The end has come for you. The last bell tolls for the Imperium of man and Chaos' victory seems all but inevitable.
Prelude -
The 13th Crusade of Abaddon lord of the Black Legion has stagnated, Imperial fleets are cutting off supply lines, and any momentum it may once have had has disappeared. Seeing that continuing actions outside of the eye are causing heavy losses, or perhaps because of other unknowable reasons, chaos forces begin their slow retreat to their new territories in the Cadian Gate to reinforce their not inconsiderable gains.
Vast swathes of the Imperium are left shattered, hundreds upon thousands of worlds are in full revolt, believing they were left to die at the hands of monsters. Industry and agriculture the lifeblood of a network of inter-dependent worlds is failing at an unprecedented scale. Supply lines are at a stand still, re-arming and re-training becomes near impossible in the surrounding sectors.
Imperial losses over the next few decades are huge. Territorial gains by the forces of Chaos mean they are able to raid much wider areas. Swift, savage attacks which escape before resistance can be solidified are bleeding Imperial forces like a thousand small cuts. The push of Imperial forces towards Cadia has led to a weakening in other sectors, and other races and war bands are taking advantage of the situation. The Red Corsairs were left free to annihilate the Genesis Chapter, though some say even some of the supposedly loyal sons of Guilliman may have turned the day Newfound fell.
However, Imperial fleet superiority has begun pushing Chaos back from some of its new territories. Chaos forces struggle to defend against a superior space power, and whilst reinforcement is slow, the grains of sand are swiftly becoming an avalanche. There are several great imperial victories, with the Emperor's Children suffering notable losses at the hands of the Dark Angels & Salamanders. Orbital bombardments succeed in the total destruction of the warbands designated 'The Cleaved' and 'Company of Misery', and the Legio Gryphonicus obliterates the Dark Mechanicum forces from Korolis.
Perhaps there is hope in the darkest of days, all may not be lost...
+++ Transmission Begins +++
+++ Oberon Class Vessel – His Righteous Fury+++
>>Report Commodore Visiter.
>Lord Admiral, it moved again, the planet is now fully inside the storm.
>>Confirm last, Commodore.
>The storm, it's growing, whatever they did on Cadia is taking effect.
>>Word of this must not come out, if anyone discovers the pylons are failing we'll lose whatever tatters of morale we have left.
>I think it may be too late for that, the news is circulating amongst the men, it's not like this is something easy to hide, I mean even the... the...
>>Commodore?
>They're coming, Emperor save us, the ships there must be thousa...
+++ Transmission Ends +++
Report Begins: In the last few months I have received hundreds of reports of a growing fleet of chaos forces, the likes of which we have never been seen before. Ancient and powerful vessels thought long lost to the ravages of time, stand alongside vessels of unknown, or alien configurations. Conflicting reports suggest everything from hordes of traitor marines, to corrupted Xenos breeds whipped on by daemonic masters, to millions of once proud Imperial citizens, mutated and corrupted beyond recognition.
One thing is certain, every nightmare ever dreamt by the feverish mind of men is waiting in that fleet, and that fleet is coming, coming for all of us. Emperor save us, if he can.
-Last words of the Inquisitor Luxan Helvar declared Excommunicate Traitoris.
-Update- :
Pages 1-8: The early years, photography and painting are a little rough at the start! For those who want to skip this start at page 9 and onwards, you can see the results of these pages in the one big spoliered shot below, or will see them progressing from page 9 onwards.
Spoiler:
Updated shot Q1 2015:
Original frontpage is spoilered as the blog has progressed somewhat since these earlier shots etc, but I felt I should preserve them so I could see the progress for myself if nothing else!
Spoiler:
I'll start off with the story so far as it were, some of these photos are not exactly new, but they're kind of still in progress thanks to other distractions.
So I started off with the intentions of doing a deathguard force, I've managed to keep selling models I wasn't happy with on eBay so a bunch of the photos I've sifted through seem to be models I've let go.
However here's some of the current keepers:
First stage of plague tower:
As you can see I kind of went in at the deep end with starting the new force, which probably didn't help the motivation, basically a baneblade chassis, with two shrine of the aquila kits providing a solid tower, which I then filled in the windows of with plasticard.
Adding the guns:
Both of the guns are moveable, won't add the boring inside shots unless anyone actually wants them but I basically dremelled the cannon off of the front of the baneblade for the top gun so it still moves like the original. The bottom gun is a turret with the large cannon's barrel chopped in two near the base, I then pin viced the holes out to make it look like the second demolisher cannon.
Tower bottom rear support:
As you can see I've again used the dremel to saw off a good chunk of the top plate section which fits snugly against the rear of the aquila tower now. Probably not the most interesting shot!
Victims from inside:
Seeing as it's three images I've put these as spoiler as it's already feeling spammy and I've barely begun. The idea was to have victims coming out from within the tower, or of having them dragged in by the tortured souls bound to the tower. Following the old concept for the tower where the workers who built it are sacrificed and bound to it, even if I don't want to follow the rotting planks idea.
Plague mortar is a hell cannon!:
Here you can see one side has been fully greenstuffed with tortured faces in amongst victims, and I have attached a hellcannon to the top of the tower to serve as the plague mortar for the tower, the wheels have found use in other parts of the project. The hellcannon makes a surprisingly convincing mortar without it's wheels, especially with those cogs on it's sides.
Sculpting great unclean one:
I figured since the fluff also mentions a great unclean one being barely constrained within I'd sculpt one onto the front emerging from within. It's not quite finished but you can see the bulk of the concept from this photo at least. Considering having pipes emerging near him feeding to the pus cannon below if I can make it look half decent, if not I'll just leave him as is.
Crew members:
Pretty basic conversions but I love the effect they give from so little work, especially the little chap rubbing his chin.
So that's pretty much all the old photos of the project, I'll have to take some new ones of the work so far since this point. There are now two side doors, and a front access hatch, still need to do a rear exit of some form as there are supposed to be disembarking points on all sides. Also dremelled the original main turret's ring off and mounted it on the front for the pus cannon, which took a lot of greenstuff all in all there's about six feet of the stuff on it so far. But at least it's progressing again.
I'll also have to find some photos of the troops I've managed not to eBay because I wasn't happy with them and add those to the blog and possibly hall of honour if any of them are finished.
So quick update with some of the troops I've managed to get done, not too happy with the first squad still, they just look a little sloppy on some of the models, mostly happy with the second lot of them.
So that's squad 1 as you can see it's basically just the current box of metals before it got turned into finecast with an added powerfist and one model converted to another plasma gunner. Which of course I've just noticed I forgot to drill out will have to fix that in a minute.
And that would be squad 2, happier with a lot of the models in this one.
Sir Calvin wrote:Your stuff looks very nice. The grennstuff on the tower looks good, cant wait too see it finished.
Could you take some closer shots on the Marines?
They look a bit blurry.
Ask and ye shall receive!
Squad 1 Closeups:
Spoiler:
Squad 2 Closeups:
Spoiler:
Automatically Appended Next Post: This a reposed Typhus loosely based on his artwork in the chaos marines codex, shame he's not exactly a powerhouse in gaming terms but that's not everything right! I just love the cheeky look the sculptors gave that nurgling on his knee
The arm and hand holding the unfortunate guardsman are mostly original sculpt as trying to use a standard terminator arm made the arm look far too long.
Sir Calvin wrote:Thank you, thats better! Thats a very (un)clean paintjob .
The OSL and bases are great too, I always was a fan of Nurgle.
Thanks!
LoneLictor wrote:Daaayuuuuuum, those are some classy minis. I love the guy with the plasma gun in Squad 1. Excellent glow effects and conversions.
And on that note more WIP stuff to be added!
This is the rhino for squad 1, using some lovely resin tracks and doors, and finding an interesting use for an ogre loincloth. The second hatch is magnetised so I can add options other than the compulsory bolter glued to the left. Planning on adding some more pustules along the same lines as those on the forgeworld doors. Really nervous about painting it as I've already gotten rid of two rhinos on ebay after not liking how the painting came out, might just wait till I've got the spare cash for a decent airbrush and compressor.
Spoiler:
Next up a quick side shot of the added plague tower bits, since the datasheet mentions exits on all side I've been adding those. As well as working on the fourth and final weapon at the bottom of the tank still need to sand that greenstuff around it.
And incase anyone is following this but not the showcase section here's some more finished stuff!
Daemon Prince:
Spoiler:
And some Plague Bearers, can't decide which technique I prefer to do these with the first one is simply skull white undercoat which is then painted entirely with washes apart from the metals, the second is chaos black built up to brighter greens with drybrushing. The third one is a mix of the two, genuinely surprised by the effect pure washes can give though.
Spoiler:
[spoiler]
Oh and one more thing a scenery piece I've been working on:
Some really nice stuff in here. I'm a big fan of the Plague Tower, especially what've you've done with the windows, they looked wicked.
Typhus is also looking like a bad-ass. Good work.
I like where you're going with the decimated statue from the Honoured Imperium set, I saw another with spikes sticking out of it and covered it barded wire, which looked really cool, something to consider perhaps? (I would post a picture butt typically I can't find it)
Anyway, keep up the good work and colour me subbed.
Holy shatner (that's my highest complement, reserved for only the finest things that catch my attention), that stuff is flipping awesome! Now I feel bad about my Death Guard. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to throw my army in the fire place and kill myself with a pasta strainer and a rusty spoon.
Thanks for all the feedback again chaps! Just working on the third squad of marines at the moment, and perhaps another little distraction
So without any pomp and ceremony here is squad 3 in progress, the champion is not only retro he's in a retro pose! Sorry the detail is a little hard to see on one of the plasmas too it's just the old bug eyes one. Final two are a bit more dakka heavy to make up for the posing of the previous two.
Spoiler:
Also found the old daemon prince I was working on, will have to bring him back up to scratch but I can see potential at least for a second winged prince if I'm feeling like some
Oh and a little preview of the distraction:
Now to wait on my brass etch to arrive so I can properly get stuck into that project too.
Bah this update has taken far too long, been really busy trying to find a new house as we're in the middle of moving and packing stuff up takes up valuable hobby time!
So first up some painted chaps from the squad that was in progress and the third squad of plague marines currently, the other three are painted but not based as I ran out of bases!
Spoiler:
Also got work started on a sorceror, still not happy with his robes, noticed some unpleasantly pooled wash on him after I took the photos so he's definitely going back under the brush. He's magnestised so I can swap between wings and a normal powerpack as I please.
Oh and a personal favourite of mine, a classic beast of nurgle, much prefer these to the new model, gloss varnish on the lips and eyes for a bit of an extra slimy look
Aside from that I've been working on bases for both my Slaanesh daemons and my Nurgley stuff that still needs to be based, images are probably a little dull unless you're particularly interested so they're spoilered.
Spoiler:
Got a bit further on actually having some scenery to play with too:
Spoiler:
Oh and thought I'd gotten lucky finding an old Khorne Icon from Forge World on eBay, but it's definitely a recast, still it was a hell of a lot less than they usually go for so I'm not too bothered, will probably pop it on a tower of skulls once I finally get the plague tower finished. Done a little bit of repair work on a few resin bubbles so it's cleaned up alright.
Should hopefully get an update up with some of my slaanesh daemons sometime soon, in the meantime here's the substitute 'instrument of chaos' I've been working on with a 2p for scale.
Spoiler:
I'm also starting an Ork blog today which I'll add to the sig once it's up, it's really only a casual side project for when I get fed up of painting 8 pointed stars to keep me interested. What can I say clearly MrMerlin has inspired me
MrMerlin wrote:Hey, I saw that statue in the gallery, great work! Very nicely painted!
Thank you
Soooo, something good arrived in the post today, spent a good chunk of the day cleaning it up washing it and assembling it, I present the now in progress chaos decimator daemon engine.
I was originally planning to magnetise the weapons but on consideration I don't see me wanting to not run one with butcher cannons with MoN, and if I fancy a bit of a change I'll clearly just have to get another one
Also planning on adding some extra detailing for the MoN, nothing too over the top as it's a beautiful model and I don't want to detract from it.
Well, just about managed to get in a few more minutes in amongst all the other stuff I'm busy with now. Nothing too over the top but I figured I'd give it a deathguard style mask, as well as a third eye made from a loyalist missile launcher lense, which oddly enough is the exact same size as the decimator's standard eyes. Throw in a horn erupting from the metal in the same style as the chaos symbol on it's shoulders, a few bullet traces on the right pauldron and a fantasy ogre loincloth et voila:
So after a good solid absence thanks to work and a new house I'm back to making chaos models, been working on an 'on the cheap' dark apostle using a chosen from DV and a slaanesh lord on steed with murder sword. Pictures to follow at a more reasonable hour, but I figured if I at least made this post then I'd have no way of weaseling out of continuing the blog!
So as promised here is a Dark Apostle made from the chosen leader in the dark vengeance box set.
Then a chaos lord of slaanesh on steed with murder sword, definitely needs more work, looks like he's wearing a diaper behind the saddle so I'll have to find some way to make that area more ornate (behave!).
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh and started work on a nurgle lord, current plan is lightning claw, powerfist, and burning brand so god knows where I'm going to put the flamer, mainly building him for an apoc game I have coming up, 3k points each four guys per side so 12k v 12k, won't say too much more on the list though don't want them reading our dastardly plans!
MrMerlin wrote: I'm glad this is up and running again!
Those guys look really cool, your gs work is very good. I like how the apostle is holding his helmet!
Thanks for the support as always, motivation is always appreciated!
A little further along with the nurgle lord now, still could do with some ideas on how on earth to represent the burning brand flamer on him!
Not to be a downer, but you can't actually give him the flamer as he has to swap a weapon for it, and he's already swapped out his pistol and ccw for the claw and fist.
Minis are looking great, though, absolutely love that apostle. He looks like the one in that classic piece of WB art, brilliant use of that skull/star.
A Kvlt Ghost wrote: Not to be a downer, but you can't actually give him the flamer as he has to swap a weapon for it, and he's already swapped out his pistol and ccw for the claw and fist.
Minis are looking great, though, absolutely love that apostle. He looks like the one in that classic piece of WB art, brilliant use of that skull/star.
Oh gawd you're right, was up late on skype when that particular plan came together so I'm gonna go ahead and blame that *cough*. Typical I only popped him in to mess about with the brand too, ah well not going to go changing him now, I'll just have to build another!
So as a continuation of an earlier teaser shot I've been working on a squad of berserkers using a mix of sanguinary guard and death company bits amongst others to try and make them a little more dynamic than the current very old berserkers. I started these before the new dex, and was merrily covering them all in chain axes, which I shall leave as is now even if they are only for slaughtering the already squishy xenos.
Cheer's for the feedback, I really do think a squad full of the normal zerker leg's is quite dull looking!
So a couple more of WIP zerker's, had a couple of slightly more stationary (but still moving), leg poses to use up, so I thought I'd represent the grenades on one chap, and some brutality on the other. I'm aware the head/spine needs work but I just wanted a base to work up from, worst case scenario it will be covered in carefully drawn out PVA then coated in the blood mixture using black wash and tamiya clear red, which should help make it look a little less out of place.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I'm particularly fond of my skull champion for this unit, a lot of which is due to his oldschool powerfist, I wish they still produced these things constantly scouring eBay for them to little avail. I try and save them for my world eaters units rather than popping them elsewhere as who better to have something so angry looking.
So finishing off the zerker squad photos! Three chaps preparing to tear into some unfortunate loyalists:
Another one of my personal favourites is this fella, leaping over a piece of scenery to finish an enemy. Obviously I'll have to trim down the scenery piece when he's based on his final setting, but then they are all WIP right!
Next up is a pretty fun guy, the old Kharn model looked completely out of place with these new fellas so I've been working on a new one. Was quite surprised when forgeworld put out angron and gorechild didn't look too different to this one, which is just two forgeworld axes merged into one.
So I guess all that's left is to post the squad so far!
A little more progress on the painting on the decimator, it is NOT finished yet! My airbrush decided to break while I was doing this piece and I'm in the middle of saving for a decent one as the original one was just a piece of junk that came free with the compressor.
I'm somewhat surprised I haven't seen anyone else doing an OSL glow out the back of the decimator, afterall it is full of compressed very angry daemons to keep it moving.
Well I have more stuff to keep spamming relentlessly! Some khornate termies, they're based on tiny bases till I get them painted, I tend to base stuff temporarily till it's ready to be mounted on a more scenic or resin base. Speaking of which if anyone has any recommendations for bases to use on khornate unit's I wouldn't say no, I use the same bases for daemons and marines depending on the god so if they look good on daemons too that's a major plus!
So first up a powerfist and combi-bolter:
A chainfist and combi-bolter:
Lightning claws x3 and one of them has an icon for rerolling charge etc.
So I promise not to post quite so much today in the hopes of a little feedback
Though it might really be because I'll be busy with this:
Managed to snag a blight drone off of eBay, now all that's left is to base it, I've seen a few done with water effect's and pinning coming from the tail which does look very nice, though I'm thinking of going for a slightly slimy look on the 'tail' without a column of phlegm! Which means I'll probably stick to pinning it in the existing flying base hole and run the pin through a piece of scenery on the base, also let's you make the pose a bit more dynamic than 'hovering horror'.
I've had the chance to use this thing in a couple of games and whilst it's certainly not invincible with only being a 2 hull point flyer I've yet to have it not make it's points back in a game. With that in mind I've started work on a scratchbuild blight drone, there's certainly enough inspiration in imperial armour 7 for different drone layout's! Only piece I've started is the optics as they'll end up being sculpted around to form the 'hood' the drones seem to have. At least I've found a use for all the waste one produces by being diabetic, the three lens structures are the covers off of my insulin needles
I may keep posting stuff at a higher rate than usual over the next few weeks on account of having managed to get at least a few things done while I've been busy not updating the blog.
So as promised no updates till I'd gotten a little more blight drone done, so the base is just drying now and looks a little like this:
Quite happy with the slight angle as if it's zooming over a piece of wreckage, the base is supposed to be sinking wreckage in a pool of bubbling nurgle goo, one lone victim making a last stretch to the surface before being pulled under, that or a zombie pulling it's way up depends how I'm feeling when I get to painting I guess. Also did a little work on the second drone but no photo's of that as the camera is on charge after doing todays round of ebay photos, (can't beat free listings weekends).
