Shoggoth

Known variously as darkspawn, shoggoths, daemonkind...

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn," droned the trembling priest, daubing a mixture of crushed salt, blood and more esoteric ingredients in eldritch symbols on the torso of the bound and weeping sacrifice. The circle of cultists surrounding the priest and sacrifice took up the chant "Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!" Unnatural bulges began to appear under the skin of the sacrifice, with blood beginning to flow from his orifices...

The priest grinned through broken teeth and proclaimed "His servant comes!"

The creatures leave a trail of mucus, blood and other bodily fluids in their wake.

This shoggoth is another miniature from the Horrorclix range - it comes pre-painted on a Clix base. It's part of the big batch of Horrorclix I bought for the zombie project - I picked up a few odds and ends, thinking that they'd either be fun to paint or with slightly different plans in mind - this one was for Hellboy to beat up! It'd also fit well in 40k as a Chaos spawn, WWWII as a Nazi experiment gone wrong (or right?) or as a post-apoc irradiated mutant! This was brilliant to paint - a proper nasty looking miniature!

Rise of the Mummy

The door of the chamber slammed shut, a cloud of dust rolling from the impact - the two explorers looked at each other, fear in their eyes... They scanned the chamber for an exit, scarab beetles flooding into the room from ankh-shaped portals in the walls, scorpions of various sizes rising from what looked to be drainage areas in the stone floor - an exit had opened at the other end of the chamber. The explorers began to sprint for it down the length of the room, only to skid to a halt when they saw the shambolic figure rising out of an ornate sarcophagus. One explorer drew a pistol and fired, hitting the creature square in the chest - with a shrug it rose further and began to shamble inexorably forwards...

Shown in a work-in-progress state earlier on the blog, this figure is from the Horrorclix range - I picked up a load of miniatures from the range from a member of Post-Apoc Wargames. Most were for my zombie setting - the mummy was just one I thought looked cool! I kept the basing neutral in order for him to fit nicely against Hellboy and the BPRD, WWWII troopers or even in a fantasy skirmish game.

Painting In Progress

I'm on the third day of my 3-days-off - I managed to get a little bit of basecoating done (as well as watching The Avengers with amazing nachos yesterday!) - these are 6 Ar-Men and an Aruk (from the Cobalt-5 from Black Hat Miniatures), a pair of cowboys (more an in-game objective for the post-apoc stuff) and the mummy. I touched up the sprayed basecoat (the not-Khemri Brown from Humbrol) and blocked out the weapons/armour plates/kit. I love the Cobalt-5 figures - sculpted a few years ago by Bob Naismith, they have a massively Rogue Trader/early 40k feel. I'll be using them as hired mercenaries in the post-apoc sci-fi setting.

I also assembled this Thrullg from Hordes - I'll be using it as a random event or beast hunt in the post-apoc. It could also be handy as a beast for post-apoc or fantasy gladiators to take on, or as a Clawed Fiend in my Dark Eldar. Loved the figure - the bony spine in particular! I've been considering purchasing Red Sand, Black Moon from THW - this would make for a vicious challenge!

What I did on my "weekend"...

I recently started a new shift pattern at work - 3 days on, 3 days off, 12 hour shifts. I actually love it! I previously worked 5 days a week with split days off, meaning I didn't really have time to see my family and friends whilst also having a bit of painting time. The new shift pattern works great! Here's what I managed to finish off over my "weekend": 

I finished off the Scabbs figure I showed the other day, as well as 3 bomber zombies for my WWWII setting, a halfling thief for Mordheim, a zombie-huntin, blood-splattered granny with a shotgun and a not-Serenity from Ground Zero Games. I also got some painting done on a pulp investigator from Reaper an a cowboy supporting his gutshot mate.

I spent yesterday finishing basing up this horde of miniatures - I fancied something new to paint and I'd almost run out of figures that were undercoated and ready to go. I wanted something a bit sci-fi/Rogue Trader to go with the wasteland/spaceport/shantytown terrain I've been working on. I pulled this horde of stuff out of a bunch of boxes - there's various aliens (Black Cat Bases, GZG, Star Wars pre-paints) and some random pulp/horror stuff from Horrorclix. I needed to base up some of them (with some pinning) and add sand/gravel to the rest of them. I then spray-undercoated a bunch of these with the not-Khemri Brown Humbrol spray. They're now good to go!

Back to the terrain shortly!

Poster no.2

One of the posters that can be found in my bathroom.. Classic King Kong! I decided to keep things rather retro in the bathroom. Although, the rest of the posters in my room are fairly retro, but '70s/'80s retro instead...

Board Update and Purchases...

So, another week of not-a-massive-amount getting done! I have made a good bit of progress on the gaming board though, which is great, but I've hit a bit of an obstacle - a lack of paint. I meant to get a load yesterday whilst I was out Christmas shopping, but only remembered once I was on the train home. Damnit! I had to basically use the dregs of the large cheap tubes of paint that I had left over. That had been the plan anyway, but it's turned out a bit darker than I'd have liked...

For some reason, the board in the picture looks a lot lighter in the picture than in real life. It's closer to black. I'm aiming for my normal basing basecoat, somewhere near Scorched Brown from the GW line.

As mentioned, I went shopping yesterday, passing a GW... Suddenly, I was exiting the shop with a box of Wyches and the latest edition of White Dwarf. Bugger. To be honest though, I had pre-ordered the Codex, so it wasn't a huge surprise that I found myself buying some. Army-wise I'll be going Hellion-heavy with lots of other cool stuff!

Ordered these misc. items at the start of the week - some 20mm plastic bases for the Ground Zero Games 15mm Aliens I bought a while back so I can base them up for various games, plus a couple of hobby items from Heresy Miniatures - a sculpting tool/clay shaper and some "brown stuff" modelling clay to try out.

Bit of a silly purchase - mostly for nostalgia reasons (I was a massive Jurassic Park fan as a kid - I had a bunch of the toys and loved the movies), but I also like the idea of basing them, taking the moldlines off and using them in some 15mm pulp games. They were rather cheap - £1.99 for the two. Oddly they had a full range of toys (mostly on clearance though). I wonder if there is a new cartoon or something? 

Finally, the other board section, pre-paint. It's also had the basecoat now.

Upon reflection, not such a bad week after all...