I need a break

I know that people dislike reading such stuff, but I still want to say something so that any people visiting won't think I forgot or died.

As I stated in the title, I think I finally got burned out - after painting continously and without larger breaks since August 2015. While I had lots of fun sculpting those weird beastmen from last weeks, I was forcing myself to paint them and I reached the point when I just need a break from the hobby. No more paints, greenstuff, cameras, photoshop, etc. Keeping the format of one post a week was easy earlier, but now it turned into an obligation - and that always kills the fun for me. I also fell really behind in commenting all the great works that's been showing up recently. I don't know how long it will take and I don't plan anything, I just need to clean up my desk and actually start to miss all the painting. I'm sure I'll be back, I'm way too deep in this shit to just close it completely.

Curiously enough, what having a baby and moving twice within six months couldn't do to my painting streak, the routine of the lockdown finally did...

Blood Bowl Chaos Chosen - The Unmade

After way too much time, we're finally at the last duo of weird beastmen - the Unmade (I couldn't find a fitting name that wasn't also the name of a GW Warcry warband...), the beastmen who mutated in ways directly beneficial in Blood Bowl - a very rare sight.

These are the ones that certainly gain the most after painting them - they both have big, creepy eyes on them. That also meant that they were pushed to the very end of my beastmen - I was intimidated by the prospect of painting so many eyes... Thankfully it wasn't as bad as I thought. Besides, painting wood and a lion's face from a photo were some nice changes to the usuals in this project.

The WIP for the left one can be found HERE and the right one HERE.

Most beastmen playing in the Lost & Damned are just random fluctuations of Chaos that had to cope in the new, Blood-Bowl-obsessed world they found themselves in - but some are created special. Those Unmade, were seemingly disassembled by their gods and made anew to carry unique mutations to help them play. It may be an ability to split oneself in two halves to dodge better, an arm mounted on a wheel to help pass farther and or eyes flailing on their nerves to see everyone and everything on the pitch and react accordingly. Still, no matter how useful or skilled they are, they don’t get many fans during their careers - they are literal slaves to their roles, single-mindedly devoted to filling their tasks. What starts with a strong drive and focus, turns later into psychosis. In their final hours, they get so overwhelmed with their specialization, they forget things like walking, seeing, breathing, perishing without understanding anything around them.

Blood Bowl Chaos Chosen - The Unspent

Fifth group of the bizarre Beastmen. We're leaving the truly malformed ones and moving onto those actually capable of playing like professionals, the Unspent.

The buff "lizardman" on the left is a generic blocker in the team, the only one actually. I decided to go with a healthy-looking, very un-lizardy skintone for him to contrast with the unusual head. The one with the hands-on approach on the right uses the 'Claw' skill - one that's also very useful. I didn't have a dark-brown one in the bunch so far, so he took it up - besides, he's the only one to wear proper Blood Bowl attire - on the hands at least! All in all, a rather straightforward pair.

The WIP for the left one can be found HERE and the right one HERE.

Amongst the menagerie of twisted horrors and miserable mistakes of The Lost & Damned players one do can find some capable ones. Those are usually called the Unspent and are actually able to go toe to toe with professionals. While they may still look bizarre, they either found a way to work around their deficiencies or made a strong point of them, giving their skills an extra edge through surprise. Still, the Unspent have to work extra hard to make up for the rest of the team and no matter how much they may enjoy their ‘glory’, they cannot escape who they are and will be always found by the many blessings of the Chaos Gods sooner or later, losing their skills, popularity and finally - sanity.

Blood Bowl Chaos Chosen - The Untrue

As promised, here I am again with the usual - some more twisted beastmen for my equally twisted Chaos Blood Bowl team, The Lost & Damned.

Now, those guys were fun - I consider them the least "believable" of the bunch, representing more nightmares given form than just a strange mutated beastmen. The one on the left was inspired by the Pantheon of Chaos banners the most - which, in turn, take a lot from Ian Miller's art for the Lost&Damned book. I don't have the slightest idea how this creature would even work in reality and I like it like that very much. While the sculpting process was rather complicated, the painting was very straightforward.

