Challenge of the Living Dead

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Frostgrave Wizard Battle (2 of 2)

Following on from last week’s batch of paired Frostgrave characters, five more contributors put these pairings together.  As per last time, the guidelines were:
PAINT A MAGIC USER AND THEIR APPRENTICE, APPROPRIATE FOR USE IN FROSTGRAVE.
(NB, if these two match the theme of your Mordheim Challenge, then you now have a playable Frostgrave force).
Once again, the goal was to have as many of us involved in an aligned project as possible, rather than get worked up about very strict criteria, and people came up with some fun characters.

Frostgrave Wizard Battle (1 of 2)

 

The Mordheim 5-a-Side project was a success, with several of us getting the core of a skirmish force finished and ready to hit the table.  With Frostgrave 2nd edition due to be released (and on sale by the time of writing), I thought that adding a pair of magic users to the five figs from the 5-a-Side project would be a fun and achievable goal, hopefully made all the more so by doing it in concert with a few others.  The guidelines were:

PAINT A MAGIC USER AND THEIR APPRENTICE, APPROPRIATE FOR USE IN FROSTGRAVE.

(NB, if these two match the theme of your Mordheim Challenge, then you now have a playable Frostgrave force).

The criteria were intended to be broad enough to allow people to paint figures to match a previous project, or head off on a tangent.  I liked the idea of the projects stacking on top of each other, breaking down the substantial task of painting a table worthy force into smaller chunks, but it was up to everyone involved to individually decide whether they wanted to take that approach.  The goal was to get as many of us involved and collaborating as possible, rather than get worked up about very strict guidelines.

Below is what five of us came up with, more to follow.

Daemon Derby

Greater Daemons.  Warhammer just wouldn’t be the same without them.  The ultimate bad guys, they personify literally any facet of bad human behaviour, and we can all identify with at least one (Nurgle with Slaanesh rising in my case!).

Somewhere in the pile of shame we all have a greater daemon or other big chonk that we’ve thought about painting but have never gotten round to caressing with our paintbrushes (that’ll be the Slaanesh rising!).

What better subject matter for a ScaleCreep challenge! 

Sit down, pour yourself a glass of something strong, and open your heart to the ever loving embrace of chaos.

Spevna

Gang painting - The Scale Creep Methods

When it comes to our painting it seems that the most common goal at the moment is a 'Gang Sized' project. Around 10 or so figures in a thematic group, whether it be a unit, a warband, a gang or some other kind of group, it's the kind of thing each of us will do a couple of in a year (at least).

But how do we do it? Each of tends to work in isolation, showing WIP's or finished items to group but we never have the opportunity to sit and watch how the others work through it. Occasionally WIP's will illicit responses such as, 'Why the fuck do you do it like that, you awkward sod?' or 'For the love of god will you tidy your painting desk!', occasionally 'Tell me you only keep your paints in a plastic bag to wind Paul up' can be heard over the tumult of 'Cut your fucking fingernails!'.

Artistic view of WIPsters group painting, actual process may differ

So we thought it might be educational to get each of the Scale Creeps that are willing, awake, sober and paying attention, to blether on a little bit about how that go about painting a gang of mini's (mostly so the rest of us can point and laugh).

Of course we all have our views and it's only natural we'd want to confront them in the most gentlemanly way. Here's our personal observations on each other's methods :

Assleman :JB
WP
Axiom
Captain Crooks 

Why would you make the ghost of HG Wells cry?

Playing war-games with unpainted figures makes HG wells cry. He is also dead. Therefore it's his ghost that is crying. Making a ghost cry is not big or clever. It is mean. Why are you being mean to the Ghost of HG Wells?

Lets examine the reasons you have and rip them to shreds.

The HeroQuest Hero Quest: The Sixth Orc

Or, the THIRD Heroquest orc, as I suppose this post might originally have been called as I signed up for orc number three.

Now the astute among you may notice that this means that orc number three comes after the fourth and fifth orcs, and that this means this orc is both three and six, but that's not a mistake as you might initially assume. Nor is it that I am spectacularly bad at finishing things (like, for example, blogging about a figure that has been painted for months) - what a suggestion! No, it is deliberate because it follows the infamously non-linear, occasionally non-Euclidean, and perpetually non-sensical counting pattern* of orcs themselves. I'd go into this in more detail, except the requisite chemical consumption for it to make sense is not a suitable topic for a family-friendly blog like this one.

