Blog It puts the paint on its skin, or else it gets the hose again

So after I got home from class tonight I figured I’d at least get my skinks ready for after my internship tomorrow night. I dug the skinks out of all my random boxes of stuff and I have quite a few, just not as many as I had hoped.

Not counting the old bow skinks (not pictured) I have about 75 standard skinky-skinks…



…and a small assortment of random metal guys (I didn’t include the critter handlers or the ones that came with the old stegadons).



Also I have these two fella’s that were actually my first attempt at converting some chameleons. I added the mutations because well…



…I was up late and thinking about Oxyotyl and how he pretty much just hung out in the realm of chaos forever and murdered the crap out of daemons until he got bored with it and came home. I mean most likely some of the other wee chameleon skinklings hanging out listening to their chameleon skink elders talk about how much of a badass that Oxyotyl guy is probably got it in their heads that they could be giant skink badasses too if they just go to the realm of chaos and murder the crap out of daemons. So every once in a while when the opportunity arises I figure some young brave/stupid chameleons hop through an open chaos portal hoping to catch some of whatever Oxotyl got. Unfortunately the realm of chaos is a fickle bitch and they don’t always get what they wanted. Most don’t come back at all and the ones who do don’t always come back with the “gifts” they intended. If I had more of these guys with the tentacle-y head-dongs I’d probably only field them with Oxyotyl himself because the way I see it the other chameleons that stepped into the chaos realms and actually made it back are either good enough to hang with him, or maybe bat-shit-crazy, or maybe both? The crazy one’s Oxyotyl feels responsible for kinda and he needs to keep an eye on them, just in case they flip off into rampage psycho mode and he has to put them down before they go on a giant chaos fueled murder spree. I mean Oxyotyl knows that chances are he’s the only one good enough to hunt down and end a craaazy chaos infused skink that was spawned primarily to murder people anyways.

So I might make more of them if I get time. Although somewhere on the internet at one time I saw a tutorial on how to convert your old bow skinks to chameleons. Hopefully I can find that and it’s something I can actually do. I do need more chameleons but I need most of my available skinks to be not-chameleons. Anyways, hopefully they go fast. I’m ready to get some of the bulk of an army painted.

 

Wow, that´s a huge amount of skinks!!

 

You’re right it’s not a trivial amount by any means. I just feel like I'll need more to really do what I want with them eventually. At my LGS when they play 8th it’s usually 2500pts and I kinda want to show up with an all-skink list, for that I need more I think. Also in AoS I’d like to be able to field two units of 30 if I needed to, in addition to what I decide to convert into chameleon skinks (that’s why I hope I can get the bow skinks I have converted – I know I have at least 50 of them. I should have counted them when I counted these but I didn’t), double and – that’s not even counting what I could use for summoning. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with what I have atm. In the AoS league we’re about to start I don’t think I’ll immediately need to field my side of the table full of skinks, it’s just well…I can easily see having a use for more in the future.

 

This took me FOREVER to find, But in @Qupakoco 's Road to 2500 I had posted some of my very simply mod-ed bow skinks. I didn't bother with removing the quivers, and I tried to use bits of the existing bows as hook bladed hand weapons.

I can't get the photos to display here, for some reason, but look about halfway down the page. Actually, the whole thread is pretty cool.

 

your Slann is beautifully painted! Can't wait to see more

 

Nice guys, thanks! All those examples of how I should handle the bow skinks when I get to them are going to be really helpful. I looked at them the other day and I really think I should be able to pull something off with them that looks more or less acceptable.

It’s been awhile since I posted an update. I didn’t forget about this; I technically have been busy with Warhammer although not as productive as I’d like to have been. So when I got all my skinks out a few days ago I was ready for knocking them out. Then I started gluing their tiny fragile terrible arms on and after about the fourth arm that got fused to my thumb with glue I made the executive decision to doing 40 skinks instead of all my skinks. Well and then I finally started priming them and then it started ...distraction after distraction happened.

