (warhammer quest)

Here is my mini for the second week. I've had this dwarf lord kicking around since my friend gave me a bunch of GW stuff. I'll mount him on a round base as I've done with all my other WHQ character type models. He will make 6 painted characters so I'd even have some selection for a four player game.

Not sure what techniques I'll try with him. As with most of these single mini's I will just start painting and see where it takes me.

2009 year end.. random-ness.

Well it's been a while since I posted. I have been working on stuff - however I had planned to wait until after sealing most of it to post up pics. Unfortunately there was a mistake when I booked the hobby room and instead of getting it last weekend - I have to wait until January 8th :\

I have mostly been painting little things. I finished up my Pit Fighter for warhammer quest, I painted up a Scum and a couple beastmaster rats for necromunda, as well as getting a 40K objective (oil drums) painted up. I also got 5 bowmen painted up for my Mordheim warband - as we've started a Mordheim campaign at Heavy Support Games - I am super pumped about finally getting to play some Mordheim. Also have been getting stuff ready to prime (though still failed on the Warg Riders).

I also got a few more necromunda models ready (minus sealing) to use by giving them a light "wash" with a wood stain. This includes a Telekinetic Wyrd and a Goliath Juve (will use with genestealer cult or as hired gun) that my brother painted. I used the stain on the Scummer as well - but he counts as painting points.

I have a bunch of pics from some necromunda games I never got around to posting - and probably won't because I don't remember much of the game anymore, and I'll be waiting until the New Year to post pics of what I have painted recently since (at least the wood stain dipped models) look way too shiny without the matt sealer.

I also found some christmas spirit and gave away a bunch of old junker models to some folks who would put it to use. One is a couple tactical squads of 2nd edition marines to a kids 40K club (will definitely post when I get some pics of what they have painted) and the other is some really junky marines and some cardstock templates to a family whose son is interested, but can't afford to really get him much (and definitely not drop $100+ dollars without knowing if he's interested).

Overall it's been a busy december - but not as busy hobby wise as I'd like. With the hobby room booked and *confirmed* for early january I hope to get a good start to 2010. I've completed 215 of my 250 point goal - 86%.

Goals for 2010;
* Complete 250 painting points
* Get my Orcs & Goblins to a useful level - fully painted (at least 1,500)
* Get my Space Sharks to a useful level - fully painted (at least 1,500)
* Build a collection of Space Hulk maps for my travel space hulk.
* Play LOTS!
* Paint a mini a week, see our local groups blog - Weekly Minis.

Bits & Bobs...

I've finished up a couple pieces over the weekend just to get back in the swing of painting.

First up was the wood elf scout champion I wanted to paint up for Warhammer Quest, as you can see I've tried to be ambiguous about what type of elf he might be. The blues could mean he's a high elf, but I've tried to even that out with some natural green so you aren't really sure.

Second was the easiest 5 painting points I've done. A kroxigor for my Lizardman Mordheim warband. Really just needed to be tabletop quality, so he's basecoat + a wash of devlan mud and that's it.

WHQ - new character painted

I've been finding it enjoyable to just take a single miniature lately and get it painted. I picked the Witch Hunter to do next for Warhammer Quest as it was simple - one sculpt, no super glue or pinning required. I decided to paint him in mostly neutral colours, to try and make him look somber and serious. I used some limited red to try and enhance this effect (do you think it worked?). I also tried to do some basic object lighting coming from the torch, hopefully you can see it in the pictures.

ps. Hopefully these are the last of the lower quality pics as I'm picking up a new digicam for our trip to Europe next week.