On The Table - Lord of Change

This mini has been on the the table for years now. This has been the longest running in progress project I think I have ever had. I think the reason is that I did not have the skills to pull off the concept in my head. I had to paint lots of icy blue minis to get my techniques refined and increase my skills to the point of making my ideas manifest.

I changed the robes from dark blue to purple to provide some more contrast. I re-drybrushed Celestra Grey to even things out and then painted on highlights of my new best friend Ulthan Grey. It is basically white that is tinted blue. Over darker colors it looks white but still gives you the option of picking out highlights in pure white later.

On the Table - Horrors and Flamers

Working on some Screamers and Horrors for a friend. He pulled the minis before I could finish because there were needed for a game. Learned a lot from these guys already. For example, painting flames. I divide the flames up into zones and then wet/dry blend the zones until I get something close to what I am looking for. All the while leaving deeper layers uncovered. Flames are a menace and challenging. 

Finished - Daemon Prince of Khorne

Finished this bad boy tonight. He started out as a Reaper Bones mini called "Minotaur Demon Lord" that sold for a pittance. For conversions, I added a Khorne symbol to his knees, right shoulder and forearms. I had those left over in my bits box and count not think of a better use of them. My only regret is that I could not use eight of them. I also swapped out whatever this dummy was using for a flaccid weapon for a GIANT AX OF KHORNE! I planned to assemble my Bloodthirster of Khorne in one form and proxy it for the other forms so I didn't need to mag the other hands like a jabroni. That left some bits over. While it is wildly out of scale with the mini, I feel that it is still on point.

Speaking of scale, The mini is a little large for a Daemon Prince. The bottom the head is about where the top of the GW Daemon Prince stands. I put it on a Dreadnought base which is the same as a Daemon Prince. I also feel that the "out of scale" is on point for Khorne. He is more a god of excess than the Lord of Excess. Dude loves some big weapons so I feel good about the ridiculous size of that ax. Also it has teeth and I loved painting it.

I painted the Deamon flesh the same way that I painted the Bloodletters of Khorne. Like all the times that I have painted this before, I regretted not having more purple show through. The overall tone of the skin is red and I wanted more purple in the recesses. I knew this while I was painting this mini but somehow it still came out red.

To replace the mini would cost about $10 including shipping. The ax and wings become problematic. They run for about $10 and $16 respectively. The paint job took some time and I value it at about $60 making the total replacement value about $100. Doubt I would sell or trade it for less. 

On The Table - Daemon Prince of Khorne

Putting the final touches on the converted Daemon Prince of Khorne. The body is basically done and clear coated. I am mostly satisfied with it. I wish the purple base had shown through more but the red highlights turned out ok.

Super happy with how the ax swap turned out. I was worried that it would be oversized and it is. But I like the overt Khorniness that it adds to the mini. The Khorne symbold that I put on the knees, forearms and shoulder were ok but are lost somehow in the model. A giant ax with half of Khorne symbol on it is somewhat less subtle.

The top photo is to demonstrate what difference a little effort makes. I see so many people do a base coat, wash and call it good. A little hard hedge highlighting (or for Emperor-sake, drybrushing) goes a long way to add depth to a mini. The bottom left is just based and washed and the top right is a little broke-edge highlighting. A world of difference.

It doesn't take much time, effort or skill to create depth in a mini which leaves me confused as to why so many people walk away from minis that are barely started with no effort put in. What is worse is that it is painfully evident to anyone with skill that they are phoned in. I feel the same about half-ass air brushing.

On The Table - Daemon Prince of Khorne

Picked up the Reaper Bones mini for the Minotaur Demon Lord for about $10. The DP wings cost me more than that but it is worth it. I am going to use this as my Daemon Prince of Khorne. I had wanted the Ultraforge Wardeamon for these purposes but the price was not right. Can't drop almost $80 on a mini no matter how awesome it is. Also, I have seen more than a few people using them as Khorne Deamons and I wanted something more original.

