Curs'd Ettin - Finished

The athach is a monster from Celtic myth which basically means 'giant'.

After some weeks of effort, the ettin is finally finished. He was a very enjoyable model to work on that taught me a ton about painting larger models. He was my first forge world model, and I can agree that these are kits intended for the more experienced modeller. But the detail on the sculpt is amazing, and worth the extra effort.

Planning how to assemble and paint his loin cloth took military organisation. Pins had to be drilled where each section of the garment was going to be glued on. The four sections were then painted off the model, as there was no way to reach all the recesses if it was assembled fully before painting. Down that road lies insanity. Once the parts were painted they were glued to the pins so that they lined up exactly. Then I had to greenstuff the gaps between the sections, (greenstuffing an otherwise finished model is not for the carefree) and paint those. Finally, add goat. Actually, I added the goat to give him more of a sense of scale, as there are no indicators on the model that he's a giant. For the same reason I added the multitude of tattoos and the dead horse and orc skull to the base.

His rules are in monstrous arcana, and are pretty funny. His personality can shift leading to in-game hilarity. He's super expensive in points, but, meh. I'll use him for any kind of giant I need for the fimir. He's a really nice addition to the army, and it's given me a taste for more large scale kits down the road.

Mmm... resiny.

Genesteal Cult - Hybrid, Update 3

Several packages have arrived this week containing various metal, plastic and resin goodies for my cult. I think I have almost gathered a critical mass of parts now where I can assemble the first squad of hybrids without wishing I had some part or other. I am still waiting on some more arms from Anvil Industries to come in, and one or two other bits, but we're mostly there. I didn't realise how many little companies out there serve the wargaming sci-fi market. It's fantastic amazing. Below are the latest bits of tinkering with the hybrids.

I've located a goodly stash of tyranid bits, and the smaller termagant arms make great fodder for hybrid arm conversions. You can see one on the 2nd generation here, with the missing hand. I may swap the mask on his back for a purestrain servo skull. He's shaping up to be a squad leader, I'm thinking.

A package of good stuff from Victoria Miniatures provided these resin arms and alien (Cthood) heads. I think they make great early generation hybrid heads, particularly from Ymgarl variant purestrains. They work with the Games Workshop ghoul bodies very well indeed. A little warm water bending will be required for the arms to fit, which were a little roughly cast, getting them off the gate in one piece will be a chore, for example. Great parts for all that though. The bases are from Dragonforge. My basing will be wrecked urban, so these do the job nicely.

Another welcome item from Dragonforge are these poseable metal cables. You can't have infected adeptus mechanicus without some cabling attaching various bits to other bits. I did consider guitar string, but the fact these can be bent to the required shape is a winner for me.

All very exciting. Once the ettin is wrapped I may dive in and start building hybrid squad one. I've recently amassed enough original hybrids for another squad, problem now is making the originals and converted ones look like they are from a coherent force.

Curs'd Ettin - Update 3

I've been a tad lax on the hobby front lately, trying to catch up on a few things and even watching the odd movie or two. (Let me tell you, The Road is a good movie, but boy, is it a downer.) Even so, I finally managed to finish the Ettin's base and attach it to the big naked guy. It still needs grasses, moss and such. He's just gotten his first coat of gloss varnish, and when that dries I'll hit him with the matt, before re-glossing the bog water and the ettin's mouths and eyes.

Once that's done I'll tackle the loin cloth. It's a little tricky, as it has to be painted before it's attached, as no brush in the world could reach all the recesses were you to attach it before painting. I've added a goat drinking skin from the giant kit to the loin cloth give him some context, scale wise. The tattoos will help give him a sense of scale too. They are small in relation to his arm, and there's a lot of them. The dead horse on the base should help too. I'm primarily going to use him in my fimir army as an athach or a fomorian giant, so the basing is the same as the rest of the fimir. The base skin tone is the same as my wyrm beasties too, so all that should help tie him into the army.

The next update will be the final one, with added ettin underpants.

Ettin Update, Stags & Vanishing Terrain Kits

Work continues on the ettin's skin. I have to say, I do love acrylic medium. It's a magical liquid. I've used it plenty before, but never in the quantities I'm using on this guy. I created a series of flesh washes for the initial shading that were much thinner than usual. At his size, the ettin's skin needed much less contrast than a 28mm model. I added more yellow to the mix for recesses, under the arms and between folds of flesh. substitute in red and purple for wounds and around the eyes and jowls and he's almost ready. I dirtied up his feet a little too, I wanted it to look ground in rather than filthy. I still need to do the lips, and touch up a few areas. Then onto his loin cloth, rock and goat-bottle.

In other news the wild riders images are prancing about the internet this morning. Now here's a kit I can get some use out of. I'm a little concerned the stags are too slender to mount a hefty fimir mistmor on though. I'll need to see the sprues up close. The helmets are the business. I also noticed the elf rangers have hooded heads that would make great cultist conversion bits.

Finally, it seems that a great deal of the terrain kits Games Workshop produce for both Warhammer and Warhammer 40k are being discontinued. Looking at Element Games and Wayland Games, most of the Warhammer kits are already unavailable. On the UK Games Workshop site they have started vanishing too. Kits like Dreadstone Blight are unavailable, and the old Temple of Skulls is gone altogether. So far only the barricades are gone from 40k, but I did hear kits like the Skyshield Landing Pad and Honoured Imperium are getting the chop. If you're looking to get some of these plastic terrain sets, now is the time.

I want one of these. Anyone?

Cover me in Glory, Liebster Award

The Liebsters are doing the rounds again, and this time Carsten from the tremendous Clamshells and Seahorses (best blog name ever) has seen fit to bestow the Liebster upon me. Though undeserving of such a glorious accolade, one will do one's best to muddle along.

