Monday, 28 October 2019

Blast from the past

Hi guys - not much news on the painting front, but I was up in my parents attic a week or two ago, and I stumbled upon my first ever miniatures. :)

First, a prelude. In 1990, Tiny-GuitaRasmus (then 8 years of age) was rumbling through the kids section of my local library (my parents were always good at dragging me along, giving me a lifelong passion of books) and I stumbled upon a small book called (in danish) "Figurer til Rollespil; sådan maler du dem" (Miniatures for Roleplaying; how to paint them):


(Fun fact; back then there were actually serious newspaper articles being written about roleplaying and Dungeons and Dragons leading young people to devil-worshipping! :D )

Tiny-GuitaRasmus was immediately blown away by the pictures of the tiny monsters, orcs, warriors and other miniatures, and took it home. I remember poring over the pictures again and again, and being completely enamoured with these small worlds you could build. My dad, who was (and still is) an great model train builder and enthusiast, quickly seized the opportunity to get his son interested in model building, and took me to a giant (at least it was to me back then) model kit shop in Copenhagen, where they had racks upon racks of miniature blisters. 

I spent a long time trying to choose the coolest miniatures in the shop, and eventually decided upon a a pack of (then unbeknownst to me, they were just cool) Grenadier Fantasy Lords Dragon Men: (picture from ebay)


I remember going home and getting straight to work - ripping the miniatures out of the box, being completely oblivious of the concept of mold lines, and choosing a few of my dads Humbrol Enamel paints (when we wasn't walking to school in the snow, that's what we used back then! And we liked it! ;) ) and got to work: 


Please note the exquisite sense of colours - the bright vivid green, the beautiful shading made with a fine point sharpie, and the orange used on the inside of the tail - clearly didn't have the patience to let the green dry first. ;) Also the decision to use brown on everything that isn't green or armour - horns, bow, arrow, quiver, belt, weapon handle - you name it. I didn't have a concept of undercoat either, so the paint is just applied (one thick coat of course!) in enough amounts to cover the metal. For a finishing touch, you can spot the remains of the classic modelling flock (which I think was coloured dried, cut up grass bits) on the base. 

Oh well, we all have to start somewhere. :D 

Some months later I got hold of some actual Citadel acrylic paints, and decided to repaint one of the models (an 8 or 9 year old isn't the most nostalgic of creatures), just painting over the existing paint job, making the coat even thicker, and not really making any significant improvement: 


At least I used a proper metal colour for the armour, some red for the eyes, and, apparently, some weird decision to highlight the wings using a darker green? I believe the green is the legendary Goblin Green paint.

I think it's safe to say that these models started it all for me; I LOVED it from the moment I started slapping paint on. I used to play with these for hours, and spent countless hours making my own games with them. I think it was during the autumn I got them and for Christmas my parents gave my HeroQuest - which took this from the start of a hobby to an outright obsession. I loved that game - the miniatures, the furniture, the board - everything. I spent so much time painting those models, and trying to make them look just like the painted models on the side of the box - of course, failing miserably, but making progress in the process. From then on I think I wished for some miniatures for every birthday and Christmas for many years, aside from the many times my parents to me to a model store to get some (they could see I was really enjoying it) and I used to sit for hours in my room, trying to make the small monsters come to life with paint and brush. I even remember getting Space Hulk (1.st ed) for Christmas the year after, and realising the rules were in english, I sat down with my dads Oxford English to Danish Dictionary, and basically taught myself english to be able to play. :D I went on to getting into a gaming club, and immersed myself completely in the universe of Warhammer, both 40k and Fantasy - it really was an all consuming passion.

