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!

Airbrushing! With some unexpected delays...

It's been quiet on the blog front lately, mostly due to it being summertime.  One fancy addition to my hobby arsenal lately has been a new foray into airbrushing!

I recently purchased a Badger TC910 Aspire Pro compressor, and a Badger 105 Patriot airbrush to get me started.  Well, to my surprise, the adapter that came with the TC910 does not fit the Patriot air hose!  There is a separate adapter which does fit, but I cannot for the life of me remove the other adaptor from the air regulator.

Perhaps a photo will help?

The top photo shows the male end of the adapter which fits the airbrush hose.  The bottom picture shows the female end of the bespoke adaptor.  I though perhaps it would fit on the male end of the installed adapter, but it does not.  The adapter on the air regulator looks like it might even have some glue holding it in place as well.  I have tried several wrenches and ratchets to no avail.

Perhaps there are some airbrush gurus frequenting my blog who might have some advice??  I can't really show you any of my airbrush progress without getting the setup up and running!

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!

Some civilians... with a bear!

Time for something a little different.  I decided to paint up some civilians.  In this case I made a begging troupe with a dancing bear.  The bear and the pipe player are from Pro Gloria Miniatures and the beggar and guitar player are from Lead Adventure Miniatures. I would like to think of them as a ragtag group of washed up entertainers.  Perhaps the poor legless chap used to be the pipe player for the bear, but one day the bear got hungry and/or tired of dancing.  They were quite fun to paint up, and I must say the Pro Gloria figures are a pleasure to paint up, along with the always-entertaining LAM stuff.

Here is the group, along with them performing in front of the Merchant's House:

Here are a few more closeups on the group as well:

I should add that Pro Gloria is planning on eventually running a kickstarter for hard plastic landsknecht soldiers.  Based on the quality of their metal figures, I think this is something that will be a very nice product for both historical gamers, and human fantasy gamers as well - they will likely be great alternate troops for warhammer empire players.

Hope you like the Bear Beggars.

Tabletop World Merchant's House

Tabletop world recently ran a painting competition.  While I had visions of an elaborate diorama, real life with young children saw me complete but a single building.  It was nice to get the building painted though, and it will make a nice addition to my table, along with the windmill which I have also finished.

As I said before, these things practically paint themselves... very enjoyable.  I have not fully finished the interior yet, but the exterior is pretty much finished.

You can see my entry along with many more over at the Tabletop World facebook page.  Feel free to "Like" my photos in the contest.  Though truth be told, there are many entries more skilled than mine.  I am still happy with the results, however.

Clan Kraven's additions

I have made a bit of progress on my rats.  Firstly, I based all of the old figures I had painted years ago.  I find it quite striking the difference that a bit of sand and static grass can make.  I would say they almost look presentable, lol.  The basing job for most of them was quite simple - glue some sand, paint it brown/grey shades, glue on some yellow/dead grass.  A few if them had some other bits added - broken balsa wood, hirst arts ruined bricks. 

My assassin adept got a bit better treatment though.  I used a hirst arts barrel, and pinned him in a jumping pose from the barrel.  It looks more assassin-esque if you ask me. I just hope my mordheim opponents don't insist that he can't hide behind a low barrier now!

In addition to this, my wizard's spell is "Children of the Horned Rat" which grants up to 3 giant rats to your team at the start of the battle.  I figured this warranted painting up a few giant rats, as they will be included in each match.  I chose to paint mine in a white scheme, since they are "magical"


 

Next up, my warband has played a few battles and accumulated a few coins, so now they can afford a fearsome rat ogre!  This guy is still a WIP - some more highlights are required, and the basing is not yet finished.  Nevertheless, I am pleased with him thus far:

I hope you enjoy them!  Gaming night is tomorrow, so I look forward to trying out the big beastie.