GalePrime wrote: You sir are an artist! I love all of it, Typhus is gorgeous, and your green stuff work is just pure omgwtf holy crap
Thank you so much, you sir are a gentleman, I'd bow to the PC if it wouldn't make me look insane.
Managed to get a little more done on blight drone number 2, obviously for now it's just rough shaping of greenstuff over a skeleton of junk bits, quite happy with how the armament is shaping up though.
Just as a little bit of reference the piece is inspired by this little bit of artwork from imperial armour 7:
Obviously I won't be going for a direct copy, as even Forge World strayed from the image on their drone (that's my excuse anyway), nothing wrong with a little 'artistic license'
Those Zerkers look great, I really like the little conversions and their poses, well done IG! The decimator is also looking grand so far, and I can't wait to see how your other projects turn out!
MrMerlin wrote: Those Zerkers look great, I really like the little conversions and their poses, well done IG! The decimator is also looking grand so far, and I can't wait to see how your other projects turn out!
Thanks Merlin, been trying to get some materials together for that terrain mini-comp, though without the airbrush and no longer having spray on primer I dunno if I'll be able to get it painted unless some serious luck comes my way this month will keep an eye on the series though, worst case I'll just have to enter the next one!
Little further along on the sculpting for the second blight drone, but won't get any more done on it this weekend as I've managed to use all the greenstuff I had. Waiting on another 3 feet of the stuff now should hopefully be here early next week! Getting that dinted metal effect takes a good while of poking careful sculpting with a paintbrush end for ages, I plan to add a little more battle damage to the metal areas once the flesh is finished.
Oh and I've been working on some turbines, used a couple of milk bottle lids for the base to sculpt from, drilled a hole through the drone and the 2 turbines so they'll be pinned through when I'm a little further along!
Then a little fun piece was the old skull champion model with a sawn off powerfist from an old metal champion -PROMOTIONS POSE OBLIGATORY-
MrMerlin wrote: Those Zerkers look great, I really like the little conversions and their poses, well done IG! The decimator is also looking grand so far, and I can't wait to see how your other projects turn out!
Thanks Merlin, been trying to get some materials together for that terrain mini-comp, though without the airbrush and no longer having spray on primer I dunno if I'll be able to get it painted unless some serious luck comes my way this month will keep an eye on the series though, worst case I'll just have to enter the next one!
when I'm a little further along!
I'm sorry to hear that... well, there will be another competition directly after this one, so maybe things will work out better then
Loving your Gs droone btw, looks nearly like the original... Kudos!
Ramos Asura wrote: Wow! That GS Drone is looking amazing!! I also love the basing on the other one. The popping bubble is a nice touch!
Ill definitely be watching this thread with interest!
Thanks for the interest, will try to keep it entertaining!
MrMerlin wrote: I'm sorry to hear that... well, there will be another competition directly after this one, so maybe things will work out better then
Loving your Gs droone btw, looks nearly like the original... Kudos!
Well hopefully not too much like it! Wanted at least a little variation, planning a third one based on another of those images from imperial armour 7 just not sure which one to pick yet. I'll keep an eye out for the second competition then!
So a little more progress on the drone etc, had to get him based even though he wasn't finished as I had an apoc game on sunday. Will try and do a rough batrep for it at some point, as one of the chaps brought along a camera, just need to nab the photos off of facebook. I'm not quite sure how one would replicate the propellor blades in the artwork, so I might just do an equivalent of the FW blades.
Been working on a great unclean one to go with the army as an allied option, definitely prefer the new tongue to the big one that comes with it! Just need to finish off blending the joints in with greenstuff, the base is also sculpted to match the rest of the army.
And speaking of great unclean ones, I've just started on a spell familiar for my sorceror, he might look familiar to those who have played epic, scale wise they're sort of like a large nurgling, didn't really need the airbrush for this one as it's tiny and just layering washes and tamiya clear red, will add in some yellow buboes and pus once he's dried a bit more.
And it's not really like these are much 'work' in progress as such, but I'll pop them up anyway, I love the old spawn models and at least they're finally useful again now.
So life managed to get on top of me again, been hobbying and checking dakka but not gotten round to posting much.
Finally got my hands on a new airbrush though so hopefully some paint should start appearing on previously posted plastic now! Speaking of which I've managed to finish the first piece since getting the brush during today so I'll pop up a quick composite photo of that and then get to work on hunting down some of the projects I've been getting on with during the silence!
Been working on weathering and detailing the Death Guard rhino, took onboard some comments from the painting showcase thread for the word bearers rhino so I've made the mud on this rhino a bit more textured, waiting for it to dry now so I can drybrush on some lighter brown tones. Need some more paints to finish it as I've got nothing to paint the corpse on the back with so it'll have to go on hold till I can get an order in, think I'll try painting one of the blight drones next.
Well that's the death guard rhino finished, torn between doing a blight drone next, or getting the paints I need to finish the khorne land raider. Suppose the infantry is probably feeling neglected now too!
Ramos Asura wrote: Gorgeous work! I really like the sickly yellow green hue you ended up with- some mix of Camo Green?
Also, if you dont mind me asking, Howd you do the chipping effect? Is it all brushwork?
Thanks! It's Camo green over white primer and black preshading, with a 1:1 bleached bone and camo green highlight. The chipping effect is basically a mix of 2:1 bleached bone and camo green sponged on the edges in random patterns, basically wherever a paint chip would appear, then painting inside these bright pieces with aged rust pigment mixed with vallejo matte medium, and yes all brushwork, everything past the earlier image I put up is.
Although the rust seems too high in quantity. I would've tried less spots of rust but more dense sections. If you know what I mean.
Surprised this thread doesn't get more love, it's great.
D
Thanks for the feedback, I know what you mean was just a little worried about making it too clean for Death Guard when I want to use a similar technique on some of my other legion rhino's! I'll just keep posting and hope for a little more love for the thread, it does help with motivation after all doesn't it!
I've opted for doing the Blight Drone First, seeing as I love my nurgle stuff the most, working on the flesh at the minute.
Also reposed or adjusted the duplicates for the cultists in my dark vengeance set, won't post up any of the normal ones as I'm sure we've all seen them a million times already! Will have to get more creative with my second set.
Started work on the zerkers and the bloodthirster, the main problem I'm having is in selecting a base for my khornate units, I'm not a big fan of those entirely skulls and bones style bases but I do like the look of a good resin scenic, so if anyone has any ideas I'm very much open to suggestions!
Next up for them a heavy black wash then highlights.
Man that blight drone is disgusting! I particularly like your rusting effect on the green.
If I was to have one complaint, though, It would be about the green goo and to a lesser extent the green lenses. They just seem so flat compared to the rest of the model. Perhaps something as simple and quick as a green wash (even just around the edges of the bubbles) would vastly improve the look. Dont get me wrong- I LOVE the basing style with the bubbles- I just think it needs a little more definition.
The Zerkers and thirster are looking good as well. Its nice to see more paint on your minis! Though it looks as though the guy on the left has tripped- maybe lean him back a bit more? Otherwise, Im really liking the squad!
Ramos Asura wrote: Man that blight drone is disgusting! I particularly like your rusting effect on the green.
If I was to have one complaint, though, It would be about the green goo and to a lesser extent the green lenses. They just seem so flat compared to the rest of the model. Perhaps something as simple and quick as a green wash (even just around the edges of the bubbles) would vastly improve the look. Dont get me wrong- I LOVE the basing style with the bubbles- I just think it needs a little more definition.
The Zerkers and thirster are looking good as well. Its nice to see more paint on your minis! Though it looks as though the guy on the left has tripped- maybe lean him back a bit more? Otherwise, Im really liking the squad!
Just my 2 cents. Keep up the great work!
Yeah I can see what you mean on the base, will have to give the wash a go and see how it looks, the zerkers will be adjusted when they get mounted on their final bases, don't worry he won't look like that when he's finished! Was just hard to mount him like that on a standard plastic base when he's mounted with a brass rod. I'm kind of at a stop point with them until my new paints arrive as I seem to have mislaid my previous pot of bronze. So of course that means I've started reworking the decimator seeing as I use him in a good chunk of my games.
I'm assuming that red basecoat is after the priming, yes?
How much pinning do you do? A lot? Or do you use mostly glue?
Finally, I know you mentioned your mix for the green rhino, but I had a question about that. The darker parts of the green... is that just due to the black preshading? Meaning, you primed white, then you sprayed some black in the areas that you wanted to be darker, then you just covered the entire thing in the camo green/bleached bone mix. Is that right? Or are the lighter parts due to additional highlighting?
Tangent wrote: I'm assuming that red basecoat is after the priming, yes?
How much pinning do you do? A lot? Or do you use mostly glue?
Finally, I know you mentioned your mix for the green rhino, but I had a question about that. The darker parts of the green... is that just due to the black preshading? Meaning, you primed white, then you sprayed some black in the areas that you wanted to be darker, then you just covered the entire thing in the camo green/bleached bone mix. Is that right? Or are the lighter parts due to additional highlighting?
Yep the zerkers in the picture have been primed with vallejo grey acrylic primer, then a single coat of thinned khorne red. I tend to pin only on things that really really need it, most of the time I lean towards just glue and I've not really had anything fall apart on me yet cross fingers!
So a quick and dirty explanation of the stages for the rhino: Basecoated in white primer (I'd use the grey now but I didn't have the airbrush at the time), then preshading with pure black in all areas I want extremes of shadow. After that's done a single coat of camo green goes over which gives you pretty good depth, I then tend to highlight further in key areas with a 1:1 mix of camo green and bleached bone.
The extra highlighting isn't really needed as such, if you look at the picture for the land raider further up it's had no extra treatments in that photo beyond prime-> preshade -> base. I just like to have a slightly more extreme effect, you can achieve a similar effect by priming with grey then preshading with both pure white and black, but the brighter areas won't be anywhere near as intense.
Think that's the decimator done with, still not entirely sure I'm happy with it but I could keep messing with it and just end up in a worse place than where I started. Though any suggestions are welcome, tried out the recommended green wash on lenses and the goo so wondering if it's noticeable / a decent solution before I go revisiting the blight drone! I'm quite happy with how the heat tarnish came out on the gun barrels which is probably best viewed in picture #3. Also perfectly happy with the effect on the rear of the vehicle, will have to try and get a shot that captures it better but the glow gets brighter the closer it gets to the daemonic containtment vessels sides.
Not quite sure what to work on now until the new paints arrive, I do have some screamers I'd quite like to use in an up coming apoc game at the start of february so they're probably a shoe in, that or the helbrute which is sitting there pre-shaded till I can decide on which legion I want to paint it up as, leaning towards iron warriors for now seeing as it's just the base model from the dark vengeance set without modifications.
Woah! Ive never seen that model before.... it looks wicked!
The washed greens look much much better! Id go with a little more in the recesses around the bubbles (just to get that little bit more definition) and I think youd be golden!
I love the heat tarnish, and the osl glow on the back looks great.
Id like to see some screamers, definitely. It'd give you a bit of a shift from the vehicle/large model phase you're in, if you were wanting a change.
The extra highlighting isn't really needed as such, if you look at the picture for the land raider further up it's had no extra treatments in that photo beyond prime-> preshade -> base. I just like to have a slightly more extreme effect, you can achieve a similar effect by priming with grey then preshading with both pure white and black, but the brighter areas won't be anywhere near as intense.
You're talking about the red world-eaters land raider, right?
And in reference to the preshading with both white AND black, I would ask... why not just prime in white instead of grey, then? Is it because that effect still doesn't get as intense as you want it to be?
Ramos Asura wrote:Woah! Ive never seen that model before.... it looks wicked!
The washed greens look much much better! Id go with a little more in the recesses around the bubbles (just to get that little bit more definition) and I think youd be golden!
I love the heat tarnish, and the osl glow on the back looks great.
Id like to see some screamers, definitely. It'd give you a bit of a shift from the vehicle/large model phase you're in, if you were wanting a change.
Aye it certainly doesn't lose anything with the green wash so I'll have to go over some of the old models that don't have it to keep it uniform. I did get at least a bit of a change in by starting the zerkers but I've not posted how far along I am with them yet as like I say waiting on some bronze from waylands. Oh and the decimator was on page 2!
The extra highlighting isn't really needed as such, if you look at the picture for the land raider further up it's had no extra treatments in that photo beyond prime-> preshade -> base. I just like to have a slightly more extreme effect, you can achieve a similar effect by priming with grey then preshading with both pure white and black, but the brighter areas won't be anywhere near as intense.
You're talking about the red world-eaters land raider, right?
And in reference to the preshading with both white AND black, I would ask... why not just prime in white instead of grey, then? Is it because that effect still doesn't get as intense as you want it to be?
Because that limits you to two tones instead of three, of course further highlights and shading are possible but pre-shading is essentially to make things easier for you and anything that saves you time is a bonus. This video should help make the technique a little clearer for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivzGCUGrsAw I hope that helps! Oh and thanks for the attention, doesn't hurt to get a bit more of that!
Anyway I've managed to get cracking with the screamers, I hate clear flying stands incase the blight drone didn't give that away so I've built in bits of wreckage and scenery for them to stand on with a brass rod pinning them in place. Just waiting for one piece of eldar scenery from bitzbox for the seventh stand. Will have to get my hands on some of the new plastics to bump the numbers up a little as these were all acquired for pennies on ebay back before they were buffed through the ceiling by the white dwarf update. The pic is just two of the seven currently being worked on.
Ooooohhh so it is! Still though, I've never seen that model before this thread xD Is it FW or one of the new CSM releases?
Screamers are looking excellent, by the way. Airbrushes are amazing one ya know how to use em! And I hear ya no hating the flying stands. They just look so chunky and out of place on models. I went a similar route with my Ork Deffkoptas. The streetlight bitz from one of the CoD kits make excellent flying bases, provided the mini isn't too heavy.
Ramos Asura wrote: Ooooohhh so it is! Still though, I've never seen that model before this thread xD Is it FW or one of the new CSM releases?
Screamers are looking excellent, by the way. Airbrushes are amazing one ya know how to use em! And I hear ya no hating the flying stands. They just look so chunky and out of place on models. I went a similar route with my Ork Deffkoptas. The streetlight bitz from one of the CoD kits make excellent flying bases, provided the mini isn't too heavy.
I'm saving up some of the circular lights to use as void shield markers on a titan I've got planned already got the concept drawings together and planned most of the materials but I want to get some of this painting etc out of the way before I go starting another big project. Especially as the plague tower has made me a little disillusioned with regard to super heavies it just doesn't seem to have enough boom for it's cost, especially compared to my IG friends dominus bombards!
Screamers are coming along nicely, just need to add a bit more depth to the scales and horns, tried a wash on the underside of one and it basically ruined it so I've wiped it clean with thinner, trying to edge highlight them instead now which seems to be working but isn't on the pic as yet
Daaaamn.... that decimator is MEAN! And Idlove to see you do a titan! I wouldn't fret too much about the Dominus- IG is a super shooty army anyways, and tanks are something of their specialty :/ There are still a good number of SuperHeavies that are worth points. Just about any titan is a killing machine, and the Ork Blasta Bomma (a big flyer) is one of my favorite units (2 Eldar Phantom kills in 2 games xD ). The Ork Pulsa Rokkit, on the other hand, is broken beyond words, capable of locking down thousands of points of models in one fell swoop.
Anywho... I've noticed that washes on airbrushed gradients tends to be hit or miss. I've had it work out great sometimes, while others ended up trashing the model. I'm really liking the color of the screamers- especially how you inverted it on a couple!
Ramos Asura wrote: Daaaamn.... that decimator is MEAN!
And Idlove to see you do a titan! I wouldn't fret too much about the Dominus- IG is a super shooty army anyways, and tanks are something of their specialty :/ There are still a good number of SuperHeavies that are worth points. Just about any titan is a killing machine, and the Ork Blasta Bomma (a big flyer) is one of my favorite units (2 Eldar Phantom kills in 2 games xD ). The Ork Pulsa Rokkit, on the other hand, is broken beyond words, capable of locking down thousands of points of models in one fell swoop.
Anywho... I've noticed that washes on airbrushed gradients tends to be hit or miss. I've had it work out great sometimes, while others ended up trashing the model.
I'm really liking the color of the screamers- especially how you inverted it on a couple!
Well glad you like the titan and decimator seeing as the titan I've got planned is a warlord, based quite heavily on a slaaneshi decimator, who needs imperial patterns when you've got the dark mechanicus right!
Screamers are now finished apart from bases, like I said earlier waiting on one more piece before I can get cracking on them, though if anything they're more fiddly than the screamers thanks to the resin basing bits. Got lot's of different helmets and bits of equipment all with different schemes to do on them. Added a further highlight colour to the purple sections as they were too flat so now they've got a layer of warlock purple mixed 1:1 with skull white to brighten them up a bit more.
In an effort not to stop doing things I've now laid down a base of enchanted blue on a lord of change and fateweaver, figured I'd paint them at the same time as I'll be doing them both in the same scheme anyway.
Well after a busy few days of not getting much done I'm back on it, paints finally arrived today, got a small selection of the new metallics so I could pick the right one for my zerkers. Got lucky on a couple of eBay auctions and snagged some raptors on the cheap, which are actually the first models I've got out of the new range but what I wouldn't give to be able to afford a heldrake or three right now, especially as I've got an apoc game on the 3rd of feb. I think for my night lords I'm going to opt for not using scenic bases, and instead I'll use some of the more traditional basing materials, along with a good chunk of the cities of death terrain, I just feel it would suit them more somehow.
I've not really done much to them above stock construction at the minute, I'm a little worried about ruining them as the new sculpts have an absolute tonne of little extra details. Might have to find a way of working in some trophy skulls and chains on at least the champion. I've opted not to use the ridiculous bat helms, sold them on eBay and kept the shoulder pads, I think the warp talon heads will work for what I want aesthetically. Oh I did have to repose the legs on the ones with the skull kneepad, the pose looked ridiculous so I've chopped them off and repinned them in a more aggressive pose.
