Plague Marine #02

Another loyal comrade for my quite new WH40K collection of Death Guard, one that started with Lord Krvavrus. This one has probably the smallest amount of fleshy bits on him, but there are still some. I'm not sure if there are any "armor-only" models in the current Death Guard range, but if there are some, conversions will be needed.

Right now I'm busy with Christmas, but I should be able to break the monotony of those posts next week with a nice Bretonnian knight. Until then, enjoy some haphazard weathering on this one.

Plague Marine #01

And we're back with the (un)usual programming - first of the Plague Marines to serve great Lord Krvavrus and his Red Death. This one is probably my favorite of the whole batch, so he goes first.

While the painting process of those dudes is easy and rather mindless, it took much more time than I anticipated, thus the last filler post. Still, I managed to paint a whole group of them and I'll be posting them one by one because first, they are all really unique, not just rank-and-file and second, so that I can have some time to paint bigger things like standards for Bretonnians or to convert some war machines vehicles for the Red Death.

This is still an experiment when it comes to weathering, it will probably take several rounds of those before I find something that really satisfies me. At least the color scheme works good IMO.

Mounted Bretonnian Damsel - WIP

Sadly, I wasn't able to finish what I was working on recently, so a little filler this time. Sorry!

Quick conversion I did for the mounted damsel for my Bretonnian force. I was unhappy with how one sided her design is... I understand that this is how she sits on the horse, but there are ways to make it interesting. A sculpted quilt, some bits and detailing, her other side shouldn't be now as boring as before. Now, after painting Bretonnians for so long, I don't know how to paint a horse so exposed!

Knight Errant #05

Back to Bretonnia - they are weirdly very popular on my Instagram, so I decided to move them in the right direction.

Musician this time, nothing overly fancy. I tried another way of painting black and yellow parts and it works pretty well, quicker and cleaner. Should prove helpful in the future!

Blood Bowl Markers - 'Infected Pallid Ale' Kegs

Continuing the streak for my beloved Blood Bowl Team: the Putrid Punters! Thematically related to the previous entry, the Horticulturist, here I am with some tasty, healthy and organic beer.

There is a generic upgrade for every team, the "Bloodweiser Kegs/Babes" which are supposed to reinvigorate the players after they are knocked out - and having some neat marker for those is easy enough. Still, for my Punters, I wanted something special, something that would fit well their alternative take on biology. I had this giant bell laying around and it was a perfect use for it. The second one took some more thinking, but I think it's not worse - a walking gland full of beer, which could be distributed through a fleshy tube - a more organic approach. Both were based on 40K poxwalkers - those small guys are perfect for generic Nurgle dudes. WIP post can be found HERE.

The painting was even better than converting in my opinion. First, there was this giant bell and metal is always welcome. Secondly, the sacs showing between the fleshy bits on the right one were supposed to look half-transparent, showing some contents inside - I never painted something like this, which is also nice. Thirdly, after all was painted I had to do all the water effects, with a large amount of resin in the bell and even more beady foam - also lots of fun. I'm quite satisfied with those.

Another note - I painted many nurgly and undead pieces in my hobby career, with its fair amount of gore and unsavory details, but in my opinion, the "walking keg" is my most disgusting miniature by far.

Edit: Forgot to mention, but this another entry for the small challenge "If not minis, then what?", so about what would you be doing if not hobbying. If I had this crazy amount of time, I would definitely try brewing my own beer. Perhaps more palatable to humans that this thing here.

While most Blood Bowl players and fans love to drink copious amounts of Bloodweiser, the Putrid Punters are beer snobs who bring their own hand-crafted kegs to every party, dismissing famous brand as watered-down parody of real beer. Created in their microbrewery by good Mr.Rotlaug, the Infected Pallid Alle (I.P.A.) is their beverage of choice - with just the right amount of foul bitterness mixed with tangy aftertaste of decay. They bring it to matches either in giant bells or drink it straight from the tap. Only with this behind the sidelines they can be expected to get up from knockouts more often.

Blood Bowl Nurgle Staff - Mr. Rotlaug the Horticulturist

It seems there will be quite a streak of Blood Bowl staff right now - and it's all for the smelly Putrid Punters of Nurgle!

After the Head Coach it's time for the Horticulturist. He's basically a wizard addition for the team, but the whole idea od a nurgly gardener with his free-range bio-vegetables was sweet and I had lots of fun putting this little "almost-a-diorama" together. The WIP post can be found HERE.

Festus was used as a base, because he's basically that as he already is. Still, that wasn't enough, so I have him a snazzy hat, a shovel, lots of healthy produce and a referee to taste his refreshments. He's supposed to be also a beer brewer for my team, so I wanted to put some foam on the guy tasting the brew - a new challenge for me. I made it with small glass beads mixed with gloss varnish and some pale green paint. Does it look okay?

