SISTERS ARE DOING IT FOR THEMSELVES

Like everyone and their uncle, I'm very much anticipating the upcoming release of the new Sisters of Battle. I recall how much of an impact they did when first released back in the late 90's, and this new range promises to be as amazing and revolutionary as Jes's original pewter models.

So, to warm up I painted the Sister Superior released earlier this year.

The colour scheme turned out great - she's mostly painted with contrast colours and Apothecary white really is one of the most useful paints in the range. Unfortunately the head tilted slightly when the super glue set, so the final model has a slightly different angle than originally intended. You can see clearly on the test-fit shot how much difference a few degrees does - the model has a completely different vibe. I can't fix it without breaking the model so I'll just have to live with it, but honestly it bugs the hell out of me...

Oh well. Plenty more sisters to come!

In case you've missed it The Convertorum is now, finally, on Instagram. Check it out here: https://www.instagram.com/the_convertorum/

NOBODY EXPECTS THE CONVERTORUM!

Suddenly, out of nowhere: it's an update!

Sneaky Deathwatch operative Kilar strikes out of the shadows, armed with his trusty Stalker-pattern bolter. This model for my long gestating kill team has been sitting half-finished on my desk for ages and finally I got him painted.

=I=

There's more power armoured stuff to come, though of the more feminine variety. As always stay tuned...

I'm also on the instagrams now! Follow me here: https://www.instagram.com/the_convertorum/

MORDHEIM, CONTRAST AND SPACE MARINES

July saw an meet-up of epic proportions when twenty or so hobbyists clashed in Helsinki in a celebration of Mordheim's 20th birthday. It was an absolute blast and the terrain and miniatures on display had to be seen to be belived. Huge thanks to Alexander Winberg for arranging this crazy endeavour, and to Mordheim's daddies Toumas Pirinen and John Blanche for participating.

I managed to play two and half games over the day and my nefarious vampire Graf Sugismund did rather well for himself (though he lost an eye in the proceedings). The last game turned into more of a moody photoshoot than a proper game when Kari, of Iron Sleet fame, brought along his nifty smoke machine. And then we had to break for dinner and beers. Lots and lots of beers.

Here's a few of my cruddy pictures from the event, but there's many more and better ones at that, at various other blogs:

Head over to Echoes of Imperium to have a look at all the participating warbands: echoesofimperium

Greg Weir has a brilliant recap of our first game over at Between the Bolter and Me: mordheim-2019-witch-hunter-games and Eric does a more general recap of the event at the same site: mordheim-2019-recap

Tammy covers our last game, among other things, over at Tears of Envy

After event I needed to do something completely different, so back I went to the good old 41st millennium. I picked up a box of Intercessor space marines and started testing various colour schemes using the contrast paints. Here's two of them:

The process is rather simple. After spraying the model black and then with either grey seer or wraithbone, I sponge the model with dark brown to add texture and battle damage. Then I drybrush the whole miniature with pure white to provide highlights. After this the contrast colour is applied (in this case gryph-charger grey). This approach works for basically any colour scheme and due to the contrast paint's translucency the drybrushed highlight is subtly visible through the basecoat.

Just painting for it's own sake was a lot of fun, but after a few random marines like these I decided to go back to my beloved Metatron marines and see if I could replicate the colour scheme using contrast paints. It turned out I could.

Contrast painted Metratron to the left, original colour scheme to the right

As there's lots of new marine stuff coming out I'll try to turn these guys into a proper army, by adding more Intercessors, a few hellblasters, a dreadnought or two and perhaps some vanguard - so there's plenty of hobbying to do.

And then we haven't even mentioned Warcry...

THE DOOM THAT CAME TO MORDHEIM

In just a few days a huge group of hobby enthusiasts will meet up in Helsinki to celebrate the seminal GW game Mordheim and it's 20th birthday. Among them some of the very same people who created the game all those years ago.

I'm way too busy prepping the last of the terrain and finish up the last figures to write something exhaustive right now, but at least here's a bunch of pics of the undead warband and it's leader, the nefarious vampire Graf Sugismund Molossus - Knight of The Order of The Black Wing, Scourge of Parravon, Sorrow of Swartzhafen. He's joined by the vile necromancer Macrotus the Soiled, mysterious swordsman Myotis the Blade, dregs Guano the Great and Artibeus the Rank and a unit of ghastly wraiths (who I field using the dire-wolf rules).

As you can see I've created quite a lot of terrain as well, but more on that, and more on the warband after this weekend. If you want to read up on the MORDHEIM MMXIX project and check out all the other warbands go to Echoes of Imperium and have a look.