Oh and the bits finally arrived for the final screamer base so I've got those to paint too, looks like it's going to be a good weekend for the paintbrushes.
Ramos Asura wrote:Screamers look exceptional. The extra layer of brighter colors really makes them pop!
The raptors look great too- its the first I've seen from the new line. Well apart from the helldrake, of which I'm of mixed opinions.
Dont fret too much about the Bombards in Apoc- Kill em like any other tank! Meltas, meltas, meltas!!
Yeah, that's pretty much the plan now, won't go into how I'm gonna do it till after the game, just incase those dastardly guard of wolf players are looking, where's a twitchy paranoid emoticon when you need one! I think the heldrake can look good if it's done well, or if it's carefully converted, seen a lot of bad ones though. I imagine I'll have to work in a crumbling tower onto mine somehow as heaven forbid me having to use a flying stand.
evildrcheese wrote:Those Screamer bases are gonna look bad-ass.
D
I was certainly hoping so but they're barely visible now, and that's after I had to muck about painting helms for white scars, black legion, SoB and one modified Iyanden to match the scheme from one of our groups space fairy players.
So screamers are now completed because I just could not get to sleep, need to find a matte varnish I can put through the airbrush as I'm afraid of the big bottle of vallejo because it keeps getting clogged if I try and use that and I don't want to wreck the brush.
I've also done a little more modelling on the second blight drone, just the propellers and pustules to go on it now, camera didn't focus on the fun little detail I was trying to point out though, we now have a zombie guardsman getting ready to munch on a poor former comrade who is swimming for his life.
Oh and not that interesting but the two lords of change who haven't moved beyond primer and enchanted blue
I remember seeing one base for a helldrake on here that used a gout of fire from its moult as a flight stand. Rasting some IG dudes if Im remembering right.... now I gotta go find it again!
That Drone base is AWESOME! Loving the zombie guardsmen- I love bases that tell stories. Dude its gonna look so wicked when its painted I like how you used sand on it for differences in texture,. Gonna paint that as rust?
And hey, progress is progress on the Lords, no? They look good, even if its just their base blues.
Ramos Asura wrote:I remember seeing one base for a helldrake on here that used a gout of fire from its moult as a flight stand. Rasting some IG dudes if Im remembering right.... now I gotta go find it again!
That Drone base is AWESOME! Loving the zombie guardsmen- I love bases that tell stories. Dude its gonna look so wicked when its painted I like how you used sand on it for differences in texture,. Gonna paint that as rust?
And hey, progress is progress on the Lords, no? They look good, even if its just their base blues.
Aye it'll be painted rusty patches, sand seems the easiest way to work that in, have got basically nothing done today, still working on an apoc list and it's only just over a week till the game. I may have put way too many points into about 7 models which somehow come to nearly 1.5k points by themselves despite being one unit.
Tangent wrote:You put any shades or washes on those screamers, or is that all airbrush work?
Nope the base colours themselves are entirely airbrush work, I've not used any shades or washes on any of the stuff I've been airbrushing lately apart from the zerkers I'm working on. The scales and horns etc are all brushwork though, but again no washes or shades.
Quick and dirty update, broken one of my lamps so the light is even worse than usual, looks like it's time for the second tech investment after that airbrush which will have to be a pair of proper painting lamps which can also be used for photos!
Land Raider is coming along slowly, using washes this time but not as normal, bleeding them into the gaps and dark lines without running any onto the surface itself, and I have to say I'm quite pleased with the effect. Not sure how I'll weather the tracks on this one was considering blood using tamiya clear red and black wash but I was worried about it looking too cheesy, just don't want to hide the tracks seeing as I shelled out for the machinator ones!
Bloodthirster still needs basing, I think the painting is as good as I'm going to be able to get it for the most part, the old model is a real sod to try and make look half decent it certainly hasn't aged as well as the lord of change. Still I wanted to at least have one of these in the army before they release the new plastics, if only because I'd love to be able to run daemon angron or bloodthirster bloodbath in apoc eventually.
Yeah, that Bloodthirster model is pretty crap, imo. You've done as well as anyone, though. And the Landraider looks quite good - very solid. Nice treads.
Landraider is looking awesome! Staring at all the little gaps must have driven you crazy I wouldn't go too crazy on the blood, even if it is Khorne... mud/dust, and a splatter of blood or two maybe for the sake of the blood god.
And the thirster looks great for what the model is! Ive seen that guy in person before, and whew! almost as bad as the old "screamer" Fex model. Your painting makes it look presentable though! Good work
Tangent wrote:Yeah, that Bloodthirster model is pretty crap, imo. You've done as well as anyone, though. And the Landraider looks quite good - very solid. Nice treads.
I think basing him will help cross fingers, I think I've finally settled on just using cork tiles and greenstuff to make lava bases for my khornate units so I'll have to drive and pick some up at some point.
sir william the bold wrote:Great work on.. everything
subbed
Thank you! Always nice to see someone else responding on the thread especially when it's nice
Ramos Asura wrote:Landraider is looking awesome! Staring at all the little gaps must have driven you crazy I wouldn't go too crazy on the blood, even if it is Khorne... mud/dust, and a splatter of blood or two maybe for the sake of the blood god.
And the thirster looks great for what the model is! Ive seen that guy in person before, and whew! almost as bad as the old "screamer" Fex model. Your painting makes it look presentable though! Good work
Yeah in the end I went for traditional weathering and I'm glad I did, the blood can stay on the weapons where it belongs! Adjusted my technique for lamps inspired by a few other tanks I've seen, I was a little unsure at first but at least in person it works for me. Also lenses galore on the land raider which is always fun. Like I said to Tangent I'm hoping basing properly and adding a better set of photos should help with the Blood thirster, looking through CMoN helped me feel a little better about it as there's nothing on there in the Bloodthirster category that blew me away either.
Rambling aside here are some photos of the completed Land Raider!
Won't have time to paint anything else really till monday now as I've got my apocalypse game tomorrow, 10k points a side, 2 players each side. I've been teamed with khorne daemons, the opposition is imperial guard and the sons of russ so I'm preparing for some horrible pain. Still cross fingers we should get the first turn seeing as the daemons player will be bidding 0 for deployment.
Looks awesome Ignatius! The mud in particular looks awesome- really crumbly-looking, and I love the subtle changes in color. What technique did you use?
And if I was to nitpick just a bit... The osl looks slightly off to me on the lamps. At least in the pics it looks too mono-colored on the lights themselves. Maybe a shot of the color mixed with white right in the middle of each "pane" of the lamps? They need some bit of white in them I think, just to brighten them up and set them apart as the light source, rather than just the light.
Am I being clear or just confusing?
Honestly its only a minor complaint, and not even one that really needs fixing. The Land Raider looks amazing regardless
Best of luck with the game!! Kill some loyalist scum!
Ramos Asura wrote: Looks awesome Ignatius! The mud in particular looks awesome- really crumbly-looking, and I love the subtle changes in color. What technique did you use?
And if I was to nitpick just a bit... The osl looks slightly off to me on the lamps. At least in the pics it looks too mono-colored on the lights themselves. Maybe a shot of the color mixed with white right in the middle of each "pane" of the lamps? They need some bit of white in them I think, just to brighten them up and set them apart as the light source, rather than just the light.
Am I being clear or just confusing?
Honestly its only a minor complaint, and not even one that really needs fixing. The Land Raider looks amazing regardless
Best of luck with the game!! Kill some loyalist scum!
The mud is a hell of a mix of techniques and paints, pva, sand, ballast, matte medium, pigments in dark tones, then the same again over the top with lighter tones then a drybrush of pigment and paint, just whatever looked right at the time.
I think the lamps are the only thing that has been pointed out and it's been more than once and looking at the pics I agree, not gotten round to doing it yet but definitely shall.
Unfortunately the game didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, we got first turn and I smashed some things with the purge formation and the lords of the black crusade with all their orbitals too, however after that the guard started dropping AP3 S8-10 everywhere and my ally couldn't do much as he was playing khorne daemons and they'd brought disruption beacons as they knew what was coming, also meant my flank march meltas ended up on the wrong corner. Definitely turned out to be a learning experience though, I love the purge formation, getting three Apoc barrage (3) templates on turn one with 4+ poison is very fun.
Went out and got some supplies for my lava themed basing on tuesday (as well as some of the titan materials), so I've managed to get the first new base done for the khorne themed stuff, I think I ended up with enough cork tiles for around a million points.
Still can't seem to get the photos clear for the blood effects on the axe and whip I'll definitely have to start working on those zerkers now.
As for the blood, it looks like you did more than just paint some red on there... If you added some kind-of thick gore effect, I would be interested to know how you did it.
Tangent wrote: Wow, I like the base a lot. That's just cork?
As for the blood, it looks like you did more than just paint some red on there... If you added some kind-of thick gore effect, I would be interested to know how you did it.
Yep cork tiles roughly broken up, currently building bases for the previously shown termies and zerkers now that I'm sure I like them.
The blood is tamiya clear red dabbed on in layers to build texture, with the top layers mixed with nuln oil wash to make it look more clotted, I'm sure there must be a proper tutorial somewhere as it's becoming an increasingly popular way to do blood on miniatures.
bunnygurl wrote:This is an awesome blog. Loving everything on here, though the first Blight Drone and those Screamers would have to be my favs. Nice work!
Welcome to the blog! I have to say I rather love the blight drone myself, they're just such a fun unit both to build/paint and to play with.
lennymaybe wrote:It seems like you're doing quite a bit of interesting stuff. The screamers are some of my favourite minis and you've done an amazing job with them.
I'm looking forward to seeing more.
Thank you very much, always nice to get some more support! It seems the screamers are quite the hit, I'll have to get working on some more of the pretty tzeentch units clearly.
Bit of a random update today, been slogging on with the berzerkers they're taking longer than I expected currently applying bronze base to the metal bits as otherwise it takes about 5 layers to cover properly, there are so many little details on the forge world kits still cross fingers it'll be worth the effort. Also started work on the helbrute for a change of pace but nothing particularly interesting about a stock model with only a couple of layers on
So I guess I'll just pop up a few of the pieces currently being worked on modelling wise:
Abaddon and a tzeentch sorcerer, Abby has unfortunately received a bit of a bashing which means I need to add spikes back onto him, and the topknot needs working onto the new head a bit more as the greenstuff is far too rough. I feel using the newer terminator lord kit to beef up his size is basically a must, and of course not wanting to waste anything the body can be used to make a perfectly passable sorcerer, the armour is still quite ornate and having a spellcaster a little shorter doesn't hurt at all.
The old great unclean one definitely hasn't aged quite as badly as the bloodthirster, however that giant tongue looked ridiculous so he's had some surgery in line with forge worlds efforts. Also swapped out the giant skulls he's dragging for no apparent reason for some unfortunate victims on meat hooks. I'm just glad one of my guard player friends keeps his screaming faces to one side for me!
The changeling is one of my favourite units, and he's double the fun in apoc games! He's also the first time I've ever experienced a problem with finecast, that staff did not make the transition well at all and is incredibly floppy, so I've removed it and added some of the old pink horror arms, I think I actually prefer the new model plus it's always nice to have something a bit more unique.
Anyway I'm going to crack on with these berzerkers, thanks again for the interest chaps and chapettes!
Awesome new models, Ignatius. Definitely looking forward to paint!
Im really shocked that thats your first bad experience with Finecast. All the ones Ive seen have been miserable, save one. the 25th anniversary SM model I have is flawless.
Even if the staff was trash, the result looks perfect. The arms match up perfectly!
It sounds like I've just been incredibly lucky compared to most people, I've been fine with every purchase up until now though, even the ones that came out in the first few waves.
@Tangent & Bunnygurl
Sounds like the changeling is mr popular.
Well I've managed to again not get what I was planning to done and instead have wrecked my hands paint stripping yet more old metal pink horrors to go with the changeling, I'm also going to blame Risk: Legacy, awesome game (especially when one wins the right to name the world). It's generally been a hectic week but more stuff is coming along slowly, I figure if I at least post some form of update it might motivate me to get some more painting and pics up! It's nice to see that the army is in general attracting a bit more interest though, determined not to end up leaving a long gap of no updates again so thanks again for the support!
Well today has been mostly a write off cleaning up the work space as I couldn't find half the bits I was after, seeing as there was previous interest in how to make the lava bases I just thought I'd pop some up pre-painting.
Around the cork is vallejo sculpt-able water effects as well as a few greenstuff bubbles, as was previously mentioned it is literally just roughly broken up wickes cork tiles, though any form of sheet cork will do so long as you put any sealed sides face down otherwise you won't get a nice bumpy effect.
The water effects are slightly more visible on my shot of skulltaker (who I've had sat in a box since the daemons codex release last time about time he was started).
Also been working on the helbrute, though he is still pretty early on, trying to decide which panels are going to be hazard striped, black or gun metal, definitely need to get some thinner masking tape in!
Well, seems I'm still waiting on some new detail brushes and thin masking tape so there's still not been much progress on the zerkers and helbrute, while I'm waiting for them to arrive though I didn't want to sit idle so seeing as my new daemons codex will be arriving in just over a week I thought I'd get cracking on my horde of diaz-nettes! These models have been sat around far too long gathering dust thanks to their current guardsmen level stats despite being over twice the cost. But I'm crossing my fingers that they become a bit more viable with the new book, or failing that at least I'll be able to use them for the grand pavane formation in apoc games for a bit of fun.
So now I've got the joy of painting over 60 daemonettes, took a while to tidy them all up and I've never batch painted on this scale before so cross fingers I won't lose my mind doing it, I already painted a small squad over a year ago now so I think the total comes to over 70 of them.
lennymaybe wrote: That is indeed a lot of daemonettes. Good luck with the batch painting, it can definitely get a bit boring sometimes.
Thanks! It certainly makes ones arms hurt if nothing else, but I'm gradually getting there.
The daemonettes have now all had a coat of shocking pink from the coat d'arms range which is a direct analogue of the old tentacle pink. Then a layer of my daemonette wash (1 part coat d'arms super purple wash, 1 part leviathan purple, 2 parts vallejo airbrush thinner). Next I need to get cracking with the liche purple on the talons, claws and hair, just remembered how many gems and little details these have, I can see the next few steps taking a good while. Oh and I managed to find another three of them in an old box, hence the slightly bigger group! At least it sounds like they should be better with the new dex, the new daemon of slaanesh means they keep the fleet and rending and gain 3" of run, add on S4 on the charge and for 2 points cheaper if those pan out to be true I may just enjoy fielding them.
Nah I prefer to do washes with a brush it just gives more control, especially on something with lots of small details like these. Really glad I started them now as my apoc group are switching things up a bit and running a mini-tournament instead next time so I'll probably be running slaanesh heavy if all these rumours pan out.
I wanted to get my masque done at the same time but she got dropped not long before I started and she's missing a mask from one of her arms which I can't seem to find after searching for a good hour, may just have to buy a replacement at least I'll get a cheap herald out of it I guess seeing as the masque is still a lot cheaper than the new herald for some reason. Still she can be painted when I get started on those 40 metal seekers... assuming I don't go mad first *twitch*
When you wash, do you cover the whole model? Or do you just try to paint the wash directly into the recesses? I normally cover the whole model but lately I've been thinking about trying to do it otherwise. My problem is that the wash tends to darken the non-recesses as well, so if I'm not super accurate with the brush when trying to apply it directly into the recesses, it ends up looking really sloppy and then is difficult to correct.
Super impressed with this, that is a monster number of daemons! And a lot of pink...
Just a reply to the last poster, my tip would be slap the wash on a handful of models at a time, liberally coat them all over. Then get some cotton buds (the ones on a stick) and then just roll the bud across the bits you don't want the wash to pool over (large upper surfaces or flat bit). Makes a massive difference if you want to preserve the brighter base coat of colour. The alternative is to use a damp (not wet) brush.
@ Tangent - Depends on the model with these I've applied it a little more carefully as the details are quite small and the wash can pool and make it look terrible pretty easily, I've darkened the surfaces on purpose with this wash though as it adds a colouration I like on my slaanesh stuff. One way to do washes in recesses only is to use an oil wash, you want to add a gloss varnish coat over your miniature, then apply the wash, let it dry, now you can remove the excess with cotton buds soaked in alcohol or mineral spirits as suggested by retro!
@Retro - Welcome to the thread! I've taken somewhat of a tiny break now that the dex has arrived so I can write lists and plan stuff, also helps to intersperse it with modelling to keep things from getting dull.
So speaking of doing some modelling I've been getting on with some other projects inbetween the painting, and have come up with a few pieces for the daemons army.
I'm very happy with how the slaanesh units seem to have come out with the new dex so I've repaired my masque, which has also given me access to what is essentially a cheaper herald. I have to say I'm tempted to restart on a lot of the greenstuff on the masque, I started her a good while ago and looking at the photos of the herald I do feel I've come on somewhat. It was also a lot easier to remove hair thanks to the new one being finecast. It's going to be interesting trying to get the seeker chariot models I'll eventually get to fit in with the old slaanesh theme.
Continuing the slaanesh theme I made a daemon prince entirely from spare bits I got from the new plastic kit and greenstuff with a wire core, that thing is seriously good value if you make use of it properly, got to work on sculpting muscles over the flatter areas now which will be a new experience.
Then a nurgle soul grinder, I've had the model sat on a shelf for ages, and now it looks like it might definitely be seeing some table time. Knew I'd kept masses of old sprues for a reason, chop em up into bite size pieces, glue liberally over a model for bulk then use the skeleton to cheapen up the green stuff costs.
Coincidentally, I started thinking about building a second daemon prince using the leftovers from my plastic kit last night. Seeing what you've done with yours has made me really excited to try it. Some of the plastic kits come with an awesome amount of spares.
Your herald is looking good, too. I like the addition of the diaz-nette arm, it balances well with the massive claw.
