"It's Called A Slyther."

"Mainly it roams the mine area at night in search of food."

This 28mm metal miniature of a "creatures native to Skaro" is produced by “Black Tree Design", and can be bought as Code DW128 Slyther from the manufacturer's "Doctor Who" miniatures range. Regarded "as a sort of pet" by the Black Dalek commanding the Dalek operation at the Bedfordshire mining operation, the monster was operated by Nick Evans and appeared in Terry Nation's November 1964 BBC Television story "The Dalek Invasion of Earth".

Despite being described as "large, black creatures", whose "skins were so thick that they were immune to the stings of the Varga plant on the planet Skaro", I've always personally envisaged the slow moving, tentacled horrors as being green in colour, so inevitably primed my model with two layers of "Vallejo" Heavy Green before drenching the figure in "Citadel" Nuln Oil. I then dry-brushed it with (more) Heavy Green and 'picked out' its eyes using a combination of "Vallejo" Heavy Ochre and Strong Tone Quickshade by "The Army Painter".

Hexgorger Skulls WIPs - The Judgements of Khorne has been primed, shaded and dry-brushed

Stepping away from science fiction and plummeting headlong into the fantastical Mortal Realms of "Age Of Sigmar" by "Games Workshop", I have made some considerable progress on the first of my Judgements of Khorne models, namely the Hexgorger Skulls. Summoned by "violent vows against sorcerers" these two formidably-tall multi-piece plastic sculpts have been primed, washed and then patiently dry-brushed using "Vallejo" Iraqi Sand and White.

These 'magic hunters' have proved slightly problematic to paint due to my fear of snapping their gushing blood streams at the point where they create an impressively detailed splash. So I've been handling them far more delicately than I usually do for what in essence I view as pieces of terrain. Fortunately, the underwhelming joints, fastened with super-glue, seem to be holding out well under my paint-brush, and should hold out whilst I douse the pair in "Citadel" Carroburg Crimson before tidying the miniatures up.

Kelly Gang WIPs - The criminals have had their shoes and overcoats base layered

Long-time sufferers of this blog will be very aware that if a genre should suddenly catch my attention then I can be prone to dragging a figure (or five) straight to the top of my painting queue, and rather naughtily I have done just that with my Kelly Gang by "Great Escape Games". This marvellously armoured boxed set have really caught my imagination, especially when I thought they might make for a rather fun villainous gang of desperadoes for Mad Max to encounter during his post-apocalyptic Australian travels.

Resultantly, I have been applying a few base layers to the bushwhackers coats and shoes so as to get them ready for some serious shading. Somewhat disappointingly however, I have found a few of the models to be rather poorly cast in places, especially where their windcheaters meet their trousers, and have therefore had to do quite a bit of cleaning up to either remove some 'blobbing' or smooth down some jagged edging...