Good morning, gamers, and a belated happy Christmas to you all. I've had a very deliberate few days away from the internet to try and be totally present (no, not that sort of "present", although theat's been fun, too) with family as I'm so easily distracted. I'm back now, though, and shall be scurrying round FB and G+ and the Oldhammer forum to pull in the last few entries for Deadcember that I know must be lurking out there just waiting for a quick photo against a plain background, and an email to deadcember2017@gmail.com, preferably including a "before" picture too.
Unlike me, some of you have been busy, and in Alex's case really really busy! Here are glimpses to lead you to the gallery to see them alongside the other entries:
By inchmurrin
By Alex Howarth. Yes, it's a video entry - of a whole freakin' army!
The end of term has been squeezing so much life from me I'm practically undead myself at the moment!
Fortunately for the Deadcember challenge, some of you are far more in control of your time and there are now a whole bunch more entries in the gallery (see tab at top of page). They were submitted as per the guidelines inthis post.
Here's one by Thomas "Zero Twentythree" to whet your appetite that doesn't quite make it in because they were started last month - don't worry, though, Thomas has several other entries that do qualify. Check out that rust!
I may have mentioned that I was rather unexpectedly voted the winner of the Golden Gobbo this year over on the Oldhammer forum. Not only was that a bit of an ego boost, but Geoff also very generously provided a trophy:
Rather gratifyingly a flurry of new entries to match the flurries of snow that are making Britain feel more festive have arrived. Bigger pictures in the gallery tab at the top, but here's a sneak preview:
Another from Iain Harrison
An undead unicorn and rider from Chris Kellahan
And an undead champion from Roger Duthie
Good, aren't they? Still plenty of time for more of you to add your own to the horde...
The first entry for this year's challenge has been submitted, hopefully the first of many! Well done to Iain Harrison whose Nick Lund Grenadier skeleton with mace now graces the gallery accessible via the Deadcember 17 tab at the top of the page.
Remember, submissions to deadcember2017{at}gmail{dot}com.
Obviously I won't be "entering" Deadcember17 as I'm judging it; even by the standards of the sneakiest greenskin, that would seem a little underhand. And anyway, orctober is over.
As I'm sure is quite a widespread issue, I find myself in need of a liche. This fellow will be what I attempt to paint in around the slightly overambitious list of homemade books and journals I've planned for various nearest and dearest. He's a Chaz Elliot sculpt for Rl Partha Europe, 5028 Undead Lord with Sword and he's pretty tall - that's a 25mm base he's on!
Yes, folks, just one week until the start of the premier annual "paint a dead/undead minature" competition.
I'll start an album here of the entries as they come in, as well as a thread on the oldhammer forum for users to see the subset painted by other forum users.
What you need to know if you want to enter:
This is a painting challenge for 28mm "scale" miniatures painted during December 2017
The theme this year is (un)dead, meaning casualty figures are as welcome as the usual undead monsters and creatures
An entry can either be a single model, or a group - there is no advantage or disadvantage inherent to either choice
Email a photo of your miniature(s) before painting, and no more than two of the finished item, against a plain background so your painting really shines. Send your pictures to Deadcember 2017
You can enter as many times as you like - the more the merrier - but each entry will be independently considered.
The winner will be decided by me and will be based purely on my honest choice of which is my favourite - quality of painting, oldhammeriness, any conversion work, etc. will all feed in to it, I'm sure.
There is a prize! A new Tom Meier zombie dragon and some skeletons, kindly donated by Ral Partha Europe.
I'm really looking forward to what everyone produces! Check the tab at the top of the page for last year's entries.
I've thoroughly enjoyed curating Deadcember and will do so again at the end of 2017 - if the quality and variety matches 2016's entries then it will be a pleasure to do so once more!
First of all, I must congratulate all of those who completed the challenge and submitted an entry (or several more than one in some cases!), particularly as I didn't - I have five skeletal horsemen in need of about an hour or two to finish off bone highlights, saddles and bridles, remnants of hair, and basing. Hardly a way to lead by example, eh?
Here are those zombies freshly cast in lovely metal. You know you want to buy some, both for yourself, but also so that enough are ordered that it is 11 or 12 in a set, not "just" ten.
Those contact details are either in my last post, or directly at this facebook link.
