A Trio of Villains for 'Hametsu'

Hey There!

This trio of villains is for our Hametsu adventures. Two bosses: a Shikigami a Nogitsune, and a Oni Captain. In Hametsu the Bosses enter play when the heroes find enough clues to their whereabouts, and/or when they've dispatched the lower-level minions. As you'd expect, the Bosses are VERY tooled-up and are designed to provide a unique and tough end-game for the players. 

First up is the mysterious, willowy and floaty Shikigami. This is a 3d print from the very talented Cobra Mode. I really like how elegant and otherworldly this model is. Its been sitting on my paint desk for months while I pondered how to approach it. In the end I decided to keep it simple, with just a few bold colours, trying to mimic with its robes opening flower like a tulip. 

For its war fan I used the airbrush to put in an unstructured rising sun motif along with kanji script on each side symbolizing Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. 

The Nogitsune (Spectral Wolf) is from DM Stash on MyMini. Again, another beautiful sculpt. Fairly straightforward paintjob on this guy. Fun to work on with all the deep-set textures, a veritable playground for Contrast paints. 

Finally we have the Oni Captain. Another 3d print from Cobra Mode. He has a sort of a Hell Boy vibe going on which I just ran with. 

Yeeash, that Kanabo he's toting is something else! You're not going to walk it off if he taps you with that thing.

A final shot of the three villains set against some heroes that I painted last year.

Thanks for dropping in for a visit!

- Curt

Ned & Norri - The Giant & The Faerie

Hi All!

Today I have another set of figures from the talented folks over at Westfalia Miniatures. 

Here is a foraging giant ('Ned') and his faerie friend ('Norri'). I imagine Norri being very annoyed with Ned for messing with the poor cow, and so is giving him a bit of the cold shoulder. 

I loved this model from the first time I saw it online and had to get one (Listed as the 'Fey Giant' sculpted by Boris Woloszyn). I'm glad I did as it seems to have gone OOP on the Westfalia website, but perhaps I'm just not looking in the right spot. It's a bit of complex kit and so had been languishing in the Pile of Possibilities for a few years. I uncovered it again this summer and resolved to get it done during this Challenge.

Most of this was airbrush work, with some of the details brought out with a brush. I'm quite happy with how his skin tone turned out, as I wanted something akin to the greyish trolls in the LotR movies. I had a bit of fun experimenting with spot-shading using contrasting colours. Anyway, I'm happy to have them done up and in the cabinet.

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Thanks for dropping in!

- Curt

The Emperor of Mankind and his Thunder Warriors

 Hey there!

My friend Greg and I have been huge fans of the 30K lore for years, spending countless hours discussing the stories and characters from the ridiculously expansive 'Horus Heresy' series of books (think Wagnerian opera crossed with a Latino melodrama, but with chain swords). To be frank most of the novels are pretty bad, but there are just enough good ones to have kept us coming back for more.

One of very niche bits of this GrimDark lore is set in the time before the Horus Heresy, before the Great Crusade, back to what is described as 'The Unification Wars' of Terra. This was when the Emperor was just one of the many 'techno-barbarians' fighting to be top dog over a post-apocalyptic Earth. In prosecuting this war, he created 20 legions of genetically modified super soldiers that were called Thunder Warriors (something's rhyming here...). These gene-enhanced freaks, er, peerless warriors became the prototypes for later gene-enhanced freaks known as, you guessed it, the Space Marines.

A Techno-Barbarian by John Blanche

Okay, if this wasn't dorky enough the next few paragraphs will descend into a high level of 30K nerdiness, so feel free to skim forward to the next ***. 

Whereas the Space Marines were chosen at childhood to be indoctrinated and genetically enhanced (yeah, nothing dark there), the Thunder Warriors instead originated from a pool of mature candidates, all fanatically loyal to the Emperor, who's bodies and minds were genetically manipulated for aggression and combat. The process was, um, 'imperfect' where the Warriors often became increasingly unstable, both physically and mentally. 

The Unification Wars were brought to a bloody conclusion at the Battle of Mount Ararat. It was not only the last gasp of the Emperor's adversaries on Earth but also of the Thunder Warriors themselves. Though Imperial propaganda depicts them all dying to a man in the last furious hours of the battle, they in fact were eradicated by the Custodes.

A few Thunder Warriors escaped the culling and eked out lives as fugitives in the backwaters of Imperial society. Black Library has a 30K novel, 'The Outcast Dead', that describes a brutal gang boss who was originally a Thunder Warrior. Some great space opera in that.

The French edition of 'The Outcast Dead'. Why French? Because 'La Mort des Parias' just sounds way cooler.

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The idea of the Thunder Warriors originated from a series of concept drawings John Blanche (the creator/visionary of GW's 'GrimDark') did in the early 90s. 

Those drawings not only captured the imagination of nerds like me, but also inspired 3D designers to create groovy models based on his vision. 

So I have a small group of eight Thunder Warriors for you today. These are digital sculpts by the talented folks over at Good Game Wargame. I like the nod to the ancient Roman lorica segmentata armour with the scalloped pauldrons waist tassets and open-faced, combed helmets. They have a very neo-imperial look, which I think fits perfectly with the setting.

