2019 Year End Review

Already?! Geeze! A lot seemed to happen this year huh? Lots of exciting GW releases, most of which I was forced to watch vicariously due to a lack of time. For myself, I got a lot of hobby time in but most of that happened in the first half of the year. But let's see what I actually did manage to get done and in the order that I finished them.

DARK ELDAR WYCHES (original)

These Dark Eldar Wyches were painted up as a scheme test.  These are a set of three of the original late '90s release of Wyches. I think they came out great, despite the fact that they haven't aged well when compared to the Jess Goodwin plastics that would come along almost a decade later.

SPACE WOLF PRIMARIS INTERCESSORS

These Intercessors are first Space Wolf Primaris marines that I managed to finish. I think they turned out great and I hope to finish the rest in the New Year., Or New Decade. Which ever.

KROM (The Older)

Krom Dragongaze, who I had teased for the past few End Year Reviews, was finished in February. He turned out great, but I am bummed that I have yet to use him in a game.

STORMSIRE

Stormsire was the first member of Stormsire's Cursebreakers that I was able to finish.

STORMSIRE'S CURESEBREAKERS

And the rest of the Cursebreakers were soon to follow. I was pleased with how fast (for me) that they painted up and was eager to paint the ghosts from the same set so that I could start playing Nightvault locally, but I simply never got to them...

STORMHAWK INTERCEPTOR

The Space Wolf Stormhawk Interceptor was mt biggest project of the year, but it was a blast. I think it turned out great and it proved to be quite a beast in the game. Da Masta Cheef was overly pleased that I finished it.

CALIDUS ASSASSIN

2019's addition to the annual Deadly Assassin series was this 2nd edition era Calidus Assassin. I now have a fully painted Execution Force. I need to decide which Assassin to paint for 2020, as I easily have another set of these things.

YNNARI DIRE AVENGER

This Dire Avenger painted in the Ynnari scheme that was introduced in White Dwarf was painted as a test to see if I would enjoy it enough to do an army of these guys. I was pleased with it and intend to do more. Or I hope to do more.

DARK REAPERS

Continuing on the Eldar kick I painted up some Dark Reapers also. They are intended to be for my Ynnari but they could work with my Craftworlders as well.

SPACE WOLF REIVERS

A set of Reivers that I painted up for my Space Wolves after realizing that these guys were good in Kill Team.


GOFF ORK DREADNOUGHT

Orktober! I was able to get another entry done in this annual Ork/Dread-tober event. This one being the classic 2nd edition era metal Ork Dreadnought!

Last year I had pledged to attempt to play a minimum of 12 games in 2019, and I was on pace to do that until my current job started in August, killing my chances of achieving that goal. I am not even going to jinx myself like that in 2020.

There were, as there is each year, a number of projects that I started but haven't finished. I think I would like to make this year's resolution a promise to complete a number of the previous year's modeling/painting projects, but my time is so limited that it will be a challenge. As I stated in a few updates over the past few months, I have been doing a lot of fantasy art for a Dungeon Crawl Classics Zine, Tales from the Smoking Wyrm, and that has taken up most of the time that I used to allow for hobbies. Not that this is a bad thing as I'm having a blast with it, and it even pays!

A Necromancer from Tales of the Smoking Wyrm #1.

And I want to do more. On top of that, my always insane work schedule and commute, are also impacting my ability to get some models done, and worse, to play a game! But we'll see how things shake down in 2020.

Fanatics! (Part 1)

Do you remember equis tyranus? If not, go check it out. In that WFB battle The Bob 's High Elves kicked the tar out of my Orcs and Gobos but not without losing a few elves in the process, thanks mostly to my Fanatics. I declared in the wrap-up that battle report that I needed some more. Soon after that declaration, I found three very old miniatures on Ebay that I thought would fit the bill nicely.

Fanatic reinforcements.

After I gritted up their bases, it was time to prime them. I opted not to strip the paint off of the one model that had a green base coat and his metal ball painted like an 8 ball as these were fairly thin coats and not really worth the effort. I just took them outside and primed them in Chaos Black.

 Base coated.

Next I added the Caliban Green to the skin to form the base coat. The next layer after that was Goblin Green.

Following this was a thick liberal wash of my ork skin ink mix. Again, this is green and yellow ink mixed to a color similar to anti-freeze and thinned with a little bit of water.

The wash stage...

And... that's as far as I managed to get so far. Things are still a bit slow in the hobby side of my life, but I hope to get these guys completed by the New Year despite the challenges before me...

