5th Company 2nd Tactical

I have made some progress with my marines... Just one marine missing from full tactical squad :)
Now I finished painting the sergeant. It came out pretty nice I think... I refined little bit my "damaged armour" technique... Basically just made the high lighting more visible around the damages... that made the chipping look better. The head of the sergeant model is really cool. Half of it´s face is actually metal, and other eye is "cyber eye". It doesn´t show very well in these pics :(


This is probably my last post of the year 2009... My New Years promise could be, to finish the 5th company 2nd tactical sometime next year ;) I also have a time taking miniature project coming up at the start of the 2010, when my 3rd baby is born at start of the January if everything goes well... (hope I dont have to use too much green stuff on him...) So there´s going to be a little break on Blogging I´m afraid. But I´ll catch up as soon as possible, between the diaper changes :)

Happy New Year everybody!!!

Lunars for Rune Quest

My purchase of the week... As I wrote earlier, I bought some Celtic warriors for my Rune Quest RPG, that I´m gonna paint as Orlathi and Humakti warriors...

Now I had to go and buy box of "Imperial Roman Auxiliaries", that are gonna take the role of Lunar Hoplites in my RPG campaign...

Our local Gaming shop had lots of Romans to choose from in the Warlord Games range... Like "Imperial Roman Legionaries" or "Imperial Roman Veterans" etc... But I chose the "Auxiliaries" for they have round shields... And I have this picture in my head, that Lunars use only round shields in Glorantha setting... (Hope you correct this if you have better knowledge :)) Have to do some research...

At first glance the minis look great..! Casting seems to be better than average quality... I´ll put them together and clean them up at some point to see what they´re really made of.
But first I´m gonna paint the Barbarian "horde" before I get involved with the Lunars... I already have too many projects going on :D

One more Tactical Hellfire

I finished this one yesterday... I´m pretty happy with the painting. I tried new method of painting chipping in the armour.


I first made the dark spots in the armour with several layers of Devlan Mud. Then high lighted the edges of all spots with orange and yellow... Worked out pretty good. I also used the Mithril Silver on few spots to make more damage look.


Marines head and bolter are taken from Chaos marine bits. Spikes on the left shoulder are from Orc bits. Rest is from tactical marine box :) I decided to paint the 5th company symbol on the bolter. Dust and dirt on the boots look different in the photo... Much more contrast than in reality... Maybe the flash light did it :)

With Cannon you can... ( Part 1 )

I´m not a fan of the Multi-Melta... It´s a great weapon for some serious cooking of enemy vehicles and big bastards that get´s to close range...
But still, I like better to plug things with me Assault Cannon...

I only have the Dread that comes with the Assault on Black Reach box. It´s a cool mini with only one thing missing... The Assault Cannon :)

I desided to do something about it. Convertion is not my strongest line of work... but I´m gonna give it a shot... (or a burst if you will...)


Here´s what I started with... The grey thing in front is taken from my Battle for Macragge box. Can´t remember what it is... Maybe a power source for Aquila Lander or something. ( Leave a comment and correct me with this...) The blue "barrel" things are cut from cotton buds and glued together...


Something like this...


And like this... with some knife and file. Cotton buds might not be the best material for this, but it´s all I got at the moment... And it worked fine for me.


Next I drilled some holes to the "power source" (that´s what I´ll call it untill you correct me) with my trusty old pin vice. Six little holes makes it look like a Cannon already :)

Then I cut it in half with a saw...

And used the file to make straight surfaces for attaching...

As next stage, I Glued the parts togerher and added the barrel. Barrel is made of piece of Goblin spear. And the hole with pin vice again...


With a cruel slash of knife I said goodbye to the barrel of Multi-melta... "Chomp"


Drop of glue... and say Hello to the Cannon. It´s much longer than the "official" Assault Cannon, but that was my plan from the start... To make it look like unique. That´s the whole point of converting... :) I think...


This is how the Dread looks so far... (Really bad pic... sorry) Still got lot of work to do. And I´m afraid I´m gonna have to go Green Stuff on this one... (Where´s my little green bag?) Have to make the ammunition hopper and get rid of the "pyrum petrol fuel mix" tanks... for they look quite unreallistic with the Assault Cannon... I´ll be back with the "part 2" shortly, I hope!

Prince Alaitoc

Here´s a High Elf Hero that I´ve been painting from mid 90´s... I think. It´s been on and off my painting table :) Month ago I finally desided to give it it´s final paint job (in between other projects). Also made the basing job with some sand and dead grass...

I can´t remember if the horse is original, or have I taken it from one of my Silver Helms... Anyway, I have added the spear, orc head (a really old one), banner and a bow. Rest of it is original.


The miniature has a funny mix of old and new painting job... I added some new high lights over old layers, but left some old details as they were. Like the little hearts in clothing and the ribbon on the shield... The heart pattern was inspired from Mike MacVey´s Old Prince Tyrion, painted in High Elf army book from 1993. The colors and paint job on that mini still makes me wonder the skills of MacVey!

