Track Pants, AKs, and Seizing the Means of Production: In The Apocalypse!

    You can paint your minis, you’ve just got to sit down to do it! This started as an experiment to see how fast I could paint a model in one sitting to a table top standard. Then, I would go back to that model and add some more detail to make it pop a bit more. This model being the dude in the balaclava smoking a cigarette. I was inspired to paint another one as well, so this project became two guys in the end and evolved into some of my favorite minis I've painted in a while.

    While painting these two, I started to form their story and who they’ll be in my games. I think I’m going to use them in some upcoming games of Inhumane Harvest I’ll be running at Arcanecon in November. These guys are members of a group called “The Vanguard”. This term coming from Leninist thought that a small dedicated Vanguard would prepare and aid the proletariat in overthrowing capitalism and sizing power. So with that said, these guys are organizing a new world for themselves in the wake of the apocalypse! 

    I originally thought these minis were from Anvil Industries’ digital line since I got them in a bag with some of those minis in it, but now I’m thinking they’re from Black Hills Games, Spectre, or somewhere else. I can’t find them in any catalogues. If you know, please tell me! 

Like usual, I started with a zenithal primer. Black base and a Wraithbone highlight. 

    First I threw on a diy asphalt mix for the base texture. Then I played around with some new paints from the “two thin coats” paint line, one of which “cold corpse blue”, I really like. That’s what I used for the jackets. The pants were a base of dark blue and a highlight of that same blue with a bit of white added in. The AK was painted black and the wood was painted a dark brown. Everything got a wash from the Pro Acryl black wash that my buddy Sam turned me on to recently. Guilliman flesh contrast paint was splashed on his skin and then highlighted and the eyes were painted. I painted on the road line and then hit the base with random brown wash, painted the face on the shirt, did the cigarette white with a teeeeny tiny red tip, and then call it at around 15 mins. 

The 15 minute model. Totally serviceable and ready for the table top. Now let’s push him further. 

Here are some base colors on guy number two as well as some extra detail and highlights on guy number one. 

    I worked more on both, focusing on guy #2 primarily. I built up his skin tone, reddened his nose, and added a 5 o'clock shadow with a blue wash. Going back and forth building subtle highlights is the name of the game at this point. Oh, I also wanted to write a short Russian word on his hat and “Нет” was the lazy result. I also like the idea of someone walking around with and AK in their hand and “no” on their hat.

    Here are the first two members of the Vanguard. The muscle behind making their community a better place, no matter how that's done. All in all, these two were a blast to paint. they inspired a great new faction for my modern and apocalypse games too! There will be more to come on this faction. I'm currently converting a few more.

I really like the little details on these guys! 

See them on my Instagram HERE.

30k Death Guard Saturnine Terminator

    30k is such an enticing setting and is one I’ve flirted with making models for since I first read “Horus Rising” by Dan Abnett a few years after it came out. The setting is really interesting and got my creative juices flowing with some really interested options for mini converting.  

    As luck would have it, earlier this year my buddy Zack had a couple printed Saturnine Terminators he offered me! This terminator is a REALLY nice true scale model by Sedivalle, which I believe you can check out on his Cults3D page. His range is full of great true scale minis. Any who, Zack gave two of these minis to me at Under the Dice Fest in May, and I promptly converted one of the terminators! I chose to swap one of the arms so he had double cool claws, I added a wounded marine at his feet, and I carved out the face hole.

    I knew I wanted to do a XIV legion Death Guard guy, but was torn on loyal or traitor members. I am really drawn to loyal marines from traitor legions, but in the end, I knew this guy had to be a persuaded DG Terminator. I ended up getting super inspired to do subtle little bits of corrupted flesh spilling from between seems, denoting very early signs of Nurgle’s blessings. The face is a green stuff copy of a GorkaMorka mutant head that I made, cut, and squeezed into place.

    Then after I did the converting and green stuffing, it sat on my desk for the entire summer until I needed a quick project to bring to the studio to work on while the crew hung out with Sam as he visited. 

Sam has a thrilling experience as Gage looks on in horror.

    I threw on my usual base coat spray of a black with a Wraithbone zenithal highlight. I love this because it’s great to go to either warm or cooler tones depending. When I started painting, I blocked in the basic colors of a dark green (some Vallejo German green) and another patchier highlight of Wraithbone from the pot. Then the first skin tone for the exposed flesh(I saved the face for later), a fairly vibrant yellow on the wounded Imperial Fist, a bronze for the trim, and did the base in watered down steel legion drab. I also painted the joints etc black somewhere in here too. At that point it was getting late, and we wanted to head out so before we did, I mixed up a nice oil wash with a brown and some mineral spirits and slathered that one, giving it all night to dry.

