Harlequin Venom WIP

Ok, so I I've gotten distracted again.

I saw some Harlequins going cheap on an ebay auction, so I put in a bid and won a squad. This led to me deciding to buy a transport for them, which led to this:

As you can see it's a WIP Harlequin Venom, which is the start of my Harlequin army project. It's going to be a slow burn project, due to the amount of effort which needs to go into each and every model, but I'm rather looking forward to it. It's a project I've wanted to do for a while and I finally feel my painting skills are good enough to do the models justice.

More soon!

Thousand Sons Librarian WIP

Now I'm not the biggest fan of Christmas, but I have to admit it has it's uses. It's normally the time of year when my hobby fund gets a healthy top-up, courtesy of friends and family who are perpetually stumped as to what to buy me, so end up handing me gift cards or money instead. This year netted me enough to put in a good-sized FW order, so I've decided to give my Thousand Sons some reinforcements.

The plan is to use this second Heresy-era army to field fun stuff which doesn't suit my airborne Sons of Horus, such as the Sicarian battle tank and Mechanicum allies. Before I can add those though, I need to fill the minimum requirements of Troops and HQ. With this in mind I've been working this guy to lead my force:

I'm not sure if he's going to be a Librarian or a Praetor yet, but to be honest the line between the two positions is so blurred in the case of the Thousand Sons, I don't think it really matters. He'll probably fill whichever role I need him to on a game by game basis.

Once I finish up some detail work, add cult markings and finish the sword, he'll be the first fully painted model for my Thousand Sons. It's about time really, seeing as I've been working on and planning them for three years now!

Blood Pact Priest WIP

Now Uni's out the way for the Christmas period, I can actually focus on getting some models painted. This Guy's been sitting undercoated on my hobby desk for nearly 3 years now, so with the release of the new Technical paints from GW, it seemed the perfect opportunity to try out Blood for the Blood God.

I've found that while the blood effect works well for dried blood, it's actually quite rubbish if you want wet blood, say on a weapon or something. It's a only a small flaw though. Other than that, it's a fantastic addition to the range. It's almost inspired me to dig out my old Blood Pact army and give them a spruce up. That's a project that can wait though, at least until I start finishing up my current projects.

I still need to find a right arm for him, but that can wait. I need to consider what I want to arm him with. I'm thinking probably a shotgun, so he can lend a bit of fire to the squad he's attached to, but the idea of dual-wielding chainswords appeals to me, as it seems like the kind of thing the Blood Pact would do and would look awesome.

For now though, I'm calling him done. Basing will come later,as I like to base huge batches of models at once.

Watch this space! 2014 hobby plans

It's been a while since I last posted, so I thought I'd put something up to let you know my current projects. It's more distract myself from the mountain of work I've got to get through for my Uni dissertation than anything, but some of you might be interested.

As you might have noticed, I haven't been posting much up here recently. You can blame that on Uni work more than anything, but I have been working on various projects between my studies. I'll be working on them in earnest come January when I have much more free time, but here's a quick run down.

Sons of Horus

I'm still working on these in between my other projects, but they havn't been my main focus for months now. I still don't have even a basic 2000 point list fully painted yet, but that's going to change very soon. I've got a big Apocalypse game with them down my local club on Sunday, which will no doubt inspire my to finish them up.

The biggest recent addition to the force has been me finishing up my Warmaster Horus conversion, ready to lead my force in the Apocalypse game. It's a bit annoying that the official for him will be out soon, completely overshadowing my efforts, but on a plus note, he'll be my first Primarch purchase!

Thousand Sons

My eternal work in progress. I've been working on them three years now, chopping and changing models and constantly re-doing them, but I still don't even have a single squad finished. My problem is that the Thousand Sons are my favourite Legion. They always have been. This means that if I'm going to make an army of them, they need to match up perfectly with the idea of them which I have in my head. On the converting side of thing, I think I've finally nailed it, but (as ever) my painting lets me down.

I'm going to have another attempt at painting them in January I think. My painting has improved massively over the last year, to the point where I actually think I can do them justice this time round. Even if I only manage to get one squad done to the standard I want, I'll be happy.

Song of Ice and Fire

I'm still working this, having finally managed to drum up enough interest to give me a decent pool of playtesters to work with. The first draft of the Stark list is done, barring a few characters. Lannisters are next, then probably Renly's host. These I'm hoping to be able to work on next year and get a playable set of rules ready by April-May time.

Model-wise, I've got enough to field reasonable sized forces for both Stark and Lannister, including named characters like Robb Stark, Tyrion and Gregor Clegane.

I've got big plans for the ruleset in general, but Uni's really eaten into my time to develop it properly

Hochland Empire

Another seemingly constant WIP. Four years for the initial conception of the project and the Airship which is to be the centerpiece of the whole force is still sitting half finished on my hobby desk. The good news is that I will get it done soon. There's an escalation fantasy campaign running down at my local club, which gives extra points for fully painted and well themed, as well as an extra prize for a fully develop background story. In other words, my favourite kind of campaign!

So the Glorious Army of Hevig von Nearostaffen will finally be finished in all the glory it deserves. To aid me in my inspiration on all thewse projects, I'm going to invest in getting myself a display cabinet for my finished models, so I can sit back and admire my work when each project is finished. I think it'll act as a good incentive for me.

So those are my plans for 2014, hobby-wise. If it's anything like previous years, I won't even achieve half of those, but I find it's good to have an ideal goal to work towards.

What your hobby plans for 2014?

This hobby is expensive? Not really..

