Mail Day Re-Cap Day 2!

 

Today is a juicy one; I recently got offered a genuine Forge World Lightning/Lightning Strike Flyer from around 1999/2000. A very kind soul in Belgium knew a person who was willing to part with theirs and facilitated transport and transaction. While I always love getting my grubby mitts on some Forge World models, there is something so much sweeter when it is a kit from this very early era of Forge World. Forge World being... well Forge World their stuff was overpriced from the start and only available directly from the UK. This led to comparatively little quantities of miniatures making their way into actual people's hands. I mean have you seen the giant Imperial Fortress Walls out in the wild? Or the Beta Anphelion base? This stuff's rare. 

So there it is: The Lightning in all its glory. The kind soul from Belgium managed to disassemble the lightning mostly before shipping it out. This saves me time as I was intending to disassemble it myself and properly fit the pieces and magnetise the parts. In another lucky twist, this is the complete kit with both the laser cannon for a standard Lighting and the hellfire rockets for a Lightning Strike. Since I want to be able to field both of them, I am obviously going to magnetise the pieces. This kit even comes with two seats depending on if you want a visible pilot or not; Truth be told I do not know whether I want him in there or not, but having the choice is so cool. The only bit of major damage is the canopy missing a bit at the front; Nothing I could not fix though with a bit of Miliput and some sculpting. 

Honestly, I am still stunned I managed to get my hands on one of these, they are like a holy grail of Oldhammer miniatures, due to their rarity. And I know, there are still numerically speaking plenty of these out there, but comparatively I believe they are some of the rarest non-LE miniatures. 

Mail Day Re-Cap

 The last few days I received multiple packages while also doing a lot of work. The result was me not feeling fit enough to post about it as I would usually do. Starting today I will try and do a little 're-cap' of the things that turned up at my doorstep. 

This first haul is a relocation of someone's hobby collection. I was approached by friend to whom the original owner had spoken, expressing a desire to sell a lot of their stuff to someone who could appreciate it. After a bit of back and forth I picked out some things I knew I could give a good home to. The first of these I want to show off is this complete set of the Fellowship of the Ring along with the Balin's Tomb display plinth. This came in at a perfect time, just as I picked up some of the old DeAgostini magazines this thing came with. There was also a Saruman whom I had not seen before. I only have the classic pose holding onto his staff, but this one with the Palantir looks dope!

I did not manage to properly photograph everything, so I will just list some of the other things in this delivery alongside the photos. I also got a big bag of undead bitz, primarily containing classic plastic zombies and some bats; While they may look goofy I really enjoy them and will be sure to build and paint some more. Maybe you remember around five years ago when I painted and posted one lurking out of his grave.

The big part of this purchase was an almost complete Dark Elves army. I say almost complete since it is missing a character, but I already own a Lokir Fellheart and a Malus Darkblade that can lead them. Above you can see the core of this force, a block of 20 Dreadspears and 16 Crosbows. There is another bag full of bitz off camera with extra bodies, so I imagine it might come out to around 10 more warriors. Not shown are a set of three fully crewed Bolt Throwers to bolster the artillery. While I have no strong connection to Dark Elves per se, a small force of these guys was one of the earliest armies I was gifted second hand. 

We got Harpies! 6 of em to be exact. These are the modern sculpts compared to the gargoyle looking ones from 4th Edition. You may notice the faces bare metal, that is because the previous owner had sculpted some ritualistic looking masks on them; While I find the idea intriguing, I want to test my skills on these faces. I actually find painting faces to be the most fun part at times. Another off screen part of this purchase is a huge bag of Gorkamorka plastic boyz; I have been trying to track down enough of these over the past year to assemble two proper teams for a game of Gorkamorka. With these ones I now have enough to actually play the game. I also got a bag of metal Ork bitz from 4th edition; I have no immediate plans for these bitz, but they are always good to have on hand when assembling some classic ape looking Orks.

The last part of that Dark Elves army is one unit of Corsairs and a small unit of Witch Elves. I believe these are my first ever metal Witch Elves, at least ones from that era of the army. Like the Harpies, these are gonna be a nice painting challenge as they have a lot of soft exposed skin. The unit of Corsairs consists of 15 guys with a command unit; Despite not actively collecting Dark Elves, I am fairly certain with this unit added I will own 50 metal Corsairs in total. Lokir Fellheart as a general makes more sense now, eh? At last I also got a single metal Flayed one from the 3rd edition range. Why? Because they looked dope as hell, that's why.

