Back to Life, Back to ......a Backlog o.O

Back to Korea, back to work, back to......painting :D and back to being behind on updating this blog - so everything is back to the usual then.
After getting back from Ireland I had about 10 days of Feb left and a load of stuff to get done. Once I got back I decided I really needed to take stick and list out all the stuff I have waiting for paint and staring furiously at me from the shelf and cabinet. Here is said 'list of shame' (incl the stuff I bought while I was on hols)


On the bench:

V̶o̶x̶h̶a̶i̶l̶e̶r̶ ̶S̶e̶r̶v̶o̶ ̶S̶k̶u̶l̶l̶ ̶(̶T̶B̶B̶)̶ ̶ Done
Yeld Rig Hive Spyer (primed)
T̶a̶n̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶S̶n̶i̶p̶e̶r̶ ̶&̶ ̶D̶i̶o̶ ̶B̶a̶s̶e̶ ̶(̶h̶a̶i̶r̶,̶ ̶s̶k̶i̶n̶,̶ ̶h̶i̶g̶h̶l̶i̶g̶h̶t̶s̶,̶ ̶d̶i̶o̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶m̶e̶d̶)̶ ̶ Done
F̶e̶m̶a̶l̶e̶ ̶C̶o̶m̶m̶i̶s̶a̶r̶ ̶(̶h̶a̶i̶r̶ ̶&̶ ̶d̶e̶t̶a̶i̶l̶i̶n̶g̶)̶ Done
I̶n̶f̶i̶n̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶C̶h̶i̶m̶e̶r̶a̶ ̶(̶d̶e̶t̶a̶i̶l̶i̶n̶g̶)̶ Done
Harlie Shadowseer (boxed)
Harlie Troupers (2) (basecoated and shading)
V̶r̶o̶s̶h̶ ̶T̶a̶t̶t̶e̶r̶s̶o̶u̶l̶ ̶(̶f̶i̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶d̶e̶t̶a̶i̶l̶s̶,̶ ̶b̶a̶s̶e̶)̶ Done
B̶l̶o̶o̶d̶ ̶A̶n̶g̶e̶l̶ ̶S̶g̶t̶ ̶(̶f̶i̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶d̶e̶t̶a̶i̶l̶s̶,̶ ̶b̶a̶s̶e̶)̶ Done
Librarian Turmiel (highlights, detailing, base)
Kranon the Relentless (primed)
Gaunt's Ghosts (5) (boxed)
Ruststalkers (5) (primed)
Skit Rangers (10) (primed)
Tech Priest (boxed)
Inquistor (boxed)
Psyker (boxed)
Swordbearer (boxed)
Herald (boxed)

In The Cabinet:

The Nurse (boxed)
Mortician's Guild 'Ghast' (boxed)
Mortician's Guild 'Silence' (boxed)
Possesssed CSM (5) (boxed)
Thanatar Automata (boxed)
CSM Sorcerer Lord (boxed)
Chaos Familiar (boxed)
Callidus Assassin (boxed)
Vindicare Assassin (boxed)
Eversor Assassin (boxed)
Culuxus Assassin (boxed)
Chaos Cultists with autoguns (10) boxed)
Space Hulk Terminators (12) (boxed)
Space Hulk Genestalers (18) (boxed)
Doors (20) (boxed)
Eldar Wave Serpent (boxed)


Oh God - there's a lot! Nowhere near as much as some foilk I know but still.......How does this stuff accumulate so sneakily!!! Bugger! So - no more buying until I've got this lot shifted.....at leas the majority of it. Thanks to Az's monthly targeting thread over on Dakka, it's become easier to set and see monthly goals of what I want to get completed.
I didnt have much time when I got back so Feb's goals were quite small but as 3 of them were 'commissions' for other folk, they were on top of the list.


