Raise high the black flags, my Goblins, and ride with fury!

As I mentioned quite some time ago, I like big banners (and I cannot lie). One of my biggest pet peeves with Age of Sigmar (and by extension modern GW fantasy miniatures) is the absence of banners in the units. With my recent Goblin projects I had a chance to rebase one of my older, more ostentatious banners and to try a by now ancient technique on another banner. Here's the result.

Raise your banners, Goblins of the Night!

Oldhammer-style 'basing with flock' tutorial (featuring a bunch of re-rebased Orcs)

This weekend I decided to go crazy and rebase my old Orcs on new-fangled big 30x30 squares. To be quite honest, I promised myself I would only rebase Ruglud's Ladz, knowing full well I would get carried away doing that. Besides, I figured, rebasing a bunch of Orcs should only take a Saturday morning's worth of time (for me, starting any task requires a complete miscalculation of the time required to actually do it). So a full weekend and a few mid-week evenings later, here's a bunch of rebased Greenskins, ready to take on The Old World in style.

These ancient Orcs have always been based, now they have also been rebased!

3D printing in the winter cold

Resin 3D printing may be laborious to get a grip on, but it offers an awesome addition to the hobby. Unfortunately, as I found out, when the temperatures drop, the resin becomes too viscous and prints start failing. Here's the solution I came up with.

By placing the 3D printer in a growing tent I can lose the cover as external light is blocked by the tent. It gained me precisely the amount of space I needed to fit everything in there.

Killaboss on Great Gnashtoof growls its way into my collection

Riding a humongous canine mount, the Kruleboyz Killaboss terrorizes both enemies as well as his own troops. Looking at the Great Gnashtoof miniature and its rider I can understand why. I've just completed this rather intimidating looking model, further expanding my Kruleboyz army and marking the last of the Kruleboy command models from the Age of Sigmar Dominion box set painted. Next step will involve slopping green on infantry and archers, followed by breaking my resolution not to buy anything new until everything I have is painted (but I knew that was never going to happen when I made it).

The Kruleboyz Killaboss on Great Gnashtoof has the proper bearing to scare his followers into action.

I added a Kruleboy Killaboss (with Stab-grot) and a Murknob Belcha-banna to my Greenskins (with Orc skin tutorial)

The new Age of Sigmar Orcs Orruks Kruleboyz really hit the spot for me, except for one detail: the names. I guess I should count my blessings that the crossbow wielding orcs are called Boltboyz and the ones that are supposed to do the stabbing are called Gutrippaz. I can work with that. But names for command cadre Orcs are about as confusing as the average Stormcast Eternal name (what exactly is difference between a Liberator, Annihilator and a Vigilor? Get off my lawn!). No matter. I'll privately just stick to calling them for what they seem to be (luckily the new app has pictures so I can find the proper warscroll without knowing the name ;). Using the Age of Sigmar app as an identifaction too: here's my  new Murknob with Belcha-banna (Battle Banner wielding Orc), Killaboss (Orc Champion) with Stab-Grot (extra wound).

If you ever find yourself meeting these three while strolling through the swamp, smile, wave and run away. This helpful lifehack was brought to you by the color green (for greenskin).

Classic Warhammer Dwarf Mine ready to be fought over (SITCBH - part 3)

My Dwarf Mine, inspired by the classic one in White Dwarf 132, is finished. That makes me a rather early finisher in the SITCBH I entered with The Periodic Painting Table and The War Crow blogs. With still about five weeks on the clock #humblebrag ;). Perhaps I should make something else as well, I must say its quite a treat to build non-human stuff. Well before I get into that, let's start out with a picture of the finished piece accompanied by a bunch of gloriously happy Dwarves.

Why would we build a mine soundly lad, no member of the engineer's guild will show up in these parts...

Steady progress on the Dwarven Mine (SITCBH - part 2)

This weekend I made a steady bit of progress on my dwarven mine set. I added sand, a small railway and detailed the accompanying sheds. Without a lot of further ado. Here's a group shot that doesn't quite cover all the work that's been done. The pictures with the buildings as they are now can be found lower in this post.

My Dwarven mine is slowly coming together. 

Dwarven Mine blast off the Second International Townscape Challenge - Beyond Human (SITCBH)

Back in August Chris from the Periodic Painting Table and Stuart from The War Crow contacted me to join in the First International Townscape Challenge. It was a lot of fun and we all earned a few self-applied pats on the back at the end of it. Reason enough for a second edition. After a bit of a break we launched the Second International Townscape Challenge - Beyond Human (STICBH) this month. The 'Beyond Human' part of the challenge refers to the fact that we're going to be building a non-human piece of scenery in the style of the Townscape. For my part, I'm going to be building a Dwarven mine.

I think we have the beginning of an interesting new building here...

Honi soit qui mal y pense! My noble Bretonnian army is finally finished ;)

February last year I made serious headway painting my noble force of Bretonnians. Then Adeptus Titanicus popped up on my paint station and other distractions followed. This army almost ended (as a lot of Warhammer projects end) with twenty ghouls peasant bowmen and a noble lady half painted on the table, windowsill and finally in a cupboard somewhere. As I recently finished two proud beasts for the menagerie that accompanies this army I decided to sit down and force myself to finish my Bretonnian army once and for all. Starting with the true inspiration for all chivalric acts: the lady astride her unicorn.

