Lord Carver, BMMD, Esq. III

Here is my Lord Carver I painted recently. He was my entry into a local paint competition, in which he took second place in small fig category. I took tons of WIP photos along the way to get feedback from my buddies as I progressed.
So, here is a photo dump from start to finish. Yup, you'll need to scroll all the way to the bottom for finished pics. :)



Beginnings of the base. I wanted something suitably epic for him to stand on after all.
So I started off with some Super Sculpey Firm, and stamped it with a rubber stamp I bought a while back. I wanted the floor he was standing on to look like it had once been a palace floor or some such thing.

The floor was set up on a few blocks of plaster rubble from said palace.

Placing Lord Carver on the base to dry fit where he would stand.

Next I needed to add some growing things to give it the look like Nature was slowly taking over what structure was left.
fortunately I live within yards of a mountain side, and can find all sort of basing and terrain goodies up there.

On one trip up the mountain I found a certain type of tall weed. I really dont have the slightest idea what it was but it had great little leaf shaped seed pods. I attached them to the trunk with some superglue. I kept the foliage pretty sparse as I didnt want to make this seem like a super healthy tree.

And the paint begins. first with just some mid town grays. and I then started glazing in some purples and teals to give it a darker cold look.

Next was some highlights to the gray and I started adding some mossy junk all over the place. Plys a mouse bone as that seemed fitting for a fig called the carver...

Onto Lord Carver himself.

Started working the metals on him. This is my favorite part ot do by far.

Here he is just about finished. Just need to attach him to the base really.

And onto the finished piece before I took him to the competition. I am pretty happy with  how he turned out. Definitely excited to paint some more pigs and possibly even get a little playable force. 

Memory lane: Totem hunter

Some long time readers may have noticed this guy crop up in a pic here or there with other stuff on this blog. The Totem Hunter is just so awesome though, I thought he deserved his own spotlight.
This fig went through many, many layers of paint before I was happy with his scheme. I wanted him to stand out from any of the factions I would run him with, but also be somewhat dark since he is supposed to be such a stealthy, hide in the woods kind of  guy.

I dont know what the current thoughts are for the Totem hunters usefulness in games but I find myself always trying to squeeze him into my list just because he is so awesome looking.

thanks for looking!

On the Bench

Wow! what a slacker I have been this month, half way through and just putting up my first post. I did actually finish a few figures very recently but forgot to snap pics before they got sent off to the new owners. Ah well, live and learn I guess.

For now, I 'll go ahead and show some of the current WIP's I am actively working on.

Have a few Dark age things in the wroks up first. Really pleased with how the Junker chick is turning out so far. Not so terribly pleased with the Buzzblade yet though.

More pics after the Jump

Janissa Stonetide

Wow! Another slow start for posting this month, I have got to stop that! I have worked on quite a few things and we did have our first IK encounters.......unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of it. We had a great "LEROY JENKINS!" moment in the first encounter which actually worked out for the better in the end.
That should teach us to pair up an Ogrun and a crazy dwarf with no sane player anywhere near them.

Anyway, our IK night was paired with a paint night so some of us peeled off the group and sat down to paint after the first encounter.
I finally got Janissa finished, since she just needed a few details and some touch-ups. . She ended up a lot darker and more biker chick/Dominatrix looking than I had originally intended, but I like it so hopefully the client will  as well.
 The base was left bare at the clients request.
i also went ahead and threw in a later WIP because it actually shows her quite a bit clearer than the two final pics.

Weekend WIP's

Well, I found a few more minutes this weekend to put some paint on a few figs.
Black Ivan and Janissa are both commissions for locals. This is the first Troll I've ever worked on (barring Boomhowler that is) and so far it has been pretty enjoyable. All the large, exaggerated features really make painting a breeze.
The owner of the figure asked for an orangey-brown skin tone along with purple cloth as the base colors. Hopefully she is looking Orange enough.
Black Ivan is just base coats for now, but by the end he will be severely beat up and battle damaged. Oh, and if you couldn't tell....yup, he's an extreme jack. Oh, the hand cramps in store for me. :(

I also busted out my alt Stryker fig to work on. I'm finding it very difficult since he is primed black, but I did add a few glazes here and there and get some paint on that wild hair!
He was one of the few dozen figs that I had already primed when I decided to make the transition from black to white primer.
Most of those figs are sitting in partially finished states as I really just dont enjoy painting over black any longer.
I know i could strip all of them back to bare metal, and I probably will someday, but that never seems to be top priority when I find some hobby time.

Thanks for lookin!

First Tournament at gamers Asylum

Well, we had the very first Warmachine/Hordes  tournament at the Gamers Asylum.
Was a fairly tame tournament for a lot of the newer players with a 25 point limit and no reinforcements.
Up for grabs were the colossal coins but that didn't mean the Hordes players armies didn't arrive in force! I think it was split nearly 50/50 between the two systems. Surprisingly, Cryx, Cygnar, Skorne and Trollbloods were not represented, but we had Menoth and Khador coming out our ears! There were 16 people that showed, which was a great turn out for a new store!

First place went to a Menoth Harbinger player, second to Legion with Saeryn and third was an eKaya Circle list. Was a well run and fun tournament. 

Loyal to the Crown

Finished up these two Iron Kingdoms figs night before last. They were part of a larger commission for a local, and were thrown in as somewhat of an after thought.
I had been putting them off to work on the larger things in the commission but it turns out that these were needed for a Historical Warmahordes tournament this weekend! So, I had to hurry and bust them out. Hopefully the client will find them satisfactory. I enjoyed painting them both quite a bit, as I love working on figures that have lots of armor plating!
Where do your loyalties lie, Vinter or Leto? With the true King or the Usurper? (can ya tell I'm a Magnus player?)

Gamers Asylum Paint night

Once a month we plan an evening at the local game shop for everyone to get together, BS, paint and have a good 'ol time.
With summer in full swing the attendance is a little lacking, which is really to be expected. We have a great time though,no matter the turnout. I went ahead and snapped a few pics of the figs everyone was working on. There were a few other people there earlier, but I had forgotten to get out the camera before they were long gone(these things tend to last until 1 or 2 AM after all.).
The greatest part about these painting parties is seeing all of the different things that people are working on, and getting feedback from all sorts of different perspectives.

If this is something your local crowd does not do, I would highly recommend coordinating one and making it a tradition. 

Assembling the Masses

Finally caught the assembly bug! The Local game store owner asked if I would assemble the Titan for his Skorne starter box, and I thought if I was going to be putting another one of those pains together I might as well make a day of it.
Typically I hate assembling, but occasionally I find the groove and bust a bunch of stuff out all at once. Still have a bit of gap filling to do but my Greenstuff had gotten too hard to continue working with.
The biggest bonus is now I can try out my Epic Baldur Wold lists!

Getting a bit ridiculous!

Ok, anyone that knows me well, will know that I hate assembling models. I hate cleaning, filing, pinning, glueing......well you get the idea. Anyway, I noticed that because of my loathing for assembly I have gathered quite a collection of figs that are still in boxes.
So, my goal is to get all of these bad boys ready and primed by the end of August. Might happen, might not, but there are a lot of figs I'd like to start painting in this pile O shame. Wish me luck.

On the Bench

I noticed I have a bunch of work in progress figs at the moment, so I thought it high time I show some behind the scenes progress. Hopefully everything here will be done soon, as it mostly part of a forum painting vow for July.

The Organist of Mid-nor will be the first down followed (hopefully) by the extreme Juggernaut