Sturmtruppe Angriff!

With a few (alright, many) corners cut - mostly in the highlighting phase - the first unit of the Paradisan LXIX Infantry has been completed!

On the left of the squad leader, two Stormtroopers with volley guns, on her right, two Stormtroopers with plasma guns. The squad leader herself carries a plasma pistol and a power sword, providing some close assault punch and extra close-range firepower

They may have camouflaged helmets and grey armour plate rather than blue, but they're still Paradisans - so their tunics are still piped with the regimental rose pink, and the sergeant's power sword hilt is a gleaming gold

The "grunts" of the squad, carrying hellguns and including a couple of specialists - a medic (second from right) and vox-operator (in the centre)

From this angle you can see the gold glint of the winged skull on their power packs

Ten down, several dozen to go

They look absolutely fine despite the limited application of highlights - essentially the only highlights applied are a small layer of the base colour after the mini's been washed with Nuln Oil. Some details - like the piping - didn't get any highlights at all. Mwahaha!

This is, after all, an army, not a display project. 

Painting Points:
Today: 10
This Week: 13
2025: 67

Half Way Always Looks Strangest

 So I'm pretty much at the half-way mark with the Stormtroopers. I've highlighted their armour and uniforms, done all the black, blocked out the red and gold elements, and now it's mostly just detailing and skin to go. I should probably be able to get them done by tomorrow or Saturday at the latest.

They look a lot closer to my mental image of them now

As with a lot of my projects these days I'm not putting a huge deal of effort into the highlights stage: base coat, wash, highlight with the base coat, call it done. It speeds things up and is effective en masse. For certain figures - like the characters - I'll probably take more time and do a more detailed highlight on them, but the bulk of the army is infantry and really they don't need the work.

Marsch der Paradiser

Now that the commission is finished, I turned back to the Stormtrooper unit for my Paradisan LXIX Infantry force. The idea with these is that they're an integrated part of the regiment, a special unit that gets dispersed in packets to strengthen assaults or reinforce a defence, and, rarely, deployed en masse to spearhead an attack. They wear largely the same uniform as the rest of the regiment under their armour, but their armour is much heavier and grey, rather than blue, like the standard kit of the Paradisan infantry.

All of which is to say they are a mash-up of 1910s Prussian and 1917 Imperial German infantry:

I've got them about half-way really. The next step is to paint black on gloves, webbing, weapons, gas masks, power cables, helmet camouflage, and boots. Then highlight the greys and blues, apply various details such as plasma glow, belt buckles etc, and then do the faces. After that it's time to do the basing! I think they're going to get urban/ash waste basing to match my Argent Shroud and Raptors armies.

Commission Complete

Yesterday I didn't do any painting because, as sometimes happens, I wasn't feeling very well. Today I felt well enough to carry on with the commission of the D&D characters and now they're all done!

Dungeon Master (left) and Eric the Cavalier (right) demonstrating that yellow can turn out alright if you paint over pink and use Contrast Iyanden Yellow as a wash

I like how the Dungeon Master's hair turned out honestly

Venger, the Big Bad Evil Guy, standing on stone tiles

The grey highlight here looks messier than it is in real life!

The whole commission, with fancy basing (thanks All Game Terrain)

Next up is to go back to the Kasrkin and paint them up; I'd like to get them done this week and then be able to move onto the rest of the army. I may or may not restructure it to fit 10th Edition; we'll see. That would certainly require more basic infantry to replace heavy weapons teams within the infantry squads.

Painting Points:
Today: 3
This Week: 3
2025: 57

Dungeons And The Dragons

Today I didn't do anything on my own personal stuff, but I made sure to crack on with the commission I have. 

This is not a great photo annoyingly, as it washes out the little unicorn. I'm happy with how the other two turned out though! L-R: Bobby the barbarian; Uni the baby unicorn; Diana the acrobat

The studded leather that Bobby's wearing is very classic barbarian fashion, and Diana's getup is very Conan-esque - you can see the inspirations for D&D very clearly!

A very short update for today, I think. I'm hoping to get some more done on my Paradisan Stormtroopers and maybe finish the commission tomorrow.

