Deathjack (Cryx)

This year I've been painting mostly Warhammer Fantasy stuff so the plan is to shift to something different from cute and vivid Chaos stuff. Washing-off container was full of models, but arm of Deathjack emerging from paint stripper was clear sign what strikes painting desk next.

This thing is painting and assembling nightmare. I know that not only pinning all those metal bits was one, fuc#ing pain in the ass, but also it's the third Deathjack I've been working on... Yup - apparently I am kinda sadomasochistic 🥴

I was pretty sure some pics of other Deathjacks were posted somewhere on early stage of blogging, but I must have been wrong. The only photos available now are the ones on CoolMiniOrNot: model from ~2007 and model from ~2010. Back days we used to play Warmachine a lot, but after the game fever worn off and true life kicked in, the game was dropped and I sold most of my Cryx collection. Some years later it turned out my buddy was getting rid of remains of Warmachine stuff and I was lucky enough to get some badly assembled and thick-coated models. It was actually the same guy who managed to assemble Cybertronic Eradicator Deathdroid's legs wrong way so as you can see - it was serious case 🤪 

As for and model - it's big, metal, heavy and pain in the ass to paint. As you can see compared to Warhammer Inquisitor (or whatever the hell this guy's job is) DJ is probably larger then dreadnought. As for Inquisitor - I got it during one of Chest of Colors miniature exchanges long time ago (thanks again TMZ!). Because the model has lots of hard to get spots, decision was made to paint the parts first and assemble them later - just like I did with Lich Lord Terminus. Should work...

The only thing to consider now is choosing colors. I don't think it's gonna be gaming model ever, so it doesn't have to stick to original Cryx aesthetics. I am thinking about bright armour plates (baige? bone? grey?) and dark metallics (brass? tinny tin?) with some glowing effect, but that's just the idea. I want to make the right decision, paint it and NEVER EVER PAINT THE 4TH ONE 😁

Moon Clan (Chaos beastmen) #4

Another bunch of beastmen got just finished so apparently Chaos Children warband project is nearly done. The gang is only dozen or so models, but must admit I've slowly started getting sick after painting Chaos only stuff. Looking forward for some change on painting desk. Olive green change...

The last trio are champion (beastlord), standard bearer and school bully - minotaur. I had lots of fun working on them: painting paper banner brings lots of memories. I still prefer paper banners over plastic or icons on stick. It's light so small model can carry pretty large standard without falling off. Bad Moon ain't new idea - 10 years ago I used it on the first zombie dragon project. Sure it should be greenskins' stuff but at the same time it's Warhammer Fantasy, and when it comes to worshipping evil forces - Chaos is not picky.

New models were painted using the same color palette as rest of the group so they all look nice marching together. They still need basing and display base but since it requires lots of pva glue - it also requires lots of time for drying and therefore it gets dedicated post. There's never enough Chaos spam after all... 😁

Minotaur sculpt got pretty aggressive, assaulting pose so for postcard purpose it got worthy opponent - Skaven rat ogre, trying to block falling axe with it's steam-powered, corrupted claw. And because poor rat-man is outnumbered it's assisted by mysterious Raze from Dark Age range. I know it's not Warhammer but who the hell knows what those twisted engineers from Clan Moulder have been working on recently: there might be rat-head under that mask as well... 

For some mysterious reason photos turned out to be kinda overburnt - no idea why: models for matt varnish as always, I used same set of lamps and tested background (pic of Moon Clan #2 were much better). My guess is the Horned Rat got pissed I dared to use rat ogre as sparring partner for minotaur. No matter what the reason is I might dig out light box trying to get as good photo conditions as possible. Ok, back to basing work to get this thing off the list:

Moon Clan (Chaos beastmen) #3

Before launching hobby-spam there's quick technical annuncement. As you can see I've slightlty changed layout of the blog. I think it's temporary (header seems bit too massive) but we'll see shortly. I've also dumped "best posts ever" widget. I was nice to have most popular posts around, but sadly most of them contain old pics f#cked by Photobucket back days, so they weren't much cool anymore because of that silly Photobucket logo attatched 🙄

Also a while back I found a bug is "spam of the year" section as well: 

the top post (the one with Plague Marine)  was launched in 2014 and yet it's still on the top last year's best chart. No idea why: there's no way to make any post sticky, tried to re-launch that gizmo - no effect. I can sure delete old post but the again - why should I surrender to some stupid bloggy bug? 🙄

If you have any idea how to fix that - shout, I'll be grateful for any help. 

