Space Santa's Sleigh

When the 'Galactic Heroes' Kickstarter pledge I backed earlier in the year showed up, it included a sci-fi skimmer along with the rules. I couldn't let the season pass by without painting it up for my old Citadel Space Santa (he was painted about a year ago).

Happy Holidays!

Deadcember - Undead Animals - Ranger OSL

The miniatures community has a lot of events going on through the year, such as  'Orctober' and 'Deadcember'. I often don't realize these things are happening until its too late and people start posting their results on social media. I figured I'd miss Deadcember again but it turns out I did some zombie animals last week :)

I put them into a scene with a recently completed ranger from Reaper. I experimented with OSL (Object Source Lighting) since he was holding a torch. I'll be going back in the shadow areas with some dark blues and greys.

 Zombie cow and sheep from Bear's Head Miniatures.

 

 

Deer Woman - Lead Adventure League - Round 10

This was my final entry for round 10 of the LPL, "Deer Woman". 

The Deer Woman is a supernatural being found in the stories of several Native American groups. I'd have preferred a 'more clothed' version but this is the only one on the 28mm market (that I know of anyway). The company that makes her is Paymaster Games. Their miniatures are high quality, and pretty obscure subjects no one else makes.

The Iroquis warriors are from Perry Miniatures.

Another LPL down the tubes, nabbed overall second place this year.

Warriors of Doom - Lead Adventure League - Round 9

Here's my round 9 entry for the LPL, "Warriors of Doom".

The warriors these miniatures represent are likely recognizable to fans of a certain sword-and-sorcery barbarian film (which may be my all time favorite movie). These are available from Forge of Doom.

I don't really have a project in mind for these, but I can see them showing up in games of Rangers of Shadow Deep.

Saint Celestine - Lead Adventure League - Round 8

This is my Lead Adventure League round 8 entry, "Saint Celestine".

This entry includes the 'classic' metal version of the Celestine character, which took me about nine years to get around to painting for some reason. I really enjoyed painting her.

Near her is a converted miniature from the Cobalt game- he has a headswap and backpack from MaxMini, a chainsword from Kromlech, a GW bolt pistol, plus a little greenstuff. He's my take on Witchhunter Arnaut Tantalid from the Eisenhorn books.

In addition to those two are a Repentia Mistress (one of my all-time least favorite miniatures), and a couple more Repentia which finish up the unit.

Gnoll Hunters - Lead Adventure League - Round 7

This was my entry for the 7th round of the Lead Adventure League, "Gnoll Hunters". 

The gnolls are plastics from the Frostgrave range, the ranger in the shadows is 'Schumacher' made by Reaper Miniatures.

Bob Olley Samurai Orcs - Lead Adventure League - Round 6

This is a project long in the making. My round 6 LPL entry was "Bamboo Raiders", and was the last group of Samurai-inspired orcs I needed to finish to complete the set I bought around fifteen years ago.

 

The larger troll/oni I acquired a couple of years ago- but he's by Bob Olley as well, so fits right in.

The first  LPL I was in, in 2011, introduced this group:

 

I added this band of orcs in 2012:

Add this group in 2017:

 

2018's entry:

This does it for my Samurai orcs and goblins army, a bunch of minis I bought for no reason other than I liked they way they looked.

 

 

Thanks for looking!

Relic Seekers - Lead Adventure League - Round 5 - Black Crab Miniatures

This is my Round 5 entry for the LPL. The miniatures are four resin 'grimdark' scroungers from the Meridian Miniatures "Black Crab" Kickstarters, plus a winged cyber cherub from the Games Workshop Inquisition range.

Credit to Suber for the unusual blue color scheme. He posted his excellent Order of the Ossuary on the Lead Adventure Forum, along with a really cool concept for them, so I decided to follow suit. 

GW had a minor order of Sororitas called the Order of the Blue Robe that I've been wanting to do for a while, so these will tie into a larger Order Pronatus task force dedicated to securing relics. 

