The Sticher

"Now, now me boy. True power doesn't come from chaos. That'll just make you a puppet--and that is no power at all. And it doesn't come from Sigmar, either!" cackled the wizened old man as he hackec a glob of phlegm at the mention of Sigmar. He grabbed his corpulent assistant by the arm and lead him the dais. His familiar followed him, psychically knowing where to shine the light from its candle to illuminate its master's project. "No, it comes from the mastery of life and death, and once I am done with my children, Ottersricht shall be ours!"

New Domain and a Contest!

For a long time I stored all my photos of my miniatures on Photobucket. For those that haven't heard, someone over there decided they were going to start charging a substantial amount of money to link to the photos in your gallery. But to be honest, I was largely getting sick of Photobucket anyway due to the obscene number of advertisements you have to deal with. So, with the new fees to host photos being metaphorical the straw that broke the camel's back, I decided to set up my own image server and gallery for my photos (quite honestly, I hated most of the commercial photo sharing options). To do so, I had to purchase some server space and that came with it's own domain name. So update your bookmarks because my blog is now located at www.acceptableradiation.com. The old address will still work if you're lazy though!

Now, the gallery isn't quite up and running yet, but I wanted to go ahead and run a contest! The first person that can tell me what my blog's title is a reference to (without Googling it!) will win Death on his Pale Horse from Thomas Foss' Triumph of Death range, painted by yours truly!

Now get guessing!

Bring Out Yer Dead [Lead]!

There is no denying that the Mayor was an odd and often polarizing figure, but nothing stood out more than his steadfast protection of religious freedom and refusal to impose the rites of the Imperial Cult on the people of Karr-Keel.  Not surprisingly, in the absence of official religion, strange new rituals cropped up throughout the city.  And, in spite of the Mayor’s protests, he played a central role in many of them.  One that drew adherents from all over the city was the Fellowship of the Flames, which preached that those who died on the Mayor’s birthday were truly blessed, and celebrated the great event by burning the bodies of the blessed dead on a giant bonfire after the Mayor’s birthday cake was served.  This ceremony was a particular favorite of the Teamsters Guild, and their festively decorated carts could be seen making their way through the streets of Karr-Keel as they gathered up the freshly dead for the Fellowship’s Great Fire.  Surrounded by costumed partygoers and entertainers, and showered with coin thrown by ecstatic adherents, each cart was enveloped in its own processional of color, sound, and infectious enthusiasm.  There is some irony in the fact that, of all the people of Karr-Keel, only the new dead on their way to the Great Fire failed to rise again in the wake of the Necroburgher’s curse.  Perhaps the Fellowship was right, and they were the blessed few.  Regardless, many of these carts still travel throughout Karr-Keel, gathering up the remains of vagabonds, thieves, and adventurers who are drawn to their doom in the cursed city by the siren’s song of riches and power.  What the rotting teamsters do with their haul is anyone’s guess.  Who knows what use the Necroburgher has for such gristly things?

Karolingia Panthers Bloodbowl Franchise Club

Bloodbowl season is upon as! I completed this team back in March or April, and didn't get a chance to photograph them before I had to put everything up. They were largely a speed paint as I had intended to teach my oldest son how to play Bloodbowl since he was really excited about it when I picked it up from my local GW store. Sadly, we still haven't played! The bulk of the armor was airbrushed Vallejo Magic Blue with an Electric Blue zenithal highlight applied. Then an edge highlight of Electric Blue with some white was applied with a brush. The metals, leathers, and flesh were applied as normal. I did again choose to have a multi-ethnic team with four white, four black, and four olive skinned players. Because these models were painted quickly, the roughness was hidden with lots of mud and blood (it is called BLOODbowl after all!). Lots and Lots of mud and blood. Finally, I wanted applied static grass to the entire base, to simulate a well-manicured pitch and painted white chalk lines once the grass was set. Now, I just have to complete the Ogre and the team is set!

First up are the team pictures:

Damn you, inconsistent lighting!

And the individual players:

Kameron Newton

Jakob Menschlich

Stephan Smith

Gerhard Olsen

Knut Greene

Kaiser Peppers

Kristoph Jenkins

Michael Rucker

Dagmar Morgan

Wilhelm Witherspoon

Tomas Davis

Rainer Kalil

Sigmarite Priest at the NOVA Open

I've mentioned a few times in the past that 1) I used to do all this through a thread on Warseer, and 2) I had intended to enter a bunch of models into the 2010 Golden Demons in Baltimore, MD but ran out of time to the birth of one of my children. This model fits into both categories as he has previously been shown on the old Warseer thread and was intended to be finished for Golden Demon 2010 but was not done in time so I entered the test model I had done for him instead (which was a runner up!).

Well, I decided that it was time for him to fulfill his destiny and actually be entered into a painting contest. Mainly because I found out about a very large painting contest that is just down the road from me! I entered him into the 2017 NOVA Open's Capital Palette contest. And a big thanks to Rushputin at the warpstonepile for picking him up for me!

He didn't place, but I didn't expect him to. When I finished him, I rushed it because I was sick of looking at a half painted miniature for 2 or 3 years! And you can see where the rush and the boredom affected the quality. The metallics lack enough contrast and the lines of the freehand on the cape are way too thin. The display base also looks a little funny because my dam wasn't secure when I pored the water and I had to sand it and repaint it with the model still attached!

All that said, I'm still pretty happy with how he turned out and I learned a lot doing him. He was one of the first models I've done that is attempting to tell a story, specifically of a Sigmarite priest chasing his quarry into the swamp.