40K Adventurers - Pilot - Psyker - Ornithopter

The May installment of the Adventurers project is the Pilot. I decided the female Psyker could be his on-and-off again love interest, so I painted her up too.

For color inspiration I found a neat illustration of a pilot by Phil Noto that was done as a Moebius tribute.

I'd been stalling on the Psyker for a while. I knew I didn't want to go with how I'd painted her in the past- which was the same as the advert. I decided to take a risk and committed to using the first picture of a 'gypsy' that came up on Google. I got lucky I think :)

The ornithopter in the background has been a long time in the making. The model came from Ramshackle Games. I saw a pic of it on the Oldhammer forum and decided I needed one in my life. It wasn't up for general releases because of the wing joints- the proprietor didn't think that the design worked well and hadn't put it up for sale. I, being an 'experienced modeler' stated that was not a problem and the very cool Ramshackle shipped me an ornithopter. 

Once I had it built, it sat for about two years as I didn't have a good solution for the wings!!! Truth told, one of the main reasons I bought a 3D printer was so I could design some wings for this thing.

When someone picked the Pilot for this month's adventurer, I decided to complete the project. The fact that GW is releasing an ornithopter provided further impetus.

The first step was scanning the wings provided. They were printed onto clear acetate. Then I traced them in Adobe Illustrator. The idea was to provide support for the flimsy acetate wings while using the original design.

Next, I imported the vector shape into Tinkercad (an online 3D modeling program) and added some simple surface detail. I also designed some new wing joints. 

Here you can see the wings all printed out and basecoated. I punched some holes in the obscured areas of the acetate so that the wing components would glue together well.

All that remained was to magnetize the wing joints so it can be stored easily, and on to painting.

 

Pretty much done- I may gloss coat the canopy.

Mantic Plague Zombies

I recently acquired a new sci-fi rule set, "Planet 28", that is made for low model count warband action. It has a solo and cooperative supplement with a small campaign outline. It calls for rebel miners and some mutants. I didn't have either of those ready to go, so I built the Mantic Plague Zombies I had stashed to use for mutants.

I wasn't super excited to paint these, so I challenged myself to speed paint them and get them done in four hours. I was pretty close, maybe only an hour off. The brush was flying! I decided to go with a campy sci-fi Scooby Doo green to give them an irradiated look. I've painted so many zombies in the past I didn't want to do the same old same old. I also used some fluorescent paint and a bit of glow in the dark pigment. It doesn't have good brushability so I didn't fight it.

These should be good for a variety of generic things, I could even see them show up in Space Hulk.

Random Sci-Fi - Mean Machine - Eyebot - Creature

As with my recent 'random fantasy' entry, I had some oddball sci-fi laying around as well that kept getting bumped from the short queue.

"Cyborg Pirate" from Knightmare Miniatures:

I painted his back to have a design my son's punk rock band "No Thanks" uses on their T-shirts.

 

Drone from Brother Vinni's. I bought it because I liked it, and later discovered it looks like an Eyebot from Fallout.

Not sure what this last one is meant to be, other than a feral looking alien creature. This one is from the Akula Space Opera range, currently OOP.

Ghost and Rust Monster

Once in a while a fantasy figure ends up on the desk. I painted a ghost from Copplestone Castings and a  Reaper Bones Rust Monster, with no immediate use in mind. I tried some glow in the dark pigment on the ghost- as a result it was kind of hard to photograph it's colors accurately.

40k Zoats and Murder Hornets

When Games Workshop announced the upcoming release of a Zoat for Blackstone Fortress, I knew that I'd better paint mine up. Faithful readers of the blog may recall a similar prodding regarding the Ambull :)

One is vintage Rogue Trader era GW, the other is from Knightmare Games.

I also painted some deadly looking sci-fi insects I acquired years ago from a guy doing a Dune project on the Lead Adventure Forum. I don't know what these had to do with Dune, but I bought them along with a bunch of other stuff. The color scheme is based loosely off the Zebs in the original Metroid game. I made them some egg deposits using some plastic Christmas holiday sprigs while working on the hornets. They'll make good deathworld insects.

