Happy New Year and Christmas loot!

It's been awhile since my last update so hopefully this large update will keep you all sweet and make up for the delay between posts.
I hope you all had a great Christmas and new year and Santa brought you all wonderful gifts and much food and beverages were consumed by you all.

In the spirit of new years resolutions, spring cleaning and all that guff I tidied up my work area ready for 2013 and also managed to nab some 'paint racks' whilst Christmas shopping:

My paint racks are in fact cutlery trays from Clas Olson, that fit my needs perfectly:
http://www.clasohlson.com/uk/Reda-Cutlery-Tray/Pr349666001

In the couple of days since taking these pictures it looks like my desk has been hit by some kind of explosive devise but generally that's a good indicator of progress.

Just before the Christmas frivolities began I managed to finish a couple of figures that have been sat half finished on my desk for awhile:

First up we have a pre-slotta citadel Dwarf farmer  that I can't seem to find catalogued anywhere. I tried to keep the colour scheme ruddy and earthy and went for a really dark skin-tone on his face which took forever as it was never quite right. The straw in his mouth is a tiny piece of off-cutting from a door mat dipped in varnish applied with tweezers and held steady until it set.

Next up we have one of the early Citadel Gnomes:

Again I went for a more ruddy red skin tone rather than a more pink human tone.

That's all for now on the Fantasy front, Next up we have a couple more of the Sci-fi mini's.
First up we have Gordal Luggub form the Rogue Trader Space Ork command Group, check out Orlygg's Slowburn Rogue Trader blog for some pics of the whole range:
http://warhammer40000roguetrader.blogspot.co.uk/

Next up we have an early necron from the Space Crusade boxset:

Lastly on the sci-fi front I finally painted up an ancient Ral Partha Battletech Centurian that was one of the first mini's that I ever owned.

He's currently serving as a battered much repaired combat robot rather than a huge hulking mech.

Now to the Christmas loot, my brother gave me a ton of his old mini's that he'd dug out of storage which is Fantastic and will keep me going long into the future, so mega cheers if you're reading this Owen!
I'm going to spread the pics over the next couple of updates as there's a ton and my blog may end up being a little pic heavy on the unpainted lead side of things and I'd like to keep it colourful and not bore you all with pics of unpainted lead.

Grenadier deep ones

TSR Sahuagin's, these came without any weapons so I'll be sorting out my own weapons.

More TSR mini's again, Thri kreen, looks like I'll be making an insect based war-band at some point in the future then.

 I also received from my sister a box of the GW Goblin Hobbit mini's which I think are awesome and could work in tons of settings, I'm internally debating whether to 'sci-fi' up half the box with guns etc and keep the rest 'Fantasy' or keep them as intended?

Also as part of the mega bundle from my brother was a whole Necromunda Cawdor gang and some Battletech Hero clix stuff that should come in handy for the Sci-fi stuff I'm putting together.

Next up on the painting table, hopefully with some better WIP shots and a Sunday update is the start of a fishman/aquatic Warband using the Christmas deep ones and Sahuagin and some other suitably fishy mini's I've dug out from the pile.

Also lastly a big welcome to my two new followers!!

Underhive Scum and my 90th follower!

Firstly I'd like to welcome my 90th follower Jessica from the Neon Pink Apokalypse blog, check out her awesome pikachu inspired grots.
http://neonpinkapokalypse.blogspot.co.uk/

Finally finished a couple more mini's at the weekend to go with the small 40k sci-fi group I've got going on. Both of these figures have been half started for a couple of weeks now and I just couldn't bring myself to finish them for some reason but this weekend my muse struck and I powered through. I've no idea when or if I'll ever play anything with any of these figures but they were both a fun diversion from my usual Fantasy fare.

First up we have a Necromunda Skavvy.

Next up we have the Warzone Dark Legion Nepharite of Demnogonis Figure, he's one chunky hefty piece of lead and was fairly difficult to paint as I kept dropping him :)

I'm really pleased with how he turned out, especially the weird fleshy part of his gun.
Here he is next to the skavvy so you can get an idea of the scale:

Hopefully towards the end of the week I should have something amazing to show you all, something that I never thought I would hold in my hand, something long coveted... Cryptic I know

A Few painted mini's

Managed to finish a couple of more of the alternative armies and mutant chronicles mini's:

First up is the Mutant Chronicles Razide figure, who was great to paint, he was mostly various washes and glazes over a flesh base built up in layers with a tiny bit of highlighting at the end.

