Inspecting the kit: Greater Demon of Nurgle

So, the greater Daemon of Nurgle. We have already seen a few cool unboxing posts on the web (see for instance Kristian Simonsen's thorough review).  Instead of doing the same, I will just add a few comments to get kit and then get back to the hobby table and work on the model!

So far, I have built the main body and arms. And chopped the antlers of the head with the big grin and glued this in place. Also, I have cut up the sword to have it resting on the ground (just as this awesome guy does it). That is where I am.

This is my 3rd big model of recent date. I built and painted an Imperial Knight three years back and I have just finished an Eldar Knight. Like the other kits, the Great Unclean One builds like a dream. However, as far as I can estimate it actually comes in bigger and fewer pieces, which makes the building process faster. Nice! Obviously the actual model differs a great lot to both the Imperial and Eldar knight being literally almost just one single big fat and bloated daemon. Which certainly fits the name!

As usual when building these kits I get surprised at the way the kits are engineered and go together. Building both the regular head and the cyclops head had an awesome gimmick as a surprise.

Mould lines are easily removed and the joining surfaces and nicely worked into the design hiding them nicely. I will be going over the joins with modelling putty, but to be honest, with some care you could just clean up the pieces and glue them carefully, and you would probably only need very limited putty work for a regular tabletop quality model.

I will leave my praising here, and get back to the model.

2018 - a new year, new challenges, more hobby

Time to return to the blog... In many ways 2017 brought me a lot of new hobby experiences. Primarily while painting Eldar. The small force I started back in early 2015 has turned into a proper army, and since 8th edition dropped in Spring 2017 I have been gaming and adding to the army. By the end if the year I finally feel that I have both the relevant bitzbox content, knowledge of the range and experience to work more freely with the Aeldari aesthetics.

For 2018 the Aeldari army will become more themed towards gaming in the Thorn Moons setting developed by the ironsleet crew. More menacing and alien. Here is a late 2017 conversion: A warlock based on Harlequin and Drukhari plastics.

Also, in late 2017, GW offered me to review some upcoming stuff starting with the new Greater Daemon of Nurgle. Pretty awesome! Initially I sketched this up. This is the beginning of a project that I am sure will take a lot of time, but will be extremely rewarding and fun to do. Trying to "break" the scale of the model to make him even bigger. Lets see if I can make it work. I'll have to start hunting for Epic models or maybe some Warmaster minis... Projects like these mutate during the creative process and I am really excited to see how this one will end up!

Finally, at the very end of 2017 I got back in touch with a bunch of old hobby friends, and I really hope that 2018 will continue on that great vibe. I hope that 2018 will bring lots of painting, gaming and lots of chances to meet fellow hobbyists.

Mordheim: The Possessed Warband

The final installment of my Cult of the Possessed Warband, the whole gang in all it's glory.

I am so happy about this little project. A great combination of producing models for gaming and exploring the imagery of Chaos taking shape in the Damned City of Mordheim. The gaming is a nice bonus, and especially this kind of warband makes for easy gaming; no shooting business and carefully moving models around to avoid getting charged. Just push the models around to get into combat and roll some dice. Plain and simple fun.

Also, to cover the last models I have detail pictures of my mutant hero, and the lone crazed darksoul in the warband.

Mordheim: The Possessed, the Deamons

Next up comes my favorite miniatures for the warband - the daemon beasts that are the Possessed.

Conversion based on Dryad head and chopped up torso, ghoul arms, glade rider hose and random spikes from the bitzbox. I really love the feral and sinister appearance of this beast. Painting these miniatures I am relying on the preshading and stippling techniques used on my Pilgrym daemon conversions from last year.

A more simple conversion for this one but still quite effective. Ghoul head and a skeleton graveguard head on a Plaguebearer body. Again, I go to the ghoul sprue for arms. Same semi-random painting technique as above.

Mordheim: 3 Beastmen

3 henchmen for my Cult of the Possessed warband.

They are all painted using a "zenith lighting" primer technique. Basically, each model is primed black first, followed by white primer sprayed from a 45 degree angle from the top of the miniature. This creates natual "highlights" (the white primer), or pre-sharing (the black areas not hit by the white primer). Call it what you want.

The big trick here is that you can then work shades and washes over the surfaces creating intanttly shaded AND highlighted areas. So in the case of these beastmen being white, for their skin I added subtle shading of purple and pink tones around the mouth and eyes, and some yellowish light browns around the main muscles to blend the transition between the white and black pre-shading. I always re-emphazise the highlights and sometimes the shading also, but the midtones areas can be left finished after that initial wash.

I am really happy with these chaos beasts. Currently, I have the two beastmen with 2 weapons each fighting as henchmen in my warband. Now if only one of these could make it to become a hero in the next advance roll...

Mordheim: Chaos Magister

My Chaos Magister which has had at least 5 different colour robes before I settled for this dirty orange.
Actually, I painted him a while back but was never really satisfied with the paintjob. So when I started recruiting models for my Possessed Warband I thought of it as an opportunity to get the paintjob right.

Mordheim

My Cult of the Possessed warband emerging from the caves beneath the city.

Recently, I have been getting into gaming regularly and prepping for games. I have built a small force of Chaos Possessed: A few beastmen, a magister picked from the drawer of half-finished stuff, some henchmen, mutants and two Daemons. The image above features the deamons and the first beastman painted. Also, the terrain is actual the one half of the Pilgrym gaming board, the old Botanicarium. A nice setting that works nicely as a Mordheim backdrop.

So to kickstart some more frequent posting I want to feature my Possessed Warband in the next posts...

A painterly 40mm post-apocalyptic lady

Just finished this model for a friend. Siouxsie by Hasslefree Miniatures, a seriously dynamic 40 mm sculpt. Considering the scale I decided to go strong on contrasts, but also to go bold texturing the surfaces. An overall painterly approach.

It is a beautiful sculpt without very much detailing. And I really wanted to emphasize the wonderful shapes rather than adding lots of tricks and techniques.