The Tears Of Isha Flow

For the Elves of Avelorn march to war! 

At last I finished the first 500 points of this ridiculous theme army of the Maiden Guard. I have flags - made very kindly for me by my partner P - but no PVA glue or anything with which to glue them to the banner poles (curses)!

First up, we have Commander Aeilliniarie of the Maiden Guard alongside Captain Raliemne and the Tears of Isha company of the Maiden Guard:

Urgh, the photo quality is awful - I was trying something new and it did not work

Then there's Captain Lilaefni and her Heart of Isha Company:

This is slightly better but still not great. I think I might try and borrow P's DSLR tomorrow

And then lastly (but very much not leastly) Captain Merillaelle and her Isha's Song Company of the Sisters of Avelorn, an element of the Maiden Guard that use magic bows and ranges ahead of the main body of the Guard along with other scouts:

Yeah it's definitely time for me to learn how to properly photography my toy soldiers

With these done, I then turned to the next 250 points, which involved using (and breaking) a 1mm drill bit for a pin vice drill belonging to P to help with the kitbashed/converted Battle Standard Bearer I pieced together from 3D printed parts, GW High Elf pieces, and - when I can find some - a bit of 1mm diameter brass rod:

The broken drill bit in the foreground - shapeless black-undercoated miniatures in the background

And also, before I forget, here are the flags so graciously made for me from the original Maiden Guard banner by my beloved P:

Bear in mind these things measure 20mm x 53mm (right) and 25mm x 63mm (left)!

 So, next up is getting some Pritt Stick or PVA glue or something to attach those flags to the standard bearers of the various companies. And painting 13 more Maiden Guard, including a Battle Standard Bearer, who needs her standard building as well!

Painting Points:
Today: 27
This Week: 27
2026: 27

PS: This post was meant to be up on the 6th, but I did a booboo and forgot what time it was... so I guess the 7th of January will end up with two blog posts! 

 

Arrrrrrrrggghhh

Nearly! So nearly! I just need to base the Maiden Guard - that's all I have to do - but I just can't get it done today. I've done everything else they need, and have even managed to make reasonably good progress on making the Battle Standard Bearer (up until the pin vice drill bit snapped)...

They look nice, but I'm so annoyed I couldn't quite get the basing done!

I do also need to come up with names for the unit leaders and the Noble, which is an important thing. And design the banners. They'll definitely be done tomorrow. Definitely!

So Close!

(And yet, so far!)

I didn't do as much painting as I had hoped today, but I did get to watch Galaxy Quest again (By Grabthar's hammer!) and that was an excellent watch. That meant that I managed to get all the black done on the Maiden Guard; so their hair and the start of the gem detail work has been completed and now I'm going through all the gems adding Wild Rider Red stripes opposite the black. They'll definitely be done tomorrow though. I'm going to make sure of it. I want to get them sorted as soon as possible now so I can work on some other stuff... like boring a hole through the hand of the kitbashed Battle Standard Bearer I'm making for them!

I just couldn't bring myself to keep going with the Wild Rider Red

I do also need to fill in all those slottabase slots...

The Final Stretch

Sort of, anyway. I've blocked out all the rubies and highlighted all the other red elements, I've done the skin (mostly - I could stand to do a couple of details) and now it's just detailing the rubies, painting the hair, touching up, and basing. I also printed - or tried to - the last few minis I need for the next 250 points.

I also managed to break one of the bows on the Sisters of Avelorn, boo

So hopefully I'll be able to get all that done tomorrow. I may end up basing them on Monday - I can stuff the gaps with blutac while I'm at work, and spend an hour or so painting the bases and dunking them in flock in the evening.

After all that, of course, I need to make banners!

Spot Colours

 Red is an interesting colour to use together with green and white - it really works with them, and will be appearing in two main tones. A matt red for sword handles, streamers, and arrow fletchings; a gloss bright jewelled red for all the rubies scattered around and across each elf. There are a lot of rubies, and I've not got round to them yet. What I have done, though, is this:

I just can't get the camera to focus on all of them properly, which is annoying

All the gold is now shaded and highlighted, the skin is all washed, the matt red has been based. Next step is to do the rubies, then to highlight the matt reds, then to do the skin. After that, I touch up anything that needs touching up, apply gloss varnish to various bits (mostly the rubies) and do the basing. I should be able to get all that sorted this weekend. Then I can print a few more models to bring the force up to 1,000 points and start working on those...!

In other news, my copy of Warhammer: The Old World - Arcane Journal High Elf Realms arrived today, and I had a good read through of it. It's nice to have the physical books that'll allow me to use my army on the tabletop. The production values of the Old World books are really high - lovely full colour glossy pages, great art, all that. It's a nice thing.

Day One - The Year Begins, The Painting Continues

So 2026 has begun, and with it the last calendar year of my 30s. By the end of the year I'll be 40, and that's quite an age really. I began this blog over a decade and a half ago, and in that time I've painted a couple of thousand models, sold several armies, and still have over a thousand models to paint, plus all the ones I'm yet to get or have acquired since I made my list. Anyway, today I spent some time putting paint onto the Maiden Guard, until my eyes went wonky and I became too tired to paint.

I'm proud of how the giant conch shell horns are turning out

I got all the gold blocked in, and painted the musicians' giant conch shells to a point where I'm almost (almost) happy with them. Then I used some of my dwindling stock of Flesh Wash to wash the skin and gold of the first 10 Maiden Guard, ready for the next set of steps. I was going to do the rest of them to that stage as well, but I just got too tired to carry on. Hopefully I'll get that bit done tomorrow. I'd really like to have them done and based by this weekend as the first game of the Escalation League is on the 13th. It's not, on the face of it, a particularly tall order - I just need to knuckle down and finish the gold, skin, jewels, red spot detailing, hair... and probably a few touch ups along the way. Then I'll see about making some old school paper flags for the standard bearers. 

