Undead - King Slough

Today we have a real gem. Painted for the #paintabob competition on the Oldhammer Facebook page, this rotting monarch is from Essex Miniatures. He looks like he's spent several weeks down a well. He was ludicrously fun to paint.

When painting this fellow, I used the painting technique for rotting flesh used by Tyler Mengel of Mengel Miniatures. Here's the recipe should you wish to try it yourself.

As you can see, it's mostly washes. This suits Olley sculpts extremely well. It's also much more fun to play about with washes instead of laboriously layering skin, which suddenly becomes a cloak. Or an ear. Or a portal into the nightmare dimension.

King Slough might be a bit past his prime, but he still gets a big screamy face shield.

I painted the rest of the king to match my other undead. He's certainly going to be going into my Warcry warband, probably as a seneschal. It'll give me a lot of chuckles to see him go to town on some svelt chaos warband, imagining him shouting "What's that sonny?" and "Here's how we did it back in my day!"

"I can't remember why I'm here!"

Look at him there. A born leader. Shame his ears are slowly navigating their way into his beard. Still, many lols are to be had with this guy I'm sure.

Strontium Dog - Max Bubba's Revenge

Something a little more unusual today. A return to the pages of 2000AD, specifically Strontium Dog. What we have here is a rendition of poor Johnny Alpha on his worst day ever. Ambushed by Max Bubba's gang, his partner Wulf is gunned down and Johnny himself staked out and left to die.

This event kicks off the epic Strontium Dog story, Rage, in which Alpha hunts down Bubba and his gang. I was only a lad when I read this one, and it's one of those stories that sticks with you.

This little gem is a limited promotional miniature for Warlord Games' Strontium Dog game, handed out at the 2018 San Diego Comic Con, if my research is correct. Warlord Games have released a starter set based around this very tale, The Good, the Bad and the Mutie. It's most tempting.

The mini came to me via the most excellent Cheetor, a fellow 2000AD fan. It felt good painting something to mark the passing of Carlos Ezquerra, the co-creator of and main artist on Strontium Dog (also co-creator of Judge Dredd) who died just under a year ago.

Oh! A slightly different angle.

Of course, now I have a want to paint Alpha, Wulf and the Gronk. I can't really leave Johnny like this, can I?

Mr Saturday's Big Adventure - Warhammer World and BOYL 2019

In full BOYL mode: Sean, other Sean (TheOttoVonBismark), myself, Thomas (Airbornegrove) and JB (Asslessman).

Another BOYL post you say? Well, this one is special, as it's my first one. After many years crying into my pillow while the BOYL photos and posts roll in this time of year, I am at last able to join in. YEAH! Come with me on my whirlwind adventure into hobby overload. Prepare yourself, this is wildly self-indulgent. (Warning: I have shamelessly lifted photos from all over. Should one be yours and you want it removed I will forward the request to HR and legal and we'll be in touch.)

I set off to Notthingham last Thursday. After I met up with some of my my gamer bros who had similarly arrived early, we went on the rip. Several drinks later some more folks arrived and buoyed up by excited anticipation we had a couple more drinks. A good start in my book.

Adeptus Titanicus - The Misericordia

Only known pict image of the Misericordia, captured by the Baneblade Son of Iron at Kazani bridge, Katara, M41.

With BOYL fast descending on me, I finally finished work my titan for the epic clash on Saturday morning. This is my first painted epic miniature and something of a bucket list miniature for me. I've long wanted to paint a chaos titan. Now of course I want to paint another. In any case, I dug into my hoard of titan bits and constructed the Iron Skulls legion titan, The Misericordia.

It's been many, many years since I played epic, and I had forgotten much of the rules. After some consultation with my epic expert peeps I went for some reasonable guns and lots of close combat fun. The trident in particular seemed too entertaining not to take. There are several chaos titan heads, and this skull-faced one was my first choice for a Khornate titan.

I tried to future-proof this titan a little, so all the weapons are magnetized. After some early insanity I recessed many of the magnets (Magnets do not love paint) bar the ones for the metal arms, which are mostly out of sight and need a bigger magnet anyway. I hear that the carapace weapons are twin-linked these days, so for my second titan I'll paint another plasma cannon so I can double up on the Misericordia if needs be. I painted the weapons in a neutral scheme so they can be swapped around on various traitor and loyalist titans.

As you can see, our titan has a big old tail. The face on it creeps me out some, reminding me of 1980s European stop motion films, which scare the piss out of me. I blended the metal of the titan's superstructure into bone, which I think worked pretty well. You can also see that sweet trident better here.

