Thames Barge

I drove down to Oare Marshes with my wife so she could observe the godwits, apparently one of our feathered friends with a beak like a sculpting tool. I wandered down to Harty Ferry to have a look at Swale Creek. There was a Thames Barge moored offshore. You are looking north into the mouth of the Thames. The Essex coast is just over the horizon.

Seamus finished!

The Mad Hatter with the maniac grin is finished and ready to create chaos in Malifaux. His left wrist joint was a nightmare and I ended up cementing his case to his leg and filling the wrist with green stuff. It is not clear why he is wearing traditional riding to hounds, fox hunting clothes, except for the Doc Martins bovver boots. The base insert is resin from Iron Halo who do the great Deus ex Machina steampunk inserts. I decided to use their evil marsh inserts for Seamus. Iron Halo hail from the far Antipodes, the colonies 'down under' in New Zealand. A fair place but a long way from London. You can find Iron Halo's address on the sidebar, lower right.


A better look at Seamus' 'tails'.


I have run out of cash having spent around £2K on materials for my bedroom redecoration programme so I am placing some stuff on eBay. First up is a metal chaos space marine lord.


And a Fokker Eindecker assembled for Wing of War.


Finally, rabbit has had a foreleg amputated and is doing well. He demanded food and drink when he came round and kicked the vet when we collected him. He is not keen on nthe vet, who is also antipodean from the strange land of Oz.

Seamus the Mad Hatter

It has been a dodgy few days. A fox smashed through our garden gate from the lower garden in mid afternoon to attack rabbit. My wife chased him off but rabbit has smashed his foot getting away. Xrays show it is untreatable so he has to have a foreleg amputated. The vet has warned me that brer fox will come back for another try. I certainly hope so. I have a pitchfork ready to greet him appropriately.

We are having a whole series of fox attacks on people as well as pets in our cities since the idiot Blair passed fox protection laws to appease animal rights wierdos. They have lost their fear of people. Mind you, my wife had no problem terrifying one but she terrifies me when roused so I am not all that astonished.

Anyway, I have almost finished Seamus the Mad Hatter from Malifaux. He is a barking mad resurrectionist who has a bevy of dead belles (watch this space). I decided to cloak him in green as he is obviously Irish. Seamus is Malifaux' worst criminal. He needs the last layers added, including a wet effect on the marsh.

Colonel von Klunkertruppen

This is a Ramshackle steampunk miniature. The face is a bit distorted but other than that it is a nice piece. it comes with an integral base. I am not so keen on those as I like to use resin infills.

I have finished the bedroom decorating with 24hrs to go before the carpet fitter arrives. It is nice to paint a model, rather than walls.

Oil Terminal

I purchased a set of three pipes from Evil Mushroom games. They fit together nicely. The only problem is that they are made of some shiny resin and are difficult to paint. A heavy wash in 50% fairy liquid did not help. I sprayed them with Vallejo olive green as an undercoat and it did not work.

Nevertheless, I like them so much that I have ordered the full set. I will use car primer spray (enamel gray) first next time.

My interior decorater was taken ill just before he was due to start on my house. We had new carpets furniture etc all lined up so I am having to desperately sort it out myself. Today I cut up and dumped a carpet and underlay, chipped off the old gloss, rendered, sanded and undercoated the walls, and painted the ceiling of the spare room. Tomorrow, I sand the woodwork, undercoate and gloss it, and paint the walls. Carpet comes Wednesday.

Paint job has taken on a whole new meaning.

The Plague Hulk Painted

This is probably it. My largely finished Plague Hulk. As far as I know, there are no rules for this (anyone know) but I guess one can play it as a Soul Grinder.

I undercoated this by spraying with Vallejo olive green. I then filled in any gaps with a diluted mixture of khaki and dark green. I kept varying the mixture to give different colour blands. I then painted 'internal' detail in a burnt umbar (Citadel scorched brown) and metals in Citadel Tin Bitz. I worked the green up through multiple layers ending in lemon (Citadel Badmoon Yellow), the brown up with layers of dilute bright red (Revel Ferrari red) and the metals with Citadel Shining Gold. .
I then dumped rust pigments all over the model using a white spirit medium. After it dried I brushed off the excess then wiped upper surfaced with a damp cloth so that the pustules (etc) showed through.

I seled in the pigment with Vallejo acrylic satin varnish ( a nice 'soft' varnish that doesn't destroy the paint detail, as Citadel varnishes do) and then used Citadel Ard Coat to highlight a few key areas, such as the eye.

It took about five hours. so it was not exactly a fine art job, but I hope you like it.


"Daemon, you call that piddly little thing a daemon?" Benjamin Bunny.

Actually, something about the smell interested the rabbit, so he urinated on it, and my camera,

Nurgle Plague Hulk

And so the horror grows - cue daemonic laughter.

This is the last of my Xmas present toys from my devoted, but mad, family. It did not go together as well as other recent FW kits but I had no major problems. mating resin to plastic is often challenging.

After assembly, I attacked the 'clean' plastic components with a Rotocraft rotary tool using various heads and then grafted green stuff on.

Now it has to have a day to dry.

Horned Beasts

As any fule kno, the most dangerous animals are not carnivores, but large herbivores with horns and a bad attitude. Hippos are more dangerous than crocs, and buffalo and rhinos more dangerous than lions. Which neatly brings me to horned dinosaurs. These little beauties were probably very dangerous. I have seen film of a rhino wrecking a landrover by charging it head on. Imagine what one of these could do? We don't know exactly what it massed, no complete skeleton has been found, but it was probably about ten times the mass of a Rhino.

The head and back architecture on dinos was probably largely connected with courtship rituals - these are essenially big birds - so paint them in bright colours.

The miniatures are old 1950s British Museum dino models.