Firstly I got my Saurus Astrolith Bearer in the mail. I never got one for 8th because I can kit bash my own battle standard bearer pretty easily thanks to all the standard bits available, but in AoS they’re really really really good ..and it’s not just a battle standard anymore, it’s an “Astrolith” so I want it to be recognizable on the table as such to my opponent. Anyways I couldn’t find one on ebay that wasn’t part of a huge lot of lizards and no store in my area had them on the shelves; even GW was out of them for months (I put myself on the email-me-when-it’s-available list). That email finally came and I was able to order one (they’re out again after like a week and a half –it’s a good think I pulled the trigger on it when I did) and it finally got here after months of searching on ebay and waiting and such – it was a pretty big deal. I immediately put the skinks up and was gonna knock that thing out but while I was looking for bit’s for a different kind of base I was thinking about putting together for it I found the temple bases I had misplaced so I was going to put my Slann on a proper base real fast (HUGE MISTAKE).

Putting that thing on a base was murder-balls. I used so much glue and clamps and whatnot getting that thing somewhat stable when I was painting it the first time (it collapsed on me several times) that I was more than a little frustrated at the palanquin bearers when the two on the right simultaneously abandoned their sacred duty and dropped said Slann dislodging a banner. No problem, I can handle that …no wait…I can’t. What ensued afterwards were several hours of all the palanquin bearers falling to pieces banners and horns breaking off glue on my fingers sticking to paint on the model and it coming off stuck to my fingers in strips and slabs – human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, MASS HYSTERIA. I got frustrated; the frustrated made me less careful. Things deteriorated quickly. Long story short I fired those palanquin bearers and after I started having more problems just getting him a flying base for play I fired him too. They all got banished for an undetermined amount of time to a box on the back corner of an old piano in my room I like to call the “Box of Disappointments”.

Then I took a little walk around outside.

Then I got an idea and I think it turned out to be a pretty good one.

I don’t have a lot of WIP shots of these because once I started putting it together I kinda lost track of doing anything else. Anyways, the first thing I wanted to do was make sure I had a flying base that was sturdy enough to hold a Slann. In the middle of putting together the old Slann I won an auction for my first new style Slann for pretty darn cheap (25$ free shipping) I’s just the palanquin was missing some bits and there was no skink rider ( I don’t even know if they’re supposed to come with one for sure), it was just the Slann and most of a new palanquin. Since I was going to have to work on the palanquin anyways I didn’t really want to use it. At some point I’m gonna make a Kroak and I’ll probably use it for that eventually. So for this guy I channeled my inner Aladdin and came up with something else…



The base is really just some temple themed base I had in a box with a new terradon base bit thing on top of it. The carpet is actually a really neat bit I wanted to use forever, it’s from a Reaper mini (sorceress on carpet or something like that) and I had bought it originally because I wanted the carpet to kit out an old-blood on the carpet with the piranha blade and the steg helm but…I don’t know when I’ll get to it and I wanted to use it now so I did. It turned out pretty good I think.

*Since I’ve done this I went to the Reaper website to get another carpet so I could eventually make my old-blood again at a later date and found out that they’re not selling bit’s at all now anymore it looks like (Bone Yard is empty)..sad sad day. The carpet was already expensive-ish by itself (5ish dollars I think but the whole model is 10$), oh well. *

Now that I got the base figured out, this Slann was waaaay easier than the last one.



He’s not done but he’s done enough to play with. The only thing I’m going to add is two more things. The first thing is a topknot. A friend of mine has an orc one he said I could have or If I can even find a horses tail in one of my bit boxes I’ll do something with that. The next thing I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to do it yet – for the skink guy that rides with the Slann, I’m either going to make a Fez out of green stuff and stick it on a skink or get an actual monkey with a fez – Reaper has one in a familiar pack, but it would be expensive for just that if I have to get it from them. Also there’s a company called Eureka or something like that that has a winged-fez-monkey line of minis. Those would be expensive too, but I’ve always wanted an excuse to get some of the winged monkeys ( at one point when I was thinking about trying to make a Tzeentch chaos human/daemon army I was going to use them for Tzeentch themed furies), or even just to paint if nothing else.

