22/01/2021

Tis thy path

 Did I force the title a little too much? :P

This is a very short & simple post, just the 'Death Tracker' Paladin by Westfalia Miniatures. I recently got it thanks to a friend and couldn't resist to paint it. There are a couple of heads and arms options in the sprue, but I simply chose what looked more obvious ;)

I don't think any WIP pics were necessary, as the paintjob is quite straightforward. Here it is:

Any resemblance to...? Naaah, I don't think so

The only variaion from the original is that I cut away the horns and tail from the creature baby, so everything is even more obvious.

I had an issue regarding the crossbow; the resin of one of the limbs was broken. Besides, it was deformed, so I had to reshape it with hot water and then glue it. If you look closely you will see the crossbow is far from symmetrical, but at least it works.

If the pic is blurry enough, you won't see any defects

Very few know his name. His real name. He is just an adventurer from Ahn Dalor, a lost region deep in the realm, now condemned to oblivion. He belongs to an old tradition of warmongers, strictly adhering to their warrior creed. Never tamed, never subdued; no lord, no king, no emperor has ever overmastered them. But they have paid the price. Their home burnt, now they all wander but scattered through the realm, making their way as they walk. Bounty hunters, mercenaries, whatever allows them to survive, while they dream with the day they will be reunited.

For now... this is the path.

I really do need a backdrop for this kind of pics!


 The thing is that I'm afraid I've opened a can of worms. Have you seen the other awesome, magnificent works by Boris Woloszyn?

I need them all!

Oh, great, so I also think I will have to get into Rangers of Shadow Deep or something...

17/01/2021

Revisiting kind of a classic

 I'm not sure if I can call this mini a 'classic', but it kind of meets some of the criteria. It's a special character with his own profile and background on the Codex, it's a devoted mini, not a generic one, it's from the late 90's (97 or 98, I'd say)...

 I'm talking about this one. Let's call it the classic mini of Nazdreg Ug Urdgrub:

You may say it's not the best Ork Warboss mini among the Ork Warbosses minis. Though you have to convene the concept art by John Blanche was quite difficult to turn into a mini:

This one was generously donated (alongside a huge -I mean huge- batch of other old minis) by most openhanded Iain White from Caveadsum1471, who is a true gentleman (thank you so much!), and I decided to put my hands on old Nazdreg first.

I'm not a big fan of the original sculpt, as I think the shoulders and the whole position of the arms look a little bit strange. So first thing to do was to set the arms a little bit below the original concept.

I also replaced the 5-fingered hand with a modern Ork claw (from modern Commissar Yarrick!!)

Now I had that uneasy gap between the arms and the shoulderpads, so I sculpted new secondary shoulderpads. I cheated a little: as I wasn't to drill the gun barrels, I added greenstuff and made artificial holes.

If it works, it works!

After a few more details, this is what I got:

New me!

Having so many Bad Moons sculpted all over, I of course had to paint him yellow. Bad Moons is the new skulls.



I think I could have done a much better work on the back banner. I may redo it.  Not sure if I will use him as Nazdreg himself or a generic Ork Meganob, but I'm happy with the result.

If only I had a proper vehicle or something for such a character...

05/01/2021

New year irresolutions

 Happy new year out there!

I hope everyone's doing good. I'm slowly going back to routine, and I managed to finish some more RT minis. They essentially are the same kind that the latest post, though more on the military looking side. Let's see what I got!

First one is the wounded guy:

'Tis but a scratch

Though being obviously Imperial Guard, I didn't want any of these minis to look specifically military or uniformed. The idea of these mercs or adventurers being old veterans keeping the fatigues seemed nice, so I worked with that. However, I consciously avoided camo patterns and opted for plain colours.

This pirate is the most distinctive from this batch, I think he belongs with the minis from the previous post better, but well, I painted him along with these. I made him more colourful, with the yellow pants and red suspenders. Maybe it's part of a torn out hazmat suit or whatever!

I tried a more defined lining technique, it was fun to do different things

The heavy stubber (or whatever that weapon is!) Guard was a mini I had been wanting to paint for years. It's of course a Vasquez kind of mini, I enjoyed her a lot.

Seeing the pic, I guess the uniform is kind of Galactica type. Oh, the subconscious

I went a little more wild on this one. I clearly avoided any kind of military uniform and painted the vest red. He has a camo net on the head, but I enforced the techno-barbarian appeal of the sculpt and painted it as a chainmail, like he was wearing some kind of aventail. Kind of crazy, but if I believe it strongly enough, it will work.

The most unconventional paintjob for this mini ever

Well, let's go back to a little more orthodox way of doing things. I had this Commissar and painted him as... well, a Commissar.

That's a surprise by now!

Here you have all of them:


Having painted the Commissar, it made me think of many things. First of all, that I could put these along the previous minis and make some kind of Dirty Dozen out of them, in a Col. Schaeffer's Last Chancers way of things. I think it could be fun.

The other thing I thought of is how much have Commissars changed through the years in terms of design. That made me recover this other Commissar I had in a box and repaint him:

Burn out colours as usual. I hate taking pics

 I'm not sure of when this mini was released. Maybe during 3rd Edition? I'm not a huge fan of the Hussar theme on Commissars, but I love this particular mini and the badass attitude. It's maybe one of my favourite Commissar minis of all times (Hmm, I had never thought of a favourite Commissar. Oh, now I have to give it a thought!)

See what I said about the evolution of Commissars:

These are totally different minis from totally different games, aren't they?

This will be all for today! 2021 has officially started!

I don't really have any new year resolutions or specific plans for painting anything. I know I want to do some things, sure (The Gargant, the mining village, RT minis... the list could go on and on), but I'm more keen on painting whatever I'm in the mood for at the time and just let myself go.

Hi, 2021, let's see what happens!