minis painted for Axt - ZOMBIES part 4

The funniest thing of all, receiving a painted model of yourself as a zombie!  This is exactly what happened to Axtlinge (aka Axt) with the final figure of the fab four.  I chose to make Axt a rugby player because he loves the all blacks and the zombie pieces I had suited it.  First the legs weren't proper shorts and seemed to have some extra padding/protection which makes more sense for a proper contact sport.  Secondly the hand with the thumb pointing up reminded me of the Haka dance that his favourite rugby team the All Blacks perform.  I had a bit of help from Abraxis who sent me a couple photos of Axt so I could get him right without giving away the secret - thanks buddy!

zombie Alberto

As with the others, I built up the base with filler.  The flock is the same as used on my figure but underneath I gave it a coat of brown paint instead of green to try and show how rugby fields are usually more torn up than footy fields.  I used some bits of medical gauze twisted and glued to create the long beard and pony tail.  I also used a little water effects for the blood on the recently ripped off leg he's carrying around ;^)

Hope you enjoy them pal!

dual posted on Merry Mayhem News

minis painted for Axt - ZOMBIES part 3

Second to last, here is Paul - of The Man Cave fame.  This was actually the inspiration to do "us" as zombies.  You may not be aware, but Paul is a honest to goodness real life ships captain/commander in the Australian navy.  In fact he just shipped out on a new mission called SLIPPER.  Anyways as soon as I saw this body (it was the only one where legs/torso were attached) with the long coat all I could think of was a ships captain (obviously the ship this zombie was commanding was a bit different to the one Paul commands now!) so as soon as I thought "ship captain" I equally as quickly realized "MMN crew zombies"!

zombie Paul

As with the others I built up the base, and then instead of using flock I just attempted to paint a wooden deck using various browns.  One side has a line of tin paint to make it look like an edge or something like that.  I also used my now pretty common style of painting reddish/ginger/orange hair which involves starting with orange, and using washes of both a reddish/metallic colour as well as simple red wash.  The reason for the metallic choice is it gives a bit of sheen to the hair, without actually colouring it metal.

dual posted on Merry Mayhem News

minis painted for Axt - ZOMBIES part 2

Next up on the dock is Paulo aka Abraxis, winner of the Zlurpcast Meatloaf Fan award.  As soon as I got the bare torso piece off the sprue I knew I had to have Paulo running with his jersey off after just scoring a goal.  I leveled the base with filler as on the other figures and I made a jersey out of a napkin with paint. After painting the zombie and jersey separately I superglued them together.  I also used an extra coat of painted varnish to try and give the jersey some strength before I gave the whole figure a spray coat of varnish.

zombie Paulo

In case you are unaware, Paulo's favourite football team is Benfica, so it's very appropriate I am posting this today, as both his team and mine are in the second leg of the Europa League semi-finals tonight.  Chelsea have a 2-1 lead and are playing at home, while Benfica are looking to reverse the tie (currently 1-0 for Fenerbahçe) and are also playing at home - the Stadium of Light.  Good luck to Benfica tonight, with any luck we will have a Benfica/Chelsea final in Amsterdam and we might all use skype to hang out while we watch the match!

dual posted on Merry Mayhem News

minis painted for others - ZOMBIES part 1

I am going to break this post up into series like I did with the necromunda walkways.  You may remember, long ago I received a couple harlequins painted for my spire brats gang from my MMN crew buddies in Portugal - Abraxis and Axtlinge.  Well I think I covered myself with glory in recompense to Abraxis by running the "Give him a Goblin" contest, but I still owed Axt something - and he had requested a painted zombie.  Originally the plan had been to paint him a zombie fan of my undead blood bowl team - but clearly after such a long time that plan was not motivating me.

I finally decided to just bit the bullet and get some zombie figs (warlord games I think?), hoping that would motivate me - and it did!!  As I put them together a brilliant plan started to develop and I would paint fans of my undead blood bowl team - US!  Here is the first one, which is zombie me in Chelsea kit with a football.  I painted our names on the front of the base and used our online nicknames for the back of the jersey.

zombie Tristan

I built up around the base attached to their feet to fit the square base with filler.  Each base was painted/flocked slightly differently.  Probably the hardest thing was getting the design on the football right.  Also those shoes are painted like my actual cleats!  I found the detail on these miniatures was not the greatest but hardly surprising when they are about $0.50 each!  Up tomorrow is Abraxis :^)

dual posted on Merry Mayhem News

Final day for GHAG voting

Today is the final day to vote for the best goblin/best painted out of the GHAG contest over at Merry Mayhem News.  Doesn't need to be just about painting, conversions, theme, etc. can all influence your vote.

