Wednesday 16 December 2015

Horus Heresy: Dark Apostle WiP

Evening guys and girls,

I have a quick mid week update for you tonight.

My Heresy era Word Bearer force is still bubbling away in the background. Its not a current priority if I'm honest. The Tau and assorted board games are currently ahead of it in the painting queue.

However with the release of the plastic heresy kits and Nife and Rictus both getting the set I ended up buying the plastic chaplain off Rictus. I planned to make it into a Dark apostle for the force, here is progress so far:



I've cut the front of his helmet off and replaced it with the one from a dark vengeance chosen, as I will run him as a Diabolist it works rather well. In keeping with the tactical marines I have done so far I've added a little chaos style trim to his one leg and the legion symbol to his chest.

Need to sort out his Cronzius and tidy him up a bit more and he will be good to paint. What do you guys think?

Sunday 13 December 2015

Tau Empire: Crisis Battlesuit Team

 Its been a long time guys and girls,

Must admit I've been rather distracted from posting of late, with the Christmas rush on much of my time is taken up by work. Then you had the added distractions of Halo 5 and Star Wars: Battlefront.

I have however been working away on stuff in the back ground and have enough finished bits and pieces for a few updates.

Today I present the first squad of Crisis Suits for my Tau, now although I have had Tau since they first released I have always been sparse on the battlesuit side due to never really being a big fan of the plastic kit.

This has changed since I got my hands on some cheap XV9 suits, I love the aesthetic of them look more alien than the plastics:








The repainting and reworking of my Tau has been going on since around 2008(yes I'm that slow) but it seems to me that I'm growing nearer and nearer completion. With the recent Tau release I only added a squad of Breachers and a Ghostkeel to my back log with the backs of the breachers already being broken.

Much of that back log is simply suits and vehicles the infantry core of the army actually being finished. Its getting quite scary being so close to finishing a force....

I'm working on quite the variety of stuff at the moment so as well as a few more Tau focused updates expect Dungeon Saga, Frostgrave, Bloodrage and Infinity to appear along the way, here's a WiP:



Thats it for now  then, I hope to get back into the swing of things posting wise :)



Tuesday 13 October 2015

Frostgrave: Assorted WiPs

Evening guys,

Been quiet in here again of late, must say I've been rather busy in real life with work and a trip to Stockholm the other week.

I however have a few things to show for this update and a few saved for a more Deadzone themed one over the weekend.

First up we have some work in progress skeletons for the random encounters table:



These are some of the mantic ones I have left over from my Dungeon Saga Revenant conversions. They are pretty fun to paint, fairly quick too. going to be doing about another 4 or so of them to cover me for the table.

Next up we have the next member of my Necromancer warband an infantryman:






Really really enjoying working on these, I think theres only a couple more options I need to convert then they will all be ready for painting.

With some left over GS I had a play with adding chain mail to a stock Frostgrave plastic soldier:


It works quite well. The next warband I make will have a more mercenary feel of hired swords.

Well thats it for this quick update, will be back over the weekend with a more sci-fi themed one :)

Sunday 27 September 2015

Frostgrave: Great Worm

Evening guys and girls,

Another late update from me, been working on some more bits for Frostgrave. This time its some of the monsters from the random encounters table.

I've had my eye on some Reaper Bones miniatures for a while mainly to see what the quality is like, I took the plunge and ordered a great worm, hell hound and some spiders(not in this update). I've been really impressed with the quality of the models especially for such a low price point.

Needless to say I've been painting up the great worm:



Compared to a Frostgrave necromancer and one of my converted Perry foot knights

still a little work to do on him, the matte varnish has dried a little glossy for some reason but I think it helps with the effect.

I also have an Old Gamezone vampire on the painting table:


I've had this model lying around for at least 4 years, good to finally use it. Background wise it will represent a vampiric noble woman who was frozen during the cities fall. A lot of work to do on her.

After the vampire I plan to paint up 2 demons:



Both of these are reaper minis, the hound being a bones one and the other metal. I really love the flame elemental its a great sculpt.


I have also made a lot of progress on some Deadzone terrain and have even finished painting my cypher prime. Will pop those up during the week.

As ever thanks for looking :)

Sunday 13 September 2015

Frostgrave: The Beginning

Evening guys and girls,

Another late update but as is becoming more common these days I've been rather busy. The promised stormcast still aren't quite finished either...

Anyway yet again my hobby time has been spent on a bit of sculpting and gathering scenary for Frostgrave. Now given you can play it on a 2' x 2' board I shouldn't need to acquire too much, I'll be recycling some old LOTR ruins I still have and have also won a few lots on eBay for some rather nice terrain.

I have also purchased a piece of prepainted terrain from an eBay seller who has quite a range of stuff designed for Frostgrave take a look here.

The below is from the same seller I have just added snow and the bits of greenery to it:






Now Frostgrave is really letting me flex an idea of mine from years ago, during a time when I was toying with trying to write a fantasy type novel I came up with a sort of necromantic Empire type faction. Not straight up evil but not good sort of anti hero types.

