Myah! (Painting Skeletons)

Well, that was unexpected - I didn't think that I would paint up a batch of old Warhammer skeletons, but here they are! But I also finished up the Morgul Stalkers, a few more Rohan models including Helm Hammerhand and Captain Avantika from Critical Role. After that I started on a bigger scenery project with the blacksmith forge made by Tabletop World and a converted Vampire to fit in with the skeletons.

Pict 869: Skeletons (Detail)

Pict 870: Skeletons

Man, these are some classic miniatures! And I know it's a sacrilege to put them on round bases instead of square ones. I love how chunky they are, but the best thing the Champion who's clearly superior because of the fancy hat! I tried to match my scheme from about three years ago, but I didn't write down the recipe then and the new ones came out a bit lighter. I remedied my mistake this time around and posted the recipe here on the blog. It's really quite simple and the batch didn't take that long.
The eagle-eyed will have noticed that one of these skeletons is not like the others: I also found a single Mantic skelly clawing it's way out of the dirt in my bitsbox and while I was at it, painted it to. I love how it's giving the thumbs up with the right hand but it's quite a bit flimsier than the others.

Pict 871: Morgul Stalkers

After all these creepy undeads, I went right along and finished the creepy orcs from the last post. The Morgul Stalkers came out quite nice and I look forward to seeing them alongside other Mordor Orcs.

Pict 872: Helm Hammerhand and Helmingas Command

Pict 873: Helm Hammerhand and Helmingas Command

I wanted to play Helm in a tournament that had to be postponed. While that's sad, at least I had a bit more time to paint him up. He has several different layers of armour and cloth and I enjoyed taking my time with him. Originally I wanted to give him a white or at least bright cloak to hint at his role of defending the Hornburg against Dunlendings duing the long winter. But simply didn't like the look and wanted to tie him in with the rest of my Rohan a bit more.

The command group of a bannerbearer and the hornblower were painted alongside Helm. While quite a bit older than the model of Helm, they do fit together nicely with the scale mail armour. I'm even tempted to get myself another of the Helmingas command pack to convert the banner and horn onto a horse...

Pict 874: Captain Avantika

Not forgetting to paint more D&D miniatures, I also got around to painting Captain Avantika from Critical Role. In my new years resolutions I wanted to focus on Critical Role miniatures, since up until now, I only painted one mini from the Kickstarter. But for now it's one more from SFG's Vault. At first I was unsure about the colour scheme, but she came out ok if a bit colourful.

Pict 875: Vampire Conversion (WIP)

I had this conversion in my head for a few years now. I had bought some Vargheist wing bits to convert myself some Tyranid Shrikes and apart from the bigger ones there was this small pair. And since I was able to pick up the Vampire lady at the start of january, I finally had all the pieces. It took me a while to decide on the colours, but now that the basecolours are down I hope to finish painting her in the next days.

Pict 876: Tabletop World Blacksmith Forge Bits

Pict 877: Tabletop World Blacksmith Forge (WIP)

And lastly here's a WIP of the next big project. I got myself the beatiful blacksmith forge made by Tabletop World and started with the smaller loose bits and bobs like the anvil and the bellows. I also started to work on the roof, but there is still quite a bit of work to do. And I documented how I painted the different details and how I plan on painting the rest of the model.

Death (Rat)tle and a lot of stuff built

So despite having a lot to do in real-life, I got a bit of painting and quite a bit of building done.

Pict 098: Skeleton Warriors and Undead Rats

So first up are three skeletons from Warhammer 5th edition and their pet rats. I really like the two undead rats; they are from Mantic and I think I got them with some eBay lot. I love the idea of a young wizard with a pet rat. One day the rat died. the wizard snapped and turned to necromancy to bring the rat back. As you can see two of the skeletons are a bit damaged, but I was to lazy to search for the missing parts or replacements. I figured that reanimated corpses should defend themselves without the use of a shield. And if not you can always raise more!
The skeletons will be the start of a Death AoS army (so that I have one from every great alliance) but I don't know what I'd run these rats as. Maybe they will only be markers. Charactefull models nonetheless.

Pict 099: Giant Rats

Next up are more rats. This time they are alive at least. The miniatues from 1998 still hold quite the char, I'd only wish they had different poses. I used different colours for every one at least whilst highlighting. Since I mainly used drybrushing for that, they were painted in one evening while working on some other painting projects.

Pict 100: Luna Wolves Tactical Marine Commanders

Next are some pictures of the miniatures I built this week. Above are the Command Marines for my Luna Wolves Tactical Squads. I like having 20 Marines in a squad for a change and it fits the lore of the Luna Wolves, so that's what I'm doing for my troops choices. What's missing with nearly all of the models I built is the Green Stuff work and bending under some hot water as you can see with the vexilla on the right.

Pict 101: Iron Hill Goat Rider Dismounts

Pict 102: Iron Hills / Gundabad Objective Markers

Here are the last Iron Hills Dwarfs I will build for this batch. I might add the second Command pack later in the year, because that Banner looks amazing, but we'll see. The other picture shows objective markers I made from the left over shields of the guys above. Since I will use them as dismounts for my Goat Riders they wont need the shields. I also added Gundabad Berserker weapons on some of the bases, so that I will be able to use them for either my Iron Hills or my Gundabad army.

Pict 103: Gundabad Ogres

Pict 104: Gundabad Berserkers

Pict 105: Hunter Orcs

Speaking of Gundabad, here are the Ogres, the Berserkers, and some Hunter Orcs. I bought the hunter orcs to bolster my nubers with the Gundabads beacuse the Ogres and Berserkers are quite expensive pointswise so that the force will be broken quite fast. I had some practice games on satuday and was not really to happy with them. It might just be that painted miniature perform better, but nevertheless there will be some tweaking with the list. I'm eyeing the Goblin Mercenaries and the War Bats but there are no models released by Forge World yet. But I will do some testing with the Goblintown Goblins that I have, to see wether or not they would work.
The bases are just made out of some cardboard that I cut to shape. I will paint them up like the floor in Dol Guldur and add some fallen leaves. I might experiment with snow as a contrast, but I'm not sure yet.

Pict: Skin Wolves

Andd the last picture of the day shows three Skin Wolves. I love the miniatures Forge World produced here and I was rather surprised by their size. They come with 60mm bases and fill them well but with enough space to fancy them up a bit. I'm not sure how I will do that, since I'm not even sure what army they are going to be a part of.