Miscing in Action

Been a while! Only a year ago, this blog thrummed with the preparations for the summer Woffboot. How the times change with the size of our families.

The gorgeous summer weather in Sweden inspired me, as it always does, to stay indoors with my back hunched over a stifling table of paints. Besides, I felt I couldn't let August go by without some painty blogging.

With no particular project on my mind at present, I did a round-up of random models from the many cupboards and bags of my collection, and came up with a very assorted bunch of models.


Things you don't expect your wife to say No. 1

"Oh, you've finally painted that eagle I bought you."

To which the only possible rejoinder is "Actually, *nerdy snort*, I think you'll find that's a warhawk, *snork snork*."

Some joker killed its parents, now it's a masked vigilante.

For now, I've left the rider off, because I don't like the model very much. I mean, he's held on by vines? That magically grow on the back of the hawk? Really, it's scarcely plausible. I can't paint something that breaks my suspension of disbelief so casually. Plus I can't find the head in my bits box.


Golden Oldie

Nice Beaver Man

Bonus points if you know exactly what it's meant to be. I don't. Some kind of centaur otter, maybe? An Ottaur, if you will. A Ral Partha piece from the mid-80s, I believe, this and its two sword-wielding brethren were my brother's.



Albert

Half Bear, Half Owl. Totally Batshit Crazy.

This had been half-done for years, and really only needed the base and eyeballs finishing up. I'm pleased with the fur/feather scheme, simple yet effective blocks of colour with the brown ink wash I rely so heavily on.

It's a DnD version 3.0 Owlbear, they've updated the iconic creature to look a lot more threatening and less wacky half-breed since. The new one is admittedly scarier, but I still like this one.



In the Grim Darkness of the Etc Etc

You know what, I can totally see why Battlefleet Gothic died a death. These miniatures are a total bitch to paint. My chosen paint scheme didn't help, to be fair, the yellow rudder and rear fins are very muddy.

Mercator Dominus!

But the combination of tiny detail with small areas makes it very tedious and fiddly to paint, I really didn't enjoy doing this one. Drybrushing doesn't quite bring out the contrast you need for the supposed scale of the model; doing it by hand is a massive pain in the bum. I have a bunch more of these ships. They're staying good old-fashioned sprue grey.


Traditionalist

Ages since I painted a space marine. The last one I did, in fact, was from this same set of Black Templar Veterans, but I converted him into a fantasy knight by gluing a big shield over his bolt pistol arm.

One day, I shall paint a heavily armoured miniature in a non-bone-white paint scheme.
Some day. But not today.

I hear rumours some new ones are coming out next month, which fills me with deep ennui. Bring out new Dwarves! Or Squats, even! But yet more tactical squads? Yawn...

All the same, you've got to hand it to them - a marine is quick and fun to paint as well as being somehow iconic of any GW collection. I might dig out the old metal terminators I've got lurking in a Space Hulk box and update them at some point.

(Speaking of which, I sampled the new Space Hulk computer game. Meh. Identical to the board game, so kudos for a very accurate and graphically-shiny adaptation. Nil points for making it fun as a computer game, though, I'd much rather crack out the old tiles. I could vaguely see the point as a way of playing it against someone in a different country, but it's expensive and also not something I could say I was desperately craving.)