ByronM - Frogdog, Mole Preacher, and Stone Building

 

Today I have a group of three submissions that are all vastly different.  Let's start out with my favourite and the oddest, most NSFW one, which of course means a Kingdom Death model.  This is one I have waited a while to get to and paint, the mighty Frogdog and her multitude of dogpoles. This is a huge model, being on a 100mm round base and towering a little over that in height.

This is one of the newer KD models and as is normal in KD, she is anything but normal.  This is a cross between what looks like a simian face and a frog/toad body.  To help add to the strangeness of the model, she has human breasts hanging underneath and 6 human faces on her back, each with a vagina for a mouth and is giving birth to more "dogpoles".  Only in the strange and inhuman world of Kingdom Death could this creature be a thing! 

In game, the monster likes hopping around the swamp from lily-pad to lily pad that it treats as trampolines, sending people flying through the air.  She also charges up her double sphincter before releasing the most noxious of farts (she even has a fart AI deck with various toxic odours ready to release) that cause you to pass out and potentially drown in the swamp.  All in all it sounds like a cool and different fight, which is what KD is all about (although definitely not for everyone!).

Next up I have a small addition for my Burrows & Badgers collection, a small mole preacher.  I call him Friar Tuck, since he reminds me of the outfit in the Disney Robin Hood animated movie, just not big enough or fat enough, but its all they have that is close in the line.  As with all my B&B stuff it is a pretty simple cartoony paint job, but looks good with all the other miniatures.

Lastly, I have a 3D printed stone house from the Greendale line that can be found on myminifactory (there is also an equivalent line called Grimdale that is the destroyed versions of each building).  I printed this on my Anycubic Kobra S1 that I got a few months back, and it did a great job for a filament printer.  

However it did really remind me why I HATE filament prints. The lines and textures are a pain in the ass to work with, and I would really rather have printed in in resin.  The only reason I didn't is that I have about 10 buildings to paint up in this line, and another 10 for the ruined versions, and filament costs about $5 a building to print while resin would be $30-$50 per building.  To be fair, once on the table and at arms reach you can not really see the lines, so while I hate dealing with them, its not really noticeable when you are playing a game with them. 

The building is 5.5" long, 3.5" wide, and 5" tall, making it fairly substantial.  I painted it a stone grey colour to start with, then went in with 5 different shades of tan and brown and started painting random stones different colours.  From there it was washed to mute the colours a bit and then onto the roof and all the details.  Honestly, it too WAY too long to paint and was not worth it in the challenge due to the huge time sink it was as I had to be careful to always wet-brush and not dry-brush for the print lines to show up.  It probably took me twice as long as the frogdog to paint!  I am still thinking of adding some flock and moss to the roof, but decided to leave it for now until all are painted and I decide if I am going to do snow or moss.

And providing a group shot with a standard space marine for scale.

 

Overall these models should give me a grand total of  45 points.  The Frogdog is equivalent to the King I posted earlier in the challenge and should count as a 40mm monster for 25 points.  The mole preacher is a 25mm model for 5 points. Lastly the building is equivalent to many others that I have awarded 15 points to, so am claiming the same for myself here. As always though, points don't really matter to me, I am happy to just be getting stuff done, so adjust as you see fit.

 

ByronM - AOS Ogor Mawtribe Gluttons

 

Over the last few years a friend of mine has been de-cluttering since he moved way out in the middle of nowhere and that has been an amazing windfall for my pile of shame.  I think I just finished getting the last of his vast collection this fall, and it spanned over 30 tote boxes of stuff!  Most of it GW stuff!  He only gets to play games when visiting me, so it's now all here to be worked on and played with. Oh, and it has caused lots of in house fighting as my sons Riley and Quinn try to claim various parts of the collection for their own.

Anyway, part of that collect was a huge pile of Warhammer Fantasy era Ogres, or Ogors as they now call them so that the GW legal department can ensure that the IP they stole from past companies and authors can now not be re-stolen from them. Man do I hate modern day GW...

 Both of my sons have been bugging me to play Age of Sigmar with them, and while I consider the rules complete SH*T it is a chance to play games with them, sooooo....  I went looking for bits to make as small an army as possible so that I don't have to paint a whole ton of stuff for a game I don't really care about, and I decided on the Ogres, er I mean: Ogors.  The whole 2000 point army will consist of just 24 models, so that's a bonus!

