The Hub Systems Episode 4 - Strange Aeons & Cthulhu Wars

Well it's quite a picture-heavy post today, first up are some of the minis we've painted for Strange Aeons v2. First up is a Werewolf I put up on Facebook a week or so back;

I also starter this skeleton dude who I've played as an Ancient Warrior...basework done, all the shading and detail to go!

Next is Oscars newest Threshold agent...he's not done a bad job at all!

Plus his rather flamboyant character....

For me next is the Shapeless Thing...though this was actually the last thing I painted...first up meeting Oscar's new Agent!

And then I've a large worm where I wanted to illustrate how easy it is to create a decent looking mini for SAv2. Here's a reaper worm that cost less than £2, primed in auto primer;

Next a basecoat - normally I'd spray this but as the weather has been crappy and it doesn't really make a difference, I brushed this one;

Then it's a coat of Army Painter Strong Tone;

And then drybrushing;

A drybrush around the mouth with pink, then red for the inside and detail painting the teeth...took about 20 minutes excluding the drying time for the Strong Tone.

The we come to the nerdfest that is Cthulhu Wars...

Note the HUGE box...6.3kg (14lbs)! You can see my Threshold character dwarfed by it...

You get lots inside, but I'll lay examples out here in the order we did the unboxing in;

The Great Old Ones...(and some Dark Young!)

Cthulhu...."Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn"

Nyarlathotep - love this guy...damned if I can say his name though!

Sub-Niggurath

Dark Young...it's behind you!

Hastur

Night Gaunt

 The King in Yellow....Have you seen the Yellow Sign?

Hunting Horror

Flying Polyp

Fungi from Yuggoth (but suspiciously like a Mi-Go to us!) 

Byakhee

Shoggoth

Star Spawn

Undead

Cultist

Ghoul (not a Ghast as we thought on the podcast!)

Deep One

Some little marker things!

I'll put another post up with more pictures

The Hub Systems Podcast Episode 3

Yes, Episode 3 is upon us!

The Hub Systems Episode 2 - Firestorm Armada Part 2

A quick lunchbreak update to broadcast Episode 2 of The Hub Systems, will update later with some of the links and images we mention on the show....


Here's the link to Reading Warfare

http://www.wargamesassociationreading.co.uk/

One to Soma;

http://somagame.com/

Prometheus;

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446714/

The Leftovers;

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2699128/

Strange Aeons;

http://strange-aeons.ca/sa/

Her are my Threshold characters...mid-painting (don't judge me!)...this taken shortly before they got their asses handed to them...

And here's Oscars crew...

This taken after I ripped them to shreds. The Indiana Jones dude on the left now has a chest wound, is a basket case and has a fear of being touched after a rather nasty encounter with a Leng Spider....

More painting - the Ba'kash get dirty!

A couple of weeks ago I put up some pictures of my Ba'kash getting their first touches of paint - an overall coat of Army Painter Weapon Bronze. I then gave them a coat of Strong tone to knock this back a bit. This worked as intended, and my original intent was to then dry-brush, detail paint and then weather, but I then found after a test I really needed to weather first before drybrushing to knock back any over-application from the weathering stage.

Now of course, space "weather" is really just variations on subatomic particles and radiation, with maybe some ionised gas thrown in for good measure. This is rather immaterial, however, because what I wanted to do was to create the "feel" of a raider fleet that used rather aged and worn - if still perfectly serviceable - ships. As I'd gone for a bronze base, I decided to spot wash a three-stage weathering mix - a dark blue-green, followed by a lighter turquoise and finally some Vallejo Green Wash. This produces a very distinct finish;

I also went mad on one cruiser just to see what it'd look like...

So after this had dried I decided it probably should have been more dilute for the effect I wanted (the original ones I tried were)...oh, well, just chalk it up to experience! This is why I definitely needed to drybrush after weathering, which I did...

This absolutely improves the look, although the photographs don't really capture the look that well. Anyway, I then went on to drybrush with Greedy Gold to add some lustre.

Finally I added a Shining Silver/Bronze/Gold mix (all Army Painter colours) to further accentuate the worn look and give some detail highlighting. Overall I'm pleased with how this turned out.

The next stage was to detail paint the "stripy" banded elements on the main body and arms, which I envisage as some sort of inorganic ballistic or ablative plating. This I did in Vallejo 70.896 - German Extra Dark Green.

The destroyers had a similar treatment on their exposed pipework, leaving the "collars" in the base metal

This was followed by a Strong Tone wash and highlighting with 70.890 Retractive Green.

I'm pretty happy with them so far - just need to add engine and weapons glow to them now, which I'll do by airbrush, with final highlights by brush...then my raiders are ready to fully support the Zenian League wherever needed!