Inquisition - Lead Adventure League - Round 4

Here's my entry for the fourth round of the LPL. The miniatures are a Games Workshop Inquisitor and three Repentia, plus a heavily armored nun from HiTech Miniatures. I also recently completed the ruins bits from the Urban Conquest box set.

Bridge Guards - Lead Adventure League - Round 3

This is my Round 3 entry for the Lead Adventure League, "Bridge Guards". The scene depicts a group of gnolls and a bridge used in a 'Rangers of Shadow Deep' scenario.

The bridge is Hirst Arts, the gnolls are Northstar plastics. The shaman has some additional horns from the Skulls kit.

Slaanesh Beastmen - Lead Adventure League - Round 2

My second entry for the LPL this year was a group of sci-fi beastmen from the old Demonblade 'Mutants' range. Pretty sure these are Bob Olley sculpts.

 

The fabrics didn't have a worn, damaged look one often sees with beastmen, so I decided to go with a pastel, decadent, silky look associated with Slaanesh. The statue in the background is converted from a witch from Uncle Mike's 'Strange Aeons' game. The statue holds a Slaanesh icon and a small vial of some hallucinogenic elixir used in the cult's chaotic rituals.

Abe Lincoln, Ghoul Hunter - Lead Adventure League - Round 1

The Lead Adventure League painting contest, put on at the Lead Adeventure Forum,  has started. Due to a lack of time my entries probably won't be as extravagant as in the past, but I do hope to clear a long-standing project, make some progress on my Rangers of Shadow Deep project, and chip away on the Sisters of Battle.

The first round was themed "Things that Go Bump in the Night" so I used the opportunity to finish up some ghouls and painted a axe-wielding Abe Lincoln to serve as a counterpoint.

Abe is from an Indiegogo campaign I backed many years ago. If I recall, it was quite late and the figures ended up being available through retail (and for less!) before I received my set. I'm not sure who sells them now. The two big ghouls are from Reaper and the smaller ones are older GW metals from the 'Middlehammer' period.

Adepta Sororitas Seraphim

I've been working sporadically on my Sisters of Battle collection, hoping to get the units I have done before GW drops the new ones.

The Seraphim were my favorite unit in 2nd edition, but I wasn't looking forward to painting them, and I had some conversions in mind for a number of years. I got them done a few weeks ago but didn't have time to get pictures. I have finally remedied that for post #150.

I had the idea to convert some Seraphim to wield dual inferno pistols, but I wanted them to have the archaic looking ones found on the Inquisition miniatures. I used some arms from Empire pistoliers and added a small canister. I also made a new hand flamer sister, since GW only ever made one pose.

Lastly, a few extra seraphim superiors- I had to collect all the variants of course. The bolt pistol/power sword sister is the Ephrael Stern model from the scarce Daemonifuge set. She's almost certainly a recast, I wasn't able to acquire a legit set with the certificate until recently. I'll paint that one with the Martyred Lady scheme.

 

These took a lot of hours but as always look pretty impressive in a big group when finished.

Wargames Atlantic Sci-Fi Greatcoat Troopers

Wargames Atlantic sent me 3D printed prototypes of their upcoming sci-fi greatcoat soldiers to paint for them. The resin printer that produced them is pretty astonishing; one is hard pressed to find evidence that they were printed! My understanding is that the plastic will have even better detail.

Based off what I have seen so far, we will see a flamer and grenade launcher as special weapons. I have read that there will be a lot of head options, so that a person can make a full box with one helmet type. I think that these will prove popular, I really like the look of the bearskin hats!

  Scale shot L-R:

Wargames Atlantic Raumjager, Dreamforge Eisenkern (body), GW Blackstone Traitor Guard, Wargames Atlantic Grognard, GW Chaos Marine, Hydra Miniatures, Wargames Atlantic Grognard, GW Necromunda Goliath, Raging Heroes

Warhammer 40K Colossus Class Imperial Robot

A few months ago, a fan revision of the old Rogue Trader era 'Colossus class' robot showed up for pre-order on one of the Oldhammer groups on Facebook. Not really having any immediate use for it I decided to buy one anyway and have recently finished it. It is a seriously heavy chuck of metal!