And writing this I can spot two gems still unpainted... Crap!!!

Another Battle Brother

Here´s one more Battle Brother for my 5th Company 2nd Tactical... Finished yesterday... Tried to make it really damaged and dusty look. Sorry bout poor quality of the pic again... :(

MK3 Serpent of Hellfire

Ok... I glued on one of the heads from Maxmini. I think this really works out fine. It gives a feeling of MK3 power armour. Had to make one of the shoulder pads bigger to give armour more MK3 look, so I just grabbed one pad from my chaos marine bits box, and removed Chaos markings with knife :) Me likes it!

Maxmini order arrived

So... My Maxmini order arrived today. Really good service I think. I got everything I ordered and the delivery was really fast. I made the order at Sunday and today I have them in my hands :D
So four days from Warszawa Poland to Turku Finland... I recommend!!!


The bits are way cooler and better looking than in the Maxmini webstore pages :D They are the greatest thing I have purchased for a while..!


Can´t wait to try these Pirate Orc heads to my Boyz unit...
"AAaarrrrrr...! Letz burn all da human vezzels dat we can find Ladz... and steal dem tricksy treasure maps!"



And these Steam Knight helmets will look great on my Serpents of Hellfire marines... They look pretty much like old MK2 and MK3 power armour helmets, and there´s allso some heads with no helmets. That´s always cool... "Ohhh, suit you sir"!

Sorry bout poor quality of the pics...

Rune Quest minis

I bought some new minis (again)... but this time not for Warhammer or 40K. I have been game master for Rune Quest for many many many years now, and I´ve noticed that we have never used any minis in our playing sessions... Well, that´s gonna change now :)

This Celt warband regiment box dropped in my hand at the local fantasy gaming store... And I saw them right away as Humakt and Orlanth worshipers. We haven´t played Rune for few years now (because my lack of time), but this feels like an inspiration to wipe the dust from my Rune Quest library :)


And here they are assembled... Quite a punch of rebels for Lunars to chew on :)
For some reason I desided to glue them on 40K bases... Got plenty of those I guess...



Close up of Orlanthi...

And some Humakti... No shirts or armour of course, so I can paint some Rune tattoos and warpaint on them :)

It´s not like I really needed another painting project right now, with aside my Fantasy Battle and 40K projects ... But the minis just fell on my lap, I swear. (Truth is I have ADHD...
or Full HD)

Hellfire 1st Company Veterans

Here´s three of the 1st Company Veterans. I have published a picture of dude on the left earlier in this blog, but two other veterans on the right side are some oldies goldies that I just found from my miniature cupboard... Had to take pictures of them too :)


Lightly converted... The middle Veteran has a Chaos marine heavy bolter (as a trophy of course :)). Right one made completely out of marine bits. The banner and serpent symbol from High Elves bits. The two oldies participated on "Chapter Master" painting competition back in year something... I use different basing technique now, I noticed. ;)

Band of Brothers

Here´s something I´m working on at the moment... I decided to start painting my Serpents of Hellfire troops... So far I have only painted Terminators and few individuals...

I have lots of marines still in boxes. Tacticals, Devastators, Veterans, Terminators and of course the Dreadnought and Heroes... I think that Tactical squad is good to start with. Here´s five of them finished in Serpents of Hellfire colors. (5th company 2nd tactical) Some details still missing, like the chapter insignia (same as Dark Angels), but I´ll add them later :)

The Serpents are Dark Angel successor chapter, one of the Unforgiven, and pretty much all about "Something went wrong in the implantation of the gene-seed". As we know, all Neophytes don´t survive it, or it drives them mad... The Serpents are mentally unstable punch of warriors. Too unpredictable to be a Dark Angel, but too valuable to throw away... in the eyes of the inner sircle. So they are kept as a secret chapter, deep inside the Rock. They are used in desperate or secret missions, to spare valuable Dark Angel lives and to maintain Dark Angel diplomatic impartiality in some shady campaigns.

Not the most prosperous chapter... They like to collect combat gear as trophys, from the fallen enemy. (nice excuse to make some interesting convertions...)

Serpents leader, Supreme Master Catulus Übermann takes orders only from Azrael of Dark Angels.

I apologize... I ment only to publish the picutre, but got carried away with the writing!

Dragon Mage

Only convertion on this one is the staff. I just made it alot longer than the original. So he can swing the enemies to the head with it... The reckless dragon mages tend to get in to close combat...

Alith Anar

Here´s few close ups from Alith Anar that visited in earlier picture with the Shadow Warriors...



Little conversion... Swapped the shield for bow. Added some arrows to the base.

Da Rock Lobba

Here´s a Rock Lobba for my dear WHFB Green skin army...
Still unpainted but lookin good. I used the "Artillery of the Cursed Legion" boxed set for this one, cause I really love the model... It´s from a Russian game called "Ring of rule". Here´s a link if you want to check out the game...


