Mein Liebster!

Considering the... manageable :D number of subscribers and commenters of my blog, I would have never expected this, but I have actually been Liebstered. Incredible! And many thanks to Adam Wier from Between the Bolter and Me.
Alright, here goes:


Eleven Truths:

1. I actually have a Master's degree in Theoretical Quantum Physics.
2. Everybody thinks I'm too old for miniatures and tabletop now, including myself.
3. I much prefer converting and painting to gaming. Actually, I haven't played a game since spring 2011.
4. I was one of four members of the Epic Rules Committee, overseeing the online development of GW's Epic:Armageddon.
5. As far as I can think back, I have always been fascinated by Fantasy and Sci-Fi.
6. Despite this blog's title being French, I don't really speak that language; it was just intended as an hommage to Jules Verne.
7. I started out life as a pathological introvert, but have graduated to regular introvert since.
8. I am currently re-watching all episodes of TNG, I'm not a Trekkie though.
9. I think I have found the love of my life, and she's still with me.
10. I still paint all my minis using enamel colours (Humbrol).
11. I started the hobby 19 years ago, with 40K 2nd edition.

Eleven Questions (answered to):

1. Eisenhorn or Ravenor? I must confess I haven't read either. Love Dan Abnett, though.
2. What is your favorite aspect of the miniature hobby? Creating new models ('converting').
3. Will dread Cthulhu rise from his sunken city of R’lyeh? XCOM will be there to meet him.
4. Who is your favorite artist? John Blanche.
5. If you are about to embark on a long drive with nothing to think about, what musical album would you want to listen to? Any old Kyuss stuff.
6. Have you ever played the cRPG: Planescape: Torment? No.
7. Games Workshop’s White Dwarf magazine recently switched formats and is now weekly, thoughts? It has now fully degenerated into a product advertisement leaflet with no hobby-relevant content whatsoever. Only pictures. I really tried hard to still like it, but simply couldn't.
8. Is the Alpha Legion the Imperium’s doom or their salvation? Neither. A thousand men cannot alter the fate of an empire of this size.
9. Benchmade or Spyderco? I actually had to google that. Can't really say.
10. What boardgame would you most like to play this weekend? Heroquest!
11. Who is your favorite sculptor? Simon Lee / Spiderzero

 Eleven Blogs (in order of latest update):

1. Eternal Hunt - Devout (and verbose) follower of Khorne
2. Officio Convertorum - Great conversions and paintjobs, and really steady output
3. Mind of the Daemon - Awesomely gritty Chaos
4. Legion of Plastic - migsula and his XX Legion are already legend
5. Gardens of Hecate - Ana's incredible original and innovative take on Malifaux
6. Three Flies for Nurgle - A great blog by a fellow Nurgle afficionado; also check out his second blog, Mars Irae
7. Rusty Painting - Also Nurgle; oh, and Necromunda!
8. Spiky Rat Pack - THE best blog for all things =I= and Blanchitsu at the moment, IMHO
9. Brushes United - Painting and converting by the grime crew... inspiring
10. Risus Damnatorum - More great conversions and painting
11. The Tears of Isstvan - Another great =I= blog with artsy undertones, sadly abandoned

Eleven Questions (Asked):

1. If you could wish for one thing except more wishes, what would that be?
2. What was the first miniature you painted?
3. What was the best miniature released last year?
4. What was the latest movie you watched in the cinema?
5. Would you rather die now or live forever?
6. Whom do you consider the worse geek, yourself or the hobbyists around you?
7. The discontinued GW game you wish GW would bring back the most?
8. How many DVDs would the internet take up if you removed all the porn?
9. In how many years will tabletop miniatures be 3d holograms?
10. If John Blanche and H.R. Giger had a child together, what would it look like?
11. I accidently the box. Is this bad?

Thank you for the attention.
PS: "Liebster" is a German word and means "favourite"

The Honourable Decaying Mother

Now this model is something very special to me. When I first saw pictures of the Wet Nurse by Kindom Death several years ago,

  I was so taken back by the design and the miniature itself, I knew I had to buy it at some point and convert it. However, this resin model was strictly limited and the only source you could get it was ebay, but you had to lurk for months, and it had a corresponding price tag attached (The model is currently available again, at least the plastic version). However, I really loved the model, it was a perfect blend of the Artemis of Ephesus:

and the work of H.R. Giger:

 When I was developping the army background for my ChainsawDaemonEngines, I pondered the finer points of Daemonhood. I figured that Daemons constantly fight each other for supremacy, and while Daemons are esssentially immortal, there should be instances where Daemons (or their essence) of one side could be enslaved by the other if victorious.


