Wednesday, 24 June 2015

Painting Rust - Brogar Brainbeater

Hello Friends, in this post I would like to share a simple technique I used for painting rusty armour, this is the first time I have ever used it on a standard sized miniature but often used it on my Imperial Guard tanks back in the mid 1990's when we were playing Warhammer 40k 2nd edition.  I needed a short break from painting Chaos Beastmen so I when I went through my storage box of chaos miniatures and selected victim for this experiment, who but none other than 'Brogar Brainbeater' fitted the bill with his heavy armour and halberd, he started life as a F5 Marauder and was eventually discontinued and incorporated into the Chaos Thug range, I really like this heavily armoured miniature and wanted to give him the degenerated look of a knight who had turned to chaos.

So this is how I went about it.

What you need:
An old Brush 
Tub lid with rim to keep your crushed pastels on as they are really messy 
White Spirit (I used Winsor and Newton but any should be fine)
2 artist pastels Orange and Terracotta both crushed
A can of Army Painter Platemail primer spray (only £3 in my model shop) 
Vallejo Oily Steel acrylic paint




Method:

  1. Clean up miniature as usual.
  2. Spray with Army Painter Platemail primer.
  3. Constantly wetting the old brush with white spirit,  dip and mix with the Terracotta crushed pastel and paint liberally over miniature getting it in the recesses while leaving some raised areas in the original platemail colour, it is important to keep dipping your brush as the pastels soak up the white spirit in lightening speed and it will go dry.
  4. do the same again with the crushed Orange pastel working it on top of the Terracotta but leaving some Terracotta still visible.
  5. Any raised areas where you wanted to show the original metal but went over it with pastels revisit and carefully paint over with your metal colour in my case Vallejo Oily Steel.
  6. Paint in your details, horns, belts, etc
  7. Base as usual and Acrylic SPRAY varnish, do not brush varnish or you will be left with a reddy brown mess as the pastels go powdery when dry and will reactivate.
  8. You should now be finished, quick and easy.

Here the final miniature I hope you like the results I think it is quite effective.


Rusty Brogar Brainbeater - front

Rusty Brogar Brainbeater - back

I hope you enjoyed this post and let me know if you give this technique a go.

thanks
J


Sunday, 10 May 2015

From The Chaotic Abyss

Hi, my collection of the C38 Beastmen is drawing to close and a only have a few to track down and plenty of doubles to trade to help me acquire them, I absolutely love these first C series Chaos Beastman and although they are not the first ever Chaos Beastmen as there origins lie with the Runequest Broo which I also collect, they are for sure the very stuff of chaos with their wild mutations, individuality and hideousness I like to imagine they would route an opposing lawful army on sight. I think they reflect some of the more crazy art and the chaos attributes of the first Realm of Chaos book Slaves to Darkness, here are my latest painting efforts with the goal of hosting a true Beastman regiment along side my later Realm of Chaos Beastmen.

These miniatures are seriously old released about 1983/4 so they required lots of repairs, the cleaning up of oxidation, corrosion and lead rot now and then as well as 30 year old paint and milliput so if you do decide to collect these lovely miniatures I will advise you now that when you open those trade or ebay packages and are disheartened by their state, don't be and take inspiration from my end results :)
The new recruits Wolfman, Eagle Woman, Snake Demon, Ostrich Man and Camel Man on their way to join the true Beastman regiment.
First we have Ostrich Man, you are lucky to find him with his scythe intact another crazy zoological mutation.
Ostrich Man - front
Ostrich Man - back
Next we have Wolfman, this miniature is tiny and I had to get my 0/5 brush out for this one, he was covered in oxidation and it took about 15 miniatures of brushing with a hard toothbrush and a dip in the acetone to clean him up. I like him and imagine him a Beastman assassin.
Wolfman - front
Wolfman - back
Next we have Camel Man and not the first Camel Man I have painted see this post and it won't be the last as I have another different posed Camel Man a variant of Walrus Man to make three, the sword had completely corroded away and need replacing so in the spirit of the 1980's I repaired it with the sword from a spare sword arm of an Orc from famous Drastik Plastik Orcs (not to be confused with the later Fantasy Regiments Orcs).



I managed to get this image of Drastik Plastik Orcs from Google images, there is so little documented about this lovely early plastic kit.

