Showing posts with label Warmachine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Warmachine. Show all posts

Thursday, 3 October 2013

Finished Butcher and some inspiring awesome

By The Megapope   Posted at  23:43   Warmachine 1 comment
Hi there! So I totally finished the Butcher. I'm fairly happy with the streaked, drying blood effect on his axe as well as the splatter on his armour. 

Here are some pics! 








Also today I saw an absolutely amazing airbrushed model of the same character by a guy on Reddit. You should check out this imgur album of his work. I SO need to get an airbrush.


Tuesday, 1 October 2013

New blog design! Khador painting! Madness reigns!

By The Megapope   Posted at  18:22   Warmachine No comments
Welcome to the shiny new Ministry of Miniatures. You've probably noticed that the blog's undergone a bit of a revamp. I was getting really, really sick of the stock-standard Blogger templates and found them very limited and a bit dated, even with a bunch of changes applied. So I ended up looking at 3rd party designs and settled on this one, originally made by MyThemeShop for Wordpress and converted for Blogger by BloggerTheme9.

There was some fiddling around to get everything the way I wanted, which was an entertaining experience with no CSS experience whatsoever. But I got there! Hurrah!

(Also I finally got around to getting a custom domain name, smurfsinspace will now be redirecting to ministryofminiatures. You don't have to change your bookmarks.)

During the meanwhilst! 

Khador is still happening! Namely the Butcher, with his impressively large axe and penchant for running screaming into large groups of hapless victims. Here's some progress photos:

So shiny! So green! 
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GO-wait. Wrong game.

As always my trusty wet palette made the blending a lot easier. I used Vallejo model colours for the green, mixing together gradiants between the light and dark green. To help the paint blend together I'd also dip the brush into the water immediately after painting and carefully feather each tone step into each other. 

Blatant product placement. This blog is selling out, man.

That's all for now! 

Monday, 23 September 2013

Suddenly, a wild Behemoth appears!

By The Megapope   Posted at  00:37   Warmachine 1 comment

So I decided that the half finished Khador Behemoth that had been lurking sullenly around my In Tray finally deserved to be finished. It was hard work! Damn thing weighs a ton and I really wanted it to look good as the model makes a great centrepiece for a Khador army (at least one without a battle wagon or a colossal). 

I'm pretty pleased with the end result, I feel like the extra effort really paid off. Glowy effects around the vents don't look too bad for a first attempt and the battle damage on the warjack's paintjob looks decent I think. Anyhoo, here's some pics.





Wednesday, 24 April 2013

Crossing the Beams

By The Megapope   Posted at  17:35   Warmachine 4 comments
Just when you all thought I'd completely reverted to smurfs BAM suddenly it's raining green soviet steam powered robots.

Needing a break from painting up my Sternguard, I decided to ink up my Khador Behemoth, which then prompted some more work after the ink was dry.

I really love the look of a warjack covered in a dirty ink wash.


 Here it is after I'd started working the green base layer back up.

DURING THE MEANWHILE here is the second Sternguard Ultramarine, pretty much finished except for the base.



And that's today's work in progress!

Tuesday, 17 July 2012

Machine A Trois

By The Megapope   Posted at  22:05   Warmachine 7 comments
So there I was, all ready to venture out to the gaming club that I attend once in a blue moon (this would have been my second visit ever in fact) when suddenly a wild cancelation appears! What are three geeks to do on a Monday night?

BATTLE ROYALE AT MEGAPOPE'S COTTAGE.

This time we didn't have Vomkrieg to gang up on so we fell to bickering amongst ourselves like the hyenas we are. Amidst the hair pulling and feeble slapping it was decided that we'd go with a King of the Hill match, to best facilitate clustering up together in a giant mess of wreckage and fire. So I took a bunch of photos and have put together a halfway decent battle report.

Possibly just thirdway decent.

So before I introduce the armies, I'd like you to feast your eyes on our lavishly appointed gaming table. See that retardedly shaped, vaguely fortress looking bit of packaging over on the upper right corner? If you're thinking 'I bet they were silly enough to make that the objective and try and balance a bunch of models on top of it'... you'd be right!



