Painting Competition: Valentine's Orcs

It's been a while, but I'm back.

I've been keeping pretty busy lately, although little of that time has been spent painting. Between holidays, birthdays, work, family (including potty training twins), and life in general, my gaming has been pushed from the back-burner to the warming tray.

Now that we're back into the year I should be able to dedicate more of my evenings to laying paint on primer. I've been steadily working on a few more Night Wolves for a buddy of mine, but that'll be a separate post.

Most recently, I completed Holiday-themed competition mini. I had something big planned for this year's contest, but it totally fell through about a week before the deadline. Instead of throwing in the towel I brainstormed a completely different concept, built, modeled, primed, and painted it before the Saturday due date.

Here it is:

modeling notes:
* The orc is almost completely unmodified. All I did is replace the usual banner pole with a bit of PVC pipe I'd melted into a curve.
* It turned out shaping a tiny hollow bit of pvc is a lot harder than you'd think. because it's hollow it wanted to bend in a single location rather than a whole curve. I used a candle and moved the pvc over it in smooth motions, bending it a little at a time until it took shape.

 * "Da Kissin Boof" is wrought from a single Haagen Dazs popsicle stick. The night before the mini was due I realized it had some balancing issues, so I created the booth to keep it from falling over all the time. I would've liked to make it a bit bigger, but I only had one stumpy stick to work with.

 * To give the booth a little extra support I attached it to a small piece of movement tray.

* The rope is greenstuff wrapped around a paperclip. I don't think it turned out very well, but I didn't want to do it again.
* The goblin's "wings" are just a bird familiar from the Reaper Bones line. I wanted it to look like they'd just strapped a bird of the goblin's back. I also tried to paint in a few places where the panicked bird had "relieved" itself.
* The rightmost portion of the Goblin's cloak is greenstuff. The feet were in the wrong position and it looked unbalanced when I first put it in place. His right shoe is just a piece of sprue I whittled down & stuck in place.

Painting Competitions: Objective Marker & Holidays

This year has been pretty productive in terms of mini painting. Aside from my May Madness thing, and preparing my army for the Portland tournament, I also slipped into some painting competitions. Here are a few that I haven't shown here before.

Objective Marker
The most recent competition was to create & paint an objective. I was working on my Daemon army for the OFCC, so I decided to create a Chaos-appropriate marker.

These books come from the Burning Chariot mini from GW. The books attach to the chariot with pegs at the end of their ribbons/tentacles, so I melted them to give them a more organic look. It's a little difficult to tell from photos, but I did my best to make it looks like the books were floating/flying. The paint job is pretty standard.  The monsterous book stands out the most to me, although I do kinda like the patina on the metallic binding, and I tried to draw the Konami code in the lower right-hand corner of the floating book.

The contest is still pending, but at the moment I think I stand in second place. I'm not being humble when I say my mini won't take first place either. One of my fellow local painters produced a beautifully converted Imperial Fist casualty holding up a banner with a NMM freehand chapter symbol.

Holiday
The other contest I've neglected to mention on this blog was last Winter's Holiday themed competition. The store owner left it open ended, but most people made Christmas-themed submissions. There were a bunch of great entries, like a Santa Orc tormenting a grot as it painted a toy train, a Jewish Space Marine wielding a power-menorah, a Krootox & rider painted up as the Grinch who stole Christmas (one of my favorites), and a literal Hel-turkey with cultist pilgrims on its base.

My entry was one that the store owner had requested. He's said he hoped someone would turn in an Ork wielding a giant dreidel. I figured I could do a bit better than that even.

You can see I made a few little conversions.
1. The dreidel is a real wooden dreidel. I trimmed the handle, carved out some grooves, glued on some plates, and added a ton of little rivets. So many rivets.
2. The ork is actually from WH Fantasy. The legs are actually from the chariot box.
3. There are a few little extra conversions on the ork. I added treads to the feet, a yarmulke, and sideburns. That's right, he's "Orkthodox"
4. The Santa Marine is wielding a candy-cane shiv, cuz there's nothing more dangerous during the holiday season.

I got second place, but I still ended up receiving the prize I wanted (Sisters of Twilight on Forest Dragon), so it's all good.

It sounds like the game-store owner wants to do the holiday theme for the next painting competition too, so I'm already trying to brainstorm a few ideas.
1. A Tau Snowman
2. A Wood Elf Dryad decked out with Christmas tree trimmings
3. An IG "Nutcracker" (maybe a Mordian or Commissar Gaunt) vs a Rat-Ogre "Rat King"
4. An Orc riding a rocket-powered sled

I'm leaning toward the Dryad, since it seems easier and a lot cheaper. Plus it'd be creative enough that no one else would do it.

