Finally Back!

Okay, so I had intended for this blog to be an incentive into painting more often, specifically I had wanted to do one miniature a day. Unfortunately a few things happened. I had a lot more responsibility dropped on me at work, and a few months later I was injured on the job in my back to the point where I have been off straight up to now and cant stay in any one position for too long. This injury of course meant that for a long while I could not paint or even draw. Now many procedures later things are moving in the right direction.

In this time, I have not been completely idle however. In short bursts with lots of support and icing and treatment I have been able to get some miniatures done. Mostly, I have actually made a small dent into my high elf army's basic troops finishing my archers, and also my spears.... though without their shields.

The archers here were all fairly quick to do. Now, obviously, these are not the most amazing paint jobs in the world. Individually they may not look like much, buuut, when amassed together from above the table they do the job well. Like a lot of my army these are mostly single pose plastics from  4th or 5th edition. Some survivors from my brothers, and others my brother found in a large lot at a flee market that he bought to get me started back into the hobby. The standard bearer is a single pose spearman with a few added bits from some plastic kits from 7th edition and a hand drawn banner I had drawn over a year ago now.

Accidentally these guys turned out looking like the Keebler elves and so are affectionately called the Keebler Squad now... My brother thinking I should have made them a cookie banner..... That may still happen at some point.

Yeah, Still can't believe I accidentally did that....

The spearmen were the ones I first started painting up for this new army. I didn't really have a plan for a theme at the time. I started with red for the armor and blades, mostly because it just happened to be the colors on hand. I also unlike many people am very attracted to the "red era" of White Dwarf. Its what I grew up with, and when I think Warhammer that is what pops into my mind.

Again, most of these are monopose plastics from the same era as the archers. These are mixed with a couple metal ones of the same pose, a chariot spear, and some plastic multi part elves from later editions. These were also done pretty quickly and are not really meant to be viewed individually. the look good in a block and when the whole army is done I think it will all go rather well together.

Now, eventually I would like to theme this army around the idea of an elven colony around the regions of Cathay and Nippon which means changing up certain elements. I think some Tengu minis from Reaper Miniatures and a few others would make a unique group of Shadow warriors for the theme. I may also paint up my lion chariots with jade lion statues come to life, or as an arcanine. I think either would look nice. I have also done some drawings around the idea of what I imagine these elves would look like. Mixing in elements from these other cultures with their own.

The first, and fastest drawing I did was this Sword Master. The basic idea being that he has some samurai elements mixed into the basic armor shapes of the elves.

The next was this Spearman. I wanted it to look a bit more native so to speak. Furs and fabrics from local artisans adorn the armor. Plates resemble more of what you would expect to see on the humans of the region, though decorated in the fashion of the elves. I also decided here that I liked the idea of this stripe of face paint across the eyes adding a more wild look to them, as if they were not quite as "refined" or frankly stuck up as their Ulthuan relatives.

Here we have the equivalent of the White Lions in the army here. Still hunters in  the wilds. They seek out creatures and beasts that would be causing trouble amongst the villages and forts near by. They are more varied in appearance then those who came before them, choosing individual great weapons that fit their personal fighting style best. Many are adorned in furs of the Kitsune and various other spirits creatures. Early on the elves in their desire to eradicate any near by chaos beasts mistook the creatures for demons. They nearly wiped out the local population of such beings before realizing their mistake. This has caused their to be a long standing animosity between the two races even today many generations later.

This is my most recent piece, and a practice at working fully digitally. He is a basic bowman, borrowing style of dress from the Cathay, with elements similar to the spearman as well to help unify the troops. Jade falcon skulls adorn the armor showing a higher rank. He tracks a trail of blood across the snowy winter forest.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed this journey through thoughts, and future plans. Hopefully as things move forward I can possibly convert up some elves to more properly match my vision.

- Andrew Thurston

Rank and File!

Back on track! I have a day off tomorrow and I stayed up painting one of the rank and file troops of my army. This one mostly served as a test for the rest of the troops in the unit. It’s actually an older sculpt, though I can’t remember what era he is from. Unfortunately his sword blade is lost to the childhood attempts at converting metal models with random bits being chopped off and stuck on to other models. His replacement was a plastic woodelf blade that seems to work fine.

