Bubbles and his Giant Spiders

Warhammer Armies 3rd Edition Slann Animal Handlers

Bubbles the spider trainer commands some of the most fearsome fighters in the army by use of special control crystals implanted into the spiders heads by means of some techno-magical secrets known only to the spider trainer cult.

Bubbles with a quartet of giant spiders

These spiders are two different sculpts of a giant spider by Doti for Katsina miniatures. She has managed to combine some cute features with some real menace – the large size of the models helps in this regards.

I have painted them with very bright threat style markings that warn other creatures that this creature is deadly. It can afford to advertise it’s presence so any other creatures better watch out!

Bubbles is of course also one of Doti’s sculpts. He has been designed alongside the spiders and shares some of their creepy cute menace vibe. They are no slackers on the tabletop so far and have already sacked the shrine of Rigg at BOYL 2019. I expect great things from my spider force going forward and will probably have to get Doti to make some more of them as they are such great fun easy models to paint.

Slann Warrior Priests

I had a test model for the Warrior Priests done ages ago and only recently actually finished the unit, such is the way with these things.

Warrior Priests unit entry in Warhammer Armies (Warhammer 3rd Ed.)

The Slann Warrior Priests are the elite warriors in the army and are limited in number. A unit of 10 is all you got in 3rd edition for your army, with the exception of the 4 Warrior Priests who guard a war altar if you took one.

Slann Warrior Priests

They could can a 100pt magical standard, so I have represented this on the snake banner with some lightning bolts to represent a Divine Icon of Wrath spell. They can also carry a 25pt magical instrument and so I have given them a guy with the elaborate horn from a Citadel plastic goblin as the hands are about the same size.

In games they are fun, being subject to frenzy. It’s hard to get these guys to frenzy as their cool value was so high it was rare to fail the test. Mages have a better cool bonus than heroes so are a better bet to lead the priests if you wanted to get them to frenzy.

I painted them with sinister looking black war paint with red palms and feet to evoke the hands being drenched in blood. Most of them are carrying enormous hearts and sacrificial daggers. They have no pupil so they look more like glowing magical orbs that are the same colour as the highlight on the dagger.

Bizaza Jaguar Knight

This is a prototype home casting of the second totem warrior I sculpted. He is a big improvement from my earlier efforts. I would certainly change a few things on him now but I am pleased with most of him for now.

I am planning on making more of the totem warrior style frog people as they have great potential for some fun sculpts and look great as an elite element in the Bizaza armies.

The more eagle eyed will notice that he is more slight than the Bizaza Guard in the photos, this is deliberate as he represents an elite regular Bizaza rather than being spawned for the duty of soldiering like the Bizaza Guard are, the implication is that they are not necessarily as smart as the nimble Jaguar Knight who has had to fight to earn his position.

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Looking forward to developing some more animal suited friends for this guy soon.

Frogcats and Trainer

These are the master castings of Doti’s Frog Cat sculpts. Unfortunately the red one had a miscast ear, so we need to get him remastered before a production mould can be made for them. Frustrating as the other ones all came out perfectly. In this case as the ear was made from relatively soft green stuff it happened to collapse under the high pressure of the vulcanising press. Nothing for it but to rework the master again and make another master mould which all adds time to the process.

I got Doti to re-sculpt the ear on this master casting to match with the original so that we can at least paint the set to get some painted up for photos.

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Frogcats and Trainer

 

They are a cool looking bunch of cats. I like that each of them has a very distinct personality – just like real cats.

 

Bizaza – Strong Spawn Guard Unit

A unit of our own Katsina sculpts this time. The Bizaza Strong Spawn form the heavy infantry core of my own frogman army.

Bizaza Strong Spawn Heavy Infantry

Bizaza Strong Spawn – Right

Bizaza Strong Spawn – Rear

Bizaza Strong Spawn – Left

I built this banner from a pressmoulding of one of Doti’s shields, adding extra feathers, mounting it on a brass pole with some Green Stuff used to suggest the bamboo form. The warrior has had some minor conversion work to differentiate him from other versions of him in the unit. I choose a bright colour scheme for his uniform as I want him to draw attention as the focal point for the unit.

Human Slave

A home made casting (used Siligum to make a quick drop mould) of this green I made ages ago.

This chap is going to have a professionally made mould made for him as part of our Katsina Miniatures Kickstarter that is funding at the moment.

Frogcats

A Frogcat

Bizaza Slaver Band

All of the Bizaza Kickstarter Models I have painted to date!

Bizaza make use of the giant spiders to capture slaves

The Temple of Painted Bizaza Masters

I painted these using the master castings so the details are much more crisp than previous efforts.  They  are very straight forward to paint as they have very open stances.  I find painting the 2 handed weapons separately and attaching them later is a good idea.

I tend to use lots of shading and glazes on them.

I like the copper and leather basic equipment colours on these guys, they benefit with bright contrasting colours as spot colours.  I have used a jade green colour on the stones and jewellery tends to be gold.

The eyes are basically like cats eyes with a vertical black oblong.  Lots of purple and red washes work well around the yellow eyes to give them some warmth.

 

 

I knocked this thing together last week.  Basically layers of polystyrene and some foam card for the rails.  I created a stone face tile and made a siligum mould to pour plastic resin castings.

 

Bizaza Guard Regiment

Recently I decided to use some of my spare home cast Bizaza to make up a unit of 12 of them for use for Dragon Rampant, the system in vogue at the moment with our gaming group.  The casting on them is dodgy in places but nothing that the brush can’t conceal.

As I only had 2 moulds made of the 6 minis in the set, I created a couple of conversions using some of my other prototype weapon builds. They have been painted in a diverse set of colours with Air Caste Thinner used on the skin to give it a real gloss.  The gloss effect makes it tricky to get a good photo but I like the look on the table which is the priority with a personal gaming army like this.

In other news I recently got my hands on some resin masters for the Bizaza set.  These have been skillfully made by Zealot Miniatures.  They are very nice castings with the most delicate of details coming out crisp.  I am looking forward to getting some time to paint them up to include them in army.