Painting? What's That?

So I have had a few days of not doing very much if anything at all wargaming or hobby wise. Today, while running a game of 3rd Edition D&D with my son, T, I managed to finish highlighting the green on the next batch of Maiden Guard and started basing the white on the weapons and shields (I didn't get very far with that specifically). Tomorrow I'll be running the first session of a larger game of current-edition D&D, so I'm probably not going to get much actual painting done again for a while. I would like to get these done by Tuesday, but it's unlikely to happen. After last year's furious painting I feel like I've slowed down considerably this year.

Photo taken with flash, which makes the green look a bit too yellow. I may have put a bit too much Yriel Yellow into the highlight mixes, but... ah well, different dyes and paints produce different shades and tones anyway!

Once they are done, though, I'm not sure what I'll work on next, apart from the commission pieces I still (still!) have to finish.

More Green, More Flesh

Only a little painting tonight. I hit the green on the High Elves with a Biel-Tan shade wash, followed by the first layer highlight of the original colours, and then spent most of the rest of the session finishing up the Slaaneshi Marauder miniature. 

Who needs clothes when you're a devotee of the Darkling Prince, She Who Thirsts?

I'm pleased with the skin, there was a lot of highlight tones put into her

Pain is pleasure, and pleasure is pain, and both are the blessings of Slaanesh

Her left eye wasn't very well defined, but this angle makes it look like she's got it closed - she doesn't, they're both open!

I must dig out the other Slaaneshi Marauders I have and see what they look like (and finish any that need finishing). However that's for another day. I have High Elves to finish:

 

Gary Morley's 4th Edition Maiden Guard, with added shields, showing off (just about) the various green tones across the models

And the more heavily armoured unit, posed firing their arrows as the rear ranks would be doing most of the time

I have no idea how to light models. This is the Level 2 High Magic Wizard who'll be joining the force as it hits the 1,000 point mark

I had hoped to get more done this weekend, but such is life. No matter. The Elves will be done soon enough, after all.

Painting Points:
Today: 1
This Week: 2
2026: 42 

A Little Silver, A Little Green

And a tiny bit of peach, as well, to be fair. Today I spent some time painting the Maiden Guard, getting their armour finished and moving onto blocking out the greens. Next step for them will be to highlight the various green elements and then move onto the white cloth, bows, and spear hafts. After that it's gold, gems, skin, hair... the usual fanfarol. Shouldn't take too long, particularly not if I spent much of tomorrow painting, which I may well do. 

Such an awful photo, I'm so sorry. Anyway you can see the green on the shields, even if you can't see the green anywhere else...

In addition, I felt bad for the started-but-not-continued minis I had sat on the painting desk, so I grabbed some peach flesh colour and started to work on the skin of a Slaaneshi Chaos Marauder. What makes a Chaos Marauder Slaaneshi, you say? 

Nudity and a hint of BDSM, mostly

 
The skin is mostly blocked out on her, but I'm going to do a bit more work on it - there's so much of it showing I'm going to try and put a bit of time into it. And that's that for today, anyway!

 

Kickstarter Time!

A while ago I posted about getting the STL portion of my reward from the GrimForge Mordheim Kickstarter. Today, all the way from Italy, in two lovely little cardboard boxes, came the physical portion of the reward - some nicely cast miniatures, and some really gorgeous Slaanshi flavoured D6s!

A Court of Profane Pleasures! Front, L-R: Two Slaaneshi Cultists with swords, daggers, and bucklers; three Chaos Hounds in front of two Wretches with swords and daggers; two Slaangors with swords, daggers, and hand crossbows. Rear, L-R: A Danseuse with Great Claw and dagger; a Whipmaster with man-catcher; a Priest of the Obscene with pistol; a Flesh Merchant with double-handed weapon; a Devout with sword, dagger, and buckler 

I'm excited to paint these up. I have no idea how they play, but that's almost irrelevant - I think they're fascinatingly bizzare and creepy models with just the right mix of perversion, mutation, and elegance.