Hail The Fallen - The New Year Approaches

In 2025, I have painted more miniatures in one year than I have ever painted before. Today I capped the year off by painting two of the same model - Erika Chappell's Scrungaloid 01, "Tag and Release". The Scrungaloids are quite clearly variations of the Rogue Trader Space Marines from the RTB01 set and the associated metal models produced around the same time, and as a result I looked to Rogue Trader for the colour schemes. Obviously the Crimson Fists needed representation, and then I wanted a nicely wild option for the other one, and what better than the original red-and-yellow dazzle pattern Minotaurs from the famous spread of Chapters represented in the Badab War?

Brother Greg, of the Crimson Fists Red Hand, and Brother Pax of the Minotaurs Angry Bull-Men (both legally distinct names and concepts thank you). I used different bases to see which looked better; I think the larger base does actually suit Marines more than the 25mm one, but the 25mm one is the proper period base for the 1980s and well into the 2000s too for that matter

I leant into the graffiti bit from Rogue Trader - both Greg and Pax have various things written on their armour; Pax has LUV and HATE on his kneepads, and Greg has KIL on his right greave and DIE on his left hand

You can't expect a Space Marine Scrungaloid to know how to spell

You get a good view of Pax's dazzle scheme here. I did it a lot more crudely and simply than the last time I painted this scheme, just in case I'm unhinged enough to turn this one mini into a proper force...

This model is a really really good interpretation of the 1980s beakie Marines, and I'm very excited to see what else Erika's made for Scrungaloids: The Lowest Form Of Life

So with that, my painting spree for 2025 has come to an end. Over the course of the year I painted over 500 models for a total of 548 Painting Points! On average I completed one and a half Painting Points' worth of models a day, so my goal for 2026 is to equal or beat that. Coincidentally, Games Workshop has a promotion on where they're trying to get a million miniatures painted in 2026, and if you paint 100 between Janury 17th and May 9th you get a whole bunch of swag, which I'm very keen to get my paws on! Obviously that has to be 100 Games Workshop miniatures, but I do in fact have at least 100 of those unpainted kicking around... and I can buy some new ones as well, mwahahaha.

Other than "paint 100 GW models between Jan 17th and May 9th" my wargaming goals for 2026 are as follows:

• Open and run the LUNAR Club in Llangefni
• Run a Mordheim campaign at LUNAR Club
• Finish the Maiden Guard and participate in the Old World Escalation League with them
• Complete (or continue) the magnetisation and storage of my collection
• Finish at least the ruined buildings from my 40K terrain collection

I wonder how successful I'll be!

Painting Points:
Today: 2
This Week: 2
2025: 548

 

Is It A Bird? Is It A Plane? No! It's A...

 ...SCRUNGALOID! 

Almost no work done today, but - but! - I did print two Scrungaloids from Erika Chappell's upcoming game, Scrungaloids: The Lowest Form Of Life, which I am aiming to paint... err... tomorrow. 

They may look like RTB01 Marines, but these are legally distinct SCRUNGALOIDS, I assure you

Why so quickly? Well, there's a challenge - if I can paint one to completion before January the first, I get a free starter set (PDF rules and STL files) and I am actually quite excited about that. I'm going to try and do one up in simple colours and the other in a more esoteric scheme. Something like this, maybe:

I painted one of these years ago, I can paint one again!

Tune in next time to see how deranged the last day of 2025 makes me...!

Dungeons, Dragons, And High Elves

My son, T, has been staying (as he frequently does) and yesterday, not only did we manage to make time to play a game of King of Tokyo - which he won - we also started a game of Dungeons and Dragons. 3.5 Edition, of course; the edition I started with back in the early 2000s, an edition I can pretty much run without really thinking about it, and, just as traditionally, he rolled up a Human Fighter to start with.

Suffice it to say that he's been having a blast, and the adventures of his as-yet-unnamed character will, I suspect, be many and varied. As long as I keep rolling as awfully as I have been, that is. He has, as is the wont of players, totally ignored the NPCs that might be able to join him as party members, and is currently soloing everything I put in front of him. This may or may not last. We'll see if his partner E wants to join in next time she's over with him.

In painting news, I didn't do anything yesterday but today I highlighted all the leatherwork and painted the base layer of skintone onto the Maiden Guard:

Slowly getting there. Next step is to block out all the different shades of gold, then wash the skin and gold with Agrax Earthshade prior to applying highlights

I'm also going to print myself a Scrungaloid and see if I can get it crash-painted before the New Year, for a daft challenge set by Erika Chappell, the designer of the very funny and quite good little game SCRUNGALOIDS: The Lowest Form Of Life. Paint a Scrungaloid, get the starter set for free!

The Work Continues

I actually may have used that title before. Ah well. I did do a little work yesterday on the Maiden Guard, but I got distracted by Vampire the Masquerade: Coteries of New York and didn't manage to make a blog post about it. Anyway, today I painted all the leather and gold areas in Rhinox Hide, which doesn't sound like a lot (and isn't, really) but it does bring them all one step closer to being finished:

What's this? Maiden Guard? Again? What a surprise!

The magic bows are missing something, but I'm not sure what. I might try and put a little more blue into them, but they're alright, and I'm tempted to reserve judgement until just before I get the basing done. I've used a little yellow on the standard tops, to suggest a sunrise, which is a reasonably common High Elf motif. I'm hoping to spend a fair chunk of time painting tomorrow, so who knows - maybe I'll get the leatherwork and gold done, and that'll mean all that's left will be skin, hair, and gems.