A fantastic chunky sculpt (that's a 40mm base) that would work well for a ton of systems.

Next up we have a couple of Alternative Armies Khanate Empire troops:

Again lovely Bob Olley Space Goblin sculpts that I decided on a blue skin tone for as I've done green goblinoids and why shouldn't space goblins be blue. Not really done much else mini wise these last couple of weeks as I'm feeling a little un-inspired but hopefully things will pick up over the weekend and things will seem a little brighter :)

50th Post!!!

Wow finally hit the 50 post mark, I suppose this one should be something special...

After being inspired by the awesome stuff happening in the 28mm Inquisitor scene I thought I'd knock myself up some interesting back-drop type scenery for my most recent sci-fi mini's, shortly after having this idea the universe serendipitously smiled on me by dropping an old printer in my path. So last Friday armed with screwdriver and hammer I set about demolishing my foe and this is what I ended up with:

PUMPING AND FILTRATION STATION 4Beta (decommissioned)

This was the most fun I've had making scenery and is the biggest single piece of terrain I've ever put together. I think the 'water' could do with some added depth ala clear resin but for now it'll do. I imagine this station to have been long abandoned after a catastrophic failure somewhere in it's past but has since been re-occupied and partially re-built (hence the brick work and roof top work station. For the rust and general look of the station I had a mooch around the galleries on the amazing Opacity urban exploration website:
http://www.opacity.us/
There are hundreds of locations from around the world with gorgeous galleries, check out the gallery for Bethlehem Steel Mill:
http://www.opacity.us/gallery218_cathedrals_of_steel.htm

Here's a ton of moody close ups:

I'm debating whether or not to make this the first of four pieces that all sit together as I've got three more of the same bases and an idea for an overall theme. Unfortunately I don't really have anywhere to keep any more chunky terrain so I may have to leave it for now.

Also this week I've expanded my sci-fi range of mini's with these fella's from Prince August Miniatures in Ireland who have the rights to the Warzone mini's:
http://shop.princeaugust.ie/warzone-mutant-chronicles-wargame/
Before I show of the mini's I should mention Prince Augusts awesome customer service. I placed my order on the 31/10/12, I received a follow up email on the 7/11/12 apologizing for the delay in getting my figures out to me as they couldn't locate one of the moulds and would I like a free mini of my choice? Awesome stuff as I didn't think a week was to long for shipping from Ireland, Prince August I doff my proverbial cap to you.

Anyway here's the mini's:

Dark Legion Nepharite of Demnogonis (with Plague Gun)  

Sons of Rasputin - Soldat Flammen Trooper 

Dark Legion Pretorian Stalker

Dark Legion Spawn of Demnogonis

Dark Legion Razide (on 40mm base)

Dark Legion Curator of Demnogonis

Dark Legion Gomorrian Emasculator

Dark Legion Golem of Darkness

And here's a shot to illustrate how large these guys are for those of you into that sort of thing.

To be honest yes they are a little on the huge side but for mutants it's not really a big deal and if I base them on less built-up bases they should fit in fine with the earlier Bob Olley Marines. As to the casting on these mini's it was top notch, virtually no flashing and the tiniest of mould lines so overall a great bunch of mini's that would fit in with a huge amount of games and systems (Necromunda, Inq28, etc)

Also this week I managed to nab a copy of the Ian Miller book, Green Dog Trumpet and Other Stories which I didn't even know existed until last week.

I've not had a huge amount of time to sit down and digest it's contents so in the meanwhile here's a couple of shot's of the interior for anyone thinking of getting hold of a copy,

Beautiful and moody as always.

Does anyone else know of or have a list of the early GW artists book releases, at the moment all I can really find are RatSpike and Blood & Iron, are there other books I'm missing?

Here's to the next 50 posts and thanks to you all for checking out my stuff and keep the comments coming as it's awesome to hear what people think and also that way I'm not just talking to myself :)