Camel Man - front
Camel Man - side
Camel Man - other side
Next we have Eagle Woman, the giant belly she sports reminds of the missus when she was pregnant and I am sure she had an axe to grind too, glad that's over :D
Eagle Woman - front
Eagle Woman - back
And finally we have Snake Demon who is a variant of Crab Man (would also has variants of himself), I am not overly keen on these Demon sculpts due to there simplicity and depth of detail but I had it and it needed painting. Why a Demon wears a thong is beyond me :S
Snake Demon - front
Snake Demon - side
Snake Demon - other side
 What's currently on the workbench, I hear you ask?
Yes, more Chaos Beastmen
I hope you enjoyed your visit and now get following this blog.

thanks
J

Saturday, 11 April 2015

Chaos Beastmen Latest Work

Hello, sorry about lack of posts life is so busy at the moment and our hobby suffers but I have managed a little output here we have another C38 Beastman 'Fishman', C27 Beastman Half-man and the highly sought after Realm of Chaos Chaos Beastman with two heads, again all miniatures from the 1980's.

C38 Fishman, this miniature is covered in great detail, shell motifs on his leg plates, crab buckles on his feet, starfish on breastplate, fish scale cloak and a cool jellyfish on his shield, I wisj citadel had gone onto make a whole race of these Fishmen.  This is the first of three variants I have of this miniature, the others are Fishman with Slug man's head and Seahorse man, all posed the same and standing on the shell. For the newbies who do not recognise him he is one of the early preslotta beastmen, see more on the pre-slotta beastman miniatures over at the Collecting Citadel miniatures wiki.


C27 Half-man, a unique miniature that I have never seen painted up on the internet before so this may be a first, this is essentially two miniatures in one as you can see on the back he has another head with one of his arms and both legs facing backwards. It was a joy to paint.



And finally we have the two headed realm of Chaos Beastman, I have seen this miniature exchange hands for stupid money, nice and highly sought after but if you bide your time you can pick him up cheap, 1988 release and I think sculpted by Jes Goodwin but correct me if I am wrong. This guy really should have been a chaos thug as he really doesn't sit right with all the other RoC era beastmen.

Two Heads - front
Two Heads - back
**Update** It was recently brought to my attention that an infamous eBay BIN seller has been using my beastmen photos (and others aka Orlygg's) as painted examples of the miniatures he is selling, well I don't know if I should feel violated or honoured but in return I shall borrow the write from his auction to tell you his research on the miniature, it's a bit wordy and his 'theory' but here it is in full.

"From 1988 and the Realm of Chaos, this is, bar none, the rarest of all the Chaos Beastmen of the era.

Being something of an oddity, this Beastman is often thought of as better placed among the Chaos Thugs, for it is so unlike the other Beastmen. It is not bovid, that is to say, like a goat as most Beastmen are, nor is it bovine, like the minotaurs. If anything this horrible abomination is more corrupt man than Beastman, though it is certainly bestial and twisted by the powers of Chaos, with its distinct and Ettin like two heads which are noticeably different from one other; they have different faces and hairstyles and head shapes. Are they in fact two being fused together? It seems they may be, as there is a prominent scar running down the chest of this mutant, though this may just be coincidental, or misleading chest hair.

The two heads have many similarities: They have pointed ears, sharp fangs and the upturned snout of a bat. They both look somewhat vampiric even or ghoulish, they certainly look animalistic and blood mad and the rough loin cloth held up by rope doesn't make them look any more civilised. Ironically, this most unusual, man like of Beastmen ends up looking even more savage than the goat headed mutants that are normally associated with the name. As if the two heads weren't enough, the ruinous powers have seen fit to gift this creature with a snake instead of an arm also, which is sure to be very useful in the Chaos Wastes, just not for picking things up."

I have loads of projects on the go, several C38 Beastmen near completion and mounted Kaleb Daark coming soon so stay tuned.

thanks

Sunday, 8 February 2015

C27 And C38 Chaos Beastmen Painting Continues

Hi, today we have more C27 BeastmenC38 Beastmen and  CH4 Chaos Beastmen fantastic old school miniatures from the 1980's, see more on the pre-slotta miniatures over at the Collecting Citadel miniatures wiki. I am really enjoying painting these miniatures with the goal of having a 'true' beastman regiment their variety and concepts are wonderful, some silly but I am hooked and have amassed quite a backlog of these miniatures to paint so keep your eye on this blog for more to come.

C27 Carrion Man, CH4 Lash, C27 Skarrim
C27(?) Sheep/Lamb Man, C38 Beastman, C38 Slug Man

First we have C27 Carrion Man a truly hideous miniature, a variation of an old Runequest Broo miniature, he will be going in  the front rank and I would like to thanks Jason Gill for this trade directly through the blog, a true trader, fair and honest.  While painting this miniature I noticed he is sporting ancient Spanish Celt-Iberian headgear, I know this as I have painted 100's of ancients over the years.  Those Rhea feet look mean too, +1 attack?


Carrion man - front
Carrion Man - back

Next we have 'Skarrim' another C27 Beastman from the Third Citadel compedium, this one is brutally armed with two meat-cleavers, dogged faced drooling for blood definitely a follower of Khorne, Beastman berzerker anyone?  I think this may be another Kevin Adams sculpt.

