40K Assassin

 

Rogue Trader era Assassin

Assassins have been part of the WH40K universe since the original “Rogue Trader” edition.

In the numerous background sources produced since then many of the various elements that made up the Assassin as described in that original rulebook were split up into six aspects of the Officio Assassinorum.  This gave rise to six different assassin “temples” or “clades”, each with their own equipment and techniques.  To date corresponding miniatures have been made for four of the six temples.

Before all of that however Jes Goodwin sculpted this more generic assassin figure to fit with the background in Rogue Trader.

It is to my mind a stone cold classic GW figure.  Elements of the design of this model were carried forward to each of the miniatures for the four assassin temples.  While those later assassin models are largely pretty good, none of them have the charm of this figure.

Assassins are pretty much invariably painted black, ninja style.  I have painted a lot of black on miniatures recently so I wanted to steer clear of that on this one.

I came across a photo of the figure painted in a light blue scheme somewhere online (I cant remember where) and while the blue was great, what really caught my eye was the white socks.

Apart from what I have picked up from trash like Power Rangers over the years I know very little about samurai and ninja fashions and styles, but to me the white socks were evocative and pretty cool.  So I loosely copied the colour scheme that I saw online, with a few minor changes that suited me.

Lastly, this figure was painted after a long break in painting which shows in a few places.  When I look at it I vaguely remember a comment about “the lack confidence in the brushstrokes” that I remember an old college tutor making.  I think that that applies to this figure: it would have benefited from more precision painting.

On the plus side, I think that the figure looks cool anyway, even if some of the highlighting is a bit clunky.

I am considering picking up the four figures from each of the various Officio Assassinorum temples and making a team, each painted in a tonally dark but brightly hued colour, Power Rangers style.  It might even happen too, as it would be a pretty quick project plus I have wanted something to serve as Power Rangers in miniature for a while now.

Resident Evil 6

I tend to only post miniatures related stuff here.  Even then its really only miniatures stuff that is directly connected to me: my miniatures in other words, not notes about upcoming releases from X company or reviews of a TV show or whatever.  There is nothing wrong with doing that sort of thing of course, its just not what I want to do here.

So I am making a little bit of an exception with this post.

I have enjoyed video games for my whole life.  Video games have often been a large part of the inspiration for various miniatures related projects.

Of all of those influences the Resident Evil video game series (not the sub-par movies) has probably had the most impact on my toy soldiers, some of which can be seen here.  Of course the majority of my zombie stuff is connected too.

Therefore news that Resident Evil 6 is to be released in November is definitely worthy of note.

The viral marketing campaign site is nohopeleft.  The big release trailer, in all of its cheesy Bruckheimer glory is below.

That this game finally pairs up Leon (a man whose pithy lines are the only thing limper than his fringe) with Chris (the most frequently appearing male meatball character) is cheesy, bromantic, soap-opera gravy.

Leon has been re-based since this shot. He still has nightmares though.

With RE6 out in November, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City out exactly one month from today plus Resident Evil Revelations out on Feb 7th (only on 3DS.  Boo!)  it looks like 2012 will be annus horribilis, for all the right reasons.

Hooray!

Judge Death

Judge Death

Judge Death is the leader of the Dark Judges and the archenemy of Judge Dredd and/or Judge Anderson.

"The crime isss life, the sssentencce is death."

Visible above is Deaths shtick.  As a trans-dimensional, undead super-fiend, Death dishes out his form of justice up close and personal, usually via the plunging of  his semi-ethereal hands into victims chests.  He then “squeeezzessss” with fatal results.

Apparently Judge Death was conceived as a recurring nemesis for Dredd largely because he couldnt be killed.  Dredd tended to bump off his adversaries in short order, so Judge Death sidestepped that problem for the writers by being undead and tricky to capture or hold.

Deaths Pterodactyl Shoulder Pad

Deaths all-life-is-committed-by-the-living-therefore-all-life-is-crime standpoint is even more draconian than Dredds law and order views.  This provides obvious parallels with Dredds own pretty black and white standpoint.  The two-sides-of-the-same-coin thing is particularly apparent for these comic book foes.

Death sporting quite a green complexion.

