Merrogue Christmas!

 I know, I know, I'm late to Christmas, but never late than never. Merry belated Christmas everyone out there!

I guess this will most likely be the last post this year, so I wanted to wish you all the best for this dreadful 2021. May Grandfather Nurgle grant you safe pass among illnesses, may Tzeentch make you stronger through change, may Kh... [Message aborted by the Holy Inquisition of Terra. Emperor protects. Keep on, citizen, do not stay apart from your device, you will briefly receive the visit of one or more members of the Holy Ordos. Please cooperate].

No, seriously. Let's hope things go better. I want to keep on tracking your blogs and reading your comments here. Best way to know you all are safe and in the right mood for hobby issues.

I'm closing this year with some Rogue Trader era minis, which are always fun for me to paint. I had these for ages waiting for a lick of paint, so it was about time.

First of all this old Psyker.

His headaches are really terrible

I knew I had to paint him gaudy and flamboyant, but I didn't want to go too far, too 'circus', if you know what I mean. There's a difference between this and a Harlequin. I was tempted to do some embroidery or some more refined patterns, but in the end I think it works this way.

Next one, a Bounty Hunter:

Full urban camo

My inspiration for this one came from some kind of Blade Runner ambientation. I would cite Cyberpunk, but I don't think it's the right time to mention that name :D

I wanted him to dress in vibrant colours, to fit in a neon lights saturated hive. Something in between Blade Runner and Altered Carbon. I used modern Imperial Guard arms, which fitted in better than expected.

A Naismith pirate. The most difficult mini to photograph ever.

Squatting pirate!

 

As opposite to the others, I thought this one was asking for a more functional approach. I saw a lowlife hired muscle thug, a guy just worried about daily survival, with little concessions to luxury, so I kept it pretty simple, the only exception being the yellow sunglasses, which looked like a fun touch to me :)

I can say quite similar things about the two other minis of this batch. They are essentialy the same base sculpt repurposed; again, they scream 'functional' to me. The sort of guys you don't mess up with. Simple badasses.

Remember those days when Warhammer was not that over the top?

 

The factions of the man are ambiguous enough to allow some experiments with skin tones, which I found interesting. I opted for dark colours for the clothes, but I went totally opposite for the other one:

Man, it's not safe to lick your chainsword!

 

As said, it's the same basic sculpt, with different head and weapons. That's why I used a totally different palette, to help to differentiate both as much as possible.

They all make nice dwellers of any overpopulated underhive or a forgotten frontier mining town on the Eastern Front:

Last touch of colour for 2020

 

I'm digging up a lot of old stuff these days. That, alongside an amazing lot of minis of old I received recently, will be enough to keep me busy for some time! I think I will use this kind of minis to take some fresh air and keep me focused on the larger projects. But that will be next year!

Have a nice end of 2020 (as much as life allows you), keep safe and all the best for 2021! See you around the corner. Happy new year!!

Space Ork Great Gargant (28mm scale)

 Yup, you just read right. Ork Gargant 28mm scale. Deal with it.

Dun dun dunnnn

I guess you need some explanation!

First of all, I haven't built it. I wish. Such an endeavour is way far beyond my skills. This is all the works of my pal Rinahe, who runs the blog El Taller de Emilque. Please do have a look at it. I really mean it.

His aim was an old school looking Gargant, like those from the old Epic ranges, or the Armorcast ones.

Dis is da deal

I'll just post a few pics taken from his blog, just to give you an idea of how much you need to pay him a visit.

It all kind of started this way

At first this won't make much sense...

...until you combine it with this other piece to give shape to the belly gun...

...and see it's designed to fit in and look like a pinted face on the projectile

The level of detail is insane. The glyphs have actual meaning, BTW

 

Even the banner is 3D, to help painting it (it's DIN A4 sized!)

He also built a box for storage and transporting purposes (!!!)

 Seriously. Go visit the blog. Here you can find the WIP installments:

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

(Did you notice he's also building 28mm Stompas?)

 No doubt he had the most fruitful lockdown of us all!

Precisely due to covidian issues we weren't able to see each other during... well, basically all 2020! Until now!

Now I'm the proud owner of a Great Gargant. Wiiiiiiii!!

Let me show a few more pics. First thing that blew my mind was the way pieces were storaged inside the box

It's so well engineered it doesn't feel like Ork!

