Heavy Metal Menagerie, week 13 (2026 week 13)

This week we begin the final stretch of this mega theme. These first four mechs are Eridani Light Horse Hunter Lance and a gift from a pal. Sarna says that they've kept their original "SLDF olive drab" color scheme so that's what I painted. I thought I'd picked a light enough basecoat but it darkened down quite a lot after the oil wash. The cockpits on these could have been a little lighter as they don't read super well on the table. The Tbolt fell off of his smoke trails which was very fortuitous since it meant I could pant them more carefully. Actually, Sarna says it's intentionally configurable. Left to right: Sagittaire, Thunderbolt, Cyclops, Banshee

These guys are the remainder of the non-legendary salvage boxes in my collection and since I was already doing a batch in the olive drab, I painted these guys in the same scheme. I have many Grendels and at least a couple Dire Wolves but the Blood Asp is both new to my painted collection and new to me. Cool though it may be, it's out of my time period (Clan Invasion). Left to right: Blood Asp, Dire Wolf (Daishi), Mongrel (Grendel)

2026 finished mini counter: 76 

A thing a week 2024, week 19

Not sure if I mentioned this before, but I'm ever-so-slowly grinding down the last of the Bones 4 pledge I made way back in the fall of 2017. This is in preparation of receiving my Bones 6 fulfillment in the next few months. One step forward, one step back and is it just me or does 2017 seem like forever ago? Anyway.

First up we have a Tidal Lurker. It's bigger than it probably looks in these shots and if I'm honest, it's not a fig that I like a whole lot. It's very fiddly and had a mess of mold lines that were a real pain and has a lot of negative space which was difficult to deal with. It's sat prepped on my painting desk for probably a year and a half until last weekend. This is an almost coconut crab style of painting that did the rounds for Tyranid painters a few years ago. It's a pretty dramatic effect at arm's length and not particularly difficult to pull off but my first go-around here crumbles under close scrutiny, probably because I wasn't very careful and didn't work very hard. It was done in a few hours and I'm not super sure if it'll ever see in-game action.

Next up we have a Thrasher Snail. This is also a larger-than-it-seems fig and one that I actually like except for the mold lines and its lousy paint job. I didn't have a plan here and it probably shows. The composition isn't good and I was maybe a little daring with the color scheme beyond that. Overall it looks bad. I didn't have a good idea for the main color for the shell but in retrospect the off-white does not look good and neither does its dumb eyes which look entirely un-snail-like. It also sat on my painting table for multiple years (see: didn't have a plan) so I'm happy it's done. 

 

 

Last up we have a Cyclops. Maybe it's because I've been playing Dragon's Dogma II, easily the best game I've played in a really long time, but I got the inclination to paint it. I could have gone the elephant-style skin for him had I been thinking about it, but I clearly didn't. Despite being a speed paint, I wound up spending quite a lot of time on its fleshtones which I think shows. Everything else was basically phoned in. This is another monster that I don't find a lot of use for so it's not clear if it'll ever see game time. 

2024 finished mini counter: 119/208