So lately I've found myself with a ton of projects, all spurred on because we are buying a house and moving. Our current table that you see in the battle reports I post often so massive, heavy, and frankly more cumbersome than I feel like moving the
next few times we have to (this happens somewhat often in the military).
So I bought a Frontline Gaming mat, and now need to build new terrain for it thats mobile and looks great. My idea is to make matching sets of Tyranid and Eldar themed terrain, so that we each have equal sized 5+ cover pieces, 4+ coverpieces, etc. that match
our main armies.
Also, I have 6 Jetbikes to get down with one of them being modded to be a farseer (Havent figured that out yet), my wife's new Wraithknight to assemble and paint, and in a few weeks my Heirophant should arrive and I'll be spending a lot of time working on that
because Ive wanted one since we started last year!
To further add on, we're thinking about outright buying a competitive 1850 Demon's list that she wants to play, which I look forward to painting.
My Tyranid 5+ cover is a simple spire piece. These are really easy to make and I think look effective enough.
Mounted on foam board and cork and used cardboard from a cereal box, then lots of hot glue.
Got some painting done, added a little terrain. Im going to base all of these pieces with black and snow.
The start of my 4+ cover building.
Also got the 4+ eldar and tower for the 5+ piece cut and rounded with tape to make it more bone. I've since gotten some plaster on it and
once dry Ill sand them and paint them.
It's very simple and for the next terrain piece I will photo the process and add them to go along with this.
But for now, take a cereal box, cut out about a 4"x1.5" rectangle and round the edges. Repeat, each time making it about 1 cm shorter. When the last one is about an inch or more, make a large triangle one.
Fold them all a few times to get them used to a semi circle shape, then starting from smallest add hot glue to the bottom corner and attach to the next largest in the middle (Forming the capillary curve in the process) and continue until you're at the bottom. Using a lot of glue will cause it to hold solid.
The center white sections are simply a piece of paper rolled into a cone, and adjusted in size until it matches the girth of the capillary shell, then hot glued in place.
Additional glue across the paper and to fill in the gaps between the shells helps hold it together and helps the texture. Prime and paint!
Not pictured too well, but its one of my tyranid's arm and jaw wrapped with its tongue as a trophy.
Here is my current 5 stage bone process:
Ungor base, then ungor mixed with screaming skull.
screaming skull
screaming skull mixed with white scar
white scar highlights
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also got to work on the Eldar terrain a bit, mostly painting the basic bone palette shown above (While hanging out with my Daughter on a Sunday).
Recently my wife and I started a Daemon army and I did cork bases for them. The problem is this looks much better than my main Tyranid armies poorly done bases. After about two days of debating the benefit vs the massive PITA, I decided to go through with it.
I then did step 1 - Remove all Tyranids from all bases. There were quite a few breaks, but this was to be expected.
I then threw all of them into a big bowl of Purple Power overnight to dissolve the basing.
Yesterday I washed them off and with the help of my wife we corked all of the bases. (The 40 Gargoyles are staying on their clear bases)
We then spray painted them (The new Valspar matte black spray paints are a delight, btw) and drybrushed 4 layers.
Today I start the arduous task of pinning them all to the base...I got 5 MC's done yesterday in a little over an hour yesterday, hopefully today will be smoother.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I took some leave and over the course of a few days I bought the start of our Daemon army and have gotten a lot of progress made. Im trying to use a lot of flesh tones and darker colors with this army to become a better painter.
I got these assembled, really could have used some greenstuff : / .
This guy is not complete, his wings still need work and theres a lot of detailing and freehand I want to try on him.
My Tan Horrors. As with the Daemonettes, it was important to keep these simple enough that I could mass produce them. 10 of each takes less than three hours once assembled and primed.
Mad.. wrote: Those Daemons look great. A horde of them scrambling across the table will look good, I like that Prince, well painted and nice colour scheme.
How goes the rebasing of the Nids?
Thanks man! Slow reply, sorry, but all the bugs are rebased and I need to get a group photo.
Here are the latest additions to our new Daemon army. I think the GW Fleshhound models are absolutely silly, so google searching "necro dogs" gave me these guys.
They are the proper size and I think they actually look demonic instead of like Sesame street dinosaurs, plus they go for cheap on ebay so I wont hurt getting 8 more of them.
My camera doesnt like taking pictures of shiny things apparently, the minis look very washed out, but here they are. They have a coat of 'ardcoat to give them a skinless vibe.
Your stuff looks great, man. I wish I could blend as well as you do. I will definitely have to get some tips from you. Maybe we can hit up DZ sometime and get some painting in.
I sure do...and with a basement under "reconstruction" after the flooding...I don't really have a place to paint. =\ DZ it is. I will hit you up for sure!
Im very, very happy I did it as I think the old bases just werent up to snuff. As for the Heirophant, I ended up pinning him with heavy 1/8 wire AND using 5000lb strength
epoxy glue...and he's been standing on his own for about 2 months at this point! So no base for him.
Warboss_Waaazag wrote:Those are some cool looking dog-things!
Started/Finished Tyrant #4 yesterday. His Devourer arms havent arrived from China yet, so they'll have to be added later.
I've worked up an image in photoshop of each Tyrants face, left to right. Im going to print it and put it in a laminate sheet, so I can lay down my psycher cards under each face, makes keeping track of them in game so much easier.
Mad.. wrote: I really like your colour scheme. The contrast of the chitin compared to the wings is great, and that slimey tongue is very well done!
