Total annihilation

Ok I admit: may has been a very slow month so far on a modeling and painting level.
It's due to various reasons I guess, work issues (no longer an issue since last week) gaming issues (WoW's just to fun to ignore) and I've been doing a fairly ammount of reading lately.
Fear not tho, ARAM for may is underway so no issues on that department.
Earlier this week I my resolve finally gave in and I found myself dragging my feet into the GW-store in Antwerp and grabbing the last copy of Codex: Nercons.
To 'celebrate' my weakness I purchased the Command Barge/Annihilation Barge at the same time, it's one of those rare GW kits wich can give you 2, and in my case 3, models for the price of 1,HURRAY!!
It's the very first new model that I bought for this army in 8 years so needless to say I was a bit excited to assemble and add it fully painted to my collection.
The barge was constructed with carnage in mind so the 2 large boomsticks were the things of choice to be mounted on top of the vehicle, this left me with a 'free' plastic Necron Overlord (the 25mm base was included in the box).
The classic 3-B colours were applied (Bone-Blue-Bronze) so it would fit seamlessly into the rest of the force.
It's a pitty GW ditched the clear green plastic rods for the new models, must be the price tag so the barrels were painted green and highlighted to yellow.
All in all I'm happy with this model and already I'm thinking on expanding my Necron army and replacing some older OOP models like the Wraiths and the Immortals but those will come in due time.

Before I forget, I mentioned a third model made from this kit.
I had some leftover bits and since some scenarios in 40K ask for an objective marker I made this one.
It's a lost probe or something, a gizmo that enters the atmosphere at high altitude and gathers valuable military data during a supersonic flight wich it then transfers back to the fleet prior to recovery or self destruction, this one crashed tho.

Big Boris III

Heresy Miniatures exists 10 years and to celebrate this Andy Foster, owner and sculptor, released a new version of the Half-Ogre barbarian wich was his very first miniature sculpted for his own company.
Big Boris was launched april 24th and already this monday he arrived here in not so sunny Belgium.
Assembly was a quick and thankfully uneventful affair and let me tell you this big fella weighs a ton!!! Even the scenic base is made out of metal, heavy man.
The painting however took a bit longer, 4 hours or so in total since I wanted this mini to be special: lots of leather, tattoos, coloured tiles,...
I also tried to paint his axe in non metallic metals, a painting technique wich I've never braved before and had me in doubts for days up to the moment I held my brush in front of BB's weapon.
In the end I voiced my doubts to my ten year old son, who was painting an orc at the other side of the table, he sipmly shrugged and told me to just go for it... and so I did.
Let me tell you it's a difficult thing and only suitable for display pieces but it's really fun to do and it turned out better than I had hoped or expected.
So here he is in all his overly muscled glory: Big Boris!!!

Happy Birthday Andy and Boris :-)))

+++ SYSTEMS REBOOTING+++

Today I wandered into the GW store in Antwerp (why do I keep going to that accursed place), looking for The Empire armybook since I finally found a use for James Graham and his Royalist Scots and Irish when I found out that this summer they will be hosting a 650 point 40K tournament.
As we were talking about it I mentioned I still had a Necron army on shelfduty, the models were painted 8 years ago and to a good standard, they even won me best painted army once back in 2004.
I've thrown the metallic colourscheme out the window back then and went for a more Khemri-look, wich seemed to appeal to the store manager because he'd love to see them some time.
I'm a bit reluctant to field them again since the whole soul less image they had seemed gone by giving them named characters and such even though I like the new models.
Also the fact that it was 8 years ago since I painted my last Necron has always put me off into starting them again as it would be hard, not to say impossible, to reproduce the exact colourscheme.
In the end I left the store emptyhanded, the Empirebook was sold out again (I ordered a copy), and settled down in the local pub with a friend discussing different topics including a 650 point Necron army.
By the time I got home my resolve and reluctancy had buckled... The Nercons are returning..

These were painted 8 years ago, it was a fairly ambitious paintingproject and took me a rather long time to get them battleworthy.

This Destroyer Lord was painted today, it has roughly the same colours and was done in a fraction of the time it took me all those years ago.

I realise now that my paintingskills have grown, both in speed and techniques, and the fear I felt about the new models being out of cue with the rest of the army has vanished faster than a sausage in a room full of Halflings.
The next addition for the army will be an Annihilation Barge.
And the Codex ofcourse... oh dear....

