The More the Merrier

The second Corsair has been ready for a while, but only now I had time to photograph it for the blog. The rich red colour I used in the first Chaos Astartes was quite peculiar to copy for the second one. I used several different techniques to achieve it but didn't keep any record of the methods used. Other than that, it was fun piece to paint and the end result sits pretty well alongside the previous Marine.

The skull on the tilting shield is a transfer, as are the numbers on the Marine's shoulder ornament. It has been a while since I used one of those, but this time I wanted to try and see how would they sit in my current style. The skull needed some dimming down as it was way too bright. I'm not so sure if I like the shield the way it looks like, but for now it may stay the way it is. I think I'll stick with the freehand painting though.

Lords of Decay

Here's the first part of Lords of Decay slice for the Chaos Space Marine project that I'm currently working on. I've finished the first squad of Plague Marines and their dedicated transport. Quick and nasty painting style, which is the way I'm starting to come to terms with.

The summoned Plaguebearers were originally a part of my Fantasy Battle Chaos Army (or start of such), but since I'm done with building that particular force, I decided to change their bases to the round ones and include them in this project.

Next I'm planning to add a very small group of Chosen Chaos Space Marines...

Death Guard March

I've gone back to my old Chaos Space Marine project. My first intention was to build a solid 1000 to 1500 points playable army of Emperor's Children, but after finishing the fifth book of the Horus Heresy series, I wanted to mix things a little and decided to expand the army to Death Guard.

I had bought the set of Plague Marines way back, but never got the spark to start with them... until recently. Our little circle of like-minded talented hobbyists put together a small playful painting challenge, where each would have to paint a miniature of their choice within three hours. So I chose to paint one of the Plague Marines, as I had a very clear vision of the colour scheme I would use for it; dirty and weathered white armour, rusty trims and patinated copper, sickly gray skin and bright orange as contrast.

The outcome of the challenge was very promising, considering the time used for one single figure. It was nice change to my routines too, as I've used to spend hours and hours with my previous miniatures. Full of hobby spirit I decided that I would put my Chaos Space Marine project back on track and paint the rest of the seven Plague Marines with the same technique and colour scheme.

Now here's the first four members of the Death Guard, marching on the ruins of some long forgotten battleground, searching for something to stab with their infectious blades...

Death Guard, 4/7

Thorwarg Ironmane

"Like iron is forged to steel, so has our brotherhood been forged in the fires of the battlefields. We paid the ultimate prize in the hands of those Tyrannid scum but we survived  and the brotherhood will never break. Together we will avenge the death of our forebeards and make our ancestors proud!"

So here comes the revered force commander Thorwarg Ironmane. He was the high commander of  the League of Emberg. Emberg  was one of the smallest  of the Squat Leagues closest to the Eye of Terror and included only four strongholds. When the Splinter fleet  destroyed the Squat home worlds Thorwarg and his brothers had gone to war and were drifting through the warp when the tragedy happened. Warned by his spiritual ancestors, Thorwag quickly steered his ships back home to aid his brothers but Warp currents delayed Thorwarg's fleet and when they finally got there it was too late. Now Thorwarg and his fighting brotherhood are roaming around the galaxy to seek their vengeage!  

Squats beign so stunty and all, I decided to give him a battle shield to go to war. For the obvious fact that the shield and it's carriers can, at some situations be too much for gaming purposes, I added magnets to allow him to be mounted either on the shield or just regular gaming base for those drop pod assaults missions etc.

"Forged in fire, forged in death, We march to war, Hammers will rise and heads will fall, when we go to war, Red dawn is rising, the brotherhood of steel…" 

Old Squat battle hymn 

A Fistful of Arcos

JB sent me a photo of the whole lot of Arco Evisorators a few days ago, accompanied by scary machine servant Magos done by JB himself. It was the first time for me to see them all together. I must admit, they do look pretty damn awesome when striding forward together.

What a merry bunch of butchers.