This week I focused on getting the first of two units in the army together (yeah, really just two units and then a bunch on monsters and characters.... what a dumb game), a reinforced unit of 12 Ogor Mawtribe Gluttons.  Most of these were already assembled and primed, some even had some colour on them here and there (that I just painted over!) so while there are some mould lines still on them, I was not about to go and clean them up and re-prime them so they got left as they were.  Do you start to understand my level of caring for this project? :-D. 

These models have been painted to simply be done and table ready, they are nothing special, and are pretty rough.  I think they look good enough to be on a table at a store event though, so stopped at that.  I will probably put more effort into the characters and monsters, but the base infantry can suck it! 

I tried to have several different shades of flesh on them so that they do not all look the same, I also did them with various different colours of pants and boots since I really doubt the Ogors have an army tailor and uniform standard.  

For basing I am going for a dry fall / early winter Steppe look with scrub and sand base, and then patches of snow.  However, despite having at least 3 different types of snow flock, I can not find ANY of them (we moved 2 years ago and I do not believe I have used them since and they are probably still buried in my storage trailer someplace) so I had to drop the snow part of the base until I can either find my snow flock or much more likely order in some more.  I will make sure I post an updated picture when I do get the bases fully done with other Ogors in the near future.

ByronM - Kingdom Death: The King in Yellow

 

It was a busy Christmas so I didn't get much painting done, but I did manage to get some base colours on a bunch of models and at least this one model done, so I am posting it alone this week.  It is a figure that has caused much consternation with the wife, as she despises the colours I am using.  However, how could I not do an evil demonic king in any colour other than yellow?  So, I present to you my version of the Kingdom Death (KD) king as the King in Yellow.

I wanted to do him yellow since I first got him a few years ago, but delayed and delayed as painting anything in yellow sucks!  It's such a hard colour to work with, and its so easy to get it wrong (which unfortunately I probably did as I am not super happy with it but nothing I did made it better so I just left it). Over all though, despite the yellow being a bit muddier than I wanted, since I was looking for more of a shade of ochre through yellow, I think it suits the model.  It makes the fleshy bits a little harder to see and they blend in a bit, but overall I am not un-pleased with the result, just not thrilled with it either, if that makes any sense.

This is a huge model at almost 6" tall as shown with the already fairly tall KD survivor next to it!

 

As with all KD models he is full or strange, dark, twisted details.  For KD that usually means tentacles, penises, extra body parts (normally arms and hands), and babies and the King does not disappoint. While there are no tentacles or penises, the whole King appears to be made up of human arms and hands and babies.  No idea why, and really not sure I even want to question or know.  All I know is that it is creepy and disturbing to many people, but I love it! Heck, he even has a flowing chain of babies around his neck and back.  I normally don't paint pupils on models as it always looks like they are shocked with wide eyes, but I felt in this case that look would work on the babies, as it gives them a confused "why the F am I here" look to them, so I went with it.

 

ByronM - Burrows & Badgers - Stoats (Weasels)

For my first entry of this years challenge I painted up three more models for my Burrows & Badgers collection of figures.  These are three Stoats to add as mercenaries to any force I would like, and I affectionately refer to them as Larry, Darryl and Darrel.

 

 

I try to get something painted on day-one of each challenge every year, and usually succeed.  I see that Quinn (my son) beat me to the punch this year by getting up super early before work to paint something.  I had to be a bit slower this year as these are the first models I have painted since June when I suffered a pretty bad concussion and have not really been able to focus much since then. It's been slowly getting better recently, but it still took pretty much all day in small breaks going back and forth to them to get them done, and some of the brush work is a little rough, but hey at least they are done and table ready! 

 

 

These are official figures from Oathsworn Miniatures for their awesome game called Burrows & Badgers which I raved about last year.  Since they they have released a second edition and the game has gotten even better!  For anyone who has not tried this game yet, I can not recommend it enough.  Sure, it borrows pretty much all it's rules from other rule sets and there is little "original" about the game, but it just works!  This is the game I describe to everyone as "being better than it has any right to be".  It borrows the best parts of Mordheim, Infinity, LoTR, and so many more games, it really is brilliant, and the figures are top notch as well! 

As with the figures I painted last year, I am trying to go for a low detail, high contrast, cartoon type look with them.  I am not trying to do too much detail work on them, I just want them to stand out and look good at table top distance.  That said I am pretty happy with how these turned out, especially since I have not touched a brush in 6 months. 

