Fimm McCool's

 

Here's my November submission for the odds and sods painting challenge, a high elf now wood elf lord on a forest wyrm.

The rider is probably the most-painted model in my collection since to my reckoning he has been stripped twice and now painted three times. He's one of the few figures I kept in my collection from when I bought him new from Games Workshop in probably the late 90s. I have fond memories of going with my grandmother to buy him from the Basingstoke store having seen him in White Dwarf. On the way back I got to watch my grandad pilot his beloved RC boat around the duck pond, a rare outing indeed- as an engineer he spent much more time working on it than actually driving it. In his time this model has been a high elf general and a vampire count (painted in gold armour with fangs) and has now found middle ground as the army standard for my wood elf force. I still have his horse although it was chopped about a bit for use with my undead, it's getting a rebuild for a future odds and sods month. 

The mighty dragon will be instantly recognisable I'm sure as Kargos the Despoiler. I picked him up cheap as his wings and a back leg were missing whilst the right front leg was broken. No great problem as I don't necessarily rate wings for a forest-dwelling dragon. The rear leg was replaced by one of the dragon ogre alternative limbs I sculpted a few years back, this just took a bit of chopping and the addition of some scales. I raised the right limb to make it look like he's about to cuff some enemy and bent the left to bear his weight. I puttied scales over where the wings would have been and moved the rider to sit on his back rather than his neck, a much more suitable place to ride a beast that walks on all fours.

The view of the dragon you'd want to see, versus the view you definitely wouldn't! The banner pole has proved to be a complete pain in the backside. It's a cast lead banner pole and is really bend. Although I drilled the hand out to receive it and added the leafy hand guard (some little jewellery pieces I had kicking around) it still isn't sitting straight. I have also just noticed in the photographs that the bottom part of the pole seems to be missing, not sure when that fell out! It should be below where the sword pommel would be to avoid the banner looking overbalanced at the top. I will have to hunt around on the floor to find where it has fallen...

Happhyia Siddence, lord of wyrms

If you've missed the times when I've harked on about Factious Waste in the past then you might not know it's a near-future, post-apocalyptic dystopian skirmish game set in a world depleted of natural resources. Tyrannical energy companies and the recycling mob vie for control of the desolate 'outworld' where the majority of humanity slaves on the treadmills of industry. Revolutionary luddites try to bring down the corporations, deluded neoprimitives take a stand to protect an ecosystem which was destroyed long ago and deranged desk cops from privileged inworld stomp out crude law enforcement amongst the barbarous desert.

It's a game that's been 5 years in the making and is finally reaching its destination thanks to the work of some fantastic artists. Tony Yates and Carl Critchlow will be familiar names to you I'm sure, but also check out the work of Mike Tenebrae and Simon Lee Tranter, it's epic stuff.


The core rules have been in place for a few years now (they were also bushwhacked for the celtic fantasy world of The Woods last year, but they started off in FW) but the game was lacking something very important- vehicles! You can't have a Mad Max, 2000AD-inspired game without some cool wheels. The principles I wanted to use for vehicles in the game had been around for a while, I just hadn't got round to fleshing them out. A couple of trips to pound shops earlier this year, some bits courtesy of Fox Box and Ramshackle Games and that has been rectified! The dirty dozen are now ready to go prospecting for that all-important trash running contract!
Airjunkers are primitive vehicles, usually nothing more than a big fan strapped to the back of a gutted derelict. They're slow, noisy and they drink fuel but they're relatively manoeuvrable and cheap.


Buggies are the most common wasteland vehicle. Their lightweight frames and large engines make them nippy, manoeuvrable, fairly fuel-efficient and good platforms for mounting weapons of various kinds.

VIPs of the Genpower corporation also ride in style, though with somewhat more elegance than the brash frat. Then there are the industrial vehicles to be found scattered around the wastes. Tracked and wheeled earth movers, dumpers and construction vehicles are easily appropriated as slow but powerful workhorses for wasteland posses. 
For Trash Runners themselves, the Han Solos of the wasteland, their vehicles are their livelihood. Each is intensely customised and personalised to the style and work of the Runner they serve. Big rigs haul enormous loads of scrap across the desert, escorted tankers guard precious fuel cargos, flatbeds serve as mobile platforms for crews and gear.


