Saying Goodbye to an old friend

Today I have said goodbye to the Bishkek 2nd, my Imperial Guard Army that I have worked on in 2009 and 2010. It has been my largest and most satisfying work to date. But it sat in a case for 1 year, untouched. Today I packed up all the models, safely wrapped, boxed them and put them in the darkest corner of the house. I don't suspect looking at them for a long, long time.

I kinda feel relieved. It's been bothering me that the models sat there, looking at me while I took out the Counts or the Ogres out for a spin. I have been going back and forth on selling the entire army, after seeing good money coming in on themed armies. But in the end, I realized, I don't want to part with it-forever that is. But at the same time, I am not going to lie: to me the armies that are most interesting are the ones that are not done. Once they are finished, they lose my interest.

But I do want to do a proper send off, because i feel a bit weird about boxing them up. So I wanted to share a few of the highlights of this wonderful group of models. Here they are in  random order (where I could, I added a link to the building process).

Kitbashed Banewolf . See the old rhino sides? I scratchbuilt the turret and gun and added pipes from the infamous Russian bio plant. Link here

I love the OOP guardsmen. These are from the mid nineties and they show such character.

Mechanized Rough Riders. I came up with the mechanized rough riders after reading Dan Abnett and realizing the Guard would probably not use horses. I built 4 of them, here's two of them. The other two are here and here. Make sure you check them out, they are different and fun.

Here's the Forgeworld Hellhound

and the scratch (plastic card) built Hell Hound, based on Dave Taylors design. Check out the build here

Here's the Leman Russ, Kartvelian Variant. I built a round cupola on the front and changed the back, adding a small entrance for the crew. The gatling is scratchbuilt. Here you can see how

Here's my favorite model: the Manticore. I spent weeks on this model, adding tons of stuff and weathering with oil paints. Read about it here, it's quite a diary

There is also a Valkyrie   

and remember this little baby tank? Scratch built with buttons as wheels. 

He found a place in this Basilisk Diorama, based on a WWII image, my largest project series. Check out the link if you are interested in going beyond the normal stuff.

Veterans, amassed from all walk of life with really, really old GW models (middle with radio).

And my Penal Squad with their own, pimped out riding jail. Here comes trouble!

It acutally took me a while to get this post written up and it felt good. These models mean a lot to me and I don't think I could ever sell them. They will now go to sleep for a long time and I can focus on all my Fantasy projects. The Bishek 2nd have given countless hours of modeling fun and I will never forget that.

And thanks for all your comments on this two year long army building project!

Mike