Minis Painted for Me!

Well I have been focusing on building some more units to send to Ricalope thanks to getting back my first box of Flesh Tearers and getting a game of 6th edition in.  I have been getting those figs varnished - and writing rosters for the upcoming Lakeside blood bowl tournament.  However a pleasant surprise was posted on my facebook this morning - my buddy Dan (who will unfortunately have to miss this tournament) has finished painting up a spire brat for my ever growing gang - and that reminded me I STILL owe Paul of The Man Cave a photo posted of his contribution to the cause!  So I got off my backside and snapped a quick pic of his brat as well as one painted by Mik over at Miks Minis.  Shown in order received...

a ginger brat from Paul @ The Man Cave

A ginger haired brat inspired by the man himself, I love the job he's done on the power sword! Of course if you've seen my Novamarines you will also know I am a fan of quartered schemes.

a dark reaper'esque brat from Mik @ Miks Minis

Mik chose to do this harly (I believe it's properly called a Death Jester?) up in a scheme very similar to the old 'Eavy Metal scheme used on the Eldar dark reapers.

a "Mardi Gras" brat by my buddy Dan

Dan told me he took inspiration from "Mardi Gras" for his brat.  I love the way the green mask stands out on this mini.

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!!

Slow start to 2012...

and here's why....  we bought a house and moved in late December, so we have been getting settled.  the advantage is I now get a permanent hobby room/man cave. :)  Paul I'm sure you will approve!

front of room, with work/gaming table and shelves to left

will swap out monitor for big screen when ready

shot from the doorway to cold room

So, onto business;
* Part 1 is a pimp post I've owed the Oklahoma guys  (Steve @kilowog2814 & Scott @fatfinley)

the #1 Blood Bowl podcast....  with an Episode Zero!!

Orclahomabowl brought to you by the same gingers who host the latest Blood Bowl podcast - Both Down!
You can check out the preview post I put up here.  I got my dice in the mail last year before we moved, unfortunately just haven't had much chance for blogging or gaming.  They are pretty sweet dice though - also happy to mention the pre-registration dice for Orclahomabowl have sold out so I guess it's going to go off a smash!

* Part 2 is posting about more harlequins painted by others for my spire brats necromunda gang.

First up is a harlequin I received from arabianknight over at Wee Blokes last year as we were packing up to move, so I've had this guy for a while.  He also sent over a miniature for me to paint.  All I got to before packing everything up was the skin, but you can see that pic below.  I have some funky ideas about how to try painting some tartan plaid using washes for it.

loving the orange!!

I'm thinking plaid shorts!

Second up is the skaven miniature that hakomike sent over along with the gorgeously painted harlequin he did for me, which I've gushed about endlessly here.  I plan to use washes for this guys fur, and maybe skin - but then use more standard paints for his clothing to really achieve some depth.

still lots to do - lol!

Third up is some great news about another harlequin painted for my by G.N.O.M.E. over at Spaaaaccee Shaaarrrkkks!  He's finished up painting a harlequin for me, and is currently in process of thinking of something to send along for me to paint!

loving the paint scheme on this guy!!

Ooofff, that was longer than I thought - I will save the third part of "business" (my plans/thoughts for gaming & painting this year) for another post.  I do have the CCKO blood bowl tournament coming up in around 10 days so hopefully that will kick start the hobby-ing!

more painted stuff I had nothing to do with!!

Except providing the fig itself (in some cases!!)

left to right by; Axt, hakomike, AbraxiS

Here's a quick snap of three (count 'em, 3!) harlequins painted for me by others.  You can see who painted them in the caption, and likely know already - but in case you don't - the one in the middle I've posted about before, and was generously painted by Golden Daemon Winner Mike Howell (check out his blog / follow his twitter) and the others were generously painted by my good buddies AbraxiS (follow his twitter) & Axt from over at Merry Mayhem News. Thanks again Gents!!

These are added to my other two harlequins (1 needs some touching up) to form my Spire Brat pack for Necromunda (based on Anthony Cases rules). Five gives me a good start and considering how expensive their equipment is, could be enough for a whole gang - but if you know me at all I like choice!  There are at least four (count 'em 4!!!) harlequins out there around the world with some amount of paint on them and eventually headed for me!