 

As you can see here, I went with a Chapter Approved paint scheme that was in an old issue of White Dwarf. I decided to use the Imperial scheme since I thought it captured the bizarre aesthetic of Rogue Trader pretty well. I used a few decals on this one to speed up the process.

 

 

Oldhammer Fantasy Fighters

Over a year ago a friend alerted me that there were some old 80s Citadel and Marauder miniatures at a nearby flea market in rural Kansas- for a good price too, about $2 a figure. After buying a bunch of them I had to hunt down some proper shields (thanks to Blue in VT from Oldhammer in the New World and Svennn on Lead Adventure Forum). Rangers of Shadow Deep has re-invigorated my love of Fantasy again, so I have been chipping away on the Oldhammer lead to use as rangers and companions.  

Here's a group of fighters from Marauder, a Citadel sister company as I understand it. Not sure which range the crossbow fellow is from.

 

More on the way!

Gelida - The Frozen Expanse - Inq28 - Raiders

Some pictures of the raiders I painted for the Frozen Expanse project.

The bodies are Victoria Miniatures (male and female winter troopers), with various bits and greenstuff additions. Heads come from a Meridian Miniatures Kickstarter from a few years ago, some from MaxMini, plus one from the Northstar Frostgrave cultists.

Rangers of Shadow Deep - Rangers

Anyone sifting through my blog will see that I flit around to various genres, with an emphasis on 40K and sci-fi. Several months ago I chanced upon a description of a relatively new game (at the time anyway) called Rangers of Shadow Deep. It is a medieval fantasy setting, geared for cooperative play, and uses the Frostgrave system more or less. I'm not quite sure what it was in the person's synopsis that made me want to play it (I haven't played a tabletop fantasy game since the original Mordheim!) but I decided to dive in because it sounded like a lot of fun.

I bought a bunch of rangers so that anyone I played with had a good set of choices and I settled on a cool female ranger made by Otherworld Miniatures for myself. I picked the name Lewinna, who is a quite obscure saint with dubious provenance I read about in a book on relic thefts.

From left to right we have Gabriella (Reaper duellist), Ladyhawke (Mega Miniatures), Lewinna (Otherworld), Sasha (Frostgrave plastic female soldiers), and Orbis the hound (Frostgrave).

My kids (ages 9 and 5) picked some rangers out of the pile for me to paint for them.

Here we have Blaze and Seeker the Panther, the 5-year-old's pick. He wanted an animal companion since his older brother had one, and wanted a panther. Luckily I had a Ral Partha lioness unpainted in the lead pile. The ranger is from Reaper.
 

 

Thor and Mary the Wolf, my 9-year-old's pick. Both are from the same Reaper pack. Not quite sure where the name of the wolf came from...

 

A little scene of Lewinna discovering a clue.

I've played the first scenario twice now, once with the family using four rangers and a companion each, and once with a friend. So far I like it quite a bit and am furiously painting stuff for the next scenario.

Wargames Atlantic Halflings

I had the opportunity to paint some 3D printed prototypes of two of the upcoming plastic Halflings set being produced by Wargames Atlantic.

Sprue removal and assembly of delicate 3D parts is challenging, but the print quality was super high and they are a good indicator of the quality of the upcoming set. I think people will like them.

Gelida Frozen World Project - Canids

I've been working steadily on a community 40K ice world project, "Gelida: The Frozen Expanse" being organized by on Facebook. Here are some canids I've been working on. 

 

I used Fenrisian wolf bodies as the base model. I sculpted a new tail, added two more digits to each paw, and modified the snout. I had two ideas in mind for my canids. One was that they would burrow in snow and their nose should be high up so it would be out of the snow, so I positioned the nasal orifices higher on the skull.

Second I wanted a substantial tail- the canid uses it to swipe the snow behind them to disguise tracks etc. as they hunt- I kind of assumed they weren't an apex predator, so even though they are tough and vicious they have to be sneaky too. Also, the tail, along with rest of the pelt, is what makes them desirable for hunting.

  

 

One of my humans for the setting, who got separated from her pack...

And the same picture with some snow effects added in Photoshop.