Mustafar or Mars?

I finally finished my lava world scenery set!

Using a great basing tutorial I had found, I made some drop on scenery tiles for the lava. They took a lot of painting as there was numerous layers to build up the lava effect. Pretty pleased with it tho'!

As it was modular I decided to add an extra tile so it could be useful for AoS as well

YTD 284!

TTFN 

If you go down to the woods today....

....you might meet these folk!

The Sylvaneth are finally over the line. I still need to do their woods but that should be a relatively quick job.

Now to get a game in with them!

The foliage was a bit of a pain in the bum but I'm pleased I did it as I think it finishes them off nicely!

These take my tally for the year so far up to 30.

TTFN!

Nearly there!

These little beggers are nearly done now.

Some varnish, basing and foliage needed still but that shouldn't take long.

I thought these were going to be a quick rather drab paint job but they've taken ages and have ended up being really quite colourful!

TTFN!

Trees and Deserts

Lots to do this year but I've found myself stymied by the current contents of the painting shelf.

My Sylvaneth have been half done for a number of months now and I can't bring myself to pack away unfinished figures in the fear that they'll never see the light of day again.

I have therefore resolved to paint them before continuing with anything else or starting any new projects.

They are straight forward in theory as they are predominately being drybrushed however this is taking longer than I expected as some of the extremities are a bit flimsy and I'm having to be fairly cautious.

Blues and white are added after the greens and browns to try and get a magical glow to the sigils.

 Not much more to do and then they can have some varnish and their foliage added.

I've also done a few more colour tests for my Martian gaming mat. I'm leaning towards the scheme on the right but with lighter highlights as found on the other two samples.

I shall muse on that a while longer.

TTFN.

Progress!

I've gotten my bum into gear and pushed ahead to finish off the massed dryads that were glowering at me from the paint queue. 60 at once can be somewhat of a chore but its a great feeling once they are all completed.

Only 12 figures to paint to finish off the army! I'd best get cracking with them.......

....but only once I've finished off these bad boys! It's bizarre, but I really enjoy painting Iron Warrior stuff. Before I started them I would have been convinced that painting the dull metallic colours would bore me and that the stripes would drive me mad. Actually the opposite is true!

Varnish and basing and they'll be done. Then back to the Sylvaneth.......maybe.

TTFN

 

GoGX: Change my Dear, and not a moment too soon...

It's been a little while but I have been busy. Honest!

First up let's take a look at the last couple of units before the GoGX army is unveiled. Both represent our friend the Blood God...

First up a Skull Cannon.

This little beauty has been sat around for a couple of years partially painted. Originally it was put together and sort of painted for a GoG trip to Nottingham - I forget which year - and then it sat languishing on a shelf upon my return as I got side-tracked by something else.

The crew were repainted as part of the Analog Painting Challenge but I left the Skull Cannon until now as I wasn't sure exactly how I wanted to paint it and the Analog is not a place for uncertainty of paint scheme!

"Can you see where we're going?"... "Nope!".... Thud....

The Swords have been painted to match the usual Khorne flaming design and the crew are painted in a two-tone black/red instead of the normal red as I wanted them to be a little different to my infantry Bloodletters.

Next up a quick visit to the Underworlds of Shadespire. Now this boxset comes with 2 warbands, Khorne Reavers and Stormcast something or other... guess which one I chose to paint up??

Group shot first - meet Garrek's Reavers! I've painted them in the same colours as my AoS Reavers but given these a gold coloured armour as it seemed fitting to give them something a little more plush to suit their status amongst Reavers.

Garrek Gorebeard

 Yes it did take me a while to realise he has bare feet...

Arnulf

Targor

Blooded Saek

Karsus the Chained

Shadespire is a lot of fun so far. And even better this Warband have a warscroll and points so they can be fielded in AoS. Result!

And now the moment you've all been waiting for! SilverFox's take on the Daughters of Khaine for GoGX.

First up then is a unit of Tzaangors. These beastmen are the mainstay of the Daughters of... er... Disciples of... ok. Something's not right here... Let me rewind slightly...

Look I changed my mind. I know. Typical wargamer. I blame Mr.Silverback and his Nurgle boys. I got hammered by them and it finally dawned on me that I lack synergy with my mixed Chaos army; I therefore decided I needed to specialise. The one phase of the game that I've never really taken a look at is the Magic phase. So I looked around for a specialised Chaos army to build that was strong with magic.

Say hello to the Disciples of Tzeentch!

