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

Some Small Creatures

Nothing particularly major today, but I did take the time to immortalise some pets in miniature form:

Kiki and Binx (the cats that currently live with my partner P and I):

Kiki (l) is from Bad Squiddo Games and Binx (r) is from Troublemaker Games

The poses quite nicely reflect their personalities, although both are very cuddly in reality

Cookie, Mushi and Nimh (the first three rats we ever had):

Cookie was the most keen to explore and escape which is why she is the mutant with six legs - to get around faster!

Nimh actually had darker ears, so after this photo was taken I gave them a black wash

The cats are based for my 40K stuff, and can be familiars or even objective markers, while the rats are absolutely destined for Necromunda.

Painting Points:
Today: 5
This Week: 17
2024: 216 (367) - I have now done more than one PP per day for the whole year and it's not even over yet!

Retrospective IV: 2022

This should actually have been the previous retrospective, but I misread the year of Retrospective II. Woops. Anyway, here's what I painted in 2022:

Scatter terrain!

Trukk boyz!

More trukk boyz!

Some kannonz (I still need a third one of these to complete the battery)

A Big Mek (with Kustom Force Field)

A Gorkamorka runtherd (lightly converted) and a bunch of 2nd edition Grotz - including Makari!

A huge mob of 'Ard Boyz with shootas!

Da Warboss (centre) and two of his bodyguard - again, I still need some more Meganobz to complete this unit

Battle for Skull Pass Thane and Slayer

BfSP cannon and crew

Ammunition crates

Water barrels

Nearly a whole unit of Warriors

A shipping container

A unit of Thunderers! (these are BfSP again)

A unit of Quarrellers that had languished, unpainted, in my pile of opportunity since their initial release in 6th Edition

Runesmith

BfSP miners (these chaps are great)

Grombrindal, the White Dwarf! I got this one free with the 200th issue of the French White Dwarf, purchased in Paris GW many years ago on holiday.

More Thunderers - I use these to replace the command group in case I want to run a cheaper regiment, or I can add them to the unit to make it bigger.

I didn't paint these this year. The ones on the left I painted in 1995 when I was 8 and they are all that remains of my very first box of GW figures I ever got - my Mum bought them for me when I was ill. £5 for 8 plastic monopose Dwarfs, if I remember rightly. A lot of money back then! The one on the right is a Wargames Foundry mini I got somewhere, somewhen, and painted in my early teens. All I did in 2022 was rebase them to fit the warrior unit you can see above.

What Dwarf army is complete without a Gyrocopter?

Two more Thunderers, giving me a total of 15 (quite robust in hand to hand, even, if you form them up in three ranks)

Sudden change of pace with a whole bunch of batch-painted Tyranids.

And now, the general of my Age of Sigmar Daughters of Khaine army!

I'm really proud of this conversion

I didn't like the big mirror thing it's supposed to have, so that wasn't used

How would it move? Well... dinosaur! Adding the chains to attach it to the beast was... interesting

Close-up. She's very much A N G R Y

Bodyguard - the only albino in the army, replacing the two Witch Elves that normally stand here

A second unit of Blood Sisters. The unit leader is from the Underworlds range.

MkVI armour Marine. I got this one free as a "mini of the month" and painted it as an Alpha Legionnaire

How can you tell it's an Alpha Legionnaire? Well, there's no markings and they're entirely camouflaged!

Aggressors and Reivers painted as Palmyrene Spears

Hellblasters and Techmarine, Palmyrene Spears

The resulting army shot - these are all in the process of being rebadged to Raptors and then sold off, now

Kommandoz, of the Blood Axe variety

Bomm Squig. One day I'll get some Tankbustas to go with it.

Big ol' magic snake made of blood

Blood Slaughterers

A champion - I forget the proper name. She goes with the Blood Slaughterers

Two points of Jade Falcon Falcon Guards elementals. No camouflage here, just flat green and some hazard stripes on the SRM launchers.

Falcon Guards Timber Wolf (l) and Executioner (r)

Falcon Guards mechs. I forget the name of the one on the left, but the centre is a Nova and the right is a Puma

Technically she's not a Melusai, she's a Witch Elf Priestess, but she's blue so the counts-as is easier for my opponents. A conversion made from a spare snake lady and one of the Underworlds miniatures. Yes, her top is mesh.

Second unit of Blood Slaughterers.

Two more warriors to bump up the regiment painted earlier this year to 20.

A crane! This one was missing a part (you can see the hole on the engine block) but I later got the piece and fixed it

Phyrr Cats for my Escher gang

Fancy Fliss, my Gang Queen (irritatingly the power axe isn't a legal starting piece, so she has to pretend it's a chainaxe until she can find one at the Trading Post)

Phelynxes - painted to look like sphynx cats

Losse de Grey, Death Maiden. She's a real terror, as it turns out!

Roxy Danger, a Wyld Runner

Monika per Escher, House Agent (the Genestealer Cult Magos is SUCH a good miniature to use for all manner of conversions)

Bo'sun Jones, late of the Imperial Navy, now a Cold Trader's bodyguard

Bo'sun Tsunji, always a Cold Trader's crewwoman since birth. Mini from Bad Squiddo Games

Lady-Captain Gelila, Cold Trader. A converted vampire from Age of Sigmar, she's VERY tall (as befits a voidborn). And yes, that is a Shuriken catapult...

3N-8Y, an Ambot. Painted quite generically so any gang can use it

Parra the Medic, Rogue Doc, Escher citizen

And I finished the year with a commissar for my putative Paradisan LXIX Infantry army, which I'm making using the new plastic Cadians and some heads from Anvil Industries. This is a straight unconverted GW miniature though.

And that was it! 255 Painting Points' worth of miniatures (And some big-i-atures) painted in that year. Hope you enjoyed and I'll be back on Sunday, I expect!