Anyway, enough about my foolish ideas and the foolish people who go along with them... here are the armies.

The Millinator, as previously mentioned, is a glacially slow Menoth painter who clearly has a hard-on for wracks, fire and hugely annoying magical prayer effects.

For his 25 pt list he took High Exemplar Kreoss, a Crusader, Repenter, Vanquisher, 4 Choir dudes, 5 Exemplar Cinerators, a Vassal of Menoth and a desire to scream 'repent!' a lot while bashing people round the head.

Five Foot Pole's played the most games out at the club with his hardened merc dwarfs and had some idea of what he was doing. I blame the hugely silly objective 'hill' entirely on him, because he should have known better. Even though it was my idea and I giggled like an idiot while trying to balance Khador all over it.

His force consisted of Gorten, a Driller, two Gunners, Brun Cragback and Lug, 10 forgeguard and Thor.


Oh hai! Once upon a time I played Cygnar. That was ages ago and I lost interest on account of being pretty shit with them. Turns out that lunking around a bunch of heavily armoured fantasy-Russians is much more my thang. Who knew? My force consisted of of Sorscha, Juggernaut, Destroyer, 5 Manowar's, 4 Widowmakers and a cute little doggy.
And with the tedious intros out of the way, here's a bunch more pics as the battle unfolded, with my commentary! 

Also check out Five Foot Pole's awesome bear! Isn't it awesome? Sadly he died a horrible burny death at the hands of the Millinator before he got a chance to do some quality rampaging. 


Round 1 shows the main issue of the game straight away... poor Five Foot Pole drew the short deployment straw and ended up right between me and the Millinator, with the two of us within firing range right off the bat. This was clearly the biggest mistake we made and should have rethought out how we set the game up. Ending up having to fight the pair of us off, Pole was a very good sport about it all. 


After exchanging some shots between Pole's Gunner and my Destroyer, we all made our way towards the objective ruins. Pole's shitty starting position had his forgeguard running right past my Widowmakers, who basically annihilated them within two turns using their sniper ability. Meanwhile, Millinator eyed up the merc bear and decided he'd have none of that thanks very much, and the smell of burning fur soon filled the air...


Turn three saw the Menoth Repenter parked up on the ruins! Points to Millinator! I think both me and Pole arsed around a bit this turn instead of gunning to the objective as fast as poss. Or maybe we're both just slow, I forget. By this stage all but one of the forgeguard were left alive and my Destroyer had taken a beating but was still (surprisingly) fully functional. 


Second to last turn! Oh the mayhem. Sorscha feats. A turn too early... maybe. My Juggernaut charged up and exploded Millinator's Repenter. Man O War's come up behind to reinforce. Naturally this is answered by a bunch of Cinerators. Cue comedy gold as we try to balance that many troops on the top of the stupidest hill objective in history. We eventually ended up using putty to stick them on there. Good times! Meanwhile, Pole's Driller goes head to head with the Vanquisher. Some other stuff happens!


Here's a close up pic of all our crap balanced on top of the objective! 


Aaaaaand in the last turn, both Millinator and Pole used their feats. We'd agreed to wrap up on this turn since it was getting late so I ended up getting knocked down by Menoth and shifted across the board by  the mercs. Sorscha slides right over within easy reach of Gorten, who shoots her full of holes and then casts a spell to finish her off. 

That was pretty much me out of the fight. We'd agreed upon three points as the winning number, and while I managed to stop Millinator from getting that, he did carry the day on two points. I feel that Pole just got gipped by an awful starting place and would have done a lot better if we'd set the table up properly. 

And that was our game! Various lessons learned, a good time was had by all. 


Tuesday, 10 July 2012

Quickie Update

By The Megapope   Posted at  22:00   Warmachine 1 comment
On the weekend we played a game! It was my second game in recent times (not counting my extensive losing spree with Cygnar many moons ago) and so naturally the thing to do was leap head first into a three-on-one hundred points a side slug fest over at Vomkrieg's place.

He'll likely be posting a proper report and some photos soon, but in the meantime here's a random battle pic I found online! Just like being there!