The box contains like million pieces... but it´s worth to put some effort to it... You can also put together two spear chuckas from the bits. So you actually get three war machines in one box.


After a few glue filled hours I managed to get it together... then I just added some Orc stuff from my bits box. And ... tadaa.. There´s a very Orcy looking Rock Lobba.


For a final detail I made the rope from wire... Planning to make the crew for it in the near future... but there´s sooooo many projects going on, so well see when I´ll get to it :)

Korhil

Here´s one of the "old ones" that I have painted in the late 90´s or something. One of my favorite miniatures of all times... Still looks good beside the new Warhammer miniatures.
Can´t remember the sculptor anymore... bugger :( Looks alot like Aly Morrisons work...
( Please leave a comment if you know the sculptor )

At the time when Korhil was painted, it was my master piece :) Actually I still like the paint job and the miniarure it self had very cool posing, and looks powerful on the battle table :) I used the old "pimp the base" trick to make it look even bigger on the game table, by making stone and rubble beneath the feet. It always works... Tattoo on the shoulder is little bit of the limit if you follow the GW´s High Elf standard :), but I think it works on White Lion captain...
Important detail, I think, on this model is the inside of the cloak, that is painted with just a little bit of red... it gives it a nice nobel touch. I remember stealing that idea from older issue of White Dwarf :D

Lions nails (or claws) were painted black and highlited with red ( first gore, then blood I think). I remember being very happy with the result... The lions face looks little bit like carved out of stone, but it´s allright... Have to mention allso, that Korhil won the local painting competition at the time. "Wroarrr..!"

The Sword Master project continued...

Ok... As I mentioned earlier, first rank is almost ready :) (I´m slow as a turtle... and not talking about those ninja turtles...) Actually I´ve been working on too many interesting miniature projects at the same time. For example making Hell Fire marine scouts out of old 40k dwarfs...


I take better pictures of miniatures when the whole first rank is ready. These pictures are mostly about that Standard bearer... or actually the banner his holding. I took it from the High Elf dragon box. It was quite a project to get it fit between the Sword Master ranks, but I think it was worth it... That´s gotta be the biggest banner yet :o At least in my armies.


Now I just got to think a theme for the banner picture and it´s colors... Damn. I think I´ll keep it simple...

High Elf Mage

Here´s a funny one... I got the miniature from very old GW plastic wizard box. There were many different empire wizards, from different schools of magic (I guess). I took this one for my Mordheim Shadow warrior band, for they were missing a mage...

Little bit green stuff to make the pointy ears, and I cut off left hand to add a Enchanted Horn that mage found after one battle... ( I dont remember the powers of the horn anymore, but it was better than Boromir´s ;))

Painting was a little bit hasty, for there was going to be a game next day... It looks little more like a Marvel Super Hero, than a High Elf mage to me... at least, at the time, I was happy with the
paint job on the crystal ball :D "To be or not to be..."


Here´s the Mage running after War Boss on a boar, that cunningly manouvered at the back of the Silver Helms... (He´s there... in the bushes) Picture is taken at the local Fantasy Games shop, were we were playing a battle with four armies... I have made this piece of scenery too... which is pretty much the reason I publish this picture :) The Silver Helms are not painted by me. I was just borrowing them for the battle... They are pretty cool unit I think!

Now he´s out of the bushes, after blowing up that War Boss on boar, with a Lightning spell... that left only but a pair of smoking orcy boots and a roasted boar... "Badoom!"

It´s been some time since my last visit here... Still working on my Sword Masters. First rank allmost ready :) Gotta publish something anyway, so here´s some older works...


Here´s a band of shadow warriors, Alith Anar as a leader... Alith Anar is lightly converted from high elf hero miniature. I took of the shield from left hand and added a bow. Some arrows to the base was a nice detail I think. I tried to make him look like he´s waiting for a enemy charge... Sharp eyes can see that really old wood elf model at the back ground... From 80´s or something :) Planning to convert them to shado warriors too... I allso like that orc head at the base of the champ :O

Here´s the unit with red under coat. I desided to wipe the dust from my old High elf hero model from the 90´s, and give him a task as a unit champion in Sword Masters. It´s a really cool looking model with long horns in the helmet. We´ll see how it fits in... maybe I´ll have to convert it a bit to look more like the rest of this elite unit. Or it could be that the colors will do it...

The Sword Master Project

Here´s one "fast painted" Sword Master. Took me one evening to finish. Red Gore on the armor. Wash with flesh wash (i think), and finally high light with blood red. White parts are done first with fortress gray and highlight with white... basic stuff.

But now I´m going to make the whole unit of 28 Sword Masters... We´ll see how that goes. I just got the under coat made for all of them. I used Army painter "Pure Red" primer from the can. I´ll add the photo later... And planning to add photo from every stage of the project. It´s going to be exhausting and long (read boring) project May the force be with me :)