Bones Kickstarter Final Few Days

Good afternoon children of Nurgle and thank you for joining us today. Today I would like to point out that Reaper's kick starter project for Bones is in its last few days and they have smashed their targets and have thrown in a large amount of stretch goal models.

Myself and the Mighty Simo are going in at the Vampire level as you get an awful lot for your money ( even if you do have to wait until March ) and the reviews of the existing Bones range is positive.

If you want to get in on the action the project can be found here. What is included with the Vampire pledge is shown below and this doesn't include the extras you can add on.

My Finished Justicar Finari

Good evening children of the Plague Father and thank you for making the perilous journey through the warp to join me in giving reverence to our lord.

Tonight my humble offering is my completed Justicar Finari from Reaper Miniatures and follows on from my earlier work in progress post. After the issues I had I was going to leave her as she was and hand varnished with gloss coat for two reasons, firstly I had become completely paranoid I was going to damage her again when I played my first game and secondly I didn't own any brush on matt varnish.

This made the armour look a little too reflective compared with how tarnished it was suppose to be, as well as her cloth, skin and hair looking unnatural. I decided I would pick up a pot of matt varnish and hope it evened out, the trouble was I had a very busy week at work and couldn't find the time to walk up to my local store. After I took some photos of my Necrons last weekend I was filled with motivation to paint and Finari got a little more work. I decided to work on her face, hair and to highlight the cloth.

So without further ado here is my Justicar Finari.

In the end I redid the sword as well as found it disappeared into the armour. It also gave me an excuse to use my Vallejo Gun Metal Blue, which I bought for no other reason than I thought it looked funky. I used it as a base then gradually added Mithril Silver, building up the colour with a mix of thin layers and dry brushing.

With her hair I added streaks of a darker brown to the recesses as they had been lost after the second repaint. For the cloth I mixed Hawk Turquoise with a touch of Enchanted Blue and used broad highlights. I then added gentler highlights using a 1:1 ratio of Hawk Turquoise and Enchanted Blue.

The base I was torn between adding a skeletal arm or some red lichen used sparingly. After speaking with my fellow adventurers during our first Warhammer Quest dungeon, they seemed to like the base as it was and thought that anything else would take away from the feel of the stark dungeon floor.

Now I know I am not going to be winning a Golden Daemon any time soon, I am however happy to have this model done and to a better standard than I was planning to leave it at. For my first attempt at highlighting I am pleased with how it turned out and I have learnt a few things, mainly I need to take my time, keep a steady hand and practice as much as I can. As without practice I will never improve and there is a lot of room for improvement judging by the quality of work I have seen others publish on their own sites.

On the subject of improving my painting abilities I welcome any criticism that you may have.

On a final note this will be my Bretonnian Knight stand in and will go by the name of "Sabriel la mort d'argent" which should be the "Sabriel the silver death" however if any of you speak/write French and this is incorrect please correct me.

Until next time remember you are never alone as long as you carry Papa Nurgle's pestilent blessings.

O'Shashar

Justicar Finari - WIP

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Which is Your Stripper of Choice?

Good evening followers of Papa Nurgle and thank you for joining me once again in our little corner of disease and rot. Recently I have found myself in possession of a few models which are in good condition but I would much rather paint them myself to tie in with their friends.

Now normally I have been using original Dettol as my weapon of choice with it doing me proud in the past, and Simple Green which seems so popular across the pond is not widely available here in the UK. However while on my trip out to pick up a bottle ( never a dull moment ) I remembered an article written by Karitas over on Excommunicate Tratoris ( which if you haven't paid a visit to I highly recommend you do ).

The article was about a couple of plastic dreadnoughts he had stripped back to the primer using Fairy Power Spray ( a kitchen degreaser ) and how it was quick, effective and more importantly didn't make the paint transform into sticky ooze.
So to give it a try with as little risk as possible I threw in a metal model. Originally it was going to be my Tomb King model I will use represent my Tomb Prince but decided on my reaper Finari model I picked up last year for a spot of Warhammer Quest which died out quickly when our DM got bored, though hopefully in the next few weeks a new DM is planning to take up the challenge.

She hasn't turned out bad for a test subject

This model was originally primed and painted but not sealed with any kind of varnish. Within an hour I could see spots of bare metal though I gave it 24 hours time in a jar and started clean up by running it under the tap. Surprisingly this took care of the paint which was exposed and only required minimum work to clean out the nooks and crannies. Within a few minutes I had her back to a cleaner standard than I have achieved with Dettol and wasn't covered in ooze or had any nasty reactions.
 
On a serious note I did strip a large biscuit tins worth of marines two years ago using neat Dettol without wearing gloves and for six weeks after my hands peeled every time they got wet . This was not a pleasant experience and did cause them to be uncomfortable for this time, so please make sure you always take precautions when working with any type of chemical, even ones you have used for years as a cleaner and think are harmless.  

Overall I am happy with the ease in which I was able to get these results and I have since throw in a couple of heavy painted models which seemed to be stripping nicely with a little stir now and then.

So my question to you is "Which is your stripper of choice and why?"

O'Shashar