That's No Moon!; finished winterguard deathstar

Just a quick, short update. Finished the last of the Winterguard for my Khador commission a few days ago, here's a pic:

More to come soon :)

Thanks for reading,
~ Alex/Magos

Ph-ph-ph-photodump!; more finished commission models and some bones

And I'm back! Sorry for the silence, had a slow few weeks where I didn't get a lot of painting time, and since I was batch painting, I don't like posting half finished models.

Anyway, finished a batch more models since I last posted. More winterguard, although I forgot a photo. Also some more Yu Jing for that commission. I painted all seven minis together and man, with such detailed models batch painting that many is a real chore. Keeps them all consistent though, so that's the reason. The Domaru establishes the colours for the heavy infantry, and I tried a few different options before settling on the gold accents. Pretty happy with it. Also, yellow is my absolute favourite OSL colour I think.

Next up is the first model for a Texico MERCS team I'm painting for a guy. Once they're finished I'll also be undertaking a Chaos Warriors army for him. The brief for Texico was 'dusty wild west'. I went to town on the coat with weathering, trying to make it look like a properly old and battered piece of leather, covered in dust and scratches. Pretty happy with how it looks, the MERCS minis are so much fun to paint.

Finally, I painted a few more of the Reaper Bones minis. Still hate the material, but oh well. Just basic paintjobs on these, nothing fancy, they'll only ever be used as game pieces.

Anyway, that's all for now, but I should have some more updates soon.

Thanks for reading,
~Alex/Magos

Blue and White, Red and Black; more commission work

Little more progress on my commissions over the weekend. My second commission, a large Yu Jing army for Infinity, arrived on Sat so I got to work producing a test model for the client, who was after a bright army painted to a high standard. He's very pleased with the results, which is always good to hear. I opted for intense, rich colours instead of straight-up bright shades, and kept the look similar to the official Yu Jing scheme. The blue glow effect should be more pronounced on the heavily armoured models and provide a nice contrast.

Thanks for reading,
~Alex/Magos

A Brush For Hire; starting a Khador commission

Something rather exciting to share with the class today, the first models of my first commission since I decided to get back into the brush-for-hire game. I currently have two commissions on my plate, but the second one is still in the mail. The first, a modest Khador army, arrived yesterday and today I prepped and painted a couple of test minis for the client's approval - since I've just received an enthusiastic response, I'll be going ahead with the rest of the army like this.
I love my Khador, although I'm used to painting them red. The vibrant blue and white colour scheme the client wanted was initially a bit of a challenge, but the more I painted the more I felt the colours were coming together.
Expect to see a fair bit of blue and white Khador in the coming weeks as I get these boys done and sent off to the front their new owner.

Thanks for reading,
~Alex/Magos

8,8,8,8... I Win?; learning to play Deadzone

A change from the last few days of Epic, I made time tonight to play a little Deadzone, using some of my recently painted models and terrain. The first game I played months ago was more of less 'normal', with large forces, missions, equipment etc, and trying to get a grip on the whole system at once meant we messed up quite a few rules. Since I barely remembered how to play, it seemed to make sense to start simple this time, and play a few games with small forces and just the basics.
We matched up two Enforcers against three Plague Gen 3s, one with HMG. On paper the forces were about equal points, but the first practice game showed that the Enforcers were pretty hard to hurt, with their good armour and accuracy, and I comfortably killed the plague.
For the second game, we switched sides, and I took control of the plague. As expected, things started off badly for me, but then crazy random luck took over and hilarity ensued...

Here's the board set up at the start of the game, nothing fancy:

Enforcers went first, and by the end of the first turn, things were looking bad, with my HMG suppressed to death thanks to some good rolls, my other gen 3s advanced up the field failing at shooting:

Next turn I managed to get one of my wounded Gen 3s into combat, only to fail my melee attacks and in turn get curbstomped by an angry Enforcer coming to help his buddy. At this point the game was effectively over, I had one Gen3 left facing two unhurt enforcers. My dude decided the last this left was to go down fighting, and sprinted next to the Enforcers before blazing away. Predictably, I missed most of the shots and only scored one hit. Game over, right? Then this happened...

Both Enforcers crapped themselves and dove for cover. Hilarious, but it didn't leave me much better off. I decided to charge in anyway, and my heroic Gen 3 managed to wound one of the Enforcers, before both sides traded attacks back and forth for multiple rounds - the Enforcers rolling terribly but my Gen 3 unable to score enough hits to actually break their armour. I was pretty sure I'd eventually go down, until this happened...

Scratch one Enforcer...
The remaining wounded super soldier decided to retreat and actually do what he's good at and shoot me to death. Plague Rambo was having none of that, and clambered up the building after him, catching him and tearing him apart after the Enforcer again rolled awfully for his armour:

This left the Plague gen3, amazingly, as the last man standing. I think I'm going to have to give him a nice paintjob after those heroics!