• arabianknight @ weeblokes
• gnome @ spaaaaccee shaaarrrkkks!
• mik @ miks minis
• paul @ the man cave

Finally a special bonus was included in the package from those crazy Portuguese @ Merry Mayhem News.  Axt took it upon himself to build me a couple blood bowl counters/tokens.  I was surprised and excited to see there was more than the harlequins in the box that arrived.  The hand coming out of the ground even glows in the dark!  Am looking forward to using both of these at the upcoming blingtoof tournament here in Toronto (a goblin themed tournament where I am going to bring my undead with a few goblins, the orc counter will be my bribe!)

custom torne bane flaming ears counter & random orc-y counter

If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend trading some painting with people.  You end up with some pieces that are truly meaningful and have huge sentimental value, and you get the chance to paint up some stuff that may be outside your usual wheelhouse (I painted a cowboy and a "anime/manga" looking character for Dave of mini painting for free)

Currently on my dock, I have;

• A goliath looking near future ganger type for arabianknight (from E4 miniatures I believe)
• A zombie for Axts massive zombie collection (will be a "fan" of my Torne Bane Flaming Ears blood bowl team)
• A skaven warplock engineer that arrived with the harlquin painted by Mike Howell.  Will definitely be using some staining methods for his fur!

also posted on Merry Mayhem News

Minis painted by others.. (for others to come later)

Well I realized I hadn't posted something in a while.  Here is a harlequin that a very kind person has been painting for me to add to my Spire Brat Pack necromunda gang. There might be some minor differences when it arrives, as I believe he's repainted the symbol on his head (as per the video in this post of his) check out Mikes CMON submissions and you will understand why I was ecstatic to find out he was willing to paint a fig for me and why I am not surprised in the slightest at the amazing quality he has produced!!!

painted by Mike Howell @ Constantly Risking Obscurity

There are a few other kindly folks out there who are either currently painting a harlequin for me, or they at least have one in their possession.  In case you haven't seen any of my earlier posts about this gang, the idea is since they all dress wildly - to have different people paint each figure so they all look drastically different.

• arabianknight @ wee blokes
• abraxis & axt @ merry mayhem news
• mik @ mik's minis

There is also another gentleman who has agreed to paint a harlequin, but I am waiting until after my trip to the Chaos Cup to mail him anything to try and pick up some swag for his young lad currently learning (and apparently addicted to) blood bowl.

I need to sort out a very standard and easy to reproduce base scheme which is how I plan to tie all the disparate models together into some form of cohesion.  Currently I am thinking about gathering a ton of little bits, spraying them a metallic colour and giving them some heavy washes of orange and brown to look really rusty, then using that to "flock" the base with - thoughts?

Added to the two harlequins I already have, this will definitely be enough for a game!  I still have several more so if you are interested in getting in on this project, please contact me through the email address in my blogger profile and I would be happy to mail you a harlequin!

painted for others and by others, part deux

I don't often schedule posts but since I have been focusing on my Novamarines up to now with getting prepared for astronomi-con (see pt 1, pt 2 & pt 3) and it will probably be a few days before I can get a post up about my first 40k tournament I thought this will give you something to read.

nb. Well that's the second time that blogger has failed to post when I've "scheduled" - anybody got any tips or  does it just not work??

Well I enjoyed posting up the pics in my previous "for others and by others" post. I especially like getting nice pics of the minis I painted in "staged" or game situations.  First up I have some pics of the dark angels captain model I painted for Mik @ Mik's Minis as the prize from the second GWpertinent contest.

common basing theme = win!

I'm pretty happy that his basing scheme has helped to make the paint job look better. These are some pics from Miks game using the SuperSystem rules, which looked like a hoot btw!

epic battle begins!

tracto gets slammed by an escape pod!

Next up I have a pic from Mike over at Constantly Risking Obscurity - a fellow I have been following for quite some time.  Ever since his submission to a painting contest called "Take Cover" with this incredible entry. I love the burnt piece of wall and battle damage.  In this instance I was fortunate enough to NOT win a contest he held on his blog to receive a painted model - and by his great generosity received an offer to paint a mini for me regardless of the contest. How awesome is THAT?

early stages of what promises to be an awesome addition to my collection

I have been slowly collecting the spare harlequin here and there whenever I can get them pretty cheap.  My plan is to have a different person paint up each one, and use them as a brat gang in my games of Necromunda  - using Anthony Cases rules.  You can check out the first harlequin I had painted (by Dave from mini painting 4 free) in my post here.

