Tuesday, April 28, 2015

I Feel Salty

I've been working on my SDE minis more recently, as I have time now and a backlog of episodes of "Cognitive Dissonance" podcasts to get through (this is a very NSFW show, so be warned before looking  them up). As I listen to Tom and Cecil rant and rave about various woo-related topics, my paint brush darts across my chibi heroes and villains at a lightning pace. Thus, I have a few more minis to share.


First up, here are the Blaze Beetle and Roxor minis I forgot last time. I've been pondering if I should hit the beetle's carapace with gloss varnish, but right now I'm holding off.


Here's the completion of part of the project I was working on in the last post. The Shallow Grave spawn points are done, and I took a break from painting "normal" minis in order to get some paint on a few pets. I just got the joke behind The Colonel's name as I was painting him. Observation ahoy!


Here are the minis from the Salt Pillar spawn point. As I had finished painting the Fireflow Denizens not too long ago, and the minis are exactly the same, I figured I'd go ahead and paint these monsters now while I'm still in that groove.


And lastly, some bosses. Salt on the right there used the exact same colors and techniques as the minis above, so he was painted right alongside them. I decided to paint Von Drakk on a whim, along with the Herald of Vulcanis.Von Drakk and the Herald required the exact same method for painting their skin, so they were an obvious choice to go together. Of course, I couldn't paint up the Count without his shapeshift form Nocturne, so he was kind of forced into the queue.

As you can see in the background behind the bosses, the Death Spectre is gradually coming along. That scrollwork on his back is infuriating to get through,so unfortunately his progress has slowed. Not stalled mind you, just slowed.

Now, let's see if I compressed these pictures enough to get them up on the Soda Pop forum...

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

A Return to the Super Dungeons

As promised, here are my images of the Super Dungeon Explore minis I've painted. There won't be much in the way of writing in this post, as it's a show-and-tell sort of deal. Let's start with the boring stuff. Three treasure chests and a pair of Booty Grinders.


Next up, we have some Cavern of Roxor stuff. I'm done with the Rock Top Gang altogether, having completed the shells and bombardiers as well as the Rock Pile spawn point. I also threw Rock Gut into the picture to conserve space.
 

 Blogger is being weird at the moment, and it won't let me fiddle with the pictures the way I want to, So I'll adapt as much as I can. Above is the Lava Whirl spawn point flanked by a pair of Ember Hounds. Let me say that I detest the hound sculpt as they tip forward with very little encouragement. This makes painting (and worse, varnishing) pretty rough. With these monsters completed, I am only a few minis away from completing the Caverns of Roxor expansion.

Below you see the beginnings of the Curse Coven. The Pumpkin Patch spawn point was a blast to paint, with the bright yellow and orange. You can't mess up either color without a very long reset period, so it's a test of skill and patience for sure.

I also liked painting the Miserable Toads, as they're adorable. I matched the colors on the cards as close as possible, but I recently saw someone who painted up one of theirs as the Hypno-Toad from Futurama, and parroting that idea sorely tempts me.

Finally, I have Vandella. I've wanted to paint her for a good long while, and she was a blast! I'm super happy with her.
 

Next, some Undead. I started with the Rattlebones to get my technique for painting bone down. Again, I'm pleased.

The Necromancer was an adventure. As I try to match the cards as close as possible, I wanted to shade his pale blue flesh with purple.
 

More undead were to follow. A pair of Death Knights and  Dust Mages. No real commentary as I basically matched the cards.
 

Bone Heads below. It was interesting matching the various metals shown on their card. It was also a challenge painting their mouths, as unlike the Rattlebones they didn't have separate jaws. That meant painting black rectangles inside the teeth , and if you stray outside the lines you have to put coat after coat of white to cover the boo-boo. I did it a few times, and it was sort of maddening.
 

And what's Super Dungeon Explore without some heroes? Amazingly enough, the yellow detail was much harder than the white. In particular the Sister of Light's cross. The Celestial Herald was a joy to paint, despite slip-ups from coming pre-assembled with so many parts either super close or touching each other. 
 

And finally, some coming attractions. I'm working on the Shallow Graves in order to complete the monsters from Von Drakk Manor, as well as the Death Spectre since he's cool. I'm really not looking forward to the scrollwork on his robe (more yellow), but I'll soldier on.
 

As much as I've completed so far, It is only a drop in the bucket. I laid out my unpainted minis to fill the many gaps in their bases, and now that I look at them, well, there are a lot left to do. Plus with wave two getting ready to be packed up and put on a ship, there will be more and more minis on the way...
 

Finally, I just noticed that I forgot to take a picture of my Blaze Beetle and Roxor! They're up in the top right corner next to the figure case, of course obscured by other stuff. I'll get pics of them as soon as I can.

Thursday, April 2, 2015

A Long Time Ago, On a Blog Far, Far Away...

Well, it has been quite a while since I was here, months in fact. It's not that I haven't been gaming, quite the opposite in fact. It's just that I really haven't had anything to report.

I have been playing a lot of X-Wing. No painting involved there, and since I'm not really good at the game I don't have any tips, tactics, or lists.

That was until I heard the rumors...

Warhammer was going the way of the dodo! Well, at least Warhammer as we know it. Flurries of rumors about round bases, limited release regiment, reality bubbles bumping into each other...

I was horrified. Quickly I scrambled to the eBays and snatched up any classic Skaven I could get my claws on. Every regiment I don't currently own. Now my army is nearly complete- I'm just missing a couple of the less useful weapon teams. I'm hoping to fix that as soon as possible (in metal of course since GW's resin is terrible). I have been painting these fellas in the last couple of days, but my new (awesome) job keeps me pretty busy. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to post soon.

Oh, also- I got my tracking email for the first wave of Super Dungeon Explore yesterday. Those little fellas just beg for paint. First of course I need to finish Caverns of Roxor and Von Drakk Manor.

A hobbyist's work is never done it would seem.