Must have tofu

Because zombies can be vegetarian too.

I found some zombie sprues in my cupboard.  Zombies are great! It doesn’t matter where the glue goes. It doesn’t matter where the bits go. Or the paint.  It is all just decomposing undead goodness.

Brains.  And Tofu. Quick before the rest of fingers fall off!

Every zombie hoard requires a ballerina to organise them. Or so my wife assures me. 

I think these angry sacks of worm feed are going to get a spin tomorrow: space marines, mmm, crunchy on the outside and squishy on the inside. With testicles like raisins for dessert.

D.

Stop buying stuff and paint

This blog was originally inspired by friend’s pledge to paint more miniatures than he bought this year, a project he is keeping track of here  Last I heard, adjusting for kickstarter (which doesn’t really count, surely?) he is ahead.  Bravo that man!

More recently, Viv of RubbishInRubbishOut fame and putative King of Preston posted an article at KnightsofDice where he gave a glimpse of his lead and plastic mountain.  My own hoard pales by comparison, but is still large enough to bug me.

It’s not just the pile of toys, but while they’re still in shrink-wrap or merely  undercoat or even partially painted – they can’t be played with.  And that seems a shame.  I’m like that – minis should be painted before they hit the table!  So this is not a rave against consumerism,  its more about getting the max enjoyment out of my hobby.

I have painted armies for 40K and one for Flames of War. The latter is largely 5 Tiger tanks, so it is not such an achievement.  Plus some random units and miniatures beyond that.  But that leaves a rather long list of armies languishing in boxes:

Imperial Guard for 40K, undercoated

Flames of War mid-war 8th Army – about 40% finished but mostly undercoat

FoW Vietnamese – undercoat and partially in boxes

Warhammer Fantasy – undercoated Dwarfs

Plus quite an assortment of 28mm for skirmish games – moderns (mostly from Eureka, but there are PLA from an Empress miniatures Kickstarter in the post), cowboys, weird world war two (although in my defence I do have a platoon of Germans painted).

Oh, and a bunch of Lord of Rings, mostly unpainted, except for a modest Rohan war band (which worked OK as Scots for Saga).

And terrain – I must upgrade my terrain.

We are such little butterflies aren’t we? Flying from project to project, always a new idea or model to try out. There is so much nice stuff out there.

Where is this post going?  Not really a pledge with timelines and things. More of a principle, if you like.  My goal is to paint more than I buy until I have more painted than not.

I haven’t really thought this through, but I figure putting it out there may help in some obscure way.

cheers,

D.

An Experiment

I have no doubt that 6th ed and the new Chaos Marine codex have triggered a need to rejig my Word Bearers.  The war band has done OK, remaining largely unchanged over the prior two codex versions: the only change was bloodletters morphing into lessor daemons. I didn’t even bother changing the models and I enjoyed the assault on the turn they manifested. A useful trick that helped tip the balance on more than one occasion.

However, the Dark Gods are fickle, no doubt. And the new codex has demanded new toys.  I still have a hell chicken in shrink-wrap. I’m sceptical that I’ll have it ready by Arc, a mere five months away. Truth be told, I’m not keen on the model, no matter how useful they are on the table.

On the other hand – Word Bearers are viable again. I’m not talking rules, but Dark Apostles, Cultists and the ability to bring daemons as allies is a wonderful opportunity to bring theme to the fore.

Hence this experiment. The resin model from GW is OK, but wanted to see if I could make something a bit more distinctive.  One bitz box raid and some green stuff later I have:

Looking OK, so far, but now my idea has run ahead of my ability (just perhaps).   I thought it would be really cool if his armour was covered in the words of Lorgar.  The photo does bring the model a lot closer than it appears on a table, but even so, I’m not convinced that I’ve been entirely successful:

I’m not up to painting over him (just yet). We’ll see.

D.

L’Afrique C’est Chic

Finished the bases and did some highlights. I may come back to these but I think these boys are ready to rock.  Who am I kidding?  They’re as finished as I’m ever going to make them.

I’m pretty happy with them, but the credit is all due to the pleasure of the sculptures and casting.  A real pleasure to paint.

On to some pictures.

The Somali gun men – flip flops and t-shirts and all ready to go to war.

These guys may not be any better trained, but they have been issued with boots as well as guns.  Just about professionals.

Part of an African Union peace keeping force or just your routine corrupt thugs with a natty dress sense? I guess we’ll find out one day.

Still my favourite

L’Afrique?  Oui – c’est chic, mes amis

WIP – Progress on Eureka Moderns

I thought these guys deserved an update. They’re from Eureka‘s excellent modern range.

The maddening crowd

Yeah! They went that way …

The guy on the left is my favourite: no shirt, left handed, and holding the gun all gangsta. Awesome

They been press ganged into being cultists.  This turns out to be a poor idea. AK47 and cannabis just don’t cut it on the battlefields in the grim dark future.   They are nice minis, though and I’m pretty sure that I’ll pick up more.

By the way, this is how they’re meant to look

Cheers.

D.