The dice! How cool are these?

And, of course, I got the dice! There were actually seven, but that is not at all the sacred number of the Princess of Pleasure, so I'm giving one to a friend of mine and keeping these. I'll use them whenever I need to make Auspicious Rolls with a Slaaneshi model. 

More Bad Photos, But Definitely Some Painting At Last

I think I just need to take the lighting from the hall where LUNAR meets and stick it in my house. I did some painting tonight - not a lot, just enough to break the drought and set the stage for some completed miniatures in the near future - and the photos are just awful. Ah well, here they are:

The Everqueen herself! I need to do a fair bit of touching-up around the skin, and do some more highlights on the gold areas, not to mention the jewels and the hair and the leather and the jade rune and...

The next batch of Maiden Guard, including the Level 2 Wizard

 

L-R: A modern day captive/bystander for modern or near-future settings, a Slaaneshi marauder for my Warriors of Chaos army, and the same mini but printed at a smaller scale for a Skaven slave unit, and a prisoner for Mordheim purposes

Speaking of Mordheim! On the left, a Slaaneshi-corrupted Empire sort, and on the right, a wizard for hire

Tomorrow I'll be trying to finish the Everqueen and maybe the Marauder and get some of the base colours down on the Maiden Guard, too. Who knows, maybe I'll do loads of painting over the weekend... I doubt it though. We shall have to see!

Back To The Printing Mines

The last few days have been very full of people-related activity, and not so much on the hobby front. I did finally pick up some new black spray undercoat, so I might actually try that out at some point, but other than that I've sort of avoided the painting table for a while. Which is annoying. I have stuff to paint!

On the other hand, I have done a little bit more 3D printing. I sent an Iron Sultanate warband to a friend in Sheffield, and a bunch of monopose 1980s style Skaven and shields for the same all the way round the world to another friend in Aotearoa (New Zealand, for those of you who aren't aware that it has another, older, name). And for myself, I printed some more Maiden Guard and a couple of options for a Level 2 Wizard to bump my Maiden Guard force up to 1,000 points for the next stage of the Escalation League.

There's two missing Maiden Guard, because of a misprint. I'll make more tomorrow I think. The mage at the right rear is a female version of the mage from Heroquest, while the mage at right front is just a generic elf. I cut down her ears, which were ridiculously huge, and gave her a bow and arrow because I decided she'd have the Shadow Stalker Honour, letting her pal around with the Sisters of Avelorn and add a bit of firepower if her spells weren't up to much in the shooting phase - after all, Wizard she may be, but that's still BS4 she's got!

 
So other than that I have The Itch to do some painting, but I probably won't have any time to actually do any until Wednesday, because tomorrow I have a game of Mordheim with B and a 750pt Escalation League game with K, both at the LUNAR club (which now has a funky logo, courtesy of my partner P):

Tomorrow I get to hand out membership cards and induct people into the cul- errr club. Should be a nice time, and I'm looking forwards to the games!

An Undercoat Is Still Painting, Right?

Yesterday I didn't do anything hobby related, really; apart from putting together some pre-generated characters for a one-short Dark Heresy 1st Edition game I was going to run tonight at the local TTRPG club. Alas, the Omnissiah was not with us, and a fault with our car meant I had to cancel. With the newly freed up time, I did the only thing I could possibly do:

 No, not work on the commission.

 Of course not. Why would I do that?

I painted the names on the latest additions to the Ninefold Path of Eight Ways! These three are the "Arrows of Fate", a small henchman group to support my various close combat monsters and to provide a bit of a guard for my Magestrix in case something nasty comes to try and fight her

That said I didn't just paint the names on some models. Oh no. I also broke out the Abaddon Black and some recently 3D printed minis, and undercoated them. This included...

...this chap! I finally managed to print the Yuzbasi who commands the Iron Sultanate Warband without the top half of his strange harpy-creature's head disappearing. I did need to fill a bit on one of her wings, but that wasn't nearly as difficult as replacing the top half of her head!