Slowly progressing with the daemonette horde, but my paints and brushes finally arrived from wayland (I think I'm going to have to find a new supplier). So with that in mind I've gone back to the zerkers to try and at least finish them, did the bases for the termies and skulltaker while I was at it but they can wait till later. Really not happy with kharns bare arm, I think once these are done I'm gonna have to go back and adjust it as it just doesn't look right on the model. In fact I might just start from the ground up with him if I get the time between other projects, only thing I am glad that worked is gorechild. Quite happy with the rest of the pack though, the old plastics can go on ebay definitely sticking with the FW option.
Oh my lord, I was searching for Diaz Daemonettes.. and.. you have so many! I'm guessing you're either super rich or got them before they went out of production?
Also, great work on the green-stuff sculpting, it's looking good. You've got great ideas for new takes on the miniatures!
LadyCassandra wrote: Oh my lord, I was searching for Diaz Daemonettes.. and.. you have so many! I'm guessing you're either super rich or got them before they went out of production?
Also, great work on the green-stuff sculpting, it's looking good. You've got great ideas for new takes on the miniatures!
Welcome to the blog, I managed to snag them either when they were in production or when they were super unpopular at weird times of the day on ebay! You'll love the seekers then there's 40 of those to start next
Sorry It's been a while chaps and chapettes, things have been somewhat hectic, and I've been in a bit of a warhammer slump, had to skip my last mini-tourny thanks to financial issues, which has somewhat squished motivation for a while.
Fingers crossed though I'm getting on with the zerkers and they should be finished soon, still got to source another arm for kharn though...
Zerkers have come along a ways, basically finished now though there's a few details I'm still not happy with, and I still don't like how kharn is coming out. However they can go on the shelf for a while as I'm sick of the sight of them, do like how the blood has come out at least, partly blame them for stalling me (got to have an excuse right)! Not sure what to paint next, anything that isn't a marine probably
Ignatius-Grulgor wrote: Welcome to the blog, I managed to snag them either when they were in production or when they were super unpopular at weird times of the day on ebay! You'll love the seekers then there's 40 of those to start next
Sorry It's been a while chaps and chapettes, things have been somewhat hectic, and I've been in a bit of a warhammer slump, had to skip my last mini-tourny thanks to financial issues, which has somewhat squished motivation for a while.
Fingers crossed though I'm getting on with the zerkers and they should be finished soon, still got to source another arm for kharn though...
Ooooh Diaz Seekers. I have ten but they're like bars of gold these days to get ahold of. Beautiful sculpts, if a bit of a pain to get their tails to stay on at times... I look forward to seeing what you do with the lovelies.
I too am interested to see how you paint the seekers, I have a whole army of diazonnettes that have been shelved after being stripped. Thinking about getting them out and building the army, but with little ones around I'd hate to have to explain why the lady's with strange hair have ) boobies.
@ Tangent - Will do, just working on the helbrute so I'm due for some more snaps, really need to get a dark background this weekend to test out too.
@LadyCass - Oh god you're not kidding about the tails, think I'm going to snap them all off before I start and pin them as even when we moved about half lost them, that and the flimsy blades mean a few of those need repairs too.
@Theophony - I could only recommend getting them back into the game, enjoy them whilst they're actually good for the first time in a long time!
Been making some slow progress on the helbrute today, too many fiddly details and repaints over bits I've not been best pleased with but he's coming along at least, might get back to the grindstone on the daemonettes once he's done, photo's to come when the camera has re-charged.
Ignatius-Grulgor wrote: @LadyCass - Oh god you're not kidding about the tails, think I'm going to snap them all off before I start and pin them as even when we moved about half lost them, that and the flimsy blades mean a few of those need repairs too.
Yup, mine are all pinned and green-stuffed to boot. Also means you can have a bit more freedom in mix-and-matching the tails. The blades - ack, I'd forgotten about them. One or two of mine have only the one dagger. I guess I'll have to fit that at some point...
Theophony - use them or sell them for an absolute fortune . Your choice.
@Darth Bob - I'm sorry to say the plague tower has been stalled somewhat, which is crazy really cause I've used it in pretty much every game of apoc I've ever played. People must be sick of 'that big lump of grey that just won't die'. Gotta love the pretty little pink horde!
@Alpha_Omega - That's two mentions on the tower clearly I will have to get cracking on it again, and thank you for the kind words
A little more painting done on the helbrute today as well as the promised extra shots for Tangent (Check the Khorne gallery for them I'll pop a couple on here but don't want to overload the thread).
There's definitely a fair amount of detailing left for this chap as well as the base clearly but relatively happy with how he's coming along.
Then a few of the extra zerker shots (again rest are hidden away in the khorne gallery).
Well I'm very tempted to get a stripping agent that isn't dettol as it seems to turn GW black primer from very old models into some sort of tar like substance that sticks to everything while letting off a vile smell. Stuck the be'lakor and slaanesh daemon prince (converted reapercon sophie) I had going into it, after stripping the be'lakor of all the nurgle bits I had foolishly added, redoing models I did a while ago seems to have been the aim the last few days as they just don't look up to snuff compared to some of the more recent items to me.
Also treated myself to a few chaos bikes and the plastic nurgle champion from the fantasy range literally everyone seems to be using for conversion! Still torn on what to build the bikes as got seven to play with, at least one can be a nurgle lord with burning brand really not sure about the rest though, seems slaanesh and nurgle are the best choices though.
Speaking of old models dug up a lelith hesperax I got years ago for a khorne herald conversion when my daemons were all going to be slaanesh themed. Trying to rescue this slightly butch lady into yet another slaanesh herald but the feet look too big to me so I'll have to figure something out.
Oh and a little 'display piece' I'm working on from the fantasy champion, I figure the weapon should do as a counts as power maul, and I'll slap him on a palanquin possibly with a familiar, not exactly a competitive choice unless I've missed some wonderful tactic but it looks 'pretty'.
The blood is actually from the pot that nurgle champion is currently standing on, it's tamiya clear red, which I build up in layers which progressively contain nuln oil then finish it off with a brush of gloss varnish.
I've not tried simple green as I hear it's a pain to get in the UK, but I hear fairy power spray is a great one so I'll probably give that a shot next time.
@Tangent - I'm afraid not, but I'm sure any anionic surfactant mix will probably do the job. Interesting that they're bringing it over here at all though!
Well it's been a hell of a busy week, last friday went to warhammer world, never been before, definitely worth a look though if you're into GW products at all, seemed sadly ironic that there was a display case dedicated to the specialist games still when they're in the process of killing them.
Seeing as I was at the place where I can get FW stuff without postage it seemed silly not to get at least a little treat, but the budget didn't allow too much so grabbed Necrosius the nurgley sorceror who is currently held together mostly with pins to make painting easier:
Since I've been playing with mostly unpainted scenery I figured I ought to sort a bit more of that too, really helps with the feel of games too. This stuff has been sitting unpainted for years now
Also grabbed a battlescape at warhammer world, one of the apoc group has just started a salamanders force so I'll be painting the marine 'parts' in their scheme. Made a panel to cover the gap the piece usually has from a large piece of the cork I use for bases because the open piece just didn't look right to me. Still very much a WIP:
Urgh this is turning into a properly mixed update, I've also been changing dark vengeance chosen into models that actually aren't terrible to use on the tabletop.
This chap makes a cracking nurgle aspiring champion with very little work required, also seemed a shame not to make use of the axehead from my other nurgle champ, just need to strap a meltabomb somewhere!
The Lord from the box seems to come with a powersword and a plasma pistol, well no thankyou! Added a rather large poweraxe to him, and a bolt pistol, still need to greenstuff the gaps in the poweraxe and arm, gonna keep it removable for ease of painting though, probably got to slap a meltabomb on too, gotta love axe and meltabomb for some cheap power.
Ooh and grabbed some of the plastic nurglings for the palanquin lord and got started on them:
So yeah cross fingers the next few updates should be less random, cause looking back over that it's all over the place, just finding it hard to focus on any one project lately. Finished the helbrute at least apart from it's base which should be coming from eBay at some point. The daemonettes are lined up again for painting as they've been seeing a lot of tabletop time instead of painting time, so cross fingers I should be able to start tying some of these projects up a little better so things are more consistent.
Been working on the palanquin lord to try and get projects finished instead of starting too many at once!
Base is heading towards finished, figured it would be a lot easier to do them seperately, not sure if there's enough going on up top on the palanquin itself, but I didn't want to make it too busy. Used a scenery floortile that's been trimmed down to fit in with the theme of rotten imperium the rest of my nurgle stuff seems to have. Feeling a little disheartened having seen the votes on some of my earlier nurgle stuff, I know it wasn't all fantastic but yeesh, still must resist the temptation to go back and start it all again otherwise none of the new stuff will ever get done. Still at least some of the newer stuff seems to have been more well received so I'll just take it as a sign of improvement.
Oh pish.
Don't fret about the gallery votes- They're so erratic sometimes they're meaningless. All that matters is that if YOU like the result!
I, for one, rather like your nurgle stuff, and those Nurglings look awesome! The bright red tongues and guts really set off the sickly green skin.
Im really looking forward to seeing that lord get paint!
Really what it comes down to for me is... First, is your stuff cool? Second, is your stuff unique? This adds to the cool. Third, is it painted well and/or modeled well?
With the last one, it always feels like you could paint and model better, because with art there's no "perfect" unless that's defined by you. Everyone's opinions will be different, but I think your stuff is great.
Thanks fellas I was just having one of those days I guess, I will eventually go back over the older stuff as even I'm not that happy with it but I don't want to stop progressing with getting new things painted for that and it's not like I hate any of it.
Palanquin is a bit further along, had to 'trim' some of the nurglings a little to make it stable but it's good to be sticking with something and getting it done even if it is slow progress with all the other stuff I've got to take up time at the minute.
Sculpted another pad onto the champion so I could more easily add transfers, and to make him a little bit more armoured so he's not quite as 'fantasy'.
So that's one project down, on to the next one! Really torn on what I actually want to get done next there's a decent amount of things to pick from to say the least, wish I knew how the teams were looking for my next game so I could at least do things that will be in my list. Will just start on the daemonettes again till I'm feeling inspired.
That looks pretty nice. The head however just looks like a single blob of colour with white highlights. Are there any closeups that show the head's details?
It's a fair point, I have tended towards going over the top on the osl with my plague marines lenses up to this point as it tends to lean towards 'gasmask horror', though I'm having a bit of a crisis of confidence on the nurgle stuff as it is anyway. Will try and get a few more shots in with the next update as the single shot does miss a fair few details too.
So it's been a little while again, turns out I'm having to move before August even hits so I guess things will slow down again while I have to pack/unpack/find a house etc etc, but if a job calls you don't say no in the current climate. After a little prompting I think I'll be starting work on the plague tower again, it's been such a slow burner but I still love the model and it would be good to get it finished finally.
Been working on the lowest gun, the delightful 'pus cannon', decided to cover the secondary hatch with a 'pus container' and added a few more details. On a side note the vallejo water effects liquid bottle suffers from far too much shrinkage, I expected a little but I've had to add more three times now, wish I'd just done it with greenstuff now as I'm planning to paint it anyway, just thought that was a good lazy option!
Also as requested a few more shots of the palanquin lord:
For that metal plate, how did you get that effect? I'm assuming stippling? But did you stipple the brown (and which brown did you use?) or did you paint the brown and then stipple the gunmetal? Any weathering powder on that?
I'm pretty sure it was a case of, undercoat, quick rough covering of leadbelcher incase I missed anything with the stippling, then with a sponge only FW Aged rust, FW Orange rust, varnish (spray), leadbelcher. The FW pigments were mixed with vallejo matte medium again as I find it better to use the powders this way when doing stippled rust.
Not really got much else done spent the weekend driving round looking at houses and dumping things on ebay.
Well not got much painting and modelling in on account of all the moving stuff, warhammer is almost the last thing left to be packed so I've still got something to do! Got quite a few games in though so the motivation sure is coming on in spades. Was really annoyed I missed the vortex grenade template again with the apoc relaunch so I've made a couple of my own instead of paying out the backside on ebay.
Well I'm finally moved and settled in, fortunately the only casualties were one meltagun and one daemonette arm, both of which just needed a little glue. The normal camera and photo setup are still yet to be assembled though so the update will have to be phone camera photos.
Continuing the painting on the daemonette horde while I rewatch heroes on lovefilm, stopped halfway through series 2, purple applied to all the hair and claws, now going over with a highlight / drybrush depending on the part with warlock purple.
Also got myself a little treat after the move, my first heldrake, always like to have one stock version of a kit but I'm completely torn on what legions colours to use, definitely won't be deathguard as the next two are going to be built from a heldrake kit combined with a zombie dragon kit.
Oh and the other little treat is a tzeentch chariot kit, I could not recommend it enough, broken up for parts it's actually good value and I'm left with loads of spares. Those two screamers should nicely bump my current ones to a unit of 9, and just started building a second disc herald from the other spare parts to play a screamer council list.
So I clearly got lazy, the attempts to sculpt the second herald were going slowly and I've got a rather large amount to get through before the next apoc game (and in general). Therefore I went for the easy option and grabbed a warriors of chaos sorcerer, there's still a bit of greenstuffing and basing to go but he's nearly there now.
Second lot of screamers bases are drying now, pva is so so slow! On the plus side sitting them next to the old screamers they don't seem too out of place.
Oh and instead of a thrilling image of yet more daemonettes being slowly painted, here's a 'thrilling image' of the portaglyph marker before painting.
@ Tangent - It varies to be honest, with models where I feel assembly will be a hindrance to painting I tend to assemble them with superglue or greenstuff so they're easy to pull apart. Or I pin them (photos of screamers should show that), for the herald he's just very lightly glued on so I could get the pose of the other pieces exactly as I wanted them before painting (that book would be a pain with the herald in the way).
Got the portaglyph quickly painted up, it's a bit rough but it looks good from a tabletop distance, not messing about with a template!
Screamers are coming along, held to the bases by pins so I can do them without messing the bases up, horns etc are just basecoated, haven't decided on an eye colour yet as the previous ones had no eyes!
Ah, ok. Yeah, I almost always try to paint before I assemble completely, but I haven't always done that. I used to assemble before painting but the airbrush sometimes doesn't work so great when I do that and since I've had the airbrush I want to use it on everything. At the same time, I'm not super skilled with the airbrush and I don't have any really small nozzles so doing more than blending basecoats is beyond me at the moment.
At the same time, I'm still trying to figure out pinning. I got a little hand drill with tiny bits so I can drill into the models' feet (or whatever) but it seems to take a lot longer than it does in some videos that I watch, and my drill bits seem REALLY flimsy when I'm turning the drill - they bend a lot and I broke one in half the first time I tried using it. And I still wasn't able to drill very deep.
@ Tangent - I did get a couple of flimsy drill bits that came packed in with some brass rod I got and they snapped just like yours, I've since swapped to Dremel branded bits specifically for drilling metal and I've yet to have one fail on me (fingers crossed).
Got the two screamers done today, they were a nice break from the daemonettes which I should probably get back to for a while, I'm sure I'll have to find another distraction at some point though.
@ Tangent - thanks I am rather chuffed with how they look as a unit on the table, gave the screamer council list a shot last night and trounced tau at 1500.
Not got much else done today just a few daemonettes and writing a 5k list for the next apoc game, leaning towards including the slaanesh formation, assaulting from deepstrike and rending on a 4+ yes please. Also very tempted to convert an arkos the faithless for apoc games, having him as the warlord and attaching him to a legionnaire warband is potentially horrific with his finest hour.
@ Le Grog - Thanks and welcome to the thread sorry it's taken forever to reply!
Had some awful things going on not long after a rather good apoc game (Last memory of yuranthos is hilarious on a non-scattering psyker in apoc), combined with a course to sparkle up the CV I'm doing, which has meant I've done very little lately. Trying to drag myself back onto the horse now to provide a distraction if nothing else so updates should be coming back again, just a quick camera phone shot of the new daemon princes in progress for now.
Managed to snag severina and sevora from the inquisitor line, they're a little smaller than I expected so I'm torn between putting the twins on a single base, or just beefing them up with scenery. They're pinned to temporary bases as usual for now, I'm just torn with what heads to give them now, the ones that came with them aren't my favourites to put it mildly but I've no idea where to get pretty heads in the right scale unless I make them from scratch.
Actually possessed backpack wings with a bit of trimming and greenstuff, been applying warlock purple to the daemonette horde, getting there slowly but not that thrilling for an update
Will have to get some photo's of my chaos aegis defense line, took long enough to file off all those eagles.
Edit: Completely forgot to mention, paint scheme on the screamers for the armies on parade UK this year looks a bit familiar... Wonder where he got that idea from
Just to make it clear that image is NOT MY WORK! but those screamers do look ruddy familiar wonder if he's been on the blog!
Ahhh the twins are looking lovely! Personally, Id put them on their own bases. Two on the same base would overcrowd the model, I'd think. Alternatively, you could build more of a diorama with a larger base size, putting them both on there. No clue on where to get new heads from. I've never been a sculptor, myself, so I can only wish you the best of luck if you go that route.
Heh. And those screamers -do- look awfully familiar... Gorgeous display, though.
Sooo posting someone else's thing seems to have drawn more comments than usual so I'll be licking my wounds
As promised the chaos aegis line in progress shots:
Those little imperial aquilas took some getting rid of with a square nosed file, also turns out the little rectangles that come with every chaos vehicle with no apparent use just happen to slot perfectly into the centre of the larger sections. Gun is handily magnetised for ease of transport as it doesn't slot into cases very well from what I hear.
Then one closer shot of one of the daemonette horde, I've finally finished the warlock purple (apart from a few pieces I've now noticed on about three of them does it never end ). About two thirds of the way through the first layer of gold on them all now, which means they're drawing towards the finishing touches. The question is what colour do I do the gems and cloth, on the ones I did a couple of years ago I've gone for red gems and white cloth but if I'm ever going to change it now is the time. The original ones look pretty enough to me but I'm considering green gems for more contrast, not sure about the cloth white does look pretty nice without adding clashing colours.
I'm also getting involved with another P&M blog set up by Darkmoonlight to try and motivate myself to finish the plague tower, there's lot's of other great projects in there so do check it out as I'll be leaving the tower updates exclusively on there at least for now (And here it is).