Ordo Fanaticus Club Challenge: What I Learned from my first Tournament

This weekend I participated in my first big 40k tournament. More to the point, I played more 40k in two days than I have in the last two editions (about 7 years, really). Ordo Fanaticus Club Challenge (OFCC) is a more casual tourney, with more emphasis on painting and sportsmanship than other competitions. They sell themselves as a place to play if you've never been to a tourney before, which really appealed to me.

In truth, it was difficult at times, but I enjoyed my first experience.

Our Team, the Imperial Fist Bumps

So if you're thinking about going to your first tourney, here are a few things I wished I'd known beforehand. (plus a few shots of some of the minis I liked)

One of the best parts was seeing all the well painted armies, and models that I've never seen in person before, like this Ultraforge mini

Get a Board
The first, and most important lesson I garnered from my first tourney is definitely to get a display board.

Walking around, you could see the boards were extensions of the armies. When I first arrived teams would display their game boards along the tables, and often the best boards got the most of attention.

The high quality displays matched the bases of the minis themselves, incorporating themselves into the scenery, sharing details like terrain, lighting effects, or bits. A lot of people clearly spent a lot of time creating, painting & tricking out their boards & it was really impressive.

Beyond the artistic appeal, the boards serve an important function as well: Carrying your army. Loading and unloading my daemon army from it's carrying cases took a long time, and moving it from table to table was cumbersome. People with their own game boards were able to simply put their armies in place & walk to their next game. After my first game I realized it was a real hassle to be without, so I borrowed a tupperware tub lid from the terrain containers and used that to haul my army around for the rest of the tourney. 

If you want to go to a tournament get a board. It doesn't have to be fancy. One of my teammates bought a cork board on his way to Portland. It worked great. Get a board.

It's Tiring
You shouldn't leave a day of gaming feeling like you spent a whole day at work, but that's how I felt at the end of the first day. We spent 9 hours gaming, with a few extra hours of lunch, inspecting people's armies, and whatever it is people chose to do afterwards. (I also chose to drive to and from the event each day, which added 3 hours to my commute each day)

I'm also night owl so the 8am start took a small toll on me as well.

By the end of my third game I was leaning my back hard against a nearby pillar to help ease my spine. I was tired, my back ached, and my feet were throbbing. Then I drove another 90 minutes. I was sore.

So quick bits of advice to ease your body:
* Wear comfy shoes (one of my teammates suffered for wearing flip flops)
* Drink plenty of liquids
* Sit when you have the opportunity

in one battle I faced a pirate themed Daemon list that featured a Helchicken & a Helparrot.

Take everything you'll need
This might seem like a bit of a no-brainer, but if you're used to playing pickup games with friends, you might not always take all the essentials along with you. The idea is to be properly prepared for each game, or able to help out a teammate should they have forgotten anything. Some items include:

* Base Rule Book
* Your army book(s)
* 5+ printed army lists (one for yourself, each of your opponents, & the tourney organizers)
* Templates
* Dice
* Measuring Tape
* Glue

That last one is important. My Be-lakor mini lost his arm, & I saw several necron wraiths snap in transit to their next game. Minis are being packed, unpacked, moved from table to table, and placed in some pretty precarious situations during games. There's a really good chance something will break, & when it does it's important to have glue ready to fix it.

Be Prepared to Lose
OFCC is billed as a friendlier tournament. Before the event teams send in their lists to admin who rate how aggressive the list is, and they discourage powerful, hyper-competitive lists. That being said, there were still a lot of Imperial Knights, Wraithnights, Waveserpent spam, and I even faced a Firestorm Redoubt (a 600+ point fortification of death). Even a friendly competition got pretty competitive, so be ready for that.

That being said, even when I was losing I kept it friendly. Laugh when your dice get the better of you. At one point my Flying Daemon Prince Warlord with 4+ Feel No Pain was shot from the sky, took a wound for falling, then was promptly blown to bits by a D-strength missile without a save (If my math is correct, there's only a 0.8% chance of that happening). In another game I lost my Lord of Change to the first round of shooting from Orks (!).

The dice gods were laughing at me. (Others noticed too & even offered to buy me new ones)

I laughed though. It doesn't do you any good to get upset about dice rolls beyond your control. All you can do is joke about the situation and change your battle plans moving forward. I ended up winning the game against the Orks, & even tied 10-10 against the Astra Militarum player with the enormous fortification.

