Retinue Table Challenge: 8 Skaven

The last of this challenge is complete! With these 8 skaven I now have models for the the entire Lost and the Damned Retinue table to roll up and play with. It's also helped me keep focused in my painting exploits.

These Jes Goodwin Skaven sculpts were a joy to behold, loads of character and interest in them that reward a keen eye and earned some additional painting time. I was going to batch paint them but in the end painted each one individually, as seemed deserved for such unique and interesting sculpts. Of course now I want to add to these eight by makin an allied contingent, but that will wait for another day. Of course I'm sure you've realised that there is an odd one out here - the addition of a much newer GW SKaven sculpt - in truth he wasn't supposed to be part of he troupe but he arrived to me cheap and broken and just demanded to be converted, so he ended up with a claw and some additional skaven bits, in this case a plague censer attached to his belt and a beast man shield. I think he fits in pretty well and his extra bulk provides a bit of a beefier hero character (allied contingent commander?) to the gang.

On my return from holiday I'll take photos of all the models that represent the completion of this task and re-introduce you to some of the first models painted in this exercise. Many thanks for the encouragement and commentary along the way, much needed motivation to carry on...

Mutant Ork Scavenger

The Empirium of Rogue Dreams Facebook group are having a "Beware Mutants" conversion competition and I felt it was high time that I had a go at making a sci-fi / 40k conversion, having never done so before. My BitzBox is heaving with fantasy stuff, but very little in the way of futuristic, although this Ork head has been in there for years and has been looked over for years too. So with the head and torso identified I then scavenged around for some legs. I looked  at the Rogue Trader mutation chart on p.53 and liked the idea of a long limbed scavenger and found some (either bloodletter or kroot) legs that worked well with the torso in a mock up. The kroot rifle worked well to help add to the idea of a feral scavenger and then to add to this theme I added an ogre's bag to his back. I had to sculpt one arm and around all the the joins to make it work. Finally I thought that if this ork was a successful scavenger then maybe he'd have a bit of low quality tech with him, hence the bot accompanying on his forays (just a bit from a tau sprue).

Here are the Wips:

It's quite satisfying that my scavenging around a BitzBox is akin to what my conversion does as a living in the underhive. I'be become quite good at spotting an appropriate bit for my conversions. He's learnt from me.

Retinue table challenge - 4 Minotaurs

Continuing my nearly complete series on collecting all the possibilities of rolling a Chaos Warband retinue from The Lost and the Damned, I present 4 Minotaurs:

They don't rank up too well but there's another 2 from the Citadel Minotaur Lord range which will be added to these to make a unit of 6, and as a complete collection they all rank up just about fine.

So I just have 8 skaven currently sitting on my painting desk to go to complete this challenge and then I can take a much anticipated (by me at any rate) photograph of them all together.

Slowly, by following this path, my small collection of models is gradually becoming a chaos allied force and on it's way to becoming a full blown, 3rd Edition Warhammer Army..