December 2020 – Twitchy Bristles

Merry Christmas from the Death Guard!

What could be more 2020 than finding Plague Marines of all things under the Christmas tree? When I started this batch I was going for an old Horus Heresy look but the longer I kept at it the more I felt like they were taking on a festive life of their own. I’m happy with how this batch turned out, though (in typical fashion) I tripped over the finish line and applied the varnish way too thick on the last couple steps and had to go back and fix a few resulting defects.

Pictured: You get an HQ, and you get an HQ, and look under your chair – it’s another HQ!

I wanted to post this to give a taste of what’s coming in 2021 for individual galleries – Death Guard, Death Guard, and lots of Death Guard, with battle reports and comparisons as well between what I’ve painted before and what I accomplished with this batch. All things considered I’m very happy with how they turned out and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how they do on the tabletop – and I’m very happy with my new Artel W proxy units, including a Sister Pestilencia model from kinpatsusamurai!

Pictured: Sister Pestilencia, who is…*definitely* the only Battle Sister I’ll own in the new year. Yup. Nothing to see here…

2020 has been…it’s been a year, alright. And while I think I weathered it okay, it leaves me in a pretty iffy space heading into the next year. My funding runs out at the end of this month, my Master’s is still incomplete, and I don’t have a stable job at the moment, but…all the same thankful for the friends, family, and all the other good things in my life. Here’s hoping that 2021 is a more gracious year than the one now past!

*We wish you all a Merry Christmas, and a very happy New Year!*

Alucard – Artel W’s “Gunfighter”

Hellsing Abridged is one of my all-time guilty pleasures on Youtube, so naturally when I saw that Artel W has a fantastic sculpt of Alucard from the series listed as “The Gunfighter,” I had to get my hands on it and try painting it up. This one turned into a sort of “color study” like my Bone Devil and Imp previously, while I tried to get myself back up to speed. I would like to thank Alucard for teaching me how to “red” again!

*“When hope is gone, undo this lock, and send me forth on a moonlit walk.”*

The model itself was easy to assemble, and packaged brilliantly as Artel W’s products always are. The wax seal adds a special touch every time I get a mini from them. The detail was exquisite on this – my paint job doesn’t do it justice, and the extra bits that came with the kit are going to be much appreciated down the road by some of my Eldar. I opted to keep the regular head but went with the “demon” coat piece because I thought it made the model look so much more imposing, dynamic, and – most of all – cool!

*“That was a 70-inch plasma screen TV. (inhales deeply) So, how can I help you?”*

If you’re a miniatures painter and fan of the Hellsing series in any of its incarnations I would strongly recommend this miniature. If you want to find it (or any of Artel W’s awesome projects) you can find this on their webpage: https://artelw.com/The-Gunfighter-p98213242. The shipping can take a while since everything’s shipped out of Russia, but I’ve always found that Artel W is well worth the wait. I have a couple Death Guard projects coming up from them, and one of these days I’ll cave and pick up their not-Fire-Dragons.

*“Dear Chief Replacement:*
I wanted to send you this friendly letter to inform you of your imminent demise. If you’re curious about the frequency of which I send these letters, it is merely to instill as much fear as I can. As if basting a turkey. Which I will then proceed to have sex with.
*That’s right, I’m going to f*ck the fear-turkey.*
*Follow me @theCrimsonFuckr!”*

Hello, there, “General Kenobi”!

Oh, boy. I still definitely need to work on faces. The good news is that I did manage to make more detailed eyes than I usually pull off, the bad news is that the end result was much more “anime” than I had anticipated. That being said, I’m pretty happy with the end result on this model and if all goes well it’ll be the start to a small Star Wars: Legion army. I doubt I’ll get into playing the game or doing battle reports for it, but…with how brilliantly the Clone Wars series turned out, I feel like it would be a shame not to paint a few of these.

Pictured: A B2 Battle Droid stationed on Ryloth, having a particularly bad day.