There's this American chap (let's call him Brian, because that's his name) who turned forty at the start of this year. Aside from general, broad-spectrum satisfaction that a, by all accounts, decent fellow had reached that particular milestone, we fantasy gamers should be especially celebratory. Why? Because instead of a dodgy haircut and a motorbike he chose, as his present, to commission a set of zombies by Kev Adams and is now making them available for sale to the rest of us. Nice!
So, we're about halfway through the annual painting event that, by way of a slightly laboured pun, celebrates the bony and the bloody, the revenant-king and the mindless minion alike.
This year I suggested the theme of "the quick and the dead" and, while not everyone has stuck to the theme, some of the painters have been quick off the mark and finished their entries already. Here's a round up of what we have so far.
From the Oldhammer Community Facebook group:
1) Alexander Ainsworth
From HeroQuest zombie to pirate skeleton; what's not to love?
What do you get if you make an unholy mixture of evil magicks, Black Friday shoppers, the school dinner queue on the day they serve chips, and hardcore football hooliganism before representing it in miniature form? Why, chaos thugs of course!
Now, Whiskey Priest has written extensively (don't worry, there are pictures too) on this subject already, so I shan't duplicate his efforts even if I have reused the title, but instead show you the start of the dregs of my RoC warband. He's an early Citadel Fighter, but that gurning face called instead for blue skin and a tiger pelt cloak. Obviously.
Well, are you? Deadcember starts tomorrow and the theme this year is "The Quick and the Dead". I'm going for some Grenadier-but-now-made-by-Mirliton skeleton cavalry.
"Deadcember" by Zhu Bajie. And it's all mine mwahaahahah!
Yes, ghouls and boys, we're nearly at that special time of year again when we concentrate our model-painting efforts on the undead. Last year there were some spectacularly boney contributions so I wanted to sneak in a reminder to give you time to plan. I thought that a theme beyond just "undead" might be a good way to give people focus so I've chosen "the quick and the dead". Something speedy, then, be that zombie dragons, skeletal chariots, ghost knights, carrion, whatever. There will be a prize this year - one of Justin Coutange's lovely oldhammery skeleton ogres - for the entry I choose as my favourite on purely subjective grounds. Details of how to enter your photos to follow.
Last Deadcember I purchased two skeleton ogres from Ral Partha and blogged about how one might use them in WFB 3rd edition. I was quite pleased with my noodlings but really wanted a unit of three so the project stalled.
Enter Justin Coutange on the Oldhammer FB group who sculpted an absolute beauty of a third ogre, excellently picking up on the classic ogre captain by Jes Goodwin, Hrothyogg:
Whew! Busy week! Nevertheless, some geeking happened. I've picked the models I'm going to paint this month and got them pretty much prepped (four beastmen to take me up to twelve for a full Dragon Rampant unit of Bellicose Foot, and the two Ral Partha skeleton ogres to give me some Heavy Foot for my undead DR warband). I had intended to paint last night but after a couple of clumsiness incidents went for clearing out my ice cream tub of stripping models. Quite a variety, it turns out!
What can you spot?
I did at least get to continue our Swords & Wizardry Averaigne campaign this afternoon. Details to follow.
Almost late (which would, admittedly, have been apt for the undead), I finally got my unit of skeletons finished. Well, almost. I'll come to that later.
Here we go, pictures or it didn't happen:
Stage... something: I've lost track as I hurried to get them done, but the utterly-lost-in-the-photo shading on the shields was a base of Foundry's Musket Stock Brown 72C, with highlights mixing in some British Redcoat 68A and the magic sword was splodging about with pale blue and metallic drybrushes, then an Asurmen Blue wash to tie it together. Not too bad for a first go at a glowing weapon!
I had this strange idea that I'd have more time when I started my Christmas holiday to get on and finish my skeletal painting for Deadcember. Ha! How naive I was... Nevertheless, I've finished painting the rank and file figures and am bulk painting the shields. The command figures are a little behind.
That's not the reason for this post, though, my self-selected Christmas present is:
Deadcember now has its very own artwork! How extraordinarily excellent is this piece of artwork I commissioned from Zhu in exchange for old school favours of which I shall not speak?!
I wasn't expecting anything quite as amazing as this!
So there we go. Cool, huh? If that doesn't get you painting up undead monstrosities, nothing will and you're a lost cause!
