The Conclave concludes, and a note on personal style

The Inquisitional Conclave comes to an end! To check out the results for all of the various entries, take a visit to the Neverness blog post here: The 2020 Inquisitional Conclave

First, let's address the timetable. I had the whole month of August to paint this single miniature. I even got off to a good start (kinda) and bought the model early in the month! AND I made a post about it! But then, I said a dumb thing.

"...I should have a better update next week!" 

Pretty par for the course for me, but still. I did fully intend to do at least one update post before the final "here's the result" post. I really did. Instead, though, I ended up doing what I always do...

Finish 99% of the whole project in a single 4-hour-long sitting at the last minute.

I can't decide if it's a good habit or a bad one, to be honest. On one hand, it tends to be a complete "follow the muse" type of experience, while on the other hand it means I sometimes have a difficult time repeating a certain color or effect if it occurred while I was "in the zone" so to speak.

Hmmmm maybe we should just jump into the specifics on the Inquisitor... BUT WAIT! This is a blog, after all, so before we go too far let me preface this by saying something about my personal style and my biggest influences. It's my blog and I can do that if I want to, dammit!

I've long been on the path of dirty, grimy, macabre realism. Not all projects/minis call for that, but if a project can make sense and gives me even an inch in that direction... I'm going grunge, and busting out da powdah. It's probably been five or so years, at least, since I started coloring my minis using washes and inks, priming light and working to dark instead of the standard "prime it black and work up" that most people tend to favor. I think that method, going light to dark, has been a huge influence in my push towards this particular "grimdark" aesthetic (as all the cool kids on the internet now call it, apparently). Now, as far as reference material and influences, I typically never use them. I scroll a lot of galleries and posts of painted minis and save the ones I like best, sure, but I'm not one to actually put a reference up while I'm painting myself; I tend to just... see where the project takes me. However, in all my scrolling and saving, I've found two key style influences that I go back to over and over again, just pouring over the pictures and absorbing the style. 

First, one that most probably won't know: The Garden of Hecate

Still some of the coolest miniatures I've ever seen!

A blog centered around the macabre, insane creations of a true genius for the craft, I just don't have enough good things to say about this. I saw this image somewhere a couple of years ago, probably Pinterest, and exclaimed, "Holy shit, this person GETS it!" and then I tracked the picture back to the blog and found a smorgasbord of content just like this. I've honestly never even delved too, too deep on that blog, just in an effort to save it for myself over time. It's all so wonderful, I don't want to consume it all just yet. 

Now, for number 2 (though really this is the biggest influence for me for many years, I've only just recently acknowledged it): John Blanche, famed artist and creator throughout Warhammer history.

So filthy. So beautiful.

This madman does things seemingly without effort that I can only dream of ever achieving, and almost every single piece I look at leaves me with a feeling of, "Dammit why didn't I think of that? I wish my brain would just me create things like that." So now, I consider myself a follower of the Blanchitsu Way, striving in my efforts to create such luridly messy and colorful works.  

Okay, so now on to the Inquisitor!

Freshly assembled, with a new head that I took from an Exorcist kit and on a base I 3D printed

Lately, I've discovered that I adore oil paints. They do the messy blending and moving around that I want them to do, with an extended working time and the ability to create effects by adding paint and then removing it, or even just thinning it selectively once it's already on the model, with some thinner. I'm still learning a lot every time I sit down with it, but it's reinvigorated my enthusiasm for painting lately and I'm honestly enjoying the struggle. The weirdest hurdle has actually been priming the minis, because it's very easy to remove the rattle can stuff with the thinner!

I started with a black primer, then gave it a heavy zenithal of bone white. I already knew I was going to covering all of this pre-shading up with the oil paints (when using acrylic washes and glazes you can very much use this pre-shading throughout the whole process, though) but it's a strong habit of mine because it helps me spot all of the details and different elements of the mini I might want to pick out. Like I said before, I just sit down and see what happens... I'm not much of a planner.

