The problems of big swords in fantasy

Lo folks with the release of the new hag garneth executioners for warhammer I would like to point of some problems with big swords in fantasy. The idea when wielding large swords in a formation is what the elves in the beginning of lotr fellowship of the ring does, a cyclical swing, now lets take a look at my sketches on how that's supposed to work and what happens if your blade is to large.

 The upper row is how it works, the blade moves in a single smooth circle never ever retarding (de-accelerating) the angular momentum, notice picture three where the swordsman bends his arms to let the blade pass under them, also notice that even with a sword just about his own length he seems to hit the ground, now he can probably even in a tight formation allow it some angle to the side and manage the swing anyway, and he can probably stretch himself more allowing for a bigger blade or more room between the tip and the ground, but to wield a much larger sword he needs to increase the angle (See the second picture)

The lower one shows the problem with the larger sword already in 3 he hits the ground, in 4 he actually needs to jump to let the sword pass beneath him.

Now to explain the part about the angle, consider we follow a cycle of a swing seen from the front and and paint a line where the tip has been.
Now that swing would hit the ground but should I angle the blade slightly the depth of the swing can be reduced by a factor of cosine of the angle between the two swings.

like this 

This is exactly the same line with exactly the same  mid point, drawn in paint copied and rotated in photoshop. Now a real cyckle isnt that static with it midpoint, but it is a fair representation of the concept.

oh and a picture of the 'offending' miniatures.

As you can see even if standing on their toes these guys cant let the blade pass beneath their arms without and angle and the slightest angle means the guy beside him loses a foot.

But that's all my complaining for today.

until next time...

like... zombies and aliens... and stuff...

Hello again folks today I have three additional minis painted up, what my man shaggy would probably call like zombies and aliens and stuff, in short more dark legion.

 

 First up this Immaculate Fury, you can see I once again changed the way I paint daemonic flesh (but I wont be repainting my nepharite, I simply do not have the time) the new paint job being spacewolfs grey washed with nightshade. I went for red eyes, I will consistently go for red eyes on 'daemonic' members of the dark legion.

And the same guy again from a different angle. He is standing on the side of the base as if turning because he heard a sound. It looks good but makes him hard to balance. I might add some sort of weight to his base at a later date.

And a final angle, his loincloth is the only cloth on him and so is the only piece of him actually painted in the main army scheme of dark blue. Now some of you will know that the current ruleset for warzone ressurection does not have rules for imaculate furies so this guy will have to serve as a Razide until he gets rules.

Illian templar, I have  ahard time deciding if i like this mini or not, unpainted he looks very crude, no details and lots of flash. But painted he looks really good. The mantle is, main colour scheme for the army, blue. The skin is blue like on the fury and metallic parts are obviously metallic.

And in better lighting and a different angle. he looks really menacing if you ask me, I'm really pleased with him. From this angle you'll see that his eyes are  green, I will go for green eyes on all helmeted heads in the army. Observant viewers will also not I have decided on a simple stripe of white on the base to denote the front instead of the triangle the previous miniatures had. simply because I dont like my skill at free handing even something as simple as a triangle. Oh and this guy is of course the alien in the title which lead us to...

 ...Zombies! Another crew member from the unholy cannonade. I wanted him to have somewhat realistic colours in his uniform so I didn't go for the main colour blue, instead I went for a khaki scheme that once washed nightshade ended up very grey.You'll notice the eyes are quite unpainted, this is totally unintentional, these guys arent brought to life by magic but by evil science, there's no reason they should have glowing eyes, the blue eyes of the skeleton was a book reference otherwise there wont be any glowing eyes on undead in the army.

All in all these minis look good next to each other and the red of the bases contrasts nicely with the cold blues of the bases and makes it look like they're in the desert at night which is what I would have liked it to but never thought i was good enough to get across. then again it could just be positive bias.

On an unrelated note I'd like to promote my new writing blog, ye olde fictionwriter. this will leave whispers from the warp more focused on painting and rules ideas. I might still post wargaming relevant stories here I actually haven't decided yet.

