What happened?

It's been a month since my last post and I've been trying desperately to scape together a reasonable showing for March but last months seven miniatures and four posts this month I have a grand total of two miniatures and they're not even Genestealer cultists.

First up a bit of heavy support for my Citi-Def  squad, Private Sponge and his Heavy Spit Gun

Ready for business

He will be providing plenty of covering fire for the rest of the squad.  I like the miniature but he was quite frankly a nightmare of trimming, gluing and random disintegrations.  The stub gun just would not stay attached.

Assembly problems

In the end a poorly concealed pin followed by plenty of padding with greenstuff seems to have done the trick.  The handle join remains a bit skewed but to be honest at that point I was just happy it stayed attached, especially as subsequently I managed to drill through his foot when attaching him to the base.

From the rear

Next up is another addition to my Rogues Gallery, Dredds Clone brother Rico and not the Armand Assante movie version, this one is complete with Titan treatment.

Rico Dredd

Instantly recognizable as the Mike McMahon original  as he appeared in "The Return of Rico" in 1977. (It's all in wikipedia)

Rico Dredd (drawn by Mike McMahon)

Go for your gun Joe

I really need to get Judge painted up so that a proper shoot out can be held.

Rise of the Machines

Today I have another robot, he's not quite a terminator but he's angry and he's armed.  I'm guessing he's some sort of maintenance bot and he has decided that the best maintenance he can be doing is bringing "Death to the Fleshy Ones!", after all they are the ones making all of the mess.

Death to the Fleshy Ones!

Another Mongoose Mini-bot, he was a bit of a test bed for painting red and for practising a bit of edge highlighting.  I was quite happy with the results but I'm struggling to keep the lines neat, more practise and keeping the paint thinned though should do the trick.  Keeping the paint thin when painting the highlights makes all the difference, the  finish on this is much smoother than I managed on the dustpan bot I used a similar number of layers but was much more careful about not letting the paint dry out on palette.

Not quite Rosie from the Jetsons.

Between him and and irate motorised dustpan and brush I've got the start of a robot uprising, hopefully Fido won't be tempted away to join them.

An uprising has to start somewhere

That brings me to 7 miniatures this month which is a vast improvement and hopefully I'll keep the momentum going.  I've been stocking up on undead for march but there's a real chance that the latest boxed offering from Games Workshop will throw up a it of a distraction.

The Dark Lord

A short break from Sci-Fi Dreddy stuff, I wanted a bad guy to go up against Van-Halfling and who or what could be badder than a Dark lord?  As with Van-Halfling, the Dark Lord is also from Heresy Miniatures and under that cloak he could be anyone, a vampire, necromancer, Emperor Palpatine or just somebody who likes long black robes.  

Add caption

I've kept the colour scheme very simple, the black robes were highlighted with Dark Reaper  and then Thunder Hawk blue which I then glazed with Nuln oil to keep the robes suitably dark in colour, to keep the flesh pale I used a base of Rackath Flesh with a thin wash of Reikland Fleshshade.  The highlights were Pallid Wych Flesh and then White Scar white, he has not been catching much sun.

I recently came across Frostgrave and I think he would fit quite well as a Necromancer, now I need to find him an apprentice.

#5 - Van Halfling

Today's instalment is the famed Vampire Hunter, Van Halfling, scourge of evil.

Scourge of the Undead!

I think that this is a great figure, lots of detail and plenty of character, it reminded me very much of the classic Citadel miniatures of the 80's and 90's.  It's one of a number I impulse bought from Heresy Miniatures a couple of weeks ago.

When the package arrived not only was there a hand written thank-you note from Minion Dan but also a packet of fizzers, top notch customer service and the detail and casting quality of the miniatures is excellent.  I've been looking forward to making a start on them and went as far as to taking the plunge and purchasing some resin bases to round him out.  No plain black finish this time.

Fizzer are an excellent customer service touch.

Back to Van Halfling, I was worried that with all of the brown he would be look too drab and I was going to try and add a it more colour but I think that by mixing between dark and light tones to create a bit of contrast did the trick and I could probably have got away with a brown hat and a darker feather but it does add a nice spot colour.

Presumably the feather was a gift from some rescued maiden, it doesn't really fit with the rest of the ensemble

For the coat I started with a Rhinox hide base, the boots, belt and straps are Mournfang Brown.  I then shaded the whole lot with Agrax Earthshade.  The layers were built up by mixing with the base colours rather than going straight to the next layer colour, this gave a more subtle highlight which I prefer.

No vampire is tall enough to avoid  a good stabbing of the ankles

The pouch and scabbard are Zandri Dust with a Ushabi bone highlight.  I thought that the obscured face had saved me from doing the eyes but painting the buckles and tip of the crossbow bolt more than made up for it.

He was pinned to the bases once painted

The base came from Fenris Games, they have their own website but it didn't have the Cthulhu bases on in so I used  their ebay shop instead.  I drybrushed Dawnstone grey heavily over the black primer and then stippled on some brown, yellow and green washes which you can just make out in the picture above.  I drybrushed Dawnstone again and then Administratum grey.  There was a final drybrush of Longbeard grey to bring out the edges.

This is my favourite miniature so far and I'm very pleased with the outcome, I'll have to look for a game I can use him in and more importantly I need to find him a worthy adversary.  I've been scouring ebay for old citadel Night Horror miniatures which I think would fit quite well.  I think a band of trusty comrades could also be interesting, maybe the start of a Mordheim witch hunter warband?