Reaper Mimic Chest

The Reaper Mimic Chest is painted but the pics are pretty bad, also the mould lines which I completely ignored are super visible but meh...It's for a model that is meant to be sacrificed in game anyway so it will be on and off the table fairly quickly in games it's used in once I turn it into the base for one of my Mechanical Dove models as originally intended.

That been said my old Malifaux 1.5 metal Mechanical Doves and the newer M2E Mechanical Rider for my Colette crew arrived yesterday so woot woot!!! Perfect timing and I'll make a start on them early next week. I've entered the BattleCry Malifaux event for 2016 in an effort to learn to actually play Malifaux a bit better so the doves turned up just when I needed them..can anyone say super excited to play a tabletop game again!!!! Yusssss!!!!

Anyway, here are a couple of pics of the Mimic Chest so far, I will post it again with the dove on it once I've completed them. The chest turned out ok and the transition from wood to fleshy tones on the top with the evil looking greenish yellow eyes worked better than I expected. I gave it a purplish coloured tounge to help tie it in with the rest of my Colette crew who all have purple somewhere on the models to help make the bright ostentatious clothes colourings of the show girls and mannequins try and unite them as a combined crew somehow.

And the doves that will be up next are here... the Mechanical Rider is such and awesome model that I will need to source some Gamin or more Mannequins to take advantage of it and actually use it in a game. I won't make a start on that just yet but will really enjoy painting it once I have some fodder for it to spit out 

Reaper Bones Gnoll Warrior

Well its been a while but I have finally finished the Reaper Bones Gnoll Warrior. The fact that I knew nothing about what a Gnoll Warrior even was and the total lack of preconceived ideas as to how it should look helped me, but also hindered my colour choices; however it also made it a fun model to paint.

I wanted it to look a little bit like a tiger or some form of brightly coloured jungle beast and had decided to try and have blueish coloured metals to contrast with the brighter orange and yellow skin/fur I had chosen? That's where it all became unglued....

After finishing the model and applying the final sealer coat everything turned upside down. The sealer reacted again with the inks, even after leaving them to dry properly. It washed out the orange and yellow skin tones considerably, making a complete mess of the highlights and all but obliterating the yellows. That I could live with, almost, but the blue metallic ended up so muddy and monochromatic it just looked like a blue solid colour and nothing like a metal surface...arrrggghh!!!!

As this wasn't going to be a playing piece and was really just for fun/painting practice it wasn't all that bad but I needed to try and rescue it with some form of detail added into the finished piece. A quick dry brush over the skin/fur almost worked and the decision to make the metal areas blue washed out mess the base of a quick grey toned drybrush rather than a repaint with metalics seems to of worked too. It has sort of inspired me to try out NMM at some stage but I think I need a lot more practice though before trying that. The end result is what I am going to call my first attempt at NMM

Here he is...

Next up is going to be the Mimic Treasure Chest. I want to paint that to be the base for sitting one of the old metal Mechanical Doves on that I am waiting to turn up for my Colette Malifaux crew rather than just have the dove sitting by itself...the fact that I will be using that model as a gaming piece and that it is a smaller model than this Gnoll is should hopefully get me back into a more productive routine of painting.

Giant Pox Rat

This was a fun model to paint, actually it will be probably be one model from the Reaper Bones models I've got that I will actually paint and use in games. Most of them are just going to be painted for trying out something different or just to put some paint on a model and keep me motivated so wont get their bases done. That being said I have no idea what game I'll use this Pox Rat for so until I have a use for it I aren't going to base this either just yet.

Might brighten the yellow on the pustles but other than that I'm happy with how it finally turned out...up next....

Apparently it's a Gnoll or Knoll but whatever it is its bigger than the tiny halfling and also a little bigger than the rat I've just painted so I'll see what inspiration takes when I paint this bigger model next

Woody Stumpwimple, Halfling Ranger

Pulled out of storage my BonesII Kickstarer box and ripped open the first bag from the box. Threw my hand in lucky dip styles and pulled out.....Woody Stumpwimple, Halfling Ranger

Looked at it for ages and couldn't think of how to paint it so decided to just grab a brush and see what happens. As it was coming along the green cloak wasn't doing it for me so I decided to see if I could make a chameleon sort or cape effect...hhhmmmm sort of works on some angles

Well that's Woody Stumpwimple, Halfling Ranger and his magical chameleon cape done, next up is this bad boy..instead of pulling out another random model I looked through the open bag and this jumped at me saying I wanna be a Giant Pox Rat...I miss my Skaven so why not...