John

More Dinos

Lunch on the wing


A duck-billed thingammy.

Dinos 1 - The Carnivores

Hobbycraft are selling off some Tamiya kits cheap so I have added to my Dino collection. The Dino rider is an old i-Kore Void figure that I acquired off eBay. They are available new from Scotia-Grendal. The base is from Maxmini.


Tamiya velociraptors. Real 'raptors were smaller than shown in Jurassic Park so these are movie Dinos, very suitable for Pulp games

A small (juvenile?) Carnosaur.

All the models are on 30mm bases.

New Plastic Daemons on Advance Order

Plastic Daemons for advance order have gone up on the GW Site.

End Times

Composite of pics from Hellgate London and Forge World.

Storming Hell

Storming Hell has been listed in the 2010 Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy guide.

It was published in April '09 in Jim Baen's Universe magazine - it was the cover story.

I have also had the sales figures for the paperback version of Lucy's Blade and electronic. Altogether, with the hardback, it has done OK - reasonable sales for a first novel.

Sometimes life is good.

You can find Storming Hell up to the right of my blog: Storming Venus is the sequel, featuring the same characters.

Air Brush

Another burning hot day in Kent, the heat, the sweat, the rabbits.

So I got the airbrush out of its winter store. The mem-sahib has banned its use in the house for some inexplicable reason. Women are so unreasonable.

I use a Badger single-action - going for simple and high quality. The compressor is a must. Compressed air cans are another name for a refrigorator.

I had forgotton what a great finish you get with an airbrush. I diluted the acrylic Citadel paint with tapwater and Cap Plan screenwash (the blue stuff).

Mortis - Nurgle Predator

I picked up and old-style metal and plastic SM Predator on eBay and tarted it up as a a tank detroyer for my Nurgle army. I give you - Mortis, terror of the warp.

I used decals on this model but bought some Humbrol Decal fluid. This is applied before and after the decal and melds it onto the model. The Nurgle gunk is green stuff. I used GW synthetic water on the furrows in the green stuff and in the turret hatch. The hatch was missing on the model so I decided to make that a feature.

The problem with 'cold' synthetic water is that it takes an eternity to dry. I prefer 'hot' synthetic water crystals but they do tend to melt plastic.

Including materials, I suppose that this tank cost me less than £15. A good deal, I think.

Family Fun

An old British 70s boardgame from when BP was still British Petroleum and not Beyond Parody, sorry, meant Beyond Petroleum.

Definitely one for re-release this Xmas. I wonder if the "War on Terror" people are working on a version?

There are apparently oil spill chance cards that cost you money. I wonder if there are "shambolic corporate fat cats that burble around the world making fools of themselves and whining how it's all about them before awarding themselves bonuses" cards? Or maybe a Royal Yacht Squadron card?

Anyone else got any ideas for BP cards?

Studio McVey - Lisbeth, Sky Surfer

Studio McVey do it again. This is their latest, Lisbeth - Sky Surfer, limited to 700 copies only.

Beautiful

Every so often a model/paint job is so good that it takes my breath away.
This is one of those times.
The terrible thing is that I am not sure now from where it came.

When Smurfs Attack

Illuminati Champion Vorsprung Teknik led a Kill Team sweep through the ruins of an old battlefield and cult centre, looking for sport and slaves. He placed his chaos marines in a line with orders to comb through the ruins with a bike on each wing to run around the structures to cut off any retreat.

However, Sgt Shaun of the Ultramarines had two squads of assault marines with jump packs ready to ambush the Illuminati. And so the stage was set for an epic clash of good versus evil, true blue versus puky purple, loyalists versus traitors .... continue until word count target achieved.


I have placed the casualties in a line on the right. Things have not gone so well for the Illuminati. The high mobility of the smurfs allowed them to defeat my forces in detail, first the bikes, then the infantry.


By the end of the fourth turn the Illuminati were down to Teknik and one bod. At that point they made a strategic advance to the rear and abondened the field to the Ultramarines - accursed Smurfs.

Congratulations to Shaun who outplayed me.

There will be a rematch, shake fist, utter foul chaos oaths etc.

Hit for Six

England has not been having too great a season for sports involving balls, with the exception of cricket. I bought this model from Hasslefree to celebrate beating Australia.

Space Opera Anime Girls

More Space Opera Minis - the Anime Girls with ludicrously oversized weapons.

The team leader (second from right) is from Meow Miniatures and the rest from Fenryll. OK, I know they do not completely fit the Retro Pulp Fiction theme but, hey, I liked them. I am nothing if not inconsistent.

They do follow the Pulp Fiction theme of having large chests - you know, I am sure this must be a Space Corps Directive.

Once again they are mounted on Black Cat bases.

Illuminati Rockers

I spent an irreverent youth as a Mod, complete with Lambretta SX150 equipped with spare wheel, six mirrors, tinted screen, three spotlights, sprung back rest, yellow go-faster stripes. whip ariels etc, etc. I used to ride it kneeling down and leaning backwards as that was cool, as was my parka with rabbit fur collar.

I have retained a sneaking love of two wheels ever since. Enter my Illuminati Rockers. Again, these were an eBay bargain that I have repainted and tweaked. We have the leader with power fist, well giant claw, a chap with a melta, and an ordinary bod. I envisage them streaking across the battlefield on turbo-boost, giving an Inv. 3+ save as I recall, and going tank hunting.

While on the subject of Orks....

Every other Evil Alien race has laid waste to london so why should Orks be any different?

Mordian 7ths Evil Suns.

Mordian 7th has put up a new post showing his Evil Sunz Nob Biker Mob.

http://bit.ly/b2vAF8

Go visit, they are well worth a look at the close ups. The paint job is immaculate, and must have taken ages.