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.

Raging Heroes TGG2 Freebies Unboxing First Look

Well, something exciting turned up yesterday; that's right I'm talking about my first shipment from Raging Heroes!

In this article, I'm taking a preliminary look at what's in the box and talking about the TGG2 Campaign so far. I'll be taking a closer look at the miniatures in future posts, but I've taken a few sample photos to get things started.

For those who don't know already, Raging Heroes are a French manufacturer who specialise in making female miniatures for use in various game systems. The TGG2 (Toughest Girls in the Galaxy 2) is a kickstarter campaign that they have been running for a set of new armies that are being launched soon. They're mostly to be used as proxies, although I hear that they have a game of their own in the works. They have a few ranges available currently and it's well worth checking out their official website if you're interested as there are some real gems on there (link below).

Raging Heroes Official

With the intro finished, let's take a closer look. One thing really struck me when this box arrived - that this is one small box! I had to take a photo of it next to a coffee mug just so you could see how small we're talking! (also it seemed to be a good excuse to try out the free coaster)

It's worth noting that the box contained all 15 Freebies, as well as 3 heroine (character) models that I had ordered with my actual pledge money. For the uninitiated, the freebies are exactly as they sound; free gifts for those who pledge a certain amount of money to the campaign. In this case they are a set of high detail resin character models and a few mascots. I think the threshold was about £100 in English money to get them for free. As I was pledging to get hold of a rather nice Avatar of Shaah (not sure if that is the correct spelling), it wasn't much of a stretch.

Babymetal mug not included with pledge ... and yes my favourite drink is always a fruity red-tea supped straight from the head of Moa-Metal.

The package comes with a number of extras - notably a joke drink mat/coaster thingie and some instructions on how to take care of the resin. They actually recommend airing the miniatures for a few days and then giving them a good clean to get rid of the release agent - serious stuff, but worth it for the best results!

There were also a lot of individually packed little resin people in there too...

In addition to the boring stuff, I also managed to take a few pictures of some of the miniatures contained in the box to wet your appetite. Pictured above and below is Sister Trematta, who I bought purely because I really liked the sculpt. It is worth noting that I haven't cleaned up any of the miniatures at all in these pictures as this is just a preliminary look at some of the goodies.

I turned up the contrast a bit in the next few shots to bring out the detail a bit more. The resin is surprisingly dark for these miniatures, but the detail is really good. The mini below is a "Scout" and can be armed with a sword and either crossbow or handgun. The detail on the armour really blew me away - some really crisp features here, and I can't wait to get some paint on her!

I've just realised that I forgot to put her sword in the shot!

I also took a few pictures of "Liligrith" below. I just wanted to show off the details on her boots and leg armour. The sculpting quality really is incredibly high on these, although my favourite part was still the price! (both of these awesome models were freebies!)

Finally, one more for the road

These are just a few of the miniatures that I got, but as I still have to clean them all up and get them in bases, they will have to wait for another day. Stay tuned for the next post, where I'll be having another look at the freebies and maybe getting started on some paint!

New Keeper of Secrets? Slaanesh Proxies by Raging Heroes

I thought I'd take some time to share a rather awesome model with you all. Feast your eyes on this soon to be released goodness from Raging Heroes. She stands at a whopping 8 inches tall and is part of their latest range of TGG2 miniatures. I'm not sure what the final retail price will be on her, but as a backer of their Kickstarter I'll definitely be picking one up as soon as I can. She looks like she would make a great painting project!

It's pretty big (28mm size comparison)

While I'm at it here are some more pictures of their latest work. You can really tell a lot of passion went in to these designs - I mean the poses alone are just explosively dynamic!

I hope you like Dark Eldar too, because there's some seriously cool stuff in the pipeline. If you like any of these models head over to the official website for more of the same.

www.ragingheroes.com

Side Note - How I Became an Unintentional Internet Star

I'll be honest, running this blog often feels like shouting out into an unfathomable void where maybe literally several people will hear. Occasionally though I come across something that seems to make it feel worthwhile.


About a week ago I posted a short article about Raging Heroes, the French manufacturer who make various female wargaming minis. As part of the post I put up a picture of one of their models that I had painted a while ago. It was a fairly throwaway post that I did just to help spread the word about their good works. I noticed later that the article seemed to be getting an unusual amount of hits. Anyway, to cut a long story short it turns out that Raging Heroes themselves had read it and put a picture of my work up on their Facebook page. Thanks guys!

Fame and recognition ... for the love of God somebody buy something from Play Asia so I can get paid! I also like free stuff, anybody got any of that for me?

Raging Heroes TGG2 Kickstarter Coming to an End

Did you hear the news? According to the latest updates the Raging Heroes TGG2 Kickstarter is about to go into pledge manager, with the aim of shipping starting soon.

For those who missed them, Raging Heroes are a French company that make a range of female models for use as proxies in other games. They currently make a range of female Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum) with complete forces currently available that look like Cadians, Death Korps and Catachans. Their latest kickstarter will launch a range of Dark Eldar, Fantasy Dark Elves, Slaanesh Daemons and Sisters of Battle (both 40k style and fantasy).

I've added a picture of one of my own models above - one of their commissars. I painted her about a year ago and they really are very high quality miniatures. It's what inspired me to back their latest kickstarter, so needless to say I'm chomping at the bit and salivating uncontrollably at the thought of them shipping out over the coming months.

I'll add one or two pictures below from the most recent update. They really are worth a look if you have a keen sense of aesthetics (that's my way of hinting that you like the ladies) and are getting tired of painting 40k's plethora of brawny dudes.