merzbau's Kabal of the Flayed Skull project log

Oh wow, ok. So. I'm back at my parents' house, digging through my old room, and here's what I've found:

LOADS of Warrior spruces I didn't throw away- lots of unused heads and extra spikes. I might sprinkle a few in the modern kits for flair if I don't come to my senses and realize that's a terrible idea first.

A badly painted black and gold (see first post) Raider. Ho hum.

A SECOND, unpainted classic Raider. Yass.

All the missing parts for Wyches, the Archon, etc. including the Incubi's backpacks, which I totally forgot they had and will now have to be painted separately and glued on after the fact, so I guess that's sub-assembly practice, of a sort. Same with the Wyches' fancy/ ridiculous shoulder pieces.

A pair of metal Warriors with whatever the non-Shredder weapon available at the time was. Gonna say it's a blaster and put them both in the Trueborn squad.

My high school friend's unpainted Eldar- a metal heavy weapon platform, a Warlock, a Farseer, a box of plastic/metal hybrid Guardians, and a few Striking Scorpions . I'm going to paint these up and send them to him as a surprise, I think.

A box of old plastic WH:FB Chaos Warriors, with metal command bits. I think I'm going to try the pink Slaanesh scheme GW put out in their advent calendar.

An old (ollld) metal Lord of Change, back before they didn't even have that name and we're just Greater Daemons of Tzeentch. He's so tiny and adorable!

Various individual metal (and metal with plastic arms & weapons) Chaos Space Marines.

So. Many. Second edition Space Marines, Orks and Gretchin- some of the Marines have been painted in an unbelievably basic Black Templar scheme (white pauldrons, red eyes, silver weapons, boom, done) with terrible freehand icons.

I've got a lot of practice stuff to work on, basically, including a bunch of blank practice dummies to figure out which Space Marine Legion schemes I actually like for Betrayal at Calth.

SPHESS MEHREEENS!

I recommend turning them into CHAOZ SPHESS MEHREENS

I've got plenty of those to paint as well, and a few MEHTAL BAWKSES while I'm at it. These are the ancient single-pose static Marines from the 2E box, so they're just going to be dummies for quickly testing out paint schemes.

merzbau wrote:

I've got plenty of those to paint as well, and a few MEHTAL BAWKSES while I'm at it. These are the ancient single-pose static Marines from the 2E box, so they're just going to be dummies for quickly testing out paint schemes.

ZE FEWLS! THEY RIDE IN MEHTAL BAWKSES!

WE...WE SHALL RIDE IN TISSUE BAWKSES

ZE FEWLS! ZE COWARDS! THEY RIDE IN CARDBOARD BAWKSES!

OK, so the move is underway, and in the final tally, here's what I've got lined up on the hobby table for the next...jesus, rest of my life, apparently. This is the last post of this kind to this thread, by the way; I'm going to start up a dinky little painting blog sometime soon to document the rest of it and restrict myself to stabby stabby murder elves here.

There's two more Warriors to paint in the current squad, plus two that I'm transferring over from the second squad and replacing with metal Warriors with Shredders. This is before they settled on what the Shredder actually looked like (the old line is full of quote unquote "fun" inconsistencies like that) and it bears no resemblance to the two-pronged design that came later in the same range and sort of persists to this day, so I'm counting them as blasters and painting them accordingly. I'm also going to be adding armor blades, holstered pistols and other details to the Trueborn squad before priming now that I've found the leftover sprues. And finally, a treat at the end with a single plastic Kabalite Warrior from the current range.

Metal Haemonculus.

Metal Archon, complete with giant stabbyhand, and his retinue of three Incubi, one with a Shredder unless I can figure out some way to kitbash a suitable polearm/klaive-type weapon into his hands.

Seven (IIRC, can't check right now) metal Wyches, including a Hekatrix (called a Succubus back when the model came out), one with a Shredder (WHY DID I THINK THESE WOULD BE USEFUL), and the trio of gladiatorial weapons, plus a lone plastic Wych to put what I learn into practice. They'll all be Red Grief, to complement the Flayed Skull color scheme and their obsession with aerial warfare.

Four metal Mandrakes, from back when they weren't spooooky ghooooosts and were just bondage gimps with big knives.

A classic Raider and crew.

Four snapfit Eldar Guardians to be test painted as Sky Raiders Corsairs.