Flash forward to me starting in high school at 15, discovering that girls were interesting, so was playing music (and the latter could help me with the former!) I put aside the miniatures for many years. When I was 28 or 29 I was working at a youth club, and some of the boys there were getting interested in Warhammer, I was asked if it was something I could help them get into. "Sure, why not", I said, and started searching the web for ideas and miniatures - I was blown away at how far the hobby had come in the 15 years I had been away from it - plastic miniatures had gotten soooo good, the models were better than ever, there was plastic terrain (we used to build everything ourselves from polystyrene sheets, cardboard, etc), the paint range was a lot better and the washed made painting miniatures much easier - and there was a huge amount of background material (books, audiobooks, and so on) to dig into - well, like an old drug addict, I relapsed big time. I started buying a few miniatures here and there (you know, just professional interest!) and enjoyed painting and especially converting them so much, that I joined a local gaming club, where I met lots of cool likeminded adults, and evolved a lot painting and conversion wise.

Flash forward 9 years to today; the arrival of my son this summer has meant that there isn't nearly the same hobby time as there used to be (not that I would trade parenthood for the world), but I still love the hobby just the same, if not even more, as when I was a kid. I would love for my son to get into the hobby himself - but really, I think the lesson to take from my parents example is that if you see a spark of interest or passion in your kids, no matter what it is - you take it and run with it.

So, thanks mom and dad, for indulging me in my weird interest back then - it meant the world to "Tiny GuitaRasmus". :)

PS: I love to hear some stories about how you guys got started.

Friday, 18 October 2019

More scenery

I've gotten my mittens on some more of the old WHFB scenery, and they are indeed beautiful kits. However, I've gotten quite a few of the old Chapels (bought as fortified manors - hence the watchtowers I've also got), and I thought it would be boring to just have duplicate manors or chapels - so I've bashed them together to make a fortress of some sort. I've used more pet shop cork bark for the cliffs and rocks, and used some walls to make the walkway and the walls for the tower. I think it works pretty well, although it obviously needs quite a bit of detailing:



I've used a piece of the Garden of Morr as an outhang for one of the buildings - I obviously need to something with it. Also some supports for the other outhangs too.


I'll lay some wood planks on the walkway and the tower floor:


I've also managed to grab a completely mint (still foil on the box) Dreadstone Blight, one of my favourite pieces, and promptly got it assembled (still needs the top floor). I doubt I'll do any converting to this one - I really like it as is - although it will get a nice base:


Saturday, 3 August 2019

The humble beginnings of a battlefield.

"Okay, he's lost his marbles - he started converting terrain too?"

Yup, never one to leave a model stock, I have gotten my dirty mittens on some of the old Warhammer terrain during the past year or two, and while they are great looking, I thought it would be a bit boring to have duplicates. Also, with the coming of AoS, and round bases (= no movement trays) actual interaction with the terrain (besides just marching around it) became a possibility - thus, I wanted to create more levels, and more options for positioning. Plus, I just like cutting up plastic. ;)

First up is my fortified manor - I've combined it with the Ruins of Osgiliath (LoTR kit, which I used for the others as well), and put another chapel on top of the watchtower, along with the outhouse mounted on the roof. The cliffs are pet shop cork bark (man, it reeked of pet shop - I needed to air it for a few days before actually working on it) hot glued on.



Next, a watchtower - I think the wall with the iron gate is from the Garden of Morr, I got it in a bulk terrain buy. More ruins, a walkway and a creepy tunnel below the ramshackle walkway. Perhaps a tentacle peeking out is needed? 



My precious Skullvane Manse, bought as soon as they became available again - the only modification  it'll get is the white clay I'm sculpting over the old "winged warrior skeleton stone carving thing", since I thought it looked really bad. 


Another watchtower ruin, again Ruins of Osgiliath and some cork bark.



I need to figure out what to do for the basing though - the first watchtower is based, but it was a serious struggle to get the 3 mm MDF to stop warping. I've tried different stuff, plasticard seems to warp too from the PVA glue I'm using, and I don't really want to use 6 mm mdf - it seems to thick. Any ideas?