Aegis is looking good! I often lie awake thinking up ways to make those loyalist ones look chaosy without pouring greenstuff all over them. I appreciate the ideas and the heads up that those rectangular tank plates slot in there so well.
@ Moltar - well fingers crossed you'll like the update then! Quite pleased with how smooth the filing has come out post-painting.
Yes it lives, I've had no useful paintbrushes for a while so I've been able to do nothing but paint scenery, it turns out doing a lot of models non-stop with brushes can make them fall apart till you're holding something too fine to do eye dots with. Fortunately I've received a good few sable brushes for christmas so hopefully I won't kill these ones too quickly, does mean I've had scenery quality brushes only for a while though so been painting big things instead. Which leads to the aegis line being done, also made liberal use of blood for the blood god to compare it to tamiya clear red and I'm honestly torn, for lazy blood I'll probably go with BftBG, for anything where I want stringy slightly slicker looking blood it'll be clear red.
Edit: Ah hell I didn't do the lamp on the quadgun with the airbrush yet, ok so 'nearly finished' *grumble grumble*
Good to hear from you! So those are looking pretty slick. You used BftBG for all the blood on these? Did you do the "flick" thing to get it to splatter like they do in the intro video for that paint?
Also, I'm interested to know how you painted the quad gun and the other metal (chains and stuff). It looks like you used the same process on all of it and I might want to steal the idea for some projects.
I'm ashamed to say I didn't bother with the videos, I did indeed just use good old flicking to get the effect though.
Quadgun and metal was just Vallejo grey primer -> Leadbelcher -> Nuln Oil -> Leadbelcher -> Ryza Rust -> Ironbreaker, with the usual triple wash on the end of the barrels for heat distortion (or whatever it's meant to be called).
Everything is right though apart from the 3 coats, the effect is basically achieved by blue at the tip, purple in the middle and sepia towards the end I can't remember where I first got the idea but this blog post I found covers it nicely:
Not a problem, sooo not been entirely idle but I wouldn't call the stuff worth taking pics of, been painting the eyes on the daemonettes, the tiny tiny eyes of diaznettes, 67 nettes, that's 134 stupid tiny fiddly eyes then I get to paint the white cloth on all of them about half of that done now, might starting painting my new Aleph just for a change at this rate.
Oh Aleph, nice man! That's my Infinity faction as well, though I don't have a lot of play time with them. What color scheme are you looking at? I decided to paint all of the "pure robot" guys silver (like, the guys who really just look like robots) and all the android-looking models in gold. Based on snow bases, they're coming out pretty decent!
Well so much for saving the reply till I had some pictures
I think I'll be aiming pretty close to the studio scheme as that's part of what attracted me to the models in the first place. On a side note you should start a P&M blog, totally not just an excuse to examine these shiny robots nonono!
Edit: On another side note Corvus Belli definitely have excellent customer service, the starter was missing the Dakini Tactbot #1's shinpads and they're already on their way to me.
Ha! You know, I've considered starting a blog for all the crazy projects I've got going on now, but I don't have a good setup for taking pictures. I don't have any daylight bulbs/lamps, and I have a bad setup for using natural light (due to angles and stuff). I'm still trying to figure out how to make it all happen...
Excuses Mr! Honestly most blogs don't bother with incredible setups, hell lately even I've just had them on the desk against the wall, and used the d-lighting function on the slr if the images are way too dark (as they often are in the poxy new office). The blog is perfectly fine for slightly 'rough and ready' images, maybe for showcase a proper setup wouldn't hurt but even then most don't seem too worried.
This for example is just a shot off of the mobile, for an update, it'll do right!
60-70% have the robes and eyes at that stage now, there's more to go though, stoopid horde armies
I'm going slightly mad, it finally happened, oh yes.
All the robes are now coated in white, bit torn on what to do next with them, maybe a really light blue wash followed by a 're-whitening' on raised folds? Not had to paint white robes before so wasn't sure where to go from here with them.
Also done all the knives in a leadbelcher basecoat which was interesting as they have anywhere from none at all to two depending on which random arm I picked up during assembly, helps them look less uniform at least. Slowly working my way through gold highlights now as the Balthasar gold was more of a deep bronze really and didn't pop at all, think I'm at #49 in the line for that using auric armour. Instead of taking a break and doing something else I seem to have gotten stuck into these properly, though there's quite a few bits I can see that need cleaning up or that I've missed as happens normally it's just a little disheartening when there's so many to touch up after rather than one or two out of a regular squad.
Oof a fair point really, one that would've been solved with a proper photo setup ironically
The gold is notably brighter on all of them as well but yeah progress shots of one are a little dull I suppose, they don't quite do justice to the fact there's 67 of the sods to do the same thing on! Just trying to make sure I don't start slacking off on the painting in general.
Your blog is looking good, glad to get someone else into it!
No images this time but working my way through the dark green coat on the gems, they definitely help to start pulling it all together, found out I should've made the cloth grey then worked up to white so looks like I've got more work ahead, at least the cloth is a nice flat white to work from now rather than a mix of grey, pink, purple and gold. Really looking forward to getting these out of the way, I'm also reallllly looking forward to being able to do a proper group shot of them
Got bored of painting the daemonettes so instead of painting something else as a break from painting them, I opted for a bit of converting. Grabbed a couple of the little boxes of snapfit cultists from the FLGS to finish some cultist squads I've had sitting on the shelf for a while. Can't quite finish the second squad of ten yet as I'm waiting on some hands and arms to arrive, shame the autoguns aren't worth the extra point most of the time so had to turn those into pistols.
Got most of a metal daemon prince in a job lot on eBay, didn't have a Khorne prince yet so I thought it was about time, worst case the poor chap will have to be a bloodthirster if he ever sees the table. Still need to get him some wings and think of something to do with the other shoulder pad.
Suppose I ought to really get back to painting the horde again, must avoid burnout though
Yeah oddly ork nobz seem to have appropriately sized hands for daemon princes, not that I'm complaining.
Got back to the daemonettes, all the gems are now basecoated green, but I'm having real problems adding depth to the white cloth still, asked for advice on the other bit of the forum and while it was appreciated it doesn't give the effect I'm looking for on the style of cloth the daemonettes have. It seems perfectly fine on larger areas with more pronounced folds though so at least it's in the bank for future projects. So far I've tried administratum grey, and an old pot of space wolves grey followed by layering back up to white but the shadows just look forced and wrong, also tried a regular black wash as I'd read about that elsewhere but it produces the same problems. Half considering just leaving the cloth pure white before I lose my mind.
See now this is where I should've kept the problem areas instead of recoating them in white while I was busy being grumpy with them. I tried another method while I couldn't sleep, did the ink, then worked up to administratum grey, then 50/50 grey with white, then pure white for 2-3 layers. Still not entirely happy with it, the other option is going for a different colour of cloth it's not like I've got a whole army sitting with white cloth to repaint if I did change now.
Hmmm. Interestingly, I think the white top doesn't look so bad. I see what you're saying about the shadows looking forced, but on the top it isn't so rough. On the bottom, it shows up a lot more. Maybe you're trying to use too dark of a wash over too light of a surface color.
What if you basecoated in, say, a medium grey (not too dark or light), washed with a black wash, and then highlight in either a light grey or a pure white?
Or maybe, and I don't know if this is a good idea or not, but when you wash, maybe don't stand the model upright on its base like that. Maybe lay it down on its back while the wash dries. That might make it pool differently and give a better effect.
Not being able to make it look right had been annoying the hell out of me so I thought I'd do a cloth banner as a bit of a change and to see if it was just me. Freehand is probably never going to be a strong point for me but it was fun to design something a bit different then paint it up, and I'm really happy with how the cloth came out on the back now if only I could make the daemonettes do that!
Brought the five daemonettes I did years ago back upstairs to the office to ensure they match the new ones, well looking at them I'm half tempted to strip them and start again, definitely not up to the new standard, but at least there's only five. Also got to work on some of the bases I've got set aside for them, however it looks like I need err... 50 more? That'll be interesting seeing as like a plonker I went for Scibor ones, February is becoming Expenseuary.
I actually really like the banner, man! And the white on the back of the banner looks good, but I know how it can be easier to get certain effects on larger surfaces...
Banner looks ace! Always a blast to see what people do on them. I love seeing all the different freehand people can come up with!
As far as the white goes, I dont think the ultra dark wash (like on the most recent daemonette) is what you're looking for.
My suggestion would be painting the cloth a light gray, probably a mix of Admin gray (the lighter one, whatever the name) and white, then highlighting with a mix of white and just a touch of gray, then finally hit the highest areas with pure white. Its roughly what I do for the white on my Marines Errant.
Its surprising how dark you can get a gray and still register it as "white"
@Lenny, alabama & tangent - Thanks guys, always nice to see some feedback, especially on stuff I wasn't sure on.
@Ramos - I agree on the ultra dark being too far, I just tried something similar to what I used on the banner which is daemonette hide -> slaanesh grey -> 50/50 white scar and slaanesh grey -> white scar quite happy with the effect so now I've just got to do it to all 71
Sooo might've gotten a little distracted with other games and things, but figured I'd go ahead and drive myself a little more crazy and slap some of the options onto the daemonettes. Which means I need to add a little greenstuff now and then prime and blend the new bits into the original paint, figured I might as well though rather than having to buy more at a later date for the price they apparently go for nowadays (also I doubt I'll ever need 71 un-upgraded daemonettes, and I'd only bother with instruments or banners if doing units of 20). Done a little work on a couple of pink horror squads too (adding banners and instruments to old metals also). Dunno how I'm going to differentiate the Alluress option, might just add a token to the base on them.
Definitely a good idea to switch a few to special gear. You're already insane for painting so many standard 'nettes, it'll be good to have these few treats to paint up with em xD
As to the alluress.... maybe even differentiating her by color? Or a particularly massive claw?
As you probably know, I'm a fan of the color swap! Those are coming along really well. Those different arms look awesome, I like them a lot. And I think the banner looks great - goes really well with the unit itself.
@Ramos & Tangent - Seems colour swap is the winner then with a mighty two votes
Made the mistake of going to GW yesterday, they happened to have the official herald on disc, and I was planning on getting it at some point anyway sooo...
There's more cleaning to do on him yet, but there was no way in hell I was leaving him with a finecast staff, after what happened with the changeling. Also seems I've modelled my other heralds for disadvantage currently, I just assumed they'd be on one of the taller flight stands with them using the big flying base. A nice break from daemonettes again, still waiting on bits for the cultists though as some of them are apparently out of stock.
Started painting the extra bits on the command groups, at least they weren't a pain to blend in, golds still need more coats of brighter notes, and I'm not sure what to do with the tongue on the big instrument, there was a little bit of me tempted to do it in silver but maybe that's more of a daft reference than a good paint choice. I just worry it doesn't look great being the same colour as the upper, I could also just remove it like I did with the smaller instruments.
Now that the colour swap is definitely a go for the Alluress, what do you think to using the aquamarine/teal for the hair and claws etc? I grabbed the colours as I was planning on using them on the mounts (for the mane and claws etc) for the seekers when I get round to them but I think they work pretty well alongside the rest of the scheme as it stands.
Wow, looks awesome! I think using teal for the hair and claws and stuff would work great. You'd be able to pick her out from the crowd when she's at the table, and you're looking top-down.
Hey, that giant bottle of Vallejo primer... is that airbrushable straight from the bottle?
It is indeed airbrushable from the bottle, one of the main attractions of it, I've not used a spray can primer since I started using it, just make sure you shake it well first as you can see it settles.
That would be 74.601 if it's not already too late for that to be useful
Just noticed that if I want to do six squad leaders I'd need to buy two more daemonettes, I never thought I'd be considering getting more of the damned things, so might just stick to four as when am I ever going to take more than four units, hell two maybe three would probably do it.
Gotta say
I love seeing people who are clearly enjoying the creative end of the hobby. Your burgle GS blight drown is awesome. In fact, most of the conversions that i see here are really well done. I also really liked your portaglyph and your freehand slanneesh banner.
Great work.
@Sennacherib - Thanks, that's very much appreciated, I'll have to get the GS drone finished so I can start on #3!
@ Tangent - No probs, you'll have to let me know how you get on with it if you get some.
Rest of the bits for the cultists arrived, though I've just spotted one that needs a little bit of GS, (fortunately it's hidden in the photo).
Started plans for the next two squads utilising the witch elves I got with the cauldron of blood, which I'll probably combine with some empire flagellants to make slaanesh cultists.
I'm also giving serious thought to just rebooting the blog as a whole to include some of the fluff I've started writing, might help to clean up the long load times on earlier pages too by circumventing them entirely unless people want to go look at this older blog. Then again with the gardening season starting again I've already started planning that as well (everything hurts from lazy winter stuff). It's basically a theme of the final Black Crusade, every horror from the past is coming back, and if it's chaotic chances are it's coming for you, (allows me to add fun things like knights of blood with blood angel rules or skyrars dark wolves to the theme as a whole). Annnnnyway time to go buy more gravel
Hahaha man, I gotta say, the head on the guy second from the left on the bottom picture looks hilarious. You definitely need to take a closeup shot of that guy.
Ask and ye shall receive! I'm not sure I was going for hilarious on all of them but I was also quite amused by that fella there's definitely more to be done on his neck too by the looks of it, shouldn't be too hard with a knife and a tiny bit of GS.
Yeah the helmet sure does make it look larger from a distance.
Sooo to make cultists from fantasy models, just add shooters! The plan is to use the central models for the cultist champions, with a sort of pseudo lieutenant in the group with the flagellants, pair on the left have masks, pair on the right don't just so I remember which goes with which.
Since the Blight Drone was brought up I saw it sitting on the shelf unfinished and decided that just wouldn't do at all, therefore I present the pre-paint drone, I think it's good for priming now. Managed to stab myself through my nail straight into my finger while doing the chopper blades so that's it's first blood sacrifice.
As for the third Drone I'm thinking of basing it off of this piece of art from IA:7, the only problem is I have no idea how I'm going to do those engines, tried googling around and even ordered some rotors from zinge but they're nowhere near big enough.
Ignatius-Grulgor wrote: Managed to stab myself through my nail straight into my finger while doing the chopper blades so that's it's first blood sacrifice.
Ugh oh god! I just cringed. THROUGH the nail?!
Good idea with the cultists. Yeah, now that you mention it, I guess you can turn just about any fantasy model into a cultist... are those witch elves?
Ignatius-Grulgor wrote: Managed to stab myself through my nail straight into my finger while doing the chopper blades so that's it's first blood sacrifice.
Ugh oh god! I just cringed. THROUGH the nail?!
Good idea with the cultists. Yeah, now that you mention it, I guess you can turn just about any fantasy model into a cultist... are those witch elves?
Yeah through the nail, it kind of hurts but I've seen worse thanks to this forum. Those are indeed witch elves, I got the blood throne for my birthday a while back, and out of it I got those four to use as cultists, an avatar I'm going to use when I do Eldar, and a daemon prince I'm writing a back story for, as well as lots of lovely conversion bits for slaanesh bikes etc.
@Retrogamer - Thanks, it's a bit of a problem I can't deny it, if anything this update just reinforces it!
Sooo I've decided to put the daemonettes on hold for a little bit, I can feel the creeping edges of burnout doing all the cloth again (at least I'm half way with the purple basecoat), and I've not actually got enough bases to finish them if I did get them all done anyway (need like 80 scibor bases to do it and that won't come cheap).
I've certainly got enough other stuff to paint right now for a scene change, and I've managed to add to the back catalogue thanks to a quick visit to the FLGS on thursday. Yeah I totally needed more projects to finish right, so now I've got two Juggerlords and a spare Juggernaut I will be buying a finecast skulltaker for, just so it's easier to melt him into a riding position, they are of course only WIP at the minute.
First up (and the reason I bought the kit at all), is the lord with axe of blinding fury, because he's a fun unit to play with from the one game I proxied the build, it was also a great excuse to make use of an old metal model I otherwise might have just left on the shelf. Cloak I nearly had to cut through to get it to bend at all, the axe is just fantastic for the AoBF, massive with an angry daemon face on the blade.
Then since I had a spare juggernaut from the box I figured why not double the fun and do a second lord with a slightly more conventional general lord build (PF/LC), the amount of bits I have left over from the kit is just staggering and they're all very pretty for use in future khornate pieces. Think I'm going to run a piece of chain through the powerfist to give this one reins.
Then a third jugger nicely ready for skulltaker to take (who knows maybe it'll be good in the next codex if the option doesn't disappear).
Nice stuff! I've always wanted to convert a unit of khorne berzerkers on juggernauts. A few editions ago it was possible to field whole units of aspiring champions on mounts. I was tempted at the time, but lacked the resources to get it done. The unit would've cost more than 1000 points for just 8 models, but that wasn't (and really never is with me) the point. Just the sheer ridiculousness of a unit like that had tempted me. I still pine about it sometimes. Sigh. Good work, man. Subbed.
Nice work.
Im glad that the forces of burgle are getting their due. Love the picture/drawing of the blight drone. Haven't seen that confirmation. I might have to try my hand at sculpting one of those too. Seems like the rotor should be fairly easy t construct with plasticard.
@Tangent - Thanks, fingers crossed on getting them painted sooner rather than later, really enjoying a change from painting the nettes as you'll see in a minute
@Warboss - Thanks, I was foolishly playing Daemonhunters back then (assuming I'm going back far enough), thanks to a friend going 50/50 on an army to try and get me into the game, so I mostly missed the true glory days of chaos. Sounds like it would be a hell of a sight, I'd mention the codex daemons bloodcrushers but not sure they deserve the name anymore. At least Juggerlords are one khorne unit that can still really bring the pain, even if they're not in a big group.
@Senna - Nurgle is getting more love today, started painting drone #2, the drone pics are all shamelessly 'borrowed' from IA:7 if you're looking for more inspiration and have the book. I've always had trouble trying to build that style of rotor, never comes out right when I've attempted it in the past, doesn't seem like there's a tutorial out there for what I'm doing wrong either!