Painting Points:
Today: 3
This Week: 32
2025: 54

Paradiso's Glory

Back in the dim and distant days of 9th Edition Warhammer 40,000, when the Cadians were redone and the army set released with the Codex, I got given it for Christmas by my partner P. I had plans then - and still do - to build an infantry company with relevant armour support (Sentinels, tanks, etc) for modern 40K, but with heads from Anvil Industries. Specifically, women wearing pickelhaubs. That sort of solidified the paint scheme for me - late 19th Century Prussians. So I started the project, then got distracted, and, er, now it's 10th Edition, a new Codex has been released that invalidates the army basically entirely (as the infantry squad with integral heavy weapon has been taken out back and shot) and means I need to do a bit of a rethink once I get my hands on the new thing. Anyway. That's all a very long-winded way of saying I made a start, today, on the Stormtrooper - sorry, Kasrkin - squad that's going in the army:

Blue tunics, grey trousers... and eventually 1918 style camouflaged armour plate, because this is 40K and anachronism is the name of the game anyway

On top of all that, a chap who commissioned me to paint up some 3D printed versions of the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon cast dropped the minis off today, and so I knuckled down and cranked out the first three of nine:

L-R: Sheila the Thief, Presto the Magician, Hank the Ranger

I stuck to the colours of the cartoon as requested

These are a delight to paint up, because the colour scheme is so simple - thank you, 1980s animation team - and the prints themselves are super smooth and clean. No idea what they were printed on or what the resin was, but really easy to paint. Lovely minis. Quite a bit bigger than 28mm though, these are 42mm scale. 

Tomorrow I should be able to show you the rest of the heroes and some more work on the elite heavy infantry element of the Paradisan LXIX Infantry.

Painting Points:
Today: 3
This Week: 29
2025: 51

Let's Get Familiar

Well, I was intending to paint some Night Goblins or maybe some random barbarians, but instead I remembered I had a bunch of familiars (or constructs, or similar) which I had originally picked up largely for a Demon World game I'd been thinking about. So I've spent the day painting them all up!

Two little mini-knights, one of whom (on the left) has a little whistle on its helmet), and a wizard imp wearing Mickey Mouse's wizard hat from the Sorceror's Apprentice

On the back of the little bronze one is what looks like a pull-string, which is fun, and the little imp has a rolled up magic scroll in its pocket

I decided to split them into a few groups - the first three (above) are based for Frostgrave, and then I did some for 40K, which can be used either for Inquisitorial warbands or for Chaos Sorcerors:

The artist's mannequin had actually been painted years ago and just never based, but the little Tzeentchian bird-familiar and the blue imp were done today

Purity seals on the bag the imp's carrying, which suggests either that it's working with a Radical Inquisitor or it just stole something

Finally the last three included a small frog that I got from a Dunkledorf Miniatures Kickstarter, which I based on a square base and will stick in my Bretonnian army as an homage to the 5th Edition Fay Enchantress miniature's toad.

The Keeper of Secrets is an old Epic miniature, and in 6mm would be terrifyingly large; the frog is just cute, and the classic Moonface looks really good in a red and black jester's outfit

I really like how the Slaaneshi familiar - the mini-Keeper - turned out

A productive day, all things considered! Nine completed figures for three seperate games systems. 

Painting Points:
Today: 9
This Week: 26
2025: 48

A Vote For Count Binface

 Is a vote for sanity!

In the fine tradition of British electoralism's open free-for-all approach (so long as you have the ready cash to pay for a deposit you will absolutely lose), there is a man who has a character called Count Binface. He has a 24 point manifesto which includes knighting Wallace and Gromit "for services to wensleydale", which, honestly, made more sense than basically any of the big three party's manifestos. He teamed up with Troublemaker Games last year to have a 28mm scale figure of himself made, the profits of which would go towards NHS charities. So, of course, I bought one, and today, I painted him up:

Count Binface - the perfect Poundland Cylon

That cape, which is silver on the outside and black on the inside, is exactly what the real-life Count Binface wears

I freely admit I can't really think of anything that'll see this miniature hitting a table for a game, but it's a fun miniature and it was a lark to paint - grey, black, and silvers! The strange thing underfoot I painted up as if he's crushing some kind of empty fire extinguisher or pressurised gas canister.

After finishing ol' Binface, I picked up my Bad Squiddo Games snake priestesses, and painted them up to go alongside my Song of Blades and Heroes snake cultists:

I did a little bit of translucency on the priestess on the left, but just went for a more opaque blue overall

I'm quite pleased with the snakes!

At some point I need to think about who these snake cultists are actually supposed to be fighting, honestly. But that's probably about 1,500 miniatures away at this point!

Oh - speaking of painting - my uncle K sent me a voucher for Christmas, and after much umming and ahhing I used it to get myself some new paintbrushes, as the ones I was using until today are, to put it mildly, knackered. So I splashed out and got myself some nice new ones that came in an interesting cardboard pot:

I've never used them before but they're pretty good!

I like them. They have a nice triangular bit towards the ferrule which is perfect for holding onto, the brushes have a nice point and hold it well, and they take and apply paint well too. There's 15 in the pot, including some good drybrushes and sizes from teeny tiny to good for quite large areas. Worth the voucher spend honestly.

Painting Points:
Today: 3
This Week: 17
2025: 39

Tapping Into The Warp

Today I opened my third eye and, in order to make sense of the howling insanity of the empyrean, painted a couple of wyrds for, variously, 40K stuff and Necromunda:

On the left, a Bad Squiddo mini who will now work as either a Daemonhost or a psyker in an Inquisitorial retinue; on the right, a Troublemaker Games mini who is now a Necromunda Wyrd

Cwen the Wys is a name I've used a few times in various TTRPGs and even a LARP; it seemed appropriate for this unsanctioned psyker in the Underhive

The combination of ashen-grey skin tinged with an inhuman red, and the bright green glow of the eyes and mouth, and the pose - which is fantastic - all combine to make this mini one of the more obviously dangerous psyker figures I own

I'm really pleased with how the psyker/daemonhost turned out. It's a very simple palette, a very simple paintjob, and the combination of pose and paint have given me a really quite scary little mini who wouldn't look out of place in any 40K game. She'd even work well in a Chaos force or as an objective, or similar. A fantastic figure from Bad Squiddo Games as per usual, props to the sculptor Shane Hoyle.

The Necromunda Wyrd will make for a great and very useful Hired Gun for any Outlaw gang, and is quite intimidating in her own right - I messed up her eyes a bit but they're red, with either running black mascara or some kind of ichor (your interpretation) drooling down her cheeks. And she is, of course, in a quite appropriate combination of tattered overcoat and semi-uniform style blue dress. 

Next up is probably the Count Binface model, and perhaps the Bad Squiddo snake priestesses to go with my slowly growing Song Of Blades And Heroes snake-worshipper band.

Painting Points:
Today: 2
This Week: 14
2025: 36

A Little Rest

I've been painting at quite a rate of knots of late, so today - which was quite busy for a variety of reasons - I just settled down to spend a couple of hours on a single miniature. I backed one of Bad Squiddo Games' reasonably recent Kickstarters and picked up a few figures from that for a variety of reasons, and this one was one that I wasn't totally sure how I was going to use, just that I needed it:

The photo's terrible, but the boots, gloves, and corset are all a dark purple with a gloss varnish on

I really need a lightbox

I ended up basing her to fit with my sort of 'Fantasy TTRPG' stuff, so she might end up seeing service in anything from Rangers of Shadow Deep to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or even a game of Thirsty Sword Lesbians. Who knows! I really like the purple palette, and the way the cravat really leaps out. The little bird reminded me of a magpie (and indeed is painted as one in the official paint job), but I figured I'd lean a bit more into the sort of black feathered corvid feel to give her a bit of a gothic edge. 

Tomorrow I'll probably finish off the Troublemaker Games psyker that I'm working on, and might make a bit of progress on some more of the Bad Squiddo Kickstarter minis. As a side note, I've also plumped for a sandy base for K-9, which means he'll end up palling around with the AdMech I suspect.

Painting Points:
Today: 1
This Week: 12
2025: 34