Halloween Hero....sort of

Happy Halloween everybody!

To me Halloween typically means two things; creepy undead, and people dressing up as their favourite characters.  So tonight's entry is a little bit of both.

Supreme Zed is a villainous character from the Pulp City superhero miniature game.  The character is basically a cross between Bizzaro and Frankenstein and he is another member of the Necroplane faction (of which my earlier Sunguine figure is also a member).  By the box art Zed is meant to be a completely different colour scheme but I couldn't resist painting him up in Superman's colours.

I had one other Halloween inspired late addition on my painting table that didn't get done today but I may just roll him out later this weekend.  Even though I wanted him as part of a Halloween post that doesn't change the fact that I don't have enough Judge Dredd bad guys yet, and this one certainly is a bad guy.

-Jay

Devil's Night Devil

I mentioned this morning that I decided to add something to my painting mix for the week.

I've had this figure kicking around for 4-5 years and truth be told I have no plans to use it for any game anytime soon but it suddenly hit me today that I'm not using Halloween the way I usually do to motivate me to do a project so I figured I'd shoehorn this (and tomorrow's fig as well) in to make me feel like I participated hobby-wise in the holiday.

So it might be obvious but for 'Devil's Night' I've painted the devil-looking-demon from the Helldorado Demons starter box.  I got a bunch of Helldorado miniatures when they first came out and I think most of them are fantastic but the ones that really drew me in were the various "damned" figures in the demon line.  Not being familiar with the game rules at the time I bought the figures I also bought the starter box for my chosen faction but because none of the figs in that box really excited me I never painted any of them until today.

This devilish looking fellow seems like he would serve as a great stand in for a lot of different games but somehow I can't escape the weird feeling that I've painted a figure so I can wargame Tenacious D videos......

-Jay

The final Thrall...seriously....I mean it this time....

I finished up my Thrall from the last Hobby Grab Bag, and shortly thereafter a thought that should have occurred to me before finally hit me; I've painted 4 of these...I should have just painted a whole unit.  But in any event I'm going to move away from the Thralls for a bit.

This guy is a great fit with the first 2 Thralls I did in terms of size and style (love those swords), but I love the fact that they are nonetheless distinct and different as RPG figures always look out of place to me if they are overly repetitive.

Same colours and techniques used here as for the others.

I may (hopefully) by posting another fig here tonight that was not something I was planning on doing but decided on this morning on a lark.

-Jay

Hobby Grab Bag: More Fantasy and Superstuff!

I've been "away" for awhile but wanted to show 3 of the 4 new projects I've been working on and share my thought on a couple of others....

First up I've decided to replace one of the Thralls I just painted for my Witchfire Trilogy game.  When I looked at the 3 models I had done together the smallest one really didn't fit in with the other two.  The size wasn't really the issue what I noticed stood out was how the swords looked on the other two with their glowing runes and realised that having one model without was going to look out of place.  So I've got a bit more work to do on this fig and then he'll join the team.

Next is another fantasy fig I'm not still not sure if I'm going to use or not.  The figure is a knight from Fantiaztion's "Rusted Heroes" line.  It's a skirmish fantasy game that I don't know anyone who plays but it was on discount at one of my local retailers so it gave me the chance to pick up some knight and cleric models on the cheap.  I'm considering him as a Captain Helstrom model (again for the Witchfire trilogy) but the absence of a pistol or any other techie bits makes me a bit hesitant.  At any ate he's a cool figure so whether or not he makes it into that game I'm sure I'll be happy when I finish painting him.

Here's a thought most gamers have experienced at one time or another; you walk out of a movie theatre and your first thought is "boy I sure would like to game that movie/battle/scene/etc".  After seeing the trailer (JUST THE TRAILER!) for Captain America: The Winter Soldier I'm pretty sure I'm going to want to game a big throw-down between the forces or order and chaos in the Marvel Universe at least once.  So I've decided to re-base and touch up every SHIELD agent figure I can get my hands on.....now if only I can get an actual Winter Soldier figure somewhere....
*Incidentally for those of you unfamiliar with the Heroclix line I think this is the first time I've ever posted a 'before' picture.  You can see the paint jobs are serviceable but will look out of place as-is next to actual painted figures.