Painting on the drone is further along, I'm holding off on calling it finished though because of a few things, one is the new lense colour, I've always somewhat regretted my green OSL as it doesn't exactly 'pop' against a dark green scheme. Thought I'd try orange as I'd heard of a few people using it, still not sure to be honest. I've also not applied the usual gloss varnish to the slime at the moment, wanted to see what it looked like without it but I'm very tempted to put it on again. Also noticed a couple of patches of the skin that need a bit more touching up, but yeah any ideas or comments on the above or even stuff I've not thought of would be much appreciated.
Now to decide what to do next, feeling a lot more enthusiastic now I've put the daemonettes on hold
Nice work on the second blight drone. Love the dissolving guardsmen at the base. Nice touch. So you are making the roters from scratch?
Very inspirational work. I too feel like the OSL might be interpreted as rust given the model you have chosen to make. looking at all this wonderful Nurgle love inspires me to try my hand at building one too!
I think the orange OSL is bright enough to not look like rust, and I actually like it. A lot of times, OSL doesn't look like OSL, but I think this definitely does. In terms of color, I'm not sure what else you could use other than orange. Blue wouldn't look right... maybe red? But I think orange would look better than red.
@Senna - I'll give the rotors a go, I've kind of had the start of drone three for a while as I've been putting all the spare greenstuff into a roughly dronish shape for a while now so there's at least a skeleton to work with. Hopefully the final stages of painting make it clear the orange is OSL especially as the actual rust is all textured.
@Tangent - Thanks bud, think I'll definitely be giving it a go on further models I found a few plague marines I never finalised hiding behind my PC monitor so maybe I could do it on them, this is what happens when you move house and don't put things away properly
So I think I'll call the second blight drone done for now with the final alterations, I darkened it a bit more and adjusted the slime pool as the previous drone was a lot darker in tone.
As for what I'm working on next I've gone a little bit flyer mad, the heldrake is up on the 'to do' bench. I had to start by removing it from how I originally had it posed, the left wing was far too close to the ground and it was causing problems on tables that weren't completely flat. I also finished greenstuffing in the original flight stand hole. I guess this also confirms my black legion basing theme as 'crumbling imperium', not sure what else to put on the base, I could have a victim for the advancing chosen though that might be a bit cliche, or maybe barrels etc, could even just leave it as it is and add foliage of some form once the paint is on.
So it would seem I don't actually have the black primer I wanted to use for the heldrake, so I've had to pop it on hold till I can get some in, might not be for a little bit as we're trying to have a lean month in light of a little bit of overspending lately .
Therefore instead of just stopping I've started cracking on with other bits, made the bases for the two juggerlords and greenstuffed any gaps I hadn't done on them up till now, got to wait for the sculptable water effects to set before I can prime them. Thought it would be worth doing a base for the one spawn I have sitting around waiting to be painted too seeing as it will inevitably end up in a unit with one of the juggerlords.
Then on to one of my favourite things to do screamer scheme discs, so much for herald #2 being lightly glued on so I could remove him to paint, he wouldn't budge so I'm going to have to do it as one piece, fortunately herald #3 was much easier to shift.
Quick update done, time to get back to painting gold on the herald.
Man, I like all your screamer stuff man, I like all the blending. Do you cover up any parts of a model when you highlight with the lighter blues, or do you just angle the airbrush directionally so you don't hit anything you don't want to?
For general screamer style blending there's no covering of anything, just careful control with the flow and direction of spray.
Actually on that note I'm so glad I went for the Iwata, just finished doing the robes on the herald and it hasn't messed up any of the other paint, very precise bit of kit I'd definitely recommend one.
Herald is coming along gradually, leaning towards green for the gems, and possibly for some OSL coming from the eye of the staff, had to repaint the book twice as I tried it in different colours and nothing came out that well till I decided 'hey it's part of the disc lets try that', torn between leaving the eyes as black 'gems' or doing them in the yellow of the general screamer eyes.
Built the base for the herald, painting in progress now, managed to drill too far into the heralds disc so now I've got a minor repair to do to that too
Also primed and prepped the base for the juggerlords as well as a blue horror I had left over from the chariot kit, think he'll go nicely on the base for the screamer style disc herald once that's further along, feeling rather productive for some reason.
Still not sure about this regular updates lark, hopefully it shows the mini progressing a little better than usual though. Perhaps I will concede I ought to get a proper camera setup as I don't feel the pics of the herald really do it justice, I always manage to have terrible lighting in the office no matter where it may be, his tiny face and eyes were a sod to get spot on.
I'm leaning towards starting some of the khornate bits now as the other two disc heralds will be in the same colours as the pink horrors and I don't want to tackle them just yet.
@Tangent & Moltar - thanks chaps, any feedback makes it all feel worthwhile!
Sooo got to work on the juggerlords and a few world eater termies I've had waiting for paint for what seems ages now. Basically just Vallejo grey primer -> Khorne red -> heavy wash with nuln oil -> wazdakka red -> evil sunz scarlet -> wild rider red. Painting was a little more precise on the juggerlords and in what I believe is a close to zenithal style on the termies, they got an all over coat of the wazdakka then a 45 degree from above spray with evil sunz, then from directly above only with wild rider.
The painting on the termies really does look a lot clearer in person, and when viewed from below they look really dark, from above quite bright so hopefully getting them a bit further along will highlight that otherwise it'll be back to the drawing board. Starting to get a niggling desire to get on with the daemonettes again so maybe after these are done I'll move back onto them, though even mentioning it is putting me off the idea a little again.
Oh and I added the chain to the juggerlord before painting as I mentioned I was thinking of doing, as well as a little shield from the fantasy juggernauts kit to the termie icon bearer, another wonderful treasure trove of bits for future projects there.
Slowly progressing with the khorne bits, had a bit of a distraction in the form of a new helbrute, went to the flgs for a bit of retail therapy on tuesday and as soon as I walked in the door he pulled one out from under the desk, that'll teach me for saying I like the new kit last time I was in, how could I say no right!
As a little aside to the usual, the kit is just fantastic, I can only hope the dataslate in April makes them a little more worthwhile especially if that Helcult turns out to be cultist ablative wounds for the brute which is how it reads to me in the preview. But hey even if they're still terribad I just don't care, already picked the scourge just cause I love how it looks. I can see this one ending up in Word Bearers colours, not set on the other arm yet, waiting for the dataslate before I put it on. As with all the new kits lately I'll definitely end up with a treasure trove of bits, already planning how to use the thunderhammer as the black mace seeing as I've been proxying it on an old prince up until now.
I'd promise more painting soon but I'm fully aware there's quite a bit of stuff to do in the garden again tomorrow, so for now procrastination and excuses reign!
Oh on a slightly annoying my Sycorax Bronze seems to have turned to lumpy jelly in the pot, doesn't seem to be hard set but it's impossible to use, thought I'd picked up another pot the day I ended up with the helbrute but they'd clearly stuck brass scorpion in its slot, that'll teach me to just grab the pot without reading. Fingers crossed they'll let me swap it next time I'm in, just hope I don't end up walking away with another kit to finish...
Looking good, man! Is the dark brown metal on the jugger Warplock Bronze? I like that color and I've got a pot myself, but mine kinda went the same way as your Sycorax Bronze so it's not totally unusable but it's really, really thick.
And good call on the scourge arm, that thing is awesome.
Yeah I usually lay down the warplock and build up from there, hopefully this one won't come down with the jelly plague. Couldn't sleep last night and had a little free time today so while I was feeling in the mood I started the black mace prince seeing as I had all the bits just lying around.
Considering giving him a chaos warriors shield just not sure if it'll go on the hand or just be strapped to his right arms like an oversized buckler, not 100% on the cloak right now but it's not like I can't just pull it off later if it doesn't look right, that picture on the far right isn't helping matters. Will be running him as tzeentch so I'm rather torn on what wings to use, was planning dragon wings for the khorne prince based off this body too so I could try and grab some lord of change ones.
Yeah I was really pleased with the hammer was surprised how well it fit. The model is just the old daemon prince in finecast, random gift off of the birthday list last year. Definitely glad I scrapped the cloak now, I figured the weapon I'm using for the Black Mace is a thunderhammer why don't I actually make him a terminator instead of just using the cloak from one, never seen someone do a terminator style prince before.
Obviously he's still very much WIP in the photo but I think I'll build him a stormshield from either plasticard or some appropriately sized pieces, after all he's basically got a 4++ being a daemon of tzeentch, and as he's chaos it's just loyalist but worse as per usual, (not bitter at all honestly ). Quite a bit of work to go on the legs still and I've only just noticed they've stopped doing the lord of change wings as a separate item so there goes that option!
Quick update, no real WIP shots currently, and if I did have any they'd be very 'non-wargaming related' as they'd be shots of a garden full of greenery. Been a real slog trying to sort out a garden where the owner decided collapsing two fish ponds made from concrete into the ground was a great plan. Combined with a top up course which I have assignments for (didn't think I'd ever see another exam once I was done with university, boy was I wrong), I just haven't had the energy or time to get any models done.
Still things are looking less busy now so cross fingers I'll be back on the models soon, the impending arrival of a Games & Gears board doesn't hurt the enthusiasm. I have done a small bit of work on the daemon prince at least, and he now has decidely more servos and plating on his legs to make them look like TDA, I've also mostly finished the storm shield, had to scrap the first one as it just looked awful. Now I'm gonna go collapse and try to be awake for the coming four day weekend so I can get things going.
Well that's taught me a thing or two about what not to do (like certain kickstarters), shouldn't overpromise and under deliver!
Been a heck of a busy time lately, and to be honest not much has been touched in terms of gaming, I have however gotten a little bit done so thought it was probably prudent to do an update.
So kicking things off it's some plague marines and plaguebearers which seem to have been sitting behind my monitor since I moved house. Only noticed them as I was putting in a new paint rack on the desk, (totally not just a mail varnish stand that was considerably cheaper than most paint racks), who knows how long they would've been hidden otherwise.
Looking at them I'd like to think my painting has improved since I did them, they must've been painted at least a couple of years ago if not more.
Also been working on the khornate bits from earlier, juggerlords and termies, rather pleased with the change to challenges for the Axe lord, no longer shall at initiative AP2 double digit attacks go into one chump guardsman.
Just the princes to round off the picture spam, still finishing the terminator servos on the back of the legs on the shield prince, the other prince I started a while back. Shortened the head considerably from the previous iteration as it was out of proportion even for a daemon prince. Clearly an aspiring sorcerer realised how useless he was and ascended.
Will try not to leave it so long till the next update, and sorry if I usually comment on your blog and I seem to have disappeared I've been staying away from the whole P&M section till I got a bit more motivated! Plans for the next update include a 'what I still need to paint' and a 'what I've actually painted' shot or series of shots, for now I think it's time for a little netflix and some work on the khorne bits!
Hey glad to see the long hiatus didn't stop you seeing the update! Princes are on the backburner till I get more greenstuff and some wings for them.
Been in all day waiting on BT to install Infinity, still my download speed just went up by a factor of 10, upload more like 20-30 so rather pleased with that. Also means I got a bit more juggerlord done, thought I'd go for an orange glow on runes, eyes and the little vents in the belly. Metallics are getting done slowly, and I think I'll go for black on any cloth I find, hooves are also getting a black basecoat but I'll probably stripe them up to either grey or brown. Also started a bit of painting on the crashed aquila scenery because heaven forbid I actually focus on one thing
Now that the net isn't so painfully slow I may just have to up the picture quality again, been having the SLR on minimum size etc because its been taking forever to upload even on picture, that's what you get for being out in the sticks.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Weird bug means I can't see my last reply but I imagine this will auto-append into it. Completely forgot the painted and not painted shot, will definitely have to get on that tomorrow.
So not much of an update more a drive to keep myself painting, and actually sticking to the plan of doing stuff. First of all the shot of 'everything so far', looks like less than I thought it would I really had better get painting!
I realised somewhat too late that I still had the SLR set to small photos, so the next one will be on max quality to allow for actual zoomable pictures. The rest of the pictures are rather shamingly the 'yet to see much paint' models, there's a big chunk of scenery and a shot of a lone heldrake missing to avoid an insane amount of clutter on something of a nothing update, (oh and the plague tower good job forgetting that eh).
At least it's not quite the bonkers quantity I've seen in some collections but it's still a shocking amount of unpainted plastic, hence me trying not to buy anything else that isn't a kickstarter or to finish this lot. I'd better not list it or I might realise how much some of it cost. Speaking of which there's also any models currently at the work station...
No the tau aren't mine but the horrid little blue fishmen needed priming, infinity bits still need painting but I'm nervous as all hell about them thanks to a certain A.Giraldez.
So that's the scale of the problem, time to get cracking through it!
Hahaha nice! As with most of us, your unpainted outnumbers your painted... but hey man, that's normal. Mine looked like that too until recently, when I sold a bunch of stuff. And I see that Daemonette horde in the bottom pic! Once those are done, your "painted" category will look huge.
So as per usual summer means I disappear off the face of the earth hobbywise, the office here becomes a sweatbox as soon as it gets warm out and it's unbearable to work in, especially when it seems like your paint dries on the palette before you've even touched it.
Still I haven't been entirely unproductive, in the last few weeks at least, several games of Infinity have been played and I'll be starting a blog for my PanO and Aleph once I get a few more paints for them, and the 40k stuff has re-entered the 'stuff to do' queue.
So I started off with something nice and safe, scenery is always fun to paint, you don't have to worry too much about perfection, it also gave me an excuse to start writing some fluff again, though I don't really know where I'd go about putting that doesn't seem right for a P&M blog.
The wreck of the venerable aquila lander the 'crossbones duke', last seen somewhere in Ultima Segmentum under the command of an inquisitor looking into reports of possible Alpha Legion cult activity. The idea behind this was the irony of the amount of games we play where the same wreck seems to be on the field every time, so I figured why not make it not a single ship but an identity applied to a whole range of landers being run by the Alpha Legion, leading to rumours of the seemingly invincible crossbones duke. No matter how many conflicting reports there are of it being shot down it always seems to turn up again.
Hydra Dominatus
So one crashed flyer out of the way I moved on to one thats still mobile, well the base at least, tried something new with this one using a white decal and sponge weathering to try and imitate the cracked white paint that seems to be prevalent around the world. Little annoyed at what the matte varnish has done to the black legionnaire, I've never had it frost on me before but at least he's not the main feature.
Still working on the drake forgot to take a picture of it though, will make sure to include one before it gets as finished as the other bits, the main difficulty was highlighting the black without turning them into 'grey legion', but I think it looks fine. Anyway last up in the spammy update are the khorne terminators and juggerlords I was working on, really pleased with them, and glad to finally have them done, the only thing I wasn't sure about was the blood on the juggerlords, I almost wish I'd left it off but it's not a major issue for me.
There's a few more photos in the gallery but I figured this update is massive enough as it is!
tl;dr - I'm back here's some pretty pictures more to come now that I'm back at it!
Good to see you back! I'm gonna have to chime in on the jugger lords as well, man. Those things are fantastic. I like your scenery, too. Looks really nice!
That's too bad about the frosting on the varnish. That stuff is always tricky!
@Ramos - It is one of those kits that just tends to sit in a cupboard, I know of at least two other people who've not painted it since the Macragge box! Tried to do some more shots of the juggernauts as you can see below, guess who had a polarising filter on and didn't realise too
@Giraffe - Thanks, as I pointed out above I tried to improve the camera work for a couple more shots to show them properly, the runes do indeed go to a yellow - white but the photos have dulled it a little.
@Tangent - Hey! Glad to see you noticed the update, will expect to see some on yours soon It's the first time that varnish has done that too and it hasn't done it again since, just typical that it does it on the one model where it's super visible, at least it's just a base detail I suppose.
So I've had a hell of a busy week, coursework, contract work and interviews so there's been little progress, which wasn't really aided by me slacking watching Agent's of S.H.I.E.L.D. during spare time, during which I just cleaned moldlines on goblins rather than anything particularly interesting. Also bought some heavy black cotton to use as a backdrop, found out the camera had a polarising filter on (to my credit I'm not the one who put it on) which was obviously darkening pictures too.
Spent last night basing up my raptors I started a while back, think I'll probably paint them next, really in the mood for something a bit different scheme wise so nightlords ought to fill that gap.
The chap on the top left with the melta got a tau helmet trophy, as he's one of those models that won a game by himself and I always give them trophies. Hopped over a bit of scenery, melta'd a firewarrior in the face, survived an army's worth of overwatch to charge and break a squad, thereby claiming the objective that won the game. So he's now 'Shezmu - bane of Sa'Cea', fortunately (or not as the case may be) that sort of thing isn't a regular occurence so I won't be doing too many like that.
So here's a sample of the improved photography for the Juggerlords too, and a photo of the gobbos I've been working on since I don't know if I should really start a third blog right now
Oh I should also plug that I've started an Infinity Blog too since I imagine the people who like stuff here won't always crossover with people who like Infinity, you can find it here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/617087.page
Nice man! I definitely see what you mean about the brightness of the pictures... these are way different! I'm heading over to check out your Infinity blog now!
Hopefully good different! Started on the nightlords, nothing too major yet just layered on the blues but it's already occurred to me I have no idea where to go on the power weapons and jetpacks with these. Technically the contrast for blue would be orange but I reckon orange glow would look a little goofy on these evil chaps so I'm leaning towards red for both weapons and jet exhausts, thoughts?
Oh wow. Yeah those pics look way different. Much brighter. What sort of matte varnish do you use? Looks really really flat (and thats a very good thing!)
Raptors look great too!
As far as a color.... perhaps a purple? (like my Red Scorpions ) Purple is a good evil color, and if you go towards the warmer side of the color, it should contrast well?
I use vallejo acrylic matte varnish permanent, I don't know why they feel the need to point out permanent thinking about it. Hadn't even considered purple was worried it would be lost amongst the blue and red but I might give it a go, see what you think considering the pics below.
So I've done the blues and now the base brass, started some of the reds and silvers just out of curiosity not having done the scheme before, really not sure where to go with the lightning and OSL colours (apart from a suggestion above ) still it's really hard to find other good examples having tried (and failed) again.