This was one hell of a Hobby haul and I am beyond grateful for getting it. While I never really considered it, I now own a fully playable Dark Elves army if I put all my miniatures together; That Fellowship plinth had been on my radar for years and should motivate me to fully paint one of my many Fellowship sets. I hope you enjoyed seeing some of the oldies on display today, but just you wait until tomorrow where I will show off something truly rare!(If you are in my Discord you already saw it)

Frisky Berserkers

In a flight of inspiration today I dug out an unfinished miniature from my Cabinet to work on; A World Eater Assault Marine from the early 90s. This guy has been sitting primed and ready there for the last 3 years, being part of a large and generous gift by the wonderfully talented Pandaemonium Miniatures.

The collection I was gifted included all three of the assault marines twice, I still have the other two primed and ready; Seeing though as I still have to finish the three man unit of Mutilators, maybe I should cool it with the trio batch. Anyways, wanted to give another small update what I am painting right now.

From the workbench: Old Adeptus Arbites

 

After a pretty nerve wrecking week of studying for an exam I decided to let inspiration flow freely and pick out something to paint from my boxes of mini; The mini that tickled my fancy ended up being this Arbites with Bolter from around 2nd Edition/Necromunda 1st Edition(can't say where it appeared first). Either way, I have had two five man squad of these guys kicking around my collection for years now 

and since one of my goals this year is to work through my Heretics and Ordos collection I figured I could start with these guys; Plus they have been stripped, painted and stripped again twice now lol.

First evening was relatively productive, I started painting his face as that was gonna be the most difficult thing to pull off. Other things painted that session was all of the black armor and the metallic details. I have painted black armor and cloth with the same few paints for the past few years, but for

this guy I tried the classic eavy metal approach with less large glazes and more tightly packed highlights, turns out it looks pretty neat. The metallics were whatever, my gold recipe switches on any given day via whichever gold paints I find first and the iron is the typical gunmetal recipe. I ended up painting until 2 am if I am not mistaken, so yea I may have gotten carried away. Before I had begun to paint this guy I also prepared my usual Heretics and Ordos bases, a simple texture roller cobblestone base; Since I wanted to keep the tab on this guy though I had to carve a slot into the base and let that dry for later processing.

Next day I spent an hour before work painting all the red accents as well as basing the brown leathers; At this point I had more of an idea of how I wanted this guy to look, I wanted him to fit in somewhere between 2nd and 3rd edition 40k with a degree of cleanliness that would make him fit in somewhat

with more modern sculpts as well. So while he still sports a classic red bolter it is a little bit less saturated, yet still sports a fiery highlight. I also spent the time fixing two panels on the back I forgot to properly paint the other night, not realising I had also forgotten to paint the fingers, whoops.

After work I sat down for what I thought would be the final stretch, painting all the leathers as well as finishing his fingers, pleased with myself I retired a bit earlier only to realize while painting that I had

forgotten to do paint the rivets, classic. Also on a somewhat unrelated note, while painting this guy I listened to some World of Darkness lore videos on Werewolf and Changeling by TheBurgerkrieg, just thought I would give him a little shout as his videos have steadily driven me deeper into the World of Darkness after being engaged in it by Hunter: The Parenting. Anyways, back to space cops.

Today; I began by doing the rivets all over and saw I forgot even more details such as the lenses and cables on the Bolter's rangefinder(I think?) which I quickly painted green. This left the base for last;

First I made sure to cut as big a slot into the base as was necessary and then carefully glued the Arbites into place. After the glue settled I put on a small bit of Miliput and covered the tab, carving the brick texture into it to cover it up. Once that was dried I did my usual basing shenanigans, painted and then filled the recesses with light sienna pigments to simulate sand accumulating inbetween the stones. 

And here is where I kinda messed up. Throughout painting an amazing hobbyist on Instagram recommended I enter this into Olden Demon this year, given how much positive feedback I received for this guy made me consider it heavily. Anyways, in my infinite genius I decided since there was a good chance this guy was also going to get played with I varnished him. And that's when I got reminded, that Matt Varnish desaturates and mutes colors... yea. All the crisp detail? Washed out. Not to say he looks bad, but god if it isn't a noticeable downgrade from before he was varnished; I pray when properly photographed he will look a bit better, but I have low hopes. On top of that the Varnish left a bit of a texture on the base rim which also irks me. 

