Showcase Me!: Flesh-eater Courts

Stars, hide your fires!

Let not light see my black

and deep desires.

- Macbeth

    Hello friends! Today I'm here to share with you a full army in showcase: Flesh-eater Courts! They are the first project I fully did with an airbrush, and I'm quite pleased with how they have turned out. I was inspired by one of my favourite miniatures painting studios of all time, Thirdeyenuke, and I tried to reproduce, in my limited experience, their sharp style adding something from my own. The painting scheme plays on a vivid dark/light contrast, acting as a metaphor of their tormented souls too. 

    I have to say that I started painting them in a more orthodox way when, completely out of the blue, I changed my mind and decided to put my airbrush skill to the test, making everything that way.

   I can't conceal that I did the whole thing in a very short time because of the desire to deploy it on the field as soon as possible, and that I paid less attention than usual (especially when I reached 80 ghouls done) in the painting process but the result, in its entirety, was very satisfying.
    Have a look at my Flesh-eater Courts ghouls tutorial to have an idea of how they were made.
    Now... straight on to the whole showcased army!

King Loceruve on Ambarwalme

How I did it: Adeptus Mechanicus VTOL APC "Chauliodus" - part I

- Defence department project for tight geometry urban pacification. Rotors are configured to manouver between buildings without recirculation. It has a long uninteresting Wayne Enterprise designation... -

Lucious Fox

There's something better than making your own version of an existing model and it's making your own version of an non-existing model.

During one of the late night chats with the boys, a sentence was casually thrown on the table: "You know, Admech doesn't have any air support vehicles..." And was equally casually followed by an innocent "Well, how should it look like?"

Maybe something like this...

Showcase Me!: the Forgotten One's Finger

- The bad guys need to get lucky every time. The good guys just need to get lucky once. -
Steve Murphy

I could pretend that these six months have been a complete mess and look for some kind of excuse, but I simply had nothing remotely interesting on the workbench. I finished the last two elite guys on the Khorne batch from the basic game set, and they were just decent. Nothing awful like my misbegotten Reavers, but simply not worthy the time to write down a post about it.
Luckily, my vow ("thouh shall not commence a machine before completing the AOS box!") has been fulfilled and I had a ludicrous amount of ideas.

Like a quite radical conversion involving a Rhino/Stalker, a Sherman, a KV1, and a gargantuan s.F.H.18 howitzer.

Sometimes, size does matter

Showcase Me!: Blood Bowl Human and Goblin Teams

   Hi folks! 

   Today, and during these weeks, I'm very busy with my main job (I'm running a restaurant on the hills of Tuscany so, you know, in July, with a lot of sun, it means a lot of customers) so I'm posting just a brief showcase for my Blood Bowl teams; just to let the world know I'm not dead and my BB project goes on! Soon we'll have a goblin tutorial and a troll tutorial but for now, behold!

   I present you Talisa's Revenants, and Rotten Wood's Manglers!

How I did it: Khorne Khorgorath

-You're gonna need a bigger boat. -

Brody

The Khorgorath is a strange model.
It has some of the most intriguing bits I've ever seen for a "starting kit" and, at the same time, some of the silliest.

Showcase me!: Cult Mechanicus Tech Priest Dominus

   Aye folks!

   Today I want to share my Ol' Tech Priest. I call him Silonus Kevil Shrike quoting from some of my favourite sci-fi series and books, Battlestar Galactica and Simmons' Hyperion and I painted him during the very day of his release, back in the first half of 2015, if I remember well. 

  The model blown my mind away... I saw it as a change of direction in GW's way of making miniatures, and I loved and love the new direction.

How I did it: Khorne Bloodstoker

"Chalkface", the butcher

-Ears and noses will be the trophies of the day. But no hand shall touch him.-

Bill Cutting

When I saw the Bloodstoker for the first time I was puzzled. How was this chubby fellow supposed to fit between the ranks of an army where even the so-called-priests look like Dwayne Johnson's cousins? 

How i did it: Chaos Bronze Statue & Dais

- Oh, Mother Night! Fold your dark arms about me. Protect me in your black embrace. I sit alone, an impotent exile, whilst this form, this presence, returns to torment me!

The Lord of Darkness

    I recently bought a 120x180 table to play games at home... i changed location few months ago and in my new house i have a big room where i built my "lab", i put my showcases, PC and so on; last added is the gaming table.

   Well, i thought to buy a gaming mat and some scenery but, since i wanted my table looks very different than the others (and perhaps a little bit less expensive, wasn't a bad idea at all) i decided to build and paint some of those scenery on my own. 

   First of the series is a Chaos "shrine", as i love calling it, made with some pieces of cork, few textures and the slaughterpriest mother GW thought well to gave me with the September Dwarf!

How I did it: One-Forty-Twenty - part 4

- Must follow my directive.-
Auto

First things first: I'm really sorry for the delay. Furthermore in this case I had some major setbacks at home that stacked atop my regular slowness.
Actually I wanted to publish the post after completing the base, but for "How I Did It" section even the model alone will suffice.
So let me simply add that it is my very good honor to introduce you the completed One-Forty-Twenty

We're gonna need a bigger base...

How I did it: One-Forty-Twenty - part 3

- After the shootout at the club, I figured I needed more firepower. -
Billy Rosewood

Why does the ludicrously ginormic mace of LOTR's Witch King work on the screen while Alluda Majaka's sliding horse won't?

Even if it's pretty hard not to notice it, the main reason is not good or bad FX, but context and plausibility.

The mace looks and behaves like a massive piece of metal, the wielder looks and behaves like some sort of malevolent supernatural being, therefore the silly mace doesn't make us laugh.
On the other hand, the horse and its handler... well.. I think they speak for themselves.

How I did it: One-Forty-Twenty - part 2

- Every other hex bolt. Nothing pretty, just get it done. -
Tony Stark

When I said I'm slow, I meant it.

One of the most most difficult parts when it comes to kitbashing is being consistent: at the end your creation must looks homogeneous, as if it was conceived in that way.
That's why some background can really help a simple idea like "what about merging two of these things".

How I did it: One-Forty-Twenty - part 1

- I admire its purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality. -
Ash

I love mechas and tanks, so when I had to choose something from the 40k catalogue the "natural" choice should have been the Tau army, but as my eyes were caught by the Skitarii Dune Crawler it was love at first sight.

How I did it: Megaboss on Maw-krusha (part 1)

- Live off the land. Go to find war. Kill wot comes close. The old ways are best. -

Grodd

   Few things are exciting like the full abandon when you start thinking about a brand new modelling project, or at least for me. When I say full I mean really full; every day, all of the time, at work or at home, before sleeping, while sleeping, just awoken and so on. For me this feeling, which I imagine most of you are familiar with, involved many parts of the model... such as the backgrounds and enviroment. The enviroment is very important, especially when we talk about huge miniatures, meant to be centerpieces of entire collections.

Marnaldur Gaze of Mork, The Ghyran Iron Skull, riding the mighty Kartart