^ Pre oil wash 

^ Post soaking

    Upon our return the next morning, I jumped right back into it. I forgot I did a different non oil wash on the imperial fist, I think some sort of burnt umber color. Then I began taking away a lot of the oil wash that was now dry, and leaving it in the recesses. The coolest thing about both pre and post heresy Death Guard is that their armor should look absolutely disgusting. I built up highlights on the armor and shoulders as well thought the next few steps. I forgot to take pics of the next steps but I got a base coat down on the faces and started blocking on where I wanted some grime and rust streaks to be. I added some hints of scratches on the armor I’d go back and give some depth to in a few steps as well. 

    Then I decided it was time to free hand the Imperial Fist chapter logo on the wounded guy's pauldrons after a basic yellow highlight. This was mostly out of necessity as I didn’t have any transfers with me. I really lucked out as I just kind of went for it and didn’t sketch it in at all. 

    After that, I started blocking in colors on the face and getting that to an ok place. Then I did more rust and tried to even out some colors on flat surfaces. Skin highlights and irritation on the exposed flesh with glazes was next, and then building up the face colors a bit. Then subtle armor highlights and adding some depth to the painted on scratches.

    Rounding out the painting, I did a quick messy checkered pattern on his left knee, and originally was going to do the same on the off white parts of this left shoulder too, but didn’t end up doing that. The imperial fist got some love at this point too via some ok face painting and some highlights as well as trying to keep the yellow tone pretty weak as to not distract from the main model. I also painted the base rim black here too and did some other black and silver highlights on the model. 

    The final painting bits were some real intense small highlighting and extra rust to darken some of those parts. That all was a two or so hours from the start of the day taking off extra oil wash to ending with the base rim. When I got home I added a little bit of blood effects to tie it all together. 

Here are the final shots of this mini. It really came out how I envisioned it, and I’m excited to keep doing one off little 30k characters. All in all, it took a few hours to paint this mini, and I like how it turned out. I’ve got a few more in the works from various legions! 

Inhumane Harvest: Making a Hectic Tabletop Game

    Back in 2011 or so I began running a very ad hoc zombie game with the minis I had collected up until that point. It was a mostly 4+ hit and wound, make it up as a went game, but it planted a seed that I wanted to get back to at some point. Fast forward to 2023 for the first One Page Game Jam organized by Bigboygametime, and I figured that would be a great place to get my zombie game organized and finally written out. After a few days of writing out some rules that hopefully made sense, and doing a few water colors and sketches, it was finished. Well, that came and went. The game was now one very dense page of rules and original artwork. I ran it for my Wife and our buddy Jarrad a few times on and off and it was a pretty good time. From there I kept going back to it, and decided to do an expanded front and back page ruleset with more optional rules to make the games more interesting. Then, over the next couple months it snowballed into 20 pages, tons of original art, and a lot of restructuring to what it is now.

Above: One of my first water colors to test the style I wanted to go with.

    My goal for this game was to create something that threw you into a fast paced zombie apocalypse story where you essentially play a third tier character from a book or movie that is nameless and wouldn’t be noticed if they went missing. You’re the expendable person going out on supply runs. You’re the background actors of this story! From the get go I wanted to stress that you might randomly roll a bad ass character who kills zombies and gets tons of loot, but more likely you'll roll a random person with a knife and a rifle who will get shredded eventually after being cornered by a horde. Also, that badass character will at some point, get overwhelmed and slip off a roof, get grabbed from behind, or run out of ammo at the worst time. My point being, No one is the main character. This is a game that encourages the story being told over "winning".

    I should mention, the game’s name is taken from a Cannibal Corpse song that just jumped out at me one day while listening to that album as being the perfect name for this game. It was perfect. The game is brutal and I want it to feel like a CC song almost in a way. Unrelenting and overwhelming at times, but in the end, still fun!

    Inhumane Harvest is unhinged, unbalanced, and sometimes unfair. It can be played solo or with as many players as you’d like, and runs very well with a GM overseeing the board and zombies. Players roll randomized character stats and roll for random weapons on two simple charts. The more players there are, the more zombies will be on the board. Players may choose to team up or fight against each other as rival groups for possession of precious dwindling supplies or work together to survive. The vibe above all is don’t be a bummer, roll off for rules disputes, and don’t be the reason your opponent isn’t having fun. In the end, after the dust settles, Inhumane Harvest should be about telling a fun solo or co-op story!

    All of the art pieces are my own original black and white water color or ink drawings from the past few years that fit the theme. I did about half of them for the rulebook specifically though, and found a lot of joy in theming the pieces for this project.

     

    Finally in early 2025, I made and printed the full rulebooks! I sold 40 something of the 50 or so I brought to Adepticon which was nuts. I've still got them if anyone is interested too! This was a real milestone in my hobby world, as I felt and still feel very proud of this silly little 20 page rulebook. 

    Being able to share this silly game with people and run games for friends has been really rewarding. It’s been great to run bespoke little scenarios at events.

