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.

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...