Please, even if you hate blood bowl (blasphemy!!), hate goblins (kinda understandable) or hate painting competitions (why?) - head on over to THIS LINK and use the voting poll on the left.

1st painting point for 2012...

Has come a little late due to everything going on in the past few months, but finally have gotten some hobby motivation back and have finished up the first fig for this year. Le woot!!

all around view, click for larger image

This guy is my contribution towards a group painted goblin blood bowl team for my buddy Abraxis over at Merry Mayhem News.  He loved the idea of my "harlequin" spire brat gang for necromunda having each individual piece painted by someone different - so I decided to create a contest with some snazzy prizes to convince people to join in.  What a response it has garnered!!  So far we have 22 people  (including the members of MMN - Abraxis, Axt, Nazgob, Paul and myself) painting goblins for the team - incredible!!

ps. There is still time to enter the contest (contest ends April 1st - photo submission only, the goblin doesn't need to arrive by that date) and I have created an additional mini-contest (closes Feb 27th) with a few small prizes and all it takes to enter is to post a WIP photo of your goblin somewhere and send us the link - what could be easier??

Spire Brat Pack: current status = 7 of ?

After receiving the latest Spire Brat (harlequin) back from G.N.O.M.E. over at Spaaaaccee Shaaarrrkkks! he suggested it was probably time for a group photo.  So here we go, straight from my display cabinet, on some of my sweet necromunda terrain.

love how unique they all are!!

From left to right, top to bottom;

1. painted by arabianknight @ wee blokes
2. painted by hakomike @ constantly risking obscurity
3. painted by paintbrushturkey @ bartertown
4. painted by bobbo.is.me @ mini painting for free
5. painted by axt @ merry mayhem news
6. painted by gnome @ spaaaaccee shaaarrrkkks!
7. painted by abraxis @ merry mayhem news

I know there is one outstanding with paul @ the man cave, and another with mik @ miks' minis.

Huge thank you to everyone - I hope to get a big necromunda campaign running sometime around this summer and want to get these guys a piece of the action!!

give my buddy a goblin...

... and you could win a print of my Xmas gift - two of my blood bowl teams duking it out!!

I promised the jpeg of my Xmas gift, here it is in all it's glory!

torne bane flaming ears (undead) vs. the jawbreakers (counts as slann)

You can check out the details HERE - but basically in order to be eligible for the contest, you need to paint a goblin for Abraxis' blood bowl team and donate it to him.  Therefore the prize had to be suitably awesome - hence the print.  I will get it signed by the artist as well.  He's also generously offered a coupon as a runner up prize

I selected the looney (chainsaw) goblin and plan to convert one similar to the rat wielding goblin I threw together for the blingtoof tournament.  I will use the same body and throw a space marine chainsword on there, and add some pads, etc.

We already have five people entered, please consider entering - it's just a painted goblin and the prize is well worth it.  Abraxis loved my idea of the harlequins painted by others as a necromunda gang so much he wanted something similar himself!  I already have 7 painted harlequins and there are two more floating in the blog-o-sphere (one with Mik and one with Paul of "The Man Cave") so my spire brat gang is in great shape.

BB downloads: Free Endzone!

Generously offered for free (and combining well with the upcoming Impact Miniatures dungeonbowl tiles) by the awesome guys at Merry Mayhem News is a custom endzone for use in dungeonbowl games.

Merry Mayhem News: Freebie Endzone!

Chaos Cup 2011 pt1

Windy City is BOOKED.  Last year I was fortunate enough to participate in 7 blood bowl tournaments across Ontario & Quebec.  This year I have so far attended 2; family commitments, attending Astronomi-con (same weekend as two possible blood bowl tournaments) and the cancellation of Challenge of Q'ermitt has meant I haven't been able to play as often this year.

