Daddy Broke-legs the Giant Spider

Couldn't find a photo that wasn't from someone else's blog so this post will be a TEXT ADVENTURE this time. Found one I took before the pinning:

From WHFB3:
"The darker and more secluded areas of the forest in the Old World, South Lands and Lustria are home to many forms of creature. The Giant Spider is one such monstrosity, a creature rarely seen, but frequently spoken of by those whose daily duties take them into the woodlands. Giant Spiders are known to inhabit the inner regions of the Forest of Shadows in The Empire as well as the Loren Forest of Bretonnia.

Physique. Giant Spiders are ugly, hairy, creeping monsters that shamble and skitter as they move, filling the forest with unnerving rattling noises. They are dark coloured and very difficult to see except for their countless eyes which catch the light like small black gems. Boastful woodcutters tell of creatures as big as houses. and who is to say that they are mistaken? Giant Spiders can certainly grow to a very large size.

Alignment. Spiders can be malicious and hateful creatures, although most are simply animals hunting in the only way they know how. They can be Evil or Neutral.

Base Size. 40 x 40mm or as appropriate for model.

Special Rules. 

1. Spiders are immune to all psychology excepting that they dislike fire. A spider attacked by fire weapons, or moved to within 4" of a burning building, must take a panic test.
2. Spiders cause fear 6" in all creatures under 10 feet.
3. Spiders attack with a poisoned bite that adds +1 to their strength. Models taking damage are not necessarily dead, but may be paralysed, although they are removed from the table as casualties.
4. Spiders are not only very powerful creatures, their mouth parts are especially designed for penetrating deep into a victim's body. Accordingly, any blows struck by them have a better than average chance of penetrating armour. An enemy's armour saving throw is reduced by -1 if struck by a Giant Spider.
5. A Spider's chitinous armour gives it a basic saving throw of 4, 5 or 6.
6. Spiders may move through wooded areas without penalty. THEY MAY ALSO ASCEND TREES INSTEAD OF A NORMAL MOVE - THIS PUTS THEM OUT OF CHARGE REACH OF CREATURES UNDER 10 FEET TALL. THEY MAY DESCEND TREES AS A NORMAL MOVE, OR DESCEND AND CHARGE UP TO 5" AS A CHARGE MOVE."

How bloody cool is that last rule?!?!?! (CAPSLOCK FOR EXCITEMENT!). Imagine: a group of intrepid adventurers, slowly treading their own path through thick and foreboding woodlands... They hear a faint rattling from the trees above and before the elf in the group has the chance to recognise what danger lurks atop the canopy BAM! A giant fucking poisonous spider drops on top of them!

Well, unexpectedly this morning there was one waiting for me in my mailbox! It leapt out at me screeching "PIN MY BLOODY BROKEN LEGS YOU TWAT!" so I promptly got to work on doing so. I'll post photos when I've actually painted the blighter (I have an unhealthy habit of photographing naked lead, bloody susso). Until then: WATCH THE TREES AND KEEP THOSE HOLES IN THE SIDES OF YER HEADS PEELED FOR THAT EERIE RATTLING FROM ABOVE.

P.S. Next up I need to acquire myself a Giant Scorpion as I am both: a) A Scorpio & b) A massive fan of Scorpions (the band). So it only seems fitting that I have an 'eavy metal Scorp in my collection.

- The Witchfinder In General.

Newcomers & Outers

    The sleepy village of Fyndertowne is growing in population and I must extend my utmost gratitude to Craig at Turnkey Miniatures for including the little stowaway feline I wasn't expecting, Fyndertown is now safe from those dirty ratmen raids! But what about those rowdy drunken newcomers? There's a few Tom Meier & Murch sculpts in the mix here which is nice, but in all truthfulness my favourites are the Metal Magic recasts (on the left).

    And thanks to Mr. Conway on the FB group the FCR-87 now has a pilot!

Someone thinks he can steer with his toes... Bloody lazy bugger.

That's it for now I reckon, back to painting my woodcutter...

- The Witchfinder In General.

VIllagers WIP

    Right, well. I went for a nap at midday and woke up at 10pm yesterday. Today I rose at 4am, getting better but still off by a fair bit... A lot of sleeping and not enough hobbying, can't say it's been the most productive few days...
    I noticed the other night that I have a staggeringly low amount of unarmed/civilian types among my leadpile so I've set out to tip the balance. This week I am focusing on my entry for Chico's 7th challenge: a Metal Magic barbarian. In keeping with my recent obsession with civilian/townsfolk minis and with the help of a generous portion of green stuff I've begun work on a base for this guy to make it look like he's chopping wood (or, as it kind of looks like, attacking a bloated fungal stump-being deep within the forest). The model itself shouldn't prove to be too much of a hassle to paint as he's predominantly flesh tone but the composition of the base is what's troubling me most, I need to find the perfect balance between simplistic minimalism and over-the-top detail but I've probably gone and buggered it all by adding all those mushrooms. Here's what he looks like at the moment:

    I might have the tendency to go a bit overboard with these challenges and never actually finish anything and this time is no exception but I fully intend on finishing this guy before the deadline. The base just needs two more things: a woodpile & a section of log to cut (at the moment it just looks like he's about to take out his savage frustrations on an innocent tree stump).
I'm sick of seeing naked lead and green stuff so I'm making a start on the colorization process as soon as I hit Publish. I usually undercoat in white but I'm considering changing my ways for this model.
    Feels good to have some motivation again.

- The Witchfinder in General.

Amputee

Coming soon. 

May or may not have anything to do with Chico's 7th challenge.

May or may not be a mystery.

...

Stumped yet?

...

