Back in 2014 my mind was blown when Steve Casey showcased the unreleased Rogue Trader Adeptus Mechanicus figure on his Eldritch Epistles blog. The figure was from the collection of Bryan Ansell and I instantly both desired it and resigned myself to never owning it.
Happily I was recently able to acquire my own copy of the figure and wasted no time in painting it up!
The best thing about joining in with online hobby initiatives is that they prompt you to do something you hadn't really planned to do, and in some instances they result in something you couldn't have even conceived of. The #JusticeForGary painting challenge over at the Oldhammer Facebook group is a simple concept - paint up a figure that was sculpted by Gary Morley and he will pick his favourite (still time to enter as the closing date is 30 June).
I knew I wanted to paint something for Necromunda, and was leaning towards one of Gary's bounty hunters, but then I decided to see if I could convert some unique figures using 100% Gary Morley parts. I ended up with a bounty hunter and his lucky caryatid companion - created completed from parts sourced from Gary's figures plus a little bit of greenstuff to hide the joins!
There are many thousands of bounty hunters operating on Necromunda. Some specialise in tracking down criminals, others hunt down up-hivers fleeing social embarrassment. Still others delve into stranger places, seeking out vampiric psykers with life-leeching powers, shape-shifting mutants and hideous eyeless ghouls. Abrym Shasta specialises in the tracking of the strange and unexplained, accompanied by the blue-skinned caryatid Sound-of-Memories. Shasta says little and is seen infrequently, only visiting major trading posts or settlements to collect bounties in return for the heads of his quarry.
I picked up a couple of pieces of area terrain from eBay recently. They're pretty basic - vaguely oval resin bases with a few rocks and some ground texture. The sort of thing I think I should be able to make in an afternoon with a few bits of MDF and some sand. Except I've not really been able to do it convincingly or robustly.
The two outcrop bases cost me less than £14 (eBay seller: dands-gaming) and took less than an hour to paint. I simply sprayed them with a stone colour over the undercoat, daubed some yellows and greys onto the rocks and added some washes on the ground. Everything was given a bone drybrush and then I added some tufts.
I have found it a bit tricky to get hobby time over the last couple of weeks, but I wanted to complete something to feel like I'm still actively hobbying! I figured the best option was to grab something quick and easy out of my WIP pile. The figure I selected was one I had converted in 2017 with the intention of using as a dwarf Blood Bowl coach. I never made or painted the team, but held onto the coach to repurpose as a squat storesman or similar.
Following on from my last post a couple of weeks ago, it was apparent that if I had some gates and entrances, I would also need some blank walls.
Once again, I roped in the talents of Graham at Grimsforge to make me some basic walls that I could put in between my other buildings. There are four walls - two long and two short. I painted one side with urban graffiti and posters, and the other side more neutrally to give me some backdrop flexibility.
The next evolution of Hyam's landing is to make sense of the spaces with dividers and connectors. No human settlement is comprised of a selection of completely separate buildings - there are walls and hedge, roads, alleys and fences. I got Graham at Grimsforge to make me a selection of structures that I can place against or inbetween my existing buildings to try and emulate that real urban feel.
The new structures are four walls with access points in them (solid walls to come at some future point. Like the rest of my Grimsforge terrain, I drew up what I hoped would look cool, and then Graham built them for me mainly from card.
