Feb 2018 Painting Challenges Completed!

I am pretty happy this morning having completed both the Squaduary painting challenge and Azazel’s Neglected Model challenge.  It was a close thing with Squaduary.  I was painting the last two models up to a half hour before my bedtime, and the flocking was still wet on those last two when I took the picture  Talk about cutting it close but at least I wasn’t up until midnight!

Another effect of all of these challenges is I’ve been posting more than is usually my custom.  So at nine posts for February, I’ve set a personal record for blog posts in a month with none of them being re-blogging The Regimental Standard, etc.

Squaduary Complete: Ten Plaguebearers! +

My goal with Squaduary was to paint a legal unit of plaguebearers, which means ten models.  These daemons will most likely be part of a single unit of twenty in games, but if I ran them alone I think the one with the poleaxe could optionally be my standard bearer.

Azazel commented in the Sebelex post that seniority should count for something and suggested our ancient daemon for the post of herald. (Sebelex is that one way in back waving a bone club.)  I don’t think the mighty Urnafortunus would wear that, but Azazel is right, older is better in 40K so we have to do something for our bits box metal monster.  So Sebelex will be mob Under-Champion.  As under-champion it will lead one mob when the current unit is broken up into two squads.  Not a bad beginning and certainly a lot better than languishing for another fifteen years or so in a games store bit box!

Cloud of Flies Codicil Complete: 20 Plaguebearers … and friend!

In addition to Squaduary, I also wanted to bring my plaguebearers up to a twenty daemon squad.  They have a rule called “Cloud of Flies” where if the mob has twenty or more models than they are harder to hit.  So I instituted the Cloud of Flies codicil to the complete-a-unit challenge.  That meant I had to complete some pre-February work-in-progress plaguebearers, which thus wouldn’t count toward my ten for Squaduary, but would count toward Cloud of Flies.

I managed to hit that mark as well and above is a picture of the full mob, as well as the mob mascot, our bits box old metal skeleton snake thingie.  Despite much grumbling in the ranks as well as a fetid petition from certain unknown troublemakers, I decided not to count the snake skeleton as a completed model for the codicil though in games it certainly takes it place as a counts-as daemon.

Finished the final two on the last day:  the sand’s still wet on their bases!

But my Glory as the premier Chaos Lady of the Santa Cruz Sector does not end there!  I also completed Azazel’s Neglected Model challenge as I said at the beginning of this post.  The idea is to paint a model that you started at least six months ago but never finished.  Well, I have tons of models that fit that bill so I completed a cultist and of course our friend Sebelex the Eternally Neglected, Devourer, Throttler, etc. ++

Nice weapon, but could use a stock.

I’ve already put these pictures up in previous posts, but I want to put them here as well so all of my completed challenge pictures for the month are all in one place.

Hanging out with Cultist One, who wasn’t part of the challenge.

Those are some pretty meaty throttling hands.

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+ Can’t escape the ubiquitous cat hair it seems. Note the strand coming out the shoulder of the furthest front right plaguebearer. I knew that my cats were aligned to Chaos, but I thought they had pledged themselves to Slaanesh, not Nurgle!

++ So my Work-in-Progress Nurglings pointed out that I had “set the bar a little low” with Azazel’s challenge only committing to completing at least one model. I reminded them that they do have the “Squishable” special rule and that seemed to shut them up for a time. Sebelex pointed out, “If you complete the challenge then the Glory is yours for you are the Fearless Leader. The details are unimportant. All that matters is the victory.” I like how that daemon thinks and perhaps I need to reappraise the whole under-boss/herald thing.

Final Note:  I want to include a Nurgle-Triggering Post Warning for sensitive souls like the much esteemed John and others.  We don’t want to ruin anyone’s morning tea or afternoon aerobics, evening eviscerations, etc.

Sebelex: Devourer of the Dead

I was rummaging around in a game store bits box sometime in late 2016 or early 2017 when I found this thing.  I did the white prime job shortly after slapping my two bits on the counter as payment in full.  From there it continued to languish for maybe about a year until I started working on plaguebearers.

This miniature struck me as being pretty old so I poked around a little trying to learn more about it.  The notation M22 1984 was on the bottom of the base.  I found out that the model was produced by Grenadier Models with M22 referring to the model and 1984 to the year it originally came out.  Further, this rather humble (by today’s standards) little bone waver had a name:  Sebelex, Devourer of the Dead, and was one miniature that came in a boxed set of ten demons.

