Bloodletter Battlefoam Tray

... or maybe I should call it BLOODLETTERFOAM.


I ordered a bunch of Battlefoam trays for the Khornate Daemons back at the end of November, just about all of it custom.  About the same time, Battlefoam ran a contest for new tray layouts.  I'd just put a lot of work together laying out trays (mostly because their existing tray designs were wholly inadequate for what I needed)... so I went ahead and submitted the Bloodletter tray layout.  Bloodletters have damned inconvenient shape and, man, I'm sure the layout will make someone's life easier.

Well, the design was a semi-finalist so you, too, can order the same BLOODLETTERFOAM tray!  You're welcome.

(I need to e-mail them about changing the text.  "These cut outs will not work for Bloodletters holding their Hellblades straight up or Bloodletters holding Icons" isn't actually true: it holds every type of Bloodletter without complaint, save for the Icon bearers.)

Anyway, this was from a little while back... it's just on my mind because The Gamer's Workbench posted about his success in the contest and because my prize (the tray I laid out) just showed up.  Oh, and because I just ordered more desperately-needed foam for my Empire.

(So if anyone needs a tray for their Bloodletters, let me know. :) )

Painted Halberdiers (Finally)

I finally finished this dang batch of ten Halberdiers.  I could talk about how and why I'll be tackling them in smaller batches, but I think that's been covered to death.  Ultimately it took me something like a month to paint these suckers.

So, that's them.  I'll be knocking out more, soon.  Later today, I'll be getting in my first real game with this army.

Konrad Longshank & Albrecht

I threw up some just-shy-of-done pictures of my D&D character last week.  Since then, I licked 'em with some varnish and stuck them in the lightbox for some higher quality pictures.

I tried doing some weathering on the shield.  Clearly, there's some room for improvement here, but it'll do.

While I had the light box out and my P.A.C.K. Mini (where I keep my RPG minis) handy, I took some more scenic/HDR photos.  I'll throw them up in a day or so.

Painting Progress(?) - 20120207

Progress painting the Empire has been slow.  Despite taking a week off from work for a much-needed staycation (and even spending a morning camped out at GW Fair Oaks to force myself to focus on painting), I've somehow managed to remain too busy to paint.  And, when I'm not too busy, I'm running into the "bit off more than I could chew" wall that grinds progress to a halt.

It's madness to think I'd originally considered tackling these bastards in batches of 15.  10, as with Skaven and Astartes, is too big of a batch for me.  When I finally wrap these guys up, I'll go back to doing batches of 6-7, which seems to be my sweet spot between "as many as possible" and "quick accomplishment fix."

These guys are close.  I need to do metallics (obviously), then red items, then base them and I'm done.  It's totally doable.  I just need to do it.  Shut up and paint, bro!

Partly because the next session's coming up and partly because I need to feel like I've accomplished something, I knocked out my D&D character.  He's not done-done: he still needs some Dullcote before I can claim that, but that's all.

He'll get better lightbox pictures after that.  I'm happy enough with him.  He's basically a Free Company dude (as uninspiring as those guys might be on the table, I love the minis) with a Greatsword head and a Swordsman shield.  The dog is from Warlord's Unleash Hell; bases are from Dragonforge's Sanctuary line.

Beyond that, I seem to still have a ton of assembly hobby work that needs doing: I need to assemble another Mortar, have to convert up a second Arch Lector of Manann, I've got a bunch of metal squares from Wargames Accessories that need filing down (so my Greatswords have heft), and, as soon as they show up, I'll have to glue together some movement trays from Litko. 

(One final note: I need to give a huge shout out to Back 2 Base-ix: since placing my as-yet unreceived order with Litko, I've placed and received two orders from Back 2 Base-ix... and they're shipping from Australia.  They're amazing: I definitely plan to continue ordering from them.)

Arch Lector of Manann

From Day 1, I've been planning to play up the nautical aspect of the Nordland army.  (I've already got a pretty clear idea of what my display board's going to look like.)  Although a general lack of easily accessible, usable nautical bits has thwarted me in terms of converting up most characters, I've been pretty determined to make sure that it's clear that my Arch Lectors and Warrior Priests can't be mistaken as Sigmarites: they serve Manann.

I'm definitely thinking Aeron "Damphair" Greyjoy, here.

Here's the first one.

He's the bottom half of a Flagellant body, with the top half sawn off and replaced with a Greatsword torso.  The shield's from the Empire General kit: I shaved the skull off and replaced it with a plasticard Manann's crwon.  The clerics should have portfolio-appropriate weapons, so I converted one of the Flagellant's scythes into a boathook.  The head's a Flagellant's, with a paper crown reinforced with superglue.

More Progress

Since the last time I really posted, I've been stupidly busy: both at work and at hobby.

On top of all that other stuff, I've done:

• 20x Greatswords
• 10x Handgunners
• 10x Archers
• 3x Wizards
• 1x Captain of the Empire

At this point, I just need to do up the Engineer and the Arch-Lector.

I ran out of metal squares to glue to their bases: I've had to order a heap more of them from Wargame Accessories.  In fact, I had to go on a spree: ordering metal squares, movement trays from Litko and skirmish trays from Back 2 Base-IX.

