And so it comes to be alive....

After the last massacre with the dark elves I decide to go back to the roots once more. Skipping the pirates, adventurers and other sort of elves, I went straight for the dead. No tomb kings/guardians for me. No lich lords and creepy scorpions, but plain old dead. A vampire, necromancer, zombies, ghouls and dregs!

As I gave my last mordheim-vampire away to Arjan,Ihad to find an alternative. Somehow I stumbled upon a charging banshee, and so an idea was born.

I took out my green stuff and started cutting and modelling away. This banshee was flat-handed, so could not hold any weapons at all. Time to model some thumbs! That wasn't easy at all, but somehow I do like the end-result. I also gave her a nose and filled some holes in the skin (that sounds dirtier than it actually was ...). Result:

More pictures will of course follow soon.

Add some water, place a skeleton on top...

Here are some pix of the fountain which I finished last weekend (big thanks to Anke) :

WIP: Wall of Morr

A small update on my progress of this weekend. I worked most of the time on the square where both the fountain and the wall of Morr will be placed. The wall is also built by the same friend that I talked about. In this case I had to finish it by creating a top cover (using Hirst Moulds tiles). Further more I did some little upgrades and paint work.
Most effort went into the basing of the floor plan. I hope the three components, wall, fountain and floor; will be finished for our next game friday.

And now for the images that will say so much more (I hope):

WiP: Fountain of Morr

Years ago a friend of mine made some Mordheim scenery himself, which we used intensively (despite its looks ;-)
The only remaining piece that was still in my possession was a fountain like structure. Recently this guy gave me another home grown Mordheim building (and he does not even play anymore!). This piece is a lot better and I promised to use it in my scenery. This weekend I hope to find the time to finally finish a new Mordheim square to incorporates both the new piece and the old fountain.

The fountain is upgraded and pimped by me using Hirst Moulds pieces and a very peculiar miniature (also given to me, this time by my Czech brother- and sister-in-law ;-)

Some work in progress pictures of the fountain are presented here (and that's it for today):

Van Pix

Van Pix

Van Pix

WIP Dwarf Slayers

Slow progress in the slayer department but there is some progress. Last post showed already a beardling that was almost finished. Now it's shield is also done. I started out with a sturdy hammer shield but messed it up with pruple twirly lines.

No dwarf material! This dwarf is funny and needs a matching shield. I created one with arrows in and a nice Bugmans logo. Fitting for a beardling of his stature.



Further progress is on the backback of one of the other dwarfs. It is coming along nicely but needs some extra layerers of shading.

Also busy with my Demonslayer that will lead this bunch of orange crested maniacs, but only the flesh parts are in progress here. These are the colors that make up the shading for him:

New dwarfs have arrived from Maelstrom games. Now a test with some other manufacturers than Games Workshop. This bulky fellow for example. I just undercoated, but he will be a very battlehardened Slayer.

WIP dwarfs

While we're at posting work in progress, also some new dwarfs for the slayer warband get a painting. These two dwarfs are the followers of the slayers. They tag along the heroic slayers in search for glory and gold, gold..... and gold of course!


These dwarfs are actually quite far and since they have a lot of metal plating, the painting was relatively easy. Although the big runelord dwarf that I use for this warband has tons of runes on his armour, that is a pain to paint. With my new set of foundation paints a lot of extra colours are available which saves me a lot of mixing! This works actually a lot quicker then before. A big huray for the foundation paint set!


This second dwarf is actually a very old marauder model, but I think gives a lot of character to the slayer warband. This model definitely looks as a beardling tagging along for fame and glory but actually a bit too young for this kind of work!

WIP Graveyard

Finally some new posts, it's been a while. Busy painting that is! So much painting that posting was bit on the slow side. What is going on: a graveyard is born :) First work in progress pic of the graveyard is here:

This is actually a test graveyard, before the BIG graveyard will be made. The nice citadel scenery tree is giving that extra gnarly look to the graveyard and the hirst arts walls are precisely the stone walls you see at the edge of a graveyard, at least that is how I see it. Some more painting on the earth and adding some green moss and grass, and this piece is done!