For honor! For Chivalry! For the lady!

Lord Celestant Eidolon of Sigmar's Children rides in, heresy and all (with another big banner tutorial)

Those of you following along with my blog may have noticed I've had a rather over-productive weekend last week. I couldn't resist sharing the more or less last model to come out of that painting fugue. It is the second Stormcast unit for my very own Stormhost of dubious originality: Lord Celestant Eidolon of Sigmar's Children.

The exemplar all other Stormcast can only look up to in envy: Lord Celestant Eidolon. The only thing tempering his perfection is his loyalty.

What is the consistency of milk? (And other airbrushing questions for miniature painters)

A recent comment concerning airbrushing and miniatures triggered some pretty unpleasant memories from when I started out with the great clogging cash-eater (also known as an airbrush). As I painted mostly stand-alone miniatures the past few days I thought I might as well type a blog with some airbrushing answers I couldn’t find when I was starting out. Hell, let’s turn it into a semi-faq for when your spoken faq is spelled slightly differently (usually with paint on your face due to the umpteenth clog in your airbrush). Shall we start with the consistency of milk perhaps? 

Am I supposed to go for whole, semi-skimmed, skimmed or 1% milk? 

I resurrected three ancient Skeleton Army chariots (bonus oil washing tutorial at the end of this post)

As you sink deeper into the madness some of us call the 'wargaming hobby', you start accruing more unpainted miniatures, second hand models and random bits than you can keep track of. By now I'm far enough removed from the shores of sanity to occasionally find a box or zip-lock bag that I can't even remember storing. Recently a pair of bags turned out to contain skeletons, skeletal horsemen and chariots from the venerable Skeleton Army boxed set. I couldn't resist restoring three chariots. 

When they said 'ride eternal, shiny and chrome' this was not what I expected.

Painting warhammer miniatures with oil paints (Warpgnaw Verminlord)

I love discovering new aspects of painting, building scenery and gaming. In order to stir things up I decided to try painting with oil paint instead of acrylic paint. Trying new things keeps the hobby fresh and hey, you learn new things too! Because painting with oils felt like a big step I used a damaged second hand Warpgnaw Verminlord to try it on. As usual, I'll start with the end result (and add more finished pictures at the end).

I declare my experiment with oils successful.

How old-school can you go? Drastik Plastik Orcs old maybe? (with old school basing tutorial)

People occasionally wonder why I spent time painting ancient models. After all I could also use it to paint the newer, better looking kits. Most of the time I point out I like Oldhammer's unique style just as much (sometimes even more) than the newer models. Sometimes its just pure nostalgia. The Drastik Plastik Orcs of 'yore fall completely in the nostalgia category.

Never fear, the Drastik Plastik Orcs are here....wait up, that should be: Cower in Fear, the Drastik Plastik Orcs are here!

My Warhammer Townscape is complete

After a rather dismal failure involving a Killa Kan project last year I decided to cheer myself up by building the old Warhammer Townscape from foamboard and coffee stirrers. To be honest I did not think I would see this project through to the finish. But as of this weekend, I can proudly say I did. There I said it: I finished the Warhammer Townscape. Its also a bit more terrain than I'll ever need for a single game :)

"This is madness!"
"Madness? This is Frugelhofen!"

Townscape page 3 all buildings completed

Yesterday I finished the final two 'buildings' for the Townscape: the outhouse and the two tents. Let's just start with these and kick this quick post off.

Finally a chance to go camping in the Old World (or on the Mortal Realms).

Warhammer Townscape page three progress

Buoyed by the completion of page two I've gone to work on page three of the Townscape. Only thirteen buildings left to build (and paint). Perhaps only twelve, as I'm still on the fence about building number 35 (The Tower). It just looks so wonky compared with the rest of the buildings. With that said, lets go for some work in progress pictures of the last batch.

Now to illustrate social differences in the Warhammer world: the huge Manor House next to the cottage. 

Warhammer Townscape second page finished

Warhammer Townscape is an iconic eighties Games Workshop book. Its hardcover holds cardboard cutout buildings to be used in fantasy wargames. October last year I decided to fulfill a long held ambition: rebuilding the entire set using foamboard, balsa and other materials. To add a challenge (and to make sure I'd build all of them) I decided to use the numbers in te original instructions as the order in which to build the entire set. Yesterday evening, after putting the project on the back burner for a bit, I finished page two (of three). Here's half of this lot.

Here's the first set of page two in the Townscape instructions.

Adeptus Titanicus scenery tutorial

After building my Legio Ignatum titans I had to make some scenery for them. You can't have your poor titans stomping around an empty field after all. GW offers some pretty nifty kits to build scenery with. But (in my very humble opinion) you don't quite get enough scenery with just one kit. Also simply building ready-to-go plastic terrain doesn't quite scratch my hobby itch. So I went a bit wild with the Manufactorum Imperialis kit and made this.

Now we have something to fight over.

How to (speed-)paint Bloodletters properly red

How do you paint Bloodletters properly red as most highlights tend to turn them rather orange. It is quite tempting to say a quick apologetic prayer to the Blood God and just go for white or bone colored Bloodletters. It even has the added bonus of red showing up quite well on white. But I personally like my bloodcrazed maniacs looking red. So for those interested here's my technique. It's a very quick way to get these guys painted.

Do you have a minute to talk about our lord and saviour Khorne?