Using two figures from the Mantic undead sprue and some bits from the Mantic elves sprues I started working on a new project. At first I wanted to do the skeleton alone, but then I thought it was cool to add the undead dog and the dead elf from the


Everything is mounted on a plastic cup, which will be primed and painted black. I used some cork to make a surface for the base, then used some plaster to create the broken tiles and used some sand to fill everything up. Easy, but looks good. I might do a little picture tutorial on the plaster tiles later... I've taken some pictures of the progress.

Regular readers of my blog will know I got some exclusive preview sprues of the Mantic Games Elves last summer. Well, a while ago the guys at Mantic were so friendly to send me some undead sprues to check out.

And again they did a great job. Not everyone liked the design of the Elves, but I think these skeletons will appeal to a wider public. The figures are filled with bits of armor, chainmail, weaponry and shields. And again the sprues are filled with a huge amount of extra bits and options. Again the casting quality is very good.

There's no real reason not to buy these if you're looking for a cheap or better looking alternative for your favorite wargame's undead troops.

Personally I think I will take one skeleton from the sprue, add some bits to a base and paint it up. They look very tempting to paint :)

Time to reveal the first mystery package! It is actually a figure I ordered from Kabuki Models a while ago.

The order on the site was smoothly, and I was kept up to date when the order was processed. I expected the package to arrive a bit quicker, but it was still under two weeks shipping time. The website tells me the company is based in Italy, but I got e-mails from a Polish guy and in the end the package appeared to be shipped from the UK.

The figure itself is contained in a small cardboard box with a simple sticker on it:

The model itself consists of three parts: the body, head and the axe. There's a great sculpted base provided with the figure, featuring a pile of skulls, nice!

The overall quality of this figure is very high. There are some minor mould lines on the model, but nothing serious that can't be removed with a file or knife.

Here's official studio paintjob:

It's been about two months since I touched a paintbrush for the last time, as well as writing on this blog. I planned to take a short pause, something like two weeks, after finishing my Deathwing Terminators. But the pause turned into a two month hiatus because of some private things I had to take care of. First of all I bought a new house; we don't have the keys yet, but there's a lot of things to take care of. The plan is to move in this summer. And yes, there will be a dedicated painting room :) On top of that my kids have been ill most of the time. Nothing serious, just some seasonal colds, but it really soaks up your energy. Because of this I was having some problems getting into the painting mood again.

But the last week I have been gathering some inspiration and motivation again and decided I will soon return to the painting desk. As usual the Massive Voodo blog was a great source for inspiration. Remember the ball-painting competition I mentioned some time ago? Well both the entries and winners have been announced last week. Some great stuff there, very creative.

I also returned to my usual second home on the web: the Chest of Colors forums. I didn't really have time to catch up with all the recent posts, but one thing that drew my attention was Scibor's Dwarf king painted by YellowOne. This is one epic piece of painting and probably one of my favorite pieces so far.

This is what my desk looks like at the moment... empty, except for those two packages. I'll reveal what's in them very soon. They're most likely going to be my next projects.

They're finally done, not much to add really.

I also noticed this is the 100th post on my blog :)

Welcome to Desktop Shot, a very rare feature on this blog :)

Actually the purpose of this post isn't to show what's on my blog, but rather to announce what I already quoted in my post Ride into 2010: I'm returning to showcase painting again. This will also mean there will be some changes to this blog, and I need your input on this... more on this later in this post.

So what can be seen on my desk for the moment? First of all there's the almost-done Deathwing unit, together with the bases, which I will show you in detail in a following post.

But there are three things in this picture which have to do with my return to showcase painting. First of all there's the wet palette in the left bottom corner: it's made out of the packaging for cheese, together with paper towel and baking paper: works like a charm! I will be using this palette a lot in the future to get better paint consistency and longer working times for my mixes.

In the center of the image, between the two Vallejo bottles, there's a little test figure I've been working on. I plan to do a lot of experimenting and this figure was used to work out new recipes for painting metallics. It's also mounted on one of my new painting handles. I'll be blogging about these subjects really soon.

The third thing are the brushes in the bottom right corner, which contains some freshly ordered Rosemary & Co series 33 brushes.

Remember I needed your input? Well here's why: recently I've been very inspired by Jarhead's blog. Not only because of his great painting, but also because of his way of blogging. Instead of showing work in progress as a picture of a mini at a certain stage of painting, he sometimes includes a little tutorial, for example a WIP post about a figure with its armor finished will be accompanied with pictures of how the armor was painted. It is this specific style of blogging which I want to try to adapt. Kind of a mix between WIP and how-to. Are there any particular steps or techniques which you want to have covered in detail?
I also want to write some quality articles for my blog. Are there any subjects on which you want to find out more? I already have some ideas, but more suggestions are always welcome.

Please comment if you have any suggestions. Otherwise, I hope you will enjoy what I will paint and blog in the future!

Work on the Deathwing unit continues... currently working on the metallics.