The battle looked just like this only not really at all! 
I teamed 34 points of Khador with The Millinator's Menoth and Five Foot Pole's dwarven mercs. I mainly took what I could put together/felt like trying out, and ended up with...

The Butcher
Behemoth (becasuse why wouldn't I take it)
Kodiak
War Dog
Grey Lords
Widowmakers
Widowmaker marksman
Manowar Shocktroops
Man hunter
...AND A CUDDLY TOY! (audience applauses)*

Aaaaaand yeah, we got our arses kicked because between us we've played a dozen games and most of those have been played by Five Foot Pole but I still had a blast. I bogged down Vomkrieg with my heavily armoured dudes and didn't forget too many things. Also I've ordered the Khador card deck because I realised just before the game that I'd have to reference the book for half my army which was a massive pain in the ass. Joys of buying second hand!

In modelling/painting news I haven't done a whole lot this week, but I have put together my first wreck marker. So here's that.

RIP fugly MK1 dude
I'm gonna have some fun with these, make them nice and scorched and chipped and generally mangled looking. Aaaaaand that's it for now. Next up I plan to get the Destroyer finished to complete the 25 point group, then move on to maybe the Behemoth. Whooo!


*Generation Game? Bruce Forsythe? Anyone?


Saturday, 30 June 2012

The Strippening

By The Megapope   Posted at  21:16   Warmachine No comments

Well folks, I got there in the end. Took me roughly five hours spread over four days and two litres of Simple Green™ but all of my Khador models have been thoroughly cleansed of their old paint jobs.


Naturally I must post about it for future internet achaeologists to puzzle over. Who was this strange beardy man? Why was he holding a toothbrush like that?

So if you haven't done a mass stripping of models before, this might well be informative. Or at least mildly entertaining.


STEP ONE, THINGS YOU WILL NEED.

Black aprons are so in this season
An appropriately dashing cleansing uniform! I found an apron to be pretty useful as stuff flicked everywhere during the frenzied scrubbing. Rubber gloves are also your friend here, as Simple Green™ will otherwise leave your unprotected meat digits looking and feeling like mummified prunes. Also an old toothbrush, for the actual scrubbing. PRO TIP: don't use it again afterwards.

How can she not be excited?? It's just so piney fresh!!
Here is my beautiful assistant posing with the Simple Green™ that I got from the local home depot store. 

A red bucket would have gone faster, but we use what we have.
You will also need a well ventilated bathroom or workspace, a bucket, a secondary container (not shown) for working in if you're going through a lot of models at once, and the ability to sit by yourself scrubbing little metal robots like a crazy person for extended periods of time.


STEP TWO: GIVE IT A BIT OF A SOAK, JIMMY.

It's a metaphor for human existence. 
All of the models! Into the bucket! Easy! 


This isn't a metaphor. It's just a bucket.
 Dump two litres of piney fresh Simple Green™ on top! Give it a bit of a stir!


Kinda like the Manawatu River. OH NEW ZEALAND IN-JOKE TIME.
THE NEXT DAY. Oh look it's gone dark and dubious looking! That's how you know the magic's happened.


STEP THREE: GETTING JIGGY WITH IT. (nah nah nah nah nah-nah-nah nah)

Mmmm sludgetastic 
It dissolves fake snow! It dissolves super glue! The models came apart as I cleaned them! This was okay, as I planned to repose a bunch of stuff. But I did have to be careful not to lose any tiny fiddly bits in the increasing amounts of sludgey muck accumulating in the bottom of the tub.


"Rubber duckie, you're the one..."
Here is an exciting action shot of some models in the tub. I kept most in the bucket soaking, but tipped a bit of Simple Green™ into the secondary tub to facilitate the scrubbing process. I really can't stress enough at this point, wear gloves. 


"Dude. Where the fuck are my limbs?"
This is what was left of the Behemoth after a vigourous scrub. The rest of it was sitting in the tub, it just came apart pins and all. Simple Green™, DON'T MESS WITH IT FOLKS. 