Christmas Modelling day

Then there was christmas, a time where some of us were actually free and not working! The ultimate chance for a modelling day and maybe a game to conclude! A good turnout where the 4 of us were actively building and painting during the day.

I built the prison tower and Arjan was busy with his two towers project, painting that is! One is already looking great and is finished, this one is also getting a nice piece of paint and the next game I expect two nicely painted towers are there (with all these other towers it is becoming a real San Giminiano). Hans was really busy with his ruined tower, that is now a great and big piece for our games of Mordheim. The ruined tower right away got some play time the same evening with skaven running around through it!

Van A tale of some gamers

Arjen also joined the building and played around with the hirts arts building blocks. He is hooked right away and the new molds that came in will give him the opportunity to start building as well! We're looking forward to new elven structures and the like!
Look at this gaming table! A lot of buildings present and still more to come:

A gaming report still has to follow but look at everyone pondering their strategy during the game! A very good end to the Christmas modelling and gaming Mordheim day!

The Ruined Tower - W.I.P.

To prove Tom isn't the only one at work with the Hirst Arts molds, I'll post some WIP of my own little project: The Ruined Tower (mold #65). It is more or less build, just needs some paint (still have to buy black paint as I have run out...).

Let's start with some overview pictures:

In the background you can see the grinded shells that you put in bird cages which I used on the parts of the base that have no 'stone' on them. It's really cheap stuff (about 90c for 2 kilo!) and has some nice pieces of shell in them to make things more interesting.

In the mean while, Nora the cat is wondering what all the fuzz is about, she doesn't look very impressed...

These parts will be added later, 'cause it's easier to paint them unassembled:


And finally a shot from above:


I'll post more pics once further progress is being made.

Mordheim Slayer warband painting (3)

And again I spent time painting 3 slayers for my Slayer warband. They were already quite far but it is all in the details. After painting the skin and the trousers it is time for painting the axes. Wood colored axes is nice but you want some wood grain, painting the axe heads first layers was with boltgun metal after which chainmail accents were put on. Badab black wash to enhance shadows and nothches on the blade.

I painted the gold items first with boltgun metal, then dwarf bronze, then shining gold an some very small accents with chainmail. This is finished with devlan mud to blend all the colors in. It gives a nice gold feel, that is worn, gives good details to all signs and runes and is overall shiny as the slayers like it!

Furthermore the leather glove and pouches was done with black, snakebite leather, graveyard earth and a blend of graveyard earth and bleached bone. Again a finish with devlan mudd. Since I got the devlan mud, everything is done with this stuf, the new washes are great! For christmas the foundation paint set is on my wishlist and I got some info that indeed it will be under the christmas tree. I can't wait how the new foundation paints handle and how they give the miniatures a start of color.

Just a few more touch ups and I will give you really nice pictures up and close of these 3 slayers in order to admire all those nice little details! :)
How much time did I spend painting these 3 dwarfs? Hmmmm just totalling up all my small paint sessions I think 6-8 hours per dwarf. That includes all tests of the blends and combination of colors.

Mordheim Slayer warband painting (2)

Besides being busy with making Mordheim scenery, I'm also busy with painting a new Mordheim warband. The Troll slayers already played some games, so they have to have some color on them before the next game. I've been busy with the skin mostly and there is a lot of it with them slayers. The skin is coming along nice and muscelly (is that a word?).

The second part I'm now busy with is the beards. Also a nice piece of paintwork with lots of layers. This to ensure a good depth in beards and mohawks, it is what makes them slayers!

Finally worth mentioning is Ironfist that I've been working on. Mostly getting the posture right. I wanted the axes to be a bit further to the sides and to lean back some more. Some filing an drilling, pinning and adding some greenstuff later, this is the final result:

The inside of the Towers

Due to a lot of circumstances work on the two towers has not progressed that much further. However, since I got a request at Tom's Boring Mordheim forum to show the inside work, I will certainly do so ;-)
The first two pictures show the 'tower with the stairs'. This one has a (custom made, since I accidentally used the parts elsewhere) stairs that leads to the entrance. The first floor is therefor not located at ground level. I'm still not sure whether to seal off the space underneath this floor or to make some sort of dungeon or cellar underneath.

