It feel like it was a year ago...

Trollblood Champion, WIP.

...and it almost was a year since I last posted. Starting a new job (I'm nowadays graphic designer/art director over at Net Entertainment), learning the new job, travelling to China and just trying to cope with everyday life left no time over for hobby stuff.

Boomo's new fascination with Warmahordes did transfer over to me though. After what felt like a lifetime Wayland actually managed to deliver my order of Trollbloods (Seriously, what's up with the delivery times nowadays?). A healthy bunch of metal.

So today, for the first time in three months, I actually found time to sit down and do some painting. I sure feel rusty, but it was nice to see that I hadn't forgotten everything about how to handle a brush.

For you list-geeks this is what I doodle together. I guess its going to be a Penny Arcade-moment once I bring it to play someone. But... meh... I like the models.

Madrak Ironhide, World Ender                          5
     Dire Troll Mauler                                9
Horthol, Long Rider Champion                          5
Krielstone Bearer and Stone Scribes (Leader and 3)    3
Trollkin Champions (Leader and 4)                    10
Trollkin Champion Hero                                3
                                                  25/25

Perhaps a little short on beasts, I guess I could get myself an impaler or something instead of the Long Rider-dude. We'll see about that when I'm done with the painting and can field them. Hopefully that wont be too far away.

Blindwater: Primed and Ready to Rumble (In the Jungle?)

First! ...let's get these fucking dust bunnies and spiderwebs out of here, shoo! shoo! *coughcough*
There...

Giving grief to all shooting armies since 2010

Been down with the sickness (oh-wah-ah-ah), another cold and sinusitis as a nice followup to my summer flu, and I prioritized lying on the couch, rubbing my belly, eating candy, and coughing my lungs out.
In other words: Sorry for another break in the flow of posts.

I have played my first few games of Warmahordes with my Gatormen, and so far I really like it, while I'm still learning, I feel that the game has sunk its big claws into me.

The good thing about playing is that it makes me really want to paint them too!

"I swear, this wide!"

Got my 15pts list built and primed, using black with white dusting to create a good contrast (alligators having pale bellies, making a zenithal basecoat kinda tricky to pull off.)

Oh, and my list is:
Bloody Barnabas
Bull Snapper
Gatormen Posse (full)
Blackhide Wrastler
15pts

Now that the party is jumping
With the bass kicked in and the vegas are pumpin'
Quick to the point to the point no faking
I'm cooking MC's like a pound of bacon ~ Warrior Poet V. Ice

Mercenaries Mariner Finished

Got it kinda done till tomorrow, it's past one and I go to work in 5 hours... I didn't have time for final touches but hopefully it will please the crowd at the contest...

"I'm broke; I know a walking corpse that spit icicle dagger to slit throat
quicker than you can prove there's four letters in hope (h...o...p...e)
I paint a portrait of myself, bored life inside the tortoise shell
tortured, orbiting Hell's orchid, intrigued but not compelled"

Merc Mariner WIP Part 2 / The future of PX40k

The deadline for the contest draws near, and I only have a few hours available to finish it. She won't be pretty but I think it will be alright. It's surprisingly hard to paint with fever shakes though, can't shake this summer cold when I can't afford to stay home from work. [Nooo whining! -ed.]

"With a bisquit on the side like fucking tomb stone"

I think I will have to go heavier on the verdigris, otherwise it's turning out quite as planned, not entirely at home with the chipping technique yet, will try another on the arms.
To do : Raw iron/steel surfaces, details, weathering and basing.
I bought some 1mm balsa wood for plank decking on the base, will do a step by step on that at a later date, 'promise!

The other thing I wanted to bring up was the sad lack of updates lately. We are not going away, nor are we on hiatus. Both me and Pixel have just started new jobs, with all that entails. PX40k will be increasing both quality and output when things have stabilized and all spare time isn't taken up by coma like sleep or teething babies. I can say that there is good stuff going on behind the scenes though, but I don't want to jinx anything yet!

Quick Update: Merc Mariner Warjack WIP

I bought a Warjack for a local painting contest, so I thought I would just drop a pic of how I'm doing.

"Guiseppe no sell-a tha cabbage"

I have not decided weather to do the non-green parts bronze or not. It feels odd to pick up the brush after so many months, but eh, why not. My gators arrived a few days ago, a couple of boxes of gatormen, a wrastler, snapper and Barnabas. I bought some tokens and the book aswell, but I dont feel like I will have much use for them, with the stats and rules being on the card and all :)

First Steps to the Dark Side

So... I ordered me some Warmahordes stuff...


I feel kinda dirty, but in a good way! I still don't love the overall aesthetics, the very cartoony stuff is kinda hard to swallow when you're used to the GrimDark. That said, I really love the open attitude Privateer Press shows and they know that the customer and the thusly the community is king, instead of the quite puzzling attitude we have been getting from GW the last... 20 years?

I have only played one game thus far, but I like what I'm seeing. The Warmachine scene in my area exploded recently when the local game store decided to expand their stock with non-GW miniature stuff. Apparently my town had a whole bunch of closet warmahordes people, and now both my club and the FLGS is packed with disney monsters and hydrocephalic robots.

I feel good things coming from this step, If you asked me a year ago if I would start to play this, I would have given you a whole hearted "Fuck No!" I guess I was wrong.
Now if PP-Eu's distribution people would come back from vacation so I could get me my gators, I would be grateful...

