Koth-Yan, Elephant Beastman

Here is my most recently finished miniature.  It was finished a couple weeks ago, but fall typically demands me to be out of doors much more often, and thus things like posting photos to the interwebs get delayed.

Back on topic, this is a model from the older Dragonblood line of miniatures from Shadowsea.  I picked up this gem in the previous Antimatter Kickstarter for Shadowsea 2.0.  Despite this figure being from an older range, it is still a gorgeous piece. 

The body is resin with the tusks and the flail being separate metal pieces.  Everything assembled nicely, and as with everything else made by Antimatter, the figure was a joy to paint!  I was a bit intimidated by the grey skin, but I think it turned out nicely.  I was also quite pleased with my verdigris weathering attempts on the bronze armour plates.

Being an older model, it was not designed to fit specifically on a round base like the newer figures are.  At this point I am not concerned about making it fit, as the base is pretty close to what it would be regardless.  If you were so inclined, it could pretty easily be put onto a DS round base.

Hope you like this guy, my Axibalan force is slowly coming together.  My eventual plans are a Tlactl, Ocelotl, and an Amazon leader.

Draconids Kickstarter - 48 hours left! Lots of terrain unlocked!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/524168246/rise-of-the-draconids

Just under 2 days left in the Rise of the Draconids kickstarter.  The pace has picked up a bit, and thanks to some rearranging of the stretch goals, we have passed a few today already.

Next up, and just a few hundred dollars away, is the fungal patch.  I think it will turn out spectacular with Eric's sculpting skills.  He does not have specific artwork yet, but he says it will be similar to some of the older D&D fungal forests, as in these pictures:

Should be great, lots of new unlocks to reach in the next couple of days.  Make sure to head on over to pledge for these great figures!

Shadowsea - Rise of the Draconids Kickstarter

This has been mentioned in my post a few days ago, but I thought I would highlight this specifically.

Antimatter Games is currently funding the production of some more lizardman figures for their draconid faction (along with a few other stretch goals).  The funding has unlocked the initially targeted figures, and with another 10 days to go, there is still lots of potential to unlock more!

Additionally, there will be a published painting guide by Eric Louchard, showcasing his painting technique using washes and glazes to bring out the best detail for these figures.  I have followed many of his tutorials, and am always amazed by the skill he possesses.  It should be a great resource to have in my quest to improve my painting skills.

Eric will also be sculpting the lizards, as he has sculpted most of what is currently available in the range.  He has already started on the draconid Royal Guard:

As with previous Antimatter KS projects, you can order figures from the existing range as pledge rewards, and they can typically be shipped within a few weeks.  I am looking forward to complete part of my collection of their figures - they are always a pleasure to paint!

You can check out the KS here.

Shadowsea Axibalan Coyotl Warriors

Time for some more Antimatter goodness, this time from some land-based Shadowsea figures.  These two sculpts were part of the original Cavalcade line of Dragonblood miniatures which were purchased by Antimatter last year when Cavalcade closed its doors.  Sculpted by the ever-talented Kev Adams, when I first saw these minis I knew I had to have them!  They are definitely some of my favourites from the Shadowsea line.  Just really great detail and character, and very fun to paint.  I made some heavier use of inks and washes on these, particularly with the feathers and the cloth.  The bronze and gold were painted using washes over a light primer which were then drybrushed with the appropriate metallic colour to help differentiate it.  I think ti worked out quite well.

In case you had not noticed, Antimatter is currently running a Kickstarter campaign, titled Rise of the Draconids.  If you had not figured it out, this one is primarily to fund the production of more lizard/draconid figures.  It is going quite well, with all of the Draconid starter set now funded and further figures as stretch goals.  There is a little less than two weeks to go, so feel free to stop by and pitch in!  The bespoke Coytol are available as rewards, so you can definitely pick up these beasties at a nice discount.  Check it out here.

