Keeper of Secrets - Avatar of Shaah Complete

Well, this was one fast project. I started work on Saturday; picking up where I'd left off in the build 2 years ago, and started painting on Thursday morning. 24 hours later and I'm done!

To be fair, the speed of the paint process was mostly due to the nature of the model. I also maximised the amount of work I did with the airbrush, so I spent about 2 hours on that part of the paint. After that, it was just a matter of sorting out the details. Oh, and fair warning, this post contains moderate resin boobies!

For those who aren't familiar with the model, this is the Avatar of Shaah by Raging Heroes. It's about 8 inches tall to the top of the sword and is all resin. I've written a review of the kit lower down, if you're interested.

My favourite part of the paint is the glowing eyes. They didn't take a lot of work, and I'm really happy with the final result. I basically just airbrushed them with dark angels green, then Vallejo escorpina green. After that, I washed around the area with a little Biel-Tan Green and then just highlighted the central eyes with a ever lightening mix of moot green and white.

Considering the time spent on paint, I'm really happy with how she came out. It's also nice to take something out of the cupboard of shame and get it finished for once. I'm planning to pick up a Lord Discordant tomorrow, and I never thought in a million years that I'd actually finish this model before then.

Anyway, that about rounds it out for the Avatar itself. Due to some difficulties with this kit, I've also written about the process of building it (which is basically just a massive page long complaint), but if you're just here for cool pictures, you can skip that bit.

Kit Review

I'm happy with the look of the final model now that it's done, but honestly it was a horrible experience to build. Resin can be hard to work with, and I've gone through plenty of resin models in my time, but in a number of ways Raging Heroes really dropped the ball on this one.

A gap in the claw you can fit your thumb in...

For one, the kit was rather shiny and coated in a very noticeable quantity of release agent which was resistant to cleaning and took a lot of work just to prep. The fitting for the individual parts was also quite poor, and even with the best will, there were a number of gaps that you could easily fit a thumb nail in all over the model.

I expect to spend some time with greenstuff filling gaps, but the position of the seams was just plain terrible, and the kit honestly feels poorly designed. Often seam lines between parts seemed to be arbitrarily cut straight through crucial rounded areas that were next to impossible to fill cleanly.

Looking at a mock up of the model before paint or greenstuff, if you enlarge the picture, you'll see that there are seams running though every inch or so of the claw on the right. The front side is the better fitting one, and let me tell you it took quite a bit of time to fix all of that.

The worst seam on the whole thing? the butt. For some reason, they decided to cut the legs at the hip to the groin (which you can also see in this picture). That would've worked well if the avatar had clothes, but with a bare demon ass to contend with, it basically left a large horrible seam right across the body that was really unnecessarily hard to fill and work with. Why they didn't follow the line of the chains, I'll never know.

Detail pickup is ok, but far from ideal as well. It just feels slightly blunted and lacking in the crispness that you see in other manufacturers (eg: Anvil, Forgeworld, Prodos, Black Sun, Wargame Exclusive, Nocturna, even Finecast). Overall, if you like the model, I'd still get one, but just know that it'll be a ton of work, and honestly don't even go there unless you're an experienced model-maker.

I don't like slamming a manufacturer, but I've got other Raging Heroes models from the kickstarter, and it'll probably be a few years till I can face working on any of them either. It's a shame, but that's the reason I shelved this project in the first place, and it's a real problem. Does it look nice now? yeah, but I had a ton of work just getting it together in the first place, and it's mostly down to poor design choices.

Raging Heroes TGG2 Sister Trematta Painted

A closer look at the base.

The title of the post pretty much says it all. I tried to paint sister Trematta in colours more in keeping with her Nun attire, whilst also still bringing back those greens and weathered looks.

Now I have two painted models I might have to think of something to do with them - anyone up for a game of Mordheim? They'd make great Witch Hunters or Sisters of Sigmar!

Raging Heroes TGG2 Freebie - Sister Celenia, Scout Painted

After last week's unboxing I promised further updates. As usual I've gone beyond the call of duty to bring you a completely finished miniature; resplendent with scenic base and all the trimmings.

One of the things I really enjoyed when painting this model was actually something quite rare for the world of miniatures - namely that there is no "official" colour scheme. In fact, there is no scheme at all as the models were rendered in grey 3d vision during the kickstarter and the actual design sketches were done in a monochromatic pen and ink style - leaving me open to let my imagination run wild.

It is actually quite funny to look at this render and compare it with my finished miniature. I guess with Raging Heroes, what you see during the campaign really is what you get at the end!

Her concept sketch is "day 1" in the picture above.

I had the fanciful idea of doing a blue green armour - half inspired by the Alpha Legion colours, although I wanted to go a bit lighter and more angelic. The colour palette selection was also inspired by an old video game I've been replaying; Legacy of Kain - Soul Reaver. For anyone so pitifully unfortunate not to know it was a hit on the PS1 from 1999 that features the ability to shift from the physical to the spectral realm (spirit world) at will. It uses a really scenic palette of dusty greys and haunting greens that I wanted to take a little slice of. I did a lot of greenish weathering hues on the base to try to capture a bit of the feel of the game.

For the other colours I decided to stick with more traditional nunnery fare; with black and white featuring heavily in the scheme.

Anyway, after spending Saturday painting dutifully, I finished the miniature and I'm really happy with the results. Like I said earlier, there haven't been any painted before the release, so this just might be the first complete version of her in existence. 

Here's hoping Raging Heroes like the colour scheme and it catches on!

A picture of the model after being primed - you can really see the quality of the detail clearly. I should also mention the the scenic base is a resin piece by Scibor Miniatures, with a few additional bits and pieces added on.

Well, that about rounds it up. I'll be working on more Raging Heroes  miniatures soon, so stay tuned for the next update.