It's Raining Khador! Hallelujah!

ZOMG PEOPLE MY PACKAGE ARRIVED. Heh, I said 'package'.

So thanks to a friend in the sleepy hamlet of Palmerston North, I scored a fairly large amount of pre loved Khador minis for the low, low price of a low, low price.

Here then are some sexy photos of my haul and some whitterings on what I have planned for the new minis, if by sexy photos you mean hurriedly shot and slightly blurry in places.


It probably goes without saying, but I will be stripping and repainting all of these models to fit in with my 5th Border Army theme. A few of the minis also need to be repinned and glued back together; there's a couple of bad breaks here and there where the glue will need to be filed away and cleaned up but all in all it shouldn't be that much work. Maybe some reposing on a couple of figures too.

Onwards to the haul!

Whyyyyyy? Why do you not looooove uuuuussssss?

Let's get these poor doomed bastards out of the way first, because frankly they're not going to survive the editing stage. I'm not a fan of the first edition Khador heavy jack sculpt. Plus I already have a Destroyer and Juggernaut anyway and plan to get the generic heavy set soon with all the options and magnetise it up. So I'd like to introduce you all to my three brand new wreck markers. 

Ooh, ooh! Pick me! 

However! What I am keeping is two devastators, a kodiak, a behemoth, and a beserker plus the scrapjack. Definitely a very solid line up right there. 

TEAM FANTASY COMMUNISTS, ASSEMBLE 

Next up we have the warcasters. I got the Butcher, Karchev, the Witch, Vlad and a different sculpt of Sorscha. Definitely a bunch of new tricks and play styles to try out there, lots of reading to do. I love the Butcher model. He's gonna look sexy as hell in the green and red scheme. Karchev seems to be missing his back flappy thing, but I'm fairly sure I can get another from the online parts ordering service.

But wait! There's more!

We reave! Doomishly! 

Not much of a Winterguard Deathstar... more of a Winterguard escape pod 

A squad of Widowmakers! Four Doomreavers! Four Winterguard! Three Kossite woodsmen! A Greylord Ternion! A Manhunter! 

Bit of a pickn'mix, which was fun because some of the models came extra. Obviously I'll need to get more Doomreavers, Winterguard and Kossites before they're any use, but having two squads of Widowmakers sounds pretty delicious plus the Greylords and Manhunter will be seeing action. 

Last but not least we have two honourable mentions...

"The blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of Khadoooooor!"

It took me ages to work out what this dude is. He's a character model from the Iron Kingdom range, conveniently a Khador rifleman. I say conveniently because he'll make a fantastic substitute model for the Widowmaker marksman. Turns out he gets used for that quite a bit, after reading the forums. 

Huge gloves. If you know what I mean.

This guy is my personal favourite. He's supposed to be holding a crossbow, but for some reason he ended up with comedically huge hands and carrying a scythe. I sure as hell won't be fixing him, I think he looks great. 

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Dissatisfaction

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. 

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Dark Borders

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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Day Of Paintenenening

Bright was the day and cold the morning when your hero Megapope strode across the Plains of Sorrow and braved the heights of Mount Anguish... no wait it was actually closer to Johnsonville.

The lads and I decided to make the most of the extra day off work by applying some paint to various warmachine models. Naturally I took a camera along so I could document how the minis progressed and also take some pics of daft friends pulling silly faces.

The first thing this trip taught me was that I seriously need to invest in a decent carry case for all my crap. Vomkrieg has a nice fold out silver trunk thing, small enough to sit on a table, big enough to carry his substantial paint collection, brushes, tools, small House Elf servant, etc.

Also not seen: inflatable painting giraffe

I brought along this lot, plus a lamp and other useful things. Enough to be annoying and to take a while setting up, when I could have just operated out of a nice fold out casey thing. BUT NO I WAS A MUG.

So who were the intrepid painting team you ask? GEEK SQUAD ASSEMBLE.

The Millinator paints super slowly but that's okay. He's collecting Menoth!

A man of wealth and taste. 

Smitey. Took him approximately 6 years to paint.

Aaaaahahahaha it says 'SMEG PACKAGE' in the background.

The Five Foot Pole appropriately enough plays hard bitten Dwarven mercenaries. He and Vomkrieg spent much of the afternoon playing a game while Millinator and I lurked inside where it was safe, painting.

"TELL US WHERE YOU HAVE THE PLANS HIDDEN AND THIS WILL GO EASY FOR YOU"

Look at the size of that drill. Look at it! 

FFP's Dwarven Hoard™ in battle!

Vomkrieg has a blog, like a real grownup! Sadly, he has many enemies due to his years as a secret government agent and so opted for anonymity. He plays Cygnar! 

I think his photo is pretty seamlessly done and you can totally tell I'm a designer.

Pew pew! Dakkadakkadakka. Pew!

It may look like a discoball on legs but it packs a mean zap

As for myself, I managed to get my Manowars base coated and inked up. Here's some progress piccies, as well as a couple pics of how Sorscha is coming along. Nobody took a silly pic of me on the day, so here's an amusing photo of me at the Warmachine gaming club.

It ain't easy being greeeeeeeen

Now with sexy gold and red and boltgun metal

STAGE 3: THE INKENING

Highlighty goodness

The face needs some work...

And that was my long weekend of painting. Yaaaaay. One Juggernaut down, six Manowar and a warcaster on the way to completion and some other things waiting in the wings. Next up: playing some more games and getting my ass handed to me a lot. Whoooo!

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Olive Green! Red! So Hot Right Now!

I love this pose so much.

So far this long weekend (good on you Queenie) has been pretty good in terms of getting stuff painted and I haven't even had my Day of Geek with the boys yet. Which you can bet will be photo documented and blogged. 

Anyhoo, here's some stuff! Shot with the digital camera which is back to operational condition. 

Feeling lucky? Punk?

First up is our saucy sergeant of the fabulous Manowar squad! These photos don't really do justice to how bright and *cough* cartoony he looks with the green highlights. Bit of a fail as a graphic designer there, I totally didn't take into account how the same highlight scheme I used on the warjack would look waaaaaay brighter when compacted down onto a much smaller model. 

Having said that, I kinda like it, but I'm still deciding whether to tone it down or not. 

He's a sensitive soul, though he seems thick skinned. And it hurt, that his friends never stood downwiiiiiiind...

The Juggernaut is sealed up and I'm basically just doing the finishing up stuff now; basing and decals. The decals will have to wait until I've printed out the custom Khador transfer sheet and as you can see, I'm halfway through the basing process. 

Pretty happy with how Juggers has turned out. In the second pic you can see the paint damage I added in, just your standard black stipple with a sponge then paint in some silver jobby. I also added some ink to make it look a bit more battered. It's okay, but I think I can do better next time in terms of battle damage. 

"Whyyyyy? Why do you neglect meeeeeee?"

And finally my poor long suffering Destroyer, who's been the test dummy for the weathering sponge as well as the dirt dry brushing around the feet. Don't worry pal, I'll be showing you some proper love soon.

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