Skarrim - front
Skarrim - back
Next we have C38 Beastmen Slug man another revolting creature who seems to have his previous head of a man in his chest. There is another slug man in this range.


Slug Man - front
Slug Man - side
Slug Man - side
Now we have a later CH4 Chaos Beastman 'Lash', it's nice to see a bow armed Beastman, I have several of these to mix into my regiment.

Lash - front
Lash - back

Back to C38 Beastmen we have 'Beastman', a very old miniature, I am not sure what sort of beast he was supposed to be mixed with, you decide.  He has a Warhammer tucked in his belt and a very nice shield with a demon head as the boss and screaming faces around the rim. i have seen another variant of this miniature with a different head, which seems to be the case for a lot of this range.

Beastman - front
Beastman - side showing off his shield

Now we have my mystery Beastman, I said on the Oldhammer FB group that I think it is Kevin Adams sculpt as the armour markings are identical to this C27 Boarman's, it also small chaos star on his armour, here is my painted version, I pondered on what animal he could be mixed with and settled on a Sheep. I have not found him in any early catalogue of the age but he did appear later here.


Sheepman or Lambman?
Sheepman - other side

Orlygg's took a photo of some of Chaos Thugs in Bryan Ansell's Miniature Collection and amongst them were lots of miniatures not from the Chaos range one example was the Wood Elf Champion with axe and Orc head, I love this miniature and it never occurred to me that he would make an excellent Chaos Thug so I got him out of storage and painted him for my Thug regiment. Pale skin and pink hair a perfect thug of Slaanesh.

Wood Elf Chaos Thug

Remember If you have any old beastmen doubles contact me and we may be able to trade, a couple of peeps have already. :)


If you enjoyed this post, get following this blog :)

thanks
J

Friday, 6 February 2015

Identity Parade Post 1


Hi Folks,
Fun post today while I am still basing some classic citadel for my next big Chaos Beastman post, I was inspired by the many posts I see on the Facebook wargames trading type groups, you know the sort "can you identify these miniatures for me, oh and tell me their value, oh and now I know what they are worth do you fancy giving me Ebay 'buy it now' prices for them" :D  Anyway joking aside they are not for sale or trade.  My painting time is severely restricted now due to our new baby in the house and I tend to only paint things that warm my heart like classic citadel miniatures from my teenage years.  I started collecting miniatures when I was eleven years old after becoming bored with plastic Airfix, Matchbox, etc and seeing all the exciting D&D stuff that was coming out at the time and over the years I have acquired, traded, inherited and sold a lot of miniatures but I always tend to hang on to interesting miniatures hoping to strip and paint one day, thirty two years on and I was looking through some stored boxes of sci-fi miniatures for some Confrontation miniatures and I thought I wonder who made and sculpted this one and so on and so on.  So if you fancy identifying any of these miniatures be my guest, it's for fun and credits will go photos later to those who do and if it generates some interest another post will follow. I do remember some of the manufacturers but some have got me stumped.  I am sure all these will be heading for the Dettol one day.

A very old miniature, true 25mm
Robots

Thanks to Mark Elster on the FB Oldhammer group for identifying the Droids as Denizen miniatures.


Perfect proxies for Piscean Warriors
Thanks to Jonas at deathworldadventures blog for identifying these as Saurian troops from Folio Works High Command sculpted by Bob Olley.

Terminator type robots
Jonas again identifying these nightmarish robots from Legions of Steel boardgame.

Hoodlums
Thanks to KayDubstep4 for identifying these as Bobby Jackson Miniatures Thugs

I saved this guy to use as a Commissar
Jonas identifies another Folio Works High Command miniature.


An inhabitant of the wastes
Thanks to Jonas and Colin Murray for identifying this one as an ex-Grenadier minature now EM4 Miniatures Savages sculpted by Mark Copplestone.

I saved these to use as Judge Dredd Perps one day
True 25mm ship crew
Plenty of clues in this photo
Colin  and KayDubstep4 identified the old Citadel Confrontation Hunter gang miniatures but the jury is out on who sculpted them at the moment.

a bit of a mix here
Jonas and KayDubstep4  identified the 2nd mininature and 4th miniature as from as  EM4 Miniatures Future Skirmish range and the pink lady is from Spacelords.

and here
And more EM4 Miniatures Future Skirmish range in here I think not sure which ones though, number 2 is another Bobby Jackson Miniatures ThugKayDubstep4 comes in again with the evil Clown as Mirliton cyberpunk miniatures.


I hope you enjoy
J

P.S. If you have a blog you want linking on my blog roll message me on my email :)