Friday, 2 August 2019

Branching Out

I've started to lock down the parts on the Screaming Oak, pinning stuff into place (blu-tec somehow doesn't really stand up to the vigours of battle) and refining the pose a little - I've added some more branches on the middle of his back where it seemed a little bare, and tweaked the position of the head a little - I could use the wisdom of the mighty internet here, is this better, screaming in agony at the heavens, or is the previous version where he looked a little more down better?

Also, should he have a couple of horns?


Or not? 



The white base is because I have this strange infatuation with Warmachine beveled bases, and prefer to use them on all my miniatures. Alas, they're only made in 30, 40 and 50 mm, plus a very big one for Gargantuans, so I have to make them myself on my lathe to get the right diameter - yes, I know that the Verminlord Corrupter has an oval base. Yes, I calculated the circumference (106 mm) to have a corresponding round base (not a fan of oval bases). Yes, it is technically not legal. No, I don't care at all. ;)

Saturday, 27 July 2019

The Screaming Oak WIP

Okay - I usually don't share pics this early in the process of making a conversion, since it's extremely rough and basically in the "sketch stage" - things are blutacked on, some things are only placeholders, lots of sculpting and parts missing, etc, but at this point I'm trying to get the pose and concept locked down - so keep that in mind. I felt it would be interesting to share though, since it gives a glimpse into my very messy process of making models as described in the little essay I wrote a while ago, about models and poses. That, and because I'm SOOOO excited about it!

Here is the very early stages of my Screaming Oak:




I'm basically trying to make a treeman zombie. While GWs Treelord model is very good, it is portraying a beautiful and nimble kind of treeman. I wanted something that looks corrupted, shambling, monstrous and really really evil. I even used the classic "bent knee zombie pose", to illustrate the point. I also wanted some really massive talons, which are made from the Shardwrack Spine terrain kit - like I said, they need lots of sculpting, but I tried to echo the "hollow" look of the talons of the Sylvaneth Spite Revenants. The legs and body also need a lot of branches and sculpting and hopefully a mouth or seven.

The head is a placeholder for now - I like the tormented look, but I'm not sure if it looks too "off" from the rest of the tree aesthetic. Lots more branches and spikes needed all around, but I really really like it so far, and the "murder of crows" emphasise the forward motion further.

I'm still very open to suggestions and comments, so please, fire away! :)

Wednesday, 24 July 2019

Practical but important stuff.

I haven't gotten to do much miniature stuff these past few days, but I've gotten around to doing something I've wanted for as long as I've played Warhammer - my own full size wargames table.

I'm lucky to have a nice, dry and pretty large mancave in our house, all to myself:



However, a 6'x4' table is pretty large - and since I use the mancave for both playing music, making miniatures and general chilling out, I don't want a gigantic permanent table in the middle of the room. So I started googling, and while I found some amazing wargaming mancaves, I didn't find what I was looking for. So, Ikea to the rescue. The first priority is of course the gaming surface itself. While many people just use some mdf for a tabletop, the problem with mdf is that it warps pretty easily over time, if unsupported - same goes for plywood. I found the solution in Ikeas catalog.

*fanfare*

The Linnmon table.

It is made from a mdf frame, filled with a honeycomb paper pattern, which means it is very very rigid and very light (11 kg). It is 200 cm x 60 cm (roughly 6,8 feet x 2 feet) so I figured that if I put two of them together lenghtwise, I'd have a perfect table, even with about of feet of sideboard for dice, casualties, etc. The best part is that the two table surfaces can fit behind the door to the cave, so it stows away easily.


As you can see, they are held together with a case lock on both sides. There is a surprising amount of torque in those little things, and they are held rock solid. They are resting on a couple of cheap sawhorses from Bauhaus (the danish equivalent to Home Depot) which gives the table a nice height (about 1 m). I always play standing up, and my back would kill me if I had to play 2-3 hours on the 60 cm tall tables many people build. It feels very solid and theres no chance of the table sliding off, thanks to some silicone antislip stickers I put on the sawhorses. 


