CMON Mini Exchange #25

These exchanges are always a lot of fun, and I painted up TWO figures from the last one, which is a new personal best.

Received today from "Tarreknoire" in the UK:

GW plastic "Fellowship of the Ring" (ALL of them!)
GW plastic Space Marine
GW Imperial Guard loader
HorrorClix "Fandancer" (squished a bit, alas)
... as well as various interesting-looking older stuff





Sent to "bsop" in New York:

Reaper "Jeb Wilson: Western Outlaw"
GW Tau Fire Warrior
Revelation "The Rook"
HeroQuest orc, goblin and chaos warrior (of course!)

Odd Couple

HeroQuest Zombie
28 mm

CSD Mk1 Security Robot
28 mm scale



Despite my wife getting sick this week... followed by me getting sick :( I actually managed to get some painting done. Not much, but I worked a bit on my gunbot and started another HQ mini. So, a clean and tidy guy, and a grungy one.

The robot's blue is just GW "Hawk Turquoise" diluted with a lot of white. It's exactly what I was looking for :) It's hard to see but I added some small wheels stowed on the inside of his legs, similar to Tachikomas...

My inspiration for the zombie is this recent CMON post... but if mine looks half as good I'll be happy. That skin really looks great.

No crown for Victoria

Well, The Chick Challenge verdicts are in , alas my Queen Victoria didn't win anything. But I pretty much knew that as soon as I saw the other entries. It is rather gratifying that neither of the best of show winners were "topless barbarian swordswoman" type subjects, although to be fair that genre was less represented in the contest than it tend to be in the hobby overall...

Cruising with Gunhead

CSD Mk1 Security Robot
28 mm scale



A Reaper Chronoscope "CSD Mk1". I don't have a great track record with this type of miniature. Anything robotic, and anything anime-like are often... not finished by me. I never even completed my "Appleseed" minis, despite them being such an amazing find, and from an anime I really enjoyed.

I've added some antennas to this thing to make it a little more interesting, though I doubt it'll ever be Tachikoma-cute. But it will be light blue, because research indicates the colour blue lulls intruders into a false sense of security.

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Also... I located where Agis got the base figure for his amazing 15 mm Captain America:



Superfigs in 15 mm scale at Old Glory

By the power of Greyskull...

HeroQuest Barbarian ("He-Man")
28 mm



Ok, so he's not exactly as exciting as "Skeletor", as I've said the villain usually gets the coolest outfit :) But I am pleased with the way the skin turned out, which is good considering how little he's wearing. The only real modification I did is the belt design, which I tried to make similar in style to He-Man's chest plate (while not clashing with the rest of the figure). Since I was messing with greenstuff after I started painting, I didn't try to make it too elaborate.

As you can see I gave him a companion; maybe a little small, but perhaps Battle Cat is young in this photo :) The cat is from Mega Miniatures.



I'll probably try to paint up a few more of these HeroQuest figures in the coming months: Chaos Warriors, orcs/goblins, maybe a zombie (But not the Fimir because, frankly, they're lousy minis even by HQ standards).

Works in progress - barbarian and tank

HeroQuest Barbarian
28 mm




Of course, I'm painting him up to go with "Skeletor", but I don't think he'll be as engaging. The villain is so often cooler than the hero... (also this figure is not nearly as interesting a sculpt, nor does his pose work as well with the plastic casting). But that's no reason not to paint him!

Possessed Panzer
15 mm scale



A bit of work on my "possessed" Panzer III. Cutting the tracks up (with the world's #$^@ing dullest razor saw) to make room for the emerging tentacles was a pretty ghastly chore, especially since I wanted to save some of the road wheels and leave some track remaining to dangle convincingly at the ends. But I think once it's done it'll look okay, and I can just plaster some demonic goo over any rough spots ;)

HeroQuest Hellion

HeroQuest Necromancer ("Skeletor")
28 mm



Finally done. I wasn't sure what that sphere on his helmet is supposed to be, so I painted it as a Palantir-type black orb with point reflections.

I suppose an alternate name for him could be Lord Zuthulu ;D

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Some Christmas swag from my brother:



A Reaper "Reptus Sergeant" and Confrontation "Orhain the Erudite". I believe I asked him not to buy me minis... so he compromised and dug these out of the FLGS's bargain bin for a few bucks each. I especially like the turtle guy.

And i just picked up some RAFM Call of Cthulhu Deep Ones. ♫ ♫ It's beginning to look a lot like fish men ♫ ♫...

Happy Holidays

Well I didn't manage to get any more painting done before the holiday descended on us... so Merry Christmas everyone!

And I hereby resolve to paint more in the new year, no matter what happens. Let's see how that works.

Gingerbread 2010

A yearly tradition of mine. Yes, it takes away painting time, but it's a lot tastier in the end! These were all made as gifts for friends.

Toronto, Ontario
350 mm



Christmas trees
250 mm

Screaming, screaming for vengeance

Some work on the Necromancer, much-delayed by Christmas stuff. It turns out that if my wife goes out for a few hours and I can blare 80's metal through the house, I actually don't mind fussy layering on smooth surfaces:



OK, so the music didn't improve my ability any. I think the Skeletor look will actually turn out okay, maybe a bit cartoony but I don't mind that. His green skull face actually looks genuinely sinister.

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Also, a very geeky paper Xmas ornament I came up with, using some internet papercraft and clipart designs printed off and hand-coloured:



Yeah, that's a Stargate :D

Basing, with candles

Some basework for my Necromancer:



Cork isn't very imaginative, but it is pretty easy, and I like the way it looks.