 

SteveA: Trench Crusade Hell Knights

Fresh from the Trenches of the Crusade and the Court Of the Seven Headed Serpent I bring you HELL KNIGHTS!

I had a painting plan.... I had mapped out what minis to paint every week to progress thru the AHPC Devine Comedy themes and I had a hand full of minis in stuck on dowels being painted for that plan.... but then after a few recent inspiring chats with ByronM and our friend Mike, and after  the STLs from the minis from the Trench Crusade Kickstarter became available (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1405364378/trench-crusade),  well dang nabbit I went and done shot myself with the Squirrel Gun point blank to my paint brushes!   These minis presented here are less than a week off ByronM's  3d printer and fell into me grubby mitts just last Thursday, all while I have my modest pile of unpainted grey lead and plastic that have been 'round 30 years  still awaiting a loving lick o' paint...

I don't think I am using Speed Paints and the slap-chop technique to their intended efficient use, as I started with the foolish assumption that I could bang out these with a quick layer or two of slap-chopped speed paint action, then return to my original paint plan for this week... but after the first layers of Army Painter Speed Paint (Enchanted Steel, Slaughter Red, Bony Matter, Hoplite Gold)  my old 'Eavy Metal inspired painting habits kicked in as hard as an alcoholic falling off the wagon into a beer-fest where beer cures cancer and multiple layers of dry brushing, regular paint detailing and speed paints used as washes ensued for a few many more hours than I can in good conscious call a 'quick paint' ( and yes... I also confess to 2nd degree aggravated use of  GM's Agrax Earth shade and Nuln oil) .  I chased a moderately rusted look, and desaturated colors aimed to reflect these Hell Knights do not return to base for an armor polish and a shower, but they ain't falling apart from ill repair  any time soon.

Rust and weathering, many are the techniques and tools and products to make a mini look abused or ancient, and it seems many are the rusty lessons I must learn to well serve many of the minis in my queue.  Happily I found that a dry brush of Vallejo 'Orange Fire' game color dry brush over a metallic based pre-treated with a layer or two of speed paint browns provides me a satisfying rusty orange that I can confidently use to succeed the role of my ancient pot of old 90's Citadel Orange Ink in my rusty endeavors. 

Trench Crusade, another game for more minis and a deepening of the back log of grey to slay, a happy problem to have!

Total 21 Points

x3 40mm Foot Figure, Trench Crusade Hell Knights (3x7pts) 

From SteveA:Frostgrave 28mm

 For the theme of Greed I dug into my pile of grey and dusty minis to find what I could paint up to hint at a moment from a story telling of those who crave the gleam of gold, those who Greedily  hoard treasure and those who wish to permanently borrow that same hoard.

A mini of a Beholder looming over a couple treasure chests sparked my inspiration for the theme of Greed, and 4 gold chest objective markers and a couple of loot topped tables I felt would help support convey the sense of "mine all mine" to go along with the beholder's Mohahaha face, as it encountered the two wandering adventures who had been vacuuming up loose loot and gear on their way down into the dungeon depths.

I used a combination of Army Painter speed paints and regular paints for these minis. I am a pleased with how the Army Painter's 'Blood Red' speed paint over a grey/white dry brush quickly established satisfactory slap-chopped  red flesh tones for the beholder flesh.  I find the Army Painter 'Hardened Leather'  speed paint also serves well for dark wood tones, perhaps more so than for leather.  After stocking up on more Army Painter speed paints this year, I now find myself using their 'Pallid Bone', 'Sand Golem' or 'Boney Matter' where in past I would have typically relied on GW's Agrax Earth shade for liquid talent.

The Beholder is a 3D print ByronM provided, yet again a case of me having a few too many spare moments on a game night to poke thru his works in progress and backlog of minis on deck, resulting in me asking him "how much $ to print me a copy of this mini you have here".  While FrostGrave does not actually have a Beholder with the game's Bestiary,  I think as a "Major Demon" old one and ten-eyes here is fit for purpose.

The other minis are from the mists of time when Mordheim was new and in its prime.  The chests of gold if I recall correctly are from a sprue of Mordhiem minis, the tables are from a blister pack of scatter terrain impulsively bought from my favorite 90's local hobbyshop.   