Well that's all for now, and I'll see you next time.

Pale death

And as I promised an undead legionnaire. This guy is actually a crew member from the unholy cannonade and as I pointed out before stripping him one of my favourite minis.

 Blue cloak, went for grey bones instead of white or  yellowish. I as always keep a quite limited palette but I felt he needed a spot colour so I finally decided to paint his eyes. The idea to make them bright blue came from death in Terry Pratchett's discworld, who's eyesockets are said to get an spooky blue glow when he's angered.

And From behind, have I mentioned I love washes? On the subject on washes I would like to point out that the base is actually drybrushed which is generally something I don't do. The idea came from Malebolgia on the WZR forums. Though as you can see I'm far from good at the method thus far.

Well until next time.

Algeroth Nepharite

Lo again folks just thought I'd update you on my first finished warzone miniature, and without further delay, here's an old school Nepharite.

 Now when painting evil minis most people reach for a red or a brown and then as dark a metal colour as they can get. I wanted to avoid that so I went for a standard of chainmail rather than boltgun metal on this guy and then shaded it with nightshade. I'm not entirely sure about the purple skin at the moment but I think I'll leave it on this model regardless, he is a pain to paint simply because he's heavy and tends to start chipping while being painted.

And from the other angle. Astute viewers will notice the Algeroth runes have a slight blue tint they have been washed with blue ink before the nightshade wash (the wash takes the shine of the ink), the one on his abdomen have as well but it's not that easy to see.

And one from behind, now if you'll excuse me I'll stick this guy on the top of some shelf and not touch him until I have bought some hardcoat, because if I didn't mention it this guy has a habit of chipping.

I'll probably have another mini up before the end of the day. But Until next time.

Red Sand

Lo folks, those of you who have played mass effect will know that Red Sand is a drug in the mass effect universe, but here it refers to the red sands of Mars, I'll be basing warzone minis, I have made a couple of different versions and feedback on whichever is better would be greatly appreciated.

The question is how do we paint this:

here we go:

Macharite red wased with earthshade.

Calthan Brown washed with baal red

Blood red washed with earthshade

illyaden darksun (dark yellow) washed first with baal red then earthshade.

darksun washed with feugan orange and then earthshade.

The last one isn't quite so shiny when the last wash has dried.

I myself like the last two, which are very similiar.

Any thought? if not, then until next time...

Daemonic Flesh!

It does sound like a metal song doesn't it? Not as dramatic really, i have been trying to decide on a colour scheme for my dark legion. Now the most common way is black and red, which to me is a pretty good reason not to do that. Also I'm considering black and red for my Bauhaus (Inspired by Killzones Helghast) so I don't want that again. My brotherhood will be gold and white (Inspired by the Sons of Light of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, best fantasy series ever). So what to do with the legion, I finally decided on blue, it'll fit nicely when they release Illian too (my favourite apostle), or perhaps purple. So I painted up a  cultists robes in dark blue and it worked very well.

 Now this is just straight up Gw Midnight Blue (or mordian blue or necron abyss or kantor blue, gw likes changing the names of their colours), I'll need to find a way to shade it later too, perhaps jsut a coat of earthshade.

 And I also tried to find a flesh colour for the semi-human members of the legion like necromutants and centurions, I'll do something else for undead legionnaires havent decided what yet. I based the idea on the old Paul Bonner artwork  of a centurion, human skin but with a tinge of green so I just painted the skin flesh colour (tallarn flesh) and washed with green. I'm quite happy with it I might give him another was later.

I have no undead legionnaires stripped at the moment so I decided to see what I would do with the non human members of the legion. Things like razides, nepharites, templars and immaculate furies. I had two theories, start blue and wash red, and start purple and wash blue (you will have noted by now I like washing, at least this kind). So I tried my methods, i started with dark blue (again midnight blue) and washed red (baal red)

The only place i cna see the red is where it happened to land where it wasnt suposed to, the blue was simply to dark to be washed. Kind of sad since my next shade of blue is enchanted blue...

