Turelio's Hobby Hoard

Note: I started writing this post before the GW Contrast Paints were released, so this post doesn't directly compare the two. I understand that Hexwraith Flame was one of their prototype Contrast paints, however having used the two, there appears to be enough difference for me to warrant treating them differently to each other for the course of this post.    Even though I only recently finished the first models of my Leveticus crew, I've started a new Malifaux Crew! I'm enjoying getting some older metal models through the process quickly, as I'm not aiming for a display piece on older models, just a tabletop quality piece where I can try something new. This time round, I realised that Kirai's crew full of spirits would be a great chance to try out Hexwraith Flame. I have planned out the colour scheme in more detail, but am still in the process of writing that up. But with 5 Seishin staring at me, I figured it was a good chance to quickly get these started ...

Everyone in the painting community has heard about Contrast Paints by now, so I'm not going to talk about what they are or how they work too much. Basically, they were released this weekend, and one of my friends ( Numbat ) picked up a few, and brought some along to our Sunday night painting for me to try. A few hours before he arrived, I realised that I would need a few models to try these out on, and went to my usual go to emergency miniatures: Reaper Bones. Look at them gathered there, slightly out of focus, judging me...   I'd heard that people were using standard sprays on the models as well as the new Wraithbone and Grey Seer undercoats, and that the pre-existing undercoats work fine. So I glued a few Lizardmen to bases, and did three versions of undercoat:  From left to right, Corax White, Mechanicus Standard Grey with Corax White sprayed from the stop, and then plain Mechanicus Standard Grey.    One thing to note here is that Mechanicus ...

Despite my best efforts to keep this blog going, a few things happened around the middle of last year which simultaneously ate into my time and prevented me from painting in a manner I was happy with. This meant that while I did get some things painted, I never got around to blogging about them. I can hopefully find time in the coming weeks to go and post up some photos of older work, but at the moment that it more of a hope than a plan. I have, however, been able to get some things painted recently. So this post is going to focus on the recent Reaper Bones minis I've painted over the last few weeks. This happy fellow has been sitting half painted like this for the past 5 years or so. I've always hated the fact that I never painted it, as I always thought it was a cool looking model. A few weeks ago, I managed to clear off and reset my painting desk. This was the first model painted at it, mainly because I just thought that after all this time, I could just drybrush th...

I've managed to get two old projects out of mothballs recently. The first is my old Orc and Goblin army. I enjoyed flicking through the Kings of War rules a few months ago, and decided adding some more troops to my army would be good (I have a lot left to paint still). I dug out a bag of goblin spearmen, and added a set of ten to a small unit. Then I gathered another ten, but was a bit more careful about how I selected them: These are the latest 5 Night Goblins brought up to the basing stage. They'll wait for another 5 to be finished, and then a few special additions, to all be based at once. You'll notice that the 5 Night Goblins here are all the same sculpt - this was a conscious decision, and I'll touch on that in a future blog.  I also dug out some half-finished Malifaux Oiran to paint up. Last time I was painting these I was waiting on shoulder surgery, and was not in a good place mentally. Both of these things are fixed now, and I was able to fin...

I'm still building a lot of stuff, but also painting stuff as well. I seem to have hit a point where I can slow down building and paint more, which will be good to ease back into. I've been planning out my Waldgeists for Malifaux. I wanted the bayou bases to match my Lilith crew, but for models with such a wide stance and large areas covering the base, it was tricky to fit them on 'as is'. Because of this, I had to make some additions with green stuff for them to balance out a bit. I've also had to pin various parts. If I assembled the base, painting the water under the dock would be tricky. And the base would be obscured with the model on top. Because of this, the plan is to have two or three assemblies to paint: the bases, the docks, and the minis themselves. I can then pin them all together. I picked this up from Iron Wind Metals a few years ago at Gencon. I figured it would be worth doing up on a 50mm base to use for DnD terrain, and also a summoning portal in ...