These vehicles started out as matchbox and '1:43' (apparently) scale vehicles from pound shops, with bits from Ramshackle, Fox Box and GW imperial vehicles added to them. Many of them had their wheels replaced with those from tractor models bought from pound shops, enlarging wheels is my number-one priority for wasteland transport! The sizing's pretty good, even if some of the cars are a bit on the chunky side- that just helps the comic book feel. The detail's not bad either and I was delighted to find that poundland had a skip lorry and a rubbish truck (still WIP at the moment) in the right scale- perfect for a game of scrap hauling!

Free parking for wasteland warriors

Well, the final 3 orcs and single goblin are on my desk, another 3 hours would see them done and all the Goblinoids deck painted (bar shields). However, in an hour's time I have to pick up my sister from the airport and then we're off on a family holiday until Monday. Rather than rush these last miniatures (which, after all, includes our two custom warlords!) I will stop here and photos of the final models will probably appear around Tuesday. In the meantime, here are some more miniatures that got painted this week:







These guys got started with a bit of beach painting in the glorious sunshine last weekend, but I didn't get much beyond base coats there are the paint was drying far too fast! Managed to get away without sand on the models but some of the card sleeves I'm using to protect the cards from paint splashes got a healthy dose of grit in them!




And, because I'm sure you're keen to see how Ulg and Grubod were looking yesterday afternoon...

Almost there by Easter

Gronit Blackarrow's an interesting one. This guy originally came with fangs, which I trimmed off, but painting the face I noticed his jawline is definitely more curved than the model on the card and the hood of my figure seems to creep further across the face than on the card model, obscuring some of the cheekbone. Another variant model lads?



Garbag has probably been my favourite to paint so far. One of the most 'orcy' models going and a joy to discover all the little details not seen on the card. For example, the tiny hands and feet of the flayed snotling he's wearing as a hat. I'd always pondered whether he was wearing a face on his head or just a tatty hood, now I know. Rugdod is missing his shield as I've run out of big shields again, boo. Another call if anyone has spares let me know, otherwise I'll be press-moulding next week to finish off the set. I think I need 5 or 6 more 16mm 'fighter' shields.



Yay wolfriders! Kev Adams' wolves are such a joy to paint. These were a simple base coat, wash, 3 successive drybrushes and a bit of detailing. The goblins are also quite basic paint jobs by the standards of the rest of the deck, so all in all a bit of a light break. Another mystery solved here. Garsh's wolf on the card looks like he has a ring by his muzzle- a bridle of some kind? Was he an unlisted chariot wolf? Well, no. It turns out from looking at the angle that what looks like a ring is just a combination of teeth.


And Snark. A lesser goblin if ever there was one. Quick painting here, but a surprising amount of sculpting to do. The model on the card has a far more prominent chin and jawline and a smaller cowl than the model I had in hand, but surely converting/building onto this model would be going to a silly extreme for a mere goblin? Maybe a clue to the solution lies with something I noticed on my model- big cracks in the cast. You can actually see on still there at the top of his left arm, I decided to leave it since it seems the model on the card has a matching fault. Mine also had a big crack across the nose which needed rebuilding. If the original had facial disfigurement as well then it would have needed similar reconstruction, hence the differences in features. Anyone shed any more light on it or have a variant of this model?

Half a deck of Combat Cards

Long-term followers of Fimm McCool's may remember this post from waaaaaaay back:

Citadel Combat Cards

When I was a kid Citadel Combat Cards were one of my favourite activities, especially on long car journeys. The first pack I got was a present from my great aunt, now sadly deceased. About 7 years ago I decided I wanted to collect every miniature portrayed on the cards and paint them to match. It took me 3 years, during which I learnt a lot about variant greenskins, the conversions of Kev Adams and Fraser Gray's painting style (I would not be using enamels to try and reproduce the work of the master!). Long story short, the collection then sat in a box, another box, a drawer and eventually made it onto a shelf while it waited for a slot in the painting queue. Almost 4 years later that slot has arrived! Now, not all that space is lack of time, I wanted to wait until my painting (and sculpting- there's quite a lot of 'conversion' work to do) skills were good enough for me to feel like I could do justice to the project. Last year was pretty manic with Oakbound stuff and there are still plenty of projects on the go, but I'm going to go a bit easier at it this year and enjoy hobby time. It'll probably take well over a year to finish them, but at least I'm making a start. So, without further waffle, let's see some pics:


