Affun's lead-pile - 24/6-22 - Northerners of many ilk!

[affun]

We're having a ASoBH campaign day, which I am organising, locally here in Aarhus. For that occasion I've of course decided that I'll need an entirely new warband of entirely 'new' miniatures (ie. not from my huge mountain).

I've settled on a small gang of 6 rough dudes, that I'll be showing off as I get them painted, hopefully over the next week or so. All of them are from the Essex fantasy line, which I find to be rather rarely shown off.

First bloke is a wraith, made from what's originally a zombie and given one of the lazier paintjobs I've commited in recent times. It works for the purpose though.



It's a gradual drybrush in 4 stages, starting from P3 Coal Black and adding more and more VMC Pastel Green. Then edge highlights we're painted in with pure Pastel Green, followed by a VMC White. A bit of additional shading and blacklining was done with Coal Black.

In game terms, he's a Q 3+ C 3 Flying, Undead, Assassin. This makes him highly mobile and lethal, but also eats up most of my personality points. He'll be fun to game with and hopefully inspire suitable dread in my opponents.

My warband also includes a wizard who is up next in the painting que. But for him I'll need a couple of Walls of Wood. These I have found come in very handy for movement and LoS shenanigans. I've resolved to just make them from bits of garden wire wrapped in milliput. No award-winning sculpting here, but I think it looks fine-ish, and it'll surely get used quite a bit on the table.

I might be making some Walls of Worms in the same manner at a point too.

[Hobgoblin]

That wraith's superb! It might be a lazy paint job, but I can't imagine anyone doing much better. Bravo!

I like the Wall of Wood too.

[Reed]

Your "lazy approaching" doesn't sound anything lazy to me. That would be "paint base color -> Apply Army Painter Strong Tone -> Done". I quite like how the scythe is done.

The problem I see with Essex's fantasy line is that the figures have really over-sized heads, even more than GW's.

[affun]

Your "lazy approaching" doesn't sound anything lazy to me. That would be "paint base color -> Apply Army Painter Strong Tone -> Done". I quite like how the scythe is done.

The problem I see with Essex's fantasy line is that the figures have really over-sized heads, even more than GW's.

Thanks. Reason I call it lazy is that its mostly just drybrushing done with a brush the size of the miniature itself with a bit of touching up afterwards. Around 20 minutes of paint time all in all.

Essex proportions are extremely wonky, making them combine badly with other lines. Their huge faces make them quite fun to paint though, as all Olley faces tend to be.
Their dwarves are really great though - as I'll try to show off later in this project
And they do my hands down favourite wizard model so far. Sitting on my painting table, marked for finishing later today.

That wraith's superb! It might be a lazy paint job, but I can't imagine anyone doing much better. Bravo!

I like the Wall of Wood too.

That is praise indeed.  Thanks, appreciate it a lot.

[affun]

And they do my hands down favourite wizard model so far. Sitting on my painting table, marked for finishing later today.

... which I've finished now.

I have a bit of a weakness for really silly hats. And this guy takes the cake on that. The huge pointy hat, the stupid beard and the cheeky grin all combine to make this wizard look properly deranged. As a wizard right well should, in my opinion.
He's going to serve as the leader of the band, combining spellcaster and leader into one character, and thus saving me a bit of points. On the other hand, he's going to be quite the priority target for any opponent, making it a bit a gambit.

If the wraith was a lazy paintjob, this was the opposite. I've decided - something I'll likely deeply regret - to paint this warband with Non-Metallic-Metal's, and to a pretty high standard to boot.
But its only 4 more miniatures, so it should be manageable enough.

This was also my first chance to try out some Gutbukkit-inspired mushrooms for the base, though it obviously is sans flocking in the picture. I like how they add a splash of contrast and saturation, as well as visual interest. Very nice.

I put on a bit too much varnish, so he's all shiney right now. Hopefully it'll dry more matte over the night. And the second coat should also help.

Picking through a long abandoned village

[von Lucky]

He's very nicely done.

[FramFramson]

Oh that wizard is just plain aces.

[Globlin]

That is one heck of a hat! Great job on these.

[kaiser]

Lovely paint job! That warband is going to look so cool.

[Comsquare]

Really cool 

The wizard is ace!

[DeafNala]

The Wraith & Wizard are a LOVELY pair...although of different levels, GREAT brushwork & color choices. OUTSTANDING WORK!
Glowing red eyes would be a nice touch on the Wraith.

[affun]

Thanks for all the nice words. Had a lot of fun painting the guy.

The Wraith & Wizard are a LOVELY pair...although of different levels, GREAT brushwork & color choices. OUTSTANDING WORK!
Glowing red eyes would be a nice touch on the Wraith.

I actually considered red eyes, but steered away from it as I thought it would clash too much with the rest. It's not really visible on the pictures, but I've actually shaded them a subtly deeper green instead. Might have to revisit it though.

***

As for finished miniatures - Here's another one. An evil dwarf with a bloody big axe.



It's a minor conversion of a speardwarf, as I wanted him to be as fighty as possible. Sadly, I misligned the axehead a little. I still think it looks sort of ok from a distance though.

In warband terms, this guy is there to be a brawler. The wizard and wraith are both "tricky" models, not necessarily that good in a straigth punch out, but dangerous if they can be deployed at the right time and place. Having a beatstick like the dwarf I find frees the others up to do their thing.

... and I have a deepseated love for dwarfs as well. I've always enjoyed playing them in SoBH. I actually have a whopping 3 dwarf warbands in different scales at the moment, with a fourth going as a slow-cooking side-project and a fifth of possessed dwarfs from ganesha's recent kickstarter who this guy will surely also join with on occasion 

As a last note, Olley and essex again deliver in the awesome hat department. Simply superb.
Here's a group picture of the warband so far:

[Reed]

Good job on the dwarf, he seems a crude and dark fella.

[Hobgoblin]

Brilliant stuff - the faces in particular are astonishingly good!

Really nice figures too.

[affun]

Before I get started editing and writing up the pictures from our campaign day, I wanted to unwind with a small and fun project.

Thus, I ended up throwing paint at this guy:



It's a little demon thing from the 7 Sins kickstarter (I think?) that I asked a friend (Kaiser) if I could paint. He obliged and here we are.
I really adore the design of this thing, with its small chubby arms waving around and its big toothy vagina-dentata mouth (Don't google image search that).

As for the miniature: It was cast in this hard plasticy resin. It had great details and my only 2 quips are that the base was part of the miniature - which makes sense since its a boardgame - and that the mold lines as with all plastic-resin was a pain to remove.
It takes paint pretty well, and I just went with my usual mo. after washing the miniature in warm soapy water: Black Gesso, quick burst of white spray from above, and then on to painting.

For the paintjob I went with a spin on my very old Plaguebearer recipee, just using caucasian flesh tones instead of green. I tried adding visual interest by adding splotches of reds, yellows and blues. Using all the primaries like that can look a bit garish, but since I was going for 'unsettling', it seemed appropriate.

I think it's a cutie   I hope Kaiser enjoys it as well