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!

Dark Mariners Warband - Award Winning!

Good evening ladies and gentlemen.  The past couple weeks have been a blur of activity as I shifted my painting into overdrive to finish my starter sets.  This past weekend, I used said sets to GM a DeepWars demo at the 1st annual Hold The Line gaming convention in Toronto.  That was great fun (and will be expanded upon later).

First up, though, I wish to share my DeepWars Dark Mariners warband.  It is based from the deluxe starter set plus the captain model.  It took home first place in the wargames scale unit category of the golden  helmet painting competition!  It was my first competition ever, so it was very nice to win something.

Ok ok, on to the pictures...

These were a blast to paint.  I almost did not get to fully enjoy the experience due to my tight schedule.  Almost.  These were painted using a grey primer with a white zenith prime, followed by liberal applications of inks and washes.  Details were picked out and tidied up using opaque colours, but I tried to minimize that as the reason for using inks is to capture the natural highlights and shades from the whites and greys from the primer.

I did some of my other units with a black primer with white zenith prime, and I find the grey turns out better.  It is more forgiving if you miss a spot with the white, and the colours pop quite nicely IMO.  The models were finished off with a liberal brushed coating of vallejo matte varnish.

Some closeups:
Captain and Annihilator Biomech

Octopod and Vanguard Marine:

Scientist and Scavengers:

The Vanguard Marine is by far my favourite DM pose, possibly my favourite figure from the whole DeepWars line (well, the Dagathonan Brute is awesome too...).  I am quite happy with how the colours turned out, and I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

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 :)

Scaly Horde Finished

This past week I finished the last two models for my starter Scaly Horde warband for DeepWars.  Both were quite fun to paint - the Abyssal Gark and the Steel-Jaw Placoderm fish.

Starting with the Gark, I chose a colour scheme that was somewhat inspired by a crown of thorns starfish - a bluish body with red spines.  I figured his belly needed to contrast, hence the cream colour.  I tried to make a spotted transition between the colours, and it kinda worked but not as good as I had imagined in my mind.  It was good practice though!

All in all I am happy with the result.  The armour on the right arm and the crystal trident are my favourite parts.  It was also fun to try a different paint scheme from the official pictures.


Next up was the Steel Jaw Placoderm Fish.  This beast of a model painted up quite easily.  The details are quite pronounced which made drybrushing and highlighting quite simple.  I chose a few colours at random, and here was my result:

I don't think I would want to see that while snorkeling for treasure...

Here is a group shot of the finished Horde.  Next up, I will start to chip away at some Fortune Hunters to oppose them.

Hope you like it!

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!