How I make hexmaps

 I like hexmaps.

Here's one I made earlier. It took about half an hour.

And here's how I did it:

STEP ONE: GO OUTSIDE

It is a lot to ask, I know. But go outside on a clear day and find some nice cloud formations. The picture I am using here is a little too cirrus-filled, ideally you should have one with a very clear divide between cloud and sky. You could also search for clouds online, but where's the fun in that?

STEP TWO: GIMP IMAGE EDITOR

Boot up your copy of GIMP image editor. If you do not have a copy then get one, it's free. Open your picture, go to the select menu, click "Select by colour" and then click around until you find an outline you like. Some feathering like above is not ideal, it can be removed by fiddling with the other selection settings, but ideally you should have an image with little to none because of that high sky to cloud contrast mentioned earlier. You can also grow and shrink a selection to smooth borders or make it more jagged. Once you have a shape you are happy with click "Border" in the selection menu, with 1 pixel depth. Then export as an uncompressed png.

STEP THREE: PAINT

Open your exported PNG in paint. You could continue to use GIMP but I prefer the simplicity of Paint. Use free form selection to clear out the feathering on the edge. I like to take interior holes and larger pieces of feathering and turn them into islands and lakes. Then, cut off any extra pieces of outline you want to turn into rivers and use the paintbucket to make them blue. You can also copy and rotate sections of the coastline to do this, it is not normally noticeable.

Your map should now look something like this:

STEP FOUR: DRAWHEXGRID

Long ago I found this website:

Tutorials & Utilities (cryhavocgames.net)

Put simply, it is a Godsend.

I will not describe how to use the program, it comes with documentation. The preview function will tell you the pixel size of the hexmap you will create, which allows you to match it to your map's size. Then through the power of transparency overlays you can slap it right on top.

STEP FIVE: PAINT (AGAIN)

Now all that is left is to paintbucket in all the biomes you want. One downside of this method is that a lot of tiny pockets can be created if you are not careful with lining up the hexgrid and the terrain, so make sure to catch all of those when filling the map in.

If you take the right photo, or are willing to stitch together a few coastlines, you can create entire continents and worlds with this method. I prefer to make more regional maps, but full continents and islands are not at all hard. You can even overlay hex grids within each other to create a 24-mile grid with a 6-mile grid inside of it. Here is one I spent five hours on:

I hope this has been helpful, or at least enjoyable.

On the topic of The Ecclesiarchy:

 

As promised, an article.

Not much to say about this one, he was built a few months after The Astropath and painted later. His base is a Black Templar servitor, with a skaven's hand on a human arm and greenstuff made to look like bandage wrappings around the chainsword grip. The chest cable connected quite conveniently to the vox-caster, and I slapped some pouches over the gaps between his back and the comm unit.

If memory serves, he was the first unit I ever varnished. It seems to have helped with the paint, not so much with the dust of ages. 

My intention one day is to figure out how to make a custom transfer, so I can get this legendary image by Adrian Smith spread across the pages like in my own 4th Ed book.

Imperial Guard Ratmen

Many years ago I read an article:

https://mcmattilaminis.wordpress.com/2019/03/18/wip-imperial-skaven/

And I thought, "Wow! That's really clever and good looking!" Because it was.

Then, two and a half years ago, because of the exorbitant cost of Imperial Guard units I decided to do it myself. Plague monks were one of the cheapest miniatures you could get from Games Workshop in bulk  (especially with the start collecting box) and I wanted a largely infantry guard list.

The miniatures posted below are not the only ones, but they are the only ones which are fully painted and based. There are a few dozen more lying in states of half-completion or primed and ready which I left to the wayside when my big hiatus started.

Their colour is based on the French uniform of the Great War, but flipped so there's blue on the bottom and red on the top. The choice is not a commentary on the French or any rat-like qualities they may posses but instead meant to show how out of their depth these little guys are. They're walking around with what amounts to a "headshots here" sign at all times.

What little lore I have cooked up for them is that they're from a planet where fresh meat for the guard is rapidly running out. The tithes were increased as a punitive measure for substandard quality but now all that's left is even worse quality. The governor has resigned himself to his eventual execution and is now simply seeing how long he can keep the charade up before The Inquisition realizes just how heretical, mutated, and possibly alien the guardsmen being exported really are. These rats march alongside genestealers, grots, and of course the regular smattering of total weirdos you can find in any hive.

 

My next update may be delayed by a couple of days due to travel, but there will be an update.

Pashtun Tribesmen

 Over the past season I have been working on these fellows (Wargames Atlantic Afghan Warriors) to get back into the saddle after a half-year hiatus: 

(Don't mind the Blue-Tac, that's just so I can get the arms posed and then take them off while painting.)

There are 18 in total now, these are just my favorites.

To speak candidly now, I am not one much for painting, especially fabric. With something like a Guardsman's pauldron or a lasgun you know where the highlights go, on the edges. Fabric however has few hard edges, just rolls and folds. It vexes me eternally. What's more, the transition from dark to light is expected to be smoother than on something with a hard edge, which proves to be another wrinkle in the equation:

Skin is also an area to be improved. The camera is doing me few favours, so please be assured that they are less orange in reality than they may appear. Nonetheless highlighting a face or a hand is a very difficult task. Too often the highlight subsumes the entire surface:

With that all said, at a distance and with a bit of squinting I find myself pleased with the progress I have made. Each weekly batch of 3 seems a little better than the last, and I believe my issues are based entirely in technique and not some fundamental misconception. All that's left is to keep practicing:

They're intended for use in The Sword and the Flame, so only 40 more are needed, plus or minus some cavalry and a gun crew or two. It took some time to develop the mixtures I use now so I will post the custom paint mixtures. The rest of the colors are fairly standard:

EXPERIMENTAL AFGHAN SKIN RECIPIE:

• BASE: 1:1 Dwarf Skin (Vallejo) to Rakarth Flesh (GW)
• SHADE: Reikland Fleshshade (GW)
• HIGHLIGHTS: 1:1:1 Dwarf Flesh (Vallejo) to Rakarth Flesh (GW) to Kislev Flesh (GW) [Note, toning down the Kislev Flesh may produce better results]

EXPERIMENTAL AFGHAN CLOTHING RECIPIE:

• BASE: 1:3 Rakarth Flesh (GW) to Screaming Skull (GW) [Eyeball mixture based on box art]
• SHADE: Agrax Earthshade (GW)
• HIGHLIGHT: Base mixture

Then there are the British, but we will leave them until another day.