Colore ton Monde: Alten Ashley I

Some WIPs for this month's Colore ton Monde challenge mini. I went with the monster hunter angle, rather than the monster itself, which is of course covered by the always flexible monthly theme (go here to see October's theme). So here are the first shots of Alten Ashley.

Alten is very much close to being done. These are only WIPs for two reasons. First off, I started painting his sword that sticks onto his back at the same time I started painting him, but by the time I got round to finishing him, I had misplaced the sword. This is very annoying, and I hope it turns up, however, if Alten is ever using his sword in a game, that game is not going well for him!

The second reason is that, as always, I was very happy with the way he was looking, till I saw the pictures. My eyes are just not what they used to be. So, I'll be going back over the mini, mainly to sort out his hair and face.

The plants on his base are some chopped up plastic aquarium plants that I recently re-purposed (all the fish have finally passed on in our tank, so I had to doe something with all the bits). They work rather well I feel. I went with thistles, as they are purple and cream, which fits in with my other mercs, without me having to give him a garish purple coat, thereby breaking his camouflage. There is also a little purple on his boot-knife, just to keep him on theme.

Here's a close up of the face. I was trying a couple of new things here. First off, the stubble, and secondly, giving a tint to the bottom lip. Both f these to give more character to the paint job. However, I'm not sure either works with my normal way of doing eyes, i.e. ignoring them and letting the inks do the job of suggesting the presence of eyes.

It was this picture that convinced me I'll have to go back and get out the little paintbrushes before I'm happy with this guy.

Dystopian Legions: Mercenaries, Black Wolf Raiding Party

I finally got my hands on this unit. It saw general release in April, but it only arrived in my FLGS last week. I hope to actually have them on the table soon, but in the meantime, here are my impressions of the minis.

I must say, overall I'm impressed with these guys. The flash that is there is easy to remove, the arms , for the most part, are easy to assemble, making for good poses, and 6 individual miniatures (which, for a one off unit is really to be expected at this price point, but other companies don't always deliver on this).

Box Contents:
The non-mini contents of the box are as follows. 6 basses, 5 30mm and 1 40mm. The 40mm base being for the Officer, as he is Tier 1, thereby adding Command Points to your army total. The larger base then lets you see this, so as you don't forget when adding up, and also to remind you not to add the CPs if you lose the Officer. A nice touch. The box also contains one special activation card for the unit, that may be inserted into your pack to be used in play, and lastly a selection of 4 activation cards, one for each faction, thereby allowing this section to be fielded with any of the four factions. A nice touch.

The Minis:
The box contains six miniatures in total, four ratings, or able seamen, one Officer and one Specialist. Each of the ratings are 2 part minis, with the gun and arms being separate. The Officer has both arms and weapons as separate parts, and the Specialist is the most complex of the pack, with each arm being separate, as well as two parts of ammo belt, one to be connected between the backpack and the gun, and the second to flow from the gun.From these pics it looks like flash is a major issue, but although the flash is large, it cleans up very easily, leaving little or no trace. There was a small issue with mould lines on the hats, but since the tops of the hats are flat, this too was easily resolved.

 

Ammo belt

The issue I have with these, and this is a common one to Spartan 32mm minis, and that is due to the fact the minis are very thin, especially the arms, which leads to connecting the fiddly little parts. This is a big issue with the specialist, as his gun and left arm are two pieces, which join with a very slight connection on top of the gun. This reminded me a little of the Dragoons' arms, and not in a good way. Maybe a little green stuff on the join would strengthen it, but there really isn't much space for green stuff on top of the gun (maybe I should have put it at the arm joints). There is also the ammo belt to connect, but there was no  earthly way I could have connected that in the same sitting, the glue needs a good while to cure before I go back to play with that fragile connection. In fact, I had to put a dollop of green stuff behind the belt being expelled from the gun, to ensure a strong enough bond for play. This does look a bit lumpy, but I'm sure it'll be hidden once painted.

The overall detail and sculpting on these is excellent. As with most Spartan 32mm releases. The faces are great, and their shirts even have the stripes shown in the concept art sculpted on. Of course this is only made possible by the computer aided sculpting process, but it is rather nifty. What remains to be seen is how that will translate on the painting table.

 

Holiday Painting Challenge

My regular gaming group, the Oldies, is running a painting swap for over the Christmas holidays.

It was somewhat of a challenge to come up with a miniature I wanted someone else to paint. Not because I am under any delusions that my painting is of superior quality, quite the opposite in fact. It was more to do with having a mini that could be painted up in any scheme that the other guy wanted (we didn't put in a request as to what we wanted done with the mini, so it is fully at the discretion of the other guy).

For my part, I settled on Madelyn Corbeau. A mini that I have never put on the table and therefore is rather far down on my list of what to do next. However, it is a mini that I like the look of, so she will see play some time I'm sure. What's more, as a courtesan, she can be done in any colour scheme imaginable, and still fit the bill. Decision made!

As to the mini I was given to paint, I got a Feralgeist. Again, as a minion model, he does not have to fit in with the scheme of the army he plays with. I have my own one of these, and I have been thinking what do do with him, and had thought to use him as a test model for some Testors fluorescent paints I have. i may have to paint up my own first, rather than spoil someone else's mini with paint I don't know how to use, so that's this holiday's painting schedule booked up!

