Guild Ball Fishermen: Tentacles & Shark

May was a funny old month, with work kicking my behind, but I still managed to get a couple of small projects moving. One current focus is trying to complete my Fishermen lineup - so I tackled Tentacles and Shark.

First time in a long time I've tried doing any wet blending. That wasn't terrible, and fun to use such bright colours for a change!

Conversely, here's Shark. Who I was far less happy with ...

... but it's out the way, and that was a painful experience, as my ability to paint small figures to a reasonable standard has disappeared altogether. This usually means I'm feeling a little jaded, so giving myself a few days off before diving back in.

Wonderlands: Sergent Corwinn

I've made a conscious decision this year to focus on tabletop quality at 28mm scale, and try to push my skills for larger pieces. Bigger surfaces to learn on, more opportunity to play with colour. This is the first serious effort I've made for something approaching competition level.

What a blast this was to paint. I picked it up ... two or three years ago at Salute, at a guess?  Florian at Wonderlands was running a promotion for pre-orders, so I picked up a whole stack of his awesome figures. The large surfaces were intimidating me and so was the face sculpt. So it went in a drawer. But this year I won't let the sculpts get the better of me.

I want him to feel beaten, tired and utterly anonymous, so there's no markings on the armour. Nothing to distinguish him from a million other soldiers in identical suits.

After starting the face a good month ago, going this way and that, I reached a point of satisfaction (oo-er) and then it was time to hit the armour ...

Base colours airbrushed on, then of playing around with working out shapes and damage. This is a seriously worn suit of armour. The rust and pitting is everywhere.

Haven't got the volumes quite right, but I'm taking those as a learning for the future, not something to keep picking at on this. Colours pleased me, and I tried to keep armour a little cooler - but organic parts (face + rust) a little warmer.

I was happy to get a temperature change on the right hand side of his face, as that's a little toward the shadow and should be a little cooler and reflecting a little of the metallic armour, than the left side of the face tilted upwards.

Super happy with this. We will all see hundreds of other better painted miniatures this week, but this one is mine and I'm very pleased with the results.

Warmonger: Gnothagam the Proud

Who can resist an ork in a shirt like that? Not me. Look at it!

Enjoyed playing with skintones, and keeping the jacket neutral to let the shirt do the talking.

That's the lot on piratey additions for the moment. All told, it took about eight hours to complete the three orks. I think we could say this is "decent tabletop" as a standard, and wouldn't try to pass it off as more.

Warmonger: Vrogak Ball Shooter

An ork dandy, if ever there was one.

Simple, bold colours, designed to be offensive as a combination. I picture him up in the crows nest of a pirate ship, sniping at passing ships while wearing his garish outfit.

Grey Horde: April 2018

Bought: 13
Sold: 1
Painted: Nazi zombies (20), Orks (3), Commissar Yarrick

Salute was VERY quiet for purchases, and to be honest, that's probably a good thing. Picked up a few interesting character sets from Bad Squiddo and Heresy, and a couple of random pieces, but that's about it! Quite a comedown from previous years.

It was with a little sadness I sold off my Black Sun Barbarian to a friend, but it would have languished in the backlog for years. This will see it loved and completed in the next decade. I can always buy another one in the future if the urge takes me.

Total: -10

Warmonger: Mighty Epigruel

Warmonger is a sister company to the excellent Foundry, and their orks take me back to the late 80s GW era Orks, where every model offered its own character. I picked a few up at Salute two years ago and left them in a drawer - and this was their time to come out and be painted.

I'm adding a few of these fine fellows to my pirate band, and the chef was the first in the set. He's truly miserable, and was a joy to paint.

Guild Ball Morticians: Display Base WIP

This is a little catch-up post covering the display and travel board for my Guild Ball Morticians team.

It started life as a Mob Football tray from Bendy Boards (http://www.bendyboards.co.uk/) but wasn't quite sufficient for my needs. The black mat you can see peeking through is magnetic sheeting, and I've attached metal washers to the underside of all my figures. It's strong stuff and you can turn the populated board upside down and nothing falls out, or mount the washers sideways for a test photo ...

I wanted the board to have a little character, so using some plaster resin (you can see it in the first picture) I built some stone walls. After that, I took some Vallejo basing paste to fill in the gaps and add earth. Basically, it should look graveyard-ish by the time it's finished.

Priming this thing was the "what have I done" moment. We're way outside my comfort zone here ...

... but it's okay! Some  greys, some browns and a bit of foliage and it's looking like an actual thing now. Phew. Still need to tidy up the black edging but we're almost there.

I've added grass clumps, some static grass to support the clumps, more grass peeking through the gaps between stones.

... and after a few months' thinking it's finished. I went back and painted brick patterns across the top of the wood, as it looked strange without it. Add a few details on the base and call it done!

Guild Ball Morticians: Display Base

Finally finished my Guild Ball Morticians team board. Loved painting these over the last two years, but also glad to finish :)

I'll post a couple of the older, WIP shots later this weekend but it started life as a Bendy Boards tray, added magnetised matting to the board and washers under each figure ...

... how strong is the magnetic connection, you ask? Flick to the last picture.

All the stonework is plaster I added after assembling, then Vallejo textured basing, some flowers, a little scenery and that's it!

Astra Militarum: Commissar Yarrick

This wasn't on the original list for this year, but I picked the model up as part of the birthday celebrations and challenges at my local GW store. Time ran away from me in the end, so it's a little rougher than I'd like on the jacket, but everything else is servicable.

Studio Miniatures: Die Verdammten

Zombie. Nazis.

Second only to Illinois Nazis on my favourite kind of Nazi. That's all the acceptable Nazi types though. It's a short list.

So anyway, these are quick and dirty. About three hours to finish all 20, which gives you an idea of how many corners were cut and shortcuts taken. I needed a shambling hoard for a small diorama idea that's forming in my head, and these were perfect.

I picked them up at Salute a couple of years ago. It was probably the fact they were so nicely boxed as an old war film/B-movie in a VHS box. Dr Faust's YouTube channel covers the good and the bad pretty well (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMtbFEcXd2g) but in short ... at first glance it looks like there are loads of different sculpts in the box - in fact there are two.

They do provide lots of arms and a couple of spare heads, so with a bit of cutting and snipping it was possible to achieve a decent variety of poses. After that it was a case of throwing colour on, adding depth to the colour with brown and green inks, then a spot of drybrushing and more inks. Add unhealthy skintones, matt varnish and a few different shades of blood and it's all done!

Now to work out the rest of the diorama ...