#death fields

[pandaemoniumminiatures]

The new Mauler from Wargames Atlantic, which I’ve kept modular to allow both 'hard-shell' and troop transport variants, with all weapon options magnetised and a hinge added to the hatch. A lovely addition to my rag-tag SF army!

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In the mix

See, I did more than paint just one thing when I decided to try to paint things. Not only that, I went one step further than usual and tried something new! Mixing paint!

I know, we work in baby steps here. Also, whatever magical pot I used for my favourite horror just isn't available any more, so we have to improvise.

As is now customary, I keep notes on what I used so I can keep track of what I did in case the result is nice. Our starter for tonight is a 1:1 mix of Hive Dweller Purple and Purple Alchemy.

You know what would have been really good? Having models to compare with the raw colours to see how much of a difference it made, but nooooo I just threw it on and stuck a finger in the air.

Sigh. Well, in this case the Hive Dweller seemed to win the fight, so we just get the plain purples. Is fine I guess, but not worth the mixing. Unless I do the above thought. But then I'd have to slap more. Hmm.

Set 2 is a 1:1 mix (there's a theme) of Blood Red and Purple Alchemy. OK, I get the feeling Purple Alchemy is the recessive gene of speed paints, as it looks even less different from the other colour than the first mix. Despite that, it's a nice colour for the Harvester and might be worth playing with as a base tone for them. Not sure if I did any white on him though, so the raw grey underneath might be toning it down? Motivates me to put a bit more paint on him and the others though. Who knows, maybe I'll paint again this year?

No mixing on these, just speed paint out of the bottle and on to a white primer. I'd almost forgotten I had some primed already.

A COMPARISON PICTURE WITH THOSE OLD ONES WOULD HAVE BEEN A GOOD IDEA WOULDN'T IT. WHY DO I THINK OF THAT NOW WHEN I CAN'T BE ARSED TO DO MORE PHOTOS NOW.

Ahem. I'm guessing I just had some fixed train of thought. Maybe I'll pick or mix a blue for the third one, paint some more details and do a proper comparison with the old ones. Yes, yes, let's do that as it means more low effort posts.

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More paint on things - Colourless Colour

I know it's been (so long) since I did any painting, but in all honesty, the blogo-treadmill schedule thing is kind of doing its job. Yes, words are either terse or a veritable whale salad. As in salad for whales. Like four candles.

No mixing this time, just neat, out of the bottle magical covery paint. I think I was intending to move more quickly with the Dryads, but the initial brown over whatever-grey ended up so dark I was disheartened. But as I was playing with green, I thought I'd try doing a little detail with a basecoat brush. Because why use the right size brush? I also covered up the bits I missed originally with the brown with some orange, as I thought the skirt bit could do with some colour.

I'm pretty happy with the result, blur-de-blur photo not withstanding. I think there are some more leaves dotted around, but with just what I could see so far painted it made me feel so much better about the models. Furthermore, I even enjoyed it a bit for once. It's close to the original pink horror idea, with some fairly simple overall tone and picking out some small details.

And the little blue dude. Magic Blue is indeed magic, and I fear I may use that colour on everything now, as it's just my kind of tone.

Slightly less success with the more spikey chaps. The purple mix from last time is looking a little better now, but I had no idea where to go next. So funky green? Er, ish? Not sure I like it, but I'll see what detail I add next to try to compliment it. Even if it's just some teeth colour.

The harvester is a bit meh as well. Still not sure what I'm trying to do there, unless I end up going just green as well, but I thought I'd give the orange a go for now. The end result is fine, and again may benefit from some detail being picked out.

I actually want to paint some more Dryads now, though not sure if I'll slap or paint normally, but I count them as a rare win. Good thing I have more than a couple.

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Adventures in slapchop - Take me back to Eden

There was a plan. Go over the marines again with a lighter grey, but I wasn't sure which grey. As per the retrospectives (part 1 / part 2), my original grey choice was a bit too dark.

So instead of just going with 1, let's try a selection of models and compare 2!

Yeah, not for the first time, this was a dumb idea. The above selection of models were the five I chose to get a good selection, ones I had already primed, and would give good examples for the different kind of model textures/challenges.

The plan did not go well.

Five done for the light sea grey, but only two and a half in green grey. My excuses include, time, space, reasons, and I just didn't feel it was working.

I've had some time to think since painting these, and still I'm not really feeling the love for slapchop. Far from giving me a way to get some paint down and then do detail if I want, I get too bogged down in overthinking how I'm trying to drybrush. Tutorial videos, as good as they are, just don't crunk my brain in to the right gear as much as I was hoping.

At the time of writing, reasons are now no longer reasons and everything's sorted. I have space and shinies to play with, and when smaller reasons are sorted I can get on with the new ideas. We might, just might, go back to where it began and try to do something super stupid.

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Harbingers Pt 2

Hoo boy. This will half read as a review, but considering at time of writing there's no paint on them I'm only looking at construction.

So, 5 identical sprues containing 4 large chaps with a variety of limbs to choose from and 2 little ground huggers. That's it, no reference bar the box and no instructions.

Shit.

After working out the part numbering scheme, that has some exceptions, I found this amazing unboxing video that told me all I need to know with finger pointing (initially watched muted). Emboldened, off I went with the trusty tac and snips.

There's some fiddle just with tac and I can see ( and read online) that making them stand is an arse. But they're growing on me. They're kind of like Predator bugs to Tyranid's Alien style bugs, though they remind me a little of the likes of the new biovore.

Uh oh. No. Too small to try to convert. Definitely too small.

[doolallymagpie]

Les Grognards Cavalry AKA I have nine Rough Riders...if these horses could actually be assembled

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Harbingers - Primed bugs

Snipped, tidied, assembled and primed. Only 4 of them for now though, along with the single piece mini ones. No, one of them doesn't have 6 legs, it's just an optical illusion. Seriously, same number of legs on all of them.

Assembly was OK I guess, but a bit fiddly to get a decent combination of legs to get them stable. I ended up picking out all the legs, then just gluing the back legs first. Front legs were fun as, although the box art shows some on three legs on a base, I think there's some judicious pinning going on as it's not like there's flat hooves for some limbs as there are for Termagants and Reapers.

Priming (that's a thing) was a concern. Said spiky feet mean the usual blu-tack didn't give me a stable enough feeling, even if using the bed slat for a wider base. Then I remembered some toothpicks wrapped in masking tape. And the remnant. And how I primed the screamers back in the day without abusing their flying bases.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the results. I had to go over it a few times from different angles, but the stands worked well. One minor niggle is the patch where the blu-tack was, but I think I have an old pot of Imperial Primer that should be fine to brush on.

There was an unfortunate casualty as well. In trying to cradle the

Painting technique is going to be slap chop styles again, though I have some new pots of Citadel grey and white to hopefully get a better job than previously with oooold paint.

[gorez]