I've been holding off on building the characters, since they're the most clear place to do conversions and work in the Manann / Nordland theme.  I threw together some wizards (Light and Fire) without any trouble.

Nothing special, right?

Well, I also needed a Shadow Wizard... and they don't really have any bits in the (otherwise magnificent) Wizard kit.

So, I trimmed the hair off of a Fire Mage's hair sculpted the hood up over it.

Not entirely pleased with the skull on the staff, but nothing else in the bits box really leapt out at me.  I might take a stab at it scratching up a crystal or something.

Super-busy

Ran the Storm of Magic Tournament over the weekend.  I've got some ruminatin' to do about it at some point in the near-term (particularly in terms of how I structured and scored it), but that'll wait.

I was also extremely productive Sunday and Monday: grinding through wrapping up the remaining Empire models.

In two days:

• 20x Archers
• 20x Handgunners
• 10x Greatswords

Before my current list is ready to field, I still have 10 Handgunners and 20 Greatswords (10 of which are in progress) to assemble... plus characters.  Beyond that, just 10 Archers and 24 Knights are still on the sprue.

Fimir Balefiend - Complete

I wrapped up the Fimir Balefiend over the weekend.  Come Monday, it was all over but for waiting for the water effects to cure.*

I'm extremely pleased with the green skin.  It's different, somewhat, from the approach I took with the Gremlins, but still worked really well.  I absolutely feel like I've Solved how to paint green skin... now I just need the spiritual fortitude to undertake a Orc or Ork army.  Also, the claws/horns worked out very well, too.  Distinct from the flesh, but not out of place.

The much hanging from him could be better.  I might return at some point to repaint it.  It's too similar to the Fimir's flesh; a series of different washes didn't darken it up enough to make it distinct.

I'm quite pleased with the barnacles / fungus / whatever that stuff is.  I think it goes a long way to breaking up the flesh and making it more interesting; the same way the boils do on Skaven.

The little conversion details came out okay.  I think they definitely accomplished their goals, though I can't shake the feeling that there's something else I could have done with the gut plate.  I did try adding verdigris: which completely ruined it... so I had to repaint it.  That little plant coming up in front of his right foot made painting the gutplate super-difficult.

The water effects didn't come out quite as well as I'd have hoped.  Unfortunately, they photographed even worse than they actually look.  Take my word for it when I assure you that it's not amazing but it's not terrible.

And, 'cause I was at it: some scenic/HDR photos (HDR Fusion, no Picasa tweaking):

Composition on these might could be better.  I tried to crop out the sides of the base, but maybe didn't do myself any favors with it.

Anyway, what do y'all think?

* Not entirely; after photographing the bastard, I noticed a few spots on the side of the base that needed repainting... I retouched the photos to cover it up since it's just the flat color and I don't feel like taking the photos again.  Not something I normally like doing, but I'm untroubled by it here.

Fimir Balefiend - WIP

So, in my Storm of Magic list, I'm taking a Fimir Balefiend: Shadow's a pretty happy lore.

I'd considered just cracking open my copy of HeroQuest; there are a handful of Fimir Warriors in there:

But Casey pointed out that they're a little small.  According to Wikipedia, initially (and when HQ was published, Fimir were man-sized... but then an ogre-sized sculpt was done at some point and it's clearly had an impact: in Storm of Magic, they're Monstrous Infantry.

So, I converted one.

The base, as is probably clear, is a River Troll.  There's a Chaos Spawn tail on there, which was kind of a no-brainer.

I rolled the dice and bitz-ordered the Troll: unfortunately, it didn't come with arms that would work at all.  I was lucky enough to trade them to a club member for better arms, though.  I thought they needed a bit more, so I stuck on an old Skaven banner bit to (hopefully) breakup the shape and make it look less like River Troll arms.  Same thing with the ring.  The sculpting there to make that banner bit fit?  The hardest part of the dang conversion.

 The head is from a Krootox; the eyes and brow were drilled out and resculpted into a single eye.  The balefiend has horns, so I used some Gor horns I had left over from a Daemon conversion.  To make them fit, and to sculpted him a bigger head (since I'd list the three most distinguishing features of the HQ Fimir as single eye, club tail,  and big head).  It's not huge, but it's a lot bigger than it was, and it should be the right size for the model now.

And, just as I thought I was done with it, I realized that it needed a gutplate.  From day one, the lack of clothing had bothered me: Fimir are civilized (under certain definitions for the word) and wear clothes and armor, but I couldn't figure out how to sculpt something on that would work.  Then I realized that Fimir have always had gutplates: that's easy enough to do.  I sculpted a stylized Fimir face on it: I don't think it's photographed well, but it should paint up okay.

I'm leery of the chain: I don't think it works well... but I think getting it to hide under the Troll's rolls (which is what it really needs) is beyond my skill.

Anyway, I hope to have it done and painted before tournament in case I end up ringing.

Of course, I was 90% done with this (just tracking down an appropriate set of arms) when ForgeWorld posted theirs:

C'est la vie.