Lich Lord (not Lichemaster though) - review and walkthrough, part 1

I just love liches,
the dead ones, not those disguisting bloodsucking worms.

These rotten bastards are the essence of dark side of fantasy, perfect as background of most RPG adventures and challenging opponents in the battlefield. In my vision that is.
I remember player could choose Lich as Undead general in Warhammer 4th/5th edition but those times each and every gamer preferred badass Vampire Lord. Who wouldn't?
Anyway years passed, since old and careless Warhammer days I painted lots of minis (2 Heinrich Kemmlers among them) and recently I thought it would be cool to see oldschool style evil force in the display case: shambling zombies, bat swarms, undead constructs and of course liches leading them. 

All in dark, wet and dirty colors - nothing like that ridiculous Tomb Kings of Khemri.

My first lich-thought was mr Kemmler of course. It's just friggin' ubercool model, I painted 2 and really wouldn't mind painting another (drop me a PM or comment if you have spare one). There's also damn cool lich from Otherworld miniatures but for the centerpiece I needed something bigger. Something like Gamezone's Harvester.

About month or so the order was placed and last Monday postman delivered something nice to my office. It's pretty large model so I decided to write multipart review + simple painting walkthrough. Finishing the piece might take some time.

To the model came in nice looking, cardboard box with comfy sponge inside - safe and sound. The box looks really nice so it's good idea for a x-mas gift. Or just any other gift.

The model is built of several metal parts - the sculpt is packed with details so painting it will probably cause some pain in the ass. But on the other hand spending some extra brush-time should provide really decent final result. It's the big boss after all!
There is only small placcy base for the pony but since I want it to be centerpiece the decision was made to put it on oldie EE regiment base. The model should be much safer pinned to such thing and besides there's lots of space for more themed details - tombstones or emerging zombies for example.

So far I haven't spotted any nasty mold lines but assembling whole construction will also require extra attention: the big elements simply doesn't fit as they should. There'll be lots of pinning and greenstuff used for sure.

At this stage I don't have some strict idea for the painting so if you have some suggestions - post them, there'll be some time until part #2 is ready.

Cheers!

EDIT:
For the part #2 - click here.

I can smell something's rotting...

Hey again,

Looks like the "normal" job is taking more of my time than I'd like so here's something which has been waiting for photos a while.
Since the last post I managed to get some bits painted and also we managed to play 2 Warzone 1.0 games.First piece is oldie Cartel agent. Kinda test model - I got some more mecenaries (Warzone, EM4) and they all should look decent together as NPCs in the game.
As for this specific one I leant applying 2 coats of supermatt varnish ain't good idea.
Not sure why I did it (pros and cons of having beer while painting...) but the second layer took pretty much of glazes used. Or just maybe I should finally start painting with stronger contrast instead of bitching every second model?
Lesson learnt anyway and here's the first one: Cartel agent, nickname "Hannibal":

Right:

wimpy 'uuumies no more, time for something decent!

It's my big personal achievement because so far I've been trying to get this model finished like 4 times? 5 Maybe? So glad to see it together with the rest of the painted crew.

Painting is nothing original - it's based on the "official" paintjob, Bonner's beautiful artwork and painting I saw in Mutant Chronicles zine. 

I also got 2 more versions of the model so when they're done group shot should look really nice. Besides blue flesh contrasts really nice with the background and might be reason pic didn't turn out total crap (although the base looks brownish here while it's deep, matt black).

Hope you like it - this charmer was one bit pain in my opponent's ass during the lastgame.

And something fresh. Well... Recently  rotten. And definitely underestimated: Demnogonis' curator (and centurion proxy in my small force).

I remember when I got the model looong time ago - highschool times, I tried to paint it, failed, marked the piece useless, cut off the head and gun arm (for conversion purposes - failed is anyone interested) and threw remains into the bits box.

Got this sculpt a month or two back (thanks a lot Jolanta! ;-) ) and decided to give it a try. I was having lots of fun working on this dude. It has so much potential I almost regret I don't have another one - although it would be nice to get rid of that Satandamn, bendy blade.

Hmmm... I wonder is there a chance to find that oldie, mutilated remains in my torture chamber... Eeee, eeee, eeee... Gaming spot! Yeah, I meant gaming spot from the beginning! No headless corpses there! No need to check the strange smell or call the police...

And some family photos.
I must say this time pics turned better but there's still lots to work on (for example brown - black bases I mentioned above). 

I gave a try to sth new: no artifical lights were used and also I placed another filter over the minis. Looks like summer light was the reason of recent photo-problems.

And last but not least: some (bad quality, smartphone-made) photos from the battlefield.
Last weekend we had a 1500 game: Dark Legion vs Capitol.
This time this was REALLYfast: after the table was prepared and deployment zones marked my opponent said all Capitol forces either use advenced deployment rules or will be dropped from chopper hovering over the battlefield...
Nice, eh?
So the only thing I could do was setting up more-less varied defensive line and wait...