So I came up with the story of a former Slaaneshi Daemon Princess that was defeated in a duel and consequently subjugated to serve Nurgle (for 7777 years), her essence broken up and reformed to please her new master, her beaty and fertility perverted to a more Nurglitch version of beaty and fertility.

Enter the Honourable Decaying Mother.

Along with her, her entire court would go over to Nurgle as well, offering me even more exciting modelling projects, but more to that in future posts.

For now, worship the glory of the Honourable Decaying Mother:

Don't call it a comeback!

As with so many other things, there are times when you feel you just have to take a step back from the hobby. There may be particular reasons or events triggering this (often related to a publication from a company situated in Nottingham), or it just builds up over time and you realise you're not really having fun anymore.

I think most people who have been in the hobby for a long time have experienced this desire for a hiatus, which in turn passes and makes way for more hobby madness again. For me personally, the hobby mostly moves in waves, a wave of frantic dedication (some may call it "overdoing") giving way to periods of almost complete disinterest.

As you can easily see from the date of my last post, I have just had one of those periods where the hobby didn't play a part in my life (it also had to do with a new job and having an insane amount of stuff to do).

But I'm back now, at least backish. I am already planning and organising my next grand idea, and I still have lots of stuff to show off here which I haven't shown yet. I could actually start right now, but I'm a bit of a tease, so I'll only give you this:

The Seventh Hound - a Nightmarish Inspiration

Originally, I had decided on a seven-strong Hound unit, with Karanak as a unit upgrade - check out one of my earlier blog entries. However, things move on as they always do, we get a new Codex and Karanak is not a unit upgrade anymore, but an HQ choice. This means I wanted to add a seventh hound so as to have a seven-strong unit, even in cases where I do not want to buy Karanak as an extra Herald.

After playing around with some ideas, I decided to take inspiration from a fellow blogger - or in this case blogerette - namely Nightmare/Ana and her great blog Gardens of Hecate. I particularly liked the following of her creations:

So I intended to go down this path, and combine a hound body with an elongated, equine neck and a horse head. Needless to say, one crazy converting session later, the initial concept had been completely turned around:

I used the body of a Confro Centaur as a basis, and as the model was rather old, it had already lost a hoof. So I simply cut off the second hoof too and replaced them with Dire Wolf legs. The whole thing still needs some green stuff, but is otherwise finished (for the time being).

This uncertainty and sudden inspiration bursts are what really makes me enjoy converting so much.

Plaguebearers... WIP

Now, for my most recent creations.

The big problem I have with my army is that it is still not legal, because I don't have two Troops choices yet. I do possess 7 half-painted Plaguebearers, but under the new Codex this isn't enough anymore, all Troops units have gone up to 10-strong as a minimum size.

So, what do I need? Three more Plaguebearers. Here they are.

And the half-painted lot so far:

Irisse the Fury

Next up, a conversion for a Nurglized Slaanesh Herald on Steed I also did some weeks ago. The model uses a Rackham Confrontation dragon (!) as a basis, and is somewhat tall as a consequence. Actually, it's more in the range of a Daemon Prince sizewise, but I don't really care.

I simply like models that are obscenely exaggerated and over the top =D
One reason why I went for Daemons in the first place.

Behold, Irisse the Fury:

Ëylon Gnosis, the Apostate

Alright, currently I just can't motivate myself to paint anything, so I figured I'll just settle on converting minis for the time being. I have been rather productive in this regard, and now it seems about time to show off some of my recent creations.

I'll kick off with a big model I have converted a couple weeks ago already: Ëylon Gnosis the Apostate. The idea is that he is a Keeper of Secrets who now serves Nurgle together with the rest of the Honoured Decaying Mother's court.

The model is based on a Mierce miniature, with some parts taken from a Maulerfiend and some Ork Dread bitz. I am very pleased with the pose of the finished miniature, and its mere size is impressive.