I've been busy yet again, bit I've managed to start getting into more of a routine, which means more hobby! This is the most recent progress at my desk... First off, ALL THIS TEAM YANKEE! This is a Charlie's Chieftains box I got just before the end of the year. I magnetised the turrets, but need to go back and green stuff them for more security. This will be a basic tabletop army, but construction wise, there are very few mould lines to clean over the entire box. I really appreciate that this took a few hours, but it was so much less time that if I had to clean each individual track. A gelatinous cube was built as well. I already had one done, but after finding the one I thought I lost, I figured I should put it together. I plan on doing a few glazes in places to make details stand out, but these are always fun to use, especially when they swallow the healer. So why not two? Finally, these two little Flameskulls. One gave my dnd group some trouble a few games ago, then tw...

My first project to start and finish this year was some terrain, which was immediately uses in DnD the next day. It was a few simple pieces; the base of the GW Arcane Ruins set, and a Lord of the Rings statue. As it was terrain, I wasn't too fussed with gap filling. The base had the tabs trimmed off and undercoated, and the statue was glued together with excess poly cement, which was trimmed back later in an effort to hide the seams. It was also stuck to a 40mm mdf base, but not textured. Everything was given a white undercoat, a coat of P3 Hammerfall Khaki, then a wash of Army  Painter Strong Tone. I then drybrushed with Menoth White Base and Menoth White Highlight. The base of the statue was painted with Reaper Dirt Brown before being coated in PVA glue and static grass. This meant any static grass that rubbed off had a dirt colour underneath, so it wasn't too obvious. The skull on the ruins was painted Reaper Stone Grey, washed with GW Nuln Oil, gla...

So a few quick updates and work in progress shots... The McMourning crew makes small shuffling steps of progress. At a recent painting day I brought models to work on, and promptly forgot the colour steps I was working with :/ Small areas of green are appearing on a few models though, so that's at least some progress. Pictured above is one of the Crooligans. OzPainters had a basing challenge, and after hastily constructing this base, I managed to get it painted in about 20 minutes and submitted with a few minutes left. The model's paint job is a rough one, and the base matches it, but it's good enough for a bit of drama on the table top. For a future project...? I got all my old Falcon Grav Tanks for Epic in one place. They need a new paint job (Biel Tan), and will form a group in Epic, which will probably just be a fun tabletop project. However I might do some hovering bases for them. Hmmm... A Reaper Bones Mimic. A quick job on a mini I put a base coat on l...

I'll make this quick... Oh, dragons! Oh, dirigibles!  These are models from the Dreadfleet set that GW released a few years ago. Each set comes with one of each... Yeah, I bought two copies of Dreadfleet... But the second time was mainly for the ocean mat to use for Dystopian Wars, I swear! These are actually pretty fun to paint. The dirigibles are painted with dry rush and wash metallics, and the green and gold from my usual Dwarf army scheme. The dragons were painted with washes and dry rushes on the bodies, but layering on the wings and claws, which take up more room than the bodies at the end of the day. The ocean was painted to match my Dystopian Wars ships, which will also, eventually, match my Dreadfleet ships. So why did I paint them? Well, I wanted a quick project. These are fun, and apart from forgetting some paints, done in an afternoon painting meet up. The White Dragon and a Dirigible did briefly make their way onto a DnD table a few weeks ago ...

I've started some challenges on the OzPainters forum, and this month the challenge is to paint red. Just after it started (yeah, I picked a topic with no specific target for myself, which was fun) I realised I had picked up a classic chaos warrior at a bring and buy (possibly last years EucBowl). Chaos Warriors are red, because the only God worth following is Khorne. Right? Part of the fun has been flipping this guy over to find he is only two years younger than me. Potentially we were both in the UK at the same time, making our seperate ways here, on,y to meet nearly thirty years later. But that meant something else as well... The top right are metal filings from a Privateer Press model I'm working on at the moment. The bottom left, you may notice is a duller grey colour. This model contains lead. That's a blast from the past. I built the base up using my usual tricks, and gave him a white undercoat to prep him for painting on Sunday. As you might be able to tell, the colo...