 
The other figures include two copies of a woman with a spear; one for my putative Slaaneshi Chaos Warrior army and one for a vaguely-conceived idea of a Skavenslave unit that's made up of a whole range of various figures (not just Skaven!); both of which are 6th Edition Warhammer armies. There's also a prisoner who'll work nicely as an objective for Mordheim scenarios, and a slightly misprinted (as it turns out) High Elf wizard that I was planning to add to my Maiden Guard army. Having undercoated her I'm not sure I like the model enough to actually use it, so I'm on the hunt for a new model now. Ah well.

Speaking of new models, a while ago I backed a Kickstarter for a new Mordheim warband: the Court of Profane Pleasures, sculpted by Dario Biancheri. I got access to the STLs today, and now they're all downloaded I think I'll probably print a few over the weekend. They'll be great to scatter around all sorts of places, from Mordheim to 40K.

 

Just A Little Distraction

Well, I've had a bit of a quiet day apart from work, and the end result of all of that is that rather than do any painting, I've put the 3D printer to work. I've promised to send a bunch of very old style monopose Skaven command, as well as 32 shields for the same sort of model, to a friend in the Antipodes. Then I've also offered to send some Iron Sultanate troops to another friend in Sheffield, and, of course, I have to print the My Little Pony Marauder IIC for C's comedy purposes.

A 3D print file! This is a monopose Skaven musician

So I've been setting up various 3D print files, and eyeing up the commission miniatures, and organising a game of Mordheim for tomorrow night with B, who has Orcs and Goblins... and a troll. So that'll be interesting for my tiny little band of cultists to deal with! Anyway, I'm off to press "print" on a plate full of rats and other random figures.

Uh Oh

Well, I got the commission pieces out, and I put paint to model... then I ran out of brain to paint. This has happened before and it's usually a sign of burnout or of lacking the desire to work on something. Which is fine when it isn't a commission! This, of course, is a commission, and I really need to crack on with it. Being able to work on it for about ten minutes before going "URGH" and stopping is not, shall we say, ideal. My brain is full of ideas of things to print - another Battletech mini for C, the Level 2 Wizard for my Maiden Guard (as well as more Maiden Guard and a Bolt Thrower!), some Skaven and shields I promised a friend I'd print and post to her last year, and some other bits and pieces.

And then there's that church, which I really want to paint up, glue together, and fix to a board so that it can be used for basically any 28mm gaming from fantasy to historicals and even some SF if you squint at it right.

But I really have to do the commission, so here are some photos of the "progress" I made today to try and chivvy myself on:

The commission pieces - 11 in total, one yet to be undercoated; three completed

I highlighted the red and did a bit more of the white. Great success!

 I'm also in the process of arranging to run a D&D campaign with some new friends from LUNAR, which will be good fun. On Tuesday I'm not entirely sure if I have a game lined up for the Llangefni Wargamers meeting, so I should organise that, too.

And then I really need to get painting on this commission...

 

Hang On, That's Not A Spaceship

So today I was intending to get some commission painting done. What actually happened was I did a whole bunch of admin stuff relating to our finances, went to the local RPG group to play some D&D as my wood elf Circle of the Moon druid, came home, and realised I needed to make a blog post and go to bed. Oops.

Anyway, here's a church my friend A gave me the other day, and which I have only just worked out the footprint of and how it goes together:

 

It's a 3D printed job, using FDM technology, unlike my resin printer. These are the component parts...

...and this is what it looks like put together. It's 19" long, 11" wide and 11" tall! 

Lots of room inside for models, too, and the rubble is a really nice mix between looking great and being practical for gaming with

Anyway at some point I'll get a load of cheap acrylics and get this finished. I'll definitely put it on a base, though.

Gold And Gems

I did a chunk of work while playing Dungeons and Dragons tonight, and managed to get the Maiden Guard to a point where they're almost done. I need to highlight the skin, do the details on the rubies, touch them up, and base them. The Battle Standard Bearer needs a bit more doing - mostly the actual design on the banner needs to be freehanded on, but I also want to do a bit more highlighting on the gold on her as well.

