Weekend Project: IoB High Elf Mage

Thought I'd show you what I've been able to do so far.

First impressions of the mini are pretty good. The model is very detailed but very delicate. I accidentally broke off one of the swirly things underneath the mage while I was painting. Had a hard time deciding what color scheme I should go with so I went with the standard blue and white look. Also had problems with a couple of the GW paints. My Sunburst Yellow and Shining Gold weren't coating evenly. I shook the bottles pretty well and my brush is clean and neat(not worn out). I'm guessing it might be the paint so I'll pick up new pots tomorrow. Until next time!

Skaven Update #21

Ok done with my littlest rat ogres Riff and Raff.

I think they came out alright. Seeing them up close on the monitor, I may do some touch ups but I think I can call this one done.

An added bonus... well sort of...

I thought you might want to see some size comparisons of the different metal figs from previous editions.

Noticed Something Funny...

So today on the GW site they have an article on box cover art. It was pretty cool to see all of the editions on one page. Anyway they have the IoB cover art as a wallpaper and proceeded to download it. When I took a gander of the art in all its glory I noticed something rather amusing in the background...

Little winged rats carrying censers! Ha! Anybody else notice this? I so want to model this now!

Hmmm...

I guess I caved. I'll have to set aside some time over the weekend and peruse this impulse buy and see if it was worth it. First quick impressions: although nice and shiny, my college text books were also nice and shiny and just as expensive. Will I need to take a lecture class along with this? Should a hobby ever need a book this big?!

Skaven Update #16

It was close but I finally finished my entry to Underempire's monthly painting contest: Rare Unit. Although there are some really great entries I actually had expected more people participating this time around. Bit of a bummer considering the amount of conversions I've been seeing on the forums. Tough to beat those abomination conversions. Surprised to see there were a couple of classic doomwheels and no new ones. Overall really great stuff. Anyway I'm still unsure if I'm happy with the end result so I ended up not gluing certain pieces. Also the banner pole is a little too bare for my liking. I'll have to add an actual banner sometime.

Currently, I'm finishing a small group of 7 metal plague censer bearers. I'm also about to start on my next project which will be for next month's contest: Single Character. Work however has started to pick up again so who knows how much time I'll get these next few weeks.

It's Thursday, What Else Is New?

I've held off my Skaven projects until I get the new book. With all the rat talk about rules and stuff I don't want to be making/painting anything that I won't be using. Hearing about my nightrunners and gutter runners becoming rank and file, for example, is making me reconsider the way I assembled them. I intentionally used the large tails because they were skirmishers. Now that they are ranked they're going to be a real pain in the ass lining them up. Once I get the rulebook I'll be able to straighten all this out.

In the meantime, I've been keeping sort of busy with these...

Do you have a bunch of old Mechwarrior minis collecting dust? Want to use them somehow? Buy a weapons pack from Reaper's CAV line and tada!


I have an old WE treeman and added a couple branch bitz from the dryad sprue and came up with this:

Don't know much about treemen but thought the mini was cool at the time. The new treemen minis are way bigger so this would have to be a treekin.

In other news, I saw great episode of Castle a couple nights ago called Vampire Weekend. If you are a Nathan Fillion fan from the Firefly(sniff sniff) days watch it. If you like anything Nathan Fillion you're probably a fan of the crime show already. Check it out at ABC or on Hulu.

Skaven Update #6.1

Small update. Really small.

I finally picked up some cork to use on my Aberration base. It's almost done. I still need to add boils.

I also finally assembled some Empire infantry... which will technically be my second army.



Next on the list is to base a unit of giant rats and finish assembling/basing 2 rat ogre packs. Once they are done I can probably start priming the bunch. However, seeing that it's winter and it's crazy cold outside, I doubt I'll be doing that anytime soon. Sooo, I'll be either assembling/basing more minis OR paint the stuff I already have. Choices, choices, choices...

Skaven Update #6

Update time. Just a couple things though...

1) I've been working on this Aberration conversion on and off for a bit for this small contest held at UnderEmpire. Anyway, long story short the Aberration contest might not happen afterall so I figure I'd still continue my progress but document it here.

An Aberration in Skaven Warhammer world is basically a Skaven Spawn. To make one, I took a fairly obvious route and picked up a Chaos Spawn box and hopefully with some extra Skaven bits I can make a somewhat believable model.





Much of the time at this point unfortunately was used on trying to figure out what 'X' piece to put in 'Y' slot/hole and planning it all out. Pace was fairly steady until I came to the last 2 slots/holes on its chest.



Do I add an eye or a tentacle or visa versa? What about both eyes or both tentacles? Should I add something totally different or cop out and just fill them up with putty?

After much thought and indecision I chose this:





But now I'm having second thoughts. D'oh!

2) I've acquired about 2 large zip lock bags full of plastic rats from someone that dumped his Skaven collection onto me a long, long time ago. A quick count I can do 2 30 clanrat units and and about 20 skirmishers. But they are all crap and not how I want them. A couple nights ago I started taking some of them apart and hopefully put a couple units together and/or maybe revise current ones.

In the end I hope to do the following:
1. get a unit of 30 spear rats
2. get a handful of a slave-looking rats to A) replace minis in current slave units and to B) start another slave unit
3. create more night runners and gutter runners to add to the pool
4. stick whatever is left into a new clanrat unit

Skaven Update #5

Good news! I finished a unit! I went back to my rat swarms and finally finished them! Yay! They come 2 to a blister but in the game you're only allowed a maximum of 5. Go figure. But the sixth model didn't go unused. I repainted it to look like a plagued rat swarm- an upgraded version of the normal rat swarm. It's a pretty specific mini and I probably won't ever use them due to the new edition rules. But, since I painted one, I'd like to pick up another blister to make a nice size unit. Maybe when the new Skaven army book comes around...