Some terrain added. I really need to get around to painting the stuff I've aquired over the last few years - I've managed to scrape together quite a few of the old Warhammer buildings - they still look awesome IMO. The mat is 4 x 4 and I need to get a full size one.

Man, I can't wait to try my first game on it - this really is a childhood dream come true. :)

The other project I've been working on is a magnetic carrying case. I've been searching for a transport solution, and I'm really tired of foam. Most of my miniatures are conversions, so no standard stuff fits, and bits keep catching in the foam and breaking off. So, I decided that magnets are ideal. However, I had a hard time finding a great solution, so I decided to put my woodshop teacher skills (my day job) to use, and build one myself:



It's made from pine, so it's actually quite a bit lighter than it looks, but the jury is still out on whether it's too heavy or not. I need to get hold of a good heavy duty handle for it. The shelves are steel shelves from an Ikea letterbox and the rails are simply aluminum curtain rails, that cost next to nothing. It can fit my entire (about 3000 pts) Nurgle collection in it, even the largest beasts, but like I said, I still need to test it to see if it's actually manageable to carry.




On another note:


In the songs of the Sylvaneth, one Treelord Ancient is never mentioned. Not because he wasn’t a great hero. Not because he wasn’t fiercely loyal to Alarielle. But because the mere thought of what happened to him is to painful to stand for the Sylvaneth.

The Treelord Sternbark was one of the great old Ancients. He was rumoured to have been the ancestor of many a treeling and fought in the great wars in Ghyran against the rotbringers of Nurgle. In battle, he was faced against the gargantuan beast mount of the Witch King of Cankerwall, and fell. As much as it grieved his Wargrove, their grief turned to terror as they were forced to flee and saw the Witch Kings rotten underlings tow away Sternbarks remains - though they tried to ambush the Rotbringers, they were too few and their attempts were twarted. Great was Alarielles fury when she heard of his death, and even greater was her grief when she was told that his soulpod had not been saved.

The Witch King returned Sternbarks remains to the Garden of Nurgle where he dug deep into the bark, and found the Ancients Soulpod. He toiled for seven days, incanting the terrible rites he had been gifted by the Grandfather, in order to bind the daemonic essence to the soul pod. Once he was done, the once vibrant soulpod turned a brackish green colour, and boils started erupting on the surface.

A cry of anguish erupted from the Everqueen, as she felt the corruption across the realms.

Satisfied with his work, the Witch King put the soul pod back into Sternbarks corpse, and implanted scores of Rotwood Maggots into the now twitching limbs and branches of the Ancient.

With a flick of his wrist and a twisted invocations of words, the Ancient rose once again. As it stood upon the doorstep to his lair and gazed into the Garden, it realised what it had been and what it was now. And it screamed. It screamed in anguish at the Rotwood Maggots eating through it’s body. Moreso, it screamed because Sternbarks spirit was still alive and sentient in the soul pod, but he had no control over any of it’s limbs - that was the privilege of the daemon parasite the Witch King had bound to the soul pod.

A great thunder rolled over the Garden as the Grandfather himself chuckled.

Many years has passed since, and Sternbarks spirit has been utterly maimed, broken and ripped to shreds by what he has witnessed, as a passenger in his own body. The body has been twisted by the foul magics of the Garden as time has passed, and it is barely recognisable as once having been a native of Ghyran. The limbs have become twisted and gnarled, repulsive mouths have erupted across the bark, and terrible spiny growths have erupted from the body. The once glowing sigils of the Everqueen are completely overgrown, and pus, weeping sores and boils covers its surface. It shambles into battle, and as the splintered remains of Sternbarks spirit realises it is to be employed as a destroyer of life once again, insanity rolls over him and he can do nothing but scream. Thus, Sternbark is no more. The husk that remains is known to the Maggotkin as the Screaming Oak.





Yup - I've started work on the Screaming Oak/Corrupted Treelord. It's going to be a big project, but I'm pretty sure I'm onto something pretty cool and creepy. :)

Friday, 12 July 2019

Horses for courses - and spawns for Harbingers.