I am painting him in the same way that I did the old metal Bloodthirster. I based it purple, drybrushed it red, washed it red then painted some purple wash where I wanted the shadows deeper. 

Back to Basics

I was very excited to spend the last of my dwindling X-mas money on these bases. A few years ago, I would have been pretty cranky to have spent almost $25 just on bases but now I gladly spend that amount on quality bases. I did custom bases for all my Dreadnoughts in the past and loves the different attitudes and feelings that the bases provide.

It is less so with the Deathwatch army. While it does not give individual models personality, it does give the army and overall feeling of cohesion for the army. My only regret is that I started the army on 25mm bases before the 30mm bases came out. I may go back and replace them but at this point I am too far in to change.

The two bases in the back are for the DW Dreadnought and Venerable Dreadnought. The pipe base on the right comes from Micro Art Studios and the one with the alien eggs on the left comes from Secret Weapon Minis. The difference in quality between the two is noticeable. MAS base was pre-sanded on the bottom where the SW was not and needed to be filed to even make it flat. The SW has a noticeable gap between the best and the slope of the side that needed to be filled and filed while the MAS had good detail and needed no touch ups.

The giant head is from Scibor and is a work of art. I plan to use it for the metal replacement for Be'lakor. I found a great deal on a complete metal Be'lakor and have traded my only model. I don't really miss him as his rules make him a friendship-ender. The model is awesome though and I think I can paint it even better now. 

On The Table - Two Daemonettes

I dug through my bits box and found enough bits to make two more Daemonettes and I decided to paint them up as a side project. This will make for a unit of 10 Daemonettes not including my Herald. 

On the table now - Greater Daemon of Tzeentch

Greg over at Crank Old Gamer did a rehab on this old metal Lord of Change for me and incorporated some fantasy wings. The transformation was epic. I base coated this mini before the Fallout hiatus and have not touched it in months. 

It started spray painted white and then basecoated it Celestra Grey. I washed it in Guilliman Blue and then drybrushed it again in Celestra Grey and that is where I left it for almost half a year. 

I did not have a good direction for this mini much like my Horrors. I liked the technique that I used on my Tau repaint and wanted to incorporate that into a more organic model. 

My main stumbling block is the cloth. After much thought, I have decided to paint it royal blue to try and tie it into the Horrors and 1k Sons Marines. I really wanted to do blue and green but I have failed to pull off that color scheme in the past. Guess it is good that I don't play Alpha Legion. 

Finished - Custom Keeper of Secrets

In return for painting a big ole pile of Khorne Cultists, My buddy Greg over at CrankyOldGamer converted me up a a custom Greater Daemon of Slaanesh, the Keeper of Secrets. I supplied the bits and he did the converting. He also did a bang up job taking my idea and running with it. I was going to use the weapons from the Daemon Prince kit but Greg swapped them for the swords from some weird Dark Elf WFB kit. I sent the trygon tail but Greg wisely changed it to the Hive Tyrant tail. He put together a better conversion than I could have. 

As far as painting, I tried to paint it in the same scheme as the other Daemons of Slaanesh that are already finished and to a lesser extent the Noise Marines. For the Daemon Princess, I swapped the pink skin and black armor for each other because I am better at painting black than the weird pink that the Slaanesh minis have on them. I decided to keep that theme going as this would have been a LOT of pink skin to paint. 

Finished - Green Cow of Nurgle

I found this little guy in my bits box and I have no idea what he is. I took a cue from the mutated hand and three circles on his weapon and guessed that he was some sort of WFB Nurgle Beastmen thing. He was already painted... poorly, so I painted over him with Bleached Bone and started the process for Nurgle's Skin. Mixed in there are metals, Simple Rust and leather. There is a little bone and wood for the stick. I really need to do a step-by-step for my common color schemes. 

I'll probably use him ad a Herald of Nurgle.

No idea what this mini is worth but I could probably replace him for $10. Paintjob is worth $20 making his replacement $30. I would trade him for $45.


