Duelling Paintbrushes: The end.

October 23rd, the last day. Duelling Paintbrushes are laid down, the banjo music fades, and it's time to survey what has been done...

Well, most of it. I am staying with my parents while my sinuses recover from surgery, and I left the marauder unit and marauder horsemen unit behind. I also didn't bring sand or my camera, so bases are not finished, and I had to use my mother's camera. This is a strange experience - she has what is effectively my camera, but five years newer. It's superficially the same, but does almost everything differently and takes some getting used to. I cannot get decent photos out of it the way I can get them out of mine.

Sigh.

Anyway, I have now completed ten Nurgle marauders. These guys were converted from Flagalents back when the plastic ones first came out, and oyu cpuld (briefly) order them in a sensible box of twenty, rather than the traditional GW over priced box of ten. They are now painted. The other half of the regiment was half painted already, but I have not yet gone back to finish them off.

I have also painted my Jugger lord ay last, along with a Berserker champion from Reaper, who I intend to use as a hero in marauder units. Because he is very, very shouty.

I'll get better photos of everything involved in Duelling Paintbrushes when I get home next week.

Duelling Paintbrushes: The end is nigh.

Well, duelling paintbrushes is almost over, and all I've done since the last post is half finish five more nurgle marauders. There is a very good reason for this.

On Wednesday, I entered the hallowed portals of the Alfred Hospital to have surgery performed on my notoriously dodgey sinuses and nasal system in general. On thursday I sat in a hospital bed all day waiting for the bleeding to stop (it's very hard to stop nasal bleeding - you can't exactly bandage the inside of your nose). On friday I was discharged and got back to my parents' place. I had a shot at painting, but the cocktail of pain killers, antibiotics and the inability to breath through a nose still full of blood and splints made it hard. I couldn't paint for long periods - I kept feeling dizzy and having difficulty focusing.

Which is why I have NOT painted twice as much as Greg yet. But I do intend to have another shot today, and I hope to get some Khorne characters completed.

Duelling Paintbrushes: Day Seven.

Day Seven. The Khorne Marauders are completely complete, down to their bases. I've bought some chain, but not yet added it to the dog's collars or connected them up to the dog handler's hands.

They've also had their baptism of fire in a game against Greg yesterday. I took 2500 points of chaos, all of which was Nurgle apart from the marauders. I also took several illegal items because I've only played about five games of 8th edition, and just didn't realise. Greg took 2500 points of empire, and used the Kislevites as a detachment of halbardiers because he didn't have enough of them to use them as anything else.

The Marauders were the last of my units to be destroyed, and my Chaos lord has earned the new name 'Lord McWailsondetachment' for his continued efforts to singlehandedly remove every Kislevite model from the game (he didn't quite make it - three fled off the table without being killed!)

I also took a box of half finished chaos conversions, which Greg looked into, which resulted in him demanding I finish the Marauder horsemen I'd converted and started many moons ago. This is what they looked like this morning:

And this is them this evening, now finished (although I think I forgot the corpse's hair, and I must replace the missing back-banner).

I've also spent some time with the Jugger Lord. His jugger now sports spiffing collars, and will soon sport a spiffing, throne style saddle.

Duelling Paintbrushes: PFH Ishoo For: Khorne Marauders

Sometimes you just NEED a horde sized unit and you need it now. Painting a unit that size can be a very daunting task, but it needn't be! With a few speed painting techniques and a good run up, you can burn through regiments faster than you think! Is it quick you ask? Well, it's Day Four of Duelling Paintbrushes, and I am almost finished painting the whole 32 man unit. How hard you ask? Hippo level.

They won't win any prizes, but they will win battles, and they will win them fast. Well, they would if it was anyone but me using them. As it is, they'll be crushed ignominiously everytime I use them...

Duelling Paintbrushes: Day Three

Day three, and another rank of Khornrauders completed. I was bored of just painting rank and file, so I threw in a unit filler doggy this time round.

Duelling Paintbrushes: Day Two.

Day Two. 21:10. My eyes are going. I've been painting non-stop for about two hours. I've remembered why I never finished the unit when I first started painting them several months ago. Khorne are boring to paint. But there are another seven of them completed. Just two more batches, and one of those includes the unit fillers, which are much more interesting to paint.

I've taken photos for a PFH ishoo on these guys, but I honestly cannot be bothered posting it now. Maybe tommorow.

Duelling Paintbrushes: Day One

Day one. Despite my opponent's cheating (he failed calendar reading 101 and started yesterday) I remain confident. Mostly because all he managed to do in that day was undercoat and base his stuff. In my first day I have completed the first batch of Khornrauders, apart from basing which I always do at the end. So, seven down, twenty-five to go. Also I have started to convert up a Khorne lord on Juggernaut, using the Avatars Of War Netherhound (a sort of Chaos Cerberus). He'll do double duty as Arbaal the Undefeated, who is not very impressive, but will add colour to the mighty Gates of Kislev battle.

Here's the first batch of Khornrauders:

In keeping with the Nurgle part of my Chaos army, I'm using somewhat more 'muted' colours than the usual Chaos schemes. I'm also using an odd skin tone since these guys are half-beastman due to their fanatical worship of their blood-thirsty god.

And here's the Jugger Lord. There'll need to be a bit more work on him, especially the shield, and the saddle.

In the next thrilling instalment of Duelling Paintbrushes, I intend to provide a full Painting For Hippos write up of the Khornrauder technique. It's not quite as much fun as painting Nurgle, but it's fairly quick.

15mm Fortnight:TFH Ishoo Firty-Nin: Alien Monolith

It's sunday afternoon, 15mm Fortnight is almost over, but there's just time for one more project. This time we're going to look at some Alien Architecture. It can be quite a challenge making something of obviously non-human origin. One favourite way is to use as many round or curved shapes as possible, because you rarely see those in our buildings. Curves can be very hard to produce. You could use round packaging, dessert tubs, plastic plates etc, but you often run into problems with getting paint and glue to stick to the slick plastic these things are made from. There must be an easier way... possibly one involving hippos...

There you have it hippos fans! The final instalment of 15mm Fortnight. I think we've proved that painting, modelling and terrain building in 15mm scale are so easy a hippo could do them quite conclusively, don't you?

Don't forget to vote in the latest People's Choice Poll, and stay tuned for Duelling Paintbrushes, which starts tomorrow. After that, we'll be back to our normal haphazard programming...