Thanks man, they are inspired by the colors on tigers and deserts.
I am on leave and getting some painting done, I finished my KoS at the beach. The base isnt going to be done until I get skeletons to pile up, but that will be awhile since they are so expensive.
No spikes in the legs on account of the nightmare not being worth it to me.
Picture is washed out, sorry.
I finished my eight Flesh Hounds and I love the model so much Id like to run more just to have them. One of my favorite things Ive painted and its very simple and easy.
Im stuck doing a ton of night shifts this week so I had to stay up, and was able to work start to finish on this Malanthrope the last 5 hours and am pretty happy with the results! This is the most detailed base that Ive done, I wanted it to appear to fluff, with the Malanthrope going to feed over downed troops (The sweetest kind, Tau).
I do apologize for the lighting, its 3AM here.
For my Tournament army Ill be going back and adding similar remains to their bases as well, Im happy with the result. C&C welcome, again sorry for the poor lighting.
As a fellow Tyranid player whose main opponent (younger brother) runs a Tau army... this is awesome. The skulls instead of heads on a couple of them just add to the whole feel. Love that base!
The Malanthrope itself is very nice too, nice contrasts between the green and orange. Photo five really highlights how great that head is, looks fantastic.
And that giant demon lady, I would hate to be a guardsman with that thing heading for me... she isn't very pretty is she?
Hey thanks man. I really have a hatred for Tau, so they were first choice for corpses.
Its such a great model and more surprising is its a china cast of it, I was blown away when it arrived. It was better quality than any resin Ive gotten before.
I did a poor job of getting in WiP pics of this, but here is the final results of my display board.
Four Tyrants, two carnifex, one malanthrope, 12 ripper bases, 30 gargoyles. This board runs a gamut of some of my oldest first models to newest, so on close inspection its easy to see new from the old, but I
like them all. Im just glad to have this project done.
I think Ill do more tau food in the future, I was limited somewhat by the spare Firewarriors a friend of mine gave me. It'll be a nice addition in the future.
So Mechanicon has come and gone, and my Tyranid army got a lot of praise, for which I'm very grateful. I got a ton of people walking up to me talking about my army and that really inspired me to try hard and work on my bugs more, so I have started working on a new display board.
My idea is to be able to hold at least 4 large ovals, all my troops and tyrants and to allow a capillary tower to hold the mainstay of my army, Gargoyles. I got started today with an 18" circle cut I picked up from lowes.
^ This is an approximation of a competitive self allied 1850 list with room to spare. The spire needs to take up about 6x6 inches of the board.
^I've started by hacking up a nice box of Quaker Otis cereal into slightly curved rectangles.
Starting from narrowest to largest, I hot glue the base of each square to the next with ever so slight of curve.
All pieces later, Im ready to start green stuffing some shapes.
I add some points to the middle.
I glue the spire to some cardboard for permanent curvature, then I set about hot gluing 50 zinc plated washers to the spire (about $2 at lowes).
Room for 50 gargoyles! I add glue around each washer so that its not an abrupt circle and more rounded.
Next, I begin filling it with tin foil. This will be covered in paper mache later, but the texture looks and fits the part and is easy to work with.
Proof of concept, heres how they will look stacked on the spire.
Simply awesome. The nid scheme is awesome and im loving all of the dead tau on the bases. The daemons look great and the flesh hounds are epic. and then theres the terrain, awesome, all awesome. keep up the awesome.
bigfish wrote: Simply awesome. The nid scheme is awesome and im loving all of the dead tau on the bases. The daemons look great and the flesh hounds are epic. and then theres the terrain, awesome, all awesome. keep up the awesome.
That display of the gargolyes on the spire is going to be awesome with them all perched on there, what an awesome idea magnetically attaching them to the terrain.
Just wondering, are you planning to change the gargoyles bases to match the spire or leave them clear? Because as they are with their gravel charcoal coloured base it will lessen the effect your going for I reckon.
My wife Sam and I were just having this discussion...we're pretty sure, on display, it wont matter too much. Painting their bases orange doesnt work on the board, but its an unfortunate contrast with the spire.
Neat Idea for sure. One thing that may help, and you'd have to make a new tower, would be use the rod for the flying base, if you have extra and if the gargoyles detach from the painted bases. I recently went back to my roots since Nids were my first army in 3rd edition, and thinking of doing some terrain to match.
If I did that I would go all out and magnetize the gargoyles so they can detach quickly enough...at the end of the day, I think the swarm on the painted spire will look fine even with the opposing bases. The idea is that I can also use termagants on it, I can imagine the little gribblies running up it.
Here are some pre-light box photos of a Dimachaeron I just finished working on.
As far as the painting goes, this one did NOT go as I planned, but I learned a lot from it and its kind of the point. I wanted to bring what I learned from my Daemons to bugs, and sort of made it happen.
I wanted to keep the very Todd McFarlane-esque degree of colors which I think I did, although my original plan to have a very dark skin with very muted reds didnt pan out the way I envisioned.
I also ordered a Secret Weapon Miniatures base for this one since I was selling it, and thoroughly appreciated the quality. I'll get more stuff from them in the future for certain.
That is an awesome "dirty" paint scheme you got going on there... makes the Dima look really menacing and realistic. That chest maw is the bees knees, and really well done.
Great work.
Secret weapon does great bases etc, I just picked up some alien invasion objective markers and I'm impressed with the quality and price.