1-42-17 Update: I traded this mini with these two worms for a Dark Angel Codex. 

Finished - Palanquin of Nurgel

I have wanted to build modular versions of the Daemonic Mounts for a while and the easiest to do was the Palanquin of Nurgle. Now, a Palanquin is supposed to be a covered box supported with sticks and born aloft but the backs and sweat of the unfortunate. I skipped the sticks and the box, but this is what I have. I took inspiration from Epidimius and had a surface help up by a host of Nurglings. 

I kept it simple by making a disc that was slightly bigger than a 40 mm base and made a guard for it out of plasticard. I put a stand on it to later secure to the base. I used a mix of old metal Nurglings and newer plastic ones. If I had been thinking, then I would have used 7 of them, Nurgle's favored number. 

I did incorporate the "three" symbol into the top of the palanquin, as you can see from above.

Finished - Daemonettes and Herald

Finally! 

I liked painted the Bloodletters. I loved painting Plaguebearers. I hated painting the Pink Horrors and I tolerated painting the Daemonettes. Thankfully my paint scheme was simple enough that I could blow through them pretty quick. 

I have already talked a little about how I painted them. Let's move on to the modeling. 

These are a pretty good minis but as awesome as the nipples and boobs of the metal minis. I don't think the God of Excess is worried about a nipple slip. I can see how GW would be. Since they have been increasingly been targeting a younger market, explaining to a parent why there are nipples and gaping vaginas with teeth on their toys would be something they would want to avoid. Also, the general wargamer tends to not be very enlightened when it comes to Feminism or women in general and taking away their pornographic minis might be a step in the right direction.

Finished - Proxy Daemomprincess of Slaanesh

I did not finish this mini in one day as the time stamps might suggest. As you can tell from the previous post, she was pretty well complete before I thought about making an On The Table post about her. All that was left was a little detail and the wings. 

This model was really challenging to paint. GW has learned that large detail that is easily separated by deep groves is easy to paint for the 11 to 19 demographic they seem to be targeting. (Come on Vurumai, it is easy for the 30+ crowd too. Don't be snooty). Wyrd Minis does not seem to have gotten the memo. The laces on her boots were not easily distinguishable let alone paintable after priming and basecoat. Ruffles and fringes on her dress were too small to pick up the wash adequately. Details on the sword were so shallow that drybrushing would not pick them up. It was a case of painting, washing, not seeing any change and then having to guess where the detail was. 

On the table - Proxy Daemon Princess of Slaanesh

I've gotten big on using alternate models for 40k as proxies. I talked before about my plans for doing a Daemon Prince for each of the Chaos Powers before and my thought for using alternate minis for them. t is not that I hate GW models (I think that they make the best plastic minis out there) or that I think I am too cool to play with standard minis. It is that there is no good representation of a Daemon Prince of Slaanesh out there unless you paint the plastic DP in Slaanesh-like colors. 

My painting has been good enough for a while now that it is the rare game in public that is not interrupted by people telling me what a great job I have done. It serves as a talking point for meeting new players. Usually we chat for a bit and if they are cool (or some seem like complete socially-awkward power-gamers), we exchange number or set up a game. Alternate minis can work like that too.

Nekima was out of print for some reason. I do not play Malifaux so I do not know (or care) why this was. I ended up buying her for like $15 from eastern Europe from a guy on Bartertown. If it was not for him then I would have been out of luck. 

Finished - Bloodthirster

I have had this bad little monkey sitting in the CSM and Daemons bin for years now. I tried to get him for a screaming deal as he is a very old, ugly and outdated model, but a very shrewd BTer made me trade more than I wanted to for him. 

Since they removed Bloodthirsters along with the other Greater Daemons from the Chaos Space Marine Codex and I do not regularly play Daemons or a summoning list, I don't know that he will see much table time outside of Apocalypse games. 

I started painting him with the idea of trying to scale up the painting scheme I used on my Bloodletters, but I am not sure how well it turned out. The mini turned out, overall very dark especially the skin and that contrasts in a bad way with the normally bright bone and gold. 

