Future Rodents

"Spikey" has existed about half an year now...So what's next??

The Mini that started this all, Rogan Rygaard, Chaos Dwarf of Tzeentch
has received invitation from CoolMiniOrNot-site, to take part in the CMON Annual '10
That's a great honour naturally...and for that reason, we want to make sure that it also gets picked into pages, when the new Annual is released.
izeColt is coming to Helsinki to take some new, High resolution photographs of the model.

I received word from Miika Bergdahl too. He begins molding The Captain soon...I will send the Mini to him later this week..so let's see what happens=)


What else??
The Fimir project will start soon, i would also like to do some Pin-Up model, then maybe the Lemmikäinen in 32mm who knows...
Also izeColt has hes small Chaos Space Marine Warband getting bigger all the time!
Many interesting projects coming in the future...Spiky Rat Pack is going stronger than ever now!


Thanks to you all for your support! It is a never-ending source of inspiration!!!

-okkiW

Emperor's Children - The First Six

So, the children carrying plasma gun is now in paint and uniform, ready to complete the first squad of my Emperor's Children warband. Once again I decided to play with the OSL, plasma weapons would otherwice look dull and idle. White horns on the helmet will add another bind with the Daemon Prince of Slaanesh, Azazel (I think I'll change his name when the time is right).

Damn that took long time to finish, close to around one year, but I made it! Now it's time to start designing this group's dedicated Rhino transport vehicle and another band of close combat comrad squad with the chain saw swords. Hopefully it won't take another year for them to finish...

When fitting the plasma gun quy in the group I noticed that one of the old chaps jumped out annoyingly due to his "nurgly" helmet (that three eyed helmet), so I decided to fix the problem with a swift change of helmets.

To add something different I painted this guy's helmet in black instead of pink, bringing his horns out a bit and adding some contrastng vibrance to the overall look of the squad.

And here's the first group shot from the whole warband so far...

Azazel, The Impudent Master Of Skulduggery, Beloved Prince Of Slaanesh

EDIT 26.4.2011
Azazel got some colour to his wings. The white wings got some critisism and I decided to repaint them in black and white pattern. Here's the result...

I published this piece also on the Finnish miniature wargaming forum Sotavasara.net and instantly got some great feedback, one of them being the critisism for the blank white wings. I took the hint and I must say, the difference is like between night and day! Now Azazel is bound much tighter to his brothers' colour scheme and the wings are much more life-like. Sometimes it's good thing to give the work to others to look at and pick up the hints they give to you, with of course keeping in mind where you're aiming with your work...

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Rock and roll brothers, my Emperor's Children Daemon Prince, Azazel, is finally ready! It took me around a month of more and less intensive hobby time to finish him, and must say, I'm quite satisfied with the outcome. I tried couple of new (to me) tricks in here, like dripple effect with hair and gloss varnish, fading cloth freehand etc.

Sneaky Secondary Project Also Getting Attention

At the same time I'm whining about the tight schedule I've with the Gaga project, I've managed to build on my Emperor's Children warband with a "good" pace. It must be one of those rare occasions when I actually have enough motivation to do several projects at the same time. Oh the irony...

Here's Azazel, the ferocious prince of Slaanesh, in a white undercoat waiting for paint brush to caress his grotesque figures. His skin is going to get the same kind of pale white tone as did the beast headed Chaos Space Marine in my previous Emperor's Children update. I'm trying to bind Azazel's colour scheme together with the rest of the gang by painting his robe in fiery purple and maybe using black in his legs, wings and claw hand, don't know yet... There are some mystical runes in his sword that I thought that would look nice if they'd radiate the same tepid blue as is seen in the aspiring champion's plasma pistol and in regular Chaos Space Marine's eye sockets'.

Azazel is going to be "the foreman" of my Emperor's Children and the very centerpiece of this band of chaotic brothers. His angel like feather wings, loosely hanging robe and sword full of unknown runes really make him look ancient, as if he had caused fear and loath in distant worlds for millennia. This should spice up otherwise modern warband a bit and throw in some nice fluff too, don't you think?

This is actually my first bigger metallic multipart miniature that I've build. I must say, pinning didn't become my first favourite thing in the hobby, that's for sure. The figure is quite heavy and I'm not sure what is the best way to paint a miniature this big. Maybe I'll glue a nut in the bottom of the base and put a screw through some sort of wooden stand to hold the whole thing in place, so that I won't rub the undercoat/paintjob off while holding the thing while painting??

In my previous Emperor's Children post - Fabulous Five - I told you that I still need to build the sixth member for my first group of Chaos Space Marines to match up the sacred number of Slaanesh. Well, here he is, the plasma gun dude with couple of minor modifications made with the green stuff.