[note from the producers : Since herding painters is even worse than herding cats, this will be the sixth orc that should have been third since the third will come later. Please don't ask.]

What's that? You want a picture of a painted miniature, not a monograph on orcish numerological peculiarities? Suit yourself. *grumble grumble* Peasants! Ignoramuses! 

The Hero Quest Hero Quest: The Fifth Orc

Hi all,

I'd like to start with a quick word of thanks to the ScaleCreepers for the invite to participate in this "event" and to guest author on this august Blog!  Cheers boys!

I guess there is supposed to be where I wax philosophical about HeroQuest and about how great it is, or was, and how discovering it changed my life and lead me down the path to proper wargamming enlightenment.

...Well I'm sorry to disappoint...but, I'm actually not that fond of HQ and had managed to avoid  playing a game of if until the summer of 2015 when AirborneGrove introduced it to me at the OHNW event in Allentoen PA...this was followed by one other notable game in the fall of 2016 that was GMed by Crooksy from the other side of the world...sadly I think I slept through the second half of that game....I got tired of watching Lopez's character fall into pit trap...after pit trap...after pit trap...zzzzzz

The tale of Wilson, Octopus extraordinaire

Sometimes, things, just "happen", chracters just come to life without us having to do anything with it. A few days ago, that just happened.
Sean posted this picture to us and the verdict was unanimous :

The Hero Quest Hero Quest: The Fourth Orc

He's Mean and GREEN!!

Thoughts on Orcs by BulldogLopez

Orcs are green things that live in holes and eat humans for fun. They like working for bad guys with loads of treasure because humans like treasure and Orcs like to eat humans for fun.

Did I mention that orcs like to eat humans for fun? They do.

Here is a picture of a cleaver.

One time a silly human was wandering around the forest (probably looking for treasure) when he ran into this orc. The human took out some white dice and threw them at the orc. He laughed a silly human laugh when the dice showed three silly shields.

The orc cut off the human's arms and laughed. His joke was better.

The human didn't scream for long because he ran out of blood. Humans are so silly.

This orc was painted with green paint because green is the best color. His tunic is blue because this orc sometimes like the color blue. Did I mention green is the best color? The cleaver is covered in human blood.

Humans are silly.

The First Annual Pro Painter Burger Brush Cup

On a quiet wednesday night/evening/afternoon/morning (depending on time zones), a few guys gathered on a video chat to do what they do best : talking non sense. And painting.

The idea though was motivated by the will to paint like PROS. Exclusively with their worst brush.

The Heroquest Hero Quest: The Second Goblin

When I got invited to participate in The Heroquest Hero Quest, I was courteously informed that the pickings were fairly slim in what was left to paint. I recalled the HQ goblins being decent miniatures, and had a vague recollection of one residing in one of my shoeboxes of old WHFB miniatures. Some digging followed, and I was on board with this little fellow:

"Decent" status debatable

As you can see from the photo, I had done a wonderfully clean job back in the 90s of removing him from both his integral base and his right foot. I had then cleverly circumvented the problem by simply ignoring it and gluing his stump of a leg to the base - a 20mm square to befit a goblin in WHFB.

The basing provided me with a bit of a problem, and I wondered whether I should try to rebuild the foot out of putty and if I should give the poor goblin a more prestigious base. The 20mm slotted square, after all, combined several poor elements: it had a huge slot in the middle, it was small and cramped and due to its size I hadn't even been able to glue the poor gobbo facing directly forward.

I decided against changing the base, however. I felt a weird sense of obligation to an 17 or so years distant version of me, who had decided that this was the way to go with this particular goblin. Who was I to argue with teenage me, full of enthusiasm for a newly started hobby, after all. So the 20mm square stayed on. This left just the problem of the foot. I decided to follow the same principle, and not rebuild the foot.