I vaguely remember this box from back in my teenager D&D days.

I also acquired a few other old looking pieces at the same time.  One turned to be a colleague of the Devourer, the somewhat frightened looking Mxomyceles, Duke of the Mire, and the other a humanoid brain thing with fairy wings.  I thought they were all part of the same set but I guess Brain isn’t as it turns out.

I’m thinking the Duke of the Mire will declare his fealty to Slaanesh while the Brain, appropriately enough, will enter the service of Tzeentch.  Goodness knows I have plenty of Nurgle minor champion types in the ranks and/or in production so I don’t need more of those.

Sebelex proudly displayed top row, third from the left.

Below is how our ancient demon turned out.  Since the metal Sebelex is going to be joining the Swelling Horde as a plaguebearer I applied a coat of gloss varnish and then a matte layer for protection against grasping fingers and rolling dice.  The thing I like best about this miniature is its age:  it is older than many of my regular opponents and we all know in 40K that the older something is the better.  Let the galaxy boil (break out in, that is)!

As I said in my previous post, Sebelex here is a double threat.  It is a natural to fill the role of a plaguebearer, and as for being a neglected miniature I wouldn’t be surprised if it has a neglected history of decades before it fell into my greedy clutches, where I duly neglected it in turn.  So I declare my little lead demon grist for both Squaduary and the Neglected Model Challenge.  Let it be written, let it be done!

Completed Sebelex the Devourer

The blurry plaguebearer lurking in the background of the picture above is yet another body I finished for the Squaduary challenge.  She’ll be one of the worthies in the group shot of the completed mob (hope festers eternal!) I’m planning for tomorrow to get in under the challenge deadline.

Then the plan will be to inflict/feature a few posts of individual plaguebearers or small groups, as is my normal practice.  I’m not sure yet what I’ll be working on for March.+  I accepted a job offer to drive a bus and if everything goes well I should start soon.  I imagine that will cut at least somewhat into my painting time, but we’ll see.

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+  Because I truly haven’t had enough plaguebearers in my blog so far!

Cultist for Azazel’s Challenge

I completed a second cultist to go along with this guy and also to complete Azazel’s Neglected Model Challenge.+  The idea is to finish at least one model that you started painting at least six months ago.  My Dark Vengeance guys certainly fill that bill.  I bought the box in 2012, as so many others did, started working on them and they have been scurrilously popping up in a primed and semi-painted state in games ever since.

Wonder what’s under that hood?

So this guy is the second completed cultist now.  I did a pretty heavy highlight job with Dawnstone on his rifle with the idea that it would be noticeable at tabletop distances.

For the skin this time, I went with something a little different than the recipe I used with the first cultist.  I based with Cadian Fleshtone, then washed with Gryphonne Sepia.  Highlighted with Cadian Fleshtone again, then Kislev Flesh and washed again with the sepia.

The red scarification or whatever on his right shoulder is Bloodletter wash, though I forget where in the process I applied it.  Probably after the highlight but before the final brown wash.  I almost decided to turn that sprue scar on his tricep into something, but in the end figured that it was unnoticeable at tabletop distances so I left well enough alone.

Painted Cultist One now has a colleague of sorts.

I used Rhinox Hide on his gaiter buttons, but that seemed to mostly disappear when I did a moderate to heavy dry brush of sand color onto his boots.  I probably won’t go back and fix it but moving forward with the other guys I’ll try and be aware of that issue when I’m dry brushing.

So this completes Azazel’s challenge, but I do have another horribly neglected (in more than one way as it turns out!) daemon miniature I’m almost done with.  I’ll post it along with this guy in a daring duo sort of group shot if I complete my daemon before the end of the month.  That miniature will be a sort of double threat in that not only will it count toward this challenge, but it can be seen as a species of plaguebearer and I plan on it counting for Squaduary as well.  Then it will proudly take its place in my swelling (in more than one way) ranks of Nurgle troops.

A slightly confused but ultimately effective advance of my Swelling Ranks.

A couple weeks later, tearing down a house to get at a vindicare assassin.

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+  A warning to John and any others, who may be slightly sensitive to Nurgle-related posts that this post, while it may be primarily about a soldier with human elements, does contain some content that may possibly be Nurgle-related and involve posts about inappropriately happy zombie-like entities in oddly colored pants.  You have been warned!

