Tag: Painting

The orphans of Arbonte

~ Tonio ~ Leave a comment

Back in 2012-2013, I bought into Nemesis, by the Spanish company Zenit Miniatures. What really sold it to me was the Orphans faction, a group of unaging kids disguising themselves as insects, protecting the living forest Arbonte. I painted a single model back then, one of the Mantis, for a painting contest, but the lack of opponents, combined with other priorities, relegated them to the back of the pile.

Flash forward to last month. I was doing some digging in my pile of opportunities, to clear out and sell some projects I now know I won’t get to, or lost interest into, when I stumbled upon the box containing my Nemesis models. Being between projects, and wanting to paint something colourful, I decided to get them out again, and finally paint enough to try out the game. It just took a decade to get back to it…

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The Doctor and the Assassin

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Last December, before the start of my recent painting slump, I finished the year with two new models for Carnevale, after also painting a good amount of terrain. The first was an addition to the Guild in the form of a Rialto Assassin, to add power and range to my mainly tradesmen collection.

The second model is a female Plague Doctor, a start for a small second faction. That limited edition model is such a beauty that I had ordered her at first just to paint. However, after some games, I liked the game enough to grab a starter for The Doctors to have options and maybe give demos.

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People of Venice, unite under the protection of the Guild

~ Tonio ~ 2 Comments

I have been aware of Carnevale for some time, but never really put much thought into it until earlier this year. Strangely, it’s terrain that gave me the initial spark. After seeing a crowdfunding project for Venetian terrain, Waterspire, I looked back at the game and enjoyed the minis and theme more than I remembered. And then I took a look at the rules, and just loved how dynamic the movement system felt, with free jumps, parkour, 3d terrain fully integral to the game, including jumping from rooftops and swimming in canals, etc. So I got myself a starter and some extra minis to try out the game.

The project took a bit longer to ramp up than I would have like, as other priorities came up first in the painting queue, amongst other things. One of the hurdles was how to base the models. In the end, we opted to use the texture from the floor tiles of the Waterspire project and make base toppers, so the models would fit with the eventual streets we might print. They are a bit tall to my taste, but thinner toppers might have warped during printing, and I didn’t want to file that much resin in a room I share with the kids.

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Pox and dirt in the grim dark future

~ Tonio ~ Leave a comment

If you go back a decade or two, I was primarily a Games Workshop games player. Mainly Warhammer Fantasy Battles, but I did play some Warhammer 40,000 too. Since, I have switched to mostly skirmish games, requiring fewer models and playing space, but once in a while, I jump back in. It happened last year with Fantasy and my zombie pirates army, but the most recent occurrence is with 40k and its new 10th edition.

Death Guard badge, © Games Workshop

It’s getting talked a lot in our gaming group, and I do like the blank slate that comes with all new simplified armies when they fully reboot their systems. I already had some Death Guards painted from the Conquest magazine subscription we got for my son (he took the Ultramarines side), and the small new format Combat Patrol made for a good target to get playing fast and try out the new system. It was the time to get some more baddies painted.

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Minions aplenty

~ Tonio ~ Leave a comment

Pulp City is always close to my mind, either to play, paint or work on. Case in point, I have been working on a small narrative campaign for our local group, but Summer (the season, not the journalist) got in the way. I’ll come back to this later, for now is time to talk painting!

As I did a whole team of villains earlier this year, I did not want to tackle something as big between other games’ projects. Looking at my pile of opportunities, my remaining generic minions jumped out as the perfect quick task. I added some scatter terrain pieces to the queue, as I got some already primed.

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That hippo was hungry

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I have been eyeing The Drowned Earth for a while. To be honest though, that is true for a lot of games. 😉 I have not jumped in yet, but I did get the chance to paint one model of their range, the joyful hippo man Mattiu. It was given to me by Mac, one of the host of the Indie Invasion podcast, which I recommend if you enjoy indie games and a positive view of the hobby.

The game setting is cool, the miniatures are superb, and when you add the amazing boards full of colourful jungles and DINOSAURS(!), it’s hard not to be interested.

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Trading in the argoran waste

~ Tonio ~ Leave a comment

Well, I had good intentions at the start of the year, but I might have set my release pace a tad high, and found it hard to publish weekly. When you combine that with a dip into console gaming (Zelda’s Breath of the Wild on Switch) and general hobby slowdown, it partly explains the last few months of silence. It’s not that I haven’t done any, but nothing really meaningful, a lot of cleaning and sorting, and also quite a lot of prepping models. I’ll try and go back to post some of the stuff from the gap, but there isn’t that much to show, so it won’t take long.

What got me painting again, though, was the possibility of a game of Anyaral, the World of Twilight. We’ve already played the first book scenario with my friend Paul earlier this year, and we had a chance to play the second one this weekend. This was all I needed to paint the last few models I was missing for it, and off I went with the airbrush and palette!

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The thrill of the arena

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Our group is having an Arena Rex meetup sometime next month. I already have enough models to play, but I bought another one last year in a group order. It seemed like the perfect incentive to put brush to miniature and get back to fully painted!

Aemilia official art, © Red Republic Games

The model is question is Aemilia, from Roman Imperial Ludus Britannicus, also known as Legio XIII. She’s the daughter of an aristocrat that wanted nothing of that dull life, and decided to test her skills in the arena instead.

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Who said crime doesn’t pay?

~ Tonio ~ Leave a comment

After painting the core models from the starter, painting the voices to lead them, and making custom bases, it was time to round out the villains team. I needed a Support model, and while I have other indie supports, I got them in trade and they were previously painted. Instead of going through the steps to strip them, I decided to go with the cyber entity called Vector, a neutral character. After that, it was less of a decision on the game role, and more what cool other models I had. I needed a 1-level model to have a full 12-level line-up. The second model from Vector’s set was Kitty Cheshire, the stranger from the Other Side. I might as well paint her to complete the duo, as they were the very first models I ever bought for the game. It was about time I got some colour on them.

Cro Mag original art, by Pulp Monster

This gave me a whole team worth of Supremes. However, it was missing the single most important piece I consider in any Pulp City game: a model that interacts with terrain, either by throwing it, or slamming it into opponents in melee! In came the giant cave man, Cro Mag. The only thing left at that point was to add some Minions, as 100 Voices painted last week could bring some with him. Looking at my collection of henchmen, the cool little dino Mutant Mobsters were the obvious choice.

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A booming “Ahoy mateys!”

~ Tonio ~ Leave a comment

This week was my birthday. We had a fun family night, with good food and a new boardgame with the kids, the incredibly cute Flamecraft. It was a good time. I  recommend trying the game if you like simpler euros, and my daughter, who loves cute things and dragons, gives it a big thumbs up too.

Birthdays often go hand in hand with gifts. For hobbyist, they sometime relate to the hobby. One such gift my sweet wife once gave me is the huge Pirate Giant from Black Scorpion Miniatures. It is an impressive piece, and I dreaded painting it and not doing it justice, so I postponed the project. Well, after more than a decade, I took the plunge around the same time last year and put the brush to it. So lets look back!

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