Psychostyrene (Anachronistic)

Recently I was digging into some old issues of Warlock Magazine (an old fantasy magazine published by Penguin, and later Games Workshop, in support of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston's Fighting Fantasy series of books) for some art inspiration for the DCC zine project I am working on. I love the black and white art of this era from the British artists of the mid- '80's. Perhaps it's nostalgia from all the Victor and Battle Action! comics I used to read when I lived there in my pre-teens? And perhaps that same inspiration was what helped pull me into Rogue Trader back in the late '80s when I returned, as some of these same artists were still doing artwork for GW at that time. The old John Blanche stuff is particularly fun to see. Anyway, while perusing this quest for inspiration I happened upon this rather curious advert:

The advert from Warlock Magazine #6.

"Psychostyrene", what the? And this image of the crazed berserker dwarves...it stopped me and I had to pause my quest to read deeper into this...

So you got, for 75p, circa 1986, a blister back with three multipart customizable dwarves. Hell, you even got transfers included in the blister! Pretty amazing considering that I thought the single miniature blisters we have today were a fairly recent concept for GW, and here is an example of GW doing it (arguably) better a good year prior to the launch of Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader.

Another old ad found by Stuff of Legends.

 And they gave it a wild and obviously crazy title of Psychostyrene. A rather strong title from an LP perspective isn't it? Certainly a bit more radical and unique than say, "Finecast" was for their resin line.

I had to find out more. I needed to know what these things looked like. A quick online search revealed an intact Sprue and an assembled model. And you know what? They didn't look that bad! I would argue that they looked better than their WFB 4th Ed era monoposed models. Oh, it's crude by today's standards, but then again today's standards could have produced this blister in a fraction of the time -and cost- that must've gone into this kit. Apparently, this may have been GW's first attempt at a plastic kit, it's a bold first attempt if so.

A psychostyrene sprue.

Well, the weapons were a tad goofy, but whatever, it's three dwarves, in hard plastic, with transfers and head options -for 75p! That was maybe $1 back then!

The blister pack.

It appears that this was followed up with a similar orc plastic blister called Drasik Plastik, but that's for another discussion. As far as I can tell this was the extent of the early attempt at trying to sell plastic kits via blister. I imagine the production costs were a bit excessive at the time, but I am not privy to any facts to support this assumption. GW would of course move onto a boxed set format, with loads more models, to support their games.

But if you really want one of these original plastic dwarves, you can find them on ebay, but for an excessively high cost. They are rare, especially in mint condition, so they are truly a collectable at this point. But a fun piece of Games Workshop history never-the-less.

Telekinetic Rats go 3-D

Hey, the Kickstarter for Tales from the Smoking Wyrm-issue-1 is ending in just three days! And I have quite a bit of art in this issue, that I'm very happy with, and I hope all the work I have been doing is well received in the end, and I would like anyone who might be interested in it to get an opportunity to obtain a copy for themselves.

The Telekinetic Rat. My Dad it looks like it's getting shot...

One of stretch goals is that all backers will get a file to 3-D print a TK Rat based off of my art, which I think is just cool as heck. To have a 2-D piece of art of mine inspire something like this is just mind-blowing to me, and I am thrilled to see this happen.

Telepathic Rat mini sculpt by Mudpuppy Games and Fat Dragon Games.

Also, five people pledged to receive colorized versions of my copy-free cover. This is special as these are not prints but unique individualized hand painted pieces by me. And it's taking more time than I thought it would (a phrase I seem to repeat a lot on the site) particularly as I scrutinize just what colors to paint what. When I do black and white illustrations I never think about what color something I will be, I am more interested is balancing out the blacks vs. whites so that the images 'read' clearly to the beholder. So this has been a fun, though time consuming, exercise.

Snip of the WIP of the hand coloring.

Anyway, if you're interested in owning 'Neverness' art, or just like old school style fantasy RPGs or you are a player of DCC, than act now, there are only 3 days left on the tales-from-the-smoking-wyrm-issue-1 Kickstarter!

Goff Dreadnought (Part 6)

Whew! That was close, but I managed to get this thing done by the deadline! Here are the final stages, picking up from the previous post, Part-5.

I used the old Citadel Color Blood Red to punch up the red areas. Nothing says "Games Workshop model from the mid-'90s" like an overwhelming amount of intense red. Blood Red.

Going thru a red phase.

Here is the model's base, which I sufficiently rusted up. I like the idea of the concrete slabs being a side walk, mainly because I wonder if some now departed citizen once walked his Cyber Collie thru this sector on a morning walk before starting his 18 hour workshift...

If sidewalks talked...

After tightening up the red parts I painted the hydraulics and rivets using Mitheril Silver.

Metal!

I superglued the arms into position and the hatch. I employed a Q-tip to prop up the hatch until it was firmly glued as well.

Propping up that hatch.

Finally, it was time to attach it to it's base, making the model whole and together.

We are one.

But I felt it needed something. So I added a few grass tufts to the sidewalk cracks and this gave it a touch of realism.

The finished model.

And with that, I finished this model! I am pleased with how it turned out. It will fit in wonderfully with my Goffs who are so deliciously '90s retro (right down to some of them having red guns) it almost hurts.