Make some Friends
Finally, tournaments are a rare opportunity to meet fellow hobbyists from all around. The Portland tournament drew folks from Spokane and Canada (each over 300 miles away) so take some time to connect with other people who are passionate enough about the hobby to come long distances to compete.

I played five games over the weekend & all of my opponents seemed like good people. Each game was slated for three hours, which is plenty of time to get to know someone. My first game was against a guy named Aaron, & it turned out we both served as military cryptologists, and even went to the same school. It's great to make those kind of connections anywhere, let alone with someone who shares the same pass-time. Plus if you continue to play tournaments there's a good chance you'll see the same faces over and over again, so making a few connections is a good way of ensuring you'll have a good time at future events as well.

TL: DR
Going to your first tournament can be a bit daunting, but you should go prepared to to meet some fun people, play all of your games with class, and to be sore for a few days afterwards. It'll be worth it though.

~Muninn

Day 22: Herald of Tzeentch

I built this guy/gal (Tzeentch likes to keep you guessing) a few years back because I had too many spare parts. I purchased the Vampire Counts Cairn Wraith to use the scythe on my Plaguebearer Champion, which left me with a whole lot of mini left over.

While going over my options, I noticed I had a face & hands from the Pink Horrors box. They fit nicely onto the wraith body and voila, a unique & mysterious Herald of Tzeentch.

Where's his body? Tzeentch likes to keep you guessing.

I had this almost entirely complete early Thursday, except for the base. I'd just added a wash to its base when I I tipped the mini after I'd set it down. It broke off its round base, & splattering Nuln Oil wash across the whole mini. I was able to clean most of it off under a faucet, but there are still a few spots I missed.

As I was preparing to reglue the mini to its base I remembered that this month is a WFB painting competition at my local game store. I'm not really happy with the conversion I've been intending to submit, so I decided to whip up a quick scenic base using some cork and a bit from the WFB Battle Wizard box. He's only held onto the base by a peg, since I plan on using him in my 40k army (Those Malefic powers sound crazy).

It's funny though, if I hadn't tipped the mini & broke it off its base I wouldn't have thought to use it as my fantasy competition entry. How well will it do in the painting competition?

Tzeentch likes to keep you guessing.

~Muninn

Painting Competition: the "Scourge of Pech" Complete

I managed to complete the whole thing at midnight, the day before it was due. I wasn't going to be able to turn it in on Saturday since I'd be working in another city, but the game store was still doing it's Friday Magic Draft, so I ran it over. I know I say this every time, but I'm really happy with how it turned out. I've never tried something like this before, particularly modeling armor, and it all came together exceptionally well.

I'd kept the scope of my project a secret, so I was happy with the overwhelmingly positive response.

As you can see, the colors balance out pretty well, and to me, it feels well balanced. I went for that ruddy skin-tone red instead of a fire-engine red, so the green and red don't give off a Christmas vibe.

I'm also happy that the Kroot itself stands out compared to the marine. If you're gonna do a Kroot challenge, you want it to be the center of attention.

 More good news, I wasn't the only entry! Three other painters submitted their models, although none of them converted, or when to the godawful effort I did (one of those painters is a professional, he has a card for his services & everything).

Now that this mini is done, I'm going to have to sit out the next competition in order to judge. Once a painter accumulates three wins (finishing 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place) you have to take a break. I think it's fair, since it helps mix up the pool of contestants, and means the same 3 people aren't winning every time.

Just because I'm not competing for the next few months doesn't mean I'm not going to be keeping busy though, Oh no.

Starting Wednesday I'm going to be taking 10 weeks off work to take care of the twins, which means I'll have a bit of time on my hands when not changing diapers or feeding screaming little mouths. I have things in the works, including a Judge Dredd/Commissar commission, some army work, and a few bits & bobs along the way.

More when I have it.

~Muninn

Painting Competition: Almost there

True to form, I'll be painting this thing until the last minute.

The good news is that I made major headway over my weekend. The scenic base and space marine are complete, as are the kroot's skin, armor, & many details.  Bad news is that there are still a few hours left before it's done.

Here's the finished Space Marine. When coming up with the scene I decided I wanted to have the marine come from a chapter with a particular hatred of Dark Eldar (since the kroot was clearly working for them). It fell to either the White Scars or Salamanders, & I figured the battle damage would show up better on a green marine than a white one.