Seems the first thing is to reveal 11 truths about myself. Hmm. Okay so. BEHOLD.

• My real name is David. That's an easy one.
• I live in the West of Ireland, near Lough Corrib. I used to live in Dublin, but as a pal of mine once said: "It concerns me, Dave, that you appear to be moving further and further from the prying eyes of civilisation."
• As you may have gathered, I do love miniatures. But the new, as well as the old.
• I've made a LOT of friends through gaming. Go to events and tournaments. Gamers are a friendly lot, if prone to shouting and sometimes trying a little too hard.
• I've nearly died twice now. I escaped once by being rescued, the other time by negotiating. I'm so hardcore.
• I have a genuine concern I won't get through all my bucket list projects before kicking said bucket.
• Golden syrup and cheddar on toast. Yummity.
• My favourite comedy is Evil Dead 2.
• I watch Adventure Time even when the kids aren't in the room.
• I inadvertently shouted 'Yeeehhaaaaa!' at the top of my lungs when emptying the clip of an AK47. SO hardcore.
• Crispy baby crabs are my favourite beer snack.

 
There you go. Now, questions from Eval!

• Sci-fi or fantasy? Ancient or Modern warfare? And why?

Fantasy, if I'm honest. Why? Swords.

• How did you first get into the miniature/war-gaming hobby?

White Dwarf 95. Warhammer 3rd edition release issue. Hooked ever since.

• What's the latest hobby-related book you've read?

The GW dwarf book.

• What's your latest game you've played (tabletop/boardgame)?

Zombiecide.

• Would you say you are more a collector, painter or gamer and why?

More a painter, because it's easier to pick up the paints than get a group of mates together to game.

• Who is your favourite miniature sculptor? 

Jes Goodwin if I had to choose one. Which is hard.

• Who is your favourite rule-book/source-book - illustrator/artist and/or writer?

Russ Nicholson, for the work he did for the Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Heavily influenced by youthful awe mixed with elderly nostalgia.

• Who is your all time favourite miniatures producing company? 

It's Citadel.

• What's you favourite miniatures game/rule producer?

Games Workshop. Yeah?!

• What's your dearest item in you collection - and why?

Morbius the liche. My alter ego in my undead army for almost thirty years.

• What recent hobby purchase do you most regret (if any)?

Don't be ridiculous.


Now to pick eleven blogs wot I like. Carsten already picked a bunch I would have, but here's what does it for me today:

King's Miniatures
The Realm of Zhu
Dave Taylor Miniatures
Sprocket's Small World
Spiky Rat Pack
Somewhere the Tea's Getting Cold
Rob Hawkin's Hobby
James Wappel Miniature Painting
Sho3box
Realm of Citadel
Eldritch Epistles

And the questions for these blogs that are like unto the Gods themselves.

• What's your favourite miniature release from the last year?
• What does it take for a miniature to make you have to have it?
• Tell me about a miniature you absolutely hate.
• What's your favourite piece of game-related art/illustration?
• Who's the biggest influence toward your painting style?
• Basing. Love it? Hate it? Don't care?
• Oldhammer. What is it?
• Sushi, a fan? 
• What's your favourite cartoon series?
• Give me a song that makes you want to throw the radio through the window.
• What's your favourite fantasy/sci-fi race? Reasons?

Go nuts kids.

Curs'd Ettin - Update 2

Last night I put down the base layer for the tattoos on the ettin. The large arm seems to be the natural home for them. I did consider adding some elsewhere, but thought against it in the end as it would start to draw attention away from the arm. Rather than painting one of two massive tattoos, I wanted to use the large space to apply a sleeve of sorts. I mixed the blue with the base flesh tone for the first layer, I'll add more blue once the glazes are on.

With a model of this size, I have to change my techniques a bit to account for scale. A wash and layer isn't going to work for this lad. The texture on the skin is incredible, and to make the most of it I think a series of washes and glazes is the way to go. I've been reading up on some techniques using only a light base colour (even white) and shading entirely with washes/glazes, especially on models with lots of detail or heavy texture like this fellow. When using the glazes, I won't simply wash the entire model. I'll probably mix medium into them for the more general glazes, and then apply the heavier glazes to recesses. Adding purple, yellow or darker browns to feet, hands, eyes and the mouth. I'll do a couple of tests and then onto the ettin.

Genesteal Cult - Hybrid, Update 2

Now that I'm generally happy with the look of a standard hybrid/broodbrother for the cult, I've been tinkering with more plastic to construct some more bestial hybrids. These will carry special or heavy weapons in the various units. I'm leaning towards using the Astra Militarum book as a guide to unit construction, but I'm not really big on loads of tanks, so the jury is still out. The Militarum Tempestus book looked promising, but the f@$k*%g thing is sold out.

The fellow above uses a Deadzone plague model as the base. (Many thanks to Paul from the excellent sho3box blog for some great leads on parts for the hybrids.) His original head is teeny tiny, which is great as the mask fits on lovely in it's place. He's so deformed that it looks suitably grotesque.  The third arm is verging on too large, but I'll be chopping it up to pose it better anyway. I still need some proper weapons, I guess the Cadian Imperial guard kit will furnish those, I can use the arms on my metal hybrids as well I guess. I have some dark eldar talos sprues coming my way, which are loaded with biomechanical goodies. Seeing as this is an infected mechanicus cult, they should fit in great. Tubes, limbs, odd spinal augmentations, this kit has them all. I think that should then finish the main quest for parts, and the assembly can really kick off. I'm already looking forward to converting crypt horrors into oversized mechanically augmented hybrids.