Shadows of Brimstone: Werewolf Feral Kin (Squad: March! ’19, Gender-Ambiguous Model Painting Challenge ’19)

Shadows of Brimstone: Werewolf Feral Kin

More Shadows of Brimstone models this time. In fact, this set of models that helped to inspire the Gender-Ambiguous Challenge for March, so they’re a nice little set that covers both the Squad Challenge from March as well as the Gender Challenge.

Shadows of Brimstone: Werewolf Feral Kin

These Brimstone models also suffered from the “shitty HIPS model” syndrome that I’ve complained about a few times. The main culprit with these being that they came in only two poses, with no body interchangability between them. Yes folks, despite being made of three parts (hips, torso, head) the torsos only fit their own specific set of legs. Because I wanted slightly fewer clones, I took a hobby knife to the plastic, along with the minimum amount of putty repair that I could manage to swap a few of them around. Rookie mistake! Let’s be perfectly honest, though – the only reason that these sprues got removed from the box was because I saw them as “easy wins” – models that could be painted up relatively quickly and easily. Because they’re just fur, basically!

Shadows of Brimstone: Werewolf Feral Kin

At one point in the month, if I were posting more frequently, these would have been posted as two separate units of three, as the Brown Trio and then the Grey/Black Trio, especially as both subsets were completed nearly a week apart. No matter now, though.

The main reasons I painted them in these two (well, three) overall schemes was to provide differentiation if it was needed. As I (still) haven’t gotten around to playing SoB yet, I’m not sure if it used the “elites” concept for larger numbers of mobs in the same way that, say, Descent or Imperial Assault do. It also lets me do the same if it ever becomes needed in any other game, with an Alpha, two Betas or lieutenants, and then the brown trio being the more general pack (were)wolves.

Shadows of Brimstone: Werewolf Feral Kin

These models were also the first ones that I tried a new can of Spray Varnish from AK Interactive. I don’t have any nice things to say about that experience, but I’ll have a review of the AK cans up hopefully sooner than later, sometime this month when I have a spare post slot. The one spoiler I’ll give is that I had to respray these after trying the AK…

Shadows of Brimstone: Werewolf Feral Kin

That’s basically it for today’s post – another six Brimstone models done and done. That might be it for my March models. I’ll have to check.

Because of all the shit that’s gone down IRL recently, I’ll figure out if I have any more not-yet-posted March models, then I’ll do my round-up, and then I’ll start putting together the Community Round-up that will be done when it’s done. I’ve (hopefully) got to pick Dad up from Hospital on Monday, but before (and after) that, I still need to visit him daily for awhile, and of course there’s other family bullshit that’s just appeared. Then on the distract myself with entertainment so I don’t throw a chair through a fucking window side, there’s NXT Takeover that I need to catch up on, the NJPW/RoH show Sunday morning, and something like 8-10 hours of Wrestlemania on Monday that will probably take 2-3 days to watch because fuck that’s a lot of wrestling in a short amount of time. All of these things will delay the Community Round-Up.

C’est la vie.

#Monster March 3 – 2019 Personal Round-Up

I usually don’t do these dedicated round-ups when I participate in other people’s monthly painting challenges as I usually only finish a single model, or a couple of models, but this year’s Monster March has been a little different. While my initial plans involved completing four models – a giant, a bone giant, a giant worm and a dracoloche only ended with me completing the last model from that list (with several additional unnamed models considered as mental “stretch goals”, the fact was that my father’s health issues put paid to my early month’s painting work on that angle – in fact he’s been in for over a week now with serious heart issues, and we’ve had a rollercoaster of different medical opinions that have included a multiple bypass open-heart surgery to the off-pump version of the same, to a stent possibly being possible after all, to the stent having too great a risk of exsanguination (it’s a real word, Blood Angels fans!)

So the last over-a-week has been one of the most fucked-up ones in my life. Cue slightly more aggro, more swearing in general and more specific use of the word “cunt” in this blog than usual. In any event, following a week of “surgery tomorrow” that hasn’t happened and “angiogram and stent tomorrow”, which also hasn’t happened – after a meeting this afternoon with a doctor who turned out to be one of Melbourne’s top cardiologists (I googled her name afterwards), the final verdict, in her words, is “do no harm”, so rather than fucking with pointy and sharp things, there’s a slight adjustment to medication and some observation, and we take him home (finally) in a few days so he can return to his garden and real food. (I’ll get some photos up at some stage for TUG – at least one person will appreciate it!)

That’s all well and good, Azazel. But what does that have to do with the important business of Toy Soldiers? I’m glad you asked. It’s because I’m exactly like a self-absorbed 16 year old girl with her diary. It’s also because the last week (off work, because obviously – and yes, they’ve been very supportive, though no-one from there follows this blog) has necessitated me diving heavily into distraction, occupying my mind as much as possible and trying to avoid additional stress. In this case, that’s been attempted largely by painting monster models like a motherfucker and playing The Division 2. I got one model done, then another, then another …and just kept going (until they leaked into April!)

It’s also the reason that I’m (once again) way behind in reading and commenting on other people’s blogs and haven’t even started on the Round-Ups for the dual-mode March Challenges. I’ll get to them of course, but I’m not going to go nuts rushing.

So to finish up, I’d like to thank Swordmaster for running the challenge again this year, as it’s given me something external and productive to distract myself and focus on over the last couple of weeks while things have been so …fucked up.

Here’s the models!

Shadows of Brimstone Dark Stone Hydra

Conan Kickstarter Dragon

The Others: 7 Sins – Avatar of Gluttony

Scotia Grendel Dungeon Crawler (Giant Centipede)

Reaper Bones Dragon Plant

Castle Ravenloft Dracoliche

The Others: 7 Sins – Avatar of Wrath

Ice Elementals – Mantic Games

The next couple of posts will be my final models for my own March Challenges that haven’t gotten posted as I focused on getting the MM stuff up ASAP and as I completed them. After that, round-ups and April models.