Here's the (99.9%) finished product:

More bad news is that, as of yesterday, *no one else has entered a mini.* So there's a chance that I'm going to all this effort with absolutely no one else in the constest. That might stick in my craw.

~Muninn

Painting Competition: Kroot base

Slowly but surely I'm working on my competition entry.

It's tough to balance all my responsibilties, but I'm managing to get a little work in every day. Deadline is Saturday, and I'm about to start my weekend, so I dearly hope that I'll be able to make some major headway in my painting.

You might be wondering what's taking so long since most of the modeling was done over a week ago. Well truth be told I was only showing you part of the final model. The whole entry is quite a bit bigger.

The whole scene is actually a duel between my Kroot mercenary and an injured Salamander. The bit with the kroot is blended in with the rest of the scene, and magnetized so it's detachablility should be hidden nicely. I've got most of the base complete, with just a white drybrushing and wash to go until it's finished. The Space marine has a ways to go still, and I haven't even started on the kroot itself.

I should probably prioritize the kroot, since it's the whole point of the contest. I can't help dragging my heels though since I'm going back and forth on the paint scheme. I've been planning to paint it's skin in a blue-green (Incubi Darkness base up through a light blue-grey), but looking at it now I don't think it'll be menacing enough, and likely won't stand out next to the prone Salamander. Maybe I'll go back to a ruddy red skin like my Fallen. It'd balance nicely, I just need to remember what I did to get that color....

~Muninn

Painting Competition: Kroot update

I've gotten some pretty good progress on my Scourge/Kroot conversion. I've been able to get about 45 minutes of modeling in every day between feedings or after my wife has taken the babies to bed.

Here's the GSed armor as it was last week. I've cleaned it up significantly since. You can see in an effort to make him appear grizzled I've added a few scars around his head (There'll be even more on the rest of his body).

Here's where I am as of this morning.

The arms are only pinned at the moment, & still need to be GSed properly, and the head isn't in place either. The head will probably be painted separately since it's set in an awkward spot between the arms and wings.

The rifle & arms were a bear. What you see is a combination of three guns cobbled together, and two mismatched arms. It took a lot of time patience & pinning to get everything where I wanted it (I accidentally put my drill through the end of the gun, but that can be fixed). I still have to GS the shoulders, but it should be just about right.

Yorrik was kind enough to give me some of his Dark Eldar troop bits, & I've tried to put them to good use. You can see I applied a kneepad to the bent leg, and gave the kroot a DA loincloth. Both of those bits had to be carved out of a trooper's legs, but they add a nice bit of color to the mini.

I have two more weeks left til the mini is due, so I think I'm right on course.

More once I'm further along.

~Muninn

Painting Competition: All Kroot All the Time

So the results of the last painting competition are in.  Yorrik's Kaptin Badrukk took first place, & my Greater Knarloc came in second. A really crisp Trazyn the Infinite mini rounded out third place. (Thanks to the early arrival of the twins I never ended up completing, or even priming, my Ahriman mini. The store owner let me submit the Greater Knarloc instead.)

Now that that's over, time to prepare for the next one.

My FLGS owner is a Kroot fanatic. I'm not sure why, but he loves the quasi-avian alien mercenaries. He likes them so much that I bought him a Games Day Angkor Prok mini for his grand re-opening years ago.

He's been waiting for a new Tau Codex for years in hopes of a Kroot HQ, just so he could field an all-kroot army (other than the Forge World one that is).Now that there are rumors of an April Tau release that might just come to pass.

Anyhoo, given his predisposition for the xenos he decided that the newest painting competition would use them as a unifying theme. the entry fee for the store's painting competition is to buy a mini (usually the one you paint, but it's negotiable). This time, you just have to buy *anything* and he gives you an unpainted kroot mini. He gives you the option of taking one that's already built & primed, or just taking bits.

Painting kroot is pretty easy. I can knock out a pretty good one in under 2 hours.

I'm a glutton for punishment though, so there's no way I'm just going to submit an unmodified mini. Instead I'm converting myself a grizzled mercenary who's bargained with a Dark Eldar Haemonculus for a pair of wings. I have a diorama in mind too, so this thing will be kinda elaborate.

Here's what I've blu-tacked together so far:

You can see I've carved away a bit of his back to add some DA Scourge bits. I was going to attempt a chest swap, but it turns out those evil space-elves have tiny bodies. Instead I'll be attempting to GS some armor.