Now, where was I? Oh that's right. Here is a unit of Tzaangors!

The colour pool is the same as for the Kairic Acolytes painted during the Analog Challenge but with the loincloths painted pink with a nice red wash to provide some spot colouration.

They have a nice grey skin which was purely accidental in the fact I was aiming for a blue! Thanks to the GoGs for their votes on the couple of skin choices.

Loads of bling on these boys but again I've steered clear of actual gold paint as I find it can be too shiny.

 That is indeed a horn. With a metallic effect purple finish.

The banner is painted to match the rest of my Chaos Army. Just another 20 of these beasties to paint...

... And finally for this post we have a Gaunt Summoner. He's one of the leaders for this army and I'm pleased with the finished figure since he took just a couple of days in the end.

His skin is blue as he's a leader, plus it merged quite nicely in to the armour especially on the helmet. The feathers are the same basic colours as the loincloths on the Tzaangors to provide more of the same spot colour.

I'm chuffed with how the book pages came out. The flames are painted just like the Brimstone Horrors although with a Rakarth Flesh basecoat rather than white. The dagger also has a coat or two of the yellow shade to merge it with the flames.

And breathe...

What's the tally now then?

b/fwd 960

Skull Cannon 160
Garrek's Reavers 60
Tzaangors 180
Gaunt Summoner 120

Total 1480 / 3650 or 41% complete!

Days since the challenge began 146

Target points after 146 days =1460

 

Amazingly considering my usual ability to get distracted: Still On TARGET! 

GoGX total: 300/2000 = 15% complete

Love to stay and chat but painting waits for no-one...

SilverFox

Some progress....

...but it doesn't feel like much.

I've been plugging away at my new AoS army. The Sylvaneth are all together now apart from the GW woods which I need to do but I want to do the army first.

Dryads are done baring the 4 I've still got coming. I got 48 Dryads with the starter sets but I wanted to round that up to 50 so I'd have full units so I ordered a sprue of 4 to get me to the 50 mark. I was then later sipping all the spares away and discovered that some of the bits from Treelord sprues work well combined with dryad bits. That gave me another 8 dryads emerging from the ground and will take me up to 60 once the extra sprue arrives! Nice!

The big 'uns are some nice models but ooooh soooo spikey! Now to wait for dry weather so I spray the little beggers.

Last night I wanted to paint so the scenery for my 30K siege plan got bumped up the queue. Just the first grey colour applied with a heavy drybrush but its a start.

TTFN

GoG X - The army begins!........ Just not the one I was first planning.....

Well, my resolution to start and finish an Empire/Free Peoples army lasted exactly one post and one long session sticking almost everything I needed together.  "Why on earth is that?" I hear you ask.... well, I blame the Butterfly.  You see, I'd prepped and sprayed some elves (aelves now I suppose under GW's new IP conscious naming conventions.....) and I thought to myself "you know, I think I'll finish these off before starting the Free Peoples".  And whilst doing this, I looked on eBay and "accidentally" found 40 more GW elves that I liked the look of.  I put in a moderate bid, expecting to get beaten and then promptly went and won it.  My mind was then made up, Aelves it would be!  I already had a fair few hanging around looking for a reason to get painted, so the plan was amended......

And just a couple of days late, here are my first 350 points for March.  First up, the offending aelves who had been sprayed and who caused this change of decision.....

30 spear aelves, ready for action.  These are the old high elf sculpts and as GW has basically disowned this line as they no longer sell them, they only have old legacy rules and don't seem to work as part of any type of army.  So I've decided to use most of the army as "Wanderers", who are wood elves to old school players. 

The army will be from the old High Elf territory of Chrace, which is famed for its rugged countryside, forests and wild lions.  Yep, lions :)  I figure that ties the whole wood elf thing in nicely.  An old ebay win included 32 Finecast Chrace shields and it seemed like the perfect time to use them.

As I look at these pictures I note that one of them still needs the black edging done on his base!  I'll head off to do that after posting this.... These lads come to 210 points for the unit, so here's the rest of my painting work to get to the 330-ish target - Lion Rangers!

These chaps are the elite of the fighting force of Chrace, so massive double handed axes and angry expressions all round it is then.  I've got a load more of these to paint as they were my surprise eBay win, so it's a good job I enjoyed painting them!  Even if they do have enough fur to make PETA march angrily on GW HQ en masse.....

140 points for these chaps, so 350 painted this month and probably more Lion Rangers next month before the more unusual units begin......

.....unless another army grabs my attention of course!