Skarre Queen of the Broken Coast

     My epic Skarre, now Queen of the Broken Coast. This model was a blast to paint. A few changes from her prime version though; she lost her cloak, no longer has a trim on her coat and she is holding a pistol instead of a dagger. The rest of the model is pretty much the same, including fantastic quality on the face.
     I've had this model finished for a while now but when I photoed it the first time all of my pictures came out with a horrible greyed-out look. And they were quite dark despite using a makeshift lightbox. This time I took a roll-up magnet and set it on the coffee table next to a glass door. I propped one side up and photoed her using it as a backdrop. Overall the pictures came out fine but still a bit too dark. Recently I decided to check out Picasa 3 for organizing and viewing my pictures and saw that it has a built in editing kit. I was able to crop there (like anywhere else, nothing special) and then I used an "I'm feeling lucky" button to edit the light and color. Not sure exactly what it did but the picture looks a lot better after that so I stuck with it. I'll go ahead and post the 'before' photo with crop so you can see the original.

     So here you can see the original is not terribly different but the editing made it look better. Removed that dull grey haze. I don't think it makes my paint job look better than it is but maybe I'm being defensive? I'm not really sure how people feel about 'fixing' photos of minis. Let me know what your opinion is.

March of the Trollbloods

     Lately I've been having a lot of fun playing my Trollblood army down at my local game store. With an up and coming Journeyman League I decided to get them all based and primed up. I don't think I'll be able to wait for the league to start though, I want to paint them sooner. So far they are all ready for paint except for my Whelps. But that's not all, there are a few things of interest in the mix...

     The Trollblood Warpack comes with two identical Impalers. That is rather disappointing from a hobby perspective (not so great from a gaming perspective either). So to fix the problem I cut the left arm off of one of the Impalers and repositioned it with a little green stuff. I then cut the spear top and bottom to swap them. Finally I cut and carved the chickens off of his belt to try and add a little more variety. I think it came out quite alright.

     Rok gets thirsty! He sure loves his beer so I've decided to give him a keg. With the new plastic Dire Troll kit you get enough parts to make either a Bomber, Blitzer or Mauler, which means lots of extra bits. Extra bits like powder kegs that can easily become beer kegs.

     The Kilt Lifter. What a great model. This model is fantastic despite not being a playable model. I didn't pick it up for the game though, when I saw it on the Privateer Press store I knew I had to have it.

     Mulg for my birthday! I was so happy to get Mulg as a gift for my birthday that I've used him in every list since. I am certainly impressed with his performance and the model itself is quite amazing. I plan on covering most of the roots of the tree-stump with static grass.

     A full unit of Kriel Warriors. It may not seem like much but it took me quite a long time and many game stores to complete this unit. I finished it off by buying my last two Caber Throwers at Lock & Load 2012.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the preview. Perhaps soon I can start painting some of theses guys up. I have decided to go with a mix of greys for skin tone as I am not a fan of typical Trollblood blue. The bases are going to be spring/summer themed, full of life. I considered going with an autumn theme but decided against it as it may draw away from the model too much. We shall see.