A little something arrived to slow me down again, just received a great big box from Hasslefree. I entered their sculpting competition and they've (finally) sent out the prizes etc. So I now have a huge amount of unpainted metal and some conversion bits I've been waiting to buy to have shipped with my prize pack which leads into the next photos:
Really pleased with how the heads have turned out, really didn't think the original heads would have worked as they're based on inquisitor scale deathcult assassins, and so glad they're Hasslefree because the casts are delightfully crisp. Also got the wings for the one on the left as I was struggling to find something to go with the conversion on the right.
To be honest I got these wings for one of the other larger princes I was working on but they're definitely not big enough to look convincing on those. Had to remove the head to get them on, then chop off all the snakes on the back to get it back on, waiting for some of the bits to dry to begin resculpting them in, kept the chopped ones so I should be able to cut them up and reposition a good few which I've already started. I've also had to lean the model forwards as it looked wrong flat on its base as a result of the wings, so there's a second base glued on behind it which its propped against.
Also literally just received IA13 as I was writing this post so that'll be another distraction as I want to read it cover to cover with it being an IA book.
Oh yeah, if you go with a Warlock Purple-hued OSL (brighten to a pink-ish), that should stand out great.
As to the lightning bolts... hrm... welll I know that an old commission painter I used to follow did some many moons ago. (Ifalna, iffin you remember her at all). I dont remember where the pics are, but I think she stepped from an enchanted blue, to Ice blue, to skull white, drawing smaller and smaller lines.
New stuff is interesting to be sure. Looking forward where they go from here.
I seem to remember her doing interesting squigs if I'm thinking of the right person, I think my main concern was the surface area on which to do them is pretty small to put it mildly, these new raptors are covered in 'bling'.
Spent all evening looking at the Renengades & Heretics list, so many ideas for conversions, just not enough about coherent lists!
So as predicted the new book slowed me down as I ended up using a huge chunk of time reading it and trying to come up with interesting ideas. Sort of vaguely tempted to try a khorne themed renegades force with a dirty great blob of mutants and three blood slaughterers and a maulerfiend for the fun of it, or maybe a wall of artillery and minimal troops unless they're packing lascannons, or maybe... You get the idea there's a lot of possibilities but I ramble and this is a P&M blog not an army list.
Got the raptors done, had a lot of fun doing them too aside from the silly amount of extra details that slowed things down a lot. Went with the suggestion from Ramos and used some of my precious reserves of warlock purple, (seriously all my slaanesh stuff uses it and I'm on the last pot). Not sure I like how the shots have come out, little fuzzy in places, but they're now downstairs in the big display cabinet and I am very much not. They are of course zoomable as they look a little small to me despite being relatively decent file sizes, might just have to rearrange things later with replacement shots.
Really pleased with both the lightning claws and the jump packs, it's honestly the best my claws have ever come out, so you can expect more pictures that are a little better of those in the next update, as well as a shot of the jets since they're not really visible unless you actually look up them. I also thoroughly enjoyed doing the trophies and/or scattered helms, it's a great excuse to test a little bit of a paint scheme in a very small space. The tau helmet is of course Sa'cea sept, stupid fishmen! The Space Marines I went with Minotaurs and Mantis Warriors, always fun to do some of the less popular schemes. The zoom is pretty harsh at this close in, so it does make one rather conscious of even the smallest of flaws.
As for what's next, I honestly have no idea, there's a huge amount to choose from and I'd hate to waste my current productive drive, suggestions are welcome, especially if there's something I started then stopped abruptly to your annoyance!
Edit: Edited the photos a little, still needs reshoots really.
Vallejo Game Color, man. I tell ya its a spot on match with old GW paint colors! I love using em cause they're in dropper bottles as well, so easy mixing!
New stuff is gorgeous, as I;ve come to expect from ya.
As far as any new stuff.... Im not really sure! xD
I think i'd like to see some more Nurgley stuff if ya have any on the table, as its been a while since we've heard from them!
Thanks, been trying to post stuff in a few more places since this blog doesn't exactly get a swathe of replies and there's definitely been no objection to the colour choice so a thumbs up again for that! (Did get a couple of dislikes on the green OSL on the khorne bits but I liked it so who cares )
I had no idea they did warlock purple, I've recently been buying quite a lot of their range of model colour thanks to a certain 'A.Giraldez' and the Infinity models, and they are pretty damned good, especially since you can get precise mixes in the airbrush like you say.
Nurgle eh, well there's not really anything 'ready to go' apart from Necrosius on the shelves but there's a few bits not far from completion of the modelling stage at least. Suppose I could do that inbetween painting so I don't get tired of it. Think the things nearest completion are a soulgrinder, a great unclean one and... a plague tower, no one is allowed to mention the plague tower I swear
I guess that means Necrosius coming up unless I get any other suggestions.
Yeah that was just a little bit quick... Necrosius is done, I had a lot of spare time last night and didn't get much else done today thanks to this little fella. I forgot how much I loved his little tiny nurgling buddy doing the same move with his hand as Necrosius.
Also started sculpting wings for the Black Mace prince and got a little more work done on the nurgle soulgrinder, super productive for some reason. So I guess it's time to pick another project to paint!
Bad hobby day, thought I'd get some work done on the Lord of change, officially hate white cloth more than ever. Just doesn't look good at all, going up through 3-4 shades of grey up to a pure white didn't even help. The age of the model is also more telling than I thought, they've aged better than most of the old greater daemons but it's still pretty flawed up close. Probably doesn't help that it's finecast too and some of the problems are just becoming noticeable from that too (wings have tiny holes in places, some areas turned out to be odd flash). Oh and his wing snapped off while I was trying to gently nudge it to the side, there's a bit of me that just wants to chuck the sod in the bin after all that.
Though it has definitely solidified my thinking on the daemonettes at least, I'm going to swap their cloth to black. Might even get going on them again soon, should clear a whole heap of my desk too that way as they're just sitting there sapping motivation at the moment. But the thought of painting my Slaanesh larger models with white cloth is just a nono, I can't imagine that ever looking great on for example the FW gargantuan.
On a more positive note started converting some fantasy gors into mutant hordes for the renegades list, and done a little more of the heldrakes gold, it's late and the camera is out of charge (bleh) so pics will have to come tomorrow!
I just painted some white cloth as well so I get how it's difficult (in my blog if you need pics). But it's hard to tell without a pic what you're doing. For me it helped by thinking it as painting very light grey rather than white. So the majority of the surface is actually a very light grey and you can highlight up and down a bit and only the edges are pure white but the end result still comes off looking as white.
@DarkSoldier - Done it from a blue and purple before to varying degrees of success, never tried working up from brown will keep that one in mind for future stuff, I imagine word bearers cloth would be in a similar vein to that.
@Ckig - Pics incoming, I've adjusted my recipe a little after calming down a bit, gone from a much lighter grey which has helped I think I started with far too dark a base and the contrast was just far too harsh, still not a big fan of it, if it wasn't such an awkward mini I might have cracked out the airbrush to save at least a bit of headache. Will pop over to the blog and have a look at what you've done once I've finished writing for ideas.
So as promised pics of the very much work in progress lord of change (Click it to get to the gallery for zoom etc might be necessary considering why I'm doing photos):
I honestly have no idea what to think of the cloth or of other ways I could do things from here, I could leave it as is, at least it isn't as terrible as yesterday at the moment. Also managed to resecure the wing, hence the dark blue line on one area where I've started to cover the damage. Staff I'm doing in the style I intend to do my pink horrors, seemed appropriate somehow, just steer clear of mentioning his big pink flesh stick?
On a more fun and relaxing note been assembling some mutants for my Renegades & Heretics force, thought I'd start with a box of Gors, makes one realise how cheap some fantasy boxes are for the amount of plastic in them. I think I'll do the unit as a mix of these along with other minis, they are meant to be a rabble after all. Leaning towards Ungors, I'd be tempted to say forsaken too if they weren't so heavily armoured, they are meant to be a unit without an armour save!
Oh and since I've declared it a Black Crusade it's about time I got Abaddon started, he's lost a spike somewhere along the way as he's definitely seen table time. Unfortunately he doesn't have much in the way of a legion to follow him yet, what with all these other warbands he's clearly bribed into helping him out, I'll have to rectify that issue in the future. I think this is a pretty common way of updating a very tired sculpt, and the Abaddon bits came from a not quite complete model I snagged in a job lot on ebay a good while back.
Although saying that he does have air support... thought I'd pop up some pics of the heldrake WIP too.
Quite happy with how the gap covering has worked on the bottom, one of these days I'll come across a model where removing the flight stand looks silly, and on that day I'll refuse to buy it cause flight stands are awful. That's pretty much everything I've only been slowly working on, or doing this weekend, will try to make the next update a little less spammy.
Been working on fleshing out a story behind all these seemingly random models, I've popped it up on the first post, but I'll repeat it here since not everyone will be likely to notice it back at the beginning!
The end has come for you. The last bell tolls for the Imperium of man and Chaos' victory seems all but inevitable.
Prelude -
The 13th Crusade of Abaddon lord of the Black Legion has stagnated, Imperial fleets are cutting off supply lines, and any momentum it may once have had has disappeared. Seeing that continuing actions outside of the eye are causing heavy losses, or perhaps because of other unknowable reasons, chaos forces begin their slow retreat to their new territories in the Cadian Gate to reinforce their not inconsiderable gains.
Vast swathes of the Imperium are left shattered, hundreds upon thousands of worlds are in full revolt, believing they were left to die at the hands of monsters. Industry and agriculture the lifeblood of a network of inter-dependent worlds is failing at an unprecedented scale. Supply lines are at a stand still, re-arming and re-training becomes near impossible in the surrounding sectors.
Imperial losses over the next few decades are huge. Territorial gains by the forces of Chaos mean they are able to raid much wider areas. Swift, savage attacks which escape before resistance can be solidified are bleeding Imperial forces like a thousand small cuts. The push of Imperial forces towards Cadia has led to a weakening in other sectors, and other races and war bands are taking advantage of the situation. The Red Corsairs were left free to annihilate the Genesis Chapter, though some say even some of the supposedly loyal sons of Guilliman may have turned the day Newfound fell.
However, Imperial fleet superiority has begun pushing Chaos back from some of its new territories. Chaos forces struggle to defend against a superior space power, and whilst reinforcement is slow, the grains of sand are swiftly becoming an avalanche. There are several great imperial victories, with the Emperor's Children suffering notable losses at the hands of the Dark Angels & Salamanders. Orbital bombardments succeed in the total destruction of the warbands designated 'The Cleaved' and 'Company of Misery', and the Legio Gryphonicus obliterates the Dark Mechanicum forces from Korolis.
Perhaps there is hope in the darkest of days, all may not be lost...
+++ Transmission Begins +++
+++ Oberon Class Vessel – His Righteous Fury+++
>>Report Commodore Visiter.
>Lord Admiral, it moved again, the planet is now fully inside the storm.
>>Confirm last, Commodore.
>The storm, it's growing, whatever they did on Cadia is taking effect.
>>Word of this must not come out, if anyone discovers the pylons are failing we'll lose whatever tatters of morale we have left.
>I think it may be too late for that, the news is circulating amongst the men, it's not like this is something easy to hide, I mean even the... the...
>>Commodore?
>They're coming, Emperor save us, the ships there must be thousa...
+++ Transmission Ends +++
Report Begins: In the last few months I have received hundreds of reports of a growing fleet of chaos forces, the likes of which we have never been seen before. Ancient and powerful vessels thought long lost to the ravages of time, stand alongside vessels of unknown, or alien configurations. Conflicting reports suggest everything from hordes of traitor marines, to corrupted Xenos breeds whipped on by daemonic masters, to millions of once proud Imperial citizens, mutated and corrupted beyond recognition.
One thing is certain, every nightmare ever dreamt by the feverish mind of men is waiting in that fleet, and that fleet is coming, coming for all of us. Emperor save us, if he can.
-Last words of the Inquisitor Luxan Helvar declared Excommunicate Traitoris.
Hopefully it's not too cheesy, first time doing anything like this outside of a small group of friends. There's obviously more to come, including my reasoning behind choosing this theme, and maybe a little more on some of the elements I currently have finished. It was a nice change of pace from the usual hobbying process, and it will certainly help with incorporating some of my more 'out there' plans for later additions to the force.
So I guess it was too cheesy, it's gone awfully quiet if nothing else! Redesigned the blog signature in light of the new name, and thought it was about time I updated it either way to go with the new frontpage etc.
Lord of Change is done, I'm not completely happy with it but there we go. If I somehow get enough alternatives to replace him with one day he'll be first in the 'goes on ebay' queue out of the Tzeentch stuff.
Having a lot more fun building the mutants, torn between finishing the heldrake and starting abaddon, it probably is about time I did a vehicle again.
They've all got the rather wonderful pistols from zinge industries, I can see him making a fair amount off of me with this army, also slapped some grenades or gear on them to try and stop them being entirely 'fantasy with a gun'. Got a lot to do on the weekend but will try and get some more bits up before the end of Sunday.
Those conversions look great! Looking forward to seeing them painted.
With the LoC I'd say the cloth looks too white imo so it may look a bit flat. I'd use the middle tone light grey more and just keep the pure white on the raised edges like just under the shadows and the highest edges along the cloth. Though I'm no expert lol.
@ckig - Yeah I can see where you're coming from, hopefully the abaddon pics will show that I can in theory do a grey transition but the cloth on the lord of change is a nightmare! The folds are mostly shallow bumps in the material or hilariously large gaps. If I go back to it I might just try going straight for the airbrush to see if I can get a better result out of abusing it.
@tenebre - Thanks, one tries to keep it at least a little interesting.
@Tangent - The cloth basically, think I've whinged about that enough though also not a fan of a couple of the areas where the material (finecast) has led to some errors I didn't notice till there was rather a lot of paint on.
Updates a little later than planned, got a little carried away sorting the house out this weekend, then had a minor medical blip leading to some mild fainting. Working on the Black Legion bits at the moment, figured since I'd have to mix the paints anyway it was best to minimise waste, (speaking of minimising waste you might recognise the body the sorcerer is using).
Blacks are done, tried to make sure I carefully did the grey highlights which I left clearer on the sorcerer for demonstration purposes, obviously some of them become less extreme once the other base colours start going on. Also did the dark angels wing because I was feeling depressed about the Lord of Change and wanted to see if a more defined surface helps (it definitely does).
For the fleshy bits I've gone with a light grey, I might highlight up to white on some areas of the bone. I didn't want to heavy of a contrast to the black, and I'm not the biggest fan on the 'mountains of flesh' approach some of the new models have gone with so minimising their impact whilst also clearly making them different was the aim of the game here. There was a consideration towards going for red since it is the Black legion contrast colour but then the exhaust ports and balestorm cannon would have less chance to shine.
I've also been terrible as usual and bought the new Blight Kings kit. Honestly seeing other people working on it was just making me jealous, and when I walked into the local they pulled the good old, 'oh we got some blight kings in for you', when I hadn't ordered them.
I was nervous about converting them into oblits as there had been talk about them being a bit small, fortunately a bit of bulking up and some resin bases and they're only marginally smaller and much larger than the (still perfectly legal), old oblits. This chap is just about done I think, might see how many cables and things I have once I've finished all five.
That's about all for now fingers crossed the next update will have more Black Legion progress and maybe another oblit or two.
Thanks ckig, I'm thinking about grabbing a second box to fill it out to nine oblits just because the kit has so many choices that they'd all look completely different anyway!
Modelling is just about done on the rest of the oblits, progressing with the golds and silvers on the black legion models but it doesn't look massively different from above just yet! Won't be getting much done this week as I'll be in London till Thursday stuck without hobbying supplies.
The oblit above has had a little touch up but it honestly hasn't changed much (updated version is in the gallery if you want to play spot the difference), so here are the other four!
Couple of them are a little blurry but I'm not getting the tripod back out for WIP shots!
Fantastic. I just went through your whole thread. Thats all i have to say.
Fantastic.
p.s. I saw what you are doing to bulk out your soul grinder so that it does not require as much GS. I make my larger daemon torsos etc out of sculpty over a tinfoil base. Then i GS over that. Saves you a ton on GS and since sculpty and tinfoil are cheap and easy to work with, it makes doing major conversions way less stressful commitment wise.
Thanks senna, interesting idea on the foil bulking, seen it being done on a great unclean one and it does seems like another viable option, was a little scared of it changing shape till I'd seen it being done.
Spent most of the week in London so absolutely knackered, on the plus side got to go to Dark Sphere, always dangerous as it always ends up more expensive than intended. It has however netted me a few new toys, mostly bases and a warriors of chaos warshrine which I plan to turn into a champion, two spawns and various vehicular ornaments. Got an apoc game coming up in January now so the priorities will shift towards finishing the modelling on things I want to take along (might have to throw in a few curveballs don't want the opposition finding out my devious plans till its too late).
Well London managed to give me the worst cold/flu I've had in a good while still not fully recovered. I have however managed to get a little painting done and yesterday saw me starting work on a project I've had in mind for a good while.
Abaddon should definitely stand out on the table if nothing else. Quite pleased with the sorcerer too, adding an extra shelf to his base makes him closer to the proper height rather than him immediately being picked out as a shorty thanks to the use of the old Abaddon body. Quite pleased with his base in general, got some tiny width masking tape from one of the locals and I just had to find an excuse to use it, and a cheeky little '13' on the floor from white decals. More angles in the gallery but didn't want to spam too much!
As for the other project it's a rather dated datasheet in the form of the Silver Tower of Tzeentch, fortunately it translates rather well into the current rules with any 'issues' being rendered irrelevant thanks to superheavies ignoring the damage table anyway, if anything it loses out on what would previously have been 'bonuses'.
First time working with the foamboard, it's a lot more sturdy than I was expecting. So far construction has involved two circles cut from 9mm MDF, one section of 12mm Pine dowel running down the centre and the foamboard. Also covered the rim of the bottom base in plasticard for painting purposes, plain wood has a tendency to look rather rough next to the rest of an army. Really not sure what to do about the roofs on the towers, not sure I'm a fan of the old 'pointy cone'. There's a temptation to give them a more turret like appearance so I can mount a device in the centre of the main tower to represent the D weapon.