The one on the right is almost a random assortment of bits - I didn't plan it, I was just piecing together some newly-bought parts. The final effect looks perhaps less physics-defying than the Flatface, but it's a strange one nontheless. It also turned out quite interesting as a miniature - difficult to understand when viewed only from one angle, which I consider a very fitting feature.

The WIP for the left one can be found HERE and the right one HERE.

Another kind of beastmen employed by the Lost & Damned can be only called the Untrue. They are just wrong, cruel mistakes of fate that managed to take form and escape from the maelstrom of Chaos. Functioning like a glitch in the reality, those saner around them can never relax or think straight - so they are often used by the coach to disrupt their opponent’s gameplan. Still, no matter how the Untrue look or act, they are aware of themselves and their surroundings, possibly even sentient - and that just seems to disturb everyone even more. Then, without any warning, they are called back by their gods and just suddenly blink out of existence and everyone’s minds, like a bad dream in the morning...  

Sir Chiegane, the Questing Knight

While I have some more of my usual programming ready and painted, I wasn't able to take any photos of them in time - so, we're back to some old Bretonnians again.

I believe I painted this Questing Knight champion around 2010, together with some of his compatriots. That was also the time when Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire was much more okay for me than it is today, so I was eager to put heraldry from those series onto my knights. Seeing as this guy here is wielding a two-handed sword and has a modest, but scary skull on his helmet, I decided to make him carry a Clegane emblem with three black dogs on a yellow background. Other than that, he's pretty unremarkable - besides the sculpt of course - it represents one of the best times of GW's creativity in my opinion, but that's not thanks to me.

While all the knights who are on their quest for the Holy Grail are removed from the traditional, feudal chain of command, Earl Sagremor can usually depend on some of them to lend their hand when a conflict arises on his lands. Those men come and go, but one of them has been enduring his quest for many years now and he's usually serving as a leader and mentor the others on a similar path - Sir Chiegane. While he tries to keep it a secret to himself, he enjoys his current state - without any seniors to lord over him, without any traditional duties or responsibilities - only the vague 'quest'. This allows him to enjoy his life a little bit more than many of his peers - so, Chiegane is in no hurry to actually find the Grail. Not that the Lady will be willing to grant it to him, seeing as his morals degrade with every passing year. Sooner or later, Green Knight will force him to decide what he wants - you can cheat the system, but not the higher powers.

Blood Bowl Chaos Chosen - The Ungraceful

I'm determined to paint, so here are some more of the Lost & Damned beastmen - continuing the darker theme presented HERE at first.

Those guys turned out much more colorful than I anticipated. The snailmen were supposed to have a realistic tone to their shell and somewhat more colorful skin to offset that and create some contrast, but now I think they would work well with black (or generally much darker) skintone too. The other one, the birdman, was inspired by the Skeksis from Dark Crystal and the most recognizable of them, the Chamberlain, had blueish-purple skin, so I went with that to make the connection a bit more recognizable. This also serves as a contrast to more realistically-painted arms that grow out of his hand-sleeves. I hope those two will make the whole team look even less coherent and weird - and I won't have to regret not going full grimdark on them.

The WIPs for both of them can be found HERE.

For the creatures that emerge from the Chaos Wastes, it’s not uncommon for two or more souls to inhabit one body. For Bloodbowl, this naturally means more players for the price of one - which would work really well, if it wasn’t Chaos. Those ‘Ungraceful’ are like writing something with a quill held by many people - their movements are shaky, unsure, forced. It may be several creatures forced into one armor, many body parts growing out of a central ‘torso’ or a body with three different ‘fronts’ and no ‘back’. They may prove themselves useful from time to time, but their life is a constant struggle between the constituent parts of the unfortunate, cursed creature.