Hi guys, a bit of a progress update.

I've been using a Harbinger of Decay for many a game, using my old rotfly riding champion conversion - but since the debut of the Lord of Afflictions, it seems confusing to have two very different characters both riding flys.

While the original model is probably considered a modern classic:

... I have some issues with it; first of all, it's small. Way to small. It originates from the old Warhammer Fantasy, and doesn't scale well at all with the new and bigger scale of AoS. Secondly, it is finecast. I hate finecast. Thirdly, horses seem exceptionally boring to me, in a setting of high fantasy, such as AoS. Therefore, I wanted to make my own, new and improved, Harbinger of Decay. 

A bit of a forestory; some years ago, I stumbled upon an amazingly talented sculptor, namely Jason Hendricks; he has sculpted some insanely cool models, even some of the prototypes for the Warjacks from Warmachine. Especially one miniature enamoured me; The Nightmare Thing: 

http://monster-zer0.blogspot.com/2016/06/massive-darkness-nightmare-thing-aka-bob.html

I stumbled upon someone selling it on a facebook about a year ago, and I promptly bought it, without knowing what to use it for. Upon receiving it, I found it really cool, but also too big to be used as a regular spawn, and some of the details got a bit lost in the casting material (I call it restic - used for lots of board games - apparently cheap, and also quite horrible to work with - cut, scrape, sand - it's equally bad for everything). 

Anyway, it sat in a box, until two nights ago, when I was pondering what to do with my Harbinger, and a light went off; I hurried to my desk, got out the nightmare thing, and started messing around with parts:


I've replaced the head with to heads (one an upside down pink horror mouth, the other an upside down Blight King fly head, with the lower jaw from a pink horror added), and a Stone Troll arm, because I felt it was missing a bit of ye old GW aesthetic. The saddle is from the Maggoth lord (which oddly basically popped into place, as if made for it), and the torso is from the Pusgoyle Blightlords.

I'm really liking it, although I'm still on the fence about the scythe; one, it just seems like such an obvious choice, and two, the 1" range of it really doesn't suggest scythe to me - any suggestions?

*Update*

I've gotten a bit further, and I'm almost done with the sculpting on the Harbinger:


I particularly like the gross spine sticking out of his back:


I've also decided against using the necromancer model for the sorcerer on top of my Glottkin - it needed to much work and was a bit too weedy for a Rotbringer Sorcerer, so I chopped up the Ethrac model and gave him a new arm and head - I'm pretty happy with this version:




I've also gotten some work done on the Daemon Prince, and he's really starting to come together:



On that note, I'd like to elaborate a bit on conversions. I call this (cue fanfare...): 

Conversion Composition

First of all, I really dislike the word kitbashing; I feel like it belittles the skill and vision required for a cool conversion. A simple weapon swap may be a kitbash, but as soon as you go a bit beyond that, you are basically taking a miniature and converting it into something else, something that better suits your vision of the universe it is being part of. I don't mean to sound snooty or anything, and I'm not suggesting it should be called art, but take some credit in your skill and vision, and stop calling it kitbashing. 

There. I got that off my chest. :) 

I feel like the most important part of any miniature is its composition. Let me elaborate; the composition is a combination of the pose of the miniature and shape of it. Things like details and texture are very important as well, but you can easily find a miniature where these things are there in spades, but it just doesn't work as a miniature - why? Because the composition is bad. 

Let me demonstrate: 

The Skaven Grey Seer model is an example of great composition:



The model, seen as a silhouette, has a nice flow to it (shown by the green line), clearly defined form and the details don't mess up the shape or pose. I would even argue that seeing it only as a silhouette, you would still be able to guess that it's a skaven based on the pole, the iconic way skaven cloth is modelled and the hunched pose - non warhammer players could probably guess that it is a wizard, based on the stretched out hand.