Its a solid example of a model thats not turned out at all as originally planned, which has been a common theme for me as I'm learning and trying new things. About halfway through at this point with it.
bigfish wrote:Gotta love that model, what you planning on doing with it
It really is a great model, its a shame I dont play Tau. I'm going to 'crosshatch' the armor and add in a lot of detail work...basically trying things out and trying to become a better painter in the process. I'll post some progress pics.
ayoku wrote:Thats one evil looking bug Great work on the paintjob Also like the colors on the Tau
Keep up the good work Grtz
Mark
Thanks man, the Dimachaeron is a tough bug, I look forward to painted exactly 2 more of them that are on the way.
No, its something I'll be selling. Theres a lot of models I want to paint but not keep, it was fun to do. I'm waiting on its base to come in the mail now.
I've been doing a lot of stuff that I havent posted, here's some:
I really hated doing this model, I think I'm sick of painting my own bugs. I didnt assemble it well because over the week and a half it took me to actually work on it, I only did it when I was drinking. Therefore, gap lines.
I also finally did a box of 10 gargoyles I bought a while back, and speed painted them. Heres some of them next to my speed painting from two years ago, much improved I think.
I also have three of these babies drying out to paint/sell.
That Tyrannocyte looks awesome in your fleet colours... yes there is gap lines etc, but it still looks great
Yip, good improvement in the quality of your speed painting, I find it nice to compare my early work with my more recent pieces... helps with motivation.
Three Malanthropes, you going to do them same as Dimachareon you did? and will you do all three the same, or you going to make it up as you go along?
One of them I will revisit that scheme with, another I am working on now with treefrog colors. The third I am in a debate over, the thing is they are so quick and easy to paint and assemble, so I'll probably do a ton of them in the future. I like painting Tyranids, I'm just tired of painting my particular scheme.
A guy at the FLGS I frequent liked the look of my stuff and wanted some things done along the same lines. A Warmachine dragon for use as a Daemon prince and Abbadon are first on the list. I'm not to go too detailed on any of it for economy reasons, so I'm making sure to keep things reasonable with time invested.
First was Abbadon, which he will be using as a counts as for whoever, so its not actually Abbadon all the time. Cool. Here is a 2.5 hour Abbadon. He needs a little touchup but unless I get the okay to go more detailed I wont.
This is my first encounter with this company and I gotta say I am not happy with the quality of their models in terms of casting...this thing did NOT want to go together neatly and I spent way more time doing that than I would have liked.
You spent 2.5hrs on that Abbadon and got him looking like that? Very nice work
That Tau suit is awesome, I love the colour scheme you have going there, and the "dirty" look to the overall model works great.
I'm glad to see the Tyranids getting some awesome looking Malanthropes added to the collective hive
How do you attach your models to the unique bases? Do you just paint up the model and the base and then super glue them together? Or do you need to mask off the bits that connect so the glue can bond properly? I'm asking as I have a genestealer brood I'm working on and want to put them on resin bases to make them stand out.
The malanthropes I first pin at the tail, then add some ice gel frag glue (although most gap fillers will work) around it to build up a base so its a lot more resilient than it looks. Pinning usually, even with small paper clip size pins, really adds a lot to its structure.
Hello all, finished up a Revenant today. It's a model I always wanted to try, and now I never want to try again.
I'm proud that I took the opportunity to try a LOT of new techniques. Some worked, some didnt, but its the only way to learn and taking the chance was the big step. I learned a lot about freehand, and with practice I think I can progress
out of scrimshaw type stuff and in to more fluid things.
This guy I started yesterday and finished up today. He is an alternate scheme of the Red Dimachaeron I painted last year that surprisingly a lot of people really liked, so it motivated me to revisit the idea.
That is one of the best looking Dimachaeron i have seen, i don't know whether you have altered the legs at all but the pose/stance looks a lot better as well.
Thanks a lot, its a great model to paint. I havent changed the positioning other than the pose of the arms, I think the base matching goes a long way towards making that odd sculpting choice work.
I think it is the way you have it on the base that makes it look like it is leaping or preparing to leap, so along with the arms positioning it looks more aggressive.
The purple people eater.... love it and the scheme works well too.
I wish he could ACTUALLY leap in the game, rather than just 6 inches. : /
This guy I enjoy personally and is probably how I would paint my bugs if I started over and wanted a 'realistic' scheme.
I have a lot of models to take pictures of, in the past two weeks Ive painted a Burning Chariot, Fleshounds, Flamers of Tzeentch and a new XV109 Y'Vahra that I'm finishing up, when its done Ill post them.
This weeks project was an XV109 Y'Vahra. I've wanted to paint this scheme for a while so I was glad to finally give it a go. There are some technical mistake in it, but I feel like I got some good practice in with blending. He's charging towards an alien
invasion (most likely of the Tyranid kind). I'm very happy with the complimentary colors of the entire figure, from the fiery oranges to the purple tentacles. Im bummed the pictures arent as
accurate as they could be, but my painting business has almost paid for a new Canon T5I, so Ill have much better pics in the future.
Where to start...basically I waited until I got my Rebel T5i to take any photos of the past few weeks projects. Well, I've been busy, so heres a massive photo dump:
This Riptide I wanted to do "procedurally" and have him neat and proper. So he's got hardly any washes on him and was just slowly built up. As I'm selling him, I magnetized the main weapons.
This Dimachaeron I started out wanting to paint like a butterfly and it quickly went awry, but I recovered him into something else and now I actually like him. Things dont always go to plan.
