More Dark Elves on the Pitch

Over the last week I've been putting some more painting time into my Dark Elf Blood Bowl team as I've got just 8 weeks to go until I actually need to use them! Happily, I'm nearing completion, as last night I based up these 4 fine fellows:

Lineman - Blitzer - Lineman - Blitzer

 

Discover New Blogs...

Earlier in the week JB over at the fantastic Leadplague nominated me for a Liebster award; a blogging version of shared love if you like!

As a nominee, the award encourages bloggers to share information about themselves, and to nominate other blogs they feel their readers should check out. If you haven't already checked out Leadplague, make sure you do!

The Liebster Challenge
The challenge is to do the following:
- Share 11 truths about myself
- Answer the 11 questions posed by JB
- Tag 11 new bloggers

Lets get cracking shall we?!

Retro-tastic: A Rogue Trader Zoat & Slann Photoshoot

Yesterday I had the day off work and arranged to meet up with fellow old school enthusiast Graham Apperley for gaming-related fun. We opted to structure our day around visits to Warhammer World and Foundry, with some tabletop action into the mix.

After a hearty breakfast, Graham showed off some newly painted Space Slann...26 of them to be precise. Graham claims not to be happy with the paint jobs, but I think the lovely bright colours look great! I then pulled out my stupidly heavy case to show my Zoat army; created in ~2005, my Zoat army saw action on the 40k tournament scene as a proxy Tyranid army for around 2 years, with its last outing in 2007. As this was the first time the army had been out of the case in 7 years, we decided to borrow one of the Warhammer World tables and set up a little display.



As the Slann emerge from the edge of the forest, they are unnerved to see a herd of Zoats charging towards them!

Oldhammer Legacy Warband - WIP Elf

A few posts ago I showed you a conversion I've made for the Talk Fantasy Football forums 'Legacy Team' project. I also mentioned that we're starting a 'Legacy Warband' project over at the Oldhammer forums based on the same concept (interested people paint and contribute a model, a lucky winner scoops the entire warband).

By popular vote, it was decided that the theme of the Legacy Warband was a multi-race 'good' warband; think Realm of Chaos warband, but with law-abiding, tree-hugging jolly good chaps instead!

 

They Really Are Cute and Furry

In exactly two months time I will be eating lunch, having (hopefully) won my first game of Blood Bowl at the NAF Championship.

Of course, this will only be possible if I actually finished my Dark Elf team. Over the weekend I found myself with a couple of half hours to try and make some progress. As I wasn't getting an uninterupted stretch, I decided to paint up a couple of the re-rolls I'd made for the team a few months ago.

My re-rolls are represented by some baby manticores, made from Heresy Miniatures demon cat familiars with a few added bits.

Two team mascots with a star Dark Elf Blitzer

Talk Fantasy Football Legacy Team - Nurgle Pestigor

If you are interested in Blood Bowl, you may well be aware of the Talk Fantasy Football forums. You may also be aware of the annual group 'Legacy Team' project; volunteers commit to paint and donate a model for a pre-agreed team; each contributor is entered into a draw and the winner takes the team. This year, contributors voted to do a Nurgle team in a strip of hot pink and black.

I wanted to use one of my Beast Face Miniatures beastmen to make a Pestigor (a diseased beastman of Nurgle). The original model is below; sculpted by John Pickford, the beastman has mutated to have 3 arms, and is one of my favourites from the range.

Beastman from Beast Face Miniatures

While John's original sculpt is fantastic, its clearly not Nurgley enough. I wanted to capture some of the key Nurgle features; obesity, humour and disease.

Heavy Resin: That's Not a Knight Titan, This is a Knight Titan!

Cast your minds back to the early 1990s. Giant walkers shaped like beetles, men on stilts or even horses bestrode the battlefield. Human and aliens formed 'Houses' with these walkers, called them 'Knights' and they fought intense battles. Correction, this was the case only if you played 6mm games. Here's a memory refresher:

Horse thing alongside a Beetle thing

Then, along came the talented Mike Biasi in the good old USA, and said to GW...can I make some of those Beetle things in 28mm scale? And lo and behold, a licence was granted and giant walkers did indeed bestride the battlefield, but this time in God's Own Scale.

 

Actually the Armorcast version, but it's the same thing, right?

The Art of Graphology, Part 2 (or 'another day, another exciting package')

I'm still not sure what I think about signed GW items. I figure that anything 'modern' is unlikely to be of much interest, give the prevalence of signing tables at open days and conventions, as well as Games Days. That said, I do like keeping an eye out for older items. Last month I picked up a signed copy of Warhammer Armies, and earlier today another couple of GW publications dropped through the letterbox, having been scrawled on by GW staff.

For the princely sum of £14 including postage, I bought a copy of the 1994 (2nd edition) Eldar codex, and the 1998 (3rd edition) Dark Eldar codex.

Codex Eldar, 1994

Codex Dark Eldar, 1998

When Trolls Meet Elves Part 3: Painting

Hopefully you'll have seen my earlier posts on my Blood Bowl mini-diorama I'm entering at the NAF Championships in Nottingham in May. If not, you can catch up on the earlier posts:

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: The Build

Colour selection
Over the course of the last week I've been painting the model. I started off thinking about colour schemes. I wanted the elf to match my elf team, as I'm fond of the bright turquoise and white strip with the red. I used the online colour wheel tool I've used previously to establish a nice looking colour scheme; with the turquoise strip on the elf, I could go for a sort of mustardy-brown colour on the troll's skin and a purple strip.

http://colorschemedesigner.com/

On with the painting
With the colour scheme decided, it was onto the painting. I painted up the troll first using Vallejo heavy goldbrown for the base coat on the skin. The skin was washed with Citadel brown ink and Asurmen blue wash, before being higlighted. The highlights were simply adding white to the heavy goldbrown. The pustules were then given a wash of Citadel Baal red and a dot of pale yellow in the centre.

The Tony Ackland Acquisition - Update

Earlier today I posted about the Tony Ackland originals I bought last week. Tony has been kind enough to send me a couple of messages helping to ID the pieces, for which I'm very grateful.

While all of my other pieces of original GW art have been purchased directly from the artists or artist's family, this has not been the case for the Tony Ackland pieces.

It transpires that this selection of artwork was due to be returned to Tony by GW, when they cleared out the archives 10 or so years back. Sadly, this never happened (you know the story from my earlier post). While I'm not sure I'll be arrested for dealing in stolen goods, it's added a bit of a sour note to the acquisition, and I'm happy to say I'll be returning a couple of pieces to Tony to fill a hole or two in his personal archive and (hopefully) make amends for the original loss.

Original Art - Part 4: The Tony Ackland Acquisition

I always like it when big special delivery boxes arrive at my door!

 

But what's inside?

One or two of you might have seen seven pieces of original GW artwork on ebay last week. Not too many of you though, as after nearly a week of being up for sale, only one had a bid. All seven pieces appeared to be by Tony Ackland, as one auction showed Tony's name on the protective cover, and all the others had reference codes e.g. 'TAxxxx'

I was quite keen on picking up one or two of the pieces, and decided to contact the seller to see if he would sell direct (I know, not entirely the most ethical way of ebay buying). Not only was the seller happy to do this, but it turned out he had 23 Tony Ackland originals he also wanted to sell. After a little bit of negotiation, I purchased all 23, and here are the contents of the box:

23 pieces of GW history