This has been fun. Well, back to my art chores, hopefully I can knock out a few more paint jobs in between task...

Tales from the Smoking Wyrm #1 (DCC)

After a few months of getting my art groove back, I finished my art contributions for Tales-from-the-smoking-wyrm-issue-1, which is now live on Kickstarter. A lot of my hobby time was sacrificed for this project but I feel that it was very much worth it. For those of you who play Dungeon Crawl Classics I hope you'll check it out and back our project. There is more of my art throughout the Kickstarter pages so I hope you at least go look at it.

Snippet of the front cover. 

This will be my first printed art in about 20 years when I last drew some Squats for Armorcast's Inquisitor Magazine.

A Squat Ancestor from about 20 years ago.

I have a number of pieces presented inside, including a comic strip that I am writing and drawing as well as the front cover.

Lettering and pencils from Onward Retainer!

The comic strip was created, written and drawn by me. It was a fun challenge reteaching myself how to do all of this again, but most importantly I think the characters are fun and I look forward to doing more with them.

Abby and Megan, the Retainers. 

Also, the actual finished product will look better than these cropped photos, trust me. I have seen the proofs!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this stuff and can accept the justification for why I have slowed down on the posting on the Hobby Chronicle. Fear not, I will continue to knock out paint jobs between art tasks...





All art work (c) Joel R Phillips.

Goff Dreadnought (Part 5)

Moving on from Part 4, I continued by focusing on the chequered pattern.

Desert Sand layer.

Apple Barrel Territorial Beige was the tan color I used for the base coat, and I used Americana Desert Sand to serve as a middle coat.

The featured colors.

I then used a thinned White Scar to highlight those cheques before I applied the final highlight of solid White Scar.

Add caption

Once that was done, I simply painted in the opposite cheques with Abaddon Black straight from the bottle. After a few minor touch-ups, the chequered grid was done to my satisfaction.

Abaddon Black chequers.

Next I finished painting the flesh on the Ork pilot. Now I am contemplating how to paint up the cybernetic bits on his head...

Finished Pilot flesh.

See you back here soon!

Goff Ork Dreadnought (Part 4)

As if I didn't already have enough challenges to my time, this week I got a ill! It was easier for me to do a bit of painting than it was trying to do 2-D art, especially since I am not at any sort of detailing stage, yet, on this thing.

What little I got done was some touch-ups on the Goblin Green flesh layer and paint a tan color onto the main plate of the Dred itself. This color will ultimately be a White color by the way.

Touched up flesh and tan main plate.

 Next, I mixed up Green Ink and Yellow Ink to get a color resembling anti-freeze and washed it over the Goblin Green. I had a bit of that left over and applied it to another ork model I had in queue, but more on that in a future post.

Grid lines drawn on.

Last thing I managed to do, between coughing fits, was that I drew on the chequered grid using a mechanical pencil. No ruler or edge, just straight-hand drew it. I can't imagine the gretchen artisans tasked to apply decor to Ork machines are as skilled as some 'Eavy Metal painters would have us believe. So the end product won't be perfect, or as perfect as it appears on the original box, and that is how I intend it to be. More as I progress...

Image from the original box.

Goff Ork Dreadnought (Part 3)

Here is this week's episode of "I'm getting there, slowly but surely, I'm getting there."

I was about to paint the driver all the way, when the urge to test-fit him into position hit struck me. Thank goodness I did too, because the efforts to work him into the compartment scrapped and scratched off a lot of the basecoat. I would have been quite upset if that had happened to the finished paint job!

 Battle scars earned...

I decided that ultimately I would have to paint him while he was permanently in position. I am not thrilled about that, but it is what it is.

The red basecoats were done using Khorne Red. The middle coats on the black areas were accomplished using Apple Barrel Graphite. I still have a lot of work to do on this thing, and I am running out of October days...

Goff Ork Dreadnought (Part 2)

Progress has continued on this Dreadtober project.

First off, I had to take the time and file down and otherwise remove the flash and mold lines. Something that can be quite time consuming when it comes to pewter miniatures.

A metal puzzle.

After that I superglued the hull assembly together. I left the arms slack so that I could paint them more easily. I will glue them into their final positions at the end of this project.

Together at last!

After this I took the miniature outside and spray painted it with Chaos Black. After a few days I got back to it and applied Abaddon Black to solidify the black coat and make it more consistent. (Um, looks like I may have a few spots...ah, the Joy of working with metal!). While doing that I started to work on the base by basecoating the sidewalk.

Primed.

I am still considering what to do about the pilot and whether or not I want to just go with a closed hatch on the model. I will likely dwell on this right up to the last post, but I wouldn't mind to hear opinions on the matter, so feel free to leave a comment.

Pilot or hatch?