Forest Guardian

We return to Middle Earth with the angriest elves around!  Back when I was playing Lord of the Rings on a regular basis, I created the Knights of the Blood Rose.

These were elves who refused to leave Middle Earth to the race of Men.  They had been there far too long to simply shuffle off to the Grey Havens and leave it all behind.

They were also heavily engaged in warfare with the Easterlings.

Typical LOTR tournaments of the time had you bringing both a Good and Evil army, which you would play three times each during the tournament.  This was actually a very fun format, and I enjoyed it very much!

My favorite tournament of all time was a six game LOTR bash that saw my Elves and eagles as Good, and my Easterling/Khandish alliance as my Evil.

There are a number of articles on the creation of both armies, and the army board "Fortress Falls".

I am still adding to all of it, putting in spiders and Morghul Knights on the evil side, with more eagles on the good side.

He's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/322017997236?

Where it all began

This was the first of the jetbikes to be converted for the Dark Eldar army.

Here's a peek at the initial conversion:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2012/08/dark-eldar-arena-champion-test.html

This one was the most complex of all the conversions, so it's the only one that had sculpted wings, etc.

This did make it an excellent stand out leader for the squad, however!

I had to make sure there was enough of the sculpey pieces on the base to act as a counterweight.  This worked perfectly once I located the center of gravity on the jetbike.

The main reason I did the extended blade vanes was to provide a nice canvas for freehand and the blood streak effects.  It certainly worked out that way!

Doubling up the hull sections also meant that I could do some nice inner glow effects.  It took some doing to get the brush into some places, but well worth it in the end.

Pretty in Pink

Of all the different basing ideas I had for the French artillery, this is the one I was really looking forward to trying out!

I had already done something just like this for our Memoir '44 terrain, and it had worked out very well for that scale.  Now it was time to give it a try for Flames of War.  The pink foam that you see is less than 1/4 inch thick, and is used as an underlayment for flooring.  It usually comes in 2 x 4 foot sheets.

When I made the terrain stands for the Memoir figures, I did two broken walls, leaving one end open.  This will be perfect for the artillery.

I chipped away at the edges and outer surfaces to create blast marks, bullet holes, and even a window.  I must be sure to leave enough room for the crew however!

Here's a peek at the outside walls.  Who knows, I might even put a bit of ivy on them. :-)

In order to get them glued together, and provide some additional texture, I mixed the Oxide Paste with Elmer's glue to give it more adhesive power.  Not only did I use it to glue the two sections onto the base, but I also used it to mortar them to each other.

You can also see the tiny pieces of foam which I cut to use as bricks.

I simply place the bricks into the Oxide Paste and glue mixture at the ends of the broken wall sections.  Again, I want to leave room for the footprint of the gun carriage and the crew.

I added my normal series of rocks and gravel, trying to create piles of faux rubble.

With the crew incorporated, I used more rocks and sand to blend in the bases.

The crew and gun all fit nicely on the base, even with the rubble.

The crew are also spaced far enough from the walls so that I can still get a pint brush on them.  Minor details!

On the far left of the tray, you can see that I did one of these shattered ruins for a command team.

I think I tried to make on base of this style for each of my artillery units.  This was the most challenging, as I also had to deal with the limber.

This technique also works well on a slightly large scale, which means that I can make a host of burned out ruins in no time at all for a ravaged village or even a small city for our Flames of War games!  Stay tuned...

A Nation in Darkness

One of the four new factions from the latest Wild West Exodus kickstarter campaign was the Dark Nation, a twisted, warped version of the Warrior Nation.

While the Warrior Nation shuns the RJ-1027 powered weaponry of the other factions, some of their former brothers embraced it, and have been corrupted by it.

This is one of the Close Combat Savages of the Dark Nation Hired Hands set.  As with all of these sets, there are five Close Combat and five Long Range hired hands.  Each is in a completely unique pose, so all ten figures look dramatically different.

It was really interesting painting RJ glow on Nation figures... especially after painting several of the Scalpers with the natural blue energy!

Much more to come, so stay tuned!  Some of you are probably going to be getting your own kickstarter Dark Nation figures quite soon...

Point and Click

I haven't done any kind of conversions with the Red Box Games figures yet, so I thought you might like to see some of these spearmen.  The figure was originally a swordsman, but it was quite easy to place the hand with the spear in that spot.

I only had to cut off the rest of the arm at the wrist near the spear, drill a small hole for a pin, and presto... instant spear!

The entire unit worked out well in this fashion.

Lots more of these guys to come!

A Parallax Universe

Under way at this moment is an interesting miniatures game kickstarter campaign, brought to you by Parallax.  If you are looking for some very unique and interesting mid-range monsters, you certainly have some here!

There are a number of Minotaur characters in the game, each of which is full of character and movement.  A great example in this image.

Did I mention movement and character?  Yes... try out this one!  Every time I look at this picture, I think of more and more painting effects that I can try.  Definitely a new favorite. :-)

What first drew me to the Parallax line was the Cat-Man figures.  Long ago, we had done a few sketches of possible sculpts of this type of race.  I never got a chance to do any sculpting of those designs, but now I have some to choose from!  Yay!

This is a figure that I am finishing up now, so you will see him at some point late next week.

I didn't think that it was possible to get this much movement in an elephant type of figure, but that was accomplished here quite expertly.  It would be amazing to paint!

This is another new render which I had not seen previously.  I love the shield on the back, which is one of a few figures which did not ignore a potential area for fun additional details!

This is an example of the character cards...

Not all characters are monsters.  Here is a human sized figure.

Now for a look at a painted mini!  I loved painting this guy, and creating the base for him.  I believe that he's on a 50mm base.

One last image, and a link to the campaign... just 11 days left!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/272734025/parallax-warband

The Wolf Howls

Years ago, I had painted this Raging Heroes CyberWolf as a diorama piece for my Dark Eldar army display board.  He was actually sitting on the base of my Ravenwing bomber trying to shoot at it!

I had a lot of fun adding some Space Marine parts (torso, arms, head, etc) to the CyberWolf to create a kind of Space Wolves splinter chapter.  The planet which he's defending was filled with various dire wolves, and the most powerful of these would be augmented with the cybernetics.

The original figure from Raging Heroes has the legs sculpted into the figure, so all you need to do is add the torso and other upper sections!

Here's a link:

http://www.ragingheroes.com/products/pack-of-cyberwolves?variant=197674602

All I needed to do was make a base for him, and he was ready to go!  The color scheme is obviously not Space Wolf in nature, since I was trying to create an entirely different look for that splinter chapter.

He's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/322015175292?