Heh I hadn't even thought of that, I could definitely try and do something like that with the smaller towers though I can imagine its going to be a sod to make.
Abaddon and buddy don't seem to have gone down as well as what I only started doing as a fun little aside, 'Da' Kraken'.
Rather than throwing away a rather cool looking bottle I decided it would make a lovely bit of scenery, only started it a couple of days ago but its been so much fun to work with its progressing quite well. Completely unintentionally it could also sort of work as an ork bastion (four heavy bolters and a lascannon are on there at least). Plus with an apoc game coming up more scenery is never a bad idea and my team definitely contains an ork general.
In a shocking display of productivity the modelling stage is done!
Particularly pleased with the very authentic folding sign and 'dog' outside making it a proper pub, now welcoming suggestions for guest drinks, already leaning towards 'Ghaz's Grog' and maybe 'Yarricks Revenge'.
Well the pub is primed, bit torn on what to do with the bottle itself, leaning towards keeping it relatively black/grey and adding the standard colourful freebooterz theme on the rest of the building.
Did the sign as a bit of a distraction from my lean business management course (seriously dull at the last assessment point), tried to keep it relatively 'rough' along the lines of a proper chalk billboard sign.
Thank you kindly sir, really having fun with it so that alone makes it higher on the priority list!
Yesterday I acquired yet another distraction though on account of it being my birthday, so now there's a hell blade to clean up and assemble in the ever expanding, never ending queue. Fortunately it looks like there's not much cleanup on a quick checkover, just a few bits to straighten out as per usual.
Who would've thought a piece of scenery would cause a dilemma, I've finished the Kraken, it was immense fun to do and it makes a small ork force far too tempting. Which is a terrible idea because there's a literal mountain of other things waiting to be painted so I shall have to show restraint!
Hell Blade is constructed, boy did that take some hot water reshaping for the cockpit, no idea what legion I'm going to paint it as still, I think I ought to do the obliterators first though really. Started some rough work on a couple of conversions but I'm trying to keep myself from building too many new things without getting other bits painted.
Thanks chaps, been really chuffed with the response its got (mostly outside dakka as per usual I squeed a little when it passed the 200 likes mark on one of the facebook groups, I'm clearly going to end up all big headed). Finally someone noticed the banksy tribute too, not one other person has mentioned it!
Unfortunately unless I end up with a VERY surprising box of orks for Christmas that'll be the last of them for a good while. I expect it'll be a good week till any more gets done now, suddenly I find myself with a calendar full of visiting and/or visits with relatives, and prepping for playing host this Christmas.
@Giraffe - it's the kind of heavy where it makes metal greater daemons look light.
The holidays are over, and not much modelling or painting got done, as expected. Lots of other merriment however was had and I was lucky enough to acquire my first blood slaughterer as well as a couple of nurgle preachers.
However with an apoc game coming this Sunday I had to get at least a few things together. I will, I'm ashamed to say, be taking a mostly unpainted army. They're wise to what I usually bring so I've shaken it up and gone with something a bit different this time, which has also resulted in an almost total lack of finished models in the list.
First up, Arkos the Faithless, I rather like the story behind him, and his rules are not too shabby either, doubly so as he's still a HQ choice for the renegades army at present. The story does describe his armour as ornate but I didn't want just another model reworked from the DV chosen. Hopefully some of the detail should come in at the painting stage, that aspiring champion clampack was perfect for acquiring a combi-melta that let me keep the emperors champion pose.
I've decided to go for a night lords scheme on the hell blade. Carefully detailed the cockpit then when shaping the canopy realised you can barely see inside which is a bit of a sod. The freebie sprue from mantic seems to be coming in handy at least, that lamp post is incredibly sturdy for a stand-in flight stand.
As for stuff for apoc, a while back I raided the bits box to knock together a couple of squads for use in formations, these are a real mix of offcuts, ebay spares, old models and the odd new piece thrown in. All of which seem rather appropriate for red corsairs really, certainly a ragtag bunch but they should start to improve with a uniform primer and some tlc.
I also got back to work on some chosen that started life as alpha legion back in 5th, now with rather more word bearers heraldry they're ready for primer and table time.
The parade of things I need to finish continues with the helbrute I started a while back, now also with added word bearers iconography, so much for not doing this spam the page thing anymore...
I've also got a pic of the blood slaughterer in the gallery but it's just built and primed and I think there's probably enough spam here as it is, next update will probably be after Sundays game so fingers crossed! Looking at 20k vs 20k, guard and various flavours of marine vs chaos, orks and eldar.
Well update took a little longer than expected, apoc game was good if cut a little short. Highlights included only deploying two towers and a helcult and thereby having time to stand around and socialise. Deepstriking everything else with precise coordinates including a grand pavane (can assault after deepstrike and rends on a 4+), and arkos the faithless in a legionnaire warband (again can assault out of deepstrike). Swinging into a pack of thunderwolves with a juggerlord (space wolf player thought the S10 would ID the lord, he minced them with the tonne of attacks he's famous for before they could swing), the chaos gods then 'blessed' him with spawnhood for this valiant act. I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting but it was nice to actually get a game in for once, also upped the motivation to get things painted and made me want some renegades sooner than planned (the guard artillery is what did most damage to my side).
Working on a squad of Red Corsairs, Huron as well since it's the same scheme, and my meltacide termie squad since they've got a couple of loyalist parts on anyway seemed appropriate. Really need to look into loyalist loadouts at some point as I'm tempted to start using corsairs for loyalist counts as when they aren't filling the ranks for apoc games.
Progress seems to be a bit slow on the red corsairs, but I'm quite pleased with what has been done. The scheme is a lot more striking than I'd expected when I was slapping them together. The only problem I've just realised I have, is the only decals I have for them came with my one helbrute, which means I only have enough to do 10 of them...
Also picked up this chap yesterday, because he just seemed perfect for a sorcerer with spell familiar. Still not sure on what scheme to put him in though, and there's a bunch of greenstuff work to go, he does look very 'Tzeentch' but he doesn't look very 1K Sons.
Totally gonna get back to painting now, not at all going to waste more time refining an Abzan deck for magic.
Well so much for having enough decals to do 10... 4 managed to come out spot on, the rest all folded in on themselves or went on wonky and then wouldn't shift no matter how much gentle nudging and micro sol I used. So with that in mind they're on hold for a little bit till I can either get some more decals or get some made (no decal paper and the printer has awful resolution as it cost about as much as new cartridges).
So for now it's on to bases, 15 for the corsairs, 2 Soul Blaze markers, one for a night lords lord I've been making and three for daemon princes. Figured I might as well do a few at once since they all use similar schemes.
Oh and mentioning the Night Lords lord, I thought it would be good to have something to attach to my raptors when I'm feeling more thematic so I cobbled this together. The new raptors are massive compared to some of the older marines so his base (above) is rather built up to compensate for it.
Bases are coming along nicely, had to wait for the glue to finish drying but now they're at the second layer of highlight grey, (or at least the big ones are still working on the rest).
Completely forgot I hadn't unpacked one of my apoc boxes from a few weekends back, and found my almost finished hell blade. Well how could I resist, so while I was waiting for the primer to dry on the bases I got back to work on it.
Had a look round after I'd done the raptors as I wasn't entirely pleased with how the lightning had come out on them, and it seems forgeworld is just doing thin white lines, rather liked the idea so I pinched it. Canopy is tinted with tamiya clear red, and lighting is done with warlock purple.
Speaking of lighting, I had an idea for the base when I originally built it, I was going to have the lamp lighting both the ground and the hell blade itself as it flew over. However now I've actually done the flyer it seems the lamp is pointing right at the anti-grav plates, and I don't want to mess them up.
So it looks like either taking a risk, or getting the pin vice out, drilling a hole in the top lamp, adding some scoring to the edges and making the top lamp 'broken' thanks to a stray round, whilst keeping the bottom lamp on.
Base is getting there, feels like it's missing a little something, I suspect I forgot to add the final highlight of grey to the tarmac, and I've yet to pick a colour for the lamp, leaning towards green or blue, only worry with blue is if it will stand out when there's already so much of the colour going on as a whole.
Bases are moving along nicely, just the edging and varnish to go, moved the corsairs over on to their new homes while I was at it since any further work on them won't affect the base unless its OSL from weapons in which case I want it to affect the base. I'll do a better shot of the corsairs when they're further along, rather pleased with some of the little details on some of the bases which of course are a little bit obscured since I stuck the models on like a plonker. The two large bases on the right are for my slaanesh twin princes, and the one at the back left is for my converted gorgon from the blood throne.
Also got the Hell Blade finished, couldn't use my usual photo spot as it was covered in models, and it seems my 'background' could use a visit to the ironing board.
Couple more shots in the gallery but I feel that is probably more than enough spam! At a bit of a loose end again now, there's so many things to choose for the painting line that I don't know which to go for!
Managed to get the alpha legion prince I built from the bloodwrack shrine finished, tempted to do the other three princes next since I've already got their bases done.
Started on the other Slaanesh princes, only done the blends on the wings and corsets so far and blacked out the armour. Think I'll keep the suits in black since I've swapped the daemonettes over to black cloth now too, (they are getting worked on again when it's too late at night to use the compressor without disturbing the neighbours). Little worried about them ending up too dark but there's only one way to be sure and with them being metal they should be easy to strip if I don't like the end result. The one at the bottom isn't actually attached to that base, just propped up for photo purposes.
I hate to be 'that guy' but it's gone awfully quiet of late, any comments or even criticism are equally welcome, especially as I want to start improving on the current standard. Sort of want to enter something into Salute's painting comp this year, though now I've seen Winterdyne is entering I just have to pick a category he's not in!
Thanks Giraffe, princes are done, not too bad for a weeks painting when I've been busy with other things too. Not too sure about the photos though, no matter what I tried they just didn't quite live up to what I was looking at directly in front of me, first time I've had that happen for a while. Suggestions and comments are very much welcome on these, not quite sure what else I could do with them.
I think I'll get back to work on my nurgle obliterators next, might be a good idea to get together a plan for a 'state of the army' shot, not sure how often to do one, would every three months be too much, or would every six be too little?
Thanks chaps, it is indeed a 2007 reapercon Sophie, managed to nab a box of five Sophies a few years back, sold the other four on to cover the cost of keeping hold of this one.
Just got started on the nurgle oblits I started, will try and get these out of the way then I can finish the Red Corsairs as I've managed to get hold of a couple of decal sheets to do the rest of them. After that who knows, the infinity is looking rather neglected...
Only thing I'm not sure about is how to tackle the metals, for rusted stuff recently I've been using the steps of: prime -> typhus corrosion -> ryza rust -> sponge application leadbelcher -> diluted dark brown wash. But I'm not sure how heavily decayed I really want their weapons to be this time around, and I can see the sponging potentially wrecking some of the other painting in small areas like chainblade teeth, maybe I'll just have to stick with it and learn to be extra patient.
I think I'll probably go with patchy rust here and there but nowhere near the level I do full blown rust, maybe something done with a weathering powder to make it lighter and less blatant. Should give a nod to how quick things seem to decay in the books whilst also making them look slightly more 'just popped out' fresh. I have gone with heat staining too and there's patina elsewhere so I don't want to ruin the models with going overboard. Paintings progressed a little further tonight, quite pleased with how the skin is coming along, same goes for the patina'd brass.
Not sure what colour to go for on the various 'pustules' and the like, will be doing OSL's in orange in keeping with the new direction on the nurgle stuff, so maybe a similar if darker orange might work on those? Red just always seemed to fresh and livid for nurgle.
Yeah went with orange, definitely need another box of blight kings at some point to do the traditional nine for filling out heavy support. Red Corsairs will be getting the rest of the attention tonight, motivation zapping that pesky painting queue.
Thanks Giraffe, bleeding typical though as soon as I'd popped them up I noticed a couple of bits I missed while I was putting them in the cabinet, decided to leave that for now though for when I eventually do the slight rework on the nurgle bits. Got a mix of the old (green OSL, too much wash etc.) with the new (airbrush and orange OSL), so they'll need bringing together at some point, I don't think I'll go for a total repaint just a touch up and a lighting change.
Rambling aside red corsairs are now done, though to be fair they weren't far off as it is, just makes me look rather more productive than I really am!
Just started the basecoats on my word bearers helbrute and ten chosen, oh and the blood slaughterer, however they won't be going any further because I've just found my next layer of red is a solid lump in the pot...
So with that in mind maybe I could do another piece of terrain from my 'booze' line of buildings, got a couple of champagne boxes and a bottle of hendricks begging for some attention. I'm leaning towards the hendricks bottle purely because I had the champagne ones earmarked for infinity and I want my board to arrive first so I can ensure I make them compatible with it. Maybe a loyalist bar would work best with this one...
No idea how I have missed this blog, some exceptional Chaos stuff going on here. On this page alone I love the Hell Blade, Nurgle Oblits (the best use I have seen of the Blight Kings thus far) and now the Red Corsairs and Terminators.
All that and I eagerly await gin based terrain (Juniper Green is my tipple of choice).
Welcome aboard Thraxas and thank you kindly, nice to see you on here again Warboss too. Went out to get some MDF for the terrain today as I found the sheet I used for the ork pub a little on the thick side for what I had planned, unfortunately somehow stumbled into a local comic shop that happens to stock paint and models, so now I've got one of those new chaos warriors chariots to break up for bits and the reds I was missing to get on with the word bearers and world eaters.
Since it's bleeding freezing out I've opted for continuing with painting for now and I'll nip outside at some point to cut the MDF for the terrain, won't be tomorrow or Wednesday however as I'll be seeing Queen at the Wembley arena!
Cameras are a funny thing, the red on the word bearers is showing as a lot brighter on the infantry than it is, the helbrute is spot on the shade they actually are (actually even that might be a little brighter). Trying to make sure they're properly differentiated from my Khorne marines.
Thanks Warboss, Queen were excellent, interesting way to not burn out on painting. Have been working on the Slaughterer and Brute this week, with a minor aside working on a Chimera for the renegades I won on ebay. Slaughterer is finished, seems I'm having a real nightmare of a time with cameras lately, the reds on the carapace kept coming up as looking really washed out and monotone. Tried to do a slight variety of shots to try and show it does have shading! For some reason the shots on the scruffy desk have come out best which is rather annoying, looks like I need to do some serious camera research as I don't use photo editing software and don't particularly fancy spending the huge amount it seems to cost.
Helbrute is moving along, my masking fluid did not play nice however, was a real sod to get it off of the red sections once I'd layed down the skin tones with the airbrush, took longer than it would've to just do it manually.
Oh and since I mentioned it a shot of the Chimera, the dozer and front mounted weapon are magnetised, I did start magnetising the turret but gave in as it was a little wobbly, I figure I'm only likely to want a multilaser or autocannon anyway. Not decided on a scheme for my renegades still so example of other good ones are welcome, there's a slight temptation to do very dirty camo green at the moment.
Not sure what I'll work on over the weekend, tempted to do one of the terrain pieces since I'll be stuck at home thanks to a deer that decided to give the front of my car a 'cuddle' on thursday night which means it is very much out of action.
Thanks Giraffe, first time I've even seen deer round here, finally got them to pick up the car today so now I'm in a typical tiny rental thing that sounds more like a scooter.
Work has progressed on 'Hendricks' the imperial officers bar, most of it ended up being done today while I was waiting for the car people having spent quite a chunk of the weekend ill and unproductive.
Thanks monkey, always nice to get some feedback (even more so when it's all positive ).
Hendricks imperial officers bar is finished, rather pleased with the finished piece, I always love working on terrain pieces, just something about the diorama like nature they tend towards. Definitely a fun way to inject a little story, even the 'mutants sighted' poster is that little bit fresher to tie in with the rest of what I'm doing.
Might give the painting a rest over the weekend so I don't go crazy, if anything does get done it'll probably be boring things like building bases for the daemonettes (they haven't been forgotten see see).
Ignatius-Grulgor wrote: Yeah that was just a little bit quick... Necrosius is done, I had a lot of spare time last night and didn't get much else done today thanks to this little fella. I forgot how much I loved his little tiny nurgling buddy doing the same move with his hand as Necrosius.
Also started sculpting wings for the Black Mace prince and got a little more work done on the nurgle soulgrinder, super productive for some reason. So I guess it's time to pick another project to paint!
Hi Illogical, will see what I can do about taking another shot, he is only about 1mm tall though so you're not going to get anything like a real closeup! Been mostly playing around with unfinished kits or ideas as a bit of a change of pace, also started another piece of terrain hopefully it will actually fit on the board when it arrives!
So first up there's a rough start on a piece I've had in mind for a while. Using the hasslefree little gasmask girl at the centre of a chaos symbol which will be formed from cracking tarmac/concrete. Using two sets of the pylons from the Macragge set to form a fence around her, will be using the airbrush to try and create a 'forcefield' line on the ground. Need to build a generator and cut out the mdf for the base still, think I'll try and suspend her in the air somehow in the centre too, need to use some thin rods to have concrete pieces coming up around her.
I've also had to find a use for the big beastie from the chaos chariot kit, so it's been built up a as a counts as juggernaut for a black legion lord. Made to represent 'Urkanthos' leader of the khornate cult within the Black Legion, built him with the spineshiver blade, but it'll work as a powersword if I decide to put it elsewhere. I think the chariot head with it's slightly doglike features is quite appropriate considering the khornates in the Black Legion are the 'Hounds of Abaddon'.
Building up a second word bearers rhino so both squads of chosen will have a transport, havoc launcher and hatches are magnetised for easy swapping, going to build an icon to replace the launcher for when I don't want it. Still a fair bit to do on this as it's a little on the clean side at the moment.
Oh and a Night Lords aspiring champion, only got the model so I could steal the backpack to build my Arkos the Faithless, so I've knocked this together, unfortunately he doesn't have anyone to go with at the moment but I really like how it's come out.
So a real mixed bag, just needed a break from painting, might get back to the grindstone next week but there's so much on this week (and weekend) that the hobbying is taking a back seat.
will keep an eye on the series though, worst case I'll just have to enter the next one!
I'll definitely have to start working on those zerkers now.
so thanks again for the support!
