Category Archives: Work in Progress

Year’s End WIPs

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I used to show WIP models a fair bit previously. I’ve done that a lot less in recent times, but now that I’m (almost) over the hardest part of the hump at work, and with three weeks left until I have my time off (though still tons to do at work!), it’s also the small window of time where I am able to work on a few other projects – in this case gifts for people at work. This year, I’ve got three – all of which need to be completed in the three weeks before I finish. No pressure, then.

The first is a Littlest Pet Shop toy repaint. I’m turning a generic LPS cat toy into “Lil BUB“. Mounted, masked and sprayed grey with Mr Surfacer – which actually sticks nicely to the soft PVC of the toy. I probably shouldn’t have masked the eyes since I’m going to have to try and match those distinct gigantic saucers on the actual cat. Oops. I’ll figure something out.

COO Model skull. Decapitated, mounted, sprayed.

COO Model Skeleton

The second project is a Calavera – or Mexican “Sugar Skull”. This one is a Wedding present for a friend who really loves them. It took awhile to figure out how to create one of these. I decided to decapitate a 1:6 scale COO Model Skeleton who’d had a forearm breakage due to trying to post the overly-brittle plastic it is made of (yes, even after heating). It’s a nice feeling to be able to repurpose something that cost me that much into something besides wargame scenery – I was pretty POed when it broke and it’s just been sitting on a shelf getting glared at whenever I pass it by.

This one is more of a traditional modelling project, despite being made from a 1:6 Model. Neck is mounted on a 50mm rolled-edge base and that on top of a Secret Weapon Miniatures plinith. Not sure how I’ll decorate the plinith yet. It’ll depend very much on time available. I’d like to do something at the base of the neck as well – even a bit of greenstuff to blend it in with the base and give some additional stability. Again – I’ll have to work it out.

The final part of this project is “Jinx” by Raging Heroes. I’ll write more about this one later, it was a gift from RH to it’s eventual recipient, but getting it so very late in the final wave of RH stuff has made things much more difficult than planned, especially as I’m going to have to buy some kind of chemical to remove the terrible mould release that Trollcast seem to use. TC’s equally-terrible choice of where to mount the channels for the additional parts is going to result in a loss of details and need for resculpting part of Jinx’ tail. If they’d added those exact same channels on the opposite side of the model it would not have interfered with Jinx’ tail at all. There’s also some pretty bed mould slip across the entire model, to the extent that if I find this on any of my other RH models when I finally get them all in hand and QA them, I’ll be asking for replacements. I’m not sure how or why RH allowed this poor level of quality through from Trollcast.

So with this in mind, and despite the kindness and good intentions from Mirielle, Jinx is going to be the bottom priority of these three. Hopefully I can still get it done.

Painting December: The First List (Pic heavy!)

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So after my post a couple of days ago, I’ve gotten a bunch of suitable options drawn from suggestions here, on Dakka, and from poking around my collection looking for cool stuff.

Here’s the first list of nominees:

Bragg The Gutsman – Citadel Miniatures

Plague Ogres – Forge World

Ogre Hero – Avatars of War

Ogre Apocalypse Marauder – Avatars of War

Talos – Mierce Miniatures

Big Boris III – Heresy Miniatures

Be’lakor the Dark Master – Citadel Miniatures

Archaon (If I can find the rest of him!) – Citadel Miniatures

(some kind of) Contemptor Dreadnought – Forge World (Chapter TBD)

Hecaton Aiakos – Contemptor (Minotaurs) – Forge World

Zombie Troll Shaman – Mantic Games

Giant – Marauder Miniatures

Age of Sigmar Lord-Celestant – Citadel Miniatures

Age of Sigmar Lord-Relictor – Citadel Miniatures

Age of Sigmar A Boy and His Dog – Citadel Miniatures

Age of Sigmar MurderBloodSomethingStandard – Citadel Miniatures

I’ll probably work on two models at a time. If I work on either of the SigMarines, I’ll probably do the pair – same deal with the AoS Khorne guys. Any other models won’t need to be married together in the same way. Anything extra I work on to cleanse my palette will be from the half-painted pile but with very strict “if I get it out I need to finish it within a day” rule.

Obviously there’s no chance I’ll get all of the above finished inside a month – even a month off work – since it’s December and I’ll probably need a week to recover from a very busy and stressful year at work and home, and there’s a huge, fresh batch of videogames to play Including Fallout 4… I’ll be aiming for 2 models completed, but that’s all. I don’t want to ruin it with pressure to get 4 or 6 or 10 models. I’ll (probably) choose any further models from the list above, plus anything that gets added.

I’m open to more suggestions, but the criteria has gelled a little more:

  1. No pain in the arse assembly (this means you, large complex metal multipart models!)
  2. Nothing smaller than an AoS hero or Ogre-sized model – I’m looking to have fun doing the kind of centrepiece models I don’t usually allow myself to work on due to the backlog.
  3. Nothing from Mantic or Reaper’s Bones line. They’re just not up to par for this. (Except for Mantic’s Zombie Trolls and newest metal Ogres)
  4. No Scenery – either Big pieces or Scatter terrain – I’ll usually work on these sorts of things over summer anyway and I’ve got a few of each part done, but they’re separate things to this “project”.
  5. No Vehicles, Knights, Leviathans, Drop Pods, Dreadknights, etc. I’m happy to do a Contemptor, but nothing bigger or more complex. I want to avoid assembly for the most part.
  6. Theoretically, every model will be a gaming piece. But it doesn’t have to be from an army I’ve actually started. If I’ve got the figure, it’s fair game.

 

At this point, I’m kinda leaning towards the Marauder Giant and Be’lakor as my opening pair and Marouda likes the Talos – but as noted, I’m still very open to suggestions, both for consideration and for the opening/early slots. I think I’d really enjoy painting any of the models that are listed above, so it should be an enjoyable month, whatever happens.