Mr. Rotlaug here is also my answer to yet another challenge amongst polish bloggers, this time it's "If not minis, then what?", as a question what would one be doing if not wasting time and money on this hobby. I live in a modern (poorly lit) apartment, so no farming for me, but I do enjoy my houseplants and would probably work on them a little bit more if not painting minis. Close enough for the topic IMHO!

Every self-respecting Blood Bowl player knows that proper diet and good nutrition are the keys to success on the pitch - and Nurgle players are no different. Pedantic about the quality of their veggies, they often keep a small garden with only the best organic, bio, fair-trade and free-range greens for their high nutritional needs. Those who want to be even more serious about it employ a professional, a horticulturist - and the good Mr. Rotlaug is the one working currently with the Punters. While quite peculiar and difficult to understand (thick dialect developed in Averland), he’s nonetheless extremely knowledgeable and his veggies are truly exemplary. They are so good, actually, that they can be deployed on the pitch as a weapon - being so healthy, they are actually disgusting and distracting to other players that grew up on Big Moot Sandwiches and Orca-Cola - even causing stomach difficulties! Thus, the Punters rely on Mr. Rotlaug every time when they want to make a point of their exceptionally healthy diet and crush their weaker, poorly-fed opponents.

Blood Bowl Nurgle Staff - Marggh Mawgino the Head Coach

After a really long break, here I am again with some content for my beloved Blood Bowl team, the Putrid Punters!

This time it's the head coach, a character that gives you such a rarely used advantage, he's practically useless... but he's still an important person and a great modelling opportunity. As I mentioned in the WIP post, an ogre's body was the core idea for this conversion, all to make him this absolute unit of a coach. It works, he's towering over all his players!

I had to remind myself how to paint this yellow skin, but painting him was an overall pleasant experience. I have some other small things for this band planned, so this was a good warmup.

Through all the years and many time jumps, the Putrid Punters relied on their ancient and trusted coach Oughustus. Unfortunately, the stationary life of a coach made him susceptible to growing greater and more glorious with every season, until he became simply too big to fit in the time portal. Instead, he was consumed by the warp, never to be seen again. Some journalists argue that he ascended to daemonhood, watching the Punters from the comfort of Grandfather Nurgle’s garden. Hard pressed, the team pitched in and recruited a relatively new, fresh and fit head coach Marggh Mawgino. While he’s not as experienced as his predecessor, he knows much more theory and the modern take on Blood Bowl - so maybe together with his ancient, veteran players, they’ll be able to compensate for each other’s weaknesses and achieve something passable.

Lord Krvavrus, Harbinger of the Red Death

After some small sneak peeks through WIP posts, I can now properly start a brand new collection here, 40k Death Guard.

The general idea about them is to have them in all-white armor, with no extra decorative trims, like on a real military tank, but HEAVILY weathered. This then goes in a wintery setting. Amongst all that dirty white comes the red, all the fleshy bits will be painted as bloody viscera, standing out from the background. This guy here is the main leader of this new force and also a guinea pig for this whole new endeavor. And by new, I really mean new. There are so many "first-times" here, I haven't felt like this in years! I never painted any 40k, I never used chipping medium, I never used snow effects, I was very excited painting him, even if he's a little bit lost amongst the rust and grime.

Obviously, some fine-tuning will be needed on the technique, but I am looking forward to it nonetheless. I have lots of marines already primed, some terminators ordered, and conversion parts for the Blight-haulers waiting. Yet another new nurgle force coming right up! And there is another one in the works as well!

Krvavrus, fed up with Mortarion’s obsessions, decided to take his cohort and carve up his own path in the galaxy. Led by Nurgle’s own voice, they found a small, frozen mining world with a red dwarf casting its feeble rays upon it. Here, a blessing struck the whole force, a powerful disease that seemed to impart thoughts and purpose on their very flesh. The unworthy were overcome, turning into growing, pulsating mass of viscera covering the ground. The strongest were able to contain it and wield this new “Red Death” as a weapon against the inhabitants of the planet. The government is trying to diminish the influence of this new threat by dismissing it as just a “Red Scare”. Still, they do know that the situation is dire, for Krvavrus and his brethren won’t stop until there is a completely red planet under a red star, the first seed in Nurgle's great new plan.

Karel the Black, the Commander

Third Sokolov vampire for the collection, after the red one, the white one, here comes the black one. I even managed to find two variants of the model, so I was able to get him both mounted and dismounted.

A horse was unavailable for him, so I had to find something else. Through a weird trick of fate and horrible post service in Germany, I actually have two Bretonnian Green Knights... one of them will be actually used in my Bretonnian collection, but the second one was rather redundant, until I found that this vampire fits very well. This gives him a lot of extra flair. Shields were also missing, so I found them some replacements, simple ones to accomodate some emblems. Just like with Havel, I needed to add some detail to their clothes and barding and let's say that black isn't a very easy color to get it right... Everything is either completely drown in blackness or turns everything to grey. I tried finding some equilibrium and it kinda works, but I think it would be much more pronounced and pretty if I wanted to have him blue or green.

