FINNISH WITH A FURRY FACE

 As November draws to a close I have one last Movember post, when I received the Bespin Gambit box set for my Birthday in October, I realised I would have plenty of entries for this years challenge, as I've already shown the Ugnaughts, here now is the Bespin Guard that also came in the set. All six models are supplied the same, so I decided early on I would do multiple skin tones, to add variation, and would be totally fitting to the guards in the movie. I also changed the full beard to a goatee on three of them and then did these in multiple skin tones as well. 

For anyone who doesn't know these appeared in the movie "The Empire Strikes Back" and were on the cloud city Bespin, they were the local law enforcement, and under Lando's direction rose up against the Empire with the help of Lobot, to free Leia, Chewbacca and C3PO.

Below is the reference picture I based the uniform on.

This now concludes my entries for Movember for another year, and not a bad number for this year. In other news this is my 400 th post, never thought I'd get to this high a number !LOL so until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave

WINTER IS COMING

 When I do painted models for customers, I don't show them very often, as how many times can you show the same piece before it get's boring ! LOL Today's piece is a custom piece, so wanted to show it. The customer is playing Frostgrave, so wanted some deep snow drifts on a set of ruined walls, he sent me some reference pictures to have an idea what he was looking for. The walls and snow drifts were made from foam core, and I also used some greenstuff to be able to put footprints in.

I really enjoyed building and painting this, as it was an interesting challenge. That's all for this post so until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave

GOATEE

 Some more models for Movember today, these are Beastmen. When I was looking for models for my mutant unit, I had run out of suitable models from GorkaMorka and Necromunda, and was wondering what I could use, and then thought Beastmen are a form of Mutation, a stable one but still a mutation, so I got the warband from Mordheim, as they seemed to be big on looting. The first picture are the four with face hair.

These next four have no face hair, I separated the two to make it easier for Roger when he does his round up.

All the models had conversions done to give them firearms rather than hand weapons, with the completion of these I've got 10 more mutants to do, and then this army is finished.

That's all for this post, so until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave 

FROM OBSCURITY

 My latest piece with facial hair, is a real blast from the past, so very few of you are likely to have any clue what I'm on about ( not that I make that much sense normally ! LOL). Back before 40K even started, and Games Workshop and Citadel miniatures had become one, there was an occasional publication called the Citadel Journal or the later named Compendium, in it you would get several pages of new models to look at, there would be some card scenery, and a scenario for use in Warhammer, and you also got a comic strip about a Chaos Warrior called Kaleb Daark, now this warrior was unlike the normal Chaos followers, as he followed the 5th Chaos God Malal, unlike the other four gods that were just evil, Malal would sometimes help the Empire if the needs suited him, and he hates all other Chaos. There were 4 episodes, with Kaleb wandering into the Northern Wastes at the end ( Chaos realm in Warhammer).

When 40K came out I had an idea of having Kaleb and Malal in this realm, which wasn't a huge stretch as the Northern Wastes are a direct link to the Eye of Terror ( Chaos realm in 40K). But what to use for a model of Malal ? I managed to purchase a Golgoth Balrog ( later called Angor) as a starting point.

I left off the wings, and had to resculpt the fur, as it wasn't very good, and while doing it added in some more muscle definition. The face needed to change as well to look more like the artwork, and both hands needed a sixth digit, I left the tail as is, as you never saw the bottom half in the comics. Colour wise I wanted the fur dark, and went for a white skin tone, as his symbol is a skull that's half white and half black.

So that's another entry for Movember done, have a couple more in the works, and who knows one day I may even finish my Kaleb conversion ! LOL So until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave

ALMOST THERE

 For my personal challenge I've finished two more pieces for my Dark Eldar, the first is a Venom flyer for my Kabal force, this isn't a standard GW model but a conversion of a Vyper from the Eldar army. This isn't the first one I've converted but the original one I gave to a staff member to help them with their Harlequin army, before GW made an official model. The first one I did used the running boards from a raider, where as this one looks closer to the GW version (personally I don't think it has enough space for 5 models to be carried on it). I wanted it to have a similar style to the old GW Raider so added the plating to the front, I've also added a pole from the new Raider kit, to mark it as having the leader onboard. In the last picture I've put it next to the GW version for comparison.

I've also finished the second squad of Reaver Jet bikes, and the design was influenced by the iconic X-Wing, the first picture is the original 3 from my tournament army.

This next one was the first I built to add to the unit, hence the similar base style to the first 3.

The next pictures include the Arena Champion, which has more ornate wings, and the rest of the unit, with my newer style bases.

This means I have one vehicle left to do for my Kabal force, and my new unit of Mandrakes, for the Wych Cult, I need to buy and paint one raider, and then make and paint the beastmasters, I also need to finish the 4 blood brides to go on the Venom pictured above in the bone colour, so getting close now. I will probably leave the beasts until May, to do as part of Monster Mayhem, but see how I can do on the rest before the end of the year. That's all for this post, so until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave

ZOMTOBER/APOCALYPSE ME ROUNDUP

 Wanted to leave enough time for people to post up any entries, but also want to have this posted before I get to far into Movember. Now I normally don't do the Zomtober roundup, but as no one else was running it this year, I've included it, now I didn't enforce the normal rules for this event, so fair play to anyone who did. So without further blabbering from me here's this years entries.

pmpainting Matt fully went in on both challenges by doing a zombie version of himself.

azazelx Azazael really went all out and completed 93 models, and that's no typo !

justneedsvarnish John, joined in this year, with his Martian invasion cylinder.

fantoricalwargaming Simon did a great collection of TV and movie monsters that could be classed as undead.

rantingsfromunderthewargamestable Roger did Zombies from multiple genres 

oldschoolworkshop Suber did some awesome undead Rebel pilots.

deadleadproject MyIncubus followed all the rules for Zomtober, with his Mordheim Undead.

28mmvictorianwarfare Michael did a great rendition from "the ring" which looks very undead to me.

joesavestheday Joe managed to get in some undead painting while taking part in Dreadtober as well.

leadballoony Alex did some Age of Sigmar undead.

For me I got zombies done in two time periods.

If you want to see more pictures of the entries then check out all the blogs, they are all well worth a visit. Thank you to all participants for your great effort, and to all the people who supported the bloggers on their sites.

That's all for today, so until next time stay safe and have fun !

Cheers Dave