And... Bonus content! NSA's totally amazing simple method for sculpting candles!

Now, I'm neither skilled at nor enthusiastic about sculpting, but we often have to do it to get the miniatures we want. In this case, I wanted a skull with a drippy wax candle on it; something that says "sinister ritual" without taking up too much space. Anyway, this method isn't Golden Demon quality, but it does produce credible-looking drippy candles in only a couple of minutes.



Obviously, before you start this process, you can just fix the wire into the surface on the mini that the candle will be sitting on, or you can hold it in a pin vice or forceps.

Hell hath no fury like...

...a small pewter woman, well-painted. The Chick Challenge 2010 entries have finally all been posted, and they are an interesting bunch! My "Victoria" is in the Open category, where the competition includes things like this... and this... and this.

Yeah, this is why I don't play to win :P Fortunately, seeing such amazing work by others is a pleasure in itself.

End Zone Interception!

HeroQuest Necromancer
32 mm



I've wanted to paint one of these for a long time... I never figured I'd get my hands on one. (And yeah, he does look like he's waiting for a football to fly out of the sky)



I'm not sure what to do with the base now that I've extracted his feet from it... Pentagram? Some Chaos-y torn cork rocks? Skulls and bones? I'm a little short on ideas.

Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India

Queen Victoria
25mm




So here is my Chick Challenge entry, presumably okay to reveal since today is the contest deadline. The miniature is a Victoria Lamb sculpt, which I bought from Eureka, though VL also sells them through her own website. I really enjoyed a lot of aspects of painting this figure - figuring out what all her medals and things were, rendering the rich purple, and just generally doing something a little different. As mentioned before I don't think I really have a chance of winning anything, but that's not the point... I think painting for contests, as rarely as I do it, really does bring out my best work.

(The plinth is a wooden toy makers' train wheel, stained with GW Chestnut ink. Worked perfectly!)

Sick Day(s) Project

HeroQuest Mummy
28 mm



I did most of the work on this guy while laid up with a cold, and then (unrelatedly) recovering from having a long skinny medical instrument jammed through my body via some of my larger blood vessels. Not optimal painting conditions, but this wasn't exactly a groundbreaking paint job either. Still, I like the results.

Size comparison with an old Citadel mummy from "Curse of the Mummy's Tomb". HeroQuest figures are a lot closer to modern "heroic 25/28mm":

I'm very strange, I know it.

I'm working on a new 15 mm project... and it's a weird one. Here's some rough concept art:


What the? OK, some explanation: As we all know from watching "Raiders of the Lost Ark", the Third Reich were interested in some pretty fringe stuff - occultism and black magic and so on. This is the product of some kind of Nazi occult ritual gone horribly awry on the battlefield, resulting in the tank being "possessed" by some kind of demon or entity :O Kind of like the Chaos vehicles in Warhammer 40,000.

I'm basing this on a 15 mm Flames of War tank, and probably some GW Chaos or Genestealer bitz for the legs, since I'm not such a hot sculptor... I might have some mixed troops (Allied AND German) trying to destroy the thing, to emphasize what a universal menace it is. Should be fun :)

Motley Things

Chick Challenge* Entry
28 mm



OK, I can't actually show this, at least not before the Dec. 5 closing date for contest entries. But I will say it's a lovely sculpt by Victoria Lamb, and it's not at all like a lot of the things I have painted lately. Also, it's very purple.

* The Chick Challenge, in brief, is a female miniature painting contest. It was run for years by Jason Moses, but is now ably managed by Legio Pictorum, a group of Italian painters.

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I recently managed to acquire ($2, church bazaar) a battered copy of Heroquest! This was a Milton Bradley fantasy board game from the 80's, with game pieces produced by Citadel/Games Workshop. Essentially a canned version of a RPG dungeon crawl, complete with treasure to collect and orcs and other nasties to fight.

It came with a large number of "game pieces":




Hmm, yeah. They remind me of the figures from Battlemasters, or the old Bloodbowl box set. While they're not exactly high-quality even by the standards of modern plastic figures, I have done decent paint jobs on such things in the past.

I feel like these have... potential. We'll see.

DUEL!

Alien vs. Predator: The White Queen
15 mm



The base inscription reads:
"To the last I grapple with thee;
from hell's heart I stab at thee;
for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee."

Captain Ahab was hunting a white whale, but this Predator seems to be facing something quite a bit more exotic and deadly.





I wish I could say the idea of relating this duel to Moby-Dick was some clever and oh-so-literate impulse, but it's probably influenced by watching "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"... I was trying for a de-pigmented "facehugger" type colour on the "white" Queen, but she ended up looking quite green.

Here are some shots I took before I put the whole thing together:

Squishy!

Ta da! Alien nesting... stuff.



One can only hope the aliens would produce it in a process resembling this:



...and not by pooping it out of some specialized orifice and then lovingly sculpting it with their bare hands. But I wouldn't count on it.

"Whoever wins... we lose"

Alien versus Predator
15 mm scale

I never thought that tagline made sense - Predators supposedly kill a few armed people at a time, whereas Xenomorphs kill everyone indiscriminately. Not really equivalent.

Figures are "Vacation Alien" and "Space Demon" from Khurasan Miniatures. I don't see the Hunters on the site any more, I wonder if someone's lawyer gave him a call? (ed. - they're under "cinematic aliens", along with the classic B-movie Martians)







For basing, I'm going to sculpt some of that chitinous crap that Xenomorphs secrete all over their nesting areas in the movies, and maybe some techy floor remnants to fill out the base area for an infested colony effect.