Lord Orpheus and the Spectral Dead

I'm going to play in a 40K campaign that is running at the local game store this weekend. I was pondering which force to play with when I remembered my ghost marines that I painted up about 4 years ago. So I had my lovely photographer take some quick pictures of them using the lightbox that I just made. I wanted to do a force that I didn't really need to spend much time painting and focused mainly on converting them to look like ghosts.I use the Chaos Space Marines army list for them and kinda stretched the unit types to portray their necromantic might.

Wights ordered into battle by their Necromancer (Thousand Sons Marines)

The Tomb of Zagreus (Dreadnought)

 

The Spectral Dead! (summoned Deamons)

Lord Orpheus ( Chaos Sorcerer)

Lightbox

The trees have been taking a little longer than anticipated to complete. The larger ones tend to bend over as the flock is added to them so I've been building it up in stages and waiting for it to dry and harden before adding more. A more laborious process than I first envisioned, but they are almost ready for the next stage.



Trees are coming along. Work area still a disaster.



In the mean time I put together a lightbox to use with taking pictures. This is a project I've been wanting to do ever since my lovely photographer started doing my picture work for me. I think the lightbox will do justice to her equipment and yield some much nicer pictures. That's the theory at least. 

Its just a cardboard box with side panels cut out and white cloth hot glued in. Then I glued in a piece of poster board across the back and bottom. Very easy.  

I'm also working on some simple modular terrain that will fit inside and I'm considering some backdrops as well. The base is just going to be a plain green/brown board but I also want to do a similarly sized piece of cityscape as well.



Pink foam cut to fit inside and pieces of sheet metal that will be glued on to make the magnetic base.



Can't see the forest for the trees

I'm trying to quickly build up some terrain to go along with my newly painted figures. I thought I'd start with some trees since I had the materials lying around. These are based on the method described here on Carmen's Fun Painty Time ( a blog I highly recommend.) I originally was going to make some for 28mm figures but repurposed them for this and rebuilt them fit with 1/100 scale. I also glued a magnet to the bottom and smoothed out the trunk on them with putty.


My first trees put together and glued to magnets.

I noticed that once I cut them down to size the branches ended up looking a little to regular for my taste and a little too sparse. I mixed up a paste of flock, glue, and a little water and slathered that on in chunks across the branches. Once dried it ended up rock solid and also helped to bind the whole tree together.


My test run with the flocking. This one is gonna need some repainting to blend the colors together.

The "leaves" that are a part of the sprays are a little big for scale so next I'm going to put some more flock on to blend it together and finish it up with some paint. I'll put up some better pictures once they are complete.


The rest of the trees with the trunks sculpted on.


I also got some more casting resin and mold making material in the mail yesterday so I'm hoping to get back to work on my buildings over the next week as well.

The Prussian Warmachine

Of particular concern to us was the preparedness of the Prussian forces. Why was the the XI Army Korps on maneuvers at that time and ready to cross over to Belgium so quickly? And given the fact that it took a rush effort to equip even a portion of our expeditionary force with proper gas-masks and suits, how was it that the Prussian were so well equipped with gas-masks? One begins to question if the Prussians had some foreknowledge of the events in Liege, or even had a hand in instigating them?
-The Right Honorable Earl of Shaftesbury Lord Ashley

Prussian Infantry from Fusilier Regiment Nr 34.

I've been working on a small Prussian force. The infantry are from Black Hat and are really rather nice. Their kit is nicely detailed. I have some more of these and a squad of clockwork soldiers as well which I'm thinking of painting up in green uniforms as Jaegers, maybe I'll sculpt the characteristic tshakos on them as well. I'll have to take a second look at the figures.

Grand Duke Class Colossus from 31st Division

The Colossus is a war machine Khador heavy war jack. I left the weapon armaments interchangeable with a simple pin system so I can mix and match. If I actually start doing regular gaming with them I'll think about swapping them out with magnetics. Otherwise the other main modification was to cut all of the spikes off of it. I just couldn't see the engineers at Krupp saying " You know what it needs? Some giant spikes on the edges! Those will only weigh a couple of tons each!" I'm not completely satisfied with the paint job, but I've rather run out of steam and ideas for painting him for now. I expect I'll revisit it and put some more weathering and details on it.

Prussian Colossus Grand Duke Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg

I'd like to find something to use as smaller colossi as well. Unfortunately, Khador doesn't have any light warjacks so I'm going to have to look elsewhere or try to convert something. I'm considering some of the mercenary jacks maybe with a rebuilt carapace and one of the spare heads from the Juggernaut I have.

"Grosser Karl" watches as a squad clears a ruined building in the outskirts of Liege.

Ruined Building

I've been taking a short break from sculpting and trying to clear some of the partially started projects from my queue. First on the list was this resin ruin. I didn't really spend to much time on it, just slapped a few layers of dry brushing on it. Still it works well enough. I'm pretty sure this was originally my friend Bill's purchased form 15mm WW II gaming on the eastern front. I dug it out of my basement a couple of months ago where it had been jumbled in with various miniature refugees from my past couple moves. Let me know if you want it back Bill. For the time being I'm going to use it as background to take some pictures with.

Some of the Prussian troops I finished. I intend to show some more pictures of them once I get the Prussian colossus done.