Finally - Mik recently showed me some love for the dark angels captain model, and he took some nice close up pics.  I think they are nicer than the pics I originally took (and he looks better based) so I thought I would post them up too.  The pics definitely help me to think of what I could improve.

power sword details

I went with the same power sword as on my space sharks champion. I think I should have blended out from the white instead of into it. Lesson 1.

full frontal :-O

As for the armour and details, I wanted to use a single wash (devlan mud) over everything to really unify the piece.  I feel I did go a little heavy on the wash, next time I do something over the whole piece, I am going to thin down the wash. Lesson 2.

knee pad & shoulder pad details

The knee pad was re-painted after the wash to get the company colours exactly right. The wash really dulled down the (probably too subtle) red highlights on his shoulder pad and headdress. Greater contrast highlights work better with the unifying wash (as seen with the green details).  Lesson 3.

cloak

This one is the maybe.  I wanted his cloak to be very green to ensure he still fit with the rest of the dark angels - however it is just a big flat area, possibly a decal (artistically - perhaps half the chapter symbol) might have really made this pop. Lesson 4? What do you think?

Minis painted by others and for others...

Following up on posting the pics of the prize from the second GWpertinent contest, now that Dave @ mini painting for free has completed Lead Painters League season five, that means he had a moment to snap a couple pics of a mini I painted for him earlier this year.  Silly me forgot to take any pics before I packed her up for shipment so I haven't had anything to show you guys.  The request was for a fire aspect so she needed to have lots of red, though I didn't want to just simply paint her armour red.

the dragonblooded - on her own

There are a couple techniques I tried out on this mini for the first time, I wanted to try a wash + drybrush technique to make the armour look fire-y without actually being all red - and am quite pleased with how it turned out.  It was basically just a golden yellow colour with a heavy red wash, which I then drybrushed the same golden yellow over.  Where the wash is in the crevasses is more red, with a orange tinge leading up to the drybrush which was very light to bring the yellow back. 

The second is her red hair, since the armour didn't have a lot of actual red and since anything with a fire aspect always seems to have red eyes and red hair I thought it would do a good job of reinforcing the fire aspect.  I drybrushed a coppery colour over the base red, and then used a couple coats of baal red wash to tinge it red again. I don't feel the pics do it justice as I was really impressed with how "ginger" it looked - maybe Dave can comment to this effect?

here she is taking on some frog-men

I tracked my progress on painting some figs for him last year over at Weekly Minis. I figure not everyone has seen everything I've painted that I posted there so why not throw a few extra pics into this post.  Here's the first mini I painted for Dave - I can't remember the sculpt but I remember saying "hell send me a cowboy" and he did! You can see the original Weekly Minis post here. I tried to keep it very simple, using only devlan mud as the wash to try and unify the tones. I also used my bleached bone/gryphonne sepia sand technique for his base.

never painted a cowboy before!

The second fig I painted was an anarchist for a RPG campaign Dave had going on. There's also a post with more pics about him over at Weekly Minis.  I didn't want him to look too evil, so I used some neutral greens and browns for his clothing - but I had to give him a black cloak.  There is more info on how I painted him over at Weekly Minis.

the anarchist

Finally if you missed out on the posts of minis that Dave painted for me, you can find the Genestealer Patriarch @mini painting for free & an Eldar Harlequin @mini painting for free which are both WIP.  There is a post with finished pics @mini painting for free as well as @GWpertinent.

Mini Painting 4 Free = free painted models for me!

Several months ago I found a blog with an interesting concept, Mini Painting for Free.  Basically, our protagonist (Dave) is offering to paint a mini or two for you for free in an attempt to keep himself from buying more figs he won't get around to painting.  As you may or may not have noticed I've decided to farm out some painting projects (see my space hulk genestealers, or my dark elf blood bowl team) instead of letting it sit there forever.

Dave and I ended up doing a swap of models to paint, as I'd hit a bit of a wall in terms of motivation to paint.  I've been tracking my progress painting them on Weekly Minis (a cowboy and a cloak & dagger type "antagonist") but wanted to post up something about Dave's awesome work and pimp his blog a bit.

I sent Dave a couple very OOP 40K models, the old running genestealer patriarch and a harlequin.  I wanted to send him the harlequin since I wanna have a bunch of different people paint them up so they all look really different (going to use them as a spire brat gang in necromunda) and then base them the same to tie them all together, and just threw the patriarch for fun since I knew it would be a long time before I ever took a brush to him.  If you read the history on Dave's blog you'll see he was excited about the harly, but the patriarch inspired him.  The colour scheme Dave used on the harlequin is very cool and definitely will be unique I'm sure.  I like his pictures better so I'm just going to repost them here.

Genestealer Patriarch

Harlequin