First up was BC's 2 figs. One, 'Gaunt's Ghosts' lasman. I'd talked to BC about this and said I wanted to 1) make him a sniper and 2) was going to make a little vignette for him of the farmhouse on Aexe Cardinal from the book 'Straight Silver'. This was all built and ready for paint before I left for Ireland so just needed paint once back. I have loved designing, building and painting this from start to finish and am absolutely thrilled with the finsihed work. Was also pretty gutted to have to parcel it up and send it off to its rightful owner. So I made sure to photo the shit out of him before sending him off. So happy with this guy :) The ruined farmhouse is totally scratch built and the vines ggrowing up the outside are actually the roots of one of my (dead) tomato plants dried out! Damn happy :D I will eventually be doing little vignettes for the 5 Gaunt's Ghosts figs that BC gave me.

Tanith Sniper - Farmhouse Siege: Aexe Cardinal

Second fig for the same peson was a female Commissar fig that they wanted done in naval colours than the usual black-coated Comms. So I went for one of my fav colours, which I usually use as the secondary colour in my AdMech scheme. Think she came out rather well. Not the most handsome of sculpts but a pretty important piece for the owner.

Naval Commissar

With those two taken care of, it was on to finishing up the other 'commission' from the 'I paint your mini' thread over on Dakka. This one is an Infinity fig and was my first time painting anything from Corvus Belli and will possibly (but probably not) be the last time I bother with anything from that company until they sort out their casting/boxed product process. It's 28mm but feels more like 28mmicro. They cast in metal rather than resin or plastic and usually (see the above Ghost) painting a bit of metal again is quite fun. Metal does have a lovely weighty feel to it. This Infinity cast tho was an utter pain in the nuts. The joins/fits between parts are not slotted particularly well so the joins are going to be weaker than if they had bother to use proper peg and slots. As its such a slight slender fig, pinning is nigh on impossible. The vents were in a few places very hard to differenciate from the actual sculpt. This Chimera fig is a very nice miniature but their casting and how you get the fig really looks so amateurish, especially from what is supposed to be a big game and minitures company. A quick and simple comparision show you what I mean. As a comparison fig, I used the Ghast fig I got in Ireland by Steamforged Games. Both are totally fresh out of the box - no clean up or trimming done on either.

Infinity - Chimera

Mortician's Guild - 'Ghast'

Big fething difference. Anyhow - Finally got her painted up. Tried out using glazing a lot more with her as she is so small and delicate and so is a lot of her detail. Anything more than just glazes would be in danger of obscuring some of her finer detail. And finished piece........

Infinity - 'Chimera'

Overall, I'm very happy with how she came out. Her scheme was semi-worked out before I started but did change and adapt somewhat as I went along, especially the metals.


So, with those done - time to get some of my own stuff done. I had and still have I suppose, a couple of figs on my bench that I started but never got around to finishing. So was defintely time to get a lest some of them all finished up.


A little bit of kitbashing/scratch building and the 'Vox Divina' servo skull was born! Simple enough paintjob and I had my entry for Para's Feb painting comp over on Dakka

Next up was the first of the Blood Angels' terminators from the Space Hulk box - Sgt. Lorenzo.

Space Hulk - Sgt. Lorenzo, Blood Angels Terminator

Space Hulk - Sgt. Lorenzo, Blood Angels Terminator

Space Hulk - Sgt. Lorenzo, Blood Angels Terminator

Space Hulk - Sgt. Lorenzo, Blood Angels Terminator

His pauldrons are obv more Flesh Tearers than Blood Angels because........reasons! Actually I went with the black pauldrons and a darker richer red for the armour to try and break up the usual BA scheme whcih tbh I really find quite boring. I cut off the weird moulded stand/base that the Space Hulk figs come on and rebased him on one of the bases I ordered for Fenris Games in the UK. Big improvement I think.

Finally (god this is a long post already) I got Vrosh Tattersoul completed. He's been sitting there 90% finished for months, so he's finally done and joined up with the other Chosen in the cabinet

Dark Vengenace - Vrosh Tattersoul

And that bascially was February hobbywise. On a final note of what is already a seriously TL:DR post, I gonna 'quickly' talk about a gorgeous new release.


