From MarkW : 28mm Sedition Wars (80 points)

Hi Everyone,

Thanks to everyone for the great welcome and comments on my previous (and first post) to the challenge. It was a real boost and finally, I have managed to catch up with where I wanted to be last week and get the first batch of painted miniatures fully based up.

This submission is for  16 28mm miniatures from the Sedition Wars range by Studio Mcvey that were manufactured I think in 2013. The background on them is not so clear to me, but you are basically looking at the stereotypical futuristic special forces. 

The one element of the background that does stick in my memory about them is that the operators are all "sleeved" and "backed up" before they make planetfall.

 If you have ever read any of Richard Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs series this will be familiar (but if you haven't don't worry the first book Altered Carbon is coming to Netflix soon anyways).

In Richard Morgan's series, special forces types called Envoys would have their personality and memories digitised and stored (the backed up bit) then squirted through wormholes from one end of the galaxy to the other because its cheaper and quicker than physically travelling. At the far end they would be downloaded into host bodies called Sleeves. Interestingly these could be custom built bodies or even criminals who give up their bodies for "community service".

If you like cyberpunk or hard scifi in general I strongly recommend them - but only after you finish the challenge of course. 

(oops, the front shot of these 4 was too blurry to use - shot of the back only )

Anyway, back to the models themselves - I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with them to be fair. The concept and the design is first rate but they were disappointingly cast in restic that does not capture the detail and was an absolute nightmare to clean up. 

Add to that huge mouldlines with ill fitting components and it was probably my worst hobby experience just getting these guys and girls ready to paint. And then, to top it all off, the green base spray gave them a grainy finish -  like the gods of miniatures was conspiring against me. 

They languished, unpainted, untouched and unloved in my hobby tool box for over three years until the challenge. Now I see them together in the group shot its been worth the effort. Not the best paint job I have ever done but its 80 points in the bag. I am sure you will all have similar horror stories about miniatures that feel like they just are never meant to be painted. 

But they have been, and here they are together. (The sharp eyed of you will see the count is 17, but I could not resist putting in the lone trooper from last week in the group shot)

The plan now is to finish the last 9 of them and support weapons before moving onto the creature feature of their adversary on the planet Alabaster...............The Strain. (no relation to the TV show)

.........................
16x 28mm infantry from Studio Mcvey

Welcome back Mark and great to see that you managed to get the rest of the Samaritans finished!  As with last week, I'm a fan of the warm armour tones with the cooler visor colours.  I also like the mix of male and female sculpts, which adds variety.

I'm a fan of the Takeshi Kovacs books, so it's fun to see the same tech used here!  Are there any hero figures to accompany this lot against the Strain?  I am looking forward to the gribblies making their appearance shortly as I seem to recall there are some absolute monsters in the range..... 80 points as you state for these chaps and long may they push the rule of the benevolent corporations!

From MarkW: 28mm Studio Mcvey Sedition Wars Samaritan (5 points)

Hi Everyone,

It is the first time in the challenge for me and really looking forward to attacking the pile of metal and plastic and sharing the progress with you all. At only 500 points, I don't have the biggest target in the world but its going to be a stretch.

Today was supposed to be the big kick off, with a good sized unit of Studio Mcvey's Samaritan troopers from the game Sedition Wars.

In true challenge style I have been busy hitting the paints only to complete all the painting,  all the miniatures and the bases only suddenly realise I was going to miss the first deadline gluing them together.

So instead of 17 miniatures that were planned - I have one, but hopefully this means next weeks submission will be a lot easier. 5 points is 1% of the target, so not the worst start in the world.

It's the first time in years to truly break out the paints, so I am aiming for a quick, easy and relatively simple scheme.

This is my favourite shot; making it seem like he is backing off from something just out of shot. I have plenty of very gribbly creatures to paint up from the Sedition Kickstarter so will definitely pose a few scenes in the future.

The sculpts are first rate, but really let down by the restic material and my overzealous use of the spray cans in basing - giving the slightly roughened appearance.

Looking forward to a bigger update next week.

Cheers

MarkW

A huge welcome to the Challenge Mark!  And I note that you've immediately stumbled across the exact same issue that I (and many others I have no doubt) have in the challenge, namely the fact that time always seems to move faster the closer to the deadline you get......

 

But what a brilliant start - the blue visor is a wonderfully cool counterpoint to the warm armour tones. I'm also a fan of the "If I walk away from the large beastie I've just discovered then I have more time to shoot it with my plasma gun" pose this brave chap has struck.

 

Sedition Wars mostly passed me by, but I do like the look of a lot of the sculpts so I'm looking forward to seeing more of them.

 

It's also great to hear that the lure of the challenge has you at your paints again after a hiatus, I'm sure that'll warm the cockles of Curt's heart to hear as it's the primary aim of the challenge - 5 points as you correctly surmise and you're off and running!

