Rogue Retinue

Hey yall. It's been a slow week but not without reason. I decided to paint up my previous entry as a tutorial. This caused a lot of down-time (on that particular model) due to having to wait for daylight so the photos are nice. Hopefully it will be worth the wait!

In the meantime I've uploaded some old pre-paints. These guys have been sitting on a shelf for some time, and are the the core of a Rogue Trader retinue. I can't give an ETA on these guys as the RT group isn't high on my list of priorities at the moment - after Second Circle I'll be finishing off the Hunters (that's the group featured in the blog header) with the inclusion of a sniper, then I'll be making a group of adversaries based around the Chaos Magus and Daemonhost. I'll also be making a Spase Marine at some point. I'm anticipating that all of these paints will take a few months at least, but hopefully we'll see the RT warband before 2011.

Stay tuned for the next entry though, with any luck it will be midweek some time! :)

Erazmus Pre-paints

Hello all, here's the latest member of my current warband Second Circle. This guy is Erazmus, an ex-pitfighter turned guardsman turned Penal Legionairre turned Heretic killer. With quite a history I plan on writing a detailed background. This isn't exactly what he'll look like (explianed after pics for anyone that wants to read) but these are the only pre-paint pics I'll take, after the final conversions I'll start painting straight away.













As usual this miniature isn't exactly as I envisioned but is close enough to be satisfactory.

I always thought that the Sgt. Stone (base model) legs looked a bit awkward until I made this model with different legs and realised that the originals are quite appropriate. With that in mind I would have been better off bending his left arm at the elbow to change his stance slightly but I was too far into the build by the time I realised.

Even discounting this, he still looked a little "off" when examined closely. I decided that it was his right arm being positioned a little low on the torso (or his left a little high, depending on how you look) so I'll be adding extra padding to the shoulder before I paint, hence the finished product will look a little different to these pics.

When it came to the torso carapace I had a number of options. I could have comfortably sculpted an Inquisitorial =][= to the armour surface, but given that I had to remove one to make the conversion (superior to any that I could have sculpted) this didn't seem right. Other options were FW brass (Aquila, CruxT etc) but in the end it came down to 2 choices. Eventually I decided on this "Soul guard", a device consisting of Pentagramic wards inscribed underneath a plate of abletive armour, providing protection to body and soul, appropriate for Erazmus' vocation of dedicated holy warrior. The other option was many studs, as seen on the classic RT marines. I've always liked the RT studded look, so will use it on the planned shoulder pad.

That's it, hope you like him, he's definately my favourite so far! :)

Gabriel Stern complete

Bit of a late update again. After almost a week of inaction I painted most of this guy on Sunday evening and then completed him last night. As usual there are a lot of things that could be better. I used to spend ages obsessively working every detail. This meant I could have some really nice minis in my cabinet, but needless to say not many, and often projects would be abandoned before completion. I don't do this anymore, I am happy to get more stuff done, so I am satisfied with how this miniature turned out.

Looking at his face I did consider adding stubble and a cheroot, his curling snarl seemed to demand it, but really I don't think this fellow would have any of that. The look on his face is one of puritanical disgust, of a man that would prefer to punch you than say hello. Revulsion is a message from the Emperor, and this man hears the Emperor loud and clear. Really I should probably have added some mud and dust to his robes but by the time I get to that stage I always want to move on, and the prospect of messing up the weathering and having to re-paint is never appealing to me.

This is the start of the =][= warband I've always wanted. Sure, sinister black-clad killtroopers are all well and good, but you can't beat a warrior monk with a big gun leading a retinue of freaks and heroes, can you?

Another pre-paint will be uploaded shortly.

Second Circle

Midweek update is supposed to be Wednesday but I was quite busy yesterday so this one is slightly late. Anyway, here is the Acolyte, Gabriel Stern. I've decided that instead of including him in the current group I'll have him lead a separate retinue, The Second Circle, a group of trusted agents to my main Inquisitor.

As usual with my miniatures I've made some mistakes and also compromises but I am quite satisfied, I think this one will be a lot of fun and I'm going to use a different scheme, getting rather bored with the grey-black colour scheme.

Next update on Sat/Sun.