He's also my proposal for the "Mirror, mirror" challenge amongst polish bloggers - with an idea/character mirrored into something different, yet similar. So, instead of a chivalrous Green Knight, I have a cruel Black Knight, on the same horse model.

Three male vampires serve lady Ecaterina Sokolov - the red warrior, the white bodyguard and the black commander. The last of them, Karel the Black, is most usually tasked with leading his mistress’ forces. Brooding, cruel and with strong personality, this one, while still loyal, is the most independent amongst his comrades. Good quality for a commander, but this also makes him an unpredictable servant, ready to object Ecaterina’s orders more than anyone. She tolerates this, because in the end he cares deeply for her interests, even if he thinks his means are better. During the battle with von Greifens he was on a diplomatic mission, so Ecaterina had to lead herself. Next time Karel will lead and make sure that his mistress comes up victorious.

It was difficult to make photos of both models (the lance takes so much space!), so here they are once together and then separated.

Leader mode:

Fencer mode:

Iakob the Savage - WIP

After Havel, here I am with even more vampires! Just a conversion WIP though.

Back when WFB was a thing, there was a possibility to build a vampire character that's a murdermachine and melee and yet possesses the ability to use magic from the Lore of the Beasts. Thanks to the vampires' unique rules, they could retain their powers while using the spell that transformed them into monsters. A mountain chimera in this context was stupidly overpowered. Of course, it cost a lot and was very easy to counter, so nobody used it seriously. Still, I loved this idea so much that I wanted to at least model a vampire to fit that description, a powerful barbarian just barely containing his inner beast. And after that, of course, the transformed versions...

This is my take on this. The model is based on a Khorne Exalted Deathbringer from GW. I redid quite a lot with him, I expected this conversion to be much easier, but the ideas just kept coming. Because I'm using the same head as the one on Gavros, I kept his ears small and sculpted some weird tendril hair on his previously bald head. I'm really unsure if I like it... if it's bad after getting some paint, I'll just rip it off.

It's a miracle I managed to fit him on a proper 20x20mm base!

Blood Bowl Big Guy - Kryp'er the Chaos Troll

I started painting the smaller marauders and humans first for my Chaos Pact team only because it made sense from a narrative standpoint. This whole time, the most fun miniature in the whole bunch was the troll, it was the one that convinced me to get this team. Now, it's finally painted!

The idea here was to do the same color scheme that Chaos Trolls from WFB used. I always liked that one, but never had the opportunity to use it. Blue skin also nicely contrasts with the orange armor, so that's a plus too.

Nothing else to say here, just a great model from Greebo. Now to paint the other two big guys, a minotaur and an ogre!

With the core players for the Kreegan Krashers found, it was time for the heavy hitters. As it is customary for Chaos Renegades teams, the headhunter Dugtig wanted to go big - as many brutes and monsters as the rules allowed! He started with the troll - after helping recruit players for countless goblin teams, he already knew a good candidate. Kryp’er was a troll with an especially vicious streak and a tentacle for an arm - Dugtig tried to pitch him as a Sea Troll several times, but the greenskin coaches weren’t convinced. Now he would gladly take him into the Krasher’s roster! Sadly, Kryp’er was way too stupid to use that appendage as aptly as Rotspawns do, but thanks to its reach, he could always reach to help his teammates in a scrap.

Havel the White, the Protector

It's been a very long time since I painted anything from my "mainline" undead WFB force... This guy has been lingering in the drawer half-painted for a while and I got just enough motivation to actually finish him.

Lady Sokolov from my collection has a red-black-white color scheme and she has one red-themed servant, Vaclav. When looking through eBay and looking for an excuse to buy more Blood Dragon miniatures, I decided to give her three servants, each with a dominant color. This guy is obviously the white one - and there's a black one on horseback that's in the queue to get painted soon as well.

The big cape on his back was the biggest topic here, I needed to make it special. Painting a big emblem seemed too simple and random scribbles wouldn't do, so I decided to make it a feathery pattern, inspired by the avian sigil of the family. This part probably made me stop painting him back then, but in the end, it wasn't that bad. To make the model a bit different, I switched his two-handed sword for a halberd, which also fits a bodyguard role I thought up for him.

Vaclav isn’t the only male vampire warrior serving lady Sokolov. While the red warrior soars through the sky obliterating her enemies in the field, the white one is her personal bodyguard. Havel the White, for that’s how he is known, is a silent and dutiful warrior residing usually in Castle Sokolov. Anyone intruding must be ready to face him and his halberd, one which split in two countless foes. Skilled as he is, he tends to be overly organized - while it makes him a perfect warden, it makes him also predictable. Ecaterina underestimated von Greifens and left him in the fortress during their battle - a decision which cost her dearly. Feeling guilty, Havel refuses to leave his mistress’ side now - ready to make those who wronged her regret it dearly.