This next guy is for my Daemon army, he's almost complete besides a few small details. Its such a stupid model, I had to have it.
My own Dimachaeron for my Tyranid army, WiP
Lastly, these guys are for a small commission where the client doesnt want too much detail (to keep costs down) just quick and easy work.
I'm not sure what he's going for, he's got a lot of stuff he wants done with a variety of kitbashed parts.
Orange has definitely been the color I'm working with lately, Ive had a lot to learn.
Project for this week is this here Knight Lancer. I'm doing a lot of freehand work on it (to get practice), this time Im not sketching anything beforehand.
These guys are for my own Daemon army, and as such are speed painted. I am really happy with how they turned out though, its my own personal idea of what Nurgle's forces would look like.
I've been waiting on a base for this guy to come in from SW miniatures, it finally arrived yesterday.
I really had fun painting this one, I experimented a lot and I feel over the course of working on it I was able to improve my technique in a lot of areas.
Very impressed with the knight, I keep going back and looking through the picturess and notice new things every time. Awesome work on the free hand looks fantastic!
And those nurgle insect bug things... they creep me out in a good way, so well done on those as well, they look like they would make a guardsman freak out!
Ken, I'll be doing a Dimachaeron in the next month or so and will be doing that same scheme since its proven to be pretty popular, I'll take pics of the step by step.
Hey thanks man. Sometimes I wish I could re-do my personal army in this scheme, but I'm very attached to the oranges as well. In the end, laziness wins out.
Took a bit of a break, and also started a ton of projects at once which doesnt result in getting a whole lot finished. This is my productivity for March.
The Harridan took a really long time to get motivated to do, and I hated painting it, but Im really happy with how it turned out. This experience was the tipping point that motivated my to get an airbrush, and I am super happy that I did.
I painted these two Dima's at the same time, and they were my first projects using airbrush. I did the base coat on the carapace and body with it, and later the green glow. The sheer time saving the airbrush does with this tedious - and really unenjoyable - step is so worth it.
These Wraiths are below standard for me, but they were literally the first thing I sprayed my airbrush at. I didnt know it at the time but I was really, REALLY over thinning my paint and it gave some unsatisfactory results. But its a learning experience.
So this guy sat on my desk for almost 3 months, I just didnt want to tackle it. Now that its done, I'm glad I did and I learned a lot, especially about my airbrush and general usage. Im not happy per se with the result and could redo it much better, but I'm glad I had the learning experience.
Great blog! So many awesome models, I really like your painting style. The freehand on the knights is great, the one with the lance (forget the name) is My favourite. The nids look awesome too.
^Thank you, it was a really bright model and I was glad to get that idea out of my system. Although I wont lie, I really want to do a Riptide in the same scheme.
Worked on these next two simultaneously, I bought the Ruststalkers just to paint them, I really like the models although I have no intention of starting an army. (Unfortunately)
I've always wanted to paint a Dreadknight and got one on the cheap from a friend, so heres my take on it:
Despite being a terrible unit, I love these new models and finally speed painted them up. I used the shoulder pads because they look cool.
I unfortunately forgot to take pics of the new Tervigon and termagants I painted up, next time. I have to get a display board ready for Killadelphia in the next two weeks and I havent even started, I have a lot of real life work to do and an important exam so I'm feeling strapped for time.
Works had me pretty much unable to focus on anything else, but I'm trying to force myself to work on my display board for next weekend's Killadelphia trip.
A friend of mine gave me some of his old Tau stuff from years ago, Im going to continue my anti Tau theme, I still have to acquire an Ethereal to be the lone survivor of the tank wreck that the swarm is surrounding.
Hello all, this weekend I am full of anxiety for a big test coming up, so I used that energy to get a lot of work done. This guy was built and painted up in 24 hours, and was a great learning experience.
WIP Pics:
I also got my Reaper Tyrant magnetized and ready for action next weekend at Killadelphia.
Things are about to get pretty interesting around here, by Friday I will have my entire Tyranid army sold (Its at about 38 auctions of stuff on ebay) and will be starting bugs over. Ever since I painted that Harridan I've wanted an army that looked like that, so I'm starting from scratch. Work has already begun, today I assembled the Superbeast tyrant's body. I've started scoring it to make the bone carapace pop more. (using a wire brush and exacto knife)
My vision for this army gives them no eyes or mouths (except when they open to eat, as in the Mawloc) and dragonfly style wings on many of the units (Tyrants, and hopefully even the little termagants will have budding pseudo wings). My plasticard hasnt arrived yet but I', eager to start giving it a try.
In addition, I got some work done on my Daemons, bringing them up to a solid 1850 list with plenty extra for summoning. Pink Horrors, Screamers and a new Soul Grinder done in the past few days.
^ It was hard to do, but it felt great once they were all gone and shipped off to new forever homes.
So I wasnt 100% satisfied with the wings, and decided to go all in on this project and do it right.
So I designed some vector wings and have started working with those. On the bottom right you can see the first prototype larvae wings for my Termagants.
My Tyrant got me second in a local painting competition, however he's still at the store so no pics yet.
I'm falling behind on posting pics of other work, here is a Y'Vahra I just finished. This is the first thing Ive done with my new Iwata HP-CH airbrush and I absolutely love using it.
Wanted to share with you guys the hell on earth that is painting 60 termagants all at once. Got them in the mail yesterday, so far they are assembled, primed, and Ive started base coating them. Unfortunately at that point the fast easy parts are over.
Finished the 60 Gants, took a solid three days of work.