So, my army is probably going to look completely different than I thought it would last week. Hopefully in the next couple of days after class/internship/adult responsibilities (boooo) I’ll be back on track with some skinks and maybe that Astrolith Bearer.

 

Ha, thanks, and I guess I probably do get a little talky in my painting blog. If I can just get a lot more productive painting wise maybe the walls of text would at least be a little bit more broken up with pics.

 

Its a whole new... Slann!

Fantastic model, everything is great. I love the level of detail in the base, the carpet, and especially the detailed color scheme on the slann itself. Well done.

 

I really like the blues on that slann. They look great together. That magic carpet is brilliant! Looks fantastic!

 

I feel your pain over the old slann, I'm going to be taking another crack at mine soon and I fear I may need luck to not to end up like yours.

 

Ha, I had that song stuck in my head most of the time I was painting it.

Seriously, you guys are the bestest. I really am happy how this one turned out.

Good luck to you man. I will probably get mine out again and try to do something with it at some-point but for now it's out of sight and hopefully out of mind for awhile. The basic Slann part is fine. It's the dang palanquin bearers that I couldn't ever get stable enough to hold the thing up and then when it crumbled other stuff would give. You might could pin something together but I really don't have experience with that. What I probably should have done (what I will probably try next time) was just used the flying base in addition to the temple guard bearers. The flying base will support the weight by itself and the palanquin bearers should hold just enough to keep it from tilting one way or the other, you know keep it level. That old Slann is heavy but with the flying base and the temple guard on the sides it would probably be just fine. Also, visually you shouldn't notice the pole of the flying base too much at all underneath with the guards covering most of the sides. You'll just have to make some kind of thing for the flying base to stick into underneath since it's just flat metal down there, but that shouldn't be too difficult.

 

Very cool slann dajin love it

 

https://www.reapermini.com/FigureFinder#detail/02983
Found a monkey with a fez... Might need a weapon swap though.

 

Thanks man, I think it’s really coming together pretty good myself. I’m glad that carpet’s not going to waste anymore.

Yeah, maybe you’re right. I like what you’re suggesting, but I’m going to hold off on messing with the carpet until I get the fez monkey/skink on there with him and finish his topknot. Also I’m still going back and forth on whether his jewelry should be gold or silver. When I had him in my hands off the carpet I really liked the way the silver stuff looked but I’m not sold on it completely when he’s sitting on his base. I can take him off and on the carpet atm and still make some changes to him or the carpet even pretty easily still. I didn’t really glue him to the base yet. I just used a bit of sticky tack until I get him done so I can re-position him to make room for his attendant if I need too, or make adjustments to the carpet or whatever.

Ohhh yeah, that’s a good painted example of the one I mentioned in the reaper familiar pack. If I did go with that one I’d probably just clip that scythe part off and make that into a Lizard/Seraphon standard/banner he’s holding. Or even maybe some kind of fan like the old 3rd edition Slann attendant that rides along with him.

http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/File:Slann_Mage_Priest_-_Attendant.jpg

Here's the other fez monkey's I was looking at from Eureka. I just haven't seen a painted example of them yet.

http://eurekaminusa.com/collections/winged-fez-monkeys

I've been wanting an excuse to order something from this company for awhile. They have a ton of different weird mini lines that I want to get a closer look at. If you get time just check out some of their different stuff. At first it looks like alot of historical miniatures but they offer quite a few 28mm oddities that could be fun. They actually have a section called Pond Wars that has a good selection frog/turtle mini's including something that could make a very nice looking Slann substitute (Frog King on Litter).

http://eurekaminusa.com/collections/pond-wars

 

These pond wars minis are really nice. One could really think of some cool conversions... Like swapping the turtles of the alligators and put some skinks on...