Now, after failing pathetically in Ireland to stick to my buying freeze of figs .....I'm renewed on that mark and totally committed to a renewed buy freeze until I clear my backlog...........and then what does GW do.......they release bloody Deathwatch:Overkill......you utter shitlords!!!! If you havent seen/heard of GW's latest boxed set/board gmae release....crawl the fuck out from under that rock and have a look. They have finaly decided to redo/rerelease/reincarnate/re-whatever the genestealer cult from way back when and damn but they have seriously not held back on it. No half-assed meh sculpts here. They have brought a fething rocketlauncher to a knife fight on this one.

Sculpts are stunning and the game itself look really quite playable. No major gripes from me....one or two possible niggles though. There doesnt seem to be any sort of facing/LoS rules for shooting. On the game board's tiles there are no real hard blind corners or doorways for cover but you do seem to be able to shoot targets directly behind you and striaght through other figs without any sort of penalty. That I really don't like. Houserule #1 is def gonna be made to cut that nonsense out.


The art is glorious overall except for the Deathwatch stat cards. Some genius decided to use the same paictures of the different DW marines from the short stories which are quite possibly the shittiest, ugliest most bollox pieces of art GW have ever used (ok ok....enjoy a touch of hyperbole here) - not onlky are they ghastly but they really don't gel with the style and aesthetic of the rest of the artwork. This however is just my opinion and I'm sure there are folk out there who do really like the portraits.


So niggle #2 is purely subjective and niggle #3 is even more petty!! That fething Space Wolf. Now it's no real secret that I absolutely bloody detest the SWs. Space Marines are cracking. Vikings are awesome too. Space Wolves are not. They're twats. I don't like their fluff, their chartacters, their aesthetic and they totally get on my tits. Having one in the Deathwatch - totally fine with that. Makes no sense to have one of the most prolific chapters NOT contributing. However (if you've also read the short story about) Drenn Redballs is an ever bigger twat than usual. From the first page he comes across and a seriously unlikeable wanker. A complete twat. The scuptors have done a fine job if showing his arseholish character with that bollox mohawk they've given him on the fig. Fluff character being an arse or not - I really don't like that horse-wank of a hairpiece they've given him. I doubt I'll keep it when I 'eventually' pick up a copy of the box. I'll probaly either replace his head with a p̶u̶m̶p̶k̶i̶n̶  a Mk VII helm or if I find one cheaply, one of the SW wolf helms - we'll see. Having ol Redballs wearing a helm though does go directly against the fluff as it says he refuses to wear one......but as the fluff character is a complete arsetard......I'm quite happy to break fluff this time. Again folks, don't take my anti-SW ranting too seriously (read: at all) - I just really can't stand them - I'm sure there are some nice SWs out there (n̶o̶,̶ ̶n̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶n̶'̶t̶;̶ ̶a̶r̶s̶e̶h̶o̶l̶e̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶!̶!̶!̶ ) Anyways - those 2 petty niggles and that one LoS rule worry aside......this could very well be one of GWs best boxed games releases at least since Space Hulk. Is it better than BaC?......hmmm - I'm not really in any position to say. BaC doesn't really appeal to me as it's 30K and I've really got no interest in starting 30K. I would say on a sculpt level, the DW:O are better and more detailed. Gamewise......as I say, I can't really comment. Anyhow...that's your lot for today folks. Sorry for the length but I'm a bit behind the now and that.


Till again - take it easy, C&C always welcome and if you're not licking your brush, you're not loving your brush  ;)