See? Those bastards were deployed just in front of my face, hidden, full metal jacket.

Therefore the game was really fast for WZ 1.0 standards: 

all I could do was trying to leave the deployment zone and avoid napalm shells. There were lots of dead bodies piled fast so we had lots of fun.

Not enough for battle report but until we get more light in the gaming spot and until I start bringing my camera for gaming this is the best we can get.

Till the next time!

New photo background + bit of Demnogonis

This time just quick update:

today I hopefully finished some job for the local courthouse so finally I got some free time to take pics of new display / photo background.
As mentioned before (several times actually...)  the previous one has been serving me for quite a long time now and I still like it a lot, but it turned out it's just not big enough for larger groups or minis or rather big models. Pretty crowdy, isn't it?

So the decision was made to get another one: wider and taller.

I wanted to make it similar to the first one and keep the theme of our post-apo / wasteland battlefield. Wasteland is cool: easy to build and all materials needed are some sand / gravel + spare bits. I used repainting Ramshackle Games parts (thanks again Curtis).

I must admit when I got those bits I underestimated them - it took me a while to spot the potential of the goodies. Since that day Ramshackle's offer has expanded a lot so now there's just tons of really cool models to choose.

Anyway here's overall view on the thing: it's 00" wide and 00" tall to fit my display case. As you can see there's anough space even for such fatties as Eradicator, biogigant, dreadnought or whatever. There's also small, everlasting tribute for Rik Mayall in the middle.

And the first attempt to use new station for photos.
I've expected much more - no idea is it the matter of camera settings, light, colors of wall behind or unusual (for me) model - pretty bright and clean. Probably mix of all...
I did my best to get result closest to reality but it's still too damn colorful - I assume it's because of the reddish in the wall back. Artifilcal lights were turned off and flesh is still damn bright - it must be white added to the final highlights. I guess.

Hope the next piece will be something bit more my style so pics should bebetter.
Take care! 

More Warzone: nepharite of Demnogonis

This time only one model. And not even finished completly.

But that's what happens when suddenly normal life strikes in with full force of work to be done. Oh well...

But I am glad this necro-piggy is finally painted enough to be used in gaming.

It's my third attempt to paint this version of nepharite of Demnogonis (you can see the other one here) and it's finaly acceptable. There's still something to be done though: 

after taking pics I know I have to add stronger contrast around the worms (some reddish brown or purple maybe), add some oxidation around rivets and add paint some weathering / stains on the robe. I don't mind the guy is wearing bright clothes (that's based on the fluff after all) but I've found taking pics of such model pretty tricky: bright rags reflect artifical light very much so I had to spend some time with GIMP making it look more-less fine.

I also have to finish new (much larger) photo-background. As you can see in the back it's very early stage. So far there are only some bits attached, there's sand on the ground and some base browns slapped. This time I decided to leave more open space so there's no problem with taking photos of whole squads or larger models (like Eradicator).

Hope you like it so far - it should look more juicy when I deal with real life shit.

And the last thing:

last Monday the postman delivered something I got from one of LAF members: some missing oldie models from classic Warzone range + some undead legionnaires (because there's never enough zombies). I didn't expect getting some new toys from the dark past might touch me so much - but it did. Examining old sculpts brought back ton of memories from highschool times:

times when there was no cellphones everywhere, no facebook, no fucking selfies, times when people where still reading books and when our biggest concern was what to do with huge amount of spare time but not whether I can find enough strength to paint a single model during week (painting nights only of course) or not.

I feel old. Wretched. And broken.

Laters!

Warzone classic Eradicator

Hey again!

This time something quick and still wip-py: Cybertronic Eradicator Deathdroid.

I wanted to keep it for later posting (together with Warzone game report) but since there was no gaming last weekend...

I picked it from the lead pile to paint something else than another zombie and all in all I am happy to see is finally covered with paint. I don't play Cybertronic but this one will be part of several scenarios I have in mind (we all know the damn A.I. was never to be trusted...)

The model I got had no right arm so I needed prosthesis:

first I managed to recast original arm (with Magmascorcher) but since the flamer didn't turn out as nice as I was hoping for it has been cut off and replaced with placcy heavy machine gun from EE range. I must say I like it better than original weapon - deathdroid armed with Titan Megablaster can control most of the battlefield is placed properly.

General painting idea was of course based on the "official paintjob", besides such a baby-blue color will be pretty striking on desert themed field of battle. When I was applying highlights I was quite sure delicate blue won't be enough for painting edges and as you can see - I was totally right. So the first thing to do is to finish edges with almost pure white and enchance the shadows with either olive chalk dirt or reddish-brown rust, haven't decided yet.

I also think some greasy oil leaks wouldn't hurt - there's lots of pipes after all.

Hope you like the current stage of works.

Cheers!