Vampires everywhere!
Halloween is fast approaching, and I was finally able to paint again. With age come all kinds of hurdles, and this time it was the eyes… luckily, with my first ever eye glasses it seems that it ia not yet time to put this hobby on hold:) The pictures below present some of Games Workshop’s newer vampires. They all were a blast to paint, especially the wolf-mother. I entered her into the yearly painting competition at Ropecon, but this time there was no success. I don’t wonder, though: I painted the miniature in the late spring without the glasses, squinting like a lunatic. It was that process that led me to get my eyes checked 😀 Enjoy!
An Old Wolf
I still have some old Confrontation metal models from circa 20 years back laying around. Decided to give one a go, and here is the end result:
Nothing fancy here, just a nice model with a hopefully decent paint job. I tried to add some textures here and there, such as the fur and the rust. The base is a stone with a little bit of colour. Hope you like it!
The Pox Rider
In the summer of 2021, I participated in the Ropecon online painting competition with the following image:
I built this model much earlier, and actually also shared it here in two earlier posts (i.e. https://wellofminiatures.wordpress.com/2020/08/19/death-guard-outrider/). The competition rules stated one could submit only one picture, but that it could be a composite of multiple smaller ones. After some testing, this composite image is the one I came up with. In the finished model, I am especially happy about the way the bike turned out. Also, the base with its broken asphalt turned out pretty nicely. I struggled with the space marine helmets in the back for a long time, and even dropped them entirely at one point. But in the end, the trophy rack of fallen enemies just belonged to the dude.
The paint job is a pretty traditional one, using traditional techniques. Quite a lot of stippling went into the various types of battle damage, and I also used a lot of shades, diluted contrast paints, and the like when weathering both the rider and the bike. At the end of the day, I feel that despite the many hours that went into painting the Pox Rider, it still is the conversion work that pleased me the most, and that had the largest effect in how the model turned out. Starting from the clean Primaris Outrider model, and slowly adding new nuances to it, was so much fun! Luckily, I still have some other similar conversions down the pipeline, waiting to be painted:)
Next up…oil paints?
Victory!
Keeping this one short and sweet: the Plague Marine conversion I did for the painting competition of the local game store ended up winning its category!
For this feat, I received 20 euros of cold, hard… store credit:) Truthfully, I was pretty surprised at the win, especially since I personally voted for another figure, and also know of others who did. But apparently this little dude won enough hearts over.
An update is in order…
Ah, how the time flies. Against all odds I have actually been painting during the pandemic, and even managed to participate in two painting competitions during this time! The first one was held by our local game store. They gave all participants a primaris space marine, and gave us free hands to proceed as we saw fit. What do you know… I ended up corrupting it:P
I will write a longer post about the other competition piece later on, once the competition is over. To conclude, I still want to document here some (relatively) speed painted orcs for the game Blitz Bowl – a lighter version of the classic Blood Bowl.
Rotting away with the Indomitus space marines
Continuing the slow quest of converting the Indomitus box Primaris Space Marines, I present two more entries.
First up is a Plague Marine made out of the Assault Intercessors. Until so far, two have been painted, and three are ready and waiting a paint coat.
This one required quite a bit of green stuff work, but I am really happy with the end result.
The second one is an even larger conversion, where I used the body of the Bladeguard Ancient as a basis for creating a Tallyman. The nurgling is an old metal one from times gone by, and the book is also metallic and comes from a miniature I have long since forgotten. I think this one captured the feel of the Tallyman quite well, and also size-wise it fits the bill perfectly.
Next, I think I will be able to present the outrider fully painted – an extensive conversion and painting project that unfortunately has no direct comparison point in the codex. But honestly, that is not why I am doing this in the first place:)
Death Guard Outrider
Continuing with the Indomitus box Space Marines, I wanted to see what kind of a Death Guard biker I would be able to come up with. While there are no rules for them as such, I thought I could use one as a Chaos Lord on a palanquin. Hilariously enough, those rules would mean that the model would be slower than on foot…😎
I begun by cleaning the pieces and adding some wear and tear.
I then used a chest piece from a Plague Marine instead of the normal one. This made for a pretty thick torso, and also required some green stuff work to close the gaps.
I had some Death Guard terminator arms laying around, and while they were significantly bulkier than the original arms, they sort of fit after some toning down.
In a fit of chaotic madness, I thought it would be a good idea to include some form of decoration on the bike. This is what I tried first:
Luckily my wife told me this was an exceptionally bad decision. Too much on the nose;) So, after rummaging around in the bitz box, I found the perfect solution – dragon’s jaw bones!
I also used the head of the Justicar figure from the Indomitus box, as well as inserted a trophy rack with three marine heads to the bike.
All in all, this was a wonderfully interesting piece of kitbashing! I am really looking forward to paiting this bad boy:)
Two Hellbrutes for DG
These two were first initiated two of years ago (see an earlier post for some more insight on the building process), but only finalised recently. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to be able to make a list where they would nicely fit in, but I will keep on trying:)
My favourite part about this one is the hand that is holding the missile launcher. It comes from the Fantasy Battles Giant kit.
Here, I really like the way the foot with the cables turned out. Guitar string has a lot of uses in miniature-building! Now, whether I will be able to paint these dudes when there is so much on my painting-plate at the moment…remains to be seen.
Indomitus for the rotters
I bought into the madness, and got myself a box of the new WH40K ”starter”, Indomitus. As per usual, it has Space Marines within, but they really don’t interest me. However, I feel there are some conversion possibilities here, and wanted to try something out. End result: Assault Intercessor turned into a Plague Marine!
The conversion work includes a weapon swap, a head swap, a glued-on horn on a shoulder pad (invisible from this angle), a sword-arm and shoulder guard from the Plague Marine box, and a lot of cutting, drilling, and some green stuff worms to top it off. And even though someone commented on Reddit that Plague Marines don’t run, now they surely do! Here is still a comparison shot with a ”normal” Plague Marine (a bit unsharp, unfortunately).
What next? Well… the bikers look mighty awesome:P
Gellerpox mutants
I really, really like the Gellerpox mutants from Kill Team: Rogue Trader – too bad they suck in the game (as well as WH40K). Still, I wanted to include the figures into my army. The four large dudes from the box will end up being Chaos Spawn, which at least in the 9th received a hefty points cut. One can only hope they remain playable for the duration of the edition…
I am still figuring out the photography bit. It has been so many years since I did this for real that I have forgotten how to take good photos, and especially how to edit them afterwards. Baby steps….
Well of Miniatures 