Here are the first group photos:
Hive Fleet Marrow, with intense heat signatures inside of their dense chitin carapaces, are an almost blind Tyranid force. No visible jaws or mandibles protrude until the tyranid moves to devourer its prey, at which point it quickly morphs into a serrated feeding mechanism to
better envelop the biomass.
Subscribed after seeing your showcase thread. I'll repeat the same comment from there...
alanmckenzie wrote: These look great. Very simple scheme but with really good/liberal use of different inks and washes. Looks excellent across a whole army. Creepy, slightly messy and very organic looking, as tyranids should be IMO.
quote=youidiotkid]I dig the realistic color scheme that you've got going here. What's the next 'Niddy beast you've got in the works?
I've got three tyrants on sprues, 3 biovores conversions to do, 3 mucolids, and another tervigon to do for this army. But I've also got my other stuff going simultaneously, a Deathleaper, Crimson Hunter, and 3 scatbikes to do.
Warboss_Waaazag wrote:Stunningly great.
Thanks!
alanmckenzie wrote:Subscribed after seeing your showcase thread. I'll repeat the same comment from there...
alanmckenzie wrote: These look great. Very simple scheme but with really good/liberal use of different inks and washes. Looks excellent across a whole army. Creepy, slightly messy and very organic looking, as tyranids should be IMO.
Look forward to seeing more.
Some of the other stuff here is great too.
Really like your style.
Thanks man, I'm trying to be more active so hopefully Ill have a lot more posted here soon.
Mad.. wrote:What the.... 60 gants at once and come out looking that nice
I break mine up into ten model blocks, and that is enough for me.
Bloody awesome work! The wings really work.
To be fair, I was off my feet from work and recovering from a vasectomy all week! So I had nothing to do but take percocet and paint all week. I actually got close to 70 models done this week,
in addition to a Crimson Hunter that I screwed up so bad I had to start over, twice. : /
Bottle wrote:This is one of the most unique tyranid armies I have seen! Love the colours and the wings can't wait for more!
Thank you, positive feedback makes me feel good about starting over from scratch.
I took the time to make my Biovore conversions today. The only real hiccup was the wings, I went through two prototypes. The first was more butterfly like, but didnt suit the bloated bot fly look that I wanted so I went with a wasp one, like the termagants.
Fluffwise, the wings are part of the entire swarm, and in the flightless tyranids they serve to either help them 'run' short distances like a chicken uses its wings, or to help them cool down from the intense heat they generate.
My Biovore's contain their mine bladders and explosive chemicals separately in their guts, so as to not explode violently if destroyed. The mine comes through the bioweapon as a deflated balloon, and is then inflated with its payload before being launched violently across the battlefield.
These are ridiculously cool. This is how the stock Biovore should look (minus the wings maybe). I feel like the one point of critique that I could make is on the wings. When they are as large as they are on the Hive Tyrant, it makes sense to put gaps for the membrane, but when the wings are still only slightly larger than gant-sized, I think that it would be better to do them as you did on the Termagants.
Before I forget to ask, will we ever see the fully developed Gargoyles? I'm excited to see what you do with them.
Hey thanks man. The Wings are actually much bigger than the termagant's, so I did not want to waste the space and have them just be flat. so I did not want to waste the space and have them just be flat.
Right now I'm just doing my tournament army, but I'm sure I'll need gargoyles again one day, I'm excited to do them.
Ah, I see. I haven't seen the kit you've based the Biovores on in person yet (Hive Guard?). I had assumed that they were on 40mm bases there.
Please paint them up quickly.
I've been doing a lot of painting lately, but I've not gotten much done on the Fleet until today. Assembled and scratched up the three Devourer flyrants.
I should have the twin linked devourers in the mail soon so they can all be armed and ready to go.
Your bug conversions are all awesome and I really dig the antennae/rabbit ears on the middle flyrant! The biovore idea is especially cool. Great stuff!
Mawloc I did today, I wanted to do a 'textbook' miniature and there she is. I'm happy with the result, assembly to sealant took a little over 5 hours. I'm by no means ready to open a studio, but I'd like to one day
provided my military schedule allows it (Yea right). So doing clean miniatures is something I'm trying to work on, C&C welcome.
She was a testbed for colors on a Hierophant that I should be getting in this week, so stay tuned for that in the next few weeks.
The Ironstrider sat on my desk for almost three months, because I knew it'd be a pain in the ass to assemble. And surprise! It was! Never again!
I wanted to try a more limited palette and not the traditional Mechanicus colors.
You're a lucky guy, lechine. That's quite a fancy carrying case.
I've noticed the lack of wings and covered eyes on this last Mawloc and Malanthrope. Is this for another project, or just a more conversion-free part of the army?
Very nice looking models. I am not fan of Tyranids as an army but your "muted" limited color brings some menacing aspect to them, much more then reds or orange ones.
What colors do you use (brand) and your method of apply (brush or paintbrush) if its not secret.
Hey thanks, I use mainly Vallejo game air stuff, I think the base color is called Bonewhite, followed by agrax earthshade, then a repeat of that for the carapace parts and a final highlight of Citadel Screaming skull with white.
I had this idea and modified my army to accommodate them, mainly due to the silliness of Butterfly genestealers and my desire to see it manifest.
These were a lot of fun to do, and their fluff writes itself. Frankly, I think it would suck to be eaten by a butterfly genestealer and its toxic proboscis.