I photographed him next to one of my spearmen to see how they looked together. I think it will actually look really nice with a few ranks of troops, of course I’ll have to get some classic green flocking and paint for the bases!

I may have to revisit the colors on the sword blade. Not really sure what I wanted to do with them, but I did want them to be different from the red blades in the rest of the army. Now most of my swordmasters are your standard affair, but I was also thinking that adding in some kind of Oni looking types to give it more of that Nippon feel might be interesting, or maybe some of the Tengu they have at Reaper miniatures.

So there’s what I managed tonight after I was off work, I also received a couple miniatures in the mail for my Necromunda gang that I’m very excited to get going on!

A Hurt Shoulder, And A Late Shift

Unfortunately tonight was just not a night I would not be able to get something done. I had to work late and messed up my shoulder on some equipment at work....Whoops! Ah well, it happens, but that’s ok! I didn’t get anything painted, but I did work on some drawing!

This is the progress I made on my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the Warhammer 40k Universe. Here we have Raphael! I was really enjoying it and drawing thankfully only requires one good arm.

I really wanted these drawings to invoke some of the eighties goodness I grew up staring at in the old Warhammer Fantasy rulebooks, and the White Dwarf magazines my brother received in the mail. Such as it is, I’m happy with how it’s going! 

Since there wasn’t much to post, I suppose I can talk more about my hobbying and some random stuff I’ve been building. 

As I’ve mentioned my brothers were the ones that got me started into this hobby. They played maybe a couple games, but mostly just collected random odds and ends and painted them to the best of the ability of young children with crayola paints can do. Which is to say that our Bretonian blue knight was solid blue and our bretonian red Knight was solid red. It was like a medieval power rangers set riding along on their color coordinated horses. Not the most splendid affair, but it would do. We didn’t really know anyone else who had or played the game so we mostly just stared at what the Games Workshop artists created and dreamed of one day being a fraction as good.

The classic Dogs of War issue of White Dwarf magazine always stands out in my mind as the epitome of what I see this game to look like.

I actually have the rider Asarnil in my collection waiting to eventually be painted along with his stand in dragon.

Now my oldest brother was the only one to really keep up with this hobby. Myself and our other brother lost interest as things like Pokémon started to take over our childhoods and we grew into teenagers. Now I did continue to pour over my brothers rulebooks and draw ridiculous amounts of poorly proportioned space marines, but I never played the game much, and had given what few models I did by to my eldest brother who would start in high school to find others with the shared interest and regularly play games. Mostly they played 40k, but I think our main interests always was on the rank and file troops of the fantasy world.

As I entered into college my brother for the first time really started trying to get me to play. We tried a few practice games while he lived at home and I even started to buy some plastic High Elf kits that were out at the time. I somewhat lost interest again though as school was proving a lot of pressure, and I just wasn’t the skilled painter I wanted to be (I’m still not, but oh well)

I kept these models this time around, and my brother had given several old metal ones he had had from out childhood. Give it a few more years and the End Times for warhammer and here you would find us today.

With an actual art degree I find my painting skills at least adequate and I can at least somewhat afford the older models I crave.

As far as things I have built and really can't wait to revisit are the aforementioned dragon, and 2 deodorant tanks with a third sitting unfinished in the background. 

Not as charming as the original perhaps, nor do I know how I will work them into Necromunda scenery but I will figure something out.

Anywho Hope everyone out there is having a nice night

- Andrew Thurston

Something That Has Been Sitting Unfinished For Far Too Long

My first foray back into Warhammer Fantasy Battles (with my brother) was the Tears of Isha campaign from the 5th edition of the game. We adapted it to the best of our ability to the 8th edition and set out to play through it all, finally finishing this last year on Boxing Day.

The Particular miniature below was the High Elf General for the third mission of that campaign, which boiled down to a 300 spartan's style battle. The Dark Elves had a larger force and had to fight their way through a narrow pass. The longer the High Elves survived the onslaught, the better their position would be in the final battle. After the 3rd turn,  the High Elf player added more benefits,

The High Elf side with their commander, Imrallion, were near impossible to break and would fight to the last needing to be completely wiped out. 

My brother and I converted miniatures for each game to represent the special commanders we were given. Imrallion is the first one I am willing to show that has been completed. He has been sitting half painted for months now as I was unsure how I wanted to take it on, and when I did know, I had to buy more paint.