Maggotmouth and Friend

The Plaguebearer Express rolls on as I continue toward completing a mob by the end of the month for the Squadary Painting Challenge.  The current offerings represent numbers four and five of the requisite ten daemon squad.  My plan is to have two or three more done on Monday and then wrap things up with a group picture on the 28th.

Maggotmouth here seems to be having a bad day for some reason.

Also, I am finished with the original ten daemons that aren’t part of this challenge but are part of my associated goal of bringing my painted numbers up to twenty by the end of the month.  I will include those miniatures in the aforementioned group shot and then do some individual posts in later weeks.

I originally decided to do something a little different with Maggotmouth’s sword and painted it the same as I did the flesh on my January cultist.  I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not, but for plaguebearers in general the weapon sort of just blended in with rest of the diseased mass of daemons.  Perhaps it might have been a better idea to try on a space marine?

So I started in with the various washes until I ended up with the sword you see above.  I like it better but I don’t remember exactly what I did.  I imagine it was mostly using Carroburg Crimson and Glossy Nuln Oil.  It still doesn’t stand out too much in a group, which is fine, but I do like it better now because it is more grist for the mill of my plaguebearers using swords that all a bit different while not distracting from the daemons themselves.  Know your role, as it were.

Not so MM’s partner(s).  “Every day in Real Space is a good day!” they chirp.

Plaguebearer Five’s (or Fifteen’s if you count the original ten) right arm is an extra from the plague drone kit.  Five and his running partner, Blue Belly, have a bit of a story to them.  I seemed to be in the middle of a spate of dropping miniatures when I was working on this guy.

So I’m in the middle of working on Five while I’m watching tv with my husband, as usual.  I let out with an expletive and my husband, not even looking over says, “Drop one again, huh?”  I look down and congratulate myself on my good luck.  The miniature landed perfectly, just as you see here with nary a scratch.  Then I looked a little closer….

Lucky, huh?

Five must have bounced off the top of his horn, done a one-eighty and then landed feet-first.  I fixed his horn by using my hobby knife as if I were putting a point back on a pencil.  I think it came out fine and I can only hope that anyone picking up my miniatures without permission chooses Five and gets stuck in the hand for their trouble!  Maybe if they are particularly lucky that day they’ll catch a dose of the Emerald Pox.

Maybe not so much.

I might do a weekend post if I have time.  I am almost finished with my single cultist for Azazel’s Complete a Neglected Model(s) challenge.  Just need to throw some sand on his base and let it dry.

I’m going to put a second neglected model into the queue and see if I can finish it before the end of the month.  Maybe another cultist since at my current rate of progress from when I finished the first guy to the second, I will have finished the entire twenty man squad by August 2022.  I think there is an outside possibility I can do better than that!

Plaguebearer Mob Grows by Two

I got two more plaguebearers done over the the holiday weekend for the February Squaduary Painting Challenge.  This brings me to three complete of the ten I need to get done by the end of the month to have a legal squad, and ten of twenty to fulfill my own Cloud of Flies Codicil to the challenge.

“What doesn’t kill us can still cause hairballs!”

I am feeling confident because while I work to get one or two daemons completed, I pick away at the others so the rest of the necessary mob lingers in a not-done-but-work-well-underway-state.

I noticed a couple of bits of cat hair fuzz on the daemon with two horns after I took the pictures.  If it had been anything other than Nurgle I probably would have retaken the pictures or edited the hair out, but one effect of being ensconced in the way of the Lord of Plagues is an (un)healthy disregard for such things.  So I shrugged and said, “Meh, what can you do?  A little hair never hurt anyone.”

I think Rhino Plaguebearer likes the black sword too.

A closer look at a bit of an experiment with a black sword.  The idea was to use minimum highlighting and dry brushing so there are some very light highlights and it isn’t just solid black up close.  Also used some AK brand Corrosion Texture to give the blade that gravelly look.  I didn’t use a sealer on the sword so I’ll be curious to see how the gravel stands up over time on a gaming miniature.

Sporting some nice Emerald Pox and Blue Bloat.

This time I decided to experiment with a mild case of Blue Bloat.  I used several coats of Drakenhof Nightshade and then some Glossy Nuln Oil in the folds, since I wanted to go for a dry look.  I finished with a bit of a sand-colored drybrush on the feet, which I’ve been doing for my daemons and others lately.