Blood Bowl Chaos Pact - Specialist Marauders

I am slowly trying to get through all the stuff that I started before the big hiatus and one of those is the Chaos Pact team for Blood Bowl that I got as a present back in 2019. I already painted the renegade part of the team, as well as half of the humans, now it's time to do the second half. First five marauders were thought of as blitzers and fighters, those here are more specialized and actually capable of handling the ball.

Like before, I wanted to experiment with skintones here, so they are quite a diverse bunch. It was an interesting experience, I'll have to broaden my horizons a bit more in other projects too. Besides, I must admit, I'm quite glad with how their hair came out. I hate painting long hair usually, but this time it went well - perhaps it's because of the sculpt itself.

While his new marauder blitzers were already sparring with the renegades, the goblin headhunter Dugtig was slowly paging through other applications from other Kreegans, a violent fan-group. He wasn’t getting very far until he questioned Ragnar the Red. That outspoken Kreegan not only convinced the goblin that he was a good choice for a player, he was also able to give some good pointers on finding some specialists amongst the rowdy rabble. Together they gathered the marauders that would be tasked with handling the ball on the pitch - with Ragnar being chosen as the obvious captain of the team. Now, with such a strong core of the rowdy hooligans, Dugtig decided to name the team “The Kreegan Krashers”.

This time the boys are first. The middle one is Ragnar the Red, the captain of the team - and I think I made his red mane stand out quite nicely. The one on the left was slightly converted to sport some extra arms.

And the girls. The one on the left was converted a bit to hold a ball up, I designed her to serve as a thrower for the team. The other one, I'm surprised how post-apocalyptic she turned out! It wasn't (consciously) intended, but with that dark clothing and green mohawk, she would fit in Fallout right in!

FKB XCVII: Hero of the Background - Hunter Militia, command Group

Another polish Blogger, koyoth, proposed a new topic for this month, a "Hero of the Background". Seeing as my table is chock full od various Bretonnians at the moment, I had something just perfect for that - the peasants! The whole army concept revolves around the shiny knights on the front and dirty unfortunates behind them, useful, but never in the spotlight.

I actually painted a couple of them many years ago, but they were really flat and boring. To bring them up to speed (and make them match ones that I'll paint later) I added extra shading, some highlights, a little dirt and some simple OSL. The color choices and overall design stayed as it was back then - as well as those damned mould lines... I should have made a before and after comparison, but when I thought of that, it was already too late for the "before" photos...

Here is the command group, which for some strange reasons, include 4 dudes on the sprue. 3 of them actually have specific functions in the unit, while the one on the right just kinda... hopes to blend in with the rest. They use the same color scheme as Earl Sagremor and they are meant to be serving directly under him.

Azulejos wooden mannequin

While I have new stuff painted, I haven't got the time to make photos, so here we go with some older filler - a bit off-topic, but better than nothing, right?

Some time ago I decided to keep the knick-knacks in the living room in a white and blue color scheme. I got rid of some old ones, got new ones and repainted others. This is one of them, a cheap, small (~20cm high) wooden mannequin that I painted to resemble artwork found on azulejo tilework, a motive I absolutely adore. I even coated it with gloss varnish to make the glazed ceramic effect more convincing. The whole project turned into quite a freehand, so I decided to share it here.

If I was a daring person, I would field it as a Lord of Change and start a very weird Tzeentch army.

Earl Guiscard Sagremor

Finally, a Bretonnian that isn't just another namless rank-and-file dude! I actually managed to paint the main hero and leader of this whole force, good and brave Earl Sagremor. This mini, bought about 15 years ago, went through numerous iteration of conversions and now managed to even get some paint on him. He was an absolute pleasure to paint, as he hails from the era of GW that I like the most, with it's metal minis with lots of pouches and other details, all in that proportion of fantasy to realism that I like the most (or its just nostalgia speaking).

He's also the first one to get that black-blue color scheme of his family painted on. I was worried that the blue and the black would meld into one dark mess, but I believe I avoided somehow. I still have 2 of his sons to paint in the same style, as well as a surprisingly large amount o archers I managed to get in those Bretonnia-unfriendly times!

His WIP post can be seen HERE.

Lands of the Sagremor family were beset by enemies for many decades - as long as the vampires and greenskins avoided raiding the great halls of the nobility, the high-born didn’t care. Then, a third son of the current earl, Guiscard, embarked on his quest for the Grail. After years of traveling the land, he understood the sickness wasting his homeland and returned to set things right. With the help of some of the connections made during his journeys, he took over the title from his father after a short, but violent war. With newfound powers, he drove out the bloodsuckers, painted the greenskins’ dwellings with their own blood and actually strived to protect his peasants. Those were hard years for everyone, but they paid off with prosperity that was unheard of for years, all thanks to the new Earl Sagremor. He became known as the one ready for the harshest methods to reach the noblest of goals, yet still compassionate and understanding. Life of the quest influenced him so much, that even now, years and years after, he’s still more comfortable out in the country than in his castle and still wields his giant sword as a weapon of choice.