Painted Fortune Hunters

Finally getting around to posting my next warband, the Fortune Hunteres.  Some really nice human models here, and they take quite well to washes for the general painting - the metal dive suits can be painted to look really nice without the need for hours and hours of detail work.  I have the standard deluxe starter with the Sea Dog captain added in for good measure.

I think the Sea Dog Captain was my favourite figure out of this lot.  Though I did have to patch up a slight miscast on his left shoulder.  Nothing a little greenstuff couldn't fix!  The scattergun really looks deadly at close range (and dangerous for the shooter too!).  Yep, I also missed a small spot on the back of his base.

Next up, Marie du Chatelet, the scientist, and the Heavy trooper.  Initially I was not too fond of the female model, but this one grew on me as I painted her.  A very nice esthetic, with a few small details to make the figure pop.  That and she is fully clothed, which marks it approve for family use.

Finally the big Mech and the Recon trooper.  The Recon trooper is a really cool sculpt, but it seems to be a different sculptor than the rest, and the scale is a bit off.  Not a huge deal, as you can't really notice from a tabletop distance.  I think the cool propulsion system makes up for it.

One thing I tried to do with the armour plating in this warband was to have a gradient of brownish/orange hues up to blue from the ground up, to reflect the colour of the ground on the lower extremities of the metal models.  You can see it a bit more in person, but it was a fun experiment.  I kinda used that to combine NMM-type elements with metallics.  I don't have the patience (or time) to go full NMM at this stage in life.  Maybe that's a good thing :)

Hope you like 'em!

Ancients of Atalan Starter Finished

I finally got around to posting pictures of the last pieces from the Ancients starter set.  Here we have the mechano-crab and the robo-shark.  Or, if you wish to get all 'official' on me, the Chariniform Light Assault Mech Construct and the Exoform Salvage Mech Construct.

I am more satisfied with the results on the crab than the shark - I was more patient in my painting and used more translucent colours to get a nice blended colour from the legs up.  The idea in my head was that the metal alloy is quite reflective, so the colours we see are more a reflection of the surrounding colours (ground below, water above) than the actual colour of the mech.  I hope you enjoy them regardless.

Finally, a group with all of the 'Ancient' friends together:

Apart from the initial five figures for each faction, I will also be painting up a leader for each group.  I am going to finish the groups first though.  Any comments or suggestions welcome!

Some DeepWars Ancients

Recently I have returned to painting up my Deep Wars models.  Notably, I am signed up to demo a game at an upcoming convention in July, so I need to have all my starter sets ready to play by then!  I already have the Scaly Horde starter painted (previously) and have gotten some good progress started on the Ancients starter set.  I present the Assault soldier, Technologist, and the acolyte of the ethers:

Some closeup shots of the individual figures:

Assault soldier:

Technologist:

Acolyte of the Ethers:

I tried to follow the box art for the most part on these ones.  The dark gold scheme was pretty tricky, but I am pleased enough with the result to stop tinkering with it.  These are very nice sculpts, but they are quite slender and I find in places the details are not too deep, so you have to be careful and keep your painting neat to avoid losing the details - the most tricky part were the shoulder pads for the Assault soldier.



I hope you like them!

Shadowsea Kickstarter relaunched

Recently, Antimatter Games launched a new Kickstarter campaign to fund the revamp (complete with new miniatures) of their Shadowsea skirmish game.  This is the sister game to the lovely DeepWars, set on the surface of the Underlands.  The rules will be updated to be compatible with DeepWars, and indeed both rulesets can be played simultaneously (which could make for some interesting games!)

Ever since I got into DeepWars, I have been nothing but impressed with the quality and detail of Antimatter Games' products. They turn out a great ruleset, with beautiful figures and great customer support.  The price per figure is a bit more, but you usually need less than 10 models for a well-rounded force, so it is a relatively cheap game to play.

