When the lights go out: part Two

Well, I had expected to be finished with this second Imperial Fists Rapier by now, but Com Ed had other plans.  On the nicest weather day since May (temps of under 80 degrees, no wind, not a cloud in the sky), the power cuts out.  It stays out long enough to completely screw with the painting of this piece.

So, it was time for drastic measures:



I grabbed the lights that I had used on the Tomb Kings army board, thinking I could attach those to my magnifier light.  No dice there.

So, I tried to tape them to other surfaces:




Finally, it was time to break out the candles again...

At least the power is back on.

Finished Necropolis Knights

OK!  These guys were finally finished off, and their movement tray painted!

The Endless Voyage

Well, Cathy and I were lucky enough to get tuned into the live landing coverage of Curiosity just in time!  It was an amazing thing.  Very special.

I could not help but think what it would have been like to have that instant access "back in the day" when the Viking landers made it to Mars.  I certainly remember how excited I was back then! 

Astronomy has been a major interest of mine for as long as I can recall.  Here's an example of an 8th grade Science Fair entry...



I think I managed to save some of my drawings from that display board.  The blue flower wallpaper was not!  To this day, I still have the HR diagram memorized :-)

That set me on a major Astronomy art kick, as I was inspired by Chelsea Bonestell and others.  This was an image I painted in the mid 90's of a terraformed Mars called "In the Shadow of Olympus"  It is the city of Tharsis, on the edge of a nifty ocean.



OK, so there are no plate tectonics, and minimal magnetic field protection...

My apologies for the small size of the images, and the watermarks.  The original images are stored on a different computer.

Here is a tiny sampling of the spacscapes I have painted over the years.  Now you know why I try to sneak them into my miniatures. :-)

This was called Fire Falls



Blue Moon Rising


Cave of the Winds


Distant Shores


Tower of Babel


Arc of the Heavens


And a favorite of mine, The Endless Voyage.



Sorry there were no miniatures in this post!  There will be lots of them later today!

Freehand movement tray designs for Bowshabti

OK, here's another unit that now has its movement tray!  I am going to stick with the same inscription on each one, since it takes a lot of time to translate stuff, and no one will ever really look at it anyway :-)

Ilyad Miniatures Snow Troll

Or at least that is what I thought it was. :-)  When I was trying to decide what to do with the colors, I wanted to see the contrast between some warm colors on the armor, vs the colder hues of the base and the hair/flesh, etc.



I always enjoy working with more of a brassy color on armor, and it turned out to be quite fun to juxtapose that vs. the darker blues in the hair.



I made a whole series of these snow bases.  I am pretty sure they appear in some of the other galleries, most noticeably the Eldar Banshee gallery.



The snow was done in the usual way... painted in grayish blues, and then a light layer of snow flock on top!

What to do when you have some orphan bits.

What to do when you have those "orphan" bits... those pieces and fragments that you hang onto when you think "Hey, I could make something out of this..."

Well, you rethink your entire army, just so that you can create a conversion that uses those lonely bitz.

Or, you want to create an even more elaborate Liche priest on a horse to go with a new unit of horsemen.

Perhaps both!

As you can see, I had an odd collection of leftover bits.  I am not sure how I ended up with just one Casket mage arm, but I did.  I also had a small carrion from the Tomb Guard sprue.  I got this vision in my head (you don't want to know what goes on in there), and I had to see if it could be made (dessicated) flesh.



I am still adding some more little things to this, but it will be the centerpiece of that 18 man horse unit.  You already saw the movement tray in progress.



This is also part of that grand experiment to see how the foam core works which has replaced the usual cavalry bases.  It has been very nice so far, especially on the big Tomb Guard unit!  Much easier to keep all the floor sections level and seamless.

WOrk in Progress: Tainted World Eater Decimator

Well, get ready for Decimator #2!  This time, we cover the Khorne god.  It required a whole different set of conversion tactics than the Nurgle version.  I collected just about every skull I could find, and even that was not enough.  I had to sculpt about 7 more myself.  This should fit in quite well with all the previous "Tainted" World Eater pieces that have come before, such as the rhinos and predators.

Here are some torso shots (you can't go wrong with bunny ears!!!!).





And the legs...





And for the base...


There is still more being added, but this all needed several hours to set up before the next step.  I also added some things to the weapon arms, but I am waiting on Magnets!