MarkW - No 52 Next batch after a break(90 points )

Well isn't work a pain in the backside at times.

Last 2 weeks have had a real upturn in work, and thus painting has not been the first thing on my mind.  But I have managed some progress and here it is

10 Grave Guard (New plastics)
2 Spirit Hosts
1 Banshee
1 Zombie Dragon
1 Bloodthirster

So 1 of the spirit hosts and the banshee are Reaper miniatures and arrive in a blister and are made of clear green plastic one piece casting. The plastic is quite malleable, slightly less dense than an old Airfix toy solider.  None the less, the paint effect makes all the detail stand out.

The wings on that Blood Thirster were very simple and took about 20 mins with an airbrush, then a dry brush, then 4 different coloured washes - the effect is magnificent to my eyes and better in the flesh.

The Zombie Dragon was one of those models that makes you take time off after doing is it was a pig to paint.  Such hard work to get a good finish, I put the second one I have to assembled in a box and away from sight...

Lastly, I promosed a how to guide on the basing as I have had a lot of positive feedback. (thanks 😛)

So After painting I apply Vallejo Thick Mud (http://www.scalemodelshop.co.uk/200ml-european-thick-mud-vallejo-26-807.html).  It clearly looks like something less pleasant than mud, but goes very easily and is water soluble in this state.

Using a brush or coffee stirring stick I mould in some puddles and lumps and then leave to dry for 12+ hours.

For purposes, the colour is too light.  So I paint it with GW Rhinox Hide, or as normal people call it - Dark Brown.

I then do a quick dry brush of Grey and blob some green patches.  Once the Vallejo Still Water is on, these green patches turn into a depth of colour that looks like floating algae.

Then I use some tufts of various sizes, colours and shapes that I have got from Ebay. I found this seller who does buy 3 get 1 one free type deals and the range is great. http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Serious-Play?_trksid=p2047675.l2563

From there I add Vallejo Still Water, and then sprinkle on some swamp debris (another product in a bag from that Ebay seller) and leave to dry for 24 hours, do the sides of the base black and there it is done.

Wow, Mark! Not to sure where to begin with this one! From the top, The spirit hosts and banshee really pop with that spirtit effect you use complimented with your basing. The skellies with the unborn spirits have to be my favorite of that lot with the further contrast and story element.

The grave guard are excellent too! I rather like the purple on them as I don't usually asociate that color with undead, but it works really well with them.

Now to the big bads of the bunch... That bloodthirster is probably the best chaos demon I have ever seen, and I am far from a fan of that line. I like the wide array of colors you've put on him and still remained faithful to the red and bronze armor. The wings are the focus of this model and the detail you picked out of them is astounding! I just built a big GW model and while i hate the cost, I do appreciate how far they have honed model making in the past 30 years. This baddie is better than the GW store gallery!

The Reaper fellows are IMO hot on the heels of GW for model craft and the Bones line is a boon for the hobbyist's pocketbook. Even with my hassle of vanishing paint, I'm still keen to get some more. I haven't picked up on their big beasts, but I'm certain one or two will come my way...He gave you some bother(vanishing paint?) but once again your pallet and brushwork picked out a lot of detail on him. He is a real pig of a menace too! I probably wouldn't notice him munching through my dwarves as I'd be distracted by his granduer! ;)

Lastly, I predict this page is gonna get bookmarked for that basing tutorial!

Good show, Mark!

I put your spirit hosts in as vicks and placed the big fellows as 54mm infantry plus a touch extra for sheer awesome!

Mark W No 52 - More AOS Death/Undead - 160 points

So second blog post for me and as expected that dreadful thing called work has had a part to play in my life over the last week or so and it has slowed me down a touch.

That said, I have had 3 models which were a joy to paint.  You know the ones, the ones that you get great enjoyment from as you paint it.  You enjoy every colour application and you feel like you can do no wrong.  There are no worries about colour palette, no worries on where should the shading go, and no concerns about that weird thing on his belt, or what colour should his loin cloth be to best define this as thing to not to mess with in battle.  The polar opposite of these models are the mind numbing rank and file, not the "I will paint 10 of these and then allow myself to go paint something else" models. Or the "do I have to paint 36 red leather belts before I can get bite of that biscuit" type of models - yuk.

So 3 good ones and 23 rank and file for me.  Which is good, as the model I am working on for next week is a complete b**** troll from hell (not rules wise sadly) and should have a painters frustration warning on the box.  Anyway, back to the delight I call the Forgeworld Mournghul and 2 x Archai. ahhhhhhh just lovely.

