Daemonic Works in Progress

There are a handful of other Daemons that I've been working on for some time now. The last of the nearly painted army are my Blood Crushers. These are the last three minis until i can field a fully painted 1500 pt list.

These two are further along then you see here, but they're still coming along. The head cheese guy is done though.

Moving on to future projects I've been working on a pair of monsterous creatures: Another Daemon Prince, & a highly modified Keeper of Secrets.

The Daemon Prince will complement the masked plastic prince from my previous post. However, the colors will be reversed (black armor, bone skin). Instead of a full mask I'm modeling a rebreather for him:

Here's the KoS.

It's a modified Daemon Prince body with a head & tentacles taken from the Chronos Pain Engine. That isn't the real head either. The actual head is a modified faceplace atop the lower jaw of a Daemon Prince.

I've heard him described as looking like the Mouth of Sauron from the LotR films. I've stalled a bit, mostly as a result of not knowing what to do where the tentacles meet the base of the Daemon Prince body. I'm not the best modeler, so when I hit a speed bump it takes me a while to get back into it.

~Muninn

Chaos Daemons (part 2)

Once the two princes were off my painting table I focused on the Tzeentch units, the Flamers, & Horrors.

One of the reasons I dragged my feet on these guys is because I was deciding what to do. I really like cohesive looking units, but Tzeentch units are almost always portrayed as chaotic technicolor dream units. Not really my style.

For the Horrors I decided to give them a blue scheme, since pink was already being covered by my daemonettes.

Likewise for the unit upgrade, the Changeling, I used the light blue-grey "underbelly" color for the skin to contrast the black cloak I gave him.

Here's a sampling of each of the troops side by side. I like to think that despite the vast difference in colors I've been able to give them a coherent look by tying them together with similar tones and accents. For instance, all of the eyes are white, metals are gold, horns/claws/teeth are bone, tongues are purple, etc.

 

The Flamers were a bit trickier. The problem I frequently see with their paint jobs is that their various "faces" aren't emphasized enough. I tried to take care to deepen the shadows around each head to make then stand out even more.

I started out dreading how they'd look, but now they're some of my favorites.

~Muninn

Chaos Daemons Army

While I'm regrouping & planning out my next projects I thought I'd show off some of my armies. My most recent, and closest to completion are my 40k Daemons.

I actually didn't intend to start this army.  Last year I was GMing a Dark Sun D&D game, and I wanted to create an a temple full of hand painted daemons for my PCs to face. I bought bloodletters, daemonettes, flamers, horrors, & Be'Lakor (cuz every evil temple needs a big bad end boss). Then several of my players had to bow out, the game was canceled, & I was left with 85% of a Daemon army.

So I decided not to waste the opportunity & with a little more investments I was up & running.

The first unit that I painted (before the game was canceled) were my bloodletters. Basic red angry guys.

followed by daemonettes

then I bought & slapped some paint on some daemon princes.

The first was mostly for fun, because I'd never painted a Monsterous Creature before & I've always really like the metal princes. The second was for a local painting competition, & was comprised of the plastic prince kit, & a mask from a defiler, I call him "Crucible" (it came in 2nd).

More later.

~Muninn

May Mini Madness: Recap

The final product: 31 days, 34 minis completed.

 I'm not going to lie. It was kinda refreshing to not have to worry about painting a mini last night, although I kept eying my painting table trying to decide what I'd do next.

The challenge has been quite rewarding on a number of different levels. Perhaps one of the most significant benefits is that I've managed to complete a ton of minis that would otherwise be clutter in my bits boxes. Finally having finished so many models that had been carefully painted then left incomplete in favor of other projects is a great feeling.

It's also given me a chance to flex some of my speedpainting skills as well as cement several army paint schemes that have only existed on paper before this, such as my green Eldar, and yellow Dark Elves. It also forced me to step up and paint a few limited edition models that I've avoided for fear of messing up a rare mini (the commissar & GK termi in particular).

My wife pointed out another benefit as well. While tending to this month-long project I didn't buy any more minis (I did buy one actually, but it only cost $2). By pouring my attention into the figures that I already owned, it kept me from spending my cash on minis that might ultimately end up in my lengthy "to do" pile. As it is, I've barely put a dent in it, but you gotta start somewhere.

The downsides have been relatively few:
* I stayed up later, and got less sleep many nights, although this didn't really impact how much time I spent with my wife, or working.
* I did end up spending many more hours at the office though, taking pictures in the studio, editing the shots and updating the calendar. I spent most of my breaks & lunch hours on it as well.
* Work always came first, but there were a few long long days that made it really hard to paint. Hours at a newspaper are many and varied, so balancing everything was a bit of a hassle.

It's been a good month of painting, and like I said yesterday, I haven't burnt out. Now it's time to re-direct, paint, and plan for next year's challenge. I'm not a fast painter by any means, so if I can accomplish it I'm sure others can as well. So if this inspires you to take on the challenge, all the better, and best of luck!

~Muninn