Finished - Plaguebearers and Herald of Nurgle

I wanted to take better pictures of these minis because they turned out great but I forgot them when I drug out the photo studio. I am going to skip how I painted them because I touched on it before. 

There are 10 Plaguebearers and one resin Herald of Nurgle. Retail for them is $55. The paint job is awesome even for me at about a 9/10. I don't know how I could have painted them better at my current skill level. I value the paintjob at $65 for a total replacement cost of $120. I think that maybe someone would trade for them at that price.

On the table now - Daemonettes

6 finished, 2 in progress. That leaves the champion and the Herald left to finish. So close I can taste it!

On the table now - Daemonettes, Savage Shoota Orks and Necron flyer

I and grinding my way through the Daemonettes and wanted to outline my next two projects. I find that if I set specific goals in my painting it keeps me from bouncing from project to project and leaving my table strewn with half-finished minis. 

That does not mean that I will not indulge small side projects like the Squig or Preacher of Nurgle, but I should finish one large project before moving on to another one. 

Up next after the Daemonettes, I have my Feral Ork Shootaboys. I like pairing the Clans and paintjobs ironically with the minis.  I can think of no type of Ork less suited to be a Shootaboy than a wild Feral Ork. For a little further irony, I am going to paint them as Bad Moons, typically the most rich of the Ork clans. My Sluggaboys are also Bad Moons so they can share use of the Trukk that I have already painted. 

I am very excited to start work on these Orks and am trying to use that excitement to propel me through the Daemonettes (which are still not going well). Really, what I want to do is to set the Daemonettes aside and work on these bad boys. To tell a secret, I have been. when I am waiting for Daemonettes to dry, I will try to get some paint on either the next set of Daemonettes or on the Orks but always returning to the Daemonettes. 

On the table now - Daemonettes

This 10 man squad of Daemonettes will finish the basic Troops for Daemons. I have finished but not yet taken pictures of my Plaguebearers and with the Bloodletters and the "Pink" Horrors finished, these little pink ladies will complete the set. 

The painting is not going well. 

I decided to go with a pink, black and silver color scheme to match my Emperor's Children. With the EC, I randomized (to a point) the colors and where they were placed. With the Daemonettes, I decided early on that I would paint all the skin pink and use silver and black as accents. Painting black and silver are two things that I can do well. I thought that I could do pink as well because I remember it being shockingly easy on the EC models.

Finished - Proxy Beasts of Nurgle

I started these guys what feels like a few days ago and they are done. Granted, I did not really paint them with any sense to detail that I could have. I put about $4 worth of paint on them which is what they are worth. I have already talked about how I painted these minis in some other posts. They finished up nicely then I gooped Nurgle's Rot into their worm-mouths. They required very little detail painting and turned out really well. I don't know if they will ever see table time as Beasts of Nurgle are kinda weak and can't be summoned. I could proxy them as Plague Drones but that is a little douchy for me. 

Overall I am pleased with how they turned out. I liked how easy they were to paint and how inexpensive they are.

On the other hand, they were kinda chincy. The white plastic was kinda hard to clean the mold lines. I had to really dig at them with a hobby knife and still missed some. I still had to find a base for them too. I was going to reuse a Dreadnought base but instead decided to use a large flying base. They are about the same size and that way I am not out some nice bases for cheep models. 

In terms of value for these minis it would only take about $8 to replace them if I can find them. The paint job is about a 5/10 for me and is worth about $10 each. Total replacement value is about $30. Trade value is about the same assuming someone would want them.


1-24-17 Update: Recently I traded these two worms and this green cow of Nurgle for a current edition of the Dark Angles Codex. That is $70 retail. I call that a pretty good trade for two $4 minis, a serendipitous find in the bits box ad a few days of work. This is the ideal for me. I would love to buy cheep minis, paint them the flip them for expensive books or more minis to paint.