Finished - Gawain, The Green Knight (AKA Green Man)

The Green Knight is complete. I snagged the name from an old story about a foolish knight, Gawain, that challenged a magical knight and lost his head. After reading that article, I realized that I could have named him Green Man. I like that name better anyway. I would love for him to charge up and land a Destroyer Strength hit right in the nards of a Stompa.

Forgive me. I've been drinking and binge-watching Always Sunny.

I made one big conversion by taking off the weird square sword and replacing it with a Dreadknight sword. The place where it joined is a little janky but overall it is a decent conversion. I had bought a Chainsword arm for a more convincing Knight Titan proxy. Thanks to how easy it is to swap out arms, that is not a concern right now.

On The Table Now - Leviathan Crusader

Long time between updates but I have been hard at work. These Dreamforge minis are insanely complicated to assemble and paint. I have not assembled my GW Knight Titan yet but the Dreamforge Leviathans are more difficult to to assemble than anything I have ever experienced. They also take a lot of work on the front end when you paint before you assemble but really come together quickly at the end. 

At this point, all I have to finish on the body are the shoulder pads. The arms are in progress and should rap up soon. Because I skipped adding the armor on the arms, They should be able to be swapped for any other arms. The exception will be the gatling cannon. It has an awesome belt feed that it too cool to skip. It will only be able to be mounted on the right arm because of this. 

On The Table Now - Leviathan Crusader

These big green feet are the herald of yet another ?Knight Titan from Dreamforge. Serendipitously, Dreamforge posted an upgrade to this mini (and a 50% discount) that I have been waiting for just as I reached the step where I would need to install it. 

I placed my order and started on the other parts of the mini that I could paint while waiting for the new bits. 

For the most part, I a satisfied with these mini. They make for good proxies, are very poseable and reasonably priced. 

On the table - Thousand Sons

I am super-excited about a new painting project that I am getting ready to start. It is fitting that since one of the first posts on this blog (and still one of the most popular) was about Thousand sons, that this post is about them too. I just hope it is not also the last.

I have been enamored with these third party Thousand Son bits since I first saw them. I thought there were Russian but mine are coming from somewhere in South America. I feel like they may be recasts as well. If they are anything like the pictures, then I'll be happy.

There should be enough bits there to make a full squad of Thousand Son Marines (8 plus a Sorcerer) with one or two left over. I plan to rehab an old mini into a pre-Heresy Sorcerer like in my other squad so that will help to bulk up my numbers.

I also ordered some Khopesh bits to give them that little bit of extra Egyptian flavor they need. I am really looking forward to converting them all up.

Look what just showed up

I have been wanting a Dreamforge Leviathan for a long time and now I have two. I made a mistake and ordered the larger size which is 8.5" tall. this makes it an inch or two shorter than a Warhound titan and an inch too tall for a Knight Titan. I did not know this until after they had arrived and had to place another order for the smaller size which is 1/100 scale. The smaller mini stands about an inch shorter than a Knight Titan, which is what I want to use it as a proxy for. 

Mark at DFG was a rockstar in arranging the second order. He messed up a small part of it but supplied the missing part at no cost. That was a really classy move. Dreamforge Games is one hell of an outfit and I am a fan now. 

Initially, I wanted to return the larger ones but Mark said that I would have to pay shipping and a 20% restocking fee. Doing the math, I would have rather traded the Leviathan on Bartertown at retail and save the 20%. I would be paying shipping either way and trading not only saves me 20% but, if I was very shrewd, I could trade for more than I paid for them. 

Finished - Feral Ork Shootaboys

Stick a fork in them because they are done. 

It took almost exactly two weeks, but they are done and I can't stop singing Deniece Williams "Let's Hear It for the Boy" but I sing it more like," Ut's ere it fer da Boyz." Try and unhear that. 

This fits with my hipster ironic Orks in that Feral Orks would not be using Shootas and painting them as Bad Moons (the richest of all the Ork Klans) belies being penniless, feral, savages. 

I tried to make each of these Boyz unique in their own way. I can't say that each has a conversion, because they are pretty much stock pieces from the Savage Orc kit. The exception are the Shootas that I had to cannibalize. For the most part, I chose to use Shootas with hands already attached rather than use the hands that came with the kit. There is no real reason for this. 

On the table now - Feral Ork Shootaboys

The Daemonettes are officially finished and I am working full steam on my Orks. These guys are cracking me up with all the life and personality each mini has. As soon as I saw the two Orcs (they are Orcs in WFB and Orks in WFB) holding up the log, I knew that I wanted to have one of them holding the Big Shoota over his head. Initially, my idea was to have him holding it over his head as a totem, but as the project evolved, it decided to have the big dummy trying to use it as a massive bludgeoning device.

Three are all but finished and below the cut, you will see three in progress.

On the table now - Feral Ork Shoota Boyz

As promised, my next project that I started was Feral Ork Shootaboys. I started them while I was waiting for things to dry or when I got bored with the Daemonettes. I find it really hard to paint one project until it is done and not jump around. That is part of the reason that I have such a deep backlog of things in bits, partially assembled and NIB. 

My previous habit was to just paint what interested me. This lead to a giant backlog of projects and many half-finished projects taking up space. That's no way to conduct a hobby let alone a craft. (If you need a distinction between the two, read Nick Offerman's book "Paddle Your Own Canoe") 

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 - Squig

I have had this mini chilling in my bits box for longer than I can remember. I don't even remember where it came from. It does not look like a current or recent 40k model. I decided to paint it up as a Squig and maybe use it as a counter for an Attack Squig or, if I wanted to be really beardy, a Bomb Squig. 

He was fun to paint up. I tried to use a modified version of my Daemonflesh. I started with a purple basecoat followed by Mechrite Red first pass. I then hand highlighted the flesh with Evilsuns Scarlet. I have all the skin a wash that is a 1:2 mix of orange and red washes. The current red wash is entirely too dark to be suseful to shade red. After the wash was dry, I touched up the red.

I left the gums purple to act as some contrast and to make the mini look more alien.

The hair was based with a 1:1 mix of black and grey, highlighted with a grey dry brush and washed black. I did a final dry brush of grey to finish. 

The teeth are bleached bone washed Sepia and touched up with bleached bone again. 

I don't know what it would take to replace this mini. Current similar models go for between $2 and $10 on eBay so $5 is about right to replace Paint job is solid for me at a 6/10. Value of the pant is about $10 (below my bench fee because of how easy and fast it was). I would estimate the total replacement value at $ 15 and the same for the trade value.

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.

On the table now - Proxy Beasts of Nurgle

The proxy Beasts of Nurgle are coming along well. The pictures do not show this well, but after applying my base colors, I applied a Biel-tan Green wash, dry brushed Bleached Bone, washed Gryphonne Sepia and then touched up Bleached bone again. It still needs some detail work, but they are coming along nicely. 

On the table now - Proxy Beast of Nurgle

I found these at the FLGS after seeing them suggested as a good proxy elsewhere on the internet. For $3 each, they were a screaming deal. I would have paid $10 each for them and they still would have been half the price of the GW model. It is better quality too. I would rather the Reaper Bone than Finecast any day.