Thursday, August 20, 2020

Miniature Showcase: Frodo at the Cracks of Doom

Many, many moons ago, around the year 2000 or so, the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game was released by Games Workshop. This game featured miniatures based on the character designs from Peter Jackson's The Lord of The Rings trilogy, which was right up my alley.

The original range was very impressive and filled with fantastic masterfully sculpted miniatures.  As time went on I would occasionally pick up a few  here and there, though I never got around to buying any armies or playing the game.

Frodo here came in a three pack of models with Sam and Gollum all based on the climax of The Return of the King. I had bought this set shortly after they released, mostly for the Gollum miniature since he was my favorite character in the trilogy.

For a long time I had grand plans to build a small diorama using all three of them. Though in the back then I lacked the skills to make it a reality. Unfortunately, in the intervening years, Sam seems to be been lost o the ages. I've searched my drawers and boxes of stored miniatures and he's no where to be seen. Maybe he walked off with the Ring?

At that point I had decided that perhaps a Gollum and Frodo diorama would be nice to build and was all set to make that happen. But in the end I chose to paint Frodo by himself because sometimes you just want to paint a specific miniature, ya know?

Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Miniature Showcase: Death Riders


Just before Adepticon 2019 I decided that my next army would be Imperial Guard, thanks to breaking the ice with my Commissar Yarrick conversion of Severina Raine. I had just come off building the Dreadnought list for Warhammer 40,000 Friendly Tournament that year, and was still in a slump with my Adeptus Mechanicus. So I was looking for something fresh, with a lot of options. It really didn't take that much convincing for me to jump on Imperial Guard either, due to my love of World War 2 and films such as Starship Troopers.

I'd always had a vague interest in that faction. But it wasn't until I read Dave Taylor's Armies & Legions & Hordes book that I really got the bug to work on them. Seriously, read that book it's a wealth of wargaming knowledge and inspiration.

I knew going into it that I was going to be transport heavy and the overarching theme would be mechanized infantry. With that theme in mind, I started looking at units in the Astra Militarum Codex and the Forces of the Imperium Index that went along with the idea of a highly mobile force.

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

Miniature Showcase: Lord Maarku, Knight Gallant of House Killkerran

Part of the joy that is 2020 is not being able to play Warhammer 40k locally. Luckily, my Twitter crew has started playing games via Tabletop Simulator. This has been a huge boon for us, since we can now play 40k together more often than just during Adepticon, if at all. It also allows us to play with list builds that consist of models we don't own yet.

Thanks to this I revisited the Adeptus Mechanicus, an army that I haven't played in two years due to having a massive losing streak with them.

I created a new list that included a Knight Gallant in it and a few other units that I've never given a fair shake. A few games in, I was hooked on this list and needed to scratch the Knight painting itch.

After a few weeks, the local shop opened up after the Covid-19 shut down and I decided it was time to pick up one of those bad boys. In the time since, I've assembled and began the process of painting him up.

Let's take a look!

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Wizardry in Progress 2/26/20

This week has been a bit on the slower side of things, but I still feel like I've gotten a lot done. This week I worked on the beholder diorama some more, adding a few small details and playing with lighting. More work was also done on Legion models, I painted the roll mode Droideka, which I had originally passed on doing and I've started work on painting the two squad boxes of Clones and B1 Battle Droids that I received at Christmas. Last but not least, I picked up a new combat arm for the Contemptor Dreadnoughts to update the Dreadlist a little bit.

Let's take a look!

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Wizardry in Progress 2/19/20

It's a very Star Wars Legion kinda time around these parts. I am deeeeep into this game at the moment and working my way through a bit of backlog of models so we can finally get the game on the table. This week I've been working on a few different character models as well as finishing up the Seperatists side of things by basing the B1 Battle Droids.

The goal is to be able to start playing the game asap and get some practice with the system, so I came possibly get some games in at Adepticon in March. I still have plans to add some Felucia style plant life to the bases as well. But I'll add that in at a later date.

But for now, let's take a look at what was accomplished this week.

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Wizardry in Progress 2/12/20

This week was fairly productive and saw some more work on the Beholder diorama and a bit of progress made on finishing up the Star Wars Legion Clone Wars core set. Not to mention, I picked up R2-D2 and C-3PO for Legion on Sunday and painted them that very same day.