I started with some Vallejo "Liquid Gold" paints I picked up years ago after seeing them on a YouTube video of a guy painting some Grey Knights. When I first got them I was pretty disappointed, and I actually didn't care for them because I missed the fact that they weren't water-based when I bought them. Turns out I just needed to level up a bit, and I think I'm finally at the point where I'm ready to use them more. They're still a bit of a unique tool in my arsenal because they're actually alcohol-based and you use isopropyl instead of thinner/mineral spirits when you use them, and they dry within seconds of the paint hitting the model. They also have a very, very strong shine to them, as they are basically just some very nice metallic flake suspended in the alcohol solution rather than an acrylic gel. I started off just covering all of the armor with Old Gold, then giving it some depth with Copper, and finally giving the high areas some extra shine with Rich Gold.

Then, I blocked out the xenos weapon and skull, and her head with some acrylic stone and bone white, so that I could do some oil washing and clean-away. When working with the oils/enamels, you can put layers of acrylic paints/sealers if you don't want anything "below" that color removed when you start using the thinner to clean off paint. As long as the acrylic paint is completely dry, you're not going to accidentally remove any of it with the thinner unless you're really pushing down or using a rough cloth or q-tip or something.

 

Okay, so at this point the muse took me, my ASMR meditative breathing videos were going in the background... and I didn't put down a brush with a coherent thought to take a picture or take a drink or get up for anything until the point in this next picture, several hours later. Like at least 2 hours, probably 3 is more realistic? I honestly couldn't tell you. Believe it or not, there are only 4 added colors in the next picture, as well as black and white acrylics for a couple of things like the eye and eye patch, and the highlight on her hair. This is a couple of different enamel browns, Burnt Umber and Saddle Brown, I think,  shown just above and left of the mini (I didn't end up using the redder one on the right), and a Testor's "Green" and Testor's "Yellow" (like the little ones that come in a model car learn-to-paint kit you'd find at Walmart, lol) to do the dragon. Oh, and Red on the purity seal. Shit. So 5 colors. Whatever.

That was all I could do for that particular night of work, because oils have a slower drying time than a typical acrylic paint. I left her to sit for roughly 24 hours and then painted some Desert Sand acrylic on the base, then as soon as that dried I dusted her with some dulcote from a rattle can and applied some red oxide weathering powder (aka "da powdah" as mentioned in many previous blogs) which sticks down nicely to the drying (extremely thin) layer of dulcote without clumping. This time, though, I went a step further and used the same method as when cleaning away the oil paints, and with a q-tip and some thinner gave the base some variation and depth by cleaning some of the powdah back off.

And that's the completed project! All in all, I'm quite happy with her, and hope to have her accompany my growing Adeptus Sororitas / Sisters of Battle / Whatever We're Calling It Now forces on the field of battle sooner rather than later. 

...not gonna lie though I actually really like the name Adeptus Sororitas better it's so macabre and serious and nerdy hnnnnnnngghhhhh...

Hope you enjoyed the post! Sometime in the near future (...must stay vague on time commitments...) I've got some pictures taken already to do several new posts, primarily about the Adeptus Sororitas force I'm building to combat the treacherous armies of my son's T'au. But I do have one special one planned that should be a fun surprise! Well, for me, anyway. *shrug*

The Inquisitional Conclave (2020) begins!

Short entry for today (but I guess anything is better than my typical nothing...) just showcasing my entry into Neverness's new annual August challenge:

The Inquisitional Conclave

So, yeah, that's the first post for it. And this isn't included there because I'm late, for multiple reasons, but really because I had to go buy an Inquisitor (somehow I didn't have one and I didn't have a great idea for any inventive conversions). 

Unless this post IS in there? Did he edit it and now this is included? Are we stuck in a time loop? Damn the warp!

Anyway, the Inquisitor I'm choosing to use for this is actually GW's newest Inquisitor model, "Ordo Xenos Lord Inquisitor Kyria Draxus" or, as her friends call her... well with a title like that, she probably doesn't have friends. I actually don't know! I think this character is new and is in the recent campaign books for the Necron reawakening stuff, but I've read none of it. I just really like this model's armor and the lil' baby dragon that she's using like a falconer. And while I appreciate her shiny bald head, I actually plan on switching it out with one of my extra Sisters of Battle heads because she's going to be used with that army anyway. I hope. I mean, it's my current project, and my track record does kinda suck on completing projects and ever using the minis to play games, but I'm trying dammit.

Action shots! Look at that shiny box! Look at that sprue!

That's it for this week, but I've actually already assembled the body sans head, so I should have a better update next week!

How do I do this, again?

Hello!

It's a... it's been a minute.

Some stuff has happened since my last post.