The remaining rehab projects:
Three third edition Space Marines from a Blood Angels squad I put on hold during a fairly intense and time-consuming relationship (WORTH IT). I might paint them up in the 30k World Eaters scheme instead of completing the squad since I'm a little sick of painting red at the moment.

Ten second edition Space Marines- monopose, dull, lifeless, and absolutely going to be World Eaters test models.

Three Tyranid Warriors and a Ripper Swarm- some of the last models I picked up before I quit the hobby for good (it is to lol), and as a result pretty much the only ones I'm not deeply embarrassed by. Still some unsightly moldlines, though they'll come off easily, the Ripper swarm is positioned awkwardly symmetrically on its base, and I managed to pose the rending claws and heavy weapon on one Warrior in a way that I couldn't fit on the...what are they called, the cool barbed hook things that shoot out of their chests, but overall quite nice. Hive Fleet Leviathan for these guys.

Twelve Chaos Warriors- the same absolutely cannot be said for these poor sons of bitches. I must have gotten these when I was about 13 and reliable hobby information was much harder to come by. *deep breath* The mold lines are awful, and there are even some sprue attachment points left on; they're all stuck together with superglue and have nasty CA frosting in some unfortunate areas; the champion's head came off in transit (metal glued to plastic) and I'm stuck picking away at the dried-up nub of superglue in his neckhole to try and fix it; until I glued a nickel under his base he was so destabilized by his metal axe that he teetered dangerously every time I so much as looked at him; five of them (not counting the musician and standard bearer) don't have shields, possibly because I posed their arms in such a way that they were difficult or impossible to attach; and finally, they're just kind of awful models. They're squat and hunchbacked and while it was a relief to hear that nearly everyone finds them impossible to rank up it's only a small consolation. There was a neat knife with a serpent-eye pommel on the sprue that I'll be swiping for my Black Legion, though. I'm going to give up on the standard top that comes with it, partly because it would clip into the model's helmet but mostly because it's literally coated with superglue and a thin patch of skin (complete with thumbprint), replace it with a Tzeentch standard from the Chaos Space Marines kit, and paint them in the Brethren of Moeraix scheme from GW's recent PAINT YOU SOME TZEENTCH guide, the one that builds up from Incubi Darkness to a bright blue edge highlight.

Tiny metal Greater Daemon of Tzeentch- this guy! BEHOLD YE THE DEATH CHICKEN AND KNOW DESPAIR. The magical daemon turkey is going with his mortal buddies as the core of a teeny-tiny Age of Sigmar force; I'm going to try and see if I can convince anyone in my local board game community to try some small, casual, drinking-friendly skirmish games, between the short, freely available rules and Kieron Gillen's invaluable Hipsterhammer blog providing advice for modeling on the cheap.

The worst Land Speeder in the world- another notoriously difficult kit for new players, and god, does it show. There's a fairly wide gap all around the top and bottom halves, which just flat-out refused to join in any sensible manner. And while I left the gunner and his weapon off, I glued the pilot in, much as an idiot would, so between reaching around him to the intricate cockpit details and the extensive green stuff work necessary to make the speeder look only mostly terrible it's going to be an intensive- yet unrewarding!- project. Probably going to be another World Eaters test model. Maybe I can pass off its glaring deficiencies as realistic meltagun damage- if I cover it with weathering powders and say it with an absolutely straight face, I think can get away with it!

A classic metal Chaos Dreadnought. If I'm no longer sick of painting things red, I might make this a Word Bearer and use it as a stand-in for the Contemptor when actually playing Betrayal at Calth.

Miscellaneous metal Chaos Space Marines- one with a missile launcher, one (painted, Alpha Legion, badly) with a flamer, one with a Blasted Standard of Tzeentch, one sergeant with a power fist, one Terminator with reaper autocannon half-painted as a Night Lord until I gave up upon realizing that doing so from a white undercoat was a stupid, stupid idea. Thinking I might do this lot as Word Bearers as well, if I can strip the paint properly and fill them out with enough to make them playing pieces for Betrayal at Calth.

My friend's Eldar- ten monopose Guardians, a heavy weapons platform (the early 90s model, with crew members in chainmail), a Warlock to lead them, a Farseer, and a squad of five Striking Scorpions with Exarch. He doesn't want them, so...Alaitoc, maybe? Mix up the colors a bit.