Oh, I didn't mention. The box has hinges and magnets, so it's pretty safe.

Everything has its place

Even the banner has a hanger

I'm seriously tempted of  recording the process of unboxing. It's a pleasure.

Here you can see both elements:

Insanely huge. And wonderful

 

I took some minis, as we originally wanted to play some skirmish (we finally weren't able due to time, but oh, we used them for the pics!)

It's also an infantry transport!

All the platforms and elements are playable

 

Remember what I said earlier about the level of detail?

You can open the head to get access to the pilot's cabin

There's room for gunners around the belly gun

Serioulsy, remember this

Details everywhere

Morkstroke it's his name (should I say her name?)

 

You may have noticed the box is also full of details. It's not just a box, it's a whole temple-factory that can be used as scenery. If Gargants are representations of the Orks Gods, their factories are temples by definition

Have a close look

You can place an Armies on Parade event in here!

Yup, the door opens!

I'll take better pics or videos of the door opening and closing in the future

Infiltration!

In all its glory

Even with the pics you may not have a full reference of the size of this monster. Let me provide some humans for scale:

That's me in the centre, surrounded by the guys from the store where we met

Rinahe da Mekboy!

I think there's one more pic needed. I really was curious about one more comparison...

There's no way I can find room for all this at home. I'm so in trouble...

What else can I say. I'm so truly overwhelmed! It looks like I'm going to be busy next 2021!!

Slow urban growth

 I'm back to my mining town vertical board!

Progress is slow, but I hope you can see how this is turning out.

This is what you saw last time (oh my, that was September!)

Previously, in Old School Workshop...

Well, I needed to build the next ascending ramp and also to close the space to the left of the pic with a wall.

The ramp is quite standard. 35 degrees up, DAS clay and a rolling pin:

Always up and up

I have some vague ideas of what will I build next, but nothing too studied. I kept my options open with that wall. I want some stairs down (and probably up too), hence the wide gate.

For now I just wanted to close that space

Daylight and texture

Now that I took the stairs out from the main access, it all looked too empty. I thought I could make some kind of archway or whatever. Nothing too distracting, but adding some volume and depth.

Some medina kind of thing

 

So, some priming spray later...

The road goes ever on and on...

 

OK, then I faced some kind of mental block. Have a look at the pic above. How on Earth am I supposed to end up linking the road (which is going up and left) with the platform on the right?

I thought of a couple solutions.

OPTION A: A piece of brick/stone/adobe ramp and then a large metal catwalk

Challenging and most certainly ugly

 

OPTION B: Another ramp to the upper floor and then to take back my old aspiration of using the bridge:

More feasible, but again ugly nevertheless

It would have to be removable to allow gaming below

 

I have an Option C on the table (well, more in my mind than anywhere else), but I still have to see if it's remotely feasible (which I doubt) before I embarrass myself :P

Anyway, I'll leave that decision for antoher day (though I'd love to hear your thoughts!)

 

What I needed to do next was adding details and finishing what I had already built. So, the usual treatment. Some doors, a/c units, lamps, wires, tubes...

You know, the standard stuff

 

It's far from being finished, I have to add signs, posters, dirt and so on, but I think it's presentable.

Lots of details to be added. Eventually. Probably.

 

You can see here the general aspect of the section. That post is made wit a sprue and other bits. Looks fragile, I don't know how long will it resist there!

A general overview of the (unfinished) section.

 

You may remember (or not) that the elevated door on the right wall had an access via stairs, but that made unplayable the street below. So I took out the stairs and made a catwalk to the opposite platform:

Sprue handrails!

 

I also made a connection to the hole in the back, with another catwalk, just in the same way:

From an angle...

...and the other

 

Oh, the corner up there. I used a WHFB statue, I think it can fairly pass as a WH40K Saint of the Imperium or something. It's unfinished, I will add candles, offerings and stuff of the like:

At least the general idea is yet fixed

 

So this is it so far! Here you have a general overview of the whole thing:

Unsettingly unpopulated

 

At this point I'm unsure of what will be my next step. I want to give a definite solution to the bridge/catwalk/whatever dilemma, but I think that I have to plan the rest of the general structure of the board first, as the future buildings to the left (and back) will somehow condition the structure that must support that bridge/catwalk/whatever.

We'll see!!