CHAZ! Spelled Chaos. Silent O.

Therefore, due to the fact that this year seems to be the year of seperate vacations from my fiance and Porter Airlines flies from downtown Toronto to downtown Chicago, I have decided to attend the Chaos Cup 2011.  I have never been to Chicago but fortunately have a nice friend there willing to show me around a bit before the actual weekend of the tournament. I'm hopeful of getting some of everything on this trip.  A lot of gaming, a bit of partying and hopefully a bit of tourism are all in the mix.

So, onto my preparations for the tournament.  You can find the rules pack HERE.  Simply put, it's 1100TV, no ST/AG upgrades, max 1 upgrade per player, no skill allowed more than twice (as an upgrade). Thanks to my success at the Power of One tournament in Montreal last year with a super bashy Undead team, I have decided to run the Undead at pretty much every tournament I attend this year (both in an attempt to get better with them, and because I think the fluff I created for them brings me a lot of good fortune (surprisingly, actually the opposite of the fluff).  Another point to remember the Chaos Cup is a NAF MAJOR tournament, which basically means it impacts your rating twice as hard as other tournaments.  Better do well!

I think the below is about as good a "casualty focused" team I can manage, but I would definitely be interested in any comments you might have!

Mummy w Block / Mummy w Piling On
Wight w Guard / Wight w Mighty Blow
Ghoul w Block / Ghoul w Leader / Ghoul w Sure Hands / Ghoul w Wrestle
Zombie w Guard / Zombie / Zombie
1 Reroll

Pros

• 40K saved using Leader
• Full complement of Ghouls
• Extra Guard player

Cons

• Possibility of losing Leader reroll.
• Fouling extra risky (losing a more important player) and more difficult to gain reward.

Alternatively if I downgraded a Ghoul to a Skeleton, I could take two regular rerolls and give the Skeleton Dirty Player - but I would lose the Guard on the Zombie.

Mummy w Block / Mummy w Piling On
Wight w Guard / Wight w Mighty Blow
Ghoul w Block / Ghoul w Sure Hands / Ghoul w Wrestle
Zombie / Zombie / Zombie
Skeleton w Dirty Player
2 Rerolls

Pros

• A Dirty Player means I can attempt to ensure that prone/stunned players are removed from the field.
• No worrying about losing the Leader reroll.

Cons

• Spending 40K difference from the Leader reroll to a normal reroll.
• Losing a second Guard.

50/50

• With only three ghouls I will need to be very cautious about committing with them.  This could increase their survivability but also might mean they have less impact on the game.

I have an added bonus for being super excited about this tournament.  In speaking with my buddy at Konflikt Terrain, I have been assured that a special project he undertook for me will be ready for this trip. MUHAHAHA!!!

dual posted on Merry Mayhem News

2010 alternate blog posts & new adventure

In 2010 I joined up with some local buddies at Weekly Minis to try to inspire each other to paint one mini a week.  For myself it was a bit of a failure as I found myself either not posting when I was doing batches (generally that I needed complete for a tournament or particular game) OR I was putting off doing any batch painting (that wasn't as crucial) because it would be weeks before I felt I could post anything.

At the end of 2010 I called it quits to focus on my own blog and just do what I wanted.  This has worked out well so far with painting levels much closer to 2009 (in fact I'd already surpassed 2010 by mid-year!)

Recently, I posted a comment on a Portuguese blog (Merry Mayhem News) that I have been following a while due to their blood bowl content - basically offering miniatures to paint because Paulo was so bored he was taking pictures of gummy bears.  Well apparently I am the first ever commenter and also their only follower! Paulo contacted me to ask if I would be interested in contributing to their blog, and since (other than random nonsense) it's about blood bowl, I had a hard time refusing.  I will give it a year at least to see what comes of it.  My plan is to port over some blood bowl content as well as maybe try a dual live blogging/twitter of my experience at this years Chaos Cup.

For this reason it is time for me to say goodbye to my posting privileges at weekly minis.  Some of the guys are still going strong but it's time for a new focus for me.  Even though I don't think they will delete anything, I have backup up all my posts and ported them over to this blog, using the label "weekly minis" (strange, that!).