Scenery bits! Just two small ruins from the third edition box and all the sculpted plastic walls from a plastic/cardboard Imperial Firebase kit. The cardboard couldn't be broken down sufficiently to pack, so sadly it had to go; I think I'm going to use the walls as part of a set of DIY Zone Mortalis scenery.

Then, finally, after I've painted ALL THE THINGS, it's time to get cracking on the good stuff. Right now I have the core of four (!) small armies in my closet, accumulated over years of me being too much of a coward to paint anything. I'm going to bounce between them from unit to unit to keep myself going.

Dark Eldar- Kabal of the Flayed Skull (10 Warriors, Raider, Archon, 5 Scourges, 5 Reavers) and undecided Coven (Haemonculus, 5 Wracks, Venom). I know that isn't a playable list on its own, but I feel OK enough about the old models that I'm willing to field them for a bit to give myself a head start while I refamiliarize myself with the game.

Chaos Space Marines- Black Legion. A hell of a lot of these guys; they were my first impulsive hobby purchase at a terrible job 6 or 7 years ago, and I've taken advantage of a couple of heavily discounted box sets since, including a hobby shop that split the Dark Vengeance release. Three tactical squads, a couple of Rhinos, a Vindicator, a Defiler, a Land Raider (seriously, those old huge battle forces were unbelievably well priced compared to today's), a Lord and Sorcerer both in Terminator armor, ten Terminators, ten Raptors, ten Noise Marines (plastic-metal hybrids, dreading even touching them), a Forgefiend, 25 Cultists (a snapfit box and the twenty from splitting DV), the DV characters (a Lord in power armor, five Chosen plus a Champion, an Aspiring Champion with an axe), and the snapfit Helbrute. Maybe by the time I'm done they'll have a decent codex. Hell, maybe CSM and DE will both have an update by then...

Daemons. A box of Daemonettes, a box of Pink Horrors, a Burning Chariot of Tzeentch (and Herald of Tzeentch on foot), a box of Flamers.

30k! A Betrayal at Calth box; if the paint scheme doesn't prove impossible to pull off, these will all be World Eaters. Thirty Marines, five Cataphractii Terminators, a Contemptor Dreadnought, a Praetor in Cataphractii armor and a Chaplain. This will have to wait until I've got the cash to make my first ever Forge World order for resin bits. Spending serious cash on molded shoulderpads, Mk II helmets and chainaxes is something a responsible person would do, right?

...right?

Oh, and: Skaven. I have a single plastic Warpfire Thrower that's all I could salvage from bitz sites before Age of Sigmar shot Island of Blood's demand through the roof. I do love the little ratmans so, and the fuzzier army organization in Age of Sigmar had me thinking about the Tzeentch/Clan Skryre alliance I always wanted to field when I was a kid.

So yeah, there we have it. Writing this out has at least accomplished one thing by at least temporarily convincing me that I don't need to buy another model for the rest of my natural life.

General painting blog is live:
https://littleplasticmans.wordpress.com/

Complete squad and non-terrible photos shortly after the new year.

That's the most beautiful blog name ever.

I ATEN'T DEAD



This is unfinished, just the basecoats and shading. I haven't done the glaze and final highlight on the gun barrel, either, and the eye sockets will be entirely blue later, so please ignore the shading there- it's just a light hit with Agrax for contrast so I can be a little more accurate when it comes time to do the glow effect. This and the other remaining model should be done tomorrow.

Ye're alive!

Gotta say that i'm not a fan of these tiny images. how do you post them? (do you use the Insert Image function in the text editor?)

In regards to the model, not too shabby! A few points of C&C if you like:
-I'd be adding a line highlight along the top of the blue bit of his gun
-I'd also be freehanding some "blade lines" so to speak, on the helmet spikes (think: razorwing jetfight wings, Raider rear fin, etc.)
I'm personally not a fan of making armour plates and fabric the same colour - but that's a personal preference for me (craftworld eldar do it with *literally* every model)

I'm liking the contract between helmet and body armour.
Mucho fantasico

Weird; clicking the inline image should give you a new tab with the full-sized pic. Just in case:
https://littleplasticmans.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/stabby-stabby-murder-space-elf/

And thanks for the feedback! I'll take a shot from a side angle when she's done, but there's not really a great spot for line highlighting on the gun. I've painted the top edge of the ridged part with a very light (Ulthuan) grey; the next steps are going to be to glaze the whole thing down with Guilliman, paint as thin a line as possible of the base color (Temple Guard Blue) down the side of the barrel, and a final unglazed highlight of Ulthuan Grey around the very tip.