Now they of course had both living and undead troops, with the elite praetorian types becoming wights after death to continue service. So my first warband is a necromancer and minions who will represent an emissary and his entourage investigating the ancient ruins.

Here are the first few:



This guy will be a templar.



A Thug, this guy is meant to represent a skirmisher so isn't as heavily armoured as the others. Fits with the Thug profile from the book too.




WiP Man at arms and crossbowman


These have been fun to work on, they are based on a range of kits we have  Perry Foot knights, Fireforge Teutonic Infantry and some arms and weapons from the Northstar Frostgrave soldier sprue. Been quite a change working on truescale 28mm models.

Anyway thats it for now, I shall return next week with fingers crossed the stormcast...............

Sunday 30 August 2015

Skaven: WiP Converted plague monks

Evening guys and girls,

Actually getting an update out on time this week, shocking isn't it.

I'm still quite "in the zone" sculpting wise of late so this update is again quite GS heavy. I have been converting a set of Skaven clanrats into plague monks for what was planned as a christmas gift for the diabolical Mr Feral...

He however has found out and I have blasted through nearly 5 of them already so figured I'd pop them up here:







I have really been enjoying these, the small scale of the skaven plus all the fabric work makes them quite quick to do. Hopefully they will encourage Feral to continue on with his rather great looking skaven as seen HERE.


In other news in my never ending quest of getting more games that will likely rarely be played I picked up this:


I have read an awful lot of positive things about the game online and for a tenner on amazon I think it was well worth the punt. After having a bit of a flick through it looks like a really nice little RPG skirmish game.

I'm planning to make 2 warbands, 1 will be a necromancer themed one and the other will be a chronomancer. More on these soon.........

I should have an update mid week with the first finished stormcast unit, as I type they only need last few finishing touches.

Sunday 23 August 2015

Dungeon Saga: Converted Liche King

Afternoon guys and girls,

I've been kept busy in real life again so haven't had too much to show hobby wise. Today will hopefully change that as I have a real labour of love to show and even some process pics.

A while ago now Nife suggested that it may make an interesting post to show a stage by stage almost, break down of how I convert. Given I am still slowly working away on models to supplement what I'll be getting in the kickstarter I figured a dungeon saga model would make a good subject.

I decided to make a Liche King whose rules should hopefully be in the adventurers companion, he will be a boss type monster. The 2 wraiths I have shown before will sort of be his body guard who will spawn with him.

First up here is the near finished model:





He needs a few finishing touches and I plan on having a few spirits flowing off his base.


Here is how he started:




Given Liches are almost zombies just with full intelligence and magic power I figured a mantic zombie torso would be the best place to start.the one reaching out being ideal to show him casting a spell.

This movement influenced the flow of his robes and the like, after my experience making the wraiths I knew i'd be able to pull of the flowing robes, so a few sculpting sessions later I arrived at this:


With the lower body sorted from here it was just a case of adding the armour and other details to the torso, sadly I don't have any pics of that process :(

I have found these dungeon saga pieces to be a really good outlet for my creativity, I can go to town on stuff without having to worry about having to replicate it across an entire army. My next project for it after finishing fleshing out the additional undead choices will be some Twilight Kin(Dark Elves),

For these I plan on converting some plastic Perry miniatures foot knights with some GS additions, and if I feel brave scratch sculpted heads.....wish me luck :P


--------------------------------------------

Right in my final shout out of this post and old friend of mine from back in my days of being Active on the Ammo Bunker and who was one of the ones to talk me into a blog has returned.

After 3 years of hiatus Foot_of_Adhesive_Tape has finally returned to blogging:

Feel free to go and hassle him :)

Monday 10 August 2015

5 years of blogging

 Evening guys and girls,

I have been quiet of late, again due to having a lot going on in real life. Including a week in Scotland for the wedding of 2 very good friends of mine.

In that time a milestone for this blog has passed. My little corner of the internet has been going for 5 years now, give or take a few hiatuses which im sure can be forgiven. scary how fast time flies by I remember the day that Mr Feral and Foot_of _adhesive_tape first nagged me to start a blog like it was yesterday.

Since then I have withdrawn from the forums along with most of my original hobby mates, most of whom have blogs now too.

5 years has seen me drift away from GW being the core of my hobbying and has seen me start and fail a legion of projects, but the enjoyment of toy soldiers is still there. I'd like to thank anyone who takes the time to read or comment on my ramblings, know that it is appreciated.

Obviously due to being busy the past few weeks I haven't had much hobby time however here is the state of my stormcast eternal production line:





I picked up  the new gold base paint which is helping speed these guys along. I should hopefully have this first unit of them done quite soon.

In other news whilst up in  Scotland I had chance to grab a quick game of FoW and got talking to Dave about visiting more often and actually gaming. This lead to a purchase:

                                     

Dave has moved more to the historical side of the spectrum so I've decided to paint up a very small bolt action force. likely to be the above boxset plus a few bits and a single tank. To spur us on we have a gentlemans agreement to complete at least 1 bolt action model per month (given how easily distracted we both are 1 will be hard).