Knight Errant #03 & #04

My new resolution is to focus on the unit of Errant Knights first, rather than jumping from unit to unit randomly. So, today I'm showing you one with a fresh coat of paint (right) and one from 2008 (left) with some extra shades added to make him look more... contemporary and with proper shadings. Not much of a difference between them now, I guess. The new one was painted much faster though.

The new guy is yet another pleasant black-red-white kind of dude. Nothing too remarkable about him. The older one is a variation on a templar heraldry, but with some extra details and colors to make it more bretonnian.

FKB XCVI: Size Matters - Brutogg Corpse-eater WIP

Just like last month I hosted that little game of trying to model something to a given topic, here I am participating. The topic given by Bahior was "Size does matter" - which fit perfectly with an idea I had in mind.

I actually got Cursed City when it was originally released, one of the last reasonably priced boxes... and then it stood on top of a shelf for a year. Here I am trying to kickstart it somehow.

You see, I really love the style of the minis for this game and I'll be using most minis as they are, but an ogre without a big belly and a gut-plate? I can't stand that, size indeed does matter here! I did some conversions to put some meat on those bones and make Brutogg into a chubbier chap. HERE is the original for comparison. I have some other similar small changes planned and after that I can start tackling this monster of a boardgame.

Knights of Bretonnia, group shot 01

There was some popular demand for a group shot, so here I am as promised, with the first group shot of all the knights that I painted this year (so no oldies from 2010).

Unfortunately, seeing as I paint them rather randomly, we have some Knights of the Realm here, as well as the Errant Knights, there is no banner and the colors are unbalanced. Final units have some more thought put into them, so please wait for that - but in the meanwhile, it's actually very nice to actually see them as a proper group. I got most of my Bretonnians in ages long gone and only now I am getting close to seeing them as they were supposed to.

Knight Errant #02

Okay, here I'm back with some actual content. I'm sorry for the last weeks, but real life just doesn't want to settle on a consistent schedule as well... Hopefully, now I can deliver stuff a little better.

Second Errant Knight for the unit, who - with the colors and the heraldry - looks a bit Ukrainian-themed. I designed him years before the war, so it was not a spontaneous decision, but still nice nonetheless. The stripes in this color scheme intimidated me a little, but thankfully it actually went quite smoothly.

Also, he's the ninth knight I painted this year, so I can actually now gather all of them into a proper 3x3 unit, which will come next week. In related news, I managed to buy some more knight minis, so instead of three 9-man units, I'll have one with 15, one with 12 and one with 9, for a proper size!

FKB XCV: Heavy Metal - Podsumowanie

Niestety musiałem ustawić ten post przed rzeczywistym zakończeniem miesiąca, gdyż nie będę miał dostępu do kompa przez pewien czas. Z góry przepraszam wszystkich obecnych, a niewymienionych! Uzupełnię wpis jak tylko będę mógł. Jednakże: więcej czasu dla spóźnialskich!

Dziękuję wszystkim za udział w tej 95-tej już edycji karnawału figurkowego! Cieszę się, że dało radę znaleźć kilka fajnych odpowiedzi na zadany temat, czyli Heavy Metal!

W karnawale udział wzięli:

• wielebny Rafael z Poganiaczem klanu Moulder:

• QuidamCorvus z recenzją Steam Coptera:

• Mushroom z Konstruktami:

• Wołek Zbożowy ze szczątkami Megadrotha:

• Bahior z ekipą Iron Hands Outriders:

• potsiat z Nietoperzami z Cursed City:

• Koyoth z Bloodletterem na Juggernaucie:

Następną edycję, o numerze 96, poprowadzi Bahior, wypatrujcie nowego tematu na jego blogu The Dark Oak.

Blood Bowl Chaos Chosen - Hieronymus the Unabated

I'm back to at least post something for my very own topic for the game mentioned in the previous post. I feel quite guilty about inactivity here, but there was home improvement, sickness and lots of work to be done lately... Hopefully I can regain some speed after going on a vacation for a moment.

I chose the "Heavy Metal" topic because I had this guy almost ready and he's probably the most fitting for this out of everything I have at hand! A product of the sleep-deprived mind of a very new father, he's finally ready. Hieronymus, the namesake of the painter that inspired the general mood of this team. This nice tin fishman turned a little different from the early sketches, but I still like him like this. With all this metal, painting process was quick and enjoable.

All the general design ideas about them are in the WIP post to be found HERE.