Now, even though this is the General Kenobi model, I actually used this to represent a character of mine from a Star Wars role-playing group that me and some friends have had on the go over the course of the last year-ish. This orange-lightsaber-wielding Jedi Sentinel is Drake Erasmus Hyde, who went from secluded conspiracy theorist to reluctant General to full-time dad and mentor by the time that Order 66 rolled around. Currently he and his ragtag family are planet-to-planet on the run from the Empire. The Kenobi model, I should note, represents the character during his glory days – Hyde looks nowhere near this cool now.

Pictured: General “Kenobi” *cough* Hyde with two of my earlier models from Imperial Assault I’ve set on Ryloth-themed bases.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with how this model turned out. I wish however that I’d waited and started with a “troop” unit before moving onto a more detailed character. With that being said, I might have to pick him up a Hyde-themed crack team of clone commandos in the future to represent this character’s glory days during the Ryloth campaign.

If you were paying close attention, you may have noticed an “easter egg” on the armor’s pauldron.
Yes, that is a Castaway reference, for no other reason than shenaniganry. WILSOOOOON!

Kyphrixis, the Copper Dragon

What’s this? A model on my website that isn’t Warhammer? Inconceivable! I’ve had this model for over a year now and it was a birthday gift from my roommate, who I’ve had a long-running Dungeons & Dragons campaign with. One of the main characters of the campaign is a Dragonborn Paladin named Yzirrius, a half-bronze and half-copper Dragonborn. Despite his tall and imposing stature, Yzirrius is a big softie – and in his flights of fancy often thinks or imagines being a real, full-blown dragon.

Pictured: My finished copper dragon, with two other incarnations of the same character I’ve painted before.

Background aside, the Kyphrixis, the Copper Dragon miniature from Reaper Miniatures was fantastic to work with. It assembled easily, cleaned up easily, and despite its size is actually very durable – it’s already survived a pretty disastrous tumbles during assembly and painting. Reaper is a company that I find gives really great bang for your buck in terms of model size and quality, and a model like Kyphrixis works great as a display piece or conversation starter.

Pictured: Yzirrius-dragon, showing off all the Nihilakh Oxide on its wings and underside.

The first time I tried to paint this, I wanted to use it as a color study in different shades of copper, but…I finally gave Yzirrius the full effort that he deserved and I’m happy with the end result. The copper colors turned out brilliant anyways, but I’m also happy with the contrast of the green eyes, and with the muted “rusty” colors along the underside and wings. Nihilakh Oxide has truly become the Frank’s Red Hot Sauce of my Citadel paints – I put it on everything!

Copper dragons are incorrigible pranksters, joke tellers, and riddlers that live in hills and rocky uplands. Despite their gregarious and even-tempered natures, they possess a covetous, miserly streak, and can become dangerous when their hoards are threatened.

Color Study – Wizkids’ Bone Devil and Imp

My roommate picked both of these up for me ages ago, with the Bone Devil being a Christmas gift last year. So this year, while I was working on a Christmas present of my own for her, I wanted to get both of these finished but was also able to use these both as color studies. With the Bone Devil I got to experiment with different bone tones, and playing with fleshy bits and colors that will help me out a whole lot when I get back to working on Death Guard (and I have a ton of new Death Guard stuff coming up!) With the imp, I got to play with different red tones and gradients and was quite happy with the end result of the skin color.

Pictured: Bone Devil from Wizkids’ Pathfinder line. He might well be moonlighting as a Death Guard Chaos Spawn proxy in the future.

With respect to the models, I’ve heard other painters remark that they had issue with the primer that normally comes on the Wizkids models, so I made sure to spray-prime both of these before starting and I found after that painting these up was smooth – or, as smooth as trying to remember how to paint after a long hiatus can possibly be. I also based the Bone Devil on a 50mm base from the Kromlech line.

Pictured: Imp from Wizkids’ Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures line.

After getting both of these done, I’m feeling much more confident about not just getting into my batch-painting 40k groove, but taking on more one-shot or non-Warhammer models in the future. I’ve wanted to branch out in my painting and in what I show off for a long while, and I think this brings me another step closer to making more of that happen.