Blood Bowl Chaos Chosen - The Untamed

I'm in a painting mode recently and I managed to finish up some more weird Blood Bowl beastmen, so here we go with the next two, the feral Untamed, continuing the idea of a grimdark team, desribed a bit HERE.

I like those two - the giant's head on legs was one of the earliest ideas I had for this team and the second one was created by basically pairing random bits together - and he came out really well with those tongue-hands of his. They also offered something more than the last ones when it came to painting - a larger surface of checkered metal and wet arms respectively. I can also mention this time the bases and blue grass - I was wondering for a long time how should I base them to fit the theme. This was a last-minute experiment and also turned out not that bad - almost as if it was photoshopped to change the hue of the pitch, which works fine for Chaos.

The WIPs for both of them can be found HERE and HERE.

While some players of the Lost & Damned team can’t bear existing in the corporeal world, others manage fine, but they are wrought with other issues. The Untamed, as they are usually called - their minds stopped controlling their bodies a long time ago. Those wretches are wild, basic, animalistic, unable to understand the game, and following their vague, violent instincts. Still, they are useful in a scrap and actually simple enough for their coach to overwrite their impulses directly if need be. Dangerous meat puppets, they keep running on the pitch without a pleasant nor a painful thought, until they are destroyed and finally released from their fate.  

Blood Bowl Chaos Chosen - The Unkind

My motivation is out of whack recently, so instead of continuing with the older Kreegan Krashers as I should, I started painting my much weirder flavor of a Chaos Team - The Lost & The Damned.

In general, this will be my dark, "28" take on Blood Bowl. While the Punters already use a darker palette, they are still rather silly. This will not be the case here. I intend to make them as gloomy as I can - and if the models won't be enough, I'll add some despair in the backgrounds too.

Just like with the WIPs, I will be starting with the "beastmen" - I separated them into 6 groups once again (I don't have much more steam to churn them out faster...), with some theme to bind them together every time. We're starting with the "Unkind", creatures that are just badly pieced by the forces of chaos, hurting badly and more than willing to hurt someone back on the pitch. One of them is a literal sack of flesh and organs barely holding together and the other one was blessed with metal pieces growing from under the skin, with all the unpleasantness that it may entail.

The painting was simple enough, nothing extravagant yet. I decided to make their team armor a red-white checkered pattern, which was supposed to be both old-school and work well with the weathering. Then it turned out pretty Croatian... I never realized it before! Well, after all the scratches and dirt were applied, it wasn't as bright and glaring as before. There's not much of it here, it should be more pronounced on later models. I also stopped writing the player's names on the bases - it made them too crowdy - a number will suffice from now on, for any new teams.

The WIPs for both of them can be found HERE and HERE.

When everyone became fixated with Blood Bowl, many quickly adapted to this new reality. Far away from all that, in the Chaos Wastes, the creatures stirred in their confusion and frustration - the whole world was filled with rage and despair just as much as before, but now they could not partake in it. While saner followers of Chaos found great success in Blood Bowl, the malformed beings forming and disappearing in the wastes were just too strange, too different. Only after many years, born from random mutations, a team emerged to partake in the game - The Lost & The Damned they were called. Unwelcome and unwanted, they still have a hard time fitting in. Some of their players, the Unkind, are just so disfigured, mutated, and badly pieced together, the reality of the world weighs on them, causing physical pain - and they just want to take it out on the pitch. Without anything to lose or regret, they are as determined as they are cruel.

Malignant Plaguecaster - WIP

WH40K with Nurgle continues. I wanted to have more finished conversions before I start painting, so I did some other characters too, besides the Lord of Contagion two posts ago. Today comes the Malignant Plaguecaster, the simple psyker from the previous starter set.

I was mostly fine with the model, except for the puff of noxious gas that he was blowing from his hand - I hate painting such special effects. I decided to replace it with a writing mass of tendrils, which is both properly substantial and also a connection to the flesh horror theme of this army. There is a toothy maw between them - it was a perfect use for the little squig that I spared from Mollog's kit.