So we try the other method I thought and painted an imacculate fury purple (warlock purple) and washed blue (drakenhof nigthshade)... But it didnt get very blue so i washed again. and then i relaised that drakenhof was more cold grey than actuall blue, so here is the result.

Nearly black, a bit darker than what I had intended. I needed some way to wash blue isntead of draknhof for one of the coats. So i reached down in my colour boxand dug up an old pot of glue ink. Now i didnt have any more mini's to try on but fround a spare ogre arm i has used for siiliar ourposes before and tried it. purple then blue ink, and then it didnt really feel like the purple mattered any more cause the arm was blue... very blue. Anyway I let dry then washed with drakenhof again and here's the result.

the shinyness is mostly because of the drakenhof not being all dry, my sunlight was running out. It's not nearly as bad as it first seemed.

Anyway what I want from you is an opinion which is better? or should I try other methods?

the floor is open.

The glory of days past... and bases, don't forget the bases.

Lo folks, this time i have some minis I painted years ago. I'm very proud of them... well to be honest I'm going to strip them of paint. I've dug up my old Warzone minis and realised how horribly painted they were so I decided to strip them, these photos were taken before i stripped them, now it turned out some of the colours i used was no acrylics but enamel, so I'll see how that goes. But without further ado, minis I painted well over ten years ago.

 wolfbane heavy weapons specialist. This is one of the miniatures painted in enamel, the hair is painted in GW acryllics though.

Wolfbane close combat guy, propably one of the coolest minis ever. This is the other guy painted in enamel. The truth is I didn't paint them in enamel these are really my brothers minis but he quit wargaming many years ago so I took care of them, he's the one who painted them in enamel. That's right I'm blaming my brother.[insert evil laughter] It's not like he going to see this anyway.

 One of the crewmen for the unholy cannonade i pactically dipped him in goblin green, what a painter I was.

 

Another crewman and propably my favourite warzone miniature, I dont know it's something awesome about a robed skeleton on a  desert base.

 as I said i really like this guy he looks so ominous, and y idea of painting back then was painting half the model in red gore. My first or second pot of GW paint ever by the way. I remember painting a space ork in Red Gore, I had no idea they were suposed to be green. I painte dhis clothes green though... scorpion green, my second pot of gw paint ever (or first if Red gore was the second)

Did I happen to mention scorpion green? Yeah I know. I'll be sticking this guy to a large and quite busy base to avoid him looking small on a 40mm base (which is what stalkers in WZR will be fielded on) it'll also add some height and help me avoid players complaining how I'm exploiting true line of sight. Oh and it's a praetorian stalker.

Illian templar with kratach. As you may notice while still  badly painted this guy is a lot better than the previous ones, well that's simply because he was painted much later. This guy may actually just be ten years ago.

 Illian templar with templar mace, same thing againb, not a good painted when i did this guy but atleast i knew that you could paint them more than one colour. Note how the tilted base means he gains more momentum behind his swing. If you scroll back up you'll see I did the same on the wolfbane with the sword. I'm so tired of seeing heroically posed minis on stones facing upwards, why would they do that? Are they trying to reach someone tall? Now I get it if they're fightign a dragon on a diorama but otherwse, no just no. The only worse thing is shooting minis doing the same, why would you stand up on a stone and be a target unless it's to get some extra range on a charging enemy?

Illian (I think could be semai) heretic. For the reasons above he's on a  quite plain base.

Running heretic, open base cause a running person is usually crossing open ground.

 Same mini again? Nope if you look the base is different, the heretics come in only two varieties. This one is standing on a  more scenic base and note he is again facing slightly downwards as if taking short on an enemy who's charging him.

 And another of the running heretic, this time on a rocky base, simpy because I wanted him somewhat different from his clone.