The campaign has reached it's funding goal (horray!) but it is slowing down currently as they try to unlock stretch goals.  There is some really awesome stuff to be had, and some great deals available.  Some sculpts have been mostly finished, and pictures have been posted, which I will copy here:

To make things even better, Antimatter Games recently acquired the Dragonblood line of miniatures from Cavalcade miniatures, who are closing down.  The Dragonblood miniatures were the original miniatures sculpted for ShadowSea, so they are now available as part of this campaign.  Backers really are spoilt for choice!

Here's to hoping we can get some more backers in the last two weeks and unlock a plethora of new models from the stretch goals.  I really want those Sunless Kingdoms models :)

Kelp Forest for DeepWars

Life has been quite busy around the Timbor household of late.  That is primarily due to the arrival of a new little goblin, thanks to the hard work of Mrs. Timbor!  The family is well and fine, but it does leave less time for hobby work.

That being said, I managed to finish something fun this week - another piece of scenery for DeepWars!

I was out at my local Petsmart, and they had a bunch of aquarium plants on sale, so I picked up a few for the various DeepWars terrain that has been floating in the back of my mind for some time now.

The Kelp Forest terrain is used in games set in the Shallow Sea environment, and provide cover for your troops while also counting as a difficult terrain (I can imagine a massive tangle of kelp would be hard to navigate if you are not an otter).  These pieces were pretty easy to manage, so it should not be too hard to recreate if you so desire.

To start, here is a nice group shot with some of my Scaly Horde figures hiding amongst the leafy branches.

I made two pretty much identical pieces.  The materials used:



- plastic aquarium plants
- green floral wire
- sand borrowed from nature
- hot glue and PVA glue
- large tree base from 4ground terrain
- a few crystals from Anarchy models
- some craft paint

A couple closeups:

 

I really like the 4ground tree bases, as the plants are removable for ease of use during gameplay:

So there you have it, I hope you enjoy my latest addition to the DeepWars table I am making!

Clal-Chk Scientist

For the next figure in my Scaly Horde warband, I painted the bizarre and complex At-Atck, Clal-Chk Scientist.  This was a challenging figure to paint for a couple reasons.  First, this odd insectoid is unlike any other figure I have painted, so common anatomical landmarks become useless when trying to define where one appendage/colour ends, and another one begins.  Secondly, the intricate details on this model means for picking out lots of tiny colours with a small brush, combined with lots of inking and washing to preserve colour contrast.


Luckily, Eric at Antimatter Games was able to describe the anatomy in a bit better detail.

Being some sort of bizarre insectoid creature, the Clal-Chk is encased in a chitinous exoskeleton.  Therefore, the chitin protects him while underwater, and all he needs is a breathing apparatus.  This is the gold/brass plating that covers his head and torso, while the arms and legs are his regular appearance.    His breathing apparatus is a symbiotic bio-lung, depicted by this tentacled beasty on his back with the tubes coming out of it:

I am quite pleased with the result, although this round of photos did not turn out as nicely as I had liked.  Maybe one day I will get a better camera than a point-and-shoot!  Here are a couple side views to get a better idea of the model:

 Thanks for stopping by, comments and suggestions are always welcome!

Draconid Sea-Demon Shaman

Here are the photos for my recently finished Draconid Sea-Demon Shaman.  This is my second model for the Scaly Horde faction in DeepWars.  This guy was much easier to paint than the Dagathonan, as I did not use any special patterns on the scales - just blocks of colours with your standard highlights and shading.

 The staff was particularly interesting to paint, as it contained a couple crystals and some engraving in the whale bone.  I added some light blue effects to simulate the glow from the engraved runes and the crystals, along with some reflected light on his arm:

Lastly, the skull in his left hand was given some glowing red eyes, with the glow extending out across its brow somewhat.

All in all, this figure was very fun to paint.  The details are very crisp, which makes highlighting quite simple.  My only grip with this figure is that the figure MUST be pinned to the base.  With only a small metal nub attaching it at the tail, this hefty metal figure would be falling off at any slight bump.  I added a nice length of paper clip, along with some greenstuff to keep it extra secure.  That's just the price we pay for the glorious heft of metal models! :)  Enjoy!