In trying to reflect Blanche's baroque art I went with a dark copper base, lifted with a mid-tone brass colour, and finally spot-highlighted with an aged gold. I didn't want them too resplendent as that drifts more towards the Custodes, so I tried to keep them darker and a bit more primitive looking.

As a counterpoint, the Emperor is seen here in pristine white Saturnine terminator armour. From the lore, the Saturnine pattern is one of the earliest versions of the super heavy power armour common in 30/40K. The origins of the armour are sort of conflicted but, hey, a bit of mystery is a good thing, right? The model here is from by Sedivalle through Cults3D. 

I did an experiment by painting up a head of a Dark Age viking lord, placing it in the armour's cowl and then filling it with acrylic liquid water from AK Interactive. It gives an interesting murky/spooky effect that you really can't discern in the photos. Still, it was a neat thing to try out.

The armour is very baroque and grotesque, with huge hunched armoured pauldrons and heavy, segmented limbs. I went with giving him two power claws as I can't see the Big E deigning to use firearms when he could create a 'morale building opportunity' by eviscerating things up close. Yup, this armour conveys a big dose of 'just f&ck off'.

I considered doing his armour with more bling, you know, lots of gold with all the trimmings, but I figured that maybe a more austere, anonymous look would be more appropriate, providing a stark contrast between him and his warriors in their garish bronze, brass an red.

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Thanks for dropping in (and for your patience)!

- Curt

Five Denizens from Mork Borg

Hi There,

Kawe from Westfalia Miniatures has been a supporter of the Painting Challenge from pretty much the beginning, in fact he was a participant himself, creating some terrific work for visitors to enjoy. As many know, Westfalia began focusing exclusively on Napoleonics, then moved on to pulp subjects, and now concentrates primarily on dark fantasy and sci-fi.

I always try to jump in to support each of Westfalia's Kickstarters and these five figures are from one of their earlier releases. They're lovely boutique minis sculpted by Boris Woloszyn and themed around the wonderfully strange and creepy world of Mork Borg. For a few years I've been GMing some out-of-town friends using Mork Borg and the Roll20 app. We've been having a lot of fun with it as the system is very rules-lite, encouraging on-your-toes creativity, which often makes for some very funny (and bloody) game sessions.

Anyway, here are five denizens from the grim world of Mork Borg:

The Gutterborn Scum

'C'mon my pretties! There's work to be done...'

The Heretical Priest

This fella looks like he's been huffin' a bit too much from the 'mystical censer'.

'Skelly Jo'

'What? The horns are too much, eh?'

Wrat

'Come now, let's all sing the chorus together...'

Wretched Royalty

'The world may be descending into rack and ruin but I'm still on the top of the heap.'

Thanks for dropping by!

- Curt

Such a Good Boy - Cerberus of the Third Circle

 Hi there!

'Gluttony' is the Third Circle of the Abyss. Dante describes that it's guardian is a giant three-headed hound named 'Cerberbus'. 

Most of the models for Cerberus has him in some kind of ferocious pose, whereas I wanted something more of a guard dog vibe. I found this model on Thingiverse which, while a bit soft in detail, fits closer to what I had in mind.

This was a fairly fast job with the airbrush using a variety of ink layers to give the beast's coat a bit of depth (Panzer Grey base, lifted by adding IJA Light Grey Green. Then highlighted with increasing levels of white being added. Finally the shade areas were shot in with Shylish Purple Contrast for a more spookly look.) Eyes/socket areas were sprayed in with light grey and then glazed with yellow and orange.

I think he just needs a scritch behind the ears (all six) and some treats and he'll be quite chill. Now, how to leash him...

I'm sure I have a treat in my robe somewhere...

Cheers!

- Curt

 

Paris of Troy

Hi there!

For my entry for 'Lust', the 2nd Circle of the Abyss, I have here Paris of Troy on his chariot. 

As the myth goes, Zeus (aka 'The Big Horny Coward') had Paris choose the most beautiful amongst Athena, Hera and Helen of Sparta (the proxy for Aphrodite). He chose Helen.  Not being able to master himself, Paris stole Helen from her husband Menelaus. As if this situation wasn't bad enough, Menelaus was also the king of Sparta, which made matters exponentially worse for Paris and the Trojan people.

The abduction of Helen instigated the Trojan War which lasted 10 years, cost thousands of lives, and the destruction of Troy itself. In Dante's 'Divine Comedy' Paris' lust for Helen sees him committed to the Second Circle of Hell. 

Oh well, on the bright side at least he has Helen there to keep him company.

I chose to depict Paris mounted in a chariot armed with his trusty (some ancient chroniclers would say cowardly) bow.

This is a stl purchase from Wargames Atlantic. A really nice kit. I scaled it down to 20mm for printing so it would fit in with the rest of my Trojan War collection (some of those previous lads are seen here legging it alongside Paris). 

In the last pic we see Paris speeding away as he and his bow have an upcoming date with Achilles...

Thanks for dropping in!

- Curt