The next big thing will be to fashion a pair of arms that will be swinging it's hunting rifle as a melee weapon. That'll be a task in & of itself, but I hope to have the GSing done by Friday. The deadline at the moment is April 6th, so I hope I'm giving myself enough time.

More when I get a bit further along.

~Muninn

Yorrik's Kaptin Badrukk

Hello all! While Brother Muninn loses his babies under couch cushions, forgets them on the bus, and all sorts of other new-dad comedic errors, I will be pitching in by contributing to the blog with minis from my own collection. Around here I am known as Yorrik (you can see a helpful button at the top of the screen that links to my other contributions) and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to showcase my work. However, while Muninn enjoys painting skills, camera skills, and blogging skills, I alas only have numchuck skills, so my contributions will be of decidedly worse quality.

I live in the same college town as Muninn and have been painting miniatures for about 15 years. My interests overlap with Muninn's quite a bit, focusing quite a bit on nerdy activities like board games, roleplaying games, and other assorted time-sinks. Our local game store hosts a monthly painting contest wherein the entry fee is to buy a miniature from the store's stock and submit it. Feeling quite orky and flamboyant, I decided on Kaptin Badrukk, the overpriced squad-upgrade to what is probably the worst unit in the current ork codex:

I wasn't lying about the camera skills. At least my iPhone can make up for some of my incompetence. I had a blast painting this mini, and hope to do more ork pieces in the future. The skin tone was a fun adventure, as it involved building up layers of drab olive greens and ending with a purple wash. The Kaptin's Snazzgun is a favorite detail, I love how burly and nasty that thing looks. Hopefully I'll bag first place!

Painting Competition: Ahriman's base

The deadline for the local painting competition has been pushed back a few weeks, so I can actually spend some time putting everything together. I popped out to a craft store on my lunch bread and got myself some cork board for use in some bases.

The smallest amount of cork I could find was a 4 pack of 12"x12" boards. Far more than I'd ever be able to use. I just took what I wanted for myself and handed the rest to my local game store owner and commissioned him to sell them to my fellow hobbyists.

 Here's what I did once I got home:

This is another mini that I intend to use for my own army, but I figured I could gussy it up a bit. I plan to surround him with 20+ ablative cultists, so I'm not too worried about making him more susceptible to enemy LOS . You can see I tossed him on top of two chunks of cork. When I see people layer cork on cork I'm usually slightly distracted by the seam where they come together. To combat that I glued down patches of sand wherever the seam was apparent.

I want a few neat visual details to add a bit of fun to the base, so I added the decorative terrain bit (in the lower left section), and a decapitated cultist head from the DV box. Like I said, he's going to be accompanied by cannon fodder cultists, so I figured that'd be completely appropriate.

You can't tell from the photo, but the neck, and backpack area are covered in dollops of white Elmer's glue. I'm going to be painting the head and backpack separately and I don't want the spray primer to touch the areas where they will eventually connect. By adding the glue and allowing it to dry prior to priming the model it forms a protective cap that will pop off easily once I'm ready to glue the pieces together.

The valley where I live is experiencing some particularly cold weather, so I'm going to hold off on priming until there're some better conditions.  In the meantime I'm working on my plaguebearers, and the DV Deathwing.

~Muninn

New this week: Mid Jan.

Now that I'm done with the Terminators I can get back to a few of the other things that have been on the back-burner for a bit.

My first priority is to finish the Greater Knarloc. I've poured a few nights into him this week, so he's about 70% done now. I finished putting on the "Leopard Shark" design yesterday, so the body itself is complete at least. Now I just need to wrap up it's mouth, spines, & claws. The rest of it is mostly leather straps, and little details, so that shouldn't be too tough to knock out in the next few days.

One thing I've been struggling with is the Kroot riders. The owner really wants them to be bright and colorful, like tropical birds, but that might throw off the whole drab shark look. My solution is to use the colors of Birds of Paradise from New Guinea. Here are the two shots I'd be basing the schemes on.

I think the colors could be complimentary to one another, and if done properly, won't detract from the scheme of the Knarloc.

Next: It's time for another local painting competition. I didn't hear about this one until recently, and the deadline is the end of the month, so I have about two and a half weeks to knock out a nice, quality piece. If I have enough time I hope to paint up my Ahriman mini. A lot of people paint him blue, like a Thousand Son, but I have something a little different in mind him. This picture from the Chaos Space Marine codex will be the basis for it.