Hieronymus the Unabated is a well-known member of the Lost & Damned, a creature so old and alien, he lost his humanity a long time ago and never looked back. On the pitch, he’s very cold and calculating. Still, the inability to understand his thought processes renders that moot - nobody knows what his goals are at any given moment - and anything and anyone standing between him and his goal is risking, well… disturbing displays of violence, snacking on lost body parts. Extreme hardiness is what gives him lots of fans on the bleachers. Less so on the opposing teams, but such is life.

FKB XCV: Heavy Metal

I'm sorry for the lack of the usual post this week, but I am swamped with other projects at home. The standard program should return soon - and in the meantime, I decided to finally host an edition of a little game between polish bloggers, where one person throws a topic and those who are willing are trying to get something done in a month that fits the theme. It will be obviously in polish, so I'm greatly sorry to those who can't speak it. Tranlation for the curious below.

FKB, Figurkowy Karnawał Blogowy, to trwająca od 95 miesięcy zabawa blogerów, w której co około 30 dni jeden z nich wybiera temat pozostałym (lista wybranych dotychczas i wybierających - tutaj), a pozostali starają się zmalować coś, co się nada. W lipcu 2022 r. hasło FKB brzmi następująco:

HEAVY METAL

Czołgi, czarno-czarna kolorystyka, długie włosy, ciężka kawaleria, armaty, perkusiści, rycerze, półnadzy pakerzy z piorunami w tle, skóra, ćwieki, łańcuchy i edgy nastolatki, temat mam nadzieję wystarczająco szeroki by każdy był w stanie znaleźć coś dla siebie. Można pomalować coś nowego, albo zrobić stosowne zestawienie już gotowych modeli. Nada się wszystko co kojarzy się z głownym hasłem, jakkolwiek byście tego okrężnie nie tłumaczyli. Metaliki w dłoń i powodzenia!

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Heavy Metal: tanks, black and black color schemes, long hair, heavy cavalry, cannons, drummers, knights, half-naked musclemen with lightning in the background, leather, studs, chains and edgy teens - the topic is wide enough for everyone to find something that suits them. You can paint something new or set up your old minis for this. Everything goes as long it's connected to the main theme, no matter how convoluted your reasoning. Take your metallic paints and good luck!

Knight of the Realm #08

Return to the knights for a bit. I am very busy at home right now and I wasn't able to prepare anything more fancy. The painting on this one is also rather simple.

Still, this knight is rather unique, because I had only one of those antlered helmets when I was assembling them. Naturally, this also meant that he had to have a fitting heraldry. Besides, he sports probably the blackest color scheme out of the whole bunch - with some slight color to break it up a bit - and I already have a completely monochrome knight anyway.

Blood Bowl Chaos Chosen - Boshoi Siblings - the Uncleft

So, Bretonnians turned out rather repetitive, so I did a quick change of pace and returned to my weird Chaos Team, The Lost & Damned.

I already painted the Beastmen, they were the last before the hiatus and they are all a dark and twisted take on both Chaos and Blood Bowl. Now it was time for the Blockers, or Champions as I call them - really useful players that command the lesser creatures around them. Here are the Boshoi siblings, a conjoined monstrosity with the bigger half stoping and chomping all around the pitch (talking too) and the smaller half handling the ball and being the brains of the operation.

This guy was painted the most already and was overall pretty simple, so I chose him first. All the general design ideas about them are in the WIP post to be found HERE. Painting was a joy, I like flesh and there wasn't many differen textures involved. In the end, they turned out almost exactly as I envisioned - I didn't plan for dark teeth, that just happened because of the basecoat and I loved it.

Should the Lost & Damned rely only on their chaotic and unruly beastmen, they could just as well go back to the maelstrom from where they crawled out. The true stars, who carry the team on their shoulders, are the four Champions - the rest of the players are just lowly retinues to them. One, or rather two of them are the Boshoi siblings - a conjoined monstrosity, sharing one body with two eyes, two functional hands, two legs, and one mouth. They work and play as one, a terrifying charger out of your darkest dreams. Contrary to what one may think, they actually enjoy their life, more together than anyone else in the world. Boshoi receive every one of their mutations with fervor and make sure to make a great spectacle for the gods out of everything they do.

Sir de Treviers, the Questing Knight

I was a whole week away and the previous one was very work-intensive, I wasn't able to prepare something new - so here I come with another knight painted in the bygone ages, the musician for my Questing Knights. He's part of the same unit as the champion shown previously.

I still wonder why did I put myself through 2 yellow dudes in the same unit at the same time, but perhaps me-from-the-past was just a little more insane. Other than that, it was a rather pleasant project - questing knights are terrific sculpts and all the details really do wonders.