I mean, I went to NoVa and played toy soldiers, had a good time. Ended up coming home a day early because I'm a homebody and missed my kiddos, but overall got what I wanted out of it. I'll post in more detail below.

Between going to NoVa and now, I've only really played a few games: I've been in a consistent D&D group, I've played a handful of games of Star Wars Legion, and then I've played some various things with my sons.

Painting... eh, really I've just managed to work on a sizable Star Wars Legion commission (pics below).

Hobby in general: I made the leap into 3D printing! It's truly like just adding an entire second hobby onto the primary minis gaming hobby, though, when you consider everything that goes into it. It's quite fun though, and has consumed a fair amount of my time.

What else, what else... Oh, the Mandalorian series came out and finished season 1! It was incredible. Everything I want out of Star Wars. Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker also came out. It was not incredible. It was not everything I want out of Star Wars. In fact, it was the first time I've ever experienced that negativity I've seen so many times before in other nerds for myself. I mean I still like Star Wars, and it was fun enough to watch, but whew man was the story and pacing/editing painful to endure. You have to remember, though, that Episode VIII: The Last Jedi is probably my favorite of the 9, haha!

Oh, and the pandemic.

No, like the real pandemic. "The coronavirus" or, by its proper name, COVID-19.

As a recording for posterity and a note to my future self: March 2020 is a dark time, made to seem even darker by the heavy shadow of the immediate future. Tennessee is behind in its efforts to quarantine and order "shelter in place" guidance to the public, but many other states and larger cities have already gone that route. Aside from the grocery store and fast food places, pretty much everything is closed. No game stores, no movie theaters, no restaurants, etc. The economy is devastated, with hundreds of thousands not working in an effort to slow the spread of the virus and keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed. Being part of the "essential" services (construction), I'm still at work every day. Well, for now, at least. It's a crazy time.

Anyway, back to the game stuff... ?

So, NoVa:

NoVa consisted of two main events for me, with a bit of other games sprinkled in at night with my travel companions (namely "Betrayal at House on the Hill" board game and learning to play Battletech with a starter box I purchased), which were Horus Heresy 30k Zone Mortalis, and Guild Ball!

The area of 30k room set up for Zone Mortalis. 

My Chaplain leads some Word Bearers to their inevitable doom. But, like, gloriously. Of course.

The Gal Vorbak prove  to be an ample distraction to a Dark Angels Dreadnought before the Breachers can flank in to save them.

My Miner's Guild learning how to play the game against some Cooks.

My Miners won Best Painted for the event!

As far as painting at home, I've really only been working on a Rebel army commission for a good friend. I'm hopefully going to wrap it up this week, though. (I'm a slow painter. I really shouldn't take commissions.)

Commission Star Wars Legion piece. Yes, it's a trap. Fishman gon' snipe you.

On the gaming front, mostly it's been playing games with the kiddos. We're several games deep into a Warhammer Quest Silver Tower campaign, as well as a Star Wars Imperial Assault campaign and a few games of X-Wing.

Soon, Alec and I will get our Rangers of Shadow Deep / Frostgrave hybrid game going, where we'll be able to play the campaign together against AI. I'm working really hard to get together nice terrain for it, though, so that it's a premium experience.

I can't remember if this is merely my son putting up with my constant character-voiced narration of Warhammer Quest, or him dealing with a particularly rough roll of the dice. Probably the former. :D

Flynn's badass murderdudesman for Warhammer Quest

Alec's sneaktastic elf assassin for Warhammer Quest.

Really 3D printing should be its own blog post, but considering how long it's been, I'm going to shoehorn it in a little bit here. This whole thing kinda snuck up on me, as I'd ignored it for years as being too expensive, but then another good buddy of mine showed me something he'd printed and related how low the cost had gotten, and now I have another addiction. I'm running an Elegoo Mars currently for my resin printing, and while it's got a small initial learning curve to get things printed and into your hands, the art of perfecting the supports for a model and positioning and all that is definitely taking a while longer master.

Also, seriously, the availability of fantastic sculpts from a multitude of different artists out there is truly astounding. And so affordable!

A fresh print!

Mandalorian Militia - converted speeder bikes for my personal Star Wars Legion stuff. 

A fantastic Arbite miniature from the patreon Monstrous Encounters, that I will use in Necromunda at some point.  "I AM THE LAW!"  