As time went on Deaths origin story was explored.  As often happens when the mysterious or creepy is explained its impact is lessened.  This in addition to a few ill-advised comic turns taken by Judge Death during that era turned him into more of a comical character than the creepy ghoul he had started out as.

There have been efforts to make Judge Death creepy all over again since, some of which have worked quite well to emphasise his otherworldly serial killer-like zealotry.  Regardless I think that for readers of my era for whom Judgement on Gotham was a big deal, Judge Death will always tend to be a little more comical than scary.

As you can see from the various takes on Deaths look shown in this post, the colours used for the various parts of his uniform and his flesh vary from artist to artist. When painting my take on the character I had to pick and choose which colours I thought would work the best on the figure in isolation and also in conjunction with the bright primaries of my Mega City Judges.

Like my other Dark Judges, I found Death to be a stumbling block for my toy soldier painting productivity.  As a result the painting on some areas is far superior to that on other areas as I finally rushed to get the figure finished.

Another Dark Judge next time.

Judge Mortis

Judge Mortis

The Dark Judges are foes of Judge Dredd that hail from “Deadworld”, an Earth like planet located in another dimension.  Like Dredd they are law enforcers but the Dark Judges laws are even more draconian than Mega City Ones famously strict codes: the Dark Judges eradicate all life in order to eradicate all crime.

In order to achieve this goal, the Dark Judges are dead.  Their ectoplasmic forms inhabit corpses.  If the corpses are destroyed their gaseous forms escape until another suitable host is prepared.  ”You cannot killll what doessss not live!” is a pretty common soundbite from these guys.

More agile than one might expect.

So technically the Dark Judges are liches or something, possibly wights.  I am still adding the “zombie” tag to this post though.

"Hol(e)y Judge Mortis Batman!"

There are four Dark Judges (although two other female characters did feature in their ranks for a while, plus another character from comics joined the Dark Judges for a story once, but more on that at a later date).  Each Dark Judge has his own shtick: Mortis here cause decay and putrefaction in anyone or thing that he comes into contact with.

"You cannot killll what doessss not liivvvee!" etc

The Dark Judges robes of office are each a thematically different parody of the Mega City One Judges uniform.  A pretty funny parody in my opinion, with pterodactyls in place of eagles and skulls, bones and body parts featuring heavily.  Fashion restraint is not a desirable quality in a Dark Judge.

Pterodactyl Skeleton Shoulder Pad

Various artistic interpretations of the Dark Judges have coloured different uniform elements in various ways.  I decided to go with a mix of influences from different artists to give each Dark Judge a visual identity while keeping them thematically linked.

Mortis features more bones in his uniform than the other Dark Judges.  Considering that he sports a cows skull for a head and has a bony tail he is pretty easily distinguished from his colleagues.

I did have to represent the bony armour differently to the bony head and tail, which in turn has to be similar but different to the rest of Mortis body, which is covered in stinking meat.

Bovine

I hit a painting slump in mid-August part of the way through painting my Dark Judges.  They have been sitting on my painting table since then in an unfinished state, while I have been unable to get anything else painted.

I finally got the enthusiasm up to do some painting in December and decided that I would finish the Dark Judges one way or another.  As a result I took a few shortcuts and there are a couple of areas on each of these figures that really could have done with some more careful painting.  In the interests of clearing the decks for new projects I decided to grit my teeth and do a basic job on the remaining areas.

Hopefully those areas dont let the miniatures down too badly, as there are still some bits on the Dark Judges that are quite nice in my opinion.

Another Dark Judge up next time.  Comments and criticisms on Mortis are more than welcome.

Mancave Upgrade Complete

I finally got my hobby room tidied up and functional again on Xmas eve.  It was driving me nuts because of the state of it for the last couple of months.

The room now looks like this:

Many if the items on the shelves need to be rearranged a little, into some sort of order but that can wait.  For now at least the room is operational again.

A knock on effect of this de-cluttering was that some actual miniature painting was completed over my Xmas break.  This was somewhat satisfying as I havent managed to finish painting a figure since last August.

Assuming that I get a half decent chance to take a few photos over the next while I will be able to start regularly posting here again.  The posts are all written, I just need to get the photos sorted.