Victor Pendrake, Adventuring Scholar

The painting challenge for September was to paint something relating to the return to school. I was really struggling, as I had thought to do a mage for my Bretonnian army, and I have even undercoated and based the mini, but I was not able to find the inspiration to actually get on and paint her. Then, whilst clearing out another tray of minis, I found this guy languishing with a mere base coat, and lo, it was decided. What better mini for the challenge than good old Professor Pendrake?

There are a few little bits and pieces I'd like to go back over, but he's ready for the table.

Yaum the Machine: The Results

As I have previously mentioned, my friend and opponent Yaum has set himself up in business as a painter.He is reknowned amonst the group of Oldies with whom I play to be not only fast, but also extremely talented when it comes to painting miniatures, hence the name of his service, 'Yaum the Machine'. I put my money where my blogging mouth is, so I picked out a mini, and had it painted. the results of which are below.

I'm extremely pleased with this. I left all colour choices and basing up to him, and I'm impressed with the sublety of the painting of the black armour. Black is one of those colours I never get right, he makes it look so simple.

For more info, please go see his blog, or facebook page.

 

Colore Ton Monde Mars, and 1 year anniversary

This month of May is the one year anniversary of the 'Colore ton Monde' painting challenge. Congratulations to Club Chaos for organising this, keeping the momentum going, I think the last month's entries were among the most numerous to date.


My April mini was completed ahead of time, and can be found here. Here's a retrospective of my entries over the last year:

May '12
June '12
July '12
August '12
September 12
October '12 - Failed to complete
November '12
December '12 - Fail
January '13 - Fail
February '13
March '13

I hadn't realised I had dropped the ball on so many, still, it's a great motivator to keep going with the challenge for the rest of the year.

For May's challenge, as well as the usual painting on the topic below, there are a couple of other ways the group will be celebrating the anniversary. First off, this month's entrants will all be entered into a draw for an Army painter Mega Kit. With optional other prizes, if there are enough entries.

Furthermore, there will be two group nights during the month that will allow further entries into the draw, and will even include cake! What more could we ask for!

Ça va faire mal !

Pour le mois de mai, nous vous invitons à peindre un modèle qui cogne. Une brute, un monstre, une machine de guerre qui ne peut être arrêtée: tout ce qui peut avoir un impact significatif sur une table, soit en réduisant en bouillie vos modèles en corps à corps, ou en les explosant à distance. Tant que ça fait mal !

That's gonna hurt!

For the month of May, we invite you to paint a model that hits. A brute, a monster, a war machine that can not be stopped: anything that can have a significant impact on a table or reducing to mush your models in melee or making them explode at a distance. As long as it hurts!

So, I think I'll be taking myself back to Warmachine (it's been a while), and painting up my Mangler, as this mini seems to be capture well the goal of this challenge. The only question is to whether I paint him up as Highborn colours like my Mule, or in a more generic Mercenaries colours, like my Talon. Either way, there are sure to be gears and other body parts strewn across his base.

Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator.

Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator, I painted this little fella back in 2008 or so, and he has yet to be properly based, although it would take little to put a bit of sand and flock on him (there is after all, very little of it showing out from under his coat). Reinholdt was one of the first minis I bought, back in wave 1 of Warmachine releases. I doubt I've actually fielded him more than a handful of times, but I painted him as a test model for some Swamp Gobbers I then painted for a friend's birthday. I'm quite pleased with the two tone skin under the mouth.

Alexia, base WIP

This mini has been on the table for a while now, but I thought it was about time to post a few WIP shots of the base, and mini for Alexia. I had the mini painted mostly up for the Longest Night event, but I had held off on the base, as I wanted something a little more special for this lady. In the end, I opted for this base by Secret Weapon.

Here, Alexia's base all but done, some muddy water to add, and some touch ups to the mini after all the man-handling required to remove the horse from its previous base and pin it to this one.

I went on to touch up the paint work, and fill in the base with some water effect, stained with Secret Weapon's Sewer Water wash. Perfectly named I feel, and the colour works great as swamp water. I dumped some grass and leaves in the mix at the last minute, as I was too eager to get the water in there, I completely forgot how I had actually planned to place these before adding the water effects.

Furthermore, I had also planned to varnish the model before I put the water effect in, as I didn't want the spray varnish I use for a dullcoat clouding up the base! This will have to be worked around, as already the paint job has chipped again where I repaired it last night. I guess I'll have to paint on the 'ard coat, then mask over the base to spray with dullcoat.

Longest Night

I went along to the hallowe'en party at my FLGS last Saturday evening. The store was open for an all nighter, which meant the party started after the kids bedtime, hence my availability. They were running (amongst other things) a ‘Longest Night’ event. I thought this was a one off event run last year, when Privateer Press released eAlexia. Although it looked fun, I doubted I would be able to make it. However, it turns out they are supporting this as an event that can be run at any time, which is great. I may even get round to converting some skeletons to be used as the Longest Night Thralls.

Participation Badge

Once I made it along to the store, there was a little delay in getting started, but I managed to play 2 games before having to run for the metro. I played Legion, and managed to pick up a bunch of points here and there from the list at the end of the scenario (which includes things like making a tent for the scenario, taking candies to share, and being in fancy dress). It pays to read the rules. I found out the next day I had won (although I have yet to collect the medal).

The biggun' was so taken by the tent, we had to make another one for her the next day,

Home-made tent and Thrall

I tried to get eAlexia painted up for use (she plays for any and all factions in this scenario), but failed. I am however quite happy with the horse (although it is not finished, it needs some work on the face and the ribs). I decided to go with a blonde Alexia, to move away from the dark tones of the mount, but otherwise I'm sticking pretty closely to the colour scheme laid out in NQ37.