All the new stuff was painted up fairly quickly, using a lot of Contrast paints with just a bit of direct painting.

40k Frateris Miltia - Special Weapons - Preacher - Shrine

I decided to finish up a squad I've been working on for over a year, some 2nd edition 40k Frateris Militia. I needed to add some special weapons, as well as a standard. I also had a priest that could go along for the ride.

I decided to go with two hand flamers, and two heavy stubbers. The heavies use the relatively new genestealer neophyte stubbers. They're ridiculously big, even by 40k standards, but I didn't want to take the time or spend the money trying to get Necromunda bits from the olden days. The standard pole is from the Flagellant kit, with a foil banner. The banner is part painted, part waterslide transfer. I swapped some weapons and heads around as well.

I also painted the metal shrine that came with the old Sisters of Battle boxed army.

My militia group uses a few models from the VOID game, which will serve as Frateris or general mooks and rebels as needed. I like the look of these models a lot. I painted two new ones for the group.

Lastly, a group shot showing an Imperial Preacher whipping the crowd up for a crusade.

Grim Signposts - Black Crab Miniatures

I'm working through the rest of the Black Crab Miniatures Kickstarter and have finished up two unsettling signpoles. These could work for both 40K and Fantasy settings. 

Order of the Ossuary - Relic Seekers - Black Crab Miniatures

I've added a few more members to my relic hunting mendicant group.

These four are all from the second Black Crab / Meridian Miniatures Kickstarter.

I also painted up some little bone piles to use as tokens or clues. I can't quite recall where the bones came from. I'm sure they are Anvil Industry or Wargames Exclusive. I can't recall where the bases I put them on came from either- I believe I found them in a discount bin at GenCon. They were way too high/thick to use for miniatures but they seemed okay for something like this.

40K Rogue Trader Adventurers - Eldar Trader and Associates

Here's the next installment in my 40K Adventurers project- the Eldar Trader.

 

I've been enjoying painting the Adventurers as part of small groups, so I decided to paint up a female friend and a Bonesinger as well. Both are non-GW sculpts I acquired years ago through the old Yahoo Collecting Citadel Miniatures Group. I decided the female is a psyker, so she received a Gyrinx companion (a Rogue Trader era limited release). It made sense to add a couple bodyguards so I selected three RT era Eldar mercs. One has a headswap (Dark Elf) from the mixed race WHF army box.

I still have the Eldar Trader I painted around 1993, so I decided to take a side-by-side comparison photo. Next up, by request, is the pilot. I have an ornithopter for him too, which was a long project in the making.

Inquisitor Greyfax

I just finished my fourth Inquisitor, flipping from oldest to newest. Here's Inquisitor Greyfax from late 2016.

I think Greyfax may have been the first plastic Inquisitor produced by GW.  It was a fun model to paint- she was not on my short list until I decided to focus on the Inquisition.

40K Terrain - Wargames Exclusive Cars - Billboards - Doomsday Device - Dice Tower

Just a few random terrain pieces I've had lingering in the hobby area.

Billboards from Proxie Models. They're business card sized which is a cool idea- I made some new graphics for them.

The Hospitaller in the above sign is from an awesome illustration by PvtSerrano.

I borrowed the 'Advice Techpriest' meme for this one.

"The Libram of Deactivation says to cut the red wire"

Doomsday Device from the 40k Objectives kit.

 

3D printed dice tower. I used to scoff at the idea of these, but my kids can't seem to keep dice on the table and this one looked like it could double as terrain.

And finally, some resin cars from Wargames Exclusive. They're a bit over the top but remind me of Nemesis the Warlock, so they get my seal of approval.

Shadow Knight - Rangers of Shadow Deep

The Lead Adventure Forum is running one of its painting clubs, the 'Modern Fantasy Painting Party', essentially open to minis made since the year 2k. I decided to paint up a Shadow Knight from the Rangers of Shadow Deep range, made by Northstar. 

I actually already had a few models that could work as one of these for the Rangers game, but it is such a characterful and threatening looking wight I wanted to paint one up.