The games were great fun, and I think we got a good grounding in the basics. Next time we'll add some more troops and keep slowly introducing features.

Thanks for reading,
~Alex/Magos

The Convent Grows; more epic SoB

Nothing super exciting to show, just a few more bases of Adepta Sororitas infantry to join the growing army. Finished another base of sisters, plus another retributor squad (with heavy bolters) and a squad of seraphim.

Thanks for reading,
~Alex/Magos

Help, Help, I'm Being Repressed; more epic SoB

Finished a few more rhino chassis for my new Sisters of Battle. I had a flash of inspiration and came up with an idea to convert some Repressors and an Immolator, and I'm very happy with the results. The Repressors technically lack the side armour and dozer blade of the official model, but I think they capture the riot-Rhino look, so I'm happy with them. Let me know what you think!

Thanks for reading,
~Alex/Magos

The Little Sisters of Battle; epic SoB

Back again in short order with the latest offerings from my painting desk. I ordered a few backs of the awesome new Onslaught Miniatures sisterhood models to use as Adeptus Sororitas in my 6mm 40k project. They arrived today, and I got stuck into painting them. I also decided to deviate from my normal desert basing and put these girls defending an Imperial city, it just seemed more thematic that way. Future bases will include parts of ruined buildings etc.
The models are just gorgeous, albeit minuscule. I should take some scale photos, for those unfamiliar with epic...

Here we have a regular Sisters squad with heavy bolter and a 5 man Retributor squad with heavy flamers:

Thanks for readings,
~Alex/Magos

Bad Case of Crappy Photo Syndrome; more Deadzone

Ok, hopefully this will be the last time for a while that I have to apologise for an extended break in posting. At least this time I wasn't totally idle on the painting front, even if I haven't been blogging it. Over the last few weeks I've knocked out a few more DZ models, and started painting my DZ terrain, which I'm pretty happy with, even if it takes quite a while.
Sorry for the awful, hideous photos. Having some trouble with my usual background, hopefully I'll sort it out before taking any more pics, since a decent background makes a big different.

Anyway, short and sweet, enjoy the pics:

Cheers, and see you soon with more...
~Alex/Magos

Taking a Break From all the Hype!; Deadzone rebs

Well it's been an interesting couple weeks. Had to get a new laptop last week, since my old faithful started to fail on me. The downside to this is that I'm not pretty broke, lol. Lucky I have plenty of gaming projects to keep me entertained for the time being. The upside is that my new laptop is a very sexy MSI GE60 with a brand new nvidia 860 graphics card, which basically just means I can run games more graphically intensive than CS:GO. I'll admit, first thing I did was go out and buy Titanfall. All I can say is 'the hype is real!'. The game is a real blast, and has eaten up a lot of my spare time this week.

Anyway, I finally broke out the brushes again yesterday. I grabbed a couple of random Deadzone rebels and knocked them out last night. Pretty happy with how they've turned out. Far from display standard, lots of sloppy painting, but they'll look fine on the table, which is all I want from Deadzone, since the models, while nice, aint no Helldorado or Infinity sculpts.

One final note - I've never really brought it up before, but I do accept commission painting work. I figured since I'm currently poor and have the time, I'd let people know.

As always, thanks for reading,

~Alex/Magos

On Your Base, Killing Your Dudes; based FCC

I finished basing the other three FCC MERCS. Not as happy with them as I was with the test base, but they'll do.

Thanks for reading,
~Alex/Magos

Small Dwarf with a Big Sword; random dwarf plus based MERCS

Hey folks, just thought I'd post up my work for the day. Had a quiet few weeks in the hobby while I did other stuff with my time, but I recently found a cheap blister of old Marauder dwarf longbeards. Now, while I'm a fan of the new, modern dwarf models, I also love these characterful old models. I don't plan to put them in my army, so they'll just be painted for fun. NMM is still the one technique that does my head in. This attempt isn't perfect, but it looks ok I think... :-/
I also went back to a model I painted last year. It's about time I got back to MERCS, so I based one of my finished FCC models. Happy with how it turned out I think.

Thanks for reading,
~ Alex/Magos

Monolithic; more epicrons and Helldorado

Finished some more necrons, as well as a Helldorado figure I worked on over a few days. Painting painting painting. Trying to keep on track for my model-a-day goal.

Thanks for reading,
~Alex/Magos

Surprise Space Skeletons; epic Necrons and more Helldorado

Well it's been a hectic few days in real life here, so not too much time for hobbying. I've continued my brief interlude of all things dwarf with a few more Helldorado models and a return to my 6mm 40k project, which has been revitalised somewhat by the very generous gift of some lovely epic Necrons from a friend. These models are really nice to paint, although given how tiny they are, I didn't put too much time/effort into them on an individual level.

Thanks for reading,
~ Alex/Magos