This Winter Season just heated up a little

 Okay so I've been a bit sketchy with the updates this year and while I'd like to say its because I'm busy (working, socialising, watching films, getting ideas for minis and dealing with problems at work and home whenever they pop their ugly heads up), I'm afraid it's simply down to lack of time and effort to paint stuff and then post it online. The run up to Christmas doesn't help much on the hobby front either but what else can you do? That said there has been some progress as well as a new acquisition, which doesn't seem to help with the massive pile of projects that I'm still trying to work through.

First off some finished stuff of which there isn't a lot to show.

My Captain Likane mini who I teased a bit in my last update along with some fluff on the guy.

Captain Likane

"You are a leader, Aeonid Thiel. Two thousand Ultramarines stand ready to head your command, I am one of them. Lead us. We won't stand idle while Macragge and Ultramar are threatened. So, we shall all be Red Marked."

Duty. Honour. Respect. These were the tenets that were held by many Legionaries of the XIIIth Legion, none more so than Captain Likane. A veteran of the Great Crusade and later the Underworld War, Likane was an officer of umcomprimising strictness and harsh discipline. As the commander of Oran Garrison, he commanded a force of 2000 Ultramarines who were mustered and kept at readiness for whatever orders to be given by their Primarch. Initially seeing Aeonid Thiel and by extension the Red Marked as a source of shame, unfitting to wear the Cobalt Blue and Gold, events would later show him the error of his ways. From then on, out of respect and a need to take action, the captain volunteered the troops under his command to become members of Thiel's fledgling force. 

 Part of me wishes that he was more dynamic, but then again he's only featured in one audio drama, so I originally didn't think he'd be very active. I tried to carve a bit of the chin from the head to represent his bionic jaw, but I don't think it looks very bionic.

 Apart from his legs and the helmet which are Forgeworld parts, he's made entirely from GW plastic parts. His helmet was my favourite part to paint along with the markings on his knee and shoulder pads.

 While I do wish that I had some pics of my converted FW Praetor model, unfortunately he seems to have come down with a consistent white rash. Basically when I finished painting him and my Slaaneshi Pitfighter conversion I sprayed them both with GW's Purity Seal varnish. After leaving them both for half an hour to dry, I came back to see to my horror that the varnish had frosted over the detail on both minis. This was less than ideal as the paiting competition for the pitfighter model was the next day and didn't want to pull an all-nighter repainting him. After a brief panic, I checked online to see if there was any way I could salvage both models and found an article advising the use of olive oil. Needless to say it worked well enough on both models, however there are still some areas on the Praetor model that are being stubborn and I haven't gotten round to fixing him yet (that and we also ran out of olive oil the next day :S).

And now onto the stuff that's currently taking up more space on my painting desk.

Tau Fireblade

 I've had this guy sitting in my bitzbox half built for over a year and originally bought him as an experimental piece. While he isn't finished yet I am definitely enjoying the change from constantly painting power armoured or even human miniatures.

Tech Priest and Runt Herder

 Again these are models that I've had for a while and decided they both needed some sprucing up. The techpriest mini needed an entire repaint as well as some conversion work to make him stand out. While the Runt Herder deserved to be given a bigger base to make him stand out more from his Grots.

And last but certainly note least the thing that I've been most excited to work through. It's Blood Bowl!!

Oh bugger...

Truth be told I was never a big fan of this game when I first got into the hobby, but after playing a test game against another newbie last week, it's definitely made me excited to play some more. Also being a former player and fan of American Football, this seemed like a logical step. "Why didn't it before?" I hear you ask.

An unconverted Orc Lineman and a simple headswapped Human Lineman (the first of many to come)

 At this time I've managed to convert most of the Orc Team as well as some of the Human Team (I grown to despise duplicate models amongst a unit, so it shouldn't be any different with my Blood Bowl Teams) and I'm hoping to get them painted before Christmas just in time for my girlfriend's brother and I to maybe have a game or two. This should hopefully be enough practice for my local GW's Winter Challenge Cup in January.

With the glorious fanfare of Victory do I return

 Again I return to grace this blog with my presence after a long absence and again I bring more images and hobby progress.

From Left to Right: Half built Landspeeder, Infinity PanOceania Fusiliers, Ultramarine Praetor with Tactical Legionaries, a Techpriest, Astropath, Ultramarine Captain and FW Praetor Tribune.

 Before the long silence, I took photos of some minis that I had on my workbench which I planned to try and finish post haste. Included among this meagre selection, were some projects that I had acquired through Ebay as well as some pre-existing ones for my continued 40k projects.

 I've always liked the look of the Infinity miniatures range, after having built and painted primarily Warhammer minis, the more realistic proportions are a welcome change. The Panoceania Fusilliers are from the Operation Ice Storm boxed set and while they don't offer much in terms of conversion work, they have character of their own to stand out (also if your canny enough then I'm sure you can figure something out).

If I can, at some point I'll make an operative carrying that banner

My plan for these guys (and girl, I'm not sexist), is to paint them up as Overwatch Operatives as seen in the artwork during the Annoucement Cinematic. So blue armour and black/dark grey fatigues. 

Looking at the rest of the Infinity range and given the popularity of Overwatch, I'm surprised no one else has thought to give this a go. If I ever get my hands on some more Infinity minis, I might try and convert some up to represent characters from the actual game (I'm looking at you Soldier 76).

