It’s been dead quiet ’round here, mostly on account of work being a bastard.  I expect that will pass when July does.

That said, I have gotten a few things done:

I’ve been plugging away at finishing the Bloodcrushers that have taken me, what, two months to paint?  God, I’ve really grown to hate these things.  Fortunately, I’m done with them.  (Just in time for plastic Bloodcrushers to be confirmed.  Bah.)

Nothing new here, really.  Painted up about the same as the other batch of Bloodcrushers, except they’ve been squad-marked with blood on their hands.  I suppose a strong argument could be made that, in general, they don’t look as good as the other batch: that wouldn’t surprise me.  I’ve hated these guys for a couple of weeks now.

Next on the docket for the Daemons is a few Bloodletters.  I need to assemble and paint the models to give each octet the full range of non-musician icons (so, four regular bloodletters to replace Fury and Icon ‘Letters and an Icon ‘Letter), bumping the octets to ten models each.  (Shut up.)  After that, I need to build my second Chariot of Khorne.

Before I do any of that, though, I’m going to paint some Skaven.

I’ve started plugging away at a few characters, looking for some easy wins (after the interminable Bloodcrushers) and to build up a little momentum.    That means the Warlord on Bonebreaker Rat Ogre, the BSB and a random other Warlord/Chieftain built primarily out of Stormvermin bits.

Some WIPs:

I am wholly displeased with how the flesh turned out.  It took me so freaking long to get coverage out of the Bronzed Flesh, I don’t know that I’m up to stripping it down and starting it over.  Mike‘s been pushing me to put the mini in the Golden Daemon, as it’s a neat conversion… but not like this.

The BSB is coming along much better, however.  I’m quite pleased that I was able to replicate the armor on my Stormvermin.  The banner itself is going to be a separate undertaking.

Not much on the Warlord yet.

I’ve have spent some time over the past few weeks stripping some Skaven minis I’d gotten in some lots a couple of years ago.  The Power Dissolver is king.  That said, I do have to revise previous statements re: Power Dissolver and gloves.  For a few minis, gloves aren’t really necessary.  When stripping a pile, however, it really will dry out your fingertips… so I’ve started to use gloves.  Thought I’d mention that.

Finally, my buddy Mike’s started up his own hobby blog: The Black Ark Apathy.  He’s out near Cupertino now, and is looking for folks to square base it up with.

I’ve given up on painting my next quartet of Bloodcrushers.  It’s been a chore to paint them and if I’m honest with myself, I kind of resent the Daemon army at the moment, as if it’s Khorne’s fault I won’t be running them 8/14.

I did decide that I like my approach with the chariot.  I didn’t get much feedback, really: just Matt H. telling me that it looked off, possibly small.   The chariot itself is slightly larger than the Chaos and Tomb King chariots and is about the size of the High Elf chariot.  The perception could come from the FW Herald of Khorne being enormous.

The chariot is a Defiler “knuckle” with a plasticard base and edges and spikes from the Chaos vehicle sprue as rails.  The Khorne symbol is from the same sprue.  The wheels are from a Chaos chariot.  I’d been planning on having plasticard struts connect to the shoulders of the Juggernaut, but Sunday afternoon I decided that would be hard to work.  Instead, I used some hobby chain I picked up years ago for some long-since abandoned project. I think it worked out pretty well.

I will say, though, that painting this thing is going to be a huge pain in the genitals.  At least the Herald isn’t glued to anything yet.

Also, because I’m looking at returning to my Skaven (if I’m not playing 40K at the Open, why wait to return to Fantasy?), I finally stuck the Grey Seer on my Screaming Bell.  I wouldn’t call it done just yet, since I need to decide what I’m doing with the bell-ringer, but… this is a big step.

Basically, I clipped the front of the saddle off, and smoothed it down.  Ground out some of the area between the Seer’s legs to try to get him to sit more flush against the dragon before pinning it onto the saddle.  I used a little green stuff to pull its robes down and look natural (as opposed to just stuck on).

I also had to do a hand-swap, as the Seer’s left hand is supposed to be hanging onto the Bell, and there’s nothing for that hand to connect to.  Instead, I just used a sword/dagger hand from the Stormvermin sprue.  I like the result a lot.

Finally, I had to throw out my spray station.  I’m quite annoyed by this fact, since it was great and big and I’d been using it for several years.  A wasp decided to start building a nest in it, however, so it had to go.

Coming up, I’ve got a lengthy battle-report to type up and post.  I’m also going to be focusing on my rats (over 40K) starting pretty much now.  That means I’ll probably start with finishing my half-painted Doomwheel.