As you can see I'm elevating all the characters from their bases using either Citadel's basing kit or just by adding blocks of stones along with the green stuff on top of the base. This way all the characters will stand out nicely and give them a bit like showcase feeling - maybe I'll even create a showbase for them!

Now that we're speaking of Slaanesh, here's couple of great looking armies/warbands that I've spotted in the Web while searching for new ideas and tips:

Steve Whitehead's Slaanesh Chaos Space Marines (Games Workshop) and some extra pics can be found from HERE (The Dark Fortress). Heavily inspired by the Slaves to Darkness book from the 80's (browsing the tome at the moment, leeching for vibes...). BTW does anybody know from what kit are those Corvus-kind of helmets?
Mortarion's Heavy Metal themed Slaanesh Army (The Bolter and Chainsword). Simply jaw-dropping and unique... Love the cross-references!
TCLRM's Slaanesh warband (Emperor's Children forum). Colourful and very distinctive style. I adopted my beast head idea from these guys.

Really great sources of inspirations! Looking (or staring with your eyes wide open) at the other hobbyist's spectacular work can really spice your own visions and encourage you to try something new. For me, well, I'm so going to add some slashing-long haired guitar players in my Noise Marine squad! ;)

Fabulous Five

As I threatened in my last post, here they are, my Emperor's Children so far...

The posse is starting to gain an uniform feeling, don't you think? Every time I add a new Child to this group it looks more and more the way I planned it to. Still need to build the sixth member though...

I was a bit uncertain wether or not to use that beast headed Child in this unit, as I thought that it might pop out a bit too much. But okkiW insisted me to keep him 'cause - in his opinion - the thing was so old schoolishly weird and blatantly mutated that it'd be nice touch to have in the unit. Well, I took his hint and I must say, I'm happy that I did so. The beast headed Chaos Space Marine truly stands out from this gang of brutes with his milky white skin and devilish dark eyes!

I can't wait to get my hands on Azazel as I think I'm going to use the same white skin tone on him too. That should give some contrast for the rest of the darkish army...

While I was painting my Emperor's Children and searching for some music to put me in to right mood, I stumbled on couple of cool groups, one of them being folkish Heavy Metal band known as The Lord Weird Slaugh Feg. Slaugh Feg's 'Traveller' album hit me like a fistful of bolter slugs and their melodic surges really smoothened my brushstrokes. Here's one of their track from the album 'Traveller':

Lost In The Warp

Hiya! It's been a quite while since my last entry for the "Spikey". I've been a bit busy with the Finnish bureaucracy lately, filling up forms and stuff. Yeah, I got sacked from my job and now I'm just spending my precious "free time" looking for a new job... and painting miniatures!

That's right, now that I'm off from the everyday strenuous treadmill I've actually been able to paint a bit more than usually (which still isn't enough). Of course our little snotling is still taking the major piece of my usable free time chart pie, but still it's a refreshing feeling to be actually able to do something creative.

I'm currently working with my Emperor's Children and I'm almost done with the first five of those little sons of Slaanesh bitch. I'll be adding some pics when the fifth is done. I still have to build up the sixth to match the Slaanesh sacred number six in the squad head count.

So here's a short heads up from the Warp! Back to the portable painting station, a'hoy!

Utter Nonsense And Emperor's Children

I must admit, I'm a bit of a nostalgia junkie. I have four Commodore 64's with couple of floppy drives and a punch of TAC-2's. Me and couple of my good friends enjoy playing retro games in our every-now-and-then arranged Retro Evenings, which also include some beer to go with the old classics, of course. I happen to like, surprisingly, 80's and early 90's heavy metal. Those old thrash bands really had that something. Too bad I was just a kid when that kind of music was "the pop".

I'm also a huge fan of 80's Games Workshop stuff, especially the classic Citadel miniatures range (just visit The Stuff of the Legends and you'll know what I'm talking about) and the (real) Old World, the one that is introduced properly in the 1st edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and, in generally, in the 3rd edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Those two first Realm of Chaos books, Slaves to Darkness and The Lost And The Damned, are just something you simply need to read to fully understand what's the real potential of the Warhammer universe. Even the smell of those old tomes gives me damn good vibes to start painting.

Speaking of the grim and unforgiving world of Warhammer, place where death visits often and widely. I happened to stumble in the Internet and found out that the upcoming The Witcher 2 is going to have very interesting feature - Insane difficulty. In Insane mode you're not able to load your saved games after you die. Now that, if something, is like straight from the good old WFRP, where only couple of critical hits could sever your limbs off and end your adventure in that bloody spot. Yeah, sounds like a harsh way to play the game but the enjoyment of surviving the events is plenty in my opinion.