They're rapidly approaching the "finished" point, but I will need to fill those holes in the bases...

 Once I get this lot done, it's off to the spaceship commission, and then possibly time to go back to some more, uh, Maiden Guard for the next 250 points, which is made up of, um, 10 more Maiden Guard. I have a feeling I'll be painting these figures for a good chunk of this year!

 

A Standard Fit For A Queen

No post yesterday, but I did do a little bit of hobbying - I constructed the standard for my Maiden Guard Battle Standard Bearer! Initially I was planning on getting P to sculpt me a standard top in Blender that I could 3D print and put on top of the 1mm thick bit of wire that I was going to use for the standard pole, but then I thought I'd probably have something suitable in the ol' bits box(es). After a good ten or fifteen minutes' of rummaging, I actually found a bunch of High Elf plastic sprues with banner parts on! After chucking those together with some judicious cutting, drilling, and gluing, I ended up with...

The crossbar and flag is from the High Elf Spearmen set (I think); the speartip is from the High Elf Noble and Battle Standard Bearer kit's lance, the heart with fancy rays coming off it is from the Silver Helms kit 

You can see the pieces a little (emphasis on little, this is a terrible photo) more clearly here

Today I spent some time bringing her up to the same standard as the rest of the Maiden Guard on the painting table, and blocked out the base colours for the design of the flag, as well:

The standard is going to be an interesting bit of freehand

The actual design is taken straight from the section on Avelorn in the old Games Workshop publication Heraldry of the High Elves, as seen here:

Obviously in my version the image of Isha will have brown skin and sleek black hair, which may prove a minor issue in contrasting colours, but in for a penny in for a pound and all that

 In addition, I did some more work on the Maiden Guard in general, blocking out their skin and highlight all the leather, as well as undercoating all the red areas on them too.

After I finish these, the next 250 points for this army will be made up of... 10 more Maiden Guard!

So, quite a productive couple of days, really. And, on top of all that work, I spent some time after work tonight creating the Mordheim Gazetteer, which I will use to chronicle the Llangefni United Nerds And Roleplayers Club's Mordheim campaign. It's starting in earnest next week, and it'd be fun to get some more eyes on it other than just the club. Check it out!

Progress Is Progress

Today, despite my best efforts, I have only managed to highlight the greens, basecoat the weapons and clothes, and highlight those white on most - but not all - the Maiden Guard I'm currently working on. I did also put together a couple of movement trays for them for Tuesday, though, and I think what I'll do tomorrow evening is focus on the replacement commander miniature for Ailliaerien, because I'd really like to get her done at the very least if not the others.

It turns out that painting white is a bit slow, for some reason, particularly when you're also playing Dungeons and Dragons at the same time

I really need to get a move on with these. I had honestly thought I could crank them out this weekend, but alas! I did not. 

Green Grow The, Er, Capes

Today I didn't get much painting done (oops) but I have at least managed to highlight the metalwork on the Maiden Guard as well as get all the greens to the stage where they're ready for highlighting. Tomorrow, more work. I want to get my commander done by Tuesday, and I may as well try to knuckle down and get all of them done for then. Once they're finished I'm going to work on the commission I had from last year (eek) of the spaceship game pieces.

Green! And silver! But today was mostly about painting green

 A short blog entry for today, honestly, but as a final note - I ran more D&D for my son, T, where his fighter finally made a friend (possibly) in the mysterious elf ranger Llanhevar, and got voluntold for a job by a local lord to go and investigate a haunted keep. On the way there some wolves attacked the pair, which they dealt with handily; and when they arrived (having paused overnight at a very scared nearby village) they were ambushed by gnolls... 

A Change Of Clothes

I didn't get a great deal done today. I started to put some paint on my new version of my Maiden Guard commander, as well as swapped the enormous sword on her old version for a new, smaller (but still large) one. I also printed the rest of the Iron Sultanate models I have, although the Yuzbasi seems to have a strange error in the file - the head of the funny little harpy that sits on his arm just refuses to print properly. I've printed two of them now and both have the same error. It's very odd. I'll have to investigate it.