The charge of Octavius

The idea for this miniature began about a year ago when I saw both Night at the museum films for the first time ( a third instalment is rumored to be underway btw ) and when Steve Coogan as Octavius riding a squirrel I looketh upon my tv-screen and thought it funny.
Last summer I was on vacation with the family in Germany and while the kids were browsing the Lego section in a departmentstore I was amelessly wandering around the shop, that's when I saw this Schleich display with a little squirrel sitting amongst the rest of the plastic animals.
An idea was born and so I quickly snatched the little bugger up and payed for him while the wife gave me her trusty 'what the hell is that git up to now' look.
It was a gamble wich payed of at Crisis, Warlord Games provided me with the Roman General I needed.
Since it is a display piece I wanted a nice cavalery base, I found what I wanted at Hasslefree Miniatures.

Now please note that the miniature is based upon the previous NatM character, I had to downscale the mount and the base for practical reasons.
I couldn't find a bigger squirrel, I briefly toyed with the idea of looking for a 15mm rider but dismissed it since I needed the general's horse as a mount for my Albion Chieftain.
Octavius in the film's a miniature himself so a monotonious base was out of the question too, or do you have a good idea for making a 25x50mm base look like a 250x250mm slab?

The whole thing was painted in 3 parts, starting with the base.
Next was the mount, it was prepainted so I undercoated it black and made it look more like a gray/brown American squirrel.
After glueing mount and base together it was time our Roman friend got the attention he deserved and despite I've never painted a Roman before in my life I tried to make him as historical correct as I could.
I hope you like him, it was a fun little thing to do and it had me grinning from ear to ear all through the paining and assembling, occationally I dashed of to missus like a happy kid showing my progress and getting comments like "you're nuts".

A Regiment a Month part 12: Burn baby, burn

And so a year has come and gone in nigh on 12 solid months of painting miniatures, I can't quite grasp it but it's true.
When I look back at april 2011 I remember embarking on the ARAM quest with some other likeminded fellows, I am the last one of my kind now.
Truth be told I wanted my 12th edition to be something special and go back to my roots but the thing I had planned proved harder to paint than I expected, it's not dead and gone but merely postponed so watch this space.
In stead I've painted something else: 6 classic Flamers from GW.
I picked them up at E-bay at a fair price, I prefer them over the failcast crappy ones.
At first I wanted to piant them white and with swirling colours but it just didn't work, twice I had to plunge them into breakfluid to strip the paint of!!!
I was taking this thing to far, "they're Flamers for crying out loud" I said to myself and so decided on painting them in a fiery colourscheme, all of them.
The hairs or flames on their heads were given other colours to reflect the mutating flames of Tzeentch and were achieved by working from a white basecoat to a black... highlighting..
The beaks were kept normal and seem to be the only solid thing on an otherwise ethereal and deamonic creature.
I'm very happy with how they turned out and I can proudly say that these are my best work to date but please judge for yourselves.

Liberté, égalité et fraternité

I think it was about a year ago when I purchased an untouched armydeal from Tomsche.
It were the French in 6mm for WWII games, at first I wasn't really interested but at the last I gave in anyway.
I have a tendency of starting French armies, not all of the time though but it happens and the reason is simple: I am of French origine.
Anyway, a year after I got the miniatures and the rulebook for Blitzkrieg Commander I finally mustered the courage to paint up  a small 1000 point force... next time I'll buy a Brittish tank army because painting 6mm uniforms more or less correctly is damn hard work espescially when you don't want to make them look like multicoloured blobs.
The horses I kept in a uniform grey and the tanks got a camouflagescheme based on actual tanks of that time and nation.

Now where are those bloody Germans when you need them?

In the name of change

A new Herald was added today to my ever expanding Deamon army, Tzeentch is well and truly entering the fray.
I'm convinced that this bugger will come in handy, he's standard a level 2 wizard at only 115 points. Bargain.
Pink Horrors, the normal footsoldiers, are wizards too and the urge to go out and get some so I can zap the opposition to smithereens is almost arse-paralysingly intens but I must wait for now lest The Missus finds me skulking around the house again holding another box or blister and goes flying into another berzerker rage that puts Khorne to shame.
The model itself is another GW classic, I'm getting quite fond of those lately (next post lads, next post), and originally came with a flying disc wich back then fitted on a 25 x 25 mm base and not the 50 x 50 you need now.
I ditched the whole golden sand/red grass thing used previously and instead painted the sand almost black, it brings out the colours of the Herald more.
I used a slightly brighter colourscheme but not to much, not that I don't dare to make it all vibrant and shiny but it's just not my style.
I had some fun on details like the horn knife and the scroll but apart from that I kept it simple, Tzeentch Deamons are already weird enough as it is.

I hope you like him and till next time
Next up: Flamers