Wulfrik the Wanderer, on the other hand, is a walking composition disaster:


Based on the silhouette, you would probably guess that it is some sort of christmas tree with a scarecrow added and a sword sticking out. There is no flow, no shape, no pose - it just doesn't work. The fact that the sculptor seemingly dipped it in glue and rolled it in his box of skulls only seems to make the issue worse.

My Daemon Prince has (at least I think) a pretty good composition:



You can clearly see the fly wings, the fly legs, and it has some nasty claws and spikes sticking out, adding to the creepiness and wrongness of the thing. It has a good flow and the body parts don't mess up the composition.


The cure for bad conversion composition: 

My advice to any converter is: Get the basic composition in place before you do anything else. The best tool for any converter is holding a miniature up against a lamp to backlit it. You will immediately see the silhouette of the conversion and thereby the composition (again, shape and pose) will jump out.

Don't be afraid to tweak the posing just tiny bits - sometimes moving an arm a few degrees will change to composition completely. Using bluetac or brass pinning wire is great for this - you can change it be moving the part attached with bluetac or bending the brass wire.

Another trick, in lieu of having a backlit setup (and which I use most of the time) is to just squint your eyes - it works almost as good. Again the silhoutte will jump out. Another good tip is to use your camera phone to take some quick pics of the pose, once you find one that works - even if you're tweaking it more, to see if it can get even better, you now have some pics to return it to it's original state.

Once the basic composition is good, you can start adding details and textures, but ONLY if they add to the conversion. Remember to check the silhouette regularly to see if it is starting to get cluttered, and be willing to remove parts again, even if you think a particular part is really cool. Don't be afraid to "kill your darlings" or rip something apart and start over. It is bit like cooking - you're free to use spices, but even the best spices won't make up for a dish that is basically lacking. Many conversions I see on my google search journeys are using way too many bits and lacking basic composition - try googling "obliterator conversion" for example; I've lost track of the times I've seen a plastic chaos terminator that looks like it's been dipped in glue and rolled in a guns bits box. Get the basic pose right, even if it takes some tries - walk away from it, sleep on it, get back to it, and make it the best you can. Good luck! :)



Sunday, 7 July 2019

Ship Ahoy!






I'm taking babysteps (pun intended) with the progress, thanks to "The Squig". However, I've been intrigued by the idea of using Gutrot Spume as a way to deepstrike a unit of Blight Kings, and reading Plague Garden by Josh Reynolds, I've become intrigued by the character Spume as well.

However, I've already used the (admittedly, quite cool) model for my Blight Kings as a unit leader, so I went on an inspiration search on the internet, to find out what people had done for conversions of him. Sadly, there wasn't too much, but I found this guy:

Billedresultat for gutrot spume conversion

(Sadly, I don't know who's done it, so I can't give him credit - If you recognise it, please let me know)

While there are definitely things I'd do differently, the basic idea of using the Gellerpox mutant tentacles and Typhus legs I really liked - so I set about making my own version:


I spent a lot of time scraping and cutting away any 40k-ish parts on the legs, and used gut-maw belly from the Pusgoyle Blightlord kit (mostly because I love the old-school gut-maws), made a huge axe from a combination of a 40k Death Shroud scythe and a minotaur axe, gave him a chain loin cloth, and used the "crab-hand" from the Khorne AoS starter set lord, to continue the nautical mutation theme - and finished it off with a back banner from the 40k Lord of Contagion kit. Obviously still needs a lot of sculpting, but I really like the basic idea - plus, he is HUGE:


I've also gotten a bit further on my Glottkin conversion; I've made a gladiator style shoulder pad (still needs distressing, though) for two reasons - both for having a place to put the dark green I used for the army, to tie him together with the rest of them, and besides; shoulder pads are awesome. :) 

I've also started the wizard on his shoulder - I'm a bit on the fence about him. While I have the Ethrac Glott model, I kinda wanted something thinner, more wasted and weedier - we'll see. 


Lastly, I got inspired to start a Daemon Prince conversion - this is extremely rough, sketch stage-ish, and he needs some fly wings, but I think this could work. 