It's only a start but I think it's a serious glow-up

The Lion of Jabir is a cool mini but my favourite is the Azeb woman with the flag

Tomorrow I'm going to paint more. I want to get my Maiden Guard sorted!

Friend Computer Is Your Friend

And you can trust friends! This evening P and I went down to meet up with the local RPG nerds in Llangefni again, and this time instead of playing Dungeons and Dragons, I ran a one-shot game of PARANOIA: Red Clearance Edition. Troubleshooters PIP-R-1, MAR-R-1, REB-R-1, TIN-R-1, ARI-R-1, and SON-R-1 were tasked with a serious and urgent mission to defend Alpha Complex from terrorism! By taking a malfunctioning scrub-bot to a Technical Service Centre.

In the course of this mission, four clones of ARI-R died, two clones of REB-R, one of MAR-R, and one of TIN-R. This meant the casualty rate was 133% amongst the Troubleshooting Team. Additionally, an unknown number of Infrared clearance clones were eliminated (they were probably traitors anyway. Or communists. Or mutants. Or maybe even communist mutant traitors), the Technical Service Centre was set on fire, the scrub-bot was exploded, and several items of mission-critical equipment such as the megaphone and three fragmentation grenades were lost, damaged, destroyed, or - worse - utilised inappropriately.

Following the debriefing, the Combat Officer was both eliminated and promoted, the ARI- line of clones was deleted from the clone genetic database, MAR-R-2 was demoted to MAR-I-2, and TIN-R-2 was promoted to TIN-O-2 and made permanent voluntary mandatory bonus duty Combat Officer. 

Final mission status: [error: please report all errors to the <filenotfound> Department]

Everyone seemed to enjoy it which was gratifying and they may even want to play more in the wonderful world of Alpha Complex, where a request for Pom-Poms is met with a robot giving you 27 copies of page 1 of 3 of the Pom-Pom Request Form which must be filled in in triplicate using only blue ink. You still don't have any Pom-Poms. And why haven't you completed the form? Wasting forms is suspicious behaviour, citizen.

My view - the GM screen is actually from the 40K TTRPG Dark Heresy 1st Edition

In other news, today the Handmaiden of the Everqueen model I'd ordered from Games Workshop at the beginning of the week arrived. I was busily putting her together when I realised I had a spare left arm from one of the 3D prints that might work really well for a new pose...

It's not the best angle, but the way she's posed now is as if she's beckoning her troops forwards, swishing her cape aside contemptuously to expose her sheathed sword, filled with haughty grandeur and the knowledge of her own skill and power - she makes a much better army commander than my poor kitbashed and converted model on the left

Of course this led to some decisions. I had originally intended her to be used as "just" a Handmaiden of the Everqueen character in larger games, but the new pose is so cool, and so commanding, that I decided she will replace my existing Aeilliniarie model, who will become the champion of the next unit of Handmaidens that I make. Which of course now means I need to decide how to represent Aeilliniarie's shield without ruining the pose and lines of the new model... and I also need to paint the new version before this coming Tuesday... and I need to rejig my larger lists because I'll be short a Handmaiden (who, regardless, can't sit with the "Lothern Sea Guard" without removing their cool Sea Guard ability to reform before receiving a charge or be able to stand and shoot while doing it). Ah well.

And, as a final note, I realised that the bases I'd put my Azebs and Sultante Sapper on were too big. They're supposed to go on 25mm diameter round bases, not the 32mm rounds I actually used. Guess I'll fix those tomorrow.

Sound The Trumpets, The Minions Of Shaytan Approach

Today my copy of the Trench Crusade rules arrived, completing my Kickstarter pledge reward for Trench Crusade. I have, of course, immediately flicked through it (it's gorgeous) and plonked some of my Iron Sultanate minis onto the painting table alongside the more Maiden Guard that I'm working on.
 

