RT Bestiary: Enslaver

I cannot get tired of repeating how such awesome people you can get to meet into this hobby. I have received several minis from friends along the years, and I myself as well have given away some; karma keeps flowing, whatever. But today, well, today I bring something totally different. My pal Rinahe (generous donor for some of the coolest stuff I had here in recent times!) took the following step and decided to sculpt a RT beast out from scratch just for my own particular bestiary. Wow. Just wow.

He chose to do the mythical Enslaver, back from the pages of the Rogue Trader manual.

No, not the flying spaghetti thing

Enslavers are psychic creatures that dwell in the Warp, coming to the physical realm to... well, enslave other beings, make them act according to their will and feed over their minds. For a more accurate description, I always reccomend Lexicanum.

Please let me show the sculpting process my pal went through. He took a walnut as a start point. Right. A frakkin' walnut served as inspiration and main body:

First shapes are given with DAS putty and the tentacles come from another (rather awesome) project he is carrying through right now.

For me the process is quite amazing. I mean, he insists to say that it's not like sculpting human faces or stuff like that, but I must give him the credit of having an idea and executing it in a way I hadn't expected!

So OK. I was given this glorious beast. I was officially in awe. A big thanks, man!!
Now over my shoulders came the responsibility of making justice to this insidious Xeno. Glups!

-Did... did you hear something, Bill? -Nope, man, relax, just the wind

According to classic fluff, Enslavers can change colour, but they usually are leather brown, with lighter tentacles and the so-called eye (though not really being an actual eye as we humans understand that organ) can be red, orange or purple.

Weird mutant octopus

Your mind belongs to meeeee...

'Yessss... kill all the huumans... Oh, erhm... and bring piiizza'

I really think the sculpt catches all the vibe of the original design, it's enormously great, and a real pleasure to paint!
Now I think it also provides a really interesting element for any scenario, so... I have to come up with one! The creature commands, we obey!

Colour up the town

Time to bring some colour upon the crazy big building I showed you last week. Ehm. Well, that colour will be mostly dark grey. Ahem.

First step is just spray it all over. I also created some dirt effects and stuff with different sprays. In the pic below you can see I also had hand painted the window frames.

Looks like a cozy place to live in, sure

The process here is really very simple. I painted the windows (I had to use a darker tone than usual, as the building was asking for a gloomy, dready aspect) and added some pretty basic graffiti. I also used some street signs and ads (I got them from the internet ages ago; I've been trying to source them back again and I haven't been able to do so. If anyone knows where these came from, I'll gladly credit the guy who offered them; thanks!)

Roughly 30x30cm. About 20 cm high

Bulky stuff indeed!

The tiny stuff is what really makes any project come true. So I think it's worth of trying to add small details here and there. You have to reach a balance point, of course. I'm not trying to recreate a perfect, movie-standard reproduction of anything, but just to achieve an interesting piece of scenery, above the dull ubiquitous ruin-stuff.

The compromise between quick'n'cheap and some appearance

A touch of colour!

Let's go for some close-ups. The archway stairs:

Gloomy!

I also added some wiring. Not as chaotic as I intended, but I'm learning and will hopefully improve in the future. I tried to show some messy electrical stuff over the streets. Just my first experiment.

I'll be needing some more meters of that!!

I also added a religious icon over the arch (from the Bretonnian command group). It enhanced the medieval aspect of it, a Saint's image over the entrance; you can find stuff like this in several actual medieval gates and I thought it wasn't out of place.

Eclectic, yoou may say

Urban art and graffiti also played a role here, that's the modern-ish approach here.

Bloody Eagle. Imperium is not that well perceived here...

An Arbites. Ha-ha. So funny.

Colour? Someone here is... happy? The Governor will not suffer that!

A few posters come from this wonderful NASA link. Right, a number of retro-futuristic images, totally delightful. For example:

You may have noticed another ones, more WH40K specific. I designed them, thought it would be fun. I had to make an English version (so the pun was recognizable) and then a Latin Gothic translation, as it seemed logic that the Imperium printed this in the official language:

Well, so this is it. I've learned some things about what to repeat and what not to do ever again, hehe. It's been a fun project, so I pretend to do some more buildings in this fashion. But first I still have to attend the lead mountain!

Boys and their toys

Time for some Star Wars love again. I've picked a relatively simple endeavour, the E-Web engineers. There are just two of them, so I could leave one as it is and convert only one mini. Besides, it's all black and white, so there won't be that much work! Laziness, I hear you scream? Meh, I prefer time & resources optimization :D :D

So there we go. The first one is the untouched one. Just as it is:

Pew, pew, die you rebel scum!

Have you seen the size of my gun?

The thing about converting the other mini is that I honestly didn't know where to start. I mean, it's a guy shooting his gun, what could I do? I took the easiest solution, I put him at ease, proudly posing for an Imperial propaganda poster :D

Enlist now. The Empire needs you.

You can see this involved quite a reposing effort, hehe. I had to cut every limb out from the poor guy and fix all his articulations. I'm unhappy with his right knee, but I'm not redoing any work for the moment.

Stop posing and help me over here, man!

