Interlude 1

No pics today, just a quick update.

Draigo commission was completed last night and customer was well happy, which is good. Even told me I should sell my painting services but I do not thihnk I am even close to that level yet.

Also painted up the commander for my traitor Malcador Defender which I'm quite pleased with. He looks closely like the one on the left in this pic, but different. When I find time I'll post a picture.

Just got to work out how to spray on an even coat onto the tank itself without the use of an expensive airbrush?

Lastly, just to give the last 2 days a shout out in what meagre fashion I'm able:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coolminiornot/sedition-wars-battle-for-alabaster

Sedition Wars - Battle for Alabaster is a game being put out by Coolminiornot and created by the very talented Mike McVey and Rob Baxter. It's in it's last throws on Kickstarter and looks to have amounted an astonishing amount of monies thus far. Which is good for the backers.
The quility of the sculpts they are releasing with the game looks like will be better than any other boardgames I've invested in and the amount of stuff a backer at the Biohazard level will get is silly good too. Look to their website if you haven't already - http://www.seditionwars.com/ for a lovely mound of background info to get a feel of what the setting's all about. Hope you'll like what you see and jump on board. (For me, the addition of Solo Rules sold me.)

A Pretty One

In service to the almighty Emperor of Mankind is reason for existence, regardless of the paths through life that we might find ourselves lead along. A Sage in the employ of Interrogator Pince, Lillit Rebko was not always engaged in such important employment. She had at one time been courtesan to no less than the Rogue Trader Glablenka herself. Her position was lost due to infighting between herself and the Trader's son, who framed Lillit for theft consequently losing not only her prized position of comfort, but her left hand as well (A common punishment thieves receive in the Romonovski Sector.). Little did Glablenka or her son realise, that Lillit Rebko had acrued quite an impressive amount of evidence of the Trader family's crooked dealings and tax evasions during her time with them and so the last laugh was on them and the Trading family were arrested by local Arbites personel. The ability to gather such a hoard of personal data did not go to waste and the former courtesan was quickly snapped up to serve Interrogator Pince as his personal Sage.

The model is a Reaper sorceress fig with a bionic hand and holstered hand cannon. I tried to make her pretty, but I'm not sure it worked well enough. She has purple eye shadow, green irises and wierd coloured hair. My wife says the colour of her garb doesn't "pop", I'll let you decide if you agree.

Trust the Mutant (REDUX)

Right, a few modifications to the paint job on the beastman. I like the red/pink eyes, but gave him some pupils. I also took the advice given on my previous posting and added somemetallic paint to the sword as scratches, etc and think this has made the striping not look so bad. Also added a bit of shading via washes here and there. I have also written a little fluff for this fellow to be found after the pics.

Living the life of shame Keyes the mutant has time and again tried to attone for his sin of being so malformed in the eyes of the God Emperor. He signed up as an Auxilary trooper to the local Planetary Defense Force. Often he had attempted to show his devotion regardless of his affliction, but his lot would not change. In despair he turned to throwing himself into the most dangerous situations, missions where even a skilled warrior like himself would have trouble, but he would not die as he wished. The peace of death in the Emperor's name eluded him time and again.

When on business in the industrial hives of Tsinguzh IV, Interrogator Pince heard of the mutant's prowess when on Inquisitor Tharlborough's business and met the freak himself. it was quickly evident that the Beastman's skills would be better used if pressed into the service of the Inquisition. Offering a small salary, Keyes was officially discharged from the PDF Auxilaries and added as a member of the Interrogator's own investigation unit.

Sometimes, the foulest of tasks are better to delegate to the foulest of abominations.

Trust the Mutant

"Beastman bad. Bad Beastman. Dirty. Emperor no like.
Beastman love Emperor. Give blood to Emperor, Give heads to Emperor. Say sorry."

This is the quote that got my attention in the original 40K Compilation army book.

Beastmen not being soley in the "badguy" forces was one of the coolest parts of Rogue Trader 40K. Beastmen being mutants, should be available to Imperium forces commanders, afterall, Psykers, Ogryn, Ratling and Squats are all tolerated by the Imperium to certain degrees and they are all mutants of varying degrees?

So with sadness it was, that after 2nd Edition, I came back to find that along with deleting my beloved Squats, that Games Workshop had also forced a rather sad and bland state upon the Imperial Guard as a whole.

But not in MY vision of 40K.

So here I present you with the Beastman Mutant Acolyte from the Radical Ordo Malleus team. He has a name, but I'm at work and for the life of me I can't remember it. (Think it was Marvin or Normon or some such.) I'll write a little background info on my next post cos he's a cool and rare character type (I think) for an Inquisitorial Cell to take so a proper job reason for this deserves a little more work.