First Impressions: Plastic Tzeentch Sorcerer

So, the Slight Breeze of Magic is upon us, well, upon the poor squarebasers at least. I haven't heard much about the rules except "more magic? lol", and frankly I couldn't care less about that. What I do take interest in is the new direction GW is taking with the four new plastic sorcerers. I kinda goes completely against their usual MO of only making this kind of specialized figures in metal (and now in finecast). The models come in the new clamshell blisters, similar to the finecast ones.

The first thing that struck me when holding the box, is how cheap it feels. I bought it at MSRP, which is not that much I guess, but it is just a tiny plastic sprue in a flimsy box with a shitty paper insert.I guess that's not really important though, the model is. I just can't shake how stupid I felt for buying a quarter of a troop sprue for that much money.

"HAY GUISE?!"

It is pretty much a snap-fit model, zero options, one pose, and the feet are completed by adding the base, ie, the toes are cast into the base. GW made a very good mould for this, as expected, almost no visible mould lines and the injection points are well placed as to not ruin the model. The model is quite plain though, very little detail, and just from looking at the sprues, the other three sorcerers where pretty much the same. I get the same feeling as with the Wargames Factory Troopers, just too plain to live up to the standard GW usually keeps with their plastics. I must say I really like this take on Tzeentch though, the face, the birdy pose. Very chaosy and evil and not as cartoony as they have been lately.

"Cut my life into pieces, this is my last reso-*shotgun mouthwash*"

If I played Fantasy I would probably pick one of these up, the model as a whole is nice enough, and if I needed only one I could accept it only having the one pose. While it isn't a big issue, the moulded base with the birdman's toes is quite pointless.

It remains to see if these four sorcerers where an anomaly, or if we will see more of these simplified character models in plastic. If they could add more detail, this could be a cool way to release named characters in the future, especially if they keep up adding this many characters to the new codices

Golden Demon Spain...

Slayer Sword winner GD Spain 2011.

I wonder if Spain takes the prize from France this year for "Most awesomely painted stuff". There's a lot of minis from GD11 Spain that's just jawdroppingly stunning. I especially liked the diorama of Sigmar on his throne. Or no... I take that back... I can't decide which one I liked best.

Check them all out on Volomi'rs Blog.

Emperors Champion, finished.

Click for flickr. See if you can spot all the dust on my sensor.

 So, here he is. The Emperors Champion! I wouldn't say I've spent enough time on him. But really... there is just a time when all your patience is spent and you just want to do something entirely different. Like getting wasted on alcohol instead of acrylics...

The mushroom thing that's been going on? The word champion is quite close to the swedish word for mushroom, champinjon. So it's been the standing "joke". Not that it was especially funny, apart from finding new words for all the post headlines.

First time I've tried out working with non metallic metallics. I can't say I'm especially fond of it. It looks good from one certain angle. The illusion is really there. And then you move your head and it looks kinda weird. Almost like when you take off your glasses while watching a 3D-movie.

All in all I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. The model in itself is awesome, and there are no dead spaces you need to "hide" or anything like that. It's just "paint". The exercise in painting black was especially fun, if you find frustrating to be fun.

Originally I had a pretty blueish black, so when highlighting that I added more blue. The problem was that the blue I chose was pretty cold, so when the final highlights came on it looked really really off since the cold hue made the illusion that it was further back.

Color theory 101

The warmer highlight kinda pops out more than the blue (cooler) highlight. Even though the cool tone is lighter than the warm one the illusion of it being lighter is kinda diminished. Something I – with I don't know how many hours of color theory classes – really should've thought of. But when the urge to paint grabs you, you just go with the flow!

I'm gonna hit it with some matt varnish later today (especially on the base). So if you spot anything you think I should correct, now is the time to do it. I'll go and submit it tomorrow!

The Battlefoam Jared Allen foundation bag

Battlefoam (Makers of the only bags worth having, you can quote me on that) is auctioning out a 432 that's been all over the current warzones. Protecting minis and our freedom! (Now I'm gonna lose half of our readers...) And signed by a bunch of people from all around.

First I must point out that this auction is for the bag listed and all proceeds go to Jared Allen's Homes for Wounded Warriors charity.  Jared's charity is a non-profit organization created for the sole purpose of raising money to build or modify the homes of America's injured Military Veterans. H4WW helps to build or modify homes so they are handicap accessible and comfortable for our wounded vets.

The sum the bag goes for will also be added to the donation to the Jared Allen foundation. Double-bonus! Now if you cannot bid on it (I wish I could, but... ) spread the word. It's for a really good cause. And if you can bid. Bid!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260810923021


Oh yeah. Photos of the Emperors Mycel tomorrow!

I've finally decided to stop painting on it and consider it done. Let's hope the GW-Stockholm crowd likes it as much (I wanna win, whatever it is you win. Perhaps a finecast bubble or something... ). Although I've sneak peeked on some other submissions and well... I'm in for a stiff competition.

During the week I got some of the stuff I ordered from Heresy Miniatures. They're having a sale now, so I couldn't resist getting a Thrud (fond memories of old White Dwarfs when the ran the Thrud comics) and Boris Mk. 2. So I've gone from looking at "Paint it black"-tutorials to "Paint skin"-tutorials on YouTube...