Donnerstag, 4. August 2011

Dwarf Berserker Champion Painted



I have shown this model before, but now he has a lick of paint on him. I hope you like the angry littel fellow.

I still have not decided on how to base the unit, either single based or a regimental diorama base.
I want to play Kings of War with them, so a regimental base would be good, but all my other units are single based, since I used to play Warhammer with them.

Or maybe I keep this one on his own single base and use him as a hero?

Decisions, decisions...

Donnerstag, 28. Juli 2011

Update on the Wyvern




I`ve made some progress on the wyvern.

You´ll notice that the head now has detail, whereas before it was a rough outline of the features. He even has teeth and a tongue now!

The wings are the most obvious addition, and gave me quite seom trouble, since the left arm turned out to be a bit shorter than the right one, something I did not notice when I made the armature. This meant scrapping the entire left wing (which was halfway done at that point) and starting all over on it.

I also reworked the softer skin on the beast´s underside and neck. I didn´t like the way it looked prior, still not sure if I like the new look either...

Anyway, the wyvern is almost finished, he just needs some more smoothing around some rough edges, particularly around his wings, and then he´ll be done. Time to think about a rider!

Montag, 25. Juli 2011

WIP Wyvern

The drakon cavalry that was released for Kings of War failed to live up to my expectations.

However, I do like the concept: Smaller drakes/wyverns as monstrous cavalry is an awesome idea.

So I went about sculpting my own wyvern. I imagine these beasts to be predators, instead of using the "noble dragon-trope", seizing their prey (most likely deer) with their jaws and using their clawed hind legs to kill it.

Sonntag, 24. Juli 2011

Dwarf Berserker Champion


Avatars of War have recently released a plastic kit for dwarf berserkers. Without reviewing it in depth, I´m quite taken with it, although I do have some complaints.
While the number of parts is very high, sometimes even annoyingly so (I really don´t enjoy assembling plastic miniatures all that much), the nnumber of poses possible is very limited.

The large beards are part of the head bits and limit the posability by bumping into the arms and stomach. Of course the beards are a tricky part for plastic dwarfs, so I won´t hold this against AoW.

The arms on the other hand yould have been designed better. There are four different pairs of arms, but they all effectively hold their weapons at the body´s side. Having a berserker raise his weapon into the air results in the deltoid musculature ending up in the dwarf´s armpit.

Also, there is no "shouting" head. Berserkers need to shout and holler like nobodies business! A missed opportunity IMO.

So for the pose I wanted my unit´s champion to have I had to break out the green stuff. The result is pictured in the image above.

Sadly the plastic berserkers are not in the same scale as their metal predecessors in the Avatars of War range, which is a bit of a shame.

Keep in mind that I am nitpicking, the set offers cool looking models, many spare bits and is a lot of fun all in all.

Freitag, 11. Februar 2011

Internet Troubles...

Just a quick post to apologize for the lack of updates. My internet connection is broken and is yet to be repaired. I´ve temporarily occupied a friend´s PC to post this, but I hope to soon have my connection up and running again.

On the bright side I´ll have much to show by then.

See you soon (I hope).

Donnerstag, 27. Januar 2011

Pictures of the Warhammer Museum











Last october I visited Nottingham with a few friends of mine. Chiefly to visit Mantic Games` Open Day, but we also used the opportunity to visit GW HQ, including the Warhammer Museum and Bugman´s Bar.

Warhammer World was dissapointing to me. Just a bigger GW store, and I don´t exactly have a high opinion on those. Same old, same old.

Bugman´s Bar was nice, friendly staff and reasonably good food. But I really went there to get my grubby hands on an old Bugman miniature (the one standing on two barrels). I like dwarf miniatures, if you had not noticed yet.

The highlight of our excursion to Warhammer World was the miniature museum (if we don´t count the Bugman miniature). There´s not much to be said about it, it´s a room full of display cases with beautifully painted miniatures, great dioramas and, best of all, vintage Citadel miniatures.

If you find yourself in Nottingham and have an hour to spare, pay GW HQ a visit. There are worse ways to kill an hour.

Montag, 24. Januar 2011

The Maniac Also Paints- Barbarian Sculpt Painted


This weekend I made a mold for the barbarian I sculpted. As it turns out, the mold is heavily flawed and the detail is at some parts not very crisp. Oh well, I´ll chalk it up as a learning experience.
And how fitting, since the barbarian was a practice piece to begin with.

Despite the shortcomings of the mold and the resin casts made with it, I fixed one up and painted it. Since I tend to use the putty I think best suited for each situation, my sculpts tend to be colourful collages of different modelling clays and putties. However, I think that sometimes this makes it hard to properly judge a sculpt from pictures alone, especially when the very light grey of the FIMO clashes with the dark green of the Kneadatite.
A paintjob can help tie it all together properly.


Looking at the sculpt now, I feel that the axe looks a bit out of place. I might go ahead and make a new one, we´ll see...

Donnerstag, 20. Januar 2011

Dwarf Lord Finished!


The deed is done.

This project has been on hiatus for quite some time, but now it´s done and I am quite pleased with the results.

The different colors on this model stem from the different putties I used: Green and brown stuff, ProCreate and Super Sculpey... it makes the sculpt look a bit colourful, but once painted that should hardly be noticeable.


On another note: I intend to pick up some pace when it comes to blogging here, and the intended goal is to post twice a week, mondays and thursdays.
Let´s find out how long I´ll keep this up...

Montag, 17. Januar 2011

Blast From the Past: My Very First Sculpt: Dwarf Ironbreaker


This is the first model I ever sculpted. I wanted some ironbreakers for my warhammer dwarf army, and I thought it might be fun to try and sculpt some myself. This is the first one I started, as well as the only one Iactually finished. This was well over a year ago, and I like to think that I have improved since these humble beginnings.

It should be rather obvious by now, but I really like dwarfs. So I thought it fitting to include a comparison shot, with different dwarf I sculpted /am sculpting. They are ordered from left to right, from the very first to the current WIP.

On to the model itself:
I remember struggling with the chainmail, and it taking several attempts to even get to the result you see on the image above. Needless to say it looks more than a bit "off", if you allow the understatement.

The model´s plain appearance stands in high contrast to the amount of time and effort this one took. But I did not have any practice nor experience, so it taking very long is not all that surprising.

I still quite like this model, although more for it´s sentimental value than it´s quality (or lack thereof). For a first try I don´t think it too horrible, and I learned a lot from sculpting it.

Sonntag, 9. Januar 2011

Blast From the Past: Alien Glider


This is a model I made over a year ago. A friend of mine was looking for "alternative means of transportation" for his eldar seer council. He bought some hover-board like models off the web, but they turned out to be made of thick paper and were absolutely useless for mounting metal miniatures on.
So I said I´d make him some "eldar" hover boards and the results can be seen above.

The circular indentation on the top of the glider is meant as a port for a turret-upgrade that never materialized. The idea was to have fully automated "drones" as stand-in jetbikes.
For the hover board versions I filled the port in befor moulding them.

I kinda still want to make that turret, but to be honest I have no idea what it should look like... maybe someday.