An effect I wanted to try on the carapace was a cracked and pitted effect. After 10,000 years of service you'd expect a few wrinkles. You cans see it on the left side here. I splashed on a liberal dose of crackle paint (Agrellan Earth) to get the effect, then covered it in a layer of pva glue to stop it flaking off.  You can also see the exhausts. Yeah, I know they have nuclear reactors. Rule of cool baby.

More crackly carapace for you here. That tail, Jesus.

The basing was pretty straightforward. I wanted a ruined, slightly overgrown city. The statue and collapsed tower added a little scale. Clump foliage works quite well for epic too. Some metal mesh torn up for steel concrete reinforcement sticking out of wrecked walls and done.

So, there we are. The Misericordia strides into battle this Saturday against all-comers!

Strontium Dog - Middenface McNulty

Something random from The Mumblings today. Those of you who are fans of the venerable 2000AD might recognise this fellow as the Strontium Dog Middenface McNulty, sometime pal of the main character in the Strontium Dog series, Johnny Alpha.

I've always been a fan of Middenface. When I were a very wee lad I used to love how he spoke in the comic. It was only when I got a little older I realised this was because he was a Scot, from Shytehill, in fact. Here's a wee taste of Middenface in action.

He's no gonnae go doon easy eh? 

At BoYL this year one of  my pals is running a Strontium Dog game (the schicklgruber grab) where the stronts attempt to carry out a warrant to arrest Hitler to bring him back to the future to stand trial. How could one resist a nuts game like that? So as I had picked up Middenface when Foundry were selling off their 2000AD range, I had my man.

I picked some quite vibrant comic book colours for Middenface initially, then dialed it back to give him a little more realism. I wanted to make him look a bit more like the seasoned guerrilla fighter and bounty hunter he is, so I gave him a fairly heavy five o'clock shadow as well, and just a touch of redness on his nose. He is pretty fond of the gargle.

Painting his tartan shoulder pad turned out way easier to do than I expected, though I have simplified it down some to work at 28mm. 

I'm looking forward to seeing Middenface in action at BoYL along with the other stronts the rest of the players have been painting. I'll try my best not to talk in a bad Scottish accent the whole time, but I can't promise there won't be at least one 'Take that ye scunners!' or 'Get that stitched ya bam!'

Terminator Apotheosis - Faherty, Good Dog

At BOYL this year the mighty Cheetor is running a game on the Sunday, Terminator: Apotheosis, where a band of survivors attempt to take on the minions of Skynet.

Each player is required to bring a survivor, and if they want, a dog to help spot infiltrators. Having only recently had a very fine doggie arrive from Shieldwall, I felt the hand of fate at work. So Faherty was born.

Faherty is a mastiff, so I painted him as such. He looks like he's just seen a T800 and is about to launch into an impressive barking session. He's pretty big too, that's a 25mm base, which is fine by me. Mastiffs are large fellas.

Faherty has had some runs ins in the past it seems, what with the eyepatch. Perhaps a vengeful terminator.

+++LET'S SEE YOU SPOT ME THIS TIME WITH AN EYE MISSING. HAHAHA. SNITCHES GET STICHES.+++

I reckon he's as perceptive as ever though. It's all in the nose. Faherty will be accompanying my survivor, Ulysses Jones.

He's a big doggie. Isn't he? Who's a big fluffy doggie? Who is?

Woof, said Faherty.

Genestealer Cult - Brother Medlock

Not every cult member gets fancy power hammers and swanky mining lasers. Some of the brethren just have to make do. Vyrion Medlock here has to put up with a simple, ah, halberd? Machete stick? Knife-pole?

Anyway, whatever it is, it pales in comparison to the magnificence of that cape. Stylish, high collared, shoulder length AND it has a beautiful gold clasp. So impressive is brother Medlock's cape that he has chosen to leave his top off so as not to distract from it's glory. Buck Rogers would be green with envy. Check it out:

With a cape like that the 3rd generation are in the bag.

I've been meaning to paint this fella for ages. Sculpted by Bob Olley, he's based on the original unreleased hybrid that, let's be honest, I have no chance of acquiring. Unless you have one. If you have one gimme it.

In any case, this guy is pretty hard to come by as well, so I was delighted to snag one. I've been pushing him higher and higher up the painting list, and finally, with BoYL coming up he made it. I fancy having him run down the corridors of a space hulk splitting terminators open with his sword-broom.

Medlock is part of a little subset of the cult I want to paint up, a wee family with juvenile hybrids and their parents and ah, pets. The gorgeous Asslessman has already painted up some of them, which you can see here.

For now though, Medlock joins the cult as another aberrant, ready to show those power-hammer wusses how it's done.

Why is he smiling like that? I think you know.