It's a beautiful book, nicely laid out, and with really high production values. Well worth the wait

The Iron Sultante troops I have at the moment ready to paint are three Azebs, a Sapper, and a Jabirean Alchemist. I have some other stuff I can print too, such as a Yuzbasi (the commander), more Azebs (including a really swanky standard bearer) and a Scripture Guardian, which seems like an interesting creature.

The front two are a bit out of focus, but they are the Jabirean Alchemist (front left), a Sapper (front right) and then behind them three Azebs, two (left and centre) with muskets and the third (right) with a flamethrower. Death to the infidel!

As for the Maiden Guard, well, it's strangely comforting to paint them now...

I'm really proud of my kitbash for the Battle Standard Bearer (front right) and the 3D prints are all really quite nice - reasonably crisp, paint up well, look the part when complete

So although nothing finished today, a lot started and hopefully I'll be a nice way along towards completion of the Maiden Guard by the end of the weekend. We'll see, as I so often say on this blog...

The Tears Of Isha Flow

For the Elves of Avelorn march to war! 

At last I finished the first 500 points of this ridiculous theme army of the Maiden Guard. I have flags - made very kindly for me by my partner P - but no PVA glue or anything with which to glue them to the banner poles (curses)!

First up, we have Commander Aeilliniarie of the Maiden Guard alongside Captain Raliemne and the Tears of Isha company of the Maiden Guard:

Urgh, the photo quality is awful - I was trying something new and it did not work

Then there's Captain Lilaefni and her Heart of Isha Company:

This is slightly better but still not great. I think I might try and borrow P's DSLR tomorrow

And then lastly (but very much not leastly) Captain Merillaelle and her Isha's Song Company of the Sisters of Avelorn, an element of the Maiden Guard that use magic bows and ranges ahead of the main body of the Guard along with other scouts:

Yeah it's definitely time for me to learn how to properly photography my toy soldiers

With these done, I then turned to the next 250 points, which involved using (and breaking) a 1mm drill bit for a pin vice drill belonging to P to help with the kitbashed/converted Battle Standard Bearer I pieced together from 3D printed parts, GW High Elf pieces, and - when I can find some - a bit of 1mm diameter brass rod:

The broken drill bit in the foreground - shapeless black-undercoated miniatures in the background

And also, before I forget, here are the flags so graciously made for me from the original Maiden Guard banner by my beloved P:

Bear in mind these things measure 20mm x 53mm (right) and 25mm x 63mm (left)!

 So, next up is getting some Pritt Stick or PVA glue or something to attach those flags to the standard bearers of the various companies. And painting 13 more Maiden Guard, including a Battle Standard Bearer, who needs her standard building as well!

Painting Points:
Today: 27
This Week: 27
2026: 27

PS: This post was meant to be up on the 6th, but I did a booboo and forgot what time it was... so I guess the 7th of January will end up with two blog posts! 

 

Arrrrrrrrggghhh

Nearly! So nearly! I just need to base the Maiden Guard - that's all I have to do - but I just can't get it done today. I've done everything else they need, and have even managed to make reasonably good progress on making the Battle Standard Bearer (up until the pin vice drill bit snapped)...

They look nice, but I'm so annoyed I couldn't quite get the basing done!

I do also need to come up with names for the unit leaders and the Noble, which is an important thing. And design the banners. They'll definitely be done tomorrow. Definitely!

So Close!

(And yet, so far!)

I didn't do as much painting as I had hoped today, but I did get to watch Galaxy Quest again (By Grabthar's hammer!) and that was an excellent watch. That meant that I managed to get all the black done on the Maiden Guard; so their hair and the start of the gem detail work has been completed and now I'm going through all the gems adding Wild Rider Red stripes opposite the black. They'll definitely be done tomorrow though. I'm going to make sure of it. I want to get them sorted as soon as possible now so I can work on some other stuff... like boring a hole through the hand of the kitbashed Battle Standard Bearer I'm making for them!

I just couldn't bring myself to keep going with the Wild Rider Red

I do also need to fill in all those slottabase slots...