The Archon Arrives!

This was the most elaborate basing that I did on any of the Venoms.  Since it was the Venom for the Archon and the Incubi squad, it seemed appropriate to make it extra special!

It was an homage to a strange sculpture in front of Midway airport, which we have always referred to as the "Crashed Plane Sculpture".

It looks like the aluminum tail of a jet liner sticking up out of the ground at an odd angle... eerily resembling a crashed plane!

Me live very close to the airport, so 737 jets scream over head all day and much of the night.

The markings on the tail are from the Space Marine splinter chapter against which this army is fighting.  The army display board also incorporated bits and pieces of tanks and other craft such as this to continue that theme.

You can see all of that in the Dark Eldar section of the blog.

I also had a lot of fun with the freehand designs on the Venom itself, adding some icons on the banner as well as the same freehand hull patterns.

These views give you a better look at the hull patterns.

Overall, it was a very fun piece!!

It came from the Bog!

Meet Morannach, the dreaded Bog Monster from Mierce Miniatures!

Here is a side by side of the miniature with the original concept art.  It's never easy matching up the two things, because the artist is working with an entirely different backdrop and other parameters.

He's a hefty beast, made of mud, branch, leaf and skulls!  He is on a base that's 75-80mm wide, so that gives you an idea of scale.

I had lots of fun with the color transitions... greens changing into yellows and browns, etc.  It was important to get some of the blueish gray elements in there as well, to act as a bit of a buffer to some of the higher saturation colors.  I did most of those on the legs or the lower sections of the monster.

The views from above give you a glimpse at the boggy base, as well as the stones and other upper level surfaces.

There were so many branches everywhere!  I had to set this one aside every so often, so that I would not keep painting the same colors all the way through a given area.  By stopping, I would be forced to "lose track", and then start up again in a completely different spot.

Yes, that might be considered counter productive... and it normally is.  However, it worked out as I had hoped. :-)

The Golden Salamander

Here's another color take on the Kings of War Salamanders.

I started with a much more traditional greenish color, moved to a red, and now it's time for some gold/amber.

This was going to be a very fun color contrast to the rocks and the weapon, since I knew there would be more teal and purple there.  Reflecting a tiny bit of the amber onto that blade was going to create some dramatic shapes to be sure!

Still, I wanted to incorporate some reddish hues, so that the golds would be tinted towards amber.  You might see in the right hand image that the yellow is more of a green hue.  Again, it's all about creating as many different subtle color transitions as possible to make it more interesting to look at.

That was also going to tie in the 'skin' colors with the weapon and the rocks, even the shoulder armor.

One last view to show the overall scene.  While I have also painted entire units of lizards the same color, it is a lot more fun to experiment and play around with those colors!

Forest Pals

This Galadhrim elf has a little buddy with him.  I think it's a bit from the GW Dryad sprue.  I think I might have to try to find more of those bits, because nearly all of my LOTR elves had some sort of Dryad bit on the base.

It was long before I had the bark and branch method, however!  Still, it would be neat to have some of the forest sprites to mess around with.

The basing was definitely more simply done on these figures, as time was a major issue.

I was trying to get them all done for the Bilbo's Bash tournament, which was achieved!

Stabby Samurai

My favorite aspect of creating Blood Bowl teams is the theme that each team is based upon.  Not only can you do lots of fun conversions in the process, as has been done on my Celtic team, and Samurai Orc teams, but you sometimes find fun miniatures from other ranges too!

These little Gobbos are from Clan Wars, an older line of figures.

Not only are the sculpts perfect for the Samurai theme, they also have some humor to them, thus making it ideal for a turn marker or score marker on the pitch.

These "Coaching staffs", as they are commonly referred to, can greatly enhance a team.  You only have to look at other franchises I have done... the Tundra theme Chaos Dwarf, the Mimes of Moria, and the OrcKids female Orc Blood Bowl teams to see what I mean.

Be sure to check those out in the blood bowl section of the blog!

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-mimes-of-moria-what-they-didnt-show.html

Rolling Thunder

Here's the first set of group shots showing all the French tanks which have been painted thus far.

It's quite the range of heavy, medium and light tanks!  From Char Bis to Soumas to tiny AMR's.

I think it might take every single one of them to deal with a King Tiger.  Quite and interesting size comparison!

I would not be surprised at all to find out that the turret of the Tiger is heavier than one third of the light French tanks.

Still, those were not around at this time, and only 80 of them were ever made.  I will certainly be curious to see what these can do in an actual Flames of War game.  Some of these vehicles can be more than a match for early war Panzers.

At this stage, I don't know what else I would be adding to this group, aside from a few more biggies.  Of course, I would not mind a few more of the medium and light tanks to paint up in a desert camo scheme for the Levant and West Africa scenarios which I'd like to do.

I did try to vary some of the colors and patterns where possible.  My guess is that the majority of the early learning games with be France '40.  These should be quite appropriate for that!

I'm getting more excited about this, as the artillery stands are well under way, and even many of the infantry teams are being based.

Stay tuned, because there is a whole lot more coming!  Not just the aforementioned artillery and infantry, but lots of terrain articles as well!  

Feel the Pain

Here are some new pictures of the old Chronos Pain Engine.  It was a major testing ground for new materials and techniques.

Blood effects, combining the fluorescent paints with realistic water and the freehand pattern were all on the menu with this guy!

I really had no idea what to expect when I did that combination.  Ultimately I was very happy with the results.  There is no type of color that does this high chroma look except for the fluorescents!

These views show off the freehand carapice pattern as well as the mosaic on the base.

I only wish that he would have done as well in the games as he did with all the experiments!