Some questing knights want to prove themselves as soon as possible, while others take their time. Treviers is definitely of the second category - he started as a rather young lad, and now, a man in his prime, he's still not anywhere closer to the goal than he was years ago. Unlike Sir Chiegane, he doesn't really make it longer on purpose, he just enjoys his life a little too much to focus on the Quest itself. Helping people along the way, fighting beasts, writing and performing songs about his deeds, and seducing all the lonely ladies left by their husbands. He's in no hurry to serve under a lord and be bound to a small piece of land. His compatriots warn him that death may find him earlier than the Grail, but he isn't particularly bothered by it. Better and worse than him have already fallen before tasting from the Grail, so he's content leaving his fate to the Lady's plan.

'

Bretonnian Knights - Conversions

Between all the rank-and-file knights I have been working on the characters and command groups. Wanting to make them more distinct and fit my backstory a little better, I wanted to do some conversions on them since... forever. Seriously, some of those guys were my first attempts at conversions, first experience with greenstuff, etc. Of course, I had to change some of them to not be embarassing, but the idea stays mostly the same. I apologize for the mess with the undercoats and paints - I was convinced many times that they are ready to be painted, only to get them back to the conversion phase later, after already starting.

First is the "main character" of the whole army, Earl Sagremor, based on the "paladin with an axe" model from bygone ages. Main idea - his horse is a manmade unicorn, fitting his heraldry - this horn may be actually from 2008, those are easy to make. Second idea - the shield should be covered with a dragonskin - and this is perhaps the 4th or 5th attempt. Third idea - he should have a big sword. The first version of this was a translucent plastic sword that I got once in a restaurant to eat french fries with! It broke off sadly, was brittle as hell. Everything else on him are "modern" conversions to fill him up with details.

Second one, his older son, the Battle Standard Bearer. His horse is also a manmade unicorn of course.

Here, having already made a pretty impressive standard for a different knight, this one needed to be extra extravagant. So, my 2008 self sculpted this whole big "altar" on top of the standard, with the rays and shields. I only shortened some of the rays for better effect, but overall, not that terrible. Only the "ribbons" on the back side were super bad, so I remade them according to my current skills.

Now the younger son, a champion for the Errant Knights.

Nothing too complicated here, just some bits to make thim stand out more. And a unicorn-hat on the horse, of course.

Standard Bearer for the Errant Knights.

This one was actually a magic standard used on WFB 6th edition, it cheaply made Errant Knights significantly stronger - so it was always used. I liked the fluff description on how it was carried through countless errantry wars, was tattered and sewn together from many different smaller pieces, so I wanted to represent it on the tabletop. Nowadays I would probably give it more tattered parts and make different stitches, but it works good enough here too. This conversion is almost unchanged since 2008, only the hanging chains were added recently.

Last conversion for now, a champion of one of the Knight units. The idea came to me when I saw cardinal Richelieu's heraldry and wanted to do something similar - right after that the concept evolved to make him a priestly knight. Such a function probably doesn't exist in Bretonnia's fluff, but the aesthetics work well enough.

His helmet has this "bishop's hat" style and there is a lot of flowing details, all to make him regal and important.

Only one conversion still isn't made - Cadret the Black, a special character of my own invention. That one involves reposing the horse, sculpting the barding from scratch and many other details, so that one will come much later.

Knight Errant #01

A slight change - an Errant Knight this time, one of the younger, inexperienced knights. They are using the same kit, the only visual difference being they don't use the extravagant helmets of standard knights - that's why I'm working on them at the same time as the others, it's just a long production line anyway.

Wanted to give them another difference, I decided to paint their lances wooden-color, thinking that maybe they break their weapons so often, nobody really bothers to paint them properly. At least it'll make them more distinct as a unit.

I don't even remember how I came up with this heraldry and colors, but now I can only think of him as a German or Belgian football fan...

Knight of the Realm #07

A late post, unforgivable! Sorry, I had the photos prepared, but the internet broke down when I wanted to set them up online...

Another knight - this time in a white-blue color scheme, I don't think I had any of those. I decided to use light gold and yellowy-brown for the leather parts to make him all look rather bright and friendly. That's definitely a pleasant change of pace. I'm not sure how to excuse having a breaking wheel on his coat-of-arms in-universe, but I still think it looks cool and I wanted to make something like this since I saw such a heraldric concept on Wikipedia a long time ago.

Knight of the Realm #06

Okay, now this guy was an experiment. I try to combine all the allowed colors in all sorts of ways in my unit - and one of those combinations is black & white. Kinda like Teutonic Knights. To make things more interesting, I decided to give him a "white tiger" theme, with the stripes and fitting heraldry. No gold details, the horse is black, leather gray, only a reflection of my lamp shows up as a spot of warmth on top of his head. If not for the grass and the base, the pics could be desaturated all the way down and nobody would notice.

What do you think about him? Is it still Bretonnia in such a color scheme?

Knight of the Realm #05

This time, a musician. I wanted to paint a knight with a black-red-white color scheme and he did fit well. Nothing too particularly fancy, just another brave dude to the collection.

A comfort-zone miniature, so to say.