I've gone with the SS as I have a force of them for FoW and camo is rather fun to paint. Go check out Daves Blog and spur him on HERE.

Well that is it for now, I may have an update in the coming days as my Anvil Industries Kickstarter has been dispatched :)

Sunday 26 July 2015

Stormcast Eternal

Evening guys and girls, apologies for my absence the past weeks had a few things on my plate in real life.

So today sees me entering rocky territory, never in all my years in this hobby have I seen the level of sheer hatred and venom online that the Age of Sigmar release has caused. I watched it from a distance having only a passing interest in fantasy, I figured I would wait and see how it turned out.

Having read a lot of the fluff I must say I don't mind it, certainly a blank canvas to work with and has actually captured my imagination. Its been a long time since GW did that for me, its been more the territory of Mantic and Corvus Belli over recent years.

Now at the FW open day I had a good look at the models and really liked them, the stormcast eternals heavily remind me of the Angels from the Darksiders series of games (HERE) I  loved the art style of that series.

Now one of my normal partners in crime appeared at this point. Nife wanted the chaos models to paint so it was agreed that we would split a starter set. As it turns out we have both bought a starter set............





This has been really fun to work on, I've never painted a model virtually entirely in metallic. I have tried to go a bit darker and grittier on these instead of the ultra bright gold of the GW studio ones. A nice turquoise for colour and we are all good.

I've added some broken arrows, blood and cut some damage into the shield again to help with the more gritty aspect.

I will be working gradually on the sigmar side of the starter over the coming months, will use them as  a test bed for some techniques I want to try.

However I am off to Scotland tomorrow for the wedding of a very good friend of mine High Marshal Dave, so will be a week or so before any more painting progress will be made. Until then feel free to let me know what you think :)

Sunday 12 July 2015

Mars Attacks: Martian Grunts

Evening guys,

Normal update time, must admit that again this week I haven't actually got too much done. With the weather being nicer its not really the time to stay indoors painting haha.

I have however managed  to finish off 10 martian grunts, this takes me to 15 out of the 20 in the boxed game completed now:





they don't look the greatest in close ups but I'm really happy with them considering they are effectively board game pieces.

All I'm left with to paint from the core boxed game now is 5 martians, 5 US marines and about 5 human heroes.......... tantalizingly close.

I've been doing a little sculpting over the past week too, one thing I've worked on will be the subject of next weeks post so I won't show it. The other is the start of an infinity conversion:


This is the WiP of a G:Synched Order Sergeant and her Aux bot.

The conversion is based on an Auxilia model, I have started adding the details to tie her to my existing order sarges the tabard is just the core I will build upon.

Because this is one of the earlier infinity models her rifle was ridiculously oversized so I have hacked it right down and intend to resculpt it to be more inline with the other Order Sarges. This should prove quite a nice little challenge.

In other infinity news I'm trying to paint the last model from the Military orders Sectorial starter box over the next week or 2, again this will mark a big milestone of me actually finishing a full boxset.

Anyway thats it for now, I'll be back next week for the normal update

Monday 6 July 2015

Deadzone terrain WiP

Evening guys and girls,

I'm a bit behind updating wise, been busy the last couple of weekends with a meet up with Rictus and Nife and then the Forgeworld Open day yesterday.

Speaking of the last meet up we got some games of deadzone terrain and after seeing the stuff Nife had built it gave me a bit of a kick up the arse. So I have been painting the test building I made a while back:




Now theres still a lot to do on it but I think it works rather well, and luckily for me the areas that I filled are quite hard to spot.

Thats pretty much all the hobbying I have done these past few weeks, well bar some Martians but they will likely show up on Sundays post.


I'm likely to do a bit more worth on my Tau soon for the first time in at least a year. Main kick for this was seeing this at the open day yesterday:


Now its quite rare for me to see a model and think "Must have that", but that battlesuit is a thing of beauty. Dependent on how much FW are charging for it I will likely add one as the final model for the Tau.

Oh yeah may have actually bought a few bits for the Word Bearers too.............

Sunday 21 June 2015

Dungeon Saga WiP Wraiths & a little Chaos

Evening guys and girls,

Small update for you tonight, I've been in more of a sculpting mood this past week and have been working on a couple of things a bit more involved than the renegade conversions.

I've been working on a pair of Wraiths for use with Dungeon saga, they are quite involved sculpting wise:


The top half of each of them is a stock mantic skeleton, the lower half is entirely scratch sculpted. Theres still a way to go on these but I have really enjoyed doing a more involved sculpting project again.



I have also done a little work on another renegade for use with the assassinorum game/inq28:



This guy is rocking a heavy stubber, now although there are no rules for this in assassinorum I figure he will provide an option should I want to use it in INQ28 or Necromunda.

Well thats about it for this update, I will likely be back with some more martians during the week