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Back to business... Usually my projects are heavily inspired by the 80's and early 90's 'Eavy Metal team's outputs. I wade the old White Dwarfs, which are perfect source of inspiration for my kind of projects.

Collecting and painting an entire playable forces has always fascinated me. Seeing fully painted armies in show case standard is something outrageously beautiful, something to envy. I have many old school armies under work, dwarfs, orcs, chaos warriors and wood elves. Well, my current ambitious project, a small warband of Emperor's Children, is a bit of a side quest...

Once again I was dragged by the irresistible need to collect an army. I was planning to start playing Warhammer 40.000 and I was thinking of which army I'd like to play. Space Marines have always fascinated me, but I wanted to play the evil side. Therefor I chose the Chaos Space Marines.

Then it was a time to choose which God of Chaos would it be. I know that you can take worshipers of different Gods and mix them to suit your playing style, but I wanted to make just one chapter warband. I've read about Emperor's Children and their background really inspired me, so I decided to choose them. I dug some resent White Dwarfs and ended up browsing the one that included the new Chaos Space Marines plastics and their new Codex. The same WD had also an article about the new Apocalypse and some pictures of the studio armies. Christian Byrne's huge Chaos Space Marines army caught my eye, especially his Slaanesh posse. I decided to emulate his colour scheme for my army as it looked so bad ass.

Here's the first three of the Children that I've managed to mod and paint in past six (seven or eight?) months...

I still have two of these on the painting stage and punch of more in bits. I'm planning to have one squad of 5-10 Children armed with bolters, plasma pistol (Champion, in the middle) and one with the bigger plasma gun. Second squad of 5 Children is going to consist of bolt pistols and close combat weapons (chainsaw swords and power swords). These two squads will have nicely freehanded Rhinos as their personal transport, just to give them enough rapid deployment if needed.

Of course Slaanesh warband is nothing without couple of Noise Marines. I think I'm going to have 5 of those gigsters. Daemon Prince is a must too, so I thought to have the Daemon Prince of Slaanesh, Azazel, to be leading my band of brothers. Azazel's pose, feather wings and daemonic claw make him just perfect for my plans.

I'm not sure how much that all is in gaming points, enough to start playing maybe? So that's it for now. Maybe I'll finish my next couple of Children within 3-4 months ;) In any case, have a merry Christmas and mind blowing New Year!

All In a Day's Work

I'm on fire! This week has been very productive, at least what comes to my hobby. I managed to paint Fimir Bust in just couple of evenings and now I'm on my everlasting Chaos Space Marines project. Yeah, that doesn't sound like a much but when you consider that you need to work, look after your child, do household chores and have quality time with your fiancee, I think I'm doing quite well ;)

I thought to share my practical painting station with you, just for fun.

My portable painting station, which also works as a baking platform. It's very useful to have portable painting station when you've 1,5 years old perisher running around the house pulling everything down that he manages to get his hands on. It'd be damn shame to see him gnawing one of the projects which I just spent couple of day's work.

Part on my current everlasting Emperor's Children project. Good things come slowly.

So that's where the magic happens. Interesting, or maybe not. Still so much to do and so little time...

The Beginning

So this is it, the very first post on our blog! As some of you might already be aware, Spiky Rat Pack is all about arts, craftsmanship, miniature hobby and scene around it.

Early this year, okkiW and I decided to band together and start doing miniature projects together. okkiW is a visionary sculptor and I'm more or less the guy who paints the stuff. We design and sketch our projects together and even create deep background stories behind our characters, just like in roleplaying games. Our previous project, Chaos Dwarf of Tzeentch, Rogan Rygaard, can be found from here.

It has been very easy to do projects together as we share quite similar visions, what comes to the hobby and how the World of Warhammer appears to us. We consider John Blanche as probably one of the most influencing fantasy artist of our time, among with Ian Miller and John Sibbick, who also have had very much to do with the grim and brutal low fantasy feel of the Old World and Rogue Trader era 40.000 universe.

Like a rock band, we play together and have our gigs. But every now and then we go solo and do our own stuff. okkiW is currently sculpting his Lady Gaga inspired Rogue Trader era Space Pirate. I'm trying to find some time to paint couple of my Emperor's Children Chaos Space Marines.

So, there we go. This is the beginning of a story about two friends who thought to share their enthusiasm for the hobby with the rest of the scene. I hope that you'll check our blog every now and then and hopefully find it useful and inspiring source of material. So catch you later!