Knight of the Realm #04

Yet more of the same, kind of anyway.

Third knight painted during this run and the complexity just rises together with me remembering again how to paint. The color scheme for this one is taken from the coat of arms of Venice (or at least the one that appears in Europa Universalis). I decided to paint him with some extra ornaments, waves and little flowers on the blue fields - because I like Venice, I like this "Venetian Knight" and wanted to go extra mile for him. Also to test out some freehands.

I took a different approach with yellow, so unlike the previous knight, this is quite vibrant. Blue also turned out pretty nice, I am very glad with the color scheme here. It's only a shame I forgot that the heraldic beast in Bretonnia are supposed to be facing the front of the horse and be mirrored on two sides of the barding... I'll remember it next time.

Knight of the Realm #02 & #03

Now I'm back with yet another Bretonnian knight - or two, to be precise.

You see, this one was black & yellow - and when he was done, I wanted to compare him with one of the first Bretonnians I ever painted, also in the same color scheme. Putting the quality of the painting aside, I was really surprised how dull and unsaturated my yellow turned out this time. In 2008 the color is vibrant and striking - and the one from today, well, it seems all the grim darkness of all my "recent" works really changed my perception of yellow. I will try to adjust it for the next guy, but this one will stay as it is, I enjoy having them all mismatched.

Blood Bowl Nurgle Staff - Infectius the Plague Doctor

Now this model was actually painted before my hiatus - and even photographed, but I just couldn't go through yet another round of editing. So, using my new setup, I retook the photos and here he is, sorry for the delay.

The colors were chosen to fit my Putrid Punters, with the notable exception for the white cloak. I painted it this way to make him look just a tiny bit more like your usual doctor. Just in case his helpful nurse, a sign, a doctor's bag weren't enough of a clue. Now he can join the team as the first proper member of the staff - first one of the many more to come!

The WIP for him can be found HERE.

Even if you are not interested in Blood Bowl, Blood Bowl may be interested in you! Such is the life of poor Infectius, a quiet, nerdy boy who always had a passion for all things biological. That evolved later into devoting himself to Nurgle and studying all his diseases and peculiar physiology of his beloved creatures. He would spend the rest of his days cooped up in his laboratory if not a recruitment organized by one of the high-ranking daemons. He wanted to create a guild of Plague Doctors, as a Nurglite alternative to Blood Bowl apothecaries. Being too timid and awkward to refuse, Infectius went with the daemon - and unfortunately for him - proved himself to be an exemplary doctor, being able to patch up even the weirdest of bodies and injuries. Then he got together with the Putrid Punters and the rest is history. The jocks from the team still occasionally make fun of him, but at least they respect him as the last chance to get back, should their regenerative powers fail them. And Infectius, while stressed and anxious most of the time, can at least find some meaning and purpose in his difficult task, which also involves endlessly learning new things about Grandfather Nurgle and his devotees.

Knight of the Realm #01

Ok, here it is, the first painted model after the break. First cats over the fences, as we say here in Poland. Nothing too fancy, your usual Bretonnian fare with the blues and reds. I have more of them started on my desk, but I'm not even trying to batch paint those guys, I want them really diverse, so different hues all over them are more than welcome - they will be coming here soon.

Another big success, I managed to do a proper photo setup. I can take pics at night and in a controlled environment, sparing me the excessive editing to make the background look consistent. The shadows are a little stronger than I'd like, but that's a good exchange. Perhaps I'll try to texture the background somehow? We'll see.

Also, I'm not even trying to write a backstory for every single one of those dudes. Does anyone even still read those?

I'm back, I guess?

I wonder if someone even still reads this...

So, after more than a year, I finally managed to put myself together, dust off all the brushes and paints - and actually started painting again. Sometimes I was worried I would never go back, but thankfully that wasn't the case - it would be really bad for the pile of shame. In the meantime, I received several Kickstarters, did a lot of home improvement, got through a covid, managed to buy one of the last available Cursed Cities, only to find it re-released by GW much later and played a lot of video games. I also installed much better lighting in my workspace and intend to do my photos at night, with reliable lamps, without relying on natural sunlight. All the editing really killed my motivation back then.

Still feeling a little rusty after the break, I decided to start with something clean, easy and simple, my ages-old Bretonnians. I will be slowly posting them through the weeks - it's much harder to binge-paint minis than before, free time is scarce, so I can't promise regular submissions. I'll try of course.

Besides, I treated myself to this box of new Chaos Warriors - I had an idea about them for a long time, a brand-new collection. Should also be easy to implement, so that's good too before tackling big, complicated projects again.

Also, a side note - my two-year-old son is also now big enough to be curious about what I'm doing at my desk, a very interesting development to me. He loves all the colorful paints and always wants to use them to change his cars' wheel colors or paint over his Duplo blocks - which is lovely, only if he would understand how expensive those paints are...

Those are weird times we are living in, stay safe out there folks.