The base miniature I used was the Pathfinder Iconic Samurai from Reaper Miniatures as my brother happened to have the bones soft-plastic version. His banner and sword were replaced with ones from the Dark Eldar Raider kit from Games Workshop. After several odds and ends were added from a multitude of plastic High Elf miniatures.

The base he stands on is actually a piece of painted sea glass and some small stones, and will be finished another time when I get a hold of some static grass in a color that  I like. As the campaign is over now, he continues to see use as my primary Loremaster.

For my High Elves, I have been taking some Asian influences, specifically Japanese and Chinese, as I see my army being one that is stationed in the Fortress of Dawn, that on the Warhammer map is located near the continents of Cathay and Nippon. These areas were never explored that much by Games Workshop, but I think will lead to a really interesting and unique army.

To end today's entry, I started working on a piece of hand drawn scenery to match the old style of cut-out buildings we used to see offered from older editions of Warhammer. It will eventually be mounted on plastic card when finished.

The most Important Part of Warhammer! Banners!

Any one who has played Warhammer Fantasy Battles will know that the banners can be just as important as the troops, both visually as well as mechanically. Nothing like a banner with a 2+ ward save!(High Elf Banner of the World Dragon)

So currently I have a few banners in the works. The rat on the top is actually a dead Skaven from my brothers army, my cousin's Lizardmen had a certain rivalry going for a little while. These were made  on Bristol board with Micron inking pens and Prismacolor markers. The fully colored banner with the tree will be for my High Elf archers unit and is a more traditional banner. The one with the hydra head came from my first game back and the first game my brother and I played from the Tears of Isha Campaign. Within the first turn, my silver helms fought off, chased down and trampled to death my brothers hydra, and while I ultimately lost the battle, that encounter will live on in infamy for me.  It will eventually be the banner carried by my mounted Battle Standard Bearer.

My plan is to have almost all hand drawn banners with the exception of my spear men who have the plastic molded banner from the High Elf Prince kit that came out some years back. Now I would have had liked to have more to show today but I was at work late due to some unforeseen circumstances and didn't get a whole lot of creative time.

No Miniature, But some Art Instead

Unfortunately, I did not have much time to get any painting done today due to my work schedule. Hopefully, tomorrow will provide me more opportunity. I did, however, get some drawing done! Now with my work I knew there would be days that I couldn't get any painting done so I allowed for the filling in of those moments with drawing instead as long as it was hobby related. To that end, here's what I completed after I was off today:

This first drawing is for my brother's Warhammer Fantasy group. He is working on t-shirts and wanted a beer mug for the back side. As the group is called "The Son's of Bugman", I figured having a Dwarven helmet incorporated was appropriate.

This second image was much more involved and fun. It was my attempt to realize Leonardo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the Warhammer 40K universe. I actually have Raphael and Michelangelo sketched as well. I intended them to be ab-humans, but the old Rogue Trader styled beakie helmet was too good of an opportunity to pass up! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my little doodles.

A New Day, A New Dwarf!

So, we are back to our wonderful height-impaired friends, and I will say this guy took a lot longer than expected. I was starting to feel the rush of being so close to finishing, but I really had to work to slow myself down in order to make sure that  I did things right.
I did switch up the colors slightly on the tunic to see if I could make him a shade other than brown as the colors I had used to paint the Squat with the hammer blended a bit too much.

The plan is for this guy to be equipped as a sniper. The metal helmet he has on is from Uscarl Miniatures Space Dwarf range, his plastic body is Dwarf Thunderer's body from Games Workshop, and a lot of spare Kroot bits that I had lying around from a kit I had bought somewhere, sometime, for some reason I can no longer remember.

I am pretty happy with how he turned out and I feel like I am getting better at painting hair thanks to all these little bearded men. I've discovered through this challenge that I find that metal is a far more enjoyable material to paint on for me. The details feel much crisper and the overall weight of the metal miniature in hand is really nice.

Here is a group shot of my gang so far! Unfortunately, I have yet to receive the other minis I have ordered, and there are members that I still need to order. So, unless I happen to get my delivery tomorrow, I may be focusing on Elves for the time being.... those of which I have oh so many to paint.

Here's an older sketch from a few months back. It is meant to be the Albion Soothsayer from Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Very happy with how it came out when inked and it's a fitting transition into what I will likely have to present tomorrow.