STEP FOUR: WALLOW IN YOUR NEW MINIS

The bitter aftermath of the piney fresh destruction
Make sure you clean all your bits with soapy water to get rid of any Simple Green™ residue! I hear it can mess up your undercoat and painting otherwise. SAFETY FIRST KIDS. 

As you can see, there are still some bits of red paint in the nooks and crannies of some of the models, that would frankly have taken more hours to get rid of than I was willing to put in. My tactic is to scrape off a bit more with a knife during assembly stage (it comes off pretty easily) and then if there's any tiny bits still showing in recesses after undercoating, just use some watered down black paint to mask them off.

Get your jack pieces here! We got big ones! And, uh... more big ones!
Important after doing a huge batch! Go through all your parts and make sure you haven't lost anything. I used a colander to pan through all the sludge and crap like a gold miner before throwing the Simple Green away, and I found quite a few tiny metal spikey bits and other little parts that had fallen off. Amazingly (for me) I managed not to lose a single piece during the cleaning, pretty much because I was anal retentively thorough. 


He likes long walks in the park and throwing shit into other shit
Aaaaaand here's the Kodiak ready to go. Pinned, cleaned, glued and undercoated.


He just likes killing people. What a bastard.
 Aaaaaaand here's a blurry photo of the Butcher, likewise all ready to be painted. VICTORY FOR THE MOTHERLAND.


Sunday, 10 June 2012

Dissatisfaction

By The Megapope   Posted at  20:23   Warmachine No comments


Today I pushed ahead with my Man O' War minis aaaaaaand well I made a bit of a pig's ear, a dog's breakfast if you like, possibly a llama's afternoon tea of the red shoulderguards.

Like.... they look okay. From a distance when they're on the table they'd probably look reasonable, they're certainly bright.

Close up though they're pretty streaky. Being a bit of a noob when it comes to red (Ultramarines don't really tend to use much of it) I ploughed on in with just a few thicker layers, instead of using lots of thin ones, as this astute gentleman so aptly demonstrates. Also I'm second guessing my decision to highlight up to orange instead of a deeper red.

So THIS is what it's like having two hands.


How do I pee in this thing?

When I saw how they were coming out I used a red wash to help smooth out the finish and aid the blending a bit. It kinda worked, but not really enough for my liking.

One of the good things about the two stage epoxy glue I'm using is that while strong it snaps off without much fuss, so taking the red parts off and stripping them/starting over won't be too much of an issue. 

So yeah. I'll decide whether to start over on the red bits. If I do, I'll also get some better colours, probably try out some of the new GW range. 

Saturday, 9 June 2012

Dark Borders

By The Megapope   Posted at  17:50   Warmachine No comments
Slow week for painting so far, but I plan on hopefully finishing some more things off tomorrow. But! Excluding transfers the Juggernaut is now all based and finished up. I added another two thin line highlights along some parts of it which I think helps match it closer to the Manowar officer.

"ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAI...oh you are? Well, good then."
TALKING OF WHICH the Manowar squad has had some more paint applied oh holy crap this is off the hoooooook. Sorry. And I undercoated their shields and shoulder pads today too! Which isn't really blog worthy but since that's all I did you're getting pics of it anyway.

That's some gooooooood shapeless black masses. Ohhh yeeeeeeah.
Them? Nah they're 'armless guv.  I am SO sorry.
You might have noticed that these photo thumbnails are looking extra sexy, and you'd be right! I've started using a vignette when I prep them in Photoshop, and it's pretty easy to do. A vignette creates a darkened, gradient edged border around the centre of the pic, adding contrast and drawing the eye into the middle of the image. 

There's a million different ways to do most things in Photoshop. This tutorial is pretty close to how I make vignettes though. If you use PS to prep your photos for the web, I highly recommend trying it to sauce up your pics a bit. 

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Who is this beardy weirdo?

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Hatching from his egg high in the glacier crowned majesty of the Himalayas, the Megapope quickly devoured his other siblings and later on his parents, for being damned cheeky. He ran a bloody campaign of terror across the wind swept steppes of the north, coming to be known as 'That Horrid Bastard' by the terrified tribes of the region. Many years later he came second in a beauty contest, won $10, didn't pass Go and didn't collect $200.

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