The Red Marked as they stood a while ago

 Moving on from one set of blue things to another, I'm still continuing with the Red Marked Project and have managed to finish a lot more Tactical Legionaries as well as a few charatcers (mainly a couple of Praetors and my Captain Likane conversion)

 Of the two Praetors that I've managed to finish, one of them was the FW store exclusive mini that was sold in Games Workshops a little while ago. As in typical fashion rather than assemble the model as is, I decided to convert the heck out of it and turn it into my take on the Captain of the Invictus Guard, Drakus Gorod.

On the small shield I added a checker pattern, a little nod to one of my favourite blogs Death Of A Rubricist

Unfortunately I don't have an image of Dracos attached to his base yet, but should get round to it soon.

 While I still need to read Angels of Caliban to find out if the Red Marked as well as Drakus get mentioned, I feel like I've made a unique miniature that I can be proud of. I'm most pleased with the cloak, which was a bit from the FW Minotaurs Chapter Master mini) and the base which I built using some spare Chaos Marine parts to represent a dead Word Bearer.

 The other Praetor was built with my March of the Legions Space Marines in mind and will be taking his place amongst them on the display base alongside the Word Bearer that I'm still in the middle of building.

From this worshipper of Khorne...

 Finally, saving the best for last. My local Warhammer store decided to hold a painting competition, which revolved around the latest issue of White Dwarf (September's issue mind) and the free miniature that came with it, a Khorne Slaughterpriest.

..to this Bad Boy in Purple.

 As I had already painted up Champion of Nurgle, and while I did like the model itself, part of me wanted to push the boat out for the competition. So I decided to convert the mini and paint it up as a Slaaneshi Pitfighter. Using a head from the old Fantasy Slaanesh Champion along with some Dark Eldar chains and a Chaos Marauder's spear, I managed to build a winning entry for the comp. That's right I came 1st place as I was the only person who went to the trouble of converting and painting him up in a different colour, the staff picked mines as the winner. Again I am so chuffed with the mini and I think that I might make up a couple of more champions to represent the other Ruinous Powers.

Scale Comparison showing just how big this guy is compare to a Space Marine

Anyway that's me for another update, hope you like the pics and stay tuned as I'll have some more finished models to show off soon.

The Green and the Red

Quick update this time around. Finished working on my two minis which were both an excuse to work on something non-blue for a while. First up is my Warhammer Fantasy/Age of Sigmar (if I ever decide to play either) Chaos Nurgle Champion.

This guy is one of the older metal OOP Champion minis with a plastic chaos warriors head from my bitz box (ebay purchase that was missing the original helmeted head). He has so many little details which were fun to paint, the rotting decapitated head was my favourite part :S

 I've mainly stuck to painting predominately 40K minis, but after looking at some of the recent releases for Age of Sigmar and the Total War Warhammer game's arrival, I had a sudden itch to paint something fantasy and came across this guy on Ebay. I've magnetised his head socket to allow me to switch in his bare head in the unlikely event that should I actually play some fantasy then I can easily switch his head out to represent him on his last wound (not sure how many he would have to begin with, but you never know). With this guy done, I'm actually tempted to try and put together a warband for the upcoming campaign event that GW is going to be hosting soon.

Next up we have something less filthy but no less armoured. A Blood Angel for my Horus Heresy Red Marked army.

 

 This guy was made from some random parts I had lying around (eg. old space marine banner top, White Dwarf subscription mini's chainsword arm, Betrayal at Calth and Tactical squad parts) and is meant to represent a volunteer from the Blood Angels Legion present at Ultramar that joins Aeonid Thiel's Red Marked. At some point he will be accompanied by either more of his Legion brethern or act as an assault squad leader for the Ultramarines. Additionally this guy was also based on my friend Myk of Little Plastic Castle.

 Having already been painting red helmets I felt that it would be just as easy to paint a marine in red armour. Using the older foundation paint Merchite Red, I think I've managed to achieve a convincing colour for this Blood Angel. The winged skull ornament on his right shoulder guard is also a little nod to the awesome Blood Quest comic series, which was my first introduction to the Blood Angels and still has a special place in my heart.

Group shot with the rest of the Red Marked completed so far.

Buddy Cop esque shot with Aeonid Thiel

As always hope you enjoy the pics.

A sign of things to come...

 Rather than dither on real life commitments getting in the way of hobby progress, I'm just gonna dive straight into what I've been working on and what I've got done recently.

 As I promised a little while ago, I present to you my finished Valhallans. The majority of them were painted 5 years ago as part of a box set I received and I have the intention of selling them off at some point.

They are not my best work I'm afraid but I do like the faces on some of them. My particular favourite amongst them is the one actually wearing his helmet featured above.

 Surprise, surprise, it's more Space Marines. I've been trying to work on a playable Horus Heresy force for some time and these Ultramarines (who I went on at length in my last post) have been slowly taking over my hobby bench, displacing my Novamarines as well as my other side projects.

 Currently they're sitting at my least favourite stage which is the basecoating stage, but once I'm past that it'll be onto washes and then the fun part, highlighting.

In addition to some Ultras, I've also managed to cobble this little Blood Angel together using some spare parts I had lying around. This little guy will be joining the Red Marked at a later point, but he's coming together quite nicely.

 Finally something that is finished other than the Valhallans, it's Master Chief! I showed this guy off in one of my previous posts after being inspired by the news that we'll finally be getting a Halo miniature tabletop game. He was a nice change of pace, as he's smaller than the usual minis I usually paint. I had alot of fun painting him to match his Halo 5 appearance and in particular his assault rifle.

Hope you enjoy the pics.