Infinity WiPs - Shinobu Kitsune and Antipode handler

As promised, I've gotten back to infinity painting-wise. There's not much to show, but I'm trying to get better at posting WiPs.
First model is an Antipode Handler for Ariadna. I've still got the Antipodes themselves to paint, but they're next in the queue, as I'm excited to see what they're capable of on the table.
She's pretty fun to paint, this one, good sculpt with a suitable level of detail. 

I've also finally gotten to work on Oniwaban Shinobu Kitsune. I've had her for over a year, she's actually the first JSA model I got, and I've been unable to decide how to paint her.
2 days ago, I got Angels painting book, and he mentions using a simple black-grey-white gradient with glazes to paint, in particular swords, so I'll be trying that on her. The basic idea is to have her entirely black/white except her sword and her face, to draw some attention to them.

Her hair still needs work, but I have to decide whether to go for black or white hair.

A question for the reader, then: What colour for the sword? I'm playing with the thought of using a light green like on the studio model, but somehow that doesn't scream "monofilament" to me. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Thanks for reading!

Frostgrave and Samurais

Bit of a slow period, sadly. Been busy with job-hunting and such, but I've gotten a bit done at least.
A while back I started a frostgrave warband, and they got finished. Finally. For some reason, the top 5 was good fun to build and paint, while the lower 5 was a real chore. Could easily have done without them, but they're done and now all I need to do is actually have a game.

I'm thinking that the wizard is going to be a witch, but I haven't checked out the specific rules yet. Si/Maelstrom seemed to think that witch would fit the Merlin-type wizard best, so that's what I'm banking on.

I've managed to start another project, what with the frostgrave project being done. With the Lion Rampant force completed, I felt that I should do another historical project, and the Ronin rules for samurai skirmish games were the obvious choice. The armies are small, 5-12 models a side for the ones I've done, the models are readily available from the Perry brothers, and it's always a pleasure working with their sculpts, not to mention that it's an interesting period. Initially, I had planned to try and persuade Mikkel, the friend I've played Lion Rampant with, to pick up a warband for it, but then I accidentally planned out 3 armies and wound up buying them myself.

The overarching plan is to paint 3 small armies and a bit of terrain for a weekend in November, where three of us can meet up and get a game or three in.
I'll post up the background and my plans later in a dedicated post, but for now, here's the tester and some initial terrain, entirely inspired by the houses done by Juxt over on Warseer:

Expect more of this, as the deadline grows closer and I panic over all the stuff I need to get done.

I've finally gotten back to infinity again painting-wise, but no pictures on that front yet.

Attack of the blue space mayans

Got the Kukulkani done!
 

I've gotten my camera set up, so I've indulged myself a bit with the pictures. I'm quite happy with them too, part of the reason I started them was to see what I could do paint-wise without spending too much time on them. Trying to find the optimum balance between quality and speed for a given unit size, sorta.
I think I did ok, especially with the NMM. The gold could easily do with more work, but it's pretty good considering the time I spent on it, even if I do say so myself. I realise I haven't written much about the background, so here's a wall of text before the rest of the pics:

Background-wise they're Mayans, who got picked up from earth when a passing alien civilisation realised they worshipped beings much like them. Hence the name Kukulkani, Kukulkan being the Mayan name of the feathered snake-god Quezalcoatl. These aliens apparently saw some use in having a slave-warrior race that considered them to be actual gods (I imagine there's some hefty benefits to morale from that) so they picked these guys up and since then they've been given some pretty insane modifications.

The planet the game takes place on has a race of robots using a power source that is looted/copied from the one their masters use, and thus is considered holy.
Of course, they react to this with all the grace and diplomatic ability that one would expect, and descend on the planet to brutally sacrifice absolutely everyone they find. The gods aren't picky, after all. 

Model-wise, I'm very impressed with the sculpts - they're finely detailed and have a lot of character, IMHO. I'm NOT very impressed with the fit and organisation of the parts, however. When putting them together, I would have appreciated some sort of assembly guide or even just a set of pictures of the actual models showing both front and rear to work from. Instead, it was just bits in bags and the picture of the models on the front of the box was all I had to go on. The models aren't even entirely the same - the leader's cape (which is 4 pieces - cape, 2 pieces of fur and the clasp) aren't the same that's modelled on the box, and it took a while to figure it out.

I mean, none of this is impossible, but it'd be a small thing to pack each model in its own little bag and it'd have save a fair amount of time.
Sour grapes over - they're nice models, it's just a shame with a minor but annoying mistake like that.

A few closeups:

These guys are called harvesters. From what I understand, they're meant to run around, be difficult to hit thanks to some sort of evasion-rule, and use a non-lethal attack to take down the enemy. Then the big guy can get a permanent stat boost when he scoots in and kills them while they're lying down.

These chaps are warriors. They have the same non-lethal attack the guys above have, and some other stuff that I think makes them better in CC.

Finally, the big lad. Supreme War-captain, he's called. Whenever he kills someone, he gains a stat boost, so by the end of the game he should be very, very unpleasant to be near I think.

I've got my first game tomorrow, so there might be a post then with some thoughts on the game.

And, as always, comments and thoughts are much appreciated.