As for the proper topic - another 3 villains joined beastmen gang, so the project is ~70% finished: there are 3 more fellas to be done + basing. I was deeply hoping to bring them for Oldhammer Weekend Poland 2025 painting contest, but sadly once again real life stepped in so the plan got dumped. Oh well - at least I don't have to rush with them anymore... The guys got bit more reddish flesh tone but apart from that I tried to keep the same color palette so whole team looks coherent marching together. Painting those oldie beastmen is ton of fun, but really cannot wait to cross them off the list to paint something from science fiction range (like Chaos Cultists band from 40K...):

And finally: goat boys vs squid boys split second before a brief but vigorous fight erupts!

Moon Clan (Chaos beastmen) #2

Chaos Children at the horizon!!! 🐐🐐🐐

Yeah, so summer holiday is finally over (thank Slaanesh, Cthulhu and Satan for that...) so I could deal with some job backlogs and grab a brush for a while to expand Moon Clan crew. Like before I chose 1 gor + 2 ungors to work on and once again painting them was total fun! These models ara fuc#ing amazing!!!

There's so much character packed into those tinies and each models can almost tell own story. Not even mentioning the faces - these little bastards look just so corrupted and evil from a distance and resemble Diablo creatures so much! The one with dwarf's head is surely a child eater! 😨

As for painting I stick to middlehammer era aesthetics: vivid colors and clean, bright paintwork. Hopefully. After years spent on painting everything dark and dirty clean painting it's a breath of fresh air over painting station. Bases aren't finished yet - they'll be done after whole wargand is painted to make all models coherent.

So here they are - goatmen and fallen ones deep in perilous ash wastes enviroment:

Here - on mellow fields of Border Princes:

And here group shot - inbred clan about to chew on some plague zombies:

Time to pick another trio and thing about proper banner...

Moon Clan (Chaos beastmen) #1

After dealing with Army of Slaanesh Warriors I started digging in ye bucket ov shame to find something old to reanimate and feed display case with it later. The initial plan was to paint something from Warhammer 40.000 - back days I started gathering some bits to build combat patrol size / RPG squad of Chaos renegades. I don't play WH40K but such warband would surely provide tons of conversion possibilities and therefore - tons of fun!

While browsing my resources I found that old display base which was made years ago. It was supposed to be part of Mordheim greenskins band. I even painted 2 or 3 goblins and snotlings suicide squad, but that was just it 🙄 

During excavation works it turned out there are some beastmen models from the very best period ever and I have just enough of them to fill the display base! Chaos Gods be praised!

Most of models have never been undercoated, rest had to to be stripped to get fresh paintjob, worthy Children of Chaos!

As for this line of models I saw them for the first time in WD#218: it was that White Dwarf where Tale of 4 Gamers started, where models for fresh Chaos army were presented. I fell in love in Chaos since the very first glance into new Chaos force - sadly Beastmen and Daemons were 100% metal so it was totally beyond my reach those days 😢 

These models are not only übercool (and until now are the best Beastmen GW released ever) but also they remind me those creatures from Diablo: fallen ones and goatmen 🤗 Speaking of which - ost from Diablo 1 is just brilliant background for painting these guys... 

So here they are - first part of the project: about to deal with Redemptionists gang in juicy green ash wastes:

Da boyz:

And whole Moon Clan. And at the same time by whole Beastmen line collection: