Here Be Goblins

After a bout of Norovirus or something close I did the final few touchups and details on my latest batch of monopose Goblin spearmen straight outta the Warhammer 4th Edition boxset…

After a bout of Norovirus I did the final few touchups and details on my latest batch of monopose Goblin spearmen straight outta the Warhammer 4th Edition boxset. I had previously painted the command complete with the army standard bearer as I truly have been working on this army since 4th Edition. The one goblin with a shield was example for other people to help me basecoat. The second batch has purple booties which does look better but after the front row can you see their boots?

No what you see in these big blocks of infantry is heads and weapons so going forward that is where I will put my effort. I will also have to find the shields. I know I counted out out 63 and put them in a pill bottle. I also know I used some other small round Warhammer shields likely Dark Elves and Skaven maybe even some Dwarven ones. I better not have lost that pill bottle, I’m feeling all paranoid now, but it must be in with my models and paints but I don’t recall seeing it when I went through the boxes at my mom’s house or here when I sorted out things so I could paint, but I wasn’t looking for it.

In the olden days you could have goblins without shields but now I think you get either a shield and a spear or a shield and a hand weapon or a bow plus a knife. I do have some later multi-pose plastic goblins as I was going to do a unit without bows or spears but you get so burnt out painting these models. I just watch two GW instructional videos, they didn’t have those back in 4th Edition, and the painting standard to be “Battle Ready” has gone way down, one coat and a wash or the new Contrast method which is one thick coat. It does seem to work for some colours and models, but it doesn’t look as good.

I’ve long maintained I don’t want to paint better, I want to paint more efficiently. That said I also think skirmish scale games are more realistic for the average tabletop gamer and then you can personalize your models as they are really seen from all sides. In these big blocks of infantry only the front models really are noticed, maybe the second rank, I think when I did the archers I gradually painted less highlights on the models as they got deeper into the unit. I also magnetized the one unit I based which is even more work. I just don’t care enough about playing Warhammer to paint 50+ more goblins plus do all the bases and whatever else I’m missing to play. There is a “Legends” list now so my Doom Divers have a use but I think I need a second catapult, plus some crew for my war machines. I think that is one of the purposes of the box of plastic goblins I bought.

What’s Next?

Realistically I’m not sure. Christmas is coming and although I plan to paint Sundays and Tuesdays and to use the hashtag #MiniatureMonday I am flying to my mother’s house on the 21st. My plan was to paint some Nurglings and whatever else is partially painted when I finally gave up and put my life in storage. The plan beyond that is a couple more goblins likely squig hoppers and whatever the armoured squig hoppers are called plus maybe some regularly squigs. I think my proposed gang had one of each so that is three models.

I also want to do more Nurglings, some using the new contrast paints so I will probably buy some more of those plus the magical basecoat “wraithbone”. In fact an army with 30 Nurgling stands was a long held dream. Bill thinks I’m crazy and anyway I only need 27 under the latest rules. There are 9 stands in my display case, one more that I painted at GW Highgate and then I think there must be six stands on square bases and two more stands still on spures, that’s right most of my Nurglings are metal. The really old ones are glued to a rhino. I wish I had more of those and my Snotlings from that era disappeared none of my old gaming group seems to have volunteered having them, it is a mystery.

I never even wanted to play Warcry I just agreed to do it because I have so many goblins they must be good for something. The game I wanted to play was Killteam so I could use my Nurgle Renegades err Death Guard and CSM. I have almost all the old options painted. My second choice was Necromunda and now miracle of miracles Bill and one more person are apparently “in”. I will play Escher because that is what I played in the olden days. My gang was converted, primed and a tiny bit of black, purple, and green had been applied. That is right the color scheme for my Escher gang is the same as my goblins and every army, even my Skaven Bloodbowl team is purple and green.

I won’t even try to match the purple and green from those days. I’ll probably just go with whatever is in my paint rack today and still flows. I’ll have to test my wet palette soon. Overall, I have my paints pretty well ordered. I still haven’t tested reds or oranges or blues or all the metallics but most of the colours I need for my purple, green, and black models is functioning. My Charcoal Black Triad needs thinning at least the highlight does but honestly the other secret is Badab Black or some other wash. I don’t have GW’s latest black wash but I have their older ones.

That is one good thing about Nurgle colours don’t have to match perfectly in fact I try to paint all my Plaguebearers differently. Now that I’ve got 40+ painted Plaguebearers I have moved on to Nurglings. Eventually I hope to do some of the new models, but the next models I buy will either be bits for my Necromunda Gang once I read the rules and do an inventory of all the bits I have or I will buy more Nurglings and try to do them mostly with contrast paints.reinforcements

That virus did a number on my abdomen. I think I’m about out of energy for the day. I never said I would blog every week. If I can get in a couple hours of painting a week that is good enough. I still have a lot to do behind the scenes on this blog like clean up the sidebar but if you have thoughts on painting goblins or purple or black or green you can leave them below.

Painted Goblins

It has been a long time since I painted any miniatures. Over five years to tell the truth. In that time I’ve moved several times, including living abroad and teaching English again. Now I’ve finally passed all three CFA® exams and am living in Calgary again…

It has been a long time since I painted any miniatures. Over five years to tell the truth. In that time I’ve moved several times, including living abroad and teaching English again. Now I’ve finally passed all three CFA® exams and am living in Calgary again.

My paints and models have been in storage even longer than five years. Many of my paints have dried out but some I bought back in the 90s still work and I painted some vintage plastic goblins from the Warhammer 4th Edition boxset to prove I still can.

No they are not my best work. Yes I spent too much time on them for rank and file spearmen for an army I don’t even have the current rules for. No I don’t have any plans to play Warhammer. Yes I have 59 more identically posed models that need at least some touch ups. No I didn’t do the bases. Yes I plan to base them to match the archers. No I don’t have all my basing and terrain making materials in Calgary. Yes they’ll get shields eventually.Almost Finished Goblin Spearman

The next thing I’ll probably paint is more of these exact same goblins, not because I’m under any delusions I’ll have the unit of 66 done anytime soon, but because they are already primed and base coated badly. I also want to get a bit more efficient. One of my all-time favourite green pots, Bilious Green has died. This will affect all my green Diseased Sons. It will also affect my green skin painting technique but I apparently already bought a replacement from another range. My Citadel browns fared even worse, the twist off bolter shell pots are the worst GW ever made. I still have more paint than I need to paint average rank and file models, most people probably would have been happy with the speed paint job, but I want at least the first couple ranks to be highlighted.

After more goblins I’ll probably get to painting other models that were put away partly painted all those years ago. My “ta-do” list includes a number of models that were converted and primed years ago. I’m not even sure all of them are still armed legally. Flamers and Heavy Flamers seem to no longer be in the Nurgle I mean Death Guard Codex.

Yes I have the latest book. I bought it Shanghai. I’ve also bought Kill Team and Warcry because I think skirmish games are more realistic from a painting and apartment dweller point of view. I haven’t played 40K in years. I have put a lot of work into my army and my decision years ago to paint my models various colours has made it even more work to update the army. At the least I may update the green squads without Bilious Green kneepads. I also may do a purple Plague Marine squad but I’m not sure I need the brown or grey squads any time soon. I think doing a new squad from scratch may be less work.My miniatures in an Ikea display case

My envisioned army will have Nurglings both because the rules may have gotten better and because it was an old idea I never finished. I also think Nurglings are the perfect models to re-learn to paint on. I like the fact Nurgle got unique Fast Attack so some of those models will be bought and painted. After that my next priority will be the new HQ and Elite models. Terminators may not be the greatest but I have a lot of them already painted and they are at least hard to kill, so a squad or two maybe even my Landraider will feature in my army list if I ever play again.

My undivided and other Chaos Space Marines may get some love. I plan to focus on Nurgle but my army may not always be Battle Forged as I want Nurglings. I also may even paint yet more Plaguebearers but I’m less enthused about them in 40K as I think guns are good. I think I need to paint one more Khorne Bezerker but may paint a couple so I have some options for that squad. Some Khorne Terminators could be bought and converted as the one I have is also lonely. I will also paint some vehicles, a dreadnought neigh Hellbrute for sure and probably yet another Forgeworld model I acquired years ago.

If I get through all that maybe I’ll work on 40K Orks or even my WWI dream army or any number of other models I’ve acquired over the years. I may even sell or trade away a bunch of models as the likelihood of me painting say 40-50 more space marines, even Chaos Space Marines is low. I can see me doing my Necromunda gang finally maybe even some other Necro figs as I have plenty. I will use some as Chaos cultists but painting hordes is not that appealing except of Nurglings. Ultimately I’d like to paint a centrepiece model if not a Titan then at least a Superheavy tank or a flyer.