Agreed about the blood lines, since they're such a huge part of the Flayed Skull aesthetic. I'm terrible at freehanding, so I'm going to do a lot of practice on the palette and keep it simple on this first model, like a simplified version of the frontmost model in this shot.

And while I definitely get where you're coming from on the last point, it's unfortunately difficult with these models. They tend not to have many clearly defined armor plates, especially on the lower body, so consistently painting bits that read as "cloth" in the darker bodysuit color makes it seem like they're wearing trousers

I'm liking the contrast myself, too; it's so much easier on the eyes after all those red helmets. I'm following the loose design guidelines in Raiders of Commoragh and reserving the white helmets for Sybarites, Trueborn and specialist Kabal-affiliated mercenaries like Scourges, with the Dracon in my upcoming Trueborn squad getting a fancy gold hat as befits her status.

I know I keep promising better photos, but with god as my witness, I will get my photography setup...set up within the next week or so. I mean, I'd better, I've got classes starting up soon...

No, the picture works if you click it, but it's very small on the page (i'm lazy and like to look at pictures on the same page )

It all sounds fine from here!

I agree re the older models. Personally, I'd never use them- I'm not a fan of the old aesthetic at all. The old archon (one with the power claw looking thing) is one of my least favourite GW models ever. but they're probably the best things to cut your teeth on as far as painting your new scheme goes!

Ah, OK. I'll try to insert larger inline images with future updates- I think I'm just using the default embed code generated by the post editor.

Not only are they great practice, they're a wonderful nudge away from "mneh mneh I don't want to ruin my nice expensive models" to "OH MY GOD I AM SICK OF THESE I NEED TO PAINT SOMETHING WITH DETAILS ON IT"

lol that's the greatest thing I've read all day XD

Im the otherway around, atleast when I paint rank´n´file. Why must there be so much details on every figure.

Here it's kind of the worst of both worlds- not enough to be visually interesting, but fiddly enough to be a chore, especially when it's models that were put together, god, something like 16 years ago. I'm doing all of my future models in sub-assemblies and excited to try that out.

I made a run to Blick today and picked up two important things: a wet palette (finally; I did some highlight work on the Sybarite above and was disappointed by consistency problems as usual) and some masking fluid. The latter will be for subassembly work- most importantly on all-plastic models, so I can use plastic glue instead of superglue, but I'll be using it on the remaining metal, resin and hybrid models (like my World Eaters, a mix of Betrayal at Calth plastics and Forge World parts) to get a stronger bond directly on the relevant surfaces instead of gluing paint.

Hey everybody. No real progress to report, though the weather is just about to the point where I can spray again. I used the treasure trove of bitz still on sprues to make the still-unpainted Trueborn squad stand out, alternating between symmetrical blades on the shoulders and an asymmetrical opposite shoulder/forearm layout, and gave as many models as I could fit a backup weapon, either one of the holstered pistols or the hilariously overlarge knives, presumably bought from the same machete emporium that supplies Space Marines with, massive scare quotes, "combat knives."

The slightly more interesting news is that I was able to get both Raiders shipped up with only minor, repairable damage, and the old black/red/gold one is so terrible and boring that I've decided to risk stripping the paint with Simple Green to have a go at repainting it alongside the other one. That, and the Eldar my friend has decided he doesn't want any more, will be painted ASAP to make a small, poorly optimized but nonetheless playable force to get me back on the table and up to speed on the 7th edition ruleset relatively quickly.

For the Eldar allies, I've decided to go with Luganath (orange armor, black helmets with yellow facemasks, or in my case since the models are old enough not to have inset facemasks, all-yellow helmets). They fit fluffwise, since they live in the Webway and ally with corsairs, and visually, since they're a bright contrast to the Flayed Skull colors.

The only real hobby stuff I've been able to get done is planning how to build and expand a 30k army from the Betrayal at Calth set, and cranking out my first rather unimpressive test Marine. I've switched to Alpha Legion- OR MAYBE I WAS ALPHA LEGION ALL ALONG?- because the more World Eaters fluff I read, the less into it I got, not to mention the tactical dickery and frankly better models Alpha Legion get.

And Deathwatch: Overkill has me salivating, because Genestealer Cults are one of my all-time 40k favorites, but I'm forcing myself to hold off until I have all of the old Dark/Craftworld Eldar and at least two other projects done first, because that way madness lies.