 

M2E Starter Set completed

Today the bases were finished and the models attached to complete the M2E Starter Set..I ended up fairly pleased at how the Guild turned out but pretty meh about the Neverborn. The only one I don't mind is Angel Eyes, the rest, I guess I just didn't put the effort in that needed them to look ok. I could redo the skin and see how that looks but since they aren't part of the crew I will play with I probably won't...Enough from this waffler, here they are....

M2E Neverborn Starter set and bases

Today, it was time for the Neverborn from the M2E Starter Set...I wanted the Bloodwretches to look like some sort of bland green and dirty brown, battle worn prisoners look almost as if they were military of some sort that had been captured. The thought was to have Angel Eyes be a dark mysterious Assassin/Ranger looking character with dirty worn clothes that is out to get them back and for the Scion to be similar in his 'come get some' arms out each side and peacock chest pose.

The skin was what was bothering me and what turned out pretty bad, none of the models are quiet how I wanted them to look. I wanted a light but dark (duh, how dumb does that sound) skin tone that was dirty yet also showed somehow the black blood. I had no idea where to start. I was going to use a red and brown mix but thought it would of got lost in the muted clothes and been to dark so decided on a purple shade on a bright skin to start with...In my head it looked good anyway.

Here's what it looks like....as these are only Starter Set models which I'll probably only play with a few times anyway it doesn't matter too much.  Because of the failed skin tones, I pretty much rushed through the models and didn't put as much effort into the rest of the models paint jobs so I could make a start on the bases once they were done. Once painted I'd changed my mind on the bases and made debris ridden outdoor bases for the Neverborn, rather than making them all utilise the steel plate bases I had planned on fitted everything to originally. I think it will work better in the long run and I'll be able to make the Neverborn bases dirtier as if they are on the run or something. 

The Bloodwretches where started with a greyer skin tone but came out too purple, Angel Eyes came out ok I guess, it works with her dark clothing. The Scion was closest to what I had pictured. The problem was when I went to seal them...I tried a new Reaper Brush On Sealer that I had here which I hadn't tried before. While initially impressed with the ease of application, I don't think I had waited long enough for everything to dry before sealing them. The super viscous sealer reacted with the inks and the paints and mushed them all together and striped it out of some of the recesses...doh!!! most of it all settled down and worked ok with brushing over the skin areas and wiping away most of it before it dried.

Not that happy with the cape either but are looking forward to getting the bases done and the models finshed. That will have to be tomorrow now as I have to wait for the grey epoxy in the bases to dry before they get primed and painted...one cock up a day is enough I feel :)

What is this anyway?

Well this is going to be a place I put pictures of what I'm painting to try and keep me interested in getting some of the models I have sitting around painted at last I guess. Nothing fancy here so if your looking for professional quality painted models it isn't here. I aren't a terrible painter but I'm not that good either so its gonna be table top quality and models that I want to paint....What got me interested in getting this done was deciding to get back into table-top gaming when I could and to paint a gaming model again as I hadn't had a chance to do anything like that for the last three or four years.

That was in December 2015..I painted up the start of my Colette Malifaux Crew I had sitting around. After I started I began to think that maybe I should of chosen a slightly less difficult model to paint for my first model in years but stuck at it. Malifaux was the game I wanted to look at playing to get over finding out GW had turned WHFB into a skirmish game. Hold on GW what about Mordheim?? You already had an awesome skirmish game and gave up on it?!?!

Malifaux was something I wanted play some years back but never really did. I had a demo game of the new Malifaux and was hooked, this was the game, this was fun..After the demo game I had a game with my partially painted Colette Crew and the week before Christmas I finished painting the rest of my Malfaux 1.5 box. On Christmas Day I painted up my Coryphee and wished my second box was already here so I could of painted the Duet at the same time. Boxing Day came and I was looking through some of my models and found a few Reaper Familiars that I quickly painted up to use as proxy Clockwork Doves until I get the real ones.

Then the days between Christmas and New Years 2016 my M2E Starter Box arrived...so was time to open it up and look at the new shiny toys :) The Guild models in the box looked as if they where begging to be blonde haired blue eyed dark coat wearing psycho doctors so where the first on my list to do so everything got glued together and primed the next day. Today, New Years Day it was raining and it stopped me doing much outside so what better excuse to use to paint the Guild Starter Models. 

The two Orderlies....

Nurse Heartsbane....

Dr Gimwell and his red Guild tie....

The Neverborn have me a little concerned and I'm not sure they will turn out  how I see them in my head and I'm thinking if I'll darken the cloaks up a bit to be more grey than the whitish grey they are on the Guild models.