More Arco Evisorators

Another pack of murderous Arco Evisorators got finished few evenings ago. These "Stooges" are even more violent and agile than ones done before, but I'm sure they'll fit in just fine.

The half-bald nutter is equipped with some sort of stinger that he uses to pick up the chopped-off heads from the ground (too bad he doesn't have any hands to tie the trophies on his belt). His friend with the flesh mask has had some bad luck with the evisorator, so his left arm has been replaced with a syringe filled with battle steroids or some other drug to help their kinds go crazy. He's a helpful little critter, stinging his mates with the needle whenever they turn their backs on him, making them go berzerk with adrenaline overdoze... And then there's the gas-mask fella. He's sipping some delicious brain juice out of his beheaded victim's head. Yum yum! He's a happy little guy, singing in the rain – of blood.

- Kari

The Brotherhood of Steel

My Squat force has now reached the point where I have managed to get the troop choices ready and painted. As you all surely know, this is also the most boring part when new army is started. Row after row of foot soldiers who all look very much alike. I have proceeded with great speed and it has been a great fun all the way!

But before I start converting any more miniatures, I must first just sit back and start to work on the background story for these guys.

Where do they come from? How did they managed to avoid from the fate that met their brothers?? To who they hold they grudge now??? Lots of questions that need answering…

The great thing about army projects is the fact that they last for long periods of time. After every new character / squad there should be enough time to really think that what needs to be added next. I don't want to rush things and I need to check all the newly released plastic kits for good parts etc...

Tactical Squad #2

[missile launcher, plasma, sergeant with storm bolter]

Devastator Squad

[4x heavy bolters]

Commission Work: Lady Inquisitor

Hi folks! Here's my latest creation, Lady Inquisitor of Ordo Xenos. I introduced this project to you in one of my previous posts in a form of a sketch, but after that I kept the process pretty much in the dark.

Here she now stands, proud and noble, armed to teeth with Xenos weapons of different origin, in her well-travelled and battle worn dress and tight corset-like body glove armour. She carries a small power generator on her back which is connected to a strange weapon of two tentacle-like needles. Capsules of different size and shape, filled liquids and poisons of different sort, stick out of her back like dark flowers. Her head is shaven (something nobles of her kind might do to show off their caste in where she comes from). She's very self-assured and knows what she wants. You can only guess what her entourage would look like...

The original sketch of the Lady Inquisitor (pencil on paper, edited in Photoshop)

It took me good three months to finish her. I kept pushing the project forward with small but sure steps, putting an hour in to it every now and then. The process wasn't all sing and sunshine as I did have some set-backs on the road. Just when I had one piece ready and sculpted, the other parts looked odd or off-place. I had to sculpt the dress twice as I wasn't satisfied by the way it looked like. It was way too light build and was sculpted to look too rough and unnatural.

She also had her head swapped once. The first one was Slaaneshi Daemonette's but I didn't like it that much so decided to get one from the Dark Elf Sorceress. The new head was much better, more femine. But there was a new problem to be solved; her mouth. The original head had it's mouth wide open, like if she was roaring out some loud commands or something. It really didn't fit in as her body language spoke very much different language – very static and noble. So to solve this new problem I had to cut off her jaw and re-sculpt the whole lower part of her head, to make her look more like in the sketch. No easy task for me as I'm used to sculpt ugly men with rough shapes. But I think I managed to pull it off.

Her colours – as so often in my case – are very much in the style of Blanchitsu; reds, oranges and dirty white. She actually blends in the Rogues Malus and could very well be one of them. I gave an extra effort to her face as I wanted it to be perfect. Painted the damn eyes three times to make them look the way I wanted to – piercing and precise! When the head piece was done, the rest of the painting went like clockwork.

Hope you like the outcome as much I liked making the piece! Now it is time to look for a suitable package for her to make her journey to Spain safe... Adiós!