I liked this idea because its both stupid and fun, and I think it fits in with my army very well because of it. They look silly, but I like them.
The concept of butterfly Genestealers is a bit silly, but this execution is undeniably menacing nonetheless. The wings also provide an interesting explanation for their ability to infiltrate in games (since their loud fluttering and sparkly dust might just blow their cover).
Although I've done a lot of the FW Knights, Ive never done the smaller plastic kits. First I'd like to say, assembly takes so much longer! I think its the clipping/hunting process.
Anyway, I enjoyed working on it once it was assembled. It's a cool kit. I'm a big fan of horses in heraldry so it was fun getting to do a little freehand. The vines are stencils I made, I felt that lent the look I was going for.
NOVA is later this week and I havent built my display board yet.
No worries, at least I have my supplies and I am on leave, so this should be a cinch. My only real plan is I wanted each part of the army to have a 'scene' going on, like termagants swarming forward from the Tervigon and Genestealer butterflies up in their decaying tree.
I laid out the army to get a general feel for where everything is going. Zinc washers will be placed to make use of the entire army being magnetized to ensure all the little guys dont go flying.
Ive built up the foam with plaster because its easier to achieve the rolling sands look that my bases all have.
Next, I've coated it in watered down PVA glue and sat it out on the deck to let it dry and cure for a while, at least until the rest of my supplies arrive from Amazon today.
Automatically Appended Next Post: My stuff arrived, and after spraypainting the entire board black, I've started building up my desert colors to match my bases. You can see the zinc washers that each mini will stick to.
if it wouldn't be too much, a battle report would be welcome from NOVA
Im pretty sure I intend on it, but at the same time its 8 games and Im not sure how much of a PITA it will be...or how sober I'll be gaming.
StarDrop wrote:God speed!
I screwed up and added too much green to my second pour, but its settled overnight and doesnt look too bad. I've given it a third pour of a clear lacquer I had laying around to fill it out more.
Also, doing one last box of Termagants in case I get great Tervigon rolls, plus it looks better on the display board to have a huge wave of them.
Finally, I've got to finish my Warlord's special wings.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
14 more gants added to the swarm, bringing the numbers into the 70's.
Here they all are with their mother.
And potential wing candidates for the warlord Tyrant.
I've been busy since NOVA, I got hundreds of compliments and questions (no exaggeration) about the army and I felt good about that. I made it in to the final judging but did not win anything, lots of great looking armies were there.
Heres some recent stuff:
I picked up a commission for some Plague Drones like ones I had painted a few years ago.
It was a trip trying to remember how I did things two years ago when I wasnt as good as I am today, was an interesting experience to retrace my steps.
Nevertheless, these Drones will be spreading Nurgles blessings in South Africa, soon.
Building them took forever. :(
Automatically Appended Next Post: So my current personal project is getting an all CC Tyranid army together. This means I've drummed up a TON of Warriors to make Shrikes out of. The problem is theres so much magnetizing to be done for the wings and arms that its moving at a snails pace. I also have to do the Tyrant CC weapons, as well as Gargoyles which I havent even gotten yet. So lots of mundane work, unfortunately.
Still waiting on my KX139 Ta'unar Supremacy Armour from FW. They have free express shipping thats supposed to get it here in within 9 days, but I ordered it two days ago and it still hasnt shipped so who knows.
I was hoping to have it for the three day weekend to work on, but it may not happen now.
This is actually my first tank I've ever painted, it was fun to do something so simple. I'd like to try again and really go overboard with the weathering, this time around I stayed pretty reserved.
Sicaran's are really good tanks, I hate playing against them.
Also painted this girl up for a tournament this weekend.
I didnt do my usual insect mods, because the Mawloc already has the look I want. I think they made an appropriately millipede like appearance for that model, one of my favs.
I like the idea of the wings but I think they look too much like actual plastic card on the bigger ones, gaunt wings are perfect. I think part of it is the cut outs and how square the edges are.
Not sure what a cricket is capable of, but if you could cut the patterns so the card is thinner between the holes in the wings, then print two cut copies per wing and one that is the same silhouette but with no cutouts, and sandwiched the solid wing design between two cutouts, all glued together, and took some fine grit sandpaper to the edges, they would look a lot more like actual insect wings.
Also, I think it would be boss for you to make a millipede mawloc! Maybe use warrior size down to hormagaunt sized scything talons all down its sides!
Awesome progress on the army and display btw!
I know that is more work, but it would be worth it on the larger things like flyrants and shrikes I think. It would also allow you to make larger dragon fly/hornet wings with more detail, so you don't need butterfly wings.
Edit, better idea on the wings, why not just make them single layer solid but sand the edges, then use the cutout wings as stencils since your using an airbrush? You could layer the patterns and veins.
StarDrop wrote:Dem Tyranis are really killer force!
Just by posing they strike fear.
Thanks
Red Corsair wrote:I like the idea of the wings but I think they look too much like actual plastic card on the bigger ones, gaunt wings are perfect. I think part of it is the cut outs and how square the edges are.
Not sure what a cricket is capable of, but if you could cut the patterns so the card is thinner between the holes in the wings, then print two cut copies per wing and one that is the same silhouette but with no cutouts, and sandwiched the solid wing design between two cutouts, all glued together, and took some fine grit sandpaper to the edges, they would look a lot more like actual insect wings.
Also, I think it would be boss for you to make a millipede mawloc! Maybe use warrior size down to hormagaunt sized scything talons all down its sides!
Awesome progress on the army and display btw!