 Another crewman, the necromutant, from the unholy cannonade, now I've glued this guy to his base and I'm not certain I should have done that becuase what if i want to use him as a hero level necromutant until the canonade is released (and that might be years).
I might consider removing him from his base and magnetizing him actually, I'll have toi think about it.

 Nepharite of Algeroth, this guy is massive, now if his pose had just been a little more dynamic he could've been a really awesome mini. But even as he is he's very nice, i chose an open base and positioned him far back hoping to give him a sense of movement but I'm not sure it worked.

Immaculate Fury. Yeah he's tilting I wanted to give the impression he was walking up the slop when he heard something and turned to bring his nazgaroth down on whatever unfortunate creature it was that drew his attention. Problem is the mini is pretty easy to knock over I might have to hollow the base out and add some extra weight.

That's it for today... oh yeah the bases are from secret weapon, really nice now I just need about a hundred more of them when my WZR minis show up, and even ore when my raging heroes minis show up. I need to stop doing kickstarters.

Well until next time!

Etoiles Mortant

Lo folks i had an argument with a person regarding that all the armoured Etoiles Mortant in mutant chronicles supposedly being Valerie Duval.

So here are four of them who clearly aren't the same person.

Valerie Duval, she has her unique weapon and is standing between Hunter and Steiner.

 Clearly another Etoiles Mortant, diffent hair colour diffrent face structure.the label says Etoiles Mortant.

 Clearly yet another Etoiles Mortant (her use of the brotherhood manufactured punisher pistol reveals her as such)

 And yet another.

None of them seems to be the same.


til next time.

Sailing 'flying chariots' (my own concepts)

Lo folks again I'm going to break the tradition and do something new. the rumour is that games workshop will be unleashing a flying chariot for the high elves next month. As soon as I heard the concept I immediately thought, flying ship. I've always viewed the elves as the true engineers of the warhammer world, the empire may mix compounds and set them on fire but neither they nor the dwarfs have any real concept of science. So while the 'real' flying chariot is rumoured to be a thing drawn by an eagle I'm going down the road of my inspiration. So here is my concepts, sorry for the poor quality I've never drawn a boat before even less a flying one. Oh and since my explanation in the end is a bit rife with technical terms I've made a few wikipedia links.

 My first concept is a mono hull, its probably the way I'm going to go, I know the sail wings should be much larger.

Here's the second concept, catamaran. Its assumed that the to sides have a sail between them (hard to draw from this angle), I mostly just drew this since someone said the real deal was going to be a catamaran.

The concept in bot cases is that it would use the lateen sails to propel itself forward. since any slow down would cause it to plummet square rigging isn't a good idea since any turn would bring it to almost a total stop if it tried to tack. they'd still be nearly unable to beat but that's life if you want to fly.

The lower sails would both function as a keel (which is why they are directed at 45^o downwards) and as wings like a glider plane. Of course the wooden structure would still be way to heavy to be lifted by them when only propelled by the wind (since a sail boat can only move faster than the wind under ideal conditions) but that's just artistic licence.

well enough of my crappy drawings, until next time.

Are Prodos going to have legal issues over this?

Lo folk today I'm going to discuss something that isnt really my work.

Just  afew moments ago Prodos unveilved their new version of the classic warzone miniature Golgotha. the old version looked like this:

the artwork for her looked like this

Very 90's makes me think of Evil lyn from He-man so it was in dire need of an update.

and here's what they came up with.

Really awesome miniature, but as a few of you might have noticed she looks a lot like another famous sci-fi 'villainess', I like the change the question is of BLizzard entertainment will go for it

Compare

Yeah Kerrigans back spikes are more wing like (but wasnt in starcraft 1 as I recall) But bacdk spikes couples with both having some crossbreed between dreadlocks and horns growing out the back of their head smake them very similar.

So Blizzard, please dont sue Prodos we like this miniature and its not exactly the same.

Oh and a link to the Warzone resurrection kickstarter.

Til next time folks