I still haven't even opened the rulebook, but as far as I'm concerned, I think it's important to make differences between minis for gaming purposes (some kind of Descent like stuff, I've heard), so at least these two meet that requirement!

I'm uncertain of what will I take on next, as usual, but I'm on it!!

New urban planning

One of the things I was missing on my urban board was some chaotic nature in the city development. I mean, I have a number of beautiful MDF buildings (and some more still in their boxes awaiting for the moment to come!), but they all share a feeling of, I don't know, maybe 'order'. I mean, they offer me sound volumes, perfect shapes... If I painted them in a delicate, clean way, they would no doubt fit in a more elegant setting. But I was looking for a more shanty town look, though not exactly that. Confusing, I know.

Then I realized that in fact I already knew what I was really looking for. Not a junktown. I was looking for a medieval sci-fi town. Let me elaborate. The interesting thing about this board would be offering an intrincate labyrinth of crossing streets, walkways, different heights, that kind of stuff. I wanted to give the impression of uncontrolled growth.

My perfect example would be the Italian town of Sanremo. I had the chance to stay there for a couple of weeks some years ago and the old town, La Pigna, totally represents what I mean. A maze of streets going up and down, buildings towering over more buildings... there is an intrincate beauty in that, seriously. Just google some pics of Sanremo La Pigna.

Yup, this is just a street

Turn this into retro sci-fi and you got it

Have I disgressed enough?

OK, of course such a thing is out of reach for my skills, my board and my... everything. But yet I could do some stuff and make the difference with my previous MDF buildings. So, with a box and some foamcard I begun to create some shapes...

It all begun like this...

...and then it turned into this

The addition of the second tower didn't really please me, but I only saw that once it was assembled. It was a little too much, but it was a way to make this on the rear part:

Not actually functional, as there is no inside, just for the show

I begun to make some additions to somehow disguise the bulky appearance:

I first thought of a walkway, but I changed my mind to the roofed version, looked more like what I was looking for

The rear part needed some stuff too, but nothing so large:

That red box is an empty air refreshener :D

It adds an interesting shape, I'm definitely using more in the future

Those weird ledges will have their function, it's in my mind, hehe...

So, once the main body is defined, it's time to think about the details:

Doors from RoeBeast's Trash Bash Kits KS, A/C units from Euphoria Miniatures

Details! More details!

So this will be more or less the final look

I'm trying to achieve a mix of that medieval flavour (messy buildings with no order) with a low-tech scifi setting, which I think I must favour above the former. Maybe it's too bulky, that's my main regret/concern about it, but well, it's done and it is what it is. I still have to see how it looks once painted and on the board.
But for the moment it's quite a start!

New old barbarian

Today for a twist! What would it be of this blog if I lost my ability to do the unexpected? :D

I can only bring a mini, but it's kinda special. First of all, it came to me as an unexpected gift (thanks to my generous donor, the guy who is also behind the Hakk Tee Mehl idol and the Pest Control guys!). Besides, it's a 1985 Citadel Barbarian, something you don't see everyday. I think this mini is the most Oldhammer this blog has ever gone! :D

I smash, therefore I exist

Painting-wise, I've gone quite classic, as that's what the mini demands. Given that it's mainly skin, that's not quite complicated! Anyway, I've fulfilled the main Commandments of Oldhammer... There are some checkers and there is at least one piece painted in bright red :D

Well said, cousin, let's crush some enemies, see them driven before us, etc.

As I don't have any active WHFB projects right now, I guess I'll be using him as a barbarian character for my HeroQuest games (provided that I manage to get some again, sigh)

A categorical imperative would be one which represented an action as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other purpose, my friends. Now let's raid some dungeon, hell yes.

Well, changing subject again has been good for sanity, hehe, now back again to regular programming (as if that expression meant anything here!)

Crossover civilians (Pt. 2)

Weekend has been fruitful and I'm ready to bring the rest of this Roguetradered Star Wars civilians (Does 'roguetradered' sound good?)

On a retrospective, the whole group lacks some coherence, maybe I should have emphasized more the Warhammer looking with more GW bits, particularly heads. But anyway, on the whole I think they work and make their role, which is providing a base of cheap civilians for my board.

I disgress, as usual. Let's go for the pics.

Boubaka Salim ibn Abenasser, wasteland explorer:

No, I don't know what that thing is either

Pedro Mobhing, local Bailiff:

I pretended the helmet to be more Moebius-esque

Gael Makabesse, Administratum clerk:

Humpf, those files are not poperly packed, bailiff.

Mick Bouros, local worker:

You could have let me have a shower before the pic, man

Dabenari Molokisse, protester:

I take the liberty to educately dissent of your opinion, sir

Brian Emmettis Pardus, another protester:

Arbites are gonna make him copy it correctly a hundred times

I guess the deserve a group shot:

Coming to  a board next to you!

Converting and painting these has been fun, I think I've identified a couple of things that work fine and maybe some noes that I won't repeat. I have another plan for some more cheap civilians, but those will have to wait a little, as I'm for some other pending stuff before. However, I don't pretend to delay that too much!