Dumb, but deadly.

Trolls, they aren't the brightest of creatures are they. In WFB you didn't need to worry about them unless you were stuck in hand-to hand with them though, or unfortunate enough to be within vomiting range....aarrrghh!!!!!

In RT? You don't need to worry about them at all as they never made it in. Fast forward a couple of decades and a few companies have tried to remedy GW's little oversight by creating their own version of what they think an RT Troll might look like. For the most part I think they look pretty good, and if I was so inclined I would have bought one myself. But being the habitual tinkerer that I am I decided to have a crack at making my own from an old Marauder Troll. What follows is that creation:

Chosen subject for my conversion.

Standing proud a top a plinth of arse paper. 

Coz he's now ready to be coloured in.

And here he is all painted up.

This particular Troll's Melta-gun is fed it's special cocktail from two sources. One from his highly corrosive gastric juices.

The other is from this jerry can, filled with whatever kerosene is known as in RT. 

I'm pretty sure that SM helmet isn't empty either :O

The belt around his waist was made from paper. The buckle was taken from an old car model kit.

I wrapped his wrist in chains to cover up his stone bracelet. Apparently they don't DO stone jewelry in the 41st millennium.

So, that's another RT conversion done. What's next? Another beasty of course :)

Till next time.

Making my own Gryphonne Sepia

Hi,

I'll take a punt and guess that for most of us older painters out there we have a lot of different branded paints in our collection. And out of all of them there would be a sizable amount from Citadel? I'm just guessing obviously, but that's how it is for me.

Now, out of all of those paints that I've ever owned there's only ever been a couple that I treasure, can't do without, reach for on just about every occasion that I paint. One of them is Devlan Mud and the other was Gryphonne Sepia. The former was great at dirtying up minis, the latter was excellent at making silver look like gold. But as time went by and I used up the last of my Devlan mud I went looking for a replacement, which I found with AP Dark Tone. But when my pot of Gryphonne Sepia ran out late last year, and I discovered that GW had discontinued it, I couldn't find a good enough replacement from any another company.

So that got me thinking, how hard would it be to make my own? After a quick look around online I came across an old recipe for it on a forum. It called for a few different ingredients, most of which I had, but the results weren't that convincing. So I decided to try to make it myself with what I had on hand.

I grabbed some Windsor & Newton Burnt Sienna & Liquitex Matte medium and started playing around with ratios. For me, I found the best results when I mixed the two 1:1.

Here's some pics, just coz.

Part 1

Part 2

I tried a couple of different ratios of the two, as well as AP Soft tone, here's how tests looked:

1. Is the Sepia ink with a pretty strong dilution of water and matte medium. As you can see it's pretty weak, but that's only after one application, more layers should yield better results.

2. Is the AP Soft Tone with matte medium 50/50. What can I say, it's brown. Fail.

3. Is the Sepia and matte medium 50/50. I reckon this one is pretty damn close. I was sloppy laying it on, but with more care I think it's a win.

4. Is the straight AP Soft Tone. I'll be using that as just a brown ink from now on.

And here's a proper test on a painted mini. I'd painted this guy on the left a few months ago, but I wasn't sold on the gold effect for his mask and necklace. I can't quite remember what I used now, but whatever it was it wasn't very gold looking to me. I pulled him out of my display case and hit him with a coat of my new wash. The results are on the right, obviously. 

Super goldy!!!!

Not goldy looking enough.

So, what do you think? Does it work? Is it close enough to the old Gryphonne Sepia? I'd be interested to read your thoughts in the comments.

Oh, and I bet some of you may be wondering why I just didn't try and buy some second hand pots of Gryphonne Sepia on Ebay. Well, I tried for quite a while, but with no luck. The sellers either wanted way too much for it or there just wasn't any for sale. But last week I had look and found a few. So I don't need to use this recipe for a while:) It's still nice to know that I can make it in the future though, when there;s no Gryphonne Sepia out in the wild anymore.

Bye for now :)

The spice must flow!

Salutations,

Today I want to talk about Dune......or something kinda related to it anyway. Read on if you want to know more,

Out of all of the interesting and varied characters in the 1984 movie, the Navigator was by far the creepiest, Baron Harkonnen being a close 2nd. The gigantic, demonic looking tadpole, being ferried around by a sizable entourage of what looked a lot like Syndicate cosplayers, was the first eldritch type horror I'd ever come across. Needless to say, it left a lasting impression.

Like Daleks, the only thing standing in the way of the Navigators path to total, inter-galactic dominion are stairs.

Fast forward 30 odd years and what did I come across while perusing Ebay? A Dr Who toy that instantly reminded me of the Navigator.

It was fairly cheap, but I wasn't in a rush for it so I asked my friend Axiom if he could hold it for me until BOYL, which he was kind enough to do. After I returned home to sunny Bangkok with it I stuck it on the shelf in amongst my other pending projects, then quickly forgotten about. But a few weeks ago I got the urge to have a go at modifying him. Read on if you want to know more,

For RT purposes I felt like it was 80% of the way there already. The face just needed to look a bit more menacing and the carriage to be weathered up some. So once I pulled the fish tank off and cleaned up the face with some kitchen degreaser I set to work. First painting the face black and wiping the excess off with a tissue. Then I painted the whole carriage black and added some gubbins and a door to it.

After that was done I painted up the carriage in red, quite roughly, and then proceeded to weather the hell out of it.

And after all that here's the finished product, pictured at the beach, while chasing down the other nefarious inhabitants that holiday here.

Looks like something you'd want to run away from? I think so.


Cheers :)

Prime Beef in the 41st Millenium.

Hi all,

When I first came across the Rogue Trader Minotaur as a teen I was less than impressed. The idea of having a cannon on your head, to my mind was stupid, pointless and would yield zero benefit on the pretend battlefield. So my mates and I quickly decided that it was a crap mini and dumb idea, hoping to Christ that it wasn't a sign of things to come from Citadel.

Fast forward 25 years and my taste in miniatures has gotten worse matured somewhat. To the point that a little while ago I got the urge to own one of my own. A quick perusal of Ebay put paid to that idea though, as the asking price was way out of my price range. Another good reason not to buy one of the originals is that they aren't the best sculpts in the world either.


Here, have a look at them:

And below you can see an example of them painted up:

Painted up versions on SOL.

Even with my rose tinted glasses on it's pretty hard to get excited about them. The one on the left is obviously a modification of the WFB, axe wielding Minotaur. Which is a pretty cool mini to start from, but then they faffed it by giving him a titchy little boltgun. If you look at the size of his hand compared to the size of the gun it just looks silly. Then there's the cow on the right which is, I dunno, a bit weird. The upright stance is ok, but his right arm is retarded. It's supposed to look like he's supporting the heavy bolter, but it mostly looks like he's punching it......fail. So I just decided to make my own instead.

I began by looking for the biggest, cheapest Minotaur that GW ever produced. I wasn't too concerned about how stylish the sculpt was either, I was gunna hack it up anyway. After a bit of searching around and asking some friends online if they had any spare I came up trumps with a friend from the U.S. of A, who donated this ugly fella to me a few months before BOYL 2017. Thanks Andrew :)

Here's an example of the one he sent me that I found online:

Here begins the process of me butchering converting up said mini:

Axe & skirt removed. 

Added an armoured codpiece and pants and gave him a Heavy bolter.

Meltagun for his head cannon and ran a few cables into his head.

And here's he is, all painted up and kickin it on the beach:

So, I now have an RT Minotaur. I'm pretty happy with how he turned and I'm looking forward to seeing what sort of trouble he can cause on the make believe battlefield.

Cheers :)