Godtear Ascended Pledge Painting by Lawnor

I finished the 2 undead warbands today, taking me up to 7 of 15 warbands finished.  I’ve started basing them all and I’ll have them varnished tomorrow and then start work on the next warband, whichever that may be.

I finished the Froglodytes today and made a strong start on the two undead warbands.  I’m hoping to get both of them done before I base and varnish everything.  My deadline is when my housemate gets back with his toddler as he doens;t like me airbrush varnishing while the child is in the house.  Could be this weekend, but might not be until Monday.

Talking of The Child, I just finished The Mandalorian.  I enjoyed Rise of Skywalker, even if I do have a few issues with it, but dear god is The Mandarian so much better!  Such a shame the season is over.  I cannpt wait for the next season.  Loved the first few minutes of episode 8.  I could have watched a whole episode of those two chatting.

I wasn’t expecting thks but I somehow cleared all the active models off my desk today and I’ve had to grab a few more ready for the morning.  I’m pushing through to get done what I can so I can do a mass basing and varnish over the weekend.

I feel like I’ve made more progress today.  I’ve added 3 more models to my workbench.  The downside of having so many minis on the go is it’s easy to get distracted from your main focus on to a side project.  The advantage is that when  you have the paint mixed up for one model you can always grab the others that need it and paint it on to thm while it’s mixed up.  That’s what happened today and now Grimgut only really needs one more colour painting on her and Half-Tusk is mostly done.  I think Rangosh and his flag are all done except the ground, and his men just need belts and straps painting to be in the same position.

This morning my alarm went off at 7am like a work day, instead of 8am for my days off so I silenced it and went back to sleep.  It wasn’t until 9.30 when I looked at my watch that I realised that if I hadn’t stopped my alarm beeping at 7 then I couldn’t have set it for 8.  So a late start, a trip out to feed a friends cat, and an evening of Space Hulk meant that I didn’t get too much done today.  plus its back to finess work so its slower going.

I’ve finished the red, painted 2 colours of leather, painted the flag pole, andundercoated and washed both the skulls and the bronze (which is still wet).  I’ve also done some of this on my Hordes Satyr which is almost finished.

I’ve spent the day airbrushing the base colour on to all the models I have a plan for.  I’d have gotten more dun but I went to see the new Star Wars movie and I would have to say that Warren must be psychic or saw a copy of the script months ago.  He’s been giving us a huge spoiler all along and none of us noticed.  I’ve yet to watch the OTT after thoughts / “What does it mean for wargames” video to see if they’ve mentioned this.  I’ll watch that tomorrow while working on these guys.

My Christmas leave starts as soon as I leave work today and I plan on treating the whole of Godtear as one big painting project.  I’ve been painting up Rangosh (I was already painting something similar so it seemed efficient to paint 2 models at once) and Mournblade (I  knew he would have a few long dry time washes applied already so I started on him early), and I have washed, cleaned up, straightened, based and primed everyone ready to start work.  Tomorrow I might just get out the airbrush and lay one base colour down on everyone to see what I have to work with.  I’ve had time to think about what I want to do and I have ideas for quite a few of them already.

I hope to post daily updates over Christmas. We will see if I remember to take regular pics or not.

Along with all these boxes I also received:

• The campaign pack
• 2x 10 limited edition dice
• 1 set of black and white base rings to mark the two sides as different
• Limited edition neoprene matt

Initial impressions are that the models are soapier than the renders on the kickstarter led me to believe.  They are probably on a par with the minis from the Guild Ball Kick Off set and perhaps the plastic guilds.  I feel disappointed, but they did make it clear the images were renders so I knew to expect change.  I am hoping that a little zenithal priming, or some paint will make me much happier with the quality.  Had I gone in to this expecting Kick Off quality sculpts I am sure I would be very happy with what I received.  The price was still good, and the design is still great.

I would say that the minions are perhaps a little smaller and daintier than I expected.  They feel a little under the standard 28-32mm scale, although that might be because their bases are smaller which might be messing with my perception

The plastic responds very well to warm water.  They instantly became flexible allowing me to reshape any bends.  This sounds great, but I discovered this while trying to scrub off any mould release agent.  I was terrified to apply any pressure with the toothbrush for fear of bending or breaking something which had been rigid moments before.

About 1/3rd of the bases were not flat and needed reshaping.  Had I not noticed this until after I had based or painted them I would have been annoyed.  Part of the issue here is, I suspect, that the plastic base has shrunk as it has set, but the connections to the feet have pulled on it while it is setting.  Even after I have flattened them out I can still see the warping due to the feet.  Some, possibly all, of the models seem to have been cast on their bases rather than attached so it wouldn’t be the simplest task to remove them and re-base from scratch.

Enough moaning.  I am still happy and I am trying to be optimistic.  On to the prep work.

Everything got a wash in warm water, then had bent bases and the occasional weapon straightened out.  Standard mould line removal etc was done as best as I could, and then rocks and mod were added to the bases.  A little PVA under them and let to dry, and then a little watery PVA over the basing mix to harden it in.  Leave for 48+ hours to dry, and then prime when I get time.

I have 12 days over Christmas when I hope to be able to throw myself in to hobby.  I’m thinking if I can get everything primed before then I might see about doing it all at once, or at least laying down the initial core colour on everything and then breaking in to groups by paint scheme (ie greenskins, undead, humans).