The Mournghul is in fact the first reason I acquired an undead army.  Not having seen this before I saw it at the Warhammer World Museum in Nottingham, it was love at first fright. The rest, as the saying goes, was murder no sorry, I meant ... is history.  I can confirm that one horse was eviscerated in the making of the model, but only a resin one.  Those of a sensitive disposition, look away now.  The blood effects are from the subtly named Blood for the Blood God from GW - a great effect paint and well worth it if this is your sort of thing.  I meant to add something for scale - my bad but this is slightly taller that the Archai in the pics coming up.

The 2 Archai were easy to put together and fun to paint albeit a touch wobbly.  I included the skeleton in for scale and did not paint that one :)

On to my rank and file for the week.  I added in 3 very old metal citadel miniatures to the army, 2 Necromancers and a Wight king.  Very old indeed, pre-slotta in fact, hence the extra foliage.

And I added 20 new skeletons to the mix of the now 67 (more located this week) old ones I have rebased.  The main way that these have improved is that the heads are now in proportion to the body.  If the old 1980s/90s skeletons had flesh on them the poor people would have had heads so large they would have a gravitational pull, or as we call it in our gaming circle "The Freeth Phenomena"  (private joke sorry and if he see's that I am dead)

I received a lot of positive feedback - thank you - for my basing.  These skellies have been based on resin bases from Secret Weapon miniatures - blasted swamp I think they are called.  I then used some foliage and tufts before using Vallejo Still water for the topping.  For my next post, I will do a step by step walk through for one that isn't based on a resin base (of which there are quite a few) so you can see how I have done it.

Happy painting fellow challengers and enjoy!

 

 

Mark, this undead army is really coming along very well. The Mornghul is very impressive, but i doubt the outrider and horse were appreciative of the "free hug"! As impressive as the Mornghul hugger is, I really like the Archai, those polearms just as imposing as their stature.

I am also pleased to see the older models of the line mixing in with the newer pieces. Besides the excellent base work which is about how I'd imagine Sylvania to be, i like how you further tie in your unquiet dead with touches of that spectral green.

by carefull scientific method of counting toes, and arcane incantations cursed at the spread sheet, we will plus your tally with 115 points and consider the big gribblies as 54mm with a couple extra for the them and the punchiness of the submission will bring you up to 160 points total.

Fantastic job!

First Entry MarkW No 52 Games Workshop Undead and Ogres 275 Points

Firstly 2 thank yous.
Firstly to the team behind the great challenge - it has been a shot in the arm for me and got me out of a hobby funk.
Secondly to my good friend who recommended it after 2 previous appearances in your challenge.

On to the models.

I have started an undead army for Age of Sigmar and I am using this challenge as the vehicle for me to get through this.  I have had quite a productive 2 weeks since the start and have completed a fair bit over Christmas.

Now I admit photography is not my strongest skill, so please excuse the pics.

I therefore present for your review

10 Ghouls
10 very old recycled and metal Grave Guard
1 Wight King
1 Wraith
1 Banshee
1 Abhorrant Ghoul King
5 Hexwraiths
4 spirit hosts (incl one made of old Citadel metal figures)
1 Black Coach 
1 Coven Throne

The coven throne was a joy to paint, but a pain to assemble.  I have fond memories of playing against a Black Coach in a Vampire Army about 14 years ago, the coven throne really shows how far GW have moved forward in their design and ability to provide large models.  

I wanted a stand out army and I always feel that basing adds a lot to the miniatures so I have gone for a mix of resin bases and the use of Vallejo basing materials to craft the earth where they don't do resin bases in that size of shape.  This is all finished off with Vallejo Still water and various bits of basing foliage and clumps.

In addition I completed a small christmas present for another friend of 3 x Titan Forge Deep Sea Diving Ogres (including a captive Mermaid).

As for points, that is 27 foot figures at 28 mm which is 135 points.  For the cavalry, spirit hosts and two big things I am not sure so I will leave for the rules wizards to tell me.

Lastly, I have also had time to rebase some old skeletons.  A friend donated these to my Undead army and they are original White Plastic skeletons from one of the original citadel Skeleton Army boxes.  I rebased 53 of these.  As I am not touching the paint job they are not eligible for this challenge, but I thought I would share how good they look on decent round bases as opposed to square.

My major concern about this challenge was that I thought me being productive would lead to a smaller paint queue and gaps on my shelves.  For some bizarre reason, this is not true in either case.
first a confession- this post was ready in time for publication LAST week, but I was busy doing weird things like math and looking for stray cables to electronics whose functions I don't understand.
Mark, this is a very nice army. I really like the color option you selected for the spirits and like how you carried it through to the war machines of the black coach and the massive spirit mob! From the just right gore on the ghouls, color of the spirits, inclusion of the older skellies with the newer plastic sculpts, the wonderful boggy basework, this is an impressive host.
I really like the orgres as well, swinging anchors with the brass diving helms, they are very nice sculpts and I'm envious of your friend who received them!
so one plus one[counts toes...be a moment]
253 point paint bomb with an extra 17 points for the war machine details brings you to 275!
great Job!