Before I do all that I had to get everything out of storage, glue a lot of models back together and I upgraded my Ikea display case. After that I ordered a painting tray as my current apartment although not small does not have a dedicated painting desk or table. I don’t even have a kitchen table I can commandeer. What I do have is an old Ikea desk which I am using for my laptop and then I put that away and get out my Miniature Scenery painting station.Miniature Scenery Painting Workstation
Bill already said I should have recorded a video of building it. I also built a third one of their shelves which I’d bought years ago. I think I have even more of their stuff and you can get some of it from another website and not have to pay shipping from Australia. I bought most of it through Darren’s store if my memory serves correct. I asked Sentry Box if they had any painting stations and they did not nor did they seem to want to help me order one in so I bought it online.

The other store I have bought at least one model at because it was their anniversary is the GW in Chinook Centre. I’ve liked both on Facebook. I will probably share this post on Facebook and I already put an image of a goblin on Instagram. I still prefer Flickr and Twitter but I’ll be selective about tweeting hobby stuff but all my finished models will be photographed with my “bigger” camera and uploaded to this album.

I am not crazy over the latest version of WordPress. I had to change the theme of this blog to support the latest internet standards and I have switched to a fatter image header. This blog does not do well in search engines and never has. Many people have given up on blogging, they vlog or podcast or just share their work in private Facebook groups or on Instagram where you need to paste a paragraph of hashtags after every post.

My plan is to actually go through every post on this blog just like I did on my main blog. I plan to reduce the number of categories as experts say each post should be in a single category and that you should have 5-8 categories in total. You can of course also use tags but those too need to be optimized for search engines and 3 per post is considered plenty. So I will try to follow this expert advice not because I want to be popular but because I think Quality is important. I also may edit out any posts that are too personal. I actually updated all the hand-coded HTML that makes up the website for my Nurgle army, but I haven’t edited and optimized every webpage I own yet so this one is next.

Maybe no one will notice but if I use enough hashtags and share it on social media I’m sure someone will read all the way to the bottom and leave a comment.

More tools of the trade

Today I haven’t painted a single brush stroke. I’ve been so unproductive and lazy I forced myself at around 4:30pm to bike down to Grand Prix hobbies to buy some styrene. I’ve been hanging out more on the Waaagh and I want to get my Looted Wagons armed correctly and fully painted for this edition of Warhammer 40,000.  I also plan to do at least two Battlewagons which will be converted and kitbashed but first I need a new job.

I actually have a job interview Tuesday afternoon. However I have my doubts about the position and the job offer. The company is a startup and although I’m totally willing to work for a startup, I don’t know what they actually do or how they plan to make money, besides the ever trendy “social media“. Seems to me that the social media field is a lot more crowded than it was three or better still four or five years ago. I know as I’ve been blogging for a long time. Anyway we’ll see what the CEO has to say.

Styrene tubes and more
Styrene tubes and more

I ended up buying more than a few tubes of styrene.  I forgot how much styrene and Woodland Scenics stuff they carry. I think they get some model train people, scale modelers, and maybe even a few architects or students at least. Imperial Hobbies has a lot of stuff too, but I always think that is farther to go.  Grand Prix is a decent bike ride, but you can still bike there and back in under an hour I imagine. I usually stop somewhere else on the way back…

I couldn’t pass up the battlefield styrene. I’ll probably cut one of them up. The tubes will also serve as pipes and what not, but some may get turned into gun barrels. I wanna order some more paint and of course Forgeworld goodies, but first I have to paint some Diseased Sons, then assemble and paint some more Chaos Space Marines, then two Forgeworld models… Then maybe I won’t feel guilty buying some small Forgeworld stuff.

Plus I’m going to get back to making terrain tiles every couple of weeks. I have to assemble another paint rack. All these plans don’t leave a lot of time for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. If I want to play that game, the Daemons are ready to go, but they always lose, so I’ll have to finish off another goblin unit. I plan to paint some Slaneesh daemons gradually, possibly over a grey basecoat which I’ll continue to experiment with. Painting even a dozen Slaneesh daemons seems easier and funner than 25 Ork Boyz or even 66 goblin shields…

New Painting Queue
New Painting Queue

Waaagh Musk 40K, requires lots of touch ups, and re-armings. Last night I did further revisions to the army list, I added and removed some vehicle upgrades, and I think one of my dreads will get a weapon swap, and I might as well give the Blood Axe nob a powerfist too…  It might sound like a lot but there isn’t very many Orks in Waaagh Musk at 1500 points. I do have to do up five large vehicles, which I usually hate to do, but Ork vehicles can be made a lot funner and less work through heavy drybrushing and crazy weathering techniques.

Stay tuned, I might paint something late at night. Last night while I couldn’t sleep I tried out the Vallejo paint on gloss varnish, it worked great on the Bloodletter’s horns. If not tomorrow I will begin work on the last Purple Plaguemarines/Nurgle renegades I will ever paint, I mean it this time.