- Kari

The Fighting Brotherhood Of The Lost League

Squats, the first time I saw Squats was not in the Rogue Trader (too young for that really) but in the rulebook of the 2. edition of the game. Once again it was the John Blanche artwork that drew my attention…

Just brilliant! I wanted to field a Squat army!! but, wait!!!,,, even though the rulebook (& Codex Imperialis) displayed them as one of the major races of the 40k universe, in the reality they were already wiped out from the system (as I later bitterly found out). Bummer!!!

During the years I have played with the idea of resurrecting this race back to battlefields but since so far there haven't really been good miniatures to convert them from! Until very recently… (although Johan has done very inspiring conversion before me here)

I was browsing through GW's site and there they were! Dwarf Iron Breakers!!! seriously perfect candidates for my long time dream of fielding a army of these stunty diehards!

Iron Breaker bodies and heads combined with hands, guns and accessories from Space Marine Scouts All very simple and all very effective! and easy too!!!

So one test-mini turned into a squad and now Im aiming for a small battle force to play with my mates at work (yes, we have active WH-gaming group there!). Im thinking of using Space Marine or maybe even Space Wolves rules for them, so at least another tactical squad and a command squad… and a Ancestor (dreadnought) then few Trikes (attack bikes) and Hearthguard (terminators) and…. you get the point.

OK I got to admit that this all started as a joke, a bit of fun to got my attention back to painting miniatures again, but as soon as I started I realized that this was lot more than a joke. So the story of the Lost League started to evolve…

Very simple paint job - airbrush for the blueish-grey base coat (Tamiya paints) and GW paints for the rest. I was tempted to paint the bolter casings red just for the old times sake, but then I thought that the Squats are retro enough alone so I went for the black. I painted the sleeves orange to give some colour and it actually works pretty well with the highly restricted palette.

Hope you guys like them too.

UPDATE [3.30.2014]

Added some color to the bolter casings!

Big Brother

Another Arco Evisorator finished, this time a slightly bigger and meaner. This is the same dude I used to demonstrate the pale skin painting. I call him "Big Brother"...

I used a Bloodletter's body as a basis for this miniature. To give some contrast and weirdness, I made his other side slightly slimmer by making the arm wielding the chain blade a bit thinner. If you look closely, you can spot that this guy actually has three arms instead of two.

The back of the Arco is filled with junk; old trophy skulls hanging in ropes from the back hair, combat stimm tubes sticking out of his flesh and one a big canister of mysterious "=I= stuff" – who knows what kind of juice that thing holds within.

The base was once again painted by John Blanche. I really love the way the bright and vibrant red base brings these Arco Evisorators alive.

Inquisitor Isaac Valon

...

"Thank you for joining me, Inquisitor Valon."

"Pleasure, my lord."

"I hope your journey went well, considering the storm that was beating the Warp?"

"The ship lost one of their Navigators when the storm hit. Fortunately the rest of them were able to find a channel to stick in. Now what is it that you had me summoned here for, my lord?"

"Straight to business as always, eh? Very well then, let us not waste the precious little time that we have on our hands and allow me share my headache with you. It was unfortunate that the matter could not be discussed through warp. I have great trust to my Astropaths, but there are spies everywhere."

"That is what I have heard."

"Ah, yes, of course. Then you must know what happened to Inquisitor Cassar?"

"Indeed I have, my lord. Was Inquisitor Pherion the one who was sent to interrogate him?"

"He was, and there lies the problem. We haven't heard from Inquisitor Pherion since he landed to Ianthe IV. The last message with his signature is dated three weeks ago. Now we fear the worst."

"You would wish me to track him down and find out what happened to him?"

"Precisely! The matter is slipping through our hands and it must be dealt with haste. Rigorous act is the key to minimize the damage this insident has already caused. But I must insist that you will keep this in dark from the rest of the counsel."

"Understood, my lord."

"Good, good! Now, do you have your team here with you?"

"Yes I do."

"Excellent. Let us have something to drink before we go any further with the briefing, shall we?"

...