My plan is to knock out the rest of my needed plaguebearers over the next week, and posting them as they are completed to keep myself motivated to finish on the right side of the challenge.  I am also almost done with my one miniature to complete Azazel’s Complete a Neglected Model Challenge and will post a picture as soon as he is done as well.

Plaguebearers: A Fly if Not a Lord

So I’ve been hard at work at the Infection Vats on my plaguebearers.  I’ve set myself the magnificent (and attainable) goal of completing a legal squad for the February Squaduary Painting Challenge from Stepping Between Games.

Additionally, I have decided to institute a Cloud of Flies Codicil to the challenge, which is that I want to reach an overall total of at least twenty completed plaguebearers by the end of the month.  If I complete both the challenge and codicil I have no doubt that my minions, toadies, and other assorted parasites will see fit to “spontaneously” petition Nurgle’s Garden to name a new disease after me in a manner that befits my dignity as a mighty Chaos Lady.  +  

Didn’t stint with the yellow washes.

The Fly Guy here doesn’t count toward the Squaduary Challenge because he is one of the daemons I started work on before February.  He is my eighth completed so he represents some progress toward the Cloud of Flies.

He would have been done sooner except that I’ve been going through a spate of dropping work-in-progress miniatures so I broke Fly Guy’s sword.  I tried to glue it back together a few times until I finally decided to do what you see here.  I’m not sure if he is looking at it and saying, “What have you done to my beautiful rusty sword?” Maybe he’s decided he is going to take up Florentine fighting or perhaps just huck the broken tip at whoever gets a little too close for comfort.  In any case, I feel like I’ve successfully made maggots of marmalade, so moving on….

Mouthy smiling for the camera!

Mouthy here represents the first plaguebearer I’ve completed that counts toward Squaduary.  I have found some of the tips in the recent Nurgle-themed White Dwarf useful, which I followed in painting the horns.  I had been leaving them the same color as the body in the past.  I like the new horn look enough that I’m probably going to paint the next nine the same way.

I gave Mouthy a sling from the Wargamesfactory Amazons kit, which I bought a few years ago.  I started to paint it in a conventional, leather style but it occurred to me that it would be keen to have the weapon appear to be made of guts.  The little bag holds an extra sling bullet or two, and is held in place by nimble flaps of grasping skin.  I decided to have the bag look more conventional so as not to draw the eye away from the sling.

So for next time it’ll be (you guessed it) more plaguebearers and I’ll be posting a bit more often through the end of February so I can finish on the right side of the challenge.

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+ I thought I’d better include that last bit just in case the work-in-progress nurglings talk my well-meaning but easily influenced greater daemons into something silly.  It has happened before!

Into the Painting Challenge Breach …

So after failing miserably in the Decembruary Painting Challenge, I decided that I’d try again this month with the Stepping Between Games’ Squaduary challenge and work on some more plaguebearers.

In short, the idea with Squaduary is to assemble and paint a game-legal squad of models during the month of February.  I put seven daemons put together on February 1st – 2nd and have done a little work on them since then.  I still have to put together three more, though I’ve gotten the parts off the sprue and cleaned them up, so I’ll do that this weekend as well as some painting.

Squaduary Progress as of February 8th.

Azazel’s painting challenge for February is “Finish A Neglected Model” month.  The idea is to finish one or more models you started at least six months ago but never finished.  Below is a small sample from Ye Olde Abandoned Legions, all started, heck, never mind six months ago … it was probably years ago.

My goal to complete Azazel’s challenge will be to complete any one of these wretched models.  If I complete more than one then that is bonus points and glory.

A veritable rogue’s gallery of work-in-progress mooks.

I wanted to participate in Alex’s Fembruary Painting Challenge but unfortunately I don’t really have any miniatures of women I want to paint right now.  I was going to buy some aspect warriors for the purpose, but was put off because I don’t favor resin.

I considered re-entering Becky the Bloater and saying I had given her a woman’s name so that surely was good enough, but I decided maybe I wouldn’t go that route, partly (mostly, actually) because I’m not sure with the other commitments I have, both painting and otherwise, I would be able to finish  the stupid daemon engine in time and would thus be forced to eat psyber-crow not just once, but twice!

This guy sees no problem with eating crow, I’m sure.

So for next time I hope to have some progress to show with this month’s challenges and perhaps some more non-challenge stuff as well.