I left the stump as it was, but designed the base to suggest that the goblin was wading in mud and the foot was just submerged. I had long wanted to try out Citadel's Stirland Mud texture paint, so this was a good chance for that as well.

Instead of painting the goblin as a greenskin, I went for a mustard yellow/brown skintone. I had tried this earlier on some goblins and liked the result a lot. This combined with my aversion to painting green skin (after years of painting orcs and goblins for WHFB) sealed the deal. This would be a pale and pasty creepy little murderous underground dweller - or in a word, a goblin.

I kept the paintjob simple, with a basic brown robe, grey boots and a worn, rusted axe blade. I painted the axe haft red as a nod to that 90s orc and goblin aesthetic, but kept the red dark and toned down to fit the mini.

I puttied over the slot in the base, slapped a lot of Stirland mud around, slapped a lot of brown wash around and slapped a lot of gloss varnish around. Add in a few tufts, and voilá! Goblin standing in deep, icky mud it is. So rather than working on a teenage mistake, I had just literally ended up burying and glossing it over as an adult. Art imitates life and all that...

Anyway, here's the finished product, hope you like it! It makes me happy to finally see this mini painted. After all those years and that chopped off foot, he deserved it.

The HeroQuest Hero Quest: The first Orc

Hi everyone! Suber here reporting for duty! I'm coming on board of this sweet, crazy HeroQuest Hero Quest project. So let me take my hat off to all of you and get down to work.

When I was approached for this, I thought 'fuck, I've already painted all my HeroQuest minis!'. No sweat. I'm ready to strip and repaint whatever you throw at my face. Ha!

Yes, I know. The most obvious answer would have been buying more stuff. Under general circumstances I would have done so. But I was so excited I couldn't wait!

I'm in charge of an Orc. The reliable backbone of any self respected Evil Army. The quintessence of dungeoneering. The... well, you get the idea. I chose this mini as starting point:

Huh? What's wrong with me?

The HeroQuest Hero Quest: The Chaos Sorcerer

Best thing about Heroquest is the CHAOS SORCERER. 

First of all, he's a cracking figure to begin with, the details are sublime and just sharp enough to be visible without being too obvious to let the painter some freedom of judgement about what is what.

Best thing about the sorcerer is clearly his evocative Y shaped pose making anyone think about whether he's doing aerobics, preparing a genkidama, giving a hand for airport traffic or simply showing his dad how big a fish he's caught.

Best thing about this guy is that he has big muscles for a sorcerer, that's just how badass he is really. Instead of spending all his time in the library reading, whining about how heavy the books are, this one is doing one-armed pushups and squats while reading unholy tomes.

The HeroQuest Hero Quest: The Third Fimir

Unlike the lovely chaps who are running and participating in this HeroQuest painting challenge, I have never actually played HeroQuest. Or any of the quest-y type games. I'll just let that sink in for a moment while you pick yourselves up from the floor...

Nor have I ever painted any of the plastic figures that came with the quest-y games, having previously viewed them with an abhorrence that is usually reserved for the dubious brown mush you find under your shoes after a stroll through a park popular with dog walkers.

But I was wrong. Well, at least in this case. I chose to paint one of the Fimir because I had picked up a bunch of them in bare plastic a little while ago because I saw them for sale on the cheap. The first figure I pulled out of the group had appalling mould slippage on the plastic, and I nearly decided to call it a day at that point. But on the off-chance I thought I'd check out another figure in the group, and it was fine. I had no idea that mould slippage variation like this was a feature of the plastic figures. Live and learn....

So, after small amount of mould line cleaning and a bit of green stuff filling of a hole in the small of the Fimir's back (some sort of plastic injection side effect?) it was time to think of a colour scheme. Well, actually, I'd already had one in mind. I was going to go full 1980s on this one:

I went with Foundry's Bright Green triad mixed with a little of their yellow for the main body colour, with a bit of a yellow glaze at the end. I was pleasantly surprised how much I liked this sculpt, and it was a complete joy to paint.

I decided to keep the base very simple because I didn't want it to detract from the rather fetching layout I've put him on. I don't think it's a piece of HeroQuest board, but I found it in my stash of scenery boards and I rather liked it.

Thanks for stopping by!

Next in line : Ashley