I had an interesting conversation in the pub the other day about wargaming. It may seem an odd subject to come up in that situation and to be honest, I don't entirely remember how the topic of conversation came round to it, but when I mentioned that I play tabletop games on a regular basis, someone said to me "why do you waste your money on that 'stuff'' (not their actual words, but edited for language). It's so expensive". I don't know what it was, but the question stayed with me, buzzing away in the back my mind in the way that such questions often do.

The thing that struck me was the person who said this to me spent a good 30 to 40 pounds on alcohol that night, with nothing to show for it afterwardsexcept possibly a hangover in the morning and some hazy memories. He did this without even thinking twice about it.

That same 30 to 40 pounds, if invested in hobby stuff could have bought me a box of models or two from an online stockist, which I'd then have spent hours building and painting, then I would have had further hours of enjoyment by going to my local gaming club with them and playing with those models. I'd use those models for years on end, through hundreds on evenings worth of gaming sessions. I'd get creative inventing background for them, inventing names and watching their legend grow (or diminish) on the gaming tables. I'd have the opportunity to socialise while playing with them, meeting some great people. All for the price of one night out down the pub. Plus it has the added bonus of you waking up the next day without hangovers and possible regrets.

Most hobbies are expensive, but in the grand scheme of things, ours is actually quite a cheap hobby, even with GW's constant price rises. I have a friend who does Astrophotography as a hobby and recently shelled out two grand on the latest camera equipment. That's not even including what she spent on the camera itself. She'll probably spend even more in a year or two when better equipment comes out, but I'll still have the same armies I have now, unless I take the plunge and start a new project. Even then I'm only paying a fraction of what she pays for her hobby.

Another, more common example would be video gaming. I have many friends who are fanatical gamers, often getting the latest games on the day of release. Even discounting the cost of the console, you're looking at about 40 to 50 pounds for the latest games, with two or three being released every month. That's £120 a month, just to keep up to date. Again, I may buy a new unit every now and then, but I'm still spending on average a fraction of what console games pay, even when most of my purchases are from Forge World.

Yet despite all this, many people still look down their noses at wargaming as an expensive waste of money. It's strange how the world works really. It's the reason why I've written this article, to share it with my friends who say wargaming is a waste of money and open their eyes to how it actually fits into the strata of hobbies as a whole.

What do you guys think? Am I right? Or have your experiences of this been different?

Space Wolves commission WIP

 I've been working on a few commissions recently, my favourite of which has been a slow burn one I've been working on for a friend over at The First Expedition forums. If you're into Pre-Heresy stuff, check it out. It's a really great community.

Anyway, I digress. My client wanted a pair of Space Wolves characters converted up using the FW kits, including some sculpted bear pelts across their back. I thought I'd show you the stage I'm at with them atm.

Here's the terminator character finished, save for finding a head for him.

The fur took about 3 days to get right and it's still not fully finished. Luckily the client likes what I've done with it, as I really did feel up to having to do it again.

The power armour guy is taking longer, mainly due to the fact that I have to sculpt the fur around his backpack, but I'll post him up soon. I also need to find myself the bear pelt from the Space Wolves Terminator kit to add a bear head to the terminator dude, but that's proving difficult, as most bits websites charge a small fortune for them. If anyone's got the bit going spare and are willing to part with it, let me know and I'll do you a good deal.

Lannister Men at Arms WIP

It's been a while since I've posted, but that doesn't mean I havn't been doing stuff, I've just been too busy to post it up. I'll be doing quite a few posts over the next few days to show you what I've got done.

First up I've been working on building up my Song of Ice and Fire stuff, starting with a mad Ebay-based shopping spree and the purchase of a box of Perry Miniatures War of the Roses figures. I decided to build up the Perry models first:

I was really impressed with these, especially considering it's my first major buy model-wise that hasn't been from GW. They went together easily and had some nice details on them. They also fit right in with the Song of Ice and Fire universe, even without any conversion. I suppose it's kind of fitting really, as apparently the War of the Roses was a huge inspiration for George RR Martin when he was writing the series.


These particular guys are going to become Lannister Men at Arms when they're painted up, to accompany the Tyrion and Gregor Clegane models I have in the works (coming soon)

New Look Mind

I've been giving the blog a bit of a spruce up, playing with different layouts and colour scheme, just genrally Improving it, as the site's been looking really bland for ages. If it cause any problems with viewing, my apologies in advance.

Let me know what you think of the changes. Is it better? Or did you prefer the old scheme?

Jaime Lannister WIP

I've started painting up my version of Jaime Lannister. He's only about half finished, but I thought I'd post him up anyway.

He's been a really fun model to work on. I think I've captured his character quite well, drawing on both his description in the book and his depiction in the TV series. The trick was balancing the two depictions, especially in regard of his armour. In the books it's described as being bright gold, which I thought would look too tacky, whereas in the series, his armour's in Lannister crimson (clearly the producers took the same opinion as me on the matter). I liked both versions, so I settled on a compromise by giving him golden plate and red cloth to offset the brightness. Even so, I think I might brighten the gold a shade or two before I finish him up.
I'll post more when he's done.

Jaime Lannister

Continuing with my Song of Ice and Fire project, I've made a Jaime Lannister model.

It was a really simple conversion to do. All I did was put the head from GW's Amon Hen Aragorn onto Isildur's body.

I think it works really well, capturing the look and feel of the character really nicely. I'm really looking forward to painting him up, along with his brother Tyrion when the parts arrive for him. Both Jaime and Tyrion are going to have the same head, to mark them as brothers. If my planned conversion pans out then it'll be interesting to see how two models using the same bit can have two totally different looks and character to them.