Took two sessions to paint him, so he's pretty quick and dirty. I felt that a true mutant needed some not-human eyes, so I went for the red, though now I'm thinking I'll go back and add a little watered down orange and a black pupil or something? (And yes, I know the hazard stripes are pants, but after doing and re-doing them, I ended up saying "feck it" and decided he'd painted them himself to explain their rubbishness.)

*if he seems a little shiny, that's cos I've yet to give him a layer of Clear Coat.*

Bathing in Blood WIP

A long time it’s been. Much gotten done, I have not. A break for the soul is good, no?

(Don't worry, my crap Yoda impression is done with.)

Truth be told, it was good to get back into the paint mode again these past few days and I’ve been rolling along nicely. Not on my own projects though, but working to kick out the couple commissions I have sat on my desk.



“Commissions?! Why this bloke barely paints better than tabletop!” I hear you say. It’s true, it’s true. But there’s lazy people out there and for some reason one came to me wanting his figs painted so he didn’t have to. No monies involved though, more bartering for comics and some other things.



So what is it that’s been worked on – well, Draigo, Lord High Pickle Features of the Grey Knights. Now, I’m not one to rant, but I am one to write falsehoods, so let me tell you my thoughts on Grey Knights in general. No, not from a silly 40K gaming perspective, (though that will be included in a wee form.) but from someone who’s been following this hobby on and off since Rogue Trader was first released and I bought my first pack of IronClaw Squats some…. Lots of years ago.



The Grey Knights were first released in White Dwarf as a mythical super-secret part of the Inquisition – a Space Marine Chapter created to combat that which even normal Space Marines had trouble taking down. This is back in the day when the fluff had it that Chaos, the Warp, daemons and other such sticky nonsense were not preached about in the churches and cathedrals of the Imperium. There wasn’t even the slightest whiff of them at all. Space Marines even, knew little to nothing (Librarium aside.) of the Warp and it’s dangers aside from – “It’s bad. Don’t think about it.”. Those who had the misfortune of being in contact were either destroyed, turned into servitors or mind wiped and reprogrammed to serve again from scratch… and that’s just the Legio Astartes! Normal citizens were usually destroyed outright due to the risk of them inviting (Unwittingly or otherwise) a Chaos incursion upon the systems of mankind. Preachers, Deacons, Cardinals and all of the other Ministorum dignitaries just stuck to “Worship the Emperor, despise the Xenos”. The End.



So here we are, with Chaos as the great enemy that only the highest echelons of Man’s military and religious might had knowledge of. Sure the Inquisition were there to root out the evils that went along with Chaos and it’s nasty ways, but sometimes that just wasn’t enough. Sometimes even their nasty torturing, brutal ways couldn’t finish the job – enter the Grey Knights! Space Marines even more highly trained than regular Astartes and e.v.e.r.y o.n.e a Librarian to boot! Powerful enough to take on Greater Daemons and have a chance of winning. They looked like normal marines in Terminator Armour, but with way more decoration and with these kick arse superduper halberds with bolters stuck on – it was awesome! Their army entry was for armies to be able to take ONE squad and just by that, it made them special, elite, badarse.



Fast forward to 2011 or when ever it was the latest codex came out.



Grey Knights… have a codex, an army book of their own. WTF? Weren’t they supposed to be this super secret, rarely, if ever, seen uber elite daemon-hunting force that offered the services of A SQUAD to those forces in the direst need of help against the forces of Chaos??? O, so that’s changed then…. Now they are a whole army of their own and… o right, now everyone knows about Chaos, they fight Chaos regularly without penalty and they get up again to do the same next week. So Grey Knights are now as “Special” as Paris Hilton crotch shots or news that the economy has gone bad. Again.



I no longer like Grey Knights. At all. I don’t like their ridiculous huge storm-bolter-on-wrist armours. I can’t stand how much decoration is emblazoned on their armour. And I can’t help but dislike how GW allowed the codex author to completely take all that was cool and special about them and then to completely feck it all up. It saddens this old 40K fan’s heart, almost as much as when Games Workshop ret-conned my beloved Squats, citing “Space Dwarfs” are stupid – yet continuing to embrace stupid pointy hat Space Elves, atypical Space Orks and other direct translations from their fantasy line.



Rant over.



Here’s a WIP of Draigo per the customer’s specifications. He’s doing the basing, which is fine by me. Just the banner to go.

I've also managed to get a little done on my Raven Guard Land Speeder, but that's a post for another blog and another time. Hope to have another update sometime this weekend!