As always, comments are much appreciated. :)

Monday, 24 June 2019

Scarcity of time

As always, I apologise for the long time since my last update, but this time I actually have a valid excuse! My wife gave birth to a little baby boy two weeks ago (affectionately known as "The Squig"), and believe me, when they say that babies eat up all your free time, it's true! It's wonderful and magical and the craziest thing ever and really tough getting next to no sleep - but I wouldn't trade it for the world. :)

Anyway - I've managed to get some work done (most of it before "The Age of Squig"), so I wanted to share them - they still need to get details, varnish, and blood and rust effects, so WIP.

First up, my Great Unclean One - I really like the way the shoulder pad turned out, it's nice to get some of the green of the Blight Kings onto this guy:



Lord of Afflictions:



Also, said Blight Kings:


My Maggoth Lord conversion (probably gonna count as a Verminlord Corruptor, once the wizard rider gets done)


And the project I'm mostly excited about; I bought a Glottkin a loooooong time ago, and made a new head for it, since I wasn't really a fan of the original one. However, I wasn't really happy with the model overall either - It's always struck me as a great concept, with a somewhat lacklustre execution.

I took a deep breath, dunked him in rubbing alcohol, and stripped the old paintjob. I ripped my original converted head off him, and made a new one from the "arm-face" of Rotigus, combined with the horns from one of the GUO heads, and the lower jaw of Ghurk - now THATS more like it! Much more tormented and evil looking. The other change was his right arm - I love the lamprey maw, but the arm just seemed weirdly short and out of place on such a big model. I cut it of and reposed it, and added the censer from the Skaven Plague Furnace, as a giant wrecking ball - YEAH! Now we're getting somewhere!
Lastly I added some claws from some sort of Tyranid monster to the tentacle, since I thought it was a bit weedy looking - more spikes are always more gooder!

Obviously he still needs quite a bit of sculpting, blending and detailing, and a rider added (I'm contemplating a guy with a cannon, actually), and I'm thinking about magnetising him to his base, so I can have two bases and use him as either The Glottkin or a Soul Grinder. Still, I'm really excited about him, and I really like where it's going:



Wednesday, 24 April 2019

WIP Wednesday.

Yup, WIP Wednesday. Apparently, it's a thing. At least it is now. Since I have a WIP and it's wednesday.

This guy (the Maggoth Beast, that is) is OLD. I'm not sure if I made it back when the Maggoths first came out, during the end times in 2014, or if he's a little younger, perhaps when I started messing with AoS at first, shortly after it's release.

Anyway, I kinda like the Maggoths at first, but they suffer from a bit of the same malady as the Mutalith - it has a tendency to look a little flat from certain angles. I wanted to make it wilder and more chaosy, and since it came with two extra arms, and extra heads, I thought "why not?" and decided to make this crazy beast. And then, it sat in my cabinet of stranded projects for some years. Until now.

The rider, I made yesterday. I wanted him to be less fighter-y and more sorcerer-y, and I think he conveys a quiet malediction, that somehow gives a cool contrast to the wild beast.

I'm not sure what he's going to be played as; perhaps a Verminlord corruptor? (Tongue = tail attacks, lots of melee attacks = four arms, wizard = the rider on top), or maybe even a Mutalith vortex beast - I don't know yet, but suggestions are welcomed. I just think it's a cool model and it needs to get on the tabletop.




(PS: The real Maggoth lord warscrolls are pretty boring to me, so I'd rather not use those).


Tuesday, 23 April 2019

Progress in the garden...

A bit of progress on the Nurgle guys - after having played practically every game with a Harbinger of Decay as a general, I wanted to try something different, so I've put together a Lord of Afflictions, which I think came out pretty cool:


I think the standard one is very bland, while this one is quite a bit more menacing.

Also, a bit of colour on the tree - much more to come, but hey, it's something. Also, I'm working on Gnarlmaw #2, which is more of less scratchbuilt.