Glowing Green Paint Effect

So I’d always planned on doing the Bloodletter’s sword green and the armour of the sorcerer green, so I once again cooked up a one of kind or in this case a two of a kind colour that looks like it glows. The key to the glowing effect is to go very bright/light with the highlights and start very dark with the lowlights. Washes and glazes are also essential to my technique. I’m not sure I can make it work with any colour but it works with green and blue, I generally use it on power weapons or magic weapons. Purple can work too, but you have to highlight up to pink and that scares some people.

Bloodletter with Green Hellblade
Bloodletter with Green Hellblade

To get the effect seen here I had a black base coat. I then painted Orkhide Shade over it, the new GW Foundation darkest green. Then I really needed an inbetween shade, but I didn’t have one so I mixed Orkhide Shade and Vallejo Game Colour Sick Green. Then I think I did a pure Sick Green highlight, I can’t remember exactly it was yesterday. To keep the colour dark and scary I mixed up a wash of about 5 parts water, 2 parts old GW Green Wash, and 1 part Black Ink. Basically a much darker green wash, but still thinned so it would flow into the recesses.

After that dried I got out Sick Green again and starting working up the highlights. I didn’t really have a good inbetween shade, so I mixed in an old GW Jade Green. With the mixed colour and then pure Jade Green painted on as a highlight I then did a second wash. This time a thinned down Waaagh Green Ink which is an extremely old GW/Citadel product. When that was dry I started highlighting Jade Green again, but I also wanted to darken a few spots so I used the new GW Green Wash just in a few spots.

Sorcerer with green armour
Sorcerer with green armour

Then more Jade Green and the first green glaze. GW used to make them, they were under appreciated by their clientele I wish I had them all, but I only have a few, they have red lids. Vallejo makes some glazes, I saw them at Imperial Hobbies today.  After some Jade Green and green glaze I wanted to go more extreme so I got out this bottle of Green Grey Vallejo Model Colour #971. I mixed this with the Jade Green on my P3 Wet Palette. I then painted this pale highlight on. Then another green glaze then an even paler extreme highlight was done and it was off to my bedroom to take the photos.

As I mentioned I went to Imperial Hobbies today and bought some more paint and a couple of brushes. The brushes were disappointing but they were cheap. Tomorrow I will go and buy some Deserres brushes that I’ve gotten used to, they hold their point pretty good and come in all sorts of sizes. I also bought some very bright or light colours which I’ll use on the Tzeentch and Slaneesh models I seem to be doing up, but mainly they are for the future. The Mr. Color Steel and the Flat Green will get used sooner, as might the Sky Grey.

The Gale Force 9 flock I bought the day before to use on the Goblins and other bases going forward. I’m trying to use a variety of material, instead of just sand all the time.

More Hobby Supplies
More Hobby Supplies

Change of Plans

So I biked to Strategies today, to try and get a little exercise and get out of the house. I talked to Darren the owner about some things I’d noticed in the big red book, corrected him on a few points. Told him how my 1500 point Ork and Goblin list has only two orks in it. Then he mentioned the fantasy campaign starts this Sunday.

I knew it was the to start on the 25th. I knew in order to play I’d be better off taking the daemons as they are way more points per models than the goblins, but I’d still planned to work on my second test bezerker and a test lesser demon. That had to change, I’m not the fastest painter, but even three plaguebearers takes me time. I suppose I could just drybrush and wash the heck out of them. That is what a lot of so-called Nurgle painters do. They call it a messy or even a realistic style. As if there is a realistic way to paint fictitious monsters.

I plan to paint one kinda bright sickly green. I don’t really have any painted that way and I’ll do it for the champ so he’ll stand out a bit. The other two will be brown-y or flesh-y. I’ve seen some people paint Nurgle models or zombies like this so I thought I’d give it a try. Also on the paint table is the one stand of Nurglings, I don’t need this for the 1500 point army list but I do for the 2000 point one. It is much less of a priority. One of the Nurglings will probably be painted pale-blue grey like the Servant of Decay skin was. The others will probably test out various foundation colours a little more, including my newest acquisition, Tau Sept Ochre.

I also need to make a movement tray for my 40 strong horde of Plaguebearers and I need to rebase my Beasts of Nurgle on 40mm square or 60mm square, whatever “monster” bases are. I don’t actually have any, I’m just going to use balsa wood, then cover it with sand, skulls, and of course cat liter.

It is finally starting to cool down here in Vancouver, so I think I’ll publish this, make something to eat, then get cracking.

Primed black Nurgle demons on painting table