Friday, 29 June 2012

Beastmen Harpy Conversions

These foul and winged girlies took me quite a while to glue together even though the kit-bash was very simple indeed: Tyranid Gargoyle wings grafted onto Daemonettes. I know I'm not the first person to try this, but I think my early results will eventually produce some of the very best examples. I've gone for dynamism over the practicality of making certain they rank-up on the tabletop... I'll deal with that sometime later.





I'd never suggest for a moment that there was a best way to do a particular conversion - personal preferences certainly rule - but on a trawl round the web I've found a few kit-bash conversions using some very odd choices (in my opinion); ungors for example, and even crypt ghouls. I can't see how anyone wouldn't opt for daemonettes, or, why they would add the extra arms at the front (like the meat-puppet-handed old sculpts GW still offer). In my mind harpies look something like this, even if mine aren't so feathery!

Thursday, 28 June 2012

Beastmen Spider Centaurs WIP #1

A couple of WIP photos to share. These illustrate how I'm building up the colours from a basic all-over flesh tone using plenty of orange and red shading with the extreme white highlights I'm now getting so fond of. Pictures of my newly kit-bashed harpies coming tomorrow...



New Human Fantasy Characters From Scibor

Very excited today to see that Scibor have released a brand new set of human fantasy characters. I think they look great! I have an idea for a 40k style old empire themed army in mind for the future and these would fit into that rather well. 


Friday, 22 June 2012

That Was The Week That Was #1

This is a new regular feature for the Gazette. That Was The Week That Was will be a weekly collection of blog posts that I've found interesting, inspiring, informative... you get the idea. So let's get on with the first miscellany of hobby loveliness: 

1. Very cool Minion's Swamp Horror repositioning / conversion over at BoLS:


2. How to make greenstuff cloaks tutorial at From The Warp:


3. Old School Terminator shows off some Dark Eldar Grotesque conversions on Dark Future Gaming:


4. Crazy-wonderful old chaos creatures from the archives of White Dwarf on Once Upon A Time In Warhammer:


5. Astonishing monster sculptures from the artist Jordu Schell on Monster Brains:

Wednesday, 20 June 2012

Genestealer Broodlord Stage One WIP

A little genestealer progress today as I managed to prime and base coat my first genestealer broodlord. I think I'll be getting another one of these for the cult, as I'm currently planning on having two units of twelve purestrains. I did a bit of a kitbash and convert on this one as I think the middle arms that come with the model are rather laughably puny. And I obviously reposed it from the odd 'maniacal laugh' pose that GW seemed fit to give it. 




Tuesday, 19 June 2012

The Art Of Ice And Fire

If you've not come across the Game of Thrones blog I highly recommend taking a look. It's part of the marketing for HBO, of course, but some of the fan art on there is superb and covers a range of genres and styles. Here are a few of my favourites:

This one is really cool (ha ha) but I do wonder if they look a little too cuddly and not menacing enough 
Unlike most I'm a big Lannister fan - this captures Cersei perfectly: cute and poisonous
The Hound and Sansa - excellent cartoon style
The Hound again - stoic amid bloodshed

Monday, 18 June 2012

Look Who's Coming To Dinner...

A massive THANK YOU is due to Frontline Gamer for running a prize draw for the wonderful Blood Maw from BaneBeasts, which I'm very chuffed to have won! This is a great looking model and I'm really looking forward to getting my grubby mitts on it's rough and leathery hide.

Friday, 15 June 2012

Fantasy Miniatures 1988 - Oldhammer Gorgeousness

This link has popped up on a few blogs over the last couple of days so you might have already downloaded a copy of this fabulous book from 1988 featuring Golden Demon entries and other gorgeous miniatures. As others have already noted, this book is a real testament to the creativity and imagination that was then abundant in the hobby. I remember it fondly as I was getting into gaming for the first time when this book was published. I'm not sure that I agree with those who say that all this creativity is now lacking - in fact, I disagree quite strongly and offer as evidence the work seen regularly on the GW website taken from their flickr pool.  But I digress... follow the link, download and enjoy!



Thursday, 14 June 2012

Beastmen Spider Centaur Conversions #1

A trio of 'just the plastic' conversion photos today - I wanted to share these ladies with you because I'm so pleased with how they're working out. I decided to make the spider centaurs first as the clipped-off legs would be needed for the genestealer first generation hybrids. I'm most satisfied with the repositioned legs on the spider bodies, which I simply clipped off at the joints and reattached. A little greenstuff is required to smooth out the daemonette/spider transition where the mandibles/fangs have been removed. 




Wednesday, 13 June 2012

Tuesday, 12 June 2012

Free Wargames Scenery

No, this isn't a joke. If you follow this link then you'll find a batch of free-to-print modular buildings. Here are a couple of examples and as you can see, they're not half bad! 





Thanks to Battle Reporter for the original post with the link.

Sunday, 10 June 2012

A Month Of Over-Ambitious Conversions

I think I may have been overly ambitious in planning this, but fortune favours the brave. Here's a picture of what I'm talking about...  


I think I've worked myself into the perfect storm of conversions - here we have Daemonettes, Flagellants, and Ghouls, along with the spiders from the Goblin Spider Riders in a complex interchanging conversion diagram. From this lot I'm going to be making:

1. Genestealer second and third generation hybrids using flagellant bodies and ghoul arms (also Empire pistols from the militia set)

2. Genestealer first generation hybrids using ghoul bodies, Daemonette legs, arms from old purestrain 'stealers (not pictured) and heads from the current ones (also in the top bag).

3. Spider Centaurs for my Beastmen using the Daemonette bodies and arms together with the spiders. 

I feel a bit of an idiot for planning all this, but now I have all the pieces and sets I really have to complete them all. June will be a very interesting month...

Wednesday, 6 June 2012

Warploque Miniatures

I've just come across a great little site for Warploque Miniatures. It's run by a young chap called Alex who sculpts his own growing range of miniatures - these will definitely appeal to gamers and collectors who have an affection for the 'old school' aesthetics. Here are a couple of pictures of some models that caught my eye - I highly recommend you take a look for yourself if you've not come across this guy's work before.




Tuesday, 5 June 2012

Here Come The Zoats

These chaps have to be among the coolest of the Rogue Trader era Citadel miniatures. I think I'll give them a paint job this month along with the rest of the genestealer cult. I imagine that when it comes to game time I'll use a blend of the Tyranid and Imperial Guard lists, which seems to be a common casual (i.e. non-tourney) solution, and these can sub as heavy weapons teams. Either that or I may retro-fit the rules from 1987!




Monday, 4 June 2012

Genestealer Cult - The Plot Thickens...

Some progress on the cult over the weekend - below is a near-finished purestrain. Once I've finished this one I'll have to put up the paint recipe, mostly as an aide-memoire for myself. I also found some great anatomical study pictures from the book Xenology, a couple of which I've included below. The rather achievable task / pipe dream for June is to finish all the purestrains along with the ten hybrids and ten cultists.