I also want to touch on a couple of other irons not-quite in the fire yet.
I'm really eager to continue work on my Blood Angels but after my plastic cement fiasco of a couple of weeks ago I'm not super-excited about the idea of gluing together a bunch of 10+ part tactical marine models.  I had decided to ease myself back in by buying some of the boxes of 3 plastic marines with bolters (which are simple 3 part models) only to find they are now special order only.  So I will be doing up some tactical marines after I'm able to get my hands on some of the simpler style models.
Warlord Games has just released their new Judge Dredd Miniatures rules, so I will also be getting cracking on getting those done ASAP.

A lot going on hopefully I'll have some completed models to show for some of this before the end of the week!

-Jay

Super-Vampire!

In my recent digging for figures to use in my Iron Kingdoms/Pathfinder game I've come up with a few perfect fits and a few near misses.

In one of the bridging adventures the players are retained by (and may end up fighting) a character who is attired heavily in black leather and doesn't appear to carry any weapons.  Although Privateer makes a model for the character I figure it's only 50/50 whether or not he ends up being a combat encounter to I figured I'd look in the old backlog to see if I had a reasonable substitute.  It didn't take long for me to find a Pulp City super-villain who looked pretty good for the part but once I started painting him I just felt he was missing 'something' (honestly, I still don't know what) to make him feel like a steampunk-fantasy miniature.  I decided to push ahead and get him done anyway in case I ever circle back around to Pulp-City and he came with a cool zombie-French bulldog.

His name is Sanguine, he's a vampire partnered up with some alien invasion guys in Pulp City so I'm not sure if he'll ever get used but he seems like a handy sort to have around.

-Jay

Flamingos are pink because they eat shrimp, therefore....

Back to the D&D "classics" today.  I got my 2 Rust Monsters from Otherworld Miniatures finished.

When I first got into role-playing I started with the old D&D Basic Set 'Red Box'.  The player's guide in there kicked off with a solo adventure where the big baddy towards the end was a Rust Monster.  Ever since then I've felt that the Rust Monster was a fairly iconic D&D Monster even though I don't recall it making a single appearance in any other published TSR novels or adventures.

After looking at the D&D pre-paints I had on hand of the Rust Monsters (which were WAY too small to use) and consulting the Monster Manual I found that Rust Monsters are meant to be a mostly tan colour, honestly that look just didn't work for me.  Instead I decided that if Rust Monsters eat rust (basically) they should be more rust-coloured.

I started off by coating the entire model in a thin coat of Mephiston Red (mostly so it would settle in the crevices) and then dry-brushed the entire model Mournfang Brown.  After that a wash of Agrax Earthsahde and once that was dry I went back and applied a second wash of Baal Red on just the torso.  Picked out the details and then they're done!

-Jay

Alexia's Triumvirate of Thralls done!

Alexia's final (for now) Thrall is done!

Yet another cool Reaper miniature that I bought years ago without really knowing what I was ever going to use it for and now it's ready to saddle up and play some games!

Next stop on the Witchfire train will be Alexia herself and then I need some waterlogged zombies and a Thrullg.

-Jay

Alexia's Thrall Army grows!

Quick update on my pig-faced-orcs; the five trooper models are done but I've decided to refrain from showing them here until they make their appearance at Strategies Games & Hobbies.  Having said that I do have a 6th pig-faced-orc (the wizard) who will be getting finished up this week and then he'll be posted.

This weekend between assembling and priming my Rust Monsters I got another Thrall done.  I've been reading my way through The Witchfire Trilogy and I have to say it has me pretty excited to run some games in that setting.

Today's Thrall is the smallest of the three and also has the least amount of details.  Regardless he still has a lot of texture on his armour and he turned out fairly well.

A few more RPG figures and then I think I might finish some Judges on Lawmasters.

-Jay