So yea, I should probably wait until I have taken some proper photos of a miniature before I varnish it huh? Anyways, I will put up another post for when I have this guy properly photographed, so finger crossed yea?

The First Miniatures of 2025

Since this blog will be my little corner to show off my stuff, I figured I would pepper in some old photos of minis I painted over the last few years. Yesterday's post saw me finishing the first miniature of 2025, so what better place to continue than with what I finished first last year.

Quickbeam the Ent

Quickbeam is part of an ongoing commission for a friend to paint his Lord Of The Rings miniatures; I had already finished him for the most part but actually got to finishing him off in early 2025, adding moss tufts into his roots to make him look more overgrown and adding shrubs and flowers to his base. I sadly forgot to write down how I painted his bark, since to this day I think he is the best looking Ent I have painted.

Wounded Mordians

A few years ago I got hold of these Praetorian Casualties, I actually also picked up some Praetorians, but since I have a full army squad of Mordians and the praetorians are just modified Mordian sculpts, I decided to make these guys Mordians, painting them primarily with the paints from the Nostalgia '94 starter set. If you have never heard of Nostalgia '94, it is a full range recreating the paints Citadel released in 1994 in the large hexagonal pots. I actually wrote a review on them back in 2023 over on Goonhammer if you want to take a closer look at that.

Ever since I occasionally tried to paint full miniatures with just those old paints and these two guys are the most impressive I have pulled off so far I think. Although recently I have tried to pick up more of these paints, since I cannot mix all kinds of paints all the time. If you want to pick up some of these paints and support me, I got an affiliate link for the starter set.

Anyways, these three were the first minis I finished back in 2025, giving me quite the head start, which I then promptly fumbled and didn't paint more than 30 minis or so in 2025... oops.

 Da Boyz Say Trans Rights and so do I

I'm sure you have noticed by now, but if you haven't, it's Pride Month and as every year, we take this month to celebrate those people, that don't fall under the perceived "norm", be it in sexuality, gender or romantic attraction, it's a month where we remind ourselves, that we should not be ashamed of who we are, rather take pride in it. As I am a trans woman, this month is a reminder, that I should take pride in who I am and not try to repress myself as I have done for years before I finally came out.

So to celebrate trans pride this month, I made two Trans Orks(which I promise won't be my last ones).

I introduce to you: Matt and Tim 

Tho unlike most trans representation I've seen during Pride month, I intend these two to be Transmasc orks, since i just don't very often see Transmasc people represented in our Hobby community and I think showing that there is acceptance not just for Trasnwomen, but also Transmen, might help Transmen to feel seen as well.

First we have Tim, named in honor of a close friend and former classmate of mine, who also acts as my occasional commission artist, really a great guy.

He comes with a cute little Transpride eyepatch and some cute teeth (tho admittedly most have been beaten out or used as payment for that sick sword).

And then we have Matt, who you might recognise as the nice Ork fella on my Banner, complete with the cute transpride facepaint.

I think the original model like Tim is part of the old Ork Spearchukka, but since I don't have that or the third crew member, these two goobers have become the subjects of my Pride Month painting project.

While Matt is originally an Ork from the grimdark future, where his transpride flag is the last thing you'll see before he headbutts you, this little fella is his fantasy equivalent, flaunting his Pride on his forehead as well ,although being more sensible and using a spear to do the krumpin.

Now why did I make this little blog post aside from showing off my cute Pride Project? Well I think, similar to the post I made at the beginning of Pride Month, it's a bit of my rambling, that may or may not help you as a queer person feeling more seen, or at the very least knowing, that you're not alone. And to my Ally friends out there, honestly I don't know what it will be to you, or what you take away from this. Had this been any other month I would not dare post a blog like this, where I feel as though there's nothing concise to take away, but this is Pride month and I think I can give myself the permission to let my mind speak freely. 

So yea, Happy Pride month to all my fellow queer people, to my Trans sisters(Hi Leah :3), brothers and Enby siblings ( Hi Fiver ^^) oh and also, fuck TERFs, Homophobes, Biphobes and Bigots!

Rock on, Negan out!