The two loot laden 'Men At Arms' I will use for Frostgrave, are conversions I crafted about 20 years ago -  both to use when playing Mordhiem, and also for use in a Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play campaign I was game mastering back then  (where I wanted some minis that could somewhat represent the loot laden players). The loot and gear on these minis was a combination of some crude green stuff sculpting and a raid on my bits box.

Total 40 Points

x1 Beholder (28mm Artillery) = 10 pts

x2 Man At Arms ( 28mm Foot Figure)  = (2x5) =10 Pts

x2 Tables scatter terrain, x4 Gold Chest Markers = 0pts

SteveA - Turnip 28 & Frosthaven

 Rounding up my submissions for this fine AHPC XV is the continuation of my efforts to complete my first Turnip  28 army is two Regiments of Fodder, a Toff and a couple of Toadies to fill the ranks of   "Les Betteraves Royales Maléfiques du Grand Destin, du but Prédestiné et du design Inspiré !!"

The Fodder and Toff are converted models from the Victrix kit  'Napoleon's Middle Imperial Guard, Fusiliers-Grenadiers' # VX0016.   Green stuff of course features prominently for conversions to create roots and Plague doctor style masks, as does the use (and abuse) of Tajima1 grass tuffs typical of Turnip28 conversions.  To punch up the vegetation tufts sprouting from these Fodder I also used bristles clipped  from a (new and unused) shower scrub  brush, where I dipped the extended bristly tips  first in glue then in fine sand to (hopefully) infer a flower or small leaf effect at the ends of long slim stems.

For the banners I drew inspiration from a recent 'Peachy Tips' YouTube video for the use of masking tape to craft cloth capes for conversions, to my current need to create cloth banners 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ0cOFKpto4

My banner cost of arms art needs some skill-ups for future efforts, but hopefully  what many layers of paint wash and  battle damage cannot hide here, the lore of decay and corruption afforded by the world of Turnip can perhaps obfuscate behind assumptions that the Fodder, rather than I,  are woefully ill-equipped and nigh-useless at free hand banner painting.

One of my Toadies is an olde thyme GW Halfling adventure conversion up with green-stuffed mushrooms rising from his back to effect his bragging a taller stature and the other Toady is a converted 10mm Troll 3d misprint mashed up with a few of the same Victrix kits bits, hence scoring this one Turnip 28 mini as a 10mm model.

When working on my first few T28 head conversions I became a little frustrated with my efforts to sculpt green stuff into  plague doctor style masks into something more elegant than looking like the drooping noses of chubby elephant seals. After some mucking about and experimenting I found I could easily achieve a long tapered nose for the mask by first crafting up the same disappointing chubby mask, but then rather than using tools to somehow force a sculpt of fine features I instead just pinched the mask's chubby nose tip between my fingers and then pulled and stretched the green stuff  away from the bulk of the green stuff stuck to the model's face and kept slowly pulling and stretching past the green stuff's stretchy breaking point, which left me with a satisfyingly   long and narrow length of green stuff  protruding from the model face for me to sculpt into visages closer to my artistic vison. I am keen to return to more T28 conversion in future to better evolve mask sculpting techniques, as these conversions were fun to do.


Squirrel! huh wuh? Do I hear the sweet jangling of keys???   Unplanned and imperfect is this last entry here, a Deathwalker mini from the Frosthaven board game that I play most Thursdays with ByronM and some other fine folk as fate permits.  On impulse  last week we decided to paint up the  minis for the characters we played, to add more color and spectacle to the weekly-ish game

Not my best, but hopefully board game worthy to combat vs cardboard standy monsters.  This is the 3rd or 4th repaint within the same past week to sort out colors and contours before I had to invoke the ancient power of GEMO ( Good Enough, Move On) against my impulses to overcome this re-visitation to my to memories of more (ahem) "youthful" years skill level of painting.  This isn't the only distraction from the well constructed painting plan I had at start of this years challenge, but at least it resulted in another mini no longer blighted by the grey

Total Points: 136
x24 Turnip 28 Fodder                   Foot Figure  28mm 24x5 = 120 pts
 x1 Turnip 28 Toady          Foot Figure 28mm =   5 pts  
 x1 Turnip 28 Toady                  Foot Figure 10mm =   1 pts
 x1 Toff  Turnip 28                 Foot Figure 28mm =   5 pts
 x1 Frosthaven Deathwalker         Foot Figure 28mm =   5 pts