I know that is more work, but it would be worth it on the larger things like flyrants and shrikes I think. It would also allow you to make larger dragon fly/hornet wings with more detail, so you don't need butterfly wings.
Edit, better idea on the wings, why not just make them single layer solid but sand the edges, then use the cutout wings as stencils since your using an airbrush? You could layer the patterns and veins.
Those are good ideas, and I've gone back and forth on the wings a few times. Thankfully they are magnetized so nothing has to be set in stone. Something close to what you describe was one of my earlier prototypes, essentially what I have
now but in between the two layers I used thick plastic to actually give it a much more realistic look. However, at least with those prototypes I still like the look of the empty wings more, even though they clearly wouldnt take flight. But neither would
the stock dragon tyrant wings either, so it boils down to rule of cool.
Cricut only cuts shapes, unfortunately. No milling to be done.
Warboss_Waaazag wrote:Nice tank!
Thanks, I had fun doing something more simple in scope.
Something rather large came in the mail today:
Im surprised so far by how few actual parts are involved.
Time to get to work!
I gotta say Im pretty stoked that its not 1000 pieces, main body is only 32. Some bigass chunks of resin. Each arm has its own box and the three cannons are on their own, I havent opened them yet though.
I agree. It took over a month to get here though. FW was apologetic about it and gave me free shipping on my next order. *shrug*
My initial idea for the pose may have to change, now that I actually have the base in hand I have a better scope for what Im dealing with. It's such a large model that I have to get the feet done right first, so Im cooling my jets for a night and giving it some though before I start gluing anything.
I did get the whole thing cleaned up and trimmed, so at least that part is done.
When I made my display board I liked this technique and I am reusing for this base. Plaster of paris, then a few layers of elmers glue watered down. Threw in some bits from a Knight cast that I wasnt going to use, and we have a start to a base.
Next step is drilling for the pins going into both feet to help anchor the model. Its gigantic with a lot of surface area, but its best to be sure.
pax macharia wrote:That's lookin awesome, very powerful pose, about as noble as xenos get.
Thanks. Posing was hard, because of the sheer size of the model and not really knowing how it all worked until it was together. I spent a lot of time staring at it and considering before gluing anything.
Kanluwen wrote:I want to know exactly what colors you used, because good lord. That looks fantastic.
Sure, its (Vallejo) Dirt, Dirt/Aged White, Aged White on the panels and Nato Black, Natoblack/Medium Sea Grey, Medium Sea Grey on the structure components.
Overnight tragedy was by some miracle averted when my lamp that hangs over my work station broke at the base and fell. I have no idea how it didnt hit the model, as it was sitting on my desk right beneath it.
Got some edging work done today and worked on detailing, didnt get to spend much time unfortunately but hopefully I can finish it up tomorrow.
Im not done taking photos and am trying my best to get this to come out right, but I'm finding its rather difficult to get a white model with lots of detail taken clearly.
The arms come notched for two 8x2mm and two 6x2mm (as does the torso of course) for a total of 8 relatively large magnets holding each arm. Those suckers arent going anywhere.
So in an effort to improve, I have bought this bust and have all of the same paints used in this tutorial:
Im going to try following along and do my best. I've never painted a bust or a large amount of flesh this way, so it will be a huge learning experience.
Im a PaintingBuddha member, so I'll be using all of the tutorials on this bust (I think there is 7 or so) but I expect the first one will be the most important.
I've had a go at the Shield Maiden but have gotten sidetracked, I've stripped her and will try again. Learning is hard.
I've been busy painting, but havent done a good job of updating this. Here is the past two weeks of work:
Corbax Utterblight: I never get to paint Nurgle stuff, so he was fun and extremely quick to do (About 3 hours of work)
This Y'Vahra features the same scheme as the Ta'unar I just painted. I wanted to also practice the Tau letter freehands. I'm very happy with his pose.
This Farseer was a quick project, following the tutorial on how to paint space schemes quickly. I might do a better, less sloppy version in the future.
I've always avoided SM models because I just dont like them, but it's a huge part of the market and I've had commission requests, so its time to practice on them. These guys are old battered White Scars, sort of.
And finally a blight Drone. I wanted his base to show corruption spreading into the clear water, but the base is a bit small for that.
Ive been accruing a lot of Tyranid models through trade or ebay for the future, and havent been painting them. I had a local tournament last week that I wanted to have them for, so I got four of the MC's painted in a day... the joy of picking a simple scheme.
The Carnifexes do not have modified heads, because I want to sculpt all original ones but need to have some time sat aside for them. So for now, they have regular heads.
I havent done a good job updating this, I have been painting a lot but havent really had the time to do much else.
So Im kinda going to splatter some pics as I can.
I had nothing to work on this weekend so I picked up a Tau Retaliation Cadre box. Ive currently built the Riptide and broadside, moving into the Commander now. I forgot how much I dislike assembling until I started. : /
Another weekend, and another project. Ill post some pics of the stuff I did during the week later, but for now, here is the start to a new Acheron. I wanted to get some freehand practice in, so I chose a simple theme.
A couple of hours of work and here I have so far.
Its all a WiP and I may not even use the banner, but that will be the general theme I continue with.
