Holy terror batman! You've let yourself go! (Terrorgheist and Zombie Dragon join the horde)

Last year I started painting a proud band of noble Bretonnians to add to my collection of armies. For those of you scratching their heads, these Bretonnians are actually known as Flesh Eater Court ghouls, they just don't know it. As part of their menagerie I wanted a noble pegasus with rider and a unicorn. To this end I got started building a Zombie Dragon and a Terrorgheist. After the build I even airbrushed a few basic colors on them. At that point I felt uninspired and set them aside. These monster are quite big, so they got demoted from the Window Sill of Shame to Doorstops in under a week. This is no way to treat dragons; not even dead ones. So recently I decided to follow two distinct paths towards getting these monsters painted. This is the result.

Getting a Zombie Dragon and a Terrorgheist in frame together is even harder then painting them.

Operation Dead-Pile in progress, Necromancer and Grave Guard finished

As far as I know every hobbyist has his own lead-pile or plastic heap: the collection of cool models that just had to be bought, but haven't been painted yet. Recently I started noticing a related phenomenon. I have an ever growing collection of models halfway through a paintjob that subsequently never got finished. Now the lead-pile will be there (and grow) forever, but I think this dead-pile can be rectified (and if not, I'll have a bunch more models painted so its one of those win-win type situations). I've called this new activity Operation Dead-Pile, mostly because I was really stumped for a title to this post (ssssh don't tell anyone). Between my regular painting (currently enjoying old Empire Freeguild models) I'll just grab a unit or model that is languishing with a basecoat and some colors blocked in and finish the thing of (quality be damned!)

The trick to finishing toy soldiers is occasionally just forcing yourself to sit down and do the work. Oh no, forced fun, life is hard ;)

In steps another Wight King

Somehow I actually found some time to sit down and paint this weekend. I squandered rather a lot of it on stripping paint of some ancient Harlequins. The bit that remained was divided between agonizing over a color scheme for my Kharadron Overlords (Barak-Ziflin, I'm going with Barak-Ziflin....am I?) and actual painting. I decided to grab a couple of individual miniatures to plaster paint on try this glazing thing I hear so much about. The first one, a classic Dark Eldar Archon, is not finished yet. The other one is this Wight King who has been waiting rather patiently for a coat of paint for years now.

This king is so bad, even the grass dies in his presence. 

A Mortis Engine manifests just in time for the new year

Wow the last weeks went quite the opposite way as planned. I was about to put the final signatures on paper and move when the new house fell through, so I've been a bit busy searching for a replacement home to house the family (both my wife and son seem to be opposed to living in a scale model building made out of balsa wood, foamboard and plasticard). Luckily I finished this guy just before the excrement slapped against the fan (a large industrial one that still looks like a computer fan of course). As it was on my bingo card I've decided to put him in the last post of the year.

As usual I haven't actually read the rules to this unit, so here's hoping it does something useful on the tabletop.

I like big banners (and I cannot lie)

What are the defining characteristics that set apart an old school gamer versus a new one? Aside from being long in the tooth and (most likely) having a larger collection? Well for some there is the uncontrollable urge to grumble that everything was better way back when. But to be sure it seems the susceptible gamer tends to get this bug after about a month in the hobby. For others it is the rosy feeling of nostalgia that just makes old stuff better. And to be honest I can't stop loving the old Genestealer Patriarch, the Chaos Toilet and the entire Realm of Chaos range. Even when people manage to quite effectively substantiate counterargument. I will never stop loving my tiny Changer of Ways, even as my shiny new plastic one towers over him.

I like big banners (and I cannot lie), you other gamers can't deny, when a git walks in waving an itty bitty pennant or a round thing in your face...

Painting the Vampire Castle

This weekend I painted the castle to a point where I am reasonably satisfied with it. I will be visiting it later to rework some of the finer details, but for now I need a different subject. This is the finished result, photograph was lit using sunlight (how very inappropriate ;) ).

I put the ramp up in a long configuration for this shot. The central bridge is a seperate part so I can shrink its profile by removing the bridge and the central pillar or by bending the ramp a different way.

An Age of Sigmar graveyard using the Garden of Morr

With a bit of luck I got my hands on a used Garden of Morr kit. As I had already prepared some bases and green stuffed some gravestones I was ready to make an interesting graveyard to surround my Vampire Counts castle with.

Graveyard covered in dirt and ready for a last layer of PVA and a base coat.

Vampire Counts castle, finishing touches

With the weekend over, I can look back at finishing the last bits of the castle. Next step is waiting for it to dry and base coating everything. At the start of the weekend I decided to keep the second bridge simple, and now it easily connects the two hills leading up to the castle.

A bridge and a drawbridge lead up tot the castle. The middle hill and the simple bridge can be removed to decrease the size of the castle on the table, or I can make a long line filling an entire table with the castle.

Building a castle roof and more details

Detailing a large project is important and time consuming. The castle stands on the living room table and I try to put a few hours work in every day to get it to the point where I can start painting it (almost there). I put up a few more corpses.

You decorate your home with my friend, you'd better be a vampire! Oh you are...oh oh....

Detailing my wargaming castle

As for all things in wargaming terrain the devil is in the details. So I expect to be spending quite a number of hobby hours on detailing the shape of the castle I have built. First thing was making a gate wall between the two large towers that form the entrance.

Sealing terrain with PVA

Only a short update on this project today. Yesterday evenings work is more or less dry so I could hold the castle and the other bits upside down today to remove excess sand. After that I covered everything in a mix of about 9 parts water, 1 part PVA. This helps seal sand and other things and makes it stick to the model. The bits of polystyrene that are not covered after this (and there always are) will still melt on spray painting the primer, but that will usually just make it look cooler (IMHO). I took everything inside hoping it will dry somewhere in my lifetime (hopefully by Sunday).

Making MDF bases for terrain and green stuff details

So enough time has been spent daydreaming and planning. This week I actually started on the build. Step #1 sculpting some gravestones over lunch because my castle will need to be surrounded by a large (huge) graveyard.

Planning wargame terraing and mood board

Last post was about some general consideration, today it is time to talk about planning and my mood board. First I have just started sketching in a nice sketchbook I bought for the purpose. It will serve as my collection of blank paper to scribble on and if all goes well I can actually find older inspiration when there's time to build a new project (Aqshy gaming table plan, I'm looking at you!).

Anyway here are my first castle scribbles. If you can't follow along, don't worry, I sometimes can't follow myself. It basically consists of some possible designs integrating parts of a castle I found in the thrift store.

The notes:

Vampire Counts

Around Christmas 2015 I bought a big lot of second hand vampire counts stuff for a low price. As my second project for this year I've been painting a lot of it. Here is a quick impression of some of the models from the lot. Me being me, after the cheap first second hand batch I will be expanding with a number of newer kits to get a serious vampire vibe going for Age of Sigmar.

Banshees, Fell Bats, a few Black Knights and a Winged Vampire Lord

A few basic warhammer buildings.

To celebrate the release of the new Warhammer edition I decided I needed some new terrain. To start with I made an old shed using a template from White Dwarf 140 (yeah I'm getting old).
Because Vampires and graveyards go together well. My second project was a graveyard. And to finish it all of I made an inn.

A shed based on an old White Dwarf prototype.