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.

Gorkamorka! (More distractions...)

Inspired by some of my local gaming buddies, I have started to put together a trukk to play a few games of Gorkamorka.  After getting interested in assembling a force, I went about collecting a bunch of things impulsively.  One thing that was noticed was the small size and somewhat uninteresting design of the classic Gorkamorka vehicles.  So, to that effect I decided to try my hand at some converting and kitbashing.

Now, this trukk is still very much a WIP, but it has the back end of a Gorkamorka trukk, the body of a plastic Ork Deffkopta as the cab, it will have the dozer blade from a tank as a ram and will have bits from the current plastic trukk along with some scratchbuilt stuff to make it interesting.  Hopefully you like it so far.  As with all of my projects, it may or may not be completed sometime in the near future.

Enjoy!

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!

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.