I know that hackneyed OSL is a point of derision amongst many these days, but I still submit this Y'vahra painted this morning. With my 3.5 year old on my lap the entire time, no less. #Daddydaughterpaintday
These guys take two hours to do, and are three shades above black primer on armor and hull, then three shades for each glow. Then (in this case) stenciled hexagons, followed by sponged metallics mixed with white. No wash stage due to the layers, so that saves you a ton of time. The base I just lay down rocks with thin CA glue with accelerant, so thats done in a flash as well. Then two layers of terrain color, a black wash (using a hairdryer to speed up), then elmers glues/water to lay down the leaves. As they dry I apply the tufts of grass, then hairdry it all and give it a coat of thin CA glue. Then a matte varnish, and you're done.
I rather like your approach to OSL. Admittedly, I'm a little bit critical of the recent trend, but I think that you've found a way to work it into the color schemes as a well-planned complement, and not just as a direct contrast to the rest of the colors, which seems to be an issue for many others. Your style is very lifelike, too. It has a grittiness that suits the 'grimdark' setting well.
CarlosTheDwarf wrote:Oh, well now I just feel stupid. I should have realized that.
No worries, super glue is super glue for the most part.
youidiotkid wrote:I rather like your approach to OSL. Admittedly, I'm a little bit critical of the recent trend, but I think that you've found a way to work it into the color schemes as a well-planned complement, and not just as a direct contrast to the rest of the colors, which seems to be an issue for many others. Your style is very lifelike, too. It has a grittiness that suits the 'grimdark' setting well.
Thanks man. I get both sides of the argument for it, but I also know what sells well, so if a piece is for that purpose then it will likely make use of the effect. Plus on the tabletop, they do make darker models pop.
A surprise potential deployment has forced me to scale this back though and kind of rush through it : / . I was going to do a large battle scene on a bigger base, with more models and carnage going on, but alas. Maybe next time.
Nice blog lech.
I had the same idea for my Hierophants base but havent got around to him yet.
How did you find the clear solid stand with smaller base to work out?
Where did you get the rod btw?
Ratius wrote: Nice blog lech.
I had the same idea for my Hierophants base but havent got around to him yet.
How did you find the clear solid stand with smaller base to work out?
Where did you get the rod btw?
Thanks Ratius, its a spare Knight sized base and the rod is a 3/4 inch acrylic rod off of ebay cut down to the appropriate length. They cost about $12 each. Having pinned and
reinforced a Hierophant before so that it could stand on its own legs, I wanted to go for the 'easier' route this go around and have a base included.
Nevelon wrote: Did the pilot of the CH make it out OK? Is his spirit stone at least still in the cockpit?
I think the banshee has this one. You going to do the rest of her squad on similar bases?
Very nice work.
Thanks Nevelon, thats what the goo pile is in the cockpit:
I have had a few Banshees in my bits box for a while, I dont plan on doing anything in the short term with them. I originally wanted to have a bunch of them fighting against other Hormagants, but I just dont have the time to do them before leaving.
That's an awesome base... I'd love to see what you would have produced had you done the more "epic" one you had planned.
The base you have done works really well, freshly shot down eldar fighting a gaunt with another one scrabbling over the wreckage to help out... nice and dynamic.
One day Ill do it again, I dont plan on stopping any time soon.
Looks like I may be staying around longer now? I have no idea what my future schedule is like.
Paintedthese during the blizzard for a friend of mine. Ive done other work for his army, all with the same space theme and pink/blue dominating colors.
Got a lot of work done the past week, especially thanks to the snow storm.
Next a model I had a lot of fun doing, I wish AoS was more popular. I enjoyed getting to used my preferred muted palette.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I was surprised by how big this thing was. I think the 80mm size base is really nice and would like to see some more models on that size base. It's a very cool model to boot.
This was just a simple paint job I wanted to try out and had fun with it.
Finished an XV109 and a Wraithknight for a regular client. Slowly but surely he's completing an Eldar army in the space scheme. I didnt assemble the Wraithknight, I realize its missing some small pieces.
This is a model I did for myself, mainly to practice brushwork but I have grown quite attached to it. I love horses and learned a lot from working on it, even though it went on much longer than I wanted.
The Green Tau commission continues this weekend, this time I had some old painted Firewarriors to redo to the clients new scheme. All of these models already had a paintjob or primer on them, so extra care was taken to make sure they didnt become "puffy" with a new layer of paint.
Also his three converted Broadsides (these figures weight a ton, they are metal)
Continuing work on a different commission with a very similar paint scheme, I was able to get these guys shipped out today. A Wraithknight, 15 "Swooping Hawks" and the start of a very large batch of Warp Spiders.
So...client wanted these to fit in with an existing army, thankfully he knew the exact colors. I was able to pick them up from G&S, and used two pots of GW's airbrush stuff and had no problems with it (besides the silly bottle itself). They sprayed well straight out of the bottle.
Its not the scheme I would have gone with, but I totally understand needing to make them fit in.
Two Vultures (with magnetized weapons) and three Sky Talons.
Have a LOT of projects over the next two weeks of leave Im taking, there is a lot of interesting stuff from a FW Dark Eldar Tantalus to Elysian ground troops. Not to mention my own tyranids will have some beasts added the the ranks.
I finished up this guy, I really liked the model and was glad to get a chance to work on him. I'm very happy with how the scales came out and the overall composition, I
spent a good deal of time thinking about it.
Magnetized the Warboss as well so he can leave the mount.
I'm no stranger to painting this giant model, and the client wanted a simple Farsight Enclaves scheme. He provided the base from Dragonforge and Baneblade turret.
I also painted two pairs of the new arm weapons. FW really made this suit an easy build, its much appreciated.
I love those flesh hounds.
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