 As for what the future holds, especially with the ongoing pandemic, I'm not too sure. At least I've compiled an incredible backlog of stuff to work on should I find myself unable to continue adding to the pile of minis.  What's immediately next, though? Oh, probably just this little project of football playing frogs I've been waiting on for the past year from Kickstarter. :)

Hippity hoppity, yo.

Time is Immaterial

I don't know if I'm just really piss-poor at consistent updates, or if I'm saving up experiences and photos to make bigger blog posts. Like, I guess it would be sensible to piecemeal out this content and make smaller, more consistent posts... But nah.

So it's been a couple of months, and while I haven't gotten to play a ton of games, it's still been packed full of activities for me.

Super out of sequence (since this happened literally yesterday), but I'm going to start off on a high note:

Gaius Pallidus from Arena Rex's Legio XIII faction. That is a 40mm base (he's a tall fella).

"Da Powdah" strikes again, impressing me EVEN MORE with its myriad of uses, and has allowed me to accidentally create one of my favorite paint jobs of a human figure ever. And I mean "accidentally" quite literally. I was working on my NOVA models, knocking out both the basing of some Word Bearers and the finishing touches to some Guild Ball Miners using a custom mix of pigment powdah, when I had an epiphany about the Arena Rex models. I've always really loved them, and after assembling them and priming them white, I only went so far as to apply very diluted glazes to make the details pop and just kinda left it at that. I don't know if the models simply intimidated me, or if there was a particular look I was going for... doesn't matter. But last night I thought, "I wonder what this powdah would do to these figures, because I'm essentially doing the same thing applying it to these sculpted bases."

And now here I am, rethinking my entire painting process altogether when it comes to this hobby in general.

Moving on!

While I'm thinking about painting and techniques and all that, let's talk about Contrast.

The colors, Duke... the colors!

 So I'll just start off by saying the hype for this product, while directed at the consumer base with a different reasoning than what is pertinent to me (they advertise it as a way to paint armies quickly), was honestly well deserved. I paint primarily using washes and glazes over a light basecoat, building shadows and texture, and for that purpose these are a phenomenal product. Honestly the biggest struggle I have with them is that they cover a little too well (!!!) and I'm still playing with dilution and methods of application where I can kind of wipe off the high points to lessen the intensity of the Contrast paints' opacity. Overall I'm really enjoying using these.

Some examples:

Zombicide Black Plague figure, painted using the "Gryph-Hound Orange", "Plaguebearer Flesh", and "Skeleton Horde" Contrast paints. 

Zombicide Black Plague figure, painted using the same "Gryph-Hound Orange", "Plaguebearer Flesh", and "Skeleton Horde" Contrast paints, just in a different pattern and with a touch of Vallejo Red dabbed on the front while the Contrast was still wet so that it would dilute and spread. 

A Warmachine Precursor Knight, airbrushed with the Vallejo Metallic Gold, and then a single coat of "Iyanden Yellow" Contrast applied to the metal armor plates. Best gold color I've ever achieved with 5% of the effort I used to use on my Retribution figures using layering.

A Warmachine Stormblade figure, airbrushed with Vallejo Metallic Steel, then a single coat of "Iyanden Yellow" followed by a single coat of "Militarum Green" Contrast paints. Still not 100% sure about the result, though. It looks good, objectively, I'm just not sure it's my style.

Why yes, those were in fact pictures of Warmachine miniatures. 

So moving on, let's talk WARMACHINE HYPE!

As has been mentioned many times here, my roots in this hobby come from playing friendly games of Warmachine into the wee hours of the morning somewhere around 15 years ago. And finally, FINALLY, the story for the game and its future have come back around to being important (more than just the latest rules arguments or theme lists or whatever other bullshit the new gamers like) and they are releasing a campaign expansion alongside the Infernals faction to move the story forward.

This, needless to say, has gotten me excited.

So I went and played in a local "event" (I guess we'll call it that, small as it was) with my buddy Wargamer Ramblings. 

Game 1: Played against young lad Richard's Legion, which apparently had a theme and a list composition common to these modern events. I dunno. I took Cygnar with a Morrowan "theme" (aka story) and was wrong.

Game 1: Here's an action shot of me successfully combating the strong Legionmans yet simultaneously losing because of objective zone rules about what counts and what doesn't? I honestly don't know. This isn't the game I used to play.