The second tower is featured on the other two pictures. This tower has the first floor on ground level, which means that even a large creature like an Ogre can enter this level. Although it wouldn't be able to use the Heroquest door ;-)

The second floor was allocated a little lower than the one in the other tower, in both cases 'normal' sized miniatures are able to stand inside the tower on the second floor(s).
The floors were made out of balsa wood, the inside walls got some 'plastering' to hide the sterile clean plastic original (lack of) plaster. The outsides of the buildings are out of the box very nicely decorated.
One of the towers was battlemented (if that's the correct word), the other got the little 'observatorium' at the roof. Both are in desperate need for a paint job (If I only had time), but have been used in Mordheim battles already. They make very useful (and nice) scenery.

Mordheim Slayer warband painting (1)

The Dwarf Slayer warband is being painted! The Mordheim scenery is taking up a lot of time, fun though, but the dwarfs don't get painted in this way! The first part I started with is the dwarf skin. It has to look muscular so it will take some layers of paint to get a the muscle toning just right. The first layer was bronzed flesh after I applied flesh wash. The next is again a layer of bronzed flesh where you leave the very heavy shaded areas as they are.
Taking pictures from the dwarfs is quit difficult with a digital SLR camera and flash. The following picture you can see the shade of the lens after the flash in the picture. Still a good picture though (handy tip anyway when making macro pictures in the evening: don't use your flash so close!)

This week friday a new batlle is on the program and with the gold my slayers aquired last battle, I hired a new dwarf clansman with a brace of pistols. This results in the following great miniature:

Also worth mentioning is my new desktop LED lamp I now use for painting. It is great! The best light every, it does not turn hot has hallogen does and it only uses 4Watts of energie! How cool is that!

Mordheim Slayer warband basing

A quick note on my bases for my new Mordheim warband: the slayers. I took some of the tiles from my hirst arts molds and painted them separately. Made some slots in them so my slayers will fit in nicely. I was a bit worried about damage to the tiles when playing because they are made from simple plaster. The paint will prevent some but I added some mat varnish and I think it looks good as bases for my Slayer warband.
Can you spot the bases that don't have varnish on them? :)

And this is how the dwarfs will look like on the bases. This is (of course) not a slayer but one of my dwarf henchmen:

Hirts Arts Moulds and Mordheim Buildings part 2

The inn layout had originally only one floor and the roof floor. For the Mordheim building I added an extra floor to give it some height. Actually now it became 3 stories high.
I bought some water based paint and diluted the black down with water so it coveres the tiles nicely in all ridges cracks. This took some time and in two sessions I painted the entire piece nice and black.

If you look closely you can still see seems of white of the stones where the paint didn't cover but only so little. I hope this will be covered or out of sight when the stones are highlighted.
Which brings me to the next stage. The first highlight was applied with a dark grey. I'm using large brushes now (size 14 and up and also a large flat broad one). This was done realy quickly actually and a great result directly. I also wanted to apply a second highlight with a light grey to give the stones some depth and wear and tear look.
This was even quicker since only the windows and door and edges were concerned here. I added some more light grey to the flooring as well since that looked better.



The only things to do now is paint the beams dark brown and add flooring. The beams were a bit of a mistake to add directly in this building because painting became very difficult there. On the other hand it gives the building a nice and sound rigidity directly. WIth so high walls this was good to have already. I think for smaller buildings with less beams it wouldn't matter, but it is gooed to keep in mind.
The flooring I will build and fit but not yet glue in place. There painting will also be very difficult. Maybe the flooring will stay loose as an addon, so you can change here with the layout of a building, who knows. Add a couple of ladders and all. It will be good!
New small build projects now have started: small planters, a well, small wall sections, all moveable stuff to putt on the table and to fill our city of Mordheim.