Wednesday, February 5, 2020

Wizardry in Progress - 2/5/20

Well well, what is this?

WIZARDRY IN PROGRESS!

I've not done one of these in a long time, even though projects have been getting worked on. Let's go over some projects that I've been working on over the last few weeks.

Monday, January 27, 2020

Miniature Monday: Léa

In May of 2019, Ouroboros Miniatures launched a Kickstarter for a line of female busts called Exquis. Originally I didn't pay much attention to it, since I had a bunch of other things on my plate, but eventually I couldn't resist ordering Léa through the Kickstarter campaign.

While the campaign was going I kept looking at this bust and dreaming of how I wanted to paint it up.

What color would the skin be? What about the hair? How do I want to do the hoodie?

After awhile I decided that I wanted to do her with a tan skin tone, with teal and magenta hair. But I wasn't sure what to do with the hoodie. I did know that I wanted to try some freehand on it, but not the design itself.

The model arrived and sat a few months on the shelf, due to other projects and a bit of intimidation.

Why was I intimidated? Well, at that point it had been well over a year since the last female bust I had painted, which was Kommander Sorscha. I had taken her to GenCon for Privateer Press' painting competition, and while she placed bronze I had messed up the shading on her face and she looks like she has a bit of 5 o' clock shadow going on.

Whoopsie!

Monday, January 20, 2020

Miniature Monday: The Child aka BABY YODA

No one was prepared for the cuteness overload that is Baby Yoda, aka the The Child, in the new The Mandalorian. After the first episode, the internet exploded with memes and GIFs, the likes I've never seen before.
Disney+ series,

Disney drastically misjudged the ravenous need of the Star Wars fandom for all things Baby Yoda. While there we toys, shirts and other branded goodies, none of them featured the world's favorite young green Force user. That's when the fandom stepped in and suddenly there were crocheted dolls, posters, shirts and eventually even 3D printed miniatures. Much to the chagrin of Disney execs, I'm sure.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on this one through Shapeways, before the listing was taken down. It is very, very tiny and very, very adorable!

In general, I'm not 100% sold on 3D printed models. I'd rather have a standard molded model kit any day of the week. But, even I am not immune to Baby Yoda Fever and I had an unreasonable need to purchase this little fella. Purchase him, I did.

Monday, January 13, 2020

Miniature Monday: Constantin Valdor, Captain-General of the Legio Custodes

Of all the models for Games Workshop's Horus Heresy game system, the best by far have to be from the Character Series. This series of specialty models depict important characters in the Horus Heresy setting, mostly the leaders of the Adeptus Astartes, sculpted into dynamic poses that capture the action and feel of a galaxy at war in the year 30,000.

It's a well known fact that I don't really know much about the lore of Warhammer. I don't read the books and mostly just skim the lore for the factions that I do play. I'm especially lost when it comes to the Horus Heresy, other than the fact that it's a civil war between the Space Marine Legions of the Imperium.

In general, I just like the game and the models. Even for those, like myself, who aren't super invested in the setting, there's a lot to love in the Character Series and the sculpts are amazing. I've always wanted to paint one of them, and this model of Constantin Valdor, the Captain-General of the Legio Custodes was the one that grabbed me.

Monday, January 6, 2020

Miniature Monday: Death Riders Commissar

Alright folks, it's time to kick off the '20s with a new, better Miniature Monday!

This year I want to try to talk more in-depth about the model that is being featured, include additional detail shots and also pictures before paint for heavily converted models. The goal is to make each Miniature Monday as detailed as possible and worthy of its place as a main feature of the site.

What better way to kick off the new year and new format than with my favorite model of 2019, the Death Riders Commissar! This model has been heavily converted there's a lot to cover on this guy.

2019 was a big year for customizing models, thanks to the Death Riders project. A massive 15 motorcycle addition to my Steel Legion army, which I'll be cover in their own Miniature Monday in a few weeks. Each of those bikers were customized by plopping a torso of a Death Korps of Krieg infantryman onto the legs of a Genestealer Cults Jackal biker and doing a bit of green stuff work to rebuild the long coats on them. Those models are pretty tame in comparison to this bad boy, which is made from four separate models and a few bits pulled from my collection.