A PILLAR OF THE COMMUNITY

Those who keep up with Games Workshop's Warhammer Community may have noticed that I've had a bit of a presence over there lately. It started with a feature on my Deathwatch team with glorious new photos of the whole gang by the talanted 'Eavy Metal photographers. Have a gander here:

Johan Egerkrans' Death Watch Kill Team

But that's not all. The biggest splash (pun very much intended) these last weeks is the reveal of GW's new Citadel Contrast paints. I was one of a lucky select few who, under much secrecy, was invited to a special preview weekend at GW HQ in Nottingham earlier this year. There I and the other painters (all vastly more talented) got to try out the new colours. Warhammer Community released a video where you can hear us talk about our experiences with the range.

Contrast: The Pro Perspective

(Apparently I'm so fetching they felt the need to include me twice in the promo picture)

In short - believe the hype. With the risk of overselling them, they really do what it says on the can: provide a vibrant base coat (over a white-isch primer), a shade in the recesses, plus rudimentary highlights on the edges, all with one wash. There's several different pigments in the paint that separate, so if you take Blood Angels Red, it turns darker with an almost blueish tint in the recesses, a vibrant deep red on most of the miniature and slightly yellowish near the egdes. They're also somewhat glossier than GWs usually very matte colours, which gives them a crisper finish. Contrast promises to be a powerful tool in the tool box - especially for the painters like me, who like to get stuff done quickly and efficiently so you can focus on the fun bits.

As you hear I'm completely sold. They're not magic - you still need a certain amount of skill to use them properly - but they are indeed magical.

(And if you're wondering - no, I'm in no way being paid to say this. We all got a trip to Notts and some free paints. That's it.)

Here's a skaven I painted on the secret testing day in February. It's done more or less only with contrast paints with some simple bone highlights on the armour. The robe is one coat - just one of the standard colours (the name of which currently eludes me) right out of the pot. The whole model took me about two hours all in all.

And here's two half-finished space marines where I've just tested out some lighter colour schemes, one using the new Wraithbone primer on the marine to the right, and Grey Seer primer on the guy to the left. They were both drybrushed with skull white, sponged with rhinox brown and then given a coat of contrast paints. The one on the right Apothecary White and the other Skeleton Horde (I think...). Some darker contrast paint was painted into some of the recesses for deeper shades.

 There's about about 30 minutes of work done on each. I think they look pretty good for a half an hour paint job?

You can clearly see what a sumptuously vibrant red Blood Angels red gives you on the shoulderpads of the marine to the right. That's one coat folks.

I'll be back with more on this once I get my grubby mitts on the sample paint set, said to plonk down at my door any day now. 

NUMBER TWO

Hello boys and girls!

Just a quick work in progress shot of dreg number two for Mordheim MMXIX.

All in all a pretty simple conversion based on the new Moonclan champion, with the head from a necromancer plus some other bits and bobs. I think I'm gonna call him Quasimorbius or something like that.

RUST AND BONES

Does your eyes deceive you? No, they do not - for I am back with yet another of these, increasingly sporadic, blog posts! I sure long for the times I could update the blog on the fly using a phone app...

On to the models. Hobbying has been as sporadic as the updating, but I have actually managed to crank out some stuff the last few months. To begin with two finished character for my incipient Mordheim MMXIX undead warband. A humble zombie and a slightly less humble necromancer, based on the nifty new gene-cult Locus.

I've decided to use the wraiths from my fledgling Nighthaunt-army as count-as dire wolves, as the models are simply too cool not to use.

Furthermore, I've been playing a lot of Kill-Team lately and have been having some fun with the new Mechanicus Sector terrain. I'm pretty pleased with the refinery I bashed together, even though the ruin and larger building admittedly is bit more pedestrian. They work really well in-game though - here seen housing a mob of Ork Kommandos. (Sorry for the varying quality of the images here - photographing terrain is different from snapping pictures of models)

Last but not least, my pals at Warhammer Community sent me a little gift:

I'm simply in awe of the new Abaddon. I love that it sticks so close to the original model, only turning it up to ten - but not, as I feared, eleven. There's a restraint to it. Big, but not gigantic, detailed, but not cluttered, dynamic, but not standing-on-one-foot-jumping etc.
It's the perfect update on a classic, and among the top ten GW miniatures ever. Vastly superior to the action figure-like Guilliman; this is a proper MODEL - not a toy.

Not sure what I'll do when it comes to painting and modelling. I might paint the old bastard more or less straight out of the box, or convert him into some kind of warpsmith-style dark mechanicvm character. We'll see.

That's it for now. I'll be back in a month or two. In the meantime be sure to check out 28 Mag - the new online magazine about all things grimdark: 28-mag.com