(couldn't help myself)

- The Witchfinder in General

Minimal Progress

    Not much to report this time, just thought I'd drop in and put up some photos of the FCR-87's progress. She's getting there slowly but things are starting to fall into place inside, outside is a whole other kettle of fish. I really don't know what I'm gonna do with the exterior at this point. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Cockpit improvements, swiveling chair.

What kind of a spaceship would it be without joysticks?

Captain Mainwaring takes no notice of the guitar strings used as pipes & inspects the ongoing construction.

    The metal components in the cockpit and by the exit hatch are from Antenocitis Workshop (cheers to Gareth over at Drums in the Deep for the recommendation), the brass components you see are from an old model ship kit I found in a bin (particularly proud of the joysticks I might add) and the ladder in the third photo was an absolute nightmare to assemble! I was dealing with components far too small for my clumsy fingers and suffice to say there was a lot of swearing and glue-caked fingertips involved. These were the ingredients: wire and these bloody tiny and frustratingly difficult to work with key shaped whatsits:

What I had to do was glue one "key" to the end of the wire, cut it to length, glue the other key and then trim the keys to fit in the wall. Sound easy enough... except these bloody keys were tiny!

The key what opens yonder door of hardship.

    I think I might be struggling out of my paintless slump though, the age old remedy that is buying more minis has got me inspired. It may not be much but it's either a start or a desperate cry for help:

Looking crate.

     The crates are also from Antenocitis Workshop, they've got some nice stuff there. I've ordered in the Spacelords range Ship's Crew and some other miscreants from EM4, some Metal Magic civilian types from Turnkey, a Citadel giant spider and a huge lot of GW dungeon tiles (two sets boxed, two others loose) from ebay & a pilot from the RT landspeeder to sit at the helm of the FCR-87 from a legend on the Oldhammer fb group, cheers for that mate! Can't wait 'til the mail starts getting chunkier.

- The Witchfinder in General.

Creating the FCR-87™

    Well, due to complications unforeseen, I've failed the 6th Chico's Challenge. I got a bit too excited and decided not to strip my LE02 marine of its previous black undercoat and just spray on a quick'n'thin layer of white over the top. But to my dismay, however, whoever had this mini previously had undercoated it in something strange which reacted with the white spray and blobbed up, obscuring details. So naturally into the Dettol he went and he's sitting in front of me with a fresh white priming, waiting patiently to be painted.

I might've failed to paint up the marine in time but I decided shortly after my last post (after weeks of deliberation, procrastination and design sketches which kind of went out the window once I found something suitable to use as the main chassis) to assemble some sort of spacecraft for my growing (yet still naked) warband while the marine sat in the hospital grade bath. The following is a press release sent out by FynderCorp® whilst the vessel is in its construction and conception stages:

    Small time merchants beware... there's a brand new compact cargo runner coming soon and it's got its eyes all over your hard earned credits! Introducing the latest in lightweight transporter crafts, the FynderCorp® FCR-87™ (FynderCorp® Cargo Runner™) aka: 'The Facker'™.

    This compact craft is simply stunning! Licensed to carry 6 humanoids comfortably (or 7 at a squeeze) with no cargo on board, plus its very own pilot (pilot not supplied). What it lacks in storage is only doubly compensated with it's speed and manoeuvrability, due to it's aeronautodynamic™ design specially forumulated™ by a congress of the universe's top leading ahead-of-the-rest engineers. And the extras!

    The FCR-87™ is a fully equipped cargo, transport & reconnaissance vessel with all the functioning capabilities implied therein! The sleek design accommodates for convenience with the spacious fold-down* airlock stair laden side-exit doorway hatch, allowing easy access to or from the lush interior. An even roomier aperture lies directly opposite: the beautiful fold-down* cargo bay, allowing your cargo to be easily loaded, accessed and unloaded with all the comforts of home or away. Speaking of home, let's take a look inside!

[:End Report:]

There's a lot of work still yet to do!

    I'm short on technical supplies at the moment but I've ordered in some parts... Does anyone know where I could find some suitable interface type doodads to flesh out the cockpit with? It's bare as hell in there.

The general shell of the craft is an AirWick scent dispenser that was lying around unused, figured it'd be a nice shape to start with.

And here's a fitting shot of the FCR-87 from behind as we reach the end of the post...

- The Witchfinder in General.

*Does not actually fold down.

Chico's Challenge 666

It's been a while since my last post so here's something to sink yer dirty chompers into...

Time to step up to the challenge! Chico's Challenge that is, this week being sci-fi themed (how very apt as I've just watched the featurette on the models used in Red Dwarf). I have a few naked Rogue Trader minis that have been waiting for a lick of the sable for yonks now so I thought I'd start off by painting up my LE02 Space Marine, the very first of its kind (as I'm lead to believe (seewhatIdidtherehurrr)). After the painfully painstaking task of removing the mould lines (they were atrocious, still not completely satisfied with the end result) comes the task of selecting my colours.

I've had a geez around at painted versions of this mini and I can safely say, although tempting as it is, I'm going to shy away from the silver scheme as portrayed in the mighty tome Heroes For Wargames and possibly outfit this magnificently detailed miniature in a shade of either green or yellow (or both if want to get all aussie about it, but I don't because that's gross and he's not exactly competing in the commonwealth games now is he?). But after seeing how well oldm8 BlueyVT's Alternative Armies Ion Age not-marines turned out with their olive and bone scheme (which reminds me, gotta finish Problemfoot), I'm inspired and thinking of doing something along the same lines... But I'm a terribly indecisive man so who knows how this will turn out! (or if it will even turn out at all!)

Given that the challenge begins on a public holiday for us convicts down south I don't really have much of an excuse not to get started!

Right... enough of the blue wafflling and onto the painting! Decisions, decisions, decisions...

Stay tuned for photos of my efforts if I actually get around to making any.

- The Witchfinder in General.