A Chosen Disaster

Back again! Been meaning throw out an update but things (as per usual) just kept getting away from me! Have of course been painting away like a lunatic! So, what's been happening.....finally finished the DV Chosen figs. Really really happy how they turned out and then DISASTER. I went to seal them with some Purity Seal spray and the damn stuff frosted the lot of them!!! Long story short - I found a brush on matt varnish at he local arts'n'crafts store that fixed them .....90% or so. But seriously.....that is not a good feeling when you spray on and see the figs I'd spent about 50hours or so painting start to look like they had taken a trip 'north of the wall'. I was gutted. Couldn't even bring myself to take a full load of proof photos. I have one....somewhere....I'll edit it in later if I can find it.
Anyways - I e-mailed CC at GW in the off chance they'd be able to help. I honestly wasn't really expecting much as at this point I can re-varnished them and only had one shot of one of them all frosted over. And no receipt for when I bought the DV boxed set last December. A few e-mails later though (with an incredible member of their CC staff) explaining what had happened and that it had happened (albeit to a very lesser degree) with the Harlie Skyweaver - I attached the one photo I had a screenshot of my Visa bill showing I had bought stuff from Orctown (a flgs, not an actual GW shop) they said they were sending me some replacement models. SCORE!!! I was however only expecting the figs that had got ruined. Nope..... a few days (yup - from Britain to Korea o.O ) later a whole brand new DV boxed set and a new Skyweaver boxed set arrived!!!! They do not muck around!! They didnt replace the affected figs but the entire kits that they came in! Dammnnnn - now that is awesome CC. There's one in the eye of all the whinning whinging maggots who incestantly harp on about how GW is the worst company in the 'verse et cetera et cetera!!
So, Chosen fixed and diorama built!! My biggest one yet too. Entered into Paradigm's monthly painting challenge (for June) over on DakkaDakka and thx to the nice folk who voted - I took 1st place :D   Anyways - less yapper and more photos eh?!!! Here's how it all came out (yes, I really do need to reshoot the photos but ...later..later ㅋㅋ)

. The posters I found about the net again, printed them on recycled paper and then tinted with shades. The unlucky guardsmen is from the Cadian squad box. The rest is all foamboard, sand/stones from the local river, mosquite screen repair patches, paperclips and plasticard for the marble tiles I painted to put in the back building. Oh - and a nightlight candle case for the podium that Draz is standing on :) Loved building this thing.
Hope y'like them

You can still see a few bits where the rescue varnish ( as I will now forever call it) didnt quite beat the frosting but overall, I think it did an amazing job.

Any questions, comments, C'n'Cs always welcome :)

Irish Steve

Chosen Diorama

Busy and yet not busy at the same time. School has been closed for the last week and will be until next Monday - well......closed to students, yet we teachers must still come in and sit in our offices. Mercifully I get to go home at lunchtime but sitting at a desk all morning is soul crushing. Anyways, due to this and also the wife is and has been away in Australia visiting friends till Sunday, I have gotten an inordinate amount of painting and modeling done in the last week.
Am working on the DV csm squad - 'The Chosen' for Paradigm's monthly painting comp over on DakkaDakka. These are seriously gorgeous figs. There is 6 of them in total, 2 of which are duplicates so it's five different and really awesome sculpts. If GW got rid of the standard CSM models and instead released a box akin to these Chosen - the whole Chaos contingent would be so much better. Anywho - The Chosen  - stunning sculpts of marines who have had their armour also start to be affected by Chaos; we've got daemonic faces growing out of armour plates, just the right amount of spikey and more vintage looking weapons. Such lovely figs deserve a diorama I thought, so have been building one for them as well. Biggest one I've made so far. As I built it I suddenly realised that it was really reminding me of the little campos or campiellos of Venice. I must be missing Italy again!! Anyways - here's a few WiP shots of what is going on. The Chosen are much further ahead now than shown here but I haven't gotten around to taking newer shots yet. I wanted to try and show their tabbards are having been made of flayed skin. They're very clean looking the now but I will be dirtying, bloodying and weathering them up at bit in final details.
Hope you like 'em
Cheers
Irish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brute-al

The Helbrute

Waheey  - finally finished the Crimson Slaughter's Helbrute. Loved painted this fig. Only thing that pissed me off a bit was those bastarding seams, esp on the melta arm. Ah well. Gorgeous fig to paint though and I don't usually bother much with Chaos but really liked doing this one. Looking forward to getting to The Chosen.

Helbrute

I used Blood For The Blood God paint on his claws and on those gill-like-thinys on his back. Was thinking of also using it on the spine but not sure now......maybe add it later...
Think the overall colour scheme worked well. Not too 'shiny happy helbrute' that I've seen a lot of. May dirtyhim up a little and add battle damage later on....and more blood :D   really recommend that BFTBG paint.

Next up gonna bite the bullet and do Balthasar......Least fav of the boxed set (godawful pose) but still a nice enough fig.