Nobrun Darkfist is the model I decided to start with, largely because he was already primed and didn't need any sculpting on... so I thought! I only realised when I started painting there were some oddities about this model. Firstly the miniature I had only had a single arm band- the one with the horn. The model on the card, however, has two. I have since discovered that there are one and two-banded variants of this model, still no idea why. I green stuffed a new band on. However there was a second weirdness because my model has nicely detailed ends to the leather straps hanging from his belt and a defined ridge around the arm band. The CC model is much rougher, with less detail on the earring tassel as well as the aforementioned details missing. Why does it seem like a much cruder casting? Maybe a thick undercoat obscured the details? Maybe photography washed them out? Who knows. If the model is still in existence it may be possible to verify, but otherwise we can only guess.


I used Foundry and Vallejo paints (with some 80s Citadel inks) to paint Nobrun. I've been getting into the Foundry system recently, not the process but the paints, and find them excellent. Some are a bit too watery for my tastes, but the triad colour range makes highlighting, shading and picking spot colours such a breeze. I hummed and hahed about his shield. The one he currently has is a 14mm 'orc' shield and looked right when I was picking shields for them. I now suspect the CC model has a 16mm 'fighter' shield. A friendly Oldhammerer is sending me some so I can fix that. In the meantime I have painted his shield to match the next CC model I am going to work on. Basing has also been a fun issue. The photography will have changed the colours, but I wanted to go as close as possible to the colours of the card. That meant finding a green/yellow flock, which proved very hard. All the railway and wargames suppliers I tried had flocks that were too green or too yellow, nothing just right. Eventually, having ordered a couple to test, I mixed my own from Javis 30 'sand' and Model Tree Shop 'Light Green' and got something that looks about right under daylight conditions (note, the picture above is not the final flock, just sprinkled on for the photo).


Calling Nobrun finished for now I moved on to Ylag Blackskull (the guy whose shield Nobrun is currently looking after). This guy needed some serious green stuff work to approximate the orc on the card. As Lee Morley pointed out on the Oldhammer Facebook page, the body is most likely the one on the right here:


rather than the one I picked. If I'd spotted that beforehand it would have saved a bit of green-stuff work, I was going by the head and legs on the miniature I chose. But it's all good practice. I reckon, going by the similarity of the legs on all these orcs, there was probably a blank orc body which got dressed in various ways to give these different results. Anyway, apart from a bit more modification
to the sword and torso I'm happy with my recreation. Now to get painting!

Gobblinoiding at last!

EM4 mixed with Ramshackle and Space Marine bitz to make some Ruststalkers.


My efforts for Orktober then I guess! Ork bodies, Warzone Mutant Chronicles heads, Skitarii legs and big guns...need a lot of green stuffing! Gun servitors.


Ironstriders made from EM4 bits and Void Vasa riders.

Inquisimunding- the return of the AdMech

Well  my snotling army seems to have grown slightly over the last few months, and having spent a year in a drawer I thought it was high time to give the little buggers some love. Back when the army was starting the muster some genius (sorry, can't remember who it was or find the post) suggested that classic scene from Deathtrap Dungeon as reproduced here should be the theme for a base.



The guy walking on his hands was the most tricky to find a snot to fill the role, see if you can spot who it is!

The Snots are back! The first base gets assembled about a year after purchase!

This is a bit of an introduction to Kit Bashing, probably teaching many people to suck eggs but for some this may be the first time you have seen just what a careful selection of extra bitz can do!

It started when I was given a plastic terminator in a job lot of weaponry.


 Let's begin by taking him apart...

 
Because he's an Inquisitor he can't just have the standard issue Storm Bolter now can he? It's quite a nice, clean sculpt though so I don't want to mess too much. Did think of adding a laser-cut card chainsaw- but since I did them myself and this is meant to be a kitbash I'll restrain myself.


Ornamentation on the body provided by a purity seal, a spike, an Aquila, a sword from a Phoenix Guard box, some pouches and a bit of totemic bone- all just spares from other kits, carefully selected and stuck on to bulk up the figure and add extra interest.

Promoting the troops... or why you need never buy an overpriced GW character ever again!