In my mind, Ahriman is an exile amongst outcasts. His armor will be mostly stripped of it's paint leaving only an oxidized brass color. The robe will be a drab blue-grey, and the coat will probably be a deep navy blue. I want to avoid bright colors with the exception of the areas where I want to draw attention. Here's hoping I have enough time.

More later,

~Muninn

Painting contest: Dark Apostle

I had a tough time picking what to put together for this competition. As it turned out with Dark Vengeance, the Gnarloc, and a table full of Daemons & Space Wolves makes for a ton of choices.

That being said I figured I'd keep it simple this time. I've  been excited by the mace wielding Chosen since I first saw him, so I figured he'd make a great showcase piece.

I took it kinda easy: no scenic base, no drastic freehand, just a clean, quality mini with a good scheme. College students weren't really back into town & my buddy Yorrik is sitting this one out to be a judge (since he'd placed in three other painting competitions), so I figured there'd be minimal competition.

As it turns out, I was wrong.

One of the store regulars submitted a stellar looking Ork Bomba, complete with scenic base and a freehand gretchin pinup girl painted on the side (it is all at once impressive and disturbing). He placed some questionable looking aquarium plants on the base, but I know when I'm beat. Odds are good that I'll come in 2nd, and walk away with a lesson about underestimating my fellow gamers. I'll probably post shots of all of the competition's models keep you informed about what happens.

~Muninn

Painting Competitions

In the last year or so my LFGS has really stepped up encouraging local mini painters to show their stuff.  They've put on four Painting Competitions so far, and more talent shows up each time. I live in a smallish college town in Oregon, so there probably isn't as deep a hobby following as in other places, but we do alright.

To date, I've entered minis in three competitions & placed well in each. I didn't enter anything in the last competition because I helped judge it. To prevent the same people from winning over & over again the owner established the rule that after your 3rd prize, you have to take a turn as a judge.

It seems fair to me since 1) It spreads around the winnings, which encourages more participation, and 2) the best painters should be the best judges of other minis, since they would be able to recognize skill & degree of difficulty in a mini.

Here are the three minis I've turned in for competitions so far:
Ikit Claw: 1st place

This was for the store's first competition & I went all out.  To kick off the Storm of Magic campaign the owner decided to have a WH Fantasy Painting competition. I'd been in a position to enter a mini for judging, so I wanted to show up with something truly impressive. I picked up an Ikit Claw, a new blister of green stuff, & some bits & bobs for a diorama.

As it turns out I was the only person to put that much effort into the mini & base, so I won handily. I ended up taking a Balewind Vortex as my prize (I could've gotten the SoM book or Magewrath Throne), which means I spent about $40 to win a $15 mini.

Daemon Prince: 2nd place

I dialed it back a little for this one. My plan from the start was to use this guy for my Daemon army, so I decided not to make the base too scenic or dynamic to keep from taking attention away from the rest of my army (plus LoS issues). It had a good showing, but the other painters had taken a note from my Ikit Claw mini and stepped up their minis & bases as well. 1st place was an excellent bone-colored Sanguinor with crimson rising above a sea of outstretched, zombie-like, hands.

Either way, I got a new codex out of the deal, so I was happy.

The Deceiver: 1st place

This one I've already covered on the blog, but I'm still a fan of it. The owner made me a deal that if I took on his Deceiver mini he'd waive the entry fee for the painting competition. There were some other really good minis, but I managed to take 1st.  So i got a $90 box of Ogres for the cost of some sand, glue, primer, green stuff & paint. Damn good deal if you ask me.

There will be another painting competition coming up in the next month or so, so once it's announced I'll let you know what I'm doing. :D

~Muninn

Harlequin Deceiver

Last December I ended up painting a Necron Deceiver for a competition at a local game store.  I've never had any interest in working on one for a few reasons, 1. I didn't have any Necrons, 2. I didn't much care for the mini, 3. If I was going to shell out the cash for a C'Tan I'd buy Nightbringer instead.

As luck would have it though The store owner made me an offer I couldn't refuse: I'd get to enter the painting competition for free if I entered his Deceiver mini. So why not? His only real note was that he'd like it to look kinda like a clown.

Here's what I came up with:

I'm rather happy with how he came out. This was one of my first forays into painting a lot of checkers, and the quartering came out better than I'd hoped. However the red feels like it could be a bit too overpowering. Were I to start over I might do the sash black, or a deep grey. Plus the whole red/white/blue scheme makes me feel like it's screaming "America!"

Like I said though, I'm very happy with it. It doesn't hurt that it took first place in the competition & I got an Ogre Kingdom's Battallion out of the deal.

~Muninn