    Above: Robyn, Victoria, Shaun, and Slade played in a game of Inhumane Harvest at Under The Dice Fest 2025 I ran where they each rolled a random survivor and worked together to fight a redneck militia while escaping a growing undead horde. This game was fast and loose, focusing on the story over nitpicking rules. It was the ideal way to play this game with folks who "get it"! 

    Here are the three Redneck militia guys I made for the UTDF25 game I ran. I really should go back and take better pics of these guys because some of the details are really fun.

    All of this is to say that you should make your game a reality if you've had an idea for one. Don't worry about it being good, just have fun with it! Playtest it to make it better if you want, but more importantly, have fun with people you care about playing your own Indy games! I love this zombie game I made. I'm still painting minis and slowly working on extra rules for it. If you want to know more about Inhumane Harvest, shoot me a message on Instagram!

    Below are some pictures I took of my display Diorama I made our booth at Adepticon this year. I thought it was a good visualization of how the game plays!

Thanks for reading through this truly incoherent purposeless rambling about my game. I'll write more about it at some point. Maybe I'll post about how I paint my zombies or something. 

Luv, tYluR

Flames of Orion Mech Pilot

    Grungy sci-fi is so cool. I think Alien/Aliens or Terminator hit the perfect aesthetic for what I love about a gritty Sci fi setting. Something character driven that focuses on the every day folks surviving in a place that is unforgiving is my go to for this theme. This is exactly why I love my buddy Steve’s game Flames of Orion. It’s a fast paced 6mm scale Mech game set in a universe where mech pilots battle over scarce resources and planets exploited by mega corporations, all while narrowly surviving battles without their mechs overheating or getting shredded by an enemy stalking in the shadows. While the mechs are sick, I like that he’ll often incorporate 28mm scale pilots for a “zoomed in” scenario during narrative events. Combining these scales for two different games to tell a connected story is something I absolutely love to daydream about doing in other settings.

    But right now I’m talking pilots. Specifically scrappy mech pilots. I wanted to make a little freak that tells a story just by looking at him without any other context. First, I thought about what his mech would be called. Without spending much time on it I came up with the name “Mournful Memory.” And with that I started to form what I thought this guy would look like and what his story was. 

    I wanted him to be a veteran of sorts, either a military vet or just a veteran of Mech combat over the years. The base I started with for the model was a 4th (I think) edition Tau body from 40k. I clipped the tau feet off, and shaved the chest down so it was flat and just looked like some sort of plate carrier. I threw on half a Cadian leg and the lower half of a Necron leg for a nice dirty bionic touch. I like that these lower legs give him a little more height and I think it helps the proportions to be better in the end. The arms are a Wargames Atlantic German WWI machine gun arm and a genestealer cult arm carrying…something. That something looked like a cool IED or some sort of tech that a mech pilot might need. Maybe it’s the core that powers his mech, so he brings it with him when he needs to dismount. 

    The head was a tough decision and I was going between 3-4 until I decided to go with one of my favorite Sci-fi mini heads, a shaved down plastic Cadian head. I use these converted heads for my home brew guard regiment, and couldn’t help but use it here too. I shaved down the sides, rear box, and front skull so it looks like a nondescript science fiction grunt style helmet with the chinstrap unclipped. This screamed the vibe I was going for. 

    I mixed up a little bit of green stuff to fill gaps and repair some cut bits. I added a cool rope and pouch attached to his belt on the front that gives a little in world narrative to this guy being practical. I began to scratch up his armor to give a little more grit to his used and abused kit. Is the helmet an honored piece of his past, or a necessary practical scavenged item he puts on when leaving the safety of his cockpit? 

    I based him with my usual sand mix, after gluing him to a thin piece of cork. The mix is play sand, various beach sand, kitty litter, and tiny pebbles. It’s a nice effective basing method for variation in texture. 

    Finally I added a grappling hook bit connected to his belt on his back with the idea that it’s how he gets in and out of the main hull of the mech when he needs to. It’d also help with traversing the war torn cities and landscapes while exploring I’m sure. I added some more scratches too to even out the damage.

    Here he is. Let’s call him Rall Kellner, pilot of the Mournful Memory. I like that I was able to achieve a downtrodden appearance in his posture without it being pathetic. So does this model tell a story without context? I think so. If anything it looks like a guy who’s burdened, hands full of bullshit, while everything he’s carrying and wearing has practical application. In context of being a mech pilot, I love the idea that he’s carrying around the power core out of a reasonable worry that it could be stolen. After all, it is not only his weapon, but his home and safety net

    For painting him, I kind of just rushed through to try to capture the overall tone of what I wanted rather than going absolutely nuts on building layers. I've been trying to jump out of my comfort zone with painting lately, and with that I'm not being SO precious with detail on fun projects like this. I made sure to primarily focus on the face as well as adding some nice little free hand checkers to give him visual personality as well. For a collective few hours, I'm very pleased with this guy.