Pics of Extreme Mauler and Special Edition Eyriss Assembled

So, a little late, but here are the pics of the mauler assembled:













This guy took about 5 pins, one for each arm, 2 for the main body, and one from the legs to the body. I also filled all the gaps with plenty of greenstuff. The model didn't fit very well together, and there were quite a few large gaps between the pieces. I'm not sure if this is because the individual parts had warped over time, or if it came like that.

Again, I used the greenstuff + a small dab of superglue at each of the joins. I've found that doing this really gives the greenstuff an easy time of drying correctly, as the superglue mostly holds the pieces in place while the greenstuff dries overnight. It also makes for a super strong bond.

And here is Eyriss. Was pretty easy to put her together...just required a tiny dab of greenstuff in her shoulder joints and some to cover the slot in the base.

Just need to add some sand to her base and she should be ready for primer. The only problem is I still haven't set up any place to do primer spraying yet. I might need to go pick up a bunch of old cardboard boxes outside home depot or Walmart as I don't want any errant spray particles hitting the house when I spray outside.

The other concern I have is that it's really really hot here, and I'm not sure how that's going to affect the consistency of the spray primer.

Worked on the Extreme Mauler some last week

So I was able to finally finish building the Extreme Mauler sculpt yesterday. It took a ton of pinning work, lots of green stuff, and several hours, but he's finally put together. I've left him off the base because I want to paint the base separately first. Also, I still need to drill some pin holes for attaching him to his base.

This guy is a total beast. He has to weigh in at about a pound of pewter, and I pity anyone that had this guy drop on their foot!

I also worked on one of my Trollkin Champs, laying down some basecoating for his armor, leather, and weapons. It's been tough doing painting since I don't have a well lighted area set up yet in my house. I also don't have a modeling/painting table set up either, so I can only paint for very short periods before my back hurts too much from hunching over my coffee table. I'm not too happy with the results, so I'll probably improve it a bit before posting pictures.

Later this week I should have a table all set up though, so I should be able to paint for longer stints.

No pictures yet, but I will post some up tomorrow of the Extreme Mauler in all his unpainted (but assembled) glory!

Borka Built for Battle

I put together Borka last night. No real major issues with assembly and all the pieces fit together nicely. I did however do one pretty major change. I didn't really like his codpiece so I left that off and instead tried to sculpt my own belt and loincloth for him. This was my first major attempt at sculpting anything big with greenstuff.

I found it really hard to get the loincloth folded right; I think I may have been trying to shape it too soon after mixing the greenstuff because it just wouldn't hold it's shape and kept getting stuck to the table or my fingers/tools. I remembered later that to sculpt a wavy piece of cloth, it's best to wait an hour for it to harden before trying.

I also had some trouble doing his belt buckle and so it doesn't quite look right to me either.

I'll post up a picture later today, once it's all dry.

As for the list I'm going to be using him in tonight, I think I'm going to try this out:

Borka
-Pyg Keg Carrier
-Mauler
-Axer
-Pyre (using my Impaler to proxy)
Champions
Krielstone Bearer + 4 scribes
Fell Caller

I know he should be a lot better with just two beasts and more infantry, but I don't have the models to include Kriel Warriors or long riders yet. The Pyre in this list is kinda extraneous since the Mauler is there.

I'm expecting to get crushed tonight by Scott since he'll have his tournament list there, but it should be fun anyway to see what Borka can do.

Colonel Angus Reporting for Duty!

I finally got my Grim Angus last night while over at GameKastle. Woohoo! The lame thing was apparently mine didn't come with a medium base, and upon inspecting the other ones in the store, none of them had medium bases either. DOH! I guess there was some QC issues over at Privateer with these. Luckily there was a nice guy over at the store that had a spare base and he gave it to me so I could start working on him last night.

I also picked up a Rhyas just to paint up for fun too (ninjas rule!). I finished assembling both of them last night while watching the Shining for the first time. Pretty freaky movie. I liked Jack's weird axe murderer limp. That and his crazy expressions.

Anyway, I played two games last night against Broken Zealot. Both really fun games. I actually enjoyed the one I lost better than the one that I won. :) Battle reports coming in another post. The nice thing was that I think I'm getting faster at doing my turns since we finished the first game in just under 2 hours. The second game we also finished in about 2 hours.

And a last bit of news, I'm pretty much done with my Axer. Just need to finish up the leather straps and his axe and he'll be all done. I'm going to see if I can finish him up tomorrow night. I'm thinking about doing Grim Angus first before the Krielstone bearer so that I can use him in a game. Plus, he doesn't look hard to paint at all...most of him is just leather armor and a few nick-nacks. Should be fairly quick and easy. I'm thinking about not doing him as an albino though...I never liked that look.

Plus, I'm picking up a Swamp Gobber crew and Alten Ashley for my new Grim Angus list. I'm thinking about taking the following:

Grim Angus
>Dire Troll Blitzer
>Troll Impaler
>Troll Impaler
Champions
Swamp Gobbers
Alten Ashley

I might swap out one impaler for an Axer though...I also really wanted to fit in Pygmy Bushwhackers too, but I'd have to drop the Champions for them...and I think I need the Champions more. This list is pretty shooty, but it's still got some melee punch to it. I'm hoping it does well. I think the Impaler and the Blitzer really synergize well with Grim, and Alten should be nice to have too against Hordes armies, though not as much against Menoth. Still, it's another guy who can shoot really far and take out those annoying solos and maybe even some unit leaders. The gobbers are just there to fill up points, but they should help with some nice clouds to obscure certain things.

Trollbloods Update

Bases done, priming underway, pics later.

In other news, my Starter Box and Dire Troll Blitzer are lost somewhere in the midwest according to UPS :(

EDIT: TRAGEDY! Well sort of. Apparently the solvents in the spray paint eats into greenstuff/superglue and so the tusks on the Dire Troll fell off!! I told him to cutback on his candy consumption, but nooo....

Ah well, hopefully I can fix it later today after the primer is dry.

Bah, stupid rain...

It's been raining all day today...so no chance to primer anything cause there's too much moisture in the air outside...I'll have to wait till it dries out more...hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to work on them some more.

In other news, my Trollbloods starter box and dire troll blitzer is on it's way from thewarstore.com and should be here, I hope, end of this week or early next week.

Menoth Experimental Color Scheme

Here are a couple of pics of my work-in-progress/experimentation with a bone/purple color scheme for my Menoth warband. This is pretty much the first time I have ever tried painting bone as well as purple. Most of my other painting experience has been with orcs and so a lot of greens, browns, and metals.

I think I like the color combination, but I need to touch up the purple areas, as well as make some of the bone areas more brown. I was being very cautious with the bone color since I didn't want it to look too strong, but I think I ended up going too far the other direction, and now it's too light and lacking that contrast needed to make it really look good.






This is also my first attempt at sculpting bases out of greenstuff. Disregard the brown color...just a basecoat color for now to see how it looks. By the way, I did the sculpting with no sculpting tools (don't have any yet...). I just used a plastic knife, my x-acto knife, and my fingers. Given that, I think it came out ok, but could definitely use some improvement, and I think a lot of the problems I had were that I didn't have the right tools for the job.

This guy will have to take a back seat though while I work on my Trollbloods warband. Purification by holy fire will have to wait until the Trolls are ready for bashin'.

Doomshaper and Dire Troll Mauler Assembly

So I finally finished working on assembling Doomshaper and the Dire Troll Mauler. Doomshaper fit together pretty well and so didn't need very much greenstuff work. Just a little around the arm and hand joints did the trick.

Unfortunately, the Dire Troll Mauler didn't fit together well at all and required a ton of greenstuff to fill in the gaps. It looks pretty bad in the pics, but I'm pretty sure with some paint over it, it will look fairly smooth.

I also tried my hand at a very very small amount of sculpting (extending the thorns on his back, third pic) and I think it came out ok so I might extend the thorns for the rest of the mohawk too. We'll see how it goes.

Lastly I started on the bases for these guys and will post them up tomorrow when I get better shots of them...the camera didn't like the sand and couldn't focus for some reason.