Game 2 (of 2, told you it was a small event): Played Wargamer Ramblings' Crucible Guard in the loser's bracket. Same scenario as before.

Game 2: Shot right before things started getting really ugly. The next turn or so would see the entirety of the Precursor Knights die, the colossal to be wiped out by some angry dwarves, and his jet packers to get messed up by some Gun Mages. Essentially my left flank and his left flank simultaneously crumpled, but he came out the victor in the struggle for the middle...

Game 2: ...UNTIL HE DIDN'T BECAUSE EPIC CAINE GETS THE ASSASSINATION!  IT WAS ALL A PLOY.  THE ARMY IS EXPENDABLE!  IT'S ALL ABOUT THAT CASTER KILL BABY!

So, if you couldn't tell from the commentary on the pictures... I'm not super crazy about what Warmachine has become in the more recent years. The Warmachine I used to play, mind you we're talking basement Warmachine with a small group of people, had 3-d terrain, with some scenarios rarely filtering in, and we were very interested in the who's and why's of the characters and the world itself. Granted, these fond memories of mine end somewhere around 8 years ago when that well dried up, but they're damn strong and frankly make this modern version of things pretty unplayable to me.

And now, we have a further complication:

Thanks to the local gaming store getting rid of their stock, and the genuine interest of my son, he has bought himself into the realms of Caen. (OMG EXCITED DAD RIGHT HUR!!1!11!1!!!)

After some talking to old friends (namely the friends I began playing the game with) and discussing the myriad of changes to the game system that we don't like (which can, and likely will, be the subject of an entire blog post), we're going back in time to the harried days of MKI. A harsher game, but one we always had more fun with because of friggin' everything in the game being dangerous, it's what we've decided to have a bit of a renaissance with and what I'll be teaching to my son. 

"But wait! What about the many many models released after MKI? Like, for example, the entire faction your son has picked?" you-probably-aren't-but-I'm-going-to-imagine-you-are asking yourself.

So yes, this is going to take a bit of work on my end. Namely figuring out the original formulas for model point costs, so that I can retrofit things into it. But dammit, I'm determined now. I may actually do it. Largely because that would also enable me to retrofit any of the new Oblivion campaign model releases/updates. Which basically all excite me QUITE A BIT.

Look at that gorgeous artwork, those super cool Morrowan Precursors battling the forces of evil to literally save the souls of humanity. 

The artwork for the amazing Morrowan Archon.

SO COOL!

Wait a Menite one, too!?

Oh... oh no. This could get expensive.

IS THAT A THAMARITE ARCHON THAT WORKS IN TANDEM WITH ITS REVERSE TWIN MORROWAN ARCHON TO BATTLE THE FORCES OF THE ABYSS? 

...there are 8 Archons in total. This one is the Void Archon, which shows obvious connections between the Skorne and the Retribution of Scyrah, as well as the Convergence of Cyriss. This is very exciting, from a fan of the game itself AND a fan of the narrative.

And finally, the thing that actually has me the most excited... Cygnar Morrowan heavy infantry. This has been the top of my wishlist for more than a decade. I honestly can barely believe it's going to happen. So, so excited for this.

Privateer Press has fostered Warmachine into a game I'm not crazy about playing in its current form (which may largely just be because of the community that plays it) but damn if they aren't making some super cool stuff for it. And, they teased something entirely new for next year!

Is the logo very good? Nah, not really. But in a way that makes it kind of amazing at the same time. 

Rather than make this blog like 4-5 more subjects long, I'll cut it off right here with an update on NOVA prep. 

At this point, my 30k Zone Mortalis stuff is at least all assembled, with it roughly 50-55% painted.

The Guild Ball team is done with the exception of the goal marker.

Haven't even started the Aristeia! or Infinity models. Feeling a little nervous here.

My customized Centurion.

Back shot.

Normal squad with their converted heads.

The full list. Not a ton of models, but I'm taking my time and enjoying the effort of painting them.

First finished regular marine. Just need to put the black around the base edge.

Group shot while working on the bases.

First completed Gal Vorbak model! Might still go back and make his shoulder pad black, but I haven't